Running Out of Time (Part Five)

            Carmen glanced down at her wrist the instant her time constraint reset to ten minutes.  Great, Carmen sarcastically thought to herself, he’s giving me all the time in the world, isn’t he?

            Pushing her frustration aside, she began to flip the vase around, examining every inch to find her father’s etching.

            Moments later, Carmen finally spotted the small words at the bottom rim of the vase.  She read:

“xizzg uif ywjogm dmpwaqnt ezg mpzmf.”

            Excited about her find, Carmen reached for the phone to call the menace giving her orders.  Realizing she was about to further help some psycho in his crazy scheme, she hesitated. Knowing she couldn’t waste more time, she redialed and called.

            “I found it.” Carmen informed the voice when he picked up.

            “Good, good.” The voice paused while the pleasure of getting one step closer to his goal washed over him.  “What does it say?”

            “It is unintelligible words, probably a code of some sort.” Carmen guessed.

            “Figure out what it really says.  I am giving you fifteen more minutes.” The line went dead and Carmen momentarily contemplated the brevity of the call this time.

            Before she could dwell on it longer, Carmen started her task.  Brainstorming on the type of code used, Carmen tried to remember her dad’s favorite method to encode messages…

            “Carmen, for this cipher, you will first need a date.” Her father instructed.

            “Umm.  What about my birthday?” Young Carmen’s excitement flowed through her words.

            “Okay, that is 11-4-82.  What you have to do is write your message out.” Her father wrote ‘I love you’ on a piece of paper. “Next, write the numbers under it; one number for each letter.  When you are done with that you shift the letters in your message to the right in the alphabet according to the number below it.” At Carmen’s confusion, her father explained further. “For example, the ‘i’ has a one under it, so it will be shifted to ‘j.’ Do you get it?”

            “I think so.” Carmen’s voice didn’t hold much confidence.

            Focusing back on the present, Carmen remembered how to reveal her father’s message.  Looking at the time she had left, she realized she only had 13 short minutes left.

            Carmen pondered what date her father would have chosen. She tried her mother’s birthday and then her father’s birthday.  When neither date worked, she tried their anniversary.

            With five minutes left and still no luck at exposing the message, Carmen began to panic.  Worried thoughts swarmed her mind.  What if I can’t get this? What other date could I use? For all I know, it could be some date only he would remember. Why can’t my father’s legacy stop haunting me?!

            Breaking through her thoughts, the driver gruffly commanded, “Get back to work. I would prefer not to die because of you.” Carmen snapped out of her defeated thoughts as if the driver had thrown a bucket of icy water over her.

            Trying the last important date she could think of, Carmen hoped her birthday was the key.  Relief flooded her when she ended with an actual phrase.  As she celebrated over her accomplishment, she read over the message and immediately knew where to go next.

To Be Continued…