“But…” Gideon began, then fell silent.
“But what?” Garza replied, his tone shading toward the belligerent.
“We don’t know what it is. It could be anything. It might be of great historical or cultural value. It might be the patrimony of some civilization that—”
“Now you’re sounding like Glinn. I’m not doing this for the good of humanity—I’m doing it for myself. I don’t care if it’s a centerfold of the Mona Lisa—we’re selling it for the most dough we possibly can, and then splitting the proceeds. You can always donate your half to—well, to medical research, maybe. I just want to be crystal-clear about this: if it has value, we’re gonna steal it. Are you with me?”
This was followed by an awkward silence. Then Gideon shrugged. “What the hell. The worst that can happen is I have a few weeks to feel guilty about it.”
“Good man.” And with that they stood up and shook hands.
4
THE BAR AT the top of the Gansevoort Hotel was quiet, the rooftop pool still shut down for the winter. Gideon had fetched his laptop from his room, and he and Garza slipped into a leather banquette in one corner.
Garza ordered a round of mojitos while Gideon fired up the computer. The drinks arrived. Garza pulled the USB stick out of his pocket. “Ready?”
“Go for it.”
Garza inserted the USB stick, called up a hexadecimal-to-ASCII converter, and fed in the downloaded data. An obviously nonsensical output resulted.
“Okay,” said Garza, “that’s strange.”
Gideon took a long drink of his mojito. “Are you sure the computer successfully decoded the Disk?”
“I told you—I’m sure. Try hex-to-decimal.”
Pulling the laptop toward him, Gideon ran the conversion utility again, but another list of apparently random numbers resulted.
“Try Unicode,” said Garza.
“How will that help?”
“Just try it.”
More garbage.
They tried Base64, octal, HTML numeric, binary, and Windows ALT codes.
Garza sat back. “Okay. What totally obvious thing are we missing?”
“Here’s what I don’t get. If the computer had really deciphered the Disk, why would yet another decryption step be necessary? Why did the computer output it in hex at all? Why not just in regular plaintext, or ancient Greek, or whatever the original language was?”
Garza didn’t answer.
“Maybe we just aren’t drunk enough to figure it out.” Gideon waved over the waiter, and they ordered another round.
“We’ve got to go back to the beginning,” said Garza, slumped in the banquette, twirling the ice in his empty glass. “There are two possibilities here. Either the Phaistos Disk was written in some sort of ancient ciphertext, or it is, quite simply, in an unknown written language.”
“Meaning that one is a real honest-to-God code, and the other a philological mystery.”
“Yup.”
The fresh drinks arrived as Garza fell into thought. “I dimly recall that the computer attack on the Phaistos Disk assumed, first, that it was in an unknown language. So it was programmed to look at many ancient forms of writing—Linear A, Linear B, cuneiform, Luwian, Egyptian hieroglyphics—and try to find parallels. If that failed, the program would go on to assume it was a ciphertext of some ancient language, and attack it from that assumption.”
“So what particular attack finally succeeded?”
“Good question. For that, we’d need the log file.”
“The log file?”
“It’s similar to that generated by an installer program. It keeps a list of what particular attack algorithm is currently running, and how long it runs, before giving up and moving on to the next. If we had the log file, we could check its last entry and discover exactly what algorithm succeeded.”
“So where’s the log file?”
“Still in the computer,” said Garza. “Back at EES.”
“So we break in. Steal it.”
“Are you kidding? That’s got to be one of the most secure buildings in New York City. It’s like breaking into the gold vault at the Federal Reserve.”
Gideon took a sip of his drink. “Good point. We won’t break in. We’ll get in by other means.”
“Other means?”
“Social engineering.”
“Yeah, right. Who are we going to socially engineer?”
“Glinn.”
Garza started to laugh. “That’s hilarious. Socially engineer the world’s expert on social engineering?”
“Why not? He’s just egotistical enough to believe he’s too clever. When you think about it, he’s a perfect target.” He paused. “You really want to get back at Glinn, right? Piss him off? So here’s your chance. We just need to find his prime weakness and work up a script.”
A long silence, and then Garza drained his drink. A broad grin spread over his flushed face. “Sally Britton.”
Gideon searched his memory. “The dead captain of the Rolvaag? What about her?”
“That’s his weakness. That—and the arrogance of always being right.”
5
TWO DAYS LATER, Gideon and Garza followed the same two security guards—one in front, one behind—up a dedicated elevator to the top floor of the EES building on Little West 12th Street. This penthouse was Eli Glinn’s private quarters, a sleek aerie perched atop the old meatpacking building. Gideon had been inside only once before.
They came to a blank metal door, and one of the guards punched in a code, then stood in front of a device in the wall, which evidently scanned the irises of his eyes. The door whispered open, revealing a small, dim entryway; another door hushed open, and they proceeded down a corridor that eventually opened into a small, exquisite yet austere library with a marble fireplace.
In a chair near the fire sat Eli Glinn. He had been reading. Laying aside the book, he rose from the chair.
Gideon was shocked at his appearance. He was transformed—a far younger man, it seemed, glowing with health. It was almost as if he were aging backward. All signs of his previous infirmity were gone. While always self-assured, he now seemed uncharacteristically cheerful—or, more accurately, self-satisfied. His gray eyes, smooth domed forehead and unlined face, impeccable gray suit, straight bearing, and subtly condescending expression were more intense than ever. And why not, thought Gideon with a flush of resentment: the man had succeeded. He was vindicated. He had atoned for the most catastrophic mistake of his life—the sinking of the Rolvaag—and done so with great skill and sangfroid. His fine spirits and good health made Gideon feel his own anger grow at the way the man had abandoned those who’d helped him achieve this goal.
Glancing over at Garza, Gideon could see the man was having a much harder time dealing with Glinn’s persona than he was. Garza’s face was darkening, his black eyes flashing with resentment. And he saw, too, that Glinn was observing Garza’s reaction with supercilious amusement.
“Please,” said Glinn, “sit down.”
They sat down and Glinn resumed his seat. “May I offer you anything? Coffee? Water? A glass of port?”
Garza shook his head and said “No” with ill-concealed disrespect.
Glinn threw one leg across the other and gazed at them with speculative eyes. “Before we begin, let me lay my cards on the table. I’m well aware you two are planning some sort of confidence game. It’s astonishing, and rather amusing, that after all our time together you might think I could be taken in.”