Jack saw Munir's throat work as he blinked a few times. He gave him a moment. Jack felt bad about Russ too. A sweet, harmless guy.
"Okay," he said finally, "how does this bring down the Internet?"
Munir cleared his throat. "By overloading it. I'm not saying this is what the virus intends, but considering that it's created a billion-unit botnet that has high-bandwidth video transfer capability, that capability could be used to send video back and forth between all the computers on the botnet."
"I can see how that would jam up the computers, but how would that affect the Internet?"
"Imagine all the computers in the botnet simultaneously spewing tons of network traffic. Imagine computers all across the world overloading their ISPs. Not only is each ISP inundated with network traffic, but they keep trying to communicate with servers and Web sites across the world, over and over again, all at the same time. They have tremendous capacity, but they have their limits. Eventually, the whole Net grinds to a halt. Look what happened when Michael Jackson died. There were so many posts and searches about him that Google and Twitter slowed to a crawl. And those were just text, which is nothing compared to video. Even so, they thought they were under a DDoS attack."
"That denial of service you told me about?"
"Yes. A distributed denial of service attack. That's when hackers stream enormous amounts of data from a botnet at a specific target in an attempt to crash its servers."
"Why?"
"Because they can, I suppose. It's happened to the social networking sites numerous times; back in 2008 a group called 'Anonymous' crashed the Scientology site with a DDoS. If you overload a Web site with too much traffic, eventually it cannot keep up. All the users' connections to the site time out, and the site appears dead. This Jihad botnet could use my protocol to inundate servers all over the world."
"You're sure?"
"I'm positive. Since the nineties, experts have worried about demand for bandwidth exceeding the Internet's capacity. Video transfer demands large amounts and the explosion of video on the Internet has generated no little anxiety. It's enough of a concern to cause ISPs like AT amp;T and others to talk about charging extra for high-bandwidth users. So far, the Internet has always been able to expand its capacity to meet growing demand, but I don't think it's prepared for what Jihad four/twenty can throw at it."
Jack was having a hard time wrapping his mind around this.
"You're talking about using something like YouTube to crash the Internet?"
"I'm talking about bigger, longer, fatter videos than the clips on YouTube. What happens if you miss an episode of your favorite TV show? Used to be you'd have to wait for a rerun. No more. You simply go online and watch it. The days of the movie DVD are numbered. Online film rental services no longer have to ship you a disk, they simply download the film to your computer, or cell phone or iPod. That uses bandwidth-lots of it. Imagine a billion or more devices uploading and downloading video back and forth to each other, over and over."
There had to be more to it than that.
"That will crash the Internet?"
"If the Jihad botnet encompasses a billion computers-and I believe it has more-that will do it. But I have examined the code and I believe they may have more specific targets-like the root name servers."
"The what?"
"They're the heart of the Web. When you type in 'microsoft.com' or 'twitter.com,' those texts need to be translated into numerical IP addresses that computers can read. Knock out those specific servers and the Internet becomes terminally dyslexic. Back in oh-seven a botnet in Southeast Asia mounted a DoS attack on the name servers and managed to damage two. The Jihad botnet is incalculably bigger. It could succeed."
"But using video… it's so… simple, so obvious. Why hasn't some nut tried this before?"
"It only seems simple and obvious when someone points it out, but the execution is anything but. It took a cadre of expert hackers working in concert to come up with a virus that could slip past the best firewalls and create a botnet of sufficient size to make this feasible. And it took a new approach to video transfer-mine, unfortunately-to make it work."
"I'd have thought some terrorists-"
"Terrorists love the Internet. They can't communicate without it."
"Could this have been done without you?"
Munir nodded. "I think so. But the extra bandwidth my protocol demands makes it irresistible. That was why they came after me." He shook his head. "I wish to God I'd never learned how to program. If I'd returned home after college as my father had wished, Robby would still have ten fingers."
Jack had gone through his share of if-onlies about Emma, and he knew Munir wasn't seeing this from all angles.
"If you'd gone back to Saudi Arabia after college, there'd be no Robby."
Munir gave him a strange look. "Yes, that's true. I didn't think of that."
"Is a nine-fingered Robby better than no Robby?"
Munir nodded. "Most certainly."
Jack stared at the monitor and shook his head. Bring the Internet down just by swapping videos. Who'd have thought?
"Okay," he said. "Now that we know what they're going to do, how do we stop them?"
"Do we know that they're going to do this? Everything points to that as their purpose but…" Munir shrugged. "Why? This Septimus Order must use the Internet itself-to keep in touch with its membership, to… it must use it in many, many ways. Everyone does. Why cripple its own operations by bringing it down?"
Jack couldn't tell him about the noosphere and the Lady. Munir would think him crazy.
"Remember the reason you gave for the denial of service attacks? 'Because they can'? I believe that holds here."
Munir kept shaking his head. "But a DoS harms only the target servers. It doesn't inconvenience the attacker. This does. This…" He shot to his feet and began pacing. "Do you realize how much the everyday operations of civilization are tied into the Internet?"
"Well, there's email-"
"Email!" He began flailing his arms. "Email is nothing! Business will slow to a crawl. Companies have gradually been moving their transactions, their databases, their software online, into the cloud. Without the Internet there is no cloud. The computers that run banking, stock trading, transit systems, and traffic control systems communicate and route parts of their operations through the Internet. Communication networks depend on the Internet. We're not talking about losing eBay and Facebook. We're talking about commerce and finance and communication and even street traffic grinding to a halt. The result will be chaos."
And worse than all that, Jack thought, we'll lose the Lady.
"So-" Jack began, but Munir was still rolling.
"But what makes no sense is that this will all be temporary. Chaos at first, yes, but then a mad scramble to repair the servers and routers and get them back online as soon as possible. Everything is backed up-or should be-and many systems are redundant, so it won't be terribly long before things are back to normal. The white hats will figure a way to block the botnet and the antivirus companies will release software to disinfect our computers. People will be enormously inconvenienced for days, perhaps weeks, but the status quo will return before very long."
Don't count on it, Jack thought. Not if they're able to start the Change during the interval. A crashed Internet will be the least of your worries when you find yourself facing the Otherness.
"You're sure of that?"
"No one can say exactly how long. It's unprecedented. Of course, the botnet will still be out there, ready to do it again. But not for long, I think. A Jihad four/twenty killer will be developed very quickly." He shrugged. "So what's the point? Profit? Mischief? To go down in history?"
No, Jack thought. To end history.
He said, "We still need to do what we can to stop it, right?"
"Of course."
"Well, that brings us back to the same old question: Do what?"
"You and I?" Munir frowned. "Nothing by ourselves. But
I'm going to call ICANN and NRO and anyone else I can think of and tell them what I know."
Jack wondered if he realized what he was getting himself into.
He held up a hand. "They're going to want to know how you know what you know. They're going to suspect you're part of the plot."
Munir stopped his pacing. "They will? Why would they do that?"
"Hey, you're an Arab and the virus is named 'Jihad' and your code is part of it. That makes you suspecto numero uno in anybody's book."
Munir stood silent in the center of the room with a stricken expression.
Jack felt for him. "You could do it anonymously."
He shook his head. "No. That would be just another crank call. I'll need a face and a name if I am to be credible. I'll go in person if I have to, but I must raise the alarm. This cannot be allowed to happen."
"Do you think anyone can stop it?"
"With enough time…" He looked at Jack. "Four/twenty is the Prophet's birthday. Do we have that long?"
Jack shook his head. "Not a chance."
Murnir dropped into a chair and began banging away on his keyboard.
"Then I've no time to waste. I must find the numbers to call."
"Think you'll find anyone on a weekend?"
He looked up. "What day it is it?"
"Saturday."
"Is it? With all that's happened, I've lost track." He shook his head. "I'll try anyway, but I might not reach anyone of consequence until Monday, because no one sees any danger but me."
Jack turned to go. "Well, good luck. And don't forget our deal: I don't exist."
"Monday…" Munir said softly, as if he hadn't heard. Maybe he hadn't.
"Munir… our deal?"
But Munir's eyes looked out of focus and his thoughts seemed far away. "Monday…"
"What about Monday?"
"No one of consequence around until Monday. That makes me think that if I were going to try to bring down the Internet, I would do it on a Saturday or a Sunday."
A thought hit Jack like a gut punch.
"What'll a crash do to the airlines?"
"Short term?" Munir said without looking up. "Complete chaos for a while. Reservations, scheduling-all heavily Internet based. It might even affect air traffic control."
Gia… Vicky…
"Oh, crap."
"The FAA may have its own closed system, just like much of the military, but I don't know for sure."
"If you had to pick Saturday or Sunday, which would you pick?"
"Sunday, but I doubt it matters much."
Gia and Vicky were due to fly back tomorrow… Sunday.
"I'll let myself out," Jack said. "I've got a couple of important calls to make myself."
4
As soon as he hit the street, Jack speed dialed Gia. Cell phone technology had been in common use since the nineties and he'd been using it since the turn of the millennium, but he still marveled at the ability to reach Gia anywhere at any time. Didn't matter if she was over on Sutton Square or in Ottumwa, Iowa-he dialed the same number and she answered.
As he listened to the rings, he wondered what to tell her. Get on an earlier flight? Cancel her flight and stay there?
The sound of her voice when she picked up and her obvious delight at hearing from him dissipated the enveloping chill. He wanted to jump right into the reason he'd called but forced himself to engage in some brief, obligatory small talk. Then…
"I think trouble may be coming."
"What sort?"
"Big sort. An Internet crash."
He knew this was a cell conversation and vulnerable as all hell to eavesdropping, but he was in too much of a rush for circumlocution.
"The whole Net? I didn't think that could happen."
"It can… and it will."
A pause, then she said, "Is this another one of Abe's theories?"
"You mean like the one he drove us all crazy with for years about how the economy was heading for a meltdown?"
"Um, yeah. Okay. Touche."
Right. After the banking, brokerage, and stock market debacles, Abe had spent most of 2009 saying, I told you so. Not so much to Jack, who by necessity kept most of his net worth in gold, but he hadn't let anyone else he knew forget that he should henceforth be addressed as Nostradamus.
"It's not Abe. It's the Order."
Jack tried to keep Gia out of the loop as much as possible-and she was fine with that. He figured the less she knew, the better for her and Vicky. They were noncombatants and he didn't want them mistaken for anything else.
But last year he'd had to tell her something about the Order to explain why Weezy had had to move in with him for a while.
"They told you?"
"No. They're behind it."
"I know you said they were global, but do they really have that kind of power?"
"You've been hearing about that Jihad virus?"
"Of course. It's all over the news."
"Right. Well, that's theirs. And come to think of it, your home computer may be one of the few in the city that's uninfected."
"Why's that?"
"Because you haven't been around to open any contaminated emails."
"Lucky me."
"But here's the thing… I suspect-it's more of a gut reaction than anything based on hard evidence-that today or tomorrow could be it. And that's got me worried about your flight."
Gia was silent for a while, then, "I see. If you're right, that could cause major problems."
He was glad he didn't have to convince her of the consequences. She'd grasped them on her own right away.
"Question is: Should you risk it? I'd like you back here-for the usual selfish reasons, of course, but also because I want you where I can protect you."
"Will we need protection?"
"Well, things could get a little… disorderly."
Chaotic might be more like it. He didn't want to get all Armageddonish about it, but with communications crippled, or simply hampered, police response times would be lengthened. That might encourage certain elements of the urban population-particularly those with a little seven-pointed figure tattooed on a hand-to get frisky and reckless.
"For how long?"
"Days, weeks. No one can say."
If Munir didn't know, Jack wasn't going to guess.
"Do you think we'd be safer here?"
She was thinking about Vicky, he knew, and how Iowa might experience fewer repercussions if the Net went down. But it wasn't like the Midwest was crime free. Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer had hung out there. Iowa wasn't all that different from Kansas, and Kansas had produced Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. There had to be more of them, and if they learned no one was patrolling the hallways…
"Not necessarily. You could get an earlier flight-like switch to today and arrive before the virus starts doing its thing-"
"If it starts doing anything."
"Right. Or you could stay there. I'm going to leave it up to you."
Without hesitation, she said, "I'll try for the earlier flight."
"Miss me?"
"Terribly."
"And your folks are on your nerves?"
She laughed. He missed that sound. "That too." She lowered her voice. "Somehow, whenever I visit, I'm suddenly twelve again. I love them, but they make me crazy after a while."
"That's a parent's job with grown children."
His father had made him crazy, but he'd give an awful lot to have him back.
"I'll call you and let you know if I'm able to reschedule and when we're due in."
"Do that. And hurry. I don't know how much time we have."
He hung up and wished he'd never let them go.
5
Veilleur opened the door at Jack's knock.
"Jack. You made good time. I didn't expect you quite so soon." He glanced back into his apartment. "Perhaps we should talk in the Lady's quarters."
Jack glanced over his shoulder and saw three strangers in the front room. A tall guy with
a grayish ponytail, a sixtyish woman, and a thin, fidgety guy who had cop written all over him.
He stepped back, saying, "Those the ones who drove you back from Saint Ann's?"
"The men, yes. The woman just arrived. I'll meet you downstairs in a minute."
Jack took the two flights down and knocked on the Lady's door.
"Mister Veilleur will be down in a minute," he said as he entered. "I've got reason to believe-"
"That the assault will begin soon."
That stopped him. "How did you know?"
She looked tired. How could that be? She never slept.
"Certain…" She waved her hand. "I'm not sure how to express it. If I fix my attention I can sense a gathering of possibilities and probabilities."
That rang a bell from the past.
"Like that time back home when I was a kid and you told Weird Walt to stop drinking because he might be needed."
She nodded. "Exactly." She sighed. "Poor Walter. He carried that burden as best he could. He's dead, you know."
"Yeah. Read the obit last summer. Shame. Sweet guy." As much as he felt sorry for Walt Erskine, the Jihad virus was a more immediate concern. "But these gathering possibilities and probabilities you mentioned… do they point to this weekend?"
"I wish I could say more than 'soon.' "
"So do I," Jack muttered, thinking of Gia and Vicky.
Veilleur entered then.
"Sorry for the delay. Magda is asleep so I have a little free time." He looked at Jack. "What did you want to tell me?"
"The computer guy I told you about-he says the Jihad virus is going to use some of the code stolen from him to overload the Internet with video. Enough to bring it down."
Veilleur, his expression grim, glanced at the Lady, then back to Jack. "And they can succeed?"
"He seems pretty damn sure."
"And there's nothing we can do?"
"He's going to alert the military and the committees and groups and whatever in charge of the Internet, but doubts he'll get far because it's the weekend. And because of that, he thinks the weekend is the best time to trigger the virus."
Fatal Error rj-13 Page 25
