Pi Day Doomsday

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.

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.”

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