7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Silvio laughed like Prince was insane, but finally, one of his shoulders shrugged up high and he said, "Why the hell not?"

Relieved, Prince laughed with him. "I know, it's crazy. If we get caught…"

"We'll get fired and jailed, likely, so we have to have a good plan. Listen, I need to get back to the mess hall, so do nothing until we can sit and plan this out. Period!"

"Yes, sir, I will obey!"

"And…and don't hang around by yourself anymore. Don't give the vato a chance to snatch you, if that's what he's planning. Understand me?"

"Yes. I get it."

"Yeah, you're hot for the guy, so he might put on some kind of sad eyes, and you'll follow him like a puppy. That's not a diss, believe me. I'd do the same with…a girl I like."

Prince knew it was true, so he nodded curtly. "I won't be by myself if I can help it."

"Okay. Come with me now and after the kids are busy tonight with their singalong, we'll meet up in the boathouse and make a plan."

"Sounds good."

After dinner, Sabrina told the kids to go back to their cabins and get jackets. The singalong would start before seven, so Prince and Silvio got their kids back to Cabin C and made sure they all got jackets and hats, if they had them, then led them to the gathering area. Several fires were going, and logs circling them for the kids to sit.

Silvio grabbed Anton and the three moved into the trees where they could still keep an eye on the kids, but there were few worries, being all the counselors were walking around, watching over them.

After Silvio gave Anton the Cliff Notes version of what was happening with Prince and his fisherman boyfriend. "He's not my boyfriend," Prince protested, but Anton just winked at him.

"We're heading over after light's out to scope it out, but we need to get him out of the cabin so we can look around the place. Any ideas?"

"Shit, man, how do you get a guy out of his cabin that likes to fish…hmm," he said sarcastically.

Prince and Silvio looked at one another, smiling. "Shit," Silvio said. "That's it. We get him out to fish. Fishing isn't something you do in a few minutes. Most people take hours."

"It's perfect, but how to we know when he's going to fish?"

"Listen, that cabin isn't far from the shore. We take a walk around the lake, talking loud enough for him to hear us. I can hear people talking from three cabins away," Anton said in a rush. "He'd hear us, and say, oh, give a time when the fish seem to bite the best."

"Mornings," Prince whispered. "I remember a gardener we had that said he never came to work before he caught three fish. That was his daily yoga, he said, like therapy or something."

"Of course, mornings are best, but wouldn't he know that?" Silvio asked.

"He looks like a city boy to me, all those tattoos."

"Okay, tomorrow, we take a walk, then in the morning, we'll watch for him," Anton said, excited at the prospect of an adventure. "When he goes to fish, Silvio, you and the Prince, here, you head over and do some snooping. I take my kids boating tomorrow, so I can watch the shore. I'll take a walkie, and if he heads back home, I call you on the walkie."

"Fucking perfect. This just might work," Silvio sighed.

In the morning, Anton took over watching the kids while they ate breakfast while Silvio and Prince went without getting started on their plan. Prince felt a little silly about talking loudly, but once they got across the lake to the shore in front of the cabin that was their destination, Silvio started.

"My dad wants to come up for the day and fish, if the fishing's good," he said, and he wasn't screaming, which was what Prince feared would happen. He was talking in a normal conversational voice that was just a little bit louder and clearer than usual.

He followed suit. "The camper around the other end told Sabrina that the fishing was best in the morning."

"Yeah, that's what I heard, too. Some guy caught his limit in just an hour yesterday."

Panicking, Prince asked in a whisper, "What if he knows no one was fishing yesterday."

"Listen, I know he wasn't hot enough to get your attention, but an old man was fishing yesterday morning. Keep going."

"Yeah, maybe we'll get to fish one morning. I sure would like to catch a bunch and have a big cookout!"

Silvio gave him a thumbs up. "Let's get back."

"Okay."

While performing their other duties, they kept an eye on the shore, but didn't see the fisherman at all that day. Disappointed, Prince lay down that night, worried he'd wake in the dark to a man standing over him, gun in his face and telling him to be quiet or die.

Maybe he watched too many movies or read too much fanfiction, but he couldn't get that vision from his mind until he fell asleep at midnight, only to dream it too.

When he woke that morning, it was with Silvio shaking him. "He heard us. He just waited a day. Or he didn't hear us and is just fishing on his own volution. Whichever."

"What?" Prince asked as he sat straight up. "He's out there?"

"I just went and got Anton to watch the kids. Let's go."

Anton came into the cabin and waved to them. "I'm still keeping watch. I have a couple of the older kids helping me, which is costing me money, so I'll expect repayment."

"Anything! Thanks, Anton."

They hurried to grab their clothes and headed to the bathrooms to change. Once they were out of their camp T-shirts, in favor of black ones, they left the bathrooms, heading for the woods to move all the way around the lake through the trees.

"How are we getting in?"

"People are funny here. No one locks up, especially vacationers just heading to the shore to fish or mess around in the water. They're right there and don't think anyone will break in while they're so close."

"He's not a vacationer," Prince pointed out. "He's hiding something."

"Good point. I guess we'll figure it out when we get there."

When they got close to the cabin where the hot fisherman lived. Silvio whispered for Prince to go ahead. "I see him. He's kicking back on the shore."

Relief flooded him, but not enough to take away his shaking. "This is scary."

"Breaking the law should be scary, I guess."

"True."

They hurried to try the backdoor and windows, but they were all locked tight. Silvio had Prince watch the shore while he tried the front door, but it, too, was locked.

There was only one window visibly open, and it was high up on the outer wall and small. "Probably the bathroom," Silvio reasoned. "I could boost you up, but…"

"Even I'm too big to get through that."

"Nat ain't," came a voice from behind them, and Prince jumped so badly, he thought he jumped right out of his shoes.

Silvio hissed, "Montese!"

Monnie and Nat were standing there, like they were all waiting for a bus. Prince asked, "What are you two doing here?"

"We followed you," Monnie said, her chin up in defiance. "You left!"

"We're adults and counselors, Monnie," Silvio told her. "Now, go back! Wait, no, I'll take you back."

"Why? Lift him up and push him in the window."

Prince looked to Silvio, who shrugged, "I mean…"

"We can't. Can we?"

"It's technically illegal, and if they get caught, we're again, fired and jailed, not necessarily in that order."

Prince didn't want to hurt any of them. "No. I can't be responsible for you all getting into trouble."

They both looked down to where Nat and Monnie had been and noticed that while they were coming up with reasons why they couldn't, Nat and Monnie were no longer next to them. Nat was climbing up Monnie's back to get to the window to get inside.

Silvio snapped and rushed over, but Nat was already hanging off the ledge. Monnie snidely asked, "Shouldn't one of ya be lookin' out for the guy?"

Prince jumped again and rushed around the cabin to the front corner, peeking around to see the man was still fishing.

He was stressed and anxious, but as soon as he saw the guy, laid out, one ankle crossed over the other, leaning back on nice, muscular arms…

"Prince," Silvio hissed. "Nat's in!"

Prince went running back and stood with Prince while he waited at the backdoor with Monnie. "Anton's still watching, right?"

Silvio keyed the walkie. "Anton, you there?"

"I'm here, and so is he. Are you in?"

"Yeah. We had some company, but it turned out they helped. If anyone's looking for two campers, tell them Prince and I took them to the bathroom. They aren't feeling well."

"Got it, yeah. Be careful and hurry."

"Yeah."

Nat opened the back door, smiling with his pride, and Prince hated that he'd brought them into his mess, but loved that Nat seemed so proud to have been of help. "Thanks, Nat. Now, you two wait over there in the trees. If you see anyone coming, you get your behinds back to the camp."

"Sure! Come on, Monnie."

She held out her hand, and he slid his into hers and they hurried off to the trees together.

"Get in there and find what you're looking for. I'm going to go watch in front, just in case Anton misses something."

"Okay," he said, then took a deep breath, like he was about to dive into the lake. That's what it felt like, swimming through a heavy current, being taken out to sea, but instead of being scared, he was exhilarated.

The cabin was bigger than it looked on the outside, with a kitchen being the first room he entered. It was a real kitchen, complete with a wood-burning stove and a gas one. Prince noticed right off how neat it was for a single man to be living there. Everything was clean, no dishes were piled in the sink, and the hand towel was folded perfectly over the lip of the sink. Once he moved into the living room, he noticed much the same. It was like no one was actually staying there. There were no signs of personal items.

At least not until he investigated the two doors that sat off the living room. One led to the bathroom, and there were signs of the man's presence. In a precise line were his toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush and razor. Prince checked the medicine cabinet to find it held deodorant and aspirin. That was it.

More intrigued than ever, Prince ran a finger down the hairbrush and smiled.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Silvio was in the house, and Prince laughed at his stress. "I think it's gonna be okay."

"Are you kidding me right now? Can you stop fawning before we get caught?"

Prince nodded and moved to the next door, finding the bedroom once it was open.

He and Silvio both started looking through the few personal items there, and when Prince got on the floor to look under the bed, he asked, "Who's watching for him?"

"The kids. They wanted to help, and you were taking forever."

"Sorry. I was just learning a little about him."

There was a box under the bed along with a briefcase. Prince slid both from under the bed and right away, in the box, he found five more activated burner phones and an envelope of cash that looked to be ten grand at first glance. "Damn. He's got cash."

"Cash?" Silvio asked, suddenly very interested. "How much?"

"Probably exactly the number he knows it to be. He's too organized to not know how much money he's got."

"Just my luck."

In the briefcase, however, that was where more of the truth came out. "Shit."

Silvio got on his knees next to Prince to see file folders, and on the tabs were Prince's name, his father's and stepmother's. "Prince, you were fucking right. He is after you."

Prince opened his father's folder to see "lion" at the top. On his own, he simply saw his first name.

"Can you take them?"

"He'll know if they're gone," Prince reasoned. Then he thought about it, and said, "Maybe that's a good thing. If he knows we're onto him, he might take off and forget it."

Silvio took his folder and thumbed through it. "You know, Prince, this isn't exactly a minute to minute of your activities, something a kidnapper would want to do. They study their target. This is stuff anyone would know, I presume."

Prince saw something that shocked him and snatched the folder back. "Not exactly! This here?" He pointed to a paragraph that Prince recognized immediately. "This is a message I left on a hacker message board. It's dark web stuff, and see this? This is a program I've been developing for like two years. It hasn't panned out yet, but I'm close."

"So, him or his people are on the dark web. I know a few that are to download shit they can't find on the main web."

"I use major firewalls; my IP address changes every half second. There is no way that anyone can trace me when I'm online. My VPN, everything is leaps and bounds above what most people even think about using."

"I…understood very little of that, but I believe you. What you're saying is that they found you on the dark web when no one could. Is he from the government?"

"Does he look like some tech-fed?"

"What the fuck is a tech-fed?"

The walkie sounded and Anton was on it, warning, "He's done. He's getting his tackle box together, so you have about four minutes."

"We gotta go," Silvio told Prince before he rose and walked back to Anton, "We're going now."

Prince took the pen from the pocket of the briefcase and wrote on his envelope in big letters, If you want to know me, ask me or back off!

"What did you just do?"

"You wanted me to take it."

"Yeah! This isn't that, Prince."

"We'll argue when we're headed back to camp. Let's go."

They met the kids in the trees and all four started back to the camp while Silvio kept looking over his shoulder. "Prince, man, that was not cool."

"He's not a fed."

"Are you a black hat?" Nat asked him and Prince laughed.

"What the hell is that?" Silvio asked.

It was Monnie who answered, "Don't you know nothin'? A black hat hacker is a bad guy. They do messed up stuff."

"I'm more of a gray hat," Prince explained. "I don't always exactly follow the law, but I don't hack for money or national secrets or anything."

"You're on the dark web."

Prince and the two kids laughed at that before Prince explained to Silvio, "It's got a bad name, and there are reasons for that, sure. The dark web is a thousand times bigger than the web you know, and it has many corners. What you hear is for trafficking and really bad shit like that, and sure, that is there, if you're looking, which I don't. It's less…constrictive, let's say. You can find anything on it, like that forum where Mr. Fisherman found me."

"What forum?" Nat asked.

"For hackers. We exchange ideas, bragging rights. Stupid, really. I don't go on there much, but I also keep an eye out for others like me, who could help me if I develop my own software."

"You'd want people on there to help you?"

"Sure! Why not? Hackers avoid the regular web because it's heavily regulated and watched."

"Not what I hear."

"Oh, yeah, well people can do terrible things there, too. Still, others are watching and reporting. A lot less report things on the dark web simply because questions arise as to why they were on it in the first place."

"Wow, I can't believe all you know this, and I don't."

"It's better if you don't know much about it. People get curious, get on there and if you don't know what you're doing, you'll meet a hacker that is only out to hurt you."

Nat nodded in agreement.

Prince smiled down at Montese and asked, "Can I call you Monnie yet?"

She shook her head and side-eyed him hard. "I'll let you know."