Chapter 2

“My name is Chandice Williams and I was born in Kingston, Jamaica. Therefore I am not an African American as people usually think. I am a student of Classical Dance at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. I am also a student of Caribbean Folklore.”

Chandice hesitated for a moment not knowing what to say so Jack decided to go to her aid.

"Tell us Chandice. What brought you close to the Bluthund Community? "

“I have my life programmed until the last minute, everything is predictable. I want to leave a certain place in it for the unforeseen, the adventure."

Berglund looked at a sheet in his hand where the names of the meeting participants were obviously written.

"Fine, thanks Chandice, let's see you ... Zhi Ruo ... did I pronounce it correctly?”

The oriental girl got up and in a soft voice she began to speak.

"Yes. Although you can just call me Zhi. I am a Singaporean citizen of Chinese ethnic origin. I am a cartoonist and calligrapher, a disciple of my mother in both activities. I work in an oriental jewelry store and in the afternoons I practice Tai Chi Chuan together with my instructor. "

"Oh! Interesting." Exclaimed Jack. "Without a doubt you will have the opportunity to practice martial arts in our community. And now tell us what are your expectations about our Community "

"I expect to learn a set of techniques and knowledge that allow us to face complex issues, which require a multidisciplinary analysis, and I also hope to have the support of specialist teachers in various areas."

"Do you have a hobby?" Berglund inquired.

“"Yes, play Mahjong, even solo and online."

“Thank you, Zhi. Now please tell us something about yourself. "

This time Jack question was aimed at Mike.

“My name is Mikhail Turgenev. I was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia and came to the United States ten years ago. At the beginning it was hard for me because I spoke little English but I could slowly overcome the problems and now I am continuing my university studies in Mechanical Engineering that I had started in my hometown. I work as a salesman of electronic devices in a store of that branch and in my vacations I go to climb mountains not too high in the neighboring states to New York. "

“Very good, thank you very much Mike. Now is your turn." Berglund said, alluding to Nick.

"My name is Nicholas Lafleur ..." Started answering the boy.

"Are you French?" Jack interrupted. " You have a very slight accent. "

“No, I am French-Canadian. I was born and raised in a small town in Quebec, and although I have learnt both English and French at school, at home the language we used was French. "

The young man paused and continued.

“I am a systems analyst and I am studying Digital Marketing in the United States. My personal hobby is chess. "

"And what do you expect from Bluthund?" Asked Jack. The young man thought for a moment and then answered without hesitation.

"Action. Get out of a repetitive and routine life."

"So you also want adrenaline." Berglund's phrase was between a question and a signature.

"Yes, definitely." The boy's response was enthusiastic.

Jack Berglund sat again in his chair facing the class and asked.

“What would you guys say we have in common?”

Zhi raised her hand.

“Yes Zhi.” Said Jack.

“We are from very different countries.”

“Right, and not only that. You have different backgrounds, careers and interests. The only element you have in common is …” The man raised again and sensing the expectation for his words said.

“A certain inclination for adventure.”

He made a pause, and observed that all four youngsters gave obvious signs of approving his conclusion. Then he added.

“What you still do not know is that that is a characteristic of the Bluthund Community as a whole. In order to be able to study problems of very great diversity of topics our institution promotes the recruitment of very diverse members. As you get to know the members of our staff, this characteristic will become apparent to you.”

“After these presentations we are going to get slowly into the subject." The American continued. “As I already explained to you, I will be the tutor of the four of you during the period of your training, but I will also be the teacher of certain theoretical and practical subjects. One of them will be the extremely important subject of communications, both from the point of view of material means such as radio, satellite phones, secure lines and other hardware components, as well as the way messages are sent and received. Today we will start with the message encryption issue. Encrypt a text means to transcribe in figures, letters or symbols, according to a key, a message or text whose content is to be protected. We will also see techniques to perform the inverse function, that is, to decrypt or decode our own messages as well as potentially dangerous messages sent by third parties.”

They were engaged in this task for four hours, with a short interval for a light lunch of sandwiches. When the mental fatigue became evident, Jack Berglund decided to take a break and while the young people were talking to each other, he left the classroom for a few minutes to make a phone call from his cell phone. Upon returning to the room, everyone sat in their chairs and the American expressed. "We are going to do a brief space for questions and answers in order to clarify what we have seen up to here, or to evacuate any doubts that they have about the training. Although at first no one seemed to have questions, as soon as Chandice asked the first the doubts began in a cascading effect that seemed endless. Suddenly, a new character appeared at the door of the classroom and silently watched the course of the debate without being noticed, until Jack Berglund raised his eyes and jumped in his chair and cut off his explanation by saying aloud . "Guys, let me introduce you to Professor Taro Suzuki." Instinctively everyone present rose to their feet.