False Witness Page 9

  “What if the triad shoots you, takes me, and kills Jessica?”

  “That would be a very bad day.”

  “Maybe I should have taken my chances with Mr. Hargrove.”

  Clark ignored the comment and turned left onto Green Valley Parkway, conscious that the area was crawling with the Henderson police force and possibly a few triad members as well. He had placed the mob’s cell phone in the center console, where it now seemed to pump out evil sound waves like the throb of a telltale heart, revealing Clark’s every turn. Until he called them, they probably wouldn’t know that he had found Kumari. But once he told them he had the professor . . .

  “Let us assume something for the sake of an illustration,” Kumari said. “Let us assume the triad brings your wife—I believe you say her name is Jessica—to a place you select for an exchange of prisoners, so to speak. How, Mr. Doe, do you and Jessica escape alive? Even if you put a gun to my head, as you say, once I become a prisoner of the triad, what prevents them from shooting you and Mrs. Doe?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet, but improvising is my strong point.”

  “Improvising?” The professor shifted in the front seat so he was facing more toward Clark. For a moment, Clark thought he didn’t recognize the word. Turns out it was the concept Kumari was struggling with. “With foes like Huang Xu,” the professor said, “we need a plan.”

  Clark checked the mirrors. He saw at least three dark sedans, possibly full of murderous Chinese mobsters. Possibly full of federal agents. Possibly full of Vegas vacationers. The pressure was making him crazy. “With respect, Professor, so far your advance planning has not exactly paid off.”

  “You have a point,” the professor said softly.

  Something about the answer made the professor seem more like an ally than an adversary. Maybe it was the matter-of-fact way the man acknowledged his failures. Or possibly Clark felt like he owed Kumari because the professor had helped him earlier. More likely it was the small man’s quiet dignity, the humble way he accepted these circumstances yet still maintained the voice of gentle authority.

  Or maybe Clark had no other choice.

  “What do you suggest, Professor?”

  Kumari closed his eyes and took a deep breath, like Yoda in Star Wars preparing to offer profound insights about the Force. “Pull into the McDonald’s parking lot up there on the right. Next to the Dumpster. We start by throwing away the triad cell phone. Afterward, we head to my apartment. I have some tools there that may help level the playing field, as you say.”

  “That cell phone has Huang Xu’s number. It’s the phone he told me to use.” And for Clark, it was also something more. He had heard Jessica’s voice on that phone—the last fragile strand connecting them. He dreaded to think what Xu’s reaction might be if he threw it out.

  “If you want to rescue your wife, Mr. Shealy, you must change how you think. You must begin first by trusting me. Also, you must take charge with Huang Xu. No longer should you blindly follow what your wife’s captors have suggested. With me, you now have what they want. You should issue the orders, not Huang Xu.”

  Clark thought about this for a moment. Kumari had gone from calling him Doe to Shealy, undoubtedly the old man’s way of signaling a new partnership, a willingness to work together. But Clark hadn’t made his reputation as a bounty hunter by trusting others. He lived by the law of the jungle. And the very first precept of that law was to trust nobody. He wouldn’t be in this spot to begin with if he had applied the law of the jungle to Dr. Anthony Silvoso.

  He drove past the McDonald’s and noticed Kumari slouch a little lower in the seat. “Do it your way, Mr. Shealy.”

  Two blocks later, Clark pulled into a Wendy’s parking lot and stopped next to its Dumpster. He recorded Huang Xu’s phone number and stepped out of the car. He tossed the phone into the Dumpster, listening as it clanged against the far wall before it nestled among the food scraps and debris. The stench of garbage drifted over the car roof.

  It smelled like Clark felt.

  When Clark climbed back into the car, Kumari gave him a satisfied nod. “Would you like to hear the rest of my plan, Mr. Shealy?”

  Until he had actually captured Kumari, Clark hadn’t thought twice about the ethics of exchanging Kumari for Jessica. The only question had been how to do it.

  But now, with the realization that Kumari might actually be a good and decent human being, shame joined the other emotions wreaking havoc with Clark’s tired psyche. He would still trade this man’s life for Jessica’s if he had no other choice. But if he had an alternative?

  “What have I got to lose?” Clark asked as he pulled away from the Dumpster and headed out to the main road. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you fill me in on what you have that belongs to Huang Xu. If I’m going to risk my life over it, I might as well know what it is.”

  The professor closed his eyes again as if collecting his thoughts, breathing in deeply. “It is a long story, Mr. Shealy. I do not suppose you would be open to discussing this over lunch someplace?”

  “Don’t push your luck, Professor.”

  21

  “What do you know about the men who have your wife?” Kumari asked.

  “Not much,” Clark said. For the most part, Huang Xu and the members of his triad remained a mystery. “Chinese mafia. They’re probably involved in heroin or cocaine trafficking. They hire professional hit men. The leader’s name is Huang Xu.”

  “At the next light, you turn left,” Kumari said. “I’ve done a fair amount of research in the past few days. These men are not like the American mafia. The triads, as they are so called, are not generally violent, using instead fear and intimidation to get their way. Turn left, Mr. Shealy. Stay on this road for one mile. But if you cross them, they become brutally violent, sometimes using ancient torture rituals on triad victims.”

  The matter-of-fact way Kumari described it made Clark shiver. Though he hadn’t talked to Jessica in hours, she was still part of every conscious thought. The picture of her—head shaved, shoulders exposed, eyes frightened but determined—had seared itself into his mind. He checked his watch: 25:18:43. Less than eleven hours before they started the torture.

  If they hadn’t done so already.

  “The Manchurian Triad is linked to ancient religious practices and rituals. They detest your Western influence for creeping into their country, and they especially detest Western-style Christianity. Their leader, Li Gwah, has become a cult hero. Huang Xu is one of Li’s most promising lieutenants.”

  As Kumari talked, Clark stole a sideways glance at his captive. Can I trust this man? The cut over Kumari’s left eye had wedged further open, outlined by a crusty border of dried blood. The eye puffed out like a balloon, matching the purple coloring of the bruise on his right cheek. Sympathy pangs kept poking at Clark’s conscience, though he tried to keep them at bay.

  Clark could imagine this energetic man pacing the front of a classroom, scribbling on the board, getting all fired up about advanced mathematical concepts while his students yawned. Now he was trapped in this mess just like Clark.

  “Why do they want you?” Clark asked. “What do you have?”

  Kumari shook his head ruefully. “It is my bad fortune to possess the world’s most valuable algorithm. I came to America for the purpose, so I thought, of executing a deal with a—what would you call it?” Kumari stared at the ceiling for a moment, but Clark couldn’t help him. “A combination . . . a conglomeration—yes, that is the word—a conglomeration of Internet security companies.” Kumari paused and a tone of sorrow seeped into his voice. “It was instead the Manchurian Triad posing as a deal brokerage company.”

  “All this over a math formula?”

  “Not just a math formula, Mr. Shealy.” He perked up again, warming to the subject of his beloved mathematics. “An algorithm that rapidly factors numbers into prime components. A process that for years most mathematicians thought was impossible.” He paused and looked at th
e street sign as they passed it. “You should have taken a left turn there.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” A math formula. Clark was having a hard time wrapping his mind around the fact that his entire life had been turned upside down, his wife kidnapped and possibly tortured, over a math formula. “So you discovered how to do this factoring stuff, and now the triads want you working for them?”

  “Something like that.”

  Clark pulled a U-turn, cutting off an oncoming driver who leaned on the horn. “Jessica’s life is in danger over a math formula.” Repeating the fact made it no more comprehensible.

  “This formula, Mr. Shealy, would allow someone to break most encryption codes in use today on the Internet,” Kumari said, his voice conspiratorially quiet. “It is the key to every lock.”

  Clark gave him a sideways look requesting further explanation.

  “Internet encryption mostly uses public-key cryptography based upon what is called the RSA protocol,” Kumari said, his tone switching to lecture mode. “And the security of this protocol is based upon the mathematical assumption that there exists no fast way to factor large numbers into prime components.”

  Kumari rambled on about the ancient problem of key exchange—the challenge of somehow communicating an encryption key from one person to another without having it stolen or compromised—interspersing his lecture with directions to his apartment. The public-key encryption system used today on the Internet, Kumari explained, was like being able to telepathically pass the key back and forth so that messages could be encrypted without fear of some third party discovering the key.

  It was based, he said, on the unique complexities of one-way mathematical functions, and at that point he totally lost Clark. Even when math teachers wrote stuff on the blackboard, Clark struggled. But when a math whiz of Kumari’s caliber talked about algorithms without writing anything down—Clark had no chance.

  “A prime number,” Clark interrupted. “That’s a number that can’t be divided by any other number except itself and one. Is that right?”

  “Of course,” Kumari responded, as if Clark had just pronounced that one plus one equals two. “And they have unique . . . what is the word? Personalities? Um, characteristics . . . that computer encoders have used to secure almost every one of the political, financial, diplomatic, and criminal justice secrets on the Internet. With a regular computer, you can multiply two huge prime numbers together in seconds. But if I give you the same computer and a number which is the product of two huge prime numbers, you could not calculate what two prime numbers were multiplied together to get that number. Not in your lifetime, Mr. Shealy. Not in one thousand lifetimes. Not unless—” and here Kumari donned a self-satisfied smile as if he had just cured cancer—“you use my algorithm.”

  Ever since Clark had used his head as a battering ram on Bones McGinley, he had nursed a dull headache. Kumari’s lecture sharpened the pain.

  “For example, a more recent effort to locate prime factors of a two-hundred-digit number took three months with many computers operating together. Altogether, Mr. Shealy—more than thirty years of computer time. And two hundred digits are nothing in comparison to the length of the numbers encoded today using PGP technology. Without my formula, if all personal computers in the world were put on the same network, you would still require twelve times the age of the universe to factor such a huge number.”

  Kumari paused for a moment as if awed by the power of his own accomplishment. Even Clark’s mathematically challenged brain was starting to seize the possibilities. “So you could hack into bank accounts . . .”

  “Of course.”

  “. . . criminal records, medical documents, school records.”

  “Yes, yes. All secrets would be exposed.”

  “You could steal millions before anybody would know.”

  “With a coordinated attack, you could steal billions.”

  “And once people found out that the Internet encryption systems didn’t work . . .”

  “Ah . . . now you understand, Mr. Shealy. Chaos. The Internet, and the world, would be in chaos.”

  Clark let out a low whistle. “Who else has this algorithm?”

  “Turn right at the next street. We are almost there.”

  “Who else knows?”

  Kumari waited a few seconds before answering, perhaps so the impact could sink in. “Only me.”

  This was bigger than Clark had imagined. Way bigger. “Why didn’t you just sell it to the government? They would have paid a fortune.”

  “Until this year, my government was dominated by the BJP, a party supported by Hindu nationalists who will do everything in their power to preserve the caste system that has oppressed millions of my Dalit brothers and sisters. The BJP is still strong at the national level and controls many of our states. Violence against Christians, of which I am one, has become commonplace in Orissa, Karnataka, and Gujarat. Pastors are thrown in jail for supposedly violating anticonversion laws. Houses are burned. Daughters are carried away and never seen again. And your government, Mr. Shealy, stands by and accepts the myth of ‘India shining,’ choosing to believe that our human rights laws actually mean something. Besides, your government hardly needs one more tool for world domination.”

  “And the mob does?” Clark took a right onto a side street and checked his watch. He pondered the fact that his hostage might be one of the planet’s smartest men. And still Clark would trade Kumari’s life for Jessica’s without thinking twice.

  Kumari remained silent, apparently too smart to be drawn into an argument.

  “Do you have a name for this formula?” Clark asked.

  “I label it the Abacus Algorithm, Mr. Shealy. Or rather, my former partner called it that.” Kumari paused for a beat as if he had stepped on sacred ground. “Such a name provides a mental picture of the power of my algorithm. As the abacus transformed multiplication, so my algorithm transforms the process of prime factoring.”

  A few minutes later, they were driving through a run-down neighborhood on the east side of Vegas where Kumari’s apartment was located. The information about the algorithm had certainly given Clark a new perspective about the stakes involved in his predicament, but it hadn’t solved the fundamental problem of hostage exchange. Not surprisingly, the same man who had studied and mastered secure exchanges of encryption keys had some ideas about the hostage-exchange issue as well.

  “To have any chance of rescuing your wife, Mr. Shealy . . . and hopefully saving also myself in this process, we must use the same concept that prevented nuclear holocaust between your United States and the Soviet Union for so many years. You call it mutually assured destruction.” The small professor paused, clearing his throat. “Yet there is one problem.

  “For this to work with success, we will need someone who looks exactly like me to act as a potential suicide bomber.” He turned to Clark, and Clark noticed that Kumari’s somber demeanor had been replaced by a hint of teasing in the swollen eyes. “Do you happen to have any suggestions?”

  22

  When they arrived at the stucco building that served as Kumari’s apartment, Clark grabbed a knife from his tools and cut the tape at Kumari’s ankles. Both men climbed out of the vehicle.

  “I’ll need my hands in front of me,” Kumari said. Without waiting for Clark’s approval, he blithely looped his wrists under each leg and brought his hands to the front.

  Kumari wrenched his wrists a little, trying to wiggle some slack into the duct tape, then looked pleadingly at Clark. “Could we not just use conventional handcuffs, sir?”

  Clark shrugged. He kept the little man at gunpoint as he slapped a pair of metal handcuffs on his wrists and cut off the duct tape. He noticed the lines on Kumari’s wrists where the edge of the tape had bitten into the skin.

  “Thank you,” the professor said, wiggling his hands around. “Much better.”

  The professor was unfailingly polite. But watching him, even with a gun pointed at him, Clark couldn’t sh
ake the foreboding thought that he had somehow just let a lion out of its cage.

  Kumari’s tiny apartment reminded Clark of a school computer lab. He counted twenty-four desktop computers and one laptop, all hooked together with black cables and powered by a maze of cords that snaked to various outlets around the room. The only furniture was a small card table, two folding chairs, and a beanbag.

  “Nice place,” Clark lied.

  Without responding, Kumari immediately walked to something that looked like an alarm panel and punched in a bunch of numbers.

  “Security alarm?” Clark asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Since you’re in hiding, I’m guessing it doesn’t actually call the police.”

  “That is correct, Mr. Shealy. It dials my cell phone.”

  “Clever.” Clark wandered around a little, checking out the various computers.

  “And if I do not dial a certain number within three minutes, it triggers an explosive device.”

  Clark stopped in his tracks. “Explosives?”

  “Yes, Semtex explosives. The blast would take out this entire building.”

  “And you disarmed it, right?”

  For the first time, the professor smiled. “Yes, Mr. Shealy. I believe I remembered the code correctly.”

  Before they called Huang Xu, Kumari scurried around and fired up the computers, plugging in some information that looked like Greek to Clark. After about five minutes, Kumari looked up and pronounced the machines “almost ready,” then headed to the refrigerator in the small adjoining kitchen.

  Clark followed, glancing at the nearly empty refrigerator shelves—a half-drained gallon of milk, half a cold pizza, a jar of pickles, and several twelve-ounce cans of Coke.

  “Pizza?” Kumari asked as if he had invited Clark over for dinner.

  Clark’s face must have registered his surprise.

  “Perhaps you were expecting curry?” Kumari asked.

  Clark smiled at the little man. In truth, Clark was starving. He hadn’t stopped to eat one thing all day. It took Kumari and him no more than five minutes to devour the leftover pizza and chase it down by chugging milk straight from the half-empty jug.