Faithful Foes


The high-speed train from Montpellier to Paris hurtled through the French countryside at 300 kilometers per hour, but to Ecco and me this seemed way too slow. Ecco still held a tight grip on the note our bed and breakfast hostess had given us that morning - the message from Kate: “Jake, come to Paris immediately. Don’t call. Rose has disappeared.”

The vacation had started so well. Ecco and his French windsurfing pals had jumped the waves off Gruissan the day before. We spent the evening at the casino in town listening to a pair of beautiful folk singers. Ecco had planned to sleep late, because the best winds come up in the afternoon, but we were awakened by a loud knock on the door. “Monsieur Ecco, please wake yourself up,” our hostess had said. “The woman Kate has left you a message.”

Now we were on the train and Ecco had said hardly a word for the last hour. I, too, was deep in thought. Everything seemed so mysterious about this affair. For starters, why wouldn’t Kate want us to call?

“She might think her phone line is tapped, Professor,” Ecco said, apparently sensing my thoughts. “She doesn’t want her daughter put in unnecessary danger. Rose has been climbing with her closest friends, so she wouldn’t disappear on her own accord. Someone has done this to her.”

“Has she been kidnapped?” I asked.

“That’s not the worst possibility,” Ecco replied. “We’ll know more once we see Kate and the others.”

Ecco fell silent again and I reviewed what I knew of Rose’s life to see if I could figure out who would want to do her harm. Unfortunately, the suspects were all too evident. Kate had raised Rose along the Columbia River near Hood River, Oregon. After Ecco and Kate met, Kate took up windsurfing and she taught her then 12-year-old daughter Rose. Rose’s agility made her a natural for fun boarding and she spent many days on the water, winning many competitions along the way. But Rose’s first love was rock climbing. From Smith Rock to Beacon and on to eastern Washington, Kate knew the best spots and the best climbers.

When Rose was 17, Kate moved the family consisting of Rose and her younger twin siblings Cloe and Eli to Dayton, Ohio, for work reasons. Rose went to art school in Cleveland, turning her energy to architectural sculpture, and when she needed some money, into social work. Homeless kids, problem kids, any kid in trouble - Rose worked with them all. She built shelters with them, found homes for them, and talked with them. They confided everything to her. One of her young friends was Dumpster diving shortly after the November 2004 elections and found a bag full of punched ballots from Cuyahoga County. Rose suspected foul play and kept them.

For her safety’s sake, that may not have been wise. No longer could she play the free student; she was now on the run, pursued by a shadowy group of religious fanatics who had taken the name Warriors of the Rapture and used as their symbol a red cross rising from a blazing fire. They followed her back to Oregon, severely roughing up her climbing friend Scot. They wanted the ballots; that much was clear. Rose hid them under a tree. A little while later, when she and another friend were driving over the Hood River bridge, they were trapped between two pickup trucks. Rose guessed what might happen if she were caught, and jumped off the bridge. Against all odds, she survived the jump and swam to safety. While she was in hiding, Kate, Ecco, and an assortment of helpers managed to bring the ballots to light and prove they were authentic, thereby uncovering the greatest election fraud in the history of the republic. (For the full story, see my chronicles in Puzzler’s Elusion.) Core members of the Warriors of the Rapture were caught laying explosives and were put away. That was the end of the affair, or so we thought.

Our problems began with the question of fame. Whereas most people seem to crave it, Dr. Ecco shunned the spotlight. “This has been my second brief descent into notoriety and I hope it’s my last,” he told me shortly after the last of the big cheese Warriors was caught. “I want to return to what I do best - solve puzzles in the safety of my living room.”

Fame has a way of changing business as usual, however. People deal with you differently and sometimes you don’t know why. In Ecco’s case, celebrities called on him endlessly concerning their pressing personal problems. More or less patiently, Ecco would explain that his profession of “omniheurism” was not as omni as they hoped. “The problems I solve must be of a mathematical nature. I can’t tell you which hair color will get you the next acting role.”

Besides celebrities, government agencies still came to call, but often with bug sweepers and white-noise makers. Even with that, they spoke in voices barely louder than whispers.

The glare of publicity disturbed his tranquility, but he admitted its benefits. “A little fame helps in airports and restaurants,” he mentioned to me one day after we had managed to swing a late reservation at his favorite restaurant, Il Molino.

Then, about three months ago, the letters started. It was the first Saturday of June. Someone slipped a letter into Ecco’s New York City mailbox. The single page inside had the words “Babylon Falls” emblazoned in black over an image of a rampaging fire. The fire image differed from the one of the Warriors of the Rapture. That one looked demure by comparison. This resembled the fire of a firestorm.

Three weeks after that, I found another note crumpled in front of Ecco’s door. I could see the same fire image in the background, but the words were different: “And upon her forehead was a name written

Ecco took a look when I handed it to him, turning the paper one way and the other as he walked around his living room.

“Why all these phrases from the Bible? It might be some kind of taunt, but why?” Ecco asked these questions aloud, but neither of us had any clue as to answers.

Another two weeks passed. A flier was pasted to Ecco’s door. Same fire motif and the words: “And a mighty angel took up a stone, a millstone, and cast it into the sea.”

Ecco looked up the phrase in the Bible and saw that in the context of Revelation, it too spoke about violence to the city of Babylon.

“Suppose it’s a warning, Professor Scarlet,” Ecco said to me. “It could be a warning about New York, which some fundamentalists liken to a sinful Babylon. Still, the reference to a woman could mean something else. Didn’t Rose say she was going with her friend Scot to climb at Fontainebleau near Paris? It’s early autumn. The windsurfing should be great around Port Leucat. Maybe I should invite Kate along for the ride and suggest that Rose invite lots of friends.”

“May I join you?” I asked. “I’m on sabbatical this semester.”

“Yes, I would like that very much,” Ecco replied.

We arrived in France in mid-September. Kate stayed in Paris. Rose and her friends camped at Fontainebleau. Ecco and I headed to the Mediterranean. Ecco, the thinker, the solver of puzzles of remarkable difficulty, seemed completely at home during those first several days with wind speeds of 65 kilometers per hour. Wind and water - so refreshing, so direct, so innocent. Ecco is right to love them, I thought. People are evolutionarily adapted to face the elements, not kidnappers and violence to one’s friends. But now here we were: Rose was gone. I could only hope she was safe.

“Jake and Professor Scarlet, I’m so glad you’re here,” Kate said as Ecco and I lay our knapsacks down in the well-appointed apartment. In appreciation for Ecco’s previous services for the French government, Yves Maison had put at our disposal a spacious penthouse apartment overlooking the Seine and the Citroën Park. Kate had been there for the week, and bags from various boutiques showed she had not been idle.

“She’s gone,” Kate said, looking at us both. I had never seen her look so pale. “Rose has disappeared. All I have is an envelope addressed to us in her handwriting. Inside there is a typed letter that appears to be in code with a Sudoku inside it. Each of Rose’s friends also has been sent to a different spot here in Paris to copy an encoded inscription. They’re waiting to talk to you. But first, look at the letter from Rose.”

 Efbs Oqo, Ghdu Hv. Jhht, O'Bk hzrlk uG ljyCxAB GroDroB T oAGxp JEvGr o AtIItG. jxuO Jrzu LzsL BM QuM JF, xQP f FyB SN TAKEQSFDBVUJPOT WR EZSMH NYX LGRROTM PU bPM faXWP RKXNc. Ea gURl gOWR iWTn mekbT VeTipgk al TYmXk C rmjoZ ep. Fc wms'tc qdZc this gbs, kv'u suredeoB so. Knwxy EuA ohCl Bw twxF DrkD T Ftuzw V'z uCwBu ID ru FB. lzwQ PBEE NuEy Hz wSwU yRQ LMR ENQ TOO MPOH. vJGa WROG QI YMJd cUT'Z OHYT UM RW KXi hLj. u Qba'g Ybck lWTgT y'c XfZeX WalZWj, Unm C Yj dWra pljb gldmpkYrgml. Rdbnmc, I lopx yjgtg pB jvmirhw Bjwj yktz: Nhyl UwvBxizviAAm, QkBo op XKAz, cynpr XsoBBs s'PGr, gFIKv v'gJDwsFK, iEtvx xy Gv XwOPEHHA, mIxzB BC Kz nATION, mF uGPCV, jDUH h'eYWXIVPMXd, FSI, TGZaXGRRe p OcMaa, oQVScO yZecP pMYQ. GUVeQ, hVSm'jS idaS cU kYRk qgm pbee VY VWgZ pk cfka kc sgqntfg an fousbodf kp d givxemr ymjfywj Ckrr luvBno. bpmG'zm wxC Dyy nwplC mnAGF GuvF HvsoHFs xC vqsJ. Z'D FGL LNKx QByNByL DO'N OPEHH xzQFSB MP MNS BUT UIFZ UCa LW'V SPH, NY aYKJ aV aMIb cQXdbJWMb, KXN XLYj aR gUR dSfTcfaObQSg RdcRTgcTS mQjUh ReU VWSlZ. LhngWl mjiies. Ajpm, pdau pXfa rfc knbZshnm of uijt vjgcvtg lv ettvsBmqexipC ymj iktzkx (AolF Aiql "Cqn lkvkxmo AztyE") Ar FrIrA Ct Iwt IyJuI KF OzAuz FR zLCyHxM RzMz OAJP. tEFzE QCTCL? gDQD IS XIBU VJGa VDLG: "wYTTSWI dTZ IGT VYKLY bPM bcXaRNb SX eSP YQeeMSQe lbhe TfWSbRg WPkT hUSUYlUT, ReU fmeTWj maXf 1 ocmjpbc 9 XZZloafkd rm sgZs order. Pqy khuh mw f yAjuqA. 

7        6 4
   6       
      8   2  
5 6 3       
     7   2   9
         
  5      3   
    4     9  
1 7   9      8
Open table as spreadsheet

 Tjp'gg jkpeYa qeb qgvrf khmd is bmm 0u (0v gsvviwtsrh yt hrgtqy). dolu GwC BxuEn DrsC DFozvF, xAAw nG Hvs uxGHI IuLuD ELDsvIJ AF MAtM FCHy. oCzMz IECDP yB y EDV SOLUTIONS. jG UQ, NQRZ XLEX YMJ cUSKT OHcL JMMV bNWc dY cPWPgLYe XaOMfUaZe. sVTheR cih iWT beSQjYedi TfiiVjgfeUZeX lg mahlX hogVYlm amjh pda jbppXdbp. Dglb sgd balance qpjou. aqw zloo fi hqtxj zu Aol BCvvmt nwCAjwln." S ozy'EwzAI nAL ACFs IwpC JxqJ. gCvrJv uGEw yBGw Gy, vN OKKJ xP WMS BzM. i TBZ VJCV l XVYWX YMJR, HaZ UVa bPIb VdLQ. (sP eSPj fdMZeXMfQ gUNg ZWbS, Xi'h Q XffU kaYf.) EhoX, LimY

“Do you think she is still alive?” Kate asked Ecco after he put the letter down a minute later. I didn’t see how Ecco could answer, as I could make nothing of the letter.

“I think so,” Ecco said. “It would have been easy enough to kill her; a sniper’s bullet in the Fontainebleau woods when Rose and her friends were climbing would have done the deed. So, I think she’s physically okay.”

I wanted to believe Ecco, but I felt as worried as Kate. Ecco turned to me.

“My dear Professor,” he said to me. “Rose disappears. Her friends return. Whoever wanted Rose may have simply wanted to talk to her alone. They even let her write a letter.”

“Couldn’t they have just said they needed privacy?” I thought, but decided not to speak.

Ecco may have guessed my question because he flashed a brief smile and nodded, but instead he turned to Kate and said, “Let’s now go hear from Rose’s climbing friends.” We walked into the large dining room where they had been waiting.

Amalea, a writer when she wasn’t climbing, was the first to speak up.

“We camped in the forest of Fontainebleau, near a little town called Milly,” Amalea began. “It’s ideal for climbing. The trees offer lots of cover when it’s hot, but most boulders are partly exposed to the sun, so they dry quickly after rain. It’s also easy to get lost and, well, to hide. I had the presentiment we were being watched almost the whole time we were there.”

“When Amalea told me that,” Brad interrupted, “I called everyone together and said: ‘Look. Rose made many enemies in the last year. She shouldn’t be left alone. None of us should. Let’s stick together as much as possible.’”

“And we followed that suggestion, though Rose sometimes would try the hardest grade climbs with Jason and Will,” Amalea continued. Jason and Will, both slim but extremely strong, approached us. Back in White Salmon, Washington, Jason had started a guide service for the best of the best - he would take them to unnamed cliffs and they would warm up on 5.13A routes and go up from there. Will wrote screenplays between climbing trips.

“The climbing here is different from what we know,” Jason said. “We are cliff climbers when we’re at the Columbia Gorge and Smith Rock. Fontainebleau offers tiny finger holds, sometimes fingernail holds, but a great surface. We just came to have fun. And now this.”

“One day an old man, leaning on a cane, came round to watch the three of us,” Will said. “We were near Elephant Rock at Larchant. The surface is sand, but the boulders are high, so the climbs require a lot of focus. The man stood there and watched Jason and me, but even more so, Rose.”

“I don’t like it when people watch me,” Jason added. “Unless I know them. But this guy felt familiar. So I asked him who he was.

“‘Christien de la Foi,’ he replied. ‘I put up all the blue routes and most of the green/black ones here. Once a friend and I did all of the orange routes in 40 minutes. It takes some people three days.’”

“It was a famous name,” Jason went on, “but I wasn’t sure, so I asked him for some beta for a route I was trying. ‘Pull up. Throw yourself at an angle of 70 degrees to the left, rotate the right hand to a mantle, and you are up,’ the old guy said. He was spot on. We kept climbing and he kept watching. Finally we stopped for a cigarette.”

“By this time, we all had come over,” Amalea said. “The old man didn’t want to shake hands, but he looked us over. ‘These three,’ he said, indicating Will, Jason, and Rose, ‘are not bad. Americans are usually troublemakers when it comes to climbing, but these are okay. We have a philosophy here at Elephant Rock: Only idiots fall. You three are not idiots.’”

“A big compliment from a Frenchman, I suppose,” Jason interrupted with a chuckle.

Will continued the story. “Then the guy leaned his cane against a rock and pulled out what looked like a scroll. He turned to Rose and said, ‘Please read this.’”

“‘No, we’re just here to climb,’” Rose responded, turning away to walk to the next boulder.

“‘It’s a poem,’ the old man said. ‘Please.’”

“We kept the scroll,” Will said, as he handed it to Ecco, who read it aloud: “From far in the west, strong and shining red, she will come to us. She will know our riddles and our songs.”

Will continued his narrative. “‘C’est vous, mademoiselle,’ the man said, addressing Rose, whose bright red hair was collected together in a headband. ‘You have already passed the first test - strong and shining red.’

“‘What’s all this about?’ Rose asked.

“‘I am a Templar,’ said the old man. ‘You know us. More properly, you know our fallen children. The so-called Warriors of the Rapture, the leaders anyway, descend from a long line of Templars. Please come back to Paris with us, all of you. We need your help with some messages we’ve found. ’”

Scot interrupted Will: “I told the guy, ‘Look, man, we came to climb. The only thing we know about Paris is that the Eiffel Tower is there, but it’s off limits to climbers and the outside skin looks too easy to climb anyway. Also, just because we’re Americans doesn’t mean we think every Frenchman stepped out of the Da Vinci Code.’”

“‘Ah yes, but we need you,’ said the old guy. ‘Quite desperately. If it’s money you want, we can give you gold coins, Byzantine gold coins from our secret treasury. We need you only for three days. We have a beautiful apartment in the center of Paris which you’ll find very comfortable, I assure you.’”

Cheri came next to Scot and put her arm on his shoulder to calm him. Smiling sheepishly, she said, “Okay, look, I’m always thinking of ways of paying off my student loans. Gold coins sounded like a cool way to do it. So, I argued for this: ‘In my medieval art history course, the prof talked a lot about the Templars. They were crazy wealthy. Let’s give this a chance. We’ll be together. Also, I could use a real shower.’”

Brad took over the narrative. “I don’t know why. But this convinced us. We did need a rest and figured a paid stay in Paris couldn’t be that bad. Also, we’d all be together, so what could they do? So, we came back three days ago. They put us up in an apartment on the Left Bank overlooking the Seine and the Louvre. They let us rest the first day and they sent up amazing food from Fauchon.

“The second day, in the afternoon, the old guy came with two other men all about the same age, late 60s I would say.

“‘We’ve brought your coins,’” the old guy with the cane said. ‘Wealth won’t bring you happiness, but your youth prevents you from knowing that.’” His two assistants handed out bags filled with clean but obviously old gold coins, each one having the double cross of the Byzantine church. ‘We trust you and we need you - tonight.’ He explained that we were to copy down messages from plaques in various parts of Paris. “‘We will take each of you to a different place. We need you to copy down exactly what you see. We will blindfold you because our routes there and back will be, well, unusual,’ the old guy explained.”

“We had no idea why they needed us to do this, but the coins seemed to quiet all debate,” Brad went on, “especially after Cheri went to a coin dealer in the Marais and confirmed that they were real.”

“Interesting,” said Ecco. “At least you weren’t scammed. That’s quite surprising, even worrisome because it means they are clearly serious people. I wonder what Rose knows that they need to find out.”

“Only Will and Jason didn’t want anything more to do with this,” Brad replied.

“Yeah,” said Will. “I wondered why they couldn’t copy the inscriptions themselves. Also, I didn’t care about the money. I came here to climb. But I guess we were seduced by the adventure of it all.”

“Around midnight last night,” Amalea continued. “We were blindfolded and taken out, each of us to a different place. Sometimes we were taken down tunnels. It took almost four hours for each of us. We were each asked to copy an inscription, and then we were blind-folded again and led back to the fountain at Place St. Sulpice. When we went back to the flat the Templars had given us, Rose was gone. We called Kate. We’ve been looking for Rose all day. Pete, Christie, and Mike are still looking.”

“I don’t think you’ll find her enjoying the sights,” Ecco said. “Let’s take a look at these inscriptions and wait for the others to arrive. I’d like to ask each of you to tell me what you remember about the place you were taken to.”

Cheri spoke first. “There was a tall greenish column on an elaborate stand, though I was led down a nearby side street. Here is the inscription I copied.” She handed Ecco a piece of lined paper on which she had copied the encrypted message:

 Zyl Adu Ao oKu zJAGu bu JA mAToqJJu. LlTo AT wyl TKylJbW'o nJAYu VGyo yd RKudq, wyl WuubW'o cyddw Anylo NyTu. Iu YuAW Kud Wy KAdY. Iu jlTo Wuub qWsydYAoqyW. IKw GylJbW'o cu jlTo ATi Kud? IuJJ, qW Kud GyWTGqylT YqWb, TKu YAw Wyo duYuYnud, nlo Kud lWGyWTqylT YAw. Iu YlTo Odynu qo.

Will was next. “There was a tramway and I saw a cafe called Rond something. A pretty major intersection.”

 bUi rFV rd oUFdV K'BFxVrsj. MUF VQrTGxV, DV dUUC UHVF dwV zrdwj rd gxisJ, FrdwVF XrF XFUT DwVFV JUi rFV sUD. kwUjV wrK DUsKVFXix dissVxj. tV rxjU TrsrAVK dwV VrFxIVjd LrdrLUTzj - ziFJIsA jCVxVdUsj rsK dFVrjiFV DwVs DV xVrFsVK UX dwV rddrLC zJ owIxIGGV Za.

Then Jason. “They took me around in circles. Finally, I arrived near the back of a large church. There were gargoyles everywhere.”

 jzn huJ hv yzvuJ WhYJ. OhR UJ lnuH oH UJTT, vUhv JtoT cUoToffJ Mk. xJ UhV XuzFH rJhTznC zS znu FJhTvU hHV UhV YzCv zS nC YnuVJuJV - lnuHJV hv vUJ CvhmJ. Mv'C h TJCCzH zS UoCvzuR vUhv oS hH oVJHvoSohlTJ Xuznf FovUznv CnlCvhHvohT vUuJhv zS SzuKJ lJKzYJC vzz FJhTvUR, ovC FJhTvU FoTT lJ CvzTJH. Mv FhC hC vunJ Szu nC oH vUzCJ RJhuC zS SouJ hC ov UhC lJJH Szu vUJ IUoHJCJ zS CznvUJhCv LCoh. bJ FJuJ fhuvTR hv ShnTv.

“Could be any of the grand churches of Paris,” said Ecco.

Scot went next. “I saw a large sculpture with many figures and a woman taking a step forward with her right hand out.”

 FPl wvk wp CIwNk bk Iw xwphPO. Hk yIwlOpkb Plv ukwIpX pPP LlNX. TXPljX Plv Pvbkv Xwb Wpwvpkb wW POk Py qPPv ZOhjXpW, uk Xwb wNKlhvkb IwObW wOb LkwOW Py LwOlywNplvk wOb, pXvPljX Plv WkvYhNkW pP qhIjvhLW, YwWp LPOkpwvQ ukwIpX. Hk ukvk IPPZkb PO uhpX WlWqhNhPO wOb nkwIPlWQ. TuP NkOplvhkW wypkv Plv Okwv pPpwI bkWpvlNphPO, SwvphO flpXkv Nvkwpkb wO wIpkvOwpk AXvhWphwO YhWhPO.

“You all were lucky,” said Amalea. “They took me to a noisy train station.”

 SxT aYn aV Vjn CaYn Gn qJxt. SxT WnYn ETPVn QTIIPMIn. lFnYPNatO xsVnt NjaOn asVnY QYnaV WnaIVj. mTV GYnaFO xs YPNjnO VnFvV FatJ vnxvIn, Ox JxT aYn txV aIxtn. CxIG atG OVxYPnO xs atNPntV NxPtO FaXn vnxvIn IxOn aII YnaOxt. lV Vjn jnPQjV xs xTY vxWnY Pt Vjn IaVn 13Vj NntVTYJ, Wn FatPvTIaVnG vaTvnYO atG vYPtNnO WPVj jatGsTIO xs QxIG. wxt'V MIaFn DjnYP atG UNxV. UNxV WaO MaGIJ YxTQjnG Tv MJ VjxOn jnaVjnt baYYPxYO xs Vjn havVTYn. in tnnGnG a ITNXJ MYnaX. DjnYP tnnGnG Vjn FxtnJ. Zjn NxPtO aYn YnaI. Ujn'II Mn aMIn Vx vaJ xss jnY NYnGPVxYO. Zxx MaG TtPpnYOPVPnO Pt lFnYPNa aYn Ox ngvntOPpn.

By this time, Pete, Christie, and Mike had returned. Their faces showed that they hadn’t found Rose. Cheri explained to them Ecco’s current theory that Rose was probably kidnapped but unharmed.

Brad spoke up next. “All I can tell you is that my inscription was on the side of a door at an Irish bar,” he said. “There was a sculpture of a woman in armor on a horse at an intersection nearby.”

 FUO MnX Mh hiX CeMYX mXMggX R'wnY. FUO xMS gUh ZgUo hisk, POh CMnsk, PXeUo hiX pnUOgR, nXkXxPeXk M eMnpX koskk YiXXkX. tinUOpi hiX eUgp iskhUnS UT hiX YshS, XjXg oiXg hiX YshS oMk YMeeXR EOhXzsM PS hiX vUxMgk, CMnsksMgk ROp hOggXek OgRXnpnUOgR hU pXh POseRsgp xMhXnsMe. bg 17hi MgR 18hi YXghOnsXk, XghsnX khnXXhk UT CMnsk YUeeMakXR PXYMOkX UT hiX koskk YiXXkX-esZX YMjXngk OgRXngXMhi (oX cnXgYi YMee hisk pnOSXnX). bg 1777, GOseeMOxUh, kXYnXheS UT UOn UnRXn, oMk MaaUsghXR hU hMZX YiMnpX UT hiX OgRXnpnUOgR aMkkMpXoMSk sg UnRXn hU anXjXgh hiXx TnUx YUeeMaksgp. BX YeUkXR UTT kUxX hOggXek, nXsgTUnYXR UhiXnk TUn aOPesY OkX, MgR ZXah M TXo TUn UOn ansjMhX OkX. dUxX UT hiX PXkh MnX hiX UeRXkh, XkaXYsMeeS sg oiMh sk gUo hiX TsThi MnnUgRskXxXgh.

“Figures you’d notice what you can drink,” said Amalea with a friendly chuckle. How could she sound so relaxed? Was she convinced by Ecco that Rose was okay? I wasn’t.

“I’ll go next,” said Mike. “I went to a building near a garden with a large pond in a basin.”

 RsY ILa IQ Da faqIQ. fsna sv sYL qYnbaL, ts vYLVsYt IQ Qja GjYLGj sv hsna vsL VQt HILQVGVHIQVsq Vq sYL qaIL aKQaLnVqIQVsq, gsVqaZ VQ. Ja jINa IodIpt HLsNVZaZ Qja GjVoZLaq sv DYQjaL dVQj QjaVL nstQ ZaZVGIQaZ nanbaLt. SqvsLQYqIQaop, tsna QYLq Qs vIqIQVGVtn - atHaGVIoop LaiILZVqi Qja nVtYqZaLtQssZ bssM sv haNaoIQVsq. CjIQ Vt djaLa Qja JILLVsLt sv Qja hIHQYLa Gsna Vq. Ja QjVqM Qjap jIZ HoIqqaZ bVi QjVqit, bVi, bIZ, IqZ ZatQLYGQVNa. CjaVL tYGGattsLt GIoo QjantaoNat cIoo sv kIbposq. Cjap ILa nsLa vIqIQVGIo tQVoo. Oj, da IiLaa Qja dsLoZ jIt baGsna bIZ. kaIYQp, MVZt HoIpVqi IqZ oIYijQaL dIqQ Qs ba YqVNaLtIo. mqtQaIZ da jINa HsdaL nIZqatt, iLaaZ, ZVLQp bsnbt, GoYtQaL bsnbt IqZ jIVLtHLIp bsnbt. kYQ Qjap Zsq'Q dIqQ HaIGa. JjIQ Qjap dIqQ Vt I GoaIqtVqi dIL, djIQaNaL QjIQ nVijQ naIq.

“Was it close by?” asked Ecco.

“Could have been,” answered Mike. “They took me around in circles.”

“I was at a train station, lots of homeless guys sleeping just outside,” said Christie.

 mRx bNv bf fKv HbNv B'axufvNzYfP. lKvF jv ubI jv bNv QRYFQ fR GNRpv KvN xFCRFuCYRxu TYFB, jv BYB FRf TvbF fKYu YF b pbB jbI. lv BRF'f xuv BNxQu. AxN RNBvN JFRju TbFI uvCNvf bFB GbYFzvuu jbIu RX bCZxYNYFQ YFXRNTbfYRF XNRT GvRGzv. lv xuvB KIGFRuYu jbI pvXRNv yvuTvN. lv pNRxQKf Yf pbCJ XNRT RxN wYuYfu fR gRGfYC qQIGf. DRuv jYzz pv ubXv XNRT bzz BYufNbCfYRF YF RxN fxFFvzu pvFvbfK hbNYu.

“Maybe it’s the same one I was at,” Amalea said.

“Could be,” said Ecco, “but I don’t think so. I don’t think they would have wanted you to communicate.”

“But I was also at a train station” said Pete. He was muscular and he smiled, but he looked vaguely frightening in his dreadlocks. Rose had told us during our flight to France that she had just met him. He had asked to come along when he heard she was planning a climbing trip. “My train station had lots of glass and lots of escalators, mostly above ground. The neighborhood outside had lots of lights, lots of pretty girls, lots of action.”

 jkr BuY BM MHY LBuY mY QksMSBusBZZY. ek ZMBuM, qY HBTY Bs BSkckpt Mk zBCY. AY eYzScBuZ BuY ls JBbM Bs HkskuBncY lJ ZYbuYMlTY ZkblYMt. UrM Hksku mkYZs'M SuYbcrmY kbbBZlksBc mYbYSMlks. aTYs UYusBum mY XcBluTBrK HBm Mk SukzlZY zkuY MHBs qY HBm Mk kJJYu ls kru YBuclYZM tYBuZ. Dk lM lZ MHBM qY HBTY mYbYlTYm tkr ls kumYu Mk ZYSBuBMY tkr Jukz OkZY. AY HBTY nYsM tkru YBuZ qlMH muYBzZ kJ ulbHYZ Bsm tkr BcckqYm tkruZYcTYZ Mk nY SYuZrBmYm.

Ecco laid all the inscriptions and Rose’s letter in front of him. “Our first objective is to crack the codes and hope they lead us to Rose,” Ecco said. “I wonder what role the Sudoku plays in all this.”

He paused in silence. “While I work on the codes, Jason, please visit all major churches and see if you find something familiar. Pete, Christie, and Amalea, do the same with the train stations. You three stay together. Will, please go with Jason. I don’t want any more disappearances. Brad, you can stay here. In all of French history, which woman is likely to be riding a horse in armor? In fact, let’s start with your letter.”

Turning to me, he said, “Professor, would you be so kind as to give me some computer help?”

I nodded and Ecco set to work. A few hours later, we had worked out all the inscriptions. My programs helped try possible codes. The first we cracked was Brad’s:

You are at the Place Jeanne d’Arc. You may not know this, but Paris, below the ground, resembles a large swiss cheese. Through the long history of the city, even when the city was called Lutezia by the Romans, Parisians dug tunnels underground to get building material. In 17th and 18th centuries, entire streets of Paris collapsed because of the swiss cheese–like caverns underneath (we French call this gruyere). In 1777, Guillaumot, secretly of our order, was appointed to take charge of the underground passageways in order to prevent them from collapsing. He closed off some tunnels, reinforced others for public use, and kept a few for our private use. Some of the best are the oldest, especially in what is now the fifth arrondisement.

image from book

Next we worked on Rose’s letter. It took until the next morning to find the correct solution to the Sudoku, as there were several possibilities. My help wasn’t so useful for that until the end.

“Tunnels. Of course,” said Ecco after studying the map. “I know where to go.”

Puzzle Contestant: Please send in translations of all the inscriptions, Rose’s letter, and a good solution to the Sudoku. Find the theatre close to the balance point. (You’ll know what that means after you decrypt Rose’s letter.)

We found the theatre. There were several possible tunnel entrances. Ecco began to check out each one systematically. At the third one, he descended a few steps, then looked up at us and said, “Do you want to hear the good news first or the bad?”

“The good,” we replied in unison.

“This is the correct entrance,” he replied.

image from book

“And the bad?” we asked.

“There is another encrypted message to decipher,” he said. “Professor, are you available?” He pointed out a message on a small plaque:

 GbzLVyb, tg. hLLV. jVg fu yxpu Sb IVx fO IVx'sb LVyb umfp OBg. qVx'zz Sb BSzb uV OfCv xp. Hxu vVC'u Qbu zVpu. Gb, fCLzxvfCQ DVpb, Bgb XfumfC 160 ybubgp VO umfp bCugBCLb, Sxu fu'p sbgI vBgK. Umb uxCCbzp Bgb Bzz Bu B pfCQzb zbsbz, Sxu Xb yBI Sb fC BC fCubgfVg gVVy. GmbC IVx OfCv xp, IVx'zz KCVX fu SbLBxpb umb puVCb fp gbAzBLbv SI pyVVum pubbz.

“Scot, you brought rope with you to France, didn’t you?” Ecco asked.

“Yes, two 60 meter ropes and one 40,” Scot replied. “We were thinking of going cliff climbing in Bourgogne.”

“Please bring all three ropes and some webbing to link them. Pete, please go with him,” Ecco said. “Cheri, your French is the best. Please take Will and Jason and get us five or six flashlights with plenty of batteries.”

When Scot and Pete returned, Ecco asked them to attach the two ropes with the webbing. “Will and Jason, we’ll wait for you here,” Ecco said, handing them the flashlights Cheri had brought. “Inside, turn to the left every time you come to a fork in the tunnel. You are looking for a steel door. When you find it, leave the rope there and bring us all in. While you’re looking, you may reach the end of the rope or a dead end. If so, back up to

A soccer ball had just hit Ecco on his head. The boy who kicked it came over. “Excusez-moi Monsieur,” he said as he picked up the ball and ran away.

As Ecco was slightly dazed, I finished the instructions to Will and Jason.

Puzzle Contestant: Decrypt this final inscription, and finish the instructions as the professor might have.

About an hour later, Will and Jason emerged. “We found it,” they said.

image from book

In the meantime, Ecco had recovered from his soccer injury. We entered the tunnels. When we arrived at the steel door, an elderly man opened it before we knocked. Behind him stood Rose and behind her, with his back to us, sat a man in his forties.

Kate rushed in to embrace Rose, who looked slightly flushed but otherwise fine. “It’s our spiked apple cider,” said the old man who opened the door, now quite fine without the cane. “Combined with our secret techniques of hypnosis (Mesmer learned from us), it helped Rose remember exactly what she saw on the bridge. Dr. Ecco, I’m pleased to meet you. My name is Christien de la Foi. My apologies to you all. We needed this little time alone with Rose. She told us much valuable information concerning the precise description of the men who followed her in Ohio and the men who tried to corner her on the Hood River bridge in Oregon the fateful night of her dive into the Columbia. From her description, we are certain of who pursued her.

“Unfortunately, their identities make us worry even more. Calvert Warren is a fanatic. He is convinced he works for a holy cause and will kill without hesitation. His brother Elder is a forger. He will take on the identity of anyone who is ‘not of the elect’ for all kinds of purposes - to steal from them, to ruin their reputation, even to frame them. We believe he has already been at work against one of us.

“I know this is terribly impolite, but before I go on, could we ask your young companions, including Rose and Kate, to keep watch at the entrance? What we’re about to reveal must stay in the smallest possible circle. Also, we’re not sure that child with the soccer ball was entirely innocent. Please tell your friends not to leave the tunnel or to make too much noise.

“How did you know about the soccer ball?” Kate asked.

“We are an old order in touch with modern technology,” said de la Foi. “We have sensors all around the amphitheatre. But our order has always embraced technology. When I was young, they sent me to school to learn assembly language. I was the first programmer of our order to use string processing for the records of databases. We had to work with kilobytes of memory, so every bit counted. ASCII was much too expensive an encoding.”

He then turned to me and said: “Professor Scarlet, we’d appreciate it if you stay as we discuss this problem with Dr. Ecco. We know that you work closely with Ecco and we think your computer expertise may be of great help.”

After the climbers, Rose, and Kate left, the man in the seat rose and walked towards us. “Dr. Ecco, it is good to see you again,” he said. “Surely you remember me.”

“Elmer Nuth, how could I forget?” said Ecco. “It was your fifty thousand dollars that enabled me to get the ballots out of Oregon.”

“Quite right,” said Nuth. “And you destroyed, or thought you destroyed, the Warriors of the Rapture in the process. They were on the side of good, I thought. And you made them appear to be criminals. I cursed you for that.”

“But now you’ve changed your mind?” asked Ecco.

“They are thieves,” Nuth replied. “Worse, they are violent, horrifically so. Now that Rose has told us whom she saw, I think I know what they want to do.”

“More election tampering?” Ecco said with a sigh.

“Let me tell you the whole story,” Nuth replied. “I supported the Warriors of the Rapture to help win the 2004 election. I wanted our candidate to win. I saw no reason not to cheat in the elections. Others had done it before us, and computerized voting made it so easy. The Warriors infiltrated voting machine companies and voting commissions. I knew I could trust them to work for the cause. They were so disciplined that the fact that they cooperated to change the course of the election has never been revealed, not even now. What Rose uncovered was the tip of a very deep iceberg. Ohio still had punch-card ballots in places. The real ones had to be gotten rid of. Anyway, we won the election and I was ready to go on with my life.

“But the Warriors had just begun. They take the Biblical book of Revelations seriously and they want to bring about the Great Tribulation. Once they told me they wanted their followers to hold all ranking officer positions in one ballistic missile submarine. At first, I laughed. What could that do for anyone? But I began to read up on the operational rules for submarines in case of war. They must enjoy a certain autonomy in case they can’t communicate with base. If all ranking officers agree, the submarine can fire missiles even without external control. What if a submarine sent missiles towards New York and Moscow and Beijing after warning the faithful? A tidy little apocalypse.”

image from book

“Are they really that crazy?” I asked in horror.

“The Righteous will go to heaven and that’s what they want,” Nuth went on. “Goodness will rule over the earth. It sounds so good and nobody can prove it won’t happen - their internal logic is too perfect.”

“But how could they want to destroy the earth?” I asked in horror.

“They are convinced of their cause,” de la Foi replied. “I understand them in a way. People fear change. The world changes. People seek the old certainties - the more fundamental, the more certain.”

“They failed in their first attempt to control a submarine,” Nuth continued. “And then they came under investigation after the election fraud case. Whereas investigators managed to get some of the small fry, the big fish got away and formed The End of Babylon, known to insiders as the Tribulants.

“I couldn’t support this madness, so I began to disassociate myself from them. By that time, however, Elder knew how to forge my signature. Suspecting my failing loyalties, Calvert came to inform me that I was leaving my house and giving him the keys to my cars. Knowing what Calvert was capable of, I did so immediately and came here to Paris to visit my brother Templars.

“In the meantime, Elder has tested his ability to move small amounts of funds among my three accounts at Chase, Citi, and Commerce banks by writing checks from one to the other. He hasn’t taken any money out yet according to Christien who has friends at the bank, but I expect he will soon. They plan to bribe key computer operators and lower-level bureaucrats to get all their officers to serve on the same submarine. Nobody would believe us if we told them about this plot, especially because we ourselves don’t know which officers are Tribulants. We must stop them from using that money.

“So how can I help you?” Ecco asked.

“Well, I have $3 million in the three bank accounts Elder has access to,” answered Nuth. “He can forge my signature, but I can also write my signature, of course. When I left the apartment, I took one check from each account. The rules of each bank are the usual: If I write a check for an amount less than or equal to the account balance, the payment will go through. Otherwise the check will bounce.

“We want to send the checks out today. I want to guarantee to recover as much money as possible, even if I’m very unlucky. For how large an amount can I write a check?” Nuth asked.

Puzzle Contestant: How much do you think the check amounts should be?

“If that is all you know, then $1 million from each account,” Ecco answered. “At least one account must have at least that much, because if all had less, then the total wouldn’t add up to $3 million. If you wrote checks for more and every account had exactly $1 million, then you would get nothing.

“Would it help if I wrote the first check, and then waited to see if it cleared before writing the others?” Nuth asked.

“It might, but there is no guarantee,” Ecco replied.

Puzzle Contestant: Explain Ecco’s reply.

“What if I knew that one account (but I don’t know which one) has at least $600,000 more than another one?” Nuth continued. “Then how well could I guarantee to do?”

I didn’t hear that response.

“But no, my dear Elmer,” de la Foi continued. “We know more than that. We know that one account has exactly $600,000 more than another and, in addition, that the larger of the two has the most money and the smaller of the two has the least money,” de la Foi said. “Dr. Ecco, can we guarantee to get more than half the $3 million in that case even if we send all checks simultaneously to the banks?”

“Yes, you can get this much,” Ecco replied after a few minutes, showing a figure to de la Foi.

“And what if we wrote one check, saw whether it cleared or not, then wrote the second and saw whether it cleared, and then wrote the third?” Nuth asked.

“In that case, you can net nearly $2 million,” Ecco replied scribbling a number on a sheet of paper. “Here is the exact number.”

Puzzle Contestant: Answer the question when there is a known $600,000 or more difference between one account and the other. Then answer the question assuming the difference between the highest and lowest is exactly $600,000, but all checks are sent simultaneously without the benefit of feedback. Then try the feedback case.

The discussion with de la Foi had taken some time. Ecco had answered the questions. I could see fatigue had started to take over. “Gentlemen, we hope we’ve helped you with your money matters,” Ecco said standing up and turning towards the door. “We’ll be going now to get some fresh air and would be obliged if you didn’t kidnap any of us again.”

De la Foi bowed. “We are much in your debt,” he said. “You have done more than we could hope and have given direct evidence of your great talent. We thank you.”

Ecco turned to leave, but he found the door to be locked. He turned to de la Foi, his eyes flashing in anger.

“Unfortunately, we must ask you for another service,” de la Foi said.

“Haven’t I done enough?” Ecco asked between clenched teeth.

“We’d like you to endorse these checks,” de la Foi replied. “They will be made out to you to an account we’ve opened for you at the Zurich Geheimbank.”

Ecco looked at me, shaking his head in disbelief.

“But I don’t want your money,” Ecco said. “I came to windsurf and to protect Rose and Kate, not to get rich. Besides, the money would make me a marked man. Elder would figure out I received the checks and he would come after me. Why would I want that?”

“You don’t,” de la Foi answered, “but you must see that we have no alternative. Elmer can’t write the checks to himself because they can forge his signature. It’s out of the question for me to be involved. The inner order of Templars must remain secret. Others can drink cocktails at the Cafe des Templiers and tell stories about the Square du Temple, but we few who tend the flame of the movement and who know its innermost secrets must stay out of the public eye.”

“Find somebody else,” said Ecco firmly, as he walked towards the door. “Make the money out to a herder in Mongolia if you have to. I’m in no need of the money and don’t want to run this risk.”

“That we cannot do,” said de la Foi. “If we wrote the check to an innocent third party, Calvert would come to break his neck.”

“And why won’t he do the same to me?” asked Ecco.

“Because Elder will stop him,” de la Foi replied. “Calvert always defers to Elder and Elder will not be able to resist trying to outsmart the great Dr. Ecco.”

“Suppose I believe that,” Ecco replied. “Suppose he tries to outsmart me and he fails. Then won’t I have Calvert on my neck?”

“No,” de la Foi replied. “We just need a little time to locate them. Within a few days of their contacting you, we’ll be ready. Ecoutez, Dr. Ecco, we know we are asking you a lot. We are convinced that if you don’t help us, millions will die. We implore you to accept.”

Ecco sighed. “Professor,” he turned to me. “Please tell Kate to fly back to the States, take the twins out of school, and to go on a long trip. She is to use cash everywhere. I will treat Rose and her climbing friends to a long tour of the Bourgogne. They won’t be hard to convince.”

Turning towards de la Foi, he said, “Okay, you win. It’s all coming together to me now. You kidnapped Rose to get me to come find you. You knew I’d come to France, too. How could you know that? The Babylon Falls notes I found in my mailbox came from you, too, didn’t they?”

“Not the first one, but the later ones,” de la Foi admitted. “We need you, Ecco. The Tribulants are watching your apartment. We are watching them. For your safety and for ours and for the sake of humanity, we wanted you in France.”

“I hope your cleverness lasts,” Ecco said. “What next?”

“We have found a house for you in the south of France near Brive,” de la Foi said. “It has only nine inhabitants now, but it was a thriving village in the 1500s. You will be safe there at least for a while. Strangers are easily noticed. Elder will propose a betting game. In spite of his religious ravings, he’s an incorrigible gambler. You will demand that he use an escrow account. Once he does that, we’ll be able to track him down and alert the authorities. He always uses the same escrow agent.”

De la Foi looked at his watch. “It is dark outside, so I think we can gather your young friends and follow the tunnels to Cluny.”

That evening, Ecco and I took the train to Brive, while Kate, Rose, and most of her friends headed off to Bourgogne. We were met at the station and taken to the tiny hamlet of St. Pal. Pete, Mike, and Christie came with us. “A little extra protection has got to be good, doc,” Pete said. It occurred to me that we didn’t really know these climbers, especially Pete, the newest addition to Rose’s circle of friends. Should we trust them?

“I agree, Professor, it’s a risk,” Ecco said to me. “But if they’re bad, I’d rather that they be far from Rose.”

We settled into a sixteenth century stone manor house with a conical tower. For the Templars, towers played the role of lookout and treasury, but the door up to this tower was locked. The house was comfortably appointed and the stone walls made it cool but never cold. A few steps away, there was a Roman bath, also lined with stone, that children used in the summer. In the other direction stood a large and well-maintained church, a sign of the thriving agricultural community that was once centered on the market at St. Pal. Ecco remained inside the house or sat in the garden for a few days. The garden had a thick wall of prickly rose bushes everywhere except for a small gap leading to a neighboring field. Ecco avoided that gap.

image from book

“There is nothing to do until the checks clear,” he explained as he lounged in the garden reading a textbook about Swiss banking laws.

The third day after our arrival, we received a phone call. “Geheimbank has your money,” de la Foi told Ecco. “In the wine cellar, behind the Burgundy, you’ll find the bank codes.”

Ecco checked his account. “Nearly $2 million,” he said. “It’s bait and so are we. Let’s see where they bite.”

Finally, an email arrived:

Dr. Ecco,

The first round goes to you. But we still have more to go. Everyone says you are smart, but the check writing was sheer luck.

In the meantime, I need the money back for my projects. I propose a bet on a game based on Nim. The basic Nim game goes like this. Start with 20 sticks. Each player may take one, two, or three sticks per turn until there are none left. The last player to remove a stick loses.

If I’m the first player, there is a winning strategy, as someone of your great intelligence must know: Work backwards from the end. I know that I win, if I leave you just one stick. That means that if I leave you five sticks, then I will win because no matter how many you take, I can end up leaving you one. For example, if you take two, I will take two. If you take three, I will take one. Similarly if I leave you nine sticks, I can guarantee to leave you five sticks the next time you go. That will ensure a win for me. Starting at one, and increasing by four each time, we get 5, 9, 13, and 17. Therefore, in my first move, I take away three, leaving you with 17, and thereby ensuring my victory.

I have several variants, which I would like us to bet about. In every variant, I will go first, but I will give you a choice of the number of sticks we begin with between 20 and 25 inclusive. We will then play for an even money bet. Do you agree to these conditions?

May the Righteous Prevail,

Elder

Dr. Ecco turned to me. “So far, de la Foi is right about the money and the contact,” he said. “But this guy is way too confident - ‘great intelligence’ indeed.”

Ecco didn’t answer Elder for several hours. A new email appeared, a lot less friendly.

Dear Dr. Ecco,

Calvert has located you to near Brive. We also know that your bank is the Geheimbank of Zurich. I hope you agree to play.

May the Righteous Prevail,

Elder

“How could Calvert be so close?” I asked, horrified at the thought of this muscular ex-Marine strangling us in our sleep. “Who knew we were here? The climbers, Kate, and the Templars. Whom can we trust?”

“I think the climbers are trustworthy,” Ecco replied. “In any case, I think we have to try this bet and hope the escrow account trap works.”

Dear Elder,

Please call me Jake. I would love to play with you. If we play for money, we both want to be sure the other will pay up if he loses. So once we agree on a wager, we should both pay into an escrow account.

All the best,

Jake

After sending the email, Ecco motioned to me to go to the garden. Under a tree and in a low voice he said: “We’ve got to figure out who told Elder our whereabouts. Of the people we have met, only Nuth and de la Foi know which bank I used. I don’t think they’re suspects.

“De la Foi could easily have taken the money for himself from the beginning. Anyway, the fact that he gave real gold coins to the kids suggests he is in no need of cash. Likewise, why would Nuth use up his checks if he wanted the Tribulants to end up with it in the end? It’s possible that there is a Tribulant among the climbers here with us, but if all three or even two were Tribulants they could have compelled me by force by now. Also, de la Foi never told them about Geheimbank. I guess it’s possible that one of them is a Tribulant and is just biding his time. But my intuitions are against this.

“I think it’s more likely that the Templars have a spy in their midst. Didn’t de la Foi tell us the Warriors were fallen Templars? He also mentioned that the Templars were an old order conversant in high technology. Suppose someone were eavesdropping on our conversation with Nuth and de la Foi. Such a person would not have the bank account information, but might have at least an idea where we were, though not precisely, because de la Foi didn’t say so out loud.

“Should we encrypt a letter to de la Foi?” I asked.

“How to do it - that’s the question,” Ecco replied. “If another Templar is a spy, he may know the style of code de la Foi used in the inscriptions. We must give de la Foi a message that he is uniquely likely to decrypt even though it will be short.”

Ecco went to his desk. Fifteen minutes later he came out with:

 101752467A44B405C4801E3409E8314549AB1DDA22E44D29AEB42

“Hexadecimal, isn’t it?” I asked.

Puzzle Contestant: You should decrypt this one.

“Indeed Professor,” Ecco replied. “Please send it to de la Foi. I’ll explain the code to you later.”

Elder’s next email had already arrived.

Jake, Jake the red-haired snake.

I know that old de la Foi has prepared to trap me with the escrow. He thinks I’m going to use Idaho Trust. But I think they’ve been infiltrated by Feds and other riff-raff. So we’ll use Sheila’s Trust Bank on the Isle of Man instead.

Here are the rules of our first game. Call it Exclusion Nim. The rules of Nim remain the same except that a player may not remove the same number of sticks as the previous player unless only one stick remains and the previous player removed one stick. For example, if player A takes two sticks, the other player may take one or three but not two sticks in the turn following. I go first, so I have no constraint in my first move, but you may demand that we start with any number of sticks between 20 and 25 inclusive.

I challenge you to a $100,000 wager. If you agree, propose a number of sticks and deposit that amount with Sheila.

Righteous,

Elder

Ecco looked at me puzzled. “Why would he throw away his money like this?” he asked shaking his head. “Anyway, I will send another message to de la Foi. Encrypt it using the same encoding I used in my last message to him: ‘elder wants to use sheila trust in the isle of man”

Puzzle Contestant: You should encrypt this one.

Dear Elder,

I accept. Please start with 21 sticks. My money is in the Isle of Man.

Warmest Regards,

Jake

The game was an easy win for Ecco.

 Pile starts with 21 Elder removes 3 Ecco: 1 Elder: 1 Ecco: 3 Elder: 2 Ecco: 1 Elder: 3 Ecco: 2 Elder: 3 Ecco: 1 Elder: 1

A new email arrived soon afterwards:

You are not bad, Ecco.

This time, I go first and I start with 20 sticks. We still play Exclusion Nim except you have one advantage. You can choose some number about which you can’t be excluded - called an exclusion exception. For example, suppose you choose the 3 as an exclusion exception. Then, even if I remove three sticks, you may remove three in the next turn. In that case, however, if I remove one stick, you may not remove one next and similarly for two.

This time I propose a bet of $200,000 - double or nothing.

Elder

“I think he’s getting upset,” I told Ecco.

“How do you know?” Ecco asked.

“No more ‘Righteous,’” I replied. We both laughed.

“I still don’t understand why he’s proposing games that he is sure to lose,” Ecco said. “Maybe he wants me to stay in one place while Calvert comes in for the kill? Let’s call in the climbers.”

We went outside and found Mike scaling the bell tower of the church. Christie was belaying from the ground and Pete was yelling advice.

“After you reach the top, would you mind coming down, Mike?” Ecco said from below. “I need to talk to all three of you in the garden.”

“Sure, doc,” Mike said. Straddling the corner of the tower, heels down and hands and feet hugging the tiny cracks, he made it to the belfry. A minute later, all three were under the tree Ecco had reserved for important conversations. I began to realize he thought the house might be bugged.

“As you’ve guessed,” Ecco began, “we’ve been put here to stay out of harm’s way.”

They all nodded.

“Well, harm is following us. You have to know that the man who is coming after us is merciless, strong, and fanatical. He may have equally unsavory friends with him. He wants money from a bank account and he’ll do whatever he has to do to get it from me. If any of you want to join Rose at the Bourgogne, now is the time.”

“No way,” said Pete to the nodded agreement of the others. “That’s why we’re here. Our job is to keep harm away. We’ve been laying traps around the house. Nothing electronic. Just clear plastic cables that will tug a bell here or there if someone crosses the gap between the hedges. I think that’s the natural avenue of attack. We don’t know what they’ll come in with, so we think it’s better to hide rather than fight. If we’re attacked, one of us will distract the intruders while others wake you up and take you by underground passage to the church. We’ve found a room for you just below the belfry. The bells will ring every hour after 7 A.M. every morning, but you’ll be safe, as long as you need to hide there.”

Ecco nodded his head in admiration. “How did you know to do all this?” he asked of Pete. “Did you grow your dreadlocks after serving in the special forces?”

“I just see a lot of movies,” said Pete. It was one of those boastfully modest denials in the spirit of ‘I’m just a country lawyer.’

“I guess that means I’ll be sleeping on the couch downstairs for a few days,” said Ecco.

“Right,” said Mike. “One of us will be on the lookout every night.”

“I’ll also stay awake from 4 A.M. on,” I volunteered.

“Great, so I’ll have two guardian angels,” Ecco replied with a smile. “There’s something else I want to see, but we’ll have to go inside for that.”

We followed him inside and he invited us all to sit down. Ecco picked up a simple wooden cross and began twirling it in his hands as if to gauge our reactions. He smiled at us as he did this. I remember thinking how strange this was because Ecco had never before shown any interest in religious objects.

Suddenly, he hurled the cross across the room at the mantle just below the fireplace.

Pete leapt to his feet. “Burn in hell!” he yelled as he rushed towards Ecco. Ecco prepared to defend himself but then Pete just stopped, placing a hand on a table as if to steady himself. He then slumped into the nearest chair, put his head in his hands, and began to sob. Ecco put his hand on his shoulder. “Talk to us, Pete,” he said gently. “Tell us where you’re from, what you believe in.”

“They took me out of my misery,” Pete said slowly. “Drugs, alcohol, anything that could let me sleep through the night after all the death I had seen in missions that never hit the newspapers. They promised me peace and salvation. They cared for me, or so I thought. I learned the Bible. We read Revelations over and over. Then one day they changed their tune. They kept repeating that world peace required a great outpouring of blood. They called themselves the Warriors. Knowing my military background as a Navy SEAL, they asked me to train them. They talked about death as cleansing. One day they talked to me about a ‘witch’ named Rose who had done the Warriors a bad deed. They showed me a picture. The clear eyes, the beautiful features - she looked more like an avenging angel to me.

“A week later, a late July day, I just left. It was easy to find cover in the trees where we were training and I made my way to Portland. Then up to Hood River. I slept among the vans that the windsurfers used as mobile homes in the Walmart parking lot and I hooked up with some climbers. Finally, I met Rose, even stronger and more beautiful than in the picture. I knew the Warriors would want revenge. She needed protection. So I joined her group of friends. I didn’t tell them what I knew; they just thought of me as a fellow climber.

“You’ve got to believe me. I don’t want to hurt you and I certainly don’t want to hurt Rose. But I must ask you. No more throwing crosses. I know why you did it, but please don’t do it again.”

“Yes, I do believe you,” said Ecco. “If you had been still on their side, you could have taken out Christie and caused Mike to fall to his death. Still, I had to know your real story.”

Mike, Christie, and I slowly recovered from what we had seen and heard. Finally, Christie asked, “If the gap is the place where they’ll come, why don’t we block it?”

“Got to give them a place to attack,” Pete said. “I’m going to plant some surprises for them if they come that way. Avoid that part of the grounds.”

The three of them went outside and Ecco returned to his email. “Well, Professor, what do you think?” he asked. “Should I choose an exemption that will guarantee me a win or that will allow Elder to win?”

“Let him win,” I suggested. “We need him to underestimate us. Also, maybe he’ll call off Calvert.”

“My thought exactly,” Ecco said. “I’ll make my exclusion exemption be 2.”

The game proceeded by email exchange:

 Pile starts with 20: Elder removes 3 Ecco: 3 Elder: 1 Ecco: 2 Elder: 1 Ecco: 2 Elder: 3 Ecco: 1 Elder: 3 Ecco: 1

Then came the email:

To the great Dr. Ecco:

And I thought you were so good at games. You, too, have feet of clay!

The Righteous Prevail,

Elder

Puzzle Contestant: Could Ecco have chosen a different exclusion exemption and have guaranteed to win? If so, state which one and prove that you have a winning strategy. If not, show that Elder has a winning strategy when he goes first with 20 sticks no matter what.

Ecco chuckled. “Let him have his fun,” he said. “Every day that passes is a day that he doesn’t have his money. He’s clever though. Not only did he switch escrow accounts to avoid being caught himself, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had some way of getting my signature from Sheila.”

It took less than a day for us to receive our next message.

Ecco,

No more fun and games. I know you have eight accounts at Geheimbank. Very prudent of you to spread your eggs in more baskets than I used. Fortunately for me, I have a check for each account. Oh yes, we have sympathizers all over.

I also know their rules: If even one check bounces on any account, then all accounts will be frozen from the end of business on that day until you appear in person to get your money.

Why am I telling you all this? First, to tell you that you’ll have to move to get your money. But second, to tell you that there won’t be much left. My eight checks will all be for the same amount and I expect to get at least a million from your accounts before the bank freezes them. It’s up to you to figure out the amount.

The Righteous Prevail,

Elder

“I see our loss resuscitated his arrogance,” Ecco said, shaking his head. “He didn’t like the fact that I got well more than half his money when Elmer wrote the checks. The question is whether I can prevent him from getting more than half of what I have left. What do you think, Professor?”

“It will be a difficult psychological task to figure out the amount he’s going to write,” I said. “He could choose a large amount in the hope that you’ll concentrate your funds in a few large accounts. Or he could choose a small amount, 1/8 of your total in case you distribute evenly.”

“Penetrating the psychology of a criminal mind is not my method, Professor, you know that,” Ecco said. “Let’s look at the problem mathematically. We want to distribute the amounts in the accounts so that no matter which amount he writes, he will get half or less of what I have there. Given that he’s already won $100,000 from me through my loss at Nim, it would seem that he’s on a roll.”

Ecco paused a moment. “One non-mathematical tactic we have at our disposal is to write large checks ourselves,” he said. “If ours arrives first, his will all bounce.”

Ecco wrote a check for $3 million and gave it to me. “Please go to town and send this by Chronopost,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll move around the amounts in the accounts in case his checks arrive first.”

Puzzle Contestant: All Ecco can do is to shift funds from one account to the other. How should he do that in order to prevent Elder from getting more than half of what Ecco has in Geheimbank, no matter which amount Elder chooses to write on all the checks? The rules are as before: A check that is less than or equal to the amount in an account will be honored. If more, then the check will bounce.

By the time I came back, Ecco sat on the couch, now most of the way through the Swiss banking law book. “What now?” I asked.

“When an animal is angry, it acts decisively and impulsively,” Ecco responded. “Elder, behind those godly pretensions, will rediscover his animal nature when he finds that he gets less than 45 percent of the money at most. The question is: How will he act? My hope is he doesn’t understand the Swiss as well as I do.”

With that, he showed me his message to de la Foi:

 091682549A22C648EAC85AF4676A6ED6691408FA9BB410355A09351200780

Puzzle Contestant: Decipher the message.

As Ecco predicted, Elder flew to Zurich traveling under the name Jacob Ecco. The Swiss police arrested him as he presented his forged papers to the bank officer. The French police caught Calvert when he attacked an undercover agent in Brive whose orange hair and lanky frame made him resemble Dr. Ecco. De la Foi had tipped off the police, but had given no background information.

“I didn’t need to,” de la Foi explained at the banquet prepared in our honor at a discrete chateau in Rambouillet a week later. “The Swiss throw you in prison if you can’t pay your debts. They punish banking fraud with far more severity. As for the French, the police really don’t like their brother police officers to be attacked. Calvert will not have a fun time in prison, no matter how strong he is.”

Rose and her friends were at a separate table exchanging stories. Pete sat at her left and put his hand on her back gently. She didn’t shake it off. Between the cheese and ice-cream courses, Pete gave her a present - a picture he had taken of a door in St. Pal. She kissed him and put her head on his shoulder.

image from book

De la Foi looked at them with a slight smile. “The sad part about aging is that your wisdom lags behind your age,” he said. “I know exactly now what I should have done at 25. I recognize my duty and am proud to exercise it, but there is so much I have missed. So much.”

“You did just save the planet, Christien,” I reminded him, my hand on his arm.

Nuth came to visit us in New York shortly after our return from France. “What are you going to do with your money, Dr. Ecco?”

Ecco handed him a check. “Give it back to you of course,” he said. “It’s yours.”

“No,” said Nuth. “Dispose of it as you wish. The less money I have, the less I’ll be tempted to reengage in politics.”

Nuth could not be otherwise persuaded.

Ecco put some part of the money in the twins’ names for college and sent almost all the rest to refugee aid in Darfur. With the little left over he offered to take Kate and me to Il Molino. The restaurant asked if he had a reservation.

“Well no, but I’m the well-known Dr. Ecco,” he replied with assurance.

“Sorry?” the young voice responded. “We don’t need a doctor right now.”

“No, Dr. Ecco the mathematical detective,” said Ecco. “You know the Ohio election fraud, the Warriors of the Rapture

“Sorry sir, but you need to make a reservation just like everyone else,” we heard.

Ecco hung up and smiled. “My 15 minutes of fame have come and gone. That’s mostly good, well, I guess. Anyone for Asian fusion food at Peep?”




Puzzles for Programmers and Pros
Puzzles for Programmers and Pros
ISBN: 0470121688
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 81
Authors: Dennis Shasha

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