Combat

by Stephen Coonts

  Without fanfare and often without the knowledge of the administration of the campus on which the recruiting was taking place, the FBI scanned records to detect discrepancies between the potential of students enrolled in computer-engineering courses and their actual performance. When prospective candidates were found, discreet inquiries were made into the habits of the student as well as the reasons for the poor academic showing. When a student matched the profile the 401st had established as being susceptible to what it had to offer, the action was passed off to the administrative branch of the 401st which dispatched one of its recruiters. These officers tracked down the candidate and made offers few in their positions could refuse.

  Some in the unit’s chain of command disapproved of the procurement practices. Older officers who had been educated at West Point and had proudly served their nation for years without compromising the ethical values which that institution took pains to instill saw the methods used to induce young people at risk to join the 401st as rather predatory, a tad intrusive, and a shade too far over the line that separates that which is legal and that which is not. Few of the former students, however, complained. Plucked out of college just when things in their tender young lives could not have gotten any bleaker, they were offered an academic version of a golden parachute. In exchange for a three-year obligation, debt they had incurred during their illfated academic pursuit of excellence would disappear in the twinkling of an eye. While that alone would have been sufficient to bring over a number of prospective recruits, the Army offered more, much more. To start with, there was a tax-free, five-figure cash bonus paid up front. Coupled with this windfall was a college fund that grew with each year of honorable service. And for those who had trepidation about shouldering a rifle or slogging through the mud, a promise that their nights would be spent between two sheets and not standing a watch in a country whose name they could not pronounce was more than enough.

  In most cases, however, such inducements were unnecessary once the new members of the 401st entered the Keep. To young men and women who had learned to read while cruising the World Wide Web, the Keep was a virtual wonderland, a field of dreams for cyberpunks and hackers. A flexible budget and a policy that permitted the unit’s automation officer to ignore normal Army procurement procedures ensured that the Cyberknights were well equipped with state-of-the-art systems. Once they were on the job, the new Cyberknights employed every cutting-edge technology and program available, not to mention a few that were little more than a glimmer on the horizon in the world outside. This last benefit came via a close relationship the 401st maintained with both the NSA and the CIA. This gave the equipment and technologies procurement section of the 401st access to whatever those agencies had, both in terms of equipment and techniques.

  While the Keep was, for the Cyberknights, akin to a dream come true, not everyone found their assignment to the 401st to their liking. As he trudged his way down the long tunnel en route to his office located at the heart of the Keep, Colonel Kevin Shrewsbery tried hard not to think about his command.

  An infantry officer with an impeccable record and a shot at the stars of a general, his selection to command the 401st had come as a shock. The mere fact that neither he nor any of his peers in NATO headquarters in Belgium had heard of the 401st when his orders had come in assigning him to that post should have been a warning. “What the hell are you people doing?” he yelled over the phone to his careermanagement officer at Army Personnel Command. “Whose brilliant idea was it to assign me to command a signal detachment? What happened to the brigade at Bragg I was promised?”

  Equally ignorant of what, exactly, the 401st was, the personnel officer could only fumble about in search for an explanation. “You were asked for by name,” he replied to the enraged colonel on the other end of the line. “The request for orders assigning you to the 401st was submitted by the Deputy Chief of Staff for Special Operations himself.”

  Rather than mollify the irate colonel, this response only served to confuse the issue. In the Army, young up-and-coming officers that bear watching are tagged at an early stage in their careers. The field from which a future Chief of Staff of the Army is chosen is pretty much narrowed down to a select few by the time the rank of major is achieved. Those who have a real shot at that coveted position are usually taken under the wings of a more senior officer, an officer who can guide the Chief of Staff of the Army in waiting along the maze of peacetime career assignments that are mandatory checkpoints. This senior officer, known as a rabbi in the Old Army, ensures that all the right buttons are pushed, and all the right tickets are punched by his charge in order to ensure that his candidate wins the four-star lottery.

  Major General William Norton, the current Deputy Chief of Staff for Special Operations, was Shrewsbery’s rabbi. So it was not surprising that the designated commander of the 401st took the unprecedented step of calling Norton at his home at the earliest opportunity. With as much respect and deference as circumstances would permit, Shrewsbery pleaded his case. “Sir, I have never questioned your wisdom or judgment. But assignment to a signal unit? What is this all about?”

  Since the phone line was a private home phone and not secure, Norton could not tell his protégé a great deal. “Kevin,” the general stated in a tone that conveyed a firmness that could not be missed, “the Army is changing. The world of special operations and the manner in which we wage war is changing. In order to advance in the Army today, you must ride the wave of change, or be crushed beneath it.” While all of this was sound advice, advice that he had heard time and time again, neither Norton’s words or the fact that he, Shrewsbery, would be reporting directly to Norton himself while commanding the 401st did much allay the colonel’s concerns. His heart had been set on a parachute infantry brigade. Though considered by many an outdated twentieth-century anachronism, the command of a whole airborne brigade was his dream assignment, a dream that now was beyond his grasp.

  That was the first chip on Shrewsbery’s square shoulders. As time went on, more would accumulate until it seemed, to Shrewsbery, that he would be unable to walk along the long access tunnels leading into the Keep without bending over.

  If there had been a casual observer, one who had the freedom and the security clearance necessary to stand back and look at the 401st from top to bottom and make an objective evaluation of the unit, they would have compared it to a piece of old cloth. In the center, at its core where Shrewsbery sat, the fabric retained its old structure. The pattern of the cloth could be easily recognized and matched to the original bolt from which it was cut. But as you moved away from the center, out toward the edges, the fabric began to unravel, losing its tight weave, some of its strength, and as well as the neatly regimented pattern.

  Around the center the observer would see an area populated by the 401st support staff. The recruiters who provided manpower for the unit were assigned here, as were the technocrats who maintained and modified the computers and networks that the Cyberknights used. These staffers liked to think of themselves as the Lords of Gadgets. The Cyberknights called them the stableboys. Also counted as part of the support staff was the intelligence section. While not the equal of the knights in the scheme of things, it was the wizards behind the green door who did much of the seeking.

  The intelligence section worked in its own series of tunnels, isolated from the rest of the complex by a series of green doors, a quaint habit the Army’s intelligence types had adopted years ago. There they took the first steps in developing a product that could be used by the operations section and, if necessary, the Cyberknights themselves. Rare information concerning computer hacks on military systems was funneled to them from throughout the Army. Once deposited behind the green doors, the intelligence analysts studied each case handed off to them for action. They looked at the incident and compared it to similar events they had come across in the past in an effort to determine if the intruder was a newbie, or someone that the 401st had met before in cyberspace. Next the analysts
were expected to make a judgment call, based in part upon the facts they had on hand, and in part on intuition, as to the nature of the hack.

  By the time one reached the edges of the material, the original color and pattern could no longer be discerned. All that one could see were individual strands, frayed ends that were barely connected to the cloth. Each strand, upon closer inspection, was different. Each had a distinct character that little resembled the tightly woven and well-regimented strands that made up the center. Yet it was there, among these strands, where the real work of the 401st took place. For these strands were the Cyberknights, the young men and women who sallied out, into cyberspace, day in and day out to engage their nation’s foes. And while the terms these Cyberknights used were borrowed from computer games, and the skirmishes they fought with their foes were in a virtual world, the consequences of their actions were very, very real.

  While Colonel Kevin Shrewsbery settled in for another long day, Eric Bergeron was in the process of wrapping up his shift. In many ways Eric was the typical Cyberknight. At age twenty-five he had spent five years at Purdue in an unsuccessful pursuit of a degree in computer science. Rail-thin, his issued BDUs hung from him as they would from a hanger, making it all but impossible for him create anything resembling what the Army had in mind when they coined the term “ideal soldier.” Being a Cyberknight, young Bergeron did nothing to achieve that standard. His hair was always a bit longer than regulations permitted. The only time there was a shine on his boots was when he splashed through a puddle and the wet footgear caught a glint of sunlight. Only his babyfine facial hair saved him from having to fight a daily hassle over the issue of shaving.

  Making his way along one of the numerous interior corridors of the Keep, Eric didn’t acknowledge any of the people he passed. He neither said hello nor bothered to nod to anyone he encountered on his way to the small, Spartan break room. It wasn’t that he was rude or that he didn’t know the names of those he came across. Rather, his thoughts were someplace else. Like most of the Keep’s population, Eric’s mind was turning a technical problem over and over again. At the moment he was going over his last engagement. Though he had triumphed, it had taken him far too long to ride down the kid in Valparaiso, Chile. This had brought into question his skills, which he took great pride in, as did most of the Cyberknights. This was a far greater motivational factor than all the inducements that had been showered upon them to secure their enlistments or the official rating they all received periodically.

  Recognizing the Lost in Space stare, Captain Brittany Kutter waited until Eric was almost right on top of her before she called out to him. “Specialist Bergeron?”

  Startled, Eric stopped dead in his tracks and looked around. “Yes?”

  When she was sure she had his attention, Kutter stepped up to the befuddled Cyberknight. Flashing the same engaging smile she used when she was about to ask someone a favor that was, in reality, an order, Kutter motioned with her right hand toward a rather forlorn figure who stood behind her. “I know you’ve just finished a long shift, Specialist Bergeron, but would it be possible to show a newly assigned member of the unit around the complex while I find out where he will be assigned?”

  Eric made no effort to hide his feelings. He hated it when people like the captain before him assigned his tasks in this manner. Why in the hell, he thought, didn’t they just behave the way soldiers are supposed to, like the colonel, God bless his little black heart.

  Stepping forward, the young man who had been following the female captain reached out, hesitantly, with his right hand. “My name is Hamud Mdilla. I am sorry to be of bother, but …”

  Realizing what he had done, Eric managed to muster up a smile. “Oh, please. No bother at all.”

  Taking advantage of the moment, Kutter broadened her smile as she stepped away. “Well, I’ll let you two go. When you’re finished, come by my office.”

  Eric waited until he was sure that she was out of earshot before he spoke again. “You’d think,” he mumbled, “they’d drop all their phony pretenses once they’ve reeled in their latest catch and start acting like normal human beings.”

  This comment offended Hamud. “I am sure that the young captain is more sincere than you give her credit for.”

  Looking over at the newly recruited Cyberknight, Eric smirked. “Yeah, right.” Then, with a nod, the veteran stepped off. “Come on. I’ll give you a Q and D.”

  New to the Army, Hamud hesitated. “Excuse me?”

  “Q and D,” Eric explained. “Quick and dirty. I’ll show you around.”

  Though the tour was an impromptu one, Eric executed his assignment using the same methodical approach he used when dealing with any issue. As he did so, he engaged the new Cyberknight in conversation. In part, this was to ease the tension that their awkward introduction had created. But Eric also took advantage of this opportunity to probe and take a measure of Hamud’s abilities. For even though the foes the Army wanted them to seek out and destroy were the ones lurking about in cyberspace, the Cyberknights engaged in an in-house competition that pitted one against another.

  “So,” Eric chirped. “Where’d they find you?”

  “MIT,” Hamud stated glumly. “I was in my third year there.”

  “MIT! Wow. I am humbled in your presence.”

  Glancing over at his rumpled guide, Hamud wasn’t sure if he was being mocked. “Yes, well, it sounds more impressive than it is.”

  “The best I could do was a few years at Purdue before I reached the end of the line,” Eric countered. “The credit line, that is.”

  Use of experienced Cyberknights to take newly assigned members of the unit was a practice that Colonel Shrewsbery had introduced. He figured that these soldiers, for all their shortcomings, were no different than any others in the Army. The old hand, he reasoned, would do more than show the ’cruit his way around. He would use the opportunity to lord it over the newbie, to demonstrate his superior knowledge as well as brag about his accomplishments. In this way the new man would have an opportunity to gain insights that a nontechno type could not hope to pass on.

  “Not every assault on the Army’s network poses the same threat,” Eric explained as they wandered about the section of the Keep where the wizards of intelligence sorted through incoming material. “And not everyone who breaches security systems does so for the same reason. Most of the intruders are pretty much like us, young cyberpunks with more time and equipment on their hands than smarts.”

  Nodding, Hamud listened, though he had never considered himself to be a cyberpunk and very much resented being lumped together with them.

  “They utilize their personal high-speed computers and the World Wide Web to wreak havoc on unsuspecting sites for any number of reasons,” Bergeron continued. “The sociologists assigned to the unit say most of them are young people harboring feelings of being disenfranchised by whatever society they live in. They use their equipment, given to them by dear old Mom and Dad, to vandalize the very society which their parents so cherish. Of all the intruders that violate Army systems these hackers, known collectively as gremlins, are rated as being the lowest threat to the system as a whole, and generally rate a low priority when it comes to tracking them.”

  “But they can still cause a great deal of damage, can’t they?” Hamud asked.

  “Oh, of course,” Eric replied as he led Hamud to the next stop. “But nine times out of ten they have neither the expertise, the number-crunching power, or the persistence to crack the really tough security used to protect mission-essential systems.”

  “The Vikings,” Eric stated with a wicked smile as he moved on to the next stop along the tour, “are a different story. They’re organized in bands. With their superior organization and, in the main, better equipment they can mount a serious and sustained offensive against the Army’s computers. Their ability to network, exchange information, refine techniques, and share insights coupled with an ability to strike along multiple routes using multiple syst
ems simultaneously makes them far more lethal than gremlins. The more vicious bands of Vikings can crash all but the Army’s most secure sites.” Pausing, Eric turned and looked at Hamud. “But that doesn’t keep them from trying.”

  “Are they all just vandals?” Hamud asked. “Or are some politically motivated?”

  “If by political motivation,” Eric answered cautiously, “you are referring to terrorist groups, the answer is yes. Though the intel wizards seldom tell us everything, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the people we are assigned to take down are making the hack.”

  Pausing, Eric cocked his head as if mulling over a thought. “Of course, there have been instances where a band of relatively harmless Vikings has been hijacked by someone who was, as you say, politically motivated.”

  Having no qualms about showing his ignorance, Hamud shrugged. “Hijacked?”

  “Yes, hijacked,” Eric explained as he resumed his tour. “We refer to politically motivated hackers who work for foreign groups or nations as dark knights. Normally, they will operate out of their own facilities, some of which are probably not at all unlike this place. But on occasion a dark knight will search the web for an unattached band of Vikings. By various means of subterfuge or deception, these roaming dark knights, or DKs, work their way into the targeted band. Often, they use bribes such as techniques that he hasn’t observed the Viking band he’s been tracking use as a means of worming his way into the targeted band’s good graces.”