As he had the previous day, Giancarlo stayed at the lead. He remained there not only so that he could dictate the pace, but also because of the fog. Given the poor visibility, it would be quite easy to lose their way and blunder onto dangerous terrain. If any misfortune was destined to befall one of them, he preferred that it happen to him.

Up and up they climbed through the mist, neither man ever completely certain that they were headed in the desired direction—or indeed if the desired direction was where they really needed to go. At times they would encounter a fleeting break in the clouds, one just large enough to afford a brief glimpse of the top of the mountain. Giancarlo would instantly reorient their ascent in that direction, before the clouds once again closed over the scene, like the curtains on a stage.

It was slow going, and as he carefully picked the way forward, Giancarlo began to wonder if they were wasting their time, trekking to where everyone else had already searched. The higher they climbed, the less it seemed to make sense to him that Giorgio would have come this way. At first he passed these doubts off as fatigue, for he understood how it had a way of slowly eroding a worried man’s resolve. As hard as he tried, however, the thought would not go away, but continued to gnaw at him more and more with every step he took. When at last he could ignore it no more, he held up his hand to signal that it was time to stop for a break.

Giancarlo remained standing, leaning against his stick. Carter, meantime, took the opportunity to sit down on a rock and open his pack. He pulled out a bottle of water and gulped down a few swallows.

Giancarlo kicked pensively at the dirt.

“Tell me something,” he said. “That sightseeing trip you told me about. Did Giorgio say at what time he thought you would leave?”

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Carter. “But the last thing he said to Antonella was that he would be back before lunchtime, so I guess he planned for us to go around then. Why, what are you thinking?”

Giancarlo scratched his head.

“Let’s assume he left the house at six o’clock that morning,” he said, “or maybe even a little later.”

“Okay,” shrugged Carter. “So what?”

“That would give him less than six hours of steady hiking to go wherever he planned and then come back home, yes?”

“Makes sense,” said Carter.

“If that’s the case, why would Giorgio hike all the way up here, when he must have known that there was no way on earth that he would ever get back home on time?”

Now it was Carter’s turn to kick pensively at the dirt.