Eleven Numbers

by Lee Child

Math was abstract and eternal, unchanging, discovered not invented, but when human beings used it, they always left a fingerprint. Not exactly a voice, like literature. More like an X-ray, of the way someone’s mind worked.

“Math is weird.”

“Why underneath the Kremlin? What is this algorithm guarding?” At first no one answered. As if words didn’t work anymore. Then Ramsey said, “Control of the Russian nuclear arsenal.”

What if they all logged in and hit the button and nothing happened? Error messages, blank screens, invalid command alerts. The Russians would be off the board and out of the game. Forever. Reduced to nothing.

“The biggest prize in history, win or go home?”

It will be a little island of common sense in a sea of bullshit.

“Nathan Tyler. I got hit by a police car. My fault, apparently.” “I took a photograph of a duck on a lake. Two miles away in the background was a military helicopter. I’m a secret agent, apparently.”

“He doesn’t care for his government. He called them a sordid pack of squalid gangsters. He doesn’t want them to benefit from noble Soviet achievements. He wants us to deactivate the arsenal and let it rust.”