They ended their brief tour at a hawker food center — a kind of mini mall for Singapore street food.
“Our national pastime is eating,” Lian explained, standing in front of one of dozens of stalls. “Food is one of our many national treasures, and hawker food is the most famous of all.”
Lian indulged in a bowl of spicy fish-head curry. Paul’s appetite wasn’t whetted by the black eyes and sharp teeth of the fish head swimming in red sauce, so he opted for a plate of chicken and rice at a different vendor, and Jack went a few stalls down to find a skewer of glistening chicken satay — spicier and sweeter than he’d had in his favorite Thai restaurant back in Alexandria.
They slurped and chewed as they sat together on a plastic picnic table, surrounded by the high-pitched babble of animated Singlish and a dozen Asian and European dialects in the food center crowded with tourists. Jack failed to notice a Bulgarian and a German standing far back in the milling crowd, their attention focused on Paul Brown.
“So you got everything put back in order at your place?” Lian had avoided the subject until now.
“Yes, but we’re still waiting to hear from that lieutenant about the identity of the anonymous caller,” Jack said. “I’m sure he knows how to trace a call.”
“I hope you’re not waiting for an apology. Our police force takes drug offenses quite seriously. They felt they were doing their duty.”
“Even though they were wrong?”
“Being wrong sometimes comes with the job, doesn’t it?” She took another bite of curry. “Now that you’ve had time to think about it, who do you suppose made the call?”
Jack shook his head. “It’s either someone’s idea of a joke or it was somebody who wanted to get rid of us.”
“I promise you it wasn’t someone from Dalfan.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Lian blinked, processing. “I suppose I can’t be absolutely sure, can I?”
“I don’t want to risk offending you, but I have to ask: There’s no chance it was your brother who did this?”
Lian nearly spat out her curry. “Yong? No way! Not his style.”
Jack’s phone vibrated in his pocket. “Excuse me.” He pulled it out and answered as he began to step away from the table. “Gavin — thanks for calling. What did you find out?”
Paul pretended he didn’t hear Jack say Gavin’s name as he moved away, but Paul’s round face flushed with concern. Why is Jack talking to Gavin?
Those photos you sent of the security guards — or whatever they are — came up a big fat zero,” Gavin said.
“Nothing?”
“Nada. I broke into a few official databases where you are and I didn’t get any hits. OSINT didn’t yield anything, either. I’d say their identities were scrubbed.”
“Clandestine service?”
“That’s as good a guess as any.”
“But who? Why?”
“I’ve given you all I’ve got. Sorry.”
“Keep digging, will you? And while you’re at it, I need another favor.”
“Sure.”
“Can you hack the Singapore Police Force cloud server?”
Gavin sniffed. “Okay, now you’re just being insulting. What do you need me to find?”
“I’ll let you know.”
41
As promised, Lian delivered Paul and Jack back at Dalfan by three o’clock, just in time for their appointment on the fourth floor with the head of the department, Dr. Melvin Heng.
Unlike the other two research floors, this one was nearly as quiet as a library, with no sounds other than the click of keyboards and soft whispers between computer stations. Several of the young coders wore thickly padded noise-reduction headphones, heads bobbing to unknown rhythms as they attacked their keyboards.
Dr. Heng led them to his own small office. “Coffee? Tea? Anything to drink?”
“We just ate, thank you,” Jack said, as he and Paul took their seats.
Heng took the seat at his desk, brushing his long, graying hair behind his ear. “I apologize that my floor isn’t as interesting or fun as the other two research departments. It’s almost like a funeral parlor in here, but the silence is more conducive to our efforts. How may I serve you?”
“As you know, we’re here conducting a very informal audit in order to sign off on a final document that will complete the merger contract between your company and Marin Aerospace.”
Heng smiled. “We’re very excited about the merger, especially the senior management.”
“Senior management stands to profit handsomely,” Paul said.
“The beauty of capitalism.”
Paul pushed on. “Is that why you left your research post with the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University?”
“Technically, I retired from the CQT in order to start the department here.”
“Your research specialty was quantum cryptography.”
“Precisely. That’s the reason why Dr. Fairchild hired me. Is there a problem?”
“Not at all. We’re just trying to get the big picture. Along those lines, we’ve been sample-auditing various departments and we found a few files that we believe are linked to your department,” Paul said. “Specifically, we found a file marked ‘QC,’ which I originally assumed was the abbreviation for ‘quality control,’ but your department is developing quantum cryptography, correct?”
“Exactly. We’re primarily focused on the software side of QC. Quantum algorithms, in particular.”
Jack leaned forward. “What exactly is quantum cryptography?”
“That’s a very good question, and it requires a very long and complicated answer — unfortunately, it’s mostly technical jargon. Let me see if I can put it in some perspective.” Heng leaned back in his chair. “I’m sure you’re both aware that cyberwarfare is the new battlespace that the great powers are racing into. Financial markets, transactional commerce, energy infrastructures, military forces — virtually every aspect of modern societies is controlled, maintained, or directed by networks of computers that communicate with one another and, increasingly, with other computer networks, globally.
“If a hostile nation or terror group wants to destroy a modern industrial economy like the United States or its military forces, the most vulnerable points of attack are the computer networks, and this is why so many resources are being deployed into cyberwarfare.”
“Where does Dalfan play in all of this?” Jack asked.
“I’m coming to that, if you’ll indulge me for just another moment.” Heng gathered his thoughts. “Cyberwarfare is the latest offensive technology being deployed by the great powers and, to a lesser extent, smaller state actors like Iran, and even non-state actors like criminal gangs and terror groups. But history teaches us that every new offensive technology gives rise to a defensive countermeasure, and quantum cryptography is the defensive countermeasure against cyberwarfare. The country that first masters it will have a strategic advantage over those actors who haven’t, and the quantum-cryptography arms race is raging in full force. I’m proud to say that Dalfan is on the cutting edge of that race.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Heng, but I’m still somewhat unclear as to what quantum cryptography exactly is,” Jack said.
Heng smiled, embarrassed. “I apologize. I’m not used to speaking with non-industry people anymore, only physicists and software engineers. Are you familiar with the basics of quantum mechanics?”
“The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Schrödinger’s cat, and all of that?”
“Precisely. Until recently, the best defense we could come up with against cyberattacks was complicated mathematical algorithms — essentially, passcodes. But mathematicians and coders came up with even more aggressive attacks, including the use of Shor’s quantum algorithm to solve these highly complex mathematical passcodes. So now we’re turning away from mathematical defenses to the world of physics — using quantum mechanical means such as entanglement to establish and maintain secure communications networks.”