Vespers Rising (The 39 Clues #11)(49)

I know it, I know it, I know it …

Some ancient symbol he’d seen in China? A strange character he’d glimpsed in Japan or Korea? Or what about some ancient Egyptian god?

Whatever it was, it was making him uneasy.

“This is crazy!” he burst out. “What if they’re down there, waiting for us?” Amy looked at him strangely as he turned into a freakazoid. “You can’t protect us!” he shouted, grabbing at the guard’s arm.

“Chill, it’s under control!” the guard said irritably as he shook him off.

Chill? Would a Swiss guy say that?

This time the cuff slid farther back. And Dan was staring into the goofy face of Dinger, the purple triceratops that was the mascot of the Colorado Rockies baseball team.

Why would a German-accented Swiss security guard have a tattoo like that?

The elevator floors ticked off. Dan wrestled with his instincts. The guy could have gone to college in the States. But it wasn’t adding up.

Dan shot a look at Amy, a look that said something about this isn’t right.

Her eyes went wide. The elevator was shooting down to the parking garage, and he had a feeling that when the doors opened, they wouldn’t be met with a parade.

Well, if the guy was a security guard, he’d just have to forgive him.

Dan inclined his head toward the red emergency stop button. Amy nodded. He grabbed the tote bag from Fiske and upended it. The guidebook thumped to the floor, distracting the guard just as Amy leaped forward and hit the stop button.

The elevator jerked to a halt. They all staggered. Dan had been waiting for just that. He slipped the tote bag over the guard’s head. He heard the muffled cry of the guard, but he had exactly one instant of surprise to work with, and he used it. He smashed his foot into the back of the guard’s knee, and the guy lost his balance and fell on his knees, letting out a howl. He reached out blindly and with one hand tried to get the canvas bag off his head, but with the other he grabbed Dan by the throat … and squeezed.

Dan clawed at the hand. He felt enormous pressure and enormous pain. He saw Amy slamming her fists against the guard. It was like hitting a mountain.

Fiske doubled over. Was he hurt? Then he drove downward, slamming a tightly rolled newspaper into the back of the guard’s neck. To Dan’s amazement, the guard hit the floor. The pressure on his throat eased.

“Whoa, dude!” Dan choked. “Are you a CIA agent in disguise?”

“Amazing the things you learn in the Cahill family,” Fiske said, sitting down on top of the guard. “Now, can you tell me what’s up?”

“I think he’s a Vesper.” Quickly, Dan explained about the tattoo and how the guy had said “chill.” It sounded lame suddenly, with an unconscious man lying on the floor.

Fiske looked up at Amy. “Amy, can you hit a floor? Anything high will do. We’d better get off this elevator.”

Amy hit the top floor. When the elevator began to move, Fiske swiftly reached down and took the gun.

“Awesome,” Dan breathed.

Then Fiske took the pepper spray and waited until the doors opened. He lifted a bit of the tote bag, sprayed it in the guy’s face, and walked out. “He’ll have a good cry when he comes to.”

Amy reached back into the elevator and punched every floor on the panel. It would be a long trip down.

“I hope you’re right,” Amy said to Dan.

“He’s right,” Fiske said. “It adds up. He made a mistake in German — he used du instead of Sie when he spoke into that transmitter. Dan just has faster reactions than I do.” Dan grinned, and he and Fiske gently knocked their knuckles together.

The gray-carpeted hall was empty. They walked cautiously past a suite of offices. To their surprise, they could see people working quietly.

“What’s going on?” Amy whispered. “Don’t they know what’s happening?”

“Maybe the alarm malfunctioned,” Dan said.

“This is an executive floor,” Fiske said, peering at the nameplates. “This guy is a vice president.”

“And here’s the president of the bank,” Dan said. “We might as well go straight to the top.”

They opened the door and walked in. Two assistants sat at twin desks on either side of a double door with gigantic steel knobs. Both men were dressed in gray suits. Both wore their blond hair cropped short. Enormous paintings in cool tones of silver and gray hung on the walls. The only splotch of color was the deep blue of Lake Zurich below.

“May I help you?” The man on the left addressed them.

The guy looked perfectly calm. This was getting weirder and weirder.

“I’m Fiske Cahill, an account holder here. We were just going through our safe-deposit box when a guard told us there were armed thieves in the bank —”

“Who were on their way up to that floor—” Dan interrupted.

“And then we realized he was one of them, so we wrestled him to the floor —”

Both assistants’ eyes were on them now.

“We have received no security alerts,” the first one said. He primly adjusted his silver-framed glasses.

Fiske took out the gun and slammed it on the desk. That got their attention.

“I think this belongs to the bank,” he said.

The silver-framed glasses guy licked his lips. “I think you’d better see Herr Duber.”