Dan Brown - Digital Fortress

The unanswered questions seemed to be multiplying in her head. "First things first," she said aloud. She would deal with Hale in a moment. Focusing on the matter at hand, Susan reloaded her tracer and hit the enter key. Her terminal beeped once.

Susan knew the tracer would take hours to return. She cursed Hale, wondering how in the world he'd gotten her privacy code, wondering what interest he had in her tracer.

Susan stood up and strode immediately for Hale's terminal. The screen was black, but she could tell it was not locked-the monitor was glowing faintly around the edges. Cryptographers seldom locked their terminals except when they left Node 3 for the night. Instead, they simply dimmed the brightness on their monitors-a universal, honor-code indication that no one should disturb the terminal.

Susan reached for Hale's terminal. "Screw the honor code," she said. "What the hell are you up to?"

Throwing a quick glance out at the deserted Crypto floor, Susan turned up Hale's brightness controls. The monitor came into focus, but the screen was entirely empty. Susan frowned at the blank screen. Uncertain how to proceed, she called up a search engine and typed:

It was a long shot, but if there were any references to Susan's tracer in Hale's computer, this search would find them. It might shed some light on why Hale had manually aborted her program. Seconds later the screen refreshed.

Susan sat a moment, unsure what she was even looking for. She tried again.

The monitor refreshed and provided a handful of innocuous references-no hint that Hale had any copies of Susan's privacy code on his computer.

Susan sighed loudly. So what programs has he been using today? She went to Hale's "recent applications" menu to find the last program he had used. It was his E-mail server. Susan searched his hard drive and eventually found his E-mail folder hidden discreetly inside some other directories. She opened the folder, and additional folders appeared; it seemed Hale had numerous E-mail identities and accounts. One of them, Susan noticed with little surprise, was an anonymous account. She opened the folder, clicked one of the old, inbound messages, and read it.

She instantly stopped breathing. The message read:

TO: NDAKOTA@ARA.ANON.ORG

FROM: ET@DOSHISHA.EDU

As if in a dream, Susan read the message over and over. Then, trembling, she opened another.

TO: NDAKOTA@ARA.ANON.ORG

FROM: ET@DOSHISHA.EDU

It was unthinkable, and yet there it was. E-mail from Ensei Tankado. He had been writing to Greg Hale. They were working together. Susan went numb as the impossible truth stared up at her from the terminal.

Greg Hale is NDAKOTA?

Susan's eyes locked on the screen. Her mind searched desperately for some other explanation, but there was none. It was proof-sudden and inescapable: Tankado had used mutation strings to create a rotating cleartext function, and Hale had conspired with him to bring down the NSA.

"It's…" Susan stammered. "It's… not possible."

As if to disagree, Hale's voice echoed from the past: Tankado wrote me a few times… Strathmore took a gamble hiring me… I'm getting out of here someday.

Still, Susan could not accept what she was seeing. True, Greg Hale was obnoxious and arrogant-but he wasn't a traitor. He knew what Digital Fortress would do to the NSA; there was no way he was involved in a plot to release it!

And yet, Susan realized, there was nothing to stop him-nothing except honor and decency. She thought of the Skipjack algorithm. Greg Hale had ruined the NSA's plans once before. What would prevent him from trying again?

"But Tankado…" Susan puzzled. Why would someone as paranoid as Tankado trust someone as unreliable as Hale?

She knew that none of it mattered now. All that mattered was getting to Strathmore. By some ironic stroke of fate, Tankado's partner was right there under their noses. She wondered if Hale knew yet that Ensei Tankado was dead.

She quickly began closing Hale's E-mail files in order to leave the terminal exactly as she had found it. Hale could suspect nothing-not yet. The Digital Fortress pass-key, she realized in amazement, was probably hidden somewhere inside that very computer.

But as Susan closed the last of the files, a shadow passed outside the Node 3 window. Her gaze shot up, and she saw Greg Hale approaching. Her adrenaline surged. He was almost to the doors.

"Damn!" she cursed, eyeing the distance back to her seat. She knew she'd never make it. Hale was almost there.

She wheeled desperately, searching Node 3 for options. The doors behind her clicked. Then they engaged. Susan felt instinct takeover. Digging her shoes into the carpet, she accelerated in long, reaching strides toward the pantry. As the doors hissed open, Susan slid to a stop in front of the refrigerator and yanked open the door. A glass pitcher on top tipped precariously and then rocked to a stop.

"Hungry?" Hale asked, entering Node 3 and walking toward her. His voice was calm and flirtatious. "Want to share some tofu?"

Susan exhaled and turned to face him. "No thanks," she offered. "I think I'll just-" But the words got caught in her throat. She went white.

Hale eyed her oddly. "What's wrong?"

Susan bit her lip and locked eyes with him. "Nothing, "she managed. But it was a lie. Across the room, Hale's terminal glowed brightly. She'd forgotten to dim it.

Downstairs at the Alfonso XIII, Becker wandered tiredly over to the bar. A dwarf-like bartender lay a napkin in front of him. "Que bebe Usted? What are you drinking?"

"Nothing, thanks," Becker replied. "I need to know if there are any clubs in town for punk rockers?"

The bartender eyed him strangely. "Clubs? For punks?"

"Yeah. Is there anyplace in town where they all hangout?"

"No lo se, senor. I don't now. But certainly not here!" He smiled. "How about a drink?"

Becker felt like shaking the guy. Nothing was going quite the way he'd planned.

"?Quiere Vd. algo?" The bartender repeated. "?Fino??Jerez?"

Faint strains of classical music were being piped in overhead. Brandenburg Concertos, Becker thought. Number four. He and Susan had seen the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields play the Brandenburgs at the university last year. He suddenly wished she were with him now. The breeze from an overhead air-conditioning vent reminded Becker what it was like outside. He pictured himself walking the sweaty, drugged-out streets of Triana looking for some punk in a British flag T-shirt. He thought of Susan again. "Zumo de arandano," he heard himself say. "Cranberry juice."

The bartender looked baffled. "Solo?" Cranberry juice was a popular drink in Spain, but drinking it alone was unheard of.

"Si." Becker said. "Solo."

"?Echo un poco de Smirnoff?" The bartender pressed. "A splash of vodka?"

"No, gracias."

"?Gratis?" he coaxed. "On the house?"

Through the pounding in his head, Becker pictured the filthy streets of Triana, the stifling heat, and the long night ahead of him. What the hell. He nodded. "Si, echame un poco de vodka."

The bartender seemed much relieved and hustled off to make the drink.

Becker glanced around the ornate bar and wondered if he was dreaming. Anything would make more sense than the truth. I'm a university teacher, he thought, on a secret mission.

The bartender returned with a flourish and presented Becker's beverage. "A su gusto, senor. Cranberry with a splash of vodka."