response on my Public-Private key scheme. They said, "Not yet practical" and set it up for another review in 18 months. That was it. Finis! The end, the proverbial straw that you"ve been looking for. Is that what you want?" Miles tried desperately to minimize any display of arrogance as he looked at the IAS man.

"What do you hope to do in the private sector? Most of your work is cla.s.sified." The IAS man remained cool and unfl.u.s.tered.

"Plenty of defense guys who do crypto and need a good comm guy. I think the military call it the revolving door." Miles" dimpled smugness did not sit well with IAS.

"Yeah, you"ll probably go to work for your wop friends in Sicily." The IAS man sarcastically accused.

"Hey - you already know about that!" That royally p.i.s.sed off Miles. He didn"t appreciate any dispersion on his heritage.

"They"re relatives, that"s it. Holidays, food, turkey, ham, and a bunch of booze. And besides," Miles paused and smiled, "there"s no such thing as the Mafia."

By early evening they let him relieve himself and then finally leave the Fort. He was given 15 minutes to collect his personal items, under guard, and then escorted to the front gate. All identification was removed and his files were transferred into the "Monitor" section, where they would sit for at least one year. The IAS people had finally satisfied themselves that Miles Foster was a dissatisfied, underpaid government employee who had had enough of the immobility and rigidity of a giant bureaucratic machine that moves at a snails pace. Miles smiled at the end of the interrogation. Just like I said, he thought, just like I said.

There was no record in his psychological profiles, those from the Agency shrinks, that suggested Miles meant anything other than what he claimed. Let him go, they said. Let him go. Nowhere in the records did it show how much he hated his stupid, stupid bosses, the bungling bureaucratic behemoths who didn"t have the first idea of what he and his type did. Nowhere did Miles"

frustration and resultant build up of resentment and anger show up in any file or on any chart or graph. His strong, almost overbearing ego and over developed sense of worth and importance were relegated to a personality quirk common to superbright ambitious engineering types. It fit the profile.

Nowhere, either, was it mentioned that in years at NSA, Miles Foster had submitted over 30 unsolicited proposals for changes in cryptographic and communications techniques to improve the secu- rity of the United States. Nowhere did it say, they were all turned down, tabled, ignored.

At one point or another, Miles had to snap. The rejection of proposal number thirty-four gave Miles the perfect reason to quit.

Miles Foster looked 100% Italian despite the fact his father was a pure Irishman. "Stupido, stupido" his grandmother would say while slamming the palm of her hand into forehead. She was not exactly fond of her daughter marrying outside family. But, it was a good marriage, 3 great kids, or as good as kids get and Grand- mama tolerated the relationship. Miles the oldest, was only 7 when his father got killed as a bystander at a supermarket rob- bery.

Mario Dante, his h.o.m.os.e.xual uncle who worked in some undefined, never mentioned capacity for a Vegas casino, a.s.sumed the pater- nal role in raising Miles. With 2 sisters, a mother, an aunt and a grandmother all living under the same roof with Miles, any male companionship, role model if you will, was acceptable.

Mario kept the Family Honor, keeping his s.e.xual proclivities secret until Miles turned 18. Upon hearing, Miles commented, "Yeah, so? Everyone knows Uncle Mario"s a f.a.g. Big deal."

Mario was a big important guy, and he did business, grownup business. That was all Miles was supposed to know. When Miles was 13, Mario thought it would be a good idea for him to become a man. Only 60 miles from Las Vegas lived the country"s only legal brothels. Very convenient. Miles wasn"t going to fool around with any of that street garbage. Convention girls. Miles should go first cla.s.s the first time.

Pahrump, Nevada is home to the only legalized prost.i.tution in the United States. Mario drove fast, Miles figured about 130mph, in his Red Ferrari on Highway 10, heading West from Vegas. Mario was drinking Glen Fet.i.tch, neat, and he steered with only one hand, hardly looking at the road.

The inevitable occurred. Gaining on them, was a Nevada State Trooper. The flashing lights and siren reminded Mario to slow down and pull over. He grinned, sipped his drink and Miles worried. Speeding was against the law. So was drinking and driving. The police officer walked over to the driver side of the Ferrari. Uncle Mario lowered the window to let the officer lean into the car. As the trooper bent over to look inside the flashy low slung import, Mario pulled out a handgun from under the seat and stuck it into the cop"s face.

Mario started yelling. "Listen a.s.shole, I wasn"t speeding. Was I?

I don"t want nothing to go on my insurance. I gotta good driving record, y"know?" Mario was crazy! Miles had several strong urges to severely contract his sphincter muscles.

"No sir, I wanted to give you a good citizenship citation, for your contributions to the public good." The cop laughed in Uncle Mario"s face.

"Good to see you still gotta sensa"humor." Uncle Mario laughed and put the gun back in his shoulder holster. Miles stared, dumbfounded, still squeezing his b.u.t.t cheeks tight.

"Eh, Paysan! Where you going so fired up? You know the limit"s 110?" They both guffawed.

"Here!" Mario pointed at Miles. ""Bout time the kid took a ride around the world, y"know what I mean?" Miles wasn"t sure what he meant, but he was sure it had to do with where he was going to lose his virginity.

"Sheeeee-it! Uptown! Hey kid, ask for Mich.e.l.le and take 2 from Column B, then do it once for me!" Even though they weren"t, to a 13 year male Italian virgin, Mario and the cop were making fun of him. "I remember my first time. It was in a pick up truck, out in the desert. Went for f.u.c.king ever! Know what I mean?

The cop winked at Miles who was humiliated. To Miles" relief, Mario finally gave the cop an envelope, while being teasingly reprimanded. "Hey, Mario, take it a little easy out here, will yah? At least on my watch, huh?"

"Yeah, sure. No problem. Ciao."

"Ciao."

They were off again, doing over 100mph in seconds. The rest of the evening went as planned. Miles thanked his uncle in a way that brought tears to Mario"s eyes. Miles said, "You know, Uncle Mario. When I grow up, I want to be just like you."

"He"s just a boy, Mario! How could you!" Miles" mother did not react favorably to the news of her son"s manhood. She was trying to protect him from the influence of her relatives. Miles was gauged near genius with a p.r.o.nounced apt.i.tude for mathematics and she didn"t want his life to go to waste.

His mother had married outside of the family, the organized crime culture, the life one inherits so easily. She loved her family, knew that they dealt in gambling, some drugs, an occasional rough-up of an opponent, but preferred to ignore it. She mar- ried a man she loved, not one picked for he, but had lost him 6 years before. They _could not_ have her son.

Her wishes were respected, in the memory of Miles father, and also because it wasn"t worth having a crazed Sicilian woman rant- ing and raving all about. But Miles was delectable bait to the Family. His mathematical wizardry could a.s.sist greatly in gaming operations, figure the odds, new angles, keep the dollars in the house"s favor despite all advertising claims to the contrary.

But, there was respect and honor in their promise to his mother.

Hands off was the rule that came all the way from the top. He was protected. Miles was t.i.tillated with the attention, but he still listened to his mother. She came before all others. With no father, she became a little of both, and despite anyone"s attempts, Miles knew about Mario.

Miles was such a subject of adoration by his mother, aunt and grandmother, siblings aside, that Miles came to expect the same treatment from everyone, especially women. They praised him so, he always got top honors, the best grades, that he came to re- quire the attention and approval.

Living with 5 women and a gay uncle for 11 years had its effect.

Miles was incredibly heteros.e.xual. Not anti-gay at all, not at all. But he had absolutely no interest in men. He adored women, largely because of his mother. He put women on pedestals, and treated them like queens. Even on a beer budget Miles could convince his lady that they were sailing the Caribbean while baking in the desert suburbs of Las Vegas. Women succ.u.mbed, willingly, to Miles" slightest advance. He craved the approval, and worked long and hard to perfect his technique. Miles Foster was soon an expert. His mother never openly disapproved which Miles took as approval.

By the time Miles went off to college study advanced mathematics and get a degree, he had shattered half of the teen-age hearts within 50 miles of Vegas. Plus, the admiration from his female family had allowed him to convince himself that he was going to change the world. He was the single most important person that could have an effect on civilization. Invincible. Can do no wrong. Miles was the end-all to be-all. If Miles said it, it must be so, and he bought into the program. What his mother or girl friends called self confidence others called conceit and arrogance. Even obnoxious.

His third love, after his mother and himself, was mathematics.

He believed in mathematics as the answer to every problem. All questions can be reduced to formulas and symbols. Then, once you have them on a piece of paper, or in a computer . . .the answer will appear.

His master thesis was on that very subject. It was a brilliant soliloquy on the reducibility of any multi-dimensional condition to a defined set of measured properties. He postulated that all phenomenon was discrete in nature and none were continuous.

Given that arguable position, he was able to develop a set of mathematical tools that would permit dissection of a problem into much smaller pieces. Once in manageable sizes, the problem would be worked out piece by piece until the pieces were rea.s.sembled as the answer. It was a tool that had very definite uses in the government.

He was recruited by the Government in 1976. They wanted him to put his ingenious techniques to good use. The National Security Agency painted an idyllic picture of the ultimate job for a mathematician - the biggest, fastest and best computers in the world at your fingertips. Always the newest and the best. What- ever you need, it"ll be there. And that"s a promise. Super secret important work - oh how his mother would be proud. Miles accepted, but they never told him the complete truth. Not that they lied, of course. However, they never bothered to tell him, that because of his family background, guilt by a.s.sociation if you wish, his career would be severely limited.

Miles made it to senior a.n.a.lyst, and his family was proud, but he never told them that over 40% of the staff in his area were senior a.n.a.lysts. It was a high tech desk job that required his particular skills as a mathematician. The NSA got from Miles what they wanted; his mathematical tools modified to work for govern- ment security projects. For a couple of years, Miles happily complied - then he got itchy to work on other projects. After all, he had come up with the idea in the first place, it was time he came up with another. Time to move on.

In typical bureaucratic manner, the only way to get something new done is to write a proposal; enlist support and try to push it through committee. Everyone made proposals. You not only needed a good idea for a good project, good enough to justify the use of 8 billion dollars worth of computers, but you needed the connec- tions and a.s.sistance of others. You scratch mine, I"ll scratch yours.

During his tenure at NSA, Miles attempted to inst.i.tute various programs, procedures, new mathematical modes that might be use- ful. While technically his concepts were superior, his arro- gance, his better-than-everyone, my s.h.i.t doesn"t stink att.i.tude proved to be an insurmountable political obstacle. He was unable to ever garner much support for his proposals. Thus, not one of them was ever taken seriously. Which compounded the problem and reinforced Miles" increasingly sour att.i.tude towards his employ- er. However, with dimples in command, Miles successfully masked his disdain. To all appearance he acceded to the demands of the job, but off the job, Miles Foster was a completely different person.

The telephone warbled on the desk of the IAS Department Chief.

The digital readout on the phone told him that it was an internal call, not from outside the building, but he didn"t recognize the number.

"Investigations," The chief answered.

"This is Jacobs. We"re checking up on Foster."

"Yessir?" DIRNSA? Calling here?

"Is he gone?"

"Yessir."