Digital Fortress

Field Agent Smith eased David Becker into the seat facing the monitor. "He's a little woozy, ma'am. Give him a second."

"B-but," Susan was stammering, "I saw a transmission. It said…"

Smith nodded. "We saw it too. Hulohot counted his chickens a little early."

"But the blood…"

"Flesh wound," Smith replied. "We slapped a gauze on it."

Susan couldn't speak.

Agent Coliander piped in from off camera. "We hit him with the new J23-long-acting stun gun. Probably hurt like hell, but we got him off the street."

"Don't worry, ma'am," Smith assured. "He'll be fine."

David Becker stared at the TV monitor in front of him. He was disoriented, light-headed. The image on the screen was of a room-a room filled with chaos. Susan was there. She was standing on an open patch of floor, gazing up at him.

She was crying and laughing. "David. Thank God! I thought I had lost you!"

He rubbed his temple. He moved in front of the screen and pulled the gooseneck microphone toward his mouth. "Susan?"

Susan gazed up in wonder. David's rugged features now filled the entire wall before her. His voice boomed.

"Susan, I need to ask you something." The resonance and volume of Becker's voice seemed to momentarily suspend the action in the databank. Everyone stopped midstride and turned.

"Susan Fletcher," the voice resonated, "will you marry me?"

A hush spread across the room. A clipboard clattered to the floor along with a mug of pencils. No one bent to pick them up. There was only the faint hum of the terminal fans and the sound of David Becker's steady breathing in his microphone.

"D-David…" Susan stammered, unaware that thirty-seven people stood riveted behind her. "You already asked me, remember? Five months ago. I said yes."

"I know." He smiled. "But this time"-he extended his left hand into the camera and displayed a golden band on his fourth finger-"this time I have a ring."

Chapter 116

"Read it, Mr. Becker!" Fontaine ordered.

Jabba sat sweating, hands poised over his keyboard. "Yes," he said, "read the blessed inscription!"

Susan Fletcher stood with them, weak-kneed and aglow. Everyone in the room had stopped what they were doing and stared up at the enormous projection of David Becker. The professor twisted the ring in his fingers and studied the engraving.

"And read carefully!" Jabba commanded. "One typo, and we're screwed!"

Fontaine gave Jabba a harsh look. If there was one thing the director of the NSA knew about, it was pressure situations; creating additional tension was never wise. "Relax, Mr. Becker. If we make a mistake, we'll reenter the code till we get it right."

"Bad advice, Mr. Becker," Jabba snapped. "Get it right the first time. Kill-codes usually have a penalty clause-to prevent trial-and-error guessing. Make an incorrect entry, and the cycle will probably accelerate. Make two incorrect entries, and it will lock us out permanently. Game over."

The director frowned and turned back to the screen. "Mr. Becker? My mistake. Read carefully-read extremely carefully."

Becker nodded and studied the ring for a moment. Then he calmly began reciting the inscription. "Q… U… I… S… space… C…"

Jabba and Susan interrupted in unison. "Space?" Jabba stopped typing. "There's a space?"

Becker shrugged, checking the ring. "Yeah. There's a bunch of them."

"Am I missing something?" Fontaine demanded. "What are we waiting for?"

"Sir," Susan said, apparently puzzled. "It's… it's just…"

"I agree," Jabba said. "It's strange. Passwords never have spaces."

Brinkerhoff swallowed hard. "So, what are you saying?"

"He's saying," Susan interjected, "that this may not be a kill-code."

Brinkerhoff cried out, "Of course it's the kill-code! What else could it be? Why else would Tankado give it away? Who the hell inscribes a bunch of random letters on a ring?"

Fontaine silenced Brinkerhoff with a sharp glare.

"Ah… folks?" Becker interjected, appearing hesitant to get involved. "You keep mentioning random letters. I think I should let you know… the letters on this ring aren't random."

Everyone on the podium blurted in unison. "What!"

Becker looked uneasy. "Sorry, but there are definitely words here. I'll admit they're inscribed pretty close together; at first glance it appears random, but if you look closely you'll see the inscription is actually… well… it's Latin."

Jabba gaped. "You're shitting me!"

Becker shook his head. "No. It reads, 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.' It translates roughly to-"

"Who will guard the guards!" Susan interrupted, finishing David's sentence.

Becker did a double-take. "Susan, I didn't know you could-"

"It's from Satires of Juvenal," she exclaimed. "Who will guard the guards? Who will guard the NSA while we guard the world? It was Tankado's favorite saying!"

"So," Midge demanded, "is it the pass-key, or not?"

"It must be the pass-key," Brinkerhoff declared.

Fontaine stood silent, apparently processing the information.

"I don't know if it's the key," Jabba said. "It seems unlikely to me that Tankado would use a nonrandom construction."