Page 17 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

He still hoped the tech would call at any moment to say the “hack” had been nothing but a digital glitch, but Faukman sensed something darker was indeed going on.

No other partition was affected.

Only Katherine’s…

He picked up his office phone to call Katherine in Prague, but after holding the receiver a moment, he set it back in its cradle.

It was still early morning in Central Europe, and the news would no doubt be devastating to her.

Katherine had placed her trust in Faukman, and he felt a deep moral obligation to make this right…

especially after convincing her to work securely on the corporate server.

So who stole her manuscript?

Will it appear on the black market in the next few hours?

Faukman forced himself to take a deep breath and exhale. He reminded himself that one thing had gone his way tonight…a little bit of good fortune…and he would need to act carefully and immediately.

Faukman walked across his office and closed the door, quietly turning the dead bolt.

He then went to his bookshelf, which was packed with publishing memorabilia—marketing placards, die-print plates, literary awards, framed bestseller lists, and limited-run advance reading copies.

From the top shelf, he lifted down one of his most cherished possessions… a personalized coffee mug.

The mug bore the symbols of a chalice, a triangle, and a rose.

It had been a gift from Robert Langdon after their first publication together two decades ago— Symbols of the Lost Sacred Feminine —a book that had sold enough copies for Langdon to buy Faukman this mug…

and not much else. Over the years, the mug had become a symbol of Langdon’s enduring friendship as well as their ongoing professional collaboration.

From inside the mug, Faukman extracted a single key. Then he returned to his desk and used it to unlock the bottom desk drawer.

There, safely ensconced in the drawer, sat a thick bundle of printed pages—481, double-spaced—neatly stacked and bound with two rubber bands. Faukman lifted the manuscript out of the drawer and placed it on his large wooden desk.

The title page contained only two lines.

Untitled

by Katherine Solomon

Thank God I still edit off paper, he thought, breathing a sigh of relief to know at least he still had one copy. By habit, Faukman had printed his editorial copy immediately after Katherine had given him access to the manuscript several hours earlier.

Most editors used word processors and the “Track Changes” feature to enter their edits directly into digital manuscripts, but Faukman still preferred a stack of paper and a traditional blue pen. For once, being old-school just paid off.

There had been a time in publishing, not so long ago, when it was common to have only one copy of a manuscript.

Authors would write in longhand, put their manuscripts into a box, and deliver them to the publisher’s office.

Wuthering Heights, The Brothers Karamazov, and For Whom the Bell Tolls had each begun its life as a single, original, paper manuscript.

Relax, he told himself. If Maxwell Perkins was able to remain calm while handling manuscripts by Hemingway and Fitzgerald, then certainly I can do the same with Katherine Solomon.

That said, the very first thing he intended to do was to make a digital backup file. The process had once required retyping an entire manuscript into a word processor. Nowadays, optical character recognition scanners took a matter of minutes.

A little insurance while PRH sorts out what happened here.

But as Faukman considered the plan, he was struck by an unsettling realization.

The publisher’s OCR scanners and photocopiers were all connected to the company’s network; if a hacker had gained access to PRH’s most secure database, then the networked OCRs and copy machines could hardly be considered secure.

With everything that had happened tonight, Faukman was not about to take any chances.

He checked his watch: 2:09 a.m. If he slipped into the nearby twenty-four-hour FedEx Office Print & Ship, he could use their OCR and copy machines, which would be anonymous and untraceable—certainly much safer than using the publisher’s networked device.

Confident in his plan, Faukman quickly wrapped the manuscript in a padded envelope and sealed it, slipping the package into his backpack.

After lacing up his black running sneakers and donning his vintage gray wool peacoat, Faukman hoisted the backpack onto his shoulders and left his office, locking the door behind him.

Thirty seconds later, he was riding the elevator down to the ground level.

As he stepped off the elevator, Faukman gave a wave to the night watchman who sat behind the security counter in the cavernous lobby. “See you tomorrow, Mark.”

“Thanks, Mr. Faukman. Have a wonderful night.”

A little late for that, Faukman thought.

As he hurried toward the exit, he passed between the lobby’s two walls of soaring bookcases, which proudly displayed Random House classics dating back to the early 1900s, when cofounders Bennett Cerf and Donald S.

Klopfer founded this company as a small reprint publisher.

The founders’ literary tastes were so varied and diverse as to seem almost “random,” and they named their publishing venture accordingly.

A handful of Faukman’s books sat on these hallowed shelves, and until tonight he had felt confident that a first edition of Katherine’s book would one day be here too.

You have one job now, he reminded himself as he pushed through the large revolving glass doors and onto the street. Protect this manuscript.

The night was frigid, and the sidewalks were deserted at this hour. Faukman turned right on Broadway and strode briskly southward toward Fifty-Fifth Street, the icy wind blowing up the flaps of his coat.

As he crossed the avenue, he was too preoccupied to notice a black van following him a full block behind.

PRH Data Security is located on the fourth floor of Random House Tower and consists of six secure terminals located deep within a maze of humming server racks. The compact facility was responsible for maintaining an impenetrable firewall around the publisher’s internal servers.

Security technician Alex Conan was now typing feverishly at his terminal, having confirmed that every last trace of Katherine Solomon’s manuscript and research folders were gone—zeroed out, scrubbed, and irretrievable.

This is no longer a rescue mission, Alex thought. There are no survivors.

Disturbingly, the system’s intrusion detection/prevention system had flagged no traces of exploited vulnerabilities—no unusual registry entries, modified files, altered system configurations, or suspicious packet captures. Clearly, the hackers possessed unique skills.

Who the hell are these guys?!

Eager to update Jonas Faukman, Alex dialed his office but got no answer. Odd.

He called down to the night watchman in the lobby. “Mark, it’s Alex Conan in Systems. Would you page Jonas Faukman to the security center for me right away? It’s important.”

“He won’t hear me,” the guard replied in his usual jovial tone. “He just walked out of the building.”

Faukman left?! We’ve been hacked…because of his book!

Alex assumed Faukman had just stepped out for some air and would be coming right back. He wondered if he should alert the PRH corporate brass, but there was nothing anyone could do at the moment, and they would probably fire him on the spot for letting it happen on his watch.

Damage control, he told himself. There’s still time for me to solve this.

Alex’s hacking skills were robust, as was the case for most techs working in systems security. Given a few hours and a little luck, he had a fighting chance of sorting out who had hacked PRH. Then, depending on what he discovered, he might even find a clever way to hack them right back.