The Siren Project Read Online Free PDF Page B

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checks clearing through the Defense Department’s bank made out to Steinus,
spelt ten different ways.” Mouse shrugged. “It was hardly worth the computer
time. Finding him that way would have been a no brainer. These guys are smarter
than that.”
    Mitch glanced over to Christa, “You got any
ideas, Princess?”
    She was at the dining table watching Gunter
assemble one of the tiny motion detectors he was placing around Mitch’s house. “Call
Gus. Abandoning the center cut short the briefings he was planning for you. He
might have something else we can go on.”
    “How do we contact him?”
    Christa opened the briefcase Knightly had
given her and produced a small black box. “I have a telephone number memorized,
and he has a scrambler keyed to this one.” She placed the scrambler on the
table for them all to see.
    Mouse glanced at it and whistled
appreciatively. “Oh my God! One gigabit encryption! Didn’t think anyone but the
NSA had these babies. And they say they don’t exist!” Mouse picked it up and
examined it lovingly. “Man, do you have any idea what two of these would be
worth?”
    “No, I don't,” Christa said dryly, prying
it out of his hands, and placing it back on the table.
    Mitch tapped Mouse on the shoulder. “Set up
the call to Knightly.”
    “If we’re using that,” Mouse nodded to
Christa’s scrambler, “It means a double scramble.”
    “Will it work?” Mitch asked uncertainly.
    “It should. I’ll chain her scrambler behind
ours.”
    Mouse leaned forward, rerouted his
computer’s telephone cable through Christa’s scrambler, into his own device.
    Christa furrowed her brow. “Why are you
doing that?”
    “Being freelancers, we only got two fifty
six bit encryption, but then we don’t have your connections.”
    “I know what it is. The question is, why are
you scrambling the signal my scrambler is generating. That will make it
unreadable to Gus.”
    “Trust me, I steal for a living,” he
grinned, dialing out.
    “I haven’t given you the number yet,”
Christa said. “Who are you calling?”
    “No one.”
    Christa walked around behind Mouse, reading
the information off the screen as his computer dialed. “You’re remote
buffering?” She leaned closer to read the country code prefixing the telephone
number displayed on the screen. “Forty four? That’s England isn’t it?”
    Mouse glanced at her, with a hint of
irritation, then issued a command that hid the phone number he was dialing. “Do
you mind?”
    “What’s in England?”
    “The Royal Family,” Mouse snapped.
    The call connected, followed by several
seconds of hissing and pinging as the electronic hand shaking was completed,
then silence.
    “You’ve got a scrambler in England!”
Christa guessed, from the sounds. “Computer controlled?”
    “You ask too many questions,” Mitch said.
    Christa watched thoughtfully from behind
Mouse’s chair. “For that to work, the London computer must have two telephone
lines feeding into it, with your other scrambler receiving and decoding the two
fifty six bit transmission sent from this scrambler. It then passes on only the
one gigabit encryption. Two separate phone lines means any simple trace stops
at your English computer.” She considered the system for a moment, then slowly
shook her head. “No, I don’t like it. It’s too crude.”
    “Crude!” Mouse said indignantly. “It’s
foolproof.”
    “But we’re not dealing with fools. Your
system works only as long as no one gets control of the buffering computer in
England. Once that happens, you’re dead.”
    “Yeah, well that’s not going to happen. That
mother’s rigged for anything.”
    “It might appear ingenious to a high school
dropout, but it’s an insecure system.”
    “I’m no high school drop out!” Mouse
exclaimed. “I wasn’t kicked out of MIT until my sophomore year, and that’s only
because the Dean didn’t have a sense of humor!”
    Her face showed her frustration as