Dubois shook his head, the anger building inside him. ‘Two associates in two days, yet not an utterance from you. May I ask why?’
‘I… um…’ he stuttered. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I should’ve called earlier.’
‘You’re
‘In Philadelphia.’
‘And what are they doing there?’
‘They’re protecting the girl.’
Dubois furrowed his brow. As he did, his eyes looked like slits. ‘What girl?’
‘We’re still figuring that out, sir. We think maybe the document belongs to her.’
‘Who is this
Dubois smirked. ‘An intermediary who ended up
Haney gulped at the implied threat. ‘I sent an associate to investigate her, but her guardians intervened. They killed him in broad daylight. A cop also got killed in the crossfire.’
Dubois stood abruptly and walked towards the door. He flung it open with a violent push. ‘The news keeps getting better and better! I ask you to retrieve a single document, and you turn it into World War Three. How many people have died so far? Five, maybe more? Do we even know the names of these interlopers?’
‘Yes, sir, we do.’
‘And?’
‘And we’ll find them soon. I promise.’
47
Jones walked into the tiny room, shaking his head. ‘Bad news on the phone.’
Payne looked at him. ‘How bad?’
‘The mystery text came from a prepaid cell phone. It was purchased last week at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The buyer, who obviously paid in cash, could have been arriving in Paris or flying to just about anywhere in the world when he bought it. Also, according to computer records, only one text was sent from the phone — the message sent to Megan.’
‘How about phone calls?’
‘Nope. Not a single call to anyone.’
Megan frowned. ‘In other words, someone bought the phone to text me.’
Jones nodded. ‘It sure seems that way.’
‘Why not call from a payphone? Or send me an e-mail from a public terminal? Buying a cell phone seems pretty extreme.’
Jones smirked. ‘If you think
She conceded his point. ‘You’re right. I guess I need to change my standards.’
He glanced at Payne. ‘Hey, Jon, it’s your lucky day. If she
She snickered at the comment, which brought an immediate reaction from Payne. ‘Please don’t encourage him. If you laugh at his wisecracks, he simply won’t stop.’
She smiled. ‘You have to admit, it was kind of funny.’
‘No,’ Payne said, ‘I’ll admit nothing. One time back in the mid-nineties he said something mildly amusing, and I barely cracked a smile. The guy hasn’t shut up since.’
Jones stroked his chin, as if deep in thought. ‘You know what? I remember that day. That was during my Eddie Murphy phase. First I made you laugh, then I picked up a transvestite prostitute in West Hollywood.’ He paused for effect. ‘No, wait, that was Eddie who did that,
Payne shook his head as he looked at Megan. ‘See what you did? You got him started. Now I have to listen to him for
‘Anyway,’ Payne said, trying to change the subject, ‘it’s pretty apparent that someone is going to great lengths to send you a coded message. If it weren’t for the violence, my advice would be to ignore them until someone picked up the phone and called you like a normal person. However, since people keep trying to kill us, I think it’s probably best to play his little game and figure out the meaning of the letter.’
Megan frowned. ‘I thought we already did that. The poem is about me.’
Payne shook his head. ‘Actually, we figured out
She asked, ‘What were the lines again?’
Jones walked behind the desk and wrote the poem in black in the centre of the dry-erase board, allowing them to examine it as a group.
Payne immediately grabbed a red marker from the tray and wrote asterisks on both sides of lines one and three. He did it to signify they had already figured them out. ‘If we’re correct, these two lines are about you. Now all we have to do is decipher the other pair.’
A lover from the lost line.
Chosen for her place in time.
Megan nodded in understanding. ‘I’m pretty good with word games and puzzles. If you ever feel like losing, challenge me to Boggle or Scrabble.’
Jones looked at her. ‘Decipher now, talk smack later.’
She gave him a mock salute then focused on the words. ‘How confident are you with the translation? Do you trust the person who did it for you?’
Payne answered. ‘Do we trust him? Definitely. He’s a good friend of ours. Are we confident in his ability? I’d say 90 per cent sure. In his original translation, he had the word
‘In Petr’s defence,’ Jones added, ‘we asked him to do a word for word translation of the message. We didn’t know it was a word puzzle where we were supposed to look for puns and other sorts of twists.’
She scrunched her face. ‘What pun are you talking about?’
‘Philly! I get it. Very clever. And you think there might be more puns?’
Payne shrugged. ‘At this point we don’t know. Could be anything.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘at first glance I don’t think lines two and four go together.’
‘Why? Because they don’t rhyme perfectly?’
She shook her head. ‘Actually, that doesn’t bother me. If you want to get hypercritical, lines one and three aren’t perfect, either. Brothers is plural, and mother is singular.’
‘True,’ Payne admitted. ‘Then what troubles you?’
‘The verb.’
‘What verb?’ Jones asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Megan grabbed a green marker and underlined chosen. ‘It’s the only verb in the whole poem. Don’t they teach grammar at the service academies?’
Jones reread the quatrain. ‘You’re right. One verb. But why does that bother you?’
