Chapter 20
HERE’S SOME FREE advice from the Shadow.
If you really want to keep something secret, here’s how: don’t share the secret information with anyone.
That may seem like common sense, but it’s amazing how quickly it can go out the window.
Anyone means anyone. That means even your best friend, your lover, your family, your associates, your assistants, your colleagues… anyone.
I pretty much honor this rule above all others.
That’s why I’m on a macro-line third-level-incognito computer window making my own personal arrangements to travel to Harvard University in Cambridge.
Third-level incognito is a system in which all information sent to a recipient self-erases.
Unlike almost everything else, online third-level transmissions can never be recovered.
Perfect.
I’ve arranged to meet Dr. Atticus Henry, the world’s leading geologist on earth science and abnormal physical earth material.
I’ve also made arrangements for team members Hawkeye and Tapper to accompany me.
True to my obsession to keep secret information secret, I will only inform them half an hour before departure.
I have, of course, already spoken with Dr. Henry about the phenomena at Kyoto and Copenhagen that have stunned the rest of the world.
Dr. Henry is already entrenched in examining the horrible incidents. He’s conducted analyses of earth material taken from the disaster centers. He’ll be sharing his results and opinions with us when we see him.
“I cannot, and will not, transmit my algorithmic theories by internet. Everything I do is watched by potentially adversarial governments, including—I’m sorry to say—our own,” Dr. Henry told me. In other words, “I don’t come to you. You come to me.”
He has made it clear that his work may not be completely accurate, but, he said, “We must begin somewhere, and the sooner the better.”
I couldn’t agree more. We’re on our way.