Eight Is Half Of Ten Mystery Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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The cache is not at the listed coordinates but is within 2 miles. Solve the puzzle to find the cache.
0045 zulu , January 5, 2009
As an operative for a clandestine intelligence organization it was my job to act as a universal intermediary between HQ and our field agents. My meeting on this cold and snowy winter’s night was to take place on a pedestrian footbridge over a small rocky gorge that in the spring would have a fast moving brook but now just had ice covered rocks some 40 feet below. We had chosen this spot for meetings because we believed it to be secure and no one could overhear what we were saying. Joe (obviously not his real name), who I was meeting, was a master of codes and ciphers that I really didn’t understand but they were practically a second language to him-he was that good. Just as he was about to pass me some secret plans he had ‘borrowed’ from the enemy and tell me the coordinates where he had hidden more information, I heard what sounded like a ‘pop’ and I saw Joe stagger then fall over the railing onto the rocks below. I instantly realized we had been discovered by the enemy and knew a sniper had just shot Joe. I ducked below the railing to the bridge deck where I hoped I couldn’t be seen or shot. The next thing I heard was a car door slam and a car leaving the area at high speed. I was now safe and I realized Joe might still be alive so, as fast as I could, I climbed down the steep bank to where Joe had landed on the rocks below.
It didn’t look good and I knew Joe wouldn’t survive. Still, both of us were professionals and we had to complete our mission at all costs. Joe was severely injured and was just barely conscious. Clutched in his left hand was the crumpled piece of paper that he was going to hand me just before he was shot. On this paper were some coordinates that he has scribbled but by quickly glancing at them I could tell they were somehow modified so if they were intercepted, the enemy couldn’t use them to find the cache.
“Joe, can you give me the rest of the message?”
“eight is half of ten”
I knew from this rather strange response and his slurred speech that his brain was like a computer that had only partially rebooted and although it didn’t make any sense to me, Joe was trying to communicate this vital information to me as best he could. He then said, as near as I could make it out…
“13hot teas”
“Easter faceless”
“added fee nothing”
then finally, an unnecessary and almost theatrical 'fade to black' just before he died.
1015 zulu, present day
To this day, years after he was shot, I still haven’t been able to decipher what Joe was trying to tell me just before he died although I have tried time and again. The coordinates scribbled on the note must have to be altered in some way because the numbers Joe wrote down place the cache almost in the ocean and it obviously can’t be there. I am positive that what Joe told me in his last few minutes is essential to making sense of those strange coordinates. Somewhere out there is a cache that may still contain valuable information. If anyone can figure out what Joe was trying to tell me and find this spot, don’t divulge the location or the contents to another soul because the people who took out Joe could start looking for you too. You can let me know that you have found the cache by posting an anonymous personal ad in the classified section of the local paper using my codename ‘rjb’ or logging your find on this website. Good luck.
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
-Hfr EWO ybtvp.
-Gur npghny gvzr naq qngr unir ab uvqqra zrnavat ohg sbe gubfr vagrerfgrq gur npgvir yvax jvyy rkcynva gur havirefny gvzr fpnyr vagreangvbany betnavmngvbaf hfr.
-Ab cubgb znavchyngvba be uvqqra fbhepr pbqr jrer hfrq va gur cubgb.
-Rirelguvat arrqrq gb fbyir gur chmmyr, vapyhqvat nyy gur ahzoref, pna or ivfhnyyl frra rnfvyl.
-Jung Wbr "fnvq".
-'snqr gb oynpx' vf bayl n fperracynl qverpgvba naq abg n uvag.
-pnpur-NZZB OBK va ynetr fcyvg obhyqre arkg gb ovt gerr.