Cryptonomicon

"But Enoch Root in Manila, and Goto Dengo, could not have had such a thing. They would have to encrypt the message by hand--doing all of the calculations on sheets of scratch paper. Enoch already knew the algorithm,and could tell it to Goto Dengo, but you would have to agree on a keyto put into that algorithm. The only time you could have decided on the key was while you were all together at the cemetery. And during your conversation there, I saw you pointing at Shaftoe's headstone. So I figured that you were using that as a key--maybe his name, maybe his dates of birth and death, maybe his military serial number. It turned out to be the serial number."

"But still you did not know the algorithm."

"Yes, but I had some idea that it was related to the Azure/Pufferfish algorithm, which in turn is related to the zeta functions that we studied at Princeton. So I just sat down and said to myself if Rudy were going to build the ultimate cryptosystem on this basis, and if Azure/Pufferfish is a simplified version of that system, then what is Arethusa? That gave me a handful of possibilities."

"And out of that handful you were able to pick the right one."

"No," Waterhouse says, "it was too hard. So I went to the church where Enoch was working, and looked through his wastebasket. Nothing. I went to Goto Dengo's office and did the same. Nothing. Both of them were burning their scratch paper as they went along."

Rudy's face suddenly relaxes. "Oh, good. I was afraid they were doing something incredibly stupid."

"Not at all. So, you know what I did?"

"What did you do, Lawrence?"

"I went and had an interview with Goto Dengo."

"Yes. He told us that much."

"I told him about the research I had been doing into Azure/Pufferfish, but I didn't tell him I had broken it. I got him talking, in a very general way, about what he was doing on Luzon during the last year. He told me the same story that he has stuck to all along, which is that he was building some minor fortifications somewhere, and that after escaping from that area he wandered lost in the jungle for several days before emerging near San Pablo and joining up with some Air Force troops who were heading north towards Manila.

" 'It's a good thing you got out of there,' I told him, 'because ever since then, the Hukbalahap leader who calls himself the Crocodile has been ransacking the jungle--he's convinced that you Nipponese buried a fortune in gold there.' "

As soon as the word "crocodile" emerges from Waterhouse's mouth, Rudy's face screws up in disgust and he turns away.

"So when the long message was finally transmitted last week, from the transmitter that Enoch has hidden on the top of that church's bell tower, I had two cribs. First of all, I suspected that the key was a number from the tombstone of Bobby Shaftoe. Secondly, I was confident that the words 'Hukbalahap,' 'crocodile,' and probably 'gold' or 'treasure' would appear somewhere in the message. I also looked for obvious candidates like 'latitude' and 'longitude.' With all of that to go on, breaking the message wasn't that hard."

Rudy von Hacklheber heaves a big sigh. "So. You win," he says. "Where is the cavalry?"

"Cavalry, or calvary?" Waterhouse jokes.

Rudy smiles tolerantly. "I know where Calvary is. Not far from Golgotha."

"Why do you think the cavalry is coming?"

"I know they are coming," Rudy says. "Your efforts to break the long message must have required a whole room full of computers. They will talk. Surely the secret is out." Rudy stubs out his half-smoked cigarette, as if preparing to leave. "So, you have been sent to give us an offer--surrender in a civilized way and we will get good treatment. Something like that."

"Au contraire, Rudy. No one knows except me. I did leave a sealed envelope in my desk, to be opened if I should die mysteriously on this little trip to the jungle. That Otto character has a fearsome reputation."

"I don't believe you. It is impossible," Rudy says.

"You of all people. Don't you see? I have a machine, Rudy! The machine does the work for me. So I don't need a room full of computers--human ones, leastways. And as soon as I read the decrypted message, I burned all of the cards. So I am the only one who knows."

"Ah!" Rudy says, stepping back and looking into the sky, adjusting his mind to these new facts. "So, I gather that you have come here to join us? Otto will be troublesome about it, but you are quite welcome."

Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse actually has to think about it. This surprises him a little.

"Most of it is going to help victims of the war, in one way or another," Rudy says, "but if we take a tenth of a percent as commission, and distribute it among the entire crew of the submarine, we are all among the richest men in the world."

Waterhouse tries to imagine himself one of the richest men in the world. It doesn't seem to fit.

"I've been exchanging letters with a college in Washington State," he says. "My fiancée put me on to them."

"Fiancée? Congratulations."