by James Ponti
That’s when my brain started putting together the puzzle pieces, and I asked Margaret for her phone so I could look through the pictures she’d taken during the case. There were two in particular I was looking for, and when I found them, I switched back and forth between them to make sure I was right. And even though I was, I didn’t know what it all meant.
I closed my eyes, and the pieces of the case flooded through my mind. FBI, CIA, NSA, Russian spies, Library of Congress, Albert Einstein, Alistair Toombs, and then . . . books. There were so many books throughout the case. Rare books. Science books. Children’s books. Massive volumes of Shakespeare’s works. A book that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. And now Geek Mythology. Maybe the hashtag was right. Maybe it was “all about the books.” I remembered my mother once telling me, “No matter what you’re searching for, you can always find the answer in the library. The secrets of the world are hidden in books,” she’d said. “All you’ve got to do is look for them.”
And then everything went dark, and I saw the answer right in front of me. I opened my eyes and looked at Margaret.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah, I realized that a while ago. That’s why I’m typing ten thousand different codes.”
“No, I mean, we’ve got to get out of here because I may have just solved the case.”
“Really? How?”
“It’s hard to explain, but the first thing you have to understand is that Geek Mythology changes everything,” I said. “Or rather, its call number does. This case is all about codes. That’s what a Dewey decimal number really is, a code. And the Library of Congress system is just a different code. Two different numbers that are codes for the same thing. But if you turn that around, one number can mean two different things.”
“I’m not following?” she said.
“Let me show you,” I said. “Here’s the picture you took of Mrs. Hoover Speaks Mandarin and Other Fun Facts about the First Ladies.”
I enlarged the picture and held up her phone so she could see.
“Okay.”
“Read the Dewey decimal number,” I said.
“Three fifty-two point twenty-three.”
“Right.”
I flipped through the pictures until I came to the one of the envelope in the evidence bag. I enlarged it as well.
“And here is the envelope for the letter Jarrett Underhill claims he never wrote to Alexander Petrov,” I continued. “Read the zip code.”
She gave me an uncertain look, but she read it.
“Three five two two three.”
It took her a second. “They’re the same.”
“It’s one number that means two different things in two different codes,” I said. “Petrov had this book and this envelope in his briefcase when Marcus tried to arrest him. There’s no way that’s a coincidence.”
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “But we’ve got to figure that out and show it to Admiral Douglas and Melinda Dawkins.”
For a moment we were swept up in the excitement of the discovery, but our enthusiasm was quickly tempered by the facts of the situation. It didn’t matter what we knew; we were still locked in the room. And if no one discovered us until work started on Monday, then it would be too late to help Marcus. He’d told us that he was turning in his resignation over the weekend.
“One time, I was visiting my cousins in Detroit, and we did one of those escape rooms,” said Margaret. “You know, where you get locked in a room and you have to find clues and solve puzzles to unlock the door.”
“How’d it go?”
“Actually, we didn’t escape before time ran out,” she answered.
“You’re not filling me with confidence.”
“But that was before you taught me TOAST,” she said. “But also it makes me think we’re looking at this all wrong.”
“In what way?”
“We shouldn’t think of it as a locked room. We should think of it as a mystery. We’re no good with locked rooms. But we’re great with mysteries. Let’s use TOAST.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Let’s do that.”
Earlier we’d been focused entirely on the locked door, but now we started searching the entire room.
In the corner there was a wooden desk and a chair with two stacks of plastic bins. Written on the red bins in big block letters was SENATE, while the blue ones said, HOUSE OF REPS. The desktop was pretty clean except for some basic office supplies.
“Scissors, tape, pens, and pencils, nothing particularly useful,” Margaret said as she did a quick inventory.
“Let’s check the drawers,” I told her. “Maybe whoever uses this desk wrote down the combination for the keypad or hid a spare key in here.”
I dug around the top drawer and found a package of index cards, a box of rubber bands, more pens, and a bottle of rubber glue. Meanwhile, Margaret sorted through papers in a file drawer.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
“Three basic files: circulation reports, purchase orders, and book requests.”
“Anything with the code?”
“No.”
We looked some more but found nothing that helped us. I was sitting in the chair, and Margaret sat on the corner of the desk.
“Remember when Admiral Douglas took us to the SCIF that first time?” she said. “He told us that people think of rooms as separate places, but they’re not. They’re really connected to the outside world.”
“Right, with things like windows, walls, and wiring,” I said, remembering.
“How is this room connected to the outside world?” she asked.
“There’s a door,” I said. “But it’s locked.”
“There’s electrical wiring,” she said.
“Air-conditioning.” I looked up at the ceiling, where there was a long narrow vent. “If only that was big enough to crawl through.”
“Okay,” she said. “How is it connected to the world in other ways?” she asked. “Why isn’t there a phone on this desk?”
“That’s a good question,” I said. “Maybe it doesn’t really belong to someone; it’s just used by whoever’s in this room at the time. You know, they get a book request, then come down here and find it. Put the books in a bin and take it back to either the Senate or the House of Representatives.”
Margaret hopped up off the desk and started jumping up and down with excitement. “That’s it. That’s it. That’s it.”
“What’s it?”
“That’s what they do in here now,” she said. “They come in with requests for books and put those in a bin to go back to the Capitol. But that’s not what they always did in here. They used to take those bins and put them . . .”
“In the book tunnel!” I exclaimed as I shot up from my chair. “We’ve got to find where they plastered over the entrance.”
After we’d learned about the book tunnels from Alistair Toombs, we had considered the possibility that it was how the burglar was getting into the stacks and stealing the books from the Russian Imperial Collection. I’d found a couple articles about the tunnels online and was fascinated.
They connected all parts of the Library of Congress with committee rooms and offices in the Capitol Building. In the pictures with the articles, the tunnel entrances were all about two feet by two feet and waist high on the wall. Margaret started at one end, and I started at the other, and we carefully rapped the wall every few inches, listening for anything that sounded different. It took about five minutes until we heard a hollow echo.
“Right here,” she said.
“How do we break through it?” I asked.
We went back to the desk and looked for the heaviest and sharpest items we could find. We settled on an industrial-sized three-hole punch and a large pair of scissors. We smacked the wall with the three-hole punch until there was a cracking sound, then we started jabbing with the scissors. After about a minute we finally broke through
a hole about the size of a quarter. We took turns peering through it using the flashlights on our phones to see.
“That’s it,” I said.
“Back up,” she told me. She took off her shoes and posed like Kayla had taught us in self-defense class. “I’m going to kick through it.”
“No,” I said. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because you could hurt your foot. And you need it for soccer. I’ll do it.”
“What about your foot?” she said. “You’ve got tryouts coming up.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “If I don’t make the team, it won’t be a big deal. But if you miss a bunch of games, that will be bad.”
I got in position and gave it my best karate kick. It took three attempts, but on the third try my foot went all the way through. My foot got caught in the plaster, and I almost fell, but Margaret caught me. We pulled back the plaster and drywall until we’d opened a space wide enough for us to crawl through.
“I just thought of something,” Margaret said. “If all the entrances are covered, where do we crawl to?”
“I’ve already figured that out. In one of the articles, it said that there’s still an opening in the Main Reading Room. There’s an exhibit there about the history of the tunnels.” I poked my head inside and looked up the incline toward a faint light.
“I can see it,” I said. “About fifty yards away.” I pulled back out and gave her a look. “Mostly uphill.” (I left out the part about it being incredibly dark and scary looking.)
“Okay. You first. Start crawling.”
“Why am I going first?” I said, trying not to sound scared. “You’re the brave one.”
“I’m also wearing a dress,” she said. “I’m not crawling in front of you in a dress.”
“I didn’t even think about our clothes,” I said. “What’s crawling around in there going to do to my tuxedo?”
“Come on, 007, you can do it.” Once again she started humming the James Bond theme, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
I worked my way into the tunnel and started crawling, holding my phone up every once in a while to light the way. I heard Margaret get in behind me, and we were mostly quiet and focused as we crawled. It was cramped, and there was no room to turn around and go back. If we ran into a snag, we’d have to crawl backward.
When we were about halfway to the light, I began hearing music from the party.
“The gala’s still going on,” I told her. “I can hear the music.”
“That’s good,” she said. “Maybe there’s still some bulgogi left.”
“Don’t mention food. I’m starving.”
Twenty minutes later we reached the tunnel entrance in the Main Reading Room, which was closed and entirely dark. We could hear the music coming through the walls from the Great Hall. We brushed off as much dirt and dust as we could and slipped through the door back into the party.
We didn’t stop to look for food. We didn’t worry about Alistair Toombs. We just headed straight for the main exit, catching some strange looks as we did. (Despite our best efforts, we were still pretty dusty, and I think I had some major cobwebbing in my hair.)
Once we were outside, I inhaled a couple lungfuls of fresh air and breathed a sigh of relief. Margaret did likewise.
“Nice work, Moneypenny,” I said.
“You too, James.”
We went down the stairs and sat on the edge of Neptune’s fountain, enjoying the cool breeze off the water. I took out my phone.
“Calling your parents?” she asked.
“No.” I pulled up the number I’d entered this morning when we left the SCIF and pressed call.
A woman answered, “Hello?”
“Is this Melinda Dawkins?”
“Who is this?”
“Florian Bates.”
There was a pause on the other side. “Florian, how did you get my phone number?”
“Off the visitor’s log,” I said.
“Florian, it’s inappropriate for you to—”
I cut her off. “We’ve cracked the code the Russian spies are using to communicate about dead drops. First thing tomorrow morning Margaret and I are going to the Hoover Building. If you and Admiral Douglas are there, we’ll tell you everything we know.”
“There are other members of the joint commission,” she said. “I can’t just—”
I cut her off again. “Just the two of you.”
There was a long pause on the other side of the phone.
“Seven thirty,” she said.
“And tell Admiral Douglas we’ll need both evidence boxes,” I said. “The one he showed us after the awards presentation and the one from Marcus’s cold case.”
“Why do you need them?”
“I’ll explain it tomorrow.”
“Florian,” she said before I could hang up. “Don’t tell anyone what you’ve figured out. This is dangerous information.”
“Dangerous to whom?”
“To anyone who knows it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”
I ended the call and turned to Margaret. “She went for it.”
“Okay, but you told her that we know the code,” she said. “I thought you hadn’t figured it all out yet.”
“True,” I said. “Let’s hope we can solve it by seven thirty tomorrow morning.”
30.
Codes
IT WAS SEVEN FIFTEEN ON Saturday morning, and some light rain was falling as my mother drove us to the Hoover Building.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?” she said. “I was pretty good yesterday.”
“You were great yesterday,” I said. “But it’s just going to be the two of us, Admiral Douglas, and Melinda Dawkins from the CIA.”
Mom pulled up to the curb by the entrance.
“Is it going to help Marcus?” she asked.
“I hope so,” I said.
“Where do you want me to wait?” she asked.
“There’s no telling how long this might take,” I said. “I’ll call when we’re done.”
We got out of the car and hurried across the sidewalk to keep from getting wet. An agent was waiting for us inside. He was young with a crew cut and a dark suit.
“Are you Florian Bates and Margaret Campbell?” he asked.
“Yes,” we said.
“Follow me.”
He walked past the reception desk.
“Don’t we need to get visitor badges?”
“No badges.”
We bypassed the normal bank of elevators and went around the corner to the one that Admiral Douglas had taken us on before.
“Subbasement four,” the agent told the guard waiting inside.
No one spoke on the elevator. The silence was broken by the ding as we reached the floor and the doors whooshed open.
The agent walked us down the hall to the waiting room next to the SCIF, where there was a guard behind the desk.
“Cell phones,” said the guard.
We handed them over, and I looked for the visitor’s log.
“Where do we sign in?” I asked.
“You don’t.”
Admiral Douglas and Agent Dawkins were the only ones in the room. I was relieved to see the evidence boxes on the table. The mood was tense, and nobody said a word until the door behind us was firmly closed.
“Good morning, Florian, Margaret,” boomed the admiral.
“Good morning, sir, Agent Dawkins.”
“You know there aren’t a lot of twelve-year-olds who can get us to show up somewhere this early on a Saturday morning,” he said.
“No, sir, I don’t expect there are,” I said. “But I also don’t think there are a lot of twelve-year-olds who can help you uncover a Russian spy ring that’s been operating for at least nine years.”
He laughed loudly and turned to Dawkins. “He makes a good point.” The mood lightened some, and he leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “What’ve you go
t?”
“A deep-cover agent working out of the Library of Congress has been passing secrets to employees at the Russian embassy using a code that is ingenious in its simplicity. So much so that it has eluded detection for years.”
“And you know who this person is?” asked Dawkins.
“No,” I said. “We have it narrowed down. But we do know the code. And once you have the code, you can find the spy, the embassy employee receiving the information, and perhaps more importantly, other spies who use the same code.”
The two of them shared a look.
“Okay,” said Douglas. “Run us through it.”
I stood up, opened the evidence box from the case nine years earlier, and pulled out the library book.
“Mrs. Hoover Speaks Mandarin and Other Fun Facts about the First Ladies,” I said, reading the title. “This was found in the briefcase of Alexander Petrov when he met with Marcus to sell him two stolen books. It’s kind of an odd read for a forty-five-year-old spy, don’t you think?”
I passed the book to them.
“Yes, quite unusual,” said the admiral.
“Agreed,” said Dawkins.
“And this is a letter and envelope supposedly sent by an Alabama sculptor named Jarrett Underhill,” said Margaret, passing them the evidence bags.
“Why do you say ‘supposedly’?” asked Dawkins.
“Underhill claims that he didn’t send the letter,” said Margaret. “And the fact that the postmark reads ‘Harrisonburg, Virginia,’ and not ‘Birmingham, Alabama,’ backs that up.”
“So we have a forged letter and a children’s book,” said Admiral Douglas. “What’s the code?”
“They’re the code,” I said. “Look at the Dewey decimal number on the book.”
Dawkins picked up the book and read it aloud. “Three fifty-two point twenty-three.”
“And read the zip code on the envelope,” said Margaret.
Douglas picked up the envelope and saw it. “Well, I’ll be. It’s three five two two three.”
They held them up side by side to compare them.
“Could it be a bizarre coincidence?” asked Agent Dawkins.
“No,” I said. “There’s more.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper that I’d printed off my computer.
