Target America

49

Pope was at his desk, waiting in the dark, when the phone rang. “This is Bob Pope.”

“Hello, Robert.” Lijuan’s voice was soft and sounded very sad.

“Are you okay?” he asked gently.

“I haven’t been mistreated, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.”

“How long have you known?” she asked. “From the beginning?”

“Yes.” He gripped the receiver. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “I’m not angry with you. I was trying to run off and leave you holding the bag when I was arrested. Did they tell you that? Or was it you who sent them after me?”

“You know me so well,” he said. “How did you not see through me?”

“Your love blinded me. I didn’t think a man like you could ever love a woman if you knew she was planning to betray you. But you’re shrewder than I thought — more cold.”

“I gave you so many opportunities to tell me.”

“Yes, and like a fool, I let them all pass, didn’t I?”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I need to ask you a favor,” he said finally.

“I won’t betray my people, Robert.”

“No,” he said. “I know better than to ask that. I need your help with a one-hundred-eighty-bit encryption. It’s on a laptop belonging to the Chechen who smuggled the bomb into the country. He’s dead, and there are no other leads. We’re running out of time.”

“That’s the reason they put me through to you. I knew it must be something more than love.”

“This is very painful for me, Lijuan.”

“I wonder if you feel pain the way others do,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t think so.”

“Will you help me?”

She remained quiet for a long moment. “A one-hundred-eighty-bit key is uncrackable inside of a year, Robert. You know that. I created an algorithm that might have managed it in eight months, but it was only theoretical. Please get out of Langley, Robert. There’s no chance of finding that bomb. There never was.”

“Li, please give me something.”

“Do you promise to come and visit me in whatever dungeon they send me to?”

“If they’ll allow it, yes. Of course I will.” But he knew they would never allow it.

“Then tell me about the Chechen.”

Over the next few minutes, he told her all he knew about Nikolai Kashkin. Then he waited quietly as she thought things over.

“You may be in luck,” she said finally.

He sat up straight in his chair in the dark office, reaching to turn on the desk lamp and grab a pen. “What is it?”

“Well, he was your age… a simple old-soldier type — not a technical wizard. So if he used a commercial AES 180-key generator and installed it on the computer himself, he may have used the default settings to generate the key, which, theoretically, might give you a chance to replicate it.”

The default settings! Pope thought. My God! How did I not think of that? I’ll tell you how: common sense has eluded you all your life. How are you going to manage without this woman?

“You’re already off in your own little world now, aren’t you?” she said.

“You know me,” he replied. “I have to hurry, Li, but thank you very much. I’ll come to see you as soon as they’ll permit it. I promise.”

“You know that wisdom tooth I told you about?” she asked. “The one that came in crooked?”

She had never told him about a crooked wisdom tooth. “What about it?”

“It’s beginning to bother me. I wonder if they’ll let me see a dentist here.”

“I’m sure they will.” His voice sounded thin and reedy to him.

“I love you,” she said. “I look forward to seeing you again, Robert — someday.”

“I love you too,” he said hoarsely, knowing now that she was carrying a cyanide capsule in a false molar.

“Good luck to you, Robert.” The phone clunked in the cradle at her end, and the connection was severed a moment later.

He stood immediately up from the desk and made his way back to the lab without even hanging up the phone.