The Prisoner's Gold

2

Sarah Ellis wiped a swath of mud from her face and flung it to the ground. In her left hand she held a plastic bucket filled with rocks. The rope handle was thick and rough. If not for the numbness in her hands and fingers, she would have felt the fibers digging into her flesh.

Just like the rope she used to climb in gym class.

Towering above her, a waterfall surged over a thirty-foot cliff. The clear mountain water splashed and sprayed in the air with a roar of white noise. It took her a moment to gather her senses. She wasn’t sure if she should admire its beauty or curse at it for being in her way.

She ended up doing both.

Although it was a perfect day for skiing, she hadn’t come to Vermont to enjoy the fresh powder. She was there to compete in the PEAK Winter Death Race, a form of hell that combined endurance racing, obstacle courses, and mental acuity exams. It was a competition designed to push contestants to their breaking points … and then dare them to keep going. The race was so grueling and the racers so determined that it was common for competitors to leave behind torn flesh — and even the occasional fingertip — and never break stride.

Snow covered most of the course, and the air temperature was hovering around forty degrees. Brisk, but not devastatingly cold. Despite the chill, Sarah wore only a tight-fitting black sports outfit that was now so encrusted in mud that her shapely figure had transformed into a bulbous blob of browns and grays, like a corpse buried in the woods.

She had already run several miles up and down the mountainside, stopping only to complete the challenges. It had begun with quartering logs with an ax before swimming to the bottom of a muck-filled pond to retrieve a bag of LEGO. Per instruction, she had carried the pouch to the next station where she had used the tiny bricks to construct a toy motorcycle while reciting the names of all fifty US states. Once she had completed that task, she had stacked a thousand pounds worth of sandbags into a ten-foot pyramid while shouting the list of states again — only this time in reverse alphabetical order.

The hardest parts for her weren’t the tasks themselves but the complete uncertainty about the length of the race or what drudgery might be lurking around the next corner. In her line of work, having a plan was crucial; failing to think ahead could get her captured or killed. But at PEAK, she never knew what to expect next. There was no way to train for this event. She just had to be in good enough shape to handle anything that they threw at her, no matter how long it lasted.

Thankfully, the next task was right up her alley.

She had to climb the waterfall.

In the summer when the stream was barely trickling, the rock face would have presented little difficulty for an expert climber like Sarah. But with the spring thaw in full effect, the wall was protected by a thick layer of bubbling whitewater that was so cold it was one step away from being ice. To make the task harder, she had to carry the bucket of rocks to the top without using her hands. For her, that meant placing the bucket behind her head and shoving the rope handle into her mouth.

A field marshal inspected her every move. ‘You know, you don’t have to do this. Just say the word, and I’ll give you a warm blanket, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a ride back to the lodge.’

‘Fuuuu youuuuu!’ she said through clenched teeth.

He laughed at the vulgarity and backed away.

Sarah stepped into the frigid pool at the foot of the falls and felt her legs go completely numb. As she trudged toward the falling water, her mind drifted far from Vermont. Mentally she was no longer in the icy froth but on a warm beach at the team compound in Fort Lauderdale.

During the past year, she had learned a lot about herself. She used to prefer to work alone, but now the isolation of it was less thrilling. After working with a team of highly skilled experts on a pair of high-stakes missions, she had discovered the value of teamwork. Not only had she come to recognize the talents of others but she saw how they could complement her own abilities. And this realization had slowly carried over into other aspects of her life.

Including the Death Race.

Two tasks back, she had convinced other contestants that the only way up a steep mudslide was to form a human chain. Many of the others had refused to accept that the obstacle required collaboration, but Sarah had figured it out immediately. After becoming a part of a ‘Barrel of Monkeys’ chain with five mud-coated competitors, she had succeeded in reaching the top.

Everyone who insisted on doing it alone had failed.

Champing down on the rope handle of the bucket — with its heavy cargo of river stones nestled behind her damp head — she felt like she was wearing some kind of torture device. She stepped into the downpour and was immediately drenched. The water felt like needles piercing her skin. With the rope jammed in her teeth, she couldn’t close her lips. The cascade of icy water flooded her mouth, making her teeth ache and breathing difficult. All she could do was try to close off her throat as she looked up under the falls to see the next hold.

Fortunately, the rock wall was merely damp from spray and not fully soaked from the surging water, which arched out from the ledge above and mostly hit the bucket of rocks behind her head as she tried to find her grip. This made the bucket heavier and the task that much harder. Although the challenge was devious, she quickly figured out how to defeat it.

Sarah noticed two thin crevices up the back of the cliff. She jammed her fingers inside the left crack and placed her boots inside the right. Then by pulling her hands in one direction and pushing with her feet in the other, she was able to anchor herself against the wall. From there, she simply had to adjust her pressure as she inched her way up the rock face. The technique was called a layback: an advanced maneuver that was difficult to master. But with a low center of gravity, most women climbers found it easier to do than men did.

Once she found her rhythm, she made her way up the cliff with relative ease. As long as she kept her head turned to the right or left, the water passed harmlessly behind her and missed the bucket entirely. At the top of the rock, right below the apex of the surging waterfall, she found a horizontal crevice that allowed her to slide completely to a rocky ledge past the edge of the water. From there, she climbed around the frigid stream and made her way to a different field marshal who was there to make sure her bucket of rocks was still intact.

He gave her a thumbs-up and pointed her toward the finish line.

A short jog through the snow, and she would be the winner of the event.

The first female ever to capture the main prize.

Just then, she heard her cell phone start to ring. Attached to her arm in a bulletproof case capable of withstanding water, mud, rock, and LEGO, the phone blasted out a verse from Oingo Boingo’s Weird Science. It was her ringtone for Hector Garcia.

If the geek was calling, it could mean only one thing.

There was another mission for the team.

Sarah smiled as she reached for her phone, which was buried under a layer of mud. She had balked at first when Cobb had requested each team member be available at all times, but it truly didn’t bother her. In fact, she actually looked forward to the next call. She had quickly come to realize that she only felt truly alive when on a mission with the team.

Sure, she would pretend to be annoyed and put on a huge show of bitching and complaining that she had been called in during the middle of the race, but the truth was she couldn’t wait to fly to Florida to get back in the game.

Besides, she had no intention of winning the race.

Not with TV coverage at the finish line.

The team didn’t need that kind of attention.

Still smiling, Sarah put the phone to her ear and hissed, ‘What?’