Read Online 39 Clues _ Cahills vs. Vespers [03] The Dead of Night by Peter Lerangis - Free Book Online Page A

meant knowing when to be afraid and when not to. Alistair’s life depended on not jumping to conclusions. On being alert but not stupid.
    “Come, I have lovely gift — Erasmus pay for it!” Cousin Bartu said, hurriedly padding toward a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY in several languages. “Sorry, he did not tell me about other two boys. But I find something nice for them, too. You bring back. They will be happy for to get.”
    The Grand Nikia was the friendliest hotel ever. Any place associated with Erasmus had to be.
    The old man led Dan and Amy through the door. They passed through a set of cubicles staffed with hotel personnel. Then he led them through another door, and an alleyway.
    At the end of the alley, about twenty feet away, was a black car with tinted windows.
    “Have a good day!” Bartu said. With a speed Amy never would have imagined in an old guy, he slipped back through the door and into the hotel.
    “Hey!” Dan screamed.
    Amy reached for a doorknob but there was none.
    The car door opened and a burly, rumpled-looking man climbed out. He wore a shabby brown trench coat and a shabbier brown fedora, and the dark circles under his eyes suggested a habit of very little sleep. Amy recognized him right away.
    “We . . . know you,” she said softly.
    “I believe you eluded me on a train to Switzerland,” he said wearily. “But we have not formally met. Milos Vanek. Interpol.”
    Vanek.
    That was the name signed to an all points bulletin to art dealers and museums about Dan and Amy’s theft of the Caravaggio.
    Think.
    “We have a flight tomorrow. . . .” she said, walking toward him. “Please. If we don’t make it, someone will die. Let us go. We’re just kids.”
    “
Just kids
do not commit thefts of priceless art,” Vanek said. “Come with me.”
    Amy saw the doors of the car opening. She lunged forward, leaping.
    Her right foot made contact with the car door. It slammed shut on a set of fingers. A bloodcurdling cry rang out from inside the car.
    Amy spun. Vanek had jumped away and was reaching inside his jacket pocket. Before she could react, Dan was behind him, quickly lifting the trench coat up over Vanek’s head.
    As Vanek let out a cry of surprise, Amy sprang forward. She pulled the bottom of the coat toward her. Vanek’s arms, trapped by the sleeves, flew over his head, too.
    He shouted in some unintelligible language, whirling around blindly, his coat inside out.
    “Come on!” Amy shouted.
    She grabbed Dan by the arm and ran.
    A gunshot made her stop short. “Hands in the air and turn around!” a gruff voice shouted.
    Behind her, on the opposite side of the car, an agent with thick beard stubble stood with a pistol pointed into the air. Vanek, frantically unwrapping himself from the twisted trench coat, threw it to the ground. He was facing the wrong way. As he spun to face them, his hair stuck out in all directions.
    The gunman let out a strange, coughlike noise. He looked toward Dan and Amy, then Vanek.
    Inside the car, the other agent climbed out. Seeing Vanek, he burst out laughing. The gunman joined in, both men soon screaming with hilarity at the sight. “I think you have your hands full, Milos!” the gun- man said.
    “No, my friend,” Vanek spat, smoothing down his hair. “They do.”

Dan hadn’t expected Interpol headquarters to be luxurious. But it looked like the walls hadn’t been painted since the days of Caravaggio. Maybe since Medusa herself. Judging from the smell, that may have been the last cleanup time, too.
    With Amy and Vanek, he reluctantly followed a lumpy, uniformed woman down a dark corridor. Her shoes, which looked like they weighed forty pounds, clomped loudly on the cement floor. She stopped at a metal-barred door. In the next cell, a prisoner yelled in Turkish, causing the guard to strike the inmate’s bars with her key chain. The yells became piercing shrieks. “In, please,” the guard said, opening the door.
    Dan peered inside. The