down but is murdered after being pushed off sub-levels of TRANSLTR by an unknown assailant. Since Hale and Strathmore were both in the sub-levels, Fletcher assumes that Hale is the killer; however, Hale claims that he witnessed Strathmore killing Chartrukian. Chartrukian's fall also damages TRANSLTR's cooling system. Hale holds Fletcher and Strathmore hostage to prevent himself from being arrested for Phil's murder. It is then that Hale explains to Fletcher, the e-mail he supposedly received from Tankado was also in Strathmore's inbox, as Strathmore was snooping on Tankado. Fletcher discovers through a tracer that North Dakota and Ensei Tankado are the same person, as "NDAKOTA" is an anagram of "Tankado." Strathmore kills Hale and arranges it to appear as a suicide. Fletcher later discovers through Strathmore's pager that he is the one who hired Hulohot. Becker manages to track down the ring, but ends up pursued by Hulohot in a long cat-and-mouse chase across Seville. The two eventually face off in a cathedral, where Becker finally kills Hulohot by tripping him down a spiral staircase, causing him to break his neck. He is then intercepted by NSA field agents sent by Leland Fontaine, the director of the NSA. Chapters told from Strathmore's perspective reveal his master plan. By hiring Hulohot to kill Tankado, having Becker recover his ring and at the same time arranging for Hulohot to kill Becker, he would facilitate a romantic relationship with Fletcher, regaining his lost honor. He has also been working incessantly for many months to unlock Digital Fortress, installing a backdoor inside the program. By making phone calls to Numataka posing as North Dakota, he thought he could partner with Numatech to make a Digital Fortress chip equipped with his own backdoor Trojan. Finally, he would reveal to the world the existence of TRANSLTR, boasting it would be able to crack all the codes except Digital Fortress, making everyone rush to use the computer chip equipped with Digital Fortress so that the NSA could spy on every computer equipped with these chips. However, Strathmore was unaware that Digital Fortress is actually a computer worm that, once unlocked would "eat away" all the NSA databank's security and allow "any third-grader with a modem" to look at government secrets. When TRANSLTR overheats, Strathmore dies by standing next to the machine as it explodes. The worm eventually gets into the database, but Becker figures out the passcode