Susan T. Braithwaite, I am truly annoyed at you right now.
Every damned week, you make these prompts more challenging than the last.
Again, this week, I had to fight my way through Hell and Creation to get a decent image for your SLDS Challenge.
But at last, I think I have coaxed a reasonable entry out of it.
This week’s prompt is: Deciphering a cryptic message.
And I also swore that after last week’s misstep, I would not be putting words to it for context, but alas, to find my way through this creative quagmire, I was thinking along the lines of this:
It was 2:00 AM and John Henry Shackleton was no closer to breaking this damned code than he was fourteen hours ago when he started.
“John, we need this desperately,” the Commandant of the Admiralty stated as he looked deep into Shackleton’s eyes. “We can’t afford another loss like the Strait of Impala. We just can’t. Failure is not an option.”
“Yes, Commandant, I understand,” John replied. “Do the boys in Intel have even the foggiest when they may strike again? Anything at all to go on?”
“Nothing. Not a blasted thing!” the Commandant exclaimed as he took a long pull off his cigarette. “They’re working every lead they can trying to find a leak. Those bastards have to have someone on the inside. They knew right where to hit us!”
Shackleton stubbed his cigarette out and finished his scotch. He needed to get to work, and now.
That was at noon yesterday. John pulled himself back to reality with the Commandant’s words still echoing in his head.
“Come on, John. What the bloody hell are you missing?” he asked himself for about the fiftieth time. He took a sip of his drink and stared deep into the enigma.
“Where are you hiding, you son of a bitch?”
Time was running short and every single outcome rested solely on John Shackleton’s weary shoulders.
The alternate takes and misses:
These two were in contention.
This, however, was surely not.
I didn’t ask for a gimp, thank you. I’m not writing Pulp Fiction: The Return here. 🙄
Anyhow, that’s it for this week! Thanks a lot, Susan! 😋😋
The Beginning At Last 
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