The Budapest Protocol, page 21
Natasha walked inside, taking in the grubby decor, boxes of books and rickety furniture. At least he had cleaned up the kitchen, Alex thought. “The nicest bit is the balcony,” he said.
“I’m not here for the views, Alex. What’s going on? It’s eleven o’clock at night. You’ve been beaten up. Kitty told me you think I’m in danger. I tried to call you but your telephone is switched off.”
“It’s not switched off, it’s dead.”
He handed the digital recorder to Natasha. She looked at the machine. “Somebody attacked you for my recorder?”
“It’s not yours.” He showed her the KZX logo on the bottom.
She weighed the machine in her hand. “I dropped mine during the interview. I must have picked up the wrong one. Daintner had the same model, to record Sanzlermann as well.”
“So it’s Daintner’s. That explains it. It’s encrypted. There are two sound files but I can’t open them. And they know about you. The people who attacked me in the Rudas asked if you had it. That’s why I wanted to find you. You may be in danger.”
Natasha shrugged. “I can look after myself. We have another problem.” She opened her bag and took out the USB stick from Sanzlermann’s press pack. “I’m such an idiot. I meant to tell Kitty not to use this. It’s the most basic rule: never, ever put an unknown USB stick in your computer. I went back to the office to get my things and it was still there, in Kitty’s desktop. It’s loaded with a Trojan Horse. You click on the video file for Sanzlermann’s speech and it launches a hidden data extraction programme. I think it’s forwarded the contents of all the computers on our network back to a server in Germany, probably in Munich.”
Alex sat down. “Everything?”
“Every word file, every email, every password.”
“Can we get it back?”
Natasha shook her head. “It’s gone. And even if we got it back, they would have archived and copied all the information by now.”
Alex brought his laptop over to the kitchen table. Natasha looked him up and down. “You look pale. Sit down Alex. I’ll make us some tea,” she said.
He sat down and watched her bustle around the kitchen. It was a long time since a woman had made him anything. Zsofi was even less domesticated than he was. He saw Natasha looking at the photograph of him and Azra on the wall, but sensed that she was determined not to ask about it. She brought two cups of tea to the table. Alex connected his computer to the digital recorder. The software opened, as it had when Alex had first tried to open the encrypted files. Natasha moved the cursor over the graphic buttons and pressed ‘play track 1’. Silence. “Access denied” the screen flashed up. “Enter your password.”
“How can we open it without a password?” asked Alex.
“We use a dictionary attack.”
“A what attack?”
“A programme that uses every word in the dictionary as a potential password, with different number combinations added on. But the recorder may be programmed to shut or wipe the data after several unsuccessful attempts, which would make things much more difficult.” She paused and sipped her tea. “There is another option. I wonder...” she said, reaching for the laptop and turning it towards her. She quickly pressed several keys on the keyboard. A few seconds later the recorder blinked and flashed.
“Try it,” she said, nodding at Alex’s laptop. Two new icons had appeared.
Alex moved the cursor onto an icon and clicked. A familiar console opened, offering play, stop, fast-forward and reverse. He pressed track two and jumped forward to the middle.
“Miss Hatvani, you now have a scoop,” Sanzlermann said. “Our policy now, which I am pleased to make public here, is that everyone in Europe be fingerprinted.”
Natasha pressed pause. “See, he really said that.”
“I know. That’s why we published the story. What was the password?”
She smiled. “Password.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was the default, issued when it was manufactured. The password was still ‘password’. Nobody had changed it. It’s amazing how often that works.”
She pulled her chair closer to the table. “We could be pro-active here.”
“How?”
Natasha took out her laptop from her bag, and a USB stick. “There’s a Trojan horse on this USB stick. The same one that was on Sanzlermann’s. I’ve added a keystroke logger, which records everything he does on his keyboard. The CEO of KZX is Dieter Klindern. We need him or someone whose computer is networked with his to open an email from us with the Trojan Horse and keystroke logger disguised in an attachment. It will then start trawling their archives and send everything back to us, hopefully including Klindern’s system passwords. I’m sure most of his emails go through his secretary. Can you get her name and email address?”
“How do you know all this stuff?” asked Alex.
“My ex-boyfriend was a computer security engineer,” she said lightly. “He taught me.”
Alex was surprised at the pang of jealousy he felt. He reached for his laptop and looked up the KZX website for the telephone number of the headquarters, clicked on his internet telephony programme, and dialled the number. Natasha nodded approvingly. “Good. Internet telephone calls are much harder to trace. You won’t leave a number on their records.”
Alex spoke in brusque, formal German. “Good evening. This is Dr Braun, at the research division of KZX pharmaceuticals. We urgently need to send some information to Dieter Klindern. Yes, I understand you cannot give me his private telephone number. But you can supply me with the name of his secretary and her email address.”
He paused while the guard explained why that would also not be possible.
“Your name is?” Alex snapped. “I will contact your superiors first thing in the morning. I doubt very much you will still be employed by this time tomorrow.”
Alex began scribbling. “Yes, yes. Thank you.”
He turned to Natasha: “muller.gabriella@kzx.de. But won’t she check who sent the email?”
Natasha inserted her USB stick into her laptop. “Of course. I’ll fix it so it look like it comes from dieter.klindern@kzx.de. The subject line will say ‘Your pay and conditions’. She will read that. The email will automatically erase itself from her inbox once it has been opened.”
“How long will it take till you start getting the information back?”
“As soon as she opens the attachment. Hopefully tomorrow morning,” she replied, rapidly typing as she opened and closed a series of windows and programmes.
She sat back. “OK, it’s gone.”
“I’m impressed. Very. Can you get into the Budapest News computers? I’m locked out of the network and there’s a lot of my notes and contacts details there.”
“Didn’t you back them up at home? Or on the web?” Natasha asked.
Alex shook his head. Natasha reached across the table for his laptop. He smelled shampoo and a musky soap.
“I can get your files back. But you must back up your data, offsite. I’ll open a webmail account for you where you can also store documents. What name do you want it in?”
“Mine, I suppose.”
“No. You don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s the whole point. Think of something less obvious. My webmail address is Pushkin2000.”
He looked over at the photograph of Miklos, Ruth and him at Lake Balaton, which now stood on the kitchen window ledge. “Langos1980.”
“That’s cute. I’ll set it up to always use https. The ‘s’ means it’s secure as the emails are encrypted. If you log on from an internet café or from another computer just make sure the address is ‘https://webmail.com’. Then nobody else can read your emails. Not even me.” She turned and smiled tentatively at him. “Unless you are sending them to me. Now you need a password. A mix of letters, numbers and symbols is most secure.”
Natasha looked away as Alex tapped in Miklos-F*1922.
“You have to remember the password each time. Don’t use the autofill option on the browser. How paranoid are you?” she asked, cupping her tea in her hands and sipping.
“After today, very,” he said, enjoying the slow thaw in the atmosphere.
“The best way to send an anonymous message is to go to an internet café and use newspaper websites to forward articles on. You can attach a note to the article with a fake name. You don’t need to give a sender’s email address, just the recipient’s. But it has to be quite short.”
Alex smiled knowingly. “But what if the newspaper website wants you to register? Then you wouldn’t be anonymous.”
“Good. Now you’re thinking. Register with a false name and personal details, or go to a website which has free log-ons for websites that require registration. If the newspaper website sends you an email with a link to confirm your registration, use a disposable email address.” She paused and stared at Alex. “Why didn’t you tell me you had been sacked?”
“You didn’t give me a chance.”
She blushed. “Sorry. I was upset.” She looked down at her cup. “Haven’t you got something stronger than tea?”
Alex stood up to fetch a bottle of wine. Things were definitely looking up, he thought, when the doorbell rang. He groaned inside. It was almost midnight. There was only one person who came over at midnight. He didn’t move. The doorbell rang again and again.
Natasha gathered up her coat and bag. “You’ve got another visitor. A very persistent one. Don’t worry, I’m going,” she said, the warmth in her voice rapidly evaporating.
Alex got up and opened the door. Zsofi stood there with a bunch of flowers. She gasped when she saw him and threw her arms around him. Natasha appeared as Alex tried to disentangle himself. Zsofi stared at her and held tighter onto Alex. He opened his mouth to try and explain to Natasha, but the sinking feeling in his stomach told him there was nothing he could say.
“Have a nice evening, Alex,” Natasha said coldly, and walked out.
It took Alex twenty minutes to get rid of Zsofi. Seeing Natasha in his flat seemed to make her even more determined and amorous. This time he gathered her belongings – toothbrush, make-up and a few clothes – packed them in a bag and guided her out of the front door.
By now Alex was exhausted, but he realised that he had not yet played the first track. The recording quality was less clear. There was much more hissing and background noise, as though it was being made surreptitiously.
The familiar tones of Attila Hunkalffy sounded through the speakers: “I think you should stop worrying. Interior Minister Zirta has promised that the police investigation will be quietly wound down. Miklos Farkas is gone. The case will soon be closed.”
Alex clicked on the pause button. He sat still for several seconds. Had he heard correctly? He felt nauseous and his hand was shaking. Who was Hunkalffy talking to?
The recording moved on. Rattling cups, things being moved around the table. The voices faded and were drowned out. He turned up the volume.
“...think he knew the plan. The Directorate is very concerned. If he had told his grandson, the journalist,” he heard Frank Sanzlermann say.
More rustling, the clink of china and cutlery. Sanzlermann again. “Maybe we should take care of him as well.”
Alex clicked the pause button again. Him? Him is me, he thought. Anger turned to fear. What if the flat was bugged? Then they would know that he was listening to the recording. Maybe they would really try and ‘take care of him’. Alex walked around his flat, and checked that all the windows and the door were properly locked. Zoran, Mubarak’s security adviser, had that afternoon installed an impressive new deadbolt lock on the front door, that shot steel bars in four directions, straight into the wall. Even a hand-grenade could not blow the door off now, he promised Alex, before offering to sell him one for twelve euros. Alex had declined, but had accepted a pepper spray.
Alex plugged his headphones into the recorder. Hunkalffy, this time. “Frank, Frank, we can’t go around ‘taking care’ of everyone inconvenient. Alex Farkas is a foreign national, and a reporter. It would look pretty suspicious if he ‘had an accident’ so soon after his grandfather died. There would be questions, unwelcome publicity, embassies would be involved.”
“Ja, ja, you are right,” Sanzlermann said.
The discussion moved onto tactics in the election campaign, and a breakdown of the latest opinion polls, before Sanzlermann spoke again. “Update me please on the Roma Reduction Programme,” he said.
“Initial trials of the drug Czigex have proved very effective,” said an unknown voice with a thick Mittel-European accent. “Czigex is based on research carried out by German scientists in 1943 and 1944. It is the first genetically engineered, racially profiled drug in the world. We are medical pioneers. Slovak authorities have proved very cooperative. So much so that they wanted to extend the programme to the whole country immediately, although we have persuaded them that a slow, steady expansion will bring much greater benefits in the long term. Of course we are meeting some resistance from so-called human rights groups, troublemakers and the Roma themselves. But we have also been greatly aided by the disorganisation and factional infighting of Roma organisations, if that phrase is not a contradiction in terms,” the voice continued to guffaws.
Alex put the recorder down, feeling shaken. Virgil’s voice echoed in his head: “Not with the killing rooms, but with pills.” He rewound to Sanzlermann saying: ‘...think he knew the plan. The Directorate is very concerned. If he had told his grandson, the journalist.” What was the Directorate, and what plan was Sanzlermann talking about? Was there more than Czigex? Other plans? Maybe that was why he had been attacked in the Rudas.
It was nothing to do with the KZX digital recorder. They wanted the ‘plan’, whatever it was, and thought Alex had it. Had Miklos known about the ‘Directorate’? But then why hadn’t he just told Alex? Perhaps because the information was too dangerous. Or because he knew that Alex would start digging and put them both in danger. Alex smiled as he remembered how Miklos loved to quote one of Henry Kissinger’s aphorisms: “The presence of paranoia does not prove the absence of plots.’ Alex stopped smiling. Or perhaps Miklos had been about to tell Alex everything. Which was why he had been killed.
“Try and be a little bit Hungarian,” Kitty Kovacs had once advised him. “Think laterally.” All he had was the testimony that he had found in Miklos’ book about the Soviet Union, Seventy years of Progress. The book lay on the coffee table. Alex picked it up, and flicked through to the title page. The word Seventy was underlined. It was now 2009. Seventy years ago was 1939. What had happened in 1939? The Second World War had started. Alex’s heart beat faster and goose pimples rippled up and down his arm. Was Miklos telling him that there was some kind of link between 1939 and 2009? Or that seventy was significant? He grabbed Miklos’ testimony and counted down to the seventieth line: “...his face, well illuminated by the flickering Flame of a nearby candle, looked as though it contained a terrible secret hidden under the surface.”
The letter ‘F’ in the word flame was in capitals. A mistake, or a hidden meaning? But what – only a candle could reveal the truth? A secret hidden under the surface? Alex picked up the folio. He ran his fingers over the cheap grey paper. He held it up to the light. Nothing visible. He read line seventy once more; the flickering Flame of a nearby candle. What if the paper had been treated, and there was something under the surface, which needed the heat of a flame, or a candle, to release it? He looked around the flat, his excitement rising. He didn’t have any candles. The lamp. Light bulbs released heat. He removed the shade from his reading lamp, and held the paper over the bulb. The paper warmed. Shadows formed, which slowly became letters.
* * *
Natasha lived with her mother on Rottenbiller Street, in the unfashionable part of District VII. She arrived home just after midnight to find an ambulance outside the entrance. She sprinted up the stairs to their second floor flat. The front door was open and the lock was hanging out from the splintered wood. She dropped her bag and rushed into the lounge. A paramedic tended to her mother, as she sat in her wheelchair, smiling bravely when she saw her daughter. Books covered the polished parquet floor, the antique dining chairs and table had been upended, plants emptied and their earth tipped out over the Persian rugs. A tall blond man, well dressed in corduroys and an expensive overcoat, walked around the flat, taking notes and photographs. Natasha rushed to her mother and hugged her slight frame.
The paramedic closed his blood pressure meter and turned to Natasha. “We’d like to take her in overnight, but she refuses. It was chloroform. She’ll feel a bit woozy, but she should be fine tomorrow. Her heart is steady and her blood pressure is OK. Keep her warm.”
Irina held Natasha’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’m just shaken up. Two men pushed their way in. They had ski masks and put something over my mouth. I passed out. But nothing seems to be missing. I called the police when I woke up.” The tall man walked over and shook Natasha’s hand. He had buzz cut blond hair and inquisitive blue eyes behind fashionable rimless glasses.
“Can I see some identification, please?” Natasha asked.
He handed her his warrant card: Captain Jozsef Hermann, Criminal Intelligence.
“Does the criminal intelligence department normally concern itself with burglaries?”
“In this case, yes, Miss Hatvani.”
* * *
Alex poured himself some more coffee. It was almost dawn but sleep was impossible. He picked up Miklos’ testimony and read through the hidden text again, its letters faint on the other side of the thin paper.
My dearest grandson,
I am almost certain that if you are reading this, I will be dead. How strange to be writing such a sentence. Clever of you to remember how I always told you to keep the book about ‘Seventy years of the Soviet Union’ and its achievements, as a ‘family heirloom’. But you were always a clever boy. (And I hope you don’t mind that I used the most common ‘homemade’ invisible ink to write this!) I will be dead because Nazism was defeated militarily, but the Third Reich never truly died. It metamorphosed into the Fourth.
