Free Century #4: Dragon of Seas by Pierdomenico Baccalario Page A

Elettra.”
    “I saw it! There were pictures of me with comments from you guys. You even know I like Harvey.”
    “That’s no big secret, if you ask me.”
    “And you’re wondering if I have stronger feelings for him, like I was a lab rat under observation. I can’t stand you! You or Aunt Irene!”
    Fernando whips his head around. “Now you’re going too far, Elettra.”
    “Why won’t you tell me what you guys did to Aunt Linda, then? What did you tell her? Where did you send her?”
    “How should I know? I was in Paris with you!”
    “Oh, right, sorry!” Elettra grumbles. “You never know anything. You’re always the one who’s never told anything. The artist! The man hopelessly wrapped up in his novel, which he’ll never finish writing!”
    Fernando Melodia stares at the road without replying. Elettra does the same, obstinate and furious.
    “You have no idea what it’s like to feel this way,” she says after a while.
    “You need to get something from under your seat,” her father says.
    The girl leans over, gropes around and pulls out an old cookie tin. “This?”
    “Open it.”
    Inside the tin are dozens of Chinese coins in different sizes.
    “Aunt Irene wanted me to give them to you.”
    Elettra picks up a few of the coins and studies them. They look—and are—very old. They’re in different shapes and colors, and some of them have holes in the center.
    Beneath the coins is a red-lacquered wooden tile with four black-bladed knives painted on it, along with a folded letter and a passport tucked inside of it.
    “What’s this for?” she asks.
    “The letter should explain everything,” Fernando says, still driving.
    Dear Elettra
,
    It’s with great regret that I say goodbye to you this way. But the time we’ve been given has almost run out. I hope you’ll find the answers you’re looking for. In the box are all the clues from Shanghai in 1907. Use them as you see fit: no one is better
than the four of you at interpreting the Pact’s clues. None of us got so far. And none of us knows the meaning behind the objects you found, nor the intentions of the man who stole them from you
.
    Forgive me for keeping you in the dark about neverything, but Vladimir and I are convinced that we should follow the rules to the letter: silence and patience
.
    If there really is a plan with any meaning, this is the only way we’ll discover it
.
    May Nature be with you
.
    And may it protect you always
.
    P.S. Your aunt Linda is fine. She just went to meet her real family
.
    When they land in Shanghai, they make Harvey get off the plane last. The burly steward brusquely escorts him to a back room in the customs area.
    “We’re going to have some fun, just wait and see,” the steward whispers, shoving him inside.
    The room is almost completely bare. There’s just a small deskwith a little man sitting behind it. Behind him, a large portrait of the Chinese president, who’s smiling. In front of the desk, a terribly uncomfortable-looking chair.
    “Have a seat, Mr. Miller,” the little man says in English with a strong state official’s accent.
    Harvey does as he’s told, his teeth clenched. The steward and the man begin to speak to each other in Chinese so he can’t understand them. From time to time they point at him. After ten minutes of this, the official takes a large sheet of paper out of his small desk. Then he picks up the phone and dials a number.
    “Listen,” the boy pipes up, “I need to call my mother. And my father.”
    The steward cuffs the back of his head. “No cameras in here,” he sneers. “We’re going to have some fun, wait and see!”
    Harvey tries to stand up, but the man plants both hands on his shoulders, pinning him in his seat. Just then, the little official talking on the phone turns pale. He motions for the steward to leave the boy alone.
    Harvey stands up, rubbing his neck. “You big ox.”
    “Don’t get smart with me!” the man threatens, pointing his finger at