Chapter Four #2
“If by ‘work something out’ you mean I keep most of the cash, then sure.” I smile to soften it, but that prize money means more to me than it does to him, especially when he’s a two-time champion already. “I’ll take ninety percent.”
He laughs. “Fifty percent.”
“Eighty.”
“Sixty-five.”
“I take seventy-five percent. That’s my final offer.”
He smiles. “I tentatively agree.” The smile disappears. “Listen, I play because the game is addictive. It’s the rush of solving the puzzles, of going to a new place.” He shakes his head. “It’s probably not healthy.”
“No,” I agree. “It isn’t.” I certainly won’t play this game again. “So what do we do once we get to Barcelona?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “That’s for you to figure out. Are we officially working together?”
“I don’t think I have a choice.” I grab my backpack and start feeling for the guidebook.
“There’s always a choice,” he says. I don’t know what to say to that—going this thing alone feels like scaling Mount Everest with nothing but a paper bag to breathe in for oxygen. I pull out the guidebook and begin removing the shrink-wrap. Something slams up against our closed compartment door.
A face appears in the window of our door: pale, withdrawn, and utterly ghoulish. Then it’s gone as suddenly as it appeared. I don’t even have time to yell; all I can do is make a choking sound and point.
“The door,” I manage. “A guy looking in.” I want to articulate how creepy it was, but Dane’s on his feet anyway. He starts to ease open the door.
“Should you do that?” I whisper. “Maybe just keep it closed.”
He ignores me, muscles tensed, waiting. Nothing happens. After a moment, he opens the door fully and sticks his head out into the aisle.
He pulls back in and runs a hand over his face. “We should move compartments.”
I grab my backpack and join him in the aisle. He’s alert, looking back and forth as we open the connecting doors at the end of our car and go into the next.
“Who do you think it was?” I ask.
“I don’t know. Another player, maybe.” His tone is grim.
A horrible chill crawls over my scalp.
Dane motions for me to go. The doors to the next car, which are plexiglass, open automatically with a quiet whoosh, and we walk the length of the next car.
We’re two cars down when there’s a commotion behind us in the car we’ve just left.
A man is running toward us, eyes wide in panic.
He looks familiar, and my mind races to place him.
It’s Paolo Marini, the Italian cryptology expert I wanted to meet today.
I stare at him, trying to reconcile his being here on the train and not where I pictured meeting him, at the conference.
Light glints off a large red signet ring on his pinkie finger, which I remember from his website photo.
I open my mouth to say something, although I’m not sure what. Introductions are hardly appropriate.
And then I notice someone is behind him, running just as fast. The man who looked into our compartment.
“Go!” Dane says, pushing me through the connecting doors. I run through the next car, heart pounding. We’ve put distance between us and Professor Marini, who is slowed by the connecting doors. It’s a small relief as we run down the length of the car.
“That guy’s a professor presenting at the conference,” I tell Dane over my shoulder.
“And someone is after him,” he says. I get close to the connecting doors to trigger them to open.
Dane urges me on with a hand on my backpack as we dart through into the next car.
I chance a look back. Professor Marini is still behind us, as is the man chasing him, and people are now alerted to the commotion, sticking their heads into the aisle.
A few stand, shouting at us in Spanish for running.
All four of us are in the same car now, me and Dane at one end and Professor Marini and the unknown man at the other.
The connecting doors slide open, and we burst into the next car, which is also full of seated passengers.
I’m winded, but we tear through this car and the next.
Fear clutches at me, but I manage to worry about how many cars are in this train, and what will we do when we run out?
I stumble, and without pausing, Dane grabs my hand and rights me.
The doors to the next car slide open. Dane slows, opening one of the compartment doors before shutting it again—it’s full, I assume.
I use the pause to look back again. Professor Marini is on the other side of the doors to this car, but the man chasing him has caught up.
The pursuer is wearing what looks like all-black tactical clothes, and his eyes seem too large for his pale face.
He’s holding a gun, a sleek-looking pistol.
I can see it through the connecting doors’ windows.
“He has a gun,” I say in a high-pitched voice I didn’t know I had.
Dane yanks me forward, as though either of us can outrun a bullet.
I look back once more. My body goes cold as Professor Marini opens the doors to our car. The man behind takes aim. We’re all in the car together, and it’s gone so bad, so quickly.
“No!” I yell. “Professor!”
“Run, Zoe!” Dane yells just as the shot rings.