Hell Bound

Twenty-Seven

Bucky was eager to get back to the book. He insisted that we needed to talk about it privately. And he wasn't going to stop pestering me until we did. And he actually used those words. So I helped him up the stairs, and we returned to my bedroom. He sat down on the bed, breathing hard from his trip, and I sat down beside him. He immediately jumped into work. He opened the book, turned to a page, and showed me where the letters were bolded.

"It starts on page thirteen," he explained. "Which happens to be the day of your birth, according to your birth certificate. I don't know if that's a coincidence. The first few pages spell out 'Beata.' Then 'Frindt.' Then, a few pages later, there are only three bolded letters. I, G, and H. Several pages after that, I managed to pick out the word Sokovia."

"And the numbers?" I asked. He showed me where various numbers had been added to the ends of random paragraphs. They were nearly identical in font and would have gone entirely unnoticed by me if he hadn't pointed them out. I stood up. "Let me get my laptop."

I kept my computer in the spare bedroom where Graham was staying. I meant to take it out before I let him have the room, but I'd been distracted by finding Bucky covered in blood. I returned to his side a minute later, lugging the laptop with me. He told me the numbers while I typed them up. Then the two of us sat staring at the screen until the coordinates came up.

"Where is that?" I asked.

"Ohio," he replied. I nodded slowly. "Middle of nowhere."

"Only about an hour and a half from the town I grew up in, which is coincidentally in the middle of nowhere." He glanced at me before going back to the book.

"There's more in here, but it's not as easy to decipher. He was good. All I've been able to get after that is a bunch of numbers and letters in a seemingly random pattern. I don't know what they mean." He showed me his notebook, where he'd written down the sequences he'd picked out so far. "It's not uncommon for teams like yours to have their own codes and languages so they can communicate nonverbally or without being intercepted. The Commandos had a similar system, but this is unfamiliar to me."

"You remember the Commandos?"

"I remember enough." He flipped the page and handed the notebook out. "See if you can come up with anything." I took it from him and looked over the code he'd written down. The sequence seemed far too random for anything to come to mind. It didn't look familiar.

"I don't think Russell ever showed us a code like this. If he did, I can't remember it. But I can't remember half my training anymore either. I was always told it was a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress, but now I'm not so sure."

"Russell wouldn't have given you a code unless he thought you could understand it. Or he'd given you something to decipher it with. Can you think of anything at all?"

"No, I don't..." I paused and sat up straight. "My parents had a code," I told him. I moved the laptop aside so I could face him. "When I was a kid, my mom had a code. I never learned it. But she used to write letters to my dad that way because he was always into puzzles and things. I remember her writing them during the day when we'd do our homework. I remember thinking it was weird that she had this code memorized, but he didn't. Like it was constantly changing or evolving." He studied my face for a moment. As if more clues would suddenly manifest.

"Or it was following an intricate, ever-changing pattern," he decided. "Did you ever see your dad decode them?" I shrugged.

"Not that I can remember, but I wasn't the most observant kid, surprisingly. I don't know why I even remember the code thing at all. You don't think we should ask her, do you?"