Title: Eleven Numbers
Author(s) Name(s): Lee Child
Published in: February, 2025
Why You Might Like This Book: Read this book if you enjoy
- short fiction,
- political thrillers,
- crime fiction,
- international politics, and
- non-violent mysteries.
Who Should Avoid This Book: Avoid this book if you are triggered by or dislike
- politics,
- international politics, and
- fast-paced thrillers.
Recommended for Children? Yes.
Nathan Tyler is an unassuming, brilliant mathematics professor who is surprised by a sudden call he receives one morning. The American government, actually, the NSA (National Security Agency) wants his help, they say, to work on something important, for which he has to travel to Russia. Professor Fergusson thinks that he is crazy – which American would go to Russia when international political tensions are running so high?
When he arrives at the NSA and past all the security, he is greeted by two people he doesn’t know and two other people he already knows: one is Bailey, a brilliant mathematician, and the other is the president of the USA, Jacob Ramsey. The president greets him and introduces him to the two other men in the room: the president’s national security advisor John McGinn and Matthew Cash, the director of the NSA. Tyler still does not understand why he was invited, then bailley guides him and shows him a screen with lots of equations, something that only mathematicians can quickly, easily read and understand. Tyler notices a pattern in the middle and easily understands what that part is: Kindansky numbers.
*For those who are curious, there is no such thing in real life as Kindansky numbers, and this was invented by the author for this book.
Bailley becomes happy when Tyler easily understands what they see, then asks him if he can think of a particular name, a particular person who could have written that password security system. Again, without much thought, Tyler says it must be someone Russian. When asked who this russian could be, Tyler says it must be Arkady Suslov, a brilliant Russian mathematician. Again, Bailley is happy, then he shows him another round, the next stage of the security system, this has nine characters and this is where they are now stuck, unable to get past this level, and they cannot afford to make any mistakes because if they got it wrong in the first and the only attempt, the system would shut down and rewrite the code.
Tyler notices that there are eleven possible numbers because there are only eleven nine-digit Kindansky numbers. And nobody in the room knows which could be the right choice. Bailey explains that the only solution would be for him to go and meet Suslov in person and understand his brain and bias, towards which number he may be leaning, to find any clues to how his brain might have made the choice by engaging in a real-life, casual conversation. But Bailey cannot go there because the Russians know that he works with the NSA, so they have decided to send Tyler instead because there are very few mathematicians in the world who are experts in this area.
At this point, given the geopolitical conditions, Moscow is not safe for Americans, but Ramsey assures Tyler that he will have the support of the government throughout this secret mission. And Tyler can’t take time to think about it either because the best possible opportunity to run this scheme is less than a week away: The Global Math Congress, which will be held in Moscow. And this will be a safe cover because it will attract mathematicians from around the world, so nobody would suspect that a mathematician like Tyler was actually there for a secret government job. They had already made the plan; Tyler had to just agree and do as they told him.
Still Tyler agrees to do the job because it involves his specialty and this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a mathematician like him. And the stakes are high, he could even get killed or lost or kidnapped, who knows? His fake inter-state travel booking, his real travel booking, his registration for the math congress, clothing and accessories that suit his style, assurances to give his co-workers, everything would be taken care of. But the ultimate concern for everyone who is in on this plan is how to engage in a one-on-one casual conversation with a famed mathematician and get some clues about Suslov’s preferences without giving the impression that he is trying to break into the Russian security system.
According to the plan, Tyler leaves Washington DC, reaches London, then flies to Moscow. As an American, yes, he is scared of how different the place looks, he doesn’t speak Russian, he cannot understand what most of the ads and billboards there say, he can’t even identify the products or what he sees in many of those images, but he has passed the security checks and he managed to even get a car, doing all this according to their plan, without raising any suspicion. And then suddenly something unexpected happens! Everything goes wrong. Tyler has to make some decisions now. What is the ebst thing to do? Should he put himself at risk? Or not? To what extent?
This is one advantage that comes with reading books written by seasoned authors. Lee Child knows when to tune the tone up or down or keep it neutral. There are a few unexpected twists and this is definitely different from Child’s action thrillers. For the plot twists and the fast-paced reading that could keep a reader’s interest from the beginning to the very end, I would give “Eleven Numbers” a 4.5-star rating. Calling this an “intellectual story” would be an exaggeration, but this is a good, non-violent, creative political thriller short story.
