As the limousine barreled past a double-decker bus, the passengers on the upper deck glanced down over the top rail and into the limousine below. Jake found himself staring up at the faces like a goldfish in a fishbowl. Hands pointed. Jake waved back, but there was no response.
“Privacy glass,” Morgan Drummond explained. “They can’t see you.”
The large man settled back into the shadows of his seat. For someone so mountainous, he had a strange ability to fade into the background. Jake did note a tiny flash out of the darkness as Drummond leaned back. It came from the man’s tie tack. It was a chunk of polished gunmetal steel fashioned into the symbol for Bledsworth Sundries and Industries Inc.
A griffin.
The mythological monster had the head, wings, and claws of an eagle with the body, hind legs, and tail of a lion. With a black jewel for an eye, it was shown reared up as if ready to tear into some cowering prey. Some said it also represented the corporation’s business practices: attacking the weak and devouring them whole.
Jake had read up on the corporation during the flight from Connecticut to London. No one could quite say where or when the company had first started. It was hinted that its “sundries and industries” stretched back to medieval times. There were rumors that the Bledsworth family made their first fortune by selling false potions to protect against the Black Plague. They were also the ones who collected the dead bodies of the victims, piling them up on carts and selling off body parts for medical research. Truth or not, the Bledsworths came out of the Dark Ages with more gold than the king of England. Now considered fairly reputable, they owned an entire block in the financial center of Blackfriars.
Jake sat straighter and cleared his throat. He asked the question that had been nagging him since he landed in London. “Mr. Drummond, sir, why is your company sponsoring the museum exhibit?”
A heavy grumble answered him. It sounded little pleased with his question. But even Kady lowered her compact mirror and removed one of her iPod’s earbuds to hear his answer.
Morgan Drummond sighed. “It’s very expensive to put on this show. The extra guards, the electronic security…it cost the corporation a fortune just to convince the Mexican government to allow these national treasures to be taken out of the country.”
From the tone of his voice, the man was not happy that his company was spending so much money on something so frivolous.
“Then why is the corporation doing it?” Jake asked.
Drummond leaned closer. “Mr. Bledsworth insisted. And no one goes against Mr. Bledsworth.”
Jake frowned. He had read all about the reclusive head of the corporation: Sigismund Oliphant Bledsworth IX.
In his nineties, the man represented the ninth generation to carry the Bledsworth family name—but unmarried with no children, he would be the last. Only a few photographs existed of Sigismund Oliphant Bledsworth IX. Jake could find only one on the computer, taken when Bledsworth was a much younger man: a stick of a man in a British military uniform. Like his medieval ancestors, his past was clouded with rumors of misdeeds—stories of stealing art treasures from France and Germany during the confusion of war. He had also been stationed in Egypt.
But after World War II, all sightings of the head of Bledsworth Sundries and Industries dried up. He had become more ghost than man.
Jake’s brows pinched. “But what’s Mr. Bledsworth’s interest in putting on this show?”
“You truly don’t know?” Morgan Drummond asked.
Jake shrugged, turned to his sister, then back to the large man. “No.”
“Mr. Bledsworth felt obligated. A debt to be paid.”
“A debt?”
“To your parents.”
The air suddenly grew heavier in the limousine. Jake found it harder to breathe.
Drummond leaned back in his seat and dissolved back into the shadows. “Who do you think financed your parents’ Mayan dig? Who do you think sent them in the first place?”
Jake frowned. Mr. Bledsworth? Could it be true? Had the mysterious head of Bledsworth Sundries and Industries paid to have his mother and father explore the Mayan peak known as the Mountain of Bones?
Why?
The chauffeur called from the front as the limousine slowed.
“We’ve reached the museum, sir.”
Flashes and camera lights blinded as Jake and Kady exited the dark interior of the stretch limo. Jake took a step back in shock, but he had nowhere to retreat. Behind him, Morgan Drummond unfolded his large bulk and rose up like a wall.
“Just keep moving,” he muttered under his breath.
Drummond herded them forward through a crush of reporters on the sidewalk in front of the museum. The news crews and onlookers were held back behind two black velvet ropes that framed a red carpet. Ahead, the British Museum towered behind marble pillars, looking like a massive bank vault. A giant banner hung across the pillars and boldly announced the exhibit.
Mayan Treasures of the New World
Jake noticed many people wore special goggles to view the coming eclipse.
He looked up to the sky. Of course, he should’ve known better. The moon was already beginning to cross the sun’s face. The blinding corona stung his eyes. He glanced away before it could damage his sight. To the south, a spate of lightning flashed, followed by a rumble of thunder. The storm was still blowing up along the Thames River and threatened to wipe out the rare sight.
“Aren’t they darlings?” a matronly woman called out.
“Spittin’ images of their mum and da.”
“And look at those cute outfits.”
“Regular little explorers, they are,” another chuckled.
Jake became conscious of his clothes. Courtesy of the Bledsworth corporation, the pair had been tailor-fitted at an expensive shop on Savile Row, famous for its custom clothiers. Jake wore safari pants and a long-sleeved shirt, both khaki in color, along with a vest (with pockets everywhere, some zippered, some buttoned, some pockets inside other pockets). He also had a pair of hiking boots made of waterproof GORE-TEX and a matching backpack. They’d wanted him to wear a safari hat, too, but he refused.
Kady loved the hat. It sat jauntily on her head. More cameras flashed. She tilted on a hip and coyly twined a finger in one of her hat’s ties.
Jake rolled his eyes and continued toward the museum.
The shouts and calls became a wordless blur. He just wanted to get inside, away from all the commotion. Bledsworth Sundries and Industries, along with the museum, had organized a media blitz: newspapers, television, even posters on the sides of buses and subways. All to promote the exhibit. The story of the disappearance of Jake’s parents had been big news when it had first occurred, a story of gold and bandits and murdered archaeologists. The papers pumped it up again. Everyone had soon learned of the orphaned Ransoms. And now to have the kids here, for the opening of the exhibit, had brought out everyone with a camera.