The book was originally published in 2012 as the 3rd book of The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers, a bestselling young-adult series. In order to save the kidnapped Cahill family members, Amy and Dan are forced to take orders from the Vespers. They race against time to get the next clue in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

The Dead of Night

Cahills Vs Vespers Book 5

1. Read 'The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers Book 2: A King's Ransom' by Jude Watson with Rakuten Kobo. Amy and Dan are in a race for their lives... And the enemy may be even closer than they think.
2. SCHOLASTIC INC. NEW YORK TORONTO. Fiske Cahill loved the early morning — the glorious moment when the sun’s rays broke over the. 2 THE 39 CLUES.

Setting:

Prague, Czech Republic;

Goreme, Turkey;Samarkand, Uzbekistan

The Dead of Night, was writtten by Peter Lerangis. It is the third book in the Cahills vs. Vespers series and was released on March 6, 2012

Plot

The Vespers have crossed the line. Amy and Dan were devastated when the Vespers kidnapped seven Cahills around the world, holding them hostage until Amy and Dan delivered an impossible ransom. But at least the hostages were Cahills—members of the world's most powerful family, trained to face disasters.

But now the Vespers have captured Atticus, an innocent 11-year-old boy and Dan's only friend. Dan and Amy find themselves in the struggle of their lives. Because if they can't outwit the Vespers, the unthinkable will happen... Atticus is going to die.

Back Cover

A LIFE ON THE LINE

When seven members of his family were kidnapped by the Vespers, thirteen-year-old Dan Cahill knew he was in for the fight of his life. He knew he was up against an impossibly powerful enemy. And Dan knew the odds were that some of his family members wouldn't make it.

But even as Dan steels himself to accept these facts, the unthinkable happens. The Vespers capture a shameless bystander--Dan's best friend, Atticus. With an innocent life on the line, Dan kicks off a frantic hunt that will take him from the back alleys of Prague to the rock caves of Turkey. But Dan better find Atticus fast. If he doesn't, his best friend will surely die.

Puzzles

The 39 Clues Cahills Vs Vespers Book 2

• There is a puzzle on the telescope on the inside cover. To read the code you read only the letters with a star over them. It reads: Timbuktu
• On the lens of the telescope two stars are red, Alpha Mensae and Vega. Alpha Mensae is the brightest star in the constellation,and Vega is not the brightest star in the constellation.Lyra
• On certain pages there are items from the periodical table. If you decode it from that to numbers, then numbers to letters, it reads: Voynich Manuscript.
• On the front cover on the lens of the telescope, there are four constellations, Mensa, Orion, Lyra, and Eridanus. If you take the first letter of each constellation, you get the word: M O L E. This refers to Vesper 3, The Mole.
• On the dedication page, Peter Lerangis said

“

This book is dedicated to het snoper how anc loves eth deco.

”

The last seven words have their letters scrambled. The dedication translates to: This book is dedicated to the person who can solve this code.

Vesper Letter

Hello, Cahills!

Do you ever feel that you lack a certain sparkle? I do. In fact, right now I lack exactly 545.67 carats worth of sparkle. Get the Jubilee for me and I'm sure I'll feel better. And don't make me say pretty please. I doubt you'll like the consequences.

Summary

The book begins after Atticus is kidnapped by the Wyomings. The Wyomings stop to see if the getaway jet is ready. Then Atticus complains that he is getting sick from the smell of sticky buns and motor oil. Before he remembered that his mom's tech guy, Max Beezer, gave some of his tech to him and his assistant Dave Speminer. He asks for his key chain and Cheyenne finds that on the key-chain that there was a transmitter (flash-drive) but she destroyed it. But the hand sanitizer was really a hidden transmitter. Atticus types a coded message to Dan and Amy via the transmitter in a men's bathroom. The Wyoming twins take Atticus to a Vesper stronghold in Goreme, Turkey. There, they force Atticus to decipher a code. Meanwhile, Dan and Amy have located Atticus's whereabouts via the transmitter signal, and Jake seems to be starting to work together with them. Back at the Vesper stronghold, Atticus activates the self-destruct system, and he runs away before the place explodes. Outside, he is finally reunited with Dan, Amy, and Jake.

Once outside the car, they get another assignment: give a stale orb in four days, or one of the seven hostages will die. They also have to pick a hostage, or Vesper One will choose. Without hesitation, Dan picks Alistair Oh. They need to go to Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Sinead said that Interpol is tracking every flight out of Turkey, so they need fake passports and disguises, and go tomorrow morning. So, they have to stay in the hotel. Erasmus comes, bringing bad news about McIntyre's death, plus a paper with list of cities. Amy contacts Hamilton and Jonah to go to Pompeii. They went inside the hotel, then fears that they've been followed. Greeted by Bartu Yilmaz, Erasmus's cousin, he turns Amy and Dan to Interpol.

Meanwhile, back at the Cahill Command Centre, Ian checks the scrap paper he picked at DeOssie factory. He decides to visit his mother, so he's goes to New York. Back in Turkey, Dan and Amy are saved by Luna Amato, bringing them to her house. They stay for a short time, until they discovered that Vesper Five is Luna Amato. They escape, and Dan almost kills Luna Amato by throwing a pitcher at her. He also manages to steal her phone. Now, they have a tool to contact Vesper One.

At Samarkand, Uzbekistan, they go to Ulugh Beg Observatory. Salim Umarov, their tour guide, gives poems on the tour. They ask him about 'stale orb', and he in reply hands him a business card to 'Estelle Urb'. They arrive at the address and find a fortune-telling woman. Dan and Atticus go across the street to buy snacks, and a man scares them when he relays a message to Atticus from his father, telling him to come home.

Meanwhile, in New York, Ian finally talks to his mother, and changed his flight. At Cahill Command Centre, Sinead received the photo of the hostages. The lizard on the photo might give the location of the hostages. Back in Turkey, Dan finds out that 'a stale orb' is actually an anagram of 'Astrolabe'.

Back at Cahill Command Center, Sinead gets mad at Evan for sharing the hostages' photo to the Cahill Command MessageBoard. She makes Evan wear a tracker anklet, and he refuses. Amy and Jake figure out about the three factors of the stars in Salim's poem, and get time to break into the observatory at night. 1022 = 2 x 7 x 73, they then descend and ascend the stairs with these numbers, press a stone, and a secret hatch opens. They found the astrolabe. The police came at the time they found it. Jake made the covering, while Atticus, Dan, and Amy escaped, and contact Vesper One. The place they will deliver the item is in the grave of Olga Sarkarov. A raptor picks up the item, and put the item on the man in the car. Back at the hotel, they get a message from the center: the hostages are kept in Argentina, and Ian might be there. Another assignment from Vesper One: Golden Jubilee Diamond in Berlin,Germany.

Dan is still thinking about AJT. At the airport, he buys Aloe an ingredient for the master serum.He then text messages him a question: 'If you're really my dad, can you tell me what special thing you said to make us smile together?' Then, the correct answer came right away: 'Moon face.'

Trivia

• Part of the star map can be seen at the upper left-hand corner.
• Peter Lerangis has said about the book:

“

All I can say is you'll travel to some jaw-dropping locales you may never have heard of, with more deadly escapes and double-crosses, on a search for a secret left by a revolutionary leader who was one of history's great geniuses.

”

• The code on the telescope on the inside cover is 'Timbuktu', a possible reference to the place that Dan and Amy go to in Shatterproof.
• The telescope in the cover was the telescope that Amy and Dan saw in the ending of the book.
• There was also a code on the message board that when you take the first letter of each word it says, 'call off your agents or else'
• At the entrance of the Goreme stronghold, It is known that Cheyenne Wyoming and her brother Casper Wyoming have unrecognized DNA but are allowed inside due to voice recognition access.

Excerpt

v • d • e The 39 Clues Books
The Clue Hunt	The Maze of Bones • One False Note • The Sword Thief • Beyond the Grave • The Black Circle • In Too Deep • The Viper's Nest • The Emperor's Code • Storm Warning • Into the Gauntlet • Vespers Rising
Cahills vs. Vespers	The Medusa Plot • A King's Ransom • The Dead Of Night • Shatterproof • Trust No One • Day Of Doom
Unstoppable	Nowhere to Run • Breakaway • Countdown • Flashpoint
Doublecross	Mission Titanic • Mission Hindenburg • Mission Hurricane • Mission Atomic
Superspecial	Outbreak
The Cahill Files	Operation Trinity • The Submarine Job • The Redcoat Chase • The Houdini Escape • Silent Night • Spymasters
Rapid Fire	Legacy • Ignition • Hunted • Crushed • Turbulence • Invasion • Fireworks
Additional Books	The Black Book of Buried Secrets • Agent Handbook • Midnight Ride • Worlds Collide

Florence, Italy

Dan Cahill didn’t realize just how many policemen there were in the world until he became an international art thief.

At this early hour, the Santa Maria Novella train station was crammed with travelers. Businessmen with briefcases, students chugging espressos, tourists with too much luggage, and two teenagers, one with a stolen priceless thirteenth-century book in a backpack.

That would be him.

Dan hung his thumbs on the straps of his pack, hugging it closer to him. He almost felt that Marco Polo’s original manuscript, Il Milione — the one that had been lost for centuries until he and his sister had found it hidden in the Colosseum in Rome — was actually emitting heat. Was that why he was sweating so badly?

Or was it the fact that there seemed to be a policeman every five feet?

“Polizia everywhere,” his sister, Amy, murmured.

“They’re checking passports at the boarding platforms,” Dan noted. He watched as a uniformed officer stopped two young students about to board a train. They were older than he and Amy, but the girl had brown hair to her shoulders like Amy, and the boy was wiry like Dan.

At least he and his sister had fake passports and disguises. He couldn’t get used to the sight of Amy in a blond wig, and his heavy framed glasses screamed DORK, or whatever that was in Italian. Il Dorko?

“What we need is a distraction,” Amy murmured. “If they look at our passports too closely, we could be in trouble. We’ve got to get on that train to Switzerland!”

“Because when a deranged psycho gives you orders, it’s important to snap to,” Dan said.

The text had come only a few hours before.

Perhaps you notice that your loved ones continue to accept our Vesper hospitality. This is due to your previous treachery. They will remain our guests until you complete four more tasks. The first of these will be in Lucerne, Switzerland. I suggest you get yourselves there immediately, lest the number of our little party dwindles.

Vesper One

Their enemy Vesper One was a big fan of the mocking taunt. Every word was a thrust to the heart, letting them know that he was holding members of their family hostage and was prepared to kill them.

Dan stared up at the train departures board as if it would hold all the answers. Why was he here, desperate and scared, instead of back in Massachusetts, trying to scam himself out of math homework like any normal thirteen-year-old?

Wherever they turned, headlines screamed the news: IL CRIMINE DEL SECOLO! The crime of the century. They had stolen a Caravaggio from the Uffizi Gallery, and now they were on Interpol’s most-wanted list. Which would have been sort of cool if he didn’t have to be afraid of going to jail for ten thousand years.

Lives were on the line. Lives of people they had become close to, including Reagan Holt, Ted Starling, and Natalie Kabra. Twelve-year-old Phoenix Wizard. And people they loved — their Uncle Alistair Oh and their guardians, Fiske Cahill and Nellie Gomez. That was the hardest thing to bear. Fiske had disappeared in California, and Nellie had been kidnapped right off the streets of Paris.

The destinations on the board blurred, and Dan rocked on his feet with weariness. He heard the hiss of an espresso machine. Over his head the loudspeaker announced a track change in Italian and English. Everything seemed to fade a little. “I’m so beat I could lie down right on the floor,” he told Amy. “When was the last time we slept?”

“Day before yesterday?” Amy asked with a frown. “I know what you mean. This is some jet lag. Let’s get a coffee while we make a plan.”

“Oh, yeah, jet lag. That must be it,” Dan agreed as he trailed after her to the espresso bar. “Not the fact that we pulled off a museum heist, went without sleep and food, and oh, yeah — did I mention this — almost got killed? Jet lag. That’s why we’re tired.”

“Well, if you want to get technical,” Amy said, but she summoned up a smile for her brother. She pushed balled-up paper money at the counterman and held up two fingers for coffee.

“I wonder what he wants us to steal next,” Dan said. “I think I maxed out my museum heist skills.”

“If we could just get one step ahead of them …” Amy murmured. She took the change from the counterman and handed an espresso to Dan.

He took a sip and his face turned red. He let out a series of explosive coughs, stamping his foot with each one. Passersby turned and stared, and Amy saw a policeman’s gaze sweep the crowd, looking for the source of the commotion.

She grabbed the now-empty espresso cup and put it back on the counter, pushing Dan forward and quickly maneuvering him through the crowd.

“I said distraction,” she hissed. “Not pandemonium.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Dan wheezed. “Dude, what was that sludge I just inhaled?”

“Just Italian coffee,” Amy said. “Look, the train to Lucerne leaves in fifteen minutes. We have to take a chance.”

Dan scanned the crowd. “You know what we need? A — tuba!”

“A what?”

Dan pointed with his chin. Off to their right, a tuba seemed to be floating through the crowd. Dan began to follow it, with Amy trailing behind. Suddenly, it dropped out of sight. Amy and Dan skirted a family running for a train and saw a slender young woman slumped on a suitcase, holding a tuba and crying. A large sticker on a small trunk read WILMINGTON WOWZABELLES EUROPEAN TOUR.

“Distraction!” Dan crowed.

They moved forward, not knowing what they’d do or say but knowing they had the perfect opportunity for … something.

“Need a hand with that?” Dan asked the girl. “I happen to have experience as a tuba wrangler.”

She looked up, startled. Her eyes were a warm brown behind her delicate wire-rimmed glasses. She smiled. “Thanks, but I think I have it covered.” Dan detected a slight Southern accent. Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. “Actually, I don’t! I missed the train, and I have the tuba and all the costumes! It’s all Heather’s fault. She just had to get her last Italian gelato before the train. She told me to just watch the tuba for two seconds and she’d come back. If I don’t make it to Zurich in time, I’m doomed!”

“Hey, we’re going to Switzerland, too!” Dan said.

“You are?” She swiped at her tears. “I’ll miss the concert. My suitcase is with Ms. Mutchnik, and my charger’s in my bag, so I can’t even call them. And I c-can’t speak Italian!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide, as though this was the final awful thing that had happened.

“You can borrow my phone,” Amy offered. “And you could take the train to Lucerne with us and then go to Zurich from there. We can travel together.”

Cahills Vs. Vespers Series Order

“Really? That would be so awesome! Europe kind of freaks me out, y’all, to tell you the truth,” the girl confided, leaning toward them. “I’ve never traveled much.” Awkwardly, the girl struggled to her feet. She stuck out her hand. “Vanessa Mallory, from Wilmington, South Carolina.”

“Mark Farley,” Dan said, remembering the name on his fake passport just in time. “This is my sister …” His mind was a blank.

“Caroline,” Amy supplied. “But you can call me Carrie! We’re from Maine,” she improvised.

“It’s so awesome that I bumped into you,” Vanessa said, shouldering one of the bags.

They hurried to the track and got in line behind a wealthy-looking woman with a large trunk and several suitcases. She was dressed in a fur coat and hat, even though it wasn’t that cold. She spoke sharply to the police officer at the train door in rapid Italian. He shrugged.

Finally, the line moved forward. Amy pulled the Wowzabelles trunk, and Dan grabbed the tuba.

“On your way to a concert?” The policeman smiled.

Vanessa nodded. “We’re on a European tour,” she added proudly.

“And what is a Wowzabelle?” he asked.

“Awesome singers,” Amy said, handing over her passport.

Dan waited while the policeman scrutinized the photo, comparing it to Amy. Then he reached for Dan’s.

It seemed to take long seconds before he handed back the document. He ticketed the trunk. “This will go in the oversize compartment — pick it up in Zurich. Welcome aboard.”

Only Dan heard Amy’s long sigh of relief as they boarded the train and found their seats, stowing the tuba overhead.

Dan glanced out the window. A man in a raincoat was talking to the friendly policeman. He had a nose like the beak of a raptor, and his dark hair looked as though he’d blow-dried it with an airplane propeller.

Dan looked away, checking out the station, but his gaze snapped back. He didn’t know why, exactly. Maybe because the man wasn’t showing the officer a ticket or a passport, he was just leaning in, talking to him. And all the while his gaze swept the station.

Detective, Dan thought, as the policeman pointed to the Lucerne train.

The man scanned the windows as he walked alongside the train. Dan shrank back.

He nudged Amy and tilted his head.

“Can I use your phone, Carrie?” Vanessa asked Amy. “I really need to call Ms. Mutchnik.”

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