CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Almost everyone froze, that is.

Wade was aware of every twitch and movement inside the vault. While the troops stood like statues, so much seemed to be going on between Ebner and the Stangls, while Galina herself stared almost maniacally at Becca.

Finally, after a very long moment, old Stangl broke the tension with a loud cry—“Ach, mein friend!”—and lurched to embrace Ebner in his withered old arms.

From the beginning of their quest for the relics, Wade had detested Ebner. The weasely little man had tried to kill them dozens of times, had urged Galina to kill them, was always around when anyone else tried to kill them, and worst of all was half the reason Becca was poisoned by Galina’s crossbow arrow. To say nothing at all of killing Helmut Bern and Fernando Salta. He was evil.

Here, though, despite his life of horrendous crime, Ebner seemed to return the old man’s embrace warmly, as if he meant it.

“Herr Stangl! Such a long time. A very long time.”

“Your great-uncle Wernher vas so dear to me,” Stangl murmured. “He and ze Order helped me escape Europe vhen ze Allies hunted all of Paris for me.”

And another piece of the giant puzzle dropped into place for Wade. The evil Order was associated with the remains of the Nazi Party. Well, maybe that wasn’t much of a surprise. But that war was over now, and this, this was a new one. A war that Galina, using the same tactics as the Nazis, was winning.

Galina now fixed her eyes on Sara. They were cold, full of hate. “I regret, you will all die here,” she said, her first words since entering the vault. “First, however, Herr Stangl, we must retrieve the relic you brought from Paris in nineteen forty-four. Ebner?”

At that, the gnome pulled back from Stangl with an icy laugh. So much for sincerity. He snapped his fingers, and four of the muscle men forced the Kaplans roughly against the wall with the barrels of their machine pistols. Ebner started for the mechanical eagle on the stand when Rafe jerked himself in front of the relic.

“I don’t think so. This isn’t Germany seventy-five years ago. Aquila is ours.”

Galina grinned slowly. Very slowly.

“So,” she said, “a standoff.”

Standoff must have been a signal, because the other muscly goons threw themselves instantly at the grandson, while Galina pushed the old man aside and reached for the eagle herself.

Becca shouted—“No you don’t!”—and squirmed out of the agents’ grasp, lowering both arms like an ax and knocking Galina’s hand away. Rafe elbowed the goons, then quickly rushed at Becca with his gun drawn. There was a shot. Rafe fell to the floor.

Galina had shot him. Why? To save Becca from him?

“My grandson!” Kurt shrieked, charging at Galina in a rage.

Wade, oblivious to anything, found his hands on Aquila. He dragged it off the stand—it was heavy!—and was suddenly grappling with two thugs and Ebner. Sara pounded one of the goons on the back until he let Wade go. A pistol went off. The shot whizzed past Wade’s face, and he dropped the eagle. Another thug was hit. He groaned and fired wildly. Galina shot the old man point-blank and snatched up the eagle.

“Everybody go! Becca!” shouted Wade, and she was next to him, cradling the painting in her arms as if it were a baby. They all tore up the staircase, slamming every door behind them, and out into the sweltering jungle. Heat poured over them like boiling water.

“Keep going,” said Sara, her arms reaching for Becca. “Come on. You’re . . .”

“I’m fine,” Becca said. She wasn’t fine. She was perspiring, stumbling, her face as pale as snow. Wade reached for her. Her arm was burning hot.

“Holy crow, Becca!”

“Just run!” she cried.

The gun battle followed them up the stairs. It spilled out into the jungle. Ebner fired wildly into the trees after them. The remaining agents fanned out, firing a shower of bullets that tore the leaves from the trees. The birds sent up a horrified din.

“There’s a well or something,” Sara said, diving behind a cluster of felled trees. She pointed to a round stone structure about waist high some twenty feet away.

Wade knew it couldn’t be a well. “You don’t dig for water in a rain forest. You collect it. It’s a cistern. There might be a pipe leading back to the big house.” He saw Ebner and Galina moving among the trees. Their henchmen were trying to surround their position.

“Give up the painting!” Galina shouted. She was not more than twenty feet from them. “I will let you live!”

Fat chance, Wade thought. He scanned the trees. No easy escape.

Then Lily whispered, “Can anyone throw a rock and cause a distraction? And by anyone, I mean you, Darrell?”

Darrell grinned. “Of course I can.”

“Right there,” said Sara, pointing through a break in the leaves.

Darrell found a palm-sized pebble and shot it straight through the dense growth, not striking anything close. It snapped through leaves some thirty feet away. Ebner ran from his position, firing at the noise. Galina stayed put.

“Again, farther this time,” Lily whispered.

Darrell sent a second rock farther away, making it seem as if they were fleeing through the trees. Galina followed it this time. The instant the coast was clear, the kids tore the opposite way across the clearing to the cistern.

Wade slid in first, pushing past ferns. The others followed. It was slimy, wet, rank inside the old pipe. But he crawled forward, headfirst into the muck. Five long minutes later, he came up against a grate that led to the cellar of the house. He twisted around and kicked it open with his feet, then slid out into an empty water barrel. He caught Becca, then Sara and Lily. Darrell slid down last. The pipe echoed with gunfire. They quickly made their way up from the cellar to the main floor of the house.

The rooms were decorated with museum-quality artwork of all kinds: bronze statues, old master paintings, an array of antique musical instruments.

“This is all looted art,” said Sara. “And it’s all decaying in the jungle. This is insane. And wrong. I wish Roald could see this. The Nazis and the Order. He would be stunned.”

“In the meantime, we saved this,” said Becca, still clutching the painting.

Amid yelling—Galina, Ebner, and their agents—they rushed as swiftly and quietly as possible back to where they had left Clive Porter. He yelped when he saw them running, then threw the car doors open and started up. They were soon tearing through the jungle on their way to the airport.