The biggest shock was inside the wrapper of the camera.
There were two passports from some small Caribbean nation in their fake names and matching Eurail passes. “That should smooth things out a bit, eh Daphne?”
Angie chuckled. “I’ll try to get used to that name. Angie I like, but Daphne feels rather pretentious for me.”
Preston checked and all the proper border stamps were there. Then he noticed the images were current. “Wonder how they did that?”
“I would guess it was that information booth in Rotterdam. It would be easy to hide a camera in all that stuff,” Angie suggested. “I seem to recall there as a blank wall directly behind us.” She pointed to the background in the passport photos.
“Oh well, the less we know, the better it is for everyone.” He stuffed his US passport inside a utility bag inside his backpack, along with his monthly Dutch train pass.
Angie copied his actions with her EU ID card. She looked at her Dutch rail pass and sighed. “It will expire next month any way.”
They spent the evening in their tent examining the two new pieces of equipment. Preston discovered that the camera could upload live video feeds via a long cable to the cellphone. He could keep the phone out of sight in a pocket while uploading. The contacts list included one marked “upload.” He showed it to Angie. “Better than bluetooth, because wireless can be intercepted. Our boss really splashed out some serious moolah.”
Angie was frankly excited. She was enthusiastic about tomorrow, too. She had only heard of Little Switzerland and was itching to try some of the easier climbs.
So the next morning, they pushed their bikes inside the tent and locked them together. Then they hiked across the bridge for breakfast. There were so very many different cafes and restaurants that they just picked one at random and had a fine breakfast of sausages and eggs.
The hike up the valley was just a kilometer or so before it offered access to the wooded trails. They followed it back around the promontory overlooking their campground. Preston experimented with the camera a bit, as always, looking for the most unusual angle. Then he handed the camera to Angie and she tested a few ideas. He told her, “I’m very proud to say, my sweet apprentice, you are just about ready to work without supervision.”
She grabbed him around the neck and they almost slipped off the trail ledge together. They had a good laugh and continued up and down the trails. The place was dotted with stairs cut into the rock face. The early morning rush of climbers was already under way.
Angie started shooting some of the action while Preston watched. She managed a couple of easy free climbs and took a few shots from the top.
The whole time he was trying to think what sort of thing a younger person might do that would give away an American upbringing. With so many of them spouting lines from American films and other popular English phrases, it was clear that wasn’t any kind of clue.
So they spent two days this way, hiking in the mornings around the area with the camera, taking extensive footage. They’d grab lunch on the way back and try to examine all the footage as privately as possible. On the second day, Preston saw something that caught his eye. Angie was at the controls.
“Back up one. Yeah. Now zoom in on that one.” He pointed to one of the faces. The young fellow had his thumb up and pointed back over his shoulder. “Do Dutch or Belgian kids do that?”
“What? The raised thumb? It’s a rude gesture, which means most kids do it.”
“It’s not just the raised thumb, but pointing with it,” he explained.
They began checking other footage and saw him twice more. They also noticed not a single one of the other kids used that gesture in quite that way. “Let’s hope he’s still around tomorrow and doesn’t notice us.”
There really were no other good candidates, so the next day they hunted around the climbing areas where they had caught him every time so far. He wasn’t there. After a long wait, they decided to hike around a bit. No luck. They decided to have lunch at the friture out front of the campground up in Berdorf.
Preston spotted their quarry. He was sitting next to one of the tents, packing up his gear. As carefully as possible, Preston opened the camera, then nudged it around until the young fellow was in the frame and started recording video. The fellow sat chattering more than working on packing his gear. Preston watched as several times the fellow used his thumb to point. Apparently his friends were used to it, though they didn’t copy the action.
Angie and Preston made an effort to avoid any further behavior that wasn’t casual. They took their time, and when the food was gone, they slowly got up chattering in Dutch. Then they took the shortest route back down to the campsite near the bridge. Preston felt a strange sense of needing to hurry. Not because it was the last day they had planned to stay, but something he couldn’t quite identify. He advised Angie to start some of the packing. Even this late in the day, they probably needed to be somewhere else soon.
The open wifi nodes were strong and plentiful down by the river. He processed the video footage into a single file, then added a few still shots from the other shooting. These were bundled and encrypted, then uploaded to the drop box. He added a quick message on the mail server:
High probability in the dropbox. Feel like getting out of Dodge.
Then he finished packing up the rest of the stuff. Angie asked rather quietly, “Where to?”
Preston had been holding something in his mouth while using his hands to fold it. Upon extracting the item, he quietly said, “Trier.”
Keeping to the German side of the river, they pedaled a few kilometers downriver to Ralingen. Just outside the village, Preston steered onto a wood path on the left side. Checking now and then to make sure Angie was keeping up, he geared down and began following a switch back climb up the ridge. It was hard and slow, at times requiring they dismount, but they got over the top and coasted a short way along a paved road into the village of Kersch. From there it was mostly crooked back roads. The route took them down into a valley and over the next ridge, then another valley and ridge. The windmill farm would have been more interesting had they the time to look. As they dropped off the next slope, their lane ran into a major road, past a very large industrial park, and it was almost all downhill into Trier.
At times they rode the brakes pretty hard on switch backs, but eventually got down into the city. It was such a beautiful place, very ancient, perched on the banks of the Mosel. Again, Preston had little time to look around until they crossed the busy downtown section to the train station.
He had Angie negotiate passage for the bikes. They were in luck, because they could ride in the car with them. He consulted the schedule and a map displayed nearby. After a couple of times back and forth, he whispered to Angie, “I think Herzogenrath is a good target. If it feels comfortable, we’ll go on to Heerlen. From there I could find my way home in the dark.”
Once they were on the train, he encouraged her to nap if she could, but she had too many questions in her mind. He closed his eyes, but sleep was far away.
