Читать книгу Catch Your Death - Lauren Child - Страница 14

AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS OF INTENSIVE TRAINING, camp was finally at an end; next would come the test. Sam Colt spent the last day preparing the recruits.

‘You’ll all be on your own here and you’ll have to navigate the terrain and take on the environmental challenges alone – that’s alongside any challenges set by Spectrum. Base camp is in woodland, but where exactly is your problem. You reach there, you clock in, mission over. Your task is to make it by sun-up three days from now.’

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m not looking to scare anyone here, quite the contrary, but the law of survival is pretty basic: you got a believe in your ability to stay alive.’ Samuel Colt had a pared-down approach to life and he was tough as winter earth. He firmly believed that all you need to survive is a positive mental attitude.

He looked at all their faces, some a little wary, even anxious, some confident, others like poker players, betraying nothing.

‘Unpredictable encounters with wild animals aside, your chances are good so long as you hold onto this.’ He tapped his head. ‘And I don’t mean physically, though course that helps. You got a believe death ain’t an option. Survival means getting out alive. And getting out alive means that on the most basic level you succeeded.’

Everyone went home that night and tried to get as much sleep as they could, aware that for the next few days sleep might not be found so easily.

The next day the trainees were each issued their mission briefing, handed their survival packs and offered a last chance to back out.

No one backed out.

A Spectrum agent, one Ruby didn’t recognise, had appeared from nowhere and was now handing out brown envelopes containing their instructions. Ruby pulled the tag which ran down the side of the envelope and pulled out the brown paper contained inside.

On it was written a code.

Ruby looked at it, frowning, for a few seconds. Then she smiled. Whoever had created the code had divided the message into six-letter chunks to make it seem more complicated than it was, but she soon saw what she was dealing with.

The clue was the frequency of certain letters.

In English Es and Ts appear a great deal more often than most other letters and Zs and Qs are in comparison pretty rare. Ruby surmised this was a substitution cipher, therefore whatever symbol was taking the place of E would come up most often, followed by T, then O, then A. The clumps of Xs she figured were just there to confuse so she ignored them.

She began substituting the most common letters, and soon saw familiar groups, like E, H and T and U, Y and O. She paused for a moment; the substitution gave her the right letters, but no recognisable words:

UYOLWI LEBDPR DPEOYB OILHET RCEPNI KOUNWN NARTRN IEXXXX.

NOEHTO ERHTDS IEFOEH TTAMIO NUNOUY LIWLEE SANCRA HXXXXX.

KMAEYU ROYAWO TEHTNC RAHUES NENNAD LRTSUE ARHOSE ORFMEH TARRCO LXXXXX.

ISWMEH TRHOSE SOASCR EHTVRE IRNADE ETHTRT IOTASP OTXXXX.*

KMEAUY ORYAWO TEHTON SEDCVR EIRNAD SCROST IXXXXX.

LWKADN WOEASM TRIULN TUYORE ANBDEY OEHTAE AWLRTL FXXXXX.

NFDIAD IDHNEN ACEONA DPLADD ETIIUL NTUYOR CAEHEH TNOLWD OADGEE DXXXXX.

OTNCEI NUNOOF TOOTSB AEMCAP.

OCCKLN IXXXXX; IOMNIS SELCDT MOPEXX.

ARWGIN NXXXXX: FIUYOE ARPTSD TEOIUR GLTNSEH TRHOSE UYOLWI LVHAEA FDEILN IUYORI OMNISS.

* EHTRHO SELWIL EBRTRD EENUOT EHTNCR AHYBTE AROHNN ATEGXX.

Then she looked again. The clue now was the repeating strings, like ‘NCRAH’, which had to mean ‘RANCH’, and ‘RHOSE’, which had to be ‘HORSE’.

Conclusion:

What she had in front of her was an anagram.

Ruby smiled as she decoded the mission instructions in less than one easy minute.

You will be blindfolded and dropped by helicopter in unknown terrain.

On the other side of the mountain you will see a ranch.

Make your way to the ranch unseen and rustle a horse from the corral.

Swim the horse across the river and tether it to a post.*

Make your way to the second river and cross it.

Walk downstream until you are beyond the waterfall.

Find a hidden canoe and paddle it until you reach the woodland edge.

Continue on foot to base camp.

Clock in; mission completed.

Warning: if you are spotted rustling the horse, you will have failed in your mission.

* The horse will be returned to the ranch by another agent.

Ruby was the first to decode her message and as a result had gained time credit before she had even begun. Once everyone was ready to go, one hour and forty-five minutes later (Trainee Lowe sucked at codes), she lined up with the others and was handed her rucksack.

‘Check your kit,’ shouted the agent as a general instruction to the group, ‘and make sure you take care of it. One: it’s all you got and two: it contains some pretty costly Spectrum equipment.’

The rucksack contained:

Socks, one pair

Thermals

Gloves

Scarf

Waterproof overtrousers and coat

Penknife

Small cooking can

Energy bars x five

One canteen of water

Binoculars

Basic map

Home–made compass

A micro–parachute

Once she had checked through her kit and was all set, Ruby walked over to Sam Colt.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember everything you taught me. I got it all here in my head.’

Colt looked at her, his eyes full of concern.

‘In your head is no good,’ he said. ‘Your gut is where you got a keep it.’