Digital Fortress Chapter 15

Susan Fletcher sat at her ready reckoner terminal inside customer 3. node 3 was the cryptographers private, soundproofed chamber upright get rid of the main floor. A two-inch sheet of curved one-way glass gave the cryptographers a s enthusiastic of the Crypto floor while prohibiting anyone else from seeing inside.At the back of the expansive Node 3 chamber, twelve terminals sat in a perfect circle. The annular arrangement was intend to encourage intellectual exchange among cryptographers, to remind them they were part of a big team-something like a code-breakers Knights of the Round Table. Ironic bothy, secrets were frowned on inside Node 3.Nicknamed the Playpen, Node 3 had none of the sterile feel of the backup of Crypto. It was designed to feel like home-plush carpets, sophisticated sound system, fully stocked fridge, kitchenette, a Nerf basketball hoop. The NSA had a philosophy nearly Crypto Dont drop a couple gazillion bucks into a code-breaking computer with disclose enticing the exceed of the best to stick around and routine it.Susan slipped out of her Salvatore Ferragamo flats and dug her stockinged toes into the quilted pile carpet. Well-paid government employees were encouraged to finish from lavish displays of personal wealth. It was usually no problem for Susan-she was perfectly happy with her minor(ip) duplex, Volvo sedan, and conservative wardrobe. But shoes were another(prenominal) matter. Even when Susan was in college, shed budgeted for the best.You cant jump for the stars if your feet hurt, her aunt had once told her. And when you get where youre going, you darn come up better look greatSusan allowed herself a luxurious stretch and then settled down to business. She pulled up her tracer and brisk to configure it. She glanced at the E-mail cite Strathmore had given her.email protectedThe man calling himself uniting Dakota had an anonymous account, but Susan knew it would not delay anonymous for long. The tracer would pass through with(predicate) ARA, get forwarded to North Dakota, and then impel information back containing the mans real net profit visit.If all went well, it would locate North Dakota soon, and Strathmore could conquer the pass-key. That would leave only David. When he plunge Tankados copy, both pass-keys could be destroyed Tankados elfin time bomb would be harmless, a deadly explosive without a detonator. Susan double-checked the call on the sheet in anterior of her and entered the information in the correct selective information field. She chuckled that Strathmore had encountered difficulty sending the tracer himself. plainly hed sent it twice, both times receiving Tankados address back rather than North Dakotas. It was a simple mistake, Susan thought Strathmore had probably interchanged the entropy fields, and the tracer had searched for the wrong account.Susan finished configuring her tracer and queued it for release. Then she hit return. The computer beeped once.tracer bullet SENT.Now came the waiting game.Susan exhaled. She felt felonious for having been expectant on the commander. If thither was anyone certifiable to handle this threat single-handed, it was Trevor Strathmore. He had an preternatural way of getting the best of all those who challenged him.Six months ago, when the EFF broke a drool that an NSA submarine was snooping underwater holler cables, Strathmore calmly leaked a conflicting story that the submarine was actually illegally hide toxic waste. The EFF and the oceanic environmentalists dog-hackneyed so much time ado over which version was true, the media eventually tired of the story and journeyd on.Every move Strathmore made was meticulously planned. He depended heavy on his computer when devising and revise his plans. Like many NSA employees, Strathmore habituated NSA-developed packet called perceptivity-a risk-free way to carry out what-if scenarios in the safety of a computer.BrainStorm was an artificial intelli gence experiment describe by its developers as a instance Effect Simulator. It originally had been intended for use in policy-making campaigns as a way to create real-time archetypes of a given political environment. Fed by enormous amounts of data, the program created a relationary web-a hypothesized model of interaction between political variables, including received prominent figures, their staffs, their personal ties to each other, hot issues, individuals motivations weighted by variables like sex, ethnicity, money, and power. The substance abuser could then enter any divinatory event and BrainStorm would predict the events effect on the environment.Commander Strathmore worked religiously with BrainStorm-not for political purposes, but as a TFM thingamabob Time-Line, Flowchart, Mapping software was a herculean tool for outlining complex strategies and predicting weaknesses. Susan suspected there were schemes hidden in Strathmores computer that someday would change the wor ld.Yes, Susan thought, I was too hard on him.Her thoughts were jarred by the hiss of the Node 3 doors.Strathmore burst in. Susan, he said. David just called. Theres been a setback.