8

DeCrypto

Joe was the first one to notice something was not right. George had gone into the theater ten minutes ago but didn't even say anything ever since. He became slightly uneasy with the silence that filled the theater.

"Don't you think George is taking too long to find a clue?" Bess asked, grabbing his arm. "Come on! Let's go check on her. I'm a little worried about George."

Joe nodded. Together, the two blond teenagers entered the theater. What they saw surprised them. No, it was what they didn't see that surprised them. "George is gone!" Bess screamed! She ran to the center of the theater, calling her brunette cousin's name. "George! George!"

The curtains went up. Frank and Nancy appeared from the backstage. "I think we found a new lead!" Frank said happily. He then saw the grim expression on his brother's face. "What happened here?"

"And where is George?" Nancy asked, coming out from the shadows. "I thought you were with her."

"Oh, this is horrible, Nancy!" Bess said, panicked. "George was looking for any useful clue alone in the stage. Then, when we went inside to check on her, she was gone!"

"Gone!" Nancy shouted, surprised. "But we didn't see anyone raise the curtains. If they did, we'd have seen it from backstage!"

"And if anyone grabbed George and went outside, we'd have seen them from the hallway for sure!" Joe said. "But we didn't. We were right in front of the door leading to the theater. It wasn't opened, that's for sure, and this door is the only way out!"

Nancy shook her head. "That's impossible! George must have struggled to free herself when someone had attacked her. But if she did, she would have screamed first. If she did so, then we would have heard it."

Frank then said, "I think it was possible that she screamed, but with these thick curtains, heavy doors, and thick walls, nobody could have heard her scream, even if she screamed as loud as her lung would have allowed."

"Oh, I knew I should've stayed with her!" Bess said, distressed. "Poor George… Hey, can it be possible that there was another secret passageway in here?"

Nancy looked around. "I guess that's possible. But then, where is the entrance to the secret passageway?"

Frank jumped off the stage. "Well, I guess we should begin investigating."

The foursome searched the area. Nancy was the one who found the strange footprints on the dusty floor. "Hey, look here, everyone!" she called. "I think this is a clue."

Frank, Joe, and Bess crowded in to look at the clue Nancy just found. Frank said, "This is interesting. The footprints are ending over here, but I don't see any opening. It's right in front of this pillar."

"Exactly," Nancy said. "Do you think this is the place where George was kidnapped?"

"Yeah," Bess murmured. "And I think she was kidnapped because she found out that this was where the secret entrance was!"

Nancy was not quite convinced, however. "I don't think so. If the kidnapper did kidnap George just because she found out that this was where the secret entrance was, then why did he just leave the footprints here? I think he was trying to make us notice these footprints."

"But if so, then why did he kidnap George?" Joe asked. He seemed confused.

"I don't know—yet," Nancy said. "But I think we should go outside and see if there was a car parked nearby."

The teenage detectives ran outside. Nancy ran outside and ran to the west exit of the building while Frank ran to the north exit and Joe the east one. After seeing that there was no car parked by the building, they ran back to the front entrance. That was when Frank heard George's frantic shout.

Nancy heard it, too, and she ran into the theater with Frank. When they opened the door, they saw the curtain move just a slightest bit. They did not hesitate: Frank and Joe ran as fast as they could across the theater and into the backstage.

"Huh?" Frank let out a confused gasp as he saw that no one was there. He looked around but found no sight of George or her captor. The only thing he heard was the sound of running footsteps coming from behind. Nancy and Bess joined them shortly and were perplexed when they saw the empty backstage.

"Where…where did they go?" Nancy asked. She turned on her flashlight and was trying to find a door or something that let the kidnapper escape.

She turned around and ran to the pillar where she saw the footprints end. To her surprise, the pillar was open and hollow; it was like a can that was cut open vertically. She knew that they were tricked.

"We were tricked," Frank said, as if he was reading her mind.

"What? How?" Joe asked.

"We thought the captor escaped through this secret entrance and ran outside to stop him, but it was nothing but a small room that could barely fit two people in it; the kidnapper knew that we were going to leave him and go outside, therefore letting him escape with George. My guess is that she was bound and gagged, but the gag came off by accident as they were getting out of the small room. After letting out a scream, the captor must have knocked her out using a stun gun or something."

"Stun gun?" Bess was horrified.

"Yeah. How else would you make an eighteen-year-old girl be quiet and stop struggling?" Frank said with a disgusted look on his face.

There was a silence, and it was Nancy who broke it. "Oh, it's already four o'clock! I have to meet Dad at the hospital by five."

"Then, we can go there with you," Joe said. He eyed Frank. Frank nodded.

"Sure, we would like to have a word with him about who knocked him out, anyway."

Nancy smiled. "That'll be great! Let's…"

Wha…?

Nancy leaned against the pillar. Her vision became blurry. The ground seemed to wobble beneath her feet. She could feel her knees shake a little bit.

"Are you okay, Nance?" Bess asked with a worried expression.

Blinking a few times cleared the fog. Nancy nodded, saying, "Yeah, I got a little dizzy, that's all."

The hospital was crowded with people. That was not usual, since it was winter and people often caught nasty colds. Nurses, doctors, and surgeons were walking hurriedly down the hallways. Frank, Joe, Bess, and Nancy walked into the elevator and got to the second floor, where she was told that her father would be.

Opening the door, Nancy was relieved to see her father sitting up in his bed reading a book. His forehead was bandaged.

"Hello, Nancy, Frank, Joe, Bess," he said, putting down his book. "I love seeing you here."

Nancy noticed that Mr. Saraland was there, too. He looked toward the attorney and bit his lower lip. "I'm so sorry, Carson. I knew you shouldn't have come here. I was so worried when they called to tell me that you were seriously injured."

"Oh, no, it was not that serious…" Mr. Drew started to say, but he was interrupted by the nurse who was coming into the room.

"Yes, it was, Mr. Drew. Your injury almost put a crack in your skull. Thank goodness you turned around just in time. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to be here but in the morgue instead!"

Nancy was worried. "You mean you were hit from behind? Then, you didn't see who the person was that hit you?"

Mr. Drew shook his head. "I'm afraid not."

"Well, did you call the police?" Frank asked.

"Yes, I did. They said they would look into this matter, but, since I don't even know what the attacker looked like, they said that they were going to do their best."

"So they are no help, in other words," Joe interrupted.

The gang left the room. As they were heading toward the car, the world wobbled again.

"Ungh!" Nancy held her head. What was wrong with her?

"Nancy, are you really all right?" Bess asked more concerned now.

Nancy shook her head. The dizziness went away again. "I think I just need to lie down…"

"Then come in the car, Nancy. I think you worked too hard," Joe said, opening the car door and motioning for Nancy to get in.

Frank turned the car key. "I guess we should go to the hotel room Joe and I are staying and get the deciphering program to crack the code."

Back at the hotel room, Frank started his laptop. He then clicked on the DeCryto icon located on the screen. As a new window opened, Nancy saw three windows of different sizes.

The smallest window at the top was a narrow one. There was a row that had the alphabets listed. Under each of the letters of the alphabet was a box where she could type one letter in each box.

The window beneath the narrow window was divided into two windows of equal size. The one on the left was labeled "Message Ciphered" and the one on the right was labeled "Message Deciphered." At the right hand corner of the "Message Ciphered" window was a red rectangular button with the word "Apply" written on it.

"This is a program where I can type in a message and it can help me decipher it. The box above shows what each of the letter stands for when being ciphered," Frank said, moving the curser on the Message Ciphered window. He typed in the message.

Dizziness struck Nancy. She leaned on the counter. Nobody else seemed to sense that something was wrong with Nancy.

Bess was the first one to give a suggestion. "There is the word YWWY. I think this is a word like 'noon' or 'peep'. I can bet that these letters stand for noon."

Joe typed NOON under YWWY and the software automatically took all W and Y's and changed them to O and N's, respectively.

Dizzy… So dizzy… Nancy placed her hand on her forehead to stay still.

Frank nodded. "And I have a hunch that OMBMRWY stands for STATION. And if that is station…"

Sweat was trickling down Nancy's forehead. She thought she was going to faint any second.

"NBO must mean GAS!" Joe said. "And BM stands for AT!"

"Wow, this is like a jigsaw puzzle!" Bess said excitedly. "But what is BFQWOO?"

Nancy's knees were shaking now. What was wrong with her? What was happening?

"Since we already know that B stands for A, W stands for O, and O stands for S," answered Frank, "I can hypothesize that the word is 'across'."

Tappity-tap-tap.

Frank entered the letters into the message. The software immediately showed what each letter stood for at the top window. Now, the detectives had the message: "Sun: noon at a gas station across a. n."

"Now is the time we use this special feature we got in this software. When I click on this button right here, the computer finds the pattern in deciphering and will decipher the entire message for us!"

So…dizzy…have…to…stay…

The deciphering didn't take long. After a moment, the detectives saw the message clearly on the screen:

"Sat: noon at a gas station across bay. Ken."

"Oh, I get the pattern now!" Bess said. "A goes to Z and B goes to A. C goes to Y, and D to B. Then, we go back and forth through the alphabet and end up with Z at M."

"That's right. This is one of the easier ones to decipher," Joe said. "I got the message, Nancy! I can bet that Saturday means tomorrow…" Joe turned around.

At that moment, Nancy lost control and fell down on the floor.