The 39 Clues Book 7: The Viper's Nest by Peter Lerangis Page A

driver to head for Pretoria. That was when I saw the Hummer, which made me suspicious."
    "And you followed it..." Amy said.
    "Precisely," Alistair replied. "Now may we go?"
    "Wait," Dan said. "How did the Holts find us?"
    "We can talk inside the car!" Alistair said.
    "You're a smart guy," Amy said. "You heard Nellie sing the song and boom! You knew the hint. You're light-years ahead of anyone. And you're telling us that the Holts figured all of this out without your help?"
    Alistair cocked his head curiously. "Are you
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    suggesting I am in an alliance with the Holts? I can't even carry on a conversation with them!"
    "Come on, troops," Nellie said, reaching for the car door. "Let's leave Old Burrito Man here with the Frankenstein family. Maybe when they find out their plan failed, they'll use him as a soccer ball."
    Nellie was in the car now. She turned the engine over once ... twice ... three times, and it finally started.
    "You're not going to leave me here, are you?" Alistair was looking at Amy now. His face registered shock, panic. It was an expression she recognized from the fire two nights before.
    He was willing to save our lives. He was about to jump off a ledge for us, until Irina arrived.
    But she also knew the look from another time. From seven years ago. When he had come to their house to steal a poem. A poem with a Clue hidden in it. A poem that Hope Cahill and Arthur Trent thought would solve the riddle of the 39 Clues.
    We only want what is ours.
    Someone had said that during the night. She'd heard the voice from the study, just after the commotion had wakened her.
    Alistair's voice.
    Alistair hadn't set the fire. But he could have said something. He could have prevented ...
    "Amy ...?" Alistair said. "Are you all right, dear?"
    Amy looked him in the eye. "Why did you keep it from them --the fact that you'd stolen the poem?"
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    "I --this is hardly the time--" Alistair stammered.
    "You could have told them," Amy said. "You could have shouted, 'I have the poem!' She was running into a fire, Uncle Alistair!"
    "I was contending with so many people," Alistair said. "I could barely see straight. Eisenhower Holt had some cockamamie idea that we could use the neighbors' garden hose--"
    "Eisenhower Holt was there, too?" Amy said.
    "And his wife, Mary-Todd," Alistair said.
    Dan's face was red. "How many people were there -- just standing around, doing nothing to help them?"
    Eisenhower.
    Yes, Amy saw him now in her memory of the night. A gruff man with a red face and bristles for hair.
    They were all in it together. United. They may not all have set the fire, but without them it wouldn't have happened.
    They were killers, all of them.
    Tears rushed to her eyes, but Amy kept them back. Without thinking, she grabbed Uncle Alistair's silk scarf and pulled him toward her. "I don't care if you're working with them or not," she said. "Either way, when they find you, they will make your life miserable."
    She let go and jumped into the backseat next to Dan. Nellie gunned the engine.
    "Wait --you can't--" Alistair sputtered, struggling with something at the top of his cane.
    "Oh?" Nellie said, stepping on the gas. "Watch me."
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    * * *
    Alistair Oh staggered away from the cloud of exhaust and dust. He had never seen the girl so angry.
    Dealing with the children was going to be nearly impossible now.
    You knew to expect this, old boy, he told himself. They are Grace's grandchildren.
    They were smart. Too smart. They had read him almost perfectly. If only they hadn't misread his motives.
    The Holts, as usual, had ruined everything. Goodness knows how those blockheads had picked up the trail in South Africa! Or how they had managed to ambush him at the airport. The ride in the Hummer and the chicken truck had been grueling, but it hadn't compared with the humiliation of being their decoy.
    They're scared of us, Alistair, but not of you, Mary-Todd had said. We'll advance slowly and scare them. You sweep behind and drive them to