Sunday Morning Puzzle #79 --- The Secret of "123"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Special Agent Jones of the CIA visits again. He updates you on a serious problem:

The mastermind behind a group of spies is still at large. Furthermore, the CIA knows that this evil person has been trying to get hold of a doomsday machine in order to control the world. He/she learned enough information during the recent “kidnapped scientists” caper to be able to build the framework for such a machine. However, in order for the doomday machine to work, it must be attached to a super-secret “Jefferson Cube”. And the spies currently have neither the Cube nor the knowledge to make one.

“The only working model of a Jefferson Cube is currently being held at CIA Headquarters,” explains Jones. “And the only blueprints for the Cube are there as well. Dozens of well-armed agents patrol the building. These guards are tough men and women…living only on bread and water (plus a hefty supply of vitamins and steroids). Anyone would have to be a fool to try and get past these warriors.”

“And yet you are worried…?” You can obviously see that Jones is more than a little concerned.

“Our Government hopes to use the Jefferson Cube for good instead of evil,” says Jones. "However, we have information that spies will try and steal it.

“On Friday afternoon we had a visitor. Jenkins, a defector from the spies, came to our offices. He claimed to have deserted the spies because he heard that their insane leader plots to get hold of the Jefferson Cube in order to construct a doomsday machine. Jenkins said he wanted nothing to do with such an awful plan. While he did not know the details of whatever the leader is scheming, Jenkins did bring us a copy of a new encoded message currently being circulated among the spies. Unfortunately, this man was too low-level in the Spy Encampment and therefore did not know how to decode the note. Our CIA experts have failed to crack it.”

“Still, you must have learned the identity of the evil leader and the location of the spies,” You state calmly. “This fellow Jenkins probably has lots of helpful information.”

“Alas,” Jones replies, “Just as he was about to tell us more, an assassin shot a poison dart through the window. Jenkins died instantly. We tried to apprehend the murderer, but our men got caught in rush hour traffic.”

“They really should do something about the Beltway,” You comment.

Jones continues: “So all we have to go on is this cryptic note. I am returning to CIA Headquarters to stand watch with our security team. We are depending on you to clear up this code.”

Looks like your plan for a day of leisurely watching football is out…unless you can decipher this code fast!

  1. S Y E L L E N E E L E E O H E E O R E L F E Y E E E D G S N E A R Y E L E D T D E N E T R E Y Y E T D R G T X N Y G

  2. TD MF WB WD SE TC JI CD: WB WD BB AD TB AF TC CD TB OC DI ME OB TC DH MG: WB HD PF SH PE IB TC CC WE SF: EH WD BB KG OC AC WB CC OG WG FD WE TD QG DD: MD BF TE BH AB SC OB MF MG

  3. KLR QGD LOW HDK HII HUV RXE LOE OWW DFK XEX XSO LFD WRG HKR RPV GDD FKL QDY ODF HOH HSL QLO OKL DWH XSS OYH UBR QLO QRF NHX QDS HUD WLW KRX HDK LOK HXL HWO RCH HHK LQK HLX LOG LQL RQG DRU QLQ

2

You wake up this morning after tossing and turning most of the night. Yesterday you spent hours and hours trying to solve the “1-2-3” code, but to no avail. Sure there are some interesting qualities to the ones, the twos, and even the threes? But what do they mean?

Maybe there is no solution? Perhaps the Jenkins visit and the killing were all part of some trick? No, that can’t be right.

You decide that the best thing to do is to ring up Agent Jones at CIA Headquarters and let him know that you are currently stumped. Heck, maybe Jones and the CIA specialists have had some success.

You dial up the number and wait for an answer. And wait. And wait. The phone has rung fifteen times and no answer. Why wouldn’t they be answering the phones…?

Uh oh.

Grabbing your coat you head out the door —rushing to CIA Headquarters. Something is wrong. You hope you are not too late.

3

You now sit in the CIA cafeteria sipping some of the worst coffee you have ever had. Agents Jones and Brown are at the table with you. They look terrible.

You arrived at CIA headquarters just after nine. At that time you found a chaotic scene. Police were everywhere. Confused workers scrambled to secure private areas. And literally hundreds of Agents were wandering around in an obviously drug-induced stupor.

When the eight-thirty crew had come to work a half-hour earlier, they found everyone in the CIA building fast asleep. Doors were open. The Jefferson Cube was gone. Police were called. Frantic searches were made. And into this you walk, shaking your head. Damn. If only you had cracked that code yesterday!

Jones tells you that the last thing he remembers was drinking a large glass of water around four in the morning. The heating system in the offices had malfunctioned and the temperatures inside were uncomfortably hot. Everyone had been drinking water.

“We thought no one could get at the Cube,” Brown says. “Our thieves must have used techniques even trickier than Tom Cruise in that Mission Impossible movie.”

“Nothing else besides the Cube appears to me missing. Fortunately they did not get the blueprints.” Jones adds.

“There must have been inside help…” You think.

“We have only one clue,” says Jones shakily. “One of the thieves dropped another one of those encoded notes. We found it on the floor inside the room that formerly held the Jefferson Cube. You must help us figure this message out.”

“How much time until they can create a working doomsday machine?” You ask.

“Our experts tell us it would take nearly a week to attach the Cube,” replies Jones. “After that, the spies may be able to control the world.”

You had better act fast.

  1. G E E O R T Y H E D G L T E L A R P E S N R Y M

  2. BE TC CD TB OC SF LJ UJ TC SK SH MD: CG TC MD SE FC HD: HB IB OB OC SC TD

  3. ULQ KXE XHF UHD ERU DWR UQG HUQ HDW KSU LQJ ILH OKR SSL QDO RQW DFK DOD QWR HOX SHD

4

hmm-

Possibilities-

I need a copy of the Declaration Of Indepence to crack the code.

I need the lyrics of the theme to The Jeffersons to crack the code.

I need to arrange the text in the proper sequence, write it on a piece of paper, then fold the paper into the cube.

1-2-3 is actually a hint telling us that only somebody fluent in Lotus can crack the code.

Or

The key is something we’re all familiar with which features groups of 3 letters. Biotop’s second post would seem to indicate this. Problem is, the coded text contains Q’s.

5

You continue to ponder…

“Would be kind of ironic if the Declaration of Independence were part of the solution…naahh. Can’t be it. The theme from the Jeffersons…“Movin’ on up”…perhaps if I move up the letters…no that’s silly…fold the paper into a cube…now how could the spies be expected to do that?..or perhaps the cube means “to the third power”? That’s a 3…but I don’t see any way that can be relevant…1-2-3? …lotus?..maybe I need to meditate in the lotus position to figure this out…three groups of letters…hmmm…what could that mean?..all those “Q’s”…at least there are a lot of “Q”'s in the threesome letters…why?”

You realize you are getting delerious. OK. Let’s be reasonable.

**The spies have to be able to decode these messages quickly. Now let me look at the “ones”. What’s special about those single letters? How about the “twos”? Is there anything odd to note about those doublets? And the “threes”…what about all those “Q’s”? **

You figure that if you can answer these questions you will be well on the way to a solution.

Your thoughts are interrupted by the loud ringing of the phone. It’s Jones. He tells you that the lab has confirmed that the water supply at CIA Headquarters was contaminated with a drug.

He also tells you that The White House has received an e-mail from an unknown source claiming to now possess a doomsday machine. The President has been told to go to the United Nations and ask all countries to surrender to the leader of the spies. We have exactly one week to capitulate.

6

Major Developments:

Jones calls with news.

Late last night a drunk named Stony Rogers was arrested in a bar in Alexandria, Virginia. Stony had been trying to pick up some young women at the bar, but they had just laughed at him. Rogers snarled, “Next week my friends and I will control every last one of you!” He then became belligerant and the DC Police were called. When they searched Rogers they found one of these mysterious “1-2-3” notes on his person.

“We had instructed the local police to be on the lookout for this type of note. It was a long shot that paid off.” says Jones.

Rogers had been taken to CIA Headquarters and questioned by Jones:

Jones: “We know you are a member of the spies. You had better talk.”

Rogers (still drunk and defiant): “You ain’t got nuttin’ on me. You fools can’t even (hic) solve that there uh… 2-3-1 Code.”

Jones: “We’ll just see about that. We have ways to get a confession.”

Rogers (now very nervous): “I ain’t a squealer. By next week I’ll be (hic) telling you what to do!”

Jones left young Agent Brown in charge of the man and went off to get one of our “enforcer” agents. An enforcer is the kind of guy who makes you talk.

Then disaster.

Brown excused himself for “just a few minutes— honest!” to relieve himself in the restroom. When he returned he found Rogers dead— blungeoned to death with a frozen turkey. The thawing meat lay in a pool of blood by the body.

Brown swears he locked the door before he left. Someone on the inside must have used this moment to sneak into the interrogation room and silence Rogers.

“We are questioning all our Agents to find out who is working for the spies.”

“Fax me the coded note,” You request. You vow to solve the code before any more crimes can occur.

“By the way,” Jones says, “You are invited to the annual CIA Thanksgiving Dinner this Sunday night in our cafeteria. I hope by then this mystery will be solved and we can all relax and enjoy a meal together.”

“I’ll be there,” You reply. “But if we can’t stop those spies there won’t be much to be thankful for…”

  1. E L E E N E N E Y T Y E E O _ Y Y Y T T E T B _ L T Y B S D F T E A A T T _ L N L E S T R Y G R E S L Y E R E

  2. WB WD HD TC JI CD IB PE BB ND MF: PF CD TB AA VG PE SF NE AB TC SF LC: IA WD QD MB JC AB HD CD AB TC CC CI: BC FE IA WD PF AC TC AF AB TE SF TL DF: WB SE WD FG HD OC RG

  3. LOD YKH IIH UVR XEO DFH ARQ GDO HDV ROL FWR UDU WXQ GDL JKK HFU HDL OXL RHD KHK LDI HWH ULX LUV LOR LVR OKJ HQW KHL XQG DKD QNV JLY LQL QQH SLH LOL QDO ODY XHY HQJ

7

Hmm… looking at the code we can see that in the “2.” code, the second letter is always in the first ten letters of the alphabet, indicating a number of some kind.
The “3.” code contains unusual letters like Q and X and recurring themes like “LO” so is probably some sort of rotation.
The “1.” code contains lots of E so… umm… could be anything.
Now, is what the drunken spy said correct… is it a “2,3,1” code not a “1,2,3” code. Has the ordering of the numbers got anything to do with cracking it? And why are there different numbers of letter groups?

8

For the record:

“blungeoned” = “bludgeoned”. There’s no new word for crushing a skull in with a large piece of frozed gobbler, though perhaps there should be.

Not much further news this morning. No fingerprints on the bird. No luck with determining who the traitor is at the CIA. Security cameras at the CIA have been down all week. Probably the same internal tampering. The chef in the cafeteria promises that he won’t be serving the murder weapon for the Thanksgiving feast this Sunday.

Perhaps, however, there are indications You are making progress clearing up this wretched code…

9

Jones arrives with another “123” note. Yesterday the CIA did a Thanksgiving Day search of Stony Rogers small Dupont Circle apartment. They found only a few clues:

  • A map of CIA Headquarters with the Date “11/24/03” scrawled on top and an “X” on the room where the Jefferson Cube had been kept
  • A recent picture of Stony standing next to someone dressed up as Santa Claus
  • A receipt for the purchase of several guns
  • Another receipt for a large purchase of decorations from a Northern Virginia Christmas Shop

and

  • the “123” note. On top of the “123” note someone had written in pencil “2-3-1”.

Jones tells you they have no clues as to who killed Stony Rogers. The chef in the CIA kitchen swears that there were 15 frozen turkeys in the freezer before the murder. Then Agent Brown brought word that an important prisoner was to arrive soon…likely one of the spies. Brown assigned three young agents to patrol near the kitchen exit. All three were alone at some time by the freezer. Any one of them could have pilfered the bird and killed Rogers. The chef claims he went to get something from the freezer just after the murder and only found 14 turkeys inside. The turkey that killed Rogers was a CIA turkey.

“The Agents who walked that area were April Allen, Charlie Cooper, and Donald Doyle. All are relatively new. However, they have each passed a polygraph test. We are stymied.” Jones turns to you. He seems exhausted.

“Help us,” Jones says.

“I know we only have 3 days left.” You say. “I’ll give it one last shot.”

Jones sighs. “Our best decoders are frustrated. They know there’s a message for each code. But how do you find the words? And they keep asking each other: Why are there not the right matching number of the 3’s? What’s with the blanks in the last cryptic note? What’s going on with those doublets?”

“I will find the answers.” You say. “There is no way any stinkin’ spies will beat me and control the world.”

Are you sure?

  1. R S D S E Y S O A S T E L E L E E O D S F E E Y E G L P S M G E N E Y Y

  2. DG GD DI AB LE CE CE TB SE CE AB TC MD: WB WD BD AD TB DF OI IB WB HD AC TG: NG WD SD UB FD AI TC JI CD BB MF

  3. HOL YHX QLV JXL VHD UJD QGD QHD QWO DXK DOL OEO HIH QXU VHO YHD YQU RXE ORW KLQ LOW RUR WWD FKL QKH IIH UVR XER QGD

10

You and Jones decide to spend the morning and afternoon in one last attempt to decode the messages. It sure would be nice to arrive at that CIA Thanksgiving Party with a solution to this mystery.

Jones suggests that maybe You and he should try to work backwards…to figure out what word or words might be expected to be in the messages and see if you can find them amongst the crazy “1-2-3” (or “2-3-1”?) codes.

You figure it is worth a try.

11

It begins to crack. The second letter in each doublet gives the length of the word. Now if only I can finish this before the next very bad thing happens.

12

Woops.

So, did anybody survive the Sunday Thanksgiving dinner? Do you think we have any chance at all now that the secret laboratory under the mall is stocked with guns?

Or maybe, just maybe, the spies were thrown off by that typo in the third message. (The tenth triplet should read RPL instead of ROL.) Or maybe somebody caught the chef red-handed with the poison. Or maybe the candy canes didn’t pass a routine security check at the mall.

Well, are we doomed, or not?

Jones?

[sub]Everything that has a beginning has an end.[/sub]

13

Last night somber agents gathered for a Thanksgiving Dinner. The meal was served. Just as the group (including You and Jones) was about to eat, Agent Brown stood up.

“How can we feast at a time like this? The world is about to be overtaken by the spies!” cried Brown.

The Agents looked at each other. Brown was right. The meal was postponed. Only one Agent had nibbled a bit. Agent Greene had a bite of Cranberry Sauce…that’s all.

This morning Agent Greene was rushed to the hospital where he remains in critical condition.

Tests determined that the Thanksgiving meal had been poisoned. We all owe young Agent Brown for our very lives.

The kitchen help claimed to know nothing. Many resigned from their jobs.

+++++

Acting on your instructions, the CIA and the FBI have raided the lab beneath the Springfield shopping center. The villainous chef and friends were caught just as they were attaching the last wire.

Despite a gun and candy cane battle, Kringle was also nabbed. It’s likely the mall will have a vacant seat tomorrow at its Santaland display.

+++++

Jones and Brown stop by with a bottle of champagne.

“In retrospect, we should not have allowed the kitchen help to have so much access at CIA Headquarters,” Jones says. “But you know how it is…an agent working late likes to have food delivered to his office. So we had been giving the kitchen a security clearance.”

“They could come and go to most any room,” continues Brown. “Except, of course, for the high security areas. That’s why they needed the special team to break into the Jefferson Cube Room last week.”

You recommend tighter security in the future, and everyone agrees.

“I should have become suspicious of the kitchen earlier,” You say. “The morning after the robbery we drank coffee together in the cafeteria, but we did not get dosed. Therefore, the kitchen wasn’t using the same water as everyone else. Why not…? What did they know?”

“Well, where they’re going they’ll have planty of time for kitchen detail,” laughs Jones.

Congratulations Peregrine — and and a glass of champagne well earned.