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 there'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 before them. "Susan?" he offered. "I have an idea. Is that text in sixteen groupings of four?"
   "Oh, for Christ's sake," Jabba said under his breath. "Now everyone wants to play?"
   Susan ignored Jabba and counted the groupings. "Yes. Sixteen."
   "Take out the spaces," Becker said firmly.
   "David," Susan replied, slightly embarrassed. "I don't think you understand. The groupings of four are-"
   "Take out the spaces," he repeated.
   Susan hesitated a moment and then nodded to Soshi. Soshi quickly removed the spaces. The result was no more enlightening.
 
PFEESESNRETMPFHAIRWEOOIGMEENNR MAENETSHASDCNSIIAAIEERBRNKFBLE LODI
 
   Jabba exploded. "ENOUGH! Playtime's over! This thing's on double-speed! We've got about eight minutes here! We're looking for a number, not a bunch of half-baked letters!"
   "Four by sixteen," David said calmly. "Do the math, Susan."
   Susan eyed David's image on the screen. Do the math? He's terrible at math! She knew David could memorize verb conjugations and vocabulary like a Xerox machine, but math…?
   "Multiplication tables," Becker said.
   Multiplication tables, Susan wondered. What is he talking about?
   "Four by sixteen," the professor repeated. "I had to memorize multiplication tables in fourth grade."
   Susan pictured the standard grade school multiplication table. Four by sixteen. "Sixty-four," she said blankly. "So what?"
   David leaned toward the camera. His face filled the frame. "Sixty-four letters…"
   Susan nodded. "Yes, but they're-" Susan froze.
   "Sixty-four letters," David repeated.
   Susan gasped. "Oh my God! David, you're a genius!"

Chapter 121
   "Seven minutes!" a technician called out.
   "Eight rows of eight!" Susan shouted, excited.
   Soshi typed. Fontaine looked on silently. The second to last shield was growing thin.
   "Sixty-four letters!" Susan was in control. "It's a perfect square!"
   "Perfect square?" Jabba demanded. "So what?"
   Ten seconds later Soshi had rearranged the seemingly random letters on the screen. They were now in eight rows of eight. Jabba studied the letters and threw up his hands in despair. The new layout was no more revealing than the original.
 
P F E E S E S N
 
R E T M P F H A
 
I R W E O O I G
 
M E E N N R M A
 
E N E T S H A S
 
D C N S I I A A
 
I E E R B R N K
 
F B L E L O D I
 
   "Clear as shit." Jabba groaned.
   "Ms. Fletcher," Fontaine demanded, "explain yourself." All eyes turned to Susan.
   Susan was staring up at the block of text. Gradually she began nodding, then broke into a wide smile. "David, I'll be damned!"
   Everyone on the podium exchanged baffled looks.
   David winked at the tiny image of Susan Fletcher on the screen before him. "Sixty-four letters. Julius Caesar strikes again."
   Midge looked lost. "What are you talking about?"
   "Caesar box." Susan beamed. "Read top to bottom. Tankado's sending us a message."

Chapter 122
   "Six minutes!" a technician called out.
   Susan shouted orders. "Retype top to bottom! Read down, not across!"
   Soshi furiously moved down the columns, retyping the text.
   "Julius Caesar sent codes this way!" Susan blurted. "His letter count was always a perfect square!"
   "Done!" Soshi yelled.
   Everyone looked up at the newly arranged, single line of text on the wall-screen.
   "Still garbage," Jabba scoffed in disgust. "Look at it. It's totally random bits of-" The words lodged in his throat. His eyes widened to saucers. "Oh… oh my…"
   Fontaine had seen it too. He arched his eyebrows, obviously impressed.
   Midge and Brinkerhoff both cooed in unison. "Holy… shit."
   The sixty-four letters now read:
 
PRIMEDIFFERENCEBETWEENELEMENTS RESPONSIBLEFORHIROSHIMAANDNAGA SAKI
 
   "Put in the spaces," Susan ordered. "We've got a puzzle to solve."

Chapter 123
   An ashen technician ran to the podium. "Tunnel block's about to go!"
   Jabba turned to the VR onscreen. The attackers surged forward, only a whisker away from their assault on the fifth and final wall. The databank was running out of time.
   Susan blocked out the chaos around her. She read Tankado's bizarre message over and over.
 
PRIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
 
   "It's not even a question!" Brinkerhoff cried. "How can it have an answer?"
   "We need a number," Jabba reminded. "The kill-code is numeric."
   "Silence," Fontaine said evenly. He turned and addressed Susan. "Ms. Fletcher, you've gotten us this far. I need your best guess."
   Susan took a deep breath. "The kill-code entry field accepts numerics only. My guess is that this is some sort of clue as to the correct number. The text mentions Hiroshima and Nagasaki-the two cities that were hit by atomic bombs. Maybe the kill-code is related to the number of casualties, the estimated dollars of damage…" She paused a moment, rereading the clue. "The word 'difference' seems important. The prime difference between Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Apparently Tankado felt the two incidents differed somehow."
   Fontaine's expression did not change. Nonetheless, hope was fading fast. It seemed the political backdrops surrounding the two most devastating blasts in history needed to be analyzed, compared, and translated into some magic number… and all within the next five minutes.

Chapter 124
   "Final shield under attack!"
   On the VR, the PEM authorization programming was now being consumed. Black, penetrating lines engulfed the final protective shield and began forcing their way toward its core.
   Prowling hackers were now appearing from all over the world. The number was doubling almost every minute. Before long, anyone with a computer-foreign spies, radicals, terrorists-would have access to all of the U.S. government's classified information.
   As technicians tried vainly to sever power, the assembly on the podium studied the message. Even David and the two NSA agents were trying to crack the code from their van in Spain.
 
PRIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS RESPONSIBLE FORHIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI
 
   Soshi thought aloud. "The elements responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki… Pearl Harbor? Hirohito's refusal to…"
   "We need a number," Jabba repeated, "not political theories. We're talking mathematics-not history!"
   Soshi fell silent.
   "How about payloads?" Brinkerhoff offered. "Casualties? Dollars damage?"
   "We're looking for an exact figure," Susan reminded. "Damage estimates vary." She stared up at the message. "The elements responsible…"
   Three thousand miles away, David Becker's eyes flew open. "Elements!" he declared. "We're talking math, not history!"
   All heads turned toward the satellite screen.
   "Tankado's playing word games!" Becker spouted. "The word 'elements' has multiple meanings!"
   "Spit it out, Mr. Becker," Fontaine snapped.
   "He's talking about chemical elements-not sociopolitical ones!"
   Becker's announcement met blank looks.
   "Elements!" he prompted. "The periodic table! Chemical elements! Didn't any of you see the movie Fat Man and Little Boy-about the Manhattan Project? The two atomic bombs were different. They used different fuel-different elements!"
   Soshi clapped her hands. "Yes! He's right! I read that! The two bombs used different fuels! One used uranium and one used plutonium! Two different elements!"
   A hush swept across the room.
   "Uranium and plutonium!" Jabba exclaimed, suddenly hopeful. "The clue asks for the difference between the two elements!" He spun to his army of workers. "The difference between uranium and plutonium! Who knows what it is?"
   Blank stares all around.
   "Come on!" Jabba said. "Didn't you kids go to college? Somebody! Anybody! I need the difference between plutonium and uranium!"
   No response.
   Susan turned to Soshi. "I need access to the Web. Is there a browser here?"
   Soshi nodded. "Netscape's sweetest."
   Susan grabbed her hand. "Come on. We're going surfing."

Chapter 125
   "How much time?" Jabba demanded from the podium.
   There was no response from the technicians in the back. They stood riveted, staring up at the VR. The final shield was getting dangerously thin.
   Nearby, Susan and Soshi pored over the results of their Web search. "Outlaw Labs?" Susan asked. "Who are they?"
   Soshi shrugged. "You want me to open it?"
   "Damn right," she said. "Six hundred forty-seven text references to uranium, plutonium, and atomic bombs. Sounds like our best bet."
   Soshi opened the link. A disclaimer appeared.
   The information contained in this file is strictly for academic use only. Any layperson attempting to construct any of the devices described runs the risk of radiation poisoning and/or self-explosion.
   "Self-explosion?" Soshi said. "Jesus."
   "Search it," Fontaine snapped over his shoulder. "Let's see what we've got."
   Soshi plowed into the document. She scrolled past a recipe for urea nitrate, an explosive ten times more powerful than dynamite. The information rolled by like a recipe for butterscotch brownies.
   "Plutonium and uranium," Jabba repeated. "Let's focus."
   "Go back," Susan ordered. "The document's too big. Find the table of contents."
   Soshi scrolled backward until she found it.
   I. Mechanism of an Atomic Bomb
   A) Altimeter
   B) Air Pressure Detonator
   C) Detonating Heads
   D) Explosive Charges
   E) Neutron Deflector
   F) Uranium Plutonium
   G) Lead Shield
   H) Fuses
   II. Nuclear Fission/Nuclear Fusion
   A) Fission (A-Bomb) Fusion (H-Bomb)
   B) U-235, U-238, and Plutonium
   III. History of the Atomic Weapons
   A) Development (The Manhattan Project)
   B) Detonation 1) Hiroshima 2) Nagasaki 3) By-products of Atomic Detonations 4) Blast Zones "Section two!" Susan cried. "Uranium and plutonium! Go!"
   Everyone waited while Soshi found the right section. "This is it," she said. "Hold on." She quickly scanned the data. "There's a lot of information here. A whole chart. How do we know which difference we're looking for? One occurs naturally, one is man-made. Plutonium was first discovered by-"
   "A number," Jabba reminded. "We need a number."
   Susan reread Tankado's message. The prime difference between the elements… the difference between… we need a number… "Wait!" she said. "The word 'difference' has multiple meanings. We need a number-so we're talking math. It's another of Tankado's word games-'difference' means subtraction."
   "Yes!" Becker agreed from the screen overhead. "Maybe the elements have different numbers of protons or something? If you subtract-"
   "He's right!" Jabba said, turning to Soshi. "Are there any numbers on that chart? Proton counts? Half-lives? Anything we can subtract?"
   "Three minutes!" a technician called.
   "How about supercritical mass?" Soshi ventured. "It says the supercritical mass for plutonium is 35.2 pounds."
   "Yes!" Jabba said. "Check uranium! What's the supercritical mass of uranium?"
   Soshi searched. "Um… 110 pounds."
   "One hundred ten?" Jabba looked suddenly hopeful. "What's 35.2 from 110?"
   "Seventy-four point eight," Susan snapped. "But I don't think-"
   "Out of my way," Jabba commanded, plowing toward the keyboard. "That's got to be the kill-code! The difference between their critical masses! Seventy-four point eight!"
   "Hold on," Susan said, peering over Soshi's shoulder. "There's more here. Atomic weights. Neutron counts. Extraction techniques." She skimmed the chart. "Uranium splits into barium and krypton; plutonium does something else. Uranium has 92 protons and 146 neutrons, but-"
   "We need the most obvious difference," Midge chimed in. "The clue reads 'the primary difference between the elements.' "
   "Jesus Christ!" Jabba swore. "How do we know what Tankado considered the primary difference?"
   David interrupted. "Actually, the clue reads prime, not primary."
   The word hit Susan right between the eyes. "Prime!" she exclaimed. "Prime!" She spun to Jabba. "The kill-code is a prime number! Think about it! It makes perfect sense!"
   Jabba instantly knew Susan was right. Ensei Tankado had built his career on prime numbers. Primes were the fundamental building blocks of all encryption algorithms-unique values that had no factors other than one and themselves. Primes worked well in code writing because they were impossible for computers to guess using typical number-tree factoring.
   Soshi jumped in. "Yes! It's perfect! Primes are essential to Japanese culture! Haiku uses primes. Three lines and syllable counts of five, seven, five. All primes. The temples of Kyoto all have-"
   "Enough!" Jabba said. "Even if the kill-code is a prime, so what! There are endless possibilities!"
   Susan knew Jabba was right. Because the number line was infinite, one could always look a little farther and find another prime number. Between zero and a million, there were over 70,000 choices. It all depended on how large a prime Tankado decided to use. The bigger it was, the harder it was to guess.
   "It'll be huge." Jabba groaned. "Whatever prime Tankado chose is sure to be a monster."
   A call went up from the rear of the room. "Two-minute warning!"
   Jabba gazed up at the VR in defeat. The final shield was starting to crumble. Technicians were rushing everywhere.
   Something in Susan told her they were close. "We can do this!" she declared, taking control. "Of all the differences between uranium and plutonium, I bet only one can be represented as a prime number! That's our final clue. The number we're looking for is prime!"
   Jabba eyed the uranium/plutonium chart on the monitor and threw up his arms. "There must be a hundred entries here! There's no way we can subtract them all and check for primes."
   "A lot of the entries are nonnumeric," Susan encouraged. "We can ignore them. Uranium's natural, plutonium's man-made. Uranium uses a gun barrel detonator, plutonium uses implosion. They're not numbers, so they're irrelevant!"
   "Do it," Fontaine ordered. On the VR, the final wall was eggshell thin.
   Jabba mopped his brow. "All right, here goes nothing. Start subtracting. I'll take the top quarter. Susan, you've got the middle. Everybody else split up the rest. We're looking for a prime difference."
   Within seconds, it was clear they'd never make it. The numbers were enormous, and in many cases the units didn't match up.
   "It's apples and goddamn oranges," Jabba said. "We've got gamma rays against electromagnetic pulse. Fissionable against unfissionable. Some is pure. Some is percentage. It's a mess!"
   "It's got to be here," Susan said firmly. "We've got to think. There's some difference between plutonium and uranium that we're missing! Something simple!"
   "Ah… guys?" Soshi said. She'd created a second document window and was perusing the rest of the Outlaw Labs document.
   "What is it?" Fontaine demanded. "Find something?"
   "Um, sort of." She sounded uneasy. "You know how I told you the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb?"
   "Yeah," they all replied in unison.
   "Well…" Soshi took a deep breath. "Looks like I made a mistake."
   "What!" Jabba choked. "We've been looking for the wrong thing?"
   Soshi pointed to the screen. They huddled around and read the text: …the common misconception that the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb. In fact, the device employed uranium, like its sister bomb in Hiroshima.
 
***
 
   "But-" Susan gasped. "If both elements were uranium, how are we supposed to find the difference between the two?"
   "Maybe Tankado made a mistake," Fontaine ventured. "Maybe he didn't know the bombs were the same."
   "No." Susan sighed. "He was a cripple because of those bombs. He'd know the facts cold."

Chapter 126
   "One minute!"
   Jabba eyed the VR. "PEM authorization's going fast. Last line of defense. And there's a crowd at the door."
   "Focus!" Fontaine commanded.
   Soshi sat in front of the Web browser and read aloud. …Nagasaki bomb did not use plutonium but rather an artificially manufactured, neutron-saturated isotope of uranium 238."
   "Damn!" Brinkerhoff swore. "Both bombs used uranium. The elements responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both uranium. There is no difference!"
   "We're dead," Midge moaned.
   "Wait," Susan said. "Read that last part again!"
   Soshi repeated the text. "…artificially manufactured, neutron-saturated isotope of uranium 238."
   "238?" Susan exclaimed. "Didn't we just see something that said Hiroshima's bomb used some other isotope of uranium?"
   They all exchanged puzzled glances. Soshi frantically scrolled backward and found the spot. "Yes! It says here that the Hiroshima bomb used a different isotope of uranium!"
   Midge gasped in amazement. "They're both uranium-but they're different kinds!"
   "Both uranium?" Jabba muscled in and stared at the terminal. "Apples and apples! Perfect!"
   "How are the two isotopes different?" Fontaine demanded. "It's got to be something basic."
   Soshi scrolled through the document. "Hold on… looking… okay…"
   "Forty-five seconds!" a voice called out.
   Susan looked up. The final shield was almost invisible now.
   "Here it is!" Soshi exclaimed.
   "Read it!" Jabba was sweating. "What's the difference! There must be some difference between the two!"
   "Yes!" Soshi pointed to her monitor. "Look!"
   They all read the text: …two bombs employed two different fuels… precisely identical chemical characteristics. No ordinary chemical extraction can separate the two isotopes. They are, with the exception of minute differences in weight, perfectly identical.
   "Atomic weight!" Jabba said, excitedly. "That's it! The only difference is their weights! That's the key! Give me their weights! We'll subtract them!"
   "Hold on," Soshi said, scrolling ahead. "Almost there! Yes!" Everyone scanned the text. …difference in weight very slight… …gaseous diffusion to separate them… …10,032498X10?134 as compared to 19,39484X10?23.** "There they are!" Jabba screamed. "That's it! Those are the weights!"
   "Thirty seconds!"
   "Go," Fontaine whispered. "Subtract them. Quickly."
   Jabba palmed his calculator and started entering numbers.
   "What's the asterisk?" Susan demanded. "There's an asterisk after the figures!"
   Jabba ignored her. He was already working his calculator keys furiously.
   "Careful!" Soshi urged. "We need an exact figure."
   "The asterisk," Susan repeated. "There's a footnote."
   Soshi clicked to the bottom of the paragraph.
   Susan read the asterisked footnote. She went white. "Oh… dear God."
   Jabba looked up. "What?"
   They all leaned in, and there was a communal sigh of defeat. The tiny footnote read: **12% margin of error. Published figures vary from lab to lab.

Chapter 127
   There was a sudden and reverent silence among the group on the podium. It was as if they were watching an eclipse or volcanic eruption-an incredible chain of events over which they had no control. Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
   "We're losing it!" a technician cried. "Tie-ins! All lines!"
   On the far-left screen, David and Agents Smith and Coliander stared blankly into their camera. On the VR, the final fire wall was only a sliver. A mass of blackness surrounded it, hundreds of lines waiting to tie in. To the right of that was Tankado. The stilted clips of his final moments ran by in an endless loop. The look of desperation-fingers stretched outward, the ring glistening in the sun.
   Susan watched the clip as it went in and out of focus. She stared at Tankado's eyes-they seemed filled with regret. He never wanted it to go this far, she told herself. He wanted to save us. And yet, over and over, Tankado held his fingers outward, forcing the ring in front of people's eyes. He was trying to speak but could not. He just kept thrusting his fingers forward.
   In Seville, Becker's mind still turned it over and over. He mumbled to himself, "What did they say those two isotopes were? U238 and U…?" He sighed heavily-it didn't matter. He was a language teacher, not a physicist.
   "Incoming lines preparing to authenticate!"
   "Jesus!" Jabba bellowed in frustration. "How do the damn isotopes differ? Nobody knows how the hell they're different?!" There was no response. The room full of technicians stood helplessly watching the VR. Jabba spun back to the monitor and threw up his arms. "Where's a nuclear fucking physicist when you need one!"
 
***
 
   Susan stared up at the QuickTime clip on the wall screen and knew it was over. In slow motion, she watched Tankado dying over and over. He was trying to speak, choking on his words, holding out his deformed hand… trying to communicate something. He was trying to save the databank, Susan told herself. But we'll never know how.
   "Company at the door!"
   Jabba stared at the screen. "Here we go!" Sweat poured down his face.
   On the center screen, the final wisp of the last firewall had all but disappeared. The black mass of lines surrounding the core was opaque and pulsating. Midge turned away. Fontaine stood rigid, eyes front. Brinkerhoff looked like he was about to get sick.
   "Ten seconds!"
   Susan's eyes never left Tankado's image. The desperation. The regret. His hand reached out, over and over, ring glistening, deformed fingers arched crookedly in stranger's faces. He's telling them something. What is it?
   On the screen overhead, David looked deep in thought. "Difference," he kept muttering to himself. "Difference between U238 and U235. It's got to be something simple."
   A technician began the countdown. "Five! Four! Three!"
   The word made it to Spain in just under a tenth of a second. Three… three.
   It was as if David Becker had been hit by the stun gun all over again. His world slowed to stop. Three… three… three. 238 minus 235! The difference is three! In slow motion, he reached for the microphone…
   At that very instant, Susan was staring at Tankado's outstretched hand. Suddenly, she saw past the ring… past the engraved gold to the flesh beneath… to his fingers. Three fingers. It was not the ring at all. It was the flesh. Tankado was not telling them, he was showing them. He was telling his secret, revealing the kill-code-begging someone to understand… praying his secret would find its way to the NSA in time.
   "Three," Susan whispered, stunned.
   "Three!" Becker yelled from Spain.
   But in the chaos, no one seemed to hear.
   "We're down!" a technician yelled.
   The VR began flashing wildly as the core succumbed to a deluge. Sirens erupted overhead.
   "Outbound data!"
   "High-speed tie-ins in all sectors!"
   Susan moved as if through a dream. She spun toward Jabba's keyboard. As she turned, her gaze fixed on her fiance, David Becker. Again his voice exploded overhead.
   "Three! The difference between 235 and 238 is three!"
   Everyone in the room looked up.
   "Three!" Susan shouted over the deafening cacophony of sirens and technicians. She pointed to the screen. All eyes followed, to Tankado's hand, outstretched, three fingers waving desperately in the Sevillian sun.
   Jabba went rigid. "Oh my God!" He suddenly realized the crippled genius had been giving them the answer all the time.
   "Three's prime!" Soshi blurted. "Three's a prime number!"
   Fontaine looked dazed. "Can it be that simple?"
   "Outbound data!" a technician cried. "It's going fast!"
   Everyone on the podium dove for the terminal at the same instant-a mass of outstretched hands. But through the crowd, Susan, like a shortstop stabbing a line drive, connected with her target. She typed the number 3. Everyone wheeled to the wall screen. Above the chaos, it simply read.
 
ENTER PASS-KEY? 3
 
   "Yes!" Fontaine commanded. "Do it now!"
   Susan held her breath and lowered her finger on the ENTER key. The computer beeped once.
   Nobody moved.
   Three agonizing seconds later, nothing had happened.
   The sirens kept going. Five seconds. Six seconds.
   "Outbound data!"
   "No change!"
   Suddenly Midge began pointing wildly to the screen above. "Look!"
   On it, a message had materialized.
 
KILL CODE CONFIRMED.
 
   "Upload the firewalls!" Jabba ordered.
   But Soshi was a step ahead of him. She had already sent the command.
   "Outbound interrupt!" a technician yelled.
   "Tie-ins severed!"
   On the VR overhead, the first of the five firewalls began reappearing. The black lines attacking the core were instantly severed.
   "Reinstating!" Jabba cried. "The damn thing's reinstating!"
   There was a moment of tentative disbelief, as if at any instant, everything would fall apart. But then the second firewall began reappearing… and then the third. Moments later the entire series of filters reappeared. The databank was secure.
   The room erupted. Pandemonium. Technicians hugged, tossing computer printouts in the air in celebration. Sirens wound down. Brinkerhoff grabbed Midge and held on. Soshi burst into tears.
   "Jabba," Fontaine demanded. "How much did they get?"
   "Very little," Jabba said, studying his monitor. "Very little. And nothing complete."
   Fontaine nodded slowly, a wry smile forming in the corner of his mouth. He looked around for Susan Fletcher, but she was already walking toward the front of the room. On the wall before her, David Becker's face filled the screen.
   "David?"
   "Hey, gorgeous." He smiled.
   "Come home," she said. "Come home, right now."
   "Meet you at Stone Manor?" he asked.
   She nodded, the tears welling. "Deal."
   "Agent Smith?" Fontaine called.
   Smith appeared onscreen behind Becker. "Yes, sir?"
   "It appears Mr. Becker has a date. Could you see that he gets home immediately?"
   Smith nodded. "Our jet's in Malaga." He patted Becker on the back. "You're in for a treat, Professor. Ever flown in a Learjet 60?"
   Becker chuckled. "Not since yesterday."

Chapter 128
   When Susan awoke, the sun was shining. the soft rays sifted through the curtains and filtered across her goosedown feather bed. She reached for David. Am I dreaming? Her body remained motionless, spent, still dizzy from the night before.
   "David?" She moaned.
   There was no reply. She opened her eyes, her skin still tingling. The mattress on the other side of the bed was cold. David was gone.
   I'm dreaming, Susan thought. She sat up. The room was Victorian, all lace and antiques-Stone Manor's finest suite. Her overnight bag was in the middle of the hardwood floor… her lingerie on a Queen Anne chair beside the bed.
   Had David really arrived? She had memories-his body against hers, his waking her with soft kisses. Had she dreamed it all? She turned to the bedside table. There was an empty bottle of champagne, two glasses… and a note.
   Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Susan drew the comforter around her naked body and read the message.
   Dearest Susan,
   I love you.
   Without wax, David.
   She beamed and pulled the note to her chest. It was David, all right. Without wax… it was the one code she had yet to break.
   Something stirred in the corner, and Susan looked up. On a plush divan, basking in the morning sun, wrapped in thick bathrobe, David Becker sat quietly watching her. She reached out, beckoning him to come to her.
   "Without wax?" she cooed, taking him in her arms.
   "Without wax." He smiled.
   She kissed him deeply. "Tell me what it means."
   "No chance." He laughed. "A couple needs secrets-it keeps things interesting."
   Susan smiled coyly. "Any more interesting than last night and I'll never walk again."
   David took her in his arms. He felt weightless. He had almost died yesterday, and yet here he was, as alive as he had ever felt in his life.
   Susan lay with her head on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart. She couldn't believe that she had thought he was gone forever.
   "David." She sighed, eyeing the note beside the table. "Tell me about 'without wax.' You know I hate codes I can't break."
   David was silent.
   "Tell me." Susan pouted. "Or you'll never have me again."
   "Liar."
   Susan hit him with a pillow. "Tell me! Now!"
   But David knew he would never tell. The secret behind "without wax" was too sweet. Its origins were ancient. During the Renaissance, Spanish sculptors who made mistakes while carving expensive marble often patched their flaws with cera-"wax." A statue that had no flaws and required no patching was hailed as a "sculpture sincera" or a "sculpture without wax." The phrase eventually came to mean anything honest or true. The English word "sincere" evolved from the Spanish sincera-"without wax." David's secret code was no great mystery-he was simply signing his letters "Sincerely." Somehow he suspected Susan would not be amused.
   "You'll be pleased to know," David said, attempting to change the subject, "that during the flight home, I called the president of the university."
   Susan looked up, hopeful. "Tell me you resigned as department chair."
   David nodded. "I'll be back in the classroom next semester."
   She sighed in relief. "Right where you belonged in the first place."
   David smiled softly. "Yeah, I guess Spain reminded me what's important."
   "Back to breaking coeds' hearts?" Susan kissed his cheek. "Well, at least you'll have time to help me edit my manuscript."
   "Manuscript?"
   "Yes. I've decided to publish."
   "Publish?" David looked doubtful. "Publish what?"
   "Some ideas I have on variant filter protocols and quadratic residues."
   He groaned. "Sounds like a real best-seller."
   She laughed. "You'd be surprised."
   David fished inside the pocket of his bathrobe and pulled out a small object. "Close your eyes. I have something for you."
   Susan closed her eyes. "Let me guess-a gaudy gold ring with Latin all over it?"
   "No." David chuckled. "I had Fontaine return that to Ensei Tankado's estate." He took Susan's hand and slipped something onto her finger.
   "Liar." Susan laughed, opening her eyes. "I knew-"
   But Susan stopped short. The ring on her finger was not Tankado's at all. It was a platinum setting that held a glittering diamond solitaire.
   Susan gasped.
   David looked her in the eye. "Will you marry me?"
   Susan's breath caught in her throat. She looked at him and then back to the ring. Her eyes suddenly welled up. "Oh, David… I don't know what to say."
   "Say yes."
   Susan turned away and didn't say a word.
   David waited. "Susan Fletcher, I love you. Marry me."
   Susan lifted her head. Her eyes were filled with tears. "I'm sorry, David," she whispered. "I… I can't."
   David stared in shock. He searched her eyes for the playful glimmer he'd come to expect from her. It wasn't there. "S-Susan," he stammered. "I-I don't understand."
   "I can't," she repeated. "I can't marry you." She turned away. Her shoulders started trembling. She covered her face with her hands.
   David was bewildered. "But, Susan… I thought…" He held her trembling shoulders and turned her body toward him. It was then that he understood. Susan Fletcher was not crying at all; she was in hysterics.
   "I won't marry you!" She laughed, attacking again with the pillow. "Not until you explain 'without wax'! You're driving me crazy!"

Epilogue
   They say in death, all things become clear. Tokugen Numataka now knew it was true. Standing over the casket in the Osaka customs office, he felt a bitter clarity he had never known. His religion spoke of circles, of the interconnectedness of life, but Numataka had never had time for religion.
   The customs officials had given him an envelope of adoption papers and birth records. "You are this boy's only living relative," they had said. "We had a hard time finding you."
   Numataka's mind reeled back thirty-two years to that rain-soaked night, to the hospital ward where he had deserted his deformed child and dying wife. He had done it in the name of menboku-honor-an empty shadow now.
   There was a golden ring enclosed with the papers. It was engraved with words Numataka did not understand. It made no difference; words had no meaning for Numataka anymore. He had forsaken his only son. And now, the cruelest of fates had reunited them.