Taking a stab at it, Austin told him to try Cossack. When that didn't work, he tried Ataman. Nothing. One more false try, and the computer would freeze up on them. He was about to give up when he recalled his first conversation with Petrov back in Istanbul. “Try Troika.”

Trout let out a triumphant, “Yes!” Then his shoulders sagged as the screen filled with lines of words. “This is the Russian equivalent of gobbledygook.” He worked on it a few more minutes. Beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. He sat back in the chair and threw his hands up in the air.

“Sorry, Kurt, this is beyond my skills.” He shook his head. “What I need is a teenage hacker.”

Austin only had to think about Trout's request for an instant. “Hold on. I can get you the next best thing.”

He produced his Globalstar phone and punched out a number. When Yaeger's voice came on, Austin said, “Good morning, I can't get into details because we're short on time, but Paul needs help.”

He handed the phone to Trout. Before long, the two men were into a deep discussion of firewalls, packet filters, applications, Trojan horses, gateway circuits, tunnels and decoys. He gave the phone back to Austin.

“Let's see if I can explain the problem,” Yaeger said. “Think of the computer as a room. You go into the room, but it's dark, so you can't see what's written on the blackboard. So you flick the switch, which is what Paul has done, but the blackboard is still unreadable because it's in a language you can't understand.”

“Where does that leave us?”

“Nowhere, I'm afraid. I wish Max and I were there to take a crack at the puzzle.”

Austin replied with a grunt, then looked at the phone. “The solution may be at hand. You tell me if it's possible.”

He explained what he was thinking and Yaeger said it was doable, given the right equipment. Austin returned the phone to Trout, who got up and began to go through drawers in the console and other cabinets in the room. He found some cables that he spliced together, and then plugged one end into the computer's entry port. “It's not the greatest modem in the world, but I'll try to attach it to the phone now.” He removed the back of the phone and ran the other end of the cable inside. Then he dialed a number.

The computer screen went squirrelly for a second. Letters and numbers streamed by in a blur. The screen went blank. Then a message appeared: “We're wired. Starting to download. Hiram and Max.”