Featured image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
The trouble with being a writer is that once you look at an orphan again, especially one which sat for quite a while, you can’t help but hear a little more of the story. Here you go.
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I know what you are thinking, Multiple Personality Disorder. I’m not a doctor of psychology and odds are you aren’t either. I can tell you one of the things I read about that claims there should be some kind of memory impairment. We don’t suffer that, or at least I don’t. I remember everything I do when I’m someone else and I don’t become that someone until I get instructions on who I’m supposed to become and where I’m supposed to become them. When I start forgetting, I promised myself, I would get out.
Personally I don’t Henry bothers with any of it. Why should he? His cover is always the same, just a different name and culinary school. He doesn’t need much of a cover story when he is just playing Igor and lugging my tools.
Oh, I should probably clarify the Black Ops bit for you. Too many people associate that with a group of military trained bad asses dropping in to do things which look really cool in movies. Some people associate it with things that Micheal Weston character did in Burn Notice. Others tend to view it more as a James Bond $1200/night hotel and quarter million dollar car thing. In truth it is more of a down and out “Burn Notice” kind of thing. We are generally sent to kill someone.
I told you before, we aren’t cops. Now you know we aren’t military. I’m not even certain the group I work for are part of any legitimate government organization despite their claims to the contrary. Honestly, I never checked. Once I found out about the questions on the ASVAB tests, I simply stopped digging. “Who” didn’t matter at that point.
Why am I writing all of this down? Honestly I don’t expect anyone other than myself to read it. I store it in a file which uses three different passwords for encryption. No, you can’t crack it, I don’t care how good your password cracking tool is. The file is encrypted three times by three different encryption tools. First you have to guess which tools or algorithms were used in which order. There is no error message from bad passwords, you simply get a garbage file which becomes even more garbage when the next tool decrypts it using the next password.
I chose the words at random from a book. Which book? Good luck. I’ll even give you some numbers: 57-1, 86-9, 107-27. For those not recognizing such things, that is the page and the word number. Did I count the running page headings? Does the book have running page headings? Does the book have multiple printings and editions? Is the book even still in print. Is the book one in my possession or just one I can easily find?
Okay, in this line of work I never bring more than one book with me at any time and I usually toss it into a book collection box, the trash, or the seat back on a plane. So, now that you know that, you can probably work it out, or can you?
Don’t worry, I’m only partially smart. I didn’t invent this algorithm all on my own. It’s a smugglers code I enhanced for my own purposes. Many smuggling rings choose a book. Not just any book, but a book which will readily be available in the destination country. Both the senders and receivers use the same book. Instead of high tech encryption they simply create messages which are all number pairs like I gave you and openly send them.
Gives a whole new meaning to “Book of the Month” now doesn’t it? Think about that and you should be able to figure out the communications person for each destination belongs to some on-line book club which sends out the books, sometimes.
I’m not trying to impress you. In fact, you are probably laughing now, because, if you are reading this, someone, somewhere, somehow actually managed to decrypt this thing.
Why then? At some point I may need to reflect on it. To remember the how and why of things. The side effect of putting things in boxes and letting that mental UPS pack and ship send them off is, eventually, you need to get one or more of those boxes back. If you don’t have it written down somewhere, it’s gone for good.
Most of you will have read books or watched movies where characters talk about getting recruited for the CIA or some other clandestine group in college. Don’t know if that is true for them. Don’t care. I know that this group, whatever its real name is, actually sends kids to college.
Once they have you identified by your ABSVAB, they look at everything else. Various things on that test identify jobs you might be suitable for. Vehicle mechanic, cook, pilot, etc. That’s the primary purpose of the test. If someone is well suited to be a doctor or nurse, you don’t want them digging ditches while in service. Likewise you don’t want someone who could be a skilled sonar operator working in a galley. The military really does believe God gave everyone a gift and they sincerely hope it is one they can both find and use based on this test.
Imagine the surprise a handful of parents have when a school their kid never applied to drops a full ride scholarship into their collective laps. Many times it is a small school they haven’t heard of.
Your first test is accepting that scholarship.
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continued…
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