Simple Genius Page 7

  know about frequency analysis?”

  “Sounds familiar,” Sean said slowly.

  “It was the holy grail of the early code-breaking community. Muslims invented it in the ninth century. Now frequency analysis means what it says. You analyze how often certain letters appear in writing. In English the letter e is the most common by far, followed by the letter t and then a. That’s immensely helpful in decoding ciphers, or at least it was. Today decryption is based on the length of secret number keys and the power and speed of computers to factor those keys. All the linguistic romance has been ripped right out of it.

  “A thousand years ago the substitution cipher was thought unbreakable. Yet the Muslims managed to blow it right out of the water and gave the cryptanalysts the upper hand over the encryption people for centuries. That’s why the Vigenère cipher was so revolutionary, frequency analysis was useless against it.”

  Sean squirmed a bit in his seat in the face of this lengthy history lesson.

  “Forgive me, Mr. King, but I promise I’ll have a point at the end.”

  “No, it’s very interesting,” Sean said, stifling a yawn.

  “Now, as I said frequency analysis was useless against the Vigenère monster, so craftily and uniquely was it designed. And yet old Charlie Babbage managed to put a knife right through its numeric heart.”

  “How?” Sean asked.

  “He attacked it from a direction that was absolutely original and indeed set the standard for cryptanalysts for generations to come. And yet he received no recognition for it because he never bothered to publish his research.”

  “So how did Babbage’s discovery become known?”

  “When scholars went over his notes in the twentieth century, long after the man was dead, they determined that he had been the first to do it. And at long last, here is my point. I christened this place Babbage Town as a homage to a man with a great brain but little ability in self-promotion. However, if we achieve our goals here, have no doubt that we will scream it to the heavens.” Champ smiled. “After we secure all necessary patents ensuring that we will be fabulously rich once commercial exploitations of our various inventions commence.”

  “So you get a piece of the pie?”

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Yet even if we don’t make a fortune the work is exhilarating.”

  “So who owns Babbage Town?”

  The door opened and a short, barrel-chested man in his early fifties walked in wearing a two-piece suit with a muted tie. His silver hair was gelled down and his eyes were blue and alert. He looked from Sean to Champ.

  Champ said, “Len, Sean King.”

  On that note, Champ took his nifty, if nonclassical and nonworking, glass tube computer, and walked out. It was only then that Sean fully realized the man had said a lot and told him nothing.

  CHAPTER

  14

  HORATIO BARNES PARKED HIS HARLEY outside the rental apartments near Fairfax Corner, took the keys to Sean and Michelle’s place out of his pocket and then hesitated. Should he check out the truck or condo first? He decided on the Toyota Land Cruiser. It was parked near the entrance to the apartment building.

  Horatio unlocked the driver’s side door of the truck and swung it open.

  “Holy shit!” was his first reaction. Sean hadn’t been kidding about getting his tetanus shot and wearing a mask. The middle and back cargo areas were so filled with stuff that Horatio couldn’t see the floorboards. Sports equipment, melted PowerBars, bottles of Gatorade, trash, moldy food, a box of twelve-gauge shotgun shells, wrinkled clothes, and a pair of plastic-coated dumbbells littered the truck’s interior. Horatio picked up one of the dumbbells with some effort, then glanced through one of the martial arts magazines piled in the back.

  “Okay, note to esteemed but cowardly psychologist. Never really piss the lady off because she will kick your scrawny, middle-aged ass.”

  He sat in the middle seat for a bit with the windows down and thought it over. A type-A wound tighter than a golf ball’s innards, and this is what he was looking at? Total, trash-filled chaos?

  He walked up to the apartment on the second level and went inside. He easily discerned Sean’s very ordered influence here and also which bedroom was his. The second bedroom had Michelle’s things stacked neatly, clothes hung in the closet, and no trash on the floor, only because the woman had never been here. There was a locked gun safe in the top of the closet where presumably Michelle kept her pistol.

  Out on the small balcony was Michelle’s racing scull. It was polished to perfection with a pair of pristine oars next to it. Horatio went back inside. On the table just inside the small foyer was a stack of mail, which he looked through. Most were addressed to Sean, having been forwarded from his previous address. Others were the typical bills and marketing pitches that all of humanity suffered through. Yet there was one more piece of mail; it was a letter addressed to Michelle Maxwell, and it was from her parents in Hawaii. This was probably just a note to let Michelle know how much fun they were having.

  As he was wandering around an idea struck Horatio. He called Bill Maxwell in Florida. The man picked up on the second ring.

  “This a bad time?” Horatio asked. “If you’re on a high-speed chase just put me on hold and I’ll wait until either you nail the bad guys or I hear the sounds of a car crash.”

  Bill chuckled. “I’m off-duty today. I was actually getting ready to do some fishing. What’s up? How’s Mick?”

  Horatio had quickly learned from Bill Maxwell that all her siblings called their sister Mick. It was a very brotherly thing to do, he understood.

  “Getting better all the time. Look, do your parents still live in Tennessee?”

  “That’s right. In a new house they had built after Pop retired. All the kids chipped in to help. Police chiefs make pretty good money, but with so many kids, there wasn’t a whole lot of savings. This was a way to say thanks.”

  “That’s really cool, Bill. So do you see your parents much?”

  “Probably four or five times a year. I’m way down here in Tampa. Flights are expensive and it’s a long drive to Tennessee and I’ve got three kids of my own.”

  “Your other brothers see them much?”

  “Probably more than I do. They live closer. Why do you want to know?”

  “Just trying to flesh things out. And Michelle? I’m assuming she sees your parents a lot. She lives just next door in Virginia.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. Mick was never at Mom and Dad’s place when I was there. And I talk to my brothers pretty regularly. They never mention seeing her at our parents’.”

  “Maybe your folks went to see her.”

  “She never really lived in a place that had room for visitors,” Bill replied. “I tried a couple times, because my kids love her to death and they think it’s really cool that their aunt is an Olympian and guarded the president. But I got some weird vibes from her and never took the kids.”

  “What sort of weird vibes?”

  “She was always too busy. Now when she was with the Secret Service I could understand that. But when she went into the private sector, you’d think she’d have some free time, but it never happened.”

  “When’s the last time you saw your sister?”

  “A few years ago, and it was only because I was in Washington for a cop convention. We had dinner. She was still with the Service back then.”

  “Do you feel that she’s estranged from your family?”

  “I didn’t until you started asking all these questions.”

  “I’m sorry to seem to be prying, Bill, but I’m doing all I can do to get her better.”

  “Look, I know that. I mean, she is cool if quirky.”

  “Quirky, yes. I was just looking at her truck.”

  Bill laughed. “You call the infectious disease people yet?”

  “I assume you’ve seen it.”

  “She gave me a ride to dinner when I was in town that time. I held my breath and took
two showers when I got back to my hotel.”

  “You ever see any excessive hand washing, checking doors before going out, or chairs before sitting down? Anything like that?”

  “You mean OCD stuff? No, nothing that I recall.”

  “And age six, things changed, you said? You’re sure?”

  “I’d finished college, and wasn’t around much, but when I came back home for a couple months I remember she was a different person. They were living in a little town about an hour south of Nashville.”

  “And it couldn’t simply be put down to a kid’s personality changing as she grows older? That happens you know.”

  “It was more than that, Horatio. My kids have changed too, but nothing that abrupt.”

  “You said outgoing to withdrawn. Gregarious to shy. Trusting to suspicious. And she would cry?”

  “Only at night.”

  “And she became sloppy in her personal habits?”

  “I remember it being mostly the floor in her room. Before, it was as neat as a pin. Then, overnight, there was junk everywhere. You couldn’t even see the carpet. I always just put it down to her being an independent hellion.”

  “That would explain some things, Bill, but not all the things I’m seeing. And in my field when things are inexplicable, I have to find out why, because somewhere, and it may be buried deep, there is an explanation.” Horatio paused. “Okay, I’m glad you’re about a thousand miles away because of the next question I’m going to ask.”

  “Mick was never abused.”

  “I see you’ve given this some thought.”

  “I’m a cop. I’ve seen abused kids, some real nightmare situations, and Michelle wasn’t like that at all. She never exhibited any of the signals. And Pop would never, I mean, he wasn’t like that. And being a cop he wasn’t home that much anyway. I tell you this, I love my old man, but if I thought for a second anything like that had been going on, I would’ve done something about it. I didn’t become a cop because I like looking the other way.”

  “I’m sure, Bill. But did your parents have an explanation for the change in her? Did they ever seek professional help?”

  “Not that I knew of. I mean it wasn’t like she was throwing nonstop tantrums or cutting up small animals. And back then, you didn’t run to a shrink with every little thing and put your kid on Ritalin because he can’t sit still for ten minutes; no offense, Doc.”

  “Hey, I know plenty of psychiatrists who should properly be labeled pharmacists. Do you ever talk to your parents about Michelle?”

  “I think we’ve all just decided to let her go her own way. If she ever wants to rejoin the family, we’re here for her.”

  “And you didn’t tell them about her current situation?”

  “Nope. If Mick didn’t want them to know, it wasn’t my place to tell them. Plus, you think I want a black belt Olympian dead-eye shot pissed at me, sister or not?”

  “She scares me too. Anything else you can think of that might help me?”

  “Just give me my little sister back, Horatio. You do that, you’ve got a friend in Tampa for life.”

  CHAPTER

  15

  LEN RIVEST LED SEAN AROUND the grounds of Babbage Town. Behind the mansion was a network of buildings of various sizes. Sean observed that every door had a security panel next to it. One of the largest buildings covered about a quarter of an acre and was surrounded by a seven-foot fence. It had what looked to be a grain silo attached to it.

  Sean pointed to the silo. “What’s in that thing?”

  “Water. They need it to cool some equipment.”

  “And in the other buildings?”

  “Other things.”

  “And which one did Monk Turing work in? And what did he do here?”

  “I was hoping I could avoid saying.”

  “Len, I was under the impression that you hired us to help find out how Monk Turing died. If you don’t want us to do that, just say so and I can get on back home and stop wasting everybody’s time. I’ve just spent a half-hour being told nothing by that Champ guy, I don’t intend on repeating the process with you.”

  Rivest dug his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry, Sean. I know you were at the Service with Joan, and I don’t like playing cat and mouse like this with a fellow fed. Between you and me I think the powers-that-be are having second thoughts about private investigators being here.”

  “And who are the powers-that-be?”

  “If I knew that I’d tell you.”

  Sean gaped. “Are you telling me you don’t know who you’re working for?”

  “If someone has enough money they can cover their tracks pretty well. My paycheck says I work for Babbage Town, LLC. I got curious once and tried to track down the corporate identity a little further and was told any other attempt to do the same would result in my ass being canned. This job pays far better than anything I’ve ever had before. I got two kids in college. I don’t want to blow it.”

  “So how do you know they’re having second thoughts?”

  “I get private communications on my computer each day. I told them you were already on the plane, and that you should at least have a chance to take a crack at this thing. Because it might get dicey.”

  “Because of the FBI’s and CIA’s involvement?”

  Rivest scowled. “Camp Peary of all damn places. But if you can solve it fast and hopefully show it has nothing to do with Babbage Town then maybe our problems go away.”

  “But if it does have to do with Babbage Town?”

  “Then I probably start looking for another job.”

  “Champ Pollion thinks it has to do with some big conspiracy orchestrated by the military-industrial complex.”

  Rivest groaned. “Please, I’ve got enough problems without wasting time on bullshit theories coming from that geek.”

  “Okay, let’s focus on the basics. How did Monk Turing die?”

  “Gunshot wound to the head. Gun was next to the body.”

  “Where exactly was he found at Camp Peary?”

  “Extreme eastern end of the complex that fronts the York River. You would’ve passed it coming down here if you’d looked across the water.”

  “Fenced-in area?”

  “Yeah, his body was lying just inside it. Evidence on the corpse indicates he climbed over. I’m sure the area’s patrolled, but apparently not 24/7. There’re thousands of acres to Camp Peary, and much of it undeveloped. Even the CIA doesn’t have the money to secure every square inch of it. Monk got in there somehow.”

  “Where’s the body now?”

  “A temp morgue was set up in White Feather, a small town fairly close to here. A medical examiner from Williamsburg did the post. There’s no doubt about the cause of death. I’ve seen the body and the report. But feel free to take a look.”

  “Okay. Was Turing married?”

  “Divorced. We’re still trying to locate the ex. No luck so far.”

  “Kids?”

  “One. Viggie Turing, age eleven.”

  “Where’s she now?”

  “Right here. She lived with her father in Babbage Town.” He inclined his head toward some cottages. “The buildings on the perimeter over there are housing for the people working here. Some of them live in the mansion too.”

  “Is Viggie a nickname or a family name?”

  “It’s short for Vigenère or so I heard.”

  Sean said, “After Blaise de Vigenère?”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Turing have any known enemies?”

  “Well, he had at least one unknown one.”

  “But what about the suicide theory? Near contact wound, gun found nearby?”

  “Could be,” Rivest conceded slowly. “But my gut tells me otherwise.”

  “Sometimes the gut is wrong.”

  “It worked for me at the FBI for twenty-five years. And it’s telling me something’s wrong here.”

  “I’ll want to talk to Viggie.”