Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 5:23 PM
Oliver
opened the mailbox in the lobby of his apartment building and began pulling out
the day’s mail. Cable TV bill, electric bill, advertising flyers. And a
buff-colored card from the USPS saying he had an item with $1 postage due,
which could be collected from the local post office. He glanced at his watch,
knowing the Post Office had already closed at 5:00. He debated waiting until
next Saturday, but his interest was piqued – what could he have received
postage due?
He
went into work an hour early the next morning, and cut out just as early. He
made it to the post office with twenty-five minutes to spare, and waited
patiently in line. When he reached the front, he turned the card and a $1 bill
in to the clerk at the counter, who rummaged around for a bit and handed over a
worn and dirty 9”x12” manila envelope. There was one 37-cent stamp barely
hanging on to the envelope, yellowed and brittle. “Looks like whoever sent it
used really old stamps – the others must have fallen off,” the clerk said, and
turned to help the next customer. The stamp was a Dr. Seuss commemorative
stamp. The return address was the same as the to-address – Oliver Keen, with
his address and apartment number. Both appeared to be in Oliver’s handwriting.
Oliver looked at the postmark: three days earlier, from Washington, DC. He
certainly had not been in DC on Saturday.
He
resisted the urge to open the envelope right there in the post office, and
instead hurried home. He locked the door to his apartment and used a pocket
knife to slit the envelope. Inside, was a smaller 6”x10” sealed manila
envelope. It felt almost empty. He broke the seal and slid three items out onto
his kitchen table.
The
first was a small scrap of light tan leather with a stylized star on it. The
scrap was roughly palm-sized, the leather very thin and pliable. The symbol
seemed more tattooed into the leather than printed on it, with a red metallic
ink that seemed to glow faintly.
The
second was an odd, obviously phony $10 bill. It was slightly larger than a
normal bill, and made from a slick substance that felt more like plastic than
paper. It was rainbow-colored, and the portrait was not Alexander Hamilton – it
was a reality-TV host whose show recently got cancelled: Donald Trump. The
portrait was holographic – looked at one way, Trump had a smug smile, but turned
another his expression shifted to a menacing glare. The back had a strange
barcode and a US flag with 57 stars. Under the serial number, the bill said
“Series 2034”.
The
final item was a folded sheet of paper. It looked like ordinary typing or
printer paper, albeit of fairly low quality, somewhat pulpy. Had a slight
lemony aroma. At the bottom of the sheet were the lyrics from a Tom Waits song:
“The Earth Died Screaming”; Oliver recognized it from a CD (Bone Machine) in his
collection. Under the lyrics was the single word ‘palimpest’. It all looked to
be in Oliver’s handwriting. There was also a smudged fingerprint in what looked
like dried blood. The fingerprint had a line interrupting the whorls, like a
scar.
Oliver
sat staring at the trio of objects, trying to make sense of them. There was a
knot growing in his stomach. What the hell did this mean? He hadn’t sent
himself these things – had he? Last week had been weird, to say the least, but
he remembered everything since Keene NY clearly, and he sure as hell hadn’t
traveled to Washington to mail himself this envelope. Had he?
He
read the lyrics again, then got out the CD and played the song, to make sure
they matched. They did, except for that word ‘palimpest’ at the end. It was
spelled wrong, too – he was sure of it. He pulled out his dictionary and looked
it up. Yep – it should have been ‘palimpsest’: “a manuscript, typically of
papyrus or parchment, that has been written on more than once, with the earlier
writing incompletely erased and often legible” the definition read.
He
held the paper up to the light, looking for any signs of faded writing. Caught
the faint lemony scent again, and a memory popped. Writing secret messages in
Boy Scouts with lemon juice for invisible ink. He removed the shade from a
lamp, and held the paper close to the hot bulb. Sure enough, brown letters
began to appear on the page.
Oliver stared at the jumble of letters. He had no doubt whatsoever that he was staring at a block of ciphertext. And if he really had sent himself this message, he would know that he would recognize it as a cipher. And he would know that he would be able to figure out how to crack it. Right? But how?
The
first word: KRYPTOS. That was the clue. In front of CIA Headquarters in Langley
was a copper sculpture called “Kryptos” with four encoded messages cut into its
surface. NSA had succeeded in decoding three of the four messages. They were
encoded with a multi-alphabet Vigenére cipher, and the back of the sculpture
held the alphabet table – the normal alphabet with the word KRYPTOS inserted
into it.
Oliver
opened his laptop, and some quick Googling brought him to a site for solving Vigenére
ciphers. He entered the KRYPTOS alphabet, and typed in the ciphertext, but then
he was stumped. He needed the key. One by one, he entered the lines of lyrics
from the Tom Waits song, but they each yielded nothing but more gibberish. He
was at the bottom of the page, looking at the misspelled ‘palimpest’. He typed
that into the key field.
apocalypsebillionsdeadendofworld
preventmeetingmayaltertimelinekillHScott
WhitcherDOB131275MCaucbrwnhr66kg148cmGPS
38.887701-77.019771UTC1256137050useelders
igntoincapcitateacellcompromiseddonottru
stiffailruncommitsuicideby190138
It
took him a moment to sort through the run-on words, and he felt his head
spinning as their meaning became clear. He fell back into his chair, staring at
the doomsday warning he’d apparently sent himself from the future. He needed
time – time to think, time to process. Maybe tomorrow he’d call the rest of the
team, get their input, let them help him figure out what to do next. He stared
at the message. At the numbers in the middle. At the letters ‘UTC’ and ‘GPS’. The
latter was obvious, so he pulled up Google Maps and entered the numbers,
placing a comma between them. He found himself staring at a map of Washington
DC, crosshairs centered on the main entrance to the Smithsonian Air and Space
Museum. UTC was ‘Unix Time Code’, a standard notation for date and time. He
pulled up another website and typed in the numbers with trembling fingers. The
response came back: Wed Oct 21 2009 10:57:30.
Oliver had just over twelve hours to get to Washington DC and prevent the end of
the world. Or else 29 years to plan his suicide. He pulled out his phone.
Within an hour, T-cell was gathered in
Tabitha’s apartment. Oliver had showed them the items from the envelope,
explained what he’d done, and they were trying to sort out their meaning. Tabitha
was on the phone to the FBI, requesting a background check on one H. Scott
Whitcher, DOB Dec 13, 1975. Carlos had the Amtrak schedule up on Oliver’s
laptop. “It’s probably too late to catch the 7:40, but there’s another at 8:13.
The last train tonight leaves at 10:18 – gets in at 1:58. Then nothing until
6:00 AM, arriving 8:59 – cutting it pretty close.”
“OK, let’s hustle then,” Oliver commanded.
“Everybody get your go-bags, and meet at Penn Station. I’ll buy the tickets.”
They split up, and Oliver went straight to the station. But at the ticket
window, he got bad news. “I’m sorry. There’s an accident on the tracks, and all
remaining trains tonight are cancelled. And the 6:00 AM train is already sold
out due to people rescheduling.” Cursing, he looked around, and spotted a green
Enterprise sign. Time for Plan B. By the time the others arrived he had a car
rented and idling at the curb.
They took the Holland Tunnel to New Jersey,
and onto the Turnpike. As they drove, Tabitha’s phone pinged, and she pulled up
an email. “Here’s what we’ve got on our Mr. Whitcher,” and she began to read:
H
(Howard) Scott Whitcher DOB Dec 13th, 1975 Caucasian male, brown hair, 145 lbs,
5'8"
1.
Three
residential addresses in the last eight years:
-
current = Germantown, MD
-
last =
Baltimore, MD
-
previous =
Burlingame, CA
2.
An unlisted
phone number for the current address
3.
Graduated
Burlingame HS; MBA from the University of San Francisco with minors in math and
law;
4.
No criminal
history and a decent credit score;
5.
Unmarried, only
child, no surviving parents or grandparents;
6.
Tax returns
going back to 1994 (no details in the email)
7.
A driver's
license, with a street address matching the current residential address; the
physical description matched as well; most importantly, they now had a recent
photo, as the license was issued less than six months ago. She passed the phone
around, then forwarded the photo to each of them. Whitcher had a dark
complexion, possibly Latino, Greek, or Indian; his hair was very dark brown and
a bit long. He was clean-shaven.
“There’s one piece of this I don’t get,” Oliver said as they drove. He had
a paper with the decrypted messages written out on it. “What the hell is an
‘elder sign’?”
Carlos shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I think it’s that symbol on the
piece of leather,” he offered. “I’ve … heard of them. They’re supposed to be
some sort of protection against evil or outside forces or something. Or a
weapon to use against them. Not really sure.” He didn’t want to admit that his
knowledge had come at the expense of his assistant’s sanity.
“So we just show him that thing and then tie him up?” Tabitha asked.
“No – we kill him,” Seamus growled. “Read the fucking note.”
“But maybe if he sees it and it incapacitates him, then we can disrupt the
meeting without killing him?”
“What part of ‘end of the world’ don’t you understand? We kill him.”
Thirty minutes later, then hit another snag as traffic on the turnpike
ground to a stop. They barely moved for the next hour until a New Jersey State
Trooper waved them off the Turnpike, and onto a detour that took them to I-95,
through Philadelphia and Wilmington, adding another 45 minutes to the trip. By
the time they neared the Maryland border, it was nearly 2 AM.
“I say we take him at his home in Germantown,” Seamus said. “Don’t wait for
whatever meeting he’s having tomorrow.” That seemed like a better plan than a
confrontation in downtown Washington DC, so they drove to Germantown. Whitcher
lived in a very ordinary looking suburban neighborhood, dark and silent in the
wee hours. They rolled to a stop in front of his house, lights off, and Oliver
scanned for any sign of security cameras. Seeing none, they quietly left the
car. The house was a two-story with attached garage. Avoiding the front door,
they crept around the side of the garage. A dog barked several door away.
Tabitha peered through the garage window. “Empty” she whispered, disappointed.
They made their way around to the back, and security lights immediately snapped
on, but no alarm sounded. “OK, just makes it easier to work,” Oliver said with
a nervous grin, and set his lock picks to the back door. Surprisingly, he
quickly had the door open, and saw no sign of an alarm panel.
They made a fast sweep of the ground floor, guns drawn. The house was
clearly lived in, but they saw and heard nothing. Moving upstairs it was more
of the same. The master bedroom bed was unslept in. One bedroom had been made
into a home office and Oliver settled in at the computer. “His calendar shows
he had a job interview yesterday at 2:00,” he reported. “Looking up the
address.” Keys clicked. “Well that’s interesting – the interview was at the DIA
– Defense Intelligence Agency”.
“Can you tell where he’s staying tonight?” Tabitha asked. “If he’s at a
hotel downtown, there’d be a credit card charge.”
Oliver tapped more keys. “He’s got the Chase site bookmarked. Damn – who
doesn’t have their login and password recorded in Chrome? Sorry guys – no
dice.”
Having missed the opportunity to catch their quarry at home, they filed
quietly back out to their car and continued on into DC. It was still pre-dawn,
streets mostly deserted. They drove down Independence Ave. past the Air and
Space Museum, a massive modern building. It had a broad concrete portico
leading up to the main doors, but stout anti-terrorist barricades prevented any
vehicles from mounting the curb. They circled the building a few times; there
was another large entrance on the opposite side, off Jefferson Dr., and other
smaller entrances that didn’t look like they would normally be open to the
public. The building and its approaches were far too large for their team to
scout – they’d be spread too thin with no means of quick communication. They
found a parking lot a block and a half away, and settled into an uneasy wait.
“What do you think we’re supposed to do with this?” Oliver was fingering
the scrap of leather that supposedly bore an Elder Sign, whatever that was. The
red ink definitely had a faint glow in the darkness. “Do we just flash it at
him?” No one was any more sure than they had been when he’d asked the question
an hour earlier.
A gray dawn filled the sky, and the streets began to hum with activity.
First delivery trucks, making their rounds before the morning rush, then the
first trickle of commuters. Seamus walked to a nearby coffee shop and returned
with four to-go cups and a sack of donuts. By 8:30 the streets were packed with
traffic and the sidewalks crowded with pedestrians. After 9:00, the rush
subsided as office workers reached their destinations. The museum opened at
10:00, and the team spread out around the main entrance, hoping to spot
Whitcher as he entered, but they saw no sign of him.
They had a time, and a place, but no clear plan. Wait for Whitcher. Snatch
him up and restrain him? Force him into the car? Somehow use the scrap of
leather to subdue him? They were painfully aware of how public and exposed the
museum entrance was. There were traffic cameras at every intersection, and the
museum itself was sure to have its own security cameras. Dozens of pedestrians
passed every minute, along with a steady flow of vehicle traffic. Occasional
tour busses would stop in front of the museum to disgorge a flock of
out-of-towners.
At 10:30, the team moved into positions. Carlos slid into the driver’s seat
of their rental car, pulled out of the lot, and began to slowly circle the
museum, hoping to time his passes so he’d be in front at zero-hour. The other
three spread out to cover the entrance. There were two main doors, one on the
east and one on the west. Tabitha positioned herself near the western door,
while Seamus sat on a concrete wall near the eastern one, smoking one cigarette
after another. Oliver split the difference, ready to move in either direction.
As 11:00 neared, another tour bus pulled to a stop in front of the eastern
door and several dozen senior citizens began to slowly shuffle out into a loose
clot, waiting for their tour guide to lead them inside. From the west, a pack
of Cub Scouts with their Den Mothers approached in a laughing, haphazard line.
At 10:57:15, H. Scott Whitcher emerged from the eastern door of the Air and
Space Museum, walking calmly towards Independence Ave. Tabitha spotted him
instantly, cursing softly that she was at the wrong door. She hustled across the
open plaza, punching Oliver in the arm as she passed to get his attention.
Seamus ground out his cigarette and quietly slid into position behind Whitcher,
arms loose at his sides, senses on high alert. Carlos was just pulling up in
the rental car; he saw the team on the move and pulled to the curb, twitching
nervously as he checked his mirrors for any sign of cops.
Oliver walked straight up their target. “Mr. Whitcher? Sid Smith, CIA.” He
flashed his NSA badge, hoping Whitcher wasn’t a speed reader. “Could I have a
word, sir?”
Whitcher looked surprised, but not alarmed, and he gave Oliver a smile.
“Sure. Is this about the background check? They told me there’d be a background
check if I got the job, but I didn’t expect it to start so soon. Does this mean
I got the job?” He seemed excited, friendly, eager to cooperate.
“I can’t really comment on that, sir,” Oliver said, trying to sound
official. “I just need you to look at something for me.” He pulled the scrap of
leather out of his pocket and handed it to Whitcher.
Whitcher took it gingerly between his forefingers and thumbs, his
expression shifting to one of confusion. “I don’t understand. What is this?
What’s this all about? What does this have to do with my job? Who did you say
you were again?” He handed the scrap back to Oliver and began to look around
nervously.
Tabitha lost patience. Just looking at the Elder Sign obviously had no
effect, so it was time to escalate. She snatched the leather out of Oliver’s
hand, and slapped Whitcher across the face with it. There was a bright flash of
light and a loud POP; it felt like a firecracker had gone off in her hand and
she dropped the leather as blood began to drip from her fingertips.
Seamus watched all this as if from a great distance. He felt the cool
October air, and he found himself back in Afghanistan, on a similarly cool
night, facing a monstrosity emerging from a cave. There was no air cover to
call for this time – it was up to him alone to save his team. He dropped to his
knees, pressed the muzzle of his pistol to the thing’s temple, and fired off
three rounds. Its head jerked up as the slugs recoiled off the pavement below,
but somehow, impossibly, it continued blinking up at him, two pairs of eyelids,
one blinking up and down, the others sideways.
Tabitha’s brain wasn’t working. ‘We
have to restrain him – get him to the car,’ she was thinking. She fumbled
her stun gun out of her jacket pocket, but her hand was still numb from the
effects of the Elder Sign, and the probes ricocheted harmlessly off the
sidewalk. She pulled out her flexible restraints, but when she grabbed
Whitcher’s arm, it was as if it were boneless – it would be like trying to
handcuff a snake. And he was still wriggling, trying to regain consciousness.
She was aware of Oliver’s gun firing, of more holes appearing in the Brooks
Brothers’ suit that covered Whitcher’s reptilian body. Seamus was still
shooting, blasting out chunks of skull, and yet the thing that had been
Whitcher was still blinking up at them, mouth working as if trying to form
words. Resigning to the inevitable, she drew her own weapon, and the three of
them stood in a circle over H. Scott Whitcher, firing down at him until he at
last stopped moving.
Carlos leaped out of the car. “Cut! Great shot everyone! Just making a
movie folks – nothing to worry about! It’ll be out in the fall and you’ll all
be in it!” He was trying desperately to concoct a cover story, but none of the
panicked bystanders were buying it.
“We’ve got to get him to the car!” Tabitha screamed, as she grabbed what
should have been an arm. Oliver grabbed another, and together they began to
haul the limp body towards the street. Seamus calmly dropped out his empty
clip, loaded another, and kept firing into the body as they dragged it towards
the car. Then he staggered, slammed in the back by what felt like a baseball
bat. He turned, and saw two museum security guards standing in the entrance,
guns firing from a two-handed crouch. Bullet holes appeared in the fender of
the car, and sparks flew from the concrete by his feet. Oliver yelped as a
bullet grazed his leg, but he kept shoving the body into the front seat, then
dove into the back.
Seamus knew he should return fire, cover his team’s retreat. But he also
knew the only real threat was the thing in the car. Tabitha was already
in the front seat, Whitcher’s body coiled on the floor at her feet. Seamus
leaned in from the back, reached over the front seat, and kept firing down at
the scaly thing on the floor of the car. Tabitha chopped down at his wrist,
knocked the gun out of his hand. “Go! Go! Go!” she was screaming. Oliver had
Seamus by the jacket collar, pulling him into the car as Carlos floored the
accelerator. Two more guards had appeared from the western doors, and they
fired at the car as it screeched away, glass exploding inwards. As one guard
tracked his target, a Cub Scout ventured a look up at the fleeing car. Oliver
saw a cloud of red mist puff out from the Scout’s head as the guard kept
shooting.
In the first terrorist attack on US soil since September 11, terrorists today tried to seize the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Museum security guards thwarted the attack as they fought off the terrorists. Three people were killed in the ensuing gun battle, including a ten-year old Cub Scout and two senior citizen tourists.
The terrorists fled the museum, only to be trapped by a police roadblock as
they attempted to cross one of the bridges leading out of Washington over the
Potomac. After a short standoff with police, the terrorists detonated a car
bomb in their vehicle, killing themselves.
Authorities identified the terrorists as Syrian nationals who had entered
the US on student visas which had since expired. A terrorist group calling
itself ISIS in America claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was “the
beginning of the jihad to cleanse America”. Republican congressmen decried
President Obama’s “dangerously irresponsible immigration policy” for permitting
the terrorists into the country.
