The Island--A Thriller

by Ben Coes

  The rest of the office had furniture on one side—an extra-long red leather sofa, a few club chairs, a long glass coffee table—and the walls above featured a tightly packed set of paintings and framed photographs. The opposite side of the office contained bookshelves. The shelves slid aside when a button was pressed, revealing a massive LCD screen that could be used to watch TV or engage in meetings with world leaders.

  Right now, there were approximately a dozen people in King’s office. The screen was currently divided up into smaller screens showing various newscasts, the volume muted. Suddenly, the entire screen went white. A man appeared, wearing a mic and sitting in front of a computer console.

  “CENCOM,” the operator said, interrupting everything in King’s office—and taking over the volume on the screen. The young man stared into the screen and found King. “Adrian, this is Emergency Priority under section Indigo and overrides all tertiary activities.”

  King’s office went quiet.

  The screen shot dark, then, a few moments later, lit up, divided in half. On one side was a young black woman named Patricia Johnson, an NSA cryptologist who ran all NSA financial gathering, analysis, and synthesis. Johnson oversaw the NSA’s capability set in terms of data-level financial information, managing hundreds of analysts and adversarial operations employees who tracked financial activity, in all formats, across the globe and provided the government with essential information on enemies and hostile regimes. In addition she helped enforce such things as sanctions—in the darkest parts of the web—and protected the United States through a massively datacentric framework based on the agency’s ability to parse trillions of individual electronic transactions executed each day by people and entities across the world. She also controlled offense and ran an interagency team of hackers who were capable of inflicting great damage on America’s adversaries, and spent most of their time doing it.

  Johnson was in what looked like a NASA control room, filled with people at workstations, beneath a massive wall of screens.

  King looked at Calibrisi, both of them understanding that if Patricia Johnson was segued in, it meant this was about the Fed. Calibrisi hit his cell, and the other half of the screen went from black to a live feed of a man in a red, blue, and yellow flannel shirt sitting at a keyboard, typing. His hair was unbrushed and shimmered—though it was blond, dark streaks were around the fringes and bangs, caused by perspiration.

  “Pat,” said King, looking at Johnson. “What’s going on?”

  “They’ve accessed the governors’ room,” said Johnson. “According to signals coming off the event, they are now inside the room and I assume cutting through whatever code the system algorithm is written in.”

  “Do we have the capability to know how long it will take?” said Calibrisi.

  “No,” said Johnson. “But it’s a heuristic algorithm.”

  “Meaning what?” said Calibrisi.

  “In terms of breaking the algorithm, each step is dependent on the last step,” said Johnson. “That’s a good thing because it takes sequencing and time. Still, assume they’ll introduce an attack algorithm. It will run something back against the sequence and eventually, just by sheer volume, break it all down. It will take time, but not much.”

  “How long?” said King. “Are we talking hours or minutes?”

  “Minutes,” said Johnson. “Single-digit minutes. Just look.”

  Johnson stepped away from the frame and pointed at a large LCD at the front of the room. It showed a series of lines that cut from left to right. They were red lines across a white digital background.

  “What is it?” said King.

  “That’s the measurement of the hacker’s progress,” said Johnson. “Each line represents a cluster of time-based degradation of the core algorithm. Notice how the lines are drawing closer each capture. The hacker inside the room is getting closer and closer to the core code. When the lines cross, it means they have administrative power over the algorithm that runs the Fed. They can simply start erasing the Fed’s reserves until it’s gone.”

  101

  10:06 A.M.

  THE CARLYLE

  MADISON AVENUE

  NEW YORK CITY

  Igor tried to reach Singerman at least a dozen times, but he didn’t answer.

  He stared at a rectangle on the screen, thinking … hoping. What it showed was the Risch algorithm. There was no way to access it. So, instead, Igor stared at the rising columns of random numbers. It was the last few yards of protection via code, written by Singerman and America’s best computer scientists. He hoped that whatever secrets it was built on would hold. It was the proverbial last line of defense from anarchy.

  Igor suddenly understood something that perhaps only he and the Iranian now inside the Fed understood. That he, Igor, was now powerless, and that he’d lost. The Fed itself—the internal room where the governors controlled all of America’s wealth—was now under enemy control, and it was only a matter of time until they wiped out the entire financial underpinnings of not only America, but the civilized world.

  Hezbollah had sent a hacker of the highest order—and whoever it was was now sitting inside the governors’ room, provisioned inside, typing away, introducing attack algorithms designed to exploit vulnerabilities. That was the SIGINT he could see on a separate screen. It was only a matter of time before he found the entrance to the core code base.

  Trying to hack into the Fed was futile. To access the true capital of the Federal Reserve—the daily volumetric inflows and outflows—one needed to be inside the room. It was a closed-loop system up and until it intersected with the grid somewhere on an outgoing path. It was a bubble. One needed to be inside the room. That realization was the genius of the Fed system—but now it represented its downfall.

  Igor shut his eyes. He shook his head. Igor understood at some moment that there would be no way he could stop him, that the Iranian hacker was inside the central core of the American financial system.

  He tapped his ear. He tried Singerman one more time.

  102

  10:07 A.M.

  SIXTH AVENUE

  NEW YORK CITY

  Singerman crawled from the middle of the sidewalk to a storefront, beneath an awning. He could no longer feel his legs. He knew he was dying. Behind him, a trail of wet blood shimmered. He dragged himself with his hands and arms. Singerman tried to remember where he was but he was so tired.…

  He looked down at his blood-soaked legs and stomach. He wanted to do more, but what more could he do? He let his head start to wobble into sleep. But then he remembered the training. He took the Uzi and aimed it at his foot. He couldn’t feel his feet anymore. He fired at his foot—smashing a bullet into his toes. A piercing ripple of electric pain shot through him. But he was awake now.

  Singerman heard his earbud. He tapped it.

  “Yeah,” said Singerman.

  “Aaron, it’s Igor,” came a Russian voice. “Are you there?”

  “No,” said Singerman. “No, Igor, I’m sorry, I’m not.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got shot.”

  “Oh, Christ, I’m sorry,” said Igor.

  “Where are you?” said Singerman.

  “At the iodine sheet field,” said Igor. “Someone is inside the governors’ room. I’ve got Fedwire up and down. I can see what he’s doing in real time but he can’t be stopped unless someone takes over the keyboard. The security membrane is not penetrable, unless you have the eye scans and thumbs. It’s hard-wired. Is there a back door?”

  Singerman coughed blood as he struggled to listen, and to register the voice. It was a Russian voice, he thought as he drifted further into shock. He was now in a cloud and felt himself somehow rising up and starting to float away, in harmony, drifting into whatever oblivion lay next—and then he fired again, spraying bullets into his other foot. This time he barely felt it, though it was enough to cause him to groan.

  “Yes, I put it there myself,” said Singerman. “You
can turn off the sheet field for approximately two and a half seconds.”

  “How?” said Igor.

  “There’s a trigger in the reboot in the power source,” said Singerman. “It will only work once. It tells the reboot to pause for two point five seconds.”

  Singerman coughed violently as blackness descended, and nothing could prevent the inevitable conclusion of his life that was coming. He was dying this time. He couldn’t even lift the Uzi to shoot at his legs. Maybe he was already dead.…

  He suddenly remembered designing the system, under the tutelage of his mentor, Professor Richards, at Yale. It was when he started working for the agency.

  “JACK314,” said Singerman.

  “What?” said Igor.

  “JACK314,” said Singerman, fighting just to speak. “Do you have it?” he said.

  “Yes, I wrote it down. What is it?”

  “It’s a crypto code to shut down Fedwire,” said Singerman. “It will stop anything the hacker has done. It has to be all caps, Igor.”

  “Got it. Where are you?” said Igor. “I’ll send someone, an ambulance.”

  “It’s too late,” said Singerman. Then he whispered his last words: “I’m sorry I couldn’t get there, Igor.”

  103

  10:07 A.M.

  UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT BUILDING

  FIRST AVENUE AND FORTY-SECOND STREET

  NEW YORK CITY

  Dewey pressed “20” and the elevator doors shut as the cab started climbing.

  He removed a combat knife, a fixed-blade SEAL Pup, from a sheath at his calf and pried the electrical control panel ajar, bending the corner back. With both hands, he yanked back on the panel and ripped it off the wall, exposing the internal workings of the elevator. He found the wires to the bell and lights, took the blade, and severed them. Immediately, darkness cloaked the elevator.

  Dewey crouched in the corner, putting the hilt of the knife between his teeth. His eyes acclimated and he saw a thin seam of light between the two elevator doors as it went higher. He targeted the MP7A1 at the seam of light. Dewey found—in his mind—a shooting seam between the elevator doors, and waited. A square opening no bigger than a deck of cards. He targeted the silencer into the mental aperture, completely still. The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened and he prepared to fire.

  Nothing happened for several moments. He stared from the back corner of the elevator and listened in silence. He heard alarms in the distance, on other floors, but nothing on this floor, it was a ghost town. After several silent moments, the doors slid shut. The elevator remained sitting there, and Dewey acclimated to his shooting point by the trails of light around the edges of the elevator cab, cast through seams around the now closed doors. He waited a half minute, and still the doors remained shut.

  He listened, feeling each passing second like a belt whipping across his back. He could hear nothing. Inside the dark cab, only the occasional creak of a cable somewhere spoiled the silence.

  In the background was the incessant wail of emergency alarms inside the building.

  Then the doors opened.

  Dewey pressed his finger harder against the trigger, though he didn’t fire. There was nothing there, just an empty corridor. After several seconds, the doors shut. He remained fixated on the doors.

  Dewey had killed the man who built QUDS, Abu Paria, in a Macau casino. He’d almost died that night in a casino restroom. He’d seen firsthand the savages QUDS made. They had no regard for human life. Yet Dewey learned that night in Macau that he was more of an animal than even Paria.

  A few moments later the elevator doors opened and a man stepped quietly into the hallway outside it. He had on a black ski mask and was dressed in a gray sweatshirt and jeans, clutching a PS90. Dewey pumped the trigger, catching the gunman with a bullet to his forehead, then fired a second time, a staccato thump. The second bullet pounded a hole in the man’s chest, kicking him sideways—two fast shots that dropped the gunman with a dull grunt, in a contorted pile on the hallway floor.

  Dewey stepped over the dead Iranian into the hallway, SMG clutched in his hands and blade between his teeth.

  There were no lights on, but ambient light cast a yellow hue to the silent corridor. He paused and skulked to his right, looking for stairs. As he came to the corner of the elevator bank, he paused and listened. He waited a dozen seconds then rounded the corner, led by the suppressor at the end of the MP7. A red light with the word EXIT shone a few feet away.

  Dewey slung the SMG across his back and, with his right hand, took a suppressed Colt M1911A1 semiautomatic .45 caliber pistol from beneath his left armpit. He took the knife from his teeth into his left hand. He entered the stairwell in silence.

  The stairs were flashing between utter darkness and bright momentary bursts of red from battery-powered emergency beacons every few seconds.

  He moved down the stairs, hugging the back wall and crouching as he descended toward the eighteenth floor. He heard a noise—just the faintest movement of a shoe scratching concrete. There was someone on the stairs below.

  Dewey got down on his stomach. He started crawling down the stairs, like an alligator, at the edge of the back wall, trying not to make a noise. Dewey was tilted down the stairs on all fours, his feet up behind him, his hands on the concrete aimed down the stairs, in each hand a weapon. With each step down, he came closer and closer to eighteen. When he turned a corner on his stomach, he saw, in the flashing red light, a shadow. Dewey crawled down the next set of stairs, just before the turn. He let his hands go and his body suddenly started sliding down the stairs. As he passed the corner of the stairwell—sliding painfully—Dewey saw the gunman in the flashing red light. He was looking up the stairwell for him. Dewey pumped the trigger, hitting him in the temple and dropping him.

  Gunfire erupted from just below.

  Dewey got to his feet and lurched to the outer wall as bullets pelted the ceiling and wall just above him. Dewey holstered the Colt and put the knife in a pocket. He took the MP7 from over his back and found the trigger for the M203, an attachment under the barrel that fired antipersonnel rounds. He pumped the trigger and sent a grenade down at the gunman. The blast was loud and shook the stairs. The grenade hit way past the gunman but the force of the explosion kicked him awkwardly forward, blown out by the grenade. The weight of his momentum carried him over the railing and he tumbled over it and dropped into the chasm, screaming, his skull clanging several times along the sides of the stairwell as he plunged to his death.

  He set the fire selector to full auto as he entered the eighteenth floor. He moved quietly down the corridor. There were dozens of people scattered dead on the ground, blood spilled out in maroon pools. Desks were turned over. Shattered glass was everywhere.

  Wind pulsed in from a blown-out window.

  This was where the missile attack had taken place.

  There were bodies everywhere. The killing was fresh. Holes in walls, broken, turned-over furniture, missing limbs, tons of glass, and the remnant smell from the explosion.

  As he scanned the large suite for Dellenbaugh, he sensed movement and turned.

  104

  10:08 A.M.

  FLOOR 18

  UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT BUILDING

  FIRST AVENUE AND FORTY-SECOND STREET

  NEW YORK CITY

  Mansour followed a trail of fresh blood from near where Sayyari had been shot. Whoever had shot this man was still alive.

  At the same time, he scanned the bomb-scarred floor for J. P. Dellenbaugh. Many people were missing limbs, several were unrecognizable due to blunt trauma in and around their heads. It was like a plane crash.

  He and the other two men searched, with Mansour leading a path out across the destroyed office space, stepping over furniture and bodies. Following the trickle of crimson.

  Mansour found Dellenbaugh against the wall, facing out near the broken windows. He was clutching a gun, but he was weak and nearly unconscious. He saw Mansour and tried to
move the weapon but could not.

  Mansour’s men pulled the American president down the hall and into an empty office suite, part of the floor that hadn’t been destroyed.

  They sat Dellenbaugh in an office chair and flex-cuffed his arms behind his back, so that he couldn’t fall over. One of the men stepped back and started to frame the scene in his phone, preparing to video the fallen president. He hit the flashlight on the cell and suddenly the bleeding president was illuminated in bright light.

  The second man removed an object from his shoulder pack. It was a folded-up black flag with the Hezbollah white crest in the middle. He hung it over a painting on the wall behind the president.

  Mansour approached the president. In broken English, he said, “If you say you are the Great Satan, I will spare your life.”

  Dellenbaugh’s eyes were glassy and weaving around as he attempted to stay alive. He looked at Mansour.

  “Fuck you,” he coughed, spitting a mouthful of blood at Mansour.

  Mansour raised his submachine gun and brought it to within an inch of Dellenbaugh’s bloodshot eye. Then he remembered: the moment was coming. The message would be captured on video and sent to TASS, CGTN, CNN, DNC, Al Jazeera, and The New York Times, and then every other news outlet in the world, those first outlets being the first to see the video because they would quickly seek to exploit the killing of Dellenbaugh for their own ends.

  Mansour would ultimately be the one who killed Dellenbaugh.

  He couldn’t believe how everything had gone according to plan.

  Mansour lowered the PS90 as one of the others prepared to film the assassination of the president. Mansour pulled on a black balaclava and removed a knife from a sheath at his waist. He stepped behind Dellenbaugh. He put the sharp edge of the KA-BAR against Dellenbaugh’s neck.

  “Go,” said the man filming on his phone.

  As he was about to slash the president’s neck, Mansour heard gunfire from just down the hallway. He sheathed the blade and charged through the empty office and into the hallway with the submachine gun out in front of him and his finger on the trigger.