The third group struggles from the start. Exorcist and Banker argue over leadership, while Engineer and Biology begin searching for signs of Eli. They get confused by their own tracks, however, and it’s nearly twenty minutes before Biology catches sight of the telltale log with its newly exposed pale wood. Behind the log are scuffed leaves and one clear handprint. Viewers will see a cut scene: a young Jewish man kicking the top of the log in apparent frustration, then jumping over it, slipping and stumbling to hand and knee.
“Come on,” Engineer calls to Exorcist and Banker, who are shooting each other sour looks while ostensibly searching. Unusual behavior for Banker, but he’s unsettled by Carpenter Chick’s departure. He is here more for the experience than the money, so the prospect of quitting on the cusp of a new Challenge upsets him, especially because she quit so easily, as though it were nothing. Of everyone, he perhaps fell deepest into the trap of viewing his competitors as teammates, and Carpenter Chick seemed to him an especially useful one.
Engineer and the others follow Biology as she creeps through the trees. After a few minutes, she stops. “I lost the trail,” she says.
The camera zooms in on a pair of threads—one blue, one white—hanging from a tree branch three feet in front of her. It will be nineteen minutes before Exorcist finds the threads.
Meanwhile, Tracker is leading his team flawlessly through the woods, identifying signs that were left intentionally, as well as those that were not. Then Tracker’s eyebrows arch; he’s having a surprising day. He kneels before a rock with a dab of red on it.
“What is it?” asks Black Doctor, in awe of the ease with which Tracker follows a trail he can’t even see.
“It looks like he fell here,” says Tracker. He points at a deep scuff a few feet from the rock. “This is from his knee.” Another closer in: “And this is from his elbow.” Finally he points at the small red smear on the stone. “It appears he hit his head.”
“Hit his head?” says Black Doctor. He exchanges a concerned look with Air Force.
Tracker stands. “The trail gets clearer from here. It looks like he’s stumbling.”
“Concussion?” asks Air Force.
“Likely,” says Black Doctor. He turns to the cameraman. “Is this for real?” he asks, his medical training trumping all inclination to play by the rules. The cameraman ignores him. Black Doctor pushes past the camera, gets in the man’s true face. “Is. This. For. Real?” The cameraman is taken aback, uncomfortable. Black Doctor demands eye contact. “If you don’t know, I need you to radio someone who does,” he insists. “Now.”
The cameraman unclips his radio from his belt. He points its top toward Black Doctor. “Battery’s dead,” he says.
“Like hell it is,” says Air Force, grabbing the radio. He toggles the on-off switch, but the power indicator doesn’t light up. He takes the battery out, puts it back in, tries again. Nothing. The producers thought something like this might happen, and the cameramen were all instructed to put depleted batteries in their radios for the duration of this Challenge.
“I think from this point on we need to assume this is for real,” says Black Doctor. At Tracker’s incredulously lifted brow he adds, “Just in case.”
Less than a mile away, Zoo is on her hands and knees.
“What are you doing?” asks Waitress.
“Looking for changes in the coloring, the texture,” says Zoo. “A shiny path in a dull area, or a dull path in a shiny area. Stuff like that.”
“See anything?” asks Rancher. He crouches down next to her, keeping one hand on his hat.
“I don’t know,” says Zoo. “He obviously came through here.” She points to spot a few feet away to their right. “But after that…”
“After that what?” asks Waitress.
“Exactly.”
Rancher stands. “Do you hear that?” he asks.
Zoo and Waitress both cock their heads to listen. “Water?” asks Waitress.
“I think so,” says Rancher. “If I was lost and I heard water, that’s where I’d head.”
“Good idea,” says Zoo.
A few minutes later, they find a boot print. Zoo slaps Rancher on the back.
They reach the brook. Waitress points at a red handprint on a rock halfway across the water and asks, “Is that blood?”
Yes, thinks Zoo, then: No. She almost says, “Fake blood,” before thinking better of it. She doesn’t know if it’s possible to be disqualified for professing disbelief, but she doesn’t want to chance it. So instead she says, “He must have fallen.”
“And then he went that way, look,” says Rancher, pointing downstream, where another rock is smeared with mud and dabbed with more red.
Far behind them, Exorcist finally finds the threads that are intended to lead his team to their blood mark. But the quartet is moving slowly, bickering. Attempting to act as the voice of reason, Biology twirls to the others and claps her hands—clap, clap, clap-clap-clap—a trick she uses to get the attention of unruly students. “Get it together!” she demands. Her teammates are all looking at her, but one’s vision is centered noticeably below her face. She stalks up to Exorcist and he meets her eyes, surprised. “That’s better,” she says.
“She’s right,” says Banker, stepping between Biology and Exorcist before the latter can respond. “Let’s focus on finding Eli.” His foot lands on their next clue—a scuff—and obliterates it. More subtle clues abound, but no one in this group sees them. Tracker would have; even Zoo or Air Force would likely have caught the general sense of the trail. But this mishmash of a team will from this moment on fail. Engineer’s eyes fall on a disturbance: the combination of natural erosion, a deer’s passage, and imagination. He and his teammates want to see tracks, they need to see tracks, and so they do. Soon they’re following a trail that doesn’t strictly exist, and they’re following it in the wrong direction.
Tracker’s group is on course, moving swiftly after their target, who has covered more ground than they anticipated, nearly four miles already. Tracker has two thoughts: first, neither of the other groups will find their target before sundown; second, perhaps they’re not meant to.
But Tracker’s moving faster than the production team anticipated. When his team is a quarter mile away from the endpoint they have to hustle. The actor portraying Abbas Farran is hurried away from coffee and texting and into makeup, and then back to where he ended his trail.
That’s where Air Force, Tracker, and Black Doctor find him. The actor they think of as Abbas is sitting on a rock toward the top edge of an eroded cliff face. He’s moaning and holding his head in his hands. The contestants cannot see the ledge, they do not know how high it is—or even that it is a ledge, though the topography beyond the actor suggests at least a steep slope.
“Abbas!” calls Black Doctor. “Abbas, are you all right?”
The actor moans a little louder and lurches to his feet. “Who’s there?” he asks. He turns toward the group. Red is dripping down his forehead and has been smeared all over his face and hands.
From the cameraman’s nonreaction Tracker knows the blood is fake, that there is no true danger. He’s disgusted—he has been in real emergencies, has rescued hikers who were truly lost and hurt—and he wants no part of this mockery. But he needs the money. He notices that Black Doctor seems genuinely concerned; this is his moment, thinks Tracker, taking a step backward.
The actor playing Abbas stumbles toward the ledge.
“Whoa!” says Air Force. “Careful, man.”
Black Doctor is walking forward, with purpose but also caution. Air Force follows his friend. He and Black Doctor reach the actor together. Air Force snags the young man’s arm to steady him, and Black Doctor says, “Have a seat, son.” The actor allows them to lower him onto the rock where he was sitting before, and Black Doctor kneels, looking into his eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asks.
The actor is moving his head about dizzily. “I…I don’t know,” he says. “I…thank you.”
And then the on-site producer strides out of the woods, shouting, “Nice work! Everyone come this way!” and suddenly the actor portraying injured Abbas is standing, steady, his eyes clear. He wipes at his forehead with his sleeve and then walks toward the producer, asking, “Can I get a wet wipe?”
Air Force stiffens; Black Doctor stands and looks his way. “Well,” says Air Force, “I guess that answers that.”
17.