Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 Dzzzzz Amy's phone was vibrating. She glanced around the van. In the passenger seat, Eisenhower Holt was arguing with his wife, Mary-Todd, who was driving. In the next row, eleven-year-olds Madison and Reagan Holt were having a contest to see who could fling boogers into the hair of their older brother, Hamilton. Their pit bull, Arnold, barked greedily, snatching the small projectiles in mid flight with his massive jaws. "Stop it, he'll kill me!" Ham cried. "That's the point," Madison replied, clapping her hands. "Sherwood is the forest, dear," Mary-Todd was insisting to her husband. "The detective was

Sherlock." "We'll look it up!" Eisenhower declared. "May I remind you, Mary-Todd, at West Point my IQ was measured at nearly a perfect one hundred. Well, okay, eighty-nine— but I hadn't even practiced!" "One hundred is considered normal, sugar maple," Mary-Todd replied. "Normal is the enemy of creativity," Eisenhower crowed. "A Holt is never normal— as evidenced by our ingenious capture of the Cahills!" Dzzzzz… Amy moved her hand into her left pants pocket and pulled out her phone, making sure to keep it out of sight. On the right, she was jammed up against Alistair, who was seething with rage. He in turn was jammed up against Dan— who seemed oblivious, reading a handful of tourist pamphlets the Holts had left on the van floor. Quickly she glanced at the call screen: GOMEZ, NELLIE She stifled a scream and stared sharply at Alistair and Dan, flashing the screen at them at

waist level. Nellie was alive! "YESSSS— WOO-HOO!" Dan blurted. "The Cahill boy agrees with me!" Eisenhower said with a grin, turning around toward the back of the van. "Smart boy. You're going places. Like, with us— as a captive! Har-har!" The entire Holt family cracked up, except for Arnold, who seemed confused by the sudden absence of flying minitreats. "Too bad you weren't smart enough to detect us following you every step of the way," Eisenhower continued, "with our patented Holt hackment technology. First we hacked into the tracking device on your cat— until we found that your cat was your uncle!" Madison and Reagan looked at him in total bewilderment. "Then we tailed him to the airport, where I ordered that we attempt the greatest technicological feat of all," Eisenhower went on, "breaking into the airline ticketing mainframe!" "But then I reminded him that all he needed to do was follow your limo," Mary-Todd spoke up.

Madison chimed in: "Once we were at the other airport? And we saw you get into the jet? We just asked this really hot flight guy, Fabio? Where you were going?" She grinned. "And he told us." "Rawf," said Arnold. "Thusly," Eisenhower said, "we were able to commandeer our own flight to Japan, where we beat you to the airport and waited until you arrived, following your every move until our ultimate coup— keyloggering your very laptop to filch all your information! And now that I have you three, I can realize my life's goal. Not just reaching the thirty-nine clues first. But placing the Holt name where it belongs— at the very crest of the Tomas family… crest. No longer will history look upon the Holts as dolts. No longer will we be the black sheep, the stain on the family underpants, the smelly footnote to the Tomas legend. And you will help us achieve our destiny by leading us to the very thing your research revealed— the next clue, which is in the tunnels of Tokyo!" "You figured that out all by yourself?" Amy asked, barely containing the relief she felt at

knowing her au pair was okay. "About fifty-three percent of it," said Eisenhower. "More like forty-seven," Mary-Todd said. "I knew that sounded wrong," Eisenhower said. "Uh, Dad? I was the one who did all that tech stuff," Reagan whined. "Dad what?" Eisenhower commanded. "Dad, sir," Reagan said. "Your argument is as inane as your conversation," Alistair spoke up, his voice a barely controlled rasp. "You got nothing from hacking the system. You stole my map, you windbag." "Uncle Alistair?" Amy said. She had never seen him like this. "Is someone meowing back there?" Eisenhower said. "Do I hear an E-kat?" "Rawf?" said Arnold, suddenly drooling. Alistair laughed defiantly. "What makes you miscreants think you can actually read that map correctly? It's written in Japanese." "Ha! No grass grows over the head of a Holt!"

Eisenhower thundered. "I overheard you through the library door, talking about an ancient underground crypt. So we will start at… the underground crypt district. Harch!" The van lurched to the left. Dan looked up from a map of the Tokyo subway system. His face was all lit up, the way it was whenever he'd broken a code or discovered a cheat in World of Warcraft. "Crypt? I think we're better off checking out the subway system." The van lurched to the right. "I have to pee," Madison announced. The van skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the road. "Will someone make a decision?" Mary-Todd said. As the Holts ramped up their various arguments, Alistair whispered to Dan, "Subway system, my boy? Do tell." "First, I memorized your map," Dan began with a bit too much enthusiasm. "Ssshhh!" Amy hissed. "The secret tunnels and the subway," Dan