Eleven Numbers

by Lee Child

The third man was Oliver Bailey, the greatest living American mathematician. Certainly the most famous, the most prominent, the most visible. The go-to guy, not that anyone went to mathematicians very often. But if they did, Bailey was their man. Richly deserved, Tyler thought. Justified by a spectacular body of work across an absurdly wide range of interests. Really a historic figure. The fourth man in the room was the president of the United States.

Lit majors could tell Faulkner from Hemingway. Same for mathematicians. Math was abstract and eternal, unchanging, discovered not invented, but when human beings used it, they always left a fingerprint.

Arkady Suslov was the Russian Oliver Bailey. Even more so, Tyler thought. Older, more mysterious, reputedly eccentric. The grand old man. A historic figure for sure.

“The password is a Kindansky number. This whole thing is built on Kindansky numbers. Suslov absolutely loves them.”

“Kindansky was a leading number theorist in the nineteenth century. He proved there’s a category of numbers with unique properties. Not so much what they are, but what they can be used for. Those are the Kindansky numbers. They’re all prime numbers, but not all prime numbers are Kindanskys.”

“You’re already inside the Russian military’s computer system.” “Welcome to the club,” President Ramsey said. “You’re the fifth member.”

“No, sir,” Tyler said. “There are only eleven nine-figure Kindansky numbers.”

The passcode is ceremonial. And cute, I guess. There are eleven time zones in Russia. There are eleven people on the inner committee. Or whatever. It’s Suslov’s private joke.” The room went quiet. Just the hum of electricity and the hiss of air. In the silence Tyler asked, “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.”

“Because I’m old enough to look back with clarity. Our nuclear capability was a Soviet achievement. As were satellites, and spaceships, and a hundred other things. We went from wooden plowshares to the hydrogen bomb. Thirty glorious years. The sordid pack of squalid gangsters we have today deserve none of it. So I’m taking away what I can.”