Cryptonomicon

"A business deal that would bring Electrical Till, the world's mightiest manufacturer of business machines, together with the government of the United States to construct a machine room of titanic proportions at Fort Meade, Maryland, under the aegis of this new Black Chamber: the National Security Agency. It is an installation that will be the Bletchley Park of our upcoming war against the Communist threat--a threat both internal and external."

"And you would like me to get mixed up in this somehow?"

Comstock blinks. He draws back. He is suddenly cool and remote. "To be absolutely frank, Waterhouse, this thing will go forward with or without you."

Waterhouse chuckles. "I figured that."

"All I'm doing is giving you a greased path, as it were. Because I respect your skills, and I have a certain, I don't know, fatherly affection for you as the result of our work together. I hope you don't mind my saying so.

"Not at all."

"Say! And speaking of that--" Comstock stands up, walking around behind his terrifyingly neat desk, and plucks a single piece of typing paper off the blotter. "How are you coming with Arethusa?"

"Still archiving the intercepts as they come in. Still haven't broken it."

"I have some interesting news about Arethusa."

"You do?"

"Yes. Something you're not aware of." Comstock scans the paper. "After we took Berlin, we scooped up all of Hitler's crypto people and flew thirty-five of them back to London. Our boys there have been interrogating them in detail. Filling in a lot of blanks for us. What do you know about this Rudolf von Hacklheber fellow?"

All traces of moisture have disappeared from Waterhouse's mouth. He sips and does not grimace. "Knew him a little at Princeton. Dr. Turing and I thought we saw his handiwork in Azure/Pufferfish."

"You were right," Comstock says, rattling the paper. "But did you know that he was very likely a Communist?"

"I had no knowledge of his political leanings."

"Well, he is a homo, for one thing, and Hitler hated homos, so that might have pushed him into the arms of the Reds. Also, he was working under a couple of Russians at Hauptgruppe B. Supposedly they were Czarists, and pro-Hitler, but you never know. Well, anyway, in the middle of the war, sometime in late '43, he apparently fled to Sweden. Isn't that funny?"

"Why's it funny?"

"If you have the wherewithal to escape from Germany, why not go to England, and fight for the good guys? No, he went to the east coast of Sweden--directly across the water," Comstock says portentously, "from Finland. Which borders on the Soviet Union." He slaps the page down on his desk. "Seems pretty clear-cut to me."

"So . . ."

"And now, we have these goddamn Arethusa messages bouncing around. Some of them emanating from right here in Manila! Some coming from a mysterious submarine. Not a Nip submarine, evidently. It seems very much like a secret espionage ring of some description. Wouldn't you say so?"

Waterhouse shrugs. "Interpretation isn't my department."

"It is mine," Comstock says, "and I say it's espionage. Probably directed from the Kremlin. Why? Because they are using a cryptosystem that, according to you, is based on Azure/Pufferfish, which was invented by the Communist homo Rudolf von Hacklheber. I hypothesize that von Hacklheber only stayed in Sweden long enough to get some shuteye and maybe cornhole some nice blond boy and then scooted right over to Finland and from there to the waiting arms of Lavrenti Beria."

"Well, gosh!" Waterhouse says, "what do you think we should do?"

"I have taken this Arethusa thing off the back burner. We have become lazy and complacent. More than once, our huffduff people observed Arethusa messages emanating from this general area." Comstock raises his index finger to a map of Luzon. Then he catches himself, realizing that this would be more dignified if he used a pointer. He bends down and grabs a long pointer. Then he realizes he is too close, and has to back up a couple of steps in order to get the business end of the pointer on the part of the map that his index finger was touching a moment earlier. Finally situated, he vigorously circles a coastal region south of Manila, along the strait that separates Luzon from Mindoro. "South of all these volcanoes, along the coast here. This is where that submarine has been skulking around. We haven't gotten a good fix on the bastards yet, because all of our huffduff stations have been way up north here." The pointer swoops up for a lightning raid on the Cordillera Central, where Yamashita has gone to ground. "But not anymore." Down swoops the pointer, vengefully. "I have ordered several huffduff units to set up in this area, and at the northern end of Mindoro. Next time that submarine transmits an Arethusa message, we'll have Catalinas overhead within fifteen minutes."

"Well," Waterhouse volunteers, "maybe I should get cracking on breaking that darn code, then."