The Great Gold Robbery Read Online Free PDF Page A

the computer.
    “Not so surprising that he’s had enough and doesn’t want to do it again,” Helge said.
    “How are we going to convince him?” Hallgeir asked.
    “We need to talk about fighting for home and family and king and fatherland,” Helge said.
    “Yeah, and for keeping our Norwegian currency!” Hallgeir said.
    “Good thinking, Hallgeir! And then we can play touching music in the background while we say all this, and as the music swells we’ll talk louder and louder and get choked up,”
Helge said.
    “Good thinking, Helge. Let’s go find that little pipsqueak and—” Hallgeir began.
    But just then there was a loud, complaining creak from the hinges as someone yanked the door open. And a second later it banged loudly as someone slammed it shut again. Nilly stood before them
with a backpack on his back.
    “We thought you’d headed for the hills,” Hallgeir said.
    “I changed my mind,” Nilly said.
    “Put on the touching music,” Helge whispered hurriedly to Petter. “I’ll start talking about home and the fatherland and—”
    “If you guys are done with your hot chocolate, I’m ready to head back to Oslo now,” Nilly said.
    “What? But I haven’t even gotten to the part where I get all choked up yet . . . ,” Hallgeir began.
    “No need. As I said, I changed my mind,” Nilly explained.
    “Really?” Helge asked.
    Nilly shrugged and picked at his front teeth with a dirty fingernail. “Really. Hang gliders and Chinese checkers are nice and all, but a gold heist sounds way more exciting. And a guy can
only drink
so
many cups of hot chocolate, right?”
    And so it came to be that exactly thirty-three minutes and twenty-four seconds after six thirty, Zulu time,
floppety-floppety-flop
sounds were once again heard over this remote village,
now almost completely devoid of inhabitants. Petter stood on the hill and waved good-bye to them.
    Nilly sat next to the pilot, wearing ear protectors that practically covered his entire teeny tiny redheaded head with the freckles and the turned-up nose. He was begging and pleading for a
chance to fly the helicopter, just for a little bit. He swore—
cross my heart!
—that he’d flown bombers during both world wars, not to mention that he had been the first
person under the age of eighteen to fly an unmanned rocket to Saturn and those parts.

Our Friends Learn Everything About the Mission. Well, Not Quite EVERYTHING . . .
    THE KING TUGGED at his annoyingly tight royal sash, cleared his throat, and pushed back his IKEA desk chair. He’d tried moving his throne into his office, but the seat
was so high that it ended up squishing his thighs between the seat and the desk. In front of him stood the only people in the kingdom who knew that Norway’s gold reserves had been stolen:
Hallgeir and Helge of the Secret Gourd; Tor, the governor of the Bank of Norway; Doctor Proctor, Lisa, and Nilly.
    “The gold needs to be back in the Bank of Norway’s vault by next Monday when the World Bank does its inspection,” the king said. “If it’s not, we’ll be
bankrupt and forced to live like the East Austrians. Is that what we want? Yes or no?”
    “Uh . . . ,” Lisa said, looking at Doctor Proctor, who was raising one eyebrow, and Nilly, who was squinting one eye shut as he thoughtfully scratched his sideburn.
    “Can we have more options?” Nilly asked.
    “The correct answer is no!” the king bellowed. “Norway is counting on the three of you now. The good news is that the Secret Gourd’s thorough investigation has procured
some information for us, which means you will not be starting out with absolutely nothing.”
    “The experts checked the hole in the bank vault,” Hallgeir said. “The robbers must have used a drill with a diamond-tipped bit with a really humongous diamond on it. The only
diamond in the world big enough was recently stolen from Johannesburg, South Africa.”
    “Also, we recently talked to our colleagues in the Brazilian