Chapter Eleven
Eleven
I think we’re going to keep running—certainly I’d like to get as far away as we can, possibly all the way to Norway, but Dane yanks me over behind a large stall outside of the market proper, selling lush containers of houseplants.
“Here,” he breathes, easing us between the wall and the plants. “They won’t think we’ve stopped so close to the exit.” We nestle behind wide monstera leaves, crouching as best we can.
The sound of running comes, and the two guys who were chasing us dart past. They don’t see us; they run out, across the plaza and away from the market.
“This is going to keep happening, isn’t it?” I say.
“I’d like to say no, but evidence points to yes.” He manages to look both grim and apologetic. “Thanks for the assist back there, by the way.”
I incline my head. “Likewise.”
The plant vendor is starting to give us hopeful looks that we might buy something, which means our time hiding is up. While carrying a potted hosta in front of my face as a disguise has its appeal, we need to get away from this market. We cross the plaza and go down a small alley.
“Eric called me,” I blurt. “He tried to get me to reveal if we’re still in Madrid.”
Dane says nothing, but there’s a slight flare of his nostrils and he rolls his eyes. I think he trusts me enough not to have told Eric where we were, which is nice.
“And he still hates you,” I add.
“Of course he does.”
“We need to get somewhere safe so I can look at this puzzle,” I say.
“Agreed,” Dane says. “I guess the hotel—”
“Let’s get a taxi,” I say, pointing. We walk over to Carrer del Carme, which is little more than an alley with a one-car, one-way lane.
A black-and-yellow cab passes, going up the charming street with ornate buildings leaning in and creating a closed-in, village-like feel.
Another taxi approaches, and I wave it down. It pulls to an abrupt stop.
“Good thinking,” Dane says as we get in. “Harder to track us in a car.”
“Where would you like to go?” the driver asks.
We need a place where we can get lost and work through the puzzle without being sitting targets.
The hotel is an option, but maybe a museum will do.
The Sagrada Família is too obvious, and walking around a cathedral again doesn’t appeal.
Gaudí’s green-blue, serpentine Casa Batlló is something I want to see, but I don’t relish the idea of being in a house where anyone after us might trap us.
The Picasso Museum could be a good choice, but crowds will likely be there too.
I think about other places I saw in the guidebook and remember one.
“Fundació Joan Miró,” I tell the driver. It’s the museum dedicated to artist Joan Miró. The driver nods, and the car begins to move.
“Interesting choice,” Dane says. “Miró’s work is all over Barcelona if you’re looking to see some of it. There’s a mosaic back on La Rambla.”
“Yes,” I say, “but that would mean walking around like it’s open season for every thug after us. What bad guy is going to wander into a fifteen-minute museum film on Miró’s artistic response to the horrors of the Spanish Civil War?”
“Right,” Dane says, not looking enthused.
I smile and pat his leg. “You’re going to love it.”
■ ■ ■
The Miró museum is housed in a chunky white brutalist-style building in Montjüic Park.
I see a sign for a funicular that I would really like to ride, and I regret again that we’re not here for fun.
I’d love to take a trolley on a leisurely journey instead of being pursued by multiple parties of violent people.
The museum isn’t busy. Dane buys our tickets, and we walk inside.
I spot a sign for the museum’s theater, directing us downstairs, and I pull Dane that way.
It’s quiet here, the din of tourists on the main level barely audible.
The film, which has just started, is exactly as I suspected: a twenty-minute look at the life of Joan Miró, and it’s on a loop.
Dane grabs a folding chair that’s leaning against the wall next to the door and wedges it under the handle so no one can come in.
“This was not a bad idea,” Dane admits as we settle into the seats. “At the least, anyone who’s after us has to pay fifteen euros to see if we’re in here. It might be a deterrent.”
I laugh. “You’re saying a fifteen-euro admission fee is a deal-breaker when millions are on the line?”
He shrugs. “There aren’t any corporate expense accounts for thuggery.”
“Why didn’t they try to get the egg themselves rather than chase us?”
“Easier to steal it from someone who already got it, especially when they use brute force instead of intellect. There are always people who don’t actually know how to solve the puzzles and won’t even try, but they play anyway with the intention of stealing the solutions from the players who do the work. ”
“Will there be more eggs at the fountain today?” I ask. “Or is this the only one?”
“I don’t know,” Dane admits. “In the past two challenges, the winner was the person who was first to solve the final puzzle, so it was about speed. It made it easy for me to come in first. But this is entirely different. Because the first puzzle this year relied on that guidebook and there were only a few copies available, I suspect each puzzle has opportunities for a few players to solve it. And I bet those opportunities shrink by the fourth or fifth puzzle, where it becomes a game of who gets there first. We’re either ahead or we’re one of many solving these. There’s no way to know.”
I cringe at the idea of someone else defiling that fountain to get another egg, but I can’t think about that now.
I reach down my shirt to pull out the puzzle and notice in the dim light that Dane tracks the movement.
Without asking, he shines the light of his phone on the paper as I unfold it across my lap.
The shape of the paper is a circle, cut perfectly around a map. It looks like a printout from a web-based map with that familiar blue and green. We both lean over to look closer, and I catch a whiff of the hotel soap on him.
“It’s Barcelona,” he says, pointing out the main thoroughfare by the water. “Looks like whatever it’s showing us, it’s close to the shore.”
There is a rectangle of green on the map with a rounded blunt end. And the silhouette of a rabbit on it, so faint that I almost don’t see it. It’s almost exactly like the image of the rabbit on my sweatshirt: stretched out, mid-leap.
I feel his eyes on me, and I look up. He’s biting his lip. “This looks like your sweatshirt from yesterday. It’s not like rabbits are uncommon, but that would be a pretty big coincidence. This puzzle might be about you.”
A shiver goes down my back. “That’s…weird. You’re saying they designed this around me?”
“Maybe.” He purses his lips in thought.
I don’t like that. “Why me? What does ProtoDork care who I am?”
He snorts at my new name for them. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure that out.” He uses his phone to open his map app. I notice a pattern around the edges of the circle on our paper copy. Dots and dashes. I bend down close, my head in Dane’s space.
“Ahem,” he says in a mock-offended tone.
I don’t bother moving. “Sorry. It’s…” The pattern is disguised as a border around the map. “It’s Morse code.”
“The map’s of a cemetery,” Dane says. “Cementiri del Poblenou.” He turns his phone so I can see, and the shape on his map app definitely matches the one on the paper.
I take out a pen from my pack and convert the dots and dashes to letters. The code is five words.
. .-.. / .--. . - --- / -…/ .-…- / -- --- .-.—
It converts to
EL PETO DE LA MORT
Dane has his phone out already, looking it up. “That translates to ‘The Kiss of Death.’ ”
“That’s grim,” I say.
“It’s a statue, in that cemetery.” He turns his phone to show me. It’s a photo of a striking statue on an aboveground tomb, a skeleton with magnificent feathered wings kissing the head of what looks like a kneeling corpse rendered in white marble. It’s both beautiful and horrifying.
A thump comes from the door to the theater, like someone has yanked the door.
I exchange a look with Dane as we get to our feet. It could be another guest trying to watch the film, but whoever it is slams their hand against the door violently.
We’ve been found.