Mike said, “Nicholas, can I speak to you privately for a moment?” He followed her into the hall. “What’s the matter?”
“Listen, I think Melinda could be of serious use. She has connections, she knows people, she has influence, she operates in a different sphere than we do, than your father does. More brains on the problem, Nicholas. Let’s bring her in, have her help us from a different angle.”
“My father will never allow it.”
“I disagree. She’s outside of MI5 but still a part of the government. Plus, she’s in all the major intelligence briefings anyway, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but—”
“Nicholas, if England’s highest communications are compromised, we need someone on the outside whose aren’t.”
She’d hit him with a brilliant stroke of logic. He folded his tent. “All right, I’ll ask, but I think it’s a moot point. My father is a spy at heart. He’s going to want to keep this as close to the vest as possible.”
“Let’s go ask him and see.”
When they went back into the living room, Ben, Melinda, and Harry were speaking, their heads together. Harry looked up and said, “I’ve been telling them what’s going on, from the assassinations to the drone attack on you two this morning to MI5 and MI6 being compromised. I believe Melinda is uniquely positioned to be of service to us. She’s agreed to help, and I’ve accepted.”
Who knew your father could surprise you?
Melinda said, “This is incredible. I’ll do whatever I can to help end this situation.”
Mike asked, “Infiltration or leak, Melinda?”
“Infiltration, without a doubt.” She shuddered. “And it makes it all the more dangerous.”
Harry said, “But we are the British government and have much higher security standards than average. Plus, as far as I know, we’ve avoided being hit with any malware attacks. When the WannaCry attack happened, we doubled our security, layered in new programs to assure our firewalls would hold.”
“New programs from where, Father?”
“Radulov Industries, of course. Roman Ardelean himself was in the office last week setting it up. I’m confident no one else can get in and get any information.”
Mike whistled. “There’s no doubt Radulov is the best cybersecurity firm in the world. I doubt there is a computer in the world that doesn’t have some form of Radulov software on it, primarily MATRIX. Even so, the hackers behind WannaCry managed to get through. What did Mr. Ardelean have to say about his systems being hacked?”
“Roman suspected the entire ransomware attack was based in human error,” Harry said. “He claims his software systems and security firewalls are impenetrable from hackers—if used properly. There’s the caveat—he can’t control what happens once the end user has his MATRIX operating system on their machines. He pointed out the industries and companies who were affected by this latest attack hadn’t updated to the current version of the MATRIX operating system, leaving themselves open to attack.”
Mike said, “I know MATRIX releases weekly updates to stay on top of any and all threats. But here’s the question: Even if someone inside opened something they shouldn’t have, the antivirus programs should have kicked in. Yet they didn’t.”
Harry said, “But after a thorough check, Roman couldn’t find any evidence of an intrusion. And of course, we are religious about our updates.”
Mike watched Nicholas drum his fingers on the coffee table, knew he was writing some code in his head. For his visit to MI5 tomorrow?
Melinda asked, “If MI5 and MI6 were infiltrated, wouldn’t it stand to reason other branches of Her Majesty’s government have been compromised, as well? And Parliament?”
Nicholas stopped his phantom typing, rubbed his thumb in the dent of his chin. “Possible, yes. Father, when Adam and I come to your offices to do a full break-in assessment, we’ll make certain you’re now as safe as possible. I think it would be helpful to have the great man himself there again to run us through the setup. Perhaps Adam and I will see something he’s missed.”
Harry looked up to see Nigel at the door. “I can arrange for it, certainly.” He rose. “Now, let’s have dinner, and, Ben, you can tell us more about the Voynich manuscript.”
Over Cook Lattimer’s braised beef tips, prepared in the French way, with asparagus and crunchy rolls, Ben said, “All this talk of the drone attacks made me remember when Melinda and I left the museum today, I spotted a drone overhead. Melinda thought it was Scotland Yard’s, but now, I’m not so sure.”
Nicholas and Mike snapped to attention. Nicholas leaned forward. “Describe it, please, Ben—big, small? Was it marked? All of Scotland Yard’s drones are clearly marked.”
“No markings. It was tiny. Like a mini helicopter. Or maybe the size of a mutant Jurassic Park dragonfly. Small enough I wouldn’t have noticed it if it didn’t fly right over my head. I heard the whirring and looked up.”
Nicholas hated this, but he had to consider someone was watching Ben, as well. Perhaps Melinda? He said slowly, “Mike, we need to identify who owns these drones, right now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Voynich manuscript: Described as a magical or scientific text, nearly every page contains botanical, figurative, and scientific drawings of a provincial but lively character, drawn in ink with vibrant washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue, and red.
—Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
British Museum
Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury
London
Roman Ardelean presented his credentials—Dr. Laurence Bruce’s credentials—to the security desk at the British Museum.
Dr. Bruce looked the part of the scholar—glasses, longish brown hair, a thick beard and mustache, and a rather ugly brown tweed suit. Radu had created a perfect legend, a full identity, education, history. They’d even gone so far as to publish papers on the various “manuscripts” Dr. Laurence Bruce studied.
Dr. Bruce’s published papers were computer-generated by a sophisticated AI program created by Radu. His program used modern language skills built into a hand-coded system designed specifically to do contextual analyses of rare manuscripts, cryptography, and history, then used the information to generate scholarly papers. The papers and their theories were as fake as a green sunset but real enough to fool the various places they’d successfully published. Bogus research was a well-known problem in the academic field, but Roman wasn’t worried. Radu would stay ahead of it. He was that brilliant.
Dr. Laurence Bruce had a moderately respected reputation, one built entirely online by Radu. He and Radu had been nothing if not thorough. They had contacts all over the world in antiquities departments in museums, universities, and private endeavors. Dr. Bruce was known for being a bit different but harmless, and smart enough. And no one doubted he was completely dedicated to the Voynich—indeed, he was passionate about it. When it was necessary to move in the open, Roman pulled on Dr. Bruce’s ugly tweed suit, pasted on a beard, and topped his head with a wig, letting it settle in until it fit him like a second skin.