Digital Fortress

Anarchy.

"What are the options?" Susan probed. She was well aware that desperate times called for desperate measures, even at the NSA.

"We can’t remove him, if that’s what you’re asking."

It was exactly what Susan was asking. In her years with the NSA, Susan had heard rumors of its loose affiliations with the most skilled assassins in the world-hired hands brought in to do the intelligence community’s dirty work.

Strathmore shook his head. "Tankado’s too smart to leave us an option like that."

Susan felt oddly relieved. "He’s protected?"

"Not exactly."

"In hiding?"

Strathmore shrugged. "Tankado left Japan. He planned to check his bids by phone. But we know where he is."

"And you don’t plan to make a move?"

"No. He’s got insurance. Tankado gave a copy of his pass-key to an anonymous third party… in case anything happened."

Of course, Susan marveled. A guardian angel. "And I suppose if anything happens to Tankado, the mystery man sells the key?"

"Worse. Anyone hits Tankado, and his partner publishes."

Susan looked confused. "His partner publishes the key?"

Strathmore nodded. "Posts it on the Internet, puts it in newspapers, on billboards. In effect, he gives it away."

Susan’s eyes widened. "Free downloads?"

"Exactly. Tankado figured if he was dead, he wouldn’t need the money-why not give the world a little farewell gift?"

There was a long silence. Susan breathed deeply as if to absorb the terrifying truth. Ensei Tankado has created an unbreakable algorithm. He’s holding us hostage.

She suddenly stood. Her voice was determined. "We must contact Tankado! There must be a way to convince him not to release! We can offer him triple the highest bid! We can clear his name! Anything!"

"Too late," Strathmore said. He took a deep breath. "Ensei Tankado was found dead this morning in Seville, Spain."

Chapter 8

The twin-engine Learjet 60 touched down on the scorching runway. Outside the window, the barren landscape of Spain’s lower extremadura blurred and then slowed to a crawl.

"Mr. Becker?" a voice crackled. "We’re here."

Becker stood and stretched. After unlatching the overhead compartment, he remembered he had no luggage. There had been no time to pack. It didn’t matter-he’d been promised the trip would be brief, in and out.

As the engines wound down, the plane eased out of the sun and into a deserted hangar opposite the main terminal. A moment later the pilot appeared and popped the hatch. Becker tossed back the last of his cranberry juice, put the glass on the wet bar, and scooped up his suit coat.

The pilot pulled a thick manila envelope from his flight suit. "I was instructed to give you this." He handed it to Becker. On the front, scrawled in blue pen, were the words:

KEEP THE CHANGE.

Becker thumbed through the thick stack of reddish bills. "What the…?"

"Local currency," the pilot offered flatly.

"I know what it is," Becker stammered. "But it’s… it’s too much. All I need is taxi fare." Becker did the conversion in his head. "What’s in here is worth thousands of dollars!"

"I have my orders, sir." The pilot turned and hoisted himself back into the cabin. The door slid shut behind him.

Becker stared up at the plane and then down at the money in his hand. After standing a moment in the empty hangar, he put the envelope in his breast pocket, shouldered his suit coat, and headed out across the runway. It was a strange beginning. Becker pushed it from his mind. With a little luck he’d be back in time to salvage some of his Stone Manor trip with Susan.

In and out, he told himself. In and out.

There was no way he could have known.

Chapter 9

Systems security technician Phil Chartrukian had only intended to be inside Crypto a minute-just long enough to grab some paperwork he’d forgotten the day before. But it was not to be.

After making his way across the Crypto floor and stepping into the Sys-Sec lab, he immediately knew something was not right. The computer terminal that perpetually monitored TRANSLTR’s internal workings was unmanned and the monitor was switched off.

Chartrukian called out, "Hello?"

There was no reply. The lab was spotless-as if no one had been there for hours.

Although Chartrukian was only twenty-three and relatively new to the Sys-Sec squad, he’d been trained well, and he knew the drill: There was always a Sys-Sec on duty in Crypto… especially on Saturdays when no cryptographers were around.

He immediately powered up the monitor and turned to the duty board on the wall. "Who’s on watch?" he demanded aloud, scanning the list of names. According to the schedule, a young rookie named Seidenberg was supposed to have started a double shift at midnight the night before. Chartrukian glanced around the empty lab and frowned. "So where the hell is he?"

As he watched the monitor power up, Chartrukian wondered if Strathmore knew the Sys-Sec lab was unmanned. He had noticed on his way in that the curtains of Strathmore’s workstation were closed, which meant the boss was in-not at all uncommon for a Saturday; Strathmore, despite requesting his cryptographers take Saturdays off, seemed to work 365 days a year.

There was one thing Chartrukian knew for certain-if Strathmore found out the Sys-Sec lab was unmanned, it would cost the absent rookie his job. Chartrukian eyed the phone, wondering if he should call the young techie and bail him out; there was an unspoken rule among Sys-Sec that they would watch each other’s backs. In Crypto, Sys-Secs were second-class citizens, constantly at odds with the lords of the manor. It was no secret that the cryptographers ruled this multibillion-dollar roost; Sys-Secs were tolerated only because they kept the toys running smoothly.

Chartrukian made his decision. He grabbed the phone. But the receiver never reached his ear. He stopped short, his eyes transfixed on the monitor now coming into focus before him. As if in slow motion, he set down the phone and stared in open-mouthed wonder.

In eight months as a Sys-Sec, Phil Chartrukian had never seen TRANSLTR’s Run-Monitor post anything other than a double zero in the hours field. Today was a first.

TIME ELAPSED: 15:17:21

"Fifteen hours and seventeen minutes?" he choked. "Impossible!"

He rebooted the screen, praying it hadn’t refreshed properly. But when the monitor came back to life, it looked the same.

Chartrukian felt a chill. Crypto’s Sys-Secs had only one responsibility: Keep TRANSLTR "clean"-virus free.

Chartrukian knew that a fifteen-hour run could only mean one thing-infection. An impure file had gotten inside TRANSLTR and was corrupting the programming. Instantly his training kicked in; it no longer mattered that the Sys-Sec lab had been unmanned or the monitors switched off. He focused on the matter at hand-TRANSLTR. He immediately called up a log of all the files that had entered TRANSLTR in the last forty-eight hours. He began scanning the list.

Did an infected file get through? he wondered. Could the security filters have missed something?

As a precaution, every file entering TRANSLTR had to pass through what was known as Gauntlet-a series of powerful circuit-level gateways, packet filters, and disinfectant programs that scanned inbound files for computer viruses and potentially dangerous subroutines. Files containing programming "unknown" to Gauntlet were immediately rejected. They had to be checked by hand. Occasionally Gauntlet rejected entirely harmless files on the basis that they contained programming the filters had never seen before. In that case, the Sys-Secs did a scrupulous manual inspection, and only then, on confirmation that the file was clean, did they bypass Gauntlet’s filters and send the file into TRANSLTR.