Annja bent her knees slightly, prepared for defense, but cautious.
âIâve got my eye on a new treasure,â he announced. The epee swept the air in a hiss. âIt is another sword. A magical one.â
âYou believe in magic?â Annja countered.
âI believe what I saw when I watched you in the file room on the security cameras. You wielded a fine sword, Annja Creed. And you produced it from thin air. Where is it? Bring it out of wherever it is you keep it. I want to see it.â
She remained silent. Alert. Ready.
âI know something about you,â he said in a singsongy tone. âYour Monsieur Roux wasnât quite so careful as he should have been.â
Roux had come here? What was the old man up to now? She didnât like what that implied.
âIâve done my research on your Roux and Joan,â he said. âI know, Annja, I know.â
Iowa, 1978
Jack and Toby Lambert had been inseparable until the day Toby collapsed after baseball practice. Twelve hours later in the hospital, Jack clung to his seven-year-old twinâs hand. Tobyâs skin was a funny yellow color. He couldnât speak, but his eyelids did flutter when Jack spoke.
Not far from the bed, behind a curtain, Jack heard a doctor announce to his parents that Tobyâs liver had failed. He called it something like acute. Toby would need a transplant. Jackâs parents were instructed not to be too hopeful, for the waiting list was long, and there werenât a lot of donors out there.
Pressing his face against the hard hospital mattress beside his brotherâs prone body, Jack sobbed quietly. He didnât want his parents to hear. They had enough to worry about.
He and Toby had planned a raid on Nasty Black Georgeâs awful gang of four tonight. The entire neighborhoodâboasting seven boys under the age of tenâregularly organized pirate raids and booty captures. Jack and Toby wore the monikers âMad Bloody Jackâ and âEvil Gentleman Tobiasâ proudly. No one stood in their way when they came a-pirating. Their plunder was piled high at the bottom of Evil Gentleman Tobiasâs closet. Dirty Joe still fumed about his pillaged Atari.
If his parents had money, they could buy a new liver for Toby.
Jack knew that wasnât possible. His mom had been putting on a skirt and jacket every morning before he and Toby left for school. She was looking for work, they both knew, because dadâs job was âcutting back the fat.â Whatever that meant.
âIâll help you,â Jack whispered. His brother had not moved since his collapse. âMad Bloody Jack will plunder a real treasure so we can buy you a new liver. I promise, Toby.â
M AD B LOODY J ACK KNEW just the landlubbing wreck of a ship to raid. Hidden in the tower at the center of the playground gym, he and Tobyâer, Evil Gentleman Tobiasâhad kept a keen eye over the goings-on across the street from the city park using their plundered telescope.
The purple house with the gray shutters and wild hedges always kept its curtains pulled shut. The craziest stream of traffic steadily pulled up the driveway, and then away. Some visitors were there less than five minutes. Toby timed them on his Capân Crunch watch.
Pirate Silly Ned had once said his mother was always calling the cops on that LSD house. They did nasty things, and shouldnât be in this neighborhood.
LSD was a drug. Jack had looked that up in the encyclopedia on the bottom shelf in his dadâs office. It made people see visions and act funny. And people paid a lot of money for it. It was also illegal.
Putting two and two together, Mad Bloody Jack decided where there was LSD, there had to be money.
He eyed the purple house through the telescope. The sun had risen an hour earlier. Jack should be in school. But he knew the purple house would be quiet until at least noon, so he had to act now. Tobyâs life depended on it.
Skipping across the street, Mad Bloody Jack insinuated himself behind the freestanding purple garage, which was where heâd seen most of the visitors go when they stopped. Tramping a patch of dandelions, he pressed his body flat against the wall. A good pirate should practice stealthâheâd learned that word from last weekâs spelling test. The window on this side of the garage was blocked with black paper. He checked and saw it was the same on the other side.