Adventurers Club
E Wolf
Arthur Plumb had always believed that secrets were better when shared with the right people, preferably those who loved you enough not to use them against you later. That adage was the reason that Arthur had gathered his extended family into his Roosevelt Island home on a fog-damp Thursday evening in late October.
The legendary adventurer had announced that he had a secret he needed to tell about his long missing wife!
"The good news is that Caroline is alive and wants to be found," Arthur announced, and the room quieted noticeably in anticipation.
Arthur's home had a telescope, maps on the walls, bookshelves stuffed with atlases and a globe the size of a small satellite, as well as snack trays, and a surprisingly large inflatable Indiana Jones that someone had brought for reasons that would never be fully explained. It seemed like the living room of an adventurer.
“Grandpa,” said eleven-year-old June, leaning back so far in her chair that gravity threatened her. “Why does this feel like the beginning of a movie?”
Arthur smiled thinly. “Because every good story always does.”
The girl's dad, Malcolm, stood near the kitchen counter, trying to overhear all he could. A former Marine who now taught investigative journalism, Malcolm had inherited Arthur’s relentless curiosity which he applied in his travels as an international security consultant.
His daughter, June, had been sitting cross-legged on the rug, trying to figure out a puzzle box when she'd seen her grandpa Arthur turn away from the living room window and the fog that obscured the Manhattan skyline.
Arthur faced the people in his large living room: four grandchildren, a daughter-in-law, and another legendary adventurer named Uncle Wilbur, who looked like he didn't quite belong in Arthur's favorite chair.
To begin, Arthur cleared his throat.
“Thank you for coming,” he announced. “Especially on such short notice.”
“Dad,” Malcolm said, “your text literally said urgent family mystery with potential international consequences. You know I can’t ignore that.”
Arthur reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew a letter that was yellowed, creased, sealed with wax impressed with a tiny compass rose.
“This arrived yesterday.”
June leaned forward like she would for an exciting television show. “Actual wax seal. She’s being theatrical again.”
“Caroline was always theatrical,” Arthur said. “Mysteries, she thought were a projection of her style.”
He cracked the seal. The paper inside smelled faintly of cedar and old books. Then he read aloud:
Arthur,
If you are reading this, you may want to find your way back to the Circle.
Use the code. Trust the friends who have fun solving a mystery.
— C.
The room fell silent.
“Where's the code?” his son whispered.
Arthur removed his reading glasses, and looked honestly at Uncle Wilbur. Then he handed his small laptop to Wilbur, who entered the numbers he'd tattooed on his wrist.
With confirmation of a successful login, he got to an unfamiliar browser with a skull and crossbones.
An encrypted website loaded slowly, like a curtain rising. And there she was. Caroline Plumb, grinning fiercely, standing in the middle of a crowd of people. Young, old, tall, short, all smiling, laughing, leaning toward her as if drawn by gravity. Someone had hung strings of lanterns overhead and there was a happy kind of music you danced to after drinking too much sweet punch at a tropical tiki bar. Everyone watched as Caroline lifted a glass in a silent toast.
“Well,” said June. “She looks like she’s having way more fun than we are.”
Arthur stared, breath trapped somewhere between hope and disbelief.
“She’s alive,” he muttered with caution. “And she’s not alone.”
As his son and daughter crowded around behind him, they noticed that the site displayed coordinates, masked beneath a series of riddles, layered encryption, and literary references that were Caroline's style.
“Give me ten minutes and I'll tell you where she really is,” Wilbur said, and after entering the pin code he kept on the back of his wrist, his fingers were a blur until he found the source of the transmission. He announced the address as a bookshop on North Main by the bridge from the island to Brooklyn, that claimed to specialize in lost languages, obsolete maps, books and other antiquities.
The little shop, called World Maps, was still open although it was almost nine pm when Arthur arrived with his son Malcolm along.
The owner, a gentle-eyed man named Esteban, greeted Arthur as if expecting him.
“And here's someone I don't see often,” Esteban said cheerfully, glancing fondly at Malcolm.
Esteban got right down to business and handed Arthur a folded map and a cup of steaming coffee that smelled good.
“I saw her three days ago and I laughed for nearly an hour afterwards. She said the Circle was nearly complete,” Esteban said.
“You saw her?” Arthur asked, picturing a meeting in South America somewhere.
Esteban smiled mysteriously and held up his phone. “I saw her on Facetime. She was in the jungle and looked like she was swatting flies the size of small birds.”
"Seriously? Wasn't she with a crowd of happy locals?" Arthur asked.
"Yes, and most likely uploaded at least a week ago from somewhere deep in the jungle," Esteban said.
With Esteban's map in hand, the trail unfolded before Arthur. With every step, he felt his old instincts sharpening, his sense of humor rekindling, and his energy back after years of careful restraint.
"If you want my opinion, Mom wants you to go find her," his son Malcolm said.
"Thanks. I'm glad she remembers me," Arthur said, kindly. He'd become disconnected at home, only getting up out of his desk chair if he was scheduled on a bookshop tour.
"Maybe mom has set out rebuild you piece by piece, like only she could," Malcolm observed.
Arthur was beginning to believe that the greatest adventure of his life was only beginning.
Arthur Plumb had perfected the art of being still in his reading chair. He had a mind for research refined over years like a good bourbon. His days had settled into reliable grooves, with coffee brewed strong enough to get back to reading about places he had once crossed on foot or boat and that he'd barely survived.
He'd paged through the firsthand accounts of what really had happened that night in Bolivia with Caroline, as he smoked a big cigar. He read a little, left it open and went onto the next in a stack of folders that he'd pulled to read.
No one could fabricate the particular silence that followed a near-miss while drinking his Americano decaf at a sidewalk cafe in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. That memory alone had weight, and was a good reason to select the best from his humidor.
Caroline had hated how relaxed Arthur had become while they were together on Roosevelt Island. She'd remembered a hero's escape from certain death as the seconds counted down.
To Caroline, he wasn't ready to back down from adventure yet. If he really lost that desire, there'd be no moving forward. But she didn't believe he was ready for that sedentary life yet.
Arthur still remembered the incident that forced his retirement, as if it were a horrific accident happening in slow motion. The flash of the knife and his inability to react. Caroline had saved herself then.
Back at their New York City home, convinced he'd lost his edge, Arthur retired from field service, satisfied with reliving the danger through with his lecture tours. Reading brought his imagination alive, but he had begun to be too still, like "a museum guard stationed permanently in an exhibit of his own life."
That's what Caroline had told him abruptly, arms crossed, at the doorway to his library. “You just don't have a reason for getting up from that easy chair of yours.”
"Of course, Hon. But for dangerous and death defying, I'll leave it to young ones," he replied, adjusting his bifocals.
"Are you sure? Adventure was at the heart of our marriage!" she protested.
"Yes, and nothing is certain but I'm afraid of taking that risk at my age."
Caroline gave him a long look, which got his protesting again: "I've already gotten through more than most people have dared in a lifetime."
Caroline had kissed his cheek gently that night, as one does when saying goodbye to someone who doesn’t realize that you're not coming back.
“I love you,” she said, then added in a whisper: “But I won’t shrink my life to fit a fear of danger.”
Then she was gone, leaving behind the echo of movement in an apartment that would slowly and quietly fade.
Arthur sat at his desk, staring at the next clue she'd left behind. Just a single line of text on the encrypted site, refreshed that morning:
Follow the Oracle of The Sahel and we'll be together soon right where we left off.
Arthur laughed out loud until he realized the full extent of that backhanded compliment.
"Right where we left off? I was almost killed!" he said to himself.
A link on the same page brought up instructions from Caroline.
"We used to go to a narrow walking path near the edge of the Hudson, where we'd just stretch our legs from too much sitting. Go there now. I'll be waiting."
Caroline was urging him on, but he walked stiffly, his posture betraying years of caution, as joggers half his age and dog walkers absorbed in their phones, passed him.
His thoughts, usually a clutter of footnotes and what-ifs, quieted into a rhythm that matched his steps. He stopped at a bench near a cluster of bare winter trees where he found a small envelope tucked beneath the slats. Inside was a photograph of a younger, dirt-smudged, laughing Caroline and him. She was adjusting the strap of his pack somewhere high and windy. On the back, written in her familiar hand:
Remember our old haunt: The Sahel.
He sat there longer than necessary, the photo warm in his palm despite the cold. By reminding him of the Oracle of Sahel, it seemed she'd been doing some serious thinking about how to get him back. She knew exactly how to wake him: by making the effort unavoidable to get back to her.
Caroline Plumb knew of ways of waking someone who needed it, like Arthur. Because he'd been inactive, he didn't know the danger he was in. Her enemies were rapidly mobilizing and would come to New York if necessary. Caroline had sent the blackmail files to somewhere she thought they'd never be found: to Arthur in New York, delivered in a specific way.
Because of the danger, she'd called CIA instructor Barrett Boone who was to meet Arthur at the Midtown Athletic Club near Central Park.
Bennett Boone was once thought of as an Oracle because he'd pulled Arthur out of trouble, more than a few times in The Sahel.
Barrett Boone's first challenge for Arthur was at a fast moving climbing wall at the athletic club. Since Arthur wouldn't could keep up at a high speed, Barrett had a valet brought up his midnight-blue Aston Martin DBS. There was a moment where the car sat like a predatory animal at rest, its lines impossibly smooth, as if speed itself had been sculpted and sat ready for ignition.
Posing for a picture he thought Arthur would send to Caroline, Barrett leaned against the car, polishing the curved steel edge of a machete with a cloth, slowly and reverently. Like a priest tending an altar.
"Now get in. I have a reserved spot to the north of Central Park."
As he steered the car around cabs, with a confident sideways grin, Barrett explained: "You and Atlas were quite a number in the day. Now that we learned she is alive, she's directing us to a part of the world that concerns us."
"Why?"
"As you may be aware, Peru and neighboring Bolivia are at the top of the do not travel country list," he explained, looking carved from experience, with his silver hair swept back and eyes alert in a way that suggested he never truly slept.
“I assume that's where Caroline is?” Arthur asked and he nodded.
"But not by choice. She has files that could put away La Bailar for a long time, if she can survive long enough to get to where she's going."
"Which is where?"
"Somewhere that the worst cartel leader who ever lived, can't find him."
He patted the Aston Martin’s steering wheel affectionately.
"Where are we headed right now?" Arthur asked, as Boone pulled his car into a parking garage a block north of Central Park.
"I wouldn't go there at night," Arthur said, after Barrett confirmed the destination.
“But don't you want to see if the Oracle of The Sahel still has his stuff?” Barrett asked, with an endearing smile.
Barrett said this all with characteristic bravado as he led Arthur to an oversized van with a fictitious electric company sign on it. It was parked on the street, directly in front of an entrance to the park.
A door popped open as they arrived and inside were three people, and a number of electronic monitoring stations.
"Coffee anyone?" someone asked Arthur, with a big smile on his face. How could he refuse?
As Arthur sipped a tasty roast he'd want if he had the choice, the technician who was about twenty five, seemed to be waiting to be introduced.
"I got the crew back together, for old times sake," Barrett Boone said, then he introduced Bennett, his son and computer expert. And there was a thin man named Theo who claimed he survived three coups by “always leaving the room before the speech.” Arthur sipped his delicious hot drink as he was introduced to the athletic Solene, who exuded confidence.
“This is my crew, part of my circle here in Manhattan,” Barrett said quietly, standing beside Arthur.
“We're thrilled to work with the great Sage: Arthur Plumb,” said Theo.
As Barrett and Arthur walked slowly toward a dark forested part of the park to the north, Arthur recounted his memories of Theo, being sure to add a story about a near miss where injuries were treated as routine and survival based on decisive and quick action. It got a few laughs.
“You notice something?” Barrett asked, as they walked, since there was a rustling in the shrubs. "Someone is nearby and watching," Arthur pointed out.
In the woodsy part of the park, Manhattan noise didn’t stop, so much as thin, like a radio drifting out of range. Sirens dulled. Traffic became a distant tide. The park at night was not New York, it was another place: anywhere you needed it to be to get away.
However, hearing some sneaky rustling in the brush, Arthur glanced down at his borrowed taser. It felt absurdly light. A toy. Something you’d lose in couch cushions.
The park answered that thought with a sound. Branches cracked somewhere to their left. Not a casual sound. From the dark came figures: four, then six, then more resolving as eyes adjusted. Hoodies. Baseball caps pulled low. Someone whistled, sharp and mocking.
“Evening, seniors,” a voice called. “Park’s closed.”
The first rush came fast. Arthur barely had time to register motion before a body slammed toward him. Training took over. He sidestepped, hooked an elbow, redirected momentum. The first attacker hit the ground with a surprised oof and lay there reconsidering his choices.
Barrett so delighted by these attacks that he laughed with a delighted, feral sound. Arthur reached for the taser as another figure lunged. Click. Nothing.
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Arthur muttered, but he threw the taser at the attacker. It hit the man square in the forehead.
The attacker blinked, stunned more by audacity than pain, then tripped over a root and fell into a hedge. He didn't get up so that was at least some luck.
The next approach came from the left: a man pushing a grocery cart full of empty cans that rattled far too loudly as he pushed the cart on the paved path.
“Evenin’, folks,” the man called, cheerful and wrong. “Bit late for sightseeing.”
Barrett smiled warmly. “We like the stars.”
The man squinted. “Ain’t no stars tonight.”
Arthur glanced up. “That’s how you know we’re experts.”
Two more figures emerged from behind the cart, both younger and wearing expressions that suggested they’d already spent the contents of Arthur’s wallet.
One stepped closer. “You folks need help gettin’ outta the park?”
Arthur laughed. The man’s smile slipped. “I wasn’t talkin’ to you.”
Arthur sighed as the cart lunged forward and Arthur barely stepped aside as it clanged into a lamppost.
Barrett moved first, not fast but precise, hooking an arm, redirecting momentum, letting physics do the rest. One attacker went down hard and stayed there, staring up at the trees.
Arthur found himself face-to-face with a kid who reeked of too much confidence. A taser crackled somewhere behind him, knocking him off his feet, followed by Theo’s delighted voice: “That never gets old!”
More figures appeared: drawn by noise, opportunity, or the general belief that elderly people were an easy target. One man claimed to be a park volunteer. Another offered “security services.”
They were quickly surrounded by a ring of opportunists circling like they’d seen this scenario end one way too many times and wanted to get in early.
Arthur felt his pulse racing. He hadn’t felt this awake in years.
One man stepped forward, tall, confident, wearing a suit jacket that had never known an office.
“You gentlemen look tired,” the man said. “Why don’t you sit down and let us hold onto your valuables.”
Barrett tilted his head toward Arthur who considered the man carefully. “I think he’s ever been punched hard enough to know better."
Barrett grinned. “That about says it.”
The tasers came out.
What followed was less a fight and more of a rout of the attackers. The men clearly expected to take what they wanted without resistance. But Barrett dispatched two attackers without messing up his hair. He moved through it all like he was dancing to music only he could hear, defending himself against anyone who’d take him on.
It ended the way these things always did, suddenly. The attackers fled, limping, swearing, rethinking their plans. Silence crept back in, broken only by distant sirens and the soft hum of the street lamps.
Arthur leaned against a tree, laughing and breathless and asked: “Shall we continue before someone recognizes you as the Oracle of The Sohel?”
They kept moving. That was the trick, Arthur realized, just not stopping. Central Park rewarded momentum the way oceans did. Pause too long and something curious, hungry, or bored would surface.
The path narrowed. Lamps thinned. The trees leaned closer. A voice drifted out from behind a tree. “You boys lost?”
Arthur turned to see a woman in a heavy coat, smile too sharp and eyes too quick.
“We’re walking,” Arthur said.
“At night?” She laughed. “Dangerous for gentlemen your age.”
“Funny thing,” Barrett said pleasantly. “We’ve noticed the danger but keep overestimating it.”
The woman's forced smile faded and she stepped forward and said: "I have something for you. Caroline thought you'd make it this far."
The mention of her name surprised Arthur more than expected. She pressed a small packet in Arthur's hand which he assumed were drugs. Then she melted into the trees like she’d never been solid.
When they emerged onto the sidewalk like survivors, streetlights snapped back into formation. Taxis honked. A man yelled into his phone about artichoke pizza. Arthur felt it immediately: the park hadn’t released them so much as finished with them for now.
Barrett was curious. “What did she give you?”
“As a parting gift?” Arthur asked, going into his pocket for it.
"Yes. I assume it's a clue?" Barrett said as he unlocked the Aston Martin, lights blinking like a wink.
“Yes. It looks like a few clues. We'll have to sit down with Bennett later.”
Barrett handed Arthur a set of keys for his expensive ride.
“Take it for a spin,” Barrett said, nodding toward the Aston Martin.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "In midtown around Central Park?"
Barrett’s grin returned. “This is part of the test.”
Arthur slid into the driver’s seat, the leather hugging him like an old confidence rediscovered. When he started the engine, the sound alone felt like a promise. When he got moving, Arthur laughed. Tonight he was smiling because the Circle was welcoming him back.
To be continued…