Cryptonomicon

Just moments ago, Waterhouse was thinking about how very British this whole scene was, feeling very far from home, and wishing that one or two Americans could be present. Now that his wish has come true, he just wants to crawl out of the Mansion on his hands and knees.

"How does one play these games, Mr., uh..." says Crossword Puzzle.

"You can call me Elmer!" Elmer shouts. Everyone scoots back from him.

"Elmer!" Waterhouse says, "would you please stop shouting?"

Elmer turns and blinks twice in Waterhouse's direction. "The game is simple," he says in a more normal, conversational voice. Then he gets excited again and begins to crescendo. "All you need is a radio and a couple of players with good ears, and good hands!" Now he's hollering. He waves at the corner where the albino woman with the headset and the percussionist with lipstick on his ear have been huddled together. "You want to explain fists, Mr. Shales?"

The percussionist stands up. "Every radio operator has a distinctive style of keying--we call it his fist. With a bit of practice, our Y Service people can recognize different German operators by their fists--we can tell when one of them has been transferred to a different unit, for example." He nods in the direction of the albino woman. "Miss Lord has intercepted numerous messages from U-691, and, is familiar with the fist of that boat's radio operator. Furthermore, we now have a wire recording of U-691 's most recent transmission, which she and I have been studying intensively." The percussionist draws a deep breath and screws his courage up before saying, "We are confident that I can forge U-691's fist."

Turing chimes in. "And since we have broken Enigma, we can compose any message we want, and encrypt it just as U-691 would have."

"Splendid. Splendid!" says one of the Broadway Buildings guys.

"We cannot prevent U-691 from sending out her own, legitimate messages," Chattan cautions, "short of sinking her. Which we are making every effort to do. But we can muddy the waters considerably. Rabbi?"

Once again, the rabbi rises to his feet, drawing everyone's attention as they wait for him to fall down. But he doesn't. "I have composed a message in German naval jargon. Translated into English, it says, roughly, 'Interrogation of prisoners proceeding slowly request permission to use torture' and then there are several Xs in a row and then is added the words WARNING AMBUSH U-691 HAS BEEN CAPTURED BY BRITISH COMMANDOS'"

Sharp intakes of breath all around the room.

"Is contemporary German naval jargon a normal part of Talmudic studies?" asks the don.

"Mr. Kahn has spent a year and a half analyzing naval decrypts in Hut 4," Chattan says. "He has the lingo down pat." He goes on: "we have encrypted Mr. Kahn's message using today's naval Enigma key, and passed it on to Mr. Shales, who has been practicing."

Miss Lord rises to her feet, like a child reciting her lessons in a Victorian school, and says, "I am satisfied that Mr. Shales's rendition is indistinguishable from U-691's."

All eyes turn towards Chattan, who turns towards the old farts from the Broadway Buildings, who even now are on the phone relaying all this to someone of whom they are clearly terrified.

"Don't the Jerrys have huffduff?" asks the Don, as if probing a flaw in a student's dissertation.

"Their huffduff network is not nearly so well developed as ours," responds one of the young analysts. "It is most unlikely that they would bother to triangulate a transmission that appeared to come from one of their own U-boats, so they probably won't figure out the message originated in Buckinghamshire, rather than the Atlantic."

"However, we have anticipated your objection," Chattan says, "and made arrangements for several of our own ships, as well as various aeroplanes and ground units, to flood the air with transmissions. Their huffduff network will have its hands full at the time of our fake U-691 transmission."

"Very well," mutters the don.

Everyone sits there in churchly silence while the most senior of the Broadway Buildings contingent winds up his conversation with Who Is at the Other End. Elmer hanging up the phone, he intones solemnly, "You are directed to proceed."

Chattan nods at some of the younger men, who dash across the room, pick up telephones, and begin to talk in calm, clinical voices about cricket scores. Chattan looks at his watch. "It will take a few minutes for the huffduff smokescreen to develop. Miss Lord, you will notify us when the traffic has risen to a suitably feverish pitch?"

Miss Lord makes a little curtsey and sits down at her radio.

"FUNKSPIEL!" shouts Elmer, scaring everyone half out of their skins, "We already done sent out some other messages. Made 'em look like Royal Navy traffic. Used a code the Krauts just broke a few weeks ago. These messages have to do with an operation--a fictitious operation, y'know--in which a German U-boat was supposedly boarded and seized by our commandos."