Binary code: Mystery number one. Artur Zadikyan

who was going where, to whom, why, what supplies were coming from where, where and to whom, what developments were underway, what secret agreements had been reached, and much more. All of this was compared with data that came from other agents, or rather spies, added data that was simply bought.

      It turned out that there were no secrets. All secrets were only in what and how things were programmed – codes and ciphers, for example. This was the modern world, in which options were calculated like a chess game. That is, for example, the GRU knew perfectly well the capabilities of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, the number of men, the classification of weapons, how they fired and what could be done with them. But what order would come and where would it go, what would be the tactical move? That was unknown. It was quite difficult to guess it, so all possible options were calculated.

      The world map is like a chessboard. And if you add weather phenomena, random events like tsunamis, earthquakes or magnetic storms, you get a lot of possible variants. That's why it was decided to take it under control. In order to control this, tectonic weapons and weather-affecting weapons, such as HAARP, were invented.

      Since the intelligence services are aware that they know everything about each other, there is an agreement on secret cooperation, but since everyone "puts a spoon in his mouth", everyone tried to hide something. For example, according to the treaty on the reduction of nuclear weapons, an intercontinental missile should have one charge, but in circumvention of this treaty several charges were placed. Naturally, the presence of systems affecting the nervous system, psyche and consciousness of a person was always concealed.

      This is how Rutra, working as an analyst and then as head of the external center, spent several years. To hide it, everything was made up as business trips, errands, or just tourism. Sometimes he had to dispatch agents, to keep an eye on sites whose purpose he didn't think were important. For some reason they were important to the Center.

      In fact, the bulk of information was obtained from open sources. In the West, it was easy to do this, you could even brazenly collect information under the guise of a good, professional activity. In Russia, especially in the USSR, for this, at best, you could be "sent to the zone". But there everything was simpler. For example, there was a case that Rutra was told about by his guru during his internship in the United States.

      In the 1970s, law school graduate James Bamford was bored with practicing law, so he chose the profession of a reporter and worked as a detective in a private detective agency. The idea to write a book about the NSA came to the journalist in 1979, when he noticed that there are many books on the Central Intelligence Agency, but there is almost nothing about the National Security Agency.

      In those days, the vast majority of Americans had no idea that such an intelligence agency existed. Nor had they heard of it at Houghton Mifflin, where Bamford approached with his proposal. However, the assertive reporter believed, gave an advance of 7,500 dollars and a term of three years. As Bamford later recalled, his legal education and experience as a detective helped him enormously in the process of writing The Palace of Mystery.

      Bamford began his search by reading everything he could find about the NSA in public libraries. But that turned out to be negligible. Since data on NSA personnel and facilities were missing from official Pentagon directories, Bamford began digging up related reports and records of congressional hearings. In notes to the reports of Sen. Frank Church's committee investigating the intelligence community in the mid-1970s, Bamford found references to dozens of specific documents. These documents became the basis for his first three-page Freedom of Information Act-FOIA request to the NSA. It was immediately discovered that the NSA was almost entirely exempt from FOIA under an earlier law protecting the organization from any attempt to disclose its activities. So Bamford's first request was rejected outright.

      Not the least bit embarrassed, the journalist went back to the library vaults. A comprehensive list of telephone numbers of U.S. military installations around the world gave no information as to which numbers might correspond to secret NSA radio interception posts. The Senate subcommittee reports dealing with military construction funding were carefully scrubbed clean of any reference to NSA facilities. However, the incurious Bamford noticed that when a secret base decided to build a court or basketball court, the requests were unclassified and showed up in the committee reports. By cross-referencing between military telephone directories and such requests, as well as similarly unremarkable data, Bamford was able to compile a nearly complete list of radio intercept sites in the NSA's global network.

      At the same time, the journalist began searching for personal documents of employees of the U.S. radio-intelligence community.

      A number of other important sources of information were found in the library.

      From these documents, in particular, it was clear that the NSA, which as a foreign intelligence agency is not officially authorized to engage in eavesdropping on U.S. communications systems, does so through cooperation with foreign allies conducting radio intercepts on U.S. soil.

      The NSA tried to stop Bamford's "subversive" activities and prosecute him under the Espionage Act. The journalist was accused of obtaining classified documents, but at the time the Reagan administration had not yet succeeded in passing a national security directive allowing for the reclassification of documents.

      This is the kind of thing an ordinary journalist could do. It is impossible to imagine such things in the USSR, even in modern Russia. Over time, Rutra got fed up with it and decided to leave the service, as it involved risk to life and danger to freedom. The pay was not bad, but the money came and went. No serious earnings. Days and months went by like "life was a raspberry", you could walk around at your own pleasure. At the moment when he decided, so to speak, to "stop" with it, he received an offer he could not refuse. There are no exes in the system he was in, so it was impossible to just walk away. He didn't want to fulfill cheap requests; he couldn't move up the career ladder either, because he had to serve there and fulfill his assignments. There were changes in the country, and the surrounding reality promised very good prospects. So Rutra was at a crossroads. And then, out of nowhere, Alexander Ivanovich appeared.

      Chapter 2: Where is zero?

      Alexander Ivanovich was an old, hardened fighter with awards and wounds. He was missing one eye and had a prosthetic instead. He never told what happened to him, but his coworkers whispered that he had this eye removed voluntarily, that instead of an eye there was a special device. They said that instead of an eye he had an artificial eye, or rather, a device with the function of taking pictures, photographing, x-raying and scanning.

      Alexander Ivanovich set up an informal meeting.

      – We thought you were offended.

      – Why all of a sudden?

      – You've been illegal for a long time. Usually after a stint abroad, fighters come back and get a rank and file at headquarters.

      – What's in it for me?

      – You'll get lieutenant colonel ahead of schedule and classified status.

      – Which one?

      – Head of a think tank at a top-secret facility and access to state secrets.

      Rutra had no reason not to believe Alexander Ivanovich, and he never joked, especially not like that, but Rutra was still wary. He knew that one got into such centers either by "inheritance" or for very great merit. Those who worked in special secret centers were checked from birth, and not only for themselves, but as they say, for their entire background.

      – I want you to know there's a problem in the system, the system wants a new fighter, with an abstract mindset.

      To this, Rutra replied that this was not news to him.

      – I'm already in the system.

      He knew that Alexander Ivanovich knew he was in the system.

      – You know exactly what I mean. I want you to get into the first round, and I want you to get promoted.

      – What circle is that?

      – The one that includes the special ones. You know perfectly well there's no way out.

      – Is