Free The Titanic Enigma by Tom West Page B

as soon as they had returned from the
Exclusion Zone the day before. Derham stared at the collection of papers as Kate and Lou pulled chairs up to the far side of his desk. He had a surprisingly small office – racks of shelves
along one wall; a large painting of the USS
Minerva,
an aircraft carrier he had served on, dominating a wall at a right angle to the shelves. Behind him, a window opened out to a view of
the naval yard, cranes and gunmetal hulls in the distance.
    He punched a button on his phone. It rang and a man answered. They heard him over the speaker. The guy sounded very young.
    ‘Kevin. Got a job for you,’ Derham said. ‘Can you drop by?’
    ‘Sure.’
    The office door opened and the captain’s secretary came in with two mugs of coffee.
    ‘I did promise,’ Derham said without looking up from the papers. ‘Kevin Grant’s one of our boffins. Works a few doors down.’ He nodded towards the corridor.
‘Encryption specialist. Away with the fairies most of the time, but a genius when it comes to encryption.’
    There was a tap at the door and a young man appeared around the edge. He had cropped hair, big brown eyes, a large nose and acne. He looked like he was barely out of his teens.
    Lou took a gulp of coffee, stood and offered the kid his chair.
    ‘It’s cool,’ Kevin Grant said.
    ‘Kevin. What do you make of this?’ Derham handed him the single sheet from EF’s box. ‘By the way, this is Dr Kate Wetherall and Dr Lou Bates.’
    Grant gave them a brief nod, barely lifting his eyes from the paper. Kate and Lou watched as he scanned the encoded message.
    ‘Clever shit,’ he muttered.
    ‘Sure you don’t want to sit down?’ Lou asked.
    ‘Yeah, actually I will,’ Kevin Grant said and lowered himself into the seat as Lou stood to one side cradling his coffee.
    ‘It’s a short message,’ Derham commented. ‘Should that make it easier?’
    ‘The opposite, actually,’ Grant replied, barely paying the commander any attention. ‘The shorter the message, the less I have to go on to find the key. And . . .’
    ‘And?’
    ‘The dude who put this little baby together created such a convoluted key. It’s . . .’
    ‘You can crack it, though, right?’ Kate commented.
    Grant looked at her as though she were mad. ‘Of course I can crack it. Might just take a bit of time, is all.’
    ‘I can keep this, yeah?’ Grant asked Derham.
    The captain nodded. ‘But don’t flash it around.’
    ‘What? You reckon anyone one else will be able to decipher this? No friggin’ chance . . . sir.’
    ‘Confident guy,’ Lou said, returning to his seat as the kid left.
    ‘Has every reason to be. If anyone can make sense of any code known to man, he’s the one to do it. Never seen him beat yet.’
    ‘OK,’ Kate said. ‘So the rest of the papers?’
    ‘That takes a different set of skills. Come with me.’
    *
    Professor Max Newman, the chief scientist at the naval station, worked in a state-of-the-art facility that was all pristine metal benches and halogen lighting. Rows of slender
plastic machines lined one wall, their function a mystery to all but the initiated; flat screens displayed dancing numbers and geometric shapes.
    The lab was empty and Newman evidently about to leave. He was clasping shut his briefcase as Jerry Derham tapped on the door.
    ‘Got a moment, professor?’ Derham asked.
    ‘I was about to head off, actually,’ Newman replied.
    He was a tall, slender man. Bald, his forehead deeply lined, he possessed an air of carefully nurtured self-containment. He headed up his department efficiently but, according to reports,
clinically. He could not claim to have any friends here at the base or indeed elsewhere. He looked tired and self-absorbed.
    ‘Just wanted a quick word. Can you spare five minutes?’
    Newman checked his watch and nodded. ‘Sure.’
    Derham introduced Lou and Kate.
    ‘Ah, yes, working on the
Titanic
material. Pleased to meet you.’ He shook their hands. ‘Too