Steve's Cryptonomicon Page

This page is RIFE with spoilers. Do NOT read it if you have not already read the book!

This page is for you IF... you read the book long ago (it was published in 1999) and want to refresh your memory, OR if you are reading it now and wouldn't mind getting another reader's opinion about just what exactly happened in that complicated chapter you just finished reading. (I'm hyperlinking a few terms here. It's an ongoing process; you can see where the links just stop...)

I have tried to make this as palatable as a bunch of jotted thoughts can be. Apologies in advance when I fail, but every word here represents about 30 in the novel, so maintaining any kind of narrative flow is difficult at best A), and B) not really my goal in the first place as I said; This page is not something to curl up with. That's what you do with the book, an endeavor for which you will be richly rewarded with one of the most amazing (and amazingly told) stories you're ever likely to read, I assure you.

NOTE: I gave the book a fairly close reading, but I claim no expertise in cryptography, cryptanalysis, international finance, etc. If you see somewhere I've misread the text grievously, please email. (For instance, the latter half of the 473/Hostilities section. That's my best distillation of how Epiphyte's situation appeared to me. If you can explain it more simply, email me and IF I AGREE I'll cite you when I change it.)

Pagination is for the Avon Books Nov 2002 paperback edition

Italics indicate WWII chapters.

Non-italics indicate 1990s chapters.

Fractions in brackets are progress markers. (At [1/4] you've finished 1/4 of the book, etc.)

Page Chapter

1 Prologue. Friday, Nov. 28, 1941, 1645 hrs. Shaftoe's convoy, hauling Station Alpha equipment, speeds toward a gunboat, through money-crate-laden Shanghai street; Gunboat fires a shell into street, clearing it for the convoy. (Thanks for the correction B. Dunbar!)

5 Barrens. Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse • Recent ancestry and youth • Meets "Al" Turing, then Rudy Von Hacklheber; compares Turing Machine to pipe organ; trip out to Pine Barrens (from atop a fire tower witnesses -- then bicycles out to -- what surely must be the Hindenburg disaster) [Thanks for the correction B. Myers and K. Smith!] • LPW ends up as glockenspielist on USS Nevada, stationed in Hawaii 1940; Turing and VH return to England.

28 Novus Ordo Seclorum. Randy (RL Waterhouse) in Tokyo airport, speaks to Ari about code and key email, and relocating the office to Intramuros; calculating "FY money" • Randy arrives in Manila • One Note Flute

judo • Frick vs. Shaftoe • Dec 7, 1941; Shaftoe arrives at Manila, then Intramuros; Visits Glory and her parents; Church of Mexican granite staircase; Romance on the beach; Sirens: "It's war, baby."

59 Forays. RLW arrives Manila Hotel; Three Siblings colleges; Soldier poster controversy chokes Randy's college's bandwidth; Ordo and 4096 bit keys; Randy was eastern WA college librarian; RLW gets a girlfriend, Charlene; Roughs it in nature with Andrew Loeb; Randy gets heavily into programming, writes a program, almost sells it to Avi; Andrew weasels into the deal; Andrew's distressed youth

77 Indigo. Pearl Harbor invasion through the eyes of LPWaterhouse; in hospital; into a building; Bathrobe-clad commander Schoen introduces LPW to crypto, but LPW is way ahead of him; Cryptonomicon; Schoen's machine; DO NOT REVEAL THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOURCE TO THE ENEMY.

93 The Spawn of Onan. Randy waked to coal smoke; Charlene's shaving fetish porn study; Randy and Charlene matriculate at two of the Three Siblings; Randy selects Astronomy; reconnecting with Avi; Randy's 2nd business foray: getting into role playing games (RPGs), getting gobbled up, then going to Japan for a while to work • Dinner party chest puffing: Randy v. GEB Kivistic.

105 Burn. BS carries Glory home from the beach and, post-invasion, receives high hosannas from Glory's family • Nimrod and Jack • Shaftoe leaves Manila and Glory behind

110 Pedestrian. Randy completes GPS survey of Manila; walks across Intramuros to work at guarded building

116 Guadalcanal. Shaftoe surrounded by dead comrades strewn on the beach; Enoch Root carries him off it.

119 Galleon. RLW's bloody beard removal; PTA (Post and Telecom Authorities); Boat arrives for Randy • Epiphyte's video pitch to Manila business leaders • Amy Shaftoe welcomes (more or less) Randy aboard the Glory IV; Randy prejudges Amy as an ardent feminist lesbian; Amy pries, and Randy explains Epiphyte's sub-Manila Bay cable and microwave tower plans. And Pinoy-grams.

133 Nightmare. Shaftoe stateside, in Oakland hospital bed; Tele-interviewed by Ronald Reagan (or some spitting image thereof) • BS gets hero’s welcome on train to Chicago, then in Wisconsin; [some Shaftoe ancestry is discussed]; Promoted to sergeant, sent to DC, then—after a brief but very cool excursus on military culture (and Shaftoe's Lizard story almost, but not quite, coming out)—to North Africa.

143 Londinium. Mapping London via curb frequency; LPW sent to London; analysis OCD; meets British intelligence at Broadway Buildings; “The Problem” is restated (i.e. communicating to your enemy you’ve broken his code by reacting to every message you intercept; ) Brits are not wild about the fact that LPW is on a first name basis with Rudolf VH; 2701=37x73

154 Corregidor. Randy is still aboard the Glory IV with Amy Shaftoe, checking out photos of Douglas Shaftoe (Amy’s dad); images of crate fragments on the floor of Manila bay, crates that held dumped silver; Corregidor cliff caves; Rui Faleiro • The Dentist (Dr Hubert Kepler) and his wife, Victoria Vigo; hurts so good! • On the beach, Randy watches cable installation; Coastal Festoon links Manila to Taiwan; Yacht party (fake splice); Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe approaches Randy about Semper Marine doing the ocean floor surveys for Epiphyte, and not telling the Dentist.

169 Tube. Gas masks; LPW’s tube ride to Bletchley Park • Duffel; WAAFs and WRENs; spider spoofing; Randy looks more Hut 8 than Hut 4; Bletchley Mansion; Randy meets Chattan; Detachment 2702; Widening the bell curve in North Africa; Turing bombe; Tall women and bell curve bump; Widening explained.

183 Meat. Shaftoe examines dead PFC Hott in Algiers meat locker; Etheridge is curiously thrilled to learn certain details about Hott; (BS almost tells Lizard story again!) • Painting over 1s with 2s; “Paint the rest of the discarded stencils too!” • Lt. Enoch Root, 2702’s new Chaplain; dressing corpse in wetsuit; Coffin stuffed with Hott’s weight in pig meat; COFFIN SEALING PROCEDURES; 2702 hauls meat-filled coffin and corpse into truck; during the trip Shaftoe grills Root, who grills BS right back; Hott thaws as truck approaches airfield; Coffin sent into furnace by officers; Back up the mountain (scoring bad hash from locals); 2702 and corpse aboard Gooney Bird (aka C-47, aka Dakota, aka SkyTrain, aka DC-3) depart for rendezvous with Rommel.

199 Cycles. Nov. 1942; Battle of El Alamein; Monty is ignoring Bletchley Park; Operation Torch; Japanese Army and Navy; German U-Boats OWNING the North Atlantic; 4-wheel enigma; LPW and Turing bicycle while wearing gas masks [massive bicycle chain/spoke elucidation of enigma’s wheels] searching for buried silver; airplanes’ rotary (ergo odd-number of cylinders) engines; cycles within cycles; “We’re gonna give it away...last week we sank a convoy in the fog.” Loose-lipped SLUs, bringing helmets to lunch; Can the human voice be encrypted?

215 Aloft. Flying over North Africa; Shaftoe tries to chat up the well-armed pilots; Shaftoe himself sports 4-5 firearms, knives, ammo and grenades; [falls asleep, dreams: pinned down at a Guadalcanal mudflat; grenade launcher] awakened by the plane taking anti-aircraft fire; Corpse still intact, unlike Etheridge; Root transfers package from new corpse to old corpse; Root explains to Shaftoe their 116/Guadalcanal encounter in more detail (Japanese almost got Root after breaking his codes; Root = priest, Brit based in Brisbane, doctor, knows Morse, was in the 183/Meat locker); Hott is deplaned over the ocean; plane—duly observed by the enemy—lands near Malta bomb shelter, where many 2702 take refuge.

226 Non-disclosure. Randy, Avi, John Cantrell, Tom Howard and Beryl Hagen meet at Dr. Eberhard Fohr’s house in Half Moon Bay, CA to sign NDAs; Howard and Cantrell sport cryogenic instruction bracelets; all are skeptical until: Avi explains how laws are passed in Kinakuta + how he’s got an in with the Kinakutan Telecom minister = data haven.

237 Ultra. LPW steps out for a nighttime cig at Bletchley Park; motorcycle arrives and LPW follows it a bit, notices homing pigeons; Peers through a window and observes people working on what he thinks might be a Turing machine, it reads tape fast enough to raise smoke; [Turing machine explained, a little;] LPW sits atop a blast wall; a messenger brings Y-service input to a hut, and LPW follows it; Inside the hut women are deciphering German code on Typex machines; decrypted info is sent between huts via pulley trays; LPW follows tray to Hut 3; best for LPW to think of Hut 3—indeed all of Bletchley Park—as a black box: what goes in and what comes out are all that matters, regardless of what exists or happens inside.

248 Kinakuta. Randy peers out 777 window on final approach to Kinakuta airport; Kinakuta City is extremely modernized, almost every building being newer than 10 years old; Eliza Peak has been razed and Technology City erected on its stump; Randy observes a memorial garden, dedicated to 3500 Japanese soldiers who died on Aug. 23, 1945. (Story later, at end of 261/Crypt chapter. NOTE: I can't determine if this event is factual or fictional, though I'm leaning toward the latter since 3500 casualties is too big a number not to show up in even a cursory web search, yet nothing's come up so far. SMR)

251 Qwghlm House. LPW visits surreal Qwghlm House to thank Lord Wodemire (who evidently was born German) for allowing Col. Chattan to place antennae atop Wodemire's castle on Outer Qwghlm, to triangulate U-boat transmissions.

258 Electrical Till Corporation. Major Comstock checks crates in Sydney Harbor for stuff MacArthur ordered. Finds some with ETC stenciled on them.

261 Crypt. Randy meets Goto Furudenendu in Kinakuta City airport terminal bathroom; [discussion on "Nip" vs. "Jap", when it's a slur and when it's just an abbreviation] Goto goes to the ritzy hotel (Foote Mansion), Randy goes to Ministry of Information, which is a construction site, a massive cavern being dug out of a mountain for the data haven; RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks); Tom is there and shows Randy a smaller cave that had been filled with rocks to hide its contents. In the cave is a trunk with some books that Randy recognizes from his grandmother's attic; In the taxi to Foote Mansion, Randy reads Sean Daniel McGee's WWII memoir about Kinakuta (The Japanese took the island and pressed natives into slavery, so when the Americans came to accept the surrender of the now beleaguered Japanese, the natives kicked the Americans aside and slaughtered the Japanese. Thus the aforementioned Memorial Garden.)

274 Lizard. 2702 is now in Malta, staging a fake observation post, complete with a well-stocked fake latrine. [Shaftoe tells the lizard story, and it is horrifying indeed.] Root and Shaftoe talk about the papers they planted on Hott's corpse. [1/4]

283 The Castle. LPW arrives in London mid-storm, experiments with harmonics as wind whips though the covered stairway; Harriet Qrtt, who LPW pegs as a German spy, invites LPW to lodge at her and her husband's B & B, and he does; On the ferry to Outer Qwghlm LPW vomits mightily as OQ's Three Sghrs come into view; The taxi takes him up the 4^th sghr to the castle, where he is greeted by butler Ghnxh, who shames LPW's flashlight by building, from scratch and before LPW's eyes, what seems to be a lighthouse-worthy-yet-portable arc light called a Galvanick Lucifer; They find the least rubble-strewn room, well away from the inhabited part of the castle, to set up LPWs room; He immediately sets about drawing up a building material supply requisition and encrypting it. [revealing description of the cryptology.]

294 Why. Avi's Business Plan; Avi runs Epiphyte by the plan; tombstone.epiphyte.com toils in the quiet dark of a closet in Los Altos, CA; Randy DLs Avi's fifth and latest business plan, checks his email (fan mail after a Turing Magazine piece on Randy; Secret Admirers mailing list; "Yamamoto's" suggestions; root@pallas.eruditorum.org); Randy wants to cut/paste part of the business plan into reply to root email, but can't remember pass phrase ("Talk to Cantrell!"); Meets Cantrell at the hotel nightclub (Bomb and Grapnel); "The crypt is too big; Randy has the routers covered but the client sees how big the Crypt is and kicks up the cable bandwidth, forgetting about the routers' finite throughput; What if 100,000 Filipinos try to make phone calls at the same time?" • The sultan has hired other cable-layers: Randy and John realize superfluousness of connecting Kinakuta to the Philippines; Goto Furudenendu and crew arrives, as does Fohr and Tom Howard; much drinking and karaoke ensue; Randy, Tom and Cantrell peel off and discuss Andrew Loeb: Digibomber suspect, manifesto author, Eutropian hive mind faction leader, Epiphyte/data haven opponent.

313 Retrograde Maneuver. Japanese 20^th Army Division under General Adachi are ordered to evacuate inland. They must burn what they cannot carry, which is waterlogged and won’t burn. They bury the material in a riverbank.

315 Huffduff. HFDF (mentioned back in 251/Qwghlm House) is fiction but quite plausible; 2702 is late arriving at OQ; When is the most convincing time to move antenna... • Blanche: Old and busted. Margaret: New hotness. • Chatty U-boats necessitate Germans inventing Shark (4-wheel Enigma); LPW's problem: The Germans have broken our shipping codes (see 199/Cycles chapter), how to replace them without the Germans knowing we've broken Shark? LPW codes his suggestion and sends it as Margaret awaits in hammock, after which she administers a sorely needed hummer.

322 Pages. Henry Street (Brisbane) whorehouse near Camp Ascot, pressed into duty as crypto-office-page-drying-facility after Japanese 20^th Division codebooks are discovered buried in riverbank.

324 Ram. Lt. Monkberg explains Ram & Run decoy mission to Shaftoe; While demonstrating proper “hasty crate chopping” technique, Monkberg chops through most of his ankle, nearly severing his foot; Shaftoe, seasick and nauseated at Monkberg’s wound, focuses on his crate-chopping [HUGE FLASHBACK to the recent Malta phase of 2702’s mission (see 274/Lizard) Chattan’s orders: “The Germans know you’re there, but you aren’t yet supposed to know they know. When it becomes obvious that they know, THEN AND ONLY THEN are you to evacuate and execute Plan Torus.” Shaftoe makes it impossible for the Germans NOT to know that 2702 is there when he sprays the belly of a low flying observation plane with Tommy gun fire, and brings it down. 2702 hops on the truck, Shaftoe torches—then grenades—the place...but now they must wait for their escape plane.(WTF?) The truck encounters three German roadblocks: an already dead one, a weak one to which they lay much waste, and a rather feisty one which earns the wrath of Pvt. Mikulsky’s 0.303 inch Vickers gun. [Bandsaw discursus, illustrating the unrelenting power of the Vickers] Mikulsky shreds the German roadblock vehicles, and some trees too, and even aims the Vickers near vertical to drop slugs onto Germans hiding behind a knoll, like mini mortar shells [demonstrating a downright miraculous mastery of Newtonian physics. Exercise: Calculate time needed for a 0.303" projectile to attain--then fall from--the altitudes a Vickers could project it.] Patrol is then strafed by two pairs of Messerschmitts; the first pair is brought to earth by the Vickers, but the 2^nd pair sends truck, gun and gunner to a better place. After another battle, the 2702 is finally scooped up by the tardy DC-3 and whisked back to Malta. They meet Lt. Monkberg, board a sub, are transferred to a freighter for the Ram and Run, a freighter so decrepit the crew refers to it as a shit rather than a ship. END FLASHBACK.] Shaftoe goes bananas chopping crates and scattering materiel, during which the freighter fulfills its mission by slamming headlong into a Norse cliff wall (“ABANDON SHIT!”); Harangue erupts between Benjamin and Monkberg about whether to leave the maritime codebooks behind or to destroy them. Enoch Root arbitrates (as he sews up Monkberg’s ankle); they leave the books, relieve Monkberg of command, go ashore, and begin the lonely trek through the Norse woods and winter, toward Sweden.

346 Diligence. Epiphyte shareholders' meeting in Avi’s Kinakuta hotel room (Foote Mansion). Avi brings out in the open the superfluousness that Randy and Cantrell were discussing at the nightclub (see 294/Why); Fohr wants to know why they weren't told sooner, so Randy takes him into the hall to explain the concept of plausible deniability, and how Avi and Beryl were insulating the group with it; Fohr takes the concept and runs with it, hatching a notion about encrypting legal documents. Fohr and Randy return to the meeting, where it is agreed—conspicuously and clearly—that Epiphyte will honor its contract with the Dentist; Avi saw the Dentist in the hotel that morning; Randy replied to an email that he thinks came from Loeb.

354 Spearhead. As a kid in Dakota, LPW easily found fossil arrowheads in soil; sub U-553 ran aground on a reef 10 miles off the coast of Qwghlm; LPW and Shaftoe are whisked out to the wreck on a corvette; [paragraph describing Shaftoe’s physical appearance]; This sub had a 4-wheel Enigma aboard (which the Allies knew about, but the Germans didn’t know they knew about it, so the Allies must make it look like they want it) Shaftoe and LPW reach the sub via a wire/tether thing; on the back of the sub they make their way aft via another wire, then descend into a hatch near the aft end; sub has a nasty, hip-deep brew of sewage sloshing around as the boat is rocked by waves; They find the Captain’s cabin, begin shoveling papers into a sack; They find a safe, and LPW is attempting to crack it (In the dark! In a pitching sea! Half submerged in sewage!!) when another German sub launches a torpedo at them. They get out in time; the torpedo splits the sub open, then Shaftoe re-enters the wreck and plants some explosives. LPW is hurt.

364 Morphium. As Shaftoe places explosive charges to dislodge the safe on the sub, he regrets not snatching the bottle he saw earlier labeled MORPHIUM, realizing too late that the word is most likely German for morphine; He goes looking for the morphium box [paragraph about Shaftoe’s hand-to-hand kills] finds and pockets the morphium; On his way toward his exit a wave rocks the sub and Shaftoe falls WAY back down into the sub; sees lots of sparking all around, and silver globs of Hg falling about, and even…could it be way down there amongst the shattered crates…gold bricks?? The world may never know: Shaftoe gets out and the sub disappears beneath the waves.

369 Suit. Avi sends tailored suits to all his employees; Randy gets his suit and an email from Root; he puts his suit on and boards the elevator to the lobby, the Dentist is on the elevator already; He and Randy make small talk and the Dentist wants to meet later; Randy: “If time permits.” Randy, Avi, Fohr, Cantrell, Howard, and Beryl all head off to meet the Sultan.

375 Cracker. Back in Qwghlm Castle, LPW really wants a shot at cracking U-553's safe; he cobbles together materials to make a safe-cracking microphone; hauls the safe onto the table; [1/3] assembles a surpassingly sensitive microphone (can hear heartbeats elsewhere in the castle, for instance); cracks the safe and finds a single gold brick and papers inside; Root sees Asian characters inscribed on the brick, does a "pencil sweep" (or whatever you call that trick) to transfer characters to paper; Now LPW—bored since he cracked the safe—wants to crack the non-Enigma code on the safe's papers; Robson wants the safe's combo, but LPW has already forgotten it.

384 Sultan. Epiphyte meet at the Sultan's phenomenal palace...Avi is skeptical: "It's too extravagant. They're trying too hard. Why? What are they hiding?" Chinese contingent arrives and sits way away from Epiphyte; Harvard Li and Cantrell converse excitedly about the merits of digital signatures for secure email; that they've hit it off is good news for Avi and the others; Li is seriously in need of a shelter for his cash (Microsoft is hot on his heels after he booted millions of copies of MS apps); Dentist arrives, as do some Aussies and several others. Li wants to trade email crypto keys with Cantrell, but no way says John: "Even if we use floppies, the fact that the info is displayed on a screen means it can be intercepted via Van Eck phreaking"; Sultan enters, sits, begins talking and doesn't stop for 15-20 min.; [terrific set piece about the myriad ways a human body can make noises—digestively, musculoskeletally, etc.—and how none of the three dozen or so bodies in the Sultan's presence make a single sound of any kind as he's speaking.] The room is dimmed by a Tyrell Corporation-ish window-shading trick; ceiling LCDs descend as the Sultan's talk goes into AV mode, discussing international data "choke points," and how the digital world is not subject to the physical constraints of the non-digital world...and by Jove, the Sultan will NOT interfere with any information that might happen into Kinakuta's digital borders! The Minister of Information (Dr. Pragasu: California educated and familiar to most of the Epiphyte delegation) steps in to facilitate business arrangements; an anxious looking character comes in and begins describing the attendees to someone on his cell; Randy suspects thievery.

396 Skipping. Goto Dengo (on the losing side of the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, early March, 1943) sees American bombers drop skipping bombs that take out ships in Dengo's group; Dengo's boat is hit, he hoists an injured comrade over his shoulder and carries him as he walks along the rolling hull of the sinking boat; the boat sinks out from under Dengo who, underwater now, works against the buoyancy of his oil-drenched clothes to remain below the layer of burning fuel and oil on the surface of the sea; Dengo swam in flooded mineshafts as a child in Hokkaido, Japan, and holding his breath is a skill that serves him well now (and later!) He sees a spent bullet sinking past him, grabs it, and ponders its North American origins.

405 Mugs. Sultan's palace conference continues; Tom Howard deftly fends off a half-hour of challenges from the conference's attendees regarding the tech side of the proposal; Pragasu introduces Cantrell next, and it becomes clear that Pragasu is favoring Epiphyte; Randy launches his Mugshot program on his laptop, which records the face of the laptop's user; Cantrell and Fohr discuss the e-cash prototype; Cantrell refers to "the Crypt" whose name's literal translation catches many attendees—particularly the Chinese contingent—off guard; Avi instantly remedies the mistranslation; Cantrell discusses biometrics; The Dentist sits with Epiphyte at lunch in the adjoining room; While they eat, other delegations demo Mugshot on Randy's laptop back in the conference room; The Dentist seems a bit put out by what he has learned at the conference and, later that night, stops by Randy's hotel room and alludes to ulterior motives for the Philippines deal, wanting to have a "real conversation." Randy's not ready for that conversation yet, so the Dentist leaves.

413 Yamamoto. Admiral Yamamoto knew that hitting Pearl Harbor without a formal declaration of war would piss off the Americans to no end; April 18, 1943: Yamamoto and Admiral Ukagi embark on an inspection/PR tour of Japanese bases, talking up recent successful air raids. American cryptographers crack the Japanese code and intercept Yamamoto's plane; P-38s shoot him down, and as he crashes into the jungles of Bougainville Island, he realizes that his codes have been broken and need to be changed.

418 Antaeus. LPW has left Outer Qwghlm and is heading back to Bletchley Park. (On the train he reads that Yamamoto's plane was shot down. "Malaria, here I come" he mumbles.) The Allies have been sinking German supply subs with cryptologically significant frequency. LPW is still working on the U-553 coded message. Bletchley Park hasn't cracked U-553 yet either; As Bletchley has nothing for LPW to do, he heads north to Shenley Brook End to visit Alan Turing at the Crown Inn. Turing appears to be designing another machine (the Colossus, this time to crack the Fish cipher, a 32 letter scheme which is based on Baudot 5-digit binary code;) LPW tells Turing about the U-553 codes, and when he suggests that, despite having a 4-wheel enigma, some Germans are using Fish because they have secrets to keep from the German Navy, Turing lights up. • LPW has several meetings with British intel at Broadway Bldgs., Churchill rages over the US Getting Yamamoto, which clearly gives away the fact that we have cracked Japanese codes. Turing and LPW have come up with an idea that the pad for the U-553 codes are mathematical (calculate a 900 digit number, which in binary is 3000 digits, which, in groups of 5 digits, gives you 600 numbers from 1-32...i.e. 26 letters + 6 punctuation marks, line break, etc.)

429 Phreaking. After the Sultan's conference, Randy watches BBC in his hotel room. Cantrell stops by and, after a wearing day of business, shop talk is verboten. Cantrell invites Randy to his room to meet Pekka, The Finn Who Got Blown Up (Switching pixel resolutions one day, his 19" CRT exploded, shredding one eye and larynx, and making him the 1st victim of the Digibomber.) Pekka is writing a chapter on Van Eck phreaking for the Cryptonomicon. Tom thinks phreaking is bullshit so Cantrell bets him they can do it. Pekka is trying to receive radio noise generated by Tom Howard's laptop in the next room. [Very thorough yet digestible lesson: CRTs and LCDs generate radio noise that correlates to the images displayed thereon. You can view a nearby screen's display if you have a sensitive enough receiver and noise filter = Van Eck phreaking (via Tempest)] • Randy surfs the web with a palmtop, researches Loeb/RIST nomenclature/hive minds. Emails root: "Prove you're not the Dentist by telling me why you're asking why we're building the Crypt." • Pekka "phreaks" Tom's display at which time Tom, presumably oblivious in the next room, opens MS Word and writes at length about his dark stocking fetish, his lame married love life, theories of sexual orientation acquisition, Gomer Bolstrood furniture, (yet another) hottie named Margaret, etc. • How does Cantrell collect on the bet?

453 Afloat. A stunning continuation of Goto Dengo's ordeal in the Bismarck Sea (see 396/Skipping). Dengo watches from the water as comrades, stranded on the hulls of capsized and sinking vessels, are torpedoed by Allied planes. Then, after the boats have all sunk, the planes begin strafing the swimmers. Dengo announces that he's swimming for New Guinea, the peaks of which are visible on the southern horizon. The sun sets, and sharks kill all but four of the survivors of combat. The four congregate. A piece of shark fin drifts by. Mimicking the sharks' behavior, Dengo sinks his teeth into the raw sharkmeat. The sun rises, Dengo has been awake all night of course. The mountains still look far, but the coast is closer. One of the others was already dehydrated from a bout with diarrhea, and succumbs. As the remaining three—Dengo, a boy from Okinawa, and a boy from Tokyo—drift through their second sunset afloat, dying of thirst, hunger and exhaustion, the Okinawan does what they all have dreamt of doing: chugs seawater. Dengo and the Tokyo boy induce vomiting to save him. The sun rises again. The three are washed over a coral reef onto a sandbar. Euphoric, the Tokyo boy rises from the surf with a snake attached to his arm, and is dead before Dengo can reach him. Dengo recons the lagoon between the sandbar and the coast and finds a stream of fresh water. When he returns to the sandbar for the Okinawan, he fins the boy gone. He follows footprints to a jungle village where the Okinawan is being used by natives for a rite of passage for one of their young boys. While looking for food Dengo discovers a cache of human heads. The Okinawan is that night's meal for the natives, and his gold tooth is a source of marvel.

462 Shinola. Shaftoe can't figure out Root and LPW; 2702 at sea again; Referring to Shaftoe, Root dislikes the word addict, prefers the German word that translates to "morphine-seeky"; Now aboard Trinidad steamer, Cmdr. Eden orders 2702 to wear "tactical negro impersonation" clothing whenever above decks; Shaftoe implores Root: "What is this mission about?"; Steamer sweeps east-west, turning north each time, a search pattern; 2702 encounters two German ships, a supply sub (aka milchcow) and attack sub U-691; Both steamer and U-boat radio home, sealing their fates; Steamer turns tail and is pursued by U-691; 2702 launch lifeboats • Aboard U-691, U-boat skipper Bischoff is in straight jacket, 2nd in command Beck is in charge; he sinks the Steamer and, figuring the Steamer radioed their position to the Allies, firewalls his throttles to get the hell out of there; Beck is an hour away when he gets order to go back and capture surviving officers; Beck returns and after speaking with Root in fluent German, rescues Root and Shaftoe (Shaftoe has unsuccessfully tried to kill himself with a cyanide capsule.)

473 Hostilities. Another gathering of investors and other personnel at the Crypt construction site • Randy trades more probing emails with Root: still wants to know why Root is asking about the Crypt • Pragasu is avoiding Epiphyte personnel; Several characters are ID'd: Marcos's bagman, Chinese PLA general; cell phone guy at the end of 384/Sultan is still a mystery, but Beryl suggests, assumptions can be made; Randy grills Avi about the kind of people they might or might not wish to do business with—he clearly has cold feet; Avi rationalizes; Easy for members to leave Epiphyte, impossible for Epiphyte to leave some of its obligations; Dentist is a conspicuous no-show; Prag leads long boring tour; Randy asks Goto Corp.'s German engineer how "capital B Bomb-proof" the Crypt will be: "Nuclear weapons are not the problem. Surgical, penetrating munitions are, but we're covered either way;" After the meeting, Avi gets a call from Epiphyte's lawyer and calls a hasty shareholder's meeting in the Memorial Garden: "After our members' impressive performance in the Sultan's meeting, our value went through the roof; Like other hungry companies, the Dentist wants us now. Unlike other companies, he has a relationship with us at the moment, which gives him an enormous advantage over other companies. He will likely try to get us via a tactical lawsuit for breach, using the pretext that we didn't inform him of the aforementioned superfluousness of the Philippine cables (see 294/Why and 346/Diligence). Even though we as a company didn't know about the superfluousness—wink wink—it wouldn't matter, since destroying us is probably not his aim...because...Our being sued drops our value from "through the roof" to down into negative numbers. If the Dentist scares us with a suit but then makes an offer for a sizeable chunk of our stock, that investment would pay him HUGE dividends if we blow up even further and get sold for a zillion bucks. Sorry Randy, but now's not a good time to get cold feet."

483 Funkspiel. LPW is roused from sleep for an emergency meeting at Bletchley Mansion; LPW flips though U-691's folder (the boat is running riot in the western Atlantic) as others arrive: VIPs, Alan Turing, a percussionist, etc.; A decrypted exchange between the two COs of U-691 and Dönitz at German U-Boat Command has been intercepted and is read (691: "Bischoff went a little nuts"; Dönitz: "Beck you are given command and must return, but first refuel with U-413" (the refueling 2702 encountered in 462/Shinola) 691: "We sank a UK sub and a steamer and have Shaftoe and Root as POWs"); Turing observes that Germans don't know which boat Shaftoe and Root were aboard. The Rabbi observes that U-691's messages are only important if Dönitz believes them; Elmer appears and screams FUNKSPEIL ("radio games") ad nauseam. It is noted that each German radio operator has a distinctive keying style, and the percussionist can mimic U-691's authentically. SO, plan is hatched for BP to transmit decoys so Dönitz won't believe any U-691 message. "We'll sink a supply sub and dupe Dönitz into thinking U-691 did it." LPW (who met both Shaftoe and Root during the U-553 encounter) clarifies, somberly, that U-691—and all aboard—will be destroyed, if not by Allies, then by Germany. The percussionist transmits the decoy.

493 Heap. Long email from Root to Randy: I'm a man of the cloth, and my interest in the Crypt is, more than anything, philosophical. • Avi tries to warm Randy's cold feet with Holocaust analogies (WWII Germany, as well as the Aztecs slaughtering 25,000 Nahuatl captives.) "The Philippine cable seems irrelevant to our corporate mission, but you MUST sell it, because if you don't, the Dentist will clean our clocks in court." ALSO, Avi notes that human nature does not change, educated people can become genocidal at the drop of a hat, so Avi has established HEAP (Holocaust Education and Avoidance Pod) to be housed in the Crypt. So there are some undeniable positive sides to the Crypt, despite the current shadiness surrounding it. Randy then tells Avi about an email he received from Douglas Shaftoe: Semper Marine did indeed find something on the bottom of the Sulu Sea. Avi weighs Epiphyte's options: Help either Doug Shaftoe, or the Dentist.

502 Seeky. POW Shaftoe is enduring Morphine withdrawal aboard U-691; Beck chats amiably with Root; Bishoff, still straitjacketed, tries to get Shaftoe to admit the Allies have cracked Enigma; Beck receives a coded message: "Stop interrogations." Beck still wants to know where Shaftoe got the morphine. Shaftoe tells Bischoff about the gold on U-553 so Bishoff gets him a morphine shot. Beck arrives and listens as Shaftoe tells Bishoff more, especially about the Chinese characters imprinted on the U-553 gold. A coded message arrives from Berlin telling all German ships that U-691 has been commandeered by Allies and has sunk a German supply sub; All German forces are to kill U-691 on sight. • Bishoff ponders U-553's mission in light of Shaftoe's story about gold, realizes Berlin would want that kept secret from Allies AND Germans, and composes a letter to Dönitz threatening to broadcast the story; U-691 trolls through the Bay of Biscay, at periscope depth, in the cover of an oblivious Allied destroyer's shadow; The destroyer spots them, so Bishoff torpedoes it and others; when Allied planes arrive, Bishoff submerges and heads for the English Channel; He approaches the channel and surfaces for maximum speed, anti-sub planes be damned. Shaftoe offers Bishoff an alternative to a suicide run through the Med: go to this little town in Sweden; He again tells Bishoff the story of U-553's gold, and Monkberg's near amputation, and the trek through Finland, and the smuggler's hot daughter [actually niece, but who cares if the story's good. -smr-]...AND how he and Root used a rock on a string to take soundings in the little town's harbor.

524 Cannibals. Goto Dengo is still alone in the jungle in New Guinea (see 453/Afloat) kills and eats a bat-like creature; steals a wok full of starchy stuff from a tribe of natives; Discovers gold and offers it to another tribe, who tie him up and deliberate for hours; Grass sleeping bag to ward off insects; Malaria; Neighboring tribe brings a retarded boy in exchange for some gold; The boy is killed during a rite of passage (as was the Okinawan in Afloat); Nipponese soldiers arrive and slaughter the tribe's men and rape the women. They interrogate Goto and accuse him of surrendering to the enemy; [Goto's convoy was on the way to relieve this unit when it was sunk six months ago;] The Japanese kill the remainder of the natives and make their way into the jungle. Goto, being the one in the best shape, is made to haul the Nambu machine gun, but the Lieutenant refuses to teach him how to use it. They get lost, go in circles, discover numerous corpses; Lieutenant is kicked a couple times by an ostrich-like bird, the kicks puncture his abdomen and he bleeds to death; The sergeant teaches Goto to use the Nambu. The unit of now 18 men traverses a mountain pass, a narrow path runs down the far side, on which they encounter some Australians who open fire. But through the fog Goto opens up with the Nambu and either kills or scares off the Aussies, though only three of his own comrades survive the encounter. They descend into the jungle again.

535 Wreck. Randy emails Root from a point 16km NW of Brooks Point on Palawan: "I'm not telling you why we're building the Crypt. Give me an example of one of your novel crypto systems." Root replies defending philosophy as the starting point of modern scientific knowledge. Agrees to send Randy a code to crack. • Long description of Amy Shaftoe in repose, on an outrigger in the South China Sea. Their target wreck is under 154m of water, below them. [They are near the Palawan Trough, 6˚N 114˚E, approx. 200km off the coast of Brunei. -smr-] Randy would have to admit that he digs Amy. Doug explains how the ROV works, and where he got the money for it, before they launch. After launch, they view the video, during which Amy slices Randy's calculator-wristwatch from his arm and drops it in the drink • Randy explains about due diligence and the fallout from the Dentist's recent threatened litigation (he bought 10% of Epiphyte and dropped the suit) • A sunken U-boat comes into view on the ROV screens; It's newer, with a stubby conning "bulge" instead of a tower. And a hatch has been opened: someone got out of this sucker after it sank.

548 Santa Monica. LPW wanders around the beach at Santa Monica, pondering all he has seen and done in the war, the fools who are running it; observes the interaction between water and sand and concludes that the ocean is a Turing machine, reacting to itself; Wonders what it must be like to be any of the various players in this war. What kind of people must they be, given the decisions they must make, and the locations and circumstances in which they make those decisions?

552 Outpost. After coming down the mountain, Goto Dengo and his surviving comrades find a Japanese outpost on New Guinea simply by following the sound of Allied bombs and the smells of death; Goto and his (now) sole remaining comrade meet an officer in a tent in the middle of the decimated outpost; Goto is in better shape than this outpost's survivors; Officer asks "What can you do?" "I specialize in making tunnels." "Great. Go find some grubs and bats for us to eat." So he does, and the outpost eats better than it has in weeks; Goto tells a soldier he will deliver a message to the soldier's family in Hiroshima, but changes it to be overwhelmingly patriotic and positive. The solder pleads as Goto's boat pulls away from shore and heads for a submarine. Goto never got the soldier's name.

559 Meteor. Shaftoe and Julieta share a little post-coital pillow talk; Shaftoe has been in Sweden for six months with Julieta and her uncle Otto, hauling supplies for Otto; Shaftoe's haiku (first in a long time) about his Guadalcanal beach memory; Shaftoe wonders how he was called upon to die at both Guadalcanal and on U-691, yet remains alive; Shaftoe is down at the beach when a screaming thing comes across the sky, engulfed in flames—too fast to be a plane—and crashes into the woods north of Otto's cabin, roughly 1.4 miles away: a Heavenly Apparition; Shaftoe heads into Norrsbruck. [1/2]

566 Lavender Rose. Out in the South China sea with Doug and Amy Shaftoe, Randy wants to dive to the wrecked sub their ROV has been studying, but he has to do a lot of reading first; Email from Root to Randy: "My crypto scheme is called Pontifex"; Randy fears Semper Marine’s divers will strip the wreck before he can get a look at it; Randy reads about nitrogen bubbles in his bloodstream, and the importance of a dive plan; Email from Cantrell: "Pontifex is like RC4, possibly more secure…your Pontifex author sounds knowledgeable but very dated. Is he old?" • Doug is going through artifacts from the sub, finds Rudy's stationery, envelope has WATERHOUSE LAVENDER ROSE written on it.

573 Brisbane. LPW is in Brisbane, has been for a month with no assignment until this morning; He reports to a profoundly resentful major who snubs LPW and his new assignment aggressively, and at some length; “We’re winning now, Churchill and Marshall don’t understand how that shifts the gravity of the situation. MacArthur does. He’s not a defender, he’s a conqueror.”

578 Dönitz. Shaftoe is in a Norrsbruck (Sweden) pub, relaxing with Bischoff, who retired after dropping himself and Shaftoe off in Norrsbruck, and allowing Beck to return the U-boat to Kiel. Bishoff left the room with a letter out on a table and Shaftoe considers an old lesson in manners before trying to read it...but reads it anyway; Bishoff catches him, then explains about the Japanese paying gold for Hitler's uranium and technology; Bishoff drags Shaftoe into the woods to investigate the meteor that Shaftoe saw; While hiking they "struggle against suicidal depression" by talking about how Root got a radio transmitter from Otto and is living in a church basement; They find Julieta and Otto cutting up the severed wing and engine of a crashed Luftwaffe jet; They haul the engine down to Otto's boat, then Shaftoe and Bishoff return to the crash site and discover that Enoch Root has materialized there along with Rudy Von Hacklheber, who cries for the deceased test pilot, his lover.

588 Crunch. Randy dons a suit for a meeting with Doug and Amy later, so savors a beer and some Cap'n Crunch (Avi sent him a closet-full to cheer him up) while watching a poorly recorded dance instruction video. Reads email from Root: "Here's Pontifex written in Perl." Takes cab to Manila Hotel for the meeting with the Shaftoes which is some sort of "Debutante Ball For Fortysomethings" event. Doesn't see Shaftoes, sees guy sitting, smoking; [Digression mentions Grandma W's Gomer Bolstrood furniture (see Cantrell's 429/Phreaking story) and 566/Lavender Rose china pattern] Randy sees Amy and is relieved that she, while looking very good, seems to feel as out of place as does he; Doug dances with Aurora Taal, Randy dances (sort of) with Amy, then Aurora, then an unknown older lady who mysteriously asks him about lat/lon coordinates. N 15˚ 17' 41.32", E 121˚ 57' 0.55". [In reality this location is a point in the Philippine Sea, 25.65 km due north of the northern tip of Polillo Island, off the east coast of Luzon. -smr-]

602 Girl. LPW arrives at Brisbane boarding house just as someone checks out; LPW's Ultra Mega clearance is so high he can't reveal it, so guards won't let him in the crypto office (the whorehouse in 322/Pages); American cryptanalyst Abraham Sinkov will hook him up with slightly lower clearance and give him a tour of the place; Comstock and ETC are there, and as the 573/Brisbane major stated, most of the codes are indeed broken, decrypting is essentially automated now. LPW is assigned a few uncracked codes, and cracks them with his hands tied behind his back; His out of town roomie—Smith—returns with what seems to be malaria; LPW meets Smith's cousin Mary, and it's love at first sight...for LPW.

607 Conspiracy. Rudy, Shaftoe, Bishoff and Root meet in Root's Norrsbruck church basement; Rudy's boring disquisition on German intelligence hierarchy lulls Shaftoe into nightmarish daydreams, some of which center on his recent morphine detox program in that very basement; Rudy describes numerous weaknesses in German crypto codes, especially Enigma; Tells how he was able to determine the Allies had cracked Enigma, was aware of LPW in the castle at Outer Qwghlm, and aware of Det. 2702 moving all over the place; (They used one time pads, but only LPW was diligent; others in 2702 reused pads a lot, AND it turns out some of the pads weren't so random—Mrs. Tenney's bingo cage for instance—see final paragraph of Dönitz); It was clear 2702 was actively concealing that they had cracked Enigma, but once Rudy knew this he didn't tell anyone because of resentments he felt toward Göring. [FLASHBACK: Rudy summoned at 4am, put aboard an unscheduled train, in a very well-appointed but empty coach; later, Angelo is thrown in with Rudy; Göring passes through wearing a bathrobe, doesn't acknowledge Angelo or Rudy; A servant brings a syringe to Göring; Rudy and Angelo are led to Göring's car where Angelo's signed confession rests on a table; Göring, dressed something like a cherry red Liberace, brings up their homosexuality just as the train stops at an extermination camp in full swing (they see a boxcar full of frozen bodies being bloodlessly hacked apart). Göring reminds Rudy what's at stake when you work for him; Rudy has the balls to actually ask for a favor at this moment, and asks that his Libnitz research be consolidated from international libraries. END FLASHBACK] Rudy goes on: "Göring demanded an uncrackable code, so I wrote it, but slightly crippled it. Mussolini was overthrown, and suddenly all Italians working for the Germans become suspect, including Angelo; He agreed to test their jet prototype to prove his loyalty. Meanwhile, 2702 had gone quiet but Göring was very chatty, worried to death about Bishoff spilling the U-553 gold story; the Russians won at Kursk, Göring saw the writing on the wall and began moving all his valuables out of Germany; The only 2702 message I intercepted at this time was Enoch Root saying he and Shaftoe were in Norrsbruck, and I already knew Bishoff was there, so I figured, with my and Root's ancient family connections, it'd be a nice place to hide out with Angelo. I packed my research and came here circuitously via Sweden, Angelo was escaping in a prototype." • Rudy again: "I'd like us four to get the gold the Germans and Japanese are hoarding in Manila. We will communicate with the uncrippled version of the code I wrote for Göring, and Root's Societas Eruditorum will get us to Manila." When Root hears this he shits a brick.

628 Hoard. On the plane home, over the Pacific, Randy is sick to death of the jungle. He wants to bulldoze it. Feels strange, decides it must be what happens when you get some relaxation. Kia emailed from Epiphyte's only office (she's their only employee) in the Springboard complex in CA: "Amy called you four times." Randy emails AND faxes Amy with reasons he's going to CA. Massive email to Epiphyte stockholders (except Dentist of course) about his recent jungle adventure: "That lady's lat/lon was in hundredths of a second, [accuracy to within a foot]; jeepney; I like Amy, and it's not sexual harassment, either, since her physical power and courage balances any power I might derive as one who has retained her company's services; Six people in the jeepney: me, Doug Shaftoe, Driver and son, two other employees of Doug's; Stuck behind a pig transfer truck, tried to pass it, sprayed with odors, excreta, sounds; Jean Nguyen (aka John Wayne) and Jackie Woo; San Juan hotel; Space on this island, where we require an hour to go three miles, is not the same as space in, say, the midwestern US where in an hour you can go 60, 70 or even 80 miles; At first roadblock they told us 'Nice People Around' (code for New People's Army); Days henceforth measured in LACs (unit of typical day's fear, uncertainty and doubt, as experienced by Lewis and Clark); Roadblock #2 takes our cigarettes and batteries; Doug interviews locals for news about gold and treasure; We crossed a river, then 3^rd roadblock where all testicles were squeezed and weapons were checked; Pompeii-ish villages buried under lahars, encased in solid rock; Jungle guides are definitely not Americanized despite wearing US tee shirts; Gold stash; Return to Manila; Logistics of removing the gold, if it's even possible; Whoever owns the gold wants to convert it to spendable money – what good is money of you can't spend it?"

660 Rocket. Shaftoe notices Julieta has been distant; Modern looking sub—Rocket—arrives in Norrsbruck, Bishoff ships out, and Shaftoe remembers that technically he's been AWOL for 6 months, but Bishoff mails him some goodies that will keep him out of hot water; Otto returns, chats with Shaftoe, then steps out; Root arrives, confesses (or rather, admits) he is doing Julieta, but so was Bishoff. Says Otto has betrayed them, and Germans are coming to kill them; Shaftoe procures a small arsenal from Otto's attic; Shaftoe to Root: "Someone has to marry Julieta so she can get a better passport"; Root and Shaftoe set up mortar; Germans arrive and Shaftoe mortars most of them to death; two that don't die then break into Otto's cabin and shoot at Root; Shaftoe comes up through the floor and pops them both; All Germans dead, Root's been shot, wants to go to the Church; Hasty wedding for Root and Julieta...then Root earns his final sacrament; Shaftoe sees Rudy sneak someone out of the courthouse; Shaftoe tells Otto he betrayed him in return and that Otto should sail to Manila. Shaftoe kisses Julieta goodbye.

677 Courting. Math and formulas pertaining to LPW's concupiscence w/r/t his effectiveness as a cryptanalyst; Orgasms usually bring clarity, but even manual overrides don't help now that he has Mary Smith on the brain; LPW considers several opening lines to try on Mary; LPW goes to Dance; Mary and Rod Smith are at dance...they are Inner Qwghlmian! (Their name is spelled cCmndhd, it just sounds like Smith!) LPW addresses Mary and friends in Qwghlmian language, gets decked for it. (LPW said "Gxnn bhldh sqrd m!" and they heard "While I was down at the mill to lodge a complaint about a sack with a weak seam that spring loose on Thursday..." etc., ad infinitum) • What the Navajo are to US marines, Qwghlmians are to Royal Navy.

689 I.N.R.I.. Goto Dengo analyzes crucifix on hospital wall, gets a sponge bath, is wheeled outside in a wheelchair; Father Ferdinand discusses Christ's passion, Goto resents what he sees as an effort to covert him to a "lower" religion (Ferdinand is in Societas Eruditorum, like Root); Dengo is flown out of Luzon, and when he lands he takes an even longer sidecar journey during which he and the driver stop and relax, pay for cigarettes with unusual scrip; He finally arrives at a military camp where his tunneling skills will be utilized, and his sidecar driver is executed for talking to him during their rest stop.

699 California. Randy arrives at San Francisco airport; Customs officers are suspicious of Randy, until they find out he works with the Internet; Avi picks him up and they discuss inventing new currencies and e-banking (the gold could back Epiphyte's e-bank currency); Kia, Epiphyte's California secretary, is now Amy Shaftoe's advocate in her dealings with Randy, since Randy has clearly done Amy wrong in some way; Randy and Avi go to Avi's house in Pacifica where Randy reveals plans to go get the rest of what's in the Victorian house he and Charlene shared, then to SE Washington state (Palouse River area) to divvy up grandma's (Mary cCmndhd's) furniture.

709 Organ. LPW has a fervid and messy dream, but Mrs. McTeague won't understand, since she and all non-prostitutes are members of the worldwide conglomerate ECC (Ejaculation Control Conspiracy); LPW is resigned to going to church if he wants any chance with Mary; Outer Qwghlm's church is right across the street; It dawns on Randy how he will win Mary's heart...by fixing Inner Qwghlm's church's beat up organ; The organ player whines mightily to the priest; LPW expounds on his plan, then demonstrates by transposing the organ up a half step; While working on the organ, he basically invents random access memory.

718 Home. Randy wakes from a nightmare, sleeping on the floor of his collapsed California house the day after an earthquake hit; Amy Shaftoe is there from Manila, and her young cousins Bo and Luke (sorry) Marcus Aurelius and Robin drove from Tennessee; Amy left Manila right after Randy left; Even though no real commitment had been vocalized, she thought Randy was deserting her. She crashed her U-Haul into Randy's Acura • The four of them leave Randy's old place in the Acura, the boys' souped up Impala, and the U-Haul. [A discussion of how Randy's friends reacted to him leaving for the Philippines—leaving Charlene—without saying goodbye.]

729 Bundok. Goto Dengo and Mori pin up the bedsheet map of Bundok for Capt. Noda; Noda fills Dengo in on construction of dams, and military and civilian housing areas in the Southern Resource Zone of Japan; Noda stresses the huge responsibility they have AND the secrecy they must maintain (Noda clarifies that one of the housing areas is really a "long term storage facility for vital war-making materials," which Dengo interprets as a tomb for Emperor Hirohito.)

734 Computer. After receiving a job properly done (Comstock insisted on it) LPW briefs Comstock and other ETC members on crypto systems like Azure, Pufferfish and Arethusa; LPW was foolishly allowed to drink some coffee and now NO one will be able to keep up with him! LPW is rolling, explaining how you can decrypt messages from uncracked codes just by analyzing which sources respond to them – some codes you've broken allow you to fill in gaps in messages from those you haven't; (Codes pertaining to Goto Dengo's recent movements are used as an example); LPW tells them he used the card reader to analyze his data – they don't believe him. LPW launches into a 5-hour explication of current computational theory, and then leads everyone to the lab to demonstrate something he is calling RAM. ETC is incredulous: "Computers are people," Comstock reminds him. "Then this would be a digital computer," LPW suggests, right before dropping the bombshell that he's gotten engaged.

747 Caravan. After dumping the U-Haul in SF, Randy and his newly acquired Shaftonian entourage make their way north in two cars; Sleeping in cars on roadside; Shaftoe boys take pity on Randy, believing the earthquake has left him destitute; Randy and Amy finally end up in the same car and get to talk; Doing the math on not only Amy's departure from Manila, but the boys' departure from Tennessee; Fortunately, Randy finally opens up to Amy. Unfortunately, what he reveals is the e-banking currency scheme he and Avi are proposing. [2/3]

758 The General. Shaftoe's odyssey after leaving Sweden: [from Stockholm, to London, to DC, to San Francisco, to Hawaii, to Kwjalein Atoll; New Guinea; From there Shaftoe ingratiates his way into a plane ride to Brisbane in the tail ball turret of a B-24, where he endures near fatal hypothermia]; Shaftoe approaches MacArthur directly looking for work; Flies to Hollandia (North coast of New Guinea) sees a white mansion up on a hill, MacArthur's house? No, a decoy since Shaftoe can see a mannequin with a pink dress on the balcony...until zeroes start strafing it, and the mannequin turns out to be DMcA himself wearing a Japanese kimono-type garment—utterly implacable in the gunsights of the zeroes. Shaftoe drives The General down the mountain in the midst of this air-to-ground attack, then to the airport in the middle of a dogfight (a crashing zero's debris nearly immolates their jeep), just to return an unexploded shell—that landed in his house—to one of his anti-aircraft units. Heading back up to the big house on the hill, DMcA enlists Shaftoe to lead/inspire his Filipino guerillas.

771 Origin. Dust- and snow-devils in Whitman, WA, now and in Randy's youth; Wind interactions in the parking lot of Waterhouse dorm; Uncle Red tries to mollify Aunt Nina, who really, REALLY wants the bedroom console; Uncle Red and Randy are graphing the emotional and financial value of grandma Waterhouse's furniture, not on graph paper, but out in the parking lot, where pieces of furniture are placed on an x and y axis on the asphalt. Each sibling's preferences are noted and will be run though a computer by Randy and weighed via valuation equations; Nina, afraid she won't get the console that is by rights hers alone, sees Randy eyeing the trunk that no one wants, and quite craftily ranks the trunk inordinately high in both financial (x) and emotional (y) value, as if to say "This entire family knows darn well that console should be mine. Make sure your computer knows it too, or you'll never see the trunk again." Amy is present though all this, but somehow does not run screaming from Randy.

787 Golgotha. Ninomiya arrives at Bundok with survey tools; He and Dengo climb cinder cone mountain; Ninomiya insists MacArthur is not returning, as promised; They plot the position and volume of the future Lake Yamamoto; Chinese prisoners are shipped in to do the gruntwork, despite there being plenty of Filipinos able to do it; Survey work done, Ninomiya's services no longer required, he was "reassigned." His reassignment was discovered during a dig a month later; One of the more reliable Chinese workers, Wing, arranges for new grave for Ninomiya. Dengo learns he will also be reassigned when his services are no longer needed.

795 Seattle. cCmndhd kids endured a lot, ultimately being sent to Australia as criminals, Mary's mother had raised Mary with manners and breeding; Dad (LPW) hired local car dealer to maintain Grandma's (Mary's) Lincoln after he was gone; Grandma's not the best source of info on LPW's war efforts; Suitcase found, loaded with photos (some ancient) one appears to feature LPW, Turing and Rudy; Randy asks grandma about LPW wearing both Army and Navy uniforms. • Sometime after Christmas, Randy and Amy drive to Seattle; Randy apologizes for Amy's feeling out of place in the presence of so many eggheads, but Randy's the "least focused" of the family; Randy observes that men seem to want to focus more than women seems to want to...and that's healthier for the women; Shaftoe boys drove back to TN; Amy and Randy go to a Seattle shopping mall's Food Court, where Chester is mediating a card-based Role Playing Game; [cool paragraph on Nerd interaction protocol] They go to Chester's big house, which is a Museum of Dead Technology; Fragments of salvaged 747 wreckage hover over the house's flex-space; Some line silently gets crossed and Amy withdraws so fast she has red-shifted (which Randy thought would happen back in Whitman, quite frankly) and she gets plane tickets back to Manila; Randy looks to use Chester's card readers to read the cards in grandma's trunk, which trunk Nina was happy to give him.

814 Rock. Much drilling is occurring at Bundok; River is dammed with bolder and other detritus; Lake Yamamoto and Golgotha will be connected so the water pressure from the lake can booby trap the Golgotha vaults; Japanese General (confusingly, also referred to as The General, a la DMcA) visits and inspects many tunnels, vaults, fool's vaults, and booby traps. The main vault, being deepest, will be something like an oubliette after the Togo River access tunnels are dynamited; The shaft out the top leads to fools vaults which would of course be encountered first by someone descending from the surface; Japanese General says "We will need to speed up. MacArthur landed on Leyte yesterday (which makes "today" Oct. 21, 1944.) and that was the decisive battle. I'm sending you 500 more workers."

823 The Most Cigarettes. Cantrell emails Randy: "Pontifex is unusual but quite solid." Loeb was kidnapped by cult/militia as a youth (see 59/Forays); Loeb is now a lawyer and is suing Epiphyte on behalf of The Dentist [Thanks for the correction N. McEvoy!] (who is claiming Epiphyte should have had a salvage clause in its contract with Semper Marine. This lawsuit only has merit if Semper Marine finds anything of value in the sub wreck.) "The Dentist doesn't want our money—this is not about the sub—he wants to control us because we are doing cool things (e-banking, etc) But who told him about the wreck?" "They probably use satellite photos (SPOT) to track Glory IV, though for the actual location of the sub Loeb could get the lat/lon off almost any email of mine since I often put current lat/lon in my email sig; All my email is encrypted on the Tombstone server in the closet in Los Altos that we rent from Novus Ordo Seclorum; He'll subpoena the server but he'll need our encryption keys...if I say I lost mine, that's bad, but if all of Epiphyte says they all lost theirs too...that's contempt, and off to jail we go; So lets talk about tampering with evidence." • Randy breaks news that Semper Marine has in fact found gold bullion in the sub; Dave (president of Novus Ordo Seclorum in Los Altos) leaves messages on Avi's home machine "Some suits asked us for your server. We played dumb, but they'll be back with subpoenas." And later "It's getting ugly. I'm pretending to cave and hand it over, but here I am calling you instead. We're backing all our stuff up off site so we don't lose anything when they shred this office." Avi's heading to Los Altos post haste, Randy will handle the tampering from Kinakuta.

839 Christmas 1944. Dengo tells Wing that they need more ventilation shafts and that the sloping tunnel from Lake Yamamoto down to the main vault needs to be a shallow slope initially, then a steep slope down to the vault AND some of the shafts will appear to go to nowhere...some started inside and dug upward, and some begun on the surface. Orders; Of the 500 Filipinos the General said were coming, only 300 arrive, all in rough shape and yet none in stretchers; Dengo deputizes Rodolfo among them, tells him MacArthur has returned to Leyte, which inspires the Filipinos to work incredibly hard; Dengo sets aside six special workers; Material To Be Stored finally arrives via Japanese convoy; One in twenty crates goes to the fool's vaults; Tunnels almost join under Lake Yamamoto; Some workers drop a crate that cracks open revealing gold, all witnesses killed. [3/4]

849 Pulse. Avi and Randy bolt from Avi's house, Avi heads to Novus Ordo Seclorum, Randy tries to find an anonymous internet jack, but says screw it and also heads to Los Altos. Randy pulls into a parking lot and double parks behind a guy loading his shotgun. Randy moves on and double parks behind some van, jacks into Tombstone through laundry.org and other internet nodes including of course the crypt.kk, hiding his footsteps; Much commotion on steps of Novus, Randy views it on his laptop, transmitted by Novus's cameras inside the office. HEAP guns on the street corner, guys REALLY devoted to 2^nd amendment freedoms...as Randy weighs the consequences of tampering with evidence he learns the Attorney General is on Novus's doorstep; Loeb is going bananas trying to get inside; The van Randy has boxed in stirs, lots of electrical equipment in evidence; Randy logs into Tombstone, erases his tracks, then starts not only erasing emails, but initiating a wipe of the entire drive...which is about the time the van geeks detonate a localized EMP, freezing all machines in their tracks (like the machine Randy had just told to start wiping Tombstone) but will not affect any data on hard drives (like Tombstone). The geeks probably wonder why Randy isn't rejoicing that his data is OK...

861 Buddha. Solid gold Buddha arrives at Bundok; Japan has known since late '43 that the gig was up and has been stashing gold ever since; All the workers now see the writing o the wall and some try to escape, unsuccessfully; Code keys are ceremonially burned nightly; Dengo, Wing and Rodolfo continue their extra-curricular digging; Charges are planted for vault-sealing day; After a two-week lull, a big shipment finally arrives, the vaults are practically full so this last load is stuffed into cracks and crevices; Dengo surmises a German sub delivered this shipment; Togo river has been flooded; Equipment being dumped down ventilation shafts, as are executed workers; Capt. Noda asked for Dengo's six special workers, Dengo plays dumb: "They're still working, I'll go take care of them." Dengo enters the half-flooded tunnel from the Togo to Golgotha, before the vault is to be dynamited shut behind him.

870 Pontifex. Randy sold the Acura for cash and, now in the airport, bought a ticket to Kinakuta; He details the math involved with Loeb's lawsuit: if the money the Dentist can get from Epiphyte litigiously is greater than how much he'd have to spend on Epiphyte stock to control the company, the Dentist wins. How to either reduce the former (get the gold out of the sub) or increase the latter (make Epiphyte much more desirable somehow)? Randy's reverie is interrupted by the sight and sound of Avi's wife and nannies hustling the kids to an El Al flight to Israel. "Tell Avi 'zero.' " Randy calls Doug Shaftoe from the plane via his armrest phone, Doug saw Randy on CNN, typing on the roof of a car; Randy tells him to check his overnight faxes concerning the Dentist; Root (who in this chapter goes by Pontifex) calls the armrest phone Randy just hung up and again they play the who-is-this-what-do-you-want game; Avi's ETC guy called Root; Root doesn't want Randy wasting his time on Arethusa, it's a random number generator, not a crypto code; Comstock's name was one of the "seed" numbers for the generator; Root advises Randy to make the crypt as good as possible "because some of your clients are akin to drug lords."

882 Glory. Shaftoe puts MacArthur stickers on Nipponese Army truck; Shaftoe will be McA's eyes and ears in Concepcion; Shaftoe meets a sub (the Tarpon) for supplies and a transmitter; Mr. Caluga tells him transmitter was intercepted, he sleeps in Caluga's stable; Caluga tells him he thinks Glory is alive, and son was born 13SEP42, and that Glory is a heroine of the resistance; Shaftoe gets malaria, makes his way south to maybe find Glory; Stuck in Calamba; Boatride out to see Glory, standing on a sandbar: something is really wrong with her face.

890 The Primary. Randy's flight arrives in Kinakuta at dusk, and Cantrell meets him; Crypt is intended as an alternative to violent resistance to the US Govt; Cantrell's Hummer might be bugged so Randy communicates with written notes; The entire doorframe at Novus was an electromagnetic disk wiper, so Tombstone could indeed have been wiped; They go to Tom's fortress house in the hills, Doug Shaftoe is there talking guns with Tom, and in short order alienates both Cantrell and Randy; Randy says after the suit the Dentist will own the Crypt; International Data Transfer Regulatory Organization (aka Black Chamber) is terrified that they won't be able to collect tax after the Crypt is active • Doug: "I've worked here forever, there's no way Loeb can prove I first spotted the sub doing Epiphyte's survey work," Randy: "It's a civil suit so circumstantial evidence is enough, and if the sub is well away from the survey area, that's pretty circumstantial that you knew beforehand. But all this becomes moot if you can get the gold off the sub: Loeb doesn't know where it is." • Paul Comstock, Attorney General is watching us; Doug says American Military in Philippines during Vietnam were really looking for gold, which, Doug reminds Randy, he showed Randy in person not all that long ago (see 628/Hoard); Randy realizes the Arathusa cards from LPWs trunk are not the Arathusa cards that generated the uncrackable random numbers 50 years ago.

907 Deluge. Goto Dengo, Wing, Rodolfo and a few others enter Golgotha and lead some solders into an ambush, leaving them free to escape the tunnels via Dengo's intricate system of air bubbles in faux-ventilation shafts; Bong saved diamonds, as it seems did the others except Dengo; Noda dynamites the Lake Yamamoto plug and the water forces massive air pressure into the tunnels, and the "swimming-through-skinny-tunnels-in-pitch-darkness-while-holding-your-breath-till-you-just-about-die" challenge begins, and ends a couple days (and a wicked case of the bends) later when Dengo and Bong and Wing rise to the surface of Lake Yamamoto.

918 Bust. Randy flies NE from Kinakuta and looks SE out his window and the length of Palawan Island passing below, tries to read the Cryptonomicon on the plane; Randy's internal debate: "Why modern crypto?"; Bag claim conveyor starts and stops, but finally brings Randy's not-quite-locked-well-enough duffel bag; Amy's there in a dress, but Randy never gets to talk to her because someone planted heroin on his duffel.

926 The Battle of Manila. Shaftoe wakes in boat, Manila is on fire; Glory has leprosy; Shaftoe writes his last will and testament on the inside of a condom wrapper; Shaftoe and Huks take ammo out of boat and, essentially, invade Manila; Lt. Morales takes command, and 373 words later relinquishes it; Shaftoe moves the squad slowly through town, enduring a close quarters fire fight, on their way to see Glory's family, the Alitmiras; The alleys of Ermita run red with blood.

936 Captivity. Randy meets with Attorney Alejandro in a Makati jail: "Someone's trying to send you a message. [digression on U.S./Filipino relations] U.S. taught Philippines about capital punishment; You won't do much tine, the person who planted the stuff will probably confess in a couple weeks"; Randy can work on his laptop in the joint! Amy wants to talk; The Dentist hasn't found the sub yet; [Memory: Going through his earthquaked house, Randy discovered Charlene's trove of bodice-rippers. Amy said "Now you know what she wanted, did you give her what she wanted Randy?"]

949 Glamour. Shaftoe retreats his squad through Ermita, and they end up cornered; Shaftoe gets separated from his squad, hears a building full of screaming women; Squad and Shaftoe fall back to a position on a baseball field, with opposing forces occupying opposing dugouts; Shaftoe runs out of ammo; A Nipponese soldier steps out of a bathroom and pelts Shaftoe with a dud grenade: it's Goto Dengo; Unforgettable scene where Shaftoe and Dengo, in the midst of a firefight, lock themselves in the bathroom and catch up on each other's news. Dengo is despondent and tries to shoot himself but Shaftoe prevents him; Shaftoe steps out into the battle and none other than Gen. Douglas MacArthur is there and berates Shaftoe for being AWOL; DMcA and staff bristle at the sight of Dengo, Shaftoe tells them Dengo has converted to Christianity; Shaftoe is still looking for the Altimiras; MacArthur leads them to the same church Glory took him to on Dec. 7, 1941 (named here San Agustin, which way back in Seaweed was named San Augustin) and baptized Goto Dengo; One of the little boys running around is clearly 2 year old Dougie MacArthur Shaftoe; Altimiras want Shaftoe to find Carlos, so he heads to Ft. Santiago, but there are far too many dead boys to find just one.

964 Wisdom. Protracted discussion on Randy's efforts to find a brilliant oral surgeon, and his radically-ingrown wisdom-teeth's extraction, all to show just how difficult it was to tell Amy how he really feels about her; Randy is transferred to a jail cell where he will be allowed to work on his laptop but, surprise, it can only be used on top of a locked filing cabinet, which of course screams Van Eck phreaking; Another prisoner is brought in: it's Root, who begins pontificating about playing bridge. It takes Randy a minute, but he catches on.

975 Fall. Shaftoe is descending, in a parachute, toward a fortress on small island (it sounds like Ft. Hughes on Caballo Island, just south of Corregidor) held by the Japanese; As he nears the fortress he sees it's covered with mangled antennas, some of them very thick and sharp, and sure enough when he lands on them they treat him like a pin cushion. Shaftoe somehow frees himself from this gravity-induced bayoneting, grabs a nozzle and pumps a swimming pool's worth of fuel oil down into the fortress, chucks an active white phosphorus grenade in after the fuel, and, aware that he's sporting at least five mortal wounds, follows the grenade down into the fortress before the oil ignites.

981 Metis. Randy realizes, with the appearance of Root in the adjoining cell, that his incarceration has been orchestrated; Concerned about Van Eck phreaking, Randy doesn't have to display data onscreen to work on it (and other VEP defeating techniques); Root plays solitaire, tells Randy why he's in jail; Who owns the gold field? The government made it a national park; Three Philippine Epochs • Mr. Wing is a Chinese hydroelectric power mogul who wants to buy land in the Philippines, imagine that • Root gives cards to Randy and a ciphertext, while they continue to discuss what it was about Root's email that gave randy the clue that it WAS Root (aside from the email address being root@eruditorum.org, of course); Plato's Cave allegory and massive Greek Theogony discussion featuring Athena, Hyperion, Oceanus, Arachne, Aegis, Heacles, Odysseus, Hephaestrus, Erichthonius, but especially Metis and Ares, illustrating points about craftiness. • Randy launches ciphertext attach on Arethusa. Using cribs and some crafty logic, he should be in good shape, but he is in a Philippine jail. Maybe Chester can help...

1006 Slaves. Americans doing mop-up at Ft Hughes after Shaftoe's spectacular felo de se find some money that is Australian on one side and Japanese on the other. This sets LPW to thinking about currencies, and how a gold standard undergirding the paper notes is a must for a currency to be taken seriously. In the back of the fortress, down a few layers, is a room with a table that's covered with abacuses. With only one door, the flames weren't drafted into the room and the men in the room asphyxiated instead of burned. Waterhouse is keenly interested in the abacuses.

1011 Arethusa. Randy gives Attorney Alejandro messages for both Chester and Avi; Randy and Root fall into a pattern where they talk a lot over dinner but then talk not at all the rest of the evening; Root lectures on cycles of science: emulating previous generations, then tearing them down and planting your own flag; Randy and Root trade "what would you do with all that gold?" stories; Avi visits (legal pressure has eased a bit); Dentist himself visits Randy (sneering, albeit involuntarily) claiming no knowledge of why Randy was set up; Randy believes him but is more worried about other things; Dentist is astonished that Randy is allowed to use his laptop in jail! Chester's guy arrives with a care package (food, novels, Pepto, and a ton of music CDs) [some discussion on the Seattle music scene] The CDs turn out to have far more data than music; Randy has neglected his prostate and he's paying the price...he must stay focused! Randy thinks he's been set up by Wing, Attorney Alejandro thinks it's the Dentist; Randy's been working long hours, has trouble reading his screen; Using grep command and several days work he cracks Alethusa; Subliminal channel...reading hidden docs by writing a program that blinks their contents in Morse code on the NUM LOCK LED, which of course doesn't show up onscreen, foiling any Van Eck phreakers. Decrypted Alethusa gives him location of the Primary gold deposit...

1028 The Basement. Chinese found the very best abacus users. Basement slaves were working on a zeta function. LPW works on Azure/Pufferfish a mind-numbing amount of time. (Thanks for the correction Auroch!) LPW works in a room in a basement, which room itself is capital B Basement, where he has constructed a meta-machine he's calling a digital computer (made of card readers, etc.); LPW discovered that the date was used as a digital input for a zeta function; his numbers match the abacus numbers, and he's cracked Azure/Pufferfish, but not Alethusa.

1034 Akihabara. Randy arrives at Tokyo airport, having been unceremoniously expelled from the Philippines, never to return. Wicked carpal tunnel, so Randy composes emails hitting keys with a pencil eraser; Randy's plea is discussed, and he got a crappy deal but it was the best he was going to get; Willful abstinence; LED Constellations in his hotel room; Going for a walk and getting lost; Meets Avi in Akihabara; Avi and Randy walk though stalls at computer parts bazaar; Avi notes that the Chinese have already cut one submarine cable; the power has shifted, but no one wants a cable cutting war; The Crypt is necessary, and on schedule; Message from Root, with a card deck; Avi has a message that Goto Dengo wants to leave his Hokkaido retreat and buy them dinner.

1047 Project X. State of the War, April 1945; Japan and Germany are getting waxed at every turn; LPW and Turing talk on encrypted phone line; Project X v. Delilah; LPW tells Turing about the abacus slaves and pseudo-randomness.

1054 Landfall. Rudy and Otto leave the Gertrude and board Bishoff's V-Million; Heil Dönitz; Rudy has scurvy; Bishoff brings Rudy and Otto up on the last 16 months (Shaftoe, Julieta's son G. E. B. Kivistic, etc); Rudy has gold foil on the Gertrude.

1059 Goto-sama. Rudy and Avi meet Goto Dengo for dinner, the only patrons in a restaurant; Dengo knows about RPGs, surprisingly; Dengo doesn't want to talk about the Crypt; Goto and Furudenendo aren't too keen on underwriting Avi and Randy's treasure hunt, until Avi whips out a gold brick, right there, at the table; Randy and Goto both know the precise location of Golgotha, and neither can grasp that the other knows, or why; Avi bristles when it's implied that he might be a treasure hunter: he (Avi) lost family to the Nazis in WWII (Japanese buried German gold, which contained melted down Jewish gold teeth) but wants to use gold for HEAP. (Thanks for the correction Tommster!)

1067 R.I.P.. Dengo and Root (who's still with us after all, see end of 660/Rocket) talk after Shaftoe's funeral; Root knows about Goto's gold, suggests donating it to the church;

1072 Return. Randy's going back to the Philippines; Tom Howard, Randy, Eb Fohr, Doug Shaftoe, John Ngyuen and Jackie Woo (and a boatman and his hyper kids) unload gold from pamboat to Tom's funicular rail thing; Everybody acts differently around serious gold • Randy, back in the pamboat, hugging the Palawan coast enroute to Luzon; Randy gets a ride from Matthew in SUV—Randy's started smoking. After the drive starts Randy nods off, and is later awakened by Amy jumping in on top of him, straddling him in the passenger seat—she gets the unmistakable impression that he is happy to see her, and they do what comes naturally; This compound, where Randy finds himself upon emerging from the fogged-up SUV, is of recent design and construction, 4500m from Golgotha; Root, Doug Shaftoe, John Wayne and others emerge from Sunday morning Mass, while Avi and both Gotos have encountered mysterious immigration hassles and have returned to Tokyo; Through the whines of cicadas and crickets, Randy and the others troupe though the jungle uphill toward Golgotha; At a rest stop Root asks Randy what they're there for. Randy says the gold will back their e-currency in the Crypt; Explosions are felt, but not heard (which tells Doug they occurred underground...Wing is trying to tunnel to Golgotha); As they arrive, another explosion, this one gets John Nguyen; Doug realizes the area has been mined.

1090 Cribs. Having cracked their Arethusa messages, LPW has followed—and now spies on—Root, Goto Dengo, Rudy and Bischoff at Shaftoe's funeral; A month later in the jungle south of Manila, LPW sneaks up on the conspirators again, but idiotically gives himself away. He tells Rudy how he cracked Arethusa, and how he's the only one who knows: he used digital computers not human ones. Rudy can't believe it, and offers LPW gold. LPW declines, saying he'd rather teach college in Washington state, married to Mary. Rudy says, "Well, we have enough money to get you a terrific wedding gift." LPW writes the name of their china pattern on an envelope for Rudy.

1100 Cayuse. Doug, Amy, Randy, Enoch have to use sticks to probe for mines in the river; The explosion they heard earlier was not John Wayne tripping a mine, but someone else, since John Wayne is still in one piece; Something flies down and does something to Amy, Randy moves to help her and in doing so almost trips a mine; It was an arrow, and Randy knows who shot it; Randy cuts off most of the arrow, and Amy rams the stump the rest of the way through her leg, like the badass that she is. The explosion earlier was in fact Andrew Loeb, who, now limbless and enraged, has made his way down to the river and is about to spear Randy when Enoch shoots him with a .45.

1109 Black Chamber. Comstock offers LPW an NSA job; LPW declines, wants to teach college in southeastern Washington state. Comstock tells how they're seeing a lot of Arethusa traffic..."Have you cracked the code yet?" "Nope," says LPW. "No problem. I've put huffduff on north Mindoro. The Catalinas will be waiting the next time they transmit from that sub." • LPW warns Root transmitting from Manila church • Dengo and LPW meet on the same baseball field from 949/Glamour: and realize that if the Allies ever break the code, they'll all be accused of espionage. So LPW decides that, with Turing's help, he'll replace the Arethusa cards with decoys that have random letters.

1119 Passage. Bishoff's V-Million is torpedoed by the Catalinas so it submerges and heads for the north coast of Borneo (Palawan Trough? See 535/Wreck), going four times faster than the Allies are expecting them to be going when submerged, right? Yet the Allies are not fooled (because of Bishoff's going-away gift to Shaftoe back in 660/Rocket) and the Catalinas blow the tail off the V-Million as soon as it surfaces. The sub sinks tail first, leaving a bubble of highly compressed air in the nose for Rudy and Bishoff to breathe. Rudy volunteers to torch himself along with the Golgotha coordinates—Bishoff escapes through an open hatch.

1126 Liquidity. They carry Amy back to the compound, Randy donates blood for her; Wing blocks them into the compound, Goto runs CAT scans of the rock above Golgotha while Wing is trying to tunnel in from the side. Randy learns he's famous; Two holes are drilled into Golgotha from above, one from the side, and Doug Shaftoe is given the honor to flipping the switch. Echoing Bobby Shaftoe's final mission (see 975/Fall), oil is pumped down in, then ignited. Down in the river, Randy watches as melted gold flows out of Golgotha's main drift.

1131 Appendix. (The Solitaire Encryption Algorithm by Bruce Schneier)

Questions or comments, please email! 15FEB09