Chapter 7 – Of knights and pawns

- "First, tell me: what do you know about cryptography?"

In a small office at the British embassy, James Bond was bending over Sára's shoulder, trying to decipher the meaning of some cabbalistic lines on the screen in front of her. He sighed, taking a chair and sitting beside her, and admitted :

- "Not much, I'm afraid. Can you explain me the gist of what you've discovered?"

- "OK... The purpose of Mercurius is to create a new cryptographic protocol. Such protocols consist in fact in a combination of what we call cryptographic primitives, that is algorithms with basic properties, like hash functions, block ciphers, trapdoor permutations, etc. We more or less implicitly rely on the security of the primitives themselves, but a poor design in the combination of these primitives results in a vulnerability of the protocol. If you think of the protocol as a wall, the primitives are the bricks, and if the bricks are full of holes you'll have a nice wall, but completely useless. Does that make sense to you?"

- "Yes, go on."

- "Basically, Michael and Lenka were in charge of this combination process. As I was almost done with sorting out their files, I decided to give their work a last examination before wrapping up the final report. And then something struck me... I felt uneasy with some parts of their design. I decided to engage a quick verification process, and I discovered a severe vulnerability, due to an error in the combination scheme of the primitives. I'll spare you all the details, but I found this quite weird: it felt like this error had been intentionally hidden..."

- "So you think these results were forged? You think someone could have introduced this error in Michael and Lenka's work? But it is also possible that they simply made some mistakes, and didn't have the time to correct them, isn't it?"

- "It could have been a possibility, even if it would have been surprising coming from researchers of their calibre. But I have further evidence that some of the files have been forged. You know that every computer file has some properties giving its creation or modification date and time? Well, these properties can be changed quite easily with some techniques. I discovered the modification dates of these files have been changed, but fortunately whoever did it was not a total computer geek: he forgot to change the creation date." She had been speaking in a neutral, professorial voice, but when she turned her face to his and looked straight in his eyes, her emotion was visible. "James, all the files introducing this vulnerability in the Mercurius protocol have been created after Michael and Lenka were killed. Someone sabotaged their work."

Bond let the news sink. So finally, there was more to that case than the sloppy job of a handful of low-grade criminals trying to make easy money with data they didn't even understand...

- "Do you think the people who did that wanted to sabotage Mercurius? To delay the project?"

She shook her head with assurance:

- "No. They would have simply destroyed the files. I think whoever did this planned to exploit the vulnerability introduced in the protocol. It would have been a piece of cake for them: a terrible vulnerability lying there, hidden, and waiting for its creator to use it and take over any system implementing Mercurius..."

- "But there was an other phase, the implementation study. Wouldn't you have discovered this anyway?"

- "No. The implementation study is based on the protocol design. If the protocol design is bug ridden, then so will be the implementation. We depend on each other's work. This could have been discovered at last, but certainly after a long time, during which the hacker who created the vulnerability would have been almighty..."

Bond rose and took a few steps in the office, mentally trying to quickly sort out the possibilities. The Mercurius protocol was not intended for military use, which excluded some hypothesis. It was meant to be used for securing bank to bank transfers, stock exchange operations and so on... Whoever would have been in control of a vulnerability in Mercurius could have had a detailed inside knowledge of all economic activity in Europe and beyond. London, Paris, Frankfurt, all the major stock exchange would have been at his mercy. The hackers could have had a simple digital bank robbery in mind, but this could also be a large scale economic intelligence operation... For this was no amateur job: the mastermind behind this plan had had enough knowledge of intelligence services to be able to manipulate them... Now, Bond could see clearly that the MI6 had been manipulated: the sloppy job of Dobroski and his gunmen made sense, someone had arranged for them clumsily stealing the Mercurius data and leaving ridiculously obvious breadcrumbs. Someone who wanted MI6 to trace the data, find it back with some files discreetly modified, use it to finalize the protocol without seeing the proverbial worm in the apple, and finally 'clean the place', erasing any lead from the Dobroski gang. And he, MI6 agent 007, had been a mere pawn on this chessboard of a plan! But Dobroski, at least, could provide a valuable lead... Bond dialled his phone and launched a secure line. He went through the identification routine with the MI6 operator and waited to be put through to the duty officer.

- "Agent 007 speaking. This is a code 14 call. I need to talk to the people in charge of interrogating Pjeter Dobroski immediately."

- "One moment please." There was a pause, and after a long minute the duty officer continued. "Hold on, please. I'll put you through to the Chief of staff."

This in itself was not a standard routine, and Bond felt a bad presentiment when he heard the familiar voice of Bill Tanner, the Chief of Staff and his best friend in the Office.

- "Good evening, James. What about Dobroski?"

Bond gave him an outline of what Sára had discovered, his impressions of a wider economic intelligence plan than what was feared, and explained how Dobroski was their only lead to the mastermind who had managed to manipulate the Service. When he was finished, Tanner observed a pause, then made a short sigh:

- "In this case, James, I have very bad news. Pjeter Dobroski is dead."

Bond gritted his teeth. Too late...

- "What happened?"

- "We interrogated him for two days, then handed him back to the Czech police. We have been told he had a heart attack this afternoon, and died before reaching the hospital. That's all we know at the moment."

- "A very convenient death... Looks like the old KGB methods are still in fashion. Could he have been easily poisoned?"

- "I guess so. He was a simple common law prisoner there, as far as I know he wasn't in isolation. It would have been an easy job."

- "I see... I'll get in touch with Šlesinger to try and find any other possible lead." After a second of reflection, he added: "Bill, I have the feeling we are faced with very serious and professional people. Dr. Kiss has been involved, and I think she may be in danger. Could you send an outfit to protect her in Budapest?"

- "Wait a minute..." Bond heard Tanner's fingers hammering swiftly on a keyboard. "That's fine, I have three men available within a two hour's reach by car. I'll send them immediately. I'll order them to report to our military attaché in Budapest, as soon as they arrive, so that you have total freedom of movement. Colonel Nigel Cowley, if memory serves me? Can you brief him about the protection of Dr. Kiss?"

- "I'll see to that. Cowley is a good man, I'm sure he'll handle the situation perfectly. Thank you, Bill. I'll report as soon as I find something new."

- "Sure! Typical you," Tanner exclaimed with a short, weary laugh. "Good luck, James. Take care."

- "Thanks Bill. Goodbye."

Bond looked at Sára. Her grave face was turned to him.

- "Do you mean it, James? Do you really think I'm in danger?"

- "It's just a precaution. By the way, when you called me, did you use a phone line of the embassy?"

She first looked startled, then a flicker of fear crossed her face.

- "No... No, I used my mobile phone... Your number was in memory... I'm sorry..."

Cursing inside, he waved it off as carelessly as he could.

- "Never mind. Look, here is what we are going to do now: you've had a long day and did a good job today, you deserve some rest. I need to pass some phone calls to fix things, it won't be long. As soon as I'm finished, we'll go to your flat together, and I'll wait for the protection team with you. Then, I must leave and tie up the loose ends of this case."