Excerpt: The Soul of the Matter, Chapter 4

Editor's note: We are delighted to offer three excerpts from Bruce Buff's new novel, The Soul of the Matter, with the permission of Simon & Schuster/Howard Books. See David Klinghoffer's review here. Find Chapter 3 here.

To work off frustration, Alex decided to walk down the ten flights of stairs to the service entrance instead of taking the elevator.

He had to find out what they were decoding. It didn't help that he doubted the source of their work and, by extension, Stephen. The encryption...