12 The First Cipher

Chapter 12 THE FIRST CIPHER "How was the tour of the satellite dishes?" their father asked when the twins got back to the visitor center. "Bo-ring." "Bo-ring," of course, was Coke and Pep's default reply whenever their parents asked them about anything. They didn't mention anything about the meeting with Mya and Bones. Once they were back in the car, Mrs. McDonald gave each twin a souvenir she had purchased in the gift shop—a package of freeze- dried ice cream like the kind astronauts eat. Coke stuffed the package in his pocket. Pep opened hers right away and munched it as she copied down the cipher that Bones and Mya had delivered, in neat handwriting on a clean page of her notepad.

NEZVES YZTRIH TNEETEN ZINHTH GIEYTZ NEWZTYAM What could that possibly mean? Dr. McDonald retraced his steps back to the town of Socorro and then turned north on I-25 toward Albuquerque, the largest city in New Mexico. Of course, that isn't saying much, considering that the entire state only has about two million people living in it. As a comparison, more than thirty-six million people live in California. Worry lines wrinkled Pep's forehead, and she truly had something to worry about. Not only was Dr. Warsaw back on the radar, but now that lunatic was building an atomic briefcase bomb. And he just might be crazy enough to use it. Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/). Click Get Directions.

In the A box, type Socorro NM. In the B box, type Albuquerque NM. Click Get Directions. Pep got to work. First, she stared at the cipher to see if there were any obvious patterns. NEZVES YZTRIH TNEETEN ZINHTH GIEYTZ NEWZTYAM She copied the letters again, this time closing them up. Spaces between words, she knew, are often put in there just to throw you off. NEZVESYZTRIHTNEETENZINHTHGIEYTZN "See anything?" Coke whispered, looking over her shoulder. "Not yet," she whispered back. "NEETEN pops out, but it's probably just some random letters that look like a word." She copied the cipher once again, this time writing it backward. MAYTZWENZTYEIGHTHNIZNETEENTHIRT

"Wait a minute!" she said. "I think there are nulls in there." "You mean fake letters?" Coke asked. "Yeah, probably Z." She crossed out all the Zs, and this is what was left MAYTWENTYEIGHTHNINETEENTHIRTYSE "That's it!" Coke said, a little too loud. "You're a genius! Add the spaces!" She didn't have to. It was obvious now. MAY TWENTY EIGHTH NINETEEN THIRTY SEVEN "May 28, 1937!" Pep said. "What do you think that could mean?" Coke asked his sister. "How should I know?" Pep replied. "You're the one who remembers everything. Something important must have happened on that date." "What are you two whispering about back there?" asked Mrs. McDonald. "Yeah," said their dad. "What mischief are you up to?"

"Oh, we're just playing a word game," Coke told his parents. "Sounds like fun," said Mrs. McDonald. "Can we play, too?" "No!" said both twins. The twins looked at each other. They knew they would have to wait a few minutes after being snotty before they could ask a favor of their parents. It was sort of like waiting an hour after you eat before going swimming. Finally, they determined that enough time had passed. "Hey, you guys are old," Coke called up to the front seat. "What does the date May 28, 1937, mean to you?" "I'm not that old," said Dr. McDonald. "Why do you ask?" "I was just wondering," Coke lied. "Well, 1937 was shortly before World War Two broke out, if that helps," said Dr. McDonald. It didn't. Both twins realized that this was too serious for guessing games. Dr. Warsaw was

working on a nuclear bomb. From now on, Coke and Pep would have to stop relying on their parents' knowledge to help them figure out these clues. No more fooling around. No more mistakes. Lives could be at stake. "Google it," Coke said to his sister. She borrowed her mother's laptop computer and tapped the date into the box. There were 345,000 results. Pep paged through the top choices looking for something significant. One thing kept popping up. MAY 28, 1937: VOLKSWAGEN IS FOUNDED "That's gotta be it!" Coke whispered. "Volkswagen was Hitler's pet project. I saw that in a book. He wanted a car that average people