Locations: Guiana Space Centre (Kourou) / CEPT Headquarters (Paris) / Volta S.A. Factory (Ivry)
Date: Spring - Summer 1989
Point of view: Omniscient
The stifling heat of French Guiana crushed the tarmac of the Guiana Space Center in Kourou. On that morning in May 1989, the humidity was close to ninety-five percent. In the air-conditioned building of the Jupiter Control Center, the thermal contrast was striking, as was the look of the scene that took place there.
Alan Miller, the chief engineer seconded by IBM for the maintenance of ballistic computing systems, watched as the French mobile gendarmes blocked access to the server room.
"It's a breach of contract!" barked Miller in English, his face red with anger, addressing the CNES director of operations. "Our technicians have to calibrate the storage arrays for the next Ariane 4 launch! You can't deny us access to our own machines! »
The senior French official, dressed in an impeccable white shirt, readjusted his glasses with exasperating phlegm.
"These machines are no longer in charge of telemetry, Mr. Miller," replied the manager in strong English. "The general management in Paris has invoked the European sovereignty clause. Your maintenance contracts are terminated with immediate effect. A severance fee has already been transferred to the accounts of your headquarters in New York. Your technicians have two hours to gather their belongings and leave the base. »
Miller was speechless. IBM and Cray Research had been managing the calculations for the European space program for years. It was a de facto monopoly, an invaluable technological showcase for the United States.
Through the armored windows of the clean room, the American engineer saw a team of French military technicians in antistatic suits disconnect the heavy cables of the American supercomputers. In their place, they installed new boxes in the patch bays. Rectangular servers, in brushed black aluminum, stamped with a simple "V" logo.
Less than two months after the decision taken in the Invalides bunker, the silent response of the French state had just struck its first big blow. In one morning, Washington's eye on the European space program had been totally blinded.
Six weeks later, in Paris.
The conference room of the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) was bathed in an electric atmosphere. The stakes of the meeting were colossal: to define the technical standard for the future European mobile telephone network, the GSM project.
On the side of American observers, the representative of Motorola displayed arrogant confidence. The Chicago-based company dominated the nascent market with its analog AMPS standards, and was determined to impose its CDMA encoding patents for the future European digital standard. It was a market worth tens of billions of dollars.
The French representative, a graduate of the General Directorate of Telecommunications, spoke. He opened a thin cardboard folder.
"Gentlemen, after consultation with the Ministry of Industry, the French delegation rejects the proposal to integrate North American standards into the GSM project," he announced in a monotone voice.
The Motorola representative sat up abruptly in his chair. The German and British delegations exchanged surprised glances.
"On what ground?" protested the American. "Our protocols are the only ones capable of handling such a volume of simultaneous calls without saturation of the radio cells! If you refuse our patents, the European network will be ten years behind! »
"Your protocols are obsolete," the French delegate said without the slightest emotion. "We propose to adopt a frequency-hopping multiplexing algorithm for the GSM standard, coupled with real-time asymmetric encryption. This technology cancels interference and makes radio eavesdropping impossible. »
The chief engineer of the British delegation frowned. "It's military theory. No one owns civil patents applicable on an industrial scale for this kind of frequency hopping, let alone the hardware processing capabilities for mobile phones. »
"France has them," replied the delegate.
He distributed copies of a technical paper.
"The French company Volta S.A. filed all the international patents for these frequency hopping protocols last year. In addition, they have designed the signal processing chips capable of executing this encryption. The French government announced today that it will subsidise the integration of this technology for all European manufacturers participating in the GSM consortium. »
Silence fell over the room. The Motorola representative immediately understood what had just happened. It was a proper commercial execution. The European market, the richest and densest in the world, had just been hermetically closed. Not only was the American industry not going to receive a cent in royalties, but its own phones would be incompatible with Europe.
The French state had just used the innovation of a private company to cut off the American telecommunications industry from its European future.
The same day, at the end of the afternoon, rain was beating on the large windows of the Volta S.A. factory in Ivry-sur-Seine.
Alexandre de Vigan paced the executive office with the energy of a sated beast. The commercial director held in his hand the fax that his contacts at the Ministry had just sent him, summarizing the vote of the CEPT.
"It's a massacre," Vigan exulted, his face cracked by a predatory smile. "Motorola has been kicked out, and Philips and Ericsson have just applied for licenses to operate our signal processing chips. Between the space deployment of Kourou, the DGA's equipment and the monopoly on GSM, the projected turnover has just tripled. The State has literally given us the keys to the European safe! »
Sitting on the leather sofa of Chesterfield, Auguste Bonaparte watched the salesman bustle. The former colonel of the DST kept both hands on the pommel of his cane, his face closed.
Lazarus stood behind his desk. At twenty-two years old, the CEO of Volta did not share the euphoria of his sales director. He watched the rain trickle down the window, his features smooth, concentrated.
"You reason like a banker, Alexander," Lazarus said at last, his voice sluggish.
The salesman stopped in the middle of the room, surprised by the coldness of the remark. "I reason like the man who has just locked down our monopoly on two continents, Lazarus. The DGA has kept its word. They used our technologies to wash away the affront of the American supercomputer. »
"That's exactly the problem," Augustus said.
The old cop's deep, gravelly voice silenced de Vigan.
"You think governments work like trading floors, de Vigan," Auguste explained, leaning heavily on his cane. "In two months, France expelled IBM and Cray from the Guiana Space Center. And today, it is stabbing the American telecoms industry by imposing the patents of a company that no one had heard of three years ago. Seen from Washington, this is not a trade coincidence. It is an aggressive declaration of independence. »
Lazarus turned away from the window and met his father's eyes. The Builder and the Spy shared the same implacable reading of geopolitics.
"We hit too hard, too fast," Lazarus explained as he sat down. "The DGSE and the Ministry of Defense were in a hurry to take revenge for the compromise of their Cray X-MP. They used our patents as a blunt weapon. The financial result is excellent for Volta, Alexandre. But the strategic outcome is dangerous. »
De Vigan frowned, putting the fax in his jacket. "Dangerous? We have the absolute protection of the French government. Our contracts are classified or endorsed by the ministries. What do you want the Americans to do? To take us to court for unfair competition? »
"They are not going to send lawyers," replied Lazarus with clinical patience.
The young man picked up a pen from his desk pad and swirled it slowly between his fingers.
"The American administration is not used to being told no. And suddenly, their diplomats and industrialists are coming up against a technological wall in Europe. A wall that seems to come from a single source. »
Lazare pointed the pen at de Vigan.
"Right now, an intelligence analyst in the United States is cross-checking the data. He will notice that the French state no longer transmits viable data through its supercomputers. He will see that IBM has been fired from space for a dark technical reason. He will see that Motorola has been crushed by French patents that came out of nowhere."
Lazarus put the pen on the desk. The sharp sound seemed to echo in the vast office.
"The American eagle has just woken up, Alexander. And believe me, it won't be long before he looks for the name of the architect who built this wall. »
That is an excellent point. Grabbing the anomaly in a few months (from March to June) shows the responsiveness of the NSA and maintains the immediate tension of the events in Kourou and the GSM. The Berlin Wall will wait.
Here is Part 2 rewritten, anchored at the end of June 1989, in the immediacy of the French response.
Location: NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland, USA
Date: End of June 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on U.S. intelligence)
The sticky summer heat had descended on Maryland. The headquarters of the National Security Agency, a vast complex of glass and blackened concrete surrounded by double electrified fences, was running at full speed. Huge air conditioners spewed freezing air into the hallways to keep the waiters at a constant temperature.
In a blind office in the Department for European Affairs, Richard Hayes was superbly unaware of the crisis of the Tiananmen Square protests that had monopolized the White House's attention since the beginning of June.
Hayes, forty-five, a senior SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) analyst, had been staring at his terminal since dawn. He had just printed a series of spectral analysis graphs on perforated tape paper. He rubbed his eyes, grabbed a red pen, and circled an anomaly on the top sheet. Then he picked up the thick file and walked briskly up the corridor to the office of his division director.
"Come in, Richard," said Warden Vance, without looking up from his notes. "I hope you have something new about the radio traffic of the Soviet embassy in Bonn. The State Department is harassing me. »
"I have nothing about West Germany, sir," Hayes replied, closing the door. "I have a major problem with Paris."
Vance sighed and put down his pen.
"France? Richard, the CIA is in charge of the Élysée. The only feed we are interested in about them is the data that our backdoor extracts from their Cray supercomputers. Their reports on nuclear deterrence come in regularly. »
"Their reports are falsified, Director," Hayes cut him off, laying his file roughly on the desk. "The data that the Cray of the Directorate General of Armaments has been transmitting to us since March is a huge, gigantic mathematical farce."
Vance frowned, suddenly paying attention. "What do you mean? Encrypted packets are intact. The automated routine of our snitch works. »
"The routine works, but it sucks in emptiness," the analyst explained, spreading out his paper printouts. "I analyzed the dispersion patterns of radioactive plumes that we intercepted last week from their Atomic Energy Commission. Look at these Gaussian curves. They are perfect. Far too smooth. »
"It's computer modeling, Richard. It's supposed to be accurate. »
"It's supposed to simulate reality, sir. And the reality, especially in nuclear physics and meteorology, is chaotic. There is always background noise, micro-friction, rounding errors in fluid equations. However, these data are of absolute synthetic purity. It looks like an exercise from a university textbook. French engineers are good, but they can't remove the entropy from the universe. »
The division director froze. In the intelligence world, an anomaly of this nature had a very specific name.
"A jar of honey... Vance whispered, his complexion suddenly pale. "They discovered our backdoor on their Cray X-MPs in the spring. And instead of pulling the plug on the machines to trigger a diplomatic scandal, French intelligence has created a closed simulation environment. They have been feeding us with sand for three months to put us to sleep. »
"Exactly," Hayes confirmed with the coldness of a scientist. "They blinded us while convincing us that we could see clearly. We no longer have the slightest idea of what the French army is really doing. But the most worrying thing is not there. »
Hayes leaned on the back of the visitor's chair.
"If they isolated American supercomputers to deceive us, it means that they had to switch all their real strategic operations to another computing architecture. An architecture of which we know nothing. »
Vance ran his hand over his face. The NSA had just been duped with formidable elegance.
"That's why the Secretary of Commerce has been in a rage since last week," the director suddenly realized, connecting recent events. "The coincidence was too big. The sudden expulsion of IBM from the Guiana Space Center last month... And the brutal rejection of Motorola's patents by the European telecoms consortium a fortnight ago. »
"It's not a coincidence, sir. It's a bunch shot," Hayes said. "The French have not only plugged the breach of our espionage. They are taking advantage of this new technological independence to cut our market share in Europe and hit our industry. I searched recent European trade records and tenders. The eviction of IBM in Kourou and the crushing of Motorola in Paris share a single source of hardware. »
The analyst slipped a black-and-white photograph in front of his boss. It showed an industrial building of brick and concrete, somewhere in the Paris suburbs, with the stylized logo of a "V".
"The company is called Volta S.A.," Hayes announced. "They are the ones who provide the new servers that replaced IBM in the European space program. They are the ones who hold the frequency hopping patents imposed for the GSM standard. »
Vance grabs the photo, his eyebrows furrowed to the extreme. "A single French company? I have never seen this name in our reports on the European military-industrial complex. Is it a subsidiary of Thomson? A secret project financed by Aérospatiale? »
"No. It is a private, independent company. And this is where the profiling report becomes disconcerting. »
Hayes placed a second index card on the desk. It did not show the face of a grizzled senior civil servant or an army general. It was a photograph of a dark-eyed young man, dressed in a long coat, coming out of a Parisian administrative building.
"Lazare Bonaparte," read Hayes. "Founder, majority shareholder, and system architect of Volta. Twenty-two years. »
The NSA director slowly raised his head, looking at his analyst as if he had just lost his mind.
"Twenty-two years? You're kidding me, Richard. A twenty-two-year-old kid is replacing the architecture of the European space program and providing a secure alternative to the French army? »
"This 'kid' designed an operating system and a network chip that made our infiltration methods obsolete in their territory," Hayes said dryly. "The French have found the absolute weapon to do without us. This Lazare Bonaparte provides the sovereign shield of the state, and the Élysée uses this shield to expel American industry from Europe. »
Silence stretched into the office at Fort Meade.
In June 1989, the United States became aware that a new player had just invited itself to the table of the technological Cold War. It had no armored divisions or nuclear submarines. He was fighting with proprietary algorithms, silicon, and a terrifyingly cold engineer's vision.
Vance picked up the photograph of Lazarus, his eyes suddenly hard, stripped of all bureaucratic skepticism.
"Assemble an immediate task force , Richard," the director ordered. "I want maximum clearance. Put the CIA in the loop for the field aspect. Target the communications of this plant in Ivry-sur-Seine. Screen the profiles of its engineers. Identify their raw material suppliers, the banks that finance them. I want to know everything about Volta S.A. and about this Bonaparte. »
Vance dropped the photograph on his desk pad.
"Washington will not tolerate a European country locking the continent's digital future behind our backs. Find a crack in this boy's empire, Richard. For we are going to strike it. »