Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

Hayden scowled at it. “Juvenile,” he said.

Simon frowned back. “What?”

Hayden stared briefly, intensely at each page of the diary, then flipped it over almost impatiently and moved to the next. As the others chatted about Jonathan’s arrival and Oliver’s disappearance, Simon realized that Hayden was playing each of the games in his head, one after another, at astonishing speed.

“A good chess game is like a Chinese puzzle box or a set of Russian dolls,” Hayden said as he read. “Layer on layer, a puzzle in a puzzle.” He gestured in frustration at the diary. “But these games are absurd, Simon. Oliver was a much better player than this. A brilliant player, actually, much as I hate to admit it. So why did he record this odd set of matches? And why, in every single one, did he lose on purpose?”

Simon glared at him, baffled as well. “What?”

“Look. In every single one, he moved the king into a specific, compromised position. He moved the king into an intricate but contrived checkmate.” He shook his head emphatically; the silver wings of hair swayed back and forth. “No, he was far too sophisticated a player to do that. Something else is going on.”

He looked around the room as if searching for something. “Ryan,” he said. “Do you have paper and a pen somewhere?”

Ryan turned to him, mildly surprised. No one actually used paper anymore. “Ah…I can call the notepad up on the console, if you like.”

Hayden shook his head, less emphatically this time. “No. Nothing electronic. Oliver only trusted ink on paper; I’m going to follow his lead.”

It was a more difficult task than anyone expected. Ryan searched the desk drawers and even asked the AI. They finally located an antique fountain pen-quite a lovely bit of craftsmanship-but sheets of blank paper were nowhere to be found.

Finally Hayden lost patience. He stood up, stalked to the nearest floor-to-ceiling bookcase, and pulled a book off the shelf almost at random. Simon noticed it was the largest book-in size, if not thickness-within easy reach.

“The Peregrinations of Sir Richard Francis Burton: A Facsimile Edition,” he read. He cocked an eye at Ryan. “You mind if I use this?”

Ryan blinked in surprise, then shrugged. “I suppose not,” he said. “I doubt anyone’s opened it since the turn of the century.”

Hayden opened it, flipped quickly to the back, and located three pages with printing on only one side. Without another word, he curled his hands around the edge and jerked. The pages separated from the binding with a loud rip.

Hayden replaced the book on the shelf and plopped down exactly where he had been sitting before. Quickly, almost carelessly, he drew a chessboard on one of the sheets-an eight-by-eight grid. Then, half from memory, half from referring to the diary-he drew an “X” and a number in the square where the king had been left at the end of the game: X1 for the first game, X2 for the second, until he ran out of matches to record.

As he worked he said, “Andrew? Draw another grid. You too, Sam. Rip that page in half. Simon, Jonathan: grids.”

They all followed directions; in a matter of minutes, just as Hayden was finishing his list, they were all staring at individual sixty-four-square diagrams.

He looked up at them, concentrating intensely. “All right then. Sammy? Put the letters A to Z in your boxes, one letter per box, beginning in the upper left. Left to right, top to bottom. It’ll repeat about two and a half times.”

“Got it,” she said and started writing.

“Andrew? Same thing, but start in the lower left. Bottom to top, left to right. Simon? Start in the upper right. Right to left, top to bottom. And Jon-”

“Bottom to top, right to left.”

“Right. Tell me when you’re done.”

It only took a moment. When the last of them had finished, Hayden said, “All of you know algebraic chess notation, I assume?”

All heads nodded. Most of them had learned it when they were children. Hayden smiled. “All right then. I’m going to start calling out squares. Write the corresponding letter at the bottom of the page, in the order I give it. My guess is that one of you is going to start seeing actual words, and the others will see gibberish. Ready?”

They all said they were.

“Good. Here we go. H8…G5…F4…B3-”

“Got it,” Samantha said. “Oh my god…”

Hayden looked away from his paper, and found all four of them were holding up their sheets. Three of them were showing him an indecipherable jumble of letters under their grids…but Samantha’s read:

HELP

“I’ll be damned,” he said in a hushed voice. “It worked.”

He carefully read the rest of his list. Sam completed the message. No one else spoke until he was done. She wordlessly handed over the sheet, her eyes huge and filled with tears.

Hayden read the message, then sighed deeply. He gave it to Simon, then stood up and turned away, so he wouldn’t have to watch the younger man read it.

HELP ME

HELD CAPTIVE IN ANTARCTICA

TALK TO LEON. HE WILL KNOW

Simon put his hand to his forehead, as if his mind was moving in too many directions at once.

“This is crazy,” Hayden said into the silence. “He must have played each of these games in reverse, starting with where he had to have the king end up.” Simon ran both hands through his hair and pressed his skull between them. Why Dad? he asked himself. Why did he have to go to such incredible lengths to send me a message? And even now: no one but me would know what he meant by “Talk to Leon.” He’s still being careful, even in his code-within-a-code message. He looked at Andrew and Ryan; they were both speechless as he handed the message to them, so they could read it for themselves.

“Ryan?” He said as they finished. “I need a glass of scotch.”

Samantha’s eyes were filled with tears. “Simon,” she said, almost whispering. “I am so sorry.” She closed her eyes.

Simon stood up and gave her a warm embrace. “It’s okay. I’m going to find him.” He looked up at all the friends and allies around the room. “We are going to find him.” He squeezed her between his arms and closed his own eyes.

Ryan handed him a glass with three fingers of decent scotch in it. As he raised it to his lips, the sliding doors rolled open and Sabrina revealed herself.

“Ryan?” she said. “Is everything all right?”

The group exchanged guilty looks. “Fine, darling,” Ryan said, trying to keep it light. “In fact…I think we’re about to break it up for tonight.”

The others looked at each other and nodded, stunned and mute. Sabrina smiled at all of them. “Is there anything I can get for you before you go?” she said.

Samantha cleared her throat. “Yes, please,” she said politely. “I could do with a glass of water, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Sabrina offered her a very thin smile. “Not at all,” she said, and retreated to the kitchen.

Andrew took advantage of the moment. He opened his briefcase and passed out the secure phones he had created, one to each of them. “Talk only to each other with these,” he said. “And don’t even mention the plan in any other way-not now. Clear?”

They all agreed.

“Things are happening very fast,” Simon said. “I’ll talk to you all tomorrow, but please, if I call and say, ‘it’s time,’ be ready!”

There was a strange, sweet electricity in the air between them: anticipation, dread, boldness, fear. Sabrina returned with a glass filled with water. Samantha took it with murmured thanks and drank a fraction.

“Ah,” she said. “Much better.”

“We’re off then,” Simon announced, slightly uncomfortable under the withering gaze of Ryan’s fiancee.