Denise

*** Chapter 12, Information

Mandy should have had the day off from the tedious work in the office but she had come in on Sunday in order to check out the computers. She had been working for Jake for three weeks now as his secretary.

She had half expected him to make a pass at her and had dressed accordingly but he had kept their relationship strictly business. Mandy dressed in a severe style and behaved very correctly. For years she had been a slave of Miss Clearmont before gaining her freedom a year ago. Now she acted as a spy. Her mission was to locate exactly where Jake had his money. It had been easy to find some of the shares and bonds. Interests in businesses and directorships were more difficult. The problem was that Jake had seemingly invested in a number of private companies and kept the two sides of his business well separated.

It had taken two weeks to get a chance at copying the key to the small wall safe and another to ascertain that there were no alarms on it. In the safe she expected to find the encryption keys for the files on the hard disk that Jim had downloaded but could not crack.

A cleaning lady passed through the office and a number of other staff were finishing the weeks accounts. Mandy pottered around filing a few letters and finalising the text of a few others before she realised that she was alone. Quickly she checked the outer office, all was clear.

The safe was behind a sliding wooden panel. Easily she slid it aside and tried the key. It fitted. Inside the tiny safe was one small envelope, a bundle of what looked like 100 dollar notes and a small file of some sort.

Mandy started with the envelope.

Inside was a letter in another language. Quickly she photocopied it and slipped it back to its former position. The file had a number of documents in clear plastic pockets. As she copied them she took one at a time and placed each back to ensure that they looked the same. The surgeons' gloves on her hands were greasy with sweat inside as she flicked through the money.

A small slip of paper lay in the middle of the bundle. On it was a telephone number. Quickly she wrote the number on the back of her hand and put the cash back. The whole operation had taken just three minutes. With a sigh of relief she gathered the photocopies and stuck them in her handbag with the gloves.

One reason for moving fast in the first few weeks was that Miss Clearmont had showed considerable impatience and she was certainly not to be denied. The other reason had been that Mandy had had to maintain a 'normal' life, even in her spare time to cover her other life.

She simply wanted to get back to the excitement of her entertainments. Mandy hoped that what she had now would suffice and that the dull everyday work in the office could come to an end. Chatting with all the colleagues was such a bore. Their daily round of work, bowling, cinema and relationships left her cold.

***

Jim joined Miss Clearmont at a business district wine bar. For a moment he looked around at the other tables before selecting a place at her table.

"Well then,” said Miss Clearmont. "How did it go?"

Jim had spent 48 hours drinking coffee and seeking the encryption keys. He had not slept and looked like it.

"Not good at all,” he replied. "I have been through all the files that you supplied but there are no encryption codes hidden in the documents. Apart from that there were the list of possibilities that you gave me. Names, telephone numbers and such but all brought no result either forwards sorted or backwards."

"He might have them in his head then,” said Miss Clearmont with a disappointed smile. "How about just cracking them?"

Jim looked at his coffee and moved the handle with his forefinger. A glance at Miss Clearmont showed him her displeasure. Her mouth was a tight line of frustration and her forehead was showing a frown.

"If the documents are 128 bit coded I can see a job of several years looming, unless of course he has used a birthday or name to supply the password,” he continued.

"There must be another way to get this information,” said Miss Clearmont.

"We can continue to watch him and hope that he reveals another computer that we have not hacked into. But I must say that it is rare that a code is a random collection of numbers. Usually it is a name or some such because the user is too scared that he will forget the code."

Miss Clearmont looked thoughtful. "I have another little job for you to do for me as well."

She passed a scrap of paper to Jim with the telephone number that Mandy had found in the bundle of dollars. "Check out this telephone number and find out who is at the other end."

Jim looked at the number. "Have you tried calling it?" he asked knowing the answer already.

"Yes. It must be missing a dialling code because there was no connection."

"There is another possibility, but slight. Where did you get it?"

Miss Clearmont told him about the money in the safe.

"I thought so. It could be the decryption code. Look, it is an eight figure number and all the numbers are in some sort of order." Jim looked again at the piece of paper.

"I'll try it out and get back to you."

"Crack the files and there is a bonus in it for you,” said Miss Clearmont.

With that she stood and picked up her handbag.

"I'll hear from you tomorrow?" she said.

"Sooner if it is what I'm looking for."

Jim looked at Miss Clearmont as she left. Despite the fur coat he could appreciate her voluptuous figure. 'Walks like a model,” he thought as she went. 'Definitely not my type,” he tried to convince himself.

Once again he looked at the number. '12481632' Somehow the number was familiar. Regular and yet concealing something.

Ordering another cup of coffee to hold his eyes open he studied the number as if it could offer a clue just by application of willpower. The waitress arrived and he paid the bill. 16$. 'Sixteen?' As he passed the money he realised. It was a code. Aloud he said the numbers as he figured it out. ‘1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32’ a series, each number the double of the one before.

That was too much coincidence to be true.

The coffee sat on the table untouched as Jim left the cafe at a fast walk. 'I must be getting tired. Or daft,’ he thought. Number puzzles were a sort of hobby for the mathematics PhD and programmer.

Back in his rather run down and messy flat Jim got to work. Half an hour at the computer later he had written an adjustment in the program to work on the encrypted files. He waited as it started to work and then went to bed with a feeling that he was on the right track.

Jim slept for only four hours before the computer woke him with a buzz from the speakers. The key had been found. Wearily he opened the files and E-mailed them to Miss Clearmont.

A quick telephone call to her and he laid his head on the pillow again without bothering to read the files.

She had been delighted. "Check your account tomorrow,” she said before she cut the connection.

With the computer off and the telephone off the hook he was determined to get the eight hours that his mother had always said was the recommended amount of sleep.