Cryptonomicon

"Oh, yes," says the Dentist, "you'll be seeing me all day." This procedure will be a lengthy one, I'm afraid.He turns his back on them and walks across the lobby without further pleasantries. He is headed for a cluster of leather chairs nearly obscured by an explosion of bizarre tropical flowers. The occupants of those chairs are mostly young, and all smartly dressed. They snap to attention as their boss glides towards them. Randy counts three women and two men. One of the men is obviously a gorilla, but the women--inevitably referred to as Fates, Furies, Graces, Norns, or Harpies--are rumored to have bodyguard training, and to carry weapons, too.

"Who are those?" John Cantrell asks. "His hygienists?"

"Don't laugh," Avi says. "Back when he was in practice, he got used to having a staff of women do the pick-and-floss work for him. It shaped his paradigm."

"Are you shitting me?" Randy asks.

"You know how it works," Avi says. "When you go to the dentist, you never actually see the dentist, right? Someone else makes the appointment. Then there's always this elite coterie of highly efficient women who scrape the plaque out of the way, so that the dentist doesn't have to deal with it, and take your X-rays. The dentist himself sits in the back somewhere and looks at the X-rays--he deals with you as this abstract greyscale image on a little piece of film. If he sees holes, he goes into action. If not, he comes in and exchanges small talk with you for a minute and then you go home."

"So, why is he here?" demands Eberhard Föhr.

"Exactly!" Avi says. "When he walks into the room, you never know why he's here--to drill a hole in your skull, or just talk about his vacation in Maui."

All eyes turn to Randy. "What went on in that elevator?"

"I--nothing!" Randy blurts.

"Did you discuss the Philippines project at all?"

"He just said he wanted to talk to me about it."

"Well, shit." Avi says. "That means wehave to talk about it first."

"I know that," Randy says, "so I told him that I might talk to him if I had a free moment."

"Well, we'd best make damn sure you have no free moments today," Avi says. He thinks for a moment and continues, "Did he have a hand in his pocket at any time?"

"Why? You expecting him to pull out a weapon?"

"No," Avi says, "but someone told me, once, that the Dentist is wired."

"You mean, like a police informant?" John asks incredulously.

"Yeah," Avi says, like it's no big deal. "He makes a habit of carrying a tiny digital recorder the size of a matchbook around in his pocket. Perhaps with a wire running up inside his shirt to a tiny microphone somewhere. Perhaps not. Anyway, you never know when he's recording you."

"Isn't that illegal or something?" Randy asks.

"I'm not a lawyer," Avi says. "More to the point, I'm not a Kinakutan lawyer. But it wouldn't matter in a civil suit--if he slapped us with a tort, he could introduce any kind of evidence he wanted."

They all look across the lobby. The Dentist is standing flatfooted on the marble, arms folded over his chest, chin pointed at the floor as he absorbs input from his aides.

"He might have put his hand in his pocket. I don't remember," Randy says. "It doesn't matter. We kept it extremely general. And brief."

"He could still subject the recording to a voice-stress analysis, to figure out if you were lying," John points out. He relishes the sheer unbridled paranoia of this. He's in his element.

"Not to worry," Randy says, "I jammed it."

"Jammed it? How?" Eb asks, not catching the irony in Randy's voice. Eb looks surprised and interested, It is clear from the look on his face that Eb longs to get into a conversation about something arcane and technical.

"I was joking," Randy explains. "If the Dentist analyzes the recording, he'll find nothing but stress in my voice."

Avi and John laugh sympathetically. But Eb is crestfallen. "Oh," Eb says. "I was thinking that we could absolutely jam his device if we so wanted."

"A tape recorder doesn't use radio," John says. "How could we jam it?"

"Van Eck phreaking," Eb says.

At this point, Tom Howard emerges from the cafe with a thoroughly ravished copy of the South China Morning Postunder his arm, and Beryl emerges from an elevator, prepped for combat in a dress and makeup. The men avert their eyes shyly and pretend not to notice. Greetings and small talk ensue. Then Avi looks at his watch and says, "Let's head over to the sultan's palace," as if he were proposing they go grab some french fries at Mickey Ds.

Chapter 35 CRACKER

Waterhouse has to keep an eye on that safe; Shaftoe is itching to blow it open with high explosives, and Chattan (who firmly overrules Shaftoe) intends to ship it back to London so that it can be opened by experts at the Broadway Buildings. Waterhouse only wants to have another crack at opening it himself, just to see if he can do it.