by Penny Warner
M.E. laughed. “Nice hat, but a mustache? Seriously?”
“I think it looks cool,” Luke argued, checking himself out in a mirror.
Following Mika’s lead, the other Code Busters began gathering items for their own disguises. Cody found a Russian-style fur hat. “I’m goink to use a Rrrussian accent,” she said, rolling the letter R.
M.E. chose a scarf covered with words like CONFIDENTIAL, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, and TOP SECRET, and wrapped it around her head and neck. Quinn found a knitted cap that came with a knitted black beard.
Like Mika, the Code Busters picked out T-shirts to pull over their own shirts. Cody chose DENY EVERYTHING, M.E. picked SPY GIRL, Quinn got a T-shirt with ninjas on it, and Luke found a Spy vs. Spy shirt. All five chose dark glasses as a final touch for their disguises.
Ms. Stad called the group to attention. “All right, students, gather your backpacks. It’s time for our Spy Hunt. Please pay for your purchases, and then we’ll meet in the lobby. I’ll assign your group a chaperone, and then each group will receive a GPS unit and the first clue.”
Everyone lined up at the cashier to buy their souvenirs and disguises before heading to the lobby. When all the students were assembled, the teachers had them form groups of four and assigned each group a chaperone. The Code Busters got special permission to have five people in their group. Ms. Takeda, Mika’s mom, would be their chaperone.
Each chaperone was handed a GPS unit and an envelope with the words TOP SECRET stamped on the front. Cody held the GPS device, which looked a lot like a small hand-held game. The Code Busters had used the GPS apps on their cell phones in the past, so they were familiar with how the device worked.
“You’ll find the coordinates on the intel sheets inside your envelopes,” Ms. Stad said. “Enter the coordinates into the GPS and begin your mission, then watch for a yellow sign. Good luck. If anyone gets lost or has a problem, your chaperone can call me on my cell phone. We’ll meet back here in two hours. The first team to return will get to talk to a real FBI agent, who just happens to be my nephew.”
Awesome! Cody thought. We can ask him all kinds of questions about secret missions.
Quinn opened the envelope that held the first coded message and unfolded the paper. He showed it to the others.
Code Busters’ Key and Solution found on pp. 149, 155.
The first part was written in Japanese characters. After Mika translated the numbers, the Code Busters quickly solved the code.
“Okay,” Quinn said, “we’ve got the coordinates to find the first waypoint.”
“Yeah,” M.E. said, “but what’s all this other stuff underneath, where it says ‘Clue?’”
Luke read the information at the bottom of the page out loud: “There are twelve items buried in the cornerstone here, including atlases, reference books, guides to Washington, D.C., census records from 1790 to 1848, poetry, copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and a Bible.”
The five kids looked at each other and frowned.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” M.E. asked.
“It must be a clue to the waypoint where we’re supposed to go,” Quinn said.
“Sounds like a cemetery,” Luke said. “That’s where things are usually buried.”
“Yeah, but they bury people in cemeteries, not stuff like that,” Cody said.
Luke scanned the rest of the clue. “There’re also a bunch of facts about the place.” He read the list to the others.
Facts about your destination:
Admission: free
Thickness of walls at the bottom: 18 inches
How many steps: 897
Estimated number of visitors per year: 500,000
Robert mills designed the structure
Obelisk height: 555 feet
Fastest known ascent time: 6.7 minutes
Opened: 1888
Update on damage from earthquake: closed on august 2011
Regulated by: smithsonian institute
Cost to build: $1,187,710
Observation deck via stairs or elevator
Under foundation length: 36 feet
Number of blocks: 36,491
Thickness at top of the shaft: 18 inches
Reason for structure: display of gratitude
Year construction started: 1848, year completed 1884
Code Busters’ Solution found on pp. 155.
“May I see the paper for a moment?” Mika asked politely.
Luke handed her the sheet. “Does it mean anything to you?” he asked.
Mika smiled. “We have puzzles like this in Japan. Some books are printed so that you read them from top to bottom. Of course, this is in English, not Japanese. But look at the way it’s written. Only the first letters of each item on the list are capitalized. Smithsonian Institute and Robert Mills’s last name are lowercase.”
Mika held the paper for the others to see.
“You’re right!” Cody said. “That’s weird. Our teacher would never make a mistake like that.”
“Unless she did it on purpose,” Quinn replied.
“Also,” Mika continued, “in Japan, we have folding puzzles. I think this is similar. Watch.” Mika folded over the right side of the paper until the edge lined up against the first capitalized letters in each of the listed facts.
Cody, Quinn, and Luke’s eyes lit up. “Cool!” they said together.
Only M.E. continued to frown at the folded paper.
“I still don’t get it,” she said.
Mika ran her finger down the page to help M.E. see the words that had been hidden in the message. M.E. finally grinned. “I see it!” she exclaimed. “The place we’re going to isn’t a cemetery at all. Come on! We have to hurry if we want to beat everyone else!”
While she picked up her backpack, Cody glanced at the other groups to see if they had figured out the message, but they all looked confused as they pored over the codes. Good. That meant the Code Busters would be first to reach the waypoint.
Suddenly, Cody felt a chill run down her spine. She had the strangest feeling that someone was watching them. Looking around, she thought she caught a glimpse of the person in the overcoat she’d seen earlier in the alcove. This time she was pretty sure it looked like a man. Was he wearing a mustache? Before she could double-check, he vanished into a shop across the street, so she couldn’t be sure.
Cody shrugged. She’d probably imagined it. All this talk of spies and surveillance was scrambling her brain.
Still, she’d keep an eye out for anything suspicious and alert the others if she saw the mysterious man again. If she and the other Code Busters were really being followed and spied on by some stranger, they could be in serious danger.
Chapter 6
With no sign of the stalker, Cody ran to catch up with the others. Mrs. Takeda stood to the side of the group, quietly listening and watching.
“How do you use a GPS?” Mika pointed to the device in Quinn’s hand.
“It’s not hard,” Quinn said. “We’ve used our cell phones in a similar way for geocaching.”
“What’s that?” Mika asked.
Quinn explained, “Geocaching is when you have coordinates—like the ones the teacher gave us—and you enter them into a GPS device. Then the GPS tells you where to find the waypoint—your destination. When we go geocaching, we follow the coordinates to find hidden caches—treasure boxes filled with little things, like dice, or stickers, or magnets, or whatever. You’re supposed to take something and leave something for the next group to find.”
“Fun,” Mika said.
“Yeah,” Luke agreed. “It’s kind of like a Code Busting treasure hunt.”
“How do you work it?” Mika asked.
Quinn held out the device for Mika to see. “First we enter the latitude and longitude numbers to get the waypoint. Then we follow the map to that destination.”
“And since we already solved Ms. Stad’s clues, we know where to go, so the next hint should be ea
sy to find,” Cody said.
The Code Busters headed for the closest Metro station, followed by Mrs. Takeda. Cody noticed that Mika looked a lot like her mom—slim and petite, with short black hair and dark eyes, only Mrs. Takeda wore glasses. She was good about letting the kids figure out the clues and directions by themselves, while making sure they kept together and stayed safe . . . Still, Cody liked having Mika’s mom along. She already saw some of the other parent chaperones telling the kids what to do and practically taking over the game, even though the rules said the chaperones weren’t supposed to answer questions. But Mrs. Takeda seemed to know that the Code Busters didn’t need—or want—any help.
After a short Metro ride, the kids got off at the Smithsonian station and headed for the Washington Monument. They could see the tall white obelisk, located in the middle of a grassy area and surrounded by flags. A few minutes later, they were in front of the monument and glad to be the first group from Berkley Cooperative School to arrive.
“Whoa, it’s so big,” M.E. said, craning her neck to look up. “It’s like a giant arrow pointing to the sky.” The kids gazed at the marble and granite monument that stood over five hundred feet high. Cody noticed the fifty flags that circled the monument, each one representing a state. She immediately recognized the California Bear flag.
“Uh-oh!” M.E. said as she stood near the entrance. “It’s closed. I wanted to go up to the top and see all of Washington, D.C.”
Quinn peered at the sign. “Yeah, it says the monument was damaged in an earthquake a few years ago and they’re still working on it “Well, the next clue has to be hidden around here somewhere,” Luke said.
The five kids circled the monument, keeping their eyes out for anything that looked like a coded message. Finally, Mika spotted a yellow sign taped to a nearby post. “I found it!” she shouted to the others.
Cody, Quinn, M.E., and Luke hustled over to where Mika stood pointing. Behind her, Mika’s mother grinned proudly at her daughter’s accomplishment.
“Way to go!” Luke said.
“Great!” Cody added.
“Yeah,” M.E. said, squinting at the encrypted sign. “But guys, we’ve never seen this code before.”
M.E. was right, Cody thought. Their next clue was a complete mystery.
Code Busters’ Key and Solution found on pp. 150, 155.
“Now what?” Quinn said.
Mika’s mom stepped up to the group. She said nothing, but slowly pulled a manila envelope out of her bag and held it up, smiling mysteriously. Cody looked at the others, then took the envelope from Mrs. Takeda’s hand, thanked her, and began to examine it. TOP SECRET was stamped on the outside, along with the words FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, CONFIDENTIAL, and HIGHEST SECURITY LEVEL. This is so fun, Cody thought as she opened the envelope.
She withdrew a four small decoder cards and a sheet of paper. She passed out the cards, but since there weren’t enough, she gave hers to Mika.
“Here are more GPS coordinates for our next waypoint,” Quinn said, examining the paper filled with Japanese numbers. “The decoder card must be the key to the new code on the sign. Says here it’s called pigpen code.”
M.E. giggled at the name. “It looks like a bunch of alphabet letters inside some squares and triangles.” Cody looked at M.E.’s card. Some of the letters had dots by them, while others didn’t.
“It’s called pigpen?” Luke said. “It looks like more like tic-tac-toe.”
“It says here it’s also called the Freemason code,” Cody said. “Union prisoners in Confederate prisons used the code during the Civil War.”
“Okay, Cody and Mika, why don’t you two work on the code while Luke, M.E., and I enter the GPS coordinates,” Quinn directed. “That’ll save some time.”
While Quinn, M.E., and Luke used the GPS device, Cody and Mika deciphered the message using the decoder cards. With the key, it didn’t take them long to crack the secret message.
“Got it!” Luke announced.
“Us, too!” Mika said.
“Let’s go!” Quinn added.
As the kids dashed off, Mrs. Takeda quietly followed them down the gravel path to their next destination. Cody was excited to see the place—code name: The Castle—since she’d seen it in so many movies. One of the Smithsonian museums was also called the Castle, because it looked like a real castle, but the coordinates told them exactly where to go.
She wondered if the president would be there—and what clue they’d find waiting for them. Would it be another Japanese number code? Or would it be in Washington Code? Or maybe this new pigpen code? Cody smiled to herself. With all these codes and clues, Ms. Stad and Mr. Pike had made their trip to Washington, D.C. way more fun than a regular old site-seeing trip. And they’d have plenty of time for that after the Spy Hunt.
When they were about halfway to the White House, Cody put her hand in her hoodie pocket and felt the pen she’d picked up outside the Spy Museum. In her excitement to crack the Spy Hunt codes and find the clues to the next waypoint, she’d forgotten about the pen. But touching it now reminded her of the man in the baseball cap and trench coat.
Had he actually been spying on them? Or was it just her imagination?
She looked around to see if anyone suspicious was watching them. There were lots of tourists walking the mall—groups of school kids like the students from Berkeley Cooperative Middle School, people who spoke different languages, even soldiers in their camouflage uniforms who patrolled the pathways.
It was hard to pick out someone who might be a suspect—kind of like searching for Waldo in a Where’s Waldo book. But while most of the visitors wore colorful T-shirts, jeans, and hoodies, and were smiling and talking and taking pictures, Cody spotted a lone man lurking by a nearby hot dog stand. She tried to see his face, but it was hidden behind the newspaper he was reading.
She studied him a moment, then realized he was wearing a black baseball cap, a khaki trench coat, and black shoes—just like the guy outside the Spy Museum.
Cody froze and grabbed M.E.’s hand. “Guys!” she called to the others.
Luke, Quinn, and Mika stopped walking and turned around.
“What’s up?” Luke asked.
Her eyes wide, Cody waved them closer. Mrs. Takeda stopped behind them, then took a moment to admire a display of T-shirts on a nearby cart while the kids gathered together.
“Why are we stopping?” Quinn asked. “We want to be first, don’t we?”
Cody began blinking her eyes.
“What’s the matter, Cody?” Quinn asked. “You got something in your eye?”
Cody shook her head, then began the odd blinking again—sometimes fast, sometimes slow.
“Dude, she’s blinking Morse code!” Luke whispered to the others.
Cody nodded, then blinked some more. The other watched her eyes intently as she open and closed them at different speeds.
Code Busters’ Key and Solution found on pp. 150, 155.
The kids decoded the message.
M.E. immediately glanced around. “Where?”
“Shh!” Cody hissed, then whispered, “I said don’t look!”
M.E. turned back to Cody. “Sorry. But who’s supposedly following us? And where is he?”
“It’s the man I saw back at the Spy Museum,” Cody explained. “He was hiding in one of the alcoves outside the building. He was wearing a black baseball cap, a khaki trench coat, and black athletic shoes. I thought I saw him at the Washington Memorial when we were there, too, but he disappeared before I could get a good look. Then I figured it was my imagination. But now I’m sure it’s not.”
“Where is he now?” Luke whispered. He tried to appear casual as he checked out the area from under his fishing hat.
“Four o’clock,” Cody said, using clock position to show the others where the man stood. Four o’clock meant the man was behind and to the right of Cody, if she were looking at a clock.
“Four o’clock?” M.E. repeated before glancing behind her and
to the right.
“Not your four o’clcok,” Cody said. “My four o’clock.”
M.E. scanned the area. “You mean the hot dog stand?”
Cody nodded.
“Why didn’t you just say the hot dog stand?” M.E. said, shaking her head.
Cody sighed. “I wanted to use the clock code.”
“Do you guys see him?” Cody said, without turning around. She didn’t want the suspect to know she was talking about him.
Luke frowned. Quinn glanced around. M.E. shrugged. Mika looked bewildered.
Cody turned to see why they weren’t concerned.
The man in the hat and coat was gone.
A newspaper lay on the ground where he’d stood moments before.
Cody rushed over to the hot dog stand. The others followed.
“Did you see a man standing here a few minutes ago?” she asked the vendor.
“I see many people,” the man said, shaking his head. “You want a hot dog?”
“No, thank you,” Cody said, disappointed to hear that the vendor didn’t remember seeing the stranger. She stepped over to where the newspaper had been tossed to the ground, knelt down, and picked it up.
“What are you doing?” Quinn asked.
“He was holding this newspaper,” Cody said, unfolding it.
“Are you sure?’ Quinn asked.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She felt a little irritated that the others hadn’t seen the man, too. They probably thought it was her imagination, like she had thought earlier. But she hadn’t imagined this newspaper. She held it up to read it.
“Kids!” Mrs. Takeda called. She was headed their way and did not look happy. “I thought I’d lost you!” she said when she reached them. “Please don’t go wandering off. We need to get to the next waypoint. If you’re hungry, I have some crackers in my bag, but we’ll be having lunch when we get to the end of the hunt.”
Discouraged, Cody was about to toss the newspaper in a nearby trash can, when something caught her eye and she hesitated.
