From the map’s analysis, she composed a list of five Starbucks, with a location, date, time and temperature for each stop. She looked over the list, handed it to him, and asked, “Do you agree with our analysis of your stops? Does it look right to you?”
He scanned the list, thinking back, and answered, “Yes, I remember where I parked for each of these stops. It was hot out. And my cruiser was viewable by security cameras each time… if they were working. I try to prevent vandalism that way.”
Returning her list, he said, “I hope I was helpful. This has been a very informative, yet very upsetting experience for me. If I can be of assistance in the future, please call me.”
“Thank you, Officer Briscoe. Tomorrow I’ll send Deputy Keller, Sheriff Victor’s special investigator out to these locations to view the security tapes. With any luck, we’ll find the perpetrator who did all this. It may take a while, though.” Her comment, directed to Keller seated beside her, brought a confirming nod.
She handed the list to Keller, looked around the table at the affirmative nods, then back at Briscoe. They knew what she was thinking: she wanted him on her team. “You know, officer, I never thought I’d say this to a traffic cop, but you seem too smart to be cruising our streets. If I can work something out with your Chief Azul, would you like to join our team as we save this portion of the world? You said you loved adventure.” Smiling, she cocked her head, awaiting his reply.
He twitched, stared at his evidence copy, then looked at Poole. He felt a cold sweat, a feeling of dread come over him; his heart raced. Then, slowly, he answered, “I think not, Lieutenant Poole. While I appreciate the offer, and I am honored by it, my life has just enough adventure as it is. I like to sleep at night,”
Poole, disappointed, almost expecting his refusal, said, “Well, consider it an option, Officer Briscoe. Seldom do avenues like this open up for Chippies. From what I’ve seen of your capabilities here today, our team could certainly use your expert--”
Beeping from Strong’s pocket interrupted her. Agent Strong fumbled the cell phone from his coat, glanced at the caller ID, and answered, “Strong here. You guys are working really late tonight.” He checked his watch and added, “It’s almost seven p.m. up there. What do you have?”
Strong listened, nodding. “You’ve got how many different ciphers running through KK right now?”
“Sixteen? Must be a slow day, huh?” He grinned at the team, passing the information indirectly to them.
“Four more lines?” Lieutenant Poole tried passing her pen to him. He shook his head, refusing it and said, “Jason, can I put you on speakerphone? I’m the middleman here and my team would rather hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
Strong snickered and bantered back, “No, I did not say that, I said ‘horse’s mouth.’”
Still laughing, Strong punched the speakerphone button bringing the small speaker to life. “Okay, Jason, you’re on speaker. Including me, there are seven individuals around our table listening in.” Redirecting his attention to the group, he introduced the talker, “This is Jason Hillcoat with our Quantico Crypto Lab. He’s the Adam-cipher point man at our agency. If you have questions for him, please identify yourself as you speak.”
The speaker sounded rustling paper as Hillcoat began, “There are four new solutions from the cipher. I will first read the ciphered line then the solution with its confidence factor. Everybody understand?”
“Yes, Jason, Go ahead,” Strong said, echoing the nodding heads.
“These are not in order from the poem, but rather order of solution. The first line, ‘Facets of hot’ decodes to ‘Off the coast’ with a ninety-eight percent confidence factor. Next, ‘All rainbows died sot’ gives us ‘And bodies will roast,’ eighty-nine percent CF. The third line, ‘A stoic taste shot’ solves to ‘The coast is toast,’ ninety-two percent CF.
“Finally, and the knight went out on a limb with this one, based on a homophone of ‘pie’ in the title, is the half-line, ‘Dinosaur’s cartoons,’ decoded into ‘Across into around,’ and that’s the formula for pi, P-I. That decryption gave only a seventy-two percent CF, but still a passing grade. The second half of that line is still wandering through the computer trying to find its mate.” Hillcoat paused, then concluded, “That’s all folks. The remaining lines are iterating toward their solutions, but it may still be a while. I’ll keep you posted, Agent Strong.”
Releasing the call, Strong placed the phone back into his pocket and looked at his newly updated poem. “Did everyone get those?” he asked.
All nodding affirmatively, Strong admitted, “Well Officer Briscoe, looks like you pegged the mathematical pi relation some time back. Sure you don’t want to join our force?”
He studied the second, completed, verse, looked up, shook his head, and replied, “This does not bode well. There’s definitely something brewing off our coast. My intuition tells me he positioned a nuclear weapon, possibly several, into the water or on it, in a boat. I feel I should either do something to stop this lunatic or evacuate southern California. I’m not sure which. Right now, I think I’ll go back to patrolling my highways. Those roaming parking lots are looking a lot better, compared to this, but thank you anyway.” He deferred to Poole.
Lieutenant Poole, feeling helpless, powerless against the encroaching evil tide, sighed. She had always been on top of any situation, ready to pounce. But now, she watched a malevolence invading her territory with no recourse other than to patiently plod along, waiting for all hell to break loose.
“Yes, the second verse is now a rather gut-wrenching visual reference, something I can hardly imagine.” Intrigued, yet repulsed by the resolving threat, she read it aloud,
She cleared her throat, wiped her eyes, and asked, “Anybody see anything else in that verse besides the obvious?”
Weisner, analyzing the new lines from a psychological aspect, spoke out, “Yes. I notice that both the encrypted and decoded lines rhyme, a sizable task; that indicates a very high level of intelligence and possibly an OCD complex.” He paused. “This is no off-the-street criminal. No, there’s a genius mind behind this threat, possibly demented by radiation as you mentioned earlier, Lieutenant Poole.”
Mulling Weisner’s comment over, Poole slammed her fist on the table and growled, “We’re going to catch this sick son-of-a-bitch if it takes our entire force to do it. He has to slip up somewhere, then we’ll get him and hang him by his balls.”
Agent Gibbs smiled, nodded agreement and asked, “But how much time do we have? A day? A week? A month?” Suddenly angry, she shook the paper in her hand and said, “His threat is so specific in this poem; why is there nothing about when it will happen. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Don’t be so sure about that, there are still unsolved lines. Those ciphers may hold the temporal information we need,” said Combs. “I’m pretty certain of that. This crackpot is proud of his work. He will not leave us clueless without a date.” Thinking on her last statement, she addressed Strong, “Agent Strong, call your friend Hillcoat in Quantico and ask him to direct his context search to include temporal elements. Anything to do with time, days or dates. It has to be there, I know it. Gibbs is right.”