William Johnston - Get Smart Once Again!

“The value of six? Why is that?”

“Six was the only number that Hoppman didn’t confuse with a letter. So he decided to play it safe and use the number six for everything.”

“Good thinking.”

“So,” Peaches continued, “we get a series of numbers. Six times six is thirty-six. And six times thirty-six is two-hundred-sixteen. And six times two-hundred-sixteen is one-thousand-two-hundred-ninety-six, and so on. Then, we take those numbers and transpose them into letters. Take the number thirty-six, for instance-our first number. It is composed of a three and a six. And the third letter of the alphabet is ‘C’, and the sixth letter is ‘F’. So, thirty-six stands for ‘CF’. Understand?”

“What could be simpler?”

“Fine. So, what we get is: CF BAF ABHF GGGF DFFEF.”

“I see. And now that you have it, how do you pronounce it?”

“Oh, we don’t. We’re just starting. Next, we eliminate all the unnecessary letters. You’ll notice that there are many too many ‘Fs and ‘G’s. So we toss them out. That gives us: CBAABHDE.”

“Excuse me,” Max said, “but we’re coming to the secret exit.”

Peaches looked up, and saw the underside of a manhole cover. “Through there?”

“Right. Through there, and we will find ourselves in a deserted section of the city. There probably won’t be a soul around.”

Peaches shuddered. “It’s creepy.”

“But necessary,” Max said. “It’s the one sure way of eluding Noman.”

The elevator stopped. Max reached up and raised the manhole cover-and found himself face-to-face with a particularly expressionless face.

“Excuse me,” Max apologized. “I thought this was the secret exit.”

The face spoke. “It is, Max. I was just checking to make sure you hadn’t got lost in the tunnels again.”

“Oh! Agent 44!” Max said, recognizing the face. “Good fellow. Glad to see that you’re on duty.”

44 nodded. “I’ll see you around, Max,” he said. Then his face disappeared from the opening.

“Now then, we’ll just crawl out of here, then we’ll be on our way to New York,” Max said to Peaches.

“Why not Moscow or Peking?”

“Limited expense account,” Max explained, helping Peaches out.

When she reached the street, Peaches offered a hand to Max, and, with her help, he pulled himself out of the hole.

“It’s gloomy,” Peaches said, looking around. “Even in the daylight it’s gloomy.”

“No one ever comes here,” Max explained. “We are as alone as we would be in the middle of the Sahara desert.”

At that moment, a taxi came screeching around a corner and stopped a few feet away.

“We’re in luck,” Peaches said. “There’s a camel.”

“The driver must be lost,” Max said. “No one ever comes to this part of town.”

Followed by Peaches, Max walked over to the cab. The driver, a rather plump man, who, all in all, looked like a typical taxi driver, put his head out the window. “Cab?” he said.

“Yes, that’s what it is,” Max replied. “But, more important, what is a cab doing in this deserted section of town? You couldn’t possibly find any business here.”

“What would be your guess?” the driver said.

“You’re lost?”

The driver brightened. “Right! I’m a new driver, and I’m lost.”

Max turned to Peaches. “That explains it,” he said. “At first, I was a little worried. I thought this driver might actually be I. M. Noman in disguise.”

“Can I take you somewhere?” the driver said.

“Do you think you could find the airport?” Max replied. “We want to take a plane to New York.”

“How come?” the driver asked. “If I had a plane, I think I’d keep it right here. I sure wouldn’t take it to New York. There’s a lot of sharpies in New York. You take your plane to New York and somebody’ll swindle you out of it.”

“You don’t understand,” Max said. “We don’t have a plane. All we- Never mind. Just take us to the airport.”

The driver shrugged. “Hop in.”

Max and Peaches got into the cab, and it started off.

“Now, what was it you were saying when we reached the secret exit?” Max said to Peaches.

“I was telling you what I’d worked out, using the Hoppman method.”

“Oh, yes. ‘CBAABHDE’ wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. Now, the problem is to rearrange those letters so that they make sense.”

The driver turned in the seat. “What’s that, some kind of new game?” he said.

“Sorry. We can’t tell you,” Max replied. “It’s top secret.”

The driver laughed.

“No, really, it is,” Max insisted.

“That’s okay, if you don’t want to tell me, don’t tell me,” the driver said. “My feelings won’t be hurt. Us cab drivers are used to that kind of thing. Nobody won’t explain no new games to us. It hurts-at first-but we get used to it.”

“Honest,” Max said. “It isn’t a game, it’s a top secret code. We’re trying to decipher it.”

“Sure.”

“Cross my heart,” Max said.

“Yeah, yeah… it’s the same old story. A cab driver’s not human. He’s just a slob that sits up front and steers. I know. I get it all the time. But that’s okay. It don’t hurt so much no more.”

“Look,” Max said, getting out his wallet. “Here are my credentials. I’m a secret agent. And this young lady is a free-lance cryptographer.”

The driver glanced at Max’s credentials, then looked back at Peaches. “A cryptographer, eh? Ain’t you a little grown up to be going around taking pictures of graves?”

“That’s not what she does,” Max said. “She breaks codes.”

“Max, ignore him,” Peaches said. “We have work to do.”

“Ignore him? Hasn’t the world hurt him enough? Do you want me to add to that by ignoring him? I couldn’t sleep nights with that on my conscience.”

“Them’s nice credentials,” the driver said, handing back Max’s wallet.

“Then, you believe me?”

“Sure, sure, sure,” the driver said sourly, facing front again.

“No you don’t. You don’t really believe me,” Max said.

“All I know is, anybody can get a bunch of phony credentials made up.”

Max turned to Peaches. “Let’s let him play our game.”

“No thanks,” the driver said. “I don’t want to play in no game where I ain’t wanted.”

“Please,” Max begged.

“Well…” He turned back to them once more. “Okay, if it’ll make you happy. How does the game go?”

“We have these letters,” Max said. “The letters are: CBAABHDE. Now, the problem is to change the letters around until they make a message. Got it?”

“Got it,” the driver replied, facing front once again.

Max smiled happily. “I may have just saved a human soul,” he said to Peaches. “There was a man who felt discriminated against by society. We were all playing games, but we wouldn’t let him play. In time, he could have become a criminal cab driver. But, now, I think he’ll be all right. He’s in the mainstream of society. Before long, he’ll have enough confidence in his ability to give up driving a cab and get an executive position in one of our major industries. He’ll be a Somebody. And when he rides in cabs he’ll remember what happened today. He’ll play games with the drivers, and send them on the road to Success.”

“That’s nauseating,” Peaches said. “Now, can we get back to work?”

“Yes.” Max leaned forward. “Do you have anything yet?” he said to the driver.

“I worked out a name,” the driver replied.

“What is it?”

“C. B. Aabhde.”

“That’s a name?”

“That’s all I can figure out it could be.”