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“I can get you in, but it won’t be for long,” Ressler said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
All eyes in the black site turned towards Elizabeth. “It’s your mission,” Cooper said gently.
“Yes, let’s go.”
Elizabeth, Cooper, Samar, Aram, Reddington, and Dembe piled into the back of the van while Ressler took the wheel. Reddington squirmed in discomfort at the close quarters. “I still think we should have driven separately,” he said to Dembe.
“This is what the mission requires,” Dembe said. “Besides, it will be good for you.”
When the team arrived at the site, Ressler briefly introduced them to his contact. “I’ll monitor things from here. Let me know if you feel unsafe at any point.”
Elizabeth thanked Ressler and his contact and took the lead. The room had a linoleum floor, a metal desk and chair, a filing cabinet, some sort of cupboard with glass doors over a workbench, and an odd metal fixture attached to the pale olive-drab wall. “This looks like some sort of military station,” Elizabeth said. “Everyone split up and see what you can find out.”
Aram immediately went to the computer and turned on the monitor. The display was an old-fashioned CRT with green text on a black background, and it read “Login: 6-4” with a flashing underscore cursor. Aram shrugged and entered “2” on the keyboard. The screen went blank for a moment, then read “Login: 63/9”. Aram typed in “7” and the screen flashed a bright warning “Passcode failed: enter correct code to avoid lockout.” Aram started sweating. “This system seems pretty primitive, but I don’t know what it wants from me. It could be anything.”
Samar meanwhile rummaged around under the workbench and resurfaced with a key. “Really slipshod security,” she said, shaking her head. She caught Aram’s eyes and smirked. “You’re still staring.”
“I’m…what? I wasn’t staring…was I? I was just thinking about how to get into this computer. I mean, not that you aren’t beautiful, but I absolutely respect you.”
Elizabeth smothered a laugh. “Aram, take a breath. Samar, does that key open anything interesting?”
Samar was already turning the key in the lock for the cupboard. “Several bottles in here. Bar codes but no labels. These people fail lab safety.” She unscrewed one of the bottle caps and took a sniff, then nearly dropped it as she was seized with a coughing a fit. “Ugh, ammonia.”
Reddington gently took the bottle from Samar. “Now who’s failing lab safety? You need to waft a small amount to your nose, like this.” He demonstrated with exaggerated motions, then set the bottle down. “I’ll leave you to it, though. I knew a guy once who completely destroyed his sinuses sniffing strange chemicals. He wound up having to carry a handkerchief everywhere to deal with his constantly dripping nose. He didn’t waft.”
Samar quickly tried the other bottles. “Bleach. Alcohol. I’m not sure what this one is.” She handed it to Elizabeth.
“Iodine,” Elizabeth replied. “When I was little, my dad…that is Sam,” she continued after a quick glance at Reddington, “would put it on my cuts. Which happened all the time because I was a wild child. Anyway, it sounds like this place is part of a hospital, or maybe a first aid station.”
“Military aid station,” Dembe said, waving a small paperback book. “I found the manual in the filing cabinet. Supply lists, procedures, codes…”
Aram looked up. “Anything that might help me unlock this computer? Dates? Street names?”
“There are a couple of numeric translation tables. Binary, hexadecimal.”
“Of course, why didn’t I think of that?” He spun back to the keyboard and entered “B.” The screen flashed “49+51” and Aram typed “9A.” Finally, it flashed “2C*2,” he entered “58,” and a menu screen came up.
Cooper pulled a device out of the cabinet. “What do you have there?” Elizabeth asked.
“It’s an old-fashioned cassette tape player.” He pressed a button along the top of the machine. “Still has a tape in it.”
Red walked over and peered at the cassette player. “I have one like this. I use it to listen to my podcasts.”
“You do know people listen to those over the internet, right?” Elizabeth asked.
“I wouldn’t know how to do that. Dembe finds interesting ones and puts them on tape for me.”
“A little quiet, please,” Cooper requested as he hit “play.” A quick series of beeps followed. “Morse code,” he commented.
“I have a decryption table here in the field manual,” Dembe offered.
Cooper raised his hand for silence. “Still got it,” he smiled. “I don’t need the table, but if you could get a paper and pencil and be ready to take down the message.”
“Ready.”
Cooper rewound the tape and played it again. “Number one, bravo, lima, uniform, echo, number 2, golf Romeo, echo, echo, November, number three, Romeo, echo, delta.” He listened for another minute. “Message repeats.”
“One blue, two green, three red,” Dembe read back.
“What does it mean?” Aram asked.
“I don’t know, but look what I found,” Elizabeth said, waving a small booklet. “It’s a personal journal. Seems like the last person who worked here was really grumpy about the inventory system. Apparently the item codes kept getting detached from the items in the database, so they had to keep scanning them and recoding them. There’s a hand scanner in the drawer here, too.”
“All right, let’s see if there’s any sort of inventory program…ah, here it is,” Aram said. “Hmm, it looks like the menu doesn’t respond until you scan something.”
“Let me,” Samar said, bringing the bottles from the cupboard. She scanned the first, and a menu of chemical formulas appeared. “Does anyone know the formula for bleach?”
Dembe thumbed through the field manual, turning to the supply section. “Bleach is NaClO.”
“Thanks. I know ethanol, C2H5OH. Iodine is diatomic, right?”
“I think that’s right,” Cooper replied.
“It’s been a long time since I had chemistry classes,” Aram noted.
“Okay, I2, and then ammonia is NH3.” When she hit enter for the last formula, the screen flashed the message “Inventory complete. Code NCI3.”
Meanwhile, Reddington had found a case on a shelf and was fiddling with the combination lock. “What was that code again?” Samar repeated it, and Reddington adjusted the dials, then pulled on the lock. The case opened to reveal a tangle of wires attached at one end of the case, some of them plugged into nodes at the other end.
Dembe grabbed the sheet of paper with the Morse Code message and positioned himself in front of the case. “Okay, first, we’ll disconnect all the wires,” he said softly to himself. “And then blue in node one…green in node two…red in node three…there!” Something clicked, and an LED turned on, illuminating a small plastic case that contained a key. “Does anyone have a use for this?” Dembe asked as he took it out.
“Over here, Dembe,” Reddington said. Dembe handed Reddington the key, and Reddington used it to unlock a padlock attached to the strange metal fixture. “This thing looks like an exploded trombone,” he remarked. Opening the lock released a circular metal keyring. It held a single key and was now free to slide along the metal fixture. Reddington shrugged and slid the keyring along the metal. He wasn’t particularly careful, and the metal of the keyring soon made contact with the metal of the fixture. A loud blast sounded, and a previously hidden panel slid out from the wall. It protruded a few inches so that it was flush with the very end of the metal fixture. “Now what?” Reddington grumbled.
Aram approached and looked over the apparatus. “There are electronic chips attached to this keyring and to the padlock. I think you’ll need to bring them back in contact to reset the device.”
Reddington grumbled some more, but he brought the pieces together quickly since he knew he didn’t need to be careful. Once the obstructing panel slid back into the wall, he tried again, but when he had to move the ring over a narrow curve, he set the blocking device off again. After laboriously sliding the right back to its original position, he gave it another try. His finger brushed against the metal fixture, but the alarm didn’t sound. With a smirk, he positioned his fingers fully between the keyring and the metal, allowing them to serve as insulators while he easily guided the ring along its path.
“Red, don’t you kind of think that’s cheating?” Elizabeth asked.
“Nonsense, Lizzie. If I wasn’t meant to do this, I’m sure the device would leak acid or release fire ants or something.”
When the keyring finally slid off the fixture, Reddington snatched it and triumphantly opened the door. Ressler was there to greet the team. “Hello, Donald.”
“Raymond.”
An exceptionally cheerful young woman pushed past Ressler. “Aren’t you even going to tell them how great they did? Nineteen minutes is a new record – next fastest was twenty-three! Let’s get your photo!” She herded the group out to a small room with a photo backdrop and a chest of goofy props. Dembe chose a pair of oversize plastic glasses and plunked a straw hat with a gaudy orange flower onto Reddington’s head. Elizabeth chuckled and bedecked Samar and Aram in Mardi Gras beads.
“And for you, Agent Keen,” Cooper pulled out a fake tiara glistening with sequins.
“Perfect,” Reddington agreed. “Happy birthday, Lizzie.”
Elizabeth heard the hint of sadness in Reddington’s voice and turned to question him, but he was already engrossed in organizing everyone for the picture. “Come on, Lizzie, you belong in the center!”
The cheery woman snapped the picture and went to upload it to her computer. “We like to post the team photos on social media, if that’s okay.”
“Actually, it’s not,” Ressler said. “I already talked about this with the owner. There are privacy concerns.”
“No problem! I’ll just print you a copy to keep, and then I’ll delete the file.” She turned back to the group. “Would you like to have your time up on the leaderboard, though? I imagine that record will stand for some time. You can choose whatever you like for your team name, so privacy shouldn’t be a concern.”
“That sounds fine,” Cooper agreed.
“I concur,” Reddington agreed. “The team ought to have at least some recognition. You’re the birthday girl, Lizzie; what’ll it be?”
“Just call us the Post Office,” Elizabeth grinned.