The room was dim, lit only by the light coming in through the door and a couple of skylight panels in the roof, but as Patton stepped in she caught a hint of Jasper’s Bay Rum aftershave. He had been there recently. A long wooden work counter stretched down one side of the space, and above this hung neat racks of tools and bins of screws and bolts. On the opposite wall stood several large power tools, the only one of which Patton recognized was a drill press. At one end of the room a small armchair sat next to a table holding an electric coffeepot. Patton wished for more light so she could see better, and just at that moment a bright beam swung across the wall. She turned to see Nemo standing in the door with a flashlight.

“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” she scolded.

“You’re cool under fire but a flashlight freaks you out?”

“What is this place?” said Patton.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” said Nemo. “Looks like a nice workshop. He’s got the tools for a little carpentry, some metalworking, some electrical stuff.”

“But what was he working on?”

“Maybe that,” said Nemo, shining his light on an old checked tablecloth that covered something at the far end of the counter. He stepped across the room and pulled away the cloth, revealing a wooden box that resembled a typewriter. It had a set of keys that looked like they might have been pilfered from an old Remington manual, but it also had wires spilling out of the front and the sides and another set of letters inset in a panel above the keyboard.

“Let me guess,” said Nemo. “Jasper was trying to invent the electric typewriter?”

Patton stepped carefully toward the machine, turning her attention to a wooden rack next to it that held several notched metal disks. “Wow,” she said reverently. “I’ve studied all about them, but I’ve never seen one.” She ran her hands lightly across the keys, then picked up one of the metal disks and pressed it into a slot at the top of the machine.

“Never seen one what?” said Nemo.

“But this only has space for two rotors. He was still working on it. This is amazing. Did he build this whole thing from scratch? I wonder how . . .”

“Build what from scratch?” said Nemo more insistently. “What is that thing?”

“Something that has no business being in a barn outside Alta Vista, North Carolina,” said Patton. “Jasper Fleming was building an Enigma machine.”

“What the hell is an Enigma machine?” said Nemo, pressing one of the keys.

“It’s an enciphering machine the Germans used to send coded messages during World War II,” said Patton.