"In Seville on business?" Roldan pressed. Therewas no way in h.e.l.l this guy was Guardia; he was a customer with acapital C. "Let me guess-a friend gave you our number? Hetold you to give us a call. Am I right?"

The voice was obviously embarra.s.sed. "Well, no, actually,it's nothing like that."

"Don't be shy, senor. We are an escort service,nothing to be ashamed of. Lovely girls, dinner dates, that is all.Who gave you our number? Perhaps he is a regular. I can give you aspecial rate."

The voice became fl.u.s.tered. "Ah ... n.o.body actually gave me this number. I found it with a pa.s.sport. I'mtrying to find the owner."

Roldan's heart sank. This man was not a customer afterall. "You found the number, you say?"

"Yes, I found a man's pa.s.sport in the park today. Yournumber was on a sc.r.a.p of paper inside. I thought perhaps it was theman's hotel; I was hoping to return his pa.s.sport to him. Mymistake. I'll just drop it off at a police station on my wayout of- "

"Perdon," Roldan interrupted nervously."Might I suggest a better idea?" Roldan pridedhimself on discretion, and visits to the Guardia had a way ofmaking his customers ex-customers. "Consider this," heoffered. "Because the man with the pa.s.sport had our number, heis most likely a client here. Perhaps I could save you a trip tothe police."

The voice hesitated. "I don't know. I should probablyjust-"

"Do not be too hasty, my friend. I'm ashamed to admitthat the police here in Seville are not always as efficient as thepolice up north. It could be days before this man'spa.s.sport is returned to him. If you tell me his name, I could seethat he gets his pa.s.sport immediately."

"Yes, well ... I suppose there's no harm ..."Some paper rustled, and the voice returned. "It's aGerman name. I can't quite p.r.o.nounce it ... Gusta ...Gustafson?"

Roldan didn't recognize the name, but he had clientsfrom all over the world. They never left their real names."What does he look like-in his photo? Perhaps I willrecognize him."

"Well ..." the voice said. "His face is very,very fat."

Roldan immediately knew. He remembered the obese face well.It was the man with Rocio. It was odd, he thought, to have twocalls about the German in one night.

"Mr. Gustafson?" Roldan forced a chuckle."Of course! I know him well. If you bring me his pa.s.sport,I'll see he gets it." "I'm downtown without a car," the voiceinterrupted. "Maybe you could come to me?"

"Actually," Roldan hedged, "I can'tleave the phone. But it's really not that far ifyou-"

"I'm sorry, it's late to be out wandering about.There's a Guardia precinct nearby. I'll drop it there,and when you see Mr. Gustafson, you can tell him where itis."

"No, wait!" Roldan cried. "The police reallyneedn't be involved. You said you're downtown, right? Doyou know the Alfonso XIII Hotel? It's one of the city'sfinest."

"Yes," the voice said. "I know the Alfonso XIII.It's nearby."

"Wonderful! Mr. Gustafson is a guest there tonight.He's probably there now."

The voice hesitated. "I see. Well, then ... I suppose itwould be no trouble."

"Superb! He's having dinner with one of our escorts inthe hotel restaurant." Roldan knew they were probably inbed by now, but he needed to be careful not to offend thecaller's refined sensibilities. "Just leave the pa.s.sportwith the concierge, his name is Manuel. Tell him I sent you. Askhim to give it to Rocio. Rocio is Mr. Gustafson'sdate for the evening. She will see that the pa.s.sport is returned.You might slip your name and address inside-perhaps Mr.Gustafson will send you a little thank you."

"A fine idea. The Alfonso XIII. Very well, I'll takeit over right now. Thank you for your help."

David Becker hung up the phone. "Alfonso XIII." Hechuckled. "Just have to know how to ask."

Moments later a silent figure followed Becker up Calle Deliciasinto the softly settling Andalusian night.

CHAPTER 29

Still unnerved from her encounter with Hale, Susan gazed outthrough the one-way gla.s.s of Node 3. The Crypto floor was empty.Hale was silent again, engrossed. She wished he would leave. She wondered if she should call Strathmore; the commander couldsimply kick Hale out-after all, it was Sat.u.r.day. Susanknew, however, that if Hale got kicked out, he would immediatelybecome suspicious. Once dismissed, he probably would start callingother cryptographers asking what they thought was going on. Susandecided it was better just to let Hale be. He would leave on hisown soon enough.

An unbreakable algorithm. She sighed, her thoughtsreturning to Digital Fortress. It amazed her that an algorithm likethat could really be created-then again, the proof was rightthere in front of her; TRANSLTR appeared useless against it.

Susan thought of Strathmore, n.o.bly bearing the weight of thisordeal on his shoulders, doing what was necessary, staying cool inthe face of disaster.

Susan sometimes saw David in Strathmore. They had many of thesame qualities- tenacity, dedication, intelligence. SometimesSusan thought Strathmore would be lost without her; the purity ofher love for cryptography seemed to be an emotional lifeline toStrathmore, lifting him from the sea of churning politics andreminding him of his early days as a code-breaker.

Susan relied on Strathmore too; he was her shelter in a world ofpower-hungry men, nurturing her career, protecting her, and, as heoften joked, making all her dreams come true. There was some truthto that, she thought. As unintentional as it may have been, thecommander was the one who'd made the call that brought DavidBecker to the NSA that fateful afternoon. Her mind reeled back tohim, and her eyes fell instinctively to the pull-slide beside herkeyboard. There was a small fax taped there.

The fax had been there for seven months. It was the only codeSusan Fletcher had yet to break. It was from David. She read it forthe five-hundredth time.

PLEASE ACCEPT THIS HUMBLE FAX MY LOVE FOR YOU IS WITHOUT WAX.

He'd sent it to her after a minor tiff. She'd beggedhim for months to tell her what it meant, but he had refused. Without wax. It was David's revenge. Susan had taughtDavid a lot about code-breaking, and to keep him on his toes, shehad taken to encoding all of her messages to him with some simpleencryption scheme. Shopping lists, love notes-they were allencrypted. It was a game, and David had become quite a goodcryptographer. Then he'd decided to return the favor.He'd started signing all his letters "Without wax,David." Susan had over two dozen notes from David. They wereall signed the same way. Without wax.

Susan begged to know the hidden meaning, but David wasn'ttalking. Whenever she asked, he simply smiled and said, "You're the code-breaker."

The NSA's head cryptographer had triedeverything-subst.i.tutions, cipher boxes, even anagrams.She'd run the letters "without wax" through hercomputer and asked for rearrangements of the letters into newphrases. All she'd gotten back was: taxi hut wow. It appearedEnsei Tankado was not the only one who could write unbreakablecodes. Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the pneumaticdoors hissing open.

Strathmore strode in.

"Susan, any word yet?" Strathmore saw Greg Hale andstopped short. "Well, good evening, Mr. Hale." Hefrowned, his eyes narrowing. "On a Sat.u.r.day, no less. To whatdo we owe the honor?"

Hale smiled innocently. "Just making sure I pull myweight."

"I see." Strathmore grunted, apparently weighing hisoptions. After a moment, it seemed he too decided not to rockHale's boat. He turned coolly to Susan. "Ms.

Fletcher,could I speak to you for a moment? Outside?"

Susan hesitated. "Ah ... yes, sir." She shot anuneasy glance at her monitor and then across the room at Greg Hale."Just a minute."

With a few quick keystrokes, she pulled up a program calledScreenLock. It was a privacy utility. Every terminal in Node 3 wasequipped with it. Because the terminals stayed on around the clock,ScreenLock enabled cryptographers to leave their stations and knowthat n.o.body would tamper with their files. Susan entered herfive-character privacy code, and her screen went black. It wouldremain that way until she returned and typed the propersequence.

Then she slipped on her shoes and followed the commanderout.

"What the h.e.l.l is he doing here?" Strathmoredemanded as soon as he and Susan were outside Node 3.

"His usual," Susan replied. "Nothing."

Strathmore looked concerned. "Has he said anything aboutTRANSLTR?"

"No. But if he accesses the Run-Monitor and sees itregistering seventeen hours, he'll have something to say allright."

Strathmore considered it. "There's no reason he'daccess it."

Susan eyed the commander. "You want to send himhome?"

"No. We'll let him be." Strathmore glanced overat the Sys-Sec office. "Has Chartrukian left yet?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him."

"Jesus." Strathmore groaned. "This is acircus." He ran a hand across the beard stubble that haddarkened his face over the past thirty-six hours. "Any wordyet on the tracer? I feel like I'm sitting on my hands upthere." "Not yet. Any word from David?"

Strathmore shook his head. "I asked him not to call meuntil he has the ring."

Susan looked surprised. "Why not? What if he needshelp?"

Strathmore shrugged. "I can't help him fromhere-he's on his own. Besides, I'd rather not talkon unsecured lines just in case someone's listening."

Susan's eyes widened in concern. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Strathmore immediately looked apologetic. He gave her area.s.suring smile. "David's fine. I'm just beingcareful."

Thirty feet away from their conversation, hidden behind theone-way gla.s.s of Node 3, Greg Hale stood at Susan's terminal.Her screen was black. Hale glanced out at the commander and Susan.Then he reached for his wallet. He extracted a small index card andread it.

Double-checking that Strathmore and Susan were still talking,Hale carefully typed five keystrokes on Susan's keyboard. Asecond later her monitor sprang to life.

"Bingo." He chuckled.

Stealing the Node 3 privacy codes had been simple. In Node 3,every terminal had an identical detachable keyboard. Hale hadsimply taken his keyboard home one night and installed a chip thatkept a record of every keystroke made on it. Then he had come inearly, swapped his modified keyboard for someone else's, andwaited. At the end of the day, he switched back and viewed the datarecorded by the chip. Even though there were millions of keystrokesto sort through, finding the access code was simple; the firstthing a cryptographer did every morning was type the privacy codethat unlocked his terminal. This, of course, made Hale's jobeffortless-the privacy code always appeared as the first fivecharacters on the list.

It was ironic, Hale thought as he gazed at Susan's monitor.He'd stolen the privacy codes just for kicks. He was happy nowhe'd done it; the program on Susan's screen lookedsignificant.

Hale puzzled over it for a moment. It was written inLIMBO-not one of his specialties. Just by looking at it,though, Hale could tell one thing for certain-this was not a diagnostic. He could make sense of only two words. b.u.t.they were enough.

TRACER SEARCHING ...

"Tracer?" he said aloud. "Searching for what?" Hale felt suddenly uneasy. He sat a moment studyingSusan's screen. Then he made his decision. Hale understood enough about the LIMBO programming language toknow that it borrowed heavily from two other languages-C andPascal-both of which he knew cold. Glancing up to check thatStrathmore and Susan were still talking outside, Hale improvised.He entered a few modified Pascal commands and hit return. Thetracer's status window responded exactly as he had hoped.

TRACER ABORT?

He quickly typed: YES ARE YOU SURE?

Again he typed: YES After a moment the computer beeped.

TRACER ABORTED Hale smiled. The terminal had just sent a message tellingSusan's tracer to self- destruct prematurely. Whatever she waslooking for would have to wait.

Mindful to leave no evidence, Hale expertly navigated his wayinto her system activity log and deleted all the commands he'djust typed. Then he reentered Susan's privacy code.

The monitor went black.

When Susan Fletcher returned to Node 3, Greg Hale was seatedquietly at his terminal.

CHAPTER 30

Alfonso XIII was a small four-star hotel set back from thePuerta de Jerez and surrounded by a thick wrought-iron fence andlilacs. David made his way up the marble stairs. As he reached forthe door, it magically opened, and a bellhop ushered himinside.

"Baggage, senor? May I help you?"

"No, thanks. I need to see the concierge." The bellhop looked hurt, as if something in their two-secondencounter had not been satisfactory. "Por aqui,senor." He led Becker into the lobby, pointed to theconcierge, and hurried off.

The lobby was exquisite, small and elegantly appointed.Spain's Golden Age had long since pa.s.sed, but for a while inthe mid-1600s, this small nation had ruled the world.

The room wasa proud reminder of that era-suits of armor, militaryetchings, and a display case of gold ingots from the New World.

Hovering behind the counter marked conserje was a trim,well-groomed man smiling so eagerly that it appeared he'dwaited his entire life to be of a.s.sistance. "En que puedoservirle, senor? How may I serve you?" He spoke with anaffected lisp and ran his eyes up and down Becker's body.

Becker responded in Spanish. "I need to speak toManuel."

The man's well-tanned face smiled even wider."Si, si, senor. I am Manuel. What is it youdesire?"

"Senor Roldan at Escortes Belen told me youwould-"

The concierge silenced Becker with a wave and glanced nervouslyaround the lobby.

"Why don't you step over here?" Heled Becker to the end of the counter. "Now,"

hecontinued, practically in a whisper. "How may I helpyou?"

Becker began again, lowering his voice. "I need to speak toone of his escorts whom I believe is dining here. Her name isRocio."

The concierge let out his breath as though overwhelmed."Aaah, Rocio-a beautiful creature."

"I need to see her immediately."

"But, senor, she is with a client."