Cryptonomicon

imagine gold bars. The only thing wrong with that theory is that there are way too many of them down there for them to be gold bars. It is like when he turned over rotten logs in Wisconsin and found thousands of identical insect eggs sown on the dark earth, glowing with promise.

For a moment, he's tempted. The amount of money down there is beyond calculation. If he could get his hands on just one of those bars-The explosives must have detonated, because Bobby Shaftoe has just gone deaf. That's his cue to get the fuck out of here. He forgets about the gold-morphine's good enough plunder for one day. He half scrambles and half climbs up the grid, up the passageway, up the skipper's cabin, smoke pouring out of its hatch, its bulkheads now weirdly ballooned by the blast wave.

The safe has broken loose! And the cable that he and Harvey attached to it, though it's damaged, is still intact. Someone must be hauling away on it up abovedecks because it is stubbornly and annoying taut. Right now the safe is caught up on jagged obstructions. Shaftoe has to pry it loose. The safe jerks onward and upward, drawn by the taut cable, until it gets caught in something else. Shaftoe follows the safe out of the cabin, up the passageway, up the conning tower ladder, and finally levers himself up out of the submarine and into the teeth of the storm, to a hearty cheer from the waiting sailors.

No more than five minutes later, the U-boat goes away. Shaftoe imagines it tumbling end-over-end down the side of the reef, headed for an undersea canyon, scattering gold bars and mercury globules into the black water like fairy dust. Shaftoe's back on the corvette and everyone is pounding him on the back and toasting him. He just wants to find a private place to open up that purple bottle.

Chapter 34 SUIT

Randy's posture is righteous and alert: it is all because of his suit.

It is trite to observe that hackers don't like fancy clothes. Avi has learned that good clothes can actually be comfortable-the slacks that go with a business suit, for example, are really much more comfortable than blue jeans. And he has spent enough time with hackers to obtain the insight that is it not wearingsuits that they object to, so much as getting them on.Which includes not only the donning process per se but also picking them out, maintaining them, and worrying whether they are still in style-this last being especially difficult for men who wear suits once every five years.

So it's like this: Avi has a spreadsheet on one of his computers, listing the necks, inseams, and other vital measurements of every man in his employ. A couple of weeks before an important meeting, he will simply fax it to his tailor in Shanghai. Then, in a classic demonstration of the Asian just-in-time delivery system as pioneered by Toyota, the suits will arrive via Federal Express, twenty-four hours ahead of time so that they can be automatically piped to the hotel's laundry room. This morning, just as Randy emerged from the shower, he heard a knock at his door, and swung it open to reveal a valet carrying a freshly cleaned and pressed business suit, complete with shirt and tie. He put it all on (a tenth-generation photocopy of a bad diagram of the half-Windsor knot was thoughtfully provided). It fit perfectly. Now he stands in a lobby of the Foote Mansion, watching electric numbers above an elevator count down, occasionally sneaking a glance at himself in a big mirror. Randy's head protruding from a suit is a sight gag that will be good for grins at least through lunchtime.

He is pondering the morning's e-mail.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Why?

Dear Randy,

I hope you don't mind if I address you as Randy, since it's quite obvious that you are you, despite your use of an anonymous front. This is a good idea, by the way. I applaud your prudence.

Concerning the possibility that I am ''an old enemy'' of yours. I'm dismayed that one so young can already have old enemies. Or perhaps you are referring to a recently acquired enemy of advanced years? Several candidates come to mind. But I suspect you are referring to Andrew Loeb. I am not he. This would be obvious to you if you had visited his website recently.

Why are you building the Crypt? Signed.

—BEGIN ORDO SIGNATURE BLOCK— (etc., etc.)

—END ORDO SIGNATURE BLOCK-

It is not at all interesting to watch the numbers over the elevators and try to predict which one will arrive first, but it is more interesting than just standing there. One of them has been stuck on the floor above Randy's for at least a minute; he can hear it buzzing angrily. In Asia many business men-especially some of the overseas Chinese-would think nothing of commandeering one of the hotel's elevators around the clock for their own personal use, stationing minions in it, in eight-hour shifts, to hold their thumbs on the DOOR OPEN button, ignoring its self- righteous alarm buzzer.

Ding.Randy spins around on the balls of his feet (just try thatlittle maneuver in a pair of sneakers!). Once again he has backed the wrong horse: the winner is an elevator that was on the very top floor of the hotel last time he scanned it. This is an elevator with purpose, a fast-track lift. He walks towards the green light. The doors part. Randy stares squarely into the face of Dr. Hubert (the Dentist) Kepler, D.D.S.

Or perhaps you are referring to a recently acquired enemy of advanced years?

'Good morning, Mr. Waterhouse! When you stand with your mouth open like that, you remind me of one of my patients.'

'Good morning, Dr. Kepler.' Randy hears his words from the other end of a mile-long bumwad tube, and immediately reviews them in his own mind to make sure he has not revealed any proprietary corporate information or given Dr. Kepler any reason to file a lawsuit.

The doors start to close and Randy has to whack them open with his laptop case.

'Careful! That's an expensive piece of equipment, I'd wager,' says the Dentist.

Randy is about to say I go through laptops like a transvestite goes through nylonsthough maybe like a high-speed drill through a necrotic molarwould be more thematically apropos, but instead he clams up and says nothing at all, finding himself in dangerous territory: he is carrying proprietary AVCLA information on this thing, and if the Dentist gets the impression that Randy's being cavalier with it, he might spew out a barrage of torts, like Linda Blair and the pea soup.

'It's, uh, a pleasant surprise to see you in Kinakuta,' Randy stammers.

Dr. Kepler wears eyeglasses the size of a 1959 Cadillac's windshield. They are special dentist eyeglasses, as polished as the Palomar mirror, coated with ultrareflective material so that you can always see the reflection of your own yawning maw in them, impaled on a shaft of hot light. The Dentist's own eyes merely haunt the background, like a childhood memory. They are squinty grey-blue eyes, turned down at the edges as if he is tired of the world, with Stygian pupils. A trace of a smile always seems to be playing around his withered lips. It is the smile of a man who is worrying about how to meet his next malpractice insurance payment while patiently maneuvering the point of his surgical-steel crowbar under the edge of your dead bicuspid, but who has read in a professional magazine that patients are more likely to come back, and less likely to sue you, if you smile at them. 'Say,' he says, 'I wonder if I could have a quick huddle with you sometime later.'

Spit, please.

Saved by the bell! They have reached the ground floor. The elevator doors open to reveal the endangered-marble lobby of the Foote Mansion. Bellhops, disguised as wedding cakes, glide to and fro as if mounted on casters. Not ten feet away is Avi, and with him are two beautiful suits from which protrude the heads