CHERUB: Dark Sun - Robert Muchamore Page 0,16

Capital A R then lower case i s t o t l e followed by a hash, a percentage sign and the numbers five, three, one and eight.’

Andy was relieved that Windows accepted the password. ‘Never would have guessed that one,’ he gasped, as the desktop and taskbar appeared on screen.

The screen was specifically designed for high resolution work, which left the dozens of tiny icons looking like specks amidst the huge expanse of screen. Greg put his laptop on the carpet and passed Andy a ring-binder and CD-rom from his backpack.

Andy placed the silver disc in a tray and let the Dell swallow it. A dialogue box popped up on screen and he clicked OK to install a forensic program designed by the security services, known as Window Breaker. The program froze time, ensuring that no time and date stamps were left when files were altered. It also enabled a back door into the Windows operating system that bypassed most Windows security protocols.

The second program on the CD was a Trojan horse. Once installed, MI5 would be able to access Kurt’s computer, remotely reading his files and monitoring all activity. The instant the program was installed, Kurt’s anti-virus software flashed up a warning. Andy had fully expected this and the third program on the CD dealt with it by installing a patch that made the anti-virus turn a blind eye to the unwanted software.

‘OK, that’s the software installed,’ Andy smiled. ‘You’d better start hunting for the dreaded backups.’

Andy planned to spend most of the next three hours altering Kurt’s centrifuge design so that it wouldn’t work. Greg had to search the office and the rest of the house and overwrite any backup copies he could find with a doctored version of the original stolen file.

But this left MI5 with two major headaches. First, if Kurt looked back at any previous versions of his work for any reason he’d realise that the files had been tampered with. Second, there was no way of knowing whether Kurt had stashed an extra backup under the floorboards, at a friend’s house, or even in a safety deposit box on the other side of town.

All MI5 could do about this was cross their fingers, not let Lydon out of sight and move swiftly to arrest him if he began to suspect that he was under surveillance.

‘Remember,’ Andy said, ‘it’s a twenty-gigabyte file, so it won’t fit on a memory stick or a DVD. You’re only looking for backup hard drives.’

Greg sounded slightly irritated. ‘I know, Andy. I read the briefing too.’

He started off by running a search on the hard drives of Kurt Lydon’s twin servers as Andy opened Lydon’s AutoCAD software and found the latest version of the centrifuge design. The 3D model comprised over three thousand parts and even on one of the fastest PCs available it took nearly two minutes to load.

Once Andy was sure that he’d opened the right file he plugged a portable hard drive into the USB port on the front of the machine and made a duplicate copy. MI5 would study this file to establish how quickly Kurt was progressing with his simplified design.

By the time this was finished, Greg had overwritten a file on the other PC and began searching drawers and shelves for backup drives.

Andy now had to enter the alterations that would sabotage Kurt’s redesign work. A hundred and forty-three parts had to be changed, and each one required up to a dozen individual alterations.

It was impossible to remember all of these, so one of Lydon’s former colleagues had made a checklist, complete with detailed instructions, screenshots and even printouts of specific menus within the sophisticated software. It was delicate work: one decimal point in the wrong place could leave an obvious flaw in the design that would make Kurt Lydon suspicious and blow the whole operation.

Andy put one hand over the spaceball and another over the keyboard before muttering ‘Concentrate,’ to himself.

He opened the ring-binder and started to read: Alteration one, locate part spacer bearing seventeen. Andy navigated expertly with the spaceball, finding the part using the search tool, zooming in and then changing the display properties so that the wire frame outline of his target part was the only thing on screen.

Select the fourth and sixth sprocket holes. Alter the thread properties from one sixteenth of a millimetre to one eighteenth of a millimetre. Rotate the object in relationship to the Y-axis within the main design by point zero seven of a