Digital Fortress

Title: Digital Fortress

www.danbrown.com

Author: Dan Brown

Main Characters: Susan Fletcher, David Becker, Ensei Tankado, Numataka, Greg Hale, Strathmore, Midge, Jabba, Soshi, Chad Binkerhoff, Leland Fontaine, Rocio, Phil Chartrukian, Hulohot and Megan

Description Of One Of The Main Characters: Phil Chartrukian is Sys-sec(system-security) in the NSA(Nation Security Agency) Crypto. He is very loyal to the director, Leland Fontaine, and loves his job dearly. When he figures out that there is a virus in the TRANSLTR, the code breaking machine of NSA Crypto, he gives up his life during the attempt to save it. He gets shot by Commander Strathmore.

Whom I Like And Why: I like Ensei Tankado very much. He is an extremely brilliant man with computers and codes. He creates the great Digital fortress- a code completely unbreakable even for the TRANSLTR! He is amazing. He was born disabled due to the bomb blast in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He raises three fingers, one of them bearing a ring with mysterious inscriptions, when he dies.

Whom I Dislike And Why: I hate Strathmore. He is a ruthless murderer and a heartless man. He doesn’t hesitate to kill anyone. He is the head of Crypto. He kills Phil and Greg Hale, and also kills himself in the end.

Setting/Theme Of The Story: Susan Fletcher is very happy until she receives two phone calls- one from her fiancé, David Becker, telling her that he is off to Spain as he has to do urgent, important things; and the second from her Commander, Strathmore, asking her to immediately come to the Crypto as there was an EMERGENCY.

Susan immediately goes to the Crypto, and Strathmore explains the situation to her. The TRANSLTR, the greatest code-breaking machine, has not been able to break the code of the late Ensei Tankado. The hightest time TRANSLTR had ever taken to break codes was three hours. But this code didn’t break even after eighteen hours of work by the TRANSLTR. Ensei Tankado was  declared to have died from a heart attack. Just as he breathed his final, Ensei Tankado had pushed three fingers into the air, one of them bearing a ring with mysterious letterings, to inform something to the public. The people had assumed it to be the ring and one of them had taken it off.

Meanwhile, in Spain, David, who was sent by Strathmore, goes in search of the Canadian who had taken the ring from Tankado. But the Canadian had given it off to a girl named Rocio. With the help of the Canadian’s description of Rocio, he finds the girl. But she had given it off to a young punk. Rocio describes her and hints to David as to where the young girl had gone. David sets about searching for the young punk, Megan.

But Strathmore has other greedy plans. He wants to marry Susan, and wants David dead. So, he sends a man named Hulohot to kill David. Hulohot kills all the people David meets to ask about the ring. He had killed Ensei Tankado, the Canadian and Rocio. He also kills Megan, the young punk from whom David gets the ring. David is unaware that he will be the next victim.

At the same time, Midge, the woman who checks the progress of TRANSLTR, gets alarmed when her data shows that TRANSLTR hadn’t been able to break a code for 18 hours! She informs Jabba, the head of Sys-Sec and also the director of NSA, Leland Fontaine. But they don’t believe her.

In the Crypto, Strathmore informs Susan that Tankado had partnered with a man named North Dakota and that North Dakota’s email ID was:

NDAKOTA@ARA.ANON.ORG

Susan finds out a wrong information that Greg Hale is North Dakota. When she tries to contact Strathmore, she suddenly hears a gun shot. Phil was dead. She assumes that Greg had shot Phil but in reality it had been Strathmore who had done it. She gets terrified and goes back to her terminal only to see Greg Hale dead too. Susan, soon, gets to know that Strathmore is the culprit. All this time, the TRANSLTR heats up to a dangerous extent.

Midge gets extremely tensed in the NSA main office and studies her data again. This time she calls Jabba to show that there was some kind of virus. It also meant that Strathmore had bypassed the Gauntlet, the safety filter of the TRANSLTR. Even worse, Jabba discovers  that it is a worm and not a virus. They fail to contact Strathmore.

Strathmore had signed a billion dollar deal with Numataka promising him to give the ring, but he cuts the deal off. At that point, Susan understands that NDAKOTA was a perfect anagram of TANKADO! She feels miserable.

Strathmore, too guilty to continue living, takes his own life. Susan manages out of the Crypto and goes to the NSA main office. She narrates everything there.

Becker is followed by Hulohot everywhere. Finally Hulohot shoots David and David falls. Assuming that David is dead, Hulohot goes off. But it is just a flesh wound and David recovers. He contacts Susan and they all try to figure out the passkey which would stop the attacking worm. Tankado had shown number three and the letterings in the ring said it was a prime number. Putting two and two together, Susan finds out that the passkey is number 3. They enter it and the worm stops. All the files in the databank gets recovered. They relax. But they all accept one thing- it had been a real DIGITAL  FORTRESS.

Numataka realizes that Tankado is his own son whom he abandoned, and feels guilty for doing so.