Simple Simon by Ryne Douglas Pearson Read Free Book Online Page A

because of Barbara Feldon,” Dean said as though it would matter to Kudrow. “From Get Smart . She was agent…” He wisely ended his addition to his comrade’s explanation.
    “Real smooth, Craig,” Patel commented from the floor.
    Pedanski took a breath and continued. “Someone busted the ciphertext, Mr. Kudrow. Of KIWI! I just about shit my pants. I didn’t know what to do. I told the other shifts set to cover the Center over the weekend to stay away and I called in Craig and Vik right away.” He seemed young and fragile as he looked around the room. “We haven’t slept since Friday, Mr. Kudrow. We’ve been going over every possible weakness in KIWI, and we can’t find anything. Not the primary S-box; that’s fine. Nothing!” He wiped a hand hard across his mouth. “KIWI was solid when the three of us thought it up, it was solid when we prototyped and validated it, it was solid when the gear to use it was being built and installed. But since three days ago…I don’t know.” His eyes glistened. “I don’t know.”
    “Could someone be screwing with us, Nick?” Folger asked quietly over his boss’s shoulder. “Someone inside or outside trying to tweak us? You know, to see how we handle a possible breech?”
    Kudrow considered that and looked to Dean. Pedanski had turned away and was staring at the ceiling. “Who knew what the cleartext was in the puzzle?”
    “Just the three of us,” Dean answered. “That was the Agent Ninety-nine thing. We were foolin’ around one day and picked that for the identifier. We didn’t tell anyone about it. Not even you or Mr. Folger. At least I didn’t.”
    “And what is that supposed to mean?” Patel demanded.
    “You two, enough!” Pedanski glared at them, forcing them both into retreat. The anger stanched the tears he seemed ready to loose. “Mr. Kudrow, all the KIWI machines are going to be in and running in a few weeks.”
    “Ninety-five percent are in use now, Nick,” Folger said softly. “FBI’s the last to go on line. The embassies, DoD, CIA, they’re all using it now. And we’ve got no fallback, Nick, not with MAYFLY maybe being leaky.”
    Kudrow said nothing for a moment after his assistant finished speaking. Neither did any of the animals. Instead he mentally tallied just how bad the situation could be if they were not being screwed with, which he doubted anyway. He wasn’t assuaged by the result. Disaster was what he thought.
    “You have the call on tape?” Kudrow asked.
    “Of course,” Pedanski answered. “Sir, shouldn’t we—”
    “And the trace gear was working?”
    Pedanski nodded to the boss. “The call came from Chicago.”
    There were two options, Kudrow quickly decided. Pull the plug on KIWI, tell its users that it was not the unbreakable monster he’d promised it to be, and flush what he’d worked so hard for down the can. Because if KIWI was no good, as Brad had said, there was nothing to switch to. Nothing feasible that could accommodate all the users who’d gone to KIWI. Ten billion dollars , Kudrow thought. Wasted. Congress would not be happy. He would be the whipping boy, of course, sitting at a table covered by a field of green in some congressional hearing room off limits to cameras. He’d be privately destroyed by the men and women whose lives he knew were tangles of deceit and dishonor. And once his butt was bared…
    G. Nicholas Kudrow had not made many friends in his long government career, but he had forced many alliances. He had not always followed the book, obeyed every law, or thought much of consequences other than how they could be avoided. He had used people, gathered information on them, held it over their head, threatened, promised favors, persuaded, demanded.
    But he had done all this in pursuit of getting the job done. He had made the nation’s communications secure, and in doing so had secured his place in the future. He would have a long, quietly illustrious career, and he would someday be