The Hunt for the Missing Spy

by Penny Warner

  “Wait a second!” she called, as the others began heading toward the second waypoint. “Look at this!”

  They turned around.

  Cody held up the front page of the newspaper. She hadn’t seen it when the paper was folded, but now that it was open, it was so obvious.

  There was a hole right in the middle. It went through all of the pages.

  The stranger must have torn out small circles about the size of an eyeball so he could spy on the kids while keeping his face covered.

  Cody was convinced. They were being followed.

  And spied on.

  But why?

  And by whom?

  Chapter 7

  As they continued toward the White House, the kids kept searching for signs of the suspicious man.

  “What should we do?” M.E. asked, sticking close to Cody. “Should we tell Mika’s mother?”

  Cody shook her head. “Not yet. We don’t have any real proof. If we see him again, we’ll definitely tell her. But be on the lookout. Remember, he’s wearing a black baseball cap, a long khaki coat, and black athletic shoes.”

  “What does he look like?’ Quinn asked. “Is he short or tall? Thin or bulky? Did he have a mustache? Was he wearing glasses?”

  Cody tried to envision the man. “I think he’s about as tall as Luke, maybe taller.” Luke was already five feet, eight inches in height, and the tallest member of their group. “And he was on the heavier side. I never really saw much of his face so I don’t know if he had a mustache or beard, and he was wearing sunglasses so I didn’t see his eyes.”

  “What color was his hair?” Mika asked. “Black? Brown? Blond?”

  “I don’t know,” Cody answered. “It was hidden under his hat.”

  “I’m scared,” M.E. confessed. “What if he tries to get us? We should tell Mika’s mom now before something bad happens.”

  “Listen,” Luke said, “there’s safety in numbers. That’s why the teachers want us in groups. There’s five—no, six of us, counting Mrs. Takeda—so we just have to stay together. That’s the most important thing. If anyone spots the guy, use a sign to warn the others so he doesn’t know we’re talking about him. Then we’ll tell Mrs. Takeda and see what she thinks we should do.”

  “Good idea,” M.E. said. “Cody, what sign should we use?”

  Cody turned to Mika. “Do you know sign language?”

  Mika nodded. “I know a few Japanese signs, but not American Sign Language.”

  “I’ll teach you some,” Cody replied.

  “First, we should give him a code name, like George Washington and his spies used,” Quinn suggested. “Washington’s code name was seven-eleven. Why don’t we use the same one?”

  Since the other Code Busters already knew the numbers in ASL, Cody showed Mika how to count to ten using the manual alphabet as they continued walking along the mall.

  “One and two are easy,” Cody said, holding up her index finger for one, and two fingers for two. “For number three, you use your thumb and two fingers.” She showed Mika the sign by holding up her thumb, index finger, and middle finger. “Four and five are also easy.” She held up four fingers, then four fingers plus the thumb for the number five.

  “Now it gets tricky. For six, your thumb and pinkie touch.” Cody showed Mika by connecting the tips of her thumb and baby finger together. “For number seven, your thumb and ring finger touch. Eight, your thumb and middle finger touch, and nine, your thumb and index finger touch. Zero is just the shape of an O.”

  “This is fun,” Mika said, practicing the numbers as she walked.

  “I forget—what’s ten?” Quinn asked, holding up the number nine. The others had been practicing their numbers as they walked.

  “Shake the letter A with your thumb pointing up,” Cody explained. She demonstrated the sign.

  “Then what’s eleven?” M.E. asked, making the number seven with her ring finger and thumb. “We haven’t learned past ten, and Washington’s code name was seven-eleven.”

  Cody held up her index finger and flicked it twice. “Eleven.”

  While the kids practiced signing “seven-eleven,” Cody kept an eye out for the mysterious stranger, aka code “Seven-Eleven.” By the time they reached the next waypoint, Mika had the numbers memorized, and the others could sign “seven-eleven” as fast as Cody.

  “Anybody see seven-eleven?” M.E. asked when they stopped in front of the White House.

  “Nope,” Cody said. “Maybe he’s off spying on someone else for a change. Why would he want to spy on us? We’re not real spies, or anything.”

  “Maybe he works for the Spy Museum, and this is all part of the game to test our powers of observation,” Luke offered.

  Cody shrugged. She wasn’t so sure about that. It seemed like a lot of trouble for a staff member to go to.

  “Come on, let’s see if we can find the clue,” Quinn said, changing the subject back to the spy hunt. “We want to keep our lead.” Once again they were the first ones to arrive.

  “It’s supposed to be right around here somewhere,” Luke said. He waved at the area in front of the gate. Moments later he called out, “There it is!”

  Luke was pointing to a coded sign similar to the one they’d found at the Washington Monument. This time the message appeared to be in some kind of number code.

  Cody got out her alphanumeric decoder card to see if it might be the key and began translating the message out loud. Moments later she stopped. The decoded message seemed to be a jumble of letters that made no sense. “I don’t think this is in Alphanumeric Code,” she said. She tried a couple of other codes that used numbers. Nothing worked.

  “Mom,” Mika called to her mother who was standing a few feet away watching the kids. “Do you have the code key for this message too?”

  Smiling mysteriously, Mrs. Takeda stepped up and withdrew another envelope from her bag. Mika grinned. “Thanks!” she said, as she took the envelope it and opened it. She pulled out a sheet of paper covered with alphabet letters and showed it to the group.

  “This must be the key,” she said, holding up the grid of alphabet letters.

  “Read what it says at the bottom,” M.E. said, pointing to the small print. The group huddled together to hear Mika.

  “It says, This is a version of the Confederate Code that was used during the Civil War. Look carefully. The first line shows the alphabet from A to Z. But the second line has shifted over one letter. It begins with the letter B and ends with A. Try to figure out how to crack the code and receive a hint about your next waypoint. Meanwhile, here are the coordinates to the site. Good luck! It’s signed, E Pluribus Unum.”

  Once again, the waypoint coordinates were written in Japanese number characters.

  “I’ve heard of E Pluribus Unum,” Quinn said. “Those are the words written in Latin on a penny. Mr. Pike told us it means ‘Out of many, one.’”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?” M.E. asked, frowning.

  “I think it has something to do with all the American states coming together to form one country—the United States,” Quinn said.

  “Kind of like strength in numbers,” Luke noted.

  “Okay, let’s see if we can crack the code,” Cody said. “How about if we match each number to a letter, beginning with the top row.”

  Code Busters’ Key and Solution found on pp. 149, 156.

  “The eighth letter is still an H,” Quinn said.

  Luke wrote down the letter H in his Code Busters notebook.

  “Now let’s count over fourteen in the second row,” Cody continued. “That gives us the letter O.”

  Luke kept writing down the letters as Cody translated them. Soon they had decoded all twenty-four letters.

  Luke read the completed message he’d written down.

  “What does that mean?” M.E. asked.

  “Like Luke said, it means there’s strength in numbers,” Quinn said. “But that’s not much of a clue to our next waypoint.”

>   “Who said it?” Luke asked.

  “I’ll look it up.” Cody pulled out her cell phone and entered the phrase. A familiar name appeared. “Abraham Lincoln!” she announced.

  Quinn looked up from the GPS device. “And guess where the coordinates meet!”

  “That makes sense!” Luke said.

  “We’d better hurry,” Quinn said. “It looks like it’s a long way off.”

  The kids dashed off to find their next waypoint and clue, with Ms. Takeda doing her best to keep up with them. In her excitement, Cody had temporarily forgotten about the man in the khaki coat and baseball cap, but as they neared the steps to the memorial, she stopped and looked around. If she spotted the guy this time, she wouldn’t take any chances.

  So far, though, there was no sign of him.

  Cody felt relieved, but also a little disappointed. Maybe it had just been her imagination. Aside from those holes torn in the newspaper, she still had no proof that a strange man was spying on them. Still, if the guy was gone for good, she and the others had nothing to worry about.

  Turning her attention to the memorial, she was surprised to see how large it was. She’d seen pictures on the back of pennies and five dollar bills, but nothing prepared her for this. The Lincoln Memorial was built out of marble, surrounded by columns, and decorated with lion heads, wreaths, eagle wings, and the names of the states. But the most impressive sight was Abraham Lincoln in his chair. Over sixty feet high, sixty feet long, and seventy-four feet long, the president was ginormous!

  Cody followed the others up the steps to get a better look at the statue of the sixteenth president. She had heard his hands were shaped to represent the ASL letters A and L so she checked to make sure. She was happy to see the rumor was true!

  After pausing to admire the memorial, the kids began searching the area for their next clue. They circled the monument several times before finally gathering at the steps.

  “Any sign of the clue?” Cody asked, glancing at the tourists visiting the monument to see if she spotted the stranger.

  “Nope,” Luke said. “You guys?”

  The others shook their heads.

  “Mom, do you know where the hidden clue is?” Mika asked as she headed down the stairs to her mother, who was talking on her cell phone.

  Mrs. Takeda held up her index finger, signaling, “Just a minute.”

  Mika waited for her mother, while the others sat on the steps of the memorial.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Takeda gasped. She looked pale. Something was wrong.

  The Code Busters got up and headed down the stairs to wait with Mika.

  “What’s up?” Luke whispered to her.

  Mika shrugged and stared at her mother.

  They stood, listening, but all Mrs. Takeda said was, “No . . . no . . . yes.” Moments later, she ended the call.

  “What happened?” Mika asked as the others looked on anxiously.

  Cody wondered if it might have something to do with the man she thought had been following them. Had he been trailing the other groups, too? Had he done something? Hurt someone? Had the police caught him?

  Mrs. Takeda looked at the kids. “That was your teacher, Mrs. Stadelhofer,” she began slowly.

  “What did she want?” M.E. asked. “She said we have to stop the hunt and return to the Spy Museum.”

  “But why?” Quinn complained. “This is fun! We don’t want to quit now. We’re ahead of everyone else.”

  Mrs. Takeda took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, kids, but we have to go now.”

  “Mom, what happened?” Mika pleaded. “Please tell us!”

  Mrs. Takeda leveled her eyes on her daughter. “It seems that one of your classmates has gone missing.”

  “What? Who?” Cody asked.

  “A boy named Matthew Jeffreys,” Mrs. Takeda replied. “No one has seen him since the Spy Museum tour.”

  Whoa! Cody thought. Matt the Brat is missing!

  Then she wondered if the man who had been following them had something to do with Matt’s disappearance. Maybe she should have said something earlier.

  And now it was too late.

  Chapter 8

  By the time the Code Busters’ group returned to the Spy Museum, most of the other students were already there and on the bus. Cody spotted Ms. Stad standing next to the bus doors, talking on her cellphone. She was frowning and gesturing wildly.

  Cody had never seen her teacher look so worried.

  She gestured for the other Code Busters to follow her and headed over to see what was going on. Maybe the Code Busters could help. After all, they were great at cracking codes and solving puzzles and finding missing treasure. Maybe they could find Matt.

  When they reached Ms. Stad, she ended the call and began talking to one of the Spy Museum security guards. His name tag read “Youngblood.”

  “The police are on their way,” Ms. Stad said to the guard. “Now, are you sure you’ve searched the entire museum?”

  Mr. Youngblood nodded. “Every inch, ma’am. We’ve called an Adam Alert and closed the museum. No one can get in or out without checking with me or the other guard. Are all of your other students accounted for?”

  Ms. Stad looked at her clipboard. “Yes, except . . .” She turned and saw the Code Busters standing next to her.

  “Thank goodness your group is here!” she said. “I need you students to get on the bus so I can keep track of you and not lose anyone else.”

  “What happened to Matt the . . . to Matt?” Cody asked her teacher.

  There was no way she would get on the bus without knowing exactly what happened.

  “I don’t know!” Ms. Stad said, sounding frantic. “Mr. Littlefield, his group chaperone, called me when he noticed Matthew wasn’t with the

  others.”

  “When was that?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m not sure . . .” Ms. Stad shook her head, as if she was trying to think. “According to Mr. Littlefield, Matt began the hunt with his group, but then he ran ahead. Mr. Littlefield called to him to slow down, but apparently Matt ignored him. He figured Matt was excited and wanted to be the first one in the group to the waypoint, but when the others arrived, Matt was nowhere to be found. Mr. Littlefield said they looked for him at the monument, then retraced their steps back here to the Spy Museum, but Matt had vanished.”

  “I’m sure he’ll show up,” Cody said, placing a hand on Ms. Stad’s arm to comfort her teacher. It was hard seeing her teacher so upset. Ms. Stad was almost always calm, patient, and cheerful.

  “Ms. Stadelhofer!” Mr. Littlefield called from the top of the bus stairs. He bounded down the steps. “I almost forgot! One of the kids found this at the Washington Monument. It was sticking out from under the sign post.”

  The chaperone held up what looked like a brochure for the Spy Museum. He unfolded it and gave it to Ms. Stadelhofer.

  “She thought the message was part of the Spy Hunt, but she couldn’t make sense of it, so she gave it to me. I stuck it in my pocket and forgot about it when I realized Matt was missing. Do you think it’s important?”

  Ms. Stad studied the brochure for a moment. The Code Busters leaned over to see what was on it. In the margins were drawings of animals. Cody instantly recognized the artwork—it looked similar to the cartoons she’d found on the paper in her backpack.

  Cody pointed to the brochure in Ms. Stad’s hands. “They’re more drawings. Only this time it’s a bunch of animals.”

  Cody studied the cartoon figures. Their style looked similar to those other pictures they had found during the past week. But there was something weird about them.

  “Guys,” Cody said to the others, “do you notice anything interesting about these pictures?”

  M.E. shook her head.

  “What is it?” Mika asked.

  “Look,” Cody said. “Whoever drew these animals repeated some of them.”

  “It has to be a code!” Quinn exclaimed.

  “That’s what I thought,” Cody said. “Wh
y would only some of the animals be repeated, unless there was a reason? What if these animals stand for letters, and the repeated ones are double letters?”

  “If we can crack the code,” M.E. added, “we can figure out what the message says, and maybe find Matt.”

  Ms. Stad studied the brochure for a moment, then handed it to Cody. “All right, kids, see if you can make any sense of this.”

  Luke got out his notebook and a pencil.

  “Look,” Cody said, “there are spaces between some of the animal drawings. Those are probably words. The first word has two tigers, so two of the same letter. They could be l’s, t’s, s’s, m’s, p’s, e’s . . .”

  “This could take forever,” M.E. muttered.

  “Well, we could start with the most common letter used in English—the letter E,” Quinn suggested. “That’s what real cryptanalysts do. I have a chart in my Code Busters notebook that tells how often certain letters are used in English.” He got out his notebook and opened it to the page that was headed, “Letter Frequency.”

  Quinn pointed to the next letter. “The next is T, then A, then O, then—”

  “And that could take forever, too!” M.E. complained again.

  “Got a better idea?” Quinn asked her.

  M.E. shrugged.

  Cody glanced over at her teacher, who was talking with both security guards.

  “Guys,” she said, holding up her hand. “If this code was written by Matt and left for the others to find, then I’m guessing it’s pretty simple. Think about it. He didn’t use any of the codes we’ve learned in class. He used drawings. The first one is a picture of a mouse.”

  “Yeah,” Luke said, “and the second one is a monkey.”

  “An ape, actually,” Mika offered. “Monkeys have tails and are smaller than apes.”

  “Okay, an ape,” Cody confirmed. “And the last two are tigers. I think I know what he was trying to do.”

  “What?” M.E. asked.

  “Remember that code we had earlier where the first letters spelled the answer to the puzzle?” Cody asked.

  The others nodded. “Yeah, ‘Father of The Country,’” Luke said.