We have a golden rule here, it's what they tell you when they send you out into the cold, and it goes like this; “no moonlighting, just pull down the shutters and go home”. Those who forget this rule are setting themselves up for a fall, and I for one have a fear of falling.
So when I found myself back in the 'real world', I followed it as best I could; change location, change habits and get a job. So I moved out of Bristol to somewhere else and got a life that was refreshingly free of duplicity.
Then it happened. I was sitting on a park bench in my new home town watching the ducklings zipping around in that clockwork way they have, then suddenly I realised I wasn't alone. I glanced over but who had been sitting there had gone, leaving behind a single carnation. That carnation took me to a crash meeting and ...
“Look there are these three fellahs” the person I met said. “Lets call them Oleg, Pasha and Yashin and they're breaking the golden rule but how. Seems that they're setting up their own show, and quite a successful one it is too. Spooks for hire. IPR stuff mostly, what was known as Industrial Espionage back in your day. But seems they're after something a bit special. Seems they've got themselves some new clients who believe in direct action, and well we want to stop them.”
I pointed out that I'd been out of the game now for anything I know to be well past it's sell by date. Surely they'd be using all the modern gizmos we never had – the internet, strong encryption, steganography, the works.
“Ah that's the point.” My contact said. “They're not. The evaluators are doing their nut trying to understand why they aren't, but all they can come up with is that all that technology simply baffles them.”
I could sympathise, the young don't realise exactly how difficult it is to actually use this modern stuff, and I said as much. Then I had a thought; maybe they want to be caught.
“You may have something there.” My contain replied. “So you'll do it? Take a look at it for me?”
Which is how I ended up with a whole string of numbers written on an invoice. Not a lot to go on was it? If course what they couldn't have known was that I'd seen something like this before – about 15 years ago we'd picked up a courier who'd been carrying a practically identical invoice, albeit from a different firm but it was identical.
Now we hit lucky because the courier had pretty much spilled everything he knew the moment we got; names and addresses of contacts, dead-drops the whole business. Was pretty embarrassing really, but it did enable us to roll up a whole network, including the Comms-plan and the cipher scheme.
Of course this was all in their files, but who wants to read dusty old files when you can talk to a dusty old timer instead? It took me all of 20 minutes to crack this one, but then I'd had prior art, and the look they had on their face – well it was something to behold. I was right, they did want to get caught. Certainly the message said as much.
Anyway, here is their little message:
IVAN PLEASE SEND ONE CASE OF UZBEKISTAN RED SALMON
50634 30678 26054 36050 50675 80655 50623 06826 40678 26051 61890 56243 06810 60590 06809 86184 10680 98605 86058 65030 60586 05900 68106 18410 61410 68098 61410 62120 96483 68183 40061 29440 62880 15056 34316 18060 81090 00634 20605 06502 30441 06753
Add 2 to the Northings and add 68 to the Westings - check with the geochecker.
*** Many Congrats to Skimstone on the FTF ***
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.