First to Find

by Mark Gessner

  How the coordinates could be so far off was not a mystery. Many players, especially those new to the sport, didn't take enough care when marking coordinates with their GPS receivers. Kurt pulled out the printout on this one and looked at the guy's user name. He didn't recognize it, but he thought he might've seen this guy's finds posted on some other caches in the area. The guy wasn't a total newbie, maybe had a year of caching in. Still, there wasn't a lot of tree cover or any nearby obstructions to mess with the signal. He couldn't figure it out. His own unit was reporting eight feet accuracy, the best he'd ever seen. The guy had to have a crappy GPS unit, probably one of the cheap knock-offs out of China that Tiny's was selling.

  After another half-hour of searching, Kurt found the cache. It was over one hundred twenty feet away from the posted coordinates. Damn, those numbers were seriously fucked up; he'd have to take a new averaged reading and post better coordinates with his online comment. The cache was in a deep hole in the ground, but it was the grate that caught his eye first. The hole was surrounded by prickly pears on three sides that formed a thick natural screen. There was a six-foot wide shelf of uneven holey rock surrounding the hole, between the edge of the hole and the prickly pear screen. The hole itself was irregularly shaped, ten feet around, and maybe thirty feet deep. The walls were jagged, lined with razor sharp honeycomb limestone. The occasional piece of honeycomb jutted out from the walls, which could provide a foothold or handhold, if one were careful. There was a heavy black welded steel grate cemented over the top to keep animals and visitors out. Kurt had seen that done before, in other parks. These grates always had a man-sized grate trapdoor in the center that was kept padlocked shut. Kurt had never seen one like this where the trapdoor was unlocked and propped open.

  The Lower Colorado River Authority parks department was concerned about preserving the Karst features in this and other Karst preserves, and cave explorers could only go in to explore if they had an LCRA park ranger to guide them in. This was a new park, and not even officially opened yet. He guessed that they must not have deployed all the locks.

  Down at the bottom of the cave, he spotted a flash of yellow. This guy had to be a newbie. Most veteran cachers would spray paint their ammo cans to help camouflage them. Certainly they'd at least paint over the yellow-stenciled military markings on them so that if non-players found them, they wouldn't trigger a terrorism alert. This had happened a couple months ago in South Austin. Someone hid an ammo can cache in a neighborhood park. The military markings freaked out one of the residents, and the Austin police had come in with the bomb squad and blown up the cache, ammo can, logbook, trinkets, pen, and all. The Department of Homeland Security wasn't taking any chances these days, and if that meant a few dozen hot wheels and beanie babies had to pay the ultimate price, so be it.

  Kurt clipped his GPS to the inside of his pants pocket and sat on the grate, dangling his feet into the hole. Damn, it was a long way down. How the hell was he going to get back out? He inspected the walls carefully. The walls were jagged, with holey rock step-stones jutting out on all sides, and they'd likely hold his weight. So he could climb down, then climb back out on these rocks. The hard part would be transitioning from the grate to the rock wall without falling. He thought about calling Maari to see if she wanted to come out and help. That sounded like a good idea, so he climbed off the grate, stood up, pulled out his cellphone and punched up her number.

  He held the phone to his ear. There was a short ringing sound and then nothing. He pulled the phone away and looked at the display. The little bar graph next to the antenna symbol showed only one short bar, then that disappeared. Not enough signal strength to get out a call.

  Well, if phone service weren't available, he'd have to go it alone. Certainly if he waited until after the day was over, he'd lose the hundred bucks to one of the other cachers. He looked around. No other cachers coming, no one in this park for miles in any direction. Nothing but holey rock, prickly pears, and fire ants.

  He sat on the edge of the grate again and dangled his feet into the penetrating damp chill of the hole. He checked his pockets to make sure his GPS, phone, keys and wallet were secure, then lowered himself through the trapdoor. He scraped his shoulder against the hasp on the way down, ripped his t-shirt and watched as the scratch filled with a thin line of blood. Shit. Well, he often said it wasn't really geocaching until someone drew blood.

  He wasn't as fit as when he was twenty, and it took a bit of kicking and monkey-bar work to get from the trapdoor over to the stone walls. He clung to the cold stone walls, caught his breath, and began his descent. From here on down it should be easy, if the rocks weren't too slimy and he didn't slip. His arms and shoulders threatened to cramp from the unusual exertion. Ten years of desk work had left him soft. About this time he began to wonder if all this was worth a hundred bucks. If he fell he'd be either killed on knocked unconscious, and no one except Nicholas Krager knew he was out here.

  Kurt was clinging to the walls three feet from the bottom of the cave, trying to decide between two likely candidate rocks for his last foothold, when he heard the trapdoor slam shut.

  Chapter 66

  NAVARRE HAD BEEN CAMPED about four hundred feet away, in a stand of ash juniper trees surrounded by a turbulent sea of prickly pear. Footsteps on the gravel early that morning had woken him up. It was some musclebound geek, clutching a fancy GPS receiver. That was bad news. He hadn't considered that anyone else would arrive before Kurt. He wasn't sure what he'd do if muscle boy got to the cache first. That would ruin the trap. For some reason the guy was looking all over the wrong place. Maybe he just wasn't too bright? Max couldn't be sure. Max had no gun and no way to sneak up and club the guy, as the whole place was blanketed in crunchy limestone gravel. He'd have to let him crawl into the trap, then figure out what to do with him.

  To Max's relief, after a half hour of searching, the guy gave up and left.

  Kurt had arrived a few minutes later.

  Kurt jumped to the bottom of the hole, landed on all fours on the spongy black earth, rolled over, saw a silhouette squatting over the trap door, clicking a padlock into place.

  "Hey!" Kurt cried, "What the fuck!"

  He scrambled up the cold rock walls as fast as he could. He only got as far as a few feet up the sides before the figure leapt off the grate and disappeared. A few pea-size bits of honeycomb bounced down along the walls; Kurt ducked these. White rock dust drifted down through the shaft of light coming from the hole above. Then nothing. All Kurt could see was sky and clouds, behind thick black bars. Off in the distance, he could hear a red-tailed hawk cry. It sounded a million miles away.

  "Hey!" he shouted again, louder this time.

  Nothing.

  His voice felt puny, powerless inside the cave. The walls closed in on him and absorbed the sound. He knew his voice wasn't heard outside the cave at all. That and there was no one around for miles.

  He didn't have to think for more than a minute to know who the silhouette was.

  Gary Maxwell Navarre.

  Chapter 67

  www.cache-finders.com Geocache Listing

  Karst Area - Normal Cache Type

  by RD350_Rider [email this user]

  Texas, USA

  Cache Visitor Comments:

  (1 comment total - This cache hasn't been found yet!)

  [1] April 17 by TeamKrager [125 caches found]

  I hate to write a 'Not Found' comment, but these coordinates are way, WAY off. I spent a half hour out there and couldn't find anything but cactus and scorpions. I recommend you steer clear of this one until the owner goes back out to mark those coords again. Nice Karst area though. Just wish I could have bagged that Krugerrand!

  [email this user]

  Kurt climbed back up and tried to force the lock on the grate, but he couldn't get it open. He had no tools other than his keys, wallet, GPS and cellphone. He had nothing to pry with. There wasn't even a stick on the cave bottom, and he was not surprised to find the ammo
can was empty. His footing up here was solid but it wouldn't last all day. He couldn't see out beyond the edge of the hole, and the prickly pears blocked the rest of the view. There was no sign of Max.

  Kurt pulled out his GPS and powered it up. A desert horse fly ducked in under the bars and buzzed his head; he swatted at it, lost his balance, then quickly snatched an overhead bar. His heart drummed in his ears from the adrenaline. The fly continued to pester him, hovering around his ears, taking a bite here, a sting there. In the desert, everything was either pissed off or sharp; desert horse flies were both. Kurt swatted at it with his GPS hand when it was near his head and kicked at it when it went for his ankles. After a few minutes, Kurt got a tenuous satellite lock, and the fly flew out of the hole to bother someone else.

  Kurt reached up and set the GPS on the rock outside the bars. He pulled out his cellphone and held it as high as he could. Earlier, the tiny display had displayed a single bar next to the antenna symbol. Now it showed none. The display flashed an antenna and question-mark symbol, indicating that it was searching for service. Shit. He had to find some way to get a call out.

  Chapter 68

  THE SUN TOUCHED THE western horizon, and a band of red and pink clouds slipped across the sky over Lake Travis, moving south over the new park. What was taking her so long? Max waited in the shade of the ash junipers for Judi to come rescue Kurt.

  She didn't show. If she didn't come by this time tomorrow, he'd go after her himself. Kurt? That asshole could stay locked in the hole forever. Die down there with the scorpions and snakes.

  He spent the night under the stars, camped next to his motorcycle. The park didn't have any shelter, not even a restroom building in which to hide. He needed to be where he could see the trap at all times.

  He didn't want to miss Java Judi.

  Chapter 69

  IN THE HOLE IT was already black. The sky overhead was baby blue with patches of pink, but that feeble light didn't help illuminate the bottom. Kurt was determined to wait patiently for rescue. He'd tried everything he could think of.

  During the first hour back in the hole after getting the coordinates, he'd tried a panic attack. The walls had closed in on him and threatened to suffocate, but that feeling had lasted only about three minutes, then burned itself out.

  He'd tried the phone up by the grate again two more times that day, but gave up on the second attempt after he slipped halfway down on a mossy rock and nearly tumbled back into the hole. There just wasn't any signal.

  He briefly thought about opening the GPS to see if there was any wire in it he could use to make a better antenna for his cellphone, but he didn't want to ruin the GPS, and he was pretty sure there weren't coils of wire in electronic equipment anymore, just printed boards and chips.

  He hadn't seen his captor since morning.

  The cut on his arm was crusted over and it throbbed. It might get infected if he stayed here much longer. Where were all the other geocachers looking for the Krugerrand? Surely someone must be out here looking for it? He couldn't understand why Krager didn't come back after work to resume the search.

  He had all day to investigate the hole. The hole narrowed to a small point at the bottom, maybe three feet on a side. There wasn't room for Kurt to lie down. He had to sit against the uncomfortable holey rock wall. There weren't any cracks in the wall or any side passages out. The walls were solid layers of holey rock. The floor was spongy black dirt. It was cold, and getting colder. He had no food or water. Judi had better come find him, but he had to find some way to warn her about Max.

  Chapter 70

  JUDI DROVE HER CONVERTIBLE into Kurt's driveway, switched off the engine and killed the headlights. She grabbed her purse and organizer off the passenger seat and slid out of the Sebring. It was eleven thirty. She'd had to help close the Jester store again. Her shift supervisor had quit that morning, defected to Starbucks, leaving her short handed. This shit had to stop. She needed an experienced general manager who could keep the operation running, which included keeping it properly staffed. She was frazzled, tired, and her feet hurt.

  As she approached the door, she sensed something was wrong with Kurt's place. The lights were out. It wasn't like Kurt to go to bed without greeting her first, and he almost never went out at night for any reason.

  She cautiously unlocked and let herself in the front door. The alarm beeped its thirty-second warning. She keyed in the disarm code on the alarm panel, flipped on the lights, and looked around. Nipper stirred from his nap at the foot of the couch and trotted out to greet her, licking her knees.

  The Glock was a reassuring bulge on her hip, but if Nipper wasn’t upset about anything, she didn't feel the need to draw it. She checked the livingroom. It was neat, uncluttered. She checked the kitchen. It looked like someone had eaten a hasty breakfast here. The French press still had grounds in the bottom, and there were a couple of granola bar wrappers on the counter next to the press. Pokey and Nipper both had food. There was no sign of the cat, but that wasn’t unusual, she’d been miffed ever since Nipper moved in, and was rarely seen unless Kurt was there to protect her. The back door was locked.

  Judi moved down the hall and checked the bedroom. Nipper trotted ahead and circled at the foot of the bed. The bed wasn't made, but the comforter had been pulled over the rumpled sheets. Typical Kurt. Nipper confirmed there was no one hiding in the closet. She checked Kurt’s office. His computer was still on, in sleep mode, its monitor light and power light glowing, slowly brightening and dimming in synch, like some mechanical animal breathing slowly, deep in electronic dreams.

  She called Kurt’s cellphone on the house phone she'd made him install after the attack. He didn't answer. It sent her to voicemail. She called Maari to see if those two were hanging out together. Maari was awake. She hadn't seen him all day. Judi punched up Jason's number off the speed-dial, woke him up, and apologized for the late call. Neither Jason nor Bonnie had seen Kurt either.

  Judi went back into the computer room looking for some more clues. She wiggled the mouse. The screen flicked on. It wanted a password before it would let her view anything. After the attack Kurt had gone overboard with security. She clicked the sleep button and put the machine back into hibernation.

  She re-armed Kurt's alarm system, then dialed the police on 311. Ten minutes and five handoffs later she was forwarded to a clerk who told her that a person wasn't considered legally missing until after they'd been gone twenty-four hours, at a minimum.

  Judi walked back into the livingroom. She hated to even contemplate this next thought: Could Kurt be having an affair? They weren't officially living together, but could he be sneaking someone else in on the side, while she was busy at work? Fuck and run, she thought. Even the good ones; they were only men. She wouldn't believe it, not after what they'd been through together.

  She pulled the Glock off her hip and set it on the coffee table next to the overstuffed chair. She sank into the chair, felt it surround her, cradle her. She wouldn't believe it, no. Still, he wasn't here. She hugged her knees while staring at the local news, on mute. Nipper pushed into the chair from the side to get closer, she petted his head and then he curled up on the floor beside the matching ottoman.

  After an hour of nervously watching silent heads mouth the news onscreen, exhaustion overcame worry. She slept.

  Chapter 71

  JUDI CALLED RACHEL IN the morning, asked her to take over running the Jester store. Rachel was good. She had no management experience but she seemed to have a knack for it.

  Judi called Jason at work.

  "Kurt's still missing, and I need to find out where he's gone. I'd like to look at his Mac, see if there's anything on there that can help me find out where he went, but the screen's locked and I need help getting in. You're a computer guy, can you help?" she asked.

  "Well, I'm a PC guy, I don't do Macs," he said, "and we don't have any Mac people here."

  "I think if I could see what he was doing last, at this point I'll try an
ything," she said.

  "Wait a sec, those new Macs use Unix, and we do have a Unix guy here," said Jason. He put down the phone and pulled his Unix guy out of a network game.

  Eric had been working with Unix since the late seventies, and looked like he hadn't been outside in all that time, either to get some sun or a haircut --or a date.

  Judi typed the commands exactly as Eric spelled them out. When she rebooted she was able to log right on to the machine as if she owned it.