Cryptonomicon

About three sentences later, the conversation between Cantrell and Li soars over the horizon of Randy's cryptographic knowledge, and his brain shuts down. Harvard Li is a crypto maniac! He has been studying this shit personally--not just paying minions to read the books and send him notes, but personally going over the equations, doing the math.

Tom Howard is grinning broadly. Eberhard is looking about as amused as he ever gets, and Beryl's biting back a grin. Randy is trying desperately to get the joke. Avi notes the confusion on Randy's face, turns his back to the Taiwanese, and rubs his thumb and fingers together: money.

Oh, yeah. It had to be something to do with that.

Harvard Li cranked out a few million PC clones in the early nineties and loaded them all with Windows, Word, and Excel--but somehow forgot to write any checks to Microsoft. About a year ago, Microsoft kicked his ass in court and won a huge judgment. Harvard claimed bankruptcy: he doesn't have a penny to his name. Microsoft has been trying to prove he still has the odd billion or two salted away.

Harvard Li has clearly been thinking very hard about how to put money where guys like Microsoft can't get it. There are many time-honored ways: the Swiss bank account, the false-front corporation, the big real estate project in deepest, darkest China, bars of gold in a vault somewhere. Those tricks might work with the average government, but Microsoft is ten times smarter, a hundred times more aggressive, and bound by no particular rules. It gives Randy a little frisson just to imagine Harvard Li's situation: being chased across the planet by Microsoft's state-of-the-art hellhounds.

Harvard Li needs electronic cash. Not the lame stuff that people use to buy t-shirts on the Web without giving away their credit card numbers. He needs the full-on badass kind, based on hard crypto, rooted in an offshore data haven, and he needs it bad. So nothing's more logical than that he is sending lots of e-mail to John Cantrell.

Tom Howard sidles up to him. "The question is, is it just Harvard Li, or does he think he's discovered a new market?"

"Probably both," Randy guesses. "He probably knows a few other people who'd like to have a private bank."

"The missiles," Tom says.

"Yeah." China's been taking potshots at Taiwan with ballistic missiles lately, sort of like a Wild West villain shooting at the good guy's feet to make him dance. "There have been bank runs in Taipei."

"In a way," Tom says, "these guys are tons smarter than us, because they've never had a currency they could depend on." He and Randy look over at John Cantrell, who has crossed his arms over his chest and is unloading a disquisition on the Euler totient function while Harvard Li nods intently and his nerd-de-camp frantically scrawls notes on a legal pad. Avi stands far to one side, staring at the Old Palace, as in his mind the ramifications of this bloom and sprawl and twine about each other like a tropical garden run riot.

Other delegations file into the room behind the grand wazir and stake out chunks of the conference table's coastline. The Dentist comes in with his Norns or Furies or Hygienists or whatever the hell they are. There's a group of white guys talking in Down Underish accents. Other than that, they are all Asians. Some of them talk amongst themselves and some pull on their chins and watch the conversation between Harvard Li and John Cantrell. Randy watches them in turn: Bad Suit Asians and Good Suit Asians. The former have grizzled buzz cuts and nicotine-tanned skin and look like killers. They are wearing bad suits, not because they can't afford good ones, but because they don't give a shit. They are from China. The Good Suit Asians have high-maintenance haircuts, eyeglasses from Paris, clear skin, ready smiles. They are mostly from Nippon.

"I want to exchange keys, right now, so we can e-mail," Li says, and gestures to an aide, who scurries to the edge of the table and unfolds a laptop. "Something something Ordo," Li says in Cantonese. The aide points and clicks.

Cantrell is gazing at the table expressionlessly. He squats down to look under it. He strolls over and feels under the edge with his hand.

Randy bends and looks too. It's one of these high-tech conference tables with embedded power and communications lines, so that visitors can plug in their laptops without having to string unsightly cables around and fight over power outlets. The slab must be riddled with conduits. No visible wires connect it to the world. The connections must run down hollow legs and into a hollow floor. John grins, turns to Li, and shakes his head. "Normally I'd say fine," he says, "but for a client with your level of security needs, this is not an acceptable place to exchange keys."

"I'm not planning on using the phone," Li says, "we can exchange them on floppies."