The room didn’t have any windows, but being four stories underground, under some of the most valuable real estates in central London it wouldn’t, there was air conditioning, the unit was so silent that you never noticed it. The complex, known as the Cabinet Office Briefing Room or ‘COBRA’ was probably one of the most secret facilities in the Western world. And the people there were responsible for managing every crisis the United Kingdom faces, everything from a miners strike to nuclear war if need be.
There were a total of ten large leather chairs around a large mahogany table, the Prime Minister or PM sat in the middle, facing the only door in the room, on her left was the Minister for Defence, her right the Deputy PM and chancellor of the exchequer, the final ministerial post next to him was taken by the ‘Home Secretary’
Nine others were in the room, other than the Prime Minister, four were ministers of state, two were the heads of various intelligence agencies, the Chief of General Staff, a Major General from the Army and the last two from MI6, one was with Sir Michael, head of MI6, but so far he hadn’t introduced the last man, it was him that spoke up next.
“For now, Yes, but if you think you’ve heard the last of them, then think again!” he threw the briefing paper he’d been given down, slowly reached for the glass of water he’d poured earlier and took a sip, he looked around the table, almost challenging people to prove him wrong, or at least challenge what he’d just said.
“Sir Michael” the PM cut in, her voice sharp, but not raised, “Kindly introduce us, and then let this gentleman explain himself” she wasn’t happy at being told she was wrong, no Prime Minister ever is, and clearly that’s what this man, whoever he was, was doing.
“Sorry Ma’am”, Sir Michael spoke quietly, “there hasn’t been time to fill everyone in on the situation, so I thought I’d bring in the man who’s been in on this from the start, this is Steve Chambers, one of our best people, he was working”
“Yes, yes” we know where Mr Chambers worked” she cut in, “but what is he doing here? And what is he talking about?”
“If you’ll let me finish Ma’am” Sir Michael was normally a perfect gentleman, but this meeting wasn’t a normal type of meeting, “I said, he’s been tracking this from the start, so I’ll let Steve explain!” he looked directly at Steve, the message he sent with the eyes said ‘this better be good’
“First of all Ma’am,” Steve began, “This isn’t the first incident we’ve dealt with regarding this group!”
There was some consternation in the group, words fired off like missiles, asking questions, trying to be the one who ‘got it right’ and all missing the mark.
“ISIS?”
“Hezbollah?”
“North Korea?”
“All partly right” Steve replied causing total confusion, “and all totally wrong!”
It took a full two minutes for the questions to stop, a cacophony of noise, where no one could even hear themselves think, “How the hell can that be?” the Home Secretary shouted above the noise, the PM just sat there, Steve could tell, she was thinking, probably trying to guess what the connection was. “How?” was all she asked when the noise died down enough to be heard.
“First of all” Steve began, “the software, it was North Korean, or at least based on stuff that North Korea stole from the NSA and has used before, when they tried to hack the Federal reserve, and the Bank of England” he let that sink in for a moment or two, then went on, “but it wasn’t them!”
“So they say!” the other intelligence officer, Sir Michael’s opposite number at MI5 Dame Judith, the second female in the room, “Personally, I’m not so ready to believe them” she threw the pen she’d been twiddling down, “what proof do you have!”
“The first bit” Chambers made eye contact with her, “is the coding in the program itself” he paused, but only briefly, just enough to ‘take the temperature’ of the room, they weren’t going to like what he was going to say next. “We all understood that the North Koreans stole the coding they used from the NSA right?” he looked around the room, that’s what the Americans had quietly told the rest of the world’s intelligence agencies, but it was only partly true, “They didn’t” he went on, the intake of breath around the room was audible, like the thunderclap of a Battleship opening fire with all her guns, and everyone on the receiving end think, ‘God have mercy on us’ but Chambers went on, “They paid a third party to do the actual stealing, and that third party made copies of what they stole, that’s what we’re seeing here” he pointed to the file, “A copy of the original, but with a few tweaks that weren’t in the stuff the North Koreans used!” he leaned back in the chair, in his right hand he had a small remote unit, he clicked it and a large screen, that had so far been dormant came to life.
“So far” Dame Judith came back, “You haven’t offered any proof, and who is this third party you’re speaking of?” she clearly wasn’t buying it, not yet at least.
“I’m getting to that” Chambers cut in, “take a look on the screen, two samples of computer code, one taken from the North Korean hack,” he indicated the one on the right of the screen, “the other taken from the virus we recovered in the ransomware attack.” The press already had a name for it, and they were sticking with it, just so that everyone knew what they were talking about, “Look at the third line of both, almost the same right? but there’s a couple of things there on the left, that is just aren’t right, see if you can spot them.”
It took a moment, but slowly each of them acknowledged they were, almost, but not completely, there were two subtle differences, two small mathematical calculations that were on one, but not the other.
“Now look at the seventh and ninth lines, some changes there too” He paused for a moment, “Someone took the original, and altered it!”
“But that doesn’t prove it wasn’t the same people” Dame Judith butted in, “just that they made copies”
“True” Steve replied, “That is until you see what was altered! The Korean one wasn’t that sophisticated, I doubt they’d have the skills to make the changes!”
“Why?” it was the Home Secretary asking, “and for what purpose?”
“I’ll answer that soon” Chambers cut him off, “but back to the original question, the first one needed you to send a message, it’d ‘piggyback’ onto it, computer boffins call it a ‘Trojan Horse’, but it needs a message to attach to! “ he reached out for the glass of water he had on the table, he was slightly nervous, you don’t’ get to talk like this to senior government officials every day, taking a sip, he replaced the glass and continued on. “The first one was what the North Koreans used to infect the Banks, they relied on the Banks talking to each other”
There was a slight pause as Steve picked up the remote again, clicked a button and him screens, the one from the right disappeared, “Now take a look at this baby” he began again, “the commands are different, more refined, because this one’s much more potent, all it needs is your email address list. It doesn’t need you to send the message, it sends one for you, and to all those in your address book.”
Stunned silence, it took a whole minute for the shock of what he was telling them to sink in, but Steve only waited that minute, it was important they grasp just how bad this virus was, “your machine doesn’t even have to be switched on, all it needs is to be on the address list, then when the virus arrives at the server, it’ll get a ‘wake up call’ from the server and the message gets sent,” he waited for a moment, looking around the room, even Sir Michael looked grim, and he’d heard most of what Steve was saying before, most, but not all. “Then, if your antivirus doesn’t get this bitch, and it’s not likely to, you go into autopilot and retransmit the virus while your machine looks to all intents and purposes as if its turned off, they’ve got you!”
To all intents and purposes, Steve had just told them that the virus was, or should have been unstoppable, but someone had stopped it, how?
“Okay” it was Dame Judi
th started to speak first, she was cut off by the PM.
“How was it stopped then?” the PM spoke, the softness of her voice betraying nothing of the anger she felt, knowing they were defenceless left her seething inside, like any politician, she hated to lose a fight, even when it was against an enemy they didn’t know.
“Pure dumb luck Ma’am” Steve shot back almost flippantly, “A young kid, not much older than twenty spotted something in the coding, a way of switching it off!”
“What?” there was an audible intake of breath, “You’re telling us” the PM began again, “that potentially the most damaging attack on this country in what, twenty years” she was incredulous, “was thwarted by pure luck?”
“Actually, it was some kid with a PlayStation Ma’am” Steve cut back in,he couldn’t help smiling, knowing how uncomfortable it made all the ‘power people’ in the room, normally he’d be ‘hauled over hot coals’ for talking this way to even a senior member of the government, let alone the Prime Minister of the country, “I didn’t say anything of the sort, I said”
“I know what you said” she cut him off, “but the fact remains it was just some boy on the right page who spotted what our computer people didn’t!”
“I still haven’t answered the second part of the question ma’am” Steve cut her off, “and that I need to answer,” he turned to Sir Michael, “You remember the group that kidnapped me a few weeks ago?”
Sir Michael simply nodded, he’d helped Chambers put this part of the jigsaw together, and he half knew where he was going, but only half knew, “Phoenix group” he offered, “Mercenaries from Russia, guns for hire working with the drug lords”
“Bit more than that Sir Michael” Chambers replied, “They’ve been building a global network of drug barons and the like, they were the ones stole the virus from the NSA, we didn’t have proof, that is until this showed up!”
“And it was stopped by some boy with a playstation?” the PM clearly wasn’t impressed, “Please”
“That ‘BOY’” Steve shot back cutting her off, “was a computer security consultant, yes he got lucky and had a bit dumb putting it on Facebook, but he broke the code because he’d put a decent firewall in, just like we told each government department to do when they decided to share files” he was angry. “Tell me Ma’am, when we advised each department to put firewalls in to prevent attacks like this bringing the government to its knees, was that ever done?” he knew the answer, but they’d pushed the wrong buttons, and Sir Michael knew, Steve didn’t really give too much of a damn about pleasing people, he got the job done.
“We’d begun a study” the Home Secretary began.
“Oh Please” It was Sir Michael replied to that, “we told you the threat was real, that there were any number of governments the other groups who’d love to see Britain on her knees, but as usual, no one listened”
“But the costs, they were going to be tens of millions”
“And repairing the damage now will be hundreds of millions, not to mention the patients in the hospitals who probably died because we didn’t get them the treatment they needed, the various nuclear power stations that had to do emergency shutdowns in case the virus got into their systems and reprogrammed them into meltdown”
“Now you’re being dramatic” the PM sounded almost condescending.
“Iran 2010” Sir Michael cut her off, this wasn’t a time to play nice, “Israel decided to try and shut down Iran’s nuclear programme by sending a small reactor into meltdown, thankfully the Iranians caught it in time, but it almost caused a nuclear exchange, read the file Ma’am” he threw a plain looking file about a half inch thick onto the table, “go back and check, your departments all got copies of the file at the time, I suggest you read them!” he sounded frustrated, “and by the way” he came back, “They tried again last year, so don’t tell me it’s a one off!”
Chapter 10
“There’s only one thing for it” Sir Michael spoke, he was in his office, but not the one in Vauxhall house, one he kept somewhere else, just for situations like this, when he didn’t want others knowing what he was doing, Chambers was there, in front of them were two screens, one had a single face on it, you couldn’t see whether it was night or say where that person was, but he knew it was night there, not that the one on the other end was looking tired, stressed yes, but who wasn’t, “We have to strike first”
“I agree” Mildred, the head of New Zealand intelligence spoke for the first time since the conference had started, they’d been there for at least half an hour, “but easier said than done, we did have a plan, but this takes priority, and besides, I think we may be able to adapt it”
“True” Sir Michael replied as he stood up and headed for the Nespresso machine, one capsule in, water added and seconds later a ‘ristorante adrette’ or long black as the rest of the world knows it, taking the coffee he headed for his chair and sat back down. He waved to Chambers to indicate he could help himself, “But let’s have a think of what we do know”
“Akbari worked in cybercrime” Chambers spoke up, “that tells me that they needed him out of the way for the cyber attack” he headed towards the machine, “maybe it was that he’d have spotted the kinks in the software and would have killed it”
“If that’s the case” Mildred asked the obvious, “then why didn’t the people working there? I mean it’s their job to function under pressure isn’t it?”
They hadn’t addressed the other screen, there wasn’t any need to, they knew who was there. Scorpion Team were in England, but not in London, they were outside the city somewhere, Sir Michael wasn’t sure where, and it was probably better he didn’t know, the less he knew about some parts of this operation the better, and the easier it would be to say “I wasn’t aware of that” if the proverbial hit the fan.
“Was there anything strange about the software?” Sandy was the one asked the question, she already had an idea but wanted to hear the confirmation.
“Actually yes” Chambers looked down, he had a piece of paper in front of him, “Sorry boss, I was going to show you this but the meeting started before I got the chance,” he turned back towards the two monitors, “It looks like there was some kind of Trojan Horse, but it was geared for one specific email address.”
Troy was an ancient city in what is modern-day Turkey, legend has it that the walls were impregnable, no one was able to break into the city.
War had raged in the region for ten years, and the besieging Army was still no closer to defeating the Trojans as they couldn’t get through the walls, then someone came up with a plan that was as simple as it was audacious.
Build a model of a Horse, a huge model capable of fitting fifty trained warriors inside, then when its finished leave the ‘horse’ on the beach with the warriors inside while the rest of the army moves away as if leaving. They even made it look like a ‘peace offering’ to the Trojans.
The Trojans fell for it, thinking that the horse was a ‘peace offering’ they took it inside the city and partied all night, only to wake up the next morning with their city in ruins as the warriors stormed the gates from the inside and let the main force in, the city fell within hours, could this have been a ‘Trojan horse’ designed to take down the security services defences from the inside?
There was a stunned silence, it lasted a full minute before anyone spoke, yes, they had firewalls, but if the enemy had gone to the trouble of removing one of the people who’d be looking after those firewalls, then did they have someone on the inside, they all knew the answer to that.
“Actually Sandy” It was Chambers broke the silence, “I’m inclined to agree with you, it was a Trojan horse. I think that when we sent the command code to disable it there was meant to be a second part that would allow it behind the firewall, once behind it they’d have access to every bank account the government uses, there’d be no way of knowing how much they would steal!”
“We have to get this Pig” Sir Michael almost threw the c
offee cup across the room, “and I don’t mean behind bars!”
“We’re expecting them to hit again then” it was more a statement than a question, “But where?”
“Why wait? let’s give ‘em something, or someone to go after!” It was Jacko spoke up, “we’ve been playing this game on their rules, let’s change things around, give them something to think about!”
“What do you mean?” both Mildred and Sir Michael asked pretty much at the same time, it was Sir Michael that went on, “explain yourself, Captain”
“Look boss” Jacko knew Sir Michael didn’t really like being referred to that way, but they both knew it was part of the Regiment, so he just went on, “so far everything we’ve done has been reacting to whatever they did right? Sure we’ve had some good takedowns, but all we’ve done is put a small delay in the supply at best right?” he stopped momentarily before going on, “Let’s give ‘em a target they can’t refuse, and be ready to grab ‘em by the short and curlies when they do”
“Are you suggesting” Chambers began. “What would we use?” he wasn’t sure he liked the idea of where this was going.
“The kid that stopped the virus” Jacko jumped in, “his address is in the public domain right? They’d have no trouble tracking him down, especially if we gave them an incentive, like letting it be known MI5 wants him as he might have tracked the source!”
“You mean you’d put a defenceless civilian in harm’s way?” Mildred wanted to make sure she was hearing this right, “am I understanding you right?”
“Sorry Ma’am” Joey chipped in, “but so far they haven’t exactly shown much allowance for civvies from their side, I mean the farmhouse and what happened to Hene and Sam”
“But they were coppers” Chambers cut in, everyone wanted to be totally sure that this was the way they were going, the idea had potential, but could also go spectacularly wrong.
Scorpion's Vengeance Page 5
