“Commander!”

There was no response.

Susan eased onto the ladder. The hot air from below rushed in under her skirt. The rungs were slippery with condensation. She set herself down on the grated landing.

“Commander?”

Strathmore did not turn. He continued staring down with a blank look of shock, as if in a trance. Susan followed his gaze over the banister. For a moment she could see nothing except wisps of steam. Then suddenly she saw it. A figure. Six stories below. It appeared briefly in the billows of steam. There it was again. A tangled mass of twisted limbs. Lying ninety feet below them, Phil Chartrukian was sprawled across the sharp iron fins of the main generator. His body was darkened and burned. His fall had shorted out Crypto’s main power supply.

But the most chilling image of all was not of Chartrukian but of someone else, another body, halfway down the long staircase, crouched, hiding in the shadows. The muscular frame was unmistakable. It was Greg Hale.

The punk screamed at Becker, “Megan belongs to my friend Eduardo! You stay away from her!”

“Where is she?” Becker’s heart was racing out of control.

“Fuck you!”

“It’s an emergency!” Becker snapped. He grabbed the kid’s sleeve. “She’s got a ring that belongs tome. I’ll pay her for it! A lot!”

Two?Tone stopped dead and burst into hysterics. “You mean that ugly, gold piece of shit is yours?”

Becker’s eyes widened. “You’ve seen it?”

Two?Tone nodded coyly.

“Where is it?” Becker demanded.

“No clue.” Two?Tone chuckled. “Megan was up here trying to hock it.”

“She was trying to sell it?”

“Don’t worry, man, she didn’t have any luck. You’ve got shitty taste in jewelry.”

“Are you sure nobody bought it?”

“Are you shitting me? For four hundred bucks? I told her I’d give her fifty, but she wanted more. She was trying to buy a plane ticket?standby.”

Becker felt the blood drain from his face. “Whereto?”

“Fuckin' Connecticut,” Two?tone snapped. “Eddie’s bummin'.”

“Connecticut?”

“Shit, yeah. Going back to Mommy and Daddy’s mansion in the burbs. Hated her Spanish homestay family. Three Spic brothers always hitting on her. No fucking hot water.”

Becker felt a knot rise in his throat. “When is she leaving?”

Two?Tone looked up. “When?” He laughed. “She’s long gone by now. Went to the airport hours ago. Best spot to hock the ring?rich tourists and shit. Once she got the cash, she was flying out.”

A dull nausea swept through Becker’s gut. This is some kind of sick joke, isn’t it? He stood a long moment. “What’s her last name?”

Two?Tone pondered the question and shrugged.

“What flight was she taking?”

“She said something about the Roach Coach.”

“Roach Coach?”

“Yeah. Weekend red?eye?Seville, Madrid, La Guardia. That ’s what they call it. College kids take it 'cause it’s cheap. Guess they sit in back and smoke roaches.”

Great. Becker groaned, running a hand through his hair. “What time did it leave?”

“Two a.m. sharp, every Saturday night. She’s somewhere over the Atlantic by now.”

Becker checked his watch. It read 1:45 p.m. He turned to Two?Tone, confused. “You said it’s a two a.m. flight?”

The punk nodded, laughing. “Looks like you’re fucked, ol' man.”

Becker pointed angrily to his watch. “But it’s only quarter to two!”

Two?Tone eyed the watch, apparently puzzled. “Well, I’ll be damned.” he laughed. “I’m usually not this buzzed till four a.m. !”

“What’s the fastest way to the airport?” Becker snapped.

“Taxi stand out front.”

Becker grabbed a 1,000?peseta note from his pocket and stuff edit in Two?Tone’s hand.

“Hey, man, thanks!” the punk called after him. “If you see Megan, tell her I said hi!” But Becker was already gone.

Two?Tone sighed and staggered back toward the dance floor. He was too drunk to notice the man in wire?rim glasses following him.

Outside, Becker scanned the parking lot for a taxi. There was none. He ran over to a stocky bouncer. “Taxi!”

The bouncer shook his head. “Demasiado temprano. Too early.”

Too early? Becker swore. It’s two o'clock in the morning!

“Pidame uno! Call me one!”

The man pulled out a walkie?talkie. He said a few words and then signed off. “Veinte minutos,” he offered.

“Twenty minutes?!” Becker demanded. “Y elautobus?”

The bouncer shrugged. “Forty?five minutos.”

Becker threw up his hands. Perfect!

The sound of a small engine turned Becker’s head. It sounded like a chainsaw. A big kid and his chain?clad date pulled into the parking lot on an old Vespa 250 motorcycle. The girl’s skirt had blown high on her thighs. She didn’t seem to notice. Becker dashed over. I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought. I hate motorcycles. He yelled to the driver. “I’ll pay you ten thousand pesetas to take me to the airport!”

The kid ignored him and killed the engine.

“Twenty thousand!” Becker blurted. “I need to get to the airport!”

The kid looked up. “Scusi?” He was Italian.

“Aeroporto! Per favore. Sulla Vespa! Venti mille pesete!”

The Italian eyed his crummy, little bike and laughed. “Venti mille pesete? La Vespa ?”

“Cinquanta mille! Fifty thousand!” Becker offered. It was about four hundred dollars.

The Italian laughed doubtfully. “Dov'e la plata? Where’s the cash?”

Becker pulled five 10,000?peseta notes from his pocket and held them out. The Italian looked at the money and then at his girlfriend. The girl grabbed the cash and stuffed it in her blouse.

“Grazie!” the Italian beamed. He tossed Becker the keys to his Vespa. Then he grabbed his girlfriend’s hand, and they ran off laughing into the building.

“Aspetta!” Becker yelled. “Wait! I wanted a ride!”

Susan reached for Commander Strathmore’s hand as he helped her up the ladder onto the Crypto floor. The image of Phil Chartrukian lying broken on the generators was burned into her mind. The thought of Hale hiding in the bowels of Crypto had left her dizzy. The truth was inescapable?Hale had pushed Chartrukian.

Susan stumbled past the shadow of TRANSLTR back toward Crypto’s main exit?the door she’d come through hours earlier. Her frantic punching on the unlit keypad did nothing to move the huge portal. She was trapped; Crypto was a prison. The dome sat like a satellite, 109 yards away from the main NSA structure, accessible only through the main portal. Since Crypto made its own power, the switchboard probably didn’t even know they were in trouble.

“The main power’s out,” Strathmore said, arriving behind her. “We’re on aux.”

The backup power supply in Crypto was designed so that TRANSLTR and its cooling systems took precedence over all other systems, including lights and doorways. That way an untimely power outage would not interrupt TRANSLTR during an important run. It also meant TRANSLTR would never run without its freon cooling system; in an uncooled enclosure, the heat generated by three million processors would rise to treacherous levels?perhaps even igniting the silicon chips and resulting in a fiery meltdown. It was an image no one dared consider.

Susan fought to get her bearings. Her thoughts were consumed by the single image of the Sys?Sec on the generators. She stabbed at the keypad again. Still no response. “Abort the run!” she demanded. Telling TRANSLTR to stop searching for the Digital Fortress pass?key would shut down its circuits and free up enough backup power to get the doors working again.

“Easy, Susan,” Strathmore said, putting a steadying hand on her shoulder.

The commander’s reassuring touch lifted Susan from her daze. She suddenly remembered why she had been going to get him. She wheeled, “Commander! Greg Hale is North Dakota!”