At breakfast the next morning all four of them carried a bag with things they might need for the maze exercise. They walked together to the gym. A couple of men were pushing a final hay bale into place, completing a maze only one bale high. Reg stood with them, supervising. He looked up. “This is John Doepker and Bob Richtig,” he called from across the gym. “Team 2. They stopped by to impart some words of wisdom.” He introduced the four of them as Team 2 walked forward.
“Hey,” Doepker said. “It’s nice to meet you guys. We just wanted to say hello and see if you have any questions.”
They glanced at one another. “Um,” Rosa said, “what do you think are the most important things for us to work on at this stage in our training?”
“Teamwork,” Doepker said. “And communication. Get to know one another so well that you know what the others will do in a situation that’s never arisen before. What they’re thinking.”
“Like passing the ball to where your teammate is going to be,” Eddie said.
Richtig jutted his finger at him. “Exactly.”
Doepker rubbed his hands together. “Reg said we can help train you today.” He grinned at them. “Your job is to lead someone through the maze without letting them touch a wall at any point.”
“The lanes are pretty wide,” Rosa observed.
“One step in the wrong direction, and how wide will it be?” Richtig said.
“Um.”
“Yep. So,” Doepker said, “the rules are you can make noise but you cannot talk or sing. You cannot touch the person. And you’d better be leading the right person through that maze.”
“How exactly is this training?” Brad said.
Reg threw an arm out and pointed through the ceiling. “Out there, you don’t know what you’ll encounter. Neither do we. But you better be able to communicate clearly and effectively, and you better be able to trust each other.” He gave them a serious look. “Learn what you can from the maze exercise, because after this we’re working with live explosives.”
They pulled their heads back and stared at one another.
“It would be swell,” Reg said, “if you learned teamwork by then.”
Doepker turned to Rosa. “You’re going first.” He blindfolded the guys, then pointed to Eddie. “Lead him through the maze.”
Rosa unzipped her duffel. She pulled out a basketball, tried to spin it on her finger and it fell off, the sound echoing through the gym. Eddie grinned and stepped forward. Rosa stood in front of the guys and dribbled for a moment, then backed up into the maze. Eddie followed her. Trevor and Brad stayed where they were, and Reg removed their blindfolds so they could watch.
The maze was low and not very complex. Eddie followed perfectly until she lost her dribble and he thought she was turning. He realized the problem when the bounces tapered off, and stood still, knowing he was facing the wrong direction, and waited until the dribbling was strong and regular again before he turned back and continued on.
When they reached the end and exited, the three men applauded. “Take off your blindfold, Eddie,” Doepker said. Eddie ripped it off, saw they were through the maze, and gave Rosa a high five. “Nice job,” Richtig said. “Eddie, you’re leading.”
They walked back to the start, and when they were all blindfolded, Richtig pointed at Trevor. Eddie nodded and pulled a bottle of isopropyl alcohol out of his duffel. He opened it and waved it under their noses. Trevor and Rosa both stepped forward. Eddie looked to Reg in alarm, but Reg just shrugged. Eddie passed the bottle past them twice more, afraid he was going down in defeat but still enjoying the way Rosa wriggled her nose. Then she took a step back.
Eddie walked backward into the maze, holding the bottle out toward Trevor. Trevor followed him. It was slower than following a noise—even in the closed gym there were plenty of air currents, and a couple of times Eddie thought he was going to lose him. But they made it to the end, and Trevor pulled off his blindfold, leaped onto a hay bale, and took a bow.
“Bunch of crazy people,” Reg muttered.
“Hey, Rosa, what did you think it was, anyway?” Eddie asked.
“Nail polish remover,” she said, smiling. “I figured that would be for me.”
Brad went next and led Rosa with a bottle of actual nail polish, then Trevor led Brad through with a handful of change that he shook repeatedly.
When they were done, Doepker looked at Rosa and Eddie. “What were you two going to use if you got Brad?”
They said, “The same thing” at the same time.
“You were all three going to lead him with a fistful of coins?” Doepker said. “Get to know him a little better. You suppose there’s more to him than just that his family has money?”
Rosa, Eddie, and Trevor exchanged a guilty look.
Reg sighed. “Okay, fifteen-minute break and then …”
“I’d like to try one more run through the maze,” Richtig said. “I’d like to see Eddie lead Rosa.”
Eddie walked over to his duffel.
“No props,” Richtig said.
Eddie stared at him, then at the others.
Reg shrugged. “I don’t know what the man’s doing.”
Rosa and Eddie walked to the beginning of the maze, and Trevor blindfolded her.
“Just a second,” Richtig said. “I want to rearrange the maze a little, in case you’ve got it memorized.”
The three men pushed a few hay bales around, changing the first three turns. Eddie stood, looking at Rosa in her blindfold. He couldn’t touch her, or lead her with smell, and he couldn’t talk or sing to her. He sighed.
Then he sighed louder. Rosa took a step forward. He sighed again, open mouthed, puffing air out. Rosa took another step.
“No noise from your mouth at all,” Richtig said.
Eddie hesitated for a moment, then stamped his foot. He moved backward, stamping again, and Rosa followed him. They made the first turn like that—right this time, instead of left—and Doepker called out, “Eddie can’t make any noise with his feet.”
Eddie gave them a murderous look, and then he started clapping as he backed up. Rosa followed. The adults let them get through the next turn before Richtig shouted, “No clapping.”
Eddie snapped his fingers, and Rosa took a step forward.
“No finger snapping.”
Eddie looked behind him. They still had three-quarters of the maze to get through. He hesitated.
“I’m going to take one step forward,” Rosa said. “If that’s right, put your hand where I can touch it.” She jutted an index finger in the general direction of the men. “You said he couldn’t talk or touch me. You didn’t say I couldn’t touch him.”
As Rosa reached out tentatively, Eddie put his hand where she would touch it. When she felt his knuckles she gave his hand a little pat, smiled, and took a step forward. They repeated it twice, and then Rosa felt an elbow, not a hand.
“I’m going to take one step right if I feel your hand,” she said. Eddie extended his hand so she could grab his fingers.
Rosa touching his hand was a good way to spend a morning, Eddie thought, but it was taking forever. So he slipped his shoes off and crouched, smacking them down with his hands.
“Hey!” Doepker called.
“You said I couldn’t make any noise with my feet,” Eddie shouted back. “My feet are sock-foot silent.”
Dopeker inclined his head, and let Eddie lead Rosa out with the sound of his shoes smacking on the gym floor. When Rosa and Eddie rejoined the others at the start of the maze, Richtig and Doepker shook their hands.
“They did terrific,” Doepker said. “Whatever we threw at them, they found a way around it. And Rosa realizing that she could take over leadership even while she was blindfolded? Magnificent.”
Rosa beamed.
“Those two are good,” Richtig said, pointing to Trevor and Brad, “but these two are exceptional.” Reg nodded, and Brad glowered. Richtig and Doepker raised their hands in farewell and left the gym.
“Okay,” Reg said. “Fifteen-minute break, then meet at the zipline platform behind the hangar.”
“I don’t want to zipline,” Trevor whispered, but Reg heard him.
“You won’t be,” he said. “You’ll just be defusing a live bomb. The rest of us are watching from the tower because it’s a good observation post, and safe in case you blow yourself sky-high.” He smiled. “So cheer up.”
“I wish I was ziplining,” Trevor whispered, and Eddie snorted and thunked him on the back.