Altered Children
Chapter 9: Cipher

Silkar Union Prime Minister Valarde kaKinon asked Gaspo kaPakar to come in her office. He was her chief adviser, whose judgment she trusted above all others. At six feet tall and almost two hundred pounds, the prime minister was of average height and weight for a Silkaran woman. Almond shaped yellow eyes under a narrow forehead ridge. Light red skin. Bushy hair shaped into three buns, one on each side and the back of her head, exposed simple hoop earrings on pointed ears.

She’d had a promising career as a fashion model before attending the university, and was considered attractive. Despite the negative view many people had of models, her quick intellect made it impossible not to take her seriously, especially with her certificates as a Scholar of Law and an Adept of Politics. When Valarde first decided to run for political office, her party’s leaders realized good looks never hurt a politician.

“Let us step out onto the balcony, Gaspo. I would like a breath of fresh air.” They left her office, walked to the door leading to the sheltered balcony and stepped outside. “I assume my office is being swept for listening devices every morning.”

“Once in the morning,” her adviser confirmed, “and once in the afternoon if you leave for lunch.”

“Good. It is especially important to keep what we say secret from the General Staff. Oh, and make sure your office is swept daily as well.”

“It is being done, madam. We are definitely not ready to cross swords with the military on this issue . . . or any other for that matter.” Taller than seven feet and weighing under two hundred thirty pounds, the prime minister’s adviser was slimmer than most Silkaran men. As usual, he wore his hair in tight curls at both sides of a wide part in the middle of his head. Admirers claimed the glare of his narrow green eyes could turn political opponents to mush.

They sauntered back into the building and returned to the prime minister’s luxurious office. She stepped to the window to look out at the eastern district of Cor Velot, 28 stories below. She motioned him over and he joined her.

Both of them were as awed as always at the beauty of its architecture, numerous large parks and spacious boulevards. They could barely make out the lake at the edge of the southern district. Cor Velot was the Silkar Union’s capital city with nearly three and one half million people. It stretched for more than one hundred eighty square miles between the Peavil and Shta Qwan mountain ranges to the west and east respectively. Both ranges had peaks reaching above ten thousand feet.

“Always a beautiful sight, Madam Prime Minister,” Adviser kaPakar said.

“Yes, it is. I would hate to see it change.”

They made their way to the conference table that seated four in a roomy, northeast alcove. The large corner office had a wrap-around window facing the southeast. Two sofas were positioned against the north and west walls with a small end table between them. Her desk faced the center of the room, but presented a view of the eastern mountains.

“So, Gaspo, what more do we know about the senior officers our General Staff assigned to the Jeritha Study Group?” She listened intently as he described the information gleaned by the Executive Security Service over the previous several weeks.

“I have no doubt the General Staff selected Admiral teReevat to command the study group’s flotilla because of his unwavering commitment. I also believe they chose Captain teDanon as the league military attaché and promoted him to command the flotilla’s flagship at least in part because of what had happened to his father. His motives seem primarily personal.”

“I wish we could hear those secretive General Staff discussions,” Prime Minister kaKinon murmured.

“Our ESS agent, Scalpel, reports the General Staff may be taking some kind of action against Jeritha.”

“Has the study group found solid evidence of any imminent threat by a people who, from what we know, are still basically planet-bound?”

“Madam Prime Minister, nothing new at all. It is difficult to understand why our military is so certain of a threat. But, you know how it is when someone locks onto an idea. One can become so single-minded that all contrary information is ignored.”

“Good point, my friend. I just want to make sure the reconstituted study group considers all relevant information obtained regarding Jeritha. We must keep a close watch on the investigation, and see what turns up over the next few years.”

“Since our league ambassador is still a member of the study group, that should not be difficult,” Adviser kaPakar observed.

“I regret introducing that quarantine resolution five years ago,” Prime Minister kaKinon said, “but we had to placate the military.” She believed in the basic goodness of people and it had taken awhile for her to learn to play politics by hiding her true motives if necessary.

Adviser kaPakar cleared his throat. “I think we all agree the military is too concerned about the situation with Jeritha, but five years ago we had to present their case to the league’s Executive Council.” He was a gifted politician, who knew well when to concede, compromise or stand firm on a position.

“The military has a little too much influence and power to suit me,” Prime Minister kaKinon added. “It worries me, as well as others in the government.”

“We are walking a fine line here,” her adviser said. “The governments of Dakonia and Jitza stood alone in supporting our resolution, and they still support quarantine.”

Gaspo kaPakar’s left eyelid twitched as he considered possible ramifications of any action their military might take toward Jeritha. “Bowing to the pressure applied by the military in this instance greatly troubles me. If the situation is not handled with tremendous care, it could badly affect the entire civilization of Jeritha, as well as our status with the league.” Gaspo was every bit the Silkaran upper class male in his looks, dress and demeanor.

“Troubles me too,” Prime Minister kaKinon confessed. “We need to keep on top of it. How often do you hear from Agent Scalpel?”

“We usually get weekly reports, but sometimes nothing for two or three weeks. I meet with him only when absolutely necessary. He must be careful. Though assigned to the Covert Operations Directorate of Military Intelligence, he is not highly placed.”

The prime minister leaned forward. “I hope he can get more information. We need to know what the military is really doing, especially if they are planning any actions directed toward us as well as Jeritha. They must know we have our suspicions.”

“At our next contact, I will see what he can do,” her adviser promised.

“Gaspo, I appreciate the risks you and Scalpel are taking. Keep me informed. I will let you get back to work.”

Once her adviser left, she carried her glass to an extremely comfortable chair near the window. How did we get to this point? she wondered. Elected at thirty-three years old six years ago, Valarde kaKinon was the youngest prime minister ever in the Silkar Union, and just the fourth woman. She’d been elected more as a compromise candidate than in her own right and, nearing the end of her first term still felt she had yet to prove herself worthy of the post.

Prime Minister kaKinon thought of the recent history of the Silkar Union. Almost one hundred twenty-five standard years ago, we established our first colony in a planetary system outside our own . . . and it was not the most peaceful colonization. A relatively primitive species had occupied the one planet in the system on which Silkarans could live. Almost wiped out because their resistance was so pitiful and ineffectual, she thought.

She sipped from her glass of wine and theorized. A civilization either expands or it dies. But, how does it expand without eventually encroaching upon another? That question never arises if there is sufficient room for expansion, and available planets to colonize. The military has been quite unoccupied recently and may be getting restless. And they may see Jeritha—as close as it is to us—as a competitor for habitable planetary systems.

The prime minister rose, strode to the conference table, placed her empty glass on it and headed to her desk.

She continued to mull over the situation she faced as events moved inexorably onward. I once believed we had grown rather civilized over the years. Now I am not so sure. The last two planets we colonized were uninhabited and unclaimed, so maybe they were not good tests of our enlightenment. This is the most serious and, potentially, the most divisive issue we have faced in at least three generations. Not sure any of us are quite ready for what may come. Hope I am up to the challenge.

On the last Wednesday of January 2023, Mack Wallace arrived in Bremerton, Washington for a four-day visit. He’d met with intelligence officers from naval bases in Everett and Bremerton, the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, and the Fairchild, Elmendorf, and Mountain Home air force bases (Washington, Alaska and Idaho respectively), to review UFO activity in the northwest.

Mack had sold the pentagon on the importance of evaluating the reports from around the country and was spearheading the study. He’d be traveling for the next couple of months.

Mack brought his wife, daughter and son so they could all meet with Dr. Dennis Murphy, Ramaraju “Rama” Gupta, and the Starkey family before flying home to Virginia on Sunday.

Mid-morning, Saturday, they convened at a UW conference room. “I’m glad we all had an opportunity to meet face-to-face,” Mack said. “This way, I can more effectively help you set up the encryption for your websites and e-mails. Tom told me—”

“Let me, Dad,” Tom interjected. Mack nodded. His son continued. “The altered children, as you call us, are still having trouble finding one another telepathically.”

“Uh-huh,” Jason added. “Pete and I recently talked on the phone with Tom. We decided that meeting and getting better acquainted should make it easier to mind-talk whenever we wanted to.”

Dennis raised his eyebrows and Rama nodded his head as they glanced at each other. “Makes good sense, boys,” Dennis said. He turned to Mack. “So, Mack, what have you found out from your investigation?”

“Well, nearly all the information about the domestic spying our government agencies can do is in various statutes, regulations and executive orders, most of which are in the public record. There are, however, a lot of classified activities. Despite that, I’ve been able to dig up interesting material on what governments are doing.”

“How bad is it?” Howard Starkey asked.

“I summarized the information on this document. Sanitized so it’s untraceable. The situation’s been pretty consistent over the last hundred years. One good sign, the legal basis for civil liberties has been strengthened here as it has in most countries. But, there’s still a danger from influential people who are willing to protect our country at any cost. We must remain leery of those who crave power and the self-righteous who want to force their political or religious beliefs on everybody else.”

Mack drank some water before continuing. “You can expect the worst from more despotic countries. But, from time to time, the US and other democracies bend and overstep their own legal restraints.

“Because of national security and international terrorism, governments spy on their citizens. They still arrest and confine people for far too long without filing charges or allowing access to counsel, sometimes holding them incognito.”

“Have you reached a conclusion?” Dennis pressed.

Mack looked at everyone sitting around the table as he answered. “Yes. First of all, I’ve found no evidence of any country currently experimenting on its citizens without their knowledge. The practice seems to have ceased since the cold war ended. But, governments might start doing it again if they feel justified. I believe the children would be at grave risk if powerful people became aware of their paranormal abilities. We must keep it a secret.”

“How do you think we should proceed?” Rama asked. “What do we do to protect our websites and communications?”

Mack strummed a rhythm on the table. “I believe the websites, e-mail, faxes and written communications should be encrypted. But, there’s only one—”

“Wow!” Peter blurted. “Can we develop a secret code?”

“Sure,” Mack replied with a smile. “But, there’s only one practical approach to give us an uncrackable code. I started out in cryptography. Anything we can devise, other than a one-time pad technique, will be broken by the government’s supercomputers—it’s just a matter of time. Plus, if we create a complex code using one of the mathematical or substitution techniques normally used, it will simply make them suspicious.

“Governments use supercomputers to check websites and e-mails for key words and suspicious codes. Not all governments are required to have a warrant to tap phones and intercept mail. And . . . well . . . I can’t swear our government always gets a warrant. Many of the key words they look for are pretty obvious, and we would never need to use most of them. For example, there’s ‘jihad’, bomb’ and ‘smuggle’. But, I don’t have sufficient access to tell you all the key words to be avoided.”

“I know websites use 256-bit encryption now. Can we use 512-bit encryption?” Jason queried.

“We don’t have computers powerful enough to do that and can’t use university computers. Because of all the federal funding, their systems probably have a back door allowing access by the feds; they could find whatever encryption programming we use.”

“So what’s this one-time pad encryption you mentioned?” Howard asked.

“Here are the basics on secret codes,” Mack answered. “In the main, codes are based on substitution. For example, you write a message. You replace each letter with a different letter. If all the letters are numbered from one to twenty-six, then let’s say you add five to each letter in your message to get the replacement letter. This way, the letter ‘C’ would be replaced by . . . uh . . . by an ‘H’. Now, your message looks like gobbledygook and nobody can read it unless they know your replacement method.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Dennis said. “Can’t we do something similar?”

“No. That type of code is too easily broken by an entropic analysis. The new words may have different letters, but the frequency and pattern of the replacement word’s usage is the same as the replaced word. You start by breaking the most often used words, such as ‘and’ and ‘the’, and the rest fall into place. A good cryptographer or anybody with a mid-range computer can easily break this kind of code.”

“Ahhh, I get it,” Peter said. “With a one-time pad you use a replacement only once, huh?”

Mack grinned. “In essence,” he replied, as he took some papers out of his briefcase and passed them out. “What I just gave you explains it all, including a list of key words I know of.

“A one-time pad requires a code book with all the letters and the typical words you might use in a message. Each of these letters and words has a randomly generated number, maybe five digits long, assigned to it. Then you create a pad of paper with a series of randomly generated five-digit numbers on each sheet.

“First, you write your message using as many words and letters as possible from the code book. Then, write down the numbers assigned to each word, or for each letter spelling a word not in the code book. These numbers represent a simple substitution code, which could easily be broken. However, the next step is to add the encoded numbers to the random numbers from the pad, taking each pad number in turn and using it only once before moving on to the next one.

“The process encrypts the message and essentially turns it into a sequence of apparently random numbers. Without knowing the pad sequence of numbers it’s impossible to crack the code . . . if you have followed the basic rules.” Mack got up and ambled over to the whiteboard, picked up a blue marker and wrote the rules on it:

1. Use the numbers on the pad in the given order.

2. Use each pad sequence only once.

3. Destroy used sheets from the pad right after use.

4. Make sure the numbers on the pads are randomized.

5. Make only two copies of a pad, one each for the sender and receiver.

6. Keep the sequence of numbers on the pad secret from everyone else.

He turned back to the group. “Given a copy of the one-time pad and code book we can easily unscramble an encrypted message. Messages encrypted in such a way are truly unbreakable.”

“I get the impression,” Rama said, “you’re going to tell us this system has flaws.”

“Very perceptive. But not exactly flaws.” Mack returned to his chair while continuing to speak. “The main problem for us is the necessity of printing and distributing lots of pads and code books to our growing group. It’s cumbersome and reduces security of the code. Modern systems handle this problem by violating the rules. They replace the paper pads with a complex computer program for generating what only approximates a random sequence of numbers.

“The program uses an algorithm and certain key values to encrypt the information. Because it isn’t completely randomized, someone with a sufficiently powerful computer may find the patterns in the encrypted messages and break the code.”

“So, where does this leave us?” Howard wanted to know.

“We have to come up with a workable one-time pad encryption nobody else can break, and a rationale for using it in case a government spy program sees a coded e-mail and triggers an investigation.”

“Mack, can you come up with a solution for us?” Dennis asked.

“I’ve been racking my brain for days and haven’t got anything yet.”

“Dad,” Tom said, “Jason, Peter and I might be able to come up with something.”

“Yeah, Commander Wallace,” Jason added. “We’ve been practicing mind-talking with each other and are getting real good at it.”

Peter jumped in. “Maybe we can distribute the pad telepathically.”

“It’s something to consider,” Mack said.” But, wouldn’t it be difficult to send so many numbers to a few hundred altered children without errors being made?”

“Oh . . . I guess . . . darn it all!” Peter exclaimed.

“Maybe we should break for lunch and forget about breaking codes for a little while,” Roberta Wallace suggested. “What do y’all think?”

“Well, my brain’s beginning to overload,” Dorothy Starkey quipped.

“I could certainly use a pit stop,” Mack said.

During the next hour, they ate lunch at the Faculty Club and talked sports, reviewed movies they had seen, covered anything but the problems they were facing—except for Jason, Peter and Tom, who were huddled together at one end of the table in total silence. Lunch completed, they meandered back to the Psychology Department building taking in the sights of the university campus and were soon in the conference room again.

“Excuse me,” Tom said, once everyone was seated. “Jason, Peter and I have an idea how we can get the one-time pad to work for us.”

“The floor is yours, Tom,” Dennis acknowledged.

“We know quite a bit about computer programming and the Internet,” Tom said.

“Books are readily available in stores and on the Internet for anyone to obtain,” Jason added, “both fiction and non-fiction.”

When they all looked puzzled, Peter knelt on his chair, leaned on the table with his hands, and cried out excitedly, “Don’t you get it? One of those books can be our code book.”

“But how can you assign random numbers to the words you get from the book for use in a message?” Mack asked.

Peter cocked his head and looked at Tom, who sighed deeply before saying. “We write a message, search the book for the words in our message . . . and use the page, line, and position from the left margin to each word. Each word location will be used only once per message.”

“It’s not truly random,” Jason explained, “but without knowing the book we use, nobody will know what the numbers mean—and it will look random if we skip around in the book.”

All eyes were on Mack, as he stared at the ceiling and contemplated the suggestion. Then he said, “You know, that might work. But how are you going to let everyone know what book to use and where to find it?”

Tom smirked and crossed his arms. “We tell all the children telepathically,” he replied.

“All right,” Mack said, “that takes care of the code book as well as the pad. Have you considered how our people will identify where page numbers end and line numbers start, or line numbers end and word position starts?”

“Yes,” Jason answered. “Each page number will be four digits, with letters to the left of the actual number. Each line number and word position will be three digits with letters at their left. It doesn’t matter what letters are used and would make the code even harder to break.”

“And if we change the code book just once every couple of months, wouldn’t it give us all the security we need?” Peter inquired.

Mack sat back and shook his head. “Hmm, probably. Especially if you change the code book frequently enough. It looks like you’ve thought of almost everything, . . . except how are the parents and professionals going to access the website to read or send e-mails?”

“Oh . . . yeah,” Jason said.

“Oh, oh. How did we miss that?” Tom muttered.

“Hmm . . . wait a minute . . . I think I have it!” Peter shot out. “The children can get the messages . . . and . . . uh . . . decode them, and print them . . . for their parents, who can send the messages by messenger to the professionals.”

“Sure, and we reverse the process if a parent or doctor wants to send an e-mail,” Jason suggested.

“And . . . and we only have to do it for the e-mails with something we want to keep secret,” Tom added.

Mack thought a minute and said, “This all sounds feasible. Details have to be worked out, but these kids came up with a great approach.”

“We still need a plausible story to tell any governments’ agents who might question us about these coded sites and e-mails,” Dennis reminded them.

“I know, I know!” Tom exclaimed. “Since it will all be on our altered children’s website, we tell them it’s a secret code game Jason and Peter invented.”

“Yeah, that’s good Tom,” Jason said. “Then . . ., we can even set up a fake code book and pad, and—”

“—link from the home page to a page with encrypted puzzles and riddles we can show anybody,” Peter flung out with a conspiratorial chuckle.

“Kids, this false lead is a great idea,” Mack said. “It looks like you’ve pretty much solved our problem.”

“Excuse me, but there’s one more problem.” Rama rose and began pacing. “Something we missed in all our exuberance. Children, you can’t mind-talk with other altered children reliably yet, can you?”

Peter gripped the edge of the table. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Watch your mouth, Peter!” his mother prodded.

Laura Wallace put her hand over her mouth, but failed to smother a laugh. Her mother, Roberta, tapped her on the shoulder and shook her head.

“Sorry,” Peter murmured, his face red with embarrassment.

“No, we can’t,” Tom admitted.

“So far,” Jason explained, “we have to get to know someone first . . . somehow, before we can . . . can dependably choose that person to mind-talk with.”

Rama stopped pacing. “Okay then, why don’t we put a contact form on a page that can only be reached if a few questions are answered correctly? Then they can make contact with us.”

“Good thinking,” Dennis offered. “It also has the advantage that if there are any altered children out there who we aren’t aware of, they might find us through this website.”

“Once people get past the site’s screening process,” Mack advised, “they should have to log in using their own username and password, as well as a secret question and answer, for additional security and so they can be identified as legitimate users.”

“One last question,” Howard said. “Would we be able to scramble our phone lines so we can talk freely?”

“How about it, Mack?” Dennis added. “Is it possible . . . or even practical?”

“I’m sure I could get scramblers. But scrambled calls would definitely be noticed by some government intelligence agency—somewhere—and we won’t find them so easy to explain away. No, we’ll have to come up with another way to discuss sensitive information.”

“It seems to me,” Roberta interjected, “that we will just have to be very careful with the words we use and how we refer to anything we want to keep secret.”

“There may not be a better way,” Mack concluded. “We’ll see what we can work out.”

For the next hour or so, Dennis took Dorothy, Roberta and Laura on a walking tour of the campus. At the same time, Mack and Rama worked with the children on the final details regarding the design of the altered children’s website and the encryption methodology.

They decided to limit Rama’s consolidated website to the physiological, neurological and psychological information as had been originally intended, with no mention of anything related to extraterrestrials or government conspiracies, and no encryption.

Anything which might trigger an investigation would be included on the children’s encrypted website. Finally, after a half-hour of friendly chitchat, they went their separate ways.

Once home, Tom communicated frequently with Jason and Peter, generally by telepathy. They worked out the details of their version of the one-time pad encryption, with Mack giving suggestions and feedback.

Over a period of several weeks, and with Mack, Rama and Tom assisting, Jason and Peter developed their website with the false pad and code book, and the encrypted puzzles and riddles. The children then selected the first real code book for use by the group to communicate secretly, and passed the book’s name to other altered children.

With their parents’ agreement, Jason and Peter were permitted to act as web masters so they could maintain the children’s site, with Rama’s occasional guidance. The new web masters began changing the code book every month to maintain tight security.

Follow-up CT scans on the children over the ensuing five or six months, showed increasing activity in a normally quiescent area of the right brain, which the doctor’s associated with strengthening paranormal abilities.

This time seemed to speed by as the children practiced their maturing extrasensory skills. While they got better acquainted with each other through contacts by phone, mail and e-mail, their telepathic skills grew stronger. The children soon learned to identify one another telepathically and mind-talked more frequently.

The paranormal abilities of some previously unknown altered children had developed particularly slowly and it took longer for families and doctors to notice their unusual behavior. Increasing worry finally drove them to search for answers until they too found the websites and ended their isolation.

By mid-2023, many of the psychologists and educators who worked with the altered children and their families realized that many were floundering and confused.

Dr. Karen Pacheco obtained valuable documentation on the parapsychology degree program developed by Douglas Moran at the University of Maine in the 1990s. The program was designed to train psychologists to help people who are struggling with newfound paranormal abilities to overcome any associated stress.

Dr. JoAnn DeVry, the head of Tom Wallace’s private school, was now part of the technical group. JoAnn, Karen and several other professionals prepared a development plan for each of the altered children. It provided direction for the children’s intellectual, social, psychological, and parapsychological growth. Where possible they would promote home or private schooling, but they also knew many families would need help with funding so their children could attend private schools.

Shortly past ten o’clock in the morning, late in August 2023, after Dorothy Starkey had left for work, the doorbell interrupted Howard’s home school lesson with Jason and Peter. Howard opened the door to a man and woman. Severely cut, dark business suits. Official. They flashed badges and introduced themselves as FBI agents from the Seattle office.

“FBI? Well, what can I do for you?” Howard queried.

“We would like to discuss something with you,” the stocky, dark-haired male agent said. Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the (F)indNƟvᴇl.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The slender, Japanese-American female agent stepped forward. “May we come in, please?”

Howard showed them in to the living room and had them sit down, as Jason and Peter came in and sat on both sides of their father on the sectional sofa. Howard introduced his sons and asked, “How can I help you?”

The male agent leaned forward. “If you don’t mind, we’ll record our conversation.” He placed a recorder on the coffee table and announced the date, time, location and the names of everyone present. “We’re following up on something our computers detected related to suspicious computer activity involving your household.”

“Specifically,” the female agent said, “a website we traced to you seems to be passing a number of coded e-mails between an IP address traced to your house and several IP addresses in Morocco and other middle-eastern countries. This has caused concern at the Department of Homeland Security. Give us an acceptable explanation and we’ll be on our way.”

The male agent passed seven pages of encrypted e-mails to Howard.

Howard glanced at the printed pages. “Oh, is that all,” he said with a loud sigh. “For a moment, you had me worried.” He then explained about the children’s website and secret code game they had invented.

“How could kids this young do so much?” the female agent asked.

The agents listened to Howard’s description of child prodigies and the advanced intellectual development of his children. They went through a few more questions and then the male agent shut off the recorder.

“I’m pretty good at chess,” he said. Looking at the boys and thinking this should take only a few minutes to beat them, he queried, “Would either of you like to play a game?” Peter elbowed his brother in the side. Jason grinned and volunteered.

Well, the result wasn’t what the agent expected. Twenty minutes into their game, the agent flipped over his king. “You really got me there, Jason.” The agent smiled for the first time and shook his head. “I thought I had you, but then you moved the knight and I knew it would be mate in another two moves.” He got up from the table and faced Howard. “Mr. Starkey, we would like to see their website now.”

Howard got to his feet and turned around to face his sons on the couch. “Boys, please take the agents upstairs. Show them your website and how the game works.” He then faced the agents. “If you both would please follow the boys.” Jason and Peter jumped up and headed for the stairs, followed by the two agents.

Jason and Peter showed them the website and the game of puzzles and riddles. The agents spent half an hour checking out the site and playing the game.

“See,” Jason said, “there’s nothing to it, it’s just a game.”

Peter threw in his two cents, “Yeah. That’s everything. Nothing to it.”

The female agent’s eyes glazed momentarily and she declared, “Well, I’ve seen enough. There’s nothing to it.”

“No, nothing at all,” the other agent concurred.

Jason and Peter made brief eye contact. “That was weird,” Jason thought to Peter.

“Yeah, it was,” Peter replied. “Did you see her eyes?”

“Sure did. Let’s find out if we fooled them,” Jason said.

As the agents left, the boys delved into their minds. Both agents were satisfied by what they’d seen and had forgotten about the coded e-mails they had brought with them. To be safe, Jason & Peter immediately replaced the real code book and informed the other children.

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