Phantom ah-7

by Ted Bell

  The CIA director smiled and said, “Yes, sir. And I’d be buried there today if it weren’t for him. After a few weeks, he decided I couldn’t survive another day of torture. So he woke up one morning, killed a bunch of guards, put me on his shoulders, and walked across the desert for a few days until he found some friendlies.”

  “Sounds like my kind of guy. Now, he’s MI6 or MI5, right? In London?”

  “Six, sir, under Sir David Trulove, or C, as they always call the director. I’d say Alex Hawke is the single best counterterrorist operative they’ve got, Mr. President. You remember when the Royal Family was held hostage at Balmoral Castle?”

  “Who can forget? It was on the damn TV twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Well, Alex Hawke single-handedly engineered and executed that rescue with virtually no loss of life, starting with the Queen of England herself.”

  “Well, hell, I’m looking forward to meeting him on the TV. Fire it up, will you?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Chief Steward Tim Kerwin said. “Mr. Hawke is coming up on the screen now.”

  “I see him. Hello, Mr. Hawke, this is President McCloskey. I can see you, can you see me?”

  “Yes, sir, I can, quite clearly, thank you.”

  “Well, I want to thank you for joining us. With me are Secretary of Defense Anson Beard; your old friend CIA director Patrick Brickhouse Kelly; and my lovely wife, Bonnie. Now, Brick here tells me you went to Moscow to interview that Russian sub driver, Lyachin, who sank our cruise ship, that right?”

  “I just left him an hour ago, sir.”

  “What’d you find out?”

  “Mr. President, in my opinion, based on that interview, the Russians, the Kremlin, and Captain Lyachin had absolutely nothing to do with the sinking of the American cruise ship. I believe Prime Minister Putin has been telling you the truth, sir.”

  “Well, with all due respect, Mr. Hawke, the navy divers found two torpedo propellers down there on the bottom. They’ve both been positively identified as coming from extremely high explosive Russian torpedoes. Isn’t that right, Mr. Secretary?”

  “That’s correct, sir,” Beard replied.

  “Well, Mr. Hawke, how do you explain that?”

  “The torpedoes were definitely fired from the Nevskiy, sir. The fish loaded were live torpedoes, not deadheads. They were in the midst of conducting a dry fire practice launch as ordered. But Captain Lyachin and his crew had nothing to do with launching live torpedoes at an American vessel.”

  “Say again?”

  “The sub’s digital controllers, the computers that run her reactor, all her systems including weapons, were infected with an unidentifiable, untraceable cyberweapon that seized control of the entire submarine.”

  “Now, Mr. Hawke, let’s be clear with each other. You believe this fella isn’t just trying to get his ass off the hook?”

  “With all due respect, sir, I believe he’s telling the truth, sir. He’s a former physicist and an engineer, Mr. President. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s analyzed the sequence of events and identified the causes of that tragedy. A cyberweapon infected his submarine.”

  “How the hell could this happen?”

  “The best analogy is the Stuxnet worm that infected the Iranian centrifuges at Natanz, sir. His sub was targeted by a new generation cyberweapon, except the one that infected the Nevskiy is vastly more sophisticated than anything we’ve ever seen before. Certainly the U.K. possesses nothing remotely capable of taking over an entire naval vessel’s systems.”

  “Mr. Secretary, what do you think?”

  “Somebody has to have made a giant leap forward in technology, but, yes, I suppose it’s possible. Taking cybercontrol of enemy vessels is one of the highest objectives of our own program. We’re nowhere near close, sad to say.”

  “Okay. Let’s say you’re right. So who’s behind the attack, Mr. Hawke?”

  “I have no idea, sir.”

  “Well, I know you don’t work for me, but from what I hear, I’d sure as hell be grateful if you could help me find out the answer to that question.”

  “Those are precisely my intentions, Mr. President. The director of MI6, as you may know, has ordered my counterintelligence unit, Red Banner, to find out who sank that cruise ship and how. Since Red Banner is composed of both MI6 and CIA assets, I also report to Director Kelly as well as Sir David.”

  The president turned to Kelly.

  “What do you think, Brick?”

  “I think that if Alex Hawke says the Russians had nothing to do with this, then the Russians had nothing to do with it. Alex, was your entire interview with Lyachin taped?”

  “Yes. I will make a call immediately and get a copy of that tape electronically transmitted to Air Force One as quickly as possible. Sorry I didn’t think of that before.”

  “You got nothing to be sorry for, son. No idea how you pulled off this interview, but I’ll tell you what. You just saved all of us a lot of useless hand-wringing over what the hell Putin was up to. Now we just need to learn who possesses cyberwarfare technology at this level. Anson, could you give us an update on who the major players are in this new cyber arms race?”

  “Certainly. In no particular order, the countries using linked supercomputers to advance these kinds of AI programs the most rapidly would be Israel, China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and, possibly, North Korea. If I had to guess, based on the most recent intelligence I’ve seen, China has taken the lead in this field.”

  “If I may, Mr. President,” Hawke said, “based on that list, I would say our primary suspects are China and North Korea.”

  “It’s a place to start, Alex,” Brick Kelly said. “So let’s get started.”

  At that moment, there appeared to be a power failure; his teleconference screen went black. Alex Hawke had just lost his connection with Air Force One.

  “R ed One Leader, I got a little glitch here, over,” USAF Lieutenant Mick Millard said to his wing commander. Millard was flying the Red Three position off Air Force One: one mile aft and to starboard.

  “This is Cheyenne, Sixshooter,” Captain Steve Powell, the wing commander flying the Red One slot to port said. “Talk to Papa.”

  “Yessir. I… uh… had three unexplained turbine power surges. Squawk’s out… and…’’

  “And what?”

  “Shit!”

  “Sixshooter, are you declaring an emergency?”

  “My gear’s lowering and retracting! Shit! All by itself! What the hell?”

  “Sixshooter, Cheyenne, break off! Break off! Out of formation, that is an order, now!”

  “I… uh… wait a minute… I… uh… can’t… nothing is responding… ailerons… rudder… the damn plane is flying itself, sir… like automatic pilot… I have no control… None…”

  There was a blast of static as USAF Captain Powell contacted the cockpit of the president’s airplane.

  “Air Force One, we have a serious problem at Red Three. Systems malfunction. Pilot reports…”

  “Red One Leader, break, this is Sixshooter, my radar just lit up… what the-”

  “Air Force One, take immediate evasive action… deploy chaff… flares… I say again, immediate evasive action… F-15 on your aft starboard quarter is a bogie…”

  “Red One Leader,” said the incredulous captain on the big 747, “are you saying one of our own damn-”

  “Air Force One, dive! Dive! You have armed Sidewinders at your zero angle, sir!”

  “Hostile situation alert,” the captain said calmly over the airplane’s intercom. “All crew and passengers. Seated and buckled up. Now.”

  Suddenly the giant 747’s nose pitched down, the aircraft now in a nearly vertical dive, and the pilot deployed defensive countermeasures. At the tailcone section, just above the auxiliary power units, was the MATADOR IRCM (Infra-Red Countermeasures System). This device, activated in response to a direct missile threat, spews out signals of such intensity that an incoming mi
ssile, homing onto hot areas, the engine exhausts, is suddenly overwhelmed by so many false signal noises that it loses its lock and flies past the target. These same systems are also located above the four engine nacelles, all aimed aft.

  The wing commander, call sign Cheyenne, peeled away and did a “bat-turn,” a tight, high G, turn that put him right on Sixshooter’s tail.

  “Sixshooter, I order you to eject immediately. Affirmative?”

  “Arming the seat, sir. Shit, that’s working at least… independent system…”

  “Pull that goddamn red handle, son. Right goddamn now!”

  “Sir, I’m trying, but…”

  “But nothing. I’ve got you locked on. I’m giving you exactly five seconds to get out. Then I’m pulling the trigger… on my mark, five… four…”

  A keening alarm could be heard from inside the cockpit of Sixshooter’s F-15. His missiles were armed and about to launch. His voice cracked and broke as he made his reply. “Pull that trigger now, sir. I got a rogue Sidewinder with the fuse lit. Launch right now, sir, before this damn-”

  “God bless and keep you, son,” Cheyenne said, and launched his missile.

  “God bless America, sir,” were the last words heard from Sixshooter before he and his aircraft were vaporized.

  Red Team Leader’s AIM-9X Sidewinder air-to-air heat-seeking missile homed in on the exhaust of Sixshooter’s F-15 Eagle. A conical sensor in the missile’s nose cone registered optimum destructive range and triggered the warhead.

  Lieutenant Mick Millard, Sixshooter, died instantly in a blinding ball of flame. Aboard Air Force One, Captain Dickenson leveled off at ten thousand feet and immediately notified the president and Angel’s entire crew that the threat had been nullified.

  A few long minutes later, Colonel Danny Barr, Angel’s copilot, along with the airplane’s physician, Doctor and Rear Admiral Connie Mariano, peeked into the conference room. Once the rogue F-15 had been destroyed, the 747 leveled, completely unharmed save for the nervous systems of everyone aboard. Colonel Barr was deeply relieved to see the president and everyone else buckled in. Scared, dazed maybe, but unhurt.

  “Everybody all right? Sorry, Mr. President, I know we didn’t give you much of a heads-up to strap in tight before we took evasive action.”

  Starting with the president, Dr. Mariano went to each person in the conference room, checking pulses, pupil dilation, and asking a few questions to determine whether or not anyone wanted a mild sedative. No one did.

  “What in God’s name happened, Danny?” the president asked.

  “Yes, sir, well, we’re still trying to figure that out, both up in the cockpit and with tech support down on the ground. Apparently, the airplane flying Red Three today suffered a catastrophic systems failure.”

  “There’s an understatement. Damn thing tried to shoot us down.”

  “Yes, sir. The pilot lost all control of his aircraft, Mr. President. The way the skipper put it to the engineers on the ground, he said, ‘the airplane was completely co-opted.’ ”

  “Co-opted?”

  “Somebody else was flying that airplane, sir. One minute the pilot had control, the next minute, he was riding a drone. His radar went active, he painted us, and then his weapon system armed. That F-15 was seconds away from launching a Sidewinder at us when Red Team Leader took him out, sir.”

  “Did that poor boy get out first?”

  “No, sir. His ejection seat was inoperable.”

  “Thank you, Admiral Mariano; thank you, Danny, appreciate your help. That will be all.”

  Once the door had closed, the president said, “I’d say this crisis just escalated, if that isn’t too much of an understatement for you.”

  “It’s insane, Mr. President,” Anson Beard, the secretary of defense, said, squeezing his temples with his forefingers. “Just insane.”

  “Not an ‘it,’ Anson, but a ‘who.’ Who the hell has amassed this kind of power? Hell, you could bring the whole damn world crashing down with something like this. We’re going to spend the rest of this flight lighting up the secure phones; how many we have on board, twenty-eight or so? I want everyone notified immediately, Defense, NSA, CIA, FBI, the Joint Chiefs, everybody. We got a war on our hands. I’m not so sure we don’t have a world war on our hands.”

  Twenty-two

  Palo Alto, California

  As soon as the funeral service for Dr. Cohen was over, CIA director Brick Kelly approached the president and said he needed to go for a long walk. He had a few hours to kill before Angel was wheels-up again. Her next stop was Los Alamos, for an emergency presidential briefing on the AI research being done there. Los Alamos scientists had been working feverishly to prevent some kind of cyberattack on the facility. It was the lead scientist’s contention that only AI-level intelligence was capable of launching attacks such as were now occurring against the United States.

  Prior to that, the president and the secretary would engage in a parlay with the brass at Travis AFB about what was now being referred to as “the Incident.” At Travis, they’d teleconference with the Joint Chiefs and discuss the implications of the near-disastrous attack on Air Force One, coupled with the sinking in the Caribbean.

  Besides, Brick thought, the rolling, wooded hills of the cemetery perfectly suited his mood. A cold, wet fog had rolled in from the bay during the service, like an Irish mist. Perfect atmosphere to do some much-needed thinking, he thought, strolling through a garden of chiseled and sculpted stone.

  Under the dripping trees, a long line of black cars was beginning to move down the winding lane. The saga of America’s most brilliant scientist was now officially laid to rest. Brick shivered, suddenly very cold, and he wrapped his raincoat tightly around himself.

  Cohen was gone. Inexplicable. He’d talked to the man via telephone just a few short weeks ago. Found him brimming with optimism and energy. Telling his same jokes, funny still despite years of repetition. And excited about a recent breakthrough in his AI research. Something, he’d told Brick, that would “change everything.”

  His death constituted a huge loss for the American military, defense, and intelligence communities. Brick knew the DOD had been counting on him to make the huge AI advances needed to give the United States a leg up on the warfare of the future. Neo-War, Cohen had called it. Now? In what had become a blinding glimpse of the obvious, the United States had not only failed to surge ahead, but, judging by recent frightening events, they’d clearly fallen woefully behind.

  But behind who? That was the question.

  He found a stone bench at the base of a great sequoia that was reasonably dry, raised his umbrella against the drip-drip-drip, and sat down. He expelled a sigh that hung in the damp air before his face like a small cloud. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since the service. California weather, he remembered it well. But, he reminded himself, he wasn’t here to think about the goddamn weather. He was here to think about the survival of his country.

  Brick Kelly was a lanky Virginian, too old to be the “whiz kid” he’d once been in Washington, but still considered relatively young blood around town. As he aged, his reddish hair flecked with grey, he was acquiring a “Jeffersonian” demeanor that suited him well. He was more at home among his books than out “pressing the flesh,” and he’d brought much-needed respect to the once-troubled CIA. He’d worried about how he’d fit with the new president, but he and McCloskey seemed to have meshed seamlessly.

  Brick spoke softly and let the president wield the big stick.

  These were hard times for everyone in the White House and in government. He couldn’t remember a time in his career when he’d felt so helpless in the face of the country’s many enemies. Now, a faceless, unnamable enemy seemed to have leapfrogged ahead in the ways war worked in the twenty-first century. Hell, in the ways the world worked. If you suddenly possessed the power to seize control of anything, anything, and bend it to your will, then all the warships and warplanes and nuclear warheads were r
endered irrelevant. Useless.

  How do you fight an enemy like that?

  He composed himself, clearing the decks, giving his mind a little breathing room.

  There was only one way, and the insight was so obvious Brick almost laughed out loud at his own thickheadedness.

  You put your very best and brightest people together and you focused on the who, what, and where. Not to mention the how. Who had this new power? What was this new power and how did it work? And where the hell was it sourced from? Answer those questions correctly and you had a fighting chance of surviving this nightmare to fight another day. Hell, he felt better already.

  A small, white-haired woman in black approached tentatively from his right. He’d seen her grieving at the graveside, throwing a spray of flowers onto the lowered casket, her frail, sorrowful shoulders heaving beneath the long black coat, her face a portrait of unbearable loss.

  It was Dr. Cohen’s widow.

  “May I sit down, Mr. Kelly?”

  “Of course, Stella. Let me move over. You used to call me ‘Brick,’ remember?”

  “Yes. Brick. That’s right. Thank you so much for coming all this way. You and the president and his wife. It would have meant so much to Waldo. He believed in you all, you know, Washington. Not so keen about some of the gentlemen who’ve passed through the White House of late. But he believed in us, do you know what I mean? All of us together. Americans.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I’m supposed to be home now, receiving guests bearing casseroles. I just couldn’t do it. I happened to see you sitting over here-I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Of course, not, Stella. I’m glad we have this chance to-”

  “He didn’t kill himself, you know.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It wasn’t a suicide, like they’re saying. No, my Waldo was murdered, sure as I’m sitting here.”

  “Stella, you don’t-”

  “I told this to the local police. They said they’d look into it. But I could see the look on their faces. They think I’m just a crazy old woman who can’t face reality. So when I saw you just sitting up here all alone on this hill, I thought, well, if there’s anyone in the world who might listen to me, God parked him under that tree.”