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He typed it carefully into his laptop computer, as he had done all the others. When he was finished, he pressed the ‘encode’ button and the message vanished from the screen, safely encrypted into the jumbled blocks of numbers of the one-time pad and logged inside the floppy disk to await the next pass of the InTelCor satellite.

He did not need to attend the machine. Its batteries were fully charged and it was switched on, waiting for the handshake from the comsat rolling in space.

He never heard of Ricky Taylor of Columbus, Ohio, never met him and never would. But the pimply teenager probably saved his life.

Ricky was seventeen and a computer freak. He was one of those dysfunctional young men bred by the computer age, most of whose life was spent gazing into a dully fluorescent screen.

Having been given his first PC at the age of seven, he had progressed through the various stages of expertise until the legitimate challenges ran out and only the illegal ones created the necessary buzz, the required periodic “high” of the true addict. Not for Ricky the gentle rhythm of the passing seasons outside, nor the camaraderie of his fellows or even the lust for girls. Ricky’s fix was to hack into the most jealously guarded databanks.

By 1999 InTelCor was not only a major player in global communications for strategic, diplomatic, and commercial use; it was also preeminent as deviser and marketer of the most complex of computer games. Ricky had surfed the Internet until he was bored, and had mastered every known and freely available game sequence. He yearned to pit himself against InTelCor’s Ultra programs. The problem was, to log in to them legitimately cost a fee. Ricky’s allowance did not run to that fee. So he had tried for weeks to enter the InTelCor mainframe by the back door. After so much effort he figured he was almost there.

Eight time zones west of Moscow his screen read, for the thousandth time: ACCESS CODE PLEASE. He tapped in what he thought might do it. Again the screen told him: ACCESS DENIED.

Somewhere south of the mountains of Anatolia the InTelCor comsat was drifting through space on its heading north for Moscow.

When the technicians of the multinational had devised Monk’s coded sender/receiver they had, on instructions, included a total wipeout code of four digits. These were the numbers Danny had him memorize at Castle Forbes, and were intended to protect Monk in the event of capture, provided he could punch in the code before he was taken.

But if his machine was captured intact, so reasoned the chief encoder, a former CIA cryptographer from Warrenton brought out of retirement for the job, the bad guys could use the machine to send false messages.

So to prove his authenticity, Monk had to include certain harmless words, all in sequence. If a transmission took place without those words, the ex-CIA man would know that whoever was out there was off the payroll. At that point he could use the Compuserve mainframe to log in to Monk’s PC via the satellite and use the same four digits to obliterate its memory, leaving the bad guys with a useless tin can.

Ricky Taylor was already into InTelCor’s mainframe when he hit those four digits. The satellite rolled over Moscow and sent down its “Are you there, baby?” call. The laptop replied “Yes, I am,” and the satellite, obedient to its instructions, wasted it.

The first Monk knew about it was when he went to check his machine and found his message, in clear, back on the screen. That meant it had been rejected. He negated the message manually, aware that, for reasons beyond his comprehension, something had gone wrong and he was out of contact.

There was an address Sir Nigel Irvine had given him just before he left London. He did not know where it was or who lived there. But it was all he had. With economy he could compress his last two messages into one, something the spymaster would have to know. That might work for getting a message out. Receiving any more was out of the question. For the first time, he was completely on his own. No more progress reports, no more confirmations. of action taken, no more instructions.

With the billion-dollar technology down, he would rely on the oldest allies in the Great Game: instinct, nerve, and luck. He prayed they would not let him down.

¯

IGOR Komarov finished the last page of the transcript and leaned back. He was never a man of high color, but now, Grishin noted, his face was like a sheet of paper.

“This is bad,” said Komarov.

“Very bad, Mr. President.”

“You should have captured him before now.”

“He is being sheltered by the Chechen mafia. This we now know. They live like rats in their own subterranean world.”

“Ra

ts can be exterminated.”

“Yes, Mr. President. And they will be. When you are undisputed leader of this country.”

“They must be made to pay.”

“They will. Every last one of them.”

Komarov was still staring at him with those hazel eyes, but they were unfocused, as if their owner were looking to another time and another place, a time in the future, a place of settlement of accounts with his enemies. The two red spots were bright upon the cheekbones.

“Retribution. I want retribution. They have attacked me, they have attacked Russia, attacked the Motherland. There can be no mercy for scum like this. …”

His voice was rising, the hands starting to tremble as the rage cracked his habitual self-control. Grishin knew that if he could argue his point with enough skill he would win his argument. He leaned forward over the desk, forcing Komarov to look him in the eyes. Slowly the rage subsided and Grishin knew he had his attention.

“Listen to me, Mr. President. Please listen. What we now know enables me to turn the tables completely. You will have your revenge. Just give me the word.”