Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-two
Hiking with Alexandre Allard is the last thing on earth I want to do, but at least I don’t have to talk to him—he is entirely silent—and I have my midge head net on, whereas he has nothing and the little bugs are fierce.
It’s a small comfort. My feet ache, my fingers throb, blisters form and pop on my heels, and I want to lie down and melt into the earth.
As views go, it’s stunning. It’s all brown-and-green grass and craggy, rock-strewn hills with a bruised sky above us threatening, but not yet delivering, rain.
We follow Gruinard River, the water slicing through the landscape.
Mountain hares dart through the long grass until only the tips of their long ears are visible.
There are no trees for anyone to hide behind, but I keep checking the direction we came from. No one is out here but us.
Until we’re about three hours into the hike, when I see movement distantly on the trail behind us. Something in a color that doesn’t belong in the earthen landscape. A black jacket, maybe. It’s too far away for me to tell, and then it’s gone.
“Why do you keep looking back, Dr. Wilder?” Allard sneers behind me. “Dane is not coming to rescue you. No one is.”
I don’t answer. It wouldn’t be Dane, not with a shot leg.
“There is no one else out here,” Allard says. “Keep walking.”
Thinking of Dane hurts too much, so I think of my dad.
Christine was closer with my mom, who was fierce and tense, whereas my dad was relaxed and happy.
My sister resented that my dad and I had a special bond over cracking puzzles together, mainly because she wasn’t good at them.
My mom wasn’t either, and they would make a big show of going out shopping or to see a movie while I stayed home with my dad to work on a cipher.
It suited all of us well, apart from the resentment.
It was during those moments alone with my dad that he’d teach me his strategies for solving puzzles.
“The trick,” he would say, “is to shut everything else out and laser in your focus. Let nothing else distract you. Devote your whole self to the problem and look at it from all angles.” I wish yet again that Christine and I had the wherewithal when we were younger to look deeper into my parents’ deaths and ask questions. Maybe I’ll do that when I get home.
If I get home.
At around the halfway point to Loch na Sealga, Allard stops us by a small stream.
He leans down and cups water in his hands as I stretch my calves, looking up the stream.
There’s a half-disemboweled, rotting hare in it.
I’m pretty sure I see maggots squirming in its exposed innards.
I think about telling Allard not to drink the water and decide not to.
“You’d better drink,” Allard says. My mouth waters at the idea, but…the hare.
“No,” I say. I’ll use the filter that Dane bought later, at a stream that does not have obvious signs of contamination.
“Don’t whine when you’re thirsty, then.”
I hate that he’s the one here with me. I hate the way this has all turned out. I squeeze my eyes to push away the tears that threaten.
A snap.
It was distant, the noise. But something made it, and it sounded heavy.
Like a person. Behind us, maybe around the bend from where we came.
Both Allard and I turn and look, but there’s no change to the landscape.
There is nothing out here to snap—no fallen tree branches or logs. So what made that noise?
“Let’s go,” Allard says. I look at the trail behind us, at the hills, straining to see anything, but there’s no movement but the wind ruffling the grass.
“Dr. Wilder,” he warns, giving me a little push to start walking.
It’s obvious someone is behind us. I decide it’s time to start testing Allard.
“You know the 1982?” I say. “He’s a pretty good tracker.”
He snorts. “We have established that you are easily fooled. The 1982 is not tracking me.”
He sounds sure, but I am equally sure he’s wrong.
We trudge on in silence, but my mention of the 1982 must have needled Allard because he says, “Did it feel nice to find out Seaver has been stringing you along this whole time? You have many papers and degrees to your name, Dr. Wilder, but this does not make you clever, does it? Think about that as you walk.”
What I think about is last night and this morning with Dane.
I had his full attention and focus. He cared about how I felt, about my pleasure.
That isn’t how you treat someone you’re faking it with.
And he continued to be affectionate. He’s been considerate the entire time we’ve been together.
Even if he was going to betray me, I know it was real between us.
I can’t stand the thought that he might be bleeding out right now, that he might not have made it to a hospital.
I shove that away so I don’t fixate on it.
It begins to rain, a fine sheet at first, but steadily increasing to a monotonous downpour.
Despite the rain and my head net, the midges are a terror, dive-bombing my netted face.
The ground becomes sloggy, which makes the going much harder and slower.
There are no birds or hares or other critters.
There is nothing but muddy, soggy, endless brown-and-green land.
I stumble more often, worn down by the endless trudge.
I don’t hear any other sounds behind us, but maybe the rain is muffling them.
Six exhausting hours in, we reach Loch na Sealga.
It’s early evening, and I’m ready to collapse.
Allard takes a small rocky path up a slope, emerging on a small shelf of land.
Nothing and no one are around us. No signs of a black jacket.
I can see why Allard chose this spot; it’s a perfect vantage point over the trail to see if anyone’s coming.
Maybe he is a little worried.
“Set up the tent,” he commands.
“I would, but someone broke two of my fingers.” I ease down to sit on a flat rock.
Allard throws down the tent and goes to work on it. As soon as it’s up, I heave my aching body off the rock and throw my sleeping bag inside with my good hand.
“I’m sleeping in the tent,” I tell him. “There’s only room for one. If you get in with me, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
He smiles grimly. “That’s cute. Maybe I’ll break an arm to remind you to keep your hands to yourself.”
“I can kick you with a broken arm,” I promise.
He appears to consider the logistics of this. He can’t stop me from kicking him, because if he breaks my legs, then I can’t walk. And I can’t sleep outside, because I’ll run. He apparently decides to ignore me, and I’m pretty sure I’ve won. And he’ll have to sleep outside with the midges.
Dinner is a packet of dehydrated soup that Dane bought at the camping store.
At least I’m able to get my water-filtration kit going, using water from a little creek next to the campsite.
Allard doesn’t express interest in this.
I think of the dead rabbit and hope that if it’s not norovirus, then maybe he’ll get cryptosporidium, a parasite found in water, which would be fitting for a cryptographic challenge.
“What are we looking for tomorrow?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “We didn’t figure out the final spot. I just know it’s out here.”
“Figure it out tonight,” he barks.
All too soon, he tells me to get in the tent for the night.
“Leave me the lantern,” I tell him, pointing to the small handheld battery lantern Dane bought. “I need it to study the map.”
Allard tosses it to me, and I barely catch it.
He turns away, and I crawl into the tent.
After zipping it behind me, I lie down on the sleeping bag.
It is utterly silent out here, except for Allard moving around the campsite.
The ass has to sleep at some point. I want to think I have it in me to ease out of the tent and run, but I’m exhausted and in pain and I don’t trust my own body.
The thought of him catching up and snapping more of my bones quashes any real plans.
After a while, there’s no noise. Either he’s gone to sleep or he’s wandered away and fallen down a convenient geothermal vent.
I replay the confrontation with Eric. No matter how I look at it, I can’t understand how Dane thought he’d explain bringing me to ProtoDark.
If I win the Enigma Challenge, which is looking increasingly unlikely, then I may have to work for them anyway, but that’s entirely different from being brought to them like a platter of meat.
I try to sleep, but hunger and fury won’t let me.
My fingers and wrist ache, and I have none of Luca’s magic pills, which are in my other bag at the Airbnb.
Worse, I’ve become too accustomed to the reassuring warmth of Dane, and I miss his solid presence like a limb.
I can smell him—us—in the sleeping bag. I hate not knowing if he’s okay.
Hot, quiet tears stream down the sides of my face.
I feel pointless, useless. Everything about this game was tolerable when it was with Dane.
In the cloud of my upset, I decide I won’t go on. Allard will have to break all of me, and that’s fine, I’ll just lie here with my broken self and just…be broken.
But when my tears have dried due to sheer exhaustion, I know this is bullshit.
I’m not going to sit here and let Allard dictate my fate.
I grab my backpack. I wish we hadn’t ditched my phone with that car in Inverness.
My good fingers search the bottom, grasping the Ordnance Survey map that we bought earlier today.
A ripple of panic goes through me again that I don’t know what we’re looking for.
Wandering around these mountains aimlessly with Allard is about as appealing as the 1982 catching us.
I unfold the map. It’s too big for the tent, but I maneuver it as best I can.
The map shows the area we’re in plus everything southwest. There are tons of rivers and trails marked.
I scour the area around Loch na Sealga so hard my eyes feel like they’re burning.
I’m about to give up and go to sleep when I see something.
There, just below two peaks called Beinn Dearg Bheag and Beinn Dearg Mòr, is a little mark that does not look like it belongs on an Ordnance Survey map.
It’s a half-moon and a star, printed on the map like they’re part of the elevation.
I think about the fifth puzzle’s riddle.
AT LONG LAST, THE STARS ALIGN WITH THE MOON
CHECK THE MAP AT SOLAR NOON
This is it.
This is what it meant. The moon and the star are right next to each other, and they are drawn well enough that they fit in with the elevation line.
The symbols are positioned between two small lochs, Loch Ghiubhsachain and Loch Beinn Dearg, in what looks like a valley.
If the map is correct, then the symbols are next to a stream called Allt Srath Beinn Dearg, which is…
I calculate maybe five miles from Loch na Sealga, around the two Munros called Beinn Dearg Bheag and Beinn Dearg Mòr.
I can’t pronounce any of these Gaelic names, which is fine because I have no intention of saying them aloud to Allard.
That spot on the map, marked by the sun and moon, is where we need to be tomorrow at 1:18 p.m.
The sound of Allard moving around the tent comes, his footsteps deliberate and careful.
I freeze, bracing myself for him to rip open the tent door and yell at me.
I click off the lantern light and ease down into the sleeping bag, listening.
Waiting. The footsteps come to my right but then fade to where I think Allard set the camp stove. Silence.
I stare at the ceiling of the tent and think.
I have successfully gotten three countries to sneak things in, Luca said when he told me about the map Easter eggs at Swisstopo.
One of those countries, I’m guessing, is the United Kingdom.