‘What kind of a computer?’ he said swallowing a couple of litres of oxygen.
‘A Paradigm Five,’ she answered.
‘And the operating system?’
‘The European Community Data Network.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘Shit,’ he said wearily. ‘They’ve not long finished installing it. Where’s the breach?’
‘The Brain Research Institute. The Lombroso computer.’
‘Yes, I thought I did hear something about that.’
‘Yeah, well keep it under your toupee. The Home Office is pretty touchy about the whole thing. I want your man to tell me whether the breach came from the inside or the outside.’
‘Who’s their bod?’
Jake spread the PC open on her lap and consulted the file.
‘Doctor Stephen St Pierre,’ she said. ‘Know him?’
Cormack grunted. ‘St Pierre was formerly the head of computer security in the British Army,’ he said.
‘And?’
Cormack rocked his head from side to side as if deliberating which side to come down on. At the same time Jake crossed her legs. After a few seconds of vacuuming the sight of Jake’s underwear onto his retinas, Cormack pursed his lips and said, ‘Basically he’s all right. If he does have a fault it’s that he’s too literal. Tends to sound as if he writes computer manuals in his spare time. Trouble is that most computer crime these days is committed by people with rather more imagination than you could find evidence for in any system manual.’
‘Army security, eh?’ Jake typed a note onto the file. ‘How long?’
‘Five years. Went into the army straight from Cambridge.’
‘College?’
‘I believe it was Trinity. He read classics.’
‘So where does the interest in grey goods come from?’
‘Computers? Oh, his father worked for IBM.’ Cormack smiled. ‘That’s something we have in common.’
‘Your father too?’
‘No. Me actually. I used to design business software. Accounts packages, that kind of thing.’
‘Interesting,’ said Jake.
‘Not really. That’s why I joined the Met. To catch electronic burglars.’
‘The Lombroso people were pretty stiff about the suggestion that anyone could have broken into their system. But they were just as stiff about the idea of an inside job. What do you think? Is it possible, from the outside?’
‘Twenty years ago, when the UK Government installed the Government Data Network specification on all departmental computers, they thought it was impregnable. But within five years, the system was revealed to have more holes than a Russian condom. You see, systems are designed by people, and people are sometimes fallible, and sometimes corrupt. If you could eliminate the human element of the equation altogether then you could probably make a system that was completely secure.’ He shrugged. ‘The most probable case-scenario here? Someone was careless. Probably they change the password every day at this Brain Research Institute. Well that’s a double-edged sword. On one level it makes it difficult for someone to work out what the password could be by process of elimination. But it also makes it difficult for the people who work there to remember. Maybe someone writes the word down. Maybe he asks someone else to remind him. In this way an unauthorised person might catch sight of or overhear the password. And then he’s in. It could be that simple.’
Cormack lit a small cigar. Smoking was forbidden anywhere in the building, but with the door shut, nobody was likely to make a fuss about it except Jake herself and Cormack knew that so long as she was asking favours from his department she would not object to it.
‘Of course, having got into the system he then has to understand its language. He’d need a protocol analyser.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A protocol is a set of rules. An analyser is a portable device with its own miniature screen and keyboard. Looks much like that computer on your lap. Bigger maybe. This examines the target system’s telephone line or the port itself and carries out tests to see which of the hundreds of datacomm protocols are in use. A good one, fully digital, will handle asynchronous or synchronous transmissions. Some of them even have dedicated hacker’s software to make the whole process even easier.’
Jake was relieved when the intercom on Cormack’s desk buzzed noisily. Technical explanations like this one left her feeling short of air. Cormack stabbed the answer button as if it was a midge which had been irritating him.
‘Detective Sergeant Chung, sir,’ said a voice. ‘You said to buzz you.’
‘Yat, I want you to come up to my office,’ he said, so loudly that he hardly seemed to require an intercom at all. ‘Someone I want you to meet.’
Cormack released the button and pointed the same finger at Jake.
‘Just a word or two about Yat,’ he said, frowning. ‘He’s a bit of a grumpy bastard. Like most Hong Kong Chinese, he’s had a pretty rough time of it. Came here when he was a kid, when the colony folded. But — well you know what I’m talking about.’
Jake who still remembered watching the whole tragic affair on television knew very well what Cormack was talking about. The return of the colony to Communist China had been achieved with a spectacular degree of inefficiency and injustice. At the same time, Jake hated the idea of having to persuade people to do what they were supposed to do anyway. She didn’t much care to tiptoe round the feelings of people who thought that their sex or race gave them special privileges. New Scotland Yard was full of that kind of bullshit.
‘I’m sure we’ll get on just fine,’ she said coolly. ‘Just as long as he gives me his best work.’
It never seemed to rain anymore, thought Jake as the police car taking her and Yat Chung to the Brain Research Institute crawled slowly along the dusty streets. Here it was, the middle of winter and the previous summer’s water-rationing was still in force. In some parts of southern England they had been taking their water from stand-pipes for over five years now. She wondered what the slight little man sitting beside her thought about it. He lived near Reading, in the centre of the main drought area. After living in Hong Kong, he was possibly used to taking water from a communal tap. She wondered if he would have laughed at the suggestion. Considering the matter a second time she thought it seemed unlikely that he would have laughed at all. Cormack had not exaggerated about Yat Chung’s temperament. He seemed to possess a temper that was the equal of any of three killers Jake had helped send into punitive coma.
‘I don’t believe this fucking country,’ he snarled as once more the car came to a halt. It had taken them fifteen minutes to drive fifty metres.
‘What don’t you believe about it?’
‘Fucking traffic for one thing,’ he said, hardly looking at her.
‘Yeah, well we’d have walked but for all your computer equipment. It’s not like this place is very far away.’
‘Fucking people for another.’
Furious at something, he jerked his head in the direction of an enormous crowd of people who were waiting to get on a bus.
‘Look at them all. Why doesn’t someone do something?’
‘It wasn’t always this bad,’ Jake said drily. ‘I remember a time when life in this city was really quite tolerable.’
‘Yeah? When was that then?’