‘And whose official mail did you intercept?’
‘It came from some government authority or other.’ Yoyo shrugged. ‘The Ministry of Energy or something.’
‘Where exactly?’
‘Wait, it was – it was—’ She frowned and looked defiant. ‘Okay, don’t know.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Jericho looked at her in disbelief. ‘You don’t know who—?’
‘For the love of heaven! It was only a test! Just to see if I could get into it!’
‘And what did you write?’
‘Just something.’
‘Come on! What was it?’
‘I—’ She seemed to chew the sentence a number of times before spitting it out at Jericho’s feet: ‘Catch me if you can.’
‘Catch me if you can?’
‘Am I talking Mongolian? Yesss!’
‘Why that?’
‘Why that?’ she said, copying him. ‘Doesn’t matter. Because I thought it was cool, that’s why.’
‘Very cool. In a test—’
‘Oh, son-of-a-turtle!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘No – one – was – supposed – to – read – it!’
Jericho sighed and shook his head.
‘All right. Go on?’
‘The protocol was set to real time. Stop mail, take out noise, put in own message, encode, pass on, all at the same time. So, I write, and at the same time I notice there’s something in it already! That I haven’t taken out any white noise at all, but some kind of mysterious stuff.’
‘Because someone else was trying to do the same thing as you were.’
‘Yes.’
Jericho nodded. In fairness, he had to admit that Yoyo couldn’t have anticipated this development.
‘But by then the email was already on its way again,’ he said. ‘To the person that the mysterious stuff was meant for. Except that it never got there, because you’d taken it out and swapped it.’
‘Unwittingly.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Imagine this. They’re waiting for some complex, secret information. Instead they read: Catch me if you can.’ Jericho couldn’t help it. He raised his hands in the air and applauded. ‘Bravo, Yoyo. Lovely little provocation. My congratulations.’
‘Oh, fuck you! Of course they immediately worked out that someone had broken in.’
‘And they were prepared.’
‘Yes, unlike me.’ She pulled a sour face. ‘I mean, I don’t know if they’d expected something like that exactly, but their defences work, you have to give them that. Some kind of watchdog program immediately started barking: woof! An extra hub has appeared in the predetermined route, it shouldn’t be there. Grrr, where are our data?’
‘And traced you back?’
‘Traced me back?’ Yoyo gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘They attacked me! They attacked my computer, I don’t know how, it was absolutely terrifying! While I’m still gawping at what I’ve pulled out of the water, I see them starting to download my data. I couldn’t get online quickly enough as they went through my stuff. They knew exactly who I was – and where I was!’
‘Does that mean you don’t have an anonymiser—’
‘I’m not stupid,’ she hissed. ‘Of course I use an anonymiser. But if you’re implementing something completely new and playing around with it, you’re forced to open up your system for a moment. Otherwise the protection tools downstairs would get in your way, that’s what they’re there for.’
‘So you turned various things off.’
‘I had to take that risk.’ Her eyes flashed with fury. ‘I had to be sure we could work like that.’
‘Well, now you know.’
‘Lovely, Mister Brain Box.’ She folded her arms. ‘What would you have done?’
‘One bit at a time,’ said Jericho. ‘First take out the attachment and check it for land mines. Then put my own thing in there. Leave myself the option of cancelling everything before I send it off. And most importantly, don’t put any smug little phrases in there, even if you’ve encoded it as noise a thousand times over.’
‘What’s the point of data transfer that doesn’t make sense?’
‘We’re talking about a test. As long as you don’t know for sure whether your data transfer is safe or not, you’ve got to sound like a communication error. They might have wondered where their message ended up, but it wouldn’t immediately have occurred to them that someone was tapping off their communication.’
She looked at him as if she was thinking of tearing his throat out. Then she spread her arms and let them fall back helplessly by her side.
‘Okay, it was a mistake!’
‘A big mistake.’
‘Could I have guessed, out of all the billions and billions of mails, I would hit on one that had already been infiltrated?’
Jericho looked at her. His rage had flared up for a moment, less about the mistake than about the fact that someone with Yoyo’s experience could have made it. With her complacency, she hadn’t just put her own life on the line. Almost the whole of her group had been killed, and Jericho didn’t feel exactly safe. Then his fury evaporated. He saw the mixture of fear and dismay on her face and shook his head.
‘No. You couldn’t.’
‘So who’s on my case?’
‘Our case, Yoyo, if you’ll forgive me. If I might just remind you about me and my problems.’
She averted her head, looked out at the sea and back at him.
‘Okay. Ours.’
‘Doubtless someone with power. People with money and influence, technically advanced. To be quite honest I doubt that their communication is still at the experimental stage. You’ve tried something out. They’ve been doing it for ages. Just by chance you’re using the same protocol, which allowed each of you to read the other’s data. From that point it gets speculative, but I also believe that they’re influential enough not to be dependent on other people’s emails.’
‘You mean—’
‘Let’s assume they’re sending mails from their own servers. Quite officially. They’re based in public institutions, they can check incoming and outgoing traffic, and pack anything in there as they see fit.’
‘They sound like senior officials.’
‘You think it’s the Party?’
‘Who else? All the Guardians’ operations are – were – directed against the Party. And we have no illusions about it, the Guardians are – were—’
‘—another word for Yoyo.’
‘I was the head. Along with Daxiong.’
‘I know. You mouthed off, which got State security on your back. Since then you’ve tried to find ways of protecting yourself. Second Life, parasite emails. And in the process, without meaning to, you break into a secret data transfer, and your worst fears become reality. There’s something about “coup” and “liquidating” in connection with the Chinese government, and a minute later they’ve tracked you down.’
‘What would you have done in my place?’
‘What indeed?’ Jericho laughed mirthlessly. ‘I’d have got the hell out, just like you did.’
‘That’s comforting.’ She hesitated. ‘So did you – were you on my computer?’
‘Yes.’
Jericho expected another blaze of fury, but she just sighed and looked out at the ocean.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I haven’t been snooping. I’ve just tried to introduce some clarity into the whole business.’
‘Did you get anywhere with the third website?’
‘The Swiss films?’
‘Mm-hm.’
‘Not so far. But there must be something on there. Either you need a separate mask or there’s something we’ve overlooked. At the moment I think it’s about a coup in which the Chinese government was – or will be – involved, and that someone knows too much and that his liquidation is being considered.’