bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2012) — Winter 2012 // Hiver 2012, pp. 41–43
Felix Africa sat by the window of Café Engel, watching Senate Square. His face lit up and he laughed. “What?” said Bugbyte. “He’s finally shown?” “No, but the sign on that streetcar said Arabia’, Just think of getting on in Finland and getting off, I don’t know, in the Kasbah.” “Very romantic, boy wonder, but here in Helsinki, Arabia is just an old ceramics factory.” Felix stirred his coffee.
A roguishly handsome man approached. He said, “Bond. James Bond. Let’s go upstairs.” Out a back door, he strode across a courtyard and up a rickety staircase into a room with thick doors. “Should be safe to talk here. We just swept the place. Good to see you, Bugbyte.” Bugbyte nodded. “Felix, this is Agent 111. It’s the binary equivalent of 007. Her Majesty tries to keep up. Mr. Bond, why don’t you brief us on Project Iron Pyjamas?”
Bond winced. “Very well. Roughly a century ago, a British fund named Consolidated Benevolence floated a perpetual debenture to finance purchasing a wilderness preserve in Finland. The offering had two unusual features. First, it had no maturity date, so it would never expire. Second, if any attempt was made to alienate the wilderness to other purposes, every holder could claim a parcel of the tract specified in his or her debenture. Things stayed quiet until recently, when Consolidated Benevolence got taken over by Amalgamated Greed Inc. Then, a vast lode of mcguffium ore was discovered under the preserve. Mcguffium is vital for cyber-electronics, and the only source ‘til now is the Islands of Langerhans, run by a man named Sleazewagon.” Felix and Bugbyte exchanged a swift glance.
Bond continued. “Our governments want a second source opened up and AGI would be delighted to do so — for the usual eye-watering price. The preserve cannot be wound down until the CB debentures are found and retired. AGI now has them all Save one bearer debenture, originally purchased by the Lederers of Vienna, which has not been seen since the 1930s. The default acreage for that debenture is right above the thickest deposit of meguffium. AGI can’t assume it lost, lest the bearer show up and either block conversion of the preserve or claim the best part of the lode.”
“A three-way race has developed to find the last debenture. The company continues its efforts, legally and otherwise. Sleazewagon wants to block the creation of a rival mine. Our governments are looking for a bargaining chip. And we just found out where it is. Now, how about a nice cup of tea?”
Bugbyte looked seriously ready to draw her Glock. Bond chuckled. “Couldn’t resist. Fleming was always so deadpan. Well, the key turns out to be the Lederer family. As the Nazi menace grew in the years before anschluss, the Lederers took precautions. One was to hide important papers inside their extensive art collection. The debenture was cached in the back of a Schubert portrait by Gustav Klimt.”
“After war broke out, the painting wound up held in Schloss Immendorf by a Wehrmacht baron. The castle was set ablaze by retreating German forces in 1945 and the Klimt was assumed destroyed. But it turns out that the baron’s deputy, one von Pickelhaube, had smuggled it out Just weeks before. It was next seen in Argentina, where von Pickelhaube had established a new life. The painting was the icon of the family enterprise, a combined business school and music academy called “Tomorrow’s Lieders”. Unfortunately the Klimt is kept in a vault and we don’t have time for the legal proceedings to repossess it.”
“But von Pickelhaube fell in love with the tango, which gives us a handle. The old man is dead but his son Hans is leader of an international tango federation. He’s also chairman of the current Finnish tango festival. This year it’s in Turku. And Hans has brought the painting to show potential European buyers.” Felix exclaimed, “So we go to Turku, find the painting, extract the debenture, case closed!” “Quite,” replied Bond, “except that we have competition, armed competition. The Langerhandful and AGI are heading for Turku too. We need an edge, so I’ve arranged to see the Service’s armourer.” “The legendary Q?” breathed Felix. Bond replied, “No, he’s retired. The position is being filled by one of your chaps, on interchange. Interesting man. Code name G.” Bugbyte blanched.
Shortly, they faced the white-coated bulk of Don Gordo Beluga. “Bienvenido, mis amigos!” he exclaimed. “This is a marvellous place. I haven’t had so much fun since I burned down the palacio. Let me show off my new toys.” He strode over to a gleaming Aston Martin, pulled a banana from his pocket and pointed it at the car. Which promptly exploded in a rain of small parts. “That’s odd, it was supposed to change colour. I definitely need a new banana. OK, how about my escape belt? Manitoba Jones was just about to test it.” Jones appeared, wearing a belt with a large ornate buckle over his usual camos. Don Gordo shouted, “OK, you’re on a plank over a shark-filled tank, surrounded by head-hunters with poison-dart blowguns, and the villain has grin and punched the buckle. He shot straight to the ceiling, bounced hard off a light fixture, ricocheted off a wall and landed on his feet with a bow. Don Gordo clapped. “Fantastico, no?”
But the belt wasn’t finished. Manitoba pitched violently backwards to the floor and bounced wildly onto a nearly bench, where spilled chemicals ignited in a fireball. Whooping like a bronco buster, he bent into a ball and started rolling randomly around, knocking down equipment, until finally careening into large vat. It tipped over, sloshing aquamarine slime across the room, where it put out the fireball but absorbed the remaining chemicals, came to life, grew stumpy legs and engaged the screaming technicians in battle.
Don Gordo shrugged. “This also may need a little fine-tuning. But it would foil the plans of your villains, Mr. Bond.” Bond replied dryly, “Especially if I could get them to wear it. Do you have anything else to help us in Turku?” Don Gordo nodded. “These two watches might do.” He handed Bond and Bugbyte plain-looking timepieces. “This one makes anyone within 50 metres unable to stop whatever they were doing when you twisted the winder. The other one creates an entanglement field at ankle height across the floor. Neither will affect anyone close to the wearer.” Thanking him, the three agents headed to their car. On the way out, Manitoba Jones slipped Don Gordo’s belt to Felix “so you won’t be the only one without a gadget.” Felix fixed it around his waist under a long jacket.
Later that day, they reached the medieval castle in Turku. Bright banners proclaimed the Tangomarkkinat. Music blared from speakers along the ancient walls. “Wait,” said Felix. “The tango? In Finland?” “And why not, my foreign friend?” asked a lilting voice. He turned and locked onto the sky-blue eyes of a young woman with short blond hair. “Tt has been big here since the ’20s. We have more tango fans than anywhere else outside South America. Besides,” she added, “we have to do something to keep warm in winter.” Glancing past his shoulder, the woman smiled broadly and exclaimed, “Ah, the timeless Mr. Bond,” going over for an embrace. Bond said, “Bugbyte, Felix, this is our local contact Sari. She can brief us on her advance scouting.”
Strolling away from the crowd, Sari did so. “Von Pickelhaube has taken over large areas of the castle. The Klimt is in a small room off the main hall, no windows, one door heavily guarded by apes with guns. The Langerhanders and AGI are here but haven’t made their move. The big dance starts soon and will probably be our best chance to get to the painting.”
The team walked casually into the hall, where an accordion ensemble was tuning up alongside a large crowd practicing elaborate steps. Sari led them to a heavy door at the far end. As they approached, a man and woman in identical dark suits, bowler hats and furled black umbrellas braced the two guards, whipped out small aerosol cans, sprayed them in the face and led them docilely out of the room. “AGI clone assassins,” whispered Sari. “Hurry before they come back.” Turning the key left in the door’s lock, she led them into the room. They faced a dramatic canvas on the wall, beside a roaring fireplace. “Magnificent,” breathed Felix. “Must be worth millions.” “Not even counting the debenture,” agreed Bond, as he lifted the canvas from the wall, laid it flat on a table and pulled out a miniature toolkit. Carefully untacking the backing, he extracted a long sheet of paper. “Too new to be the debenture,” he observed tensely and unfolded it. “Cipher,” he said, swearing under his breath.
16-7-1-6-8-10-1-5-2 15-1-15-15-4-5-1-5 9-3-10 16-7-4-14-8-6-1-10 2-9-3-2 6-1-18-7- 1-2-3-7-21 17-7-1-22-9-5-1-19 18-4-11-12-10 12-3-21 3 13-7-1-3-2-9 4-5 2-9-1 2-4-14-17 4-20 2-9-1 11-5-15-5-4-13-5 6-4-12-10-8-1-7 8-5 9-1-12-6-8-5-15-8. 17-11-2 2-9-1-7-1 8-6-5-2 4-5-1. 6-4 2-9-1-21 18-4-19-1-7-1-10 2-9-1 16-12-3-23-11-1 4-5 2-9-1 3-17-6-2-7- 3-18-2 14-4-5-11-14-1-5-2 2-4 6-8-17-1-12- 8-11-6 3-5-10 11-6-1-10 2-9-3-2 8-5-6-2-1-3-10, 13-8-2-9-4-11-2 2-1-12-12- 8-5-24 2-9-1 7-11-6-6-8-3-5-6. 3-20-2-1-7, 2-9-1 18-1-7-1-14-4-5-21, 17-7-1-22-9-5-1-19 6-3-8-10 2-4 15-1-15-15-4-5-1-5, “2-9-1 19-1-12-19-1-2 18-11-7-2-3-8-5 4-19-1-7 2-9-1 16-12-3-23-11-1 17-12-1-13 3-6-8-10-1 3-5-10 8 6-3-13 2-9-1 5-3-14-1 6-8-17-1-12- 8-11-6. 13-3-6-5-2 9-1 4-5-1 4-20 21-4-11-7 13-4-7-12-10 20-3-14-4-11-6 18-4-14-16-4- 6-1-7-6?” 2-9-1 16-7-1-6-8-10-1-5-2 7-1-16- 12-8-1-10, “3-6 3 18-4-14-16-4-6-1-7 9-1 13-3-6 13-4-7-12-10 20-3-14-4-11-6, 17-11-2 3-6 3 6-4-12-10-8-1-7, 11-5-15-5-4-13-5.”
16-3-5-15-15-8 16-8-3-22-22-4-12-12-3: ETHODRAINS “So where’s the debenture?” demanded Felix. Bond was about to reply when Bugbyte put a finger to her lips and pointed to the door, where the handle was being slowly turned. Bond slipped the painting back on the wall and turned innocently as three men in lederhosen and Hawaiian shirts pushed a fat man in at gunpoint. “Sleazewagon!” exclaimed Bugbyte. “And his usual line of hench-dolts,” added Bond. Sleazewagon sneered. “Good, an audience always adds spice to one’s villainy. Now, von Pickelhaube, where’s the debenture? Stop stalling or the Klimt goes into the fire.” The fat man straightened, “I keep telling you, I don’t know. We found it tucked in back of the painting when we reframed it. Research told me what it was and what people would pay. My son lodged it with a bank here in Finland, close enough to retrieve but safely stowed while I bargain. [ have no idea which bank. But the bankers need an eleven-digit number before they will hand it over. The bank name and number are hidden in a cipher where the debenture used to be, but I don’t have the cipher-key, which protects me from pressure. Top bidder gets the ciphertext and, once I am safely away, the cipher-key by email.”
Sleazewagon tore the painting from the wall. Slashing the back with a stiletto, he snarled, “Nothing”. Von Pickelhaube looked astonished. Sleazewagon shouted to his men, “Kill them all. We’ll work the rest out later!” As the goons raised their guns, however, in rushed the bowler-hatted AGI clones, who whipped clear glass sabres from the shafts of their umbrellas and disarmed them. “I think not, Sleazewagon,” mocked the woman. “Not ’til you or Mr. Bond tells us where the debenture is. But let’s retire to someplace less public where questions can be asked. Everyone please proceed through the main hall, remembering that our swords are exceedingly sharp. Knowing your propensity for unexpected gadgets, Mr. Bond, you and your teams will be particularly careful to keep your hands in my sight. Understood?”
As the group walked into the hall, the band struck up and the floor was suddenly awash with dancers locked in the sultry rhythms of the tango. Tightly herded by the clones, the group edged through the crowd toward the entrance. As they waited for a busload of dancers to clear the doors, Felix murmured to Bond, “I’m wearing Don Gordo’s belt.” Bond whirled and punched him hard in the stomach. Felix turned green. Then his pants fell down. He bent double at the waist, rose two metres in the air and started to spin, mooning the entire room. Surprise turned irresistibly to laughter, even Sleazewagon and the clones breaking down. But the crowd danced on.
Unguarded, Bond and Bugbyte pulled back their sleeves and activated their watches. Bond’s emitted a piercing whine and a sharp green light. The dancers reeled even more tightly into the tango, pulling in the clones, Sleazewagon, the henchmen, von Pickelhaube — everyone except the small group around the British agent. Then Bugbyte’s watch kicked in, strand after strand of sticky pink elastic entangling everyone’s feet and creeping up the walls. The obsession ray kept them all in motion even as the strands coiled tighter. “No, no, stop dancing, you fools, you fools,” screamed Sleazewagon as he swirled away in the arms of a lady with the build of a linebacker. The hall shook as the tension in the bands increased. The accordions played faster and faster, driving the dancers to ever greater slides and spins. Finally, with a great TWANG, the congealed terpsichorean mass burst through the doors and flew off down the hill, gathering tempo as it caromed off the castle stables and slammed into a grove of trees, shedding random patent leather pumps. It upended a large ice cream truck to the delight of every child and dog in southwest Turku before disappearing off a low cliff into the river to faint cries of Caramba! and Olé! in strong Nordic accents. The special effects fortunately wore off in time for the dancers to drag themselves to shore, but the Langerhanders and the clones had disappeared.
The team gathered around a picnic table. “But where,” asked Sari, “is the cipher-text?” With a flourish, Bond pulled it from his boot, saying, “What good will it will do without the key?” Felix smoothed it on the tabletop and said, ’the cipher isn’t all that sophisticated. I’m pretty sure it uses a constant number-for letter substitution, since there’s no number above 26, the number of letters in the alphabet. Just count how often each number is used and compare the results with the letter-frequency tables. The letter E for example is almost always the most common; letters like A, T, I, O, N, S and R also show up near the top, but ones like Q, X, J and Z are rare. You can also look for words of one or two letters — there aren’t all that many. The last line, in red, probably uses the cipher from the paragraph, to give you the name of the bank (numbers into letters) and the bankers code (letters into numbers). Minutes later, Felix had a clean text. Bugbyte thumped him on the shoulder.
After returning to Helsinki and picking up the debenture, the team gathered in the Café Engel. Felix was explaining to Sari how he had spotted the “Arabia” streetcar. She looked at him strangely. “But that tram has not run for 20 years. There are people who say… .but that’s nonsense.” Bond cut in, “Before we go our separate ways, Felix, allow me to compliment you not only on your ciphering skills, but also on your bravery at the castle. It would have gone hard if you hadn’t distracted them.”
Sari nodded her agreement but turned to Bond. “So, master of financial lore, do you have time for another accountancy lesson, maybe that double-entry stuff?” Bugbyte swiftly appeared on the British agent’s other side. “If it’s double entry, maybe I should go along too.” Sari curled her lip, “Mr. Bond prefers young and beautiful women.” “So do I, sweet thing, so do I,” Bugbyte retorted. Bond interceded, “Ladies, ladies, I’m sure we can reach an accommodation to everyone’s, ah, satisfaction. Why don’t we adjourn to somewhere more. .. intimate to discuss it.”
The three stood up and headed for the exit, Felix abandoned. But at the door, Bugbyte put a hand on Bond’s arm and returned to the melancholy young man. “Don’t eat yourself up, Felix. We both know you love Esmeralda too much to put it at risk. You’d hate yourself. I know it hurts to see two women go off with the other man and leave you behind. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt with the big bloodstain over the heart. And I’m sorry to be on the other side this time. But, well, he is what he is. And besides, it’s his birthday, y’know?” She glanced to the entrance, where Sari was pushing Bond out the door. “Gotta go before I lose my hot date. But tell me you’re going to be all right.”
Felix looked up with a rueful grin. “You’re right about me — on all counts. But thanks for the straight talk. Esmeralda’s incommunicado on Project Indigo Pretzel until next month, so there’s no point in going home right away. Maybe I’ll just stay and learn the tango. And spend my evenings here at the Engel, waiting for the Arabia tram to show up again.” Bugbyte ran a hard black finger softly down his cheek and said, “Sounds like a plan, boy wonder. Good luck.” Then she was out the door and into the night.
Can you duplicate Felix’s feat and decipher the line in red (bank name and number)? bout de papier will declare a winner by drawing from all correct answers received by February 28, 2013. The winner will receive a book signed by A Aalto. Not necessary to enter, but can you also work out the plaintext for the full paragraph?
Free-lance prestidigitator A Aalto continues to plug holes in the dikes of Canadian diplomacy. This puzzle is dedicated to eagle-eyed Mrs. Aalto and to Finnish colleague Pekka Ojanen, who told him the story in the ciphertext. 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film (Dr. No) and 2013 the 60th anniversary of Fleming’s first book (Casino Royale). Happy birthday, Commander. Klimt indeed painted a picture of Schubert, but it was probably destroyed in 1945. CP issued perpetual debentures from 1889. Although there is no land-based default, they have a similar kicker: they may have to pay two ounces of gold (worth $40 at issue and almost $3500 now) annually under some conditions. The tango is popular in Finland, although the Tangomarkkinat is always held in Seindjoki. Turku castle exists. And the #6 Helsinki tram in fact still runs through the Senaatintori, past the Café Engel, on its way to Arabia.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2012) — Winter 2012 // Hiver 2012, pp. 41–43. Read the rest of this issue →
