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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 confid
ent 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.”
