Terminal Compromise · Chapter 175Chapter 14
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
Sunday, November 29 Columbia University, New York
The New York City Times had put the story on the 7th page. In contrast, the New York Post, in Murdoch's infinite wisdom, had put pictures of the dead and dying on the front page. With the McDonalds' window prominent.
Ahmed Shah reacted with pure intellectual detachment to the deba- cle on Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street. Jesef was a martyr, as much of one as those who had sacrificed their lives in the Great War against Iraq. He had to make a report. From his home, in the Spanish Harlem district of the upper West Side of Manhattan, 3 blocks from his Columbia University office, he wheeled over to his computer that was always on.
C:\cd protalk C:\PROTALK\protalk
He dialed a local New York number that was stored in the Protalk communications program. He had it set for 7 bits, no parity, no stop bits.
<<<<<<DIALING>>>>>>
The local phone number he dialed answered automatically and redialed another number, and then that one dialed yet another number before a message was relayed back to Ahmed Shah. He was accustomed to the delay. While waiting he lit up a Marlboro. It was the only American cigarette that came close to the vile taste of Turkish camel shit cigarettes that he had smoked before coming to the United States. A few seconds later, the screen came to life and displayed