“I figured that. He’s no terrorist. A joker maybe, but not a terrorist.”
“Do you think this is one of his jokes? Does it match his priors’ M.O.?”
“No. I think not,” he admitted.
“Well then, Officer Briscoe will you consent to a few tests to clear your name?” Weisner glanced down and said, “This is as embarrassing for us as it must be for you.” He smiled and walked to Briscoe’s side. “Let’s go next door and clear your name.”
THE VETTING
Two hours and thirty minutes later, he returned with Weisner to the meeting room. He was exhausted, yet pleased with his performance. The Taskforce ADAM members still seated, awaited the verdict.
Weisner escorted Briscoe to his seat, then returned to his seat by Combs. He opened a manila folder, brought with him from the tests and began reading, “I administered to Officer Mica Briscoe the MMPI-2-RF test at eleven-twenty-five hours today. Those of you in classified or sensitive employment may remember the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory test. You’ve probably taken one to ensure your stability and trustworthiness: it’s quite a lengthy and intrusive test. He completed it by thirteen-hundred hours with satisfactory scores, meaning he is not a psycho, or threat to society or himself.”
Ignoring Combs request for solemnity, he chuckled at his witticism and continued, “His second test was a straightforward polygraph. No deception was detected. Even on the critical questions such as ‘Did you compose or generate the evidential threat,’ he passed. There was not a hint of deception in any of his answers.” He turned the page and continued, “Officer Briscoe’s third and final test was negative showing no more than ambient radiation.” Weisner glanced around the table and summarized his findings, “Long story short, Officer Briscoe is no longer a suspect. Congratulations Mica.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, he tilted his head, and said, “Thank you for expediting my fate, Dr. Weisner. Now, I understood the reasoning behind all the tests but the third. What was that? A scintillation counter?”
Weisner motioned to Poole, sitting as judge to the proceedings. It would be her decision to inform him about the test in question. She motioned to Agent Lashawn Gibbs with Homeland Security for her input. “Agent Gibbs, do we have a need-to-know situation here?”
“Your call Lieutenant. It’s still local up to this point. Your jurisdiction,” replied Gibbs.
Poole thinking, nervously twisted a pencil in her fingers, then lowered her voice and addressed Briscoe, “Yes, it was. Exactly that. The envelope and letter you brought into evidence are highly radioactive, to the point of personal danger. We’ve locked them up in a leaded vault to protect ourselves.” She glanced to Agent Gibbs from the DHS. “According to Agent Gibbs, the radiation from that letter comprises a threat in itself, like a letter laced with anthrax.”
She watched Briscoe’s reaction as he wiped his hands on his pants. “No, these copies are not radioactive,” she continued. “If you had created the evidence or even handled it at length, your fingers and hands would have indicated high levels of radiation. Whoever did this, we suspect, is highly radioactive and probably near death.” Stressing the gravity of her disclosure, she added, “We found the smoking gun, Officer Briscoe. None of this information will leave my lab without my authorization. Understand?”
Frozen in thought, he nodded, shifting the stack of papers on the table. “So this is serious, huh?”
Agent Gibbs, DHS, replied, “Serious enough, Officer Briscoe, for my office to send me across the country to California. Probably one of the more credible threats we’ve had in years. The NTAS has issued an elevated threat warning to all federal agencies. The anti-terrorism community’s eyes are on California until this threat is resolved.”
“And the NTAS is what?” he inquired.
“The National Terrorism Advisory System. An arm of DHS. That’s your Department of Homeland Security, if you don’t remember your government’s structure.”
“So this all came about after I received that letter? You guys work fast. How did--”
Mid-sentence, Agent Strong’s cell phone rang, interrupting him. Strong was on alert for updates from KryptoKnight’s operators. The Adam-cipher team at Quantico had been tasked with issuing alerts to him for each newly decoded anagram. He was expecting the call.
“Strong here,” he answered.
“Yeah, let me get a pen.”
Lieutenant Poole pulled a pen from her pocket and offered it.
“Okay, go,” said Strong. He scribbled several lines on the back of his evidence copy and asked, “Another one?” Pen to paper, he wrote again, as the taskforce craned their necks trying to read his script. “That’s it? He handed Poole her pen and nodding, mouthed, “Thank you.”
As abruptly as it started, the call ended.
Looking around the table, he sighed, then said, “KryptoKnight has deciphered two more lines from the poem, each with a ninety-percent confidence factor.”
Chairs scraped, paper rustled through the small room awaiting his announcement.
Strong scanned his notes and said, “The lines are not sequential, so just add the solution out beside the ciphered line.” He paused, saw everyone nodding, ready to write, and continued, “The line ‘Eden mist won’ decodes to ‘End times now’ while ‘Scab oil one’ yields ‘Ocean boils.’
“The word I get from our cryptanalysts is that each successfully decoded line simplifies further decoding based on context. I would expect more lines related to the ocean will soon appear.”
“I notice that the line ‘Dinosaur’s cartoon: Paradise Lost’ does not appear to be anagrammed, but relates to end times. Is that the context you mean?” observed Briscoe.
“Yes, that too,” answered Strong. “Our computer is working on permutations and combinations of the words in each line, piecing together a sensible threat relating to terrorism. Every solution begets another solution. That line may in fact be a very ingenious anagram.” He sighed, continuing, “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
The room went silent, agents examining the new data, as Garcia reentered the room carrying a large map. Spreading it out to cover the table, she said, “Here’s Officer Briscoe’s patrol itinerary for the past week, Lieutenant Poole. I added some notes for clarification. Call me if you need any more explanations.”
Before Garcia could leave the room, Poole grabbed her arm and asked, “Did anything stand out as you created this map?”
Garcia grinned and said. “Yes. He certainly loves his Starbucks’ coffee.”
The chuckles around the table blushed his face. Then he too began to laugh with them. “Hey, they’re my roadside offices. I use their restrooms, drink their coffee, eat their donuts, and fill out my reports on their large tables. Beats my console and steering wheel by a mile.” He smiled and admitted, “Yes, I admit, I am a Starbucks junkie.”
As the laughter died, Poole looked at her watch, conferred with the taskforce team, then announced, “Okay, let’s take a thirty-minute lunch break. We will reconvene here at three o’clock to consider this map. For those of you unfamiliar with our building layout, there’s a lunchroom with vending machines by the lobby on the first floor. You won’t have time to leave the building for lunch.” With that, the group stood and filed out of the room heading toward lunch.
Three o’clock arrived and the team was seated around the table scouring Garcia’s map. Forty-nine stops were identified where he had paused for two minutes or longer, ranging from five to thirty-five minutes. Some were traffic stops, fourteen were Starbucks; most were on or within a few miles of the I-5, I-405, or PCH. The north-south boundaries were Santa Ana to the north and Dana Point to the south. At the end of his duty week a high pressure weather system had settled over southern California, raising daily temperatures ten degrees to the south. Only five of his fourteen Starbucks breaks triggered the high-temperature flag during the unusual heat wave, indicating an open-window condition. Poole was ready to create her short list.