most of the next three hours altering Kurt’s centrifuge design so that it wouldn’t work. Greg had to search the office and 77
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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 t wo 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 f loorboards, at a friend’s house, or even in a safet y 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 t went y-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 soft ware and found the latest version of the centrifuge design. The 3D model 78
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comprised over three thousand parts and even on one of the fastest PCs available it took nearly t wo 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 st udy 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 t he alterations
t hat would sabotage Kurt’s redesign work. A hundred and fort y-t hree 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 f law in the design that would make Kurt 79
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
79
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
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 degree.
It was brain numbing stuff and it wasn’t helped by Greg humming as he rif led noisily through a filing cabinet.
‘Dude,’ Andy said fiercely. ‘Shut up.’
Greg didn’t appreciate the tone, but he’d seen the complexit y of Andy’s instructions and didn’t envy his task. ‘Sorry mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll be done searching here in a minute anyway.’
80
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
80
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
*
Two hours later, Andy sat at the giant screens rubbing tired eyes. Greg took a mouthful of Pepsi and popped a couple of M&Ms in his mouth. Greg had inspected the family PC and George’s laptop, but the only centrifuge design he’d found was an original stored on a backup hard drive on top of a kitchen cabinet.
To speed Andy’s task, Greg now stood alongside with the ring-binder, reading his instructions
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
77
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
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 t wo 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 f loorboards, at a friend’s house, or even in a safet y 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 t went y-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 soft ware and found the latest version of the centrifuge design. The 3D model 78
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
78
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
comprised over three thousand parts and even on one of the fastest PCs available it took nearly t wo 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 st udy 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 t he alterations
t hat would sabotage Kurt’s redesign work. A hundred and fort y-t hree 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 f law in the design that would make Kurt 79
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
79
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
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 degree.
It was brain numbing stuff and it wasn’t helped by Greg humming as he rif led noisily through a filing cabinet.
‘Dude,’ Andy said fiercely. ‘Shut up.’
Greg didn’t appreciate the tone, but he’d seen the complexit y of Andy’s instructions and didn’t envy his task. ‘Sorry mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll be done searching here in a minute anyway.’
80
HS1829_WBD_Cherub.p65
80
10/29/2007, 11:56 AM
*
Two hours later, Andy sat at the giant screens rubbing tired eyes. Greg took a mouthful of Pepsi and popped a couple of M&Ms in his mouth. Greg had inspected the family PC and George’s laptop, but the only centrifuge design he’d found was an original stored on a backup hard drive on top of a kitchen cabinet.
To speed Andy’s task, Greg now stood alongside with the ring-binder, reading his instructions
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