“What was the key?” I asked.

“Our old telephone exchange in Monterey,” she said. “Three-six-two.”

I pulled a notepad from my pocket and began to list the dotted letters.

The first line yielded a series of consonants.

The second line yielded a sequence of numbers.

I wrote them down in a column.

T-H-I-R-T-Y-F-I-V-E.

“Thirty-five,” I muttered.

I continued decoding the third paragraph.

O-N-E-H-U-N-D-R-E-D-T-W-E-N-T-Y.

“One hundred twenty,” I said.

The numbers were coordinates.

I pulled up the military mapping software on my secure tablet.

I typed in the latitude and longitude: 35 degrees north, 120 degrees west.

The map zoomed in on a barren stretch of the California desert, miles east of Bakersfield.

It was an arid basin surrounded by low, rocky hills.

There was a single blue icon on the satellite view.

It was labeled as an active industrial park.

“There is nothing out there but scrub brush and gravel pits,” Eleanor said, leaning closer to the screen.

“That is exactly where you hide things,” I said.

I accessed the Department of Defense logistics database using my officer credentials.