Location: European Task Force Operations Room, NSA (Fort Meade)
Date: July 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on U.S. intelligence)
The basement of the cryptographic analysis building at Fort Meade was bathed in darkness, lit only by the pale glow of dozens of cathode ray monitors. The air was saturated with the dull hum of cooling systems battling the heat generated by the department's supercomputers.
It had been exactly seven days and nights that the Task Force led by Richard Hayes had been working the IP addresses of the new French servers.
Standing behind the bay window overlooking the engine room, Director Vance watched the analysts with drawn features. He was holding a crushed paper coffee cup in his hand. Hayes joined him, holding a thin backrest under his arm. The senior analyst had purplish dark circles under his eyes and his shirt was wrinkled.
"Tell me you broke through their firewall, Richard," Vance said without looking at him. "The Secretary of Defense is demanding a status report for the White House tonight. He wants to know if we have regained our access to the French army's networks. »
Hayes leaned against the cold window and sighed for a long time.
"Tell the Secretary of Defense to cancel his briefing, sir. Our Crays have been running at one hundred percent of their capacity for one hundred and sixty-eight hours. We've thrown every dictionary attack, brute force routine, and known UNIX flaw on the ports of that damn IMPERATOR server. »
"And the result?"
"Zero," Hayes said with obvious bitterness. "Not a packet intercepted. Not a single byte exfiltrated. The machine rejects our requests with disconcerting ease. Their security protocols have nothing to do with what we know. »
Vance turned to him in disbelief. "It's just an algorithm, Richard! The NSA's computing power is equivalent to that of the rest of the planet combined. Are you going to tell me that a small Parisian supplier has coded a padlock that our mathematicians can't break? »
"This is not a classic padlock, Director. This is the perversity of their system. We must give credit where credit is due: their architect designed an inviolable defence with our current technologies. »
Hayes opened his file and pulled out a network frame record that he handed to his superior. The lines of hex code seemed to have no logical structure.
"The encryption managed by their network chip, the CENTURION, doesn't just use a very long key," the analyst explained, his voice imbued with a professional respect he hated to feel. "It uses dynamic cryptography. The length of the key itself changes randomly every four seconds. »
Vance frowned, studying the paper. "Is it changing length?"
"Yes. At the precise moment when our supercomputers identify the mathematical pattern and are about to force their way through... The padlock changes in shape, size and complexity. It's a finish line that is constantly moving. Trying to enter by brute force is like trying to open an armored door that changes lock with each hammer blow. In the current state of computer physics, breaking into this server would take millennia. »
Silence settled between the two men, covered only by the breath of the air conditioning. Admitting the technological superiority of a foreign target was an absolute anomaly in the corridors of the NSA.
Vance crumpled his cup of coffee and threw it into a metal basket.
"Very well," the director said, his pragmatism taking over. "If the digital door is armored and moving, we stop breaking our teeth on it. We cut off network attacks. How many men do you have on the physical audit of this company? »
"The CIA has put a team from the Paris station on the spot since yesterday. They recovered the customs manifests, the URSSAF files of the Ivry-sur-Seine factory and the declared organizational charts. »
"Perfect. That's where we're going to strike," Vance decided as he walked to the meeting room. "If their technology is so advanced, it's because there's an army of engineers behind it. Brains, silicon, laboratories. We will identify them, profile them, and we will find a human or logistical flaw. »
Hayes followed suit, gathering his documents.
"That's exactly what we're looking for, sir. A network chip capable of handling dynamic cryptography in real time, or a processor like their VESLA-II, is not conceivable in a garage. At Intel or Motorola, teams of a hundred or one hundred and fifty ultra-specialized silicon architects are needed to design such an architecture before sending it to a foundry. »
The analyst opened the door to the briefing room, where two CIA liaison officers were already waiting for them in front of a cork board covered with aerial photographs of the French factory.
"Our new priority is to isolate these hardware engineers," Hayes concludes as he puts his case on the table. "We are going to go through the workforce at Volta down to the last cleaning technician. We will find where Lazare Bonaparte hides his chip designers. »
What neither Hayes, nor Director Vance, nor the NSA computers could conceive in that July of 1989 was the extent of their assumption error. They were about to mobilize millions of dollars and their best agents to hunt down a battalion of genius silicon engineers... that simply did not exist. The mind of a sixty-year-old man, who had returned from the future to draw the complex plans on simple tracing papers in the solitude of his office, was a variable that American algorithms could not calculate.
Location: Task Force Meeting Room, Fort Meade, Maryland
Date: July 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on U.S. intelligence)
The Task Force 's briefing room smelled of cold coffee and blond tobacco. On the back wall, an overhead projector was buzzing, projecting a complex organizational chart onto a white screen.
Agent Cole, a CIA economic intelligence veteran seconded to the NSA, held a black marker in his hand. Facing him, Director Vance and Richard Hayes listened religiously.
"This is Volta S.A., gentlemen," Cole announced, tapping the screen with his marker. "We intercepted all of their tax returns, their URSSAF forms and their personnel registers via a Trojan horse placed in the network of the French Ministry of the Economy. To date, the company has exactly five hundred and fourteen employees. »
Vance nodded. "It's a solid structure. Where are the brains? »
"That's when the numbers become... disturbing," the CIA agent confessed. "Of these five hundred and fourteen people, four hundred and eighty are specialized workers. Welders, fitters, warehouse workers. The Ivry-sur-Seine plant is essentially a state-of-the-art assembly line. They receive components, mount aluminum chassis, assemble motherboards, and package servers. »
"What about the rest?" asked Hayes, his eyes narrowing at the projected names.
"There are thirty-four white-collar workers left," Cole continued. "A dozen for the administration, human resources and sales department, managed by this guy, Alexandre de Vigan. This leaves us with a Research and Development department made up of barely twenty-two engineers. They are led by a certain Karim Belkacem. »
Hayes stood up abruptly, grabbing the file in front of him. He opened it and began scrolling through the profiles of the members of the R&D team that the CIA had compiled. His gaze swept the university courses, the former employers, the specialties.
The senior analyst froze. He reread the cards a second time.
"Cole, there's an error in your data," Hayes said, his voice suddenly strained.
"My data comes directly from the French commercial register, Richard. They are correct. »
"No, it's impossible." Hayes threw the file on the table. "Look at their diplomas. Look at their specialties! Belkacem is a software architect. The others are UNIX experts, C++ developers, and specialists in system algorithms. They are all aces of code. »
Director Vance frowned, not immediately understanding the problem. "So what? They coded a sovereign OS and a dynamic cryptography algorithm. It makes sense that they are good developers. »
"You don't understand, Director," Hayes almost fumed, his scientific mind hurt by the inconsistency. "Code is logic. It's software. But to run this code at this speed, you need a physical medium. We need electronic chips. The VESLA-II processor, the SONG graphics coprocessor, the CENTURION network chip... All of this is hardware engineering. VLSI microelectronics! »
Hayes approached the overhead projector and pointed to the organizational chart.
"At Intel, Motorola or IBM, designing a new hardware architecture requires battalions of circuit designers, thermodynamics specialists, lithography experts... There are hundreds of them per project! However, on Volta S.A.'s payslips, there is no engineer specializing in silicon design. Zero. Not a single hardware architect. »
Silence fell in the meeting room. The hum of the overhead projector suddenly seemed deafening.
Vance looked at Agent Cole. "Cole? Is that correct? »
"Hayes is right, sir," the CIA agent admitted, visibly uncomfortable. "There is no trace of a hardware design team on French soil."
Vance leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands over his stomach. Volta's equation was mathematically wrong. A company could not produce super-powerful electronic chips without the engineers to draw up the plans.
"Good," Vance finally said, his eyes harsh. "Let's think logically. This Lazare Bonaparte is a brilliant kid, that's a fact. It was probably he, along with his team of developers, who designed the software interface and cryptography. But he can't etch silicon by the sheer force of his mind. There must be a design office somewhere."
"A ghost team," Hayes deduced, his eyes shining, believing he finally had a rational lead. "They outsource the hardware design. Bonaparte had to draw the broad theoretical outlines of his processors, and he sent his concepts to a secret laboratory. »
"A French state laboratory?" asked Cole.
"No, the state just turned to Volta to save themselves, they don't have that technology," Vance corrected. "It's private. And probably foreign. Japanese engineers bought at a high price? Soviet defectors hidden in a subsidiary? Or perhaps a clandestine laboratory set up from scratch in Taiwan. »
Hayes felt the adrenaline of the hunt kick in. The digital wall was impenetrable, but the physical logistics still left their mark. Etching masks and silicon wafers were not magically moved.
"That's our new strategy," said Director Vance, standing up. "Forget about network attacks. Forget about Balard's servers. We are going into industrial mode. Cole, I want the CIA to track every dollar that comes out of Volta's accounts. Hayes, put your analysts on the supply chain. »
Vance approached the screen, tapping his finger on the org chart.
"Track the cargo ships, go through the customs slips. Find where they buy their raw silicon. Identify foundries in Asia that are engraving their chips. If we find the manufacturing plant, we'll find the team of ghost engineers who are designing their processors. And when we have found them... they will be bought back, or we will put pressure on the host countries to close their production lines. We are going to suffocate them at the source. »
"Understood, Director," Hayes and Cole replied with one voice.
The NSA and the CIA had just redirected all the striking power of American intelligence to a new target. They would spend millions of dollars, mobilize dozens of agents on the ground in Asia, and sift through mountains of customs documents to track down a clandestine hardware architects' office.
A clandestine office that, tragically for them, existed absolutely nowhere.
No one at Fort Meade could have imagined that the Ivry plant did not need any material specialists. No one could conceive that the plans for VESLA-II were not drawn by an army of Taiwanese engineers, but by a single man, locked in his Parisian office, frantically copying from memory the architectures of his former life, with the help of a simple architect's lamp and a few paper tracing papers.
The ghost hunt had just begun.