Kizmet and the Case of the Pirate Treasure Read online

  ‘Gita’s kidnapper had the same mark,’ said Kizmet.

  An eerie chill passed over us. This strange image was leading us deeper and deeper into its secrets. These pirates must have something to do with the Illuminasties.

  Gaspar smoothed out the letter and continued to read the words of Robert Stone

    There was also this cryptic poem:

  ‘Victory burnt in leather

  Athwart, four blades are put

  Follow then the bellows that stoke the fire underfoot.’

  Each pirate had a different line of the poem inked on their chest. Darkheart had the first line in red, Jin Li the second and Bloodhunter the third.

  The three pirates died without revealing the secret of this verse, but I came into the possession of Captain Darkheart’s belt and noticed there was a patch of leather with the word ‘Victory’ burnt into it. Surely this must be the victory burnt in leather mentioned in the poem.

  Dear Edward, I am convinced that each line of the verse refers to an object in the possession of that particular pirate and if brought together, these three objects will somehow form a map showing the location of the pirates’ unimaginable treasure.

  I have Darkheart’s belt and I am going to expend all my efforts in finding the remaining two objects. Join me in this great pursuit. Be bold but tread lightly.

  Yours most sincerely. Your brother, Robert.

  Kizmet, Spencer and I stared at Gaspar, slack-jawed.

  Finally, Kizmet sputtered, ‘Amazing. And the items that were recently discovered belonged to one of these pirates?’

  Gaspar nodded. ‘Captain Bloodhunter.’

  ‘And the line from the poem that Captain Bloodhunter had tattooed in red was . . .?’

  ‘Follow then the bellows that stoke the fire underfoot,’ offered Gaspar. ‘And when the vandals smashed one of the wooden chests, they found a secret compartment in the bottom of it, and inside was a small set of fireside bellows. They grabbed them and were gone.’

  I tilted my head and Kizmet whispered an answer. ‘Fireside bellows are small hand pumps for blowing air into a fire to get it going.’

  I nodded.

  Gaspar continued. ‘They must have known of the riddle of the three pirates and were searching for Bloodhunter’s part of the map. And they found it.’

  Kizmet scratched her chin. ‘Can I look at the other objects in your collection, Gaspar?’

  The fidgety curator led us to a room filled with smashed antique furniture and ripped clothing. Kizmet spent about fifteen minutes carefully inspecting Captain Bloodhunter’s possessions and I hopped along behind her, pretending I knew what we were looking for. She found a small box and we returned to the others.

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, the visitors the other night swiped a decoy,’ she said, smiling. ‘The line of the poem that is tattooed in red on Bloodhunter’s chest doesn’t just say, “Bellows that stoke the fire”,’ continued Kizmet. ‘It says “Bellows that stoke the fire underfoot”. Underfoot,’ she repeated for emphasis.

  We stared back blankly.

  ‘What do you do if there’s a fire under your feet?’

  ‘Hop up and down,’ said Spencer.

  ‘Exactly. The intruders should have been looking for bellows that make a person hop up and down.’

  Kizmet flicked a switch on the box she was holding and, with a musical squeak, the whole thing suddenly stretched out like a giant, floppy caterpillar. It was a squeezebox – one of the lovely little musical instruments often played by sailors.

  ‘That’s it!’ cried Gaspar. ‘The folded concertina is a set of bellows. And when it’s pumped, it blows air through the box of valves and reeds. It makes you want to dance . . . It stokes the fire underfoot!’

  ‘Kizmet, you’ve found the Bloodhunter Bellows!’ said Spencer, excitedly.

  Gaspar smiled. ‘You must keep the bellows for the time being. Maybe they will offer more clues that will lead you to your friend.’

  Kizmet carefully turned the beautiful instrument over in her hands. ‘I wonder how it fits into the treasure map of the three pirates.’

  ‘Kriarh,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Kizmet. ‘I hope it leads us to Gita too.’

  We were on the steps of the Pirate Archive, thanking Gaspar and Mrs Crawford, when a large, dark object swooped down from the sky. It was a drone and as it zoomed past our heads, robotic arms shot out from its belly and snatched the Bloodhunter Bellows from Kizmet’s hands.

  Kizmet pulled the Rubik’s cube from her bag and hurled it at the drone. It hit one of the machine’s spinning blades and shattered. The drone spun out of control and crashed to the ground – which was the good bit. But there was also a bad bit. When the cube broke into pieces, one of the coloured squares ricocheted back towards us. Mrs Crawford was staring in shock with her mouth wide open and the square shot straight down her throat. She stumbled backwards, choking.

  The drone was obviously highly intelligent. I saw it on the ground, trying to flip itself into a position to take off again.

  If we didn’t act quickly, the flying machine would escape with the Bloodhunter Bellows.

  But Kizmet rushed over to help Mrs Crawford as she saw that the distraught woman was choking. She pounded her fist between the poor lady’s shoulderblades and after about five violent blows Mrs Crawford coughed up the little coloured square, gasping for air.

  The drone righted itself and rose into the air, preparing to escape. Spencer took off his hat and frisbeed it at the drone in an attempt to cover its blades. His hat simply hooked onto the machine and the drone zipped away into the distance.

  Mrs Crawford leant against the balustrade and coughed. She turned to Kizmet. ‘You . . . you saved my life.’

  ‘I loved that hat,’ Spencer whispered.

  Kizmet turned to us with a smile and clapped her hands. ‘Dad, you’re the most forgetful man alive.’

  Spencer frowned. ‘I don’t know about that.’

  ‘And that’s why I’ve attached little radio transmitters to all of your possessions!’

  She frantically thumbed at her phone, opening the tracking app. ‘Look!’ She held up her phone for us to view. There was a map of Kingston with a flashing red dot travelling across it. ‘We can see exactly where that drone is going. But we’ve got to be quick. The transmitter only has a range of about five kilometres. If it gets farther than that, we’ll lose the signal completely.’

  Kizmet turned to me. ‘Gretchen, take my phone,’ she said, thrusting it into my claws. ‘Go! Go!’

  I grabbed the phone and beat my wings with all my might. Within a minute I was high over Kingston. It was hard to hold the phone and see the screen while flying, but I managed. On the map was a green dot showing my location and a flashing red dot showing the location of Spencer’s hat. All I had to do was make sure the red dot didn’t get more than five kilometres from the green dot. Simple.

  Well, that’s what I thought. But the drone wasn’t just flying to the next suburb. It kept going. After an hour I was exhausted, but I wouldn’t stop. Gita’s life depended on me staying in the air. After two hours my shoulders were burning, but I kept on beating my wings, flap after flap. The pain became a dull ache as I focused on the rhythm of my breathing. I watched the sun slowly set, but still I flew on.

  There was little moonlight that night and I found myself flying into an inky black unknown. I had nothing but a vague sense of the horizon and the flashing dots on Kizmet’s phone to guide me.

  The drone was travelling slightly slower than me, and over the hours I was gaining on it. I watched as the green dot finally approached the red dot and covered it. Suddenly, the drone was flying a few feet under me. It bleeped, twisted in the air and descended rapidly. I flew after it.

  My eyes strained to see through the darkness. What was that ahead of me? It looked like . . . It was a cliff face. The drone and I were zooming directly towards a wall of rock. A small door in the cliff opened and the drone zipped through before
the door snapped shut. But I didn’t have time to stop and I slammed into the wall violently. In a frenzy of flaps and feathers I tumbled to the ground below.

  What was that tickling my toes? I thought. Hmm. It was gone. Aurgh, my shoulders were so sore. There was that tickling feeling again. Was that water on my feet?

  My sleepy mind pulled itself awake. I was lying on the beach and I realised that the tickle was the incoming tide lapping at my feet. I saw Kizmet’s phone on the sand. The events of last night rushed back to me. It was early morning, and I now saw clearly the cliff face that I’d crashed into. But the little door the drone had entered through was completely hidden. If this was some sort of hide-out of the Illuminasties, it was brilliantly hidden.

  Kizmet had a locating app on her mobile, so after I used her phone to track the drone they could use the same phone to track me. Spencer hired a car, and in just over four hours we were hiding in some bushes and watching the area through binoculars.

  At the top of the cliff, there was a normal-looking chicken farm. There were fenced-in fields for free-range activity as well as several large barns. We observed that every fifteen minutes or so a small truck would arrive at the chicken farm. The vehicle would stop briefly at a security gate before entering.

  ‘This might be where they’re holding Gita,’ said Kizmet.

  Spencer called Chief Inspector Wodjet to arrange for back-up, but all he got was a message saying ‘Number not available’.

  ‘Strange,’ he mumbled to himself.

  Kizmet fiddled with a leaf. ‘Never mind. I think I know how we can get inside.’

  There was a large tree near the security gate and Kizmet and Spencer snuck up and hid behind its trunk. After a few minutes a truck stopped at the gate. When the security guard stepped out to check the driver’s ID, I flew into his booth and scooped up the salad roll he was having for lunch.

  The driver saw me and laughed. ‘You’ve got a visitor.’

  The guard turned and rushed towards me. ‘HEY! Get out of it, you little thief!’

  I dropped bits of sandwich as I escaped. The driver laughed again and the guard kicked the wall of the booth in anger. All of this was a distraction, of course. It gave Kizmet and Spencer just enough time to climb up onto the roof of the truck unnoticed and lie down flat.

  The truck continued along the driveway and into one of the large old barns. I flew close to the truck and snuck in with it.

  As the vehicle slowed to a crawl Kizmet and Spencer scampered off the top and we hid behind some wooden crates.

  ‘Don’t worry, Gita, we’re coming,’ whispered Kizmet.

  ‘What?’ whispered Spencer.

  ‘Nothing,’ whispered Kizmet.

  ‘What?’ whispered Spencer.

  ‘Just . . . just forget it,’ whispered Kizmet, shaking her head in frustration.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ whispered Spencer.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ whispered Kizmet.

  ‘What?’ whispered Spencer.

  I listened as Kizmet was once again dragged into one of Spencer’s stupidity loops.

  She put her finger to her lips. ‘Shhhh!’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re shooshing me, you’re the one who keeps talking,’ whispered Spencer, rather miffed.

  ‘Hey, my hat!’ he exclaimed loudly, reaching down to scoop his beloved cap from the ground. He dusted it off and returned it to his head with a smile. ‘That’s better. I felt like Superman without his cape. Or a Wiggle without its skivvy. Just didn’t feel right.’

  We crept through an ominous steel archway that led into the Illuminasties’ secret lair. The underground hide-out was impressive with many well-lit passageways snaking through the black rock. This organisation was clearly wealthy and highly organised.

  We heard the chatter of voices coming towards us, so we ducked into the shadows of a small doorway. The group were dressed in the same black army uniforms worn by Gita’s kidnappers. One after the other, they entered a door off the passage and reappeared wearing purple, hooded robes. Once they were in this ceremonial cloak, they became strangely sombre, shuffling along the corridor.

  ‘Quick,’ Kizmet whispered. ‘Let’s get some robes.’

  With Kizmet and me hidden under his tunic, Spencer looked like any of the other Illuminasties as he walked silently amongst the devotees.

  Spencer had no idea where he was going, so he simply followed the crowd and we soon found ourselves in a weird underground temple.

  A ring of fiery torches along the black walls sent an eerie flickering glow over the congregation of purple monks.

  Many of them were sitting cross-legged and chanting quietly. Those coming and going did so with great reverence. Spencer found a spot and sat with Kizmet and me on his lap. We peered through a crack in the cloak. The walls were decorated with strange symbols and maps, and at one end there was a huge carving of the horned skull symbol. Underneath were the words: BE BOLD BUT TREAD LIGHTLY.

  And I soon realised what the monks were chanting; They were the words from the pirate poem tattoo: Victory burnt in leather. Athwart, four blades are put. Follow then the bellows that stoke the fire underfoot.

  They repeated these words over and over in a mesmerising drone.

  It was freaky. The Illuminasties weren’t just interested in the legend of the three pirates, they had created a whole religion around it.

  A priest in an elaborately embroidered robe stepped into the light and raised a golden cutlass above his head. The temple went quiet. His voice echoed through the chamber. ‘Stand and honour the grand master of the Illuminasties. All hail Robert Stone!’

  The audience chanted, ‘All hail Robert Stone! All hail Robert Stone!’

  He was the tallest man I’d ever seen. He wore a hooded cloak and his nose and mouth were masked by a cloth wrapped around his face that was painted with the image of a skull. All that could be seen clearly were his eyes, which shone with the fire of madness.

  Yet he spoke in a calm, deep voice. ‘My warriors, for three hundred years I have roamed this earth, searching for the three sacred objects. When reconnected, they will guide us to our destiny. At the age of thirty-two I held in my hands the Darkheart Victory.’

  The crowd chanted, ‘All hail Robert Stone!’

  ‘At the age of one hundred and seventy-eight I held in my hands the Jin Li Blades.’

  ‘All hail Robert Stone!’

  ‘And today I hold in my hands the final object . . . the Bloodhunter Bellows!’

  ‘ALL HAIL ROBERT STONE! ALL HAIL ROBERT STONE! ALL HAIL ROBERT STONE!

  The priest raised his golden cutlass and the cheers stopped abruptly.

  Robert Stone continued. ‘After three hundred years of yearning and hunting and waiting we have finally reunited the three guiding objects. Our day of power will soon manifest. The time has come for us to claim our rightful place as kings of the sea and land and air!

  ‘All hail Robert Stone!’

  A gong was struck, and the giant Robert Stone was gone.

  The congregation dispersed and Spencer walked back along the passage to an unused storage room we’d discovered earlier.

  ‘This is the most incredible case we’ve ever been involved in,’ said Spencer. ‘Robert Stone can’t be three hundred years old, can he?’

  Kizmet moved a couple of crates and climbed onto them. There was a vent on the wall near the ceiling and she popped its cover off.

  ‘Gretchen, take my phone and hop in here. I want you to explore the air-conditioning system. Vents like this should serve as windows into all the different areas of the hide-out. Film anything of interest and report back.’

  I ventured nervously into the air-conditioning ducts with Kizmet’s phone in my beak.

  After peeking into many rooms of no particular interest I found a vent that looked directly into the cell where Gita was being held!

  Thank goodness she seemed to be okay. It was a sort of laboratory with computers and a whiteboard on the wall covered
in scribbles and notes. Gita was sitting at a desk, writing on a pad. A guard was watching her so I didn’t have a chance to let her know I was there. I started filming when the most horrible scenario played out.

  The door to Gita’s cell unlocked and Robert Stone and his head priest entered. The priest was carrying a small box with a purple satin cloth draped over it.

  Strangely, Robert Stone’s facial features were still covered and he spoke in a deep menacing voice. ‘Ms Bandhari, you now have in your possession the three sacred objects. You are the greatest code-breaker in the world. If anybody can discover how these objects fit together to create a map, it is you.’

  ‘I’ve been trying, but it’s hopeless,’ muttered Gita.

  ‘That was before you had the Bloodhunter Bellows. I have great faith in you, but I suspect you lack enthusiasm for the task. So I’ve decided to motivate you.’

  Robert Stone called the priest forward and the sidekick removed the purple cloth from the top of the box, revealing a small cage with a rabbit inside.

  ‘Ms Bandhari,’ continued Robert Stone. ‘I hope you enjoyed your drink just now, because in the water you consumed there was a small amount of a tasteless and colourless chemical compound my lab created. We call it ‘time bomb’. It’s incredible stuff. It has no effect whatsoever . . . for exactly thirty hours. This rabbit was given a comparable dose of time bomb exactly thirty hours ago.’

  For a moment nothing happened . . . and then the rabbit started to cough and shake. It was clearly in a great deal of pain.

  Robert Stone smiled cruelly. ‘These symptoms will escalate, and in about half an hour the poor thing will die. Unless . . .’

  He reached into his cloak and revealed a small blue bottle. He removed the lid, which had an eyedropper attached. He stuck it into the mouth of the quivering rabbit. The rabbit stopped spasming and in a few seconds appeared healthy again.

  ‘This is crazy! I’ve been trying to solve it!’ cried Gita.