He was a genius, but he didn’t hold many cards. He just played the best hand he could and somehow suddenly he’s winning. Things are aligning.
When she reaches the base of the hill, she disables the main CCTV surrounding the gate and gatehouse interior.
Then, after Joe has overpowered and incapacitated the guard, they lock him in the gatehouse outbuilding. And Lucinda sets about deactivating as many of the external cameras as she can from the gatehouse.
Lucinda doesn’t know why she trusts Joe but she does. He has the same bright eyes as Penny and seems to genuinely care about Nina, perhaps as much as she now does.
She has a plan. She has of course thought through backup plans for months, since that meeting with John. Since she found out what the number on the piece of paper was for.
Lucinda pulls out her phone now and sends the encrypted message that she’s been sitting on since the day John gave her that number, a message that offers her inside information on a specific type of people-trafficking now popular in certain echelons of the population. In exchange for that whistleblowing she will require protection and immunity from prosecution.
She might not get full immunity, she knows, but she is betting her life that they will keep her safe long enough to put the people involved on trial. And that seems like a surer prospect than her current chances.
As Joe and Lucinda race back up the hill, she thinks through their next moves. All Nina has to do is survive one more room and they’ll be able to save her.
Back at the house, Lucinda disables the upstairs CCTV and explains to Joe that it isn’t as simple as just storming downstairs into the basement rooms and grabbing Nina. The building is automated, and once the system is started it will not reopen until everything is completed, one way or another.
“The rooms down there, they’re escape rooms. Very expensive, very dangerous escape rooms,” she explains. “And you don’t get out unless you solve them. The house used to be a challenge, for rich clients. Nina’s father designed it. But as with everything, it adapted. It’s been repurposed. Now the clients pay to watch other people try to survive it.”
“And Nina’s in it. Now?”
“Yes. But there is a way to stop the system—without completing it. It’s a big move, though.”
“Okay, let’s do that then. Show me and we’ll do it.”
Lucinda shakes her head. “No. I need to ask someone else. Only they can do it. And I need you here. I need you to go down to the locked basement door and wait. Can you trust me? Can you do that?”
Joe looks at Lucinda afresh and notices her hands are shaking ever so slightly as they cling to her wrist band.
She’s scared, and that seems like a good sign to him.
“Yes, I trust you,” he says. “Go do what you have to do.”
CHAPTER 39
NINA
T he entire floor space of the third room is a chessboard. Nina enters, cautiously, stepping from one large empty square to the next. Each lights up as her weight hits it.
This room is clearly A Game of Chess, though Nina doubts it will be like any she has played before.
“Take your position on a3. The game will commence shortly.”
Nina looks across the room to the a3 square. This is Anderssen’s Opening. They are going to ask her to play the Anderssen/Morphy game.
Nina stops in her tracks, a cold chill running through her, because she knows with absolute certainty that she does not remember the moves or script for that game. If making it out of this room relies on that knowledge, then Nina is as good as dead.
Across the room the entry door seals and the lighting state brightens.
“Welcome, Nina, to A Game of Chess. This game requires you to remain on Anderssen’s Opening as long as possible. Stay on a3.”
With that a low whirring sound begins to fill the room. At first Nina can’t tell what exactly is happening, but as the first set of squares across the room loses their lights her eyes make sense of the scene. The opposite wall is moving toward her. The room is closing in.
Nina’s eyes scan the room for a screen with more instructions, but there is none. There are no questions, there is no task to complete.
“Bathsheba,” Nina calls, raising her voice above the hydraulic whir, “what am I supposed to do? What are the questions?”
Bathsheba’s voice flickers back to life. “Stay on a3.”
