"A bolder strong man?"
"A bat needs a log morn?"
Everyone turned and gave the recent speaker an odd look.
"What…?" he muttered, sinking lower in his seat.
Fache gave another huff of frustration, here he was sitting in a room filled with the department's topcryptologists, and hearing the most ridiculous things come out of their mouths, "None, of that makes sense!"
"And besides," a small man to his right piped up, "What about the three periods!"
"No sentence has three periods!" another shouted at him.
"Well," he countered back, "You think of something better!"
Ever since the night of Bodine's murder, a top team of trustedcryptologists had been assembled by the DCPJ to figure out the puzzle Florent's fax machine had spit out after he died. This case suddenly became top priority after the press was all over his murder.
Typical, Bezu grumbled, No one really cares that he could have leaked or withheld life-threatening information.
Fache had been relieved to find that his apartment did in fact contain records of his involvement with organized crime, the Italian mob mainly. But they were all old documents, and pointed to no one other than himself. This code though was very recent, something they could actually stop if they figured it out in time.
Which is seeming less likely by the second…The team had been in that stuffy conference room for six days, day after day coming in and examining the most likely forms of inscription. So far the turnout was not looking good.
"Why don't we get off of anagrams," one of the more reasonable members suggested, "I think we should revisit the idea of substitution ciphers."
An annoyingly impatient old man sighed, "We already discussed this, the possibilities are limitless!"
"If we only had more background information on the sender," A blonde haired girl moaned.
The rest of the group chorused in agreement.
"That's impossible," Fache, said finally, "The number that sent the fax is completely untraceable."
The room was quite for a rare instant with all deep in thought, until the same odd cryptologist from before suggested, "A brand goner molts?"
The room suddenly broke out with frivolous suggestions, frustrated curses, loud shouts and plain mayhem.
Seeing his opportunity, Fache silently slipped out of the room with the code in hand, leaving the irritated cryptologists to battle it out.
There's only one person for this job…"So, Bodine was taken out…" the figure of an elderly woman paced across the floor in thought.
"Yes," another replied solemnly, "He took a shot to the head." The male figure of the two removed himself from the shadows.
"By who?" her head snapped up at him in surprise, "Another organization?"
"No," he shook his head, "The French police."
"Do they know of his business with us?" she questioned anxiously.
"I don't think so," he replied, reliving her stress, "There is no possible way to form a connection."
"Good," she nodded, "But if they were there, they must have received the assignment?"
"Yes, they did," gulping nervously, "Thankfully, they have not cracked the message yet."
The woman grunted in response, "This assignment still needs to be completed… even if it is on the very last day."
"You mean," his eyes widened in shock, "On the big day?"
"Yes," she put a motherly hand on his shoulder, "Angelo, can I trust you to complete this?"
Angelo hesitated for a moment, knowing the consequences of his next words could prove fatal either way.
"Yes."
Sophie Neveu sat her desk, idly threading her pen back and forth between her fingers.
Six days had come and gone since her 'mission' for her Captain, and the same number of days since Florent Bodine's murder. And although she never really like him and considered him an annoyance, having his lifeless form sprawled across her was not slightly appealing either. In fact that's exactly what made Sophie detangle herself from that case completely, of course she had been interviewed and had to give a statement. But no longer was working on that case, and although her natural curiosity to crack the code was begging her, she held back.
I don't get involved with guns, she had chided herself, I'm a cryptologist.
When the code was first discovered Sophie was surprised when the Captain came to her first, but she had to refuse. Truthfully she had been rather cold with her superior ever since the incident, technically he had saved Sophie's life and she should be thankful. But after nights of tossing and turning in bed with the image of a bloody body stuck in her head, maybe she was allowed some distaste toward him.
You're so selfish, she scolded, he saved your life!
Sophie let out a tired sigh and was about to start on the pile of paperwork in front of her, when a knock from behind interrupted her.
"Excuse me," she heard Bezu's deep voice greet from the entrance of her cubicle.
"Yes, sir?" Sophie questioned swiveling her chair around to face him.
"I have an assignment for you, Agent Neveu." Fache stated very professionally, walking to her desk and placing a white sheet of paper on it.
Without even looking at the paper Sophie answered a clear, "No." Standing up to get her point across.
The Captain hesitated for a second, leaning in and looking her dead in the eye, "Are you refusing an order?" he dared Sophie to fight back.
"Yes," she said taking him up on his challenge, "Considering my recent involvement with that case, I believe I'm owed a choice to take this case."
Bezu chuckled at her mockingly, "Your not owed a thing," he spat, "Until you prove your worth to this department," Fache knew this had to get her fired up.
Sophie narrowed her eyes and muttered, "I bet you would never say that to any of your other agents…"
"Your right," Bezu countered aggressively, "Because I know you're a better and smarter cryptologist than any in the entire department!"
Sophie was too surprised at the moment to come up with a witty retort, to such a nice compliment.
"But right now you're wallowing in your self pity and even too scared to look at it," he attacked her strait on, finding her weakness easily because he knew her like a book, "Cause you know when you do you'll crack it, I know you'll crack it." He stressed.
Sophie's eyes gazed at him in shock, How can he read me like this? She questioned, Since when does he believe in me so much?
Since you never took the time, to notice how much he cares…a smart voice in Sophie's head answered.
Fache grabbed the paper from the desk and held it out to her, "Please." He almost begged, sounding desperate fro her assistance.
"Ok," she whispered, giving in and taking the paper from him.
Sophie's mood suddenly changed when she took one glance at the paper, and chuckled knowingly, "Easy!"
"How?" Fache replied completely bewildered that a room full of supposed geniuses couldn't solve it in six days but Sophie only needed a second.
"Look," she replied, "There are sixteen letters, all in upper case with minor punctuation." She pointed out the aspects.
Bezu just nodded, letting her continue, "Your 'team' probably couldn't crack it because they were thinking of far more complex codes, but it's a rather simple code known as a Caesar Box."
Fache's brow furrowed in confusion, "Like the emperor?" he blinked, his mind jumping directly to Rome's famous ruler.
"Correct," she smiled up at him, "It was named after Julius Caesar because he was the first to write code this way."
"Ok," he understood, "So, how do you solve it?"
"To decipher the message," Sophie explained, "Simply divide the code into four groups of four, or any pair of numbers like five and five, depending on how many characters there are, and rearrange them vertically."
Fache's mouth dropped in awe, after days of contemplating this was it really that uncomplicated.
"Now lets see what this message says…" Sophie said anxiously, as she grabbed a pen and began to write out the letters on the paper.
R R N N
O T G M.
B L D S.
E A O A.
When she was finished, they both looked down and gasped at the results.
ROBERT LANGDON M.S.A.
"Vittoria," he began practicing his speech in front of the mirror again, "I don't know how to tell you this but…"
The suite door burst open behind him, "Are you cheating on me…?" a shaking voice questioned from behind him.
"What!" he spun around to face the door at the sudden intrusion.
The sight of Vittoria's tear stained cheeks and puffy red eyes, was definitely something he was not expecting to see, "Honey," he glanced down at the pictures she was holding, "What are you talking about?" he walked towards her to pull her into a hug, but she put a warning hand up.
"Don't" she sneered at him, "Please, tell me this isn't what it looks like…" she held out the pictures for him at arms length.
Robert slowly reached out and took the pictures from her, unsure of what to expect.
They were various pictures through a window of the same man and woman standing intimately close, the photographs were obviously taken from ground level looking up. But the people in the photographs were what completely threw the situation off, Robert and Sophie.
"Vit," he put a hand up to calm her down, "I told you I was going to meet with a colleague that day."
"You said you were going to meet with 'him,'" she pointed out, "And that doesn't seem like a very 'professional' distance!" she gestured to their position by the window.
"We're also friends!" he countered back getting fired up like her.
"Are you sure Robert…" she whispered menacingly, "Cause it's not too late to cancel if you're having second thoughts about this wedding!"
Langdon surprised himself by hesitating to answer, and Vittoria took that as a cue to stomp out of the room in anger and frustration.
"Amazing!" all of the cryptologists in the room gaped at Sophie's brilliant deciphering of the code.
"But we still have an issue with those periods!"
"The possibilities are almost infinite!"
The room broke into doubtful whispers and shouts.
"Calm down!" Sophie quelled the room of cryptologists she had only joined a few minutes ago, "The first thing we need to do is define the problem." She ordered like the true leader she was.
"Alexandrie," she motioned for her younger red-haired friend, "Can you get a dictionary and locate the word 'period'?"
Alix quickly nodded in agreement and rushed to the back of the room toward the bookshelf.
"How will a simple definition of the word help?" a rather cynical one questioned.
"More than you think," Sophie responded, having used this technique before to get out of dead end.
"I found it!" Alix's small voice piped up from the back off the room.
"Good," Sophie called back, "Read it out loud."
"A punctuation mark indicating a full stop, placed at the end of declarative sentences and other statements thought to be complete, and after many abbreviations." The young girl read off from the book.
Everyone paused in thought for a moment, before the last part of the definition dawned on them.
"Excuse me?" the rather slow boy questioned the room, "What's going on?"
Fache just rolled his eyes and seriously began to wonder why he was in this room again.
"An abbreviation…?"Alexandrie mumbled to herself, "But for what, or where?"
"Or…who?" Sophie whispered as an after thought, remembering the famous pronouns, 'Who, What, When, Where, and Why.'
Fache examined her face with interest as her thoughts probated the depths of its reach for an answer. Every detail of her demeanor seemed so vivid and beautiful, like the way her nose scrunched up when she's thinking and the angle that which she tilts her head up slightly. But as he gazed in intrigue his old friends voice echoed in his head.
"I see the way you look at her…"The Captain quickly averted his gaze, realizing how wrong he was to discredit his friend that night, because he in fact had been right. He did look at Sophie in some way, and he did feel something for her. But he couldn't act on those emotions now, he just wasn't ready.
Suddenly jumped from her seat on the table, Sophie ran over to Bezu grabbing both his shoulders in panic, "You said Bodine was an assassin, right?" she questioned, her eyes wide.
"Yes." Fache answered slowly, completely unsure of where she was going with this, but more aware by the second of their close proximity.
"Merde!" she yelled the offensive French word as she released him and headed for the door, talking over her shoulder, "We need two airline tickets to Rome, now!"
"B-But," the Captain stuttered, a very rare thing for him, "I don't understand Sophie, why are we going to Rome!" he called after her.
Sophie spun around as she reached the door, "Bodine was a hit man, 'M.S.A.' are initials and must be whoever ordered the hit, and that means 'ROBERT LANGDON' is…the hit…" she continued knowing the urgency of the matter at hand, "That means there can be numerous people out to kill Robert, and he gets married at the most public ceremony of the year tomorrow." And with her rushed explanation finished, she strode out.
Leaving the room to gaze blankly in shock.
I might not be able to post for another three weeks, due to camp! But if there is a computer there I may be able to get something up! Lets hope for a computer!
Please review!