The Jefferson Key

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“Without that wheel, the final message is indecipherable,” he said. “We’re done. We need to focus on Stephanie now.”

“Mr. Malone,” a female voice said.

He turned at the call of his name.

The curator.

“I understand it was the cipher wheel that interested you.” She walked toward him beneath the room’s arches.

He nodded. “It’s what we came for. We needed it but, like you said, that’s the only one in the world.”

“The only original in the world,” she said. “Not the only wheel.”

He was listening.

“At the learning center, down in the visitor center, we wanted the kids to experience Thomas Jefferson hands-on. So we re-created many of his inventions and devices. We made them so they could touch and feel them. There’s a wheel there. I had it made myself. It’s plastic, and looks somewhat like the original. There are twenty-six disks, each one with twenty-six letters carved on the edge. I had nothing else to go on, so I told the company who made it to copy the disks exactly as Jefferson made them.”