The Crimson Cipher by Susan Page Davis

Author:Susan Page Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781609360122
Publisher: SeaStory Press

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Friday, May 28, 1915

John waited at the hotel, hoping his trip from Washington to Charleston wouldn’t be wasted. He’d taken a room under the name of the man arrested in New York—Kurt Schwartz. Unless the New York police were wrong and Schwartz’s friends knew of his arrest, John ought to receive a visit soon. That, or a message bearing instructions of some sort.

Captain Waller had prepared him to receive an enciphered message. Solving ciphers was not John’s forte, but he had carefully studied the message Emma deciphered two days earlier, and he thought he could untangle one scrambled in a similar manner. If not, he would telegraph the message by a pre-arranged method from the hotel directly to Commander Howe, who would have his cryptographers drop everything else to solve it quickly.

Waiting was the hardest part. It was now Friday, and the ship would sail on Tuesday. It would be unrealistic for the contact to approach him too close to the sailing time. They would need time to transfer the supposed bomb to the cargo hold of the ship.

A courier had dashed down from New York, bringing him a suitcase from the prisoner’s apartment. It contained a homemade bomb—minus the TNT that would have made it lethal. Instead they had substituted a harmless look-alike material. Officers in New York were now backtracking on Schwartz’s trail to find out where he obtained the TNT.

John had put a few civilian clothes in the suitcase with the apparatus and shed his uniform and identification. Only Waller knew the real identity of the man waiting to meet Kurt Schwartz’s contact in Charleston. While he had alerted navy officials in Charleston, they had decided to keep the details of John’s meeting under wraps for fear of scaring off the man who was to make the contact.

On his arrival Thursday evening, John had visited the waterfront first and located the Larkin in its berth, loading cargo. Word had reached Washington just before he left of another American steamer hit by Germans. The Nebraskan was struck by a torpedo or a mine—the authorities weren’t sure which—forty miles off Ireland. The ship had limped into Liverpool without loss of life. John was determined to save the Larkin from a worse fate.

He’d gone from the harbor to the St. John Hotel. He didn’t dare leave the room for long, lest he miss the contact, so he had dinner and breakfast sent to his room. He’d brought along a crime novel, but the story couldn’t hold his attention. His thoughts kept turning to Emma. Was she thinking of him?

By noon Friday he was ready to climb the walls, so he decided to pop out for a quick meal down the street. The pot roast and gravy tasted good, but John couldn’t stop fretting while he ate. Was he foolish to leave the hotel, where the saboteurs planned to reach him?

He paid his bill and carried a slice of pie back to his room in a small box. Entering the hotel lobby, he scanned each person in the room.

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