Heading toward the door on her suggestion, he said, “I on it.” He stopped in the hallway, hit redial and waited for Hillcoat to pick up as Poole concluded the meeting.
“It’s been a long day, and I thank you all for your participation and input. I did not expect to unravel this heinous threat in one day, but we are progressing toward an answer.” After scanning the faces around her, she asked, “Do all of you, except Trooper Briscoe, of course, plan to be around tomorrow?” She intentionally used the term ‘trooper,’ a very non-CHP designation, almost derogatory in its meaning, to shame Briscoe into submission. His presence on the team, she felt, was mandatory. “Deputy Keller, I know you’ll be out at Starbucks checking tapes.”
Agent Strong rushed back into the room and took his place without breaking the meeting’s pace. Aside, he said to Combs, “Done. It’s in the works.” Then back to Poole he said, “I’m in.”
One by one, the remaining taskforce members said, “I’ll be here,” until the question circled to Briscoe. “I’ll be out patrolling the coast,” he said, “but this bastard will be in my sights. Here’s my cell number if KK solves more lines.” He cracked a smile, handed Poole his card and finished his comment, “I’m really curious, now.”
Pleased by his softening refusal Poole smiled and said, “Fine. We’ll reconvene in this room at ten a.m. tomorrow. Everyone get plenty of rest. You’ll need it.” As the team stood to leave, she admonished them, “Please consider today’s meeting and information as very sensitive knowledge. It goes no further than this room.”
The cool evening breeze welcomed the taskforce from the building. They all headed to their cars replaying the day in their heads, praying the dreaded event was not tomorrow
BREAKTHROUGH
With three additional ciphers solved, the meeting started at ten o’clock sharp. All eyes were on Doug Strong, FBI, Quantico. More enthusiastic than yesterday, he cajoled with his team awaiting Poole’s signal. He felt empowered with his news. His late-night call from Jason Hillcoat convinced him the case was congealing. Especially when Hillcoat had suggested he return to Virginia before pi day. There were safer places for him, away from California; places that needed his computer expertise.
“Agent Linda Combs seems to have won the lottery today. It’s a great day for all of us,” Lieutenant Poole began. She too had renewed enthusiasm over Strong’s news. “Her recommendation for KryptoKnight’s search using temporal cues brought three more solutions into being last night.” Motioning to Strong, she said, “Would you like to enlighten us? I understand you now have a date, which gives us an anchor, a basis for a timeline.”
“I do,” he replied. Reading from his notepad, he began with the first of the three ciphers. He had rehearsed the disclosures in his mind several times, knowing they were confusing, almost bewildering, but he understood KryptoKnight’s artificial intelligence program. It had the capability of understanding the meaning of words, making associations between them, and oftentimes creating arcane solutions, strange even to its operators. All he had to do was make the curious answers believable.
“One of the most cryptic of the ciphered lines, which was first thought not to be an anagram, is the half-line ‘Paradise Lost.’ In fact it is, solving to ‘Pastoral ides.’
“Now, while we associate the term ‘ides,’ from the early Roman calendars, with the middle of the month, the most well-known ides is the ides of March: March fifteenth. KK’s confidence factor from this line alone is only sixty-two percent, but coupled with the next line the CF jumps to a whopping ninety-nine percent.” Glancing at the affirming nods around him, he referred back to his small pad and continued, “The next solved cipher ‘Delays one’s spot’ decodes to ‘Less one day, tops.’
“Simple math, subtracting one day from March fifteenth, yields March fourteenth as the target date. The Knight associated this solution with other references to pi, rounded to 3.14, March fourteenth by European notation, and called it a match. That’s the cause of the high CF, especially when linked to the Knight’s solution for the garbage line ‘In deck heap wind.’ Solved, it is ‘And I picked when.’” Finished, Strong sat and rested his case. Quietly, he fidgeted with his pad, awaiting acceptance of his information.
Poole, straight-faced, applauded slowly. “Thank you, Agent Strong. My calendar says we have twenty-two days until the fourteenth of March to find and neutralize this threat.” Eyes on her marked-up poem, she read it aloud in its entirety with the new solutions. “Here’s what we have so far:
Atomic Pie
Shaking her head, exhaling, she said, “We now have the what, when and how. We still need the who, why and where. And who in the hell is Gin Nose?”
Twenty-nine miles south, Officer Mica Briscoe, started his daily patrol route up the I-5 heading north toward Santa Ana. Saturday’s traffic, as usual, was horrendous. No wrecks, no emergencies, just too many damn cars on the road at one time, all traveling the same direction. It happened every weekend. A northbound roaming parking lot.
Spontaneously, cursing softly, he pulled through an official-use-only turnaround and headed south, planning instead to cover the Coastal Highway today. In the back of his mind, a voice commanded him to do so. He knew it was not his official route, but citations were citations, no matter where he issued them. He just needed to meet his quota, and the PCH often provided more opportunity; he had a hard time trying to give speeding tickets in the stopped parking lots on I-5.
Comfortable with his decision and the faster traffic flow, he headed down to Dana Point to join up with the 1 and travel up the coast to Newport Beach. A breathtaking drive through plush communities, overhanging cliffs and the Pacific shoreline, it showcased southern California’s beauty, not to mention occasional views of bikini-clad sun worshippers on the beaches. Yes, today he needed that to try to clear his mind of Adam. He traveled north only a few miles before pulling over the white shoulder line and stopping his cruiser.
As car after car whizzed past, he raised the laser radar gun to the windowsill, expecting an alarm. He had selected an obscure shoulder space by Aliso Beach Park to hide his cruiser, giving him a panorama of the sandy beach on one side, the traffic lanes on the other. Often stopping here, it brought him calmness, a private day at the beach; even though he was fifty yards from the water, his binoculars could draw him closer.
Finding a normal traffic flow, he dropped the gun into his lap and called in on his radio, giving his position, “Dispatch, this is unit 408, 10-8 on PCH at Aliso Beach Park. Traffic control.”
“10-4,” answered the dispatcher, laughing. “Back at the beach again, huh? Most be nice.”