by Theo Cage
Med had the big Hummer balanced on her knee, the screen open against the steering wheel. They were parked on the east shoulder of Old Mill Road, a two lane gravel road that wound its way through pine and oak forest just west of the Mott’s Run reservoir. Roger had his eye out for traffic, worried that locals would be suspicious of a strange vehicle parked in their neighborhood. He looked over at Med who had access to satellite imagery on her computer that was clearer and more detailed than anything he had seen before. She could zoom into an object as small as a child’s bike and almost count the spokes.
“Here’s the private road that cuts through the forest. The road ends at the property identified by the web traffic scan. There’s a small clearing. Can’t see any borders or fences; it’s all forest with a few cleared areas here and there, except to the north where the forest ends at the reservoir.” On her map the reservoir stretched for miles from east to west, like a large man-made lake.
She drew her finger across the computer screen. “Whoever owns this has lots of wood for fire and cooking, fresh water from the reservoir and several garden plots for growing food. A survivalists dream. And the only entrance is this mile long winding cut road right through the Loblolly. Easy to guard and defend.”
“Lob what?” Roger asked.
“Loblolly pine. A local tree. Even as a kid I liked that word.”
“I didn’t know your skills included arborist.”
Med didn’t smile. “When you make a living reading satellite photos ten hours a day you learn a lot about local fauna. Besides, I grew up in this kind of back country. Corn fields. Pine forest. I’d love to have a home out here.”
Roger pointed to three light gray squares on her monitor. “What are those?”
“The biggest one, in the center of the clearing, is a house. I would call it a farmhouse because it has a porch on three sides. Like they used to build in the 1800’s. But it’s big. I would guess roughly four thousand square feet. Two chimneys. That way it could be heated in the winter with wood if the power goes out.”
“Then to the west, about a quarter of a mile away, just on the edge of the clearing is a steel building. Looks new. Could hold a tractor, implements. A machine shop.”
Roger was trying to understand how she could glean so much information from a small nondescript square on the screen. “How do you know this?”
“I can tell you’re a city boy. People in the country need a place to keep their tractors and a place to repair equipment. It doesn’t look like it, but there is about an acre of garden on this property. Enough to feed a large family year round. Plus, look at this.”
She zoomed in on the smaller of the two outbuildings. The corrugated steel roof filled the screen of her computer. “Look at that.” It was a black circle. “That’s a vent. Most out buildings don’t have vents like that.”
“What is it venting?”
“It’s too small for a chimney. I think it’s a gas engine. That means a generator. And if the generator is in a separate building like this, it’s probably big.”
“This guy is prepared.”
“More than you think. Look at this.” She pointed again to a blurry shape by the shed. “That’s a person. And it’s not our Buzzworm. This was taken on a Tuesday morning last week during working hours when our terrorist wannabe was most likely at work. It’s an adult in overalls. Buzzworm has hired hands.”
“Like farm workers?”
Med moved the screen around with her finger. She examined a few other details. “I see at least two people outside. There could be more in the house. They look like employees. Maybe guards.”
“Guards?”
“He’s probably super paranoid. I think we know that from his MO. He has a lot to protect and he has money. I don’t know why he doesn’t hire people to help out and keep an eye on things — while he goes to work to plot the overthrow of the government. Bastard.”
Roger looked out the window at the trees beside the road. “If there are guards, I guess the idea of just walking in to take a look is off the table.”
She jumped slightly when he said that. “Look there,” she said. She had zoomed in on the guard. Close to his body was an object, indistinct, but unmistakable. “He’s carrying a gun. Your average farm worker isn’t armed in the afternoon. These guys are on high alert.”
“So he’s going to run the show from the farm then?”
Med tapped her fingernails on the laptop. “He’s got everything he needs. Protection. Food. Fuel. And he has access to the Avion.”
Roger snapped his head around. “You said Avion. Is that why you asked me to search for that term in the lab that day? Why the interest?”
“GIPETTO runs on an Avion.”
Roger looked like someone had slapped his face. “You have an Avion at 213?”
Med looked puzzled. She pointed at the HUMMER’s screen. “This computing power you see — the satellite enhancement — that’s the Avion. There isn’t another computer on the planet, or a building full of servers, that could come close to that kind of raw power.”
The silence that followed in the small car allowed them both to hear the wind blowing through the trees around them. To Roger, the sound was vaguely ominous. He just shook his head. “He’s hacked the Avion, hasn’t he?”
Med held her palms up. “That’s impossible.”
“Sure it is. But he did it anyway. Probably was involved right from day one. From the installation. That would account for the videos anyway. He would need that kind of power to pull that off without a team of dozens of people. It would also explain that video of you that has you so freaked out — that ran on your secure system. He was playing with you. Son of a bitch.”
Med had turned pale, her mouth open slightly, staring into the dusty windshield. “He told Hyde that if he wanted to see his daughter again we needed to guarantee that the Avion would run uninterrupted for the next seven days.”
Roger sat forward in the seat, his hands on the dash. He was staring at Med now, doing calculations in his head. “That asshole has finally done it. He’s hijacked the world’s most powerful computer. Imagine a denial of service attack on the CIA, the FBI, the Military, NORAD, Homeland Security, Wall Street, international banking. By an Avion.”
Med was still staring off into the distance. “Is that even possible? It could last for days. For seven days, actually.”
Roger didn’t understand the reference to seven days, but he kept riffing. “The longest DoS attack in history was about an hour. On the FBI. That scared the shit out of the entire US military. So they’ve taken precautions. But that won’t help. Comparing a regular computer-based attack to an attack by the Avion is like comparing a rubber dinghy to a nuclear submarine.”
Med added. “And an attack from the inside. The loss of face for the United States will be impossible to calculate. Plus our national defenses could be useless for days.”
“Where is this Avion tucked away?”
“Roger, you don’t tuck away a fifty million dollar computer. A special floor was built for it on Sub 6.”
“So he kidnapped Hyde’s daughter for leverage to keep the Avion running. He knew somehow that you had a connection with Hyde. If you shut it down to stop the attack, she dies. If you leave it running, it rips the entire intelligence system to shreds and there is nothing anyone can do. Plus your big launch on Monday never happens.”
They both sat for a few moments, pondering the scale of the problem.
“I need to go in and take out his power,” was all Roger said.
“Are you crazy? You’re suddenly a SWAT agent? He has armed guards.”
“Hyde is heading into a trap. He doesn’t have a chance. If he could go in after dark tonight, no power, then he would have a fighting chance. Besides, without power, Buzzworm couldn’t run the Avion remotely. That’s why he has the generator. He knows his weakness.”
Med swallowed. Roger could see she was digesting his plan. It made sense. She rubbed her face with one hand. �
��OK. I have an uncle that lives about an hour from here in Mount Pleasant. Has acreage. He’s retired BATF. Maybe he can help us out. He used to specialize in these kinds of raids. Hopefully he will tell us were crazy or think of another saner solution.”
Roger hit the dash of her car with his right fist so hard Med jumped. She could see him changing in front of her eyes; for the first time since she met him he looked fierce, determined. Testosterone was in the air. “He’s not getting away with this, Med. Do you know what I mean? I hate these arrogant pickpockets. So let’s go see what your uncle has to say about it.” Med started the car, side checked her mirror and pulled out onto the road. When she turned to make a right onto River Road, the local feeder route to Route 95, she noticed Roger had his hand out.
“You took my cell phone away back at the hotel. Now I need yours.”
“Who are you calling?” she asked, handing over the neon pink pay-as-you-go bargain phone she had picked up at Wal-Mart.
“Hyde. I’m going to tell him to wait until the power goes out. And he needs to know about the guards.”
Med recalled the look on Hyde’s face back at the hotel room. “I don’t know, Roger. He doesn’t seem like the waiting type.”
Roger was dialing the number. “Yeah. That’s what worries me.”
CHAPTER 44
Standing in the main hallway at Building 213 on a Sunday night, only made Med feel more and more like her life had somehow skidded off the track. This wasn’t what she signed up for she thought. She felt haunted by a malignant force. Like Buzzworm was everywhere. That he had permeated the air of the CIA.
Med stepped into the gleaming chrome elevator, struggling to understand Buzzworm’s purpose. Why was he attacking the intelligence agency? Was it part of some grand plan or just a simple grudge blown out of sane proportion? She swiped her pass card across the sensing plate and felt the elevator shudder as the doors closed. She knew he was here now, watching her. She felt invaded. How many times had this happened before?
She glanced up at the security camera — its lens as black and lifeless as a shark’s eye. She thought back to the mugger in the street. There was no question in her mind now that Buzzworm was behind the attack. Yet Xavier had somehow rescued her. It all seemed so scripted and perfectly timed to keep her off balance. Scare Ms. Duke, then send in the U.S. Rangers to sweep her off her feet. She grimaced. He had swept her off her feet and she was happy to go along. Damn. She felt like such an idiot.
The elevator whined down the several floors to the Avion platform. She could already feel the air growing cooler around her.
The kidnapping of Hyde’s daughter weighed heavily on Med. She couldn’t imagine being responsible for the life of someone’s child. But she also wasn’t sure how she could prevent the agency from shutting down the Avion. And the government would be doing everything it could to stop a major attack on U.S. security coming out of one of their own divisions, once it started. It would be no secret where the attack was originating from.
Roger had been right. No one in history had ever used a super computer to launch a DoS attack. But if it was to happen, the results would be shattering. First, the sheer power of an Avion was hard for most people to imagine. Capable of sending out billions of fake messages per second, the Avion could overrun the entire Internet, bringing all worldwide communication to its knees in a matter of seconds. That meant email, instant messaging, money transfers, intergovernmental communications, everything would be halted. Med couldn’t even guess what the cost would be, but billions was not out of the question. Maybe trillions.
There were other issues.
Because of GIPETTOs unique capability and links to Western satellite resources, Buzzworm could halt or scramble a high percentage of US military intel ops as well. Which would mean the U.S. military would be blind and deaf, as long as the Avion was running rogue. For how long? That was the other question. She was certain that the Avion could keep an unstoppable barrage up for as long as Buzzworm wanted. Being blind to your enemies for a week or longer was like a lifetime. An open window for terrorist acts of every kind.
The reason this had never been done before was obvious. You don’t play games with a fifty million dollar piece of hardware. At least until now.
Once the world learned that the source of the attack was the CIA, the political ramifications would be impossible to measure. How could anyone trust this kind of technology again?
Med stood in the on-boarding area of sub floor six and studied the sweeping Lexan barrier that protected the Avion. She had spent more than five years of her life, long days and nights, building the code that powered this massive machine. The largest single advance in military security since the guided missile, someone had said. And now that weapon was infected and sick and her one last duty was to keep it alive so that it could attack the very country she designed it to protect.
To Med’s surprise, the elevator door behind her suddenly wheezed open again. Vienna stood there looking harried. They both stared at each other for several seconds.
“Have you heard?” Vienna asked, holding the other HUMMER under her arm.
“Sit down, Jo,” ordered Med.
“I will not sit down. I just heard that the Hong Kong Exchange is down because of an Internet attack and our Avion is the culprit. We’ve also shut down all of China’s government websites. We’ve essentially declared war on them.” She pointed to her military grade PC. “And I’ve been locked out. The director wants to know what is going on.”
Med added. “For your information, there are others. The FBI’s system has just been shuttered. I’ve been monitoring what’s going on for about an hour. This is only the start. This Avion is quite a weapon in the wrong hands.”
Vienna walked up to Med, unable to hide her shock. “Have you gone insane, Duke? You know about this? You did this?”
“I’ve been locked out too. I’m just a bystander at this point.”
“Why haven’t you started the shutdown routine?”
“Because I have orders not to.”
“Orders? From who?”
“Washington police.”
Vienna just stared, then she strode past Med’s workstation and headed for the entry portal. Just as she placed her hand on the scanner, Med stepped up behind her and grabbed her arm away. “I can’t let you go in there.”
Vienna glared, her nostrils flaring and her eyes bulging. Her complexion had turned crimson. “Try and stop me.” She pushed Med away and turned back to the security panel.
Med paused for a second, hardly believing what she was about to do. Then she shoved her manager hard, hitting her in the shoulder with all of her weight. Vienna tumbled sideways, her hands up, trying to grip the smooth sides of the plastic enclosure. She landed awkwardly on her back, her face contorted. Med stood over her.
Vienna looked up, her hair askew. “This is fucking Buzzworm, isn’t it?”
“He’s taken over GIPETTO too.”
“And you’re going to let him?”
“I have no choice, Jo. He’s taken Hyde’s daughter. If the Avion stops running for any reason, he kills her.”
Vienna rolled over onto her stomach, grunted and picked herself up slowly. She sat back with her shoulder blades against the transparent shield. Med guessed she could feel the rumble of the Avion through her spine, as if bunker buster bombs were going off somewhere.
Vienna took a deep breath. “Bastard. I wondered what he was leading up to with his nonsense. Would we have guessed he would go this far? There’s got to be something we can do.”
Med looked down at Vienna. “I used our secure line to send out a warning to the President. Hopefully it got through, but I can’t be sure. I tried to prepare him for what’s about to happen. The DoS attack went after China first because of the time zones. It’s early Monday morning there.”
“Can you take Buzzworm’s control away somehow?”
Med sat down beside Vienna, her head back against the transparent barrier. “He’s l
ocked everyone out. He and he alone runs the show. The only way to stop him is to pull the plug.”
Vienna closed her eyes. “Division 213 won’t survive this. And no doubt the Marines are outside the building right now, trying to find a way to shut the Avion down. Soon they’ll just cut the power to the whole complex.”
“It won’t help. The building has diesel backups that can run for two weeks. Buzzworm has locked those areas down from access. I already tried to get in. The entire building is locked down. You’re lucky to have gotten in when you did. He clearly wants you in here with me.”
“What?”
“He let me in for obvious reasons. I’m his protector. But if he let you in, he did it for a reason. Probably to watch you suffer.” Vienna looked across the room to the security camera mounted above the elevators. She gave the camera the finger. “The Army will blast its way into the backup power if it has to, and just put us in the dark. There won’t be anything you or I can do.”
Med shook her head sadly. “I’ve thought about that. If the Army can’t communicate with their teams, they can’t action an order. I’m guessing the communication systems within the military, right now, are impossibly screwed up. You’ve seen what he could do to a phone network or radio comms?”
Vienna didn’t answer. She just took in a deep breath of air and let it out in a shaky exhalation. “Hyde’s daughter in exchange for World War III, you say?” She turned to Med. “I’m going to give you two hours, that’s all. After that, I’m shutting this system down. And the only way you’re going to stop me is by killing me with your bare hands. Fair warning?“
Med looked over into the tired, dark brown eyes of her division boss. Jo didn’t even blink. This was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER 45
BW made his way quickly across the narrow gap of cleared bush that separated his farmhouse from the encroaching forest, his head down. He had reluctantly gone back to his truck to retrieve a ranch rifle he had bought the day before, a classic Winchester Model 70, perfect for hunting and for protecting his property. He hated being outside on his land during the day and he always felt a frisson of fear when he looked up at the sky. Were you watching the clouds or were they watching you?
