TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Susan Fletcher

Susan Fletcher is a gorgeous and intelligent cryptographer who is madly in love with her fiancé David Becker and completely dedicated to her work. She is the primary protagonist in “Digital Fortress”, and is described as a beautiful woman with a slender, toned body, shoulder-length auburn hair, and strong hazel eyes. She is one of the finest cryptographers at the National Security Agency (NSA) where she works. She is a highly intelligent and diligent employee who takes her work seriously. She is devoted to cracking codes and safeguarding national security as a problem solver. She is unwaveringly loyal to the NSA, and she takes pride in her work.

Throughout the narrative, Susan faces a challenging predicament when she becomes embroiled in a dangerous conspiracy. Susan stays calm and focused despite the challenges she’s facing. She employs her knowledge and ingenuity to assist the NSA in solving the enigma and eliminating the threat.

Susan’s personality also possesses a softer aspect. David Becker, her fiancé, is on a mission to retrieve a vital code that will assist the NSA in breaking Digital Fortress. Susan’s concern for David’s safety lends an emotional dimension to her character, which is evident throughout the entire book.

David Becker

David Becker is a prominent character in the novel “Digital Fortress”. He is introduced as a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and a brilliant foreign-language expert. He was famous for his eidetic memory and love for languages. He had mastered six Asian languages along with Spanish, French, and Italian. His university lectures were always overcrowded.

Becker is described as a man in his early thirties with sharp green eyes, short brown hair, and a strong jawline. He was over six feet tall, with an athletic build and he moved across a squash court faster than any of his colleagues could comprehend.

However, his life takes a sudden turn when he receives a call from the NSA asking him to go to Seville, Spain to recover a gold ring engraved with a code i.e the pass-key of Digital Fortress, a powerful encryption algorithm.

Throughout the novel, Becker shows exceptional intelligence, perseverance, and bravery. He proves to be an essential asset to the NSA in their mission to stop the release of Digital Fortress. Despite facing many challenges and obstacles, including betrayal from people he trusts, Becker remains focused and determined to succeed in his mission.

Becker is deeply in love with Susan Fletcher, a brilliant cryptographer of NSA. Despite being separated for much of the story, Becker’s love for Susan drives him to push through difficult situations and ultimately helps him save the day. Their love adds an emotional layer to the plot.

Moreover, Becker’s character development throughout the novel is notable. At the beginning of the story, he is portrayed as a reserved and introverted academic. However, as the plot progresses, he becomes more assertive and proactive, taking charge of the situation and making critical decisions that lead to the success of the mission.

Commander Trevor Strathmore

Commander Trevor Strathmore is a pivotal character in Dan Brown’s “Digital Fortress.” He is the Deputy Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and is 56 years old. Strathmore is a complex man with a tragic past. He and his wife were bitterly at odds with one another, and his career has taken precedence over his personal life, causing his marriage to suffer.

Strathmore is a complex character because he is driven by his loyalty to the NSA, his concern for the safety of the country, and his own ambitions. He is held in high esteem as the agency’s top executive due to his intelligence, foresight, and magnetic personality. However, he also possesses a more violent side and is not above making choices that put others at risk. He masterminded the conspiracy to gain control of Digital Fortress for himself, and his actions led to the burning down of TRANSLTR, the two-billion-dollar NSA computer.

Despite his tough exterior, Strathmore was very paternal towards Susan, who he considered invaluable. He relied on her to help the NSA determine what had caused the hack of Digital Fortress. Her insight and dedication to the company were highly valued by him. However, towards the end of the story, it becomes clear that he loved Susan and ordered David’s killing to make Susan love him instead.

Ensei Tankado

Ensei Tankado is an important Japanese character in the novel who creates ‘Digital Fortress’ the unbreakable encryption algorithm on which the story is based. He was born handicapped, with three deformed fingers in each hand because of the effect of the radiation of atom bomb explosion in Hiroshima. When born, his father Tokugen Numataka being ashamed of a deformed child, fled from the hospital, abandoning his wife and son. Ensei’s mother died the night he was born. Every night the young Tankado swore he would have revenge on the USA for being the cause of his handicap, his mother’s death, and for forcing his father to abandon him. When he grew up and became an outstanding programmer, he accepted Buddhism. His hatred of the USA was replaced by his devotion to Buddha.

Soon he became a genius programmer and cryptographer and was called fugusha kisai – the crippled genius. He was hired by the NSA and he became a crypto staff. But he left NSA when he came to know the NSA was misusing the TRANSLTR to open everyone’s mail and reseal it without their knowledge. This was a gross violation of human rights.

In the story, Tankado dies before the plot unfolds, but he still plays a significant role. Before his death, he left a cryptic message that set in motion a dangerous chain of events that put the NSA’s secrets at risk.

Tankado is a complex character who harbors both resentment and a desire for justice. Although he is portrayed as a villain in the story, his motivations are somewhat understandable given the circumstances of his past with the agency. He seeks revenge against the NSA for perceived wrongs committed against him in the past and his  actions lead to a dangerous conspiracy that puts Susan Fletcher and David Becker’s lives at risk.

 

North Dakota (aka NDAKOTA)

Ensei Tankado’s fictitious accomplice. Tankado himself was North Dakota. NDAKOTA was an anagram of the word TANKADO.

 

Tokugen Numataka

Tokugen Numataka is the owner of Numatech Corp. a big IT company in Japan. He was attempting to purchase the “Digital Fortress” algorithm. Ensei Tankado was his own deformed kid, whom he abandoned years before when Tankado was born.

Phil Chartrukian

Phil Chartrukian is the young systems security technician at NSA in the novel Digital Fortress. He is aged only twenty-three and relatively new to the Sys-Sec squade. When he entered Crypto’s system security lab, he noticed a problem. He mistook the failure of TRANSLTR to crack the Digital Fortress code for a virus. Chartrukian tries desperately to warn Strathmore that TRANSLTR has a virus. After failing, he decides to shut down the TRANSLTR to save it, but he is murdered by Strathmore after being pushed off the lower levels of the TRANSLTR. The cooling system of TRANSLTR was also damaged by his fall.

Greg Hale

Hale is described as a former marine who is now an NSA cryptographer. He is tall and muscular with rock-hard muscles, thick blond hair and deep cleft chin. He is loud, thick fleshed and perpetually overdressed.

Hale is responsible for revealing Strathmore’s backdoor in the Skipjack program. Hale is a mysterious guy, and Susan Fletcher feels he is the North Dakota figure she has been looking into. Susan believes Hale is the primary villain and that he killed Chartrukian at the end of the story. However, Hale clarifies that Strathmore was the true murderer.

Leland Fontaine

Leland Fontaine is a character in the novel “Digital Fortress.” He holds the position of Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and is described as an extremely intelligent, manipulative, and secretive person. He is portrayed as a character who is rarely seen, but frequently talked about, and feared by all. Fontaine is an African American man who is sixty-three years old. He has a short military-style haircut and a stern, unyielding demeanor. When he is angry, which is often, his eyes turn black like coal. Fontaine achieved his position at the NSA through hard work, strategic planning, and gaining the respect of those who came before him.

Hulohot

Hulohot is a terrifying character in the novel “Digital Fortress”. He is portrayed as a highly skilled and ruthless assassin who is hired by Strathmore the Deputy Director of NSA to kill David Becker and some others and get Tankado’s gold ring of having the pass-key.

Physically, Hulohot is described as a tall, muscular man. He is an expert in a variety of skills, including martial arts, marksmanship, and explosives. He is able to move quickly and silently, making him a formidable opponent in any situation. He is also very intelligent, able to analyze situations and come up with a plan of attack quickly.

Hulohot is portrayed as a cold and calculating killer. He shows no remorse for the people he kills, and seems to take pleasure in his work. He is loyal to his employers, but is not above double-crossing them if it serves his own purposes.

He plays a cat-and-mouse-game with David Becker to kill him but he himself got killed by Becker.

Midge Milken

Midge Milken worked as an internal security analyst for NSA Director Leland Fontaine. She was sixty, little bit overweight, and quit attractive. Midge, a master of the art of the flirt and a woman who had been married and divorced three times over, prowled the six-room director’s suite with a sassy authority. She was intelligent and insightful, put in ungodly hours, and was rumoured to be more familiar with the NSA’s inner workings than the Almighty himself.

Chad Brinkerhoff

Chad Brinkerhoff works as the personal assistant of the Director of NSA. He was 45 years old, well-pressed, well-groomed, and well-informed. His summer-weight suit was wrinkle-free, just like his tanned complexion. His hair was thick, sandy blond, and, most importantly, completely unique to him. His eyes were a bright blue, accentuated subtly by the wonder of coloured contact lenses.

Brinkerhoff had a sumptuous Mahogany wood-paneled office in the Director’s suit on the 9th floor, full access to all NSA departments, and a sense of distinction that came from the company he kept. He conducted errands for the highest levels of power while working alongside the most powerful guy in American intelligence.

Jabba

Jabba is a very peculiar character in Digital Fortress. Jabba is his nickname. He is NSA’s senior Sys-Sec officer, the short-fused, 400-pound computer guru who had built Gauntlet.  Jabba resembled a giant tadpole. The man was a hairless spheroid, much like the creature from the film for which he was named. As resident guardian angel of all NSA computer systems, Jabba marched from department to department, adjusting, soldering, and reinforcing his belief that prevention was the best treatment as the resident guardian angel of all NSA computer systems. Under Jabba’s rule, no NSA computer had ever been compromised, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Shoshi Kuta

Shoshi Kuta is a character in the novel Digital Fortress. She is the chief technician and assistant to  “Jabba”. Despite her small size of only 90 pounds, Shoshi is full of energy and enthusiasm.

She was Jabba’s right-hand assistant, an MIT-educated, highly skilled Sys-Sec expert. She was the only member of Jabba’s staff who did not appear intimidated by him, frequently working late hours alongside him.

Two-Tone

Two-Tone is an adolescent psychotic character. He is a short, pimple-faced adolescent with a shaved head. His scalp was half red and half purple. He resembled an Easter egg. Becker approached him in Club Embrujo and inquired about Megan and the gold ring. Hulohot Killed him.

Megan

In this novel, Megan is an English girl. She is a punk with red, white, and blue hair, a British flag T-shirt, and an earring with a skull pendant. Tankado’s ring was sold to her by Rocio. Hulohot murdered her at the airport.

Rocío Eva Granada (DewDrop)

Rocio Eva Granada, better known as DewDrop, was a prostitute who obtained the ring from Tankado. She had long, flowing red hair, flawless Iberian skin, dark brown eyes, and a high, smooth brow. Hulohot mudered her.

Hans Huber

Hans Huber is an obese  tourist from Germany. He was with Rocío Eva Granada (DewDrop), when Hulohot murdered both of them. Becker entered their hotel room and offered to buy Tankado’s ring. Bur Rocío informed him that she already sold the ring to the punk girl Megan.

 

Pierre Cloucharde

Pierre Cloucharde was a Tuorist from Canada. He observed Ensai Tankado’s death from a heart attack. He told the officer that Tankado had handed Rocio his gold ring just before he died. Hulohot murdered him.

 

Rafael de la Maza

Rafael de la Maza, is a banker from the suburbs of Seville, who sold his cheap black blazer to David Becker and was murdered by Hulohot.

Agent Coliander and Agent Smith

Two agents of NSA, sent to Seville by Leland Fontaine to keep an eye on the actions of Hulohot.

INTRODUCTION THEMES AND MOTIFS CURIOSITY & SUSPENSE PLOT SUMMARY

CRITICAL ANALYSIS CLIFFHANGERS IN THE NOVEL

DESCRIPTIONS OF OBJECTS, PLACES, ORGANIZATIONS & PROCESSES