Severe Clear

12

Scott Hipp returned to his office at the National Security Agency after a lunch in Washington and found one of his code section supervisors waiting for him. Hipp hung his jacket in a cupboard and sat down at his desk. “Good afternoon, Fritz. You look puzzled. What can I do for you?”

“I’m not even sure why I’m here,” Fritz replied, “and I don’t know what you can do for me.”

“Then get out of my office,” Hipp said jovially. “You’re wasting our time.” Fritz always needed a touch of the cattle prod to get him moving.

“We picked up an e-mail transmission from a cell phone in California to a website we have a continuous watch on.”

“What was the text?”

“It was in English: ‘All is well. I am fine.’ We ran a decode on the phrase and got nothing.”

“Sounds like a prearranged signal,” Hipp pointed out.

“That’s what we think, but there is a further wrinkle.”

“What’s that?”

“It was signed ‘Nod.’” He spelled the word.

Hipp leaned back in his chair and recited: “‘And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.’ Genesis four, verse sixteen.”

“I figured you’d come up with something a little off the wall,” Fritz said.

“Such flattery,” Hipp replied.

“What do you make of it?”

“Read all of chapter four-hell, read all of Genesis. Run Abel against it, run Enoch.”

“Who is Enoch?”

“The son of Cain.”

“I wasn’t raised religious,” Fritz said.

“Then you are at a disadvantage in the world,” Hipp said. “Reading assignment for you: the King James Bible.”

“The whole thing?”

“Be good for you. It’s the basis of so much of the Christian world, and the translation is very beautiful.”

“I know about Cain and Abel,” Fritz said. “I read Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden.”

“Maybe that’s the reference, instead of Genesis. Run names from that, too, Cal’s brother, father, and mother. Cast a wide net.”

“Okay,” Fritz said, rising to go.

“Wait a minute,” Hipp said.

Fritz sat down again.

“Give me a minute,” Hipp said. He stared dreamily out the window, then he began to recite:

“Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night

Sailed off in a wooden shoe-

Sailed on a river of crystal light,

Into a sea of dew.

‘Where are you going, and what do you wish,’

The old moon asked the three.

‘We have come to fish for the herring fish

That live in this beautiful sea;

Nets of silver and gold have we!’

Said Wynken,

Blynken,

And Nod. ”

Hipp raised his eyebrows and looked at Fritz questioningly.

“I haven’t read that, either,” Fritz said.

“Then read it. It’s by Eugene Field, who wrote children’s poetry in the late nineteenth century. There are four stanzas. I don’t have time to recite the whole thing for you, so Google it, print it, and go through it carefully. Give some thought to the wooden shoe and the nets of silver and gold. There could be other meanings, who knows? Now beat it.”

Fritz left Hipp’s office, went back to his cubicle, found the poem, and printed it, while two of his colleagues looked over his shoulder. “What is it?”

“A poem that Hipp said to take a look at,” Fritz replied. He printed two more copies and handed them to the two young men, who read it.

“Check out the last stanza,” one of them said.

Fritz read aloud:

“Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,

And Nod is a little head.

And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies

Is a wee one’s trundle bed. ”

The three looked at each other. Fritz was the first to speak. “So what the fuck does that mean?”