The Danger Game

by Ian Bull

  The water in my belly sloshes and I burp dirt and ephedra into my mouth. Coyotes can digest mud but not me. Maybe in my next life.

  You can hide and survive like a coyote. Concentrate on that.

  Voices come from below. I force myself against the rocks. Julia stops four feet below me. We’re in shadow. She asks me with her eyes: Why are we stopping?

  A hundred yards below, four motorcycles tear by with two drones in close pursuit above them. They think we’re headed west, and they missed us.

  After thirty seconds, we climb again, and keep climbing. And climbing. Ten minutes more. And five minutes…. I must keep track of time….

  We reach a plateau. There’s a flat section of open ground, surrounded by thick brush before the hill rises again. One tall, lone cactus stands about eighteen feet high on one side. Perfect.

  The ocean is in the distance, blue and calm. On the other side of this mountain range is the Sea of Cortez. We can’t get there, but we have to get as high as we can.

  But not yet. We have less than two hours until noon.

  “What happens now?”

  “We send Carl a message.”

  50

  TINA SWIG

  Saturday, March 16, 7:00 p.m. (CET)

  Sicily

  Devon races his wheelchair across his suite and slams it into the plate glass window, shaking nothing except for his chair and his monitor. His speakers crank out the sound of a screaming toddler at high volume. He knows I hate that sound more than any other in the world. He’s trying to torture me.

  “Talk to me, Devon.”

  He bangs his chair against the window twice more, then spins and talks to me in the threatening voice of an Italian gangster. “I want internet access. Professor Carlton must give me feedback before I can finish my paper on the Hodge conjecture.”

  “Finish it on your own and we’ll send it in a few days. Tell him it’s a first draft. If there are mistakes, he’ll understand.”

  He spins in his chair and plays funeral dirge music. The computer screens on his desk are full of equations. I recognize the symbols for e, pi, and phi, but nothing else.

  “That’s a waste of my time,” he whines in the voice of a little girl.

  “Stop that. Be an adult. Your childhood is over.”

  He reverts back to his Paul Newman voice. “The final ideas are still coming. I must bounce them off Professor Carlton to keep the flow going. I can’t lose momentum.”

  “You’ll get it back.”

  “No, I won’t! And I won’t get the Fields Medal before I’m thirty!”

  “You’re not even eighteen yet. You have time. Einstein did his thought experiments while riding on a public bus. You can do yours while cruising on a luxury yacht.”

  “I need to finish now!”

  “We’re pulling anchor soon. When we drop anchor again, all communication comes back. Until then we communicate with the outside world with semaphore flags and nothing else.”

  “You’re a terrible mother.”

  “And I struggle with that truth every day, my wonderful son.”

  “You said we’d go to Agrigento again before we left.”

  “We’ll come back.”

  “I also want to see Enna. And the place with all the mosaics, Piazza Armerina.”

  “Now you want to see Sicily? As we’re leaving Sicily? You’re such a teenager.”

  “I hate you.”

  “I love you. And I’m giving you the best possible life I can. And we will change the world, I promise, but not for another few days.”

  I leave and head down the side staircase. Where’s Rebecca when I need her? Some loving attention from an attractive redhead would save me a lot of headache right now.

  She exits the galley right on cue. “May I be of service, Miss T?”

  “Rebecca, yes. Devon is being…a disruptive teenager. Your employer and I have a lot to accomplish in the next twenty-four hours. Please keep Devon occupied.”

  “Yes. I’ll do everything in my power, Miss T.”

  “Thank you.” I say no more. A mother doesn’t need to know the details.

  Douglas is next. This will be the harder talk. I find him in the main lounge pacing behind Ismael, Elliot, and Min. The boys stare at the big screen and their monitors, fretting like option traders on Wall Street on a down day. On the big screen, the transmission switches between a drone shot of the motorcycles from above, roaring through the Baja desert hills, to the GoPro cameras mounted on the riders’ helmets. Steven Quintana and Julia Travers are nowhere to be seen.

  “I can watch better motorcycle riding on YouTube,” Elliot complains.

  “People are leaving the site,” Ismael says.

  “Is anyone buying in?” Douglas asks.

  Min checks his monitor. “Not really. About a hundred new people an hour, most looking at older episodes.”

  “What’s our profit?”

  Ismael stares at his monitor. “We’re at a 1.3 billion right now, I estimate.”

  “Once we corner them, viewership will jump again. We’ll stretch out their demise. I think we can get to one and a half billion. Nothing brings in the bucks like a good splatter ending.”

  The boys chuckle and elbow each other.

  They don’t notice me standing here. No one mentions Heyman’s three men, who Travers and Quintana almost killed in the green room, or the man they stabbed in the throat, or the two others who Travers shot last night on that mountain while Douglas was “stretching out their demise.” It’s just more kills in a video game to them.

  “Boss Man, my love? May I speak with you? It’s important.”

  Douglas tilts his head. He remains suspicious, which I understand; it’s part of his competitive nature. I asked in the right diminutive way, however, so it’s hard for him to turn me down. “Keep the app live, men. Let me know when you find something.”

  He follows me onto the back deck. The lights of Agrigento reflect off the flat water. There’s a slight breeze, and a solitary buoy bell rings in the distance. I kiss him long and hard. He more than meets me halfway, which makes me push deeper into his arms.

  He finally breaks free. “That was unexpected.”

  “I’m proud of you. And thankful for everything you’ve done for me and Devon.”

  “You’re welcome, my love. We’re almost there.”

  A cough interrupts us as Rebecca the steward and Carlos the bosun descend the port side staircase carrying a tray of espressos and small Sicilian candies and cookies. Carlos snaps a white cloth onto a table, and Rebecca sets down the late-night coffee and treats, along with pink napkins and silver stirring spoons. She and I make eye contact, she tilts her chin down in a mini-bow, and they retreat. No wink, no smile, just impeccable service, and they disappear. I’m going to miss her.

  “Nice touch,” he says.

  “Rebecca did it all, not me. But I do have something to tell you.”

  He crosses his arms and sighs….

  I tell him how Walter discovered that Trishelle Hobbs and Carl Webb are the ones running The Rescue Game from the Malibu beach house, and how someone named Too Cool for School figured out that Steven and Julia are in Baja.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Walter heard my name and your name, and they suspect we’re on a yacht.”

  Douglas takes a step back. “Was any law officer part of this conversation?

  “No. But once they identify the bodies, law enforcement from around the world will be looking for us. The motel door was opened twenty-two hours ago.”

  He rocks on his heels and smiles at me. “You’re a busy little bee. So many secrets.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “Of course, I do. I trust but verify. I’ll make my own calls and confirm all this.”

  “They know our names, love. They’re coming.”

  “We knew they would. Our plan is still to disappear and start over.”

  “We should leave now. Call in the helicopters and kill
them.”

  “That would draw even more attention. Are you telling me how to play my own game?”

  “It’s our game. You said so yourself.”

  “Why not challenge yourself? Isn’t that the point, ultimately?” He smiles, calm and stoic. He’s playing philosopher right now, instead of dealing with the task at hand.

  “I like to declare victory when I’m ahead.”

  “So, you want The Rescue Game to win?”

  I sip, giving myself a moment. “No, because I always win.”

  “Maybe you’re winning twice. Maybe you’re getting a cut of The Rescue Game too.”

  “That’s crazy talk. You’re saying that just to see my reaction.”

  “Maybe. But it would also be a great way to hedge your bets.” He pops an amaretto cookie in his mouth, then downs a shot of espresso with a twist of lemon.

  My head pounds. We’re in the soft light on the back deck so he can’t see my skin flush. His face is blank. For a man who may soon have the FBI and Interpol sweeping down on him, he sure is calm.

  But this is his zone. He’s exactly where he wants to be. He’s playing the highest risk game possible, on a global scale, with the highest payout if he wins, and he loses everything if he goes bust.

  I touch his arm. “I have nothing to do with The Rescue Game. Everything I do is for us. And, yes, I do things without telling you, so you can worry less. You do it, too, without telling me.”

  “I do?”

  “You told Rebecca to ‘educate’ Devon. I smelled her perfume on him. They both dodge my questions. I could complain. After all, he’s my son, not yours, and my first concern. I told you that when we first met. But I trust your judgment. I know you love us, so I never question your motives.”

  Douglas smiles and takes my face in his hands. “Well played.”

  I kiss him. “We’ve both played the game well. So have our opponents. It’s time to cash in our chips. Erase everything, sink this yacht, and start over.”

  He hands me a marzipan orange slice. “And let them get away? Steven Quintana? Who invaded your last brilliant game and ruined everything, putting us on the run?”

  My anger rushes back, a white heat that fills my whole body. That anger is an old friend who’s been at my side for years, pushing me. Douglas is right, walking away from total revenge against Steven Quintana and Julia Travers is hard, but we must. “I don’t need to see them die on TV, as long as Heyman kills them. Living well is the best revenge now, and that’s what we must do.”

  Douglas stares at me. He’s deciding.

  51

  STEVEN QUINTANA

  Saturday, March 16, 10:30 a.m. (PST)

  Baja, California

  The ephedra rush clears my head. “Search the underbrush. Find three sticks, one a foot long, another two feet long, and the last one a yard long. Look for dead cactus. The dried ribs of the cardon cactus are straight enough.”

  “What if they see us?”

  “My infected hand will kill me in less than two days. This is what we do.”

  Julia goes on her search. I unwrap the bandage and pull the gun from my pocket and manage to hold it with my swollen left hand. I take the clip out of the pistol and check it—only two bullets. Damn. I can’t waste them. I put the pistol on the ground and dig out the glass shards from my pocket. I brush clear a large circle in the dirt, six feet in diameter, until it’s flat and clean, like an empty plate. I then walk toward the one tall lone cactus on the bluff, pacing out my steps. One hundred feet. Perfect.

  She comes out of the brush with three straight cactus ribs––one, two, and three feet long, respectively. “Which one first?”

  “The two-footer.” I hand her the longest glass shard from my pocket. “Hold this against one end.”

  She holds the glass shard against the tip of the cactus rib. I wrap a wet shoelace around, tying the glass shard into place like an arrowhead. Once she sees my plan, she takes the stick from me and does it herself, tying the knot tight.

  “Impressive.”

  “I got the Girl Scout badge for knots.” She holds up the stick with its new glass blade. “It’s not much of a weapon.”

  “It’s a tool. Sharpen the end of the foot-long stick and jam it so it’s straight up and down in the middle of the circle.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I need to gather small, straight sticks about four inches long.”

  She grabs the short stick and starts whittling. I walk to the where the slope starts again and find more dried cactus ribs that I break into four shorter pieces.

  Julia has already stuck the long stick into the ground in the middle of the circle. It casts a nice straight shadow. I hand her the sticks. “Sharpen these.”

  “You’re making a sundial.” She grabs the sticks from me. “Why?”

  “If we do this right, we can find exact east and west. Once we do that, I can use this,” I say as I pick up the yard-long cactus rib, “to determine our latitude.”

  “You can figure out where we are?”

  “No, but Carl and Trishelle can. If they’re watching.”

  “How do you know they’re watching?”

  “I don’t. But I hope they are.”

  “So do I.” She kneels and sharpens my short sticks. I use my heel to scrape out a large square in the dirt next to the circle.

  “What’s that?”

  “My message board.” The dirt is flat, but dry and too hard to write on. We need mud. I unzip and piss on the square, wetting it as much as I can.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Creating a writing surface.”

  “Thanks for an image that obliterates all of your remaining physical appeal to me.”

  “You’re hardly red carpet ready, my one-two-three.” The square is only half wet. “Your turn. Piss on the rest of this square. Turn the dirt into mud so I can write in it.”

  She stares at me like I’m insane. I look up. Noon is about an hour away. “Can you just piss, please? We don’t have much time.”

  She huffs. “Look away. No one ever watches me pee.”

  I face the ocean. Far off in the distance there’s a glimmer against the sun. That’s a drone, about a mile away. There’s no noise from the motorcycles. They’re searching and will head back this way soon. “It’s nice to know that movie stars pee like the rest of us.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You smell like an outhouse.”

  “Don’t make me stab you with the tool I made for you.”

  “Please don’t. You already cut off my finger.”

  “I’m done. You can turn around.”

  She ties her sweatpants while fighting back tears. She didn’t like my joke.

  “You made me hurt those men. I may have killed them.”

  “I couldn’t, so you had to do it. That’s how we made it this far.” I go to hug her, but she puts her hand up.

  “Stop. I’ll lose it. You stink too much right now, anyway.”

  The square is a perfect slab of wet mud. “You peed perfect. Tool, please.”

  She hands me the stick with the glass shard. The sun is almost halfway between the horizon and its zenith. “While I write, look at the shadow the sticks casts in the circle. Jam the first short stick into the ground at the tip of the shadow. Then every ten minutes, put the next short stick at the tip of where the shadow is by then. We’re marking the movement of the sun.”

  “How will you know it’s ten minutes?”

  “I’ll tell you. It’s another weird talent I have.”

  “Thank God for your weird talents.”

  I write in the mud. “Too bad I can’t make a buck using any of them.”

  Julia jams her first stick in the ground at the tip of the shadow of the vertical stick.

  “First stick is in.”

  Time passes. I have a lot to write, and the mud dries fast.

  “The shadow has moved. Is it ten minutes yet?”

  “Yes. Ten minutes.”


  From my brain to my hand to the mud, it’s hard to translate everything. My inner clock dings. “Ten minutes,” I say again then keep going. The mud tablet almost dry. Soon you’ll have to be right above it to see that anything is even written here.

  “Ten minutes.”

  I’m running out of space. “Ten minutes.” And I finish.

  Julia steps back. The sticks line up, revealing the sun’s movement. I pry the glass shard of the tip and lay my writing stick alongside the four pegs that she’s been sticking in the sand over the last forty minutes.

  “That’s a perfect east-west line. And, at twelve noon, the long vertical stick will cast a shadow perpendicular to it, which will be a perfect north-south line.”

  “When’s that?”

  “In about five minutes.”

  She raises her eyebrows. She looks at my mud tablet. “What are those chicken scratches? It looks like ancient Sumerian.”

  “Shorthand. Another lost language. But, my brother knows it. Pick up the last stick.”

  She picks up the last and the longest of the three sticks she found for me. I hand her the last two glass shards from my pocket. “Poke holes in either end of the stick and put in the glass shards, so they are like gun sights.”

  She proceeds. I hover over her. She holds it up. “How’s that, Ranger Rick?”

  “Adequate.” I hand her the glass shard I pried off the writing tool. “Now, stick this in the middle, but underneath. This longer stick must balance on the vertical stick that’s already in the ground.”

  “Like a T-shape?”

  “Yes, but it has to tilt. I need to aim it at the sun at noon.”

  She pushes in the last glass shard hard enough to draw blood on the sides of her fingers, then walks into the circle and pushes the downward-facing shard into the stick coming out of the ground.

  “It’s not going to be sturdy enough,” she says. “The longer stick will fall off.”

  “It only has to work for a minute.”

  Julia pushes the glass in deeper, forming a “T.” The cactus wood is soft, so the longer stick tilts just enough. We stand back and admire our work.