The Danger Game

by Ian Bull

  “Eyes up! Man coming down!”

  A man dressed in black camouflage flies down the line, the cord hissing. He touches the barge surface. It’s Carl in full camo gear. He unclips, waves at the chopper, and it zooms away.

  He rushes to Julia first and helps her take off her helmet and goggles. Her hair is charred, and she’s got blisters on her scalp, face and arms. She points at me and yells to Carl.

  Two more men yelling in Portuguese rush forward and surround her, pushing Carl back. One is carrying a first aid kit. Paramedics. Good.

  Carl drops to his knees in front of me next, sending up a splash. We both look down and realize we’re in a huge puddle of my own blood. He sees the knife so deep in my thigh, it has to be stuck in my bone.

  “Him first!”

  The paramedics surround me. “Don’t pull the knife out.”

  Everything goes black.

  56

  TINA SWIG

  Sunday, March 17, 3:00 p.m. (CET)

  Sicily

  When we drop anchor, Messina is on the port side. Carlos pulls in the tender that we’ve been towing and ties it against the bottom swim step for easy boarding. We left Agrigento and made it around the bottom of Sicily and up to its northeastern tip in sixteen hours. We are moving fast, but not fast enough.

  We drop off Ismael first. He’ll actually appreciate the ancient city of Taormina in the hills. Then, we’ll motor north to drop off Min in Amalfi and Elliot in Naples. None of them know this, however. The less they know about our plans, the less damage they could do to us later. The frat boys are packed and waiting below deck, like three Club Med employees who spent a great summer together but will never see each other again.

  Whatever is happening in Baja is a mystery. Steven and Julia are supposed to be dead, but Douglas hasn’t told me anything. Only he is in contact with Heyman.

  Maybe he’s tired. We’ve all been awake more than twenty-four hours. Or maybe we’re screwed. I want these fucking kids off this ship.

  Douglas calls the boys up from their cabins. They gather around the dining room table on the back deck, their hands jammed deep in their pockets, looking at their feet. Douglas emerges with a dark bottle of spirits and four cordial glasses. “A final drink before the first departure?”

  Douglas sets the cordial glasses down on a table and uncorks the Goldschlåger. “This is cinnamon flavored schnapps with gold leaf. Drink up, boys.”

  They pick up their glasses and stare at the gold leaf floating in their clear glasses.

  “Is that real gold?” Elliot asks.

  “Gold flake. For three hard-working, young men who are soon to be very rich. Cheers.” Douglas holds up his glass and they all clink and drink.

  “Not bad,” Elliot says. “I like drinking gold.”

  The men stare at their empty cordial glasses and then at Douglas, their eyes wide like deer frozen in the headlights.

  “It’s not just gold. Each of you just drank a microchip designed to activate itself in the acids in your stomach, and then push through the wall of the small intestine and embed itself, where it will emit a constant signal. I’ll always know where you are.” They stare at him like shocked raccoons. I could wave my hand in front of their faces, and none of them would blink.

  Douglas sets his drink down. It’s still full. “Never contact each other again. If you do, I will know, and I will kill you. You can access your money in a few days. Transfer only enough so that you can stay off the grid until September. Enjoy a long spring and summer backpacking through Europe before contacting anyone you know. Even your parents. No internet cafés, no phones, nothing. That chip will alert me if you do. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Boss Man,” they all say in unison.

  Douglas hands Ismael his passport. “Enjoy your new life. Now get off my ship.”

  Ismael picks his bag off the deck and darts down the stairs to the swim deck without making eye contact with any of us. He climbs in the tender, sits on a cushion, then glances down like he’s ashamed. Carlos throws off the line and motors away.

  Douglas goes into the main cabin, leaving Min and Elliot stunned and silent on the back deck. I follow him inside.

  “That was amazing, my love. Are they really carrying embedded microchips?”

  “Of course not. But they don’t know that.” He winks at me.

  I kiss him on the lips. “Brilliant. And you made more than a billion dollars in less than a week.”

  “It was your idea. I just executed it.”

  “No one could have done it better.”

  I want to ask if Steven and Julia are still alive, but don’t dare. I’ll assume they are dead and that he will tell me when we’re safe.

  Douglas pulls me to him. He slides a hand down the back of my linen drawstring pants and touches my ass cheek. “Would you like to celebrate? In the master suite?”

  My hands touch his chest. “Yes, but don’t we need to worry about Elliot and Min? It will be several hours before we drop each of them off, and I won’t feel completely comfortable until they’re both gone.”

  “Carlos will be back in a few minutes. Once we’re under way again, they’ll stay on that back deck without moving or speaking.”

  I smile and kiss him. Nothing will feel comfortable until Devon, Douglas, and I board another yacht and our crew scuttles Reckoning, sending it to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Then, we’ll go ashore on Malta, where we have citizenship and new identities waiting for us, and our new lives can begin.

  “May I speak to Devon first? I haven’t spoken to him in hours.”

  “Of course. We have been neglectful. Both of us.”

  “Working for his benefit.”

  “Take your time, my love. I’ll be in the master suite doing my final research.” He kisses me, then heads off.

  The engines rumble up and metal clanging starts as they pull the anchor off the sea floor. Either Carlos made it to shore and back in record time or the tender is going to catch up with the yacht while we’re underway. The crew is wasting no time.

  The main cabin looks bare. The walnut cabinets that held the computers and monitors are empty now. Douglas already tossed them to the bottom of the sea. No evidence remains of what we accomplished here.

  On the other side of the sliding glass doors, Min and Elliot sit on opposite sides of the wide and empty back deck. They face each other without speaking, the wind whipping their hair, with the wake of our speeding yacht framed between them. Douglas is right; they won’t speak for the next six hours.

  I climb the teak stairs and tap on Devon’s door.

  “Enter, earthling.” He uses his science fiction villain voice.

  I enter his teenage lair. “Are you an alien from another world now?”

  He motors toward me at a reasonable speed, and smiles. This time he’s kind and gentle, which happens once in every six conversations. A mother can’t ask for much more from her teenage son. “Yes, I am an alien. I always have been. Look at me.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re my son.”

  “Thinking of myself as an alien helps me survive this world. Somewhere in the galaxy, my planet awaits me.”

  “Let’s start with a country. Pick one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Douglas and I want you to pick a country where we can all live for a few years.”

  “I’d have to think about it.”

  “What about England?”

  “Mom, if we’re going to live in England, just say it. Don’t pretend that I have a choice.”

  “I just thought you’d want to be closer to Cambridge and Professor Carlton. You’re already a student there. You could finish your studies and get your PhD that much faster."

  “I don’t need a degree. I’m too cool for school.”

  Blood rushes to my head. I stop breathing.

  “Mom? You look funny.”

  “What have you done?” I dash into his bathroom, grab a towel, and hang it over the intercom, tugging
hard until I feel the terrycloth slip behind the metal. I look around for embedded cameras. Can he see us too?

  Devon’s zooms toward me. He looks scared. “What is it?”

  My fists clench so tight my nails dig into the flesh of my palms. “Are you Too Cool for School?”

  “Okay, I’ll go to Cambridge!”

  He moves to get out of the suite, but I pull a chair in front of the door and sit in it.

  My eyes close. Inhale. Exhale. My lungs expand and contract ten times.

  When they open again, Devon is six inches away, looking even more scared. “Mom. You’re freaking me out.”

  Douglas still may be listening. My voice drops to a whisper. “Devon, this is very important. I won’t be mad, but I need to know the truth.”

  “Okay,” he whispers back.

  “Have you been playing The Rescue Game online, and using the hashtag Too Cool for School?”

  His face flushes to an even darker red. “I was having trouble with the Hodge conjecture. I needed to relax.”

  “So, the answer is yes?”

  “Yes.”

  I close my eyes and exhale. My own son is Too Cool for School. How did this happen? The thought hits me and my eyes fly open. Devon has backed away and turned his chair so he’s facing out the window. We are passing through the Strait of Messina, moving at a high speed. We’ll be off the Amalfi Coast soon, but not soon enough.

  “Look at me, Devon.”

  “I don’t want to. I can answer better if I don’t see your face.”

  The side of his face is wet. He’s crying. My heart aches.

  “Whispers only, okay? Are you and Rebecca…having an affair?”

  “No…I mean, yes…we were—”

  “It’s not a bad thing.”

  “She wasn’t doing it because she liked me. I mean, she did like me, but not that way. She was doing it because she was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Afraid of Douglas.”

  It’s making sense. So much sense that it digs a hole in my stomach that makes me nauseous. “I’m sorry.”

  “I do want a girlfriend. I want…”

  “What do you want?”

  He sighs. His lungs can’t actually sigh that well, but his software allows him to choose a computer-generated human response. “I want to go to a planet where I fit in.”

  “So, she stopped it? Or did you?”

  “I did. And I was stuck on the Hodge conjecture and bored, and you wouldn’t let me off this boat. Rebecca does like me, too, just not in that way. And she knew she had to keep me happy, that was her job.”

  “So, what did she do?”

  “She gave me the code to the Wi-Fi and told me about The Rescue Game.”

  “She told you about it?”

  “She thought I’d like it, and I did. I was good at it. I solved the puzzles right away, and sent them in.”

  Obedient and perfect Rebecca. So silent. A cypher who I took for granted and ignored. She’s known the entire time what we’ve been doing and betrayed us by telling Devon. Why? Either she hates Douglas or loves Douglas or both. She’s been with him for almost a decade.

  “Where is Rebecca now?”

  “Gone. She said she was going to disappear and reinvent herself. She said you and Douglas would both understand.”

  My skin flushes hot. Disappear and reinvent herself. That’s the phrase Douglas and I use with one another. She loves him but hates us both. Is that it?

  When did we last have contact? She gave us cookies and espresso last night, before we pulled the plug on the game. She got off the yacht in Agrigento or Messina ….

  Was she hiding on the tender that Ismael boarded? Did she swim? Call a water taxi?

  It doesn’t matter. She’s gone now, and since Douglas has been paying her well for the past ten years, she really has disappeared. My teeth clench. “Bitch.”

  “I liked her, Mom. And she liked me. Just not that way. And it was wrong of Douglas to make her do that with me.”

  The ship rises and falls on the swells, motoring fast. We’ve left Sicily behind and we’re in the open Tyrrhenian Sea now. We’ll be off the Amalfi Coast in three hours, where Min gets dropped next. Douglas is in our master suite doing “research.”

  On what? On whether Steven and Julia are alive. On who Too Cool for School is. He’ll know as much as I know—more—and soon.

  My butt falls into a chair. Always have a plan.

  Devon turns his chair and lowers himself so that we’re eye to eye. “What is so bad about playing The Rescue Game? It was fun. Rebecca and I did it together. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing with girls at my age, playing video games.”

  The ship slams down hard in a wave. My hand flies out and I lock his wheelchair into place.

  He scowls. “I can do that electronically now, mother. You don’t need to worry about me every minute.”

  “How long has she been helping you?”

  “Since the game launched. She signed into the Wi-Fi, helped me take notes, and then wrote the submissions for me for The Rescue Game.”

  “After I specifically told you that the internet was off limits, and that only I would send emails for you?”

  Devon turns his chair to the window again. “You ignored me. You and Douglas thought if Rebecca gave me blowjobs I’d be happy on this dumb boat.”

  “That’s disgusting. Don’t talk that way.”

  “All I did was go online and play a storytelling app! That’s one step below an online escape room.”

  “Shh. Devon, look at me. This is important. Us against the world important.”

  Devon hears me. Us against the world is what we’d say to each other back in my days as a single mom with no money, raising a disabled child.

  He turns his wheelchair and faces me again. The whole room rises and falls as the yacht crashes through the swells. “We can tell each other anything. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Douglas and I created The Danger Game. It’s really happening. And you playing The Rescue Game has put us in danger.”

  Devon’s eyes widen. “I’m seasick.” He gags, then throws up on himself. His stomach problems are back.

  I rush to the bathroom, grab a hand towel, and rush back. He pulls away at first, then allows me to wipe him clean. The smell of his bile sends me back a decade, when he’d throw up all the time, when he’d get sores in every chair we got him, when we’d have to clean and disinfect his breathing tubes again and again to keep his lungs and mouth clean from infection, when keeping him alive was a daily struggle.

  Our eyes lock. We’re back there in an instant—our shared battle. It’s a closeness, our closeness, which I didn’t think I’d ever miss once we got his health under control, once he found joy within the genius of his own mind.

  “I’ve done terrible things, but for us. Because I know you can change the world.”

  He blinks at me, confused, then closes his eyes and nods. He puts his lips over his mouthpiece and twists his mouth until the voice of Paul Newman returns again. “And you want to protect me.”

  “Yes. And that’s why you have to tell me everything.”

  “Okay.”

  “Have you been going online into chat rooms as Too Cool for School?”

  “On Stack Exchange and the Gamers Forever subreddit. Rebecca did it for me.”

  “When you were throwing your tantrum yesterday because we shut down all communication, did you then go online again?”

  “Rebecca said you changed your mind. She gave me her cell phone, and we used it as a Wi-Fi hot spot. She wanted me to do it. We were still in the harbor at Agrigento.”

  “Where’s her phone now?”

  His eyes point at the laptop computer mounted on his chair. The base is raised just enough to slide a cellphone underneath it—my fingers pull out her phone with the pink case. Damn, it’s still on.

  “Don’t leave this room.”

  I dash down the staircase to the main floor, o
ut on the back deck, and I throw the phone into the moving sea, trying to erase Rebecca and all the damage she’s done.

  It takes me just five seconds to get up the staircase and back inside his room. “How long did it take you to solve Steven Quintana’s message?”

  “Thirty minutes,” He says, adding a hint of pride to his Paul Newman voice.

  “The scribbles, the circle, the sticks…what was it?”

  “Their latitude. I calculate it to be twenty-seven degrees north of the equator, plus or minus ten miles.”

  “How can you be so accurate?”

  Devon laughs. “Mom, this is how they measured latitude around the world before computers. This is old school.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “That they’re in Baja, California, approximately fifteen miles from the Pacific Ocean. Quintana messaged that using sign language and Morse code.”

  He hits the return button on his keyboard. A map of a section of Baja comes on the screen on his chair, showing a section of the El Vizcaíno Biosphere Reserve. When Douglas installed the high speed, fiber-optic cable in Baja, he built several hidden warehouses up and down the remote peninsula, and that’s damn close to where the warehouse is.

  “Erase all of that.”

  Blue swells rush past the window. Soon, the Amalfi Peninsula will appear on the horizon, with its colorful towns tumbling down steep hillsides. But, I no longer give a shit about Italy. I don’t want to stay long enough to even get a slice of fucking pizza. I want to dump Min there, and then Elliot in Naples, and be gone.

  Devon comes alongside. “Are you planning?”

  “I’m still thinking.” If he sent the latitude message out, then they know where Steven and Julia are. Maybe Carl Webb and Trishelle are telling the FBI and LAPD everything. Or not. Peter Heyman should have killed Steven and Julia by now. Or Carl Webb got the message and performed his stupid action hero bit. I do not know.

  But Douglas does. He’s in the master suite, talking to his people around the world, figuring out exactly what happened, with up-to-the-minute updates about what’s happening in Baja.