Of Lights and Shadows (Book 4)

36) On This Night of Darkness

In the van, Dutch had found a way to help pass the time. In fact it had been Silence who had suggested Solitaire. A nice, simple game occupied the mind, was slightly challenging and helped pass the time. It also didn't totally distract you from keeping an eye on the screens.

'Where did Dastardious go again?' asked Dutch as he laid a Queen on a King.

Apparently, he has a date. Don't ask me how, or why he has one, but he does. He's meeting her at 7:30 which is why he left so early.

Looking at his watch Silence saw that it was almost that now.

After Dutch read the note he looked up at his companion. 'You know,' he said, 'I do believe this is the same note you gave me the last time I asked.'

Silence nodded.And the time before that, and the time before that, I didn't see the point in writing a whole new one when I had the original that answered just as well.

'Well I guess I should expect that seeing as I keep asking the same question, hey?' asked Dutch with a laugh as he turned back to his game.

Yes you should.

'Any idea who his date's with?' Dutch asked as he made a set and placed it aside.

Silence shook his head.

'Oh well. Best of luck to the both of them, I hope it's not a disaster all round.' Dutch looked up again, glancing at all the screens before bending back down to his game and finishing off another set.

'Do you know I have played fifty games this afternoon?' he asked absently as he laid out the cards from his hand the right way up. 'It's great because it's a challenge every time because the cards are always in a different order and position. You never know what you're going to get when you turn over a new card. The possibilities are endless-'

While waiting for a reason to what Dutch had just said, Silence brought out a packet of cards for himself to start a game. When Dutch didn't continue, he looked up worried that something was wrong.

His partner was sitting still, half the cards in his hand while the other was frozen in the act of setting them out for a new game. Slowly Dutch's hand came alive to lay out the cards until the game was ready to start. He started to play, turning over the set of three cards and taking away from them the ones he needed to make sets. The cards were turned over, and placed on others and put aside until there was just one more card in the line of seven to turn over, the result of which, if an ace, would win the game.

'You never know what you're going to get,' Dutch continue slowly to Silence's puzzled face. 'One moment there is nothing, and the next it all changes. But you never quite know what the change is, whether it's important or not until you go a little further into it.'

I'm a little confused now.Are you still talking about Solitaire, or something else? Because it doesn't sound like you're talking about cards anymore.

Silence confessed in his note as he handed it over.

Dutch took the note and half grinned before putting it down. 'It's the luck of the draw,' he said. 'You either hit the jackpot,' he moved the cards on top of the upside down card away and reached for it, 'or you don't.' Turning it over, he placed the ace up the top and completed the final set.

All the while he played he had barely taken his eyes from the monitors. As he completed the final set he rose quickly from his chair.  'Ring Dastardious straight away, tell him we have it!' he cried excitedly as he raced to the door.

'Huh?' called Silence after Dutch as the man was already out the door and it would take too long to write a note.

'Look at the screen!' Dutch yelled back as Silence watched his retreating form disappear off into the dark.