Fontaine stood silent, apparently processing the information.
"I don't know if it's the key," Jabba said. "It seems unlikely to me that Tankado would use a nonrandom construction."
"Just omit the spaces," Brinkerhoff cried, "and type the damn code!"
Fontaine turned to Susan. "What's your take, Ms. Fletcher?"
She thought a moment. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something didn't feel right. Susan knew Tankado well enough to know he thrived on simplicity. His proofs and programming were always crystalline and absolute. The fact that the spaces needed to be removed seemed odd. It was a minor detail, but it was a flaw, definitely not clean-not what Susan would have expected as Ensei Tankado's crowning blow.
"It doesn't feel right," Susan finally said. "I don't think it's the key."
Fontaine sucked in a long breath, his dark eyes probing hers. "Ms. Fletcher, in your mind, if this is not the key, why would Ensei Tankado have given it away? If he knew we'd murdered him-don't you assume he'd want to punish us by making the ring disappear?"
A new voice interrupted the dialogue. "Ah… Director?"
All eyes turned to the screen. It was Agent Coliander in Seville. He was leaning over Becker's shoulder and speaking into the mic. "For whatever it's worth, I'm not so sure Mr. Tankado knew he was being murdered."
"I beg your pardon?" Fontaine demanded.
"Hulohot was a pro, sir. We saw the kill-only fifty meters away. All evidence suggests Tankado was unaware."
"Evidence?" Brinkerhoff demanded. "What evidence? Tankado gave away this ring. That's proof enough!"
"Agent Smith," Fontaine interrupted. "What makes you think Ensei Tankado was unaware he was being killed?"
Smith cleared his throat. "Hulohot killed him with an NTB-a noninvasive trauma bullet. It's a rubber pod that strikes the chest and spreads out. Silent. Very clean. Mr. Tankado would only have felt a sharp thump before going into cardiac arrest."
"A trauma bullet," Becker mused to himself. "That explains the bruising."
"It's doubtful," Smith added, "that Tankado associated the sensation with a gunman."
"And yet he gave away his ring," Fontaine stated.
"True, sir. But he never looked for his assailant. A victim always looks for his assailant when he's been shot. It's instinct."
Fontaine puzzled. "And you're saying Tankado didn't look for Hulohot?"
"No, sir. We have it on film if you'd like-"
"X-eleven filter's going!" a technician yelled. "The worm's halfway there!"
"Forget the film," Brinkerhoff declared. "Type in the damn kill-code and finish this!"
Jabba sighed, suddenly the cool one. "Director, if we enter the wrong code…"
"Yes," Susan interrupted, "if Tankado didn't suspect we killed him, we've got some questions to answer."
"What's our time frame, Jabba?" Fontaine demanded.
Jabba looked up at the VR. "About twenty minutes. I suggest we use the time wisely."
Fontaine was silent a long moment. Then sighed heavily. "All right. Run the film."
Chapter 117
"Transmitting video in ten seconds," Agent Smith's voice crackled. "We're dropping every other frame as well as audio-we'll run as close to real time as possible."
Everyone on the podium stood silent, watching, waiting. Jabba typed a few keys and rearranged the video wall. Tankado's message appeared on the far left:
ONLY THE TRUTH WILL SAVE YOU NOW
On the right of the wall was the static interior shot of the van with Becker and the two agents huddled around the camera. In the center, a fuzzy frame appeared. It dissolved into static and then into a black and white image of a park.
"Transmitting," Agent Smith announced.
The shot looked like an old movie. It was stilted and jerky-a by-product of frame-dropping, a process that halved the amount of information sent and enabled faster transmission.
The shot panned out across an enormous concourse enclosed on one end by a semicircular facade-the Seville Ayuntamiento. There were trees in the foreground. The park was empty.
"X-eleven's are down!" a technician called out. "This bad boy's hungry!"
Smith began to narrate. His commentary had the detachment of a seasoned agent. "This is shot from the van," he said, "about fifty meters from the kill zone. Tankado is approaching from the right. Hulohot's in the trees to the left."
"We've got a time crunch here," Fontaine pressed. "Let's get to the meat of it."
Agent Coliander touched a few buttons, and the frame speed increased.
Everyone on the podium watched in anticipation as their former associate, Ensei Tankado, came into the frame. The accelerated video made the whole image seem comic. Tankado shuffled jerkily out onto the concourse, apparently taking in the scenery. He shielded his eyes and gazed up at the spires of the huge facade.
"This is it," Smith warned. "Hulohot's a pro. He took his first open shot."
Smith was right. There was a flash of light from behind the trees on the left of the screen. An instant later Tankado clutched his chest. He staggered momentarily. The camera zoomed in on him, unstable-in and out of focus.
As the footage rolled in high speed, Smith coldly continued his narration. "As you can see, Tankado is instantly in cardiac arrest."
Susan felt ill watching the images. Tankado clutched at his chest with crippled hands, a confused look of terror on his face.
"You'll notice," Smith added, "his eyes are focused downward, at himself. Not once does he look around."
"And that's important?" Jabba half stated, half inquired.
"Very," Smith said. "If Tankado suspected foul play of any kind, he would instinctively search the area. But as you can see, he does not."
On the screen, Tankado dropped to his knees, still clutching his chest. He never once looked up. Ensei Tankado was a man alone, dying a private, natural death.
"It's odd," Smith said, puzzled. "Trauma pods usually won't kill this quickly. Sometimes, if the target's big enough, they don't kill at all."
"Bad heart," Fontaine said flatly.
Smith arched his eyebrows, impressed. "Fine choice of weapon, then."
Susan watched as Tankado toppled from his knees to his side and finally onto his back. He lay, staring upward, grabbing at his chest. Suddenly the camera wheeled away from him back toward the grove of trees. A man appeared. He was wearing wire-rim glasses and carrying an oversize briefcase. As he approached the concourse and the writhing Tankado, his fingers began tapping in a strange silent dance on a mechanism attached to his hand.
"He's working his Monocle," Smith announced. "Sending a message that Tankado is terminated." Smith turned to Becker and chuckled. "Looks like Hulohot had a bad habit of transmitting kills before his victim actually expired."
Coliander sped the film up some more, and the camera followed Hulohot as he began moving toward his victim. Suddenly an elderly man rushed out of a nearby courtyard, ran over to Tankado, and knelt beside him. Hulohot slowed his approach. A moment later two more people appeared from the courtyard-an obese man and a red-haired woman. They also came to Tankado's side.
"Unfortunate choice of kill zone," Smith said. "Hulohot thought he had the victim isolated."
On the screen, Hulohot watched for a moment and then shrank back into the trees, apparently to wait.
"Here comes the handoff," Smith prompted. "We didn't notice it the first time around."
Susan gazed up at the sickening image on the screen. Tankado was gasping for breath, apparently trying communicate something to the Samaritans kneeling beside him. Then, in desperation, he thrust his left hand above him, almost hitting the old man in the face. He held the crippled appendage outward before the old man's eyes. The camera tightened on Tankado's three deformed fingers, and on one of them, clearly glistening in the Spanish sun, was the golden ring. Tankado thrust it out again. The old man recoiled. Tankado turned to the woman. He held his three deformed fingers directly in front of
her face, as if begging her to understand. The ring glinted in the sun. The woman looked away. Tankado, now choking, unable to make a sound, turned to the obese man and tried one last time.
The elderly man suddenly stood and dashed off, presumably to get help. Tankado seemed to be weakening, but he was still holding the ring in the fat man's face. The fat man reached out and held the dying man's wrist, supporting it. Tankado seemed to gaze upward at his own fingers, at his own ring, and then to the man's eyes. As a final plea before death, Ensei Tankado gave the man an almost imperceptible nod, as if to say yes.
Then Tankado fell limp.
"Jesus." Jabba moaned.
Suddenly the camera swept to where Hulohot had been hiding. The assassin was gone. A police motorcycle appeared, tearing up Avenida Firelli. The camera wheeled back to where Tankado was lying. The woman kneeling beside him apparently heard the police sirens; she glanced around nervously and then began pulling at her obese companion, begging him to leave. The two hurried off.
The camera tightened on Tankado, his hands folded on his lifeless chest. The ring on his finger was gone.
Chapter 118
"It's proof," Fontaine said decidedly. "Tankado dumped the ring. He wanted it as far from himself as possible-so we'd never find it."
"But, Director," Susan argued, "it doesn't make sense. If Tankado was unaware he'd been murdered, why would he give away the kill code?"
"I agree," Jabba said. "The kid's a rebel, but he's a rebel with a conscience. Getting us to admit to TRANSLTR is one thing; revealing our classified databank is another."
Fontaine stared, disbelieving. "You think Tankado wanted to stop this worm? You think his dying thoughts were for the poor NSA?"
"Tunnel-block corroding!" a technician yelled. "Full vulnerability in fifteen minutes, maximum!"
"I'll tell you what," the director declared, taking control. "In fifteen minutes, every Third World country on the planet will learn how to build an intercontinental ballistic missile. If someone in this room thinks he's got a better candidate for a kill code than this ring, I'm all ears." The director waited. No one spoke. He returned his gaze to Jabba and locked eyes. "Tankado dumped that ring for a reason, Jabba. Whether he was trying to bury it, or whether he thought the fat guy would run to a pay phone and call us with the information, I really don't care. But I've made the decision. We're entering that quote. Now."
Jabba took a long breath. He knew Fontaine was right-there was no better option. They were running out of time. Jabba sat. "Okay… let's do it." He pulled himself to the keyboard. "Mr. Becker? The inscription, please. Nice and easy."
David Becker read the inscription, and Jabba typed. When they were done, they double-checked the spelling and omitted all the spaces. On the center panel of the view wall, near the top, were the letters:
QUISCUSTODIETIPSOSCUSTODES
"I don't like it," Susan muttered softly. "It's not clean."
Jabba hesitated, hovering over the ENTER key.
"Do it," Fontaine commanded.
Jabba hit the key. Seconds later the whole room knew it was a mistake.
Chapter 119
"It's accelerating!" Soshi yelled from the back of the room. "It's the wrong code!"
Everyone stood in silent horror.
On the screen before them was the error message:
ILLEGAL ENTRY. NUMERIC FIELD ONLY.
"Damn it!" Jabba screamed. "Numeric only! We're looking for a goddamn number! We're fucked! This ring is shit!"
"Worm's at double speed!" Soshi shouted. "Penalty round!"
On the center screen, right beneath the error message, the VR painted a terrifying image. As the third firewall gave way, the half-dozen or so black lines representing marauding hackers surged forward, advancing relentlessly toward the core. With each passing moment, a new line appeared. Then another.
"They're swarming!" Soshi yelled.
"Confirming overseas tie-ins!" cried another technician. "Word's out!"
Susan averted her gaze from the image of the collapsing firewalls and turned to the side screen. The footage of Ensei Tankado's kill was on endless loop. It was the same every time-Tankado clutching his chest, falling, and with a look of desperate panic, forcing his ring on a group of unsuspecting tourists. It makes no sense, she thought. If he didn't know we'd killed him… Susan drew a total blank. It was too late. We've missed something.
On the VR, the number of hackers pounding at the gates had doubled in the last few minutes. From now on, the number would increase exponentially. Hackers, like hyenas, were one big family, always eager to spread the word of a new kill.
Leland Fontaine had apparently seen enough. "Shut it down," he declared. "Shut the damn thing down."
Jabba stared straight ahead like the captain of a sinking ship. "Too late, sir. We're going down."
Chapter 120
The four-hundred-pound Sys-Sec stood motionless, hands resting atop his head in a freeze-frame of disbelief. He'd ordered a power shutdown, but it would be a good twenty minutes too late. Sharks with high-speed modems would be able to download staggering quantities of classified information in that window.
Jabba was awakened from his nightmare by Soshi rushing to the podium with a new printout. "I've found something, sir!" she said excitedly. "Orphans in the source! Alpha groupings. All over the place!"
Jabba was unmoved. "We're looking for a numeric, dammit! Not an alpha! The kill-code is a number!"
"But we've got orphans! Tankado's too good to leave orphans-especially this many!"
The term "orphans" referred to extra lines of programming that didn't serve the program's objective in any way. They fed nothing, referred to nothing, led nowhere, and were usually removed as part of the final debugging and compiling process.
Jabba took the printout and studied it.
Fontaine stood silent.
Susan peered over Jabba's shoulder at the printout. "We're being attacked by a rough draft of Tankado's worm?"
"Polished or not," Jabba retorted, "it's kicking our ass."
"I don't buy it," Susan argued. "Tankado was a perfectionist. You know that. There's no way he left bugs in his program."
"There are lots of them!" Soshi cried. She grabbed the printout from Jabba and pushed it in front of Susan. "Look!"
Susan nodded. Sure enough, after every twenty or so lines of programming, there were four free-floating characters. Susan scanned them.
PFEE
SESN
RETM
"Four-bit alpha groupings," she puzzled. "They're definitely not part of the programming."
"Forget it," Jabba growled. "You're grabbing at straws."
"Maybe not," Susan said. "A lot of encryption uses four-bit groupings. This could be a code."
"Yeah." Jabba groaned. "It says-'Ha, ha. You're fucked.' " He looked up at the VR. "In about nine minutes."
Susan ignored Jabba and locked in on Soshi. "How many orphans are there?"
Soshi shrugged. She commandeered Jabba's terminal and typed all the groupings. When she was done, she pushed back from the terminal. The room looked up at the screen.
PFEE SESN RETM MFHA IRWE OOIG MEEN NRMA
ENET SHAS DCNS IIAA IEER BRNK FBLE LODI
Susan was the only one smiling. "Sure looks familiar," she said. "Blocks of four-just like Enigma."
The director nodded. Enigma was history's most famous code-writing machine-the Nazis' twelve-ton encryption beast. It had encrypted in blocks of four.
"Great." He moaned. "You wouldn't happen to have one lying around, would you?"
"That's not the point!" Susan said, suddenly coming to life. This was her specialty. "The point is that this is a code. Tankado left us a clue! He's taunting us, daring us to figure out the pass-key in time. He's laying hints just out of our reach!"
"Absurd," Jabba snapped. "Tankado gave us only one out-revealing TRANSLTR. That was it. That was our escape. We blew it."
"I have to agree with him," Fontaine said. "I doubt ther
e's any way Tankado would risk letting us off the hook by hinting at his kill-code."
Susan nodded vaguely, but she recalled how Tankado had given them NDAKOTA. She stared up at the letters wondering if he were playing another one of his games.
"Tunnel block half gone!" a technician called.
On the VR, the mass of black tie-in lines surged deeper into the two remaining shields.
David had been sitting quietly, watching the drama unfold on the monitor