DIE SPHINKTERMASCHINE Mystery Cache

I sit alone by the bay window as the rising sun spreads a warm light across the tile roofs of this ancient Mediterranean city. Too bad Mynx isn't here to share the spectacular view, but unlike me, she's a night owl and won't be up for hours.

"More coffee, Mr. St. Clair?" Smithers appears, like an apparition, at my elbow. Being a spy, things like this bother me, but he's a third generation British butler to the aristocracy. It's the way they are trained to move. He's here doing his part for the war effort.

"Yes, please," the bottomless cup is such a rare luxury these days. "You may clear the table at your convenience, Smithers."

"Thank you, sir." He leaves the silver coffee pot on my table.

"Also, would you please check to see if I have any messages?"

"Very good, sir." He sublimates from the large, mostly empty dining room.

Mynx and I are here at Pilkington Manor, a sort of bed and breakfast for spies run by the Joint Intelligence Committee. We are "decompressing" after a close call in Sicily. Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Italy, began with a bang before we could get out of the way. SOE managed to snag us from behind enemy lines and fly us here in a tiny Piper Cub. Tomorrow morning we're scheduled for an interview with a JIC debriefing team. I'm not looking forward to that. Smithers returns with a long brown envelope.

"This just arrived, sir."

He lies it beside my cup, then vanishes. There's no return address, but I know the sender. Taking a final sip of coffee, I rise, slide the envelope into the breast pocket of my linen blazer and walk to the window. A black Vauxhall 14/6 pulls away from the front door and putters down the street. I leave the dining room and walk through the atrium to the sweeping open staircase.

My room is small, but comfortable, with a wonderful panorama of the harbor. Ignoring that, I rip open the envelope and flatten the single sheet of flash paper on the small writing desk. The hand is familiar, as is the message. It's encrypted in the standard OSS low-security field cipher, which I quickly translate in my head while reading:

I crumple the sheet and place it in the ashtray. Then I strike a match and gingerly touch it to the wadded ball of nitrocellulose. "Poof!" With a flash of light and a puff of smoke, it disappears, leaving no ash, no trace of its existence.

My Army-issue wristwatch says 0825 hours. Silently I crack the door that separates the adjoining rooms and peek in. My partner and fellow spy, Mynx d'Meanor, lies on her back in the bed. Her slow even breathing tells me she's sound asleep. At 4' 11" and 98 pounds, she looks like an Oriental cherub. I'd like to join her, but I know she's exhausted and I don't have that much time anyway. Reluctantly I close the door, grab my hat and step into the hall.

Outside, the sun is already hot, but the poniente westerly keeps the air dry and comfortable. It's early, so I indulge in a little window-shopping on my stroll to the prearranged meeting site. I score a nice pair of pearl earrings. Mynx has a birthday coming up and she'll love these.

It's a short walk past the Fortress and down to the seawall that protects the harbor from frequent winter gales and occasional summer hurricanes. When the weather permits, the locals enjoy taking picnics here. A number of small shelters with tables and barbeque pits dot the mile long man-made isthmus.

Hoping I won't have to walk the entire seawall, I head down the gravel path. At the second shelter, a man sits at the table with his back to me, reading a newspaper. I sit down beside him.

"Mind if I join you?" I ask.

He folds the paper and turns to face me.

"Hello, Biff. Good to have you back." George Brightman is large, middle-aged and rugged looking, with the hands of a lumberjack. His twangy, clipped accent, which he works to suppress, but can't entirely, is unique to the rural Ozark Mountains of southern Missouri.

"We almost didn't make it, George."

I'm an undercover OSS agent. George is my 'handler'. He gives me assignments and manages my 'projects' in the field. I trust him with my life, not because I want to, but because I have to. Sicily put that trust to the acid test and once again, George came through -- at the last possible moment.

I start to speak, when an older man, wearing a black trench coat, approaches and sits on the bench beside me. By reflex, my hand goes for the Walther PPK in my shoulder holster.

"That won't be necessary, I assure you." The slight, wizened man speaks perfect English with a slight German accent.

"Biff St. Clair," Brightman says in a low voice, "meet Admiral Wilhelm Canaris."

"Jesus Christ!" I mutter under my breath.

"Please," Canaris flashes a subtle grin, "call me Wilhelm."

"The Admiral," George says, "is on our side."

"That is correct, Mr. St. Clair," Canaris says, now deadly serious. "I am leader of an active conspiracy struggling to eliminate Hitler and negotiate peace with the Allies. We must stop this little madman before he destroys the Fatherland!"

"Wow!" It's all I can manage to say at the moment.

"Biff," Brightman resumes, "remember last April, when SIS began intercepting radio messages with a new encryption that Turing and his crew at Bletchley can't break?"

"Yeah," I said, recovering my wits. "They think it's a cipher reserved for Hitler and a few of his top cronies, as I recall."

"Correct again, Biff," the Admiral says, adding, "It was developed at Professor Heisenberg's laboratory and represents a major cryptographic breakthrough. Unlike Enigma, an electromechanical machine that your engineers managed to duplicate with the assistance of the Polish agents, this cipher is generated by an electronic device employing new technology that the Allies will not acquire for decades!"

"No moving parts," Brightman laments, "no rotors, no reflector, no steckers. We can't touch it."

My perplexed look prompts him to elaborate.

"Even among his most devoted stooges, "the Admiral continues, "our beloved Fuehrer is commonly referred to as 'Der Sphinkter'."

"Asshole," George translates.

"Behind his back, of course," Canaris adds.

"Damn!" I whisper. "What's this thing look like?"

"Here is my unit." Canaris pulls a device from his pocket and hands it to me. It's black, smaller than a deck of cards, has rows of tiny buttons and a rectangular glass window with a grey background.

"This looks like a toy," I say, examining it front and back.

"Do not be deceived," he warns, "this 'toy' is far more advanced than anything you can imagine."

"But now we have it," I exclaim. "I'm holding it in my hand!"

"Almost," Brightman sighs and Canaris snatches the HID-100, "but not quite. That's where you and Mynx come in."

"I want the Allies to have this device," the Admiral says, "but if I give it to you, or even if I 'lose' it, so to speak, Hitler will soon find out. Then he will simply stop using it."

"That's a good thing, right?" I already know the answer.

"A small victory, perhaps," he replies. "In a few short weeks, however, Heisenberg will replicate the device, but with a more complex encryption algorithm. You gain little by stealing this one. However ..." he pauses.

"... we have a plan." George interjects. "Operation NIGHTHAWK. It's not going to be easy, of course,"

"It never is." I can only imagine where this conversation is going.

"If both my device and I are destroyed ..." the Admiral continues.

"... in a plane crash, let's say," Brightman adds.

"My body is mutilated beyond recognition ..." Canaris counters.

"... and the Sphinktermaschine is totally destroyed, but still identifiable" Brightman again.

"The Nazis recover my body and the device ..." the Admiral continues.

"... but in reality they recover a fake that we've planted in the wreckage," George says. "Canaris hides the real HID-100 at the airport before boarding the plane."

"Under these circumstances Hitler may conclude that its security has not been compromised, and so will continue to use the device." Canaris lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag. They both turn and look at me.

"So I recover the encoder," completing the thought, "and deliver it to Station X. How simple is that?"

"A straightforward concept," Brightman agrees.

"The execution may prove difficult," Canaris cautions.

"It often does," I concur. "When will your plane go down, Admiral?"

"Late tonight," he replies, "in the Pyrenees Mountains, on my return from Lisbon to Berlin."

"Where will you hide the device?" I inquire.

"I do not yet know where or how I will hide the HID-100," Canaris admits. "Protocol requires me to exchange encrypted telegrams from the airport with Martin Bormann (Hitler's personal secretary), using the HID-100, before my airplane departs. He sends me a question and I must return the correct answer."

"Bormann," he continues, "says we do this for security and for my protection. In reality, he suspects my loyalty to the Fuehrer. He thinks he can control me when I travel abroad, but I am too clever for his petty games. Still, I cannot fail to respond or it will arouse suspicion. It may cause them to stop using the device, in which case our plan will be ruined."

"I will have 20 to 30 minutes," Canaris estimates. "In this short interval I must not only hide the sphinktermaschine, but also compose and send you an encrypted telegram describing its location."

"Can you pull it off?" I ask the Admiral.

"I believe I can," his steel grey eyes are calm and steady. "It is why I am here with you now."

"What will happen to you?" I ask, suddenly realizing that, for him, this is a death sentence.

Canaris waves his hand dismissively and rises from the table.

"It is not enough that we do our best, Mr. St. Clair." The Admiral extends a hand. His gaze seems to penetrate my soul. "This time we must do what is required."

George and I sit mutely, watching Canaris walk toward shore, then disappear into the crowded street market. Finally Brightman breaks the silence.

"You, me and Mynx," he says. "Let's do lunch at the Pilkington. 13:30 hours. Afterwards, we'll review Operation NIGHTHAWK."

George leaves me sitting alone in the shelter, watching seagulls dive for garbage, contemplating this new assignment. My reverie is soon shattered by a soft, melodious voice, near my ear.

"Gutenmorgens Herr Sphinkterkopf!"

"Mynx! What are you doing here!"

"I've been here the whole time, Biff!" Her big black almond shaped eyes are flashing bolts of lightning -- straight at me. "The question is, what are you doing here without ME?"

"But? Where??" My confusion is palpable.

"Up there, dummy!" She points to the rafters of the shelter roof.

"You were spying on us!" I cry.

"That's my job, Biff! I heard everything."

"I'm sorry, Mynx, but you were sleeping."

"Yeah! Until you barged into my room!" Then she relents. "Okay, I'll admit it. I was just dozing. In fact, I was hoping for an early morning legover, but when you shut that door I knew something was up."

"But how..." she cut me off in mid-sentence.

"Shelter 2 is the standard SOE rendezvous on Gibraltar," Mynx says. "Everyone knows that. I got dressed and followed you to the market. From the way you were dawdling I could tell that you were killing time. So, I ran ahead then climbed up here and waited. By the way, what did you get me?"

"Something nice for your birthday, Half-Portion." Then it hit me. "Damn! What if you were a Nazi spy?"

"A little late to be thinking of that, Biff-o." She had a point.

"Look Mynx," I plead. "At lunch you've got to pretend like you know nothing about this. Nothing."

"Maybe. What did you get me?"

"It's for your birthday, Mynx."

"Biffy, m'love, if you want this little tiff to blow over quickly, and I think you do ... then cough it up now -- and I'm warning you, it had better be good!"

At lunch, Mynx looks fabulous in her little black dress. The earrings are a perfect match for the double strand of pearls I pick up on our way back through the market. Happy birthday, Mynxy Baby!

"So tonight," back in my room, Brightman begins our briefing. "We receive an enciphered telegram from Canaris, telling us where to find the HID-100."

"How will it be encrypted?" Mynx asks.

"I gave him one of these." George pulls a small grey cylinder from his coat pocket.

The little device consists of 26 aluminum disks stacked on a spindle. Every disk has all 26 letters of the alphabet stamped on the edge, but on each disk the letters are arranged in a different order. The disks rotate independently of each other on the spindle.

"Of course!" I recognize it immediately. "The old M-94 wheel cipher."

"Invented by Thomas Jefferson and still an excellent field machine," Mynx recalls. "Why did OSS stop using it?"

"Too many units in enemy hands," George replies. "One more spin, let's say, for old time's sake." He caresses the little gadget wistfully.

"What time does his plane leave Lisbon?" Mynx asks.

"Canaris departs from Lisbon's Portela Airport just before midnight," George answers. "Unless something goes wrong, that is."

"Not much to do then until midnight," Mynx says.

"I'll be back about 23:30," Brightman says, picking up his hat and suit coat.

"We better get some shuteye," I observe. "It's gonna be a long night."

"Mmm, yeah," Mynx purrs. "Let's go!"

I'm tying my shoes when there's a knock at the door. Mynx is in her room, applying makeup. Brightman enters. Close behind him, a man I've never seen. It's 23:28.

"Biff," George introduces him, "this is Philby. He'll be your driver tonight."

"Kim Philby, Biff. SIS, Section V. Please call me Kim." He smiles and extends his hand.

"Pleased to meet you, Kim." His hand is cold and the grip seems a little slishy to me. We both turn as Mynx enters from her room.

"Señor Philby da tarde boa," extending her tiny elegant hand. "Meu nome é Mynx d'Meanor."

That's Mynx, testing him right out of the starting block. She looks feline in the close-fitting black jumpsuit tailored to her petite, but nicely padded, frame.

"Esta é uma surpresa," kissing her hand, "deliciosa minha criança bonita." Mynx flashes her most alluring smile.

"Something doesn't ring true about this guy," I'm thinking. "Watch him."

"What do we hear from Canaris?" I ask George.

"The Admiral's telegram came through just moments ago," he pulls a folded sheet from his pocket. We gather around as he spreads it out on the table.

Mynx grabs the M-94 and quickly manipulates the rotating disks. I write as she calls out the translated text.

"That's the M-94 part," she says. "The rest must be Sphinktermaschine code."

"Instructions." Philby says as he studies the telegram, "These are instructions we are to follow after we recover the machine."

"You must be right," Brightman agrees. "So now, boys and girls, time to hit the road."

It's a ten-hour drive from Gibraltar to Lisbon, under the best conditions. By 'best conditions', I mean traveling in a comfortable sedan, with good tires and enough power to pull the long, tortuous mountains of southwestern coastal Spain. I was hoping that Philby would be driving a Mercedes-Benz, or at least a Peugeot. My hope was dashed, however, when he led us to our ride - an old, diesel-powered Renault panel truck, loaded with lentils in 100-lb burlap bags. Philby, disguised as a Portuguese stevedore, takes the wheel. Mynx and I climb in back, with the lentils, then we take off for Lisbon.

The road trip is long and tiring, but thankfully uneventful, at least in the negative sense. Mynx and I move to the front of the load, where we find some ventilation ports. We open them to provide a good stream of fresh air. We rearrange some lentil sacks, creating a divot for us to lie in, should customs agents inspect our cargo at the border. After that, we stretch out on the lentil sacks to relax and endure the bumpy, jerky, noisy ride. We have plenty of time to discuss our plan for recovering the Sphinktermaschine, rest, and uh, socialize.

At 0315 hrs we pull into a public park adjacent to the Portela Airport runway. I am tired, sore and smelling kind of funky. I can hardly walk as I ease down from the back of the truck. Mynx hops out and stretches. She looks, and apparently feels, great. I don't get it.

"Okay," Mynx begins, "we all know what to do?"

"You and I search for the encoder," I respond, "using the info Canaris sent us."

"I'll go to the terminal and buy you each a one-way ticket for the next flight to London," Philby smiles, then adds, "BOAC first class, of course."

"Right!" I say. "We'll be here, waiting for you."

Philby climbs back into the truck and pulls away.

"He should be back in about 30 minutes," Mynx whispers, checking her watch.

"If he comes back at all," I'm thinking.

"The runway should be over there," Mynx replies as she takes a bearing (1_6º) with her compass. "I'll go first. You cover me."

The receptionist escorts Mynx and me into the small conference room that adjoins the office of Sir Charles Hambro, Chief of SOE. Moments later, Hambro enters, accompanied by Alan Turing, the brilliant, but quirky mathematician who led the team that cracked the Nazi Enigma cipher.

"Biff, my boy, great to see you again!" Sir Charles pats me on the back, then turns to Mynx.

"Mynx, my Dear" he begins, "You are more gorgeous than ever. This is an especially proud day for all of us at SOE. Your recovery of Hitler's most secret encryption machine will shorten this ungodly war and spare the lives of many thousand Allied soldiers."

"This truly is the biggest break," Turing interjects, "since our Polish friends taught us how to replicate the Enigma machine. I'm certain this will be even better."

"You will, no doubt," Hambro continues, "be awarded a medal for your efforts, but that can take years. In the meantime, I can at least offer you a long weekend holiday."

"Also," he adds, pulling two envelopes from his coat pocket, "please accept this small token of our appreciation here at SOE." (Later we each find a 50£ note.)

As he speaks a small, grey-haired man approaches our table.

"Admiral!" Mynx squeals, "You're alive!"

"Yes, my dear." Canaris smiles. "Apparently Sir Charles feels that I am of more value alive here at Bletchley than lying dead on a mountaintop in Spain."

"What about the plane crash?" I ask.

"Please join us for tea, Wilhelm," Hambro interrupts, then turning to us, "You two pipe down and I'll explain." Over scones, Hambro recounts an astounding story.

"While Canaris was in the terminal sending telegrams," he begins, "my boys stole on board his plane and killed the flight crew."

"Philby had pulled his truck up next to the rear hatch," he explains, "and was waiting to pick up the bodies."

"He delivered the dead to our hanger," Hambro continues "where we had a duplicate Luftwaffe Junkers JU-52 waiting to take off. We had also obtained a corpse from the morgue here in London that was a near perfect match to the Admiral."

"So, we flew Canaris, in his own plane, from Lisbon straight to Gatwick. At the same time, the 'dead' Admiral and his crew took off in the other aircraft, loaded with dynamite and headed for Berlin. Over the Pyrenees, our pilot bailed out, as he floated to earth, he detonated the airplane while it was in mid-air. A band of French Resistance fighters was waiting to pick him up."

"We have reports," Sir Charles concludes, "that an SS search party found the wreckage this morning. We also hear," he notes, "that Radio Berlin is reporting that the plane was accidentally shot down by a squadron of Spanish fighters patrolling the border."

"Well done!" says Canaris.

"The details, of course, are classified," Hambro cautions. "But it was a particularly well-executed maneuver." He clasps his hands behind his head, while Smithers appears at his elbow with a tray. "Very satisfying -- ah, soup!"

I'm lying in bed watching dust motes dance in the morning sun. Mynx is curled up beside me, her head on my chest. I'm drained from our birthday celebrations, but my mind is racing, as I recount events of the last few days.

The big question now: will Hitler continue to use the HID-100 to send orders to his top generals? Has Station X has seen any new Sphinktermaschine messages since the plane crash? I'm sure everyone is on pins and needles, wondering what the next intercept will bring.

Outside my apartment the wooden floor creaks. I lie still, but my senses go on full alert. A faint scraping sound, then all is quiet. I wait a moment, then silently rise and tiptoe to the door. A familiar brown envelope lies in the foyer. Relaxing, I open it and translate the familiar handwriting:

"Fat Boy is Hermann Goering," Mynx is reading over my shoulder.

"Hot dog!" I cry. "It worked!"

YOUR MISSION

Should you choose to accept it, is quite simple:

BACKGROUND INFO

Hitler did, in fact, use a top-secret encoding machine, called the Lorenz SZ 40, to communicate with his generals and political flunkies. Like the widely used Enigma, the Lorenz was so complex as to be unbreakable, for all practical purposes. Ironically, it was the Prussian zeal for organization that created subtle chinks in the cryptographic armor of both machines. Most importantly, the transmitting cipher clerks were instructed to start every Enigma message with a six-letter key that told the receiving operator how to set his machine rotors to match the sender. This allowed the Poles to break the Enigma cipher. Later, the British used the same 'crib' to crack the Lorenz. Alas, this same bad habit was repeated with the Sphinktermaschine.

PLEASE NOTE

This is a work of historical fiction. That is, the story is set among real events, but is not part of that history. The many links are included to augment the story. They provide the historical setting, but probably won't help you break the ciphers and find the geocache. I hope you enjoy reading this, but to find the cache concentrate on the Canaris telegram. I've planted clues throughout this page. They may help you, but they're not critical to breaking the codes.

KNIGHTS OF THE CRYPTIC EMPIRE (KCE)

Winston Churchill was thoroughly convinced that the Allies' victory over Hitler was directly attributable to cryptanalysis. To honor those who led the cerebral struggle against Nazi tyranny, he created a clandestine order of honor, the Knights of the Cryptic Empire (KCE).

Perhaps you can crack the ciphers, but distance prevents you from completing the geocache. Sadly, you can't count this as a find, but take heart! You may be eligible for induction into KCE. Send me the correct location (latitude and longitude) of the cache container and I will enter your name on the roll of the KCE Legion of Honour. You will point in pride to this prestigious award. Your friends and family will stand in awe of your mental prowess and perseverance. Best of all, you will stand shoulder-to-shoulder amongst the titans of cryptology: Rejewski, Turing and others.

LOG OF REVISIONS

As readers spot errors, corrections will be noted below.