The Holy Lance Cont.

About 40 miles away, Mark Lynch, for that was his name today, smiled at the stewardess as she handed him his coat from the Business Class wardrobe. It was a nice coat, substantially more expensive than that Simon was shrugging on, but Mark always believed in playing the part, and if investment bankers wore expensive coats, then so would he.

Turning left through the plane door, Goldman Sachs newest managing director (and one whose career had a planned length of a fortnight or so) headed up the ramp towards passport control. Or deplaned (as he would have preferred it). Travelling Business Class had its advantages as he joined the Fast Track clearance line, avoiding the 400 or so poor souls from Delhi whose jet-lag was being worsened by the supercilious customs officials. For Christ’s sake, it was the middle of the day and there were 2 of them on duty. Had things been different, and they often had been, Mark would have been quietly seething.

There were no problems with the passport - the agency’s in-house printers were pretty good - and picking up his bag, he strode through customs and out to the taxi rank. Britain was hardly famous for its weather, and today it was living down to its reputation. Drizzle he thought it was called, fucking unpleasant would be a better name. That was one advantage, and, to be fair, it needed all it could get, of Iraq - it didn’t rain. True, it was overly hot, dry and full of homicidal Islamofascists, but at least it didn’t rain.

Digging a sheaf of papers out of his bag as a subtle but unmistakable sign that he was not really that interested in his driver’s recent holiday in Disneyland, Mark settled back, awaiting his arrival at the hotel, his mind reviewing the events of the past few hours.

The message on the answering machine had been unmistakable. Unwanted, but unmistakable. Ever since his last return, he had been awaiting the call, but had talked himself into believing that it would not come. Having settled back into life in the Bethesda suburbs, his non-descript, but surprisingly lucrative job in the D.C. bureaucracy jogging along, and his marriage having moved from the initial passion to the “shall we have children” stage, he was happy again. He had even learned how to sleep again, the nightmares having finally been banished to the deepest recesses of his mind.

All of which explained the smashed bottle of wine on the floor when his wife told him over dinner of the strange message on the answering machine.

“Why would anyone think we sold Oriental carpets? I’d have thought it pretty obvious from the message that we’re not a shop.” His wife, a small blond fitness instructor at one of D.C’s power gyms was nothing if not perky (an useful contrast to his own pre-disposition to gloom) and had insisted on recording a rather twee, sing-song message on their machine.

“How many carpets did they want?” he asked, sweeping up the shards that were all that was left of the Napa Valley Chardonnay they would, under better circumstances, have now been drinking.

“10. I mean, can you believe it 10? Who needs that many smelly, moth-eaten old things?” Shelly’s taste ran to clean, modern functionalism - fewer spaces to contain germs.

“Probably some weirdo, wouldn’t worry about it. How many crunches could the Senator manage today?” He deflected, successfully, as Shelly launched into a long digression about new ways to do a sit up while spearing, with increasing aggression, the small salad that represented the only food she would allow herself after 7pm.

And so, the next morning, after a limited amount of sleep, Mark found himself on a bench facing the Vietnam memorial, the old arrangements seared into his head like a brand. Thoughtfully, someone had left a folded newspaper on the bench. Less thoughtfully for Mark, he knew that it would contain his orders, slipped into the second page of the business section, disguised as a flyer for a new pizza delivery service. Fully aware of Shelly’s views on that subject - fast food was something to be eradicated with the zeal of a mediaeval inquisator, he shoved the paper into his pocket and headed home, secure in the knowledge that Monday mornings were waterobics for the elderly power ladies of the Capitol.

Slipping into the den, he reached underneath the pool table and, just where he had left it three years ago, found the one time pad he was looking for. Moving to the table, he laid it over the flyer.

A one time pad is one of the securest methods of code writing known to man. Most forms of code are re-used, and the more this occurs, the more evidence it provides the code breaker. The more evidence, the more chances to break the code. A one-time pad, as the name suggests, is used only once, dramatically lengthening the odds for successful decription.

In its simplest form, a one-time pad consists of a grid, designed to fit over a piece of text, be it the Bible, a phone directory or, in this case, a flier. The grid consists of a series of holes, each revealing one letter. These are then re-formed to constitute the message, although they may be further encoded for added security. Unless one has both the grid, and the piece of text it is to be applied to, the method is basically uncrackable, something even America’s National Security Agency, the premier code-breaking organisation on the planet, backed by more computing power than NASA, would, if forced, concede.

Scribbling down the highlighted numbers, and then re-arranging them in the prescribed fashion, Mark called for a taxi and then dialled Shelly, asking her to call him back as soon as the elderly dowagers had left the pool.

Deposited an hour later at Dulles International Airport, he headed for the Arrivals area, the obvious place for a traveller with no luggage to go in an airport. Heading for the nearest lavatory, he found the third cubicle which was locked. Slipping a coin out of his pocket, and checking that he was alone, Mark opened the door and stepped inside. On top of the seat was a hold-all, containing clothes (amazingly, they had made allowances for his increased, civilian girth), a passport, wallet and ticket. In a manila envelope, he found all the details of the man he would be for the fortnight or however long it took. Changing quickly, he picked up the bag, left the washroom, and headed upstairs to check in.

The conversation with Shelly was not pleasant, Saturday was couples yoga day, and he’d obviously miss that, but in the end, the urgency of the Department of Agriculture’s mission to check suspected GM infiltration of the organic potato fields of Idaho was bigger than both of them. Hanging up, he headed for his plane and peace.