CHAPTER 48

Merck whistled again, and three armed thugs appeared.

They had their weapons trained on Dad and Chet Collier, both of whom had their hands up over their heads.

Storm, still holding the Sacred Stone, tried to hide it behind her back. It didn’t work. The sunlight streaming through that rectangular opening hit the faceted rock, and it shot a dozen bright yellow dots, like a cluster of laser beams, against the walls. If we were cats, we would’ve chased them immediately.

“Aha!” exclaimed Merck in his thick French accent. “Voilà! You have done our job for us. You have found la pierre sacrée—the Sacred Stone!” He holstered his pistol and turned to one of his goons, a guy carrying a very long duffel bag, like you’d use for skis. “Jacques?”

“Oui?”

“It is the moment of truth. We must see if the stone fits!” Merck held out his hand to Storm. “Kindly give me the jewel, petite fille.”

“Whoa,” said Tommy, bristling. “What’d you just call my sister?”

“A little girl,” said Merck.

“Oh. Okay, then. I think.”

Storm looked to Dad. The goon guarding him cocked back the hammer on his rifle.

“Do as Monsieur Merck instructs,” said Dad.

“And please hurry,” begged Chet Collier, whose captor had just jammed a pistol into the small of his back. “These guys’ trigger fingers look extremely twitchy.”

Storm lobbed the Sacred Stone across the cave to Merck. He caught it one-handed, which was a good thing, because he always posed with his other hand tucked into his safari jacket, as if he were Napoleon with an eye patch.

“Now then, Jacques,” he said to the heavy toting the duffel. “The staff!”

“Oui, Monsieur Merck!”

Jacques unzipped the bag and pulled out the golden Incan rod that Mom, Dad, and Tommy had found back on Cocos Island—the one that went with the high priest’s headdress.

Merck fondled the yellow sapphire with his fingers for a few seconds and then, barely able to contain his delight, fitted it into that empty hole in the corncob at the tip of the golden staff.

“The corncob is complete!” shouted Merck. “Our friends will now be able to perform the sacred ritual and enter the Lost City of Gold.”

“With a corncob?” muttered Tommy. “That’s, like, so totally random.”

“You’re forgetting,” said Storm, shifting into teacher mode, “that corn is what made the Incan Empire possible. Corn and, of course, llama poop.”

“What?” said just about everybody in the cavern.

“Llama droppings were the fertilizer that allowed maize to take root high up in the Andes Mountains where it otherwise couldn’t have survived,” Storm explained.

We all just nodded.

And then Merck got back to business.

“The high priest will be most happy when we present him with the restored Incan rod. For this, we thank you.” He kissed the air twice. “Mwah! Mwah! Merci beaucoup! Thank you so very much.”

“Now do we get to kill them?” asked the eager goon with his gun aimed at Dad.

Merck grinned, stroked his chin, and thought about it long and hard.

Which was a good thing.

I really wasn’t in a hurry to die.