Headscratchers / Mercury Rising

• So they hide a secret code in a puzzle magazine, and when someone finally cracks it they don't think "well we tested it out, and it's obviously a bad code, so we'll have to think up something better", they think "Gaah! We've got to kill the cracker to protect our secret!" If the code was so secret it needed protecting in the first place, why even bother covertly releasing it as a test, let alone resort to de facto murder of a small boy in the process?
  • Indeed Kudrow didn't know that the two cryptographers created that test. And he is quite upset about it, saying harshly that he never ordered such a test.

• Better yet, why try and kill someone for cracking your code? Clearly, the person who did is skilled enough to be able to crack other encryption codes, so why not take them on as a consultant and give them compensation for helping them, while also trying to protect them if anyone else attempts to exploit them?
  • Because the boy is not skilled at all. He cracks the code by the "magic of the mind", but has no knowledge about cryptography or any other scientific field at all. And he cannot be of any help in fixing the code or creating a new, better, one. Even though he could, maybe, be used by NSA to exploit weaknesses in enemy codes.
  • It's worth remembering that the NSA are not the ones trying to kill the boy; only Kudrow is. Kudrow has told his superiors that Mercury is unbreakable and it is now used, or about to be used, throughout their intelligence network, not to mention he is in line for a promotion because of it. In other words, this isn't a sinister Government Conspiracy trying to cover up their ultra-secret code, it's just a murderous sociopath trying to protect his own career under the guise of being a patriot.
    • Kudrow really is a dope, though. Killing Simon and his parents is way over the top and even if he'd gotten away with it, he'd still be doing more harm in the long run than good. Simon has an innate ability to crack codes, so as suggested above, he could, when he comes of age, be trained to break enemy codes, and even in time create his own. He's 9 years old, he's got a lot of ageing and growing up to do. He's clearly intelligent and while he may not be able to explain HOW he cracked the Mercury code the first time, that's right now, as a sheltered 9 year old who is clearly more advanced than the work he's being given at school. Give him a few years of instruction on the mechanics of code breaking and cryptography and he might well be the most valuable living asset the NSA had ever stumbled across.