The Prisoner's Dilemma (23 page)

Gentlemen,

I have arranged for you to meet my most highly placed contact in government. He may be accompanied by certain associates, but you must bring him to me alone. Above all, you must be discreet—if our enemies learn his identity, all is lost. Do not fail me. Your rendezvous instructions are opposite.

Sincerely,

Your Employer

“What does
rendezvous
mean?” Constance asked. She pronounced the word as if it rhymed with “Ben says mouse.”

“It’s French,” said Sticky. “It’s pronounced RON-day-voo. It means a meeting at a certain time and place. ‘Your rendezvous instructions are opposite’ means the instructions for determining that time and place are on the opposite side.”

“Oh!” said Constance, flipping the paper over. “I mean, I knew that.”

“If we can figure those instructions out,” said Kate, “we’ll know where the Ten Men are supposed to meet this ‘highly placed contact’—someone whose identity Mr. Curtain needs to keep secret at all costs. In other words, Constance, this is big.”

Constance, frowning, had flipped the paper back over to study Mr. Curtain’s note. “But what about the Z?”

It took the others a moment to realize what she was talking about.

“It’s silent,” Sticky assured her.

Constance’s frown deepened. “Well, that’s stupid. Why not just leave it out?”

“How about we save grammar discussions for another time?” Reynie suggested.

Kate took the note from her and reread the instructions, which were as follows:

In the root

By the mover

To the north

At noon

“He’s using code words again,” Kate said, “or maybe just vague language he knows they’ll understand. We ought to be able to figure it out though, right? We figured out the last one. So let’s put our heads together!”

But though “to the north” and “at noon” were easy enough to understand, “in the root” and “by the mover” were not, and after several minutes of consideration the children had yet to come up with anything like an answer.

“I can’t believe those guys figured it out so quickly,” said Kate. “It hardly took them a second.”

“They must have some trick,” said Sticky, “some strategy they apply to decipher the instructions.”

Reynie sat up straight. “You know what? Mr. Curtain
gave
them the trick! He said the instructions were
opposite
!”

“So?” said Kate. Then she brightened.
“Oh!”

Constance scowled. “But Sticky said ‘opposite’ meant—”

“It isn’t Sticky’s fault,” Reynie said. “That’s exactly why Mr. Curtain wrote it that way, to throw off anyone who wasn’t supposed to read this note. He’s being careful, see? But the Ten Men must have known about the trick ahead of time. They’re probably familiar with all these code words, too—the instructions just make things easier for them.”

“They
must
be familiar with the code words,” said Kate, “because it isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to guess the opposite of ‘root,’ is it? Or maybe I’m speaking too soon—maybe you boys know the answer already.”

Reynie shrugged. “‘Stem’? ‘Flower’? It’s hard to know what he means by ‘opposite.’” He scratched his head. “Or what he means by ‘root,’ for that matter. It has lots of different meanings, now that I think of it. You can root for your favorite team—”

“The opposite of that would be ‘boo’ or ‘jeer,’ maybe,” said Kate.

“You can root around for something in a bag—”

“So the opposite would be to hide something?” Constance said. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, there’s the square root of a number,” Sticky suggested, “the opposite of which would be the square…” He faltered when he saw Reynie giving him a strange look. “Right. I know. Obviously the Ten Men aren’t going to meet in a math problem somewhere. I was just—”

“But they
can
meet in the
square
!” interrupted Reynie. “A city square! I think you’ve got it, Sticky!”

“I… I guess you’re right!” said Sticky, surprised. “Now we just have to figure out
which
square!”

“There’s more than one?” Constance said, making a face. “Oh, brother. For a second there I was getting my hopes up.”

“He says ‘by the mover,’” said Kate. “Do you think he means an earth mover? You know—a bulldozer? Are they doing construction in any of the squares, Sticky?”

“You’re forgetting it’s supposed to be the opposite,” Constance said. “There’s no opposite of a bulldozer, is there? Is there any such a thing as a bull
waker
? Or a cowdozer? Come on, Kate, use your head!”

“You know, I’m starting to regret finding you,” Kate muttered.

“Let’s think about this,” said Reynie before Constance could respond. “A mover is someone or something that moves. So what is the opposite of that?”

“Someone or something that doesn’t move,” said Sticky.

“A statue!” cried Kate and Reynie at the same time.

Sticky sucked in his breath. “Guess what? Only one square in Stonetown has a statue, and that’s Ferund Square! The others all have fountains or parks!”

“Okay,” Reynie said, rubbing his chin, “so they’re to meet in the square, by the statue, on the south side—I think we can agree that south is the opposite of north—and, well, I guess the opposite of noon must be midnight, right?”

“We’ve done it!” said Kate. “We’ve figured out their rendezvous! Oh, and this is
perfect
—the observation deck of the Pittfall Building is on that square, and it gives a direct view of that statue! It’s even on the south side! If I go up there—”

“You?” Reynie said.

“Oh, well, Milligan then. Whoever. The point is you would be in a perfect spot to spy on their rendezvous without being seen yourself. It’s all glassed in with reflective windows and everything. We couldn’t have asked for a better setup! This is going to work out brilliantly!”

It did seem perfect. The only catch was that no one knew about the rendezvous but them. Mr. Benedict still had not shown up, and midnight was less than an hour away. What if he was still asleep, wherever he was? What if he was awake but something had happened? What if he was trying to come to the library but was delayed? What if he wasn’t coming at all?

After mulling these possibilities over, Kate jumped up. “Sorry, but I just can’t risk it! I can’t sit here and give up what may be our last chance to stop Mr. Curtain. I have to go! You three can tell Mr. Benedict everything when he comes. I’ll be careful, I promise!” She was already strapping her bucket to her belt.

“You aren’t serious, are you?” Sticky said. “Oh, wait, it’s you—of course you’re serious.”

“It’s only eight blocks,” Kate said. “I can be there in no time.”

“Kate, I don’t feel right about this,” Reynie said.

“I know, I know—you think you should come with me. Well, I won’t force you to stay if that’s how you feel. But we need to make tracks. Right now the Ten Men are probably still watching Mr. Benedict’s house, so this is absolutely the safest time to go. We’ll be less likely to bump into them on the streets, and we can be on the observation deck before they even show up.”

“No… no, that’s true,” Reynie said. “I don’t think you should go alone, but… I don’t know, I can’t explain it, something just feels wrong. I don’t think
any
of us should go.”

Kate hesitated. She trusted Reynie’s judgment, yet she was not one to be shaken from her course without good reason. “Look, if you can tell me why, I’ll stay. But if it’s just a feeling…” She shrugged. “Well, we’re all nervous, right? I’m nervous myself. But nothing could be safer than that observation deck. It will be dark up there, easy to hide, and if I leave right now no one will see me.”

They were all looking at Reynie, waiting for him to explain his reluctance. But he couldn’t. There seemed to be a hundred things to think about at once, and he couldn’t pin down any of them. His only clear thought was that Kate was right, that this really might be their last chance. And what a chance!
If our enemies learn his identity,
Mr. Curtain had written,
all is lost.

“Okay, but please be careful,” he said at last. “I mean extra careful. Like if you were me and not you.”

“You got it!” Kate said with a laugh, and she flew down the stairs without waiting for another word.

“She didn’t even say goodbye,” humphed Constance.

Reynie was staring after her in dismay. He had realized, an instant too late, that they hadn’t discussed what Kate would do afterward. Would she come back to the library? Would she wait there? And—the thought suddenly occurred to him—what if she didn’t get a good look at this secret contact? Would she try to
follow
the Ten Men? Surely she wouldn’t!

But even as he thought it, Reynie knew better. Kate surely would. And she had purposely hightailed it out of the library before Reynie had a chance to talk her out of any such thing.

“Should we go after her?” Sticky said, when Reynie had shared his concerns. “Maybe we could talk some sense into her, or cling to her legs or something.”

“Even if she did follow them, I don’t see how dangerous it could be,” said Constance. “For all this talk about how careful he is, Mr. Curtain has been awfully careless. I think he’s gotten overconfident, don’t you? I mean, it’s ridiculous—couldn’t he have had his Ten Men learn some harder codes? Sure, we had to work a little, but it took us, what, a few minutes? He’s not working all that hard to cover his tracks.”

“So are you saying we shouldn’t worry?” Sticky said. “I find that kind of hard, you know, since—”

“Oh no,” said Reynie, in a tone of deepest dread. “Oh no, oh no! That’s it! What Constance just said—that’s it, that’s what’s been bothering me! Mr. Curtain isn’t being careful enough! Not at all! Finally everything makes sense, and oh—it’s the worst kind of sense! We
have
to go after Kate! She’s walking right into a trap!”

T
his time, despite the rising feeling of panic in his gut, Reynie remembered to leave a better note. Scribbling as fast as he could, he explained everything to Mr. Benedict, folded the paper together with Mr. Curtain’s note, stapled them both closed, and ran out the front door of the library, where he did his best to explain himself to the startled security guard. He was forced to trust the man—he had little choice—but he kept his request simple: If someone came looking for the children, would the guard please pass along this note and say it was urgent? Then, just as Kate had done to Reynie minutes before, Reynie sprinted away before the confused man could argue.

Sticky and Constance were waiting behind the library. He had told them he would explain everything, and so he did, speaking between gasps, for the three of them were running full tilt. The boys took turns giving Constance piggyback rides, and sometimes she ran on her own legs, but they all knew that even with their best effort they could never catch Kate. They only hoped to reach her before the Ten Men did.

For Reynie saw now, in his mind’s eye, all the pieces of a puzzle that earlier he hadn’t even known existed. The first piece had been Mr. Bane’s odd behavior upstairs: Reynie realized now that Mr. Bane had been waiting to tell them privately—and them specifically—about Crawlings leaving the girls’ room. He’d needed to make sure they went in and discovered the torn-up note. No doubt the Ten Men had collared him and told him what to do.

The second puzzle piece was the note itself: Yes, Crawlings was careless—and Mr. Curtain probably knew that the children knew this—but would he really have left those instructions in the wastepaper basket? Not without expecting them to be found.

And then there was McCracken: He hadn’t seemed to expect to find anything in the Monk Building. He’d even said the office must be searched “if only as a matter of form.” In other words, the search had to appear to explain why they’d been there.
That was their stated reason,
Reynie thought grimly. But their
real
reason had been something quite different. It was the same reason that McCracken—normally so cautious—had not objected when Crawlings threw the wadded instructions away in the office. He’d even dropped the envelope to the floor himself.

Breakable codes and findable clues. Everything had been done on purpose.

Mr. Curtain knew what the children were like; he knew they would take risks to stop him if given a chance. And so—quite cleverly, careful not to overdo it—he had given them that chance, had left them a trail they couldn’t resist following. Hadn’t they overheard Crawlings and Garrotte saying that Mr. Curtain had another plan for catching them? Well, this was it. And most distressing of all was that it was still working. Kate was running right into a trap, and her friends were running right after her.

“He had nothing to lose,” Reynie panted as they moved down a crowded sidewalk, keeping close together near the wall, “and everything to gain. He knows we’re Mr. Benedict’s greatest weakness—that’s how
he
sees it—and if he catches us he can use us to get what he wants. There was no reason not to try. He hasn’t even put himself at risk.”

“So they were hoping to lure us to the Monk Building, but they didn’t know about the anteroom?” Sticky asked, still trying to make sense of what Reynie was telling them.

Reynie stopped to let Sticky take over carrying Constance, who suddenly seemed to weigh more than a piano. “If they had known,” he said, starting off again, “they’d have grabbed us right then, wouldn’t they? McCracken mentioned something about roofs—I think he had Ten Men hidden all around the building keeping an eye out for us. He was hoping we’d come running up the street. When we didn’t show, they knew to leave another clue just in case.”

“But what if we had told Mr. Benedict?” Sticky asked.

“Mr. Bane made it hard for us to do that, didn’t he? But I’m sure Mr. Curtain was prepared for that possibility. Maybe he even hoped for it. Maybe he hoped Mr. Benedict would fall for the trick, too, and walk right into his ambush. Those instructions didn’t leave much time to consider everything—just enough to make a snap decision and rush to the scene.”