Read Secret Breakers: The Power of Three Online
Authors: H. L. Dennis
Secret Breakers: The Power of Three
Copyright © 2012 H. L. Dennis
Logbook illustrations © 2012 H. L. Dennis and Meggie Dennis
First published in Great Britain in 2012
This ebook edition published in 2012
by Hodder Children’s Books
The right of H. L. Dennis to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form, or by any means with prior permission in writing from the publishers or in the case of reprographic production in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency and may not be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 90838 1
Hodder Children’s Books
a division of Hachette Children’s Books
338 Euston Road,
London NW1 3BH
An Hachette UK company
For Meggie,
for Steve
and for Mum and Dad.
Thank you for believing!
Then Arthur looked at the sword, and liked it very much.
‘Which do you like better,’ said Merlin, ‘the sword or the scabbard?’
‘I like the sword better,’ said Arthur.
‘You are most unwise,’ said Merlin, ‘for the scabbard is worth ten of the sword.’
Adapted from
Le Morte D’Arthur
by
Sir Thomas Malory,
Book 1 Chapter 25
Brodie Bray held the writing towards the light.
It was then she saw them.
Holes.
Amazing really, she hadn’t seen them before. It was only the angle of the sun, streaming through the window, which made them visible now. Tiny pinpricks pushed through the surface of the birthday card.
Eleven.
The holes weren’t random. They’d been precisely placed.
She grabbed a piece of paper and pen and wrote out each letter marked with a pinprick. Then she read the message aloud.
Now she was scared.
Someone was trying to send her a message. And she had no idea who.
Everything about today’s delivery from the postman was confusing. An unsigned card when it was nowhere near her birthday; her name written incorrectly inside; even her age was wrong. And the bright orange socks she now wore, which had come with the card, were far too big.
She put the card down on the floor and her hand knocked against the glass of water by the bed. She jumped up too late to stop it falling. Water splashed on her feet.
It was only when she knelt to sponge up the mess, she saw the orange stains across the back of the card. Ink. From the socks.
And there, marked clearly now, was a map.
And three words.
Light is knowledge
Mr Smithies was a member of a secret organisation. It was such a secret organisation even Mr Smithies’ wife didn’t know anything about it. As far as Mrs Smithies was concerned, her husband worked at the tax office. She packed his sandwiches every day and watched him leave for work every morning, waving him off from the kitchen window wearing her bright yellow Marigold gloves. Every evening she set Mr Smithies’ dinner on the table at six o’clock sharp and when they’d eaten they went into the lounge and watched Mrs Smithies’ favourite television programmes. They never talked about his work. Which was just as well as Mr Smithies wasn’t allowed to.
The organisation Mr Smithies worked for had an unusual name: the ‘Black Chamber’. Black Chambers had existed in one form or another for centuries. They’d always been secret organisations created to find out secrets. The very best brains in the country (Mr Smithies was very proud of this part) were specially selected and trained by the British Black Chamber simply to do this job. The problem was there really wasn’t much that was ‘simple’ about it.
Clearly, the best way to keep a secret is not to tell anybody.
But sometimes information has to be shared. Just not with everyone. That’s when codes are used. Writing messages in code means only certain people can understand what’s said. This is an excellent system for controlling who knows what. Those who understand the code have power.
Black Chambers make codes. And break codes. Codes that contain secrets. Sometimes the secrets are exciting; sometimes they are dangerous; and sometimes they change the course of history. So, however hard the codes are to crack, it’s important the workers in the Black Chamber never give up. Mr Smithies believed this. He really did. And Mr Smithies loved his job. At least, he
had
loved it. Recently things hadn’t been going so well. Things were changing and Mr Smithies was not a man who dealt well with change.
However, today Mr Smithies had other things on his mind. He had a meeting to attend and he was feeling very awkward about the whole thing.
Mr Smithies had agreed to meet Robbie Friedman in a small café at the edge of Russell Square. He spent a few moments checking he hadn’t been followed, then opened the café door. Friedman was already there; a tall man, with fair skin, and hair wild around his face like a thick blond halo, a golden necklace glinting at the base of his throat.
‘Good of you to agree to see me again, Smithies,’ he said.
Smithies felt this was a bit of an understatement. If anyone from the Black Chamber knew he was meeting Friedman there’d be trouble. Friedman and trouble seemed to go together, like eggs and bacon or bangers and mash. Smithies ordered the full English breakfast, pulled out a chair and sat down.
Friedman hadn’t always been trouble. There was a time when he had been one of the most important code-crackers in the country. That was all before the rather unfortunate mistake he’d made. Now Friedman was in exile and Smithies was taking a huge risk in meeting him. But Smithies wasn’t afraid of risk.
‘It’s done,’ Smithies said. ‘Operation Veritas has been reactivated. I’ve sent out the invitations.’
Excitement flashed in Friedman’s eyes. ‘You’re sure we can do this?’
‘No. But you and I both know we’ve got to try. It’s what we always agreed. If we ever discovered any new information about the manuscript, then we’d relaunch the Study Group section of the Black Chamber.’
‘So who’ve you asked? The best minds in the country? New graduates just out of university? How many from Oxford and Cambridge?’
Smithies’ hand froze in midair. A globule of egg slipped from his fork and slopped into a puddle of baked beans. ‘None,’ he said. Friedman’s lip twitched.
‘Look, it’s complicated, Robbie,’ Smithies whispered. ‘Modern code-cracking’s all about computers and targets and internet security. No one’s interested in a five-hundred-year-old manuscript nobody can read. People don’t remember the work of the Study Groups any more. Veritas disbanded forty years ago.’
He lifted the chipped spotty mug to his lips. When he put the mug down, he wore a milky white moustache.