Free The 39 Clues: Unstoppable Book 2: Breakaway by Jeff Hirsch

her voice as she barked orders at them.
    You did what you had to do,
Amy told herself.
What you should have done long ago.
    Amy caught her breath and forced herself through the door. No one said a word, but every head in the room turned as Amy stepped through the door. Jake was down on one knee by the bed, stuffing clothes into a gym bag. Dan sat by the window, watching her with a kind of guarded interest. The way you’d look at a stranger before you’ve decided if they’re friend or foe.
    “I didn’t call the plane,” he announced. “We don’t have the right to tell Jake and Atticus to go.”
    “But don’t worry, Your Leaderhood,” Jake said. “We’re leaving. Atticus and I will stay at Dad’s place while we keep looking for him. You and Dan can find the silphium. When something comes in from Pierce on Dad, Dan will forward it to me.”
    All Amy could do was nod. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She caught a glimmer of glass on the rug by the TV, and the buzz of nerves in her stomach swelled.
    “I’ve been going over Olivia’s journal,” Atticus said. He sat by the door, Olivia’s notebook in front of him, his own bag at his feet. He turned the notebook around and showed it to her. He pointed at a shiny smudge at the top corner of one page.
    “You remember we were eating lunch? Well, that’s the last grease smudge from his thumb, so this is where Dad stopped right before he ran out. I thought maybe he saw something about the silphium but . . .”
    Amy studied a jumble of what looked like names.
Critias. Timaeus. Hermocrates.
At the bottom there was a single sentence.
The twentieth Hafsid claims to keep the testament of the failed strategoi.
    “What does it all mean?”
    “Well, the sentence is gibberish to me,” Atticus said. “But the first three are names.”
    “Who are they?”
    “Nobody,” he said. “Like
literally
nobody. They’re characters Plato used in his dialogues.”
    “Dialogues?” Dan said. “This guy was a playwright?”
    “No, Plato was a classical Greek philosopher around the fourth century B.C. The dialogues were a literary form he used. Instead of him writing a book explaining his ideas, he’d create characters and have them discuss stuff. These three were the main speakers in a projected trilogy of dialogues.”
    “Projected?”
    “Plato completed the first one, called
Timaeus
. The second one,
Critias
, was half done.
Hermocrates
was supposed to be the third, but he never wrote it.”
    “Makes sense,” Dan said. “Sequels are never as good as the original.”
    Amy couldn’t help but smile. She looked back at Dan, but he turned away as soon as their eyes met.
    “So why’d your dad get so freaked by it?”
    “No idea,” Atticus said. “And I don’t see any connection to silphium, either. Plato’s dialogues never mention it, and they never even talk about Carthage.”
    Jake grabbed his bag and turned to Atticus. “Come on, bro. We should get moving.”
    Atticus handed the notebook over to Amy and then slung his bag over his shoulder. “Good luck,” he said. “See ya, Dan.”
    “Yeah,” Dan said, fighting back the emotion Amy could hear in his voice. “See ya, Att.”
    It’s for the best,
Amy thought.
One day they’ll understand.
    Jake and Atticus started to go, but before they could leave, there was a crisp knock on the door.
    “Excuse me, please,” came a harried man’s voice from the other side of the door. “This is the hotel manager. I am most embarrassed but we have just been informed of a small fire on the top floors of the building. We must ask that all residents evacuate immediately.”
    “A fire?” Dan said.
    Jake quickly backtracked to the window. “Guys,” he said. “Look.”
    “Just a moment!” Amy said to the manager, and crossed the room.
    Jake pulled aside the curtain and nodded out into the dark. “I’m not from around here,” he said. “But those sure don’t look like fire trucks to me.”
    Several nondescript