Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

The rest of them were similar. Each screen-capture held several messages. They appeared to be conversations in a group chat. Most of the messages were from Alkorn with short replies from the others. All of them were written in the same garbled mess of numbers.

  “Okay. Why no mention of this in all the case files of their arrest and conviction? Can we really be the only ones who know about this?”

  “My guess is no one thought to look. And if they did, maybe they just saw it as a glitch in the game or something.”

  She smoothed her short hair back. The exhaustion on her face was more apparent now under the false light. Aubrey could tell she’d put in many hours to dig up this clue.

  “Could be they saw it, knew it was encrypted and couldn’t break it? I don’t know, but it was pretty clever. They couldn’t talk at work, any of their conversations could be recorded. They wouldn’t be foolish enough to send anything over text or email. So, this is kind of an elegant solution and it all happened right under the nose of company security on a Ventana owned program.” She shrugged and smiled. “Have to say, I’m pretty impressed.”

  Aubrey scanned the encoded messages, not seeing any patterns whatsoever. “Why not send their messages via some secure application? Why use the game at all?”

  Malina leaned back in her chair. “I think the simplicity of it worked in their favor. See, if they used some kind of application on their phones or on a computer, it could be found. They would have known that the moment they were caught, all of their stuff would be torn apart and dissected. If all four of them had the app on their devices, there is a greater chance of their messages being discovered.”

  “So, what kind of code is this? What kind of encryption is it?”

  “I think it’s a book cipher.” Her eyes went wide with apparent excitement and she leaned forward again.

  Aubrey had heard of book ciphers before, mostly from novels he read as a kid. The criminals he’d investigated used more sophisticated forms of encryption. He found it difficult to believe that highly educated scientists such as these would use something so simplistic.

  Then again, he thought, the reason he knew about criminals who used high-end encryption devices was because they were eventually caught.

  Malina continued. “Think about it, they’re nearly impossible to crack without the key book, so even if Ventana finds the messages, which I don’t think they did, they would need to know the exact book used to create the cipher and not just the book but the page the cipher starts on. And with all the technology at their disposal, who would suspect a simple book cipher?”

  Aubrey saw the elegance in it, but something bothered him. “Why couldn’t it be just a simple code they all decided on? A cipher they created themselves. Why are you so convinced it was a book cipher?”

  “The codes are so complex and varied that if they had a homemade cipher it would have been impossible to memorize, so they would have to keep it somewhere, which can be found. Same problem they’d have with an encrypted messaging application.”

  “How does it work? Walk me through it.”

  “In keeping with the simplicity of the cipher, someone walks in one day and secretly communicates what the title of the book is and the page number, or the page number could be built into the code itself. I’m not sure about that one yet.” She stood up and began pacing back and forth. “Alkorn comes into the lab and may say, ‘Hey, did you guys read that section about gene-splicing in Science World Almanac?’ That tells the others the name of the book cipher key and the page number. They find the first page that mentions gene-splicing. Thereafter the numbers in the code indicate the words on the page. The first letters of the words are used to spell messages.”

  Her skills were impressive. The way she thought about the problem and went on to develop unique solutions made Aubrey wish he’d known her sooner. Still, he thought, even after uncovering this sizeable piece of the puzzle, it made no difference if it didn’t lead to results.

  “Okay, so how do we break the codes and figure out what they were up to? How do we use this to lead us back to the ring leader?”

  She shrugged. “I’m working on it; been working on it for a while with Ted.”

  “Ted?” Aubrey sat up straight, stunned that she would bring in someone else without him knowing.

  “Yeah, Ted. He’s the codebreaker program I built after I discovered the encrypted messages.”

  She shot a finger at her workstation. Relieved, Aubrey relaxed. For the first time, he gave her desk more than a cursory glance.

  The three monitors were large and thin. Pretty standard stuff, he thought. There was a stack of laptops and tablets off to the side, a large keyboard with a multitude of extra keys he didn’t recognize, a touchpad, and a random assortment of objects he had never seen.

  Malina hadn’t gestured to any of those items. She’d pointed to a small blue box roughly four inches square and a half-an-inch tall sitting in the far-right corner of the desk. A quiet whirring emitted from it.

  “That’s Ted?” Aubrey asked.

  “No, that’s my computer. Ted is inside it.”

  “Isn’t most computing done in the cloud these days? Why do you need a desktop?”

  Malina looked at him the way one looks at a toddler who just asked if chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

  “They call it the cloud because it’s out there.” She waved her hands in the air in wide arcs. “And if it’s out there, anyone can get to it. This,” she pointed at the box then to the ground, “is only here. No one can get to it but me. All my equipment is tethered to it. I have layers of security making it impossible to breach. I take privacy very seriously.”

  Aubrey refrained from reminding her that he had managed to break into her domicile with relative ease. “Got it. So, Ted is working on it. What’s your approach?”

  Malina explained. She loaded all the coded messages into Ted then had the program use the codes to search all the books owned by the four scientists, both collectively and individually. She made no assumptions about which book or type of book it might be so she included anything over a hundred pages on any topic, non-fiction or fiction.

  “Ted runs each coded message against the text in each book by first assuming the code includes an indicator block identifying the page number. Then, Ted will run it again assuming the indicator block is not included.”

  Malina glanced over at the small blue box humming away on her desk.

  “Finally, it analyzes the results as it goes and if any words pop up that make sense in standard English usage, it gives me a ping. It’s probably going to take a while. I started the program last night and …”

  One monitor on her desk came to life. A small dialog box appeared in the lower right corner.

  “I can’t believe it.” She rolled her chair to the desk.

  Aubrey stood and walked toward her; his eyes glued to the screen.

  She clicked the dialog box and a window popped up filled with white text on a black background. On the left were the scientists’ names in all caps, to the right were their messages.

  He leaned in close. In dismay, he stood straight again. The messages were illegible, now encrypted with letters instead of numbers. Nothing made sense.

  “What are we looking at?” He gave a half-hearted wave toward the computer.

  “Ted thinks it uncovered the key, but it just turned up this gibberish. I don’t get it.”

  He sighed. “Maybe there’s something wrong with Ted.”

  “Ted is fine.” Her hand shot up. “Just give me a minute to figure this out.”

  Aubrey turned back to the sofa and sat. “Listen, I think we should meet again in a couple of days. When you’ve …”

  Malina slapped her desk. “Son of a bitch.” She turned to face Aubrey with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

  “What do you have?” he said.

  “Ted did find something. He thought he had a cipher that worked so he used it for all of the messages.” She gestured with both hands at th
e computer. “The problem is they must have used multiple ciphers, multiple books. He figured out one cipher and tried to apply it to the rest.”

  “What do you mean he found one that worked? Did Ted decode something?” Aubrey walked back to the desk and stood behind her again, a hand on the back of her chair. Malina leaned in close to the screen, squinting at the small white text.

  “Yes. Ted decoded three messages. Alkorn to Shoeman. And it looks like these were the only messages sent that day.” She looked back at Aubrey. “I wonder if they used a different book each day.”

  Aubrey eyed her for a moment. “Maybe. Blow it up, let me see.” He read the deciphered words.

  ALKORN L: He knows

  SHOEMAN N: Jorgetson

  ALKORN L: Yes now we wait

  14

  Index Cases

  “‘He knows’.”

  Aubrey had repeated the three lines to himself a dozen times while he paced back and forth in Malina’s unit.

  “‘Jorgetson. Yes. Now we wait’.” He turned toward Malina. “Anything on Jorgetson yet?”

  “Yes.”

  Bouncing between two monitors, she scrolled through several websites with information on Jorgetson. On a third, she had several windows showing personal accounts—bank, email, cloud drives, work history.

  “The Jorgetsons are very wealthy. They come from old hotel money from back in the late twentieth century and early aughts.”

  She went on to explain that the elder Jorgetson had held several positions at high tech pharma firms including Ventana, Incorporated where he was Chief Operations Officer under James Sarazin. Jorgetson had been COO during the launch of Zentransa. Since then, he’d bounced around from board to board until recently going into semi-retirement.

  Aubrey renewed his pacing, hands in his pockets, head down. He counted his steps before each turn, careful to land each step in the same spot as the last lap.

  Malina read from one website. “‘Mandel Jorgetson served an integral role in Ventana’s strategy to launch and market Zentransa to the public. It was his brilliant execution of James Sarazin’s vision that drove Zentransa to become a staple in the economy, synonymous with progress, and Ventana’s balance sheet through the stratosphere.’ Some bio.”

  Aubrey scratched his chin, squinting. “Alkorn must have meant that Mandel Jorgetson knew about the money he and his team were stealing from Ventana.” Aubrey stopped pacing and looked to Malina for input.

  “Maybe. But why not just turn them in? Nothing I’ve found indicates that they were friends or anything. If Jorgetson knew, then why wouldn’t he just have them arrested?” She looked back at her screens and clicked the touchpad several times to bring up the decoded message. “Says here this message was sent on January 20th of this year. When were they arrested?”

  Aubrey raised his eyebrows. “Right around then.” He pulled out his phone and began searching his case notes when Malina stopped him.

  “Got it. They were arrested on January 24th. Four days after this message was sent.” She pointed to a monitor. “Which means, assuming Alkorn sent the message the same day he knew that Jorgetson knew, it took four days to have them arrested.” She spun in her chair and grimaced at Aubrey. “Why wait so long?”

  “Maybe Jorgetson tried blackmailing them.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. Aubrey agreed. Everything they’d learned about Mandel Jorgetson showed them he was basically a Boy Scout. “I don’t think he had it in him. And he was super rich already, so he wouldn’t need the money.”

  Aubrey shrugged, still pacing with his head bent low. The problem with big breaks in a case was the hornet’s nest effect. One good lead and investigators tended to release a multitude of potential theories that buzzed around and sent everyone into a tizzy. Only after the facts settled to give a clearer picture could one draw any intelligent conclusions. A skilled investigator abstained from jumping to conclusions.

  “Maybe it took him that long to gather the evidence he needed to bring it to Sarazin. He probably felt the proof had to be overwhelming, since Sarazin and Alkorn were close.” Aubrey sat down and rubbed his chin. “Either way I think we need to go see Jorgetson.”

  Malina raised her raised her eyebrows and pointed her chin at Aubrey. “Umm, you should go see him. I’m not a field operative and even if I was, I can serve you better from here.”

  It took Malina two minutes to find an address. Jorgetson had been mostly off the grid for several months and owned many homes around the globe, but she narrowed down his most likely whereabouts to an estate home twenty miles north of New Aberdeen in a wealthy neighborhood. The term neighborhood was putting it loosely, Aubrey thought. It was more of a region, with each estate covering tens of acres.

  Before he left, Malina gave him an untraceable burner phone that he was to use when communicating with her.

  “Never know who’s listening,” she said.

  * * *

  Jacira Baretto watched Martin Aubrey pull away in a black sedan four-door car from the woman’s building. With a few taps on her keyboard, she commanded a drone on a nearby roof to mark and follow the car.

  On the computer’s monitor, she saw the viewscreen center on the car then pull back as if she were zooming out on a satellite image. The drone reached the programmed altitude of twenty-five hundred feet. Its size, roughly that of a softball, made it impossible to spot at that height.

  The laser on board the drone bathed the car in invisible light, optically tagging it. At the same time, scanners memorized every characteristic of the vehicle in case line of sight was broken.

  Satisfied that the drone would do its job and not in any sort of rush, she got up from her desk. Not knowing what the day would bring, she decided to loosen up with some stretching and light exercise. Afterward, she went to the to her oversized bedroom closet and picked an appropriate outfit—something black, breathable, and form fitting. She also selected proper footwear—a pair of black trail shoes that were tough but allowed for good agility and traction.

  Crossing the bedroom, she entered another closet, smaller than the first. She pushed the hanging clothes to one side and after sliding her thumb down the left edge of the rear wall of the closet, the false back slid away.

  She examined the array of tools in front of her hanging from pegs and laying on shallow shelves. Thinking about the possible sequence of events over the next several hours, she decided long range was best. Just to be safe, she decided on something that could cover medium, and short ranges also.

  Standing at the end of her bed, she visually inspecting her gear lying on top of the white linens. She mentally checked off the list in her head.

  Confident she had everything she would need, she packed it all into a large duffel bag and left her apartment.

  * * *

  Aubrey reviewed his notes on the Jorgetsons as his car sped down on autopilot down the two-lane highway. He’d left the city and its suburbs behind fifteen minutes ago, entering what most would refer to as the countryside.

  When the road wasn’t flanked by huge oak and maple tree forests with their thick canopies stretching across the road, the view became vast estates—rolling green hills, symmetrical hedgerows—crowned by a manor home high on some distant rise. The truly wealthy lived out here, he thought. Not some nouveau riche pretenders who struck it rich with overnight success; these estates held generational wealth going back a century or more.

  He’d just passed under an arboreal archway of sugar maples when the car emitted a low tone.

  “Thirty seconds to destination.”

  “Thank you,” Aubrey said. “Approach slowly after we exit the road.”

  The car confirmed the command and seconds later, decreased speed to take the turn off the main road. For the first hundred feet, Aubrey’s car drove down a paved lane between two walls of dark green hedgerows neatly trimmed with perfectly flat edges.

  Ahead the driveway turned slightly, blocking the view. All he could see on three sides was
green with a bright blue sky above.

  The car made the turn, the hedgerows ended and before him, two hundred feet ahead, the house loomed the way a manor style home should—like an opulent yet understated crown atop a royal’s head. It was imposing and welcoming all at once. The lane wound gently through a manicured lawn to a circle drive in front of the three-story home clad in gray stone. The main section of the home stood taller than the wings on either side which angled forward encasing the driveway and its fountain.

  Aubrey ordered the car to stop as it rounded the circle drive. He stepped out onto crushed gravel and looked around at the impeccable landscaping; flowers in front of the house were in full bloom, bursting with color while the lawns looked pristinely trimmed. Aubrey crossed to the front door, the small pebbles crunching under his feet.

  As he stepped up the wide stone steps, he noticed all the curtains were drawn in the windows. He knocked, waited several seconds, then rang the doorbell.

  After a moment, the door opened. A woman answered, heavyset with short cropped blonde hair just starting to go gray. Aubrey expected this. These families had many people on as full-time staff.

  Unsure of what to say, Aubrey paused. The woman stared at him with dubious eyes. On the verge of introducing himself, the woman broke the silence.

  “I knew you’d come eventually.” She spoke with a southern drawl. “Come on, he’s this way.” She turned and led him into the home. Before he could even speak, she continued. “I knew who you were the minute I saw your car pullin’ up. Hell, I knew you were coming months ago, probably before you knew you were coming.”

  He couldn’t fathom what she must mean or how she knew him. Best to just go with it, he thought. Following the woman in silence, he took in his surroundings. He assumed she was taking him to see Mr. Jorgetson, but he sensed this was one of those times when saying nothing might prove to be the best course.

  The woman led him through the foyer and into the front parlor, not turning to face him as she spoke.

  The interior of the home impressed him as much as the exterior. High coffered ceilings loomed overhead. The foyer danced in reflected light from a crystal chandelier. Dark wood furniture, thick exotic rugs, and tall vases dominated the living spaces. Artwork of all types—sculptures, paintings, and giant framed photographs—occupied every corner and wall space.