The Fool's Run

possible burglary targets, I suspected. Twice she flew back to Duluth, alone, to make arrangements for a longer absence. Dace had decided on the west coast of Mexico, a semi-modern fishing village in Baja with American-owned villas on the hillside. “Just the right combination of ambience and convenience,” he said. His first novel would involve Pentagon power politics with a dash of sexual intrigue. “Like it really is.”
    Maggie and Dace sent the material on the generals off to Turret. Dace, playing the part of a demoted and treacherous executive, called the newsletter to make sure they had gotten the package, and that they understood it. They had, and they did. The television stations were tipped on the pornographers and promised to make inquiries. Dace also spent some time hanging around the Pentagon, talking with reporter friends, listening for rumors about Whitemark. There was nothing at first. Then, slowly, they began to come. . . . Trouble with plans; trouble with production; disputes between lower-level managers over a series of brutal snafus . . .
    On the ninth day of the attack, I found something interesting in the Whitemark system. I had noticed a data-exchange line that ran out of the main computer to a satellite computer elsewhere. I paid no attention to it, until one day I saw an exchange that involved a remote terminal beyond the satellite. That meant that somebody was telephoning the satellite computer, and from there, was getting into the main computer. If I could learn how to access the satellite from the outside, I could avoid the phone lines that went directly into the main computers. For practical purposes, I would be working from inside the Whitemark building. Toward the end of the attack, it might buy me a few more days of work.
    Unfortunately, the computers accessed each other with special codes, and I couldn’t find the code listings inside the main system. It was all done inside the satellite.
    What I could see were incoming codes. Each five-numeral code group was unique—the same one was never used twice. All the codes were handtyped, so they weren’t coming off a master list on a disk. Eventually I fed a list of once-used codes to Bobby, explained the problem, and asked if he had an analysis. He called back three hours later.
    The code is the 17th Mersenne Prime, 13,395 digits in 2,679 groups of five, starting with 85450. Your code sample starts 875 groups in and continues in sequence. I am sending you the next 500 sequence groups. Enough?
     
    Plenty. How much?
     
    My pleasure. No charge.
    Bobby is not a person to bother with unimportant matters, so I never asked him directly how he figured it out. That he did is bizarre beyond words.
    Once I had the codes, I got inside the satellite. It turned out to be a small computer in the accounting department. I got its phone number from its files.
    On the tenth day of the attack, Maggie flew out to Chicago. She was back two days later.
    “How was Anshiser?” I asked.
    She sat at a dressing table with her back to me, peering into a dark mirror as she took down her hair.
    “Worse,” she said tersely. “I hate to look at him. He’s losing more weight. His skin looks like crepe paper.”
    “The doctors still don’t know what’s wrong?”
    “They keep saying stress, but some of them are nervous about the diagnosis. He may go out to the Mayo.”
    “He should have gone a month ago.”
    I was lying on the bed in my shorts, all the lights out except the small pink-shaded lamp on the dressing table. The apartment was quiet. Dace was at his apartment, closing it down, and LuEllen was in Duluth.
    “How has it been here?” Maggie asked, unscrewing an earring.
    “Whitemark will figure it out soon now,” I said. “The engineering system is falling apart. Things must be chaotic. The office mail system will stop working tomorrow. That’s the main way they route assignments and schedules, so that’ll be shot. On Friday the paychecks all come up short.”
    Maggie dropped a second earring on the tabletop and turned on the cushioned bench, so she was facing me. “Turret comes out tomorrow,” she said. “I called Dace this morning before I left Chicago. He had solid word that the generals’ story would be in it.”
    “He didn’t mention it to me,” I said. “I didn’t see him today, just the note on the table saying he would be at his place tonight.”
    She stood up and stepped toward the bed, wearing a brassiere and panties and