FireWall

for preprogrammed key words or numbers.

'As a security precaution in our organization, we used to spell out certain words over the phone, but now even that has been overtaken by voice recognition. The fact is, Nick, any message sent electronically, anywhere in the world, is routinely intercepted and analyzed by Echelon.

'The processors in the network are known as the Echelon dictionaries.

An Echelon station, and there are at least a dozen of them around the world, contains not only its parent nation's specific dictionary, but also lists for each of the other four countries in the U.K./U.S.A. system. What Echelon does is to connect all these dictionaries together and allow all the individual listening stations to function as one integrated system.

'For years Echelon has helped the West shape international treaties and negotiations in their favor, to know anything from the health status of Boris Yeltsin to the bottom-line position of trading partners. That's serious information to get hold of, Nick. Why do you think we are careful not to use any form of electronic communication? We know that we are tagged by Echelon. Who isn't? Princess Diana's calls were monitored because of her work against land mines Charities like Amnesty International and Christian Aid are listened to because they have access to details about controversial regimes. From the moment Tom started working at Menwith Hill, every fax and e-mail he sent, as well as phone calls, would have been intercepted and checked.

'Those Finns had designed a system to hack into Echelon and piggyback off it. The firewall that Tom breached was their protection around that system, to stop them being detected and traced. They were online last night for the very first time.'

'Trying to do what? Hack into NSA headquarters or something?'

She shook her head slowly, as if in disbelief at their naivete. 'We knew from our sources that their sole objective was to pick up sensitive market information that they could then profit from. All they wanted was to make a few million dollars here and there; they didn't understand the true potential of what they had created.'

'But what has all this got to do with me?' I asked. 'What is Val's offer?'

She leaned even closer, as if we were exchanging words of love. We might as well have been, the way she spoke with such passion.

'Nick, it's very important to me that you understand Valentin's motives. Of course he wants to make money out of this, but more than that, he wants the East eventually to be an equal trading partner with the West, and that is never going to happen as long as ambitious men like him do not have access to commercial information that only Echelon can provide.'

'Ambitious?' I laughed. 'I can think of plenty of other words I'd use before that one to describe ROC.'

She shook her head. 'Think of America a hundred and fifty years ago and you have Russia now. Men like Vanderbilt didn't always stay within the law to achieve their aims. But they created wealth, a powerful middle class, and that, in time, creates political stability. That is how you must see Valentin; he's not a Dillinger, he's a Rockefeller.'

'Okay, Val is businessman of the year. Why didn't he just strike a deal with the Finns?'

'It doesn't work like that. It would have alerted them to what they had, and then they'd have sold it to the highest bidder. Valentin didn't want to take that chance. He was happy for them to make access and try to play the markets while he found out where they were, and got to them before the Maliskia.'

'And the Americans?'

'If you had been successful last night in downloading the program, Valentin would have told the Americans where the house was. They would then have gone in and closed it down without knowing that he also had access to Echelon. Remember what I said in London, that nobody must know?'

Very clever, I thought. Val would have carried on logging on to Echelon, and the West would have slept soundly in its bed.

'But the Americans did know.'

'Yes, but our security was watertight. The only way they could have found out was through Tom.'

Before we got sidetracked into conjecture about who was to blame, there were plenty of other questions I wanted the answers to. 'Liv, why Finland?'

She answered with evident pride. 'We are one of the most technologically minded nations on earth. This country probably won't even have currency by the next generation, everything will be electronic. The government is even thinking of doing away with passports and having our IDs embedded on the SIM cards in our cell phones. We are at the cutting edge of what is possible, as these young men demonstrated. They had the skills to hack into Echelon, even if they lacked the street sense to know what they could really do with it.' She waited as I took a sip of tea. The sandwiches had long gone. 'Any more questions?'

I shook my head. There were many, but they could wait. If she was ready to explain the new proposal to me, I was ready to listen.

'Nick, I have been authorized by Valentin to tell you that the offer of money still stands, but your task has changed.'

'Of course it has. Tom is dead and the NSA have Echelon back.'

Her eyes locked on to mine as she shook her head. 'Wrong, Nick. I didn't want to tell you this until the information was confirmed, but our sources believe the Maliskia have Tom. Unfortunately, we believe they also have the Think Pad This is very disturbing as it still has the firewall access sequence that-'

I fought to keep my composure. 'Tom's alive? Fucking hell, Liv. I've been sitting here drinking the man was dead.'

Her daughter-of-Spock face never changed. 'The Maliskia think he's with the Finns. They naturally assumed?' She waved her hands across the table. 'Remember, they also want access to Echelon.'

'So you want me to get Tom back.'

'Before I tell you the objective, Nick, I must explain a complication.'

A complication? This wasn't complicated enough?

She bent down and lifted her boyfriend's briefcase onto the table. It was dark outside now and Christmas lights twinkled in the marketplace.

Liv opened the case. Inside was a laptop, which she fired up.

I watched as she reached into her coat and brought out a dark blue floppy disk in a clear plastic case. As she inserted the disk I heard the Microsoft sound.

'Here, read this. You need to appreciate the situation completely so you can understand the gravity of the task. I could just tell you all this, but I think you might want confirmation.'

She handed the briefcase over to me, the floppy still loading as the laptop did its stuff before displaying it on the screen.

The disk icon came up on the desktop and I double clicked it.

Adjusting the screen and ensuring that only I could see its contents, I started to read as the group from outside came in and greeted their friends, and lost no time in showing them their purchases of Russian-style fur hats and reindeer-meat salamis.

There were two files on the disk. One was untitled, the other said, 'Read Me First.' I opened it.

I was presented with a Web page from the London Sunday Times, dated July 25 and displaying an article entitled, russian hackers STEAL U.S. WEAPONS SECRETS.

Liv stood up. 'More tea? Food?'

I nodded and got back to the screen as she went to the counter. By now the tourists were a group of six and making enough talk for twelve.

'American officials believe Russia may have stolen some of the nation's most sensitive military secrets,' the article began, 'including weapons guidance systems and naval intelligence codes, in a concerted espionage offensive that investigators have called operation Moonlight Maze.'

The theft was so sophisticated and well coordinated that security experts believed America might be losing the world's first cyberwar.'

The hits against American military computer systems were even defeating the fire walls that were supposed to defend the Pentagon from cyber attack. During one illegal infiltration, a technician tracking a computer intruder watched a secret document be hijacked and sent to an Internet server in Moscow.

Experts were talking of a 'digital Pearl Harbor,' where an enemy exploited the West's reliance on computer technology to steal secrets or spread chaos as effectively as any attack using missiles and bombs.