License to Thrill by Dan Gutman Page A

forty point five seconds.”
    â€œHuh?” Coke replied. “Excuse me?”
    â€œListen,” the man said, looking into Coke’s eyes. “This is very important. Did you hear me? I said forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds.”
    â€œSo what?” Coke asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œWrite it down,” said the man.
    â€œI don’t need to write it down,” Coke said. “Leave me alone.”
    â€œHere, I’ll write it down for you.”
    Coke hurried away from the Hopi man and walked out the front door. Pep was waiting for him there.
    â€œWho was that guy you were talking to?” she asked.
    â€œSome old dude who lost his marbles,” Coke told her. “He kept saying the same thing over and over again. ‘Forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds.’ The guy is probably senile or something.”
    â€œHe’s not senile!” Pep said. “Can’t you see? It’s another cipher!”
    â€œYou gotta be kidding me,” said Coke. “Forty-nine minutes and eight seconds. Twenty-eight minutes and forty point five seconds. What couldthat possibly mean?”
    â€œIt has something to do with time, obviously,” Pep said.
    â€œSure, but what?”
    â€œMom, can we borrow your laptop?” Pep asked once they were in the car and back on I-40 West.
    She clicked on Google and had her brother type in “49 minutes and 8 seconds. 28 minutes and 40.5 seconds.”
    The first thing that came up was a list of high scores for the computer game Halo. The next few hits were about the TV show Glee .
    â€œTry forty-nine point zero eight,” Pep suggested.
    Coke tried it. “49.08” turned out to be part of the Texas penal code. Apparently, there are severe penalties if you kill somebody while driving drunk in Texas.
    â€œIt doesn’t mean anything ,” Coke muttered. “That old guy was just senile, like I said.”
    â€œIt means something ,” Pep insisted. “The ciphers always tie together somehow. We just have to figure out how.”
    She added the new entry into her notepad . . .
    CIPHER #1: MAY 28, 1937, VOLKSWAGEN IS FOUNDED
CIPHER #2: 49:08. 28:40.5
    Mrs. McDonald showed Coke some new T-shirts she had bought for him, and they had a brief argument over whether or not they were cool enough to wear in public. Soon they were driving through the town of Gallup, New Mexico, which is nicknamed “Indian Capital of the World” because three tribes call the surrounding area their home.
    â€œHey, it says here that a movie was filmed in Gallup,” said Mrs. McDonald. “Maybe we should stop and look around.”
    â€œWhat movie?” asked Dr. McDonald.
    â€œNatural Born Killers . ”
    â€œKeep driving!” the twins shouted.
    The family rode in silence for the next twenty miles until they came to this. . . .

----
    Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com).
    Click Get Directions.
    In the A box, type Lupton AZ.
    In the B box, type Sedona AZ.
    Click Get Directions.
----

Chapter 15
YOUR FUTURE WILL COME
    â€œW oo hoo!” Coke hooted as the Ferrari crossed the border. “The Grand Canyon State, baby!”
    Outside, Arizona didn’t look all that different from New Mexico. Mesas—or were they plateaus?—lined both sides of the road. A truck stop called Speedy’s was quickly followed by the Tee Pee Trading Post and a line of other souvenir shops hawking cheap jewelry and moccasins. But even so, just crossing another state line made everyone feel like they were just a little bit closer to home.
    â€œHow much farther do we have to go, Mom?” Pepcalled from the backseat.
    Mrs. McDonald looked it up on her laptop.
    â€œNine hundred and fifty-eight miles,” she reported.
    â€œA hop, skip, and a jump,” said Dr. McDonald as