“It’s about a quarter after one,” Jean said. “You can take your lunch break if you’d like since you haven’t yet. I can keep going with these notes on my own for a while.”

“No,” Terry said defiantly. She disliked when Jean acted like her superior even though, technically speaking, federal intelligence and investigation agencies had priority in cases that involved possible terrorist attacks. “This could be really important. I want to try and figure out why the number 13 would matter. Anyway, I’m not hungry.”

“Suit yourself,” Jean answered blankly from her terminal. Although sometimes she felt real camaraderie with Jean, Terry also found herself enraged at the woman’s inability to express warmth unless some form of intell or data could be procured as a result of showing sympathy. Terry knew this was too important a time to allow her personal feelings to bleed into her work though. She knew that she was close to a breakthrough. Although most of her work had to do with programming and data analysis, she also found herself deeply engaged with these linguistic puzzles. Although she lacked literary training, her background in cryptography and security analysis as well as her natural verbal abilities made her well suited for this case.

“‘Follow the numbers through space. They will add up to your curse,’” Terry quoted. She began brainstorming out loud as much for her own benefit as for Jean’s. Before she could say another word, a feeling of urgency gripped her. “What does he mean by that? Space? What kind of space? Cyberspace? What if…?” At that moment, her computer beeped again, revealing a new email form a strange address, but from a familiar source.

“The terrorist sent us… correction, sent me a poem,” Terry said. “I’ve forwarded it to you, Jean.”

“Got it.”

“How does he have time to just sit around all day and send us email after email? I thought he didn’t fancy himself a poet.”

“Well, it’s not a very good poem.”

“It’s not. The tone’s pretty striking though,” Terry said. “Fire? Missiles? Burn? I’m worried. This guy’s not messing around.”

“No, he’s not,” Jean said. “I’m going to get in touch with Washington about this.”

“Jean, wait a sec before you do. Look at the rhythm of the poem. I think it has thirteen beats in every line. Listen: My—let—ters—are—ho—ly—mis—sals—that—mis—siles—in—spire.” She paused after sounding out the sentence.

“Thirteen,” Jean said.

“We were right about the number.”

“Do you have any ideas for running an efficient search of occurrences of the number thirteen across the corporate network?”

“Yes," Terry said. "But wait a sec.”

“What are you thinking?”

“This is just a hunch,” Terry began hesitantly, “but I don’t think it’s about the network. I really don’t think he’s warning us about just another cyber attack. If this guy Ishmael — whoever he is — has been involved in the kind of activities the CIA files are talking about, his attacks here could get a lot more serious.”

“It’s possible,” Jean said, “though unlikely. Psychological profiles of cyberterrorists suggest they’re usually too frightened of being apprehended to venture away from the computer screen. These are people who crave attention and power, but they also like to be invisible. A hacker who writes poems and breaks into websites isn’t usually the kind of person who’s going to charge into a building filled with security guards and cameras with a machine gun.”

“I agree,” Terry said, surprised at the sudden limitations of Jean’s thinking. “I’ve seen plenty of hackers like that. But you’re just talking about average profiles and statistical means. When it comes down to it, you wouldn’t be here if this guy was just sending annoying emails. You’re here because we don’t have any idea of what he would do and we suspect the worst. Anyway, I didn’t mean to imply that he would charge in here openly like that. I was thinking more about an explosive. A bomb. A remote weapon of some sort. The note says we’re going to burn.”

“A bomb,” Jean said flatly.

“I have a bad feeling about all this. The emails have never come this frequently. I think we should have everyone evacuated from the building.”

“We can’t do that,” Jean said. “This isn’t an explicit bomb threat. As much as I would be in favor of taking that kind of precaution, the powers that be would never allow for it. It would garner unwanted media attention and kill, at the very least, an hour of productivity for the corporate headquarters of the world’s largest corporation. Some of the senior directors at the national office, not to mention the politicians they serve, wouldn’t be too pleased about that.” Terry was not sure if it was just the dryness that came through in most of Jean’s speech or whether her words were actually dripping with bitter sarcasm. Jean’s facial expression did not suggest the preference of one reading over the other. “Even if he were issuing a real bomb threat, how would we know that the Luminary Omni-Vision Entertainment building is the target?”

“What else would it be?” Terry asked, her heart beating quickly. Her belief in her own hypothesis was growing exponentially with each passing second even though she realized that Jean was right. These were just puzzles. There was no concrete suggestion of a planned bombing. There was no specified location. Regardless, she could not subdue the hysteric feeling that was overtaking her. “It has to be this building, Jean. He knows that I’m in the building and he’s sending the emails here. He’s warning us. These attacks have escalated every single time. I don’t think it’s that insane to be worried about an actual physical attack this time.”

“I didn’t say anything about your idea being insane,” Jean said carefully. “I just can’t order a bomb evacuation without getting in touch with Washington.”

“Of course you can,” Terry said. “I haven’t thought this through entirely, but go with me on this one.” The words came out frantically and her hands shook as she moved them across the keyboard. “He wrote, ‘Follow the numbers through space. They will add up to your curse.’ So, some set of numbers is supposed to add up to thirteen. What if he’s targeting not the entire building, but a specific room? What if the room numbers add up to thirteen?”

“That’s as possible as anything,” Jean said. “We could do a search of all the rooms whose numerals add up to thirteen, but with forty seven floors that would probably include a large number of rooms.”

“Not that many” Terry asked, fighting for anything she could get at this point. “Could we evacuate those rooms?”

“Get me the list of rooms and I’ll see what I can do,” Jean said. “For now, I’m going next door to the Comm room. I need to make a call to Washington.”

“Call as quickly as you can,” Terry said. “We don’t know when this is going to happen. It could be in a week. It could be tomorrow. But it could also be in five minutes. I don’t think the notes give us the time, but I have a bad feeling about this.” Terry began the search for the room immediately.

“Hey Terry,” Jean said as she was stepping out.

“Yeah?” Terry said without looking away from the screen.

“Don’t stress out about this so much,” Jean said with softness that Terry’s concentration on her work did not allow her to pick up on. “We’ll figure it out. Remember, you’re just one person.” Terry nodded, but did not look up. She was completely focused on her task.

“Call as quickly as you can,” Jean repeated. “We’re running out of time.” A few seconds later, she whispered nervously to herself the words she had already memorized: “‘Follow the numbers through time. They will lead you vertiginously, to and fro.’”