02/13/2019
**Note: many clues inside the clues in this chapter. Did anyone guess the answer to the riddle? Any guesses on who is behind this whole thing? Hope you enjoy!
I was still shaking and trying to control my emotions, but I forced myself to compartmentalize everything and focus. Ranger says you have to focus on the goal and you can't give yourself up to unproductive emotion. So that's what I was trying to do when Tank arrived at my door 15 minutes later.
"Tell me everything," Tank said. I told him about the first call that I received a couple of days ago and about the mouse that I found on my doorstep. I relayed as best as I could about the game and how each clue would lead me to a new location. I told him we had 24 hours to solve the riddle. "What happens if you don't solve it by then?" Tank asked. "From what I gathered, this is some sort of contest between the caller and Ranger. He said "may the best man win" as if he were a contestant in a competition," I said. I didn't want to think about what happened if we didn't solve the riddle. "I get the sense this guy has something to prove and he seems to have a history with Ranger." "Well that doesn't exactly narrow it down," Tank said. "Ranger has a history with a lot of nut jobs." "It's more than that," I said. "He's never actually said Ranger's name. I think it means something."
"I've called everyone in on this," Tank said. If we lose clients then we lose clients, but Ranger is the top priority for everyone right now. I've organized two task forces. One group is focused on finding out who this guy is and will help us figure out the game this whack job is playing. The other group is combing every square mile trying to find him."
"What happens now?" I said. "Now we go back to Rangeman and get working on the first clue," Tank said. I was still terrified, but I was feeling a little more optimistic that we'd figure this out and get Ranger back. As big and scary as Tank looked, he had a calming influence on me. I packed a bag since I figured I'd be away a few days and I asked my neighbor to look in on Rex. Tank and I rode the elevator to the ground floor and hopped into a black Ford Explorer and took off towards Rangeman.
"The most pressing thing is solving this clue," I said. "Since the caller said the clues would lead to a location, I'm betting this is a city or a street or an address or something." Like that narrows it down to only 15 billion choices. "Read the clue again," Tank said. "A giant you will never be, its copycat is not as free." "It doesn't make any sense," Tank said. "That's the point," I said. "If he wanted this to be easy he'd just tell us where to go."
We pulled into the Rangeman garage and made our way to the control room. Tank introduced me to several of the men who were working in our task force. He also introduced me to Sylvio who booked the first flight out as soon as he heard the news. "Ranger was having me follow up on the firm's owners before he was taken," Sylvio said. "So I knew something was wrong when his phone started going right to voicemail."
I explained to Sylvio how I thought this might be some sort of location or landmark. "Let's break this down into pieces," Sylvio said. "The first piece talks about never being a giant. This can be literal or figurative. If it's figurative we are in trouble because that can mean anything. So let's assume it's literal." "I've been thinking about it, and I'm wondering if it means the opposite of giant, like small or little," I said. "Let's start with that," Sylvio said. He started furiously typing into his computer and within a few minutes said, "Ok, according to my calculations, there are only 14 cities in the U.S. that start with the word little. I'm assuming he's keeping this local if he plans to send us on a scavenger hunt." "That's manageable," I said. "It gets worse," Sylvio said. "There are over 500 neighborhoods and 1,500 plus streets that have some affiliation to the word."
My shoulders sagged. "How are we going to do this?" I asked. "We've got two things that no one else has," Tank said quietly. "The smartest girl I know and the most loyal Ranger soldiers on earth. We'll find him." I gave Tank a look of gratitude and he returned the gesture.
We worked through the night trying to gather information on the second piece of the riddle. We were throwing out ideas but nothing was sticking. Sylvio wrote a program to triangulate all of the locations we had identified with any ideas we dreamed up. At some point we were just reading street names to see if anything stood out. I stood up and pushed back my chair and sighed. "I feel like we are just guessing and there's got to be a reason behind this clue," I said. I had a sudden thought and turned to Sylvio. "You said Ranger asked you to look into someone just before he was taken. Did you find anything of interest?" Sylvio thought for a moment.
"He had me looking into the daughter of the family who owns the firm. She was handed this position to run the firm not long after she left treatment at a mental health facility. I think Ranger thought there may have been other influences at work, maybe someone behind the scenes pulling the puppet strings." "Did anything turn up?" I asked. "Not so far, but I'm still running through some things."
I grabbed my coffee cup and turned to Tank and Sylvio. "I'm going to get some coffee, anybody want anything?" Both men declined. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a cup. The mood was somber. Most of Ranger's men knew what was going on and I'm sure it was hard to think of anything except their missing boss. "Think Stephanie," I said to myself. A copycat that will never be free. Free could mean it doesn't cost you anything or free could mean freedom. So what isn't free? Everything – that's what's not free. Who isn't free? Ranger for one. But where does the copycat come into play? We'd been trying to fit the locations into the puzzle – like trying to see if Little Rock or Little Italy made sense. Nothing made sense. I checked my watch – 11:00am. The caller phoned at 2pm yesterday so we had roughly 3 hours to figure this out or Ranger would be toast.
Gosh what I wouldn't do to be on a beach right now, far far away from here with the wind in my hair, the sun on my skin, the…wait. I dropped my cup on the counter and raced back to Tank and Sylvio. "Guys!" I said. "I think I've got it! I keep thinking that this has some personal ties to Ranger. Ranger grew up in Jersey, but he went to high school down in Miami. There's an area down there called Little Havana." Actually, it's where his daughter Julie lives, I thought to myself.
"But how does Havana fit the second piece of the code?" Tank asked. Sylvio was nodding his head – he had already thought it through. "Havana – as in Cuba. A copycat, but it doesn't have the freedoms that the U.S. has," I said. "I like it," Sylvio said. "It fits." The feeling in my stomach right now was indescribable. Excitement mixed with adrenaline and extreme fear that if I was wrong Ranger was as good as dead. "Let's keep running through other options just incase something better pops up," Tank said.
By 1:30 I was a nervous wreck. I felt like I was going to throw up every 5 minutes. Tank told me to keep him talking as long as possible and try to get any details out of him that I could. Ask to speak to Ranger. I kept checking my watch- 30 minutes, then 20, then 10, then 3. At exactly 2:00pm, my cell phone rang. You could hear a pin drop in the office. I opened the line. "Do you have an answer for me?" the caller said. "Yes, but first I want to talk to Ranger," I said. "He's not available." "Did you leave him somewhere?" I asked. "That's none of your concern. What is your answer?"
I took a deep breath and then said "It's Little Havana." There was a pause, and I heard him curse very faintly to himself. He composed himself and said "Your answer is accepted. I am going to give you some GPS coordinates. Write them down. There you will find your next clue." I wrote down the coordinates that he gave me. "You have 24 hours before I contact you again." "Wait," I said, but the line was already dead.
I gave Sylvio the coordinates and he typed them into his computer. "Where are we going?" I asked. "Miami here we come."