Part 45 (1/2)
Everyone looked up at the newly arranged, single line of text onthe wall-screen.
”Still garbage,” Jabba scoffed in disgust. ”Lookat it. It's totally random bits of-” The wordslodged in his throat. His eyes widened to saucers. ”Oh ...oh my ...”
Fontaine had seen it too. He arched his eyebrows, obviouslyimpressed.
Midge and Brinkerhoff both cooed in unison. ”Holy ...s.h.i.+t.”
The sixty-four letters now read: PRIMEDIFFERENCEBETWEENELEMENTSRESPONSIBLEFORHIROs.h.i.+MAA NDNAGASAKI ”Put in the s.p.a.ces,” Susan ordered. ”We'vegot a puzzle to solve.”
CHAPTER 123
An ashen technician ran to the podium. ”Tunnel block'sabout to go!”
Jabba turned to the VR onscreen. The attackers surged forward,only a whisker away from their a.s.sault on the fifth and final wall.The databank was running out of time.
Susan blocked out the chaos around her. She read Tankado'sbizarre message over and over.
PRIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS RESPONSIBLE FORHIROs.h.i.+MA AND NAGASAKI ”It's not even a question!” Brinkerhoff cried.”How can it have an answer?”
”We need a number,” Jabba reminded. ”Thekill-code is numeric.”
”Silence,” Fontaine said evenly. He turned andaddressed Susan. ”Ms. Fletcher, you've gotten us thisfar. I need your best guess.”
Susan took a deep breath. ”The kill-code entry fieldaccepts numerics only. My guess is that this is some sort ofclue as to the correct number. The text mentions Hiros.h.i.+ma andNagasaki-the two cities that were hit by atomic bombs. Maybethe kill-code is related to the number of casualties, the estimateddollars of damage ...” She paused a moment, rereading theclue. ”The word 'difference' seems important. Theprime difference between Nagasaki and Hiros.h.i.+ma. ApparentlyTankado felt the two incidents differed somehow.”
Fontaine's expression did not change. Nonetheless, hope wasfading fast. It seemed the political backdrops surrounding the twomost devastating blasts in history needed to be a.n.a.lyzed, compared,and translated into some magic number ... and all within the nextfive minutes.
CHAPTER 124
”Final s.h.i.+eld under attack!”
On the VR, the PEM authorization programming was now beingconsumed. Black, penetrating lines engulfed the final protectives.h.i.+eld and began forcing their way toward its core.
Prowling hackers were now appearing from all over the world. Thenumber was doubling almost every minute. Before long, anyone with acomputer-foreign spies, radicals, terrorists-would haveaccess to all of the U.S. government's cla.s.sifiedinformation.
As technicians tried vainly to sever power, the a.s.sembly on thepodium studied the message. Even David and the two NSA agents weretrying to crack the code from their van in Spain.
PRIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS RESPONSIBLE FORHIROs.h.i.+MA AND NAGASAKI Sos.h.i.+ thought aloud. ”The elements responsible forHiros.h.i.+ma and Nagasaki ... Pearl Harbor? Hirohito's refusalto ...”
”We need a number,” Jabba repeated, ”notpolitical theories. We're talking mathematics-nothistory!”
Sos.h.i.+ fell silent.
”How about payloads?” Brinkerhoff offered.”Casualties? Dollars damage?”
”We're looking for an exact figure,” Susanreminded. ”Damage estimates vary.” She stared up at themessage. ”The elements responsible ...”
Three thousand miles away, David Becker's eyes flew open.”Elements!” he declared.
”We're talking math,not history!”
All heads turned toward the satellite screen.
”Tankado's playing word games!” Becker spouted.”The word 'elements' has multiplemeanings!”
”Spit it out, Mr. Becker,” Fontaine snapped.
”He's talking about chemical elements-notsociopolitical ones!” Becker's announcement met blank looks.
”Elements!” he prompted. ”The periodic table! Chemical elements! Didn't any of you see the movie FatMan and Little Boy-about the Manhattan Project? The twoatomic bombs were different. They used differentfuel-different elements!”
Sos.h.i.+ clapped her hands. ”Yes! He's right! I readthat! The two bombs used different fuels! One used uranium and oneused plutonium! Two different elements!”
A hush swept across the room.
”Uranium and plutonium!” Jabba exclaimed, suddenlyhopeful. ”The clue asks for the difference between thetwo elements!” He spun to his army of workers. ”Thedifference between uranium and plutonium! Who knows what itis?”
Blank stares all around.
”Come on!” Jabba said. ”Didn't you kids goto college? Somebody! Anybody! I need the difference betweenplutonium and uranium!”
No response.
Susan turned to Sos.h.i.+. ”I need access to the Web. Is therea browser here?”
Sos.h.i.+ nodded. ”Netscape's sweetest.”
Susan grabbed her hand. ”Come on. We're goingsurfing.”
CHAPTER 125
”How much time?” Jabba demanded from the podium.
There was no response from the technicians in the back. Theystood riveted, staring up at the VR. The final s.h.i.+eld was gettingdangerously thin.
Nearby, Susan and Sos.h.i.+ pored over the results of theirWebsearch. ”Outlaw Labs?”
Susan asked. ”Who arethey?”