Chapter 13 - The Anagram Puzzle
"What do you mean, he wasn't allowed to tell you anything?!"
Alex and Bronev had returned home to find Emmy waiting for them, with Carla, Antonio, Celeste and the Tritons, and after explaining everything to her, she was fuming.
"Grosky and Chelmey have both been taken off the case. Their superior, D.S. Lowe, is in charge, and he's given them orders not to let anything slip. But I did get one tibbit of information from Grosky, though..."
"What?" Emmy asked.
"He said that a man in his late sixties kidnapped Alfendi. That means Andrea has a right-hand accomplice in all this, and if we find him, we'll have a better chance of figuring out what happened to your son."
"But you weren't allowed to actually look at the security footage?" Celeste asked.
"No. Grosky said it was more than his job's worth."
Luke shook his head in disbelief. "This is insane." He looked down at his feet. What was he supposed to do? He had to get hold of the footage somehow... If only his computer hacking skills were as good as his puzzle-solving skills...
That was when it hit him. Flora! If anyone had experience with machines and computers, it was Flora Reinhold, with experience of messing with computers and robots in st. Mystere. If he called her and informed her of this development, perhaps she would be able to help...
His phone vibrated in his pocket, and when he checked it, he saw that he had a message from Arianna. "Meet us Gressenheller. We need 2 make a plan. C u l8r."
Luke nodded to himself and got up. "I'm meeting up with the Black Ravens. I'll see you later," he said to his parents, who were so deep in conversation with Alex and Bronev that they didn't even notice. Luke shrugged and slipped off out the back door. On his way out of the professor's estate, he dialled Flora's number on his phone.
"Hello, Flora? I need your help..."
"Luke what kept you?" Arianna asked, looking irritated.
"I have a plan," Luke said enthusiastically. "I just called Flora, and she told me how to get the video footage from the hospital's database."
"But I thought that Bronev guy was going to the police station to look at it," Crow frowned.
"Apparently he can't because it's classified," Luke told him, "But Flora knows another way to get access from the database on the hospital's master security computer. All we have to do is get in and we'll be able to get the security coverage of the entire hospital to within hours of Alfendi's kidnapping."
"But how will we be able to recognise if it is Alfendi or not?" Marilyn asked. "I mean, on the maternity ward there are what, fifty, sixty babies?"
"And, as I said before, we don't even know if McIntyre kidnapped Alfendi herself or just got an accomplice to do it," Xavier added.
"Yes we do," Luke replied. "Alex just got back from Scotland Yard, and apparently Grosky told him that it was definitely a man in his late sixties. And how many men of that description go wandering around maternity hospitals taking babies in the middle of the night?"
"Luke makes an excellent point," Crow nodded, clapping Luke on the back. "And, if you're sure you know what you're doing with that computer..."
"Positive," Luke nodded, "Flora told me exactly what to do, and she's the expert."
"Then let's go."
An hour later, every Black Raven (and Luke, Aldaz and Xavier) was in position. They had memorised the security rota and knew exactly when the master computer would be left unattended. At six o'clock sharp, the chief of security would go for his dinner break and one of the other guards, who they heard liked to arrive at his post fashionably late, would arrive about five or ten minutes later. Each youth was placed at a regular interval along the corridor leading up to the security room, ready and waiting to signal one another by walkie-talkie if they spotted the guard. Everything was in place.
Luke and Crow slipped into the security room after the guard left and headed over to one of his colleagues.
"Okay, we've got to be quick," Crow said as he and Luke approached the master computer.
They heard a voice outside:
"Damn, I nearly forgot to lock up." The turning of a key sounded.
"Uh-oh."
"We'll figure a way out later, Luke, but right now, you've got to get a move on."
"Right..." Luke tapped away at the keyboard and managed to get to the database.
"Oh no, the password..."
"Try St. Thomas' Hospital."
"There's only eight digits."
"St. Thomas then."
Luke typed it in and grinned. "It worked!"
Crow shook his head. "Too easy."
"Right, I'm in!" he searched around the videos. "Here's the night shift of the night Alfendi was kidnapped. It's all in the wrong format, but I'm sure we'll be able to configure it when we get home..." He highlighted all the videos from every corridor and outside too. "There's a lot here, I don't know how long it will take to copy it all..."
"It's better not take too long..." Crow frowned.
To their luck, they watched as it loaded quickly and successfully.
"Done! We should be able to convert and compress them, and them we can all peruse them at our leisure!"
"Good work, Luke."
"Now, how do we get out of here?"
They suddenly heard Aldaz's voice over the walkie-talkie;
"Shit! He's coming!"
Luke and Crow looked at each other worriedly. "Ah."
"Quick! Hide in here!" Luke wrenched the cupboard door open and clambered inside. Crow followed suit and he and Luke were squashed in there as Crow slammed the door shut.
The guard entered and sat down at his post, tn minutes late, and sighed. "And so to the beginning of yet another ten hour shift." He toasted himself and took another sip of coffee.
"Damn," Crow and Luke thought in unison.
"I wonder..." Luke thought. He placed a hand in his pocked and stroked a furry little head. "Go, little man!"
Luke's furry companion scrambled out of the cupboard and made his way towards the guard. For a moment, there was silence, bar the occasional slurp from the guard's beverage, but all that changed in a matter of seconds.
"RAAAAAAT!"
A high pitched squeal and a slam of the door later, Luke and Crow emerged from the closet and grinned.
"Rat! You mean 'mouse'."
Luke crouched down and picked up his companion. "Good work, Toppy."
"Professor? Who was that?"
"An acquaintance of ours in London," the professor replied. "Emmy's cousin Alex. Apparently, Scotland Yard have refused to disclose evidence to them because the detective on the case has put his foot down. However," the professor raised his hand to prevent Flora from interrupting him with an outraged outburst, "Luke and the Black Ravens have managed to get the security footage from the hospital using, er, other methods."
"Oh, they did it!" Flora exclaimed happily. "You see, Luke called me earlier wanting to know how to extract video footage from a computer database, so... Yeah. And what did they find from it?"
"Well, they have a possible identity for the kidnapper," the professor replied. "They dais that the car belongs to someone named Ray Lowe."
"Ray Lowe...? Who is this person?" Flora asked.
"I don't know, my dear..."
"The name sounds Scottish..."
"Flora... Scottish..." It hit the professor. Hours and hours on the plane and all through the night of staring at the note Bronev found in his estate in Farmborough and he hadn't seen it? The professor smiled widely and hugged Flora.
"Uh, professor...?"
"Thank you, my dear. I think now we've made significant progress in our investigation."
"What do you mean?"
"Look here." the professor pulled the note out of his pocket.
'YOU WILL NOT SEE ALFENDY BEFORE HE GETS SHOT ON Wednesday seCOnd feBruary'.
"Oh, God, don't even remind me..." Flora sighed. "That's, like, next week? And do you think she'll go through with it? I don't even want to think about it..."
"I don't think this message was supposed to be taken literally, Flora. Look at it again. Look at the way it's written. You see how it is written in all capitals, apart from the date? I think that is a clue."
"Yeah..." Flora squinted. "I still don't get it, though..."
"You see the underlined ones written on bold italics?"
"Yes. OLSANDTC."
"Well, I think this whole message is an anagram-"
"Scotland!"
"Precisely, my dear."
"She's in Scotland! Andrea and Alfendi! We've got to tell Emmy and Luke!"
"Now you see what I mean about the whole sentence being a puzzle. I think the person who wrote this wanted to emphasise where she was, but hid it in a sentence to make it more subtle. You see:
'YOU WILL NOT SEE ALFENDY BEFORE HE GETS SHOT ON Wednesday seCOnd feBruary'
And I think this rearranges to become:
'SHE WILL BE GONE OFF TO SCOTLAND BY NOW SEE YOU THERE'."
"I see what you mean now!"
"So, we now only have one more lead to follow up before we can go home. Let's pay Doctor Alecksa a visit."