CHAPTER 23

Susan sat alone in the plush surroundings of Node 3. She nursed a lemon mist herb tea and awaited the return of her tracer.

As senior cryptographer, Susan enjoyed the terminal with the best view. It was on the back side of the ring of computers and faced the Crypto floor. From this spot, Susan could oversee all of Node 3. She could also see, on the other side of the one-way glass, TRANSLTR standing dead-center of the Crypto floor.

Susan checked the clock. She had been waiting almost an hour. American Remailers Anonymous was apparently taking their time forwarding North Dakota’s mail. She sighed heavily. Despite her efforts to forget her morning conversation with David, the words played over and over in her head. She knew she’d been hard on him. She prayed he was okay in Spain.

Her thoughts were jarred by the loud hiss of the glass doors. She looked up and groaned. Cryptographer Greg Hale stood in the opening.

Greg Hale was tall and muscular with thick blond hair and a deep cleft chin. He was loud, thick-fleshed, and perpetually overdressed. His fellow cryptographers had nicknamed him “Halite”—after the mineral. Hale had always assumed it referred to some rare gem—paralleling his unrivaled intellect and rock-hard physique. Had his ego permitted him to consult an encyclopedia, he would have discovered it was nothing more than the salty residue left behind when oceans dried up.

Like all NSA cryptographers, Hale made a solid salary. However, he had a hard time keeping that fact to himself. He drove a white Lotus with a moon roof and a deafening subwoofer system. He was a gadget junkie, and his car was his showpiece; he’d installed a global positioning computer system, voice-activated door locks, a five-point radar jammer, and a cellular fax/phone so he’d never be out of touch with his message services. His vanity plate read MEGABYTE and was framed in violet neon.

Greg Hale had been rescued from a childhood of petty crime by the U.S. Marine Corps. It was there that he’d learned about computers. He was one of the best programmers the Marines had ever seen, well on his way to a distinguished military career. But two days before the completion of his third tour of duty, his future suddenly changed. Hale accidentally killed a fellow Marine in a drunken brawl. The Korean art of self-defense, Taekwondo, proved more deadly than defensive. He was promptly relieved of his duty.

After serving a brief prison term, Halite began looking for work in the private sector as a programmer. He was always up front about the incident in the marines, and he courted prospective employers by offering a month’s work without pay to prove his worth. He had no shortage of takers, and once they found out what he could do with a computer, they never wanted to let him go.

As his computer expertise grew, Hale began making Internet connections all over the world. He was one of the new breed of cyberfreaks with E-mail friends in every nation, moving in and out of seedy electronic bulletin boards and European chat groups. He’d been fired by two different employers for using their business accounts to upload pornographic photos to some of his friends.

“What are you doing here?” Hale demanded, stopping in the doorway and staring at Susan. He’d obviously expected to have Node 3 to himself today.

Susan forced herself to stay cool. “It’s Saturday, Greg. I could ask you the same question.” But Susan knew what Hale was doing there. He was the consummate computer addict. Despite the Saturday rule, he often slipped into Crypto on weekends to use the NSA’s unrivalled computing power to run new programs he was working on.

“Just wanted to re-tweak a few lines and check my E-mail,” Hale said. He eyed her curiously. “What was it you said you’re doing here?”

“I didn’t,” Susan replied.

Hale arched a surprised eyebrow. “No reason to be coy. We have no secrets here in Node 3, remember? All for one and one for all.”

Susan sipped her lemon mist and ignored him. Hale shrugged and strode toward the Node 3 pantry. The pantry was always his first stop. As Hale crossed the room, he sighed heavily and made a point of ogling Susan’s legs stretched out beneath her terminal. Susan, without looking up, retracted her legs and kept working. Hale smirked.

Susan had gotten used to Hale hitting on her. His favorite line was something about interfacing to check the compatibility of their hardware. It turned Susan’s stomach. She was too proud to complain to Strathmore about Hale; it was far easier just to ignore him.

Hale approached the Node 3 pantry and pulled open the lattice doors like a bull. He slid a Tupperware container of tofu out of the fridge and popped a few pieces of the gelatinous white substance in his mouth. Then he leaned on the stove and smoothed his gray Bellvienne slacks and well-starched shirt. “You gonna be here long?”

“All night,” Susan said flatly.

“Hmm…” Halite cooed with his mouth full. “A cozy Saturday in the Playpen, just the two of us.”

“Just the three of us,” Susan interjected. “Commander Strathmore’s upstairs. You might want to disappear before he sees you.”

Hale shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to mind you here. He must really enjoy your company.”

Susan forced herself to keep silent.

Hale chuckled to himself and put away his tofu. Then he grabbed a quart of virgin olive oil and took a few swigs. He was a health fiend and claimed olive oil cleaned out his lower intestine. When he wasn’t pushing carrot juice on the rest of the staff, he was preaching the virtues of high colonies.

Hale replaced the olive oil and went down to his computer directly opposite Susan. Even across the wide ring of terminals, Susan could smell his cologne. She crinkled her nose.

“Nice cologne, Greg. Use the entire bottle?”

Hale flicked on his terminal. “Only for you, dear.”

As he sat there waiting for his terminal to warm up, Susan had a sudden unsettling thought. What if Hale accessed TRANSLTR’s Run-Monitor? There was no logical reason why he would, but nonetheless Susan knew he would never fall for some half-baked story about a diagnostic that stumped TRANSLTR for sixteen hours. Hale would demand to know the truth. The truth was something Susan had no intention of telling him. She did not trust Greg Hale. He was not NSA material. Susan had been against hiring him in the first place, but the NSA had had no choice. Hale had been the product of damage control.

The Skipjack fiasco.

Four years ago, in an effort to create a single, public-key encryption standard, Congress charged the nation’s best mathematicians, those at the NSA, to write a new superalgorithm. The plan was for Congress to pass legislation that made the new algorithm the nation’s standard, thus alleviating the incompatibilities now suffered by corporations that used different algorithms.

Of course, asking the NSA to lend a hand in improving public-key encryption was somewhat akin to asking a condemned man to build his own coffin. TRANSLTR had not yet been conceived, and an encryption standard would only help to proliferate the use of code-writing and make the NSA’s already difficult job that much harder.

The EFF understood this conflict of interest and lobbied vehemently that the NSA might create an algorithm of poor quality—something it could break. To appease these fears, Congress announced that when the NSA’s algorithm was finished, the formula would be published for examination by the world’s mathematicians to ensure its quality.

Reluctantly, the NSA’s Crypto team, led by Commander Strathmore, created an algorithm they christened Skipjack. Skipjack was presented to Congress for their approval. Mathematicians from all over the world tested Skipjack and were unanimously impressed. They reported that it was a strong, untainted algorithm and would make a superb encryption standard. But three days before Congress was to vote their certain approval of Skipjack, a young programmer from Bell Laboratories, Greg Hale, shocked the world by announcing he’d found a back door hidden in the algorithm.

The back door consisted of a few lines of cunning programming that Commander Strathmore had inserted into the algorithm. It had been added in so shrewd a way that nobody, except Greg Hale, had seen it. Strathmore’s covert addition, in effect, meant that any code written by Skipjack could be decrypted via a secret password known only to the NSA. Strathmore had come within inches of turning the nation’s proposed encryption standard into the biggest intelligence coup the NSA had ever seen; the NSA would have held the master key to every code written in America.

The computer-savvy public was outraged. The EFF descended on the scandal like vultures, ripping Congress to shreds for their naïveté and proclaiming the NSA the biggest threat to the free world since Hitler. The encryption standard was dead.

It had come as little surprise when the NSA hired Greg Hale two days later. Strathmore felt it was better to have him on the inside working for the NSA than on the outside working against it.

Strathmore faced the Skipjack scandal head-on. He defended his actions vehemently to Congress. He argued that the public’s craving for privacy would come back to haunt them. He insisted the public needed someone to watch over them; the public needed the NSA to break codes in order to keep the peace. Groups like the EFF felt differently. And they’d been fighting him ever since.

CHAPTER 24

David Becker stood in a phone booth across the street from La Clínica de Salud Pública; he’d just been ejected for harassing patient number 104, Monsieur Cloucharde.

Things were suddenly more complicated than he’d anticipated. His little favor to Strathmore—picking up some personal belongings—had turned into a scavenger hunt for some bizarre ring.

He’d just called Strathmore and told him about the German tourist. The news had not been received well. After demanding the specifics, Strathmore had fallen silent for a long time. “David,” he had finally said very gravely, “finding that ring is a matter of national security. I’m leaving it in your hands. Don’t fail me.” The phone had gone dead.

David stood in the phone booth and sighed. He picked up the tattered Guía Telefónica and began scanning the yellow pages. “Here goes nothing,” he muttered to himself.

There were only three listings for Escort Services in the directory, and he didn’t have much to go on. All he knew was that the German’s date had red hair, which conveniently was rare in Spain. The delirious Cloucharde had recalled the escort’s name as Dew-drop. Becker cringed—Dewdrop? It sounded more like a cow than a beautiful girl. Not a good Catholic name at all; Cloucharde must have been mistaken.

Becker dialed the first number.

“Servicio Social de Sevilla,” a pleasant female voice answered.

Becker affected his Spanish with a thick German accent. “Hola, ¿hablas Aleman?”

“No. But I speak English” came the reply.

Becker continued in broken English. “Thank you. I wondering if you to help me?”

“How can we be of service?” The woman spoke slowly in an effort to aid her potential client. “Perhaps you would like an escort?”

“Yes, please. Today my brother, Klaus, he has girl, very beautiful. Red hair. I want same. For tomorrow, please.”

“Your brother Klaus comes here?” The voice was suddenly effervescent, like they were old friends.

“Yes. He very fat. You remember him, no?”

“He was here today, you say?”

Becker could hear her checking the books. There would be no Klaus listed, but Becker figured clients seldom used their real names.

“Hmm, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t see him here. What was the girl’s name your brother was with?”

“Had red hair,” Becker said, avoiding the question.

“Red hair?” she repeated. There was a pause. “This is Servicio Social de Sevilla. Are you sure your brother comes here?”

“Sure, yes.”

“Señor, we have no redheads. We have only pure Andalusian beauties.”

“Red hair,” Becker repeated, feeling stupid.

“I’m sorry, we have no redheads at all, but if you—”

“Name is Dewdrop,” Becker blurted, feeling even stupider.

The ridiculous name apparently meant nothing to the woman. She apologized, suggested Becker was confusing her with another agency, and politely hung up.

Strike one.

Becker frowned and dialed the next number. It connected immediately.

“Buenas noches, Mujeres España. May I help you?”

Becker launched into his same spiel, a German tourist who was willing to pay top dollar for the red-haired girl who was out with his brother today.

This time the response was in polite German, but again no redheads. “Keine Rotköpfe, I’m sorry.” The woman hung up.

Strike two.

Becker looked down at the phone book. There was only one number left. The end of the rope already.

He dialed.

“Escortes Belén,” a man answered in a very slick tone.

Again Becker told his story.

“Sí, sí, señor. My name is Señor Roldán. I would be pleased to help. We have two redheads. Lovely girls.”

Becker’s heart leapt. “Very beautiful?” he repeated in his German accent. “Red hair?”

“Yes, what is your brother’s name? I will tell you who was his escort today. And we can send her to you tomorrow.”

“Klaus Schmidt.” Becker blurted a name recalled from an old textbook.

A long pause. “Well, sir… I don’t see a Klaus Schmidt on our registry, but perhaps your brother chose to be discreet—perhaps a wife at home?” He laughed inappropriately.

“Yes, Klaus married. But he very fat. His wife no lie with him.” Becker rolled his eyes at himself reflected in the booth. If Susan could hear me now, he thought. “I fat and lonely too. I want lie with her. Pay lots of money.”

Becker was giving an impressive performance, but he’d gone too far. Prostitution was illegal in Spain, and Señor Roldán was a careful man. He’d been burned before by Guardia officials posing as eager tourists. I want lie with her. Roldán knew it was a setup. If he said yes, he would be heavily fined and, as always, forced to provide one of his most talented escorts to the police commissioner free of charge for an entire weekend.

When Roldán spoke, his voice was not quite as friendly. “Sir, this is Escortes Belén. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Aah… Sigmund Schmidt,” Becker invented weakly.

“Where did you get our number?”

“La Guía Telefónica—yellow pages.”

“Yes, sir, that’s because we are an escort service.”

“Yes. I want escort.” Becker sensed something was wrong.

“Sir, Escortes Belén is a service providing escorts to businessmen for luncheons and dinners. This is why we are listed in the phone book. What we do is legal. What you are looking for is a prostitute.” The word slid off his tongue like a vile disease.

“But my brother …”

“Sir, if your brother spent the day kissing a girl in the park, she was not one of ours. We have strict regulations about client-escort contact.”

“But…”

“You have us confused with someone else. We only have two redheads, Inmaculada and Rocío, and neither would allow a man to sleep with them for money. That is called prostitution, and it is illegal in Spain. Good night, sir.”

“But—”

CLICK.

Becker swore under his breath and dropped the phone back into its cradle. Strike three. He was certain Cloucharde had said the German had hired the girl for the entire weekend.

Becker stepped out of the phone booth at the intersection of Calle Salado and Avenida Asunción. Despite the traffic, the sweet scent of Seville oranges hung all around him. It was twilight—the most romantic hour. He thought of Susan. Strathmore’s words invaded his mind: Find the ring. Becker flopped miserably on a bench and pondered his next move.

What move?

CHAPTER 25

Inside the Clínica de Salud Pública, visiting hours were over. The gymnasium lights had been turned out. Pierre Cloucharde was fast asleep. He did not see the figure hunched over him. The needle of a stolen syringe glinted in the dark. Then it disappeared into the IV tube just above Cloucharde’s wrist. The hypodermic contained 30 cc of cleaning fluid stolen from a janitor’s cart. With great force, a strong thumb rammed the plunger down and forced the bluish liquid into the old man’s veins.

Cloucharde was awake only for a few seconds. He might have screamed in pain had a strong hand not been clamped across his mouth. He lay trapped on his cot, pinned beneath a seemingly immovable weight. He could feel the pocket of fire searing its way up his arm. There was an excruciating pain traveling through his armpit, his chest, and then, like a million shattering pieces of glass, it hit his brain. Cloucharde saw a brilliant flash of light… and then nothing.

The visitor released his grip and peered through the darkness at the name on the medical chart. Then he slipped silently out.

On the street, the man in wire-rim glasses reached to a tiny device attached to his belt. The rectangular pack was about the size of a credit card. It was a prototype of the new Monocle computer. Developed by the U.S. Navy to help technicians record battery voltages in cramped quarters on submarines, the miniature computer packed a cellular modem and the newest advances in microtechnology. Its visual monitor was a transparent liquid crystal display, mounted in the left lens of a pair of eyeglasses. The Monocle reflected a whole new age in personal computing; the user could now look through his data and still interact with the world around him.

The Monocle’s real coup, though, was not its miniature display but rather its data entry system. A user entered information via tiny contacts fixed to his fingertips; touching the contacts together in sequence mimicked a shorthand similar to court stenography. The computer would then translate the shorthand into English.

The killer pressed a tiny switch, and his glasses flickered to life. His hands inconspicuously at his sides, he began touching different fingertips together in rapid succession. A message appeared before his eyes.

He smiled. Transmitting notification of kills was part of his assignment. But including victims’ names … that, to the man in the wire-rim glasses, was elegance. His fingers flashed again, and his cellular modem activated.