FinallyStrathmore sat back down, and Susan could hear his breathingslowing to normal. When he finally spoke, his voice was eerily calmand controlled. His expression softened immediately. This is a nightmare come true. I thought you knew. David is a good choice. It was rumored his wife of thirty years was leavinghim. Then on top of it, there was Digital Fortress—the biggestintelligence threat in the history of the NSA, and the poor guy wasflying solo.
No wonder he looked about to crack. Even in moments like these, Strathmorewas clear-headed. Senior NSA officials had the right tohandle verifiable intelligence emergencies without executiveknowledge. The NSA was the only U. Strathmore often availed himself of this right; he preferred towork his magic in isolation. For ten years, through thick and thin, he hadalways led the way for her. It was hisdedication that amazed her—his unshakable allegiance to hisprinciples, his country, and his ideals.
Come what may, CommanderTrevor Strathmore was a guiding light in a world of impossibledecisions. Susan smiled. One hundredpercent. Now can we get back to work? Itwas not an immaculately groomed corpse resting in a silk-linedcoffin.
This body had been stripped naked and dumpedunceremoniously on an aluminum table. The eyes had not yet foundtheir vacant, lifeless gaze.
Instead they were twisted upwardtoward the ceiling in an eerie freeze-frame of terror andregret. Hepointed to a counter of clothing and other personal items.
Is that all? The lieutenant hurried off tofind one. It was Saturday evening, and the Seville morgue was technicallyclosed. The young lieutenant had let Becker in under direct ordersfrom the head of the Seville Guardia—it seemed the visitingAmerican had powerful friends. Becker eyed the pile of clothes. There was a passport, wallet,and glasses stuffed in one of the shoes. Read nothing. Just bring it all back. Becker surveyed the pile and frowned. What could the NSApossible want with this junk?
The lieutenant returned with a small box, and Becker beganputting the clothes inside. Who is he? Heart attack, huh? Be careful out theretomorrow.
Beautiful city. I thought Columbus was buried inthe Dominican Republic. Who starts these rumors? I thought you said you went to college. Becker knew here was only one churchin Spain—the Roman Catholic church.
Catholicism was biggerhere than in Vatican City. Solo elescroto? He fought off a grin. When the church obtainsthe remains of a great man, they saint him and spread the relics todifferent cathedrals so everyone can enjoy theirsplendor. You should really stay and seeit. Hehad no intention of getting on one again, regardless of who wasdriving. Have I goteverything?
He took a last look at the body on the table. Thefigure was stark naked, faceup under fluorescent lights, clearlyhiding nothing. Becker found his eyes drawn again to the strangelydeformed hands.
He gazed a minute, focusing more intently. The officer killed the lights, and the room went dark. Becker set his box on the floor walked over to the corpse. He turned to the officer. Then hepicked up the box, carried it back over to the counter, and dumpedit out. Carefully, piece by piece, he shook out the clothing. Thenhe emptied the shoes and tapped them as if trying to remove apebble. After going over everything a second time, he stepped backand frowned.
His employees and competitors knew him asakuta same—the deadly shark. He was about to close the biggest deal of his life—a dealthat would make his Numatech Corp. Hisblood was alive with the cool rush of adrenaline. Business waswar—and war was exciting. Although Tokugen Numataka had been suspicious when the call hadcome three days ago, he now knew the truth. He was blessed with myouri—good fortune. The gods had chosen him. He knew it was a ploy. Numatech Corp. My name is North Dakota.
Everyone knew about North Dakota. Tankado had told the press about his secret partner. Ensei Tankado was notsafe. But one false move by an overeager firm, and the pass-keywould be published; every software firm on the market wouldsuffer. How does Ensei Tankado feelabout this? Tankado wasfoolish to trust me.
The pass-key is worth hundreds of times whathe is paying me to handle it for him. Tankado would never stand for this. Think ofthe legal repercussions. Tankado were nolonger a factor? The line wentdead. The rest of him was a pale yellow—all except the small area ofpurplish bruising directly over his heart. Probably from the CPR, Becker mused. They werelike nothing Becker had ever seen. Each hand had only three digits,and they were twisted and askew.
The disfigurement, however, wasnot what Becker was looking at. Touch nothing. He could have stayed here for years. Date of entry was last week. Crummy first week. Sunstroke and a heartattack. Poor bastard. Take a look at this. Becker pointed to the strip of pale flesh.
Looks like he was wearing aring. Then he flushed sheepishly. Some Canadiantourist. Kept talking about a ring. Babbling in the worst damnSpanish I ever heard. Tankado was wearing a ring? He pulled out a Ducado cigarette, eyed theno fumar sign, and lit up anyway.
Not even a tiny scrap of paper. The officer took a puff. A two-inch sheet of curved one-way glass gavethe cryptographers a panorama of the Crypto floor while prohibitinganyone else from seeing inside. At the back of the expansive Node 3 chamber, twelve terminalssat in a perfect circle. Ironically, secretswere frowned on inside Node 3.
Nicknamed the Playpen, Node 3 had none of the sterile feel ofthe rest of Crypto. It was designed to feel like home—plushcarpets, high-tech sound system, fully stocked fridge, kitchenette,a Nerf basketball hoop.
Susan slipped out of her Salvatore Ferragamo flats and dug herstockinged toes into the thick pile carpet. Well-paid governmentemployees were encouraged to refrain from lavish displays ofpersonal wealth.
It was usually no problem for Susan—she wasperfectly happy with her modest duplex, Volvo sedan, andconservative wardrobe. But shoes were another matter. Susan allowed herself a luxurious stretch and then settled downto business. She pulled up her tracer and prepared to configure it. She glanced at the E-mail address Strathmore had given her.
If all went well, it would locate North Dakota soon, andStrathmore could confiscate the pass-key. That would leave onlyDavid. Susan double-checked the address on the sheet in front of herand entered the information in the correct datafield. She chuckledthat Strathmore had encountered difficulty sending the tracerhimself.
It wasa simple mistake, Susan thought; Strathmore had probablyinterchanged the datafields, and the tracer had searched for thewrong account. Susan finished configuring her tracer and queued it for release. Then she hit return. The computer beeped once. Now came the waiting game. She felt guilty for having been hard on thecommander. If there was anyone qualified to handle this threatsingle-handed, it was Trevor Strathmore. He had an uncanny way ofgetting the best of all those who challenged him.
Six months ago, when the EFF broke a story that an NSA submarinewas snooping underwater telephone cables, Strathmore calmly leakeda conflicting story that the submarine was actually illegallyburying toxic waste. The EFF and the oceanic environmentalistsspent so much time bickering over which version was true, the mediaeventually tired of the story and moved on. Every move Strathmore made was meticulously planned.
He dependedheavily on his computer when devising and revising his plans. Yes, Susan thought, I was too hard on him. Her thoughts were jarred by the hiss of the Node 3 doors. Strathmore burst in.
It was a realheads-up play. According to theofficer at the morgue, a Canadian tourist called the Guardia thismorning in a panic—he said a Japanese man was having a heartattack in the park. When the officer arrived, he found Tankado deadand the Canadian there with him, so he radioed the paramedics.
Allthe old guy did was babble about some ring Tankado had given awayright before he died. Sounds like the oldguy got a close look at it. Japanese characters could never be confused withour Roman lettering. He said the engraving looked like a cat hadgotten loose on a typewriter. Tankado engraved the Digital Fortress pass-key on his ring. Gold isdurable. In the open likethat?
Nobody would have any idea what the letters meant. Besides, if the key is a standard sixty-four-bit—even in broaddaylight, nobody could possibly read and memorize all sixty-fourcharacters. Her eyeswidened. He felt himself dying and logicallyassumed we were responsible.
The timing was too coincidental. His final instinct was revenge. Ensei gave away hisring as a last-ditch effort to publish the pass-key. Now,incredibly, some unsuspecting Canadian tourist held the key to themost powerful encryption algorithm in history.
Susan sucked in a deep breath and asked the inevitable question. So he put the oldguy on the back of his motorcycle to take him back to his hotel. So all the officer could dowas walk him to a small public clinic near the park. He left himthere to get checked out. Before him, El Ayuntamiento—the ancientcity council building—rose from the trees on a three-acre bedof blue and white azulejo tiles. Its Arabic spires and carvedfacade gave the impression it had been intended more as a palacethan a public office.
Despite its history of military coups, fires,and public hangings, most tourists visited because the localbrochures plugged it as the English military headquarters in thefilm Lawrence of Arabia. Becker reset his Seiko for local time: p. Even in the early-evening heat, Becker found himself walkingacross the park at a brisk clip. His neworders left no room for misinterpretation: Find the Canadian, getthe ring.
Do whatever is necessary, just get that ring. Becker wondered what could possibly be so important about a ringwith lettering all over it. NSA, he thought. Never SayAnything. The Guardia officer had droppedthe Canadian off hours ago. Broken wrist, bumped head—no doubtthe patient had been treated and discharged by now.
Becker justhoped the clinic had discharge information—a local hotel orphone number where the man could be reached. With a little luck,Becker figured he could find the Canadian, get the ring, and be onhis way home without any more complications. Susan owed him alot; a one-day errand was the least Becker could do. He considered having the pilot radioStrathmore so he could pass along a message but was hesitant toinvolve the deputy director in his romantic problems. Three times Becker had tried to call Susan himself—firstfrom a defunct cellular on board the jet, next from a pay phone atthe airport, then again from the morgue.
Susan was not in. Davidwondered where she could be. As he approached the road, he spotted a phone booth near thepark entrance. He jogged over, snatched up the receiver, and usedhis phone card to place the call.
There was a long pause as thenumber connected. Finally it began to ring. Come on. Be there. After five rings the call connected. This is Susan Fletcher. Where is she? By nowSusan would be panicked. There was a beep. One of the things he hated about answering machines was that if youstopped to think, they cut you off.
He wondered if he should tellher what was going on. He thought better of it. This is absurd, hethought. Becker waited for some traffic to pass on Avenida Borbolla. Becker stepped out onto the four-lane boulevard. He could scarcely believe his good fortune. He had spokento the American again, and if all was going according to thetimetable, Ensei Tankado had been eliminated by now, and his copyof the pass-key had been confiscated. Tokugen Numataka had metTankado once many years ago.
The young programmer had come toNumatech Corp. Numatakahad denied him. There was no question that Tankado was brilliant,but at the time there were other considerations.
Although Japan waschanging, Numataka had been trained in the old school; he lived bythe code of menboko—honor and face. Imperfection was not to betolerated. If he hired a cripple, he would bring shame on hiscompany. Numataka checked his watch again.
The American, North Dakota,should have called by now. Numataka felt a tinge of nervousness. Hehoped nothing was wrong. If the pass-keys were as good as promised, they would unlock themost sought-after product of the computer age—a totallyinvulnerable digital encryption algorithm. Numataka could embed thealgorithm in tamper-proof, spray-sealed VSLI chips and mass marketthem to world computer manufacturers, governments, industries, andperhaps, even the darker markets.
Numataka smiled. It appeared, as usual, that he had found favorwith the shichigosan—the seven deities of good luck. Twenty million dollars was a lot ofmoney—but considering the product, it was the steal of thecentury. I wanted to keep it that way. Susan and Strathmoreturned. Whatever hewas excitedly mouthing was not audible through the soundproofedglass. Canceling a Sys-Sec duty was irregular,but Strathmore undoubtedly had wanted privacy in the dome.
The lastthing he needed was some paranoid Sys-Sec blowing the lid offDigital Fortress. I wantto run it a full twenty-four—just to be sure. Digital Fortress was the first everuse of a rotating cleartext function. Somehow Susan doubted it. The pressure plate on the floor activated, and thedoors hissed open.
Chartrukian practically fell into the room. What seems to be the problem? He steppedaside and ushered Chartrukian into the sacred walls of Node 3. TheSys-Sec stepped over the threshold hesitantly, like a well-traineddog that knew better.
Whatever had beenthe source of his panic was momentarily forgotten. He surveyed theplush interior, the line of private terminals, the couches, thebookshelves, the soft lighting. When his gaze fell on the reigningqueen of Crypto, Susan Fletcher, he quickly looked away. Susanintimidated the hell out of him.
Her mind worked on a differentplane. She was unsettlingly beautiful, and his words always seemedto get jumbled around her. Chartrukian stumbled on. The filters have never seen anything likeit. But Ms. Fletcher and I are running a new diagnostic, some veryadvanced stuff. I took his weekend shift. I spoketo him last night. I told him not to come in. He said nothing aboutswitching shifts. There was a tensesilence.
Fletcher and I will be here all day. You just enjoy your weekend. His time was up. Goddamn cryptographers, he thought. The oath Chartrukian had taken when he joined Sys-Sec beganrunning through his head. It was a long, one-story brick building with huge windows and arusted swing set out back. Becker headed up the crumblingsteps. Inside, it was dark and noisy. The waiting room was a line offolding metal chairs that ran the entire length of a long narrowcorridor.
A cardboard sign on a sawhorse read oficina with an arrowpointing down the hall. Becker walked the dimly lit corridor. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Digital Fortress may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
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Loved each and every part of this book. Rate this book. This book was written by Dan Brown and was published in Dan Brown is fond of different puzzles, miseries and encryptions. The main character of this bestseller is not a person, but a whole organization, called National Security Association. NSA created a very difficult descriptor that can break any famous and the most complicated code in the world. One day this system was broken by one unbreakable encryption algorithm.
What secret is hiding this code? Share to Twitter. Digital fortress by Brown, Dan, Publication date Topics For print-disabled users Published in February the book become immediate popular and critical acclaim in fiction, thriller books. The book has been awarded with Booker Prize, Edgar Awards Angels and Demons. Breaking The Da Vinci Code. Deception Point.
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