Ixeos: Book One of the Ixeos Trilogy

by Jennings Wright

  “So we get an M3 and a navy code book and then… What?”

  “Then we have to find a message to decipher. That’s where we need Marty.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Marty asked, sliding into the seat across from Neahle. He eyed Clay’s book. “Did you sleep?”

  “Barely. Look, I was just telling Neahle, I’ve narrowed down the machine, at least to start with. Of course, if we come across others we can bring those back, too. But once we have a machine and a code book, we’ll need a message. That’s where you come in.”

  “How’s that?” Marty asked, chewing a slice of bread.

  “You’ll have to find a message, one that uses the code.”

  “Oh, that’s all? Sure! No problem.” He continued to chew, thinking. “Seriously, they’ve been looking for Lockwell’s emails for a few years now. They can’t turn anything up.”

  “They didn’t have you,” Neahle said.

  “Right, that must be it…” Marty laughed. “I do think I can find him, that I’m somehow meant to find him. But how will I know if there’s a message, if I do?”

  Clay frowned, thinking. Neahle said, “How were the codes written? I mean, did they make regular words, just the wrong ones, or what?”

  Clay shook his head. “No, it made groups of five letters. They’d look random. The Germans kept their messages short, which made them harder to decipher. I don’t know if the Firsts would worry about that.”

  “So he’d be sending emails or texts or faxes or whatever, and they’d look like gibberish?” Marty asked.

  “I don’t really know. That’s a possibility. It would be the easiest. Or he could encode the code.”

  Neahle laughed. “Really?”

  Clay didn’t answer for a long moment, thinking about how he’d do it. “Okay, let’s say he has, I don’t know, an assistant or a secretary or something. Maybe he doesn’t even send emails or texts or anything himself. If they’re going to the trouble to encode the prison itinerary, he’s going to want to keep it secret, even from the assistant. So instead of handing over a piece of paper with what is obviously code, he does another simple code with it. If he has twenty sets of five letters, he could use either a simple substitution code…”

  “What’s that?” Marty broke in, fascinated.

  “You substitute a letter for another in a set pattern. Like, you move the alphabet five letters up, so A is always F, B is always G, C is always H. But those would be random, too, so that wouldn’t be any less suspicious. Even better, he writes a long letter, making sure the first letter of each word is the next letter in the code. So if the first letter group in the encoded message is AQNOR, he could write something like, ‘A quick note on Randy.’”

  “Wow,” said Neahle. “That’s intense.”

  “So I might not be looking for Simon Lockwell, I might be looking for his assistant. And then I would be looking for emails that seemed strangely worded. Because I don’t see how you could possibly take a message of twenty of those random letters and make a coherent email.”

  “That’s true! It would be awkward. The second way makes more sense, so probably that’s what he’s doing. If any of this is anything more than crazy idea in my own head.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Abacus leaned on his desk with his arms crossed over his chest, looking thoughtfully at the McClellands. They had sought a meeting with him after lunch and had finished laying out their theory on the Enigma machine to him. Now they were awaiting a verdict: would Clay and Neahle be allowed to go on the hunt for one or more machines while Marty tried to find possible encoded emails?

  “Have you shared this with Vasco?” he asked.

  “No, sir,” Clay said. “I wanted to read up on it some more first, and I haven’t seen him yet today.”

  “He left for a quick meeting in Moscow before lunch…” He thought, tapping his fingers against his arm. “History isn’t my thing; I’m more of a math guy. But I know something about codes, and it does make sense. The Firsts were here during both World Wars. They contributed some of the nastier weaponry, from what we can tell. So it would make sense that they’d know about the Enigma machines. But it’s so old-school. Wouldn’t they use more modern technology, like computers?”

  Clay smiled. “The best thing about old-school is that you can’t hack into it. Also, how many people alive now even remember about those machines? Of all the technology of the twentieth century, that’s not exactly the first one that springs to mind. And maybe that was the point. Something easily set up but not easily figured out.” Clay looked at Marty for backup.

  “Clay’s right. Even at home, people know that the old stuff is the most easily protected. People like me can’t hack an Enigma machine that’s just sitting on a desk somewhere being manually operated. I realize I’d have to find a message stream to make any sense of it, but I think I can do it now that we know what we’re looking for. I may not even have to reinvent the wheel—Marissa said that they hadn’t found anything other than boring, every-day emails. Well, coded ones wouldn’t seem interesting. Weird, maybe, but not interesting. I might find something if I read through what they’ve already found. At least that’s a starting place.”

  “If you’re right, it would be worth losing Marty’s help on other projects. If you’re wrong… It’s a colossal waste of time.” Abacus still seemed unsure.

  Neahle chimed in. “The three of us are new, anyway. If we hadn’t come, you’d have the same people in the field and on the computers, right? If we end up on a wild goose chase, all you’ve lost is our help, which you haven’t had before anyway. And who knows, maybe this is why Landon brought us here in the first place?”

  The three held their breath, waiting. Finally, the older man smiled, slapped the desk with his hand and stood up straight. “You’re right. No sense getting cautious now! You’re wrong on one count, Neahle, but your point is well made.” At her quizzical look he said, “You’ll need one of us to take you through the tunnels.”

  They spent the afternoon making lists. Clay researched as best he could where Enigma machines could be found. More specifically, where the M3 machines could be found. Neahle looked for code books and copies, although their library didn’t have much on those.

  “I wish we were home and I had the internet!” she moaned, scanning a stack of college catalogs that she’d found piled in a corner of the big room.

  “You and me both,” Marty said. “Of course, if we were home we wouldn’t even be doing this.”

  Neahle stared at him a beat. “That’s really weird, isn’t it? And you know what, I don’t think I really do wish I were home. Except for ice cream.”

  “Me neither,” her cousin said, flipping through a history of World War II. “I do wish I was at the vault, though. I can’t do anything until I’m back there.”

  “Here,” Clay said, tossing him an academic volume on Europe. “There’s stuff here on the war. See if you can find anything on the machines. The more we know, the better off we’ll be when we have one. I doubt it’s going to come with directions.”

  Vasco returned some time in the night and the McClellands were summoned to another meeting, this time in the library. The room was a mess of scattered books and notes; they had given up for the day when dinner was called the night before, and then returned after breakfast. Vasco and Abacus waited at opposite ends of the table.

  “Aaron tells me you’ve got quite a theory,” Vasco said, smiling at Clay.

  “Yes, sir.” He related the whole thing once again, adding the information they’d gathered in their research. “The machines themselves are pretty easy to find. The main thing will be finding ones the Firsts didn’t take. Actually, I guess that’d tell us something—if they’re not where they’re supposed to be, it’s a good bet I’m right. If they’re all in place, we can quit.” He scratched his hea
d. “The code books, now. Those are easier and harder.”

  “Explain,” Vasco said with a backward palm wave.

  “We don’t need original code books, so that makes it easy. Copies might even be more easy to read. But we need the ones from the Navy. That’ll be harder, especially since none of us speak German. You don’t speak German, do you?” Vasco shook his head. “So we can hit universities in the major cities where there are tunnels, and, of course, there might be code books right alongside the machines. Then it’s possible that there are several versions, so if we find a message, it still will be trial and error to see if we can figure out which code book they’re using.”

  “There’s a lot of ‘if’ and ‘when’ and trial and error in this theory,” Vasco observed wryly.

  “True. But that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, does it? I mean, if they’re bothering with encryption to begin with, it’s not going to be easy, right? And the more I think about it, the more I think they must be using some kind of code. If it’s not Enigma, though, I don’t know if we can break it.” Clay paged through a book that had been open in front of him. “It took the Allies a long time to break, but it won them the war. It may take us a long time… But if we free Darian at the end of it, won’t it be worth it?”

  Vasco laughed. “Was your father a car salesman? Insurance? No? Well, you guys are pretty persuasive, I must say.” He looked at his brother, who had been silent, listening. “I think it’s worth the manpower.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So who goes with them? I can’t do it. We’ve got all these ops going on, and I’m the one trying to keep them coordinated,” Vasco closed his eyes, running through the people they had in the tunnel currently.

  “I’ll go,” Abacus said.

  Vasco looked at him, surprised. “You don’t do many short term ops anymore,” he said.

  Abacus smiled at his younger brother. “No, I don’t. I guess I’ve fancied myself too old, although I’ve done a lot of scouting for safe houses over the last few years. But what Neahle said makes sense—we haven’t learned to count on them yet, so the rest of the network won’t miss them. Since I’ve taken myself out of most ops, I won’t be missed, either.”

  “But you do all the coordinating and planning,” Vasco pointed out.

  “I’m not going to be dead,” Abacus said, amused. “Hopefully. A lot of the places Clay found are completely abandoned. I doubt we’ll meet any humans, much less Firsts. And I’ll be here when we’re not out looking, so I’ll make sure to catch up on my paperwork.” He grinned at his brother.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Vasco said, but he smiled back. “It would be good to have you in the field again. You’ll need to put someone as second-in-command here. Someone at least has to settle petty squabbles and welcome newcomers.”

  “Samson and I can coordinate so one of us is always here. He isn’t needed all the time at the Depots, and as long as he keeps the maintenance schedules up, we’re fine. Even if we have a breakdown, we have plenty of spares.”

  Vasco stood up and held out his hand to Clay. “I guess it’s a plan. Congratulations.”

  “Let’s wait and see if it works before we start high-fiving,” Clay said, but he was pleased. At home, he hadn’t been a leader. To be fair, he’d never tried to be a leader. He had preferred to hang back and watch, to go along with the things he liked and ignore the others. He had always enjoyed working with his hands, and that meant he spent a lot of time alone. But he had also always loved war history. Maybe this was why.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Two days later, Monkey took Marty to the vault while Hannah and Neahle made a visit to Rebel Seven to make sure they were doing well at the new safe house. And for Neahle to see Gilles, which they didn’t bother to mention to Vasco. He reluctantly let them go alone; he was taking a group of five to Moscow to help a coalition of rebel cells take out a breeding facility on the outskirts of the city.

  Other than uttering a quick, silent prayer that he wouldn’t have to dive off the bridge, Marty felt only excitement as he followed Monkey to the vault. Not only would he be back on the computers, he had something to look for now, and that made all the difference. Sure, sometimes you lucked into a nugget of gold while worming your way around a network, but usually you just found scraps of information and deleted files.

  “I’m back!” he yelled, arms outstretched as they entered the vault room. Marissa looked up briefly and grinned, but Travis and Jack just put up a hand to wave, keeping their eyes on the screens in front of them. “Obviously, y’all missed me.”

  Monkey shook his head and looked at Marty. “Need anything else?”

  “Nope, I’m good! Thanks!” He put his duffle bag down by the vault entrance, then turned back to Monkey. “Wait, one thing. If I find something, how do I let them know?”

  “You don’t, not right away. We don’t have any way to communicate from the tunnels. But someone comes once a week to bring supplies and transfer messages. So if you find something, you let them know.”

  “I’ll have to sit on a message for a week?” Marty asked, incredulous.

  “Unless you want to go back to the opera house by yourself,” Monkey said.

  “Nope, no thanks. I’ll wait. Patience is a virtue, right?” Marty seated himself in his chair and threw his arms wide open, grinning. “Home again, home again!”

  Monkey laughed and waved, then was gone.

  “What was that all about,” Marissa asked. “About messages?”

  After explaining the Enigma theory, Marty said, “So I’ll run through what you’ve found already, hoping to find a pattern somewhere. If I don’t, I’ll try to find Simon Lockwell’s assistant.”

  “His assistant?” Marissa asked, frowning.

  “If you haven’t found Lockwell in all this time, it makes sense that he’s not using the system directly. Clay’s idea is that he has an assistant or a secretary that he’s giving the encoded messages to, and that’s the person who’s actually passing on the information about the prison. They don’t know it, of course. Well, probably. I mean, who knows? But anyway, that’s who I need to find.”

  Neahle was tired of carrying the heavy back pack by the time they got to the new safe house, but she felt a surge of adrenaline not related to the possibility of getting caught by a First when she saw the dirty white facade of the house.

  “There it is,” she whispered.

  Hannah laughed. “Yep, there it is. Came to see the house in the daylight, huh?”

  Neahle punched her lightly on the shoulder. “Hilarious.”

  Gilles answered the back door and welcomed them in with a kiss to each cheek. He held onto Neahle just a bit longer than Hannah, who rolled her eyes at young love and took her supplies to the kitchen.

  “You should have about two week’s worth now,” she called back over her shoulder.

  “Why would we need two week’s worth of food?” Gilles asked Neahle, leading her by the hand to a small parlor.

  Neahle cleared her throat. “Well, my brother and I… That’s Clay. You remember him, right?” Gilles nodded. “Of course you do. Anyway, we’re going to be going on some missions in, well, other places. Abacus is coming with us. I won’t be here very much for a while. Vasco’s got something big going on in Moscow for the next couple of weeks, and Samson will be in the tunnels covering for Abacus. Monkey’s handling both Paris and London while Riley is off with Vasco. Hannah’s not supposed to come alone unless she absolutely has to. So we’re a bit short.”

  “When will you be back in Paris?” Gilles asked, cutting to the chase.

  Neahle smiled. It was nice that he’d honed in on where she’d be. “We’re not sure. What we’re doing—it could take just a couple of trips, or it might take a lot. It’s hard to say. If you’d like… Well, if I have time, and you need supplies, maybe
I can come with Hannah next time.”

  “Soon?”

  “Soon,” Neahle promised.

  They left the safe house after dinner, when the city was fully dark. Neahle hated running through the city at night. It was creepy. Cars had been left on the street for decades and they were falling apart. They were excellent places to hide if someone was trying to avoid the Firsts—or waiting to attack. There were no lights, no people, no sounds except the occasional breeze catching a ripped awning or rustling the trees. Nowhere with this many buildings should ever be this quiet.

  Two blocks from the opera house, Hannah held up a hand and pulled Neahle up against the dark wall, deeper into the shadows. When Neahle started to speak, Hannah shook her head frantically and pointed, keeping her sweatshirt sleeve over her pale hand.

  Squinting into the darkness, Neahle saw nothing unusual. She strained her ears and still didn’t hear anything. She looked back at Hannah and then heard a slight sound, the scuff of a rubber sole shoe on the concrete sidewalk, followed by hissing whispers.

  Neahle could feel the panic starting to rise; Hannah sensed it. She placed a steady hand on her friend’s arm and looked at her. Barely shaking her head, she flicked her eyes in the direction of the sounds, then used her hand to indicate they needed to stay still, against the wall. Neahle nodded, barely breathing. They turned slightly, angling away from the direction of the noises, letting the dark hoodies further shadow their faces.

  “Regarder où vous allez!” a male voice hissed, angry.

  Neahle looked at Hannah, who just shook her head and mouthed, “Later.”

  “Je ne peux pas voir!” came a second voice.

  “And I can’t understand half of what you’re sayin’,” came a third, too loud. “Speak English, why don’t ya?”