Cyberstrike

by James Barrington

  ‘Now start tracking south-west towards the airfield,’ Sadir ordered, ‘and keep the speed down so it doesn’t trigger alarms anywhere.’

  He glanced at the two young Chinese men sitting in the seats on either side of him and smiled.

  ‘We’ve done well,’ he said. ‘I hope your country will be appreciative of the work you’ve done here and with the prize that you’ll be able to ship to Beijing or Shanghai, in the diplomatic bag, of course. In fact,’ he added, ‘I think you probably deserve a drink to keep you going, because it’s still a long flight to where we’ll land the drone. Stay here, and keep the Reaper heading in the same direction.’

  ‘There are Cokes in the fridge,’ Joseph said, as Sadir stood up to leave the room.

  In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator, took out two cans of Coke, half filled a couple of glasses and then, with a surreptitious glance back towards the door of the room, he took two small vials of colourless liquid out of his pocket, snapped off the tops and poured the contents into each of the glasses, and used a teaspoon to mix the contents, being careful not to rattle the steel spoon against the glass.

  He walked back into the room they were calling the control suite, handed over the glasses and then returned to the kitchen to pour his own drink, which he would consume neat, without any extras.

  Sadir had only been able to obtain the services of the two professional, Chinese government-trained, hackers – their range of techniques and abilities went way beyond the level that Ganem and the other two men had reached – by agreeing with their employer that his plan would deliver not simply a current and state-of-the-art Reaper drone, but also a full weapons fit, intact and undamaged. He had agreed to fund the entire process of stealing the drone on the understanding that on delivery he would receive substantial remuneration for conducting the operation. That was his stated motive, though his real agenda was of course entirely different, and he had managed to convince the senior officers running Unit 61398 of that.

  As the two Chinese men sipped the drinks and imbibed the nanobot cocktail that would kill them both in under half an hour, Sadir began to quietly celebrate in his mind. His two companions had had no idea what had happened at Hancock Field, except that Sadir had somehow managed to disable the ground control station. They believed that all they then had to do was land the drone at the small private airfield they had identified as a suitable location, and where a small delegation of Chinese diplomats was probably already waiting to see the drone descend from the sky. He wondered how long they would stay there before it dawned on them that something had gone wrong and that the Reaper, the enticing high-tech prize that Sadir had dangled in front of them, wasn’t going to appear.

  He had calculated that Joseph and Michael would collapse at least twenty minutes before he would need to swing the Reaper onto a southerly heading to track directly towards Washington D.C., where he would unleash the entirety of the weapons load carried by the drone into the soft underbelly of the people of the capital, the crowds that he was certain would already be out in the streets in response to the series of blackouts Ganem and the other two hackers had engineered. The kind of crowds that a typically cynical American military pilot would probably describe as ‘a target-rich environment’ if the Reaper was overhead somewhere like Baghdad. Well, they were about to find out that the same mentality could also exist over Washington D.C.

  Sadir’s final act would be to plunge the Reaper directly into the portico of the White House, where the substantial quantity of fuel remaining in the tanks – it should still be carrying almost half of its initial fuel load – would create an impressive, and hopefully fatal, fireball. He wouldn’t be able to kill the President because the bulletproof glass and thick reinforced walls of the building would prevent that happening, but he should certainly be able to take out several of the Secret Service bodyguards and anybody else within range. And the sight of the front of the White House apparently bursting into flames, an image which he was certain would travel around the world in a matter of seconds thanks to the power of social media and, almost incidentally, send most of the stock markets into free fall, would be the culmination of the attack that he and his associates in Iraq had been working on and planning for most of the last decade.

  He sipped his own, uncontaminated, Coke with a feeling of quiet satisfaction as he waited patiently for his two companions to die.

  Chapter 53

  Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, United States of America

  Grant Rogers stared back at the clearly angry Lewis Gordon. The Baltimore SAC’s reaction had not been entirely unanticipated, because obviously Charles Bouchier would have discovered fairly quickly that one of his ASACs and a senior special agent had left the Hoover building unexpectedly and he would probably have been informed about the flight of the Bell helicopter out of DC up to Bel Air carrying three passengers and requested by somebody at the Bureau. Putting two and two together to make four is not a particularly difficult trick.

  ‘We have an unfolding situation in DC,’ Rogers began, but Gordon interrupted him immediately.

  ‘I know. A few blackouts. Perhaps you can tell me what the hell that has got to do with the FBI. Or has the Bureau now started working for the power companies?’

  ‘Sorry, but you’ve been badly misinformed,’ Rogers replied. ‘There haven’t just been a few blackouts in DC, as you put it. The information I received from the electrical engineers who were trying to restore power was that they were facing a cascade situation where circuits would overload, trip and shed the load onto other circuits which would then do exactly the same thing. And the reason they were doing this wasn’t because half the residents of DC suddenly decided to hike their air-conditioners up another notch or two or turn on their ovens. It was because some hackers had created artificial faults inside the networks, shutting down generator cooling systems, fiddling with thermostats and altering settings. And they managed to affect virtually every power company that supplies DC and the surrounding areas. Unravelling it and finding and fixing all of these faults is probably going to take them at the very least the rest of the day, maybe longer.’

  Somewhat to Roger’s surprise, Gordon had listened to what he said attentively and without interrupting.

  ‘Okay, maybe I was misinformed. Maybe there are a lot of blackouts. But my question still stands: what has that got to do with the FBI? And while you’re at it, maybe you can tell me exactly what the hell you’re doing here in Bel Air and why you needed my SWAT team activated?’

  Rogers nodded. At least Gordon was listening to him, something that Bouchier only very rarely did, and even then he had a habit of constantly interrupting whoever was talking, like the kind of unpleasant, biased and aggressive interviewers seemingly favoured by many satellite television news channels. He’d never met the Baltimore SAC before but he knew of him, the FBI being just as gossipy as any other large organisation, and Gordon had a reputation for being exceptionally bright and with a very low tolerance for both bullshit and fools. And the fact that he had made it as far as he had in the Bureau’s hierarchy not only as a comparatively young man, but also as a comparatively young black man, was a clear testament to his abilities.

  ‘The short version is that DC is under attack, and the information that we’ve obtained suggests that the blackouts are simply the first stage in what’s going to happen. We’ve had help from the NSA and the British GCHQ and what we know is based primarily on mobile phone intercepts and the triangulation of those same mobiles. That’s why we’re here, and also why we requested the activation of your SWAT team – because we believe the mastermind behind these attacks is located just a few miles from here, in Fairview, and right now he’s probably making his final preparations to launch his strike against DC. Time’s passing and the longer we just talk, the more chance there is of that attack happening. And what we certainly can’t do is hang around waiting for somebody like Charles Bouchier back in the Hoover building to decide there really is a problem and st
art issuing orders. Our information suggests we don’t have days. We might not even have hours. Right now we might be looking at just a few minutes before the attack commences.’

  ‘Okay, Rogers, you’ve got my attention, and I agree that if we waited for Bouchier to make a decision we’d probably be sitting around here for the rest of the week. To set your mind at rest, the SWAT team is fully kitted out and on its way to Fairview right now, as your man requested, with no lights or sirens, just a couple of black Suburbans driving nice and quietly through the suburbs. I know those SUVs just scream “Bureau” or “Secret Service” but they’re all we’ve got. They’ll park up somewhere and wait for the go signal, and I guarantee they will be ready when we need them.’

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘So what’s the target?’

  Rogers outlined the information they had obtained from the GCHQ intercepts, the translations of the Arabic speech used in the phone calls, and the content of the SMS messages.

  ‘So you hope the local cops have picked up those three hackers, or the people you think are hackers, and you believe this man Sadir, this “father of destruction” as he calls himself, is out at Fairview right now, presumably with his finger on the trigger. What you don’t know is what pressing the trigger will do. And these other two contacts, one at Damascus and the other at Syracuse. What are we doing about them?’

  ‘There’s not a lot we can do, as far as I can see. We had enough evidence to move against the three suspected hackers – or just about, anyway – and we’ve established Sadir’s role. But we have no idea who the other two people are or what they’re doing, and we certainly don’t have probable cause to do anything more than interview them. Maybe we’ll get around to doing that when this is all over. But right now, I’m certain the danger is Sadir and whatever nasty little plan he’s concocted, and that’s what we need to get sorted.’

  ‘Okay,’ Gordon said, standing up, ‘let’s move it.’

  Chapter 54

  Fairview, Harford County, Maryland, United States of America

  Joseph, sitting on Sadir’s left, suddenly stood up, emitted a kind of strangled gasp and fell backwards, bouncing off the arm of the swivel chair he’d been sitting in and sending it sliding across the carpeted floor towards the back wall of the room. Sadir had seen the effect of his lethal nanobot cocktail numerous times and knew beyond doubt that Joseph was already dead. That just left Michael to deal with.

  ‘Joseph!’ Michael called out, springing from his own chair and stepping over to try to assist his friend and colleague.

  Sadir also stood up, glanced across at Michael’s half-empty glass and realised he would need to assist the process of the Chinese man’s imminent death, and that he needed to act immediately.

  As Michael bent over and tried in vain to revive his friend, Sadir reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a fully loaded Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol fitted with an Obsidian9 suppressor, an expensive unit optimised, as its name suggested, for the 9mm Parabellum round, the most popular handgun and submachinegun cartridge in the world.

  It was a point-blank range shot.

  Michael turned his head slightly to look at Sadir and opened his mouth, perhaps to call for help, and at that moment the Iraqi pulled the trigger. The sound of the shot was like a hard slap, completely inaudible outside that room, but the effect on Michael was instant, dramatic and terminal.

  The 9mm Parabellum bullet is not renowned for its stopping power, but at that range it didn’t matter. The copper-jacketed slug tore into the upper left-hand side of the man’s back at around nine hundred miles an hour, missing the spinal column by a couple of inches. It passed between two of his ribs and ploughed through his heart and right lung.

  Michael slumped to the floor, not quite dead but fatally wounded, a hoarse scream erupting from his throat. His agony was short lived as Sadir pulled the trigger a second time, the bullet hitting his back only a couple of inches away from the first wound, and then a third time. But for that final shot, the Iraqi altered his aim and shot Michael in the side of the head. That’s when he finally stopped moaning and stopped moving.

  Sadir stared down for a few seconds, looking dispassionately at his two victims. They were not the first people who had died at his hands, and as the events of this day were going to prove, they were certainly not going to be the last.

  Chapter 55

  Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland, United States of America

  When they stepped back into the foyer, Ben Morgan was using his mobile, and held up his hand to Rogers as he ended the call.

  ‘I’ve had Natasha Black on the horn again,’ he said. ‘Something’s been happening up at Syracuse. The GCHQ monitoring system reports that Sadir sent his contact there a message in English about twenty minutes ago. The message read: “Log-on problems. Contact now established. Execute.” Three minutes later his contact at Syracuse texted him back. That message read: “Execution complete. Allāhu akbar”, and then that mobile shut down. So something’s going on there.’

  ‘What?’ Rogers asked.

  ‘I have no idea. About two minutes after that, Sadir rang another mobile number, but his call wasn’t answered because that phone went off the air almost immediately, and not long enough for GCHQ to get a confirmed location. But the initial trace suggested it was somewhere near Syracuse, certainly within about a fifty-mile radius. That mobile is also still off the air. All that sounds to me like other parts of the plan falling into place, though I still don’t know what the plan actually is.’

  Morgan’s clearly English voice immediately attracted Gordon’s attention.

  ‘I presume you’re this Ben Morgan character who’s managed to stick a burr a couple feet up Charles Bouchier’s ass?’

  ‘Guilty as charged,’ Morgan admitted. ‘But right now Bouchier is the least of my worries. That second call Sadir made worries me because he could have been activating a bomb or something by ringing a mobile attached to an IED. I can’t think of any other reason why a mobile would shut down virtually as soon as it received a call. But I have no idea why a bomb or something at Syracuse would be part of an attack on Washington. It must be three hundred miles away.’

  ‘Morgan is the man who’s been getting the intercepts from GCHQ through a woman called Natasha Black who’s now working at the NSA,’ Rogers clarified.

  ‘I kind of guessed that bit,’ Gordon said. ‘You told me that this guy out at Syracuse sent another SMS today about a flight departure, or did I get that wrong?’

  Morgan responded before Rogers could answer. ‘Exactly. He quoted an ETD, an estimated time of departure, and I’ve no idea how that links to Sadir’s message about log-on problems and establishing contact. Look, I don’t know this country, obviously, but I do know there’s an airfield at Syracuse and that ETD comment must refer to an aircraft. You don’t say ETD if you’re talking about catching a bus or a train or even driving a car somewhere.’

  ‘Unless he was just using it as a form of shorthand,’ Gordon pointed out. ‘I mean, using ETD rather than saying “the train leaves at two” or something. You’ve just said that your whizz-kids over GCHQ could accurately triangulate the location of these mobile phones as long as they stayed connected. So where exactly at Syracuse was the first mobile before it went off the air?’

  Morgan fished his notebook out of his pocket and found the correct page. He ringed a pair of geographical coordinates with his pen, the latest triangulation update Natasha Black had sent him, and handed the book to Special Agent Crawford. The FBI man sat down at a computer terminal, pulled up a mapping application and fed in the information. Then he leaned back in the chair and pointed at the screen.

  ‘The mobile’s position was at the Syracuse Airport,’ he said, ‘so I don’t think that piece of data gets us any further forward.’ Then he paused for a moment and looked more closely at the mapping display.

  ‘What is it, David?’ Gordon asked.

  ‘Well, that position is
on the airfield, but not where I would have expected to see it on the airfield. The passenger terminals and customs and all that stuff are on the north side of the runway, but the location Mr Morgan has given me is to the south of the runway, so maybe our mystery man wasn’t waiting for a flight to depart.’

  ‘What buildings are near that location?’ Rogers asked.

  ‘It’s pretty close to the southern edge of the airfield so there are a bunch of utility companies there, offering stuff like hydraulic and pneumatic repair, batteries, a distribution hub and even a medical centre. I guess they’re all outside the airfield boundary fence and the location I’ve been given is pretty much in the middle of that lot.’

  ‘The accuracy of the triangulation depends on a bunch of different factors,’ Morgan said, ‘but mainly the number of masts in communication with the cell phone. Don’t just focus on the coordinates I gave you. Is there anything else in the area that’s more interesting than a battery shop?’

  Crawford studied the map again, then shook his head. ‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘The only thing marked inside the airfield boundary near there is the Hancock Field ANGB, and I don’t know what that is.’

  ‘I do,’ John Baker said, ‘but I don’t think it helps us any. Syracuse Airport is a joint civil and military airfield, and on the southern side of the runway is the Air National Guard Base. They call that bit Hancock Field.’

  That simple statement and the transcription of the penultimate call that the GCHQ intercept had picked up struck a chord in Morgan’s brain. The expression ‘Contact now established’ could mean that Sadir had been talking to a military pilot. Maybe he had suborned a fighter jockey and intended to have the pilot run strafing runs over Washington D.C. That would certainly count as ‘death from the skies’. In his head, it was all beginning to make a bit more sense.