CHAPTER 60

Viktor Zolin decided it would be a shame to imprison us before we could see the rest of his elaborate home, so he took us on a tour of his fifty-something-room apartment.

We had an armed escort, of course—Uncle Timothy and those six Zolin soldiers. One of the guys from the ship kept trying to spook us.

“Accidents happen in Saint Petersburg too, Mrs. Kidd. To pipes. To people. Pipes get broken. Noses too.”

“You realize, of course,” said Storm, “that you used that same basic threat on us when we were at the North Pole.”

“So?”

“You need some new material, man,” said Tommy. “You’re like barely even trying…”

The thugs shoved us into room number forty-something.

I have to admit that Zolin’s ten-story apartment was pretty incredible. All the toilets were basically gold thrones. There were more paintings than you’d find in most museums. Unfortunately, all of them were stacked in piles on the floor. The walls themselves were white and barren except for all the giant video screens hooked up to gaming devices.

Hey, if you were a thirteen-year-old billionaire, you’d probably have an Xbox or PlayStation in every room too.

“Wait a second,” said Beck, staring at a Picasso on top of what could’ve been a Monet or maybe a Manet. I always get those two guys confused. “That’s Picasso’s Naked Woman on the Beach!”

“Where?” said Tommy, suddenly interested.

“That’s the same stolen painting we saw in the art gallery in China!” said Storm, accessing her vast memory banks. (I wrote about that in our last book, if you haven’t read it yet. What are you waiting for?)

Beck turned to Uncle Timothy. “You know, the one you sold to the cultural minister while you were pretending to be a triple agent working for him.”

“And then,” said Uncle T proudly, “I helped Viktor steal it from the Chinese.”

I had to admit, I was sort of impressed. “Wow. You really are a quadruple agent!”

Uncle Timothy took off his mirrored sunglasses so he could blow on them, fog ’em up, and give ’em a quick polish. “What can I say, Bickford? I’m good at what I do.”

“You mean selling yourself to the highest bidder?” said Mom sarcastically.

“It’s what we all do, Sue. You find a sunken treasure chest, you take bids from museums. I find a spare Picasso, I auction it off. It’s simple economics. Supply and demand.”

“And,” said Zolin, “as you have seen, with Timothy’s help, I have amassed one of the largest art collections in the world. But it’s not enough. I want more. More!”

“What do you plan to do with it?” asked Mom. “Open your own museum?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll leave that to those silly fools at the Hermitage. No, your nosy brats are correct. Art killed my parents. In return, I intend to kill art—all that I can get my hands on. Soon, this Picasso and Monet and the four paintings I removed from the Hermitage will be sent downstairs to the boiler room. Oil is such an expensive way to heat a house. But I have found an even more expensive fuel: oil paintings!”

“Dude,” said a stunned Tommy. “You’re seriously going to burn them?”

“Yes! All the paintings and their fancy wooden frames. They will heat the bubbling water in my fourteen hot tubs!”

“You can’t do that!” I said because Beck was too busy hyperventilating in horror.

“Oh yes, I can! In fact, I must. As you know from your psychological profile, I am an extremely twisted teenager.”

All of a sudden, he started bawling again.

“Because I miss my mommy and my daddy!”

Tears were sputtering out of his eyes like he was a human lawn sprinkler.

Mom wasn’t buying it.

“You’re faking.”

Zolin suddenly smiled. “Right again, Mrs. Kidd. It’s a gimmick I use. Gives me an advantage when negotiating deals.” He gestured toward a large conference room where the walls were, of course, white, blank, and bare. “Speaking of deals, I would like to negotiate with you.”

“For what?”

Uncle Timothy answered for Viktor Zolin (maybe he was paid to do that too): “The art Thomas found when he stumbled on the Enlightened Ones’ secret treasure trove.”

“How’d you know about that?” asked Tommy.

“Easy. I tapped your mother’s watch and her satellite phone.”

Beck shook her head in disgust. “You’re a snake, Uncle Timothy.”

“It’s just business, Rebecca. You’ll understand one day.”

“She already understands that there are more important things than money,” Mom snapped. “Like friendship and loyalty.”

“And family,” said Beck.

Zing! Even Uncle Timothy couldn’t come up with anything to say to that, because he knew they were right.