Digital Fortress Chapter 29

Still terrified from her experience with Hale, Susan looked out through the single direction glass of Node 3. The Crypto floor was unfilled. Sound was quiet once more, charmed. She wished he would leave. She thought about whether she should call Strathmore; the administrator could basically show Hale out-all things considered, it was Saturday. Susan knew, in any case, that if Hale got kicked out, he would quickly get dubious. When excused, he likely would begin calling different cryptographers asking what they thought was going on. Susan concluded it was better just to leave Hale alone. He would leave on his own soon enough. An unbreakable calculation. She murmured, her considerations coming back to Digital Fortress. It astonished her that a calculation like that could truly be made on the other hand, the verification was in that spot before her; TRANSLTR seemed pointless against it. Susan thought of Strathmore, respectably bearing the heaviness of this experience on his shoulders, doing what was essential, remaining cool notwithstanding fiasco. Susan now and again observed David in Strathmore. They had huge numbers of similar characteristics steadiness, devotion, knowledge. Here and there Susan thought Strathmore would be lost without her; the immaculateness of her affection for cryptography appeared to be an enthusiastic help to Strathmore, lifting him from the ocean of stirring legislative issues and helping him to remember his initial days as a code-breaker. Susan depended on Strathmore as well; he was her safe house in a universe of intensity hungry men, sustaining her vocation, securing her, and, as he frequently kidded, making everything she could ever want work out as expected. There was some fact to that, she thought. As inadvertent as it might have been, the authority was the one who'd decided that brought David Becker to the NSA that pivotal evening. Her psyche reeled back to him, and her eyes fell naturally to the draw slide close to her console. There was a little fax taped there. The fax had been there for seven months. It was the main code Susan Fletcher still couldn't seem to break. It was from David. She read it for the five-hundredth time. It would be ideal if you ACCEPT THIS HUMBLE FAX MY LOVE FOR YOU IS WITHOUT WAX. He'd sent it to her after a minor spat. She'd implored him for quite a long time to mention to her what it implied, however he had can't. Without wax. It was David's vengeance. Susan had shown David a great deal about code-breaking, and to cause him to remain alert, she had taken to encoding every last bit of her messages to him with some basic encryption plot. Shopping records, love notes-they were completely scrambled. It was a game, and David had become a significant decent cryptographer. At that point he'd chose to give back in kind. He'd began marking every one of his letters â€Å"Without wax, David.† Susan had more than two dozen notes from David. They were completely marked a similar way. Without wax. Susan asked to know the concealed significance, yet David wasn't talking. At whatever point she asked, he essentially grinned and stated, â€Å"You're the code-breaker.† The NSA's head cryptographer had a go at everything-replacements, figure boxes, even re-arranged words. She'd run the letters â€Å"without wax† through her PC and requested modifications of the letters into new expressions. All she'd gotten back was: taxi hovel goodness. It showed up Ensei Tankado was not by any means the only one who could compose unbreakable codes. Her contemplations were hindered by the sound of the pneumatic entryways murmuring open. Strathmore walked in. â€Å"Susan, any word yet?† Strathmore saw Greg Hale and held back. â€Å"Well, great night, Mr. Hale.† He glared, his eyes narrowing. â€Å"On a Saturday, no less. What exactly do we owe the honor?† Solidness grinned guiltlessly. â€Å"Just ensuring I pull my weight.† â€Å"I see.† Strathmore snorted, obviously gauging his alternatives. After a second, it appeared he too chose not to shake Hale's pontoon. He went coolly to Susan. â€Å"Ms. Fletcher, might I be able to address you for a second? Outside?† Susan delayed. â€Å"Ah†¦ truly, sir.† She shot an uncomfortable look at her screen and afterward over the room at Greg Hale. â€Å"Just a minute.† With a couple of snappy keystrokes, she pulled up a program called ScreenLock. It was a protection utility. Each terminal in Node 3 was furnished with it. Since the terminals remained on nonstop, ScreenLock empowered cryptographers to leave their stations and realize that no one would mess with their documents. Susan entered her five-character security code, and her screen went dark. It would remain that route until she returned and composed the best possible grouping. At that point she slipped on her shoes and followed the authority out. â€Å"What the hellfire is he doing here?† Strathmore requested when he and Susan were outside Node 3. â€Å"His usual,† Susan answered. â€Å"Nothing.† Strathmore looked concerned. â€Å"Has he said anything regarding TRANSLTR?† â€Å"No. Yet, on the off chance that he gets to the Run-Monitor and sees it enlisting seventeen hours, he'll have a comment all right.† Strathmore thought about it. â€Å"There's no explanation he'd get to it.† Susan peered toward the authority. â€Å"You need to send him home?† â€Å"No. We'll let him be.† Strathmore looked over at the Sys-Sec office. â€Å"Has Chartrukian left yet?† â€Å"I don't have the foggiest idea. I haven't seen him.† â€Å"Jesus.† Strathmore moaned. â€Å"This is a circus.† He ran a hand over the facial hair stubble that had obscured his face in the course of the last thirty-six hours. â€Å"Any word yet on the tracer? I have a feeling that I'm perched on my hands up there.† â€Å"Not yet. Any word from David?† Strathmore shook his head. â€Å"I asked him not to call me until he has the ring.† Susan looked astonished. â€Å"Why not? Consider the possibility that he needs help?†. Strathmore shrugged. â€Å"I can't help him from here-he's all alone. In addition, I'd preferably not chat on unbound lines just in the event that somebody's listening.† Susan's eyes extended in concern. â€Å"What's that expected to mean?† Strathmore promptly looked sorry. He gave her a consoling grin. â€Å"David's fine. I'm simply being careful.† Thirty feet from their discussion, taken cover behind the single direction glass of Node 3, Greg Hale remained at Susan's terminal. Her screen was dark. Robust looked out at the officer and Susan. At that point he went after his wallet. He separated a little file card and read it. Twofold watching that Strathmore and Susan were all the while talking, Hale painstakingly composed five keystrokes on Susan's console. After a second her screen sprang to life. â€Å"Bingo.† He laughed. Taking the Node 3 security codes had been basic. In Node 3, each terminal had an indistinguishable separable console. Solidness had just taken his console home one night and introduced a chip that tracked each keystroke made on it. At that point he had come in right on time, traded his altered console for somebody else's, and paused. Toward the day's end, he exchanged back and saw the information recorded by the chip. Despite the fact that there were a huge number of keystrokes to figure out, finding the entrance code was straightforward; the main thing a cryptographer did each morning was type the protection code that opened his terminal. This, obviously, made Hale's occupation easy the security code consistently showed up as the initial five characters on the rundown. It was unexpected, Hale idea as he looked at Susan's screen. He'd taken the security codes only for kicks. He was cheerful presently he'd done it; the program on Susan's screen looked huge. Robust thought about it for a second. It was written in LIMBO-not one of his claims to fame. Just by taking a gander at it, however, Hale could reveal to one thing for certain-this was not an analytic. He could understand just two words. Be that as it may, they were sufficient. TRACER SEARCHING†¦ â€Å"Tracer?† he said so anyone might hear. â€Å"Searching for what?† Hale felt out of nowhere uncomfortable. He sat a second examining Susan's screen. At that point he settled on his choice. Robust saw enough about the LIMBO programming language to realize that it obtained vigorously from two different dialects C and Pascal-the two of which he knew cold. Looking up to watch that Strathmore and Susan were all the while talking outside, Hale ad libbed. He entered a couple of adjusted Pascal orders and hit return. The tracer's status window reacted precisely as he had trusted. TRACER ABORT? He immediately composed: YES It is safe to say that you are SURE? Again he composed: YES After a second the PC blared. TRACER ABORTED Sound grinned. The terminal had quite recently communicated something specific disclosing to Susan's tracer to fall to pieces rashly. Whatever she was searching for would need to pause. Careful to depart no proof, Hale expertly explored his way into her framework action log and erased all the orders he'd recently composed. At that point he returned Susan's protection code. The screen went dark. When Susan Fletcher came back to Node 3, Greg Hale was situated discreetly at his terminal.