The Cipher

by Maldonado, Isabella

  She glared at him. “If you don’t want to get hurt, don’t grab me like that.”

  “What about like this?” Jaime reached out and circled her neck with his hands.

  The feel of thick fingers around her throat sent Nina’s heart racing. She was in the back of the Cipher’s van. Gloved hands squeezed her windpipe, gradually increasing their relentless pressure. Cutting off her screams. Suffocating her. She struggled against the tape binding her wrists and ankles. The monster leaned in close, panting with anticipation. The world darkened around the edges, then her ears rang with the laughter that spilled from his cruel lips.

  She raked the edge of her shoe down Jaime’s shin and stomped on his foot, simultaneously bringing her arms up in a swift arc to break his hold. She barely managed to stop herself before palm-striking the bridge of his nose.

  “Stop it, Jaime!” The fear in Bianca’s voice brought Nina fully back into the present.

  Jaime was hopping on one foot, cursing in two languages.

  “I think you’d better go,” Nina said to him as her breathing slowed to normal.

  “Yeah. I can see you got this.” He straightened. “Glad I could help you . . . uh . . . practice your moves.” Making no mention of the leaky windowsills that had been his purported reason for coming, he shuffled stiffly, trying to hide his limp, as he left.

  As soon as the door closed behind him, Bianca burst out laughing.

  Nina raised a brow. “It’s not funny when people get hurt, Bee.”

  “I know, but it’s Jaime.” She gave her head a small shake. “I mean, he comes in here all macho, trying to be the big bad protector, and you just totally kicked his ass.”

  “He means well.”

  “He means to get in your panties.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “I know that. You know that. The rest of the building knows that. But he keeps trying anyway.” Bianca blew out an exaggerated sigh. “Denial is a powerful thing.”

  “Words of wisdom from the girl who never dates.”

  “I don’t see you going out on Saturday nights. Or having any men over to visit.” Bianca aimed a thumb at her chest. “I’m helping my professor create the next generation of implantable nanotechnology. What’s your excuse?”

  She had no excuse. At least none that she could admit. Stalling for time to come up with a glib retort, she glanced down at the bright colors on Bianca’s T-shirt. Tilting her head, she leaned closer, taking in the design for the first time.

  “Nina?” Bianca’s tone held concern.

  “I’m fine. I was just . . . I like your T-shirt. Where did you get it?”

  Bianca looked down. “It’s from the science club competition at the end of last semester. Funny, right?”

  The black cotton shirt featured a color-coded depiction of the entire periodic table with the phrase WE’RE IN OUR ELEMENT beneath it.

  Nina tried a laugh that came out hollow. “Gotta love science humor.”

  “Where have you been? Nerds are considered cool now.”

  Nina winked. “Good to hear, because I’m at least twenty percent nerd myself.”

  “Excuse me, but you are ninety percent badass,” Bianca said. “Whatever makes up the other ten percent doesn’t matter.”

  She must be better at faking than she thought. The momentary distraction was giving her space to breathe as she came down from the Jaime-induced adrenaline rush. Jet lag had slowed her normal recovery time. “I need another bottle of water. I’m dehydrated.”

  “That’s because the air on planes is recycled.” Bianca grabbed a second bottle from the fridge and passed it to her. “You probably didn’t drink enough to make up for two cross-country flights.”

  “I hear they recycle their toilet water too,” Nina said, unscrewing the top. “Do you think that’s why airplane coffee tastes funny?”

  Bianca laughed in midgulp. “You made me snarf my water.”

  Nina put her bottle on the counter. “I’ll get a paper towel.”

  She waited as Bianca dabbed at the front of her shirt, the moisture darkening the neon design. She squinted at the neat rows of boxes, each with letters in the center and numbers in the corner.

  Letters and numbers.

  She grabbed Bianca’s wrist and yanked her arm away.

  “What the hell, Nina?” Bianca took a step back.

  She released her grip and whirled, looking for her laptop. After a fruitless search through the living room, she remembered it was still packed in her suitcase. Ignoring Bianca’s questions, she raced to her bedroom to retrieve the computer and brought it back, opening it on the kitchen table.

  Bianca stared down at her. “Care to share?”

  “Your T-shirt gave me an idea,” she said as the laptop booted up. “It could be way off, but I need to check.”

  “Is this about the Cipher’s clue?” Bianca grew excited. “Let me help. I could seriously use five hundred thousand bucks.” She scooted a chair beside her. “And bragging rights.”

  Nina googled the periodic table. “Hand me a sheet of paper and a pencil from that drawer over there.” She jerked her chin toward the junk drawer at the far corner of the kitchen counter.

  Bianca dug through the contents and came back to the table moments later. “I’ll pull up an image of the clue on the card he left in San Francisco. You write down the matching elements.”

  Nina spared Bianca a quick grin as she grabbed the paper and pencil. The girl caught on quickly. At times like these, Nina remembered Bianca had an IQ north of 160.

  Bianca read the numbers, pausing between each so Nina could look for the atomic numbers and jot down the corresponding chemical names and element symbols.

  “Seventy-five,” Bianca said.

  Nina dragged her finger across the screen to enlarge the tiny print on the chart. “Rhenium, abbreviated R-e.”

  Bianca continued to the next number in the series. “Seventy-three.”

  “Tantalum. T-a,” Nina said, scribbling down the letters.

  “Three.”

  “Lithium. L-i.”

  They continued until Nina had written all seven numbers in the code along with their chemical names and element symbols.

  Bianca peered over her shoulder as she took in the jumble of letters.

  Re, Ta, Li, F, Md, O, Re.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Bianca whispered.

  “Probably not.”

  “What if this is an anagram?” Bianca practically vibrated with excitement. “You know, a word scramble. I do them to relax after homework sometimes.”

  Nina felt an eye roll coming on and barely managed to suppress it. “You do realize that other teenagers doodle obscene drawings in their notebooks to unwind?”

  Bianca held out a hand. “Let me see that.” She slid the page in front of her and stared down at it. “There are thousands of possibilities.” She glanced up at Nina. “And that’s just in English. What if he switched to a different language?”

  Nina shrugged. “It was a long shot.”

  “I’m not giving up yet. Can I borrow your laptop?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Bianca’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Holy crap. I just typed those letters into a random word generator, and the algorithm stopped after over ten thousand possible combinations.”

  “No wonder the Bureau cryptanalysts haven’t cracked it yet.” She rubbed her forehead. “And those numbers might not have anything to do with the periodic table, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something to this. When I look at the letters we came up with, words keep jumping out at me.”

  “Work with it,” Bianca said. “One of my favorite quotes from Einstein is ‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.’ He favored intuition over logic, and so do I.” She angled the paper so they could both see it. “What words do you see?”

  Nina glanced down. “Trial. Life. Detail. Mole. Free.”

  Bianca followed h
er gaze. They sat in silence for a full minute. Then Bianca’s spine stiffened. Slowly, she turned her eyes to Nina, a slow grin spreading over her face.

  Nina caught her excitement. “What?”

  “The last word you said was ‘free.’ That gave me an idea. Freedom. After I subtracted the letters for that word, the remaining letters formed the first word you mentioned, ‘trial.’ But if you switch the let—”

  “Freedom trail,” Nina said, palm slapping the table. “Does that account for every letter?”

  Bianca nodded. “But how do we know that’s the right answer? It’s only one of many possibilities.”

  “For one thing, he just left a body at an iconic location in California. The MIT students have been taunting him, so he might want to hit Massachusetts. Where better than one of the most important landmarks in the state?” She glanced back to the computer screen with the image of the Cipher’s puzzle. “But we need more. Maybe he left another clue hidden in the message.”

  Bianca tapped the screen, opening another tab. She typed in Freedom Trail and read aloud. “The walking tour, paved with aged red bricks, features sixteen historical sites beginning at Boston Common and concluding at the USS Constitution in Boston Harbor.” She toggled back to the clue screen. “Look at the sentences at the top. Do you see anything that indicates Massachusetts or something else that might refer to the Freedom Trail?”

  “That first line,” Nina said. “I always thought it was bizarre. ‘Not understanding will make you sob.’ It’s an odd way to phrase something, and it doesn’t fit the pattern of the second sentence, which sounds normal.”

  Bianca nodded. “It’s like he wrote it weird because he needed it to work.”

  “Exactly. It starts and ends with a strange word choice. The beginning is a negative, and most people would say cry rather than sob at the end.”

  “Starts and ends . . . ,” Bianca repeated. “Not and sob. The beginning and the end.” She turned wide blue eyes to Nina. “Do you see it?”

  “Not and sob,” Nina said. Suddenly, it clicked. “Not sob is Boston spelled backward. Boston is where the Freedom Trail is located.” She leaned over to give Bianca a quick hug. “You’re a genius, Bee.”

  “I know.” Bianca picked up her mobile phone. “Let me see if I beat the Brew Crew from MIT. That would mean serious bragging rights.” She laughed. “And I can get the reward from Julian Zarran. I just have to . . .” The smile slid from her face as she glanced at Nina. She grew quiet a moment, then looked down. “I can’t post the answer and collect the money, can I?”

  Nina reached out to gently lift Bianca’s chin, meeting her eyes. “Bee, this is the first time we’ve been ahead of this guy. This is our chance to catch him. If we can get to Boston quickly enough, we might even save a girl’s life.”

  Bianca paled. “Of course. I won’t breathe a word.” She put her phone down. “This sucks.”

  “I’ll be your official witness if you want to contact Julian Zarran after the arrest.”

  “Actually, now that I think about it, you were the one who figured out the periodic table, which was the hardest part of the clue. You should get the money.”

  “I’m a federal agent. I can’t collect reward money.”

  “Well, that sucks too.”

  “Money never motivated me. I’m about taking predators off the street.”

  “You’re in the right profession, then. You’ll never run out of bad guys, and you’ll never get rich.”

  Nina slid her cell phone from her pocket, then paused. Should she call Buxton? She could bolster her standing with the boss, prove that she was valuable for more than just her memories.

  She’d never been a blue flamer. Getting ahead with overeager striving wasn’t the way to make a career. She might be an outsider at Quantico, might prefer working alone, but she needed to be a team player on this investigation. Coming to a decision, she drew in a long breath and hit her preset speed-dial button.

  “What is it, Guerrera?” Wade responded in his characteristic gruff baritone.

  “Pack a bag,” she said, echoing his words from the previous day. “We’re heading to Boston.”

  Chapter 18

  Three hours later, somewhere in the air between Reagan National and Logan International airports, Nina batted away the hand that prodded her. “I’m awake.” She heard the bleariness in her own voice.

  “I’m all for team bonding,” Kent said to her. “But you’re drooling on my shoulder.”

  Mortified, she sat up to inspect his shirt. “I don’t see anything.” The woven golf shirt embroidered with the FBI seal looked slightly rumpled along the shoulder seam, but dry.

  He grinned. “At least you’re up now.”

  She shot him a scowl. “Hilarious.”

  “I asked him to wake you,” Buxton said. “I let you and Agent Wade catch a quick nap, but we have things to discuss before we land.”

  Seated across from her next to Buxton, Wade was rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. After their cross-country travels with almost no downtime, the undertow of jet lag had pulled Nina down as she boarded one of the FBI’s leased Gulfstream jets at Reagan National. The Director had personally authorized a dedicated jet for their team for the duration of the investigation. From this point on, they would go to each site as a unit, conveying information to the task force back at Quantico.

  Kent handed them each a steaming mug of black coffee. Nina had never been aboard a Gulfstream but, given what she’d heard about them, wasn’t surprised to see a steel carafe sitting on the polished surface of the table that extended from the side of the main cabin.

  “I want to update you on the most recent findings from the task force,” Buxton began. “We compared the manifests of flights into Logan from all major airports out of San Francisco or the DC area, in case he flew back there first. There were no matching names.”

  Nina took a sip, the bitter warmth of the drink seeping into her system. “So he used an alias, or he didn’t fly.”

  “It’s unlikely he used ground transportation due to the short time frame between murders, but it’s possible to drive from DC to San Francisco in forty-two hours without speeding,” Buxton said.

  “Driving would be almost as risky as flying,” Breck said. “A lot could go wrong on a cross-country road trip.”

  Wade stretched and stifled a yawn. “An unsub with the Cipher’s character traits might consider it exciting. Might enjoy demonstrating his capability. Even if only to himself.”

  “He’s confident in his abilities,” Kent said. “He might drive, but that would mean he’s either self-employed or has a job where he could be gone for four or five days in a row without drawing attention.”

  Nina hadn’t given much thought to the Cipher’s career choice. Could he possibly work in a cubicle farm in a standard corporate environment? Other killers had.

  “Given his computer skills, he probably has a tech job,” Nina said. “Maybe one with flexible hours where he consults online or something where he doesn’t even need an office.”

  “A less structured occupation seems likely,” Buxton said. Keeping the reports moving as usual, he turned to Kent. “Did you touch base with forensics?”

  “The autopsy of the DC victim is complete,” Kent said. “In layman’s terms, the unsub scrubbed the girl’s body with a chemical agent before rolling her around in the dumpster.” He spread his hands. “Basically, we have a mountain of trace materials. It’s like picking out a grain of sand on the beach. And with all that cross contamination, any evidence we get will be compromised.”

  “What kind of chemical agent did he use?” Nina asked. “Was it something unusual or difficult to obtain?”

  “A medical-grade detergent that sterilizes, disinfects, and destroys DNA,” Kent said.

  “What kind of cleaner does that?” Nina had seen crime scene techs use luminol to locate DNA on floors mopped with straight bleach.

  “One that incorporates oxygen into the mix,” Kent
said. “Degrades the samples.”

  “Could they identify the specific brand?” Buxton asked. “Are there a limited number of manufacturers?”

  “The chemical compounds that make up the detergent are present in several brands commonly used in hospitals all over the country.” Kent sighed as he slid his black glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can’t trace it that way.”

  “Hospitals?” Nina straightened, recalling the memory jarred loose at the autopsy in San Francisco. “That instrument the unsub used to force open my mouth was like the one the ME had. Now he uses a medical-grade cleaning agent. Could the Cipher be a doctor or a surgeon?”

  “A surgeon with a god complex,” Wade said. “Never heard of that before.”

  Kent grinned at the sarcasm. “It would match some of the behaviors we’re seeing.”

  “Let’s keep that in our back pocket,” Buxton said. “We might be able to use it to narrow our search going forward.”

  “Well, he might be a doctor.” Breck, who had been typing on her laptop, abruptly stopped. “Or he might be a busboy who knows how to do a Google search. It’s not hard, look.” She swiveled her laptop around on the fold-out table attached to her seat’s armrest. A list of oxygenated chemical cleaning agents filled the screen.

  “He’s obviously comfortable with computers,” Nina said. “How smart would he have to be to figure out a way to confuse forensic analysis?”

  “His speech patterns indicate he’s either highly educated or well read.” Kent pushed his glasses back on. “Either way, an above-average IQ is likely.”

  Wade rested his mug on the table. “That last clue tells us he’s smart. He used two forms of encryption, both of which required secondary extrapolation.”

  Nina was grateful Bianca had dropped by her apartment. The girl’s T-shirt, and her substantial brain power, had been the keys to unlocking the unsub’s code. Jaime, on the other hand, would probably think twice before coming by on another pretext. Good news all around, then.

  “I agree that the unsub gives the appearance of advanced intellectual ability, but Breck has a point,” Buxton said. “He could simply be adept with computers.” He turned to her. “Any updates from Video Forensics on either case?”