Sunday Morning Puzzle #70 ---Revenge!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Knocking at the door on Sunday morning? Again? Yes. it is another visit from Agent Jones of the CIA.

Jones says:

"Something went wrong with last week’s plan to capture a group of dangerous spies. They all escaped. It seems that rookie Agent Brown has been dating a young woman of questionable character. To make a long story short, he spilled the beans to her about the CIA spy raid. We believe she then warned Matt O. Harree and the other spies. The young lady in question, a Miss Amy Zann, has also now disappeared. Our chagrined Agent Brown tells us that Miss Zann has a small snake tattoo on her forehead.

"Here’s what we do know: Mr. Harree is the head of a group of no-accounts and spies. They all have small snake tattoos on their faces. Unfortunately, it is very common these days for young people to have small facial snake tattoos. You see them all over. We can’t arrest someone just because they have a viper on the noggin.

"The CIA searched the home of Mr. Harree and found a secret underground laboratory. It was full of mad scientist-like equipment. The lab’s library is a veritable A to Z collection of books on doomsday devices and related theories. We found enough diaries, pamphlets and notes to realize that Mr. Harree is both an extraordinary genius and a dangerous lunatic.

"Harree must have cleared out quickly when he heard we were coming. But he still had time to write on the wall, in his own blood, this message: ‘WE WILL HAVE OUR REVENGE ON AGENT JONES AND HIS CODE-BREAKING FRIENDS’

"I suppose Harree is extremely angry that you so easily cracked his code last week.

“We had no other clues until, believe it or not, Harree sent us a letter. It contains a very strange code. We cannot solve it, so once again we turn to the expert. I hope you can figure out what is going on. We’re depending on you!”

Text of the letter:

#^#^#^#^

*Agent Jones and Friends,

Congratulations on defeating me once. Few have had the privilege. If you want to beat me again, simply decode the message below. But I’m betting you cannot do it, for you are minus the extra-intelligence needed to solve my most difficult code.

By the way, this message is the same one I’ve been sending to my comrades this past week. They know how to decipher it, and they will act accordingly. When the BAD THING happens, the world will know you had the means to stop me, but you could not do it. HA! HA! HA! Your public failure will be my revenge.

Matt O. Harree-- Genius*

QEAT-2ESE UTTH-WTEV JTIO-AGEA XDEE-TAUG HEYT-THLE KIAC-IDVK PCYD-UNRL ZYTN-TT// LDSE-GOOE MWI/-EOTC CVUH-VOEM TNTM-EELR MLLN-RNOA JALC-NNIN NAWI-TNSE OEMI-LHNW WR2N-HORN NVIW-ATDS BHIO-WLS0 TSAA-TALR OMPL-SEEI ERHT-LCAE GTYN-ISAW ECTA-WETL YAHI-OSIE PITO-HIYA PNCP-4RPV UAHC-ASAE R/XH-/UYO SOEE-RSMU CATT-ECA0 VU4I-ECGE PA4L-REIL GAAA-DAN/ IDMI-TINS DEOE-AMLI AINT-ILT1 FECL-ARDS MALA-AWMF PHLR-OTFH

2

An e-mail sent this morning to Agent Jones at the Office of Homeland Security, and forwarded to you:

*I have received no visit from the authorities. I therefore assume my code is too tough for you. Here’s a bit more encoded information to assist you in your search for me. Of course, it only helps if you can unravel the message. I suspect you should just prepare yourself for public humiliation…and possibly worse. It appears Agent Jones and friends are all wet this time.

Matt O. Harree — Genius*

QIYN-ITUT EMEN-PRSW GDSS-DSET SIOE-NTIA FERI-EIUA LEMG-RTOL BHON-NVLE CSTI-YIAD AYOE-GA/U AMLL-REYO EAMI-LLCR P/TI-TAST KSAN-EMWC IENU-FPSB BCNO-TAIB O2SF-WLHA KACI-AOAO HHEP-OUTR ISIT-YFDY MPMN-BETC SHWR-NNLL NNNH-LEE/ NTUE-IAW9 TNRP-N2IS TDNC-EHWT RAMA-SERH BTCC-EETU AYRD-ATEL DNOF-OLOE UTHO-RTH/ GTIH-REHE BAT/-/WNL LRIO-EHTO UGET-A5/T RM/L-AOLE NEAT-LSSK TIEE-TETE CIEE-MWSN JEHT-DRR8

3

From Agent Jones:

The CIA received another e-mail from Harree. No luck deciphering it, alas. We gave all the messages, as seemingly instructed, to Agent Brown. Brown couldn’t figure them out either. Instead he just keeps crying about how his beloved Ms. Zann must be innocent, and how much he misses her.

Anyway, here’s the latest e-mail:

FRCR-RSHE LCNA-WIYV I2OR-YYVO BHEA-AZOF MEDI-AAW/ FERD-UNEG KDHN-TSOW ATAR-MYUT DEEX-ONOA HEMA-EN/7 CENL-EAKO JIPG-MWEO HNOV-NDR5 GPAI-TUT9 LKO/-MLAE KOTI-IAFA HTTI-OAEF ESIN-EONU CSRE-VNOR JSEI-HERT EAVA-L/LH

*And just so you can’t complain that I’ve left you high and dry, let me point you in another direction by giving you this very surprising hint: Agent Brown can decode everything!

Matt O. Harree — Genius*

4

I believe that the BHIO-WLS0 in the first message was supposed to read BHI0-WLS0. I’ll see if I can save the East Coast after I get the other two messages done. Just in case, it wouldn’t hurt to have some flood insurance.

5

I’ve never been to Alexandria; is it nice? Well, we’ve got a busy day ahead trying to find the Sea Serpent 2 before 4 pm–I’m off to get some rest. Wake me if we get any more taunting emails.

6

Agents Jones and Brown arrive this morning with great news!

The Sea Serpent 2 has been discovered thanks to your instructions. On board a stunned Matt O. Harree and Miss Amy Zann were both captured. In addition, a complete list of all Snakeface spies was located.

And in a small room near the bottom of the boat, an absurd looking device was also found.

“We are quite sure it would not have worked,” says Jones. “Well, fairly sure. Probably not…”

It also turns out that Amy Zann was actually the ringleader of the spies. She had no idea that the nutty Matt O. Harree was even sending the CIA all those e-mails. When she found out during the raid on the boat, she was livid.

“We were fortunate that Matt O. Harree had such a big ego. Our experts say he most likely wanted to be caught.” Agent Jones turns to you. “But we are truly fortunate that you were once again able to decode that seemingly undecodable set of messages. You’ll have to let me know how you did it someday.”

“You can always count on me to help the coppers,” You quip, “And not the copperheads!”

Coffee all around.

7

As the caffeine takes effect, I begin to explain my method. "The character frequencies indicated that this was not a cipher, but a rearrangement of the letters of the original message. But what pattern could the rearrangement have? I tried in vain to match each Q with a U somewhere. The gloating emails indicated that alphabetical order was involved. And initials, somehow. (Remember that line, ‘Agent Brown can decode everything’?) But what could be alphabetized? Finally, after staring at the messages for almost a week, I noticed that the initial letters of the octuples didn’t have the same frequency as the rest of the text. Not only that, but all the letters of the alphabet were represented there, with only a few repeats. After that, the solution was trivial, if laborious.

“A simple oversight kept me from reaching the solution days ago. You see, I suspected that the first letters might be key, and so I started counting them up separately from the rest. My mistake was that I counted the initials of the quadruples, and as the first several results were unenlightening, I dropped that line of pursuit. Well, live and learn.”

8

Interesting, Peregrine—

The dashes provide an easier untangling of the message once a solver discovers the secret, but their intention also is to mislead—(Hence the all too obvious “minus” red herring). What with the previous code being all about addition and subtraction, I was hoping this might lead a solver astray.

I also anticipated that the presence of the mysterious numbers amidst the lettering would dissuade the persistent decoder from being overly confident of re-arrangement over cipher. Yet it also seemed necessary, in the name of fairness, to provide a few alphabetical order hint references. Too many? Hard to say. The third hint was originally “Agent Brown can decode everything from “Genius” Harree!” But that looked even more obvious.

Alas, once again the puzzle constructor must go back to the drawing board, and Agents Jones and Brown can take a well-earned vacation.