CHAPTER 6
Sleeping on the train gave Dan and Amy an electric energy when they hit the pavement in St. Petersburg. Why go to a hotel when there were palaces to be broken into?"We need to go that way," said Amy, the crisp evening air filling her with new excitement as she made her way down the bustling platform.
They had arrived at Moskovsky Station, less than two miles from the palace, and decided to walk rather than risk another cab ride.
"There's a whole cluster of palaces along the banks of the Moika River. Yusupov is one of them.""You should be a tour guide," said Dan.
"Lead the way."Soon they were outside following Nevsky Prospekt, an eight-lane avenue. Seventeenth-century pastel buildings and newly constructed stores stood side by side, competing for space in thriving twenty-first-century Russia.
"Dan," said Amy, jerking her brother's hand. "I think someone is tailing us."
Dan glanced over his shoulder."The man in black," he whispered.It was unquestionably him. The dark coat and hat, the gliding way he moved, the craggy face full of shadows. He was unmistakable.Amy and Dan broke into a run, darting between pedestrians on the busy sidewalk.
Their movements seemed to set the world in motion. A truck barreled across two lanes, heading directly for them. Dan sped up, but Amy froze in her tracks. The truck swerved near the curb and an envelope came hurtling out the passenger window, landing in the gutter at Amy's feet."Watch where you're going, you big jerk!" yelled Dan.
A lot of people turned to stare at him as the truck sped back into traffic and disappeared around a corner."He's gone," said Amy, her voice trembling in the night air. Had the man in black made the truck move?
Either way, just as mysteriously as he had appeared, the man in black had vanished."I think we should keep going," said Dan.
"That dude could be anywhere."Amy nodded and they hurried down Nevsky Prospekt. Dan ripped open the envelope as they went."What's it say?" asked Amy.
As Dan read the letter aloud, Amy could almost feel the night getting blacker around them." 'Time is running out.
You need to move faster. You are being followed, and I don't mean the Madrigal.
When your pursuers show themselves, give them this map to throw them off track and be on your way. You must enter the palace at night and find Rasputin. Follow the orange snake. NRR.The man in black is a Madrigal! Do you realize what this means? We're dead. Dead, dead, dead!" Dan yelped."At least we got another note from NRR," said
Amy. "We're hot on the trail of something ... I just wish we knew what it was."She put her hand on Dan's shoulder as if to steady both of them."I think we should keep going, don't you? It's not like we have a lot of choices here. And besides, the man in black is gone," Amy said."Okay, let's assume he's actually hit the road, which I doubt. So what?
Apparently, there's someone else tailing us, not just him. It could be anyone, but it's probably someone who wants to drop a piano on our heads!""Chances are it's another team, that's all I'm saying.
And besides, NRR gave us something to keep them busy.""Maybe he wants to get us away from everyone else so we're an easier target," Dan argued. "Did you think of that? What if the picture of Mom and Dad is just a trick to get us totally off on our own?"Amy paused. "Dan, I hate to tell you this, but we've been on our own for awhile now."
The truth of that silenced them both.
Amy took the letter from Dan. Across the bottom there was an elaborate map of St. Petersburg with a dotted line winding through it. It ended across two canals in an entirely different part of the city. Amy tore the map free from the rest of the letter.
"See? It looks like a trail leading somewhere important, but it's a wild goose chase. All we have to do is give it to whoever is tailing us when they show themselves, then they leave us alone for awhile.
Maybe NRR is trying to isolate us, but the photo ... I want to know what it means."Amy could see Dan had run out of steam. He took a half-empty box of Skittles out of his back pocket and dumped about twenty of them in his mouth, chomping morosely.
"If we can just get inside the palace, I know what NRR means about Rasputin. There's a reenactment exhibit inside. It's all about when they tried to kill him, the stuff I was telling you," Amy coaxed."Suppose I gotta see that," said Dan, getting reluctantly excited again at the thought of an unkillable monk.
Amy smiled.
"Okay! Now all we have to do is find a snake to follow."* * *
It was nearly eleven o'clock by the time Dan and Amy approached Yusupov Palace. Things were starting to wind down along the quiet banks of the Moika, a river that ran along the front of the three-story palace of yellow and white. A few pedestrians strolled here and there along the embankment rail, and the occasional headlights came toward them, but other than that, the area was deserted.
The Yusupov Palace stretched along the river with thirty darkened windows on each level staring out onto the Moika. There was a giant arched entryway at the very center of the building, and three tall white columns on each side of the door."Somehow I don't think the door is going to be open," said Dan. "Should we try a window?"Amy walked along the front of the palace, looking for anything that might resemble a snake."Amy," called Dan.
He'd crossed the street to get a better look at the narrow river. It was only about sixty feet to the other side, where windowed buildings and houses lined a street similar to the one he stood on.
Amy arrived next to Dan and stared out into the black water."Do you see it?" asked Dan."See what?"Dan pointed into the center of the waterway, where a glowing orange snake danced on the shimmering water. It was small, no more than a foot across. Dan followed a laser beam of light up and over the edge on the other side of the river. There, in one of the windows, he found what he was looking for: the shadow of someone in a room high above the water, pointing a laser out the window.
"It's moving," said Amy. And sure enough, when Dan looked back down, the orange snake was slithering across the water toward them."This is creepy," said Amy. "But cool. It's the kind of hint no one else can get.
When it's gone, it's gone. If we can just follow it and get inside, no one else will know what to look for."The orange snake had reached the embankment wall, and Dan and Amy had to lean over the rail to see it rising out of the water along the concrete slabs. As it came closer, they could tell it was no ordinary laser beam.
It was moving a thousand times a second, creating a 2-D hologram of a snake as it slid along the stones.
"NRR has some cool toys," said Dan as the snake cleared the rail and arrived on the palace wall behind them."It's jumped the street!" said Amy.
"We're going to lose it!"The snake was moving faster now. It flew past the main door, along a row of windows, then crawled up the wall to the second story. When it hit the third window from the end, it slithered back and forth along the sill.Amy glanced back in the direction of the window across the river. It made her nervous to think that someone was probably watching them through binoculars.
"Come on," Amy whispered, tearing her attention back to the palace. "I bet that window's our way inside.”
Dan and Amy stood below the window, which was a good ten feet over their heads. The palace wall was as flat as a pancake."Even Spider-Man couldn't climb this thing," said Dan."Oh, yes he could," said Amy.
The orange snake had moved up another level, where a third row of windows hung low over a decorative facade. When the snake stopped, they heard a pop from the other side of the river.
A split second later, something hit the facade and a spark flew."That thing is attached to a gun!" said Amy."Not a gun," Dan corrected her.
"A gun would have been way louder. Look!"A coil of rope was falling from where the snake had been.