Chapter 660

Berlin Germany — Six Weeks Earlier

Dessie Albright, Selina’s mother, sat on a bed leaning back against a pile of overly-large pillows in an elegant hotel suite in Berlin, Germany. The weather was beautiful, and her husband, Phillip, was sitting within easy conversational distance through the open door to the balcony — his ideal reading spot for this particular hotel. There were only a few puffy, white clouds to add their beauty to an otherwise perfectly clear sky. His book was fairly interesting, but Dessie kept interrupting to ask questions.

“Baby, you choose,” he responded, looking up as she asked yet another question. “As long as I’m out of the city for a while, I don’t care.”

“Well, you might when we get there, and you have to start climbing mountains.”

“As long as they’re little mountains, I still don’t care,” he said as he tried to find his place yet again.

“Come in here and help me decide,” she whined. “We need to know before tomorrow, as you well know.”

“Dess, we’ve already rented the suite in that castle you chose for our base. Your wanting to do this for the whole summer is the reason for the base in the first place. We can take everything we might need and leave what we aren’t going to immediately use in the castle, so as I’ve repeatedly said, take whatever you want; we can store it at the castle when we’re not using it. On our hikes, we can take warm weather gear if we’re going to stay away from the mountains and cooler weather gear if we decide to visit them.”

Dessie smiled at her husband. “As always, I talked to Charles” (the hotel’s concierge) “and asked if he knew someone knowledgeable in the subject who might help us. He suggested one of the department heads at a local sporting goods store. I also mention that we were going to primitive camp, would be out for some time, and we hoped to resupply some of our food from nature, mentioning that there seemed to be numerous streams in the mountainous area that I imagined would be full of fish. Charles said that the Department Manager could help me along those lines — for the proper incentive. When he told me how much, he also told me he could handle the transaction, and we could pick up our licenses when we bought our gear. I agreed and gave him the money in addition to our particulars for the forms.

“Anyway, the person Charles suggested called for more information about the type of gear we were looking for and what our general plans were in order for him to better assist us. When I told him, he asked if I would email him a list of any specifics that we would be looking for. I sent him a list and also told him that we would be open to suggestions for additional equipment. I stressed that we would be backpacking for the next several months, although we would have a localized base somewhere on the trail. Anyway, we are scheduled to meet with this person at ten tomorrow at the local sporting goods store, and he knows that we are only interested in quality equipment.

“Oh, yes. Once he heard our plans, he insisted on our taking the best survival radio with us. He said that our phones would probably not work in many of the mountainous areas, but should we have an emergency, we could send out a distress call with the survival radio that would be picked up by satellites and be relayed to emergency crews on the ground. The message would include the coordinates of our location. Of course, you can’t talk on it, but it will work practically anywhere in the world. He also suggested that we take a small AM/FM radio with us should we want to keep abreast of the news as we hike. At her husband’s raised eyebrow (he had given up on reading and had come into the bedroom), she went on. “We talked about equipment for a while. From what he described, tents have come a long way since we used one. They’re lighter, much stronger and are designed to keep out the weather better than anything we ever used when we used to backpack so much.”

Phillip stared at his wife. “I thought we agreed that we were going to primitive camp — taking only the essentials, etc.”

“We did, but we also agreed that we would have a base at the castle. Besides, even though we will be using new technology, we will be taking only the necessities with us.”

“And what does that mean? We have to take adequate food with us. You can’t fish for food, if that’s what you’re referring to — not here in Germany. Even residents here have to take a two-week course or something like that to get a license to fish, and chances are the license would be even harder for tourists to get.”

“Unless ... you know the right people,” she said with a giggle. “I told Charles what we needed and our reason, and as I said, he said the license could be obtained through the person I talked to at the sporting goods store — for the appropriate incentive. We agreed on the amount, and I gave it to him.

“As I mentioned, we are to pick up our permits when we shop for our equipment.”

When Phillip frowned, she hastened to tell him that Charles insisted that the permits would be legitimate and issued by the proper authorities. Then with a giggle, “Isn’t it interesting how most governments, regardless of the language or structure, always seem to work the same way? Oh, and Darling, remind me to tip Charles a little more than usual. He has come through for us several times now, and of course, without his suggestion, we would not have our fishing permits, nor would we know who to ask about them. Did you get the confirmation from the helicopter people Charles recommended?”

“Yes. They’re scheduled to be here at ten Wednesday morning. We need to have everything on the roof by then. I even made sure they knew we were taking camping gear to last for at least a month, and I would not be pleased if he started talking about too much weight at the last moment. We had a discussion, and he said his machine would normally take six people to the castle, but he would reserve it for just us and our gear.”

“Good. I can’t wait to talk to the person at the sporting goods store and start acquiring that new gear.”

The following day after a hurried breakfast and a short ride, Phillip and Dessie were ushered out of the limo at the front entrance of the large sporting goods store. Neither of the two even thought to tell the driver how long they expected to be in the store, but accustomed to the wealthy, he moved the vehicle to a spot in the rear of the lot but within sight of the entrance so he could be ready when they exited. He had heard enough of their conversation when they got in to know that they would be purchasing camping gear. He hoped there would be room in the trunk for all of it. Better yet, maybe the store would deliver it.

After noting Dessie’s casual comments about ‘acquiring” camping gear for an extended trip, the head of the department at the sporting goods store had decided to do a quick search on the net. Information was sparse, but he suspected he was dealing with the truly wealthy. Following protocol, he informed the Store Manager, and he had arranged for a salesperson to assist the Department Manager while waiting on his new customers. Some wealthy were obnoxious, but many weren’t. Mrs. Albright seemed to be the latter — at least on the phone. The store was relatively new and was still building its customer base. A little finesse here might well result in friends of these people finding a new store for their sporting goods purchases. The manager decided it was worth the extra effort. Time would tell.

Both Dessie and Phillip were accustomed to being recognized, and truth be told, were a bit spoiled by the extra attention paid to them just because they were, indeed, wealthy.

The Department Manager, Eike Meier, had stationed himself near the front entrance as the appointed time neared. When the two exited the limo and entered the store, he assumed they were his customers and walked over to greet them. “Mr. and Mrs. Albright, I presume.” When they acknowledged, he went on, “I am Eike Meier, and I will be assisting you this morning. Welcome to our store.”

After the introductions were completed, and the small talk was over, he escorted them to the area where camping gear was positioned to display many of the items a camper would expect to use during an extended backpacking trip.

“This young lady is Anna Fredrich, and she will also be assisting you today.” They greeted the clerk, and Eike began to discuss the items Dessie had sent in her email, adding to them with apparent finesse. Both she and Phillip realized that he was an experienced camper. When Phillip mentioned that to him, Eike chuckled. “If you are referring to my seemingly unending list of ‘should have brought with me,’ or ‘should not have brought with me,’ dumb mistakes, I suppose you could refer to me as experienced.”

“For instance?” Dessie teased.

“Well, I had the absolute best high temp spark lighter there is, and I knew I would have a fire going in nothing flat. It rained all afternoon, and by the time I had my camp set up under a partial overhang, the thermometer read 4 degrees C.” At their blank looks, he quickly said, “Roughly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Not really cold, cold, but with it raining, I was shivering by the time I had walked in it all afternoon. I was very much ready for some hot tea by the time I had my camp set up. That’s when I realized I had left my kindling strips and tinder in the garage. And yeah, I know about fatwood, but with the thick clouds, it was getting dark. No matter what I did, I couldn’t seem to produce any dry fatwood from any of the downed wood I scrounged up. By then, I was tired and frustrated, so I wound up just eating an energy bar for my evening meal and crawling into my sleeping bag for the night. Obviously, I now make absolutely certain to have kindling and tinder of some kind in my pack before I start out.”

“Oh, you poor man. You should have had a woman along with you,” Dessie teased.

Eike chuckled but went on, “I had a good sleeping bag, so I was warm after a while, but I had brought a steak with me, anticipating frying it up for my evening meal. Oh, I had food, but it certainly wasn’t hot food.”

“We appreciate your having reminded us. We haven’t been camping in years, but we used to take at least two kinds of tinder with us. I talked to the person in charge of the hotel’s laundry, and he gave me a whole sackful of lint from the dryers.”

“Lint?” Eike repeated.

“I pulled the centers out of two rolls of toilet paper, then simply taped the end of the hollow paper center, stuffed it full of dryer lint and taped the other end closed. You can even smush the roll almost flat to save room in your backpack should you need to, and of course, the toilet paper takes up less room without the center. The dryer lint will produce a nice flame the first time a spark hits it, and it makes great tinder. We also keep a few cotton balls and alcohol pads like the ones in a first aid kit. An alcohol-soaked cotton ball will always get the job done if you have decent kindling.”

Phillip spoke up. “We also take a couple boxes of regular birthday candles with us. They make great fire starters and take up far less room than would kindling sticks that you purchase.”

“We each take a fire starter and some type of kindling with us — different brands on the starters — in case we should get separated somehow.

“Speaking of getting split up, you might want to consider our best walk-abouts. They have a decent range and could be invaluable should you get separated.”

The two glanced at each other, “I suppose we should be making a list.”

Eike looked at his assistant, who began taking notes.

“Backpacks,” Dessie said. “I want one with a wide hip belt. My old one doesn’t have the belt, and it kills my shoulders. I can well remember how the straps hurt. I didn’t like that feeling then, and I probably won’t like it even more this time.”

“We have a model that should help with that.” Eike nodded to his assistant, and the group moved to the area. “One size does not fit all,” he said. The female assistant helped Dessie find a backpack that fit, and Eike assisted Phillip.

Once they had their packs chosen, Eike spoke quietly to his assistant, and she hurried away, only to return shortly pushing a dolly.

“We may as well do this comfortably,” the Department Manager said.

Phillip nodded to the next section. “We need to go over there.”

“Granted, there are some very nice tents on that display, but the backpacking tents are over here.”

“I guess it’s been longer than I realized,” Phillip said, embarrassed.

“There are still some nice backpacking tents, but they are lighter and don’t have some of the amenities the other tents do.”

A moment later, Eike pointed them toward a display. “Our two-person backpacking tents are the best there is, though. Some are designed to use the tent’s own bottom sheet without a ground pad, but from experience, I would suggest getting a good ground pad, anyway. Nothing like a sharp rock punching a hole in your tent’s bottom sheet and swamping you with cold water in the middle of the night during a hard rain. Been there, done that,” he said, obviously deliberately using what he thought was an American expression.