404: A John Decker Thriller

by J. G. Sandom

  Anonymous quickly responded, saying that they had had nothing to do with the deadly attacks. The truth, it turned out, was far more insidious. Upon further analysis it was revealed that Piratbyrån, Anonymous, Wikileaks, and several other hactivist organizations, as well as dozens of torrent sites, had been unwitting pawns in the spread of HAL2, just as ibn Barzani had said in his videotaped self-recording, right before HAL2s blond assassin had paid him a visit and hanged him from the rafters of his stuga in Sweden. Somehow, Zimmerman’s cyber-doppelgänger had managed to plant snippets of code into the hactivist systems so that all the botnets they created, each slave computer, instead of reporting to them and doing their bidding, turned control over to HAL2.

  By the time they reconvened in the PEOC under the White House, the official position was that the United States and many other industrialized nations around the world, including all NATO allies, were being attacked by a number of global terrorist hacktivist organizations using malware and viruses but that the country’s nuclear deterrent system and codes were secure, and that—while the state of martial law would continue for the foreseeable future—the President and his staff were fully confident the U.S. Military was up to the task of defending the nation from this new twenty-first century threat.

  There was no talk of HAL2, or about any newly formed artificial intelligence taking over the Internet and all IP-based systems worldwide. In order to avoid causing more panic, it was felt by most Western leaders that leaving this extra detail out of the news, at least for the moment, was probably best, and any discussion of HAL2 was labeled Top Secret. Why alarm the public further when they were about to launch a campaign designed to eliminate the threat permanently?

  A young NSA analyst named Mason, with a crew cut, round face and sleepy gray eyes, sat at the communications terminal next to the Secretary of State. He turned to the President at the head of the table and said, “The porcupines have entered the valley.”

  Given that they could not communicate directly with soldiers in the field for fear of being discovered, they had orchestrated an elaborate system of messaging involving code words and mostly human transmission. Whenever intelligence was passed back to the White House electronically, it was always clothed in odd language.

  “All the soldiers are now in place within their respective missile silos, Mister President,” translated Secretary of Defense Pancetta. “And all the pilots are ready. We should know within a minute or so.”

  Everyone looked up at the digital clock on the wall. They had less than two minutes before they had to initiate the launch codes and feed in the target coordinates.

  Decker watched the numbers diminish.

  1:54. 1:53. 1:52. 1:51.

  For two days, he had been housed at Fort Meade, in an officer’s bungalow, a guest of the U.S. government—but, essentially, a prisoner. He had not been allowed to leave the premises, nor had he been able to contact anyone either on or off the base. The only news about the chaos breaking out around the world had filtered in on the lips of passing soldiers, or had been scrounged through subterfuge from his personal nursemaid, the stone-faced and all too laconic Sergeant Stephen P. Swan.

  Decker looked at the people around him.

  Secretary of Defense Pancetta, tapping the tabletop, burning off energy, his eyes shiny and black. 1:28. 1:27. 1:26.

  Secretary of State, Lukas, leaning over Mason, the NSA analyst, keeping an eye on the console.

  White House Chief of Staff Lamb, National Security Advisor Dolan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Flannery, Homeland Security Director Pignateli, General Alexander Darius. :59. :58.

  Glaringly absent were Rory Woodcock and Ted Hellard, Decker noticed. Although Sergeant Swan, Decker’s own personal watcher, was still present.

  The President, of course. He sat at the end of the table, deep in thought, his eyes closed, as though praying.

  And Lulu. :36. :35.

  Decker hadn’t seen her since their last meeting in the PEOC. She looked different now, for some reason. Smaller. Less alluring. Perhaps it had just been one of those things after all.

  Until she turned and looked into his eyes. Then, it all went to hell once again.

  “Five, four, three, two, one.” The Secretary of State shifted from the communications console and faced the central table. “It’s begun.”

  Decker imagined the missile silo doors opening, revealing the very tops of the ICBMs. He could see the keys turn, see the instruction sets course along the electrical filaments, the wires that ran back into all those systems controls. He saw the flames first appear and then brighten, then roar. Heard the engines burst into life. Felt the tunnels shudder and shake as the giant rockets lifted themselves up out of the ground, slowly at first, lumbering, and then more quickly, gathering speed as the flames of the fires beneath them turned golden, then white. They climbed out of the earth, out of reinforced bunkers or false barns and grain silos, out of the tops of faux farmhouses. They lifted and climbed and broke free of the earth, climbing higher and higher in the blaze of their engines. When, without warning, systems started to fail.

  “We have a problem with the readings on...” Mason looked up at the Secretary and then back at the table behind him. “It’s gone.”

  “What’s gone?” said the President.

  “428B, sir. The ICBM. It was right there a minute ago and now it’s just...gone.” He turned back to the console. “And there goes another one, in Kansas this time. They’re self-destructing, sir.”

  “All of them?” asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Flannery. “We put hundreds of birds in the air.”

  “No, not all of them, but...Wait a minute, sir. Some of our own MDA sites are firing...at our own rockets! Our missile defense system is working against us.”

  “Let me hear it,” said the President with disgust. “There’s no point maintaining radio silence now. HAL2 obviously knows he’s under attack.”

  A moment later, the chatter came in over the conference room speakers. Decker could hear the soldiers talking over each other. They were coming in from all over the world.

  “It’s going down,” someone shouted. “That’s the fifth Interceptor from Kaua’i. I repeat, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system Tango Delta Charlie has successfully intercepted medium range HEMP missile. Also, PATRIOT Advanced Capability-3 has destroyed three short range HEMP missiles. Do you copy?”

  And then, “E-LRALT airdropped over the broad ocean area north of Wake Island from U.S. Air Force C-17. Yes, sir. Staged Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. AN/TPY-2 X-band radar, located THAAD system, Meck Island, tracked the E-LRALT. Copy that. THAAD interceptor successfully intercepted medium range ballistic missile, equipped HEMP-4 tactical warhead. THAAD over-ride from the Thirty-Second AAMDC. They’re trying to understand what went wrong. It just launched, sir. Yes, by itself.”

  Without warning, the lights in the conference room flickered. Everyone stopped and looked about as the TV screens on the walls came to life. They watched as a rocket came out of the ground, only to explode as it cleared the hatch of the silo. Another blew up in mid-air. The images repeated themselves on all of the screens. Now, dozens of rockets and missiles exploded.

  “Where are those pictures coming from? Who’s broadcasting?” said the President.

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Mason.

  “It’s him,” Lulu said. “HAL2. He wants us to see. He wants us to know what he’s capable of.”

  And then, “USS FITZGERALD successfully engaged low flying cruise missile. Aegis also tracked and launched SM-3 Block 1A interceptors against three long range inter-continental ballistic missile equipped with HEMP-4.”

  “Sir, it’s the same everywhere,” Mason said. “We’re even getting reports now of our own fighter bombers turning against us, against their own pilots. Some have self-destructed. In some cases, armadas of drones, like the Phantom Ray and the Mantis, are firing upon our own missiles as soon as they’re launched, or they’re intentionally running themselves into
them before the missiles can reach escape velocity. It’s hard to see anything. Our Space Tracking and Surveillance System Demonstrators are down.”

  As if in response to his obvious frustration, the screens began featuring rockets being swarmed by clouds of dark drones. They looked like alien insects as they buzzed about the giant ICBMs, like small flying saucers, crashing into them in smaller explosions, eventually driving the massive missiles back to the earth.

  “Sir, the Data Center in Bluffdale is under attack.”

  “What? Put it on,” said the Secretary of Defense.

  “...but our forces are pinned down at the entrance by robots. Little Hounds.”

  A screen in the middle of the room flashed onto the scene.

  “They’re everywhere,” the soldier continued. He was hiding behind some kind of concrete structure, looking out at the main entrance to the base. The field was littered with bodies, dead and wounded soldiers. A tank burned off to the side. One young man was moaning and asking for water when a Little Hound noticed him and started over to investigate.

  “We tried to enter the base at oh four hundred, while it was still dark,” continued the soldier. “It’s just about sunup now. We haven’t heard from the Base Commander in over an hour. He was the last contact we had. We’re falling back. They say that the only way to re-take the base without massive loss of life is to destroy it via missile, rocket or bomb. But those weapons systems are no longer available to us.”

  The Little Hound approached the solider with his arm out. The robot climbed up on the soldier’s legs, moved up his torso and chest, and then paused as the soldier turned and peered up at him. There was a small explosion and the soldier flew back to the earth, a piece of his head missing. The robot crawled off. He scurried like a bug to the side where he sidled up to a much larger Big Hound, headless and grotesque, covered in yet more Little Hounds. They scampered off the back of the Big Hound like baby spiders and vanished from sight.

  The image on the screen was suddenly replaced by white clouds. “We can’t pull back,” a voice screamed over the throb of jet engines. “This is Staff Sergeant Mandy Tichawa, 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron loadmaster, aboard C-17 Globemaster III...We’re climbing...pilot can’t course correct.” The screen showed the frightened young airwoman, and beyond her and the com console, the cockpit.

  “We were en route to Seventh Airlift when the plane...Mayday, Mayday, Mayday! We’re closing in on some kind of missile. I can see it ahead of us now. It’s really bright. The tail is glowing white hot. We’re like a moth to the flame and, oh my God, we’re going to hit. We’re going to...”

  The radio went silent for only a moment before more reports crackled in.

  “Turn it off,” said the President. The live tenor of his voice cut through the radio and television transmissions. “Turn it off!” he repeated.

  A deathly pall fell over the conference room. No one said anything. No one stirred. Silence crushed the air from the chamber. One by one, the TV screens faded to black and went out.

  What had been a cacophony of chaos, of destruction and death, now seemed even louder, more violent and more horrific in the contemplative quiet that followed.

  You could have heard a flower opening, Decker thought. It was like the sound at the end of the world.

  The lights flickered and buzzed. They flickered and buzzed, and went out.

  Pitch black!

  This time, the blackout seemed even more Stygian, the darkness more absolute. Not even the little red and green lights of the com console were visible.

  Decker felt cold fingers clutch at his throat. He could almost sense HAL2 in the invisible circuits of the communications display, behind the black TV screens all around them, waiting in the light fixtures, oozing through the wiring, watching from the plugs in the walls.

  Then, the emergency lights flicked back on. They spluttered at first, and then finally settled. The communications console began to hum too. Moments later, the NSA analyst turned toward the President and Secretary of State. “It’s over, Sir. The mission...”

  “I know, son,” said the President.

  Secretary Pancetta hung up a telephone. His normally tanned, Italian complexion looked chalky white.

  “What is it, Leo?” asked the President.

  “We’ve been completely closed out,” he replied. “We’re lucky we have emergency power here at the White House. HAL2 now controls all IP-based systems worldwide, military and civilian. Every phone system. Every utility. Every radio and TV network. You name it. If it plugs in, he owns it.”

  The door to the PEOC swung open and a large African-American Secret Service agent rushed in through the vault-like frame of the opening. “Are you okay, Mister President?” he inquired.

  Just then, a phone rang. It was in the agent’s left hand. He looked down at it as if seeing it for the first time. The phone rang again. It looked tiny in his huge fist.

  “Oh, yes, and some guy keeps calling Sergeant Swan’s mobile,” he said. “Don’t know how he got through the coffin, sir.”

  “Did you answer it?” asked the President. It seemed like such an absurd question that Secretary of State Lukas actually laughed. Perhaps it was just a way to release all the tension bottled up in the room.

  “Yes, sir. But he keeps calling back.”

  “I’m sorry, Mister President,” Sergeant Swan said, rushing in. Decker’s guard snapped to attention and held out his hand.

  “It’s not for you,” said the Secret Service agent. “It’s for him.” He pointed at Decker. “He says Special Agent Decker is expecting his call.”

  “Who does? Who is it?” asked the President.

  “He calls himself Mister X.”

  Everyone looked over at Decker. He took the phone from the Secret Service agent and placed it to his ear. “Hello?” he said. “This is Decker.”

  “Listen to me. We’re almost out of time,” Mr. X said. “Go back to the virtual world. Together, perhaps, we might have a chance to defeat him. Go quickly, right now. Leave immediately, John. Before it’s too late.”

  “Why? What can we possibly hope to accomplish in Cambridge? Hello? Hello?” Decker said but the signal was gone. Not even a dial tone. Just...emptiness.

  Lulu stepped in beside him. She brought her face close, saying, “Let me go with you, John? I can help.”

  But Decker shook his head. “I don’t need you,” he said flatly. “It would be an unnecessary risk.” He turned toward the President and the rest of his staff. “He wants me to go back to the Education Arcade at the MIT Media Lab.”

  “You mean Zimmerman’s VR world?” asked Defense Secretary Pancetta. “Where HAL2 lives?”

  “Exactly.”

  “If you won’t let me go with you,” said Lulu, “I’ll hack in from the Fort.”

  Decker shook his head once again. “You know the equipment at MIT is unique,” he said, turning away. He moved toward the President, who was immediately joined by the Secretary of Defense, his Chief of Staff and General Darius.

  “I fear you’re our last and best chance,” said the President. He snagged Decker by the elbow. “I don’t know how HAL2 found out about our operation but now that he knows, there’s little point in pretending. Without our technology, without our gadgets and gizmos, it turns out we’re pretty damned small. I don’t relish the idea of being reduced to throwing spears at a wall of machinery. You have this inside track, this Mister X. And you know where he lives. HAL2, I mean. Where he operates from. You’re the only one who’s been there before.”

  “Yes, Mister President.”

  “I know you’ve had some difficulties with law enforcement lately but you’ve been a loyal FBI agent for years, an exemplary agent, and I’d hate to—”

  “My mother would yell at me if she were alive, telling me that it’s not appropriate and certainly not polite to interrupt the President of the United States, on any occasion, but I’m going to have to stop you right there, sir. I know my duty.”

/>   The President smiled. “I think I would have liked your mother.” He held out his hand.

  Decker shook it.

  “You’ll have the full power and might of the entire nation behind you,” said the President. “Such as it is these days.”

  Decker glanced over at Lulu. She was staring at him with a look of fear in her eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Mister President,” Decker said. “As long as we have today, we have everything.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Monday, December 16

  It was dark by the time Decker and his military escort made it to Cambridge. It had been a largely uneventful ten-hour journey by M1117 Armored Security Vehicle. They had decided to travel by road and it was a good thing they did. The air transport that was allegedly carrying him to Logan Airport in Boston never made it. One minute it was there, off the coast of New Jersey, and then it was gone, simply gone. Three planes—vanished. And, with them, the Decker look-alike that they had very publicly transported from the White House to Reagan National Airport.

  Decker thought about his double the entire journey from D.C. to Cambridge. He wondered if he had a family. A wife. Kids. How much he looked like him. Later, when Decker fell asleep in the back of the vehicle, he dreamt about his face. He saw it swimming up out of the deep, in the waters off Asbury Park, a pale moon in the darkness, and he woke up shaking and sweating.

  He thought about Lulu as he curled himself up in his flak jacket. He wondered what she was doing. He wondered what was swimming in the depths of her heart.

  From time to time, he chatted with the three Army Rangers riding beside him. Based out of Fort Benning, Georgia, they were relatively young—in their mid to late twenties—yet seasoned enough to know how to handle themselves, without any overarching need for nervous conversation or chit-chat, save for the odd joke now and again. There were no anecdotes about home, no stories about where they’d grown up, no cuts about old sweethearts. The squad had served together for over three years. They already knew more than they ever wanted to know about one other. Now, what mattered most was the space in between the words and the sentences.