CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Nicholas grinned at Ben. “I was wondering when you and Melinda would cross our path. You will stay to dinner, of course. Melinda, you know my father, and this is my partner, Agent Mike Caine, New York FBI.”
Harry hugged Melinda, kissed her cheek. “I am so very sorry about your mother, Melinda. Her death hit us all very hard.”
“Thank you. I—it’s difficult.”
“How ever did you meet an FBI agent from New York?”
“A very long story, sir.”
Harry turned to the young man whose hair was nearly the exact shade of red as Melinda’s. He looked bright, fit, all in all, a nice-looking young man. “I recognized your name. You’re part of my son’s and Michaela’s Covert Eyes, aren’t you?”
Ben nodded. “Yes, but this trip wasn’t business. I’m here on vacation.”
“I hope Melinda is showing you all the tourist sites.”
Ben considered saying he hadn’t come to London to see the Tower of London but to hook up with a member of Parliament, but he thought better of it. “Well, sir, there hasn’t been that much time as of yet and . . .” He stalled.
Melinda grinned, curse her, and said, “Ben is Covert Eyes’ resident art historian, isn’t that right, Ben?”
“Ah, yes, that’s perfectly correct.”
“I’ve been taking him to all the museums this week. This morning we were at the British Museum.” A lie here, the truth there, a little of each.
Ben lit up. “Melinda set it up, without telling me, a big surprise. It was a press conference, given by a cryptologist at the museum who’d happened to find missing pages from the Voynich manuscript buried in among the archives. She said quite a lot—” He looked over at Melinda. “I don’t think my MP here believed she was on the up-and-up entirely.”
“No, I didn’t, but that’s neither here nor there.”
Ben squeezed her shoulder, couldn’t help himself. “Well, Melinda knows the director of the antiquities department, Dr. Wynn-Jones, so we were able to see the discovered quire and the long-lost page seventy-four. It was remarkable.”
Melinda added, “Dr. Wynn-Jones was a teacher of mine. Believe me, he was thrilled to show off this astonishing discovery to Ben, a big honcho FBI agent from New York. Nicholas, why are you frowning?”
“Well, there’s something odd about this. Ben, you were in on the investigation when the Voynich was stolen from the Beinecke last year, right?”
“Yes, I was. We were unable to discover the thief—well, actually, we didn’t find out anything useful. The case, of course, remains open. At the press conference today, the professor who found the missing quire and page seventy-four begged the thief to come forward, to reunite the pages to the manuscript.” Ben added, “Now I think about it, maybe you’re right, Melinda. It is very odd this young cryptologist just happened upon these missing pages. I think I should see where Dr. Isabella Marin was last year when the Voynich was stolen.”
Mike said, “You have a beautifully devious mind, Ben, I’ve always thought so, and to see it in action—”
“Yes,” Melinda said, her voice complacent, “he does have quite an astounding brain, doesn’t he?”
Nicholas said, “Yes, absolutely astounding and I’d like to put it to good use, if you can find the time, Ben. And if you’re willing to do some work on your vacation.”
“We need your help, Ben,” Mike said.
Melinda said, “We come over to say hello, and now you want to work him to the bone on his first vacation in too long a time?”
Ben, whose eyes had already begun to shine, smiled down at her. “Not quite to the bone. Sure, Nicholas, Mike, what’s going on?”
Melinda held up a hand, her mother’s ruby ring on her index finger. “If you want Ben, you have to include me, as well. We are both on vacation, and we are a matched set. No, don’t you dare shake your head, Nicholas. I helped you solve two serious crimes only weeks ago.”
Nicholas’s head was still shaking. “No, Melinda, not this time.”
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.”