Location: Management office, Usine Volta S.A. (Ivry-sur-Seine)
Date: October 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
It was seven o'clock in the morning after a few minutes. In the huge premises of the Volta factory in Ivry-sur-Seine, the industrial neon lights buzzed softly, chasing away the darkness of a grey and rainy dawn. The night shift had just finished assembling the latest series of motherboards, and it wouldn't be long before the developers of the "Bunker" arrived to resume their hunt for bugs on the V-Office system.
In the glass-enclosed management office, which overlooked the assembly lines, the atmosphere was absolutely calm.
Lazare Bonaparte sat behind his metal desk, a steaming cup of black coffee at hand, his gaze immersed in a thick list of C-language code. He was wearing a simple dark turtleneck sweater, the sleeves rolled up, revealing the cuffs he had methodically bandaged the day before.
A few meters from him, a slight sound of crumpled plastic regularly broke the silence.
Minh, dressed in a factory overalls that were a little too big for him, was busy. The twelve-year-old boy dutifully emptied the large wastepaper basket in the executive office into a black garbage bag. His left eye was slightly poached, and a small purplish bruise marked the bridge of his nose—the silent remnants of the lightning jab he'd endured in the ring twelve hours earlier.
The young prodigy did not say a word. He had not made any complaints since waking up at half past five in the morning. The sharp arrogance that had radiated from him the day before had completely disappeared, swept away by the controlled violence and the lesson in humility dispensed by his adoptive father. His gestures were precise, docile. He even picked up a paper clip that had fallen on the carpet, proof of a new attention to thankless details.
Lazarus looked at her for a moment over his sheets. The lesson in blood had worked. The intellectual ego had been broken to make way for a much-needed restraint. The monster of pride had returned to his cage.
The office door opened suddenly, breaking the morning quietude.
Alexandre de Vigan burst into the room. The aristocrat, representative of the State on the board of directors of Volta and liaison officer with the Directorate General of Armaments, did not have his usual elegance. His beige trench coat was studded with raindrops, his tie was askew, and his face, usually so impenetrable, displayed a cadaverous pallor.
He held tightly a diplomatic briefcase secured in aluminum by the handle.
"Lazare," de Vigan said in a breathless voice, indicating a run from the parking lot. "We have a crisis."
Lazarus slowly put his pen down on the code list. He immediately picked up on the tension emanating from the ENARC. The former DGSE agent knew how to recognize the panic of a bureaucrat confronted with the violence of the real world.
He turned his head to his adopted son.
"Minh," Lazarus said in a neutral voice. "Go to the cafeteria on the first floor. The coffee machines have to be descaled and the filters changed before Karim's software teams arrive. Don't come back until you've cleaned all the tables. »
"Yes, Lazarus," Minh replied immediately. The boy grabbed his garbage bag, gave de Vigan an intrigued but silent look, and left the office without asking a single question, carefully closing the glass door behind him.
As soon as the airlock was locked, de Vigan walked up to the office and placed the metal briefcase on the table. He quickly dialed the four-digit code and blew the safety latches. He pulled out a cardboard folder covered with red stamps SECRET DEFENSE – RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION.
"The Ministry of Defense just had this delivered to me by special courier an hour ago," de Vigan explained, his hand trembling as he handed the file to Lazarus. "It's a report from the Directorate of Military Intelligence."
Lazare took the cardboard folder, leaned back in his armchair and opened it. His gaze quickly swept the first few pages, deciphering the military jargon with the fluency of a native language.
"Summarize the situation for me, Alexander."
De Vigan slumped in one of the visiting chairs, running a nervous hand through his damp hair.
"At the end of August, the DGA sent a diplomatic convoy by military flight to our embassy in Dakar, Senegal," the aristocrat began. "The embassy needed to modernize its encrypted communication infrastructure with Paris. The convoy was carrying two of our IMPERATOR servers, powered by VESLA-II processors. »
Lazare ceased his reading, his dark eyes instantly fixed on de Vigan.
"Keep going."
"On the road between the military airport and the Senegalese capital, the convoy was ambushed," de Vigan explained, gasping for breath. "An attack of unprecedented violence. Heavy weapons, RPG rocket launchers, assault rifles. The escort of mobile gendarmes has been decimated. The official report of the local authorities and our services on the ground concludes that it was an attack carried out by a pro-independence rebel militia operating in the region. They were probably looking for money, weapons or hostages of great value. »
"And the equipment?" asked Lazarus, his voice sluggish, devoid of the slightest apparent emotion.
"The rebels looted the vehicles before setting them on fire with phosphorus grenades to cover their escape," de Vigan replied, pointing to an attached photograph in the file.
Lazarus took the photo. It showed the blackened and charred carcass of an armored diplomatic van on a red dirt track. Inside, you could make out the charred and twisted remains of the steel computer racks that contained the precious Volta servers.
"The blaze has reached extreme temperatures," continued de Vigan, seeking to reassure himself. "The DRM experts who inspected the wreckage say that the fire lasted for hours. The motherboards melted. According to them, the ceramic of the VESLA processors could not withstand such exposure to phosphorus. Fleas are considered destroyed. »
The ENARCH let out a long sigh, a mixture of nervous relief and dismay.
"It's a human tragedy for our soldiers, obviously," de Vigan conceded, looking down. "But on the technological level, the Ministry is reassured. The rebels did not take the equipment, probably because it was too heavy and useless for them. The secret of our sovereign architecture has not been compromised. The debris was repatriated to Paris for final analysis, but only metal ash remains. »
Lazarus continued to study the photograph of the burned carcass in silence. His face was an impenetrable mask. He flipped through the rest of the report, dwelling on the inventory of ammunition found at the scene, the description of the assault, the tactics of the ambush, and the estimated temperatures of the fire.
Then he slowly closed the cardboard folder.
"The Ministry is reassured, you say?" asked Lazare, in a deceptively light tone.
"Yes. The main fear of the Minister of Defense was that these rebels could sell the intact servers to foreign powers on the black market, to the Soviets or even to mercenaries. But given the condition of the carcasses, the risk of reverse engineering is zero. Technology died in the fire. »
"I see," Lazare whispered, pushing the classified file back toward de Vigan. "Very well, Alexander. Thank you for warning me so quickly. Inform the Board of Directors that we will be replacing these two servers for the DGA free of charge. It is the least we can do after such a tragedy. »
De Vigan blinked, surprised by the young CEO's placidity. He expected Lazarus to demand an investigation, to storm against the incompetence of diplomatic security.
"It's... is that all, Lazarus? Doesn't that worry you that much? »
"It is Africa, Alexander," replied Lazarus with chilling phlegm. "It's an unstable continent. Military convoys were attacked. This is the cruel nature of the world of armaments and diplomacy. If our processors have been burned to the ground, then the security of our architecture is safe. The rest is the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not Volta S.A."
The aristocrat nodded slowly, reassured by his boss's absolute pragmatism. He put the file back in his secure briefcase, closed the latches, and stood up.
"I will convey your condolences and your commercial offer to the Minister's office. I'll let you work. »
"Thank you, Alexander."
De Vigan left the office, visibly relieved that he would not have to deal with a major technological crisis.
As soon as the aristocrat's shadow had disappeared behind the bay window in the corridor, Lazarus' expression changed completely. The mask of the serene and cynical industrialist cracked to make way for the contracted jaw of the predator.
Lazare leaned back in his executive chair, stared at the industrial ceiling of the factory, and let his instinct as a former secret agent operate. The official history which de Vigan had just told him, that which the whole French government had swallowed, was a coarse fable.
The sixty-year-old engineer knew with absolute, icy, intimate certainty that he had just been robbed. And not by Senegalese rebels.
Location: Management office, Usine Volta S.A. (Ivry-sur-Seine)
Date: October 1989
Point of view: Omniscient (Focus on Lazare Bonaparte)
The glass door closed with a slight pneumatic hiss, leaving Lazare Bonaparte absolutely alone in his study.
He remained motionless for a long minute, his gaze fixed on the aluminum handle that the aristocrat's nervous hand had just released. Outside, the October rain continued to whip the factory's large bay windows, drowning the industrial zone of Ivry under a greyish deluge. Below, on the production platform, the first workers of the day shift began to take up their posts, adjusting their antistatic white coats.
Slowly, Lazarus swivelled in his leather chair. He clasped his hands under his chin.
The civil engineer had just disappeared. The analytical and ruthless mind of the former agent of the DGSE's Action Service had just taken over, dissecting every word, every comma of the report that de Vigan had summarized for him.
Lazarus knew war. He was familiar with clandestine operations, the doctrine of asymmetric warfare, and the grammar of state violence. In his first life, before the Bali attack in 2026, he had himself planned and executed unspeakable missions on behalf of the French Republic. And his predatory instinct, forged in the shadows, screamed at him that the story served by the Directorate of Military Intelligence was a grotesque fable.
He went over the elements of the ambush in his mind, aligning them with the coldness of a mathematical equation.
The number one tactical anomaly: the target.
Senegalese independence rebels or highway robbers operating in West Africa had basic needs: cash, small arms, ammunition, or hostages that could be sold for cash. A diplomatic convoy was a prime target, of course. But why insist on specifically robbing the logistics van? The IMPERATOR servers weighed more than a hundred kilos each. They were solid steel cabinets, designed to be bolted into crypto rooms. What African militia would be burdened with a ton of unusable scrap metal in the middle of the bush, which no local fencer could sell?
Tactical anomaly number two: destruction.
Pomegranates with white phosphorus. A signature of extreme violence, usually reserved for special forces or heavy paramilitary units to vitrify a target and erase any trace of DNA or equipment. The local rebels preferred to keep the vehicles or set them on fire with petrol.
The absolute technical anomaly: ceramics.
It was the detail that betrayed the deception. De Vigan claimed that DRM experts believed that the VESLA-II chips had melted in the blaze. Lazare let out a short laugh, a dry and humorless sound. He had designed the encapsulation of these processors himself. The silicon matrix was encased in a ballistic-grade ceramic shell, designed specifically to withstand extreme temperatures, radiation, and thermal shock in military environments. A simple van fire, even fuelled by phosphorus, was not enough to sublimate this type of ceramic to the point of leaving only ashes.
If the chip was no longer there, it was not because it had melted. It was because it had been extracted before the fire.
The verdict fell on Lazarus' mind with blinding clarity: it was a false flag operation. A False Flag of incredible audacity.
Someone had organized a high-flying paramilitary robbery, disguised as an act of local terrorism, with the sole aim of stealing its architecture.
And on the world chessboard of 1989, the list of powers capable of mounting an operation of such logistical precision, of corrupting or neutralizing an escort of the French gendarmerie in record time, and having a vital interest in reverse-engineering a microprocessor, was reduced to a single name.
The United States of America. The CIA. The NSA.
Lazare got up from his chair and began to slowly pace his desk, his hands crossed behind his back.
Anger had no place here. Neither is resentment. Lazare even felt, for a fraction of a second, a deep professional respect for the American dragnet. It was a masterful act of state piracy. By intercepting the servers abroad, far from French soil, the CIA had avoided a direct casus belli while seizing the Holy Grail of French sovereignty.
But the strategic reality that came out of this flight was terrifying.
The Pentagon now had an intact VESLA-II in its hands. In the ultra-secure laboratories of Los Alamos or Fort Meade, their best engineers were probably already dissolving ceramics with acid, placing its silicon matrix under scanning electron microscopes, and mapping its superscalar architecture.
Lazarus knew exactly how the U.S. government would respond to the technological chasm that this chip represented. President Bush was not an altar boy. The U.S. state apparatus would secretly transfer the stolen equations and plans to its national champions—Intel, Motorola, or AMD—drowning them in billions in black DARPA grants.
The monopoly of Silicon Valley, which Lazarus was about to destroy by the force of innovation, was going to be artificially saved by crime.
For a brief moment, Lazare considered alerting the French government. He could summon de Vigan, demand an audience with the Minister of Defence, or even with François Mitterrand himself. He could demonstrate to them, through A plus B, that the ceramics could not have melted, that the NSA was behind the Dakar attack, and that France's sovereignty had just been violated by its American ally.
But the cynicism of the Builder took over.
He had no material evidence. The carcasses were in Dakar. The CIA had cleaned up the scene perfectly. If he accused Washington without irrefutable proof, the Élysée would take him for a paranoid young industrialist suffering from conspiracy delusions. Worse, the French state would refuse to enter into a major diplomatic crisis with the White House simply on the basis of its technical convictions, especially at a time when the Soviet bloc was collapsing and NATO needed unity. No one would believe it. He would pass for a madman.
"Very well," Lazarus whispered to himself, his ghostly reflection looming across the bay window facing the factory lights. "You wanted to play this game."
Knowing that the enemy had his plans fundamentally changed the equation of time.
Until this morning, Lazare thought he had a comfortable lead of five to eight years over Intel. He thought he could take his time refining the VoltaOS operating system, optimizing the V-Office graphical interface, and refining the five hundred prototypes that were running in the basement.
This luxury had just been shattered.
With the VESLA-II schematics in the hands of Andy Grove, Intel's CEO, the American industry was going to make a forced evolutionary leap. It would take time for them to understand the RISC architecture, and even more time to modernize their foundries to engrave such a density of transistors. But the countdown was officially on. Lazare estimated this delay at eighteen months, perhaps twenty-four, before Intel released a processor "inspired" by its technology, disguised as a miracle of American R&D.
If he wanted to crush the market, he had to do so before Intel's replica saw the light of day. It was supposed to saturate space, impose its software ecosystem, and make the future American chip obsolete even before it left the factory.
Lazarus left the window and went to his office. He grabbed the secure landline phone and dialed an internal number.
Two bells rang before a sleepy voice answered.
"Belkacem."
"Karim is Lazarus. Go down to the Bunker immediately and gather the team leaders. »
"Boss? It is barely half past seven... The night shift has just left, the day shift is having their coffee... »
"The coffee is over, Karim. The schedules too. Lazarus' voice was of a polar coldness, that of a general sounding the charge. "We don't have a year left to debug the civilian computer. The window of opportunity has just been halved. I want V-Office to be finalized, smooth and foolproof in six months. »
"Six months?!" choked the lead developer on the other end of the line. "Lazare, it's software suicide! We have to rewrite the entire window manager in assembler, we have to rewrite the window... »
"Hire fifty more coders if you need them, siphon off the Polytechnique and Centrale promotions, I'll sign the blank checks this morning," Lazare cut him off with absolute authority. "Put cots in the Bunker. Sleep on site. I want this fucking machine to be ready to invade America before next spring. »
There was a heavy silence at the other end of the line. Karim Belkacem felt the vital urgency in his boss's voice. It wasn't the impatience of a CFO; It was the cold panic of a strategist who had just seen the enemy advance his tanks.
"Understood, boss. We go to code red. I summon everyone. »
Lazarus hung up violently.
He laid his hands flat on the cold metal of his desk. The adrenaline of economic warfare pulsated in his temples. The United States thought it had disarmed him by stealing his brain. They thought they could buy time.
But they had forgotten one variable in their reverse engineering calculation. They had stolen the architecture of a processor frozen in time. They had not stolen the spirit that was to conceive the next one.
Lazare grabs his personal address book. He looked up the international dialling code for the United States, then for California. He found the private number of Jerry Sanders, the CEO of AMD, whom he had met in a Chicago bar a few months earlier.
The Drake Hotel pact was not going to wait a year. The Trojan horse had to be prepared now. The real Cold War had just begun, and Lazare Bonaparte was counting on ending it in a financial bloodbath.