Revelation by Bill Napier by Revelation (V1.0 HTML)

Author:Revelation (V1.0 HTML) [Revelation (V1.0 HTML)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

TOP SECRET UMBRA VENONA

NEW YORK/MOSCOW

YOUNG is currently in charge of a group at CAMP-2, and has handed Beck a report about present activities at the CAMP along with a list of the key personnel in ENORMOZ. There is still no indication of when FUNICULAR will be operational. Beck considers that it is almost impossible 88746 62354 76234 cultivate QUANTUM. CHARLES, QUANTUM and BILL OF EXCHANGE are travelling to PRESERVE and will meet with VOGEL and TINA.

ALEKSANDR

'Is that before or after decryption?' Findhorn wanted to know. He lifted a strand of spaghetti from the saucepan with a fork.

'Say you have a message. You look up the words in a codebook, a sort of dictionary which replaces each word by a four-figure number. Then you group all these numbers into sets of five. Then to each set of five you add another five-figure number which you take from a one-time pad. It can only be read by the guy at the other end holding the same one-time pad. The Russians kept each and every one-time pad under permanent armed guard. And because you use each page from the pad only once, the code is unbreakable.'

Findhorn gave a satisfied grunt. 'Al dente. But it was broken nevertheless.'

Romella was sipping red wine. Tartly. After a few thousand hours, a few million dollars and one or two nervous breakdowns.'

'How come?' Findhorn was using a fork and spoon to heap pasta onto plates.

'In late 1942, when the Russians were under pressure from the German invasion, somebody blundered. They duplicated the one-time pads. As soon as you do that you create patterns. It was just enough for some very clever people to get into parts of the messages. Another thing was that the Finns, who were fighting the Russians, overran a Soviet consulate in December 1941: The NKVD had to quit in a hurry and they left behind four codebooks which were only partially burned. One codebook was for diplomatic messages, one was for the NKVD -- that's the old KGB -- one for the GRU, that's Soviet Military Intelligence, and one for the Naval GRU. They sent the stuff to Sweden to avoid the risk of recapture. The Swedes were of course neutral but they knew damn well that if the Russians took Finland they'd be next in line. So the codebooks ended up in America.'

He spooned pesto sauce onto the plates and sprinkled parmigiano over it. 'So what's the significance of Venona?'

'To the Americans and the Brits? It was a dream come true. It gave a picture of the depth of penetration of the Soviet spy apparatus in every sort of place. It caught big spies like Klaus Fuchs, it uncovered the Cambridge Apostles like Philby, Burgess and McLean, and it electrocuted the Rosenbergs. And it caught hundreds of small fry worldwide.'

'Presumably the numbers here are bits of code that nobody has been able to break.'

Romella nodded with her mouth full. Then she said, 'You may be a human relations disaster, Fred, but you can cook.

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