Cryptonomicon

"Please!" Randy says, "Goto Engineering is a distinguished company. Top of the line. You have much better things to do than to gamble on joint ventures. We would never propose such a thing. We would be able to pay for your services up front."

"Ah!" The Gotos look at each other significantly. "You have a new investor?" We know you are broke.Avi grins. "We have new resources." This leaves the Gotos nonplussed. "If I may," Avi says. He heaves his briefcase up off the floor and onto his lap, flips the latches open, and reaches into it with both hands. Then he performs a maneuver that, in a bodybuilding gym, would be called a barbell curl, and lifts a brick of solid gold into the light.

The faces of Goto Dengo and Goto Furudenendo are transmuted to stone. Avi holds the bar up for a few moments, then lowers it back into his briefcase.

Eventually, Furudenendo scoots his chair back a couple of centimeters and rotates it slightly toward his father, basically excusing himself from the conversation. Goto Dengo eats dinner and drinks wine calmly, and silently, for a very, very long fifteen or twenty minutes. Finally, he looks across the table at Randy and says, "Where do you want to dig?"

"The site is in mountains south of Laguna de Bay--"

"Yes, you already told my son that. But that is a large area of boon docks. Many holes have been dug there. All worthless."

"We have better information."

"Some old Filipino has sold you his memories?"

"Better than that," Randy says. "We have a latitude and longitude."

"To what degree of precision?"

"Tenths of a second."

This occasions another pause. Furudenendo tries to say something in Nipponese, but his father cuts him off gruffly. Goto Dengo finishes his dinner and crosses his fork and knife on the plate. A waiter's there five seconds later to clear the table. Goto Dengo says something to him that sends him fleeing back into the kitchen. They have essentially a whole floor of the skyscraper to themselves now. Goto Dengo utters something to his son, who produces a fountain pen and two business cards. Furudenendo hands the pen, and one card, to his father, and the other card to Randy. "Let's play a little game," Goto Dengo says. "You have a pen?"

"Yes," Randy says.

"I am going to write down a latitude and longitude," Goto Dengo says, "but only the seconds portion. No degrees and no minutes. Only the seconds part. You understand?"

"Yes."

"The information is useless by itself. You agree?"

"Yes."

"Then there is no risk for you to write down the same."

"It's true."

"Then we will exchange cards. Agreed?"

"I agree."

"Very well." Goto Dengo starts writing. Randy takes a pen from his pocket and jots down the seconds and tenths of a second: latitude 35.2, longitude 59.0. When he's done, Goto Dengo's looking at him expectantly. Randy holds out his card, numbers facing down, and Goto Dengo holds out his. They exchange them with the small bow that is obligatory around here. Randy cups Goto-sama's card in his palm and turns it into the light. It says

35.2/59.0

No one says anything for ten minutes. It's a measure of how stunned Randy is that he doesn't realize, for a long time, that Goto Dengo is just as stunned as he is. Avi and Furudenendu are the only people at the table whose minds are still functioning, and they spend the whole time looking at each other uncertainly, neither one really understanding what's going on.

Finally Avi says something that Randy doesn't hear. He nudges Randy firmly and says it again: "I'm going to the lavatory."

Randy watches him go, counts to ten, and says, "Excuse me." He follows Avi to the men's washroom: black polished stone, thick white towels, Avi standing there with his arms crossed. "He knows," Randy says.

"I don't believe it."

Randy shrugs. "What can I say? He knows."

"If he knows, everyone knows. Our security broke down somewhere along the line."

"Everyone doesn't know," Randy says. "If everyone knew, all hell would be breaking loose down there, and Enoch would have gotten word to us.

"Then how can he know?"

"Avi," Randy says, "he must be the one who buried it."Avi looks outraged. "Are you shitting me?"

"You have a better theory?"

"I thought all the people who buried the stuff were killed."

"It's fair to say that he's a survivor. Wouldn't you agree?"

Ten minutes later they return to the table. Goto Dengo has allowed the restaurant staff back into the room, and dessert menus have been brought out. Weirdly, the old man has gone back into polite chitchat mode, and Randy gradually figures out that he's trying to work out how the hell Randy knows what he knows. Randy mentions, offhandedly, that his grandfather was a cryptanalyst in Manila in 1945. Goto Dengo sighs, visibly, with relief and cheers up somewhat. Then it's more completely meaningless chatter until postprandial coffee has been served, at which point the patriarch leans forward to make a point. "Before you sip--look!"