Any Code breakers out ther?

[Zem]

so There's this riddle thing that is a puzzle to figure out where some pirate trausure is. I need your help to decode it. Here it is:

I used to have a job. Yeah, it's hard to believe. You see, I used to work for the "family". My job involved locating people who owed the "family" money, yet, for some reason, refused to pay! What were they thinking?

I remember my very last assignment. This guy, Lance, (who owed a LOT of money on a "job" that went sour in France, where he was supposed to take a fall) was a real mover. He kept just ahead of our searching, staying just out of our reach each time we'd get a guy to his location. My job was to coordinate the info and alert our "family" members in each city of where to go look for the runner.

So, I had to make a lot of calls in a matter of days. Of course, first I dialed a 1 to begin calling. It was a lot of waiting, then sudden action!

We got word that Lance had caught a bus to Woonsocket, RI. Lucikly, we had a man nearby. I gave a ring to Viggo, who got to the half-way house Lance was supposedly holed up in, only to find out that the he was already gone.

Next, one of our informants spotted Lance in Roanoke Rapids, NC. I made sure to send Tony the Tulip. Tony's usually our best man, but he came up short. This really aggravated him! When his contact said that the subject had split to Waycross, GA, Tony called his buddy, Slick Eddie. Eddie called me afterwards and told me all about this car chase he'd gone through, but he couldn't manage to stop Lance before he stole a private plane and took off.

It was days later that our contact, Gregory, spotted Lance in, of all places, Holladay, UT. Maybe Lance just needed a break. Gregory tracked Lance to a stadium, but lost him there. Crud. Another dead end. Of course, this was making my boss quite angry, and there was a lot of pressure on me to find Lance. This is the main reason I left their employ and decided to become a full time treasure hunter instead.

Well, things kept heating up. Lance was spotted and lost in such places as Chicopee, MA, Vincennes, IN, Seminole, TX, and Lebanon, OH.

When our "cousin", Squints, found Lance in Le Mars, IA, we thought it was all over. Squints actually caught Lance, brought him to his house, all tied up, of course, and was on the phone to me when somehow Lance managed to break free and escape on a bicycle. To this day we still don't know how Lance got free, but I think it was a maid.

So, we were back on the wait, and surely we'd get word that Lance surfaced somewhere. Sure enough, Julio phoned from Melbourne, FL with a tip that Lance was in town. And, Baby Face in West Point, NE took a shot at Lance and seemed to hit him in the leg, but wasn't fast enough to actually grab him. After that Danny in Searcy, AR, and Guido in Montpelier, VT came close but failed.

When we heard from Rocky in Smiths Falls, Canada that his network heard Lance was headed for Roanoke, VA, we finally breathed a sigh of relief. We found Lance trapped in a bike shop.

After that, nobody's seen Lance in quite a while now, but I'd had enough with the whole thing. I'm much happier now looking for immobile treasure boxes instead of flighty people. Capice?"

It should be latitude and longitude or something.

[Joel Fagin]

I doubt it's anything to do with the mob and you should look carefully at the words in quotes and the words out of quotes that imply that it is. I suspect they're clues. As are, I reckon, the place names. I wouldn't bet the treasure is your traditional treasure either.

Assume nothing. Or rather, assume it's trying to get you to assume the wrong thing.

- Joel Fagin

[Killbert-Robby]

I actually think he should be keeping an eye on the punctuation. I broke a code once by reading every word after a piece of punctuation. I don't think that's the case here, but there's a lot of seemingly unecessary punctuation points here, and I'm sure they're involved in the code somehow.

[Laemkral]

Anything out of the ordinary, anything that repeats, anything that is distinct and named, etc.

There are a bajillion ways to make codes. The secret to breaking a code is looking for a key. Usually there will be something in the message itself that lends itself to revealing the key.

All this mentioning of Lance and France and bicycles makes me think Lance Armstrong. To me, that's relevant because Armstrong may be a clue to the key, or information about Lance Armstrong may be important. Check information regarding competitions he's done and locations, dates, times, etc.

Also, the number of times certain things are repeated can be key. If, afterall, the number of times a word is repeated in the Bible can be significant, same thing applies here as well.

Often, when deciphering a written letter such as this, either key letters or words make up the actual message and the rest is just BS to hide it up. This often relates back to some number.

Keep in mind, a key is only present if sending the message to someone else. If merely keeping notes, the key could be some information the writer has memorized and only alluded to in the message as a mental reminder. Really, I could go on for a long time about all the ins and outs and double and triple codes that could be present to throw you off the trail, so just remember that if it looks off, there may be something to it and always always follow any leads to their inevitable conclusion because you may be headed on the right path but haven't solved it all.

[Killbert-Robby]

Exactly. It may be an encrypted encryption of another encryption. If the answer doesnt hop out right away, keep at it.

[TRI]

If you think that's easy you obviously haven't tried finding Chicopee on a map.

[Tim]

If you think that's easy you obviously haven't tried finding Chicopee on a map.

C'mon, it's not that hard.