Intervention: A Science Fiction Adventure (12 page)

Part of the deal
Christopher had with the school was that they would pay for his
round-trip ticket home for any and all holidays. Christopher took
full advantage of this with every holiday. He seemed to enjoy these
trips home to spend a little time with his parents, as much as he
liked his studies.

This went on year after
year. Christopher never did take a summer vacation, with apologies to
his parents. He was building a resume of degrees at an unprecedented
rate, and he was finally starting to fill out his lanky body.
Professor Stevens was anything but disappointed with Christopher’s
work. Those who had any contact with Christopher were amazed, and
couldn’t help but like him. Even though he was a little quiet and
didn’t usually say much off the subject of his studies, he retained
a down-to-earth and easy going way about him. He didn’t seem to
have any interest in the opposite sex. As he approached his later
teens, plenty of female students found him not only likeable, but
quite attractive. After all, he was turning into a handsome young
man. He just never seemed to notice they’re subtle flirtations. He
was, after all, quite preoccupied.

Young women weren’t
the only ones interested in Christopher as he approached his later
teems. He was approached more and more often by large corporations
and the military as well. Christopher wasn’t interested. He knew
what he wanted to do and his patience would pay off, but not until he
was nearing his twenty-first birthday.

A letter came in the
mail. The name on the letterhead was the one he had been waiting to
see: Central Intelligence Agency.

Christopher smiled. The
letter was a simple invitation and gave a name and number to contact
if he was interested.
Of course
he was interested. This was what he had been waiting for. After a few
days of sorting out his thoughts and priorities, he made the call to
Agent Johnson. Christopher couldn’t help but wonder if his name was
really Johnson. He smiled and kind of laughed to himself, thinking
this was going to be fun.

After parking the van
the school had provided, Christopher went to the gate at the airport
as he had been instructed. There he met Agent Johnson, who, after a
brief greeting, led Christopher to a doorway. As they passed through
the door and out onto the tarmac, Christopher saw a sleek plain black
Learjet sitting by itself in the morning sun.

“Let’s get aboard,”
Agent Johnson said emotionlessly. “We’ll be taking off straight
away.”

An attractive young
lady showed Christopher to a seat, saying, “Hello, Christopher. I’m
Monica. It will be a fairly short flight. Once we’re in the air,
I’ll check back and see if you’d like something to drink. Don’t
forget to buckle your seat belt.”

The young lady pushed a
button, which closed the door automatically, as the engines came to
life. A moment later, the sleek black jet taxied to the end of the
runway, turned onto the runway, and in a flash was airborne. Once the
plane leveled off, the young lady returned as promised. “Would you
like something to drink now, Christopher?”

Even though Christopher
had gotten used to people knowing his name before he knew theirs,
this wasn’t school. He was impressed. Then again, this was the
C.I.A. and they probably knew everybody’s name.

“Do you have any
orange juice?” Christopher asked politely.

“Certainly. Would you
like some more coffee agent Johnson?”

“Please,” he
responded.

“I’ll be right
back,” Monica said as she turned and headed for the galley.

It seemed to
Christopher that he had barely finished his orange juice when he felt
the plane slow and begin to descend. They came in fast and smooth,
almost gliding onto the runway. The pilot, taxied the aircraft to an
isolated hangar, pulling the plane right in before bringing it to a
stop. Monica pushed the button by the door, and the door opened as
magically as it had closed.

“We’re here,”
Agent Johnson said as he got up from his seat. “Shall we?”

Agent Johnson led
Christopher out a door to a plain dark blue Ford sedan parked outside
the hangar. Once in the car, Christopher fastened his seat belt and
they were off. “It’s about a ten-minute ride to the agency. Agent
Johnson is expecting you.”

Christopher couldn’t
help but smile.
Are they all
named Johnson?

As if reading his
thoughts, the agent said, “In case you’re wondering, we’re the
only two Johnson’s in this area; no relation.”

They walked up to the
front entrance of the CIA building. Christopher felt a great feeling
of satisfaction. He was about to walk through the doors he had long
been waiting to pass through. Pride surged through him as they walked
over the large round logo in the foyer’s floor as they approached
the elevators. They got off the elevator on the seventh floor and
walked down to the end of the hall to a very important looking
office.

As they entered, Agent
Johnson spoke to a woman sitting behind a desk in the outer office.
“Hi, Marge. This is Christopher Adams.” He turned to leave. “I’ll
see you later, Christopher,” and left closing the door behind him.

“Hello, Christopher.
I’m Marge. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable and I’ll
tell Agent Johnson you’re here,” she said with a nice smile.

Christopher sat in one
of the seats for only a moment before Marge spoke up. “You can go
in now, Christopher.”

“Thank you.”

Christopher couldn’t
help but notice how large the office was.

“Hello, Christopher.
I’m Agent Johnson.” He smiled and said, “The other one. It’s
a pleasure to meet you. Please have a seat.”

Christopher shook his
hand and sat in one of the chairs in front of Agent Johnson’s desk.

“I’ve been
monitoring your progress ever since Professor Stevens made me aware
of you several years ago. It seems Professor Stevens thinks you’re
quite an amazing young man. Judging by your record and rate of
advancement, I’d have to agree. He says you have quite an interest
in decryption. We do a little bit of that here, you know.”

“Yes. I know,”
Christopher responded.

“That’s why I’ve
asked you here today.” There was a buzzing sound on Agent Johnson’s
desk. “Excuse me,” he said as he picked up the phone. “Good.
Send him in.”

The door opened and an
older gentleman entered. Agent Johnson stood and walked out from
behind his desk to greet the man. Christopher stood as well. “Hi,
Bill. Bill, this is Christopher Adams, the young man I was telling
you about. Christopher, this is Bill Brandon. He’s in charge of the
cryptology department.”

Christopher met Bill’s
extended hand and shook it. “Hello Christopher. I’ve heard a lot
about you.”

“Thank you, Mr.
Brandon. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Bill, why don’t
you take Christopher down to your department and show him around.”
Turning to Christopher, he said, “We’ll talk some more when you
get back.”

“Come on,
Christopher. I’ll give you the fifty-cent tour,” Bill said as he
led Christopher out of Agent Johnson’s office and down the hall to
the elevators.

The door opened on the
fourth floor to a reception desk. “Barb, meet Christopher Adams.”

Bill led Christopher
through a mass of partitioned cubicles filled with people busily
going about their business. They stopped at one of the first
cubicles. “This is where you would start if you decide to come on
board. This is Jim Walker. Jim, meet Christopher Adams.”

Bill explained, “Jim’s
working on this code encryption,” he said, pointing to the
chalkboard full of jumbled letters not seeming to make any sense.

“It’s a code
developed by a splinter Arab faction we believe to be involved in
several terrorist bombings in the Middle East over the past couple
years.” Jim inserted, “I’ve only been working on this one for
about three weeks. This one’s pretty tough for such a small
faction. The codes these splinter groups develop aren’t usually
this complex; however, this one’s turning out to be quite a hair
puller.”

Christopher looked at
the chalkboard for a moment, then looked at Bill and asked, “May
I?”

“Bill looked at Jim
for any objections, and seeing none, said, “Sure. If you have any
idea, I’m sure Jim would welcome it.”

Christopher looked back
to the chalkboard for a moment, then pointing at several areas of the
text, turned to Jim. “I may be wrong, but it looks like they not
only substituted letters for letters, as one would expect in any
encryption, but there it looks like they also jumbled the words
within each sentence, and the sentences within the paragraphs.”

Jim and Bill both
looked very hard at the chalkboard for a moment. Then Bill said, “I
think he’s onto something here, Jim.”

“I think you’re
right, Bill. If I substitute this sentence for this one here, it
makes a lot more sense. Then I can start to unjumble the words within
the sentences. By God, I think you’re right, Christopher. That’s
amazing. How did you—”

Bill interrupted,
“There’s a lot more I want Christopher to see. Besides, it looks
like you have some work to do.”

Jim bid Christopher
goodbye, “Thanks, Christopher. I’ll let you know how it turns
out.” Bill looked at Christopher, “Maybe I should see about an
office for you.”

Bill led Christopher
through the rest of the cubicles, introducing him to several other
people along the way. Bill couldn’t help but think of what he had
seen Christopher do back at Jim’s cubical. He had never seen anyone
figure out a code of such complexity in just a brief moment. To Bill,
this was nothing short of amazing. He knew right then that
Christopher was special—
very
special. He couldn’t wait to tell Agent Johnson. Once he was aware
of what had happened, he would certainly want to revise his offer to
Christopher.

Bill led Christopher to
a door with the warning “restricted area” in bold letters on the
door. Next to the door on the wall was a keypad with a card swipe.
Bill swiped his card and then entered a series of numbers on the
keypad. The yellow light that had appeared went out and now a green
light lit up and a buzzer sounded briefly, indicating the door could
now be opened. Bill turned to Christopher. “I saved the best for
last. I think you will like this.”

Bill opened the door
and Christopher followed him into a large room filled with the
largest computer Christopher had ever seen. It made the computer he
had worked with at school look like a toy.

“What do you think?”
Bill said proudly.

“It’s beautiful,”
Christopher replied.

It wasn’t the answer
Bill would have expected, but after what he had seen Christopher do a
little earlier, it somehow seemed to fit. “This is the largest and
fastest computer in the world. We fondly refer to it as ‘Mega
Bucks.’ A play on words, but, actually quite accurate if you
consider the price tag. We use this baby to work on super codes,
mostly Russian, but anything we can’t break the old-fashioned way
gets fed into Mega Bucks here. As fast as it is, it’s still pretty
time-consuming when trying to decipher some of the tougher codes.
It’s been working on the latest Russian code for the last seven
weeks nonstop, and still no luck. You wouldn’t want to take a crack
at that one, would you?” Bill said jokingly.

“Actually, I can’t
wait,” Christopher responded sincerely. “Of course, I can’t
right now, but I really look forward to getting to work on a real
challenge.”

“I think it’s safe
to say you’ll get the chance. Well, that’s about it here, so why
don’t we go back upstairs.”

* * *

“So, what do you
think of our little operation, Christopher?” Agent Johnson asked as
he motioned for them to sit down. Christopher and Bill sat in the
seats in front of the desk.

“It’s very nice,”
Christopher responded.

“Well, I’m glad you
feel that way. I’m going to come right to the point—”

“Excuse me, Agent
Johnson,” Bill interrupted. “Christopher, I wonder if you might
excuse us for a moment. You can wait outside with Marge.”

“Sure.” Christopher
got up and went into the outer office to wait.

After he was gone, Bill
continued, “I’m sorry to cut you off like that, but before you
make him an offer, I thought you should know what happened
downstairs.”

“Go on,” Agent
Johnson responded.

Bill continued, “Well,
I was introducing Christopher to some of the people downstairs. Jim
Walker was one of the first. He’s been working on a pretty tough
code we intercepted from a group of Arab terrorists. Well, we were
standing at his cubical when out of the blue Christopher told him how
the code was encrypted. Just like that. He had only seen the code on
the chalkboard for less than a minute. Jim’s been working on that
code for over three weeks, and he wasn’t any closer to solving it
now than he was three weeks ago. I’m telling you, it was the
darndest thing I’d ever seen.”

Agent Johnson thought
for a moment. “Are you sure there wasn’t something, I mean, some
way he could have been wrong?”

“Not a chance. I’m
telling you, I’ve been doing this for nearly twenty-five years, and
I thought I had seen it all. That is, until today. I’ve never seen
anything like it. He made Jim and I both feel like a couple of
beginners.”

“All right, what you
want me to do?” Agent Johnson asked.

Bill went on, “Make
your offer one he can’t refuse. He’s definitely not even close to
entry level like we thought. I know what you’re going to say. He
has to learn procedures. If what I just saw is any indication, he
could learn our procedures before lunch and know them better than we
do by dinner. I think at least level three. And throw in a nice
office, too. Just don’t lose him.”