Literature

On the Crypto floor, the shadows were growing long and faint. Overhead, the automatic lighting gradually increased to compensate. Susan was still at her terminal silently awaiting news from her…

Sitting on the bench across from the public clinic, Becker wondered what he was supposed to do now. His calls to the escort agencies had turned up nothing. The commander,…

Inside the Clinica de Salud Publica, visiting hours were over. The gymnasium lights had been turned out. Pierre Cloucharde was fast asleep. He did not see the figure hunched over…

David Becker stood in a phone booth across the street from La Clinica de Salud Publica; he’d just been ejected for harassing patient number 104, Monsieur Cloucharde.Things were suddenly more…

Susan sat alone in the plush surroundings of Node 3. She nursed a lemon mist herb tea and awaited the return of her tracer.As senior cryptographer, Susan enjoyed the terminal…

David Becker strode over and stared down at the old man asleep on the cot. The man’s right wrist was wrapped in a cast. He was between sixty and seventy…

The American on Tokugen Numataka’s private line sounded anxious.”Mr. Numataka-I only have a moment.” “Fine. I trust you have both pass-keys.” “There will be a small delay,” the American answered….

La Clinica de Salud Publica was actually a converted elementary school and didn’t much resemble a hospital at all. It was a long, one-story brick building with huge windows and…

“What if someone else is looking for the ring?” Susan asked, suddenly nervous. “Could David be in danger?”Strathmore shook his head. “Nobody else knows the ring exists. That’s why I…

Standing before the huge plate-glass window in his Tokyo skyrise, Numataka took a long pull on his cigar and smiled to himself. He could scarcely believe his good fortune. He…

David Becker stepped out onto the scorching tile concourse of Plaza de Espana. Before him, El Ayunta miento-the ancient city council building-rose from the trees on a three-acre bed of…

“A ring?” Susan looked doubtful. “Tankado’s missing a ring?””Yes. We’re lucky David caught it. It was a real heads-up play.” “But you’re after a pass-key, not jewelry.” “I know,” Strathmore…

Susan Fletcher sat at her computer terminal inside Node 3. Node 3 was the cryptographers’ private, soundproofed chamber just off the main floor. A two-inch sheet of curved one-way glass…

Becker gazed down at the cadaver. Even hours after death, the Asian’s face radiated with a pinkish glow of a recent sunburn. The rest of him was a pale yellow-all…

Tokugen Numataka stood in his plush, penthouse office and gazed out at the Tokyo skyline. His employees and competitors knew him a sakuta same-the deadly shark. For three decade she’d…

David Becker had been to funerals and seen dead bodies before, but there was something particularly unnerving about this one. It was not an immaculately groomed corpse resting in a…

Spain. I sent David to Spain. The commander’s words stung.”David’s in Spain?” Susan was incredulous. “You sent him to Spain?” Her tone turned angry. “Why?” Strathmore looked dumbfounded. He was…

“Ensei Tankado is dead?” Susan felt a wave of nausea. “You killed him? I thought you said-“”We didn’t touch him,” Strathmore assured her. “He died of a heart attack. COMINT…

Systems security technician Phil Chartrukian had only intended to be inside Crypto a minute-just long enough to grab some paperwork he’d forgotten the day before. But it was not to…

The twin-engine Learjet 60 touched down on the scorching runway. Outside the window, the barren landscape of Spain’s lower extremadura blurred and then slowed to a crawl.”Mr. Becker?” a voice…