by Reece Hirsch
“Who am I speaking with?” It was a woman’s voice on the phone. In the background, he could hear agitated voices and a strident alarm sounding.
“This is Chris Bruen. I’m a lawyer and I’ve been tracking a hacker who just told me that he launched a computer virus attack on Indian Point.”
“You’re with the FBI? Homeland Security?” Chris noted that she didn’t react with surprise to the talk of a computer virus. She already knew what was happening.
“No. Who am I speaking with?”
“This is Althea Winfield, nuclear facilities manager. I need you to tell me why I should be listening to you. Because I have other things I should be doing right now.”
“I am—was—a partner in the San Francisco office of the law firm Reynolds, Fincher & McComb. I’m also a former Department of Justice cyber crimes prosecutor. I’ve spent my entire career tracking down hackers. When you check me out, you’re going to find out that there are plenty of reasons for you not to trust me. The FBI has been pursuing me. They think I caused this attack.”
“But you say you didn’t.”
“Right.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “So why should I believe anything that you have to say?”
“Because the person who launched the virus that is attacking your plant just died and I have his laptop. There’s a chance—maybe—that we can stop the virus.”
“Who’s we?”
“I’m working with someone. She’s the one who spoke to your colleague. Right now she’s trying to decrypt the laptop.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” Winfield said. “I’m not saying I trust you or believe you, but I’m listening.”
“What’s happening at the plant? How bad is it?”
“I’m not going to tell you any more than what the press already has. We seem to have a malfunction in the cooling system for the spent fuel pool. The water in the pool is boiling away and if the spent fuel rods are exposed to the air, then there’s the potential for a release of radioactive gas.”
“So there would be a meltdown?”
“I didn’t use that term,” Winfield said. “Now start talking.”
“Does your cooling system use Sonnen programmable logic controllers?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Because this virus attacks those PLCs.”
“Hmm. What am I supposed to do with that information? The cooling system is already shut down.”
“Got it!” Zoey shouted.
“We’ve just cracked the encryption, so we have access to the laptop now. Hang on. I’ll be back.”
Chris looked over Zoey’s shoulder at what appeared to be a dashboard of controls. “Would you look at this,” Zoey said. “When he called this the iPad of terrorism, he wasn’t kidding. This thing is very user-friendly.”
It was true. The dashboard that controlled the virus looked a lot like iTunes, with clear labels and buttons. Zoey pointed to the banner over the dashboard that read “Arrowhead Virus.”
“Arrowhead. Indian Point. I get it,” Chris said.
“I think it must be this button here,” Zoey said. “It says ‘ACTIVATE/DEACTIVATE.’”
“But how is this going to work? The nuclear plant’s systems would have to be connected to the Internet to receive a deactivation signal. They’re going to be air-gapped.”
In order to guard against computer viruses and hackers, most highly sensitive computer assets, like nuclear reactor systems, are “air-gapped,” meaning that they are entirely freestanding systems that are not connected to the Internet or other computer systems. Somehow, Dylan’s crew had managed to install the virus on Indian Point’s systems, overcoming the air gap.
Chris returned to the phone. “I think we may have a way to deactivate the virus.”
“Then do it,” Winfield said.
“I’m going to need your help. You’ll have to connect your systems to the Internet. We need to get past the air gap.”
“There is no way I am going to do that!” Winfield said, nearly shouting.
“I think we can send a deactivation signal to stop the virus, but we can’t do that if we can’t connect.”
“Look, Bruen, for all I know this is all just an elaborate social engineering tactic. Do you really expect me to connect you to our systems and put you in a position where you could do even more damage? That is not going to happen. Do you hear me?”
Chris recognized that he was going to have to try another angle. “Is the NSA involved yet?”
Winfield cooled down quickly. “Yes, they know what’s happening.”
“Are you dealing with a man named Louis Vogel?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“But you’re speaking with an NSA agent?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him what I just told you. Tell him to contact Vogel and ask for approval to connect your systems to the Internet. He knows who I am.” Chris knew that Vogel was probably getting detailed reports on the manhunt from Hazlitt and Falacci. He strongly suspected that Hazlitt knew he was being framed but didn’t have the authority to act on that suspicion. Louis Vogel, the NSA official so high-ranking that he didn’t have a title, would have that authority.
“The Nuclear Regulatory Commission operates this plant, not the NSA …” Winfield stopped, recognizing that this was no time for jurisdictional pissing contests. “Okay, I’ll talk to the NSA guy.”
Chris waited on the line for several minutes. When Winfield returned, she said, “Okay, we’ve confirmed your identity with voice-recognition software. It looks like you are who you say you are. And Mr. Vogel says to do what you say. Personally, I don’t get it, but I guess he knows some things that I don’t.”
Winfield was off the line again for a few minutes. When she returned, she said, “We’re in the process of connecting the system to the Internet. Just hang on. Shouldn’t be long.”
Chris heard a bang like a door slamming and a loud male voice in the background. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Why don’t you just put up a sign that says ‘Hackers Welcome’?”
“Excuse me for a minute,” Winfield said to Chris.
Chris heard Winfield addressing the man, who had apparently just stormed into her office. “Listen, Harvey, you think I don’t understand your point? I understand the importance of the air gap. But you’re going to have to trust me that this is our best chance of shutting this thing down.”
“My family lives just five miles from here and—”
“This is my community, too, Harvey. I live in Peekskill with my eight-year-old daughter. You think I don’t get it?” Her voice rose several decibels as she added, “We’re doing this and you need to get back to your work station now.”
Chris wasn’t able to hear Harvey’s response, but Winfield returned to the phone a minute later.
“We’re connected,” she said, giving him a URL so that the deactivation code could be transmitted directly into the nuclear plant’s cooling system.
Chris stood behind Zoey as she placed her finger over the Enter key of the laptop. “Chris, this could be another trap.”
“I know, but we’re going to have to take that risk.”
Zoey pressed the key.
“The deactivation signal has been sent,” Chris said to Winfield.
Silence on the other end of the line. “Nothing’s happening,” she said.
“Where do things stand?”
“The spent fuel pool is forty feet deep. The fuel rods are stored in the bottom fourteen feet, and if the water level goes down to eight feet—then we have a problem.”
“What’s the water level at right now?”
“Twelve feet.” A warning siren was still droning insistently in the background.
More silence as Winfield watched the monitors.
“Wait a second,” she said. “The cooling system is starting to work. It’s working.”
“Is it over?”
“We’re not out of the woods yet. The wat
er level is still dropping. I don’t know if the cooling system can kick in fast enough to stop it from boiling off and exposing the rods.”
“So we’re just waiting?”
“We’re waiting.”
“What’s the level at now?”
“Ten feet.”
Winfield continued the countdown. “Nine point six feet.”
“Nine point two feet.”
“Eight point eight feet.”
Zoey had left the laptop and was standing with Chris now, both of them just staring at the phone, which was on speaker.
“Eight point four feet.”
A long pause, then “Eight point four feet.”
Another pause.
“Still at eight point four feet. We’re stabilized. The event is contained.”
Chris and Zoey heard a cheer go up in the background at the plant over the tinny phone speaker.
“Chris,” Winfield said. “Are you a drinking man?”
“Yes, I am, Althea.”
“Then I am going to buy you a drink when we meet.”
Zoey helped Chris climb back up the steps to the concourse. He had lost a great deal of blood and was in need of immediate medical attention. Chris needed to rest for a moment at the railing and they both looked down into the ice-skating rink.
A pool of bright red blood seeped from beneath Dylan and extended a tendril across the ice. Overhead, the gilded, bronze statue of Prometheus bringing fire to mankind looked down. On the granite wall behind the statute was the inscription “Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends.”
CHAPTER 52
When Chris first returned to his job at Reynolds, Fincher & McComb, his leg ached so badly that he took a taxi to work, even though he lived only six blocks from the office. Now, after two weeks back, he was walking to the office again, taking a long route to strengthen his muscles, looping down by AT&T Park and then up the Embarcadero. Chris slipped in earbuds to listen to Glenn Gould’s bravura 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. This was the virtuoso performance that revolutionized the way Bach was played, so different from Gould’s somber 1981 recording of the same piece.
It was a crisp, sunny March day and the city seemed to be just as he had left it. The Bay Bridge towered directly overhead and the cranes of the Oakland waterfront were in view across the Bay. Chris always thought they resembled giant rocking horses. A breeze was blowing and every ripple on the Bay was catching the sunlight. Gazing at the scene, Chris understood Van Gogh’s frame of mind when he painted those landscapes where every blade of grass seemed to be pulsing and trembling.
He felt a stab of pain, though, remembering that his friend Ed would have no more days like this one. During the mad dash across continents to hunt down Dylan Nunn, he didn’t have time to properly mourn the death of his colleague and friend, but in the past few weeks the full force of it had hit him. Chris felt responsible for involving Ed in his investigation of the Lurker virus after his suspension from the firm. But Chris also knew that it would have been impossible to dissuade Ed from aiding his friend. He carried Ed’s loss with him like the dull ache in his leg, but he knew that, unlike the leg, the wound would never fully heal.
He stopped to watch four fishing boats that had come in close to shore following a school of sardines dipping their nets in and hauling them up flowing with gleaming liquid silver. The gulls had also taken note of the school and were diving into the water to catch the fish that fell from the nets.
Chris still couldn’t quite believe that he had been allowed to return to his old life and job. Just a couple of months ago, he thought he would spend the rest of his days in a federal prison—if he was lucky. The fact that Chris was a free man was due in part to his answering machine, which had recorded the conversation between Dylan, Chris, and Zoey in the W Hotel. Dylan’s words had been a bit muffled and Chris had been afraid that he wouldn’t have the evidence to exonerate himself. With a little bit of digital enhancement from the FBI’s audio experts, however, Dylan’s words came into sharp focus. Chris figured that Dylan couldn’t help himself—revenge just isn’t revenge unless the person knows why you did it.
But Chris didn’t have to rely entirely on the answering machine recording for his exoneration. After all, he had stopped Dylan and averted the cyberattack on the Indian Point nuclear plant. He had been interrogated for weeks by agents from the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Department of Homeland Security, but no extreme tactics were used. From the outset of the interviews, it had been clear that the agencies recognized how instrumental he had been in understanding Lurker and tracking down Dylan. He was not treated as one of Dylan’s accomplices, but that didn’t mean that the process hadn’t been arduous. Call it a very, very thorough debriefing.
Some at the agencies apparently believed that Chris should have been criminally prosecuted for running from the authorities and impeding a federal investigation. But he had it on good authority that Louis Vogel at NSA had intervened on his behalf. It also didn’t hurt that Dave Silver’s company BlueCloud happened to be the largest IT vendor to the federal government and had some influence with the agencies. Chris had grown to appreciate that being friends with Silver was like having a super-rich, influence-peddling, high-tech demigod in your corner. To call Silver a Master of the Universe would have been a slight.
In the end, Chris was allowed to walk, so long as he signed the scariest nondisclosure agreement that he had ever seen. Vogel probably recognized that if they locked Chris up and the press ever figured out why he was in prison, Chris would be portrayed as a martyred hero. Hunting down Dylan had been a big win for the FBI and several other agencies, and no one wanted Chris stealing even a sliver of the spotlight.
It also helped that Dylan’s story checked out. The FBI unsealed the records of Chris’s juvenile offense and reviewed the Firefly tax return fraud case—the connections between Dylan, Josh, and Chris were all substantiated. The file’s mug shots showed Josh’s shockingly sallow, sunken face. Meth seemed to have accelerated his aging process by about twenty years. Josh glared into the police camera with a crazed grin that seemed to be saying, Go ahead, hit me again.
As Chris walked farther north along the Embarcadero, he arrived at one of his favorite dives, Red’s Java House, a white clapboard shack that had been precariously perched on Pier 30 for decades. With its weathered wooden floorboards, red vinyl stools, dull Formica countertops, and framed photos of San Francisco luminaries like Bill Graham and Patty Hearst, Red’s was the anti-Starbucks, and Chris liked it for exactly that reason. He took his first sip of coffee of the morning, warming his hands on the white cardboard cup. As he was leaving, a couple of pigeons, two more regulars, fluttered inside to scavenge their breakfast from the floor.
During one of the interrogations, an FBI agent had been kind enough to provide an update on the condition of the two agents that had saved his life. Hazlitt and Falacci had survived their gunshot wounds at the W Hotel. Falacci’s injuries were severe enough that he had been placed on disability. He would probably be taking an early retirement.
New York, a city that knows how to take a punch, had also survived that night in January. Power and heat were restored in all neighborhoods of the city within six days of the attack. Within two weeks, the city was back to its old furious, hurtling self. The attack had resulted in 184 fatalities. Twenty-six people died in the subway car collision. Five more died from inhaling chlorine gas from the breached chemical plant. Several died in car accidents due to failed traffic lights. A few of the elderly died from the cold when their heat went out. Still others perished because they failed to get needed medical care during the blackout.
Even though BlueCloud promptly issued a security patch to fix the Port 583 vulnerability, that didn’t stop its stock price from plummeting when the press reported that a weakness in its system had led to the cyberattack on New York. But the feds had acknowledged BlueCloud’s cooperation in their investigation and it help
ed that the primary culprit had been stopped. BlueCloud’s aura of invincibility had been severely dented, but the public still seemed to love their products. It appeared that BlueCloud would continue to be the world’s leading computer company. Dave Silver, who fully realized just how bad things could have been for his company without Chris’s efforts, now referred to Chris as his “wartime consigliere.”
The Lurker attack did accomplish some of what Dylan intended. It put the world on notice that a new era of cyberterrorism had begun. The event also focused attention on the need to better secure the nation’s critical infrastructure against cyber threats. The proliferation of smart grid devices, such as the smart meters installed in homes, had made the electricity infrastructure more interconnected, but that connectivity had also made the system more vulnerable to attack. A bill had already been introduced in the Senate that would appropriate funds for a comprehensive upgrade of cyber defenses for key power grids, public transportation systems, and chemical and nuclear plants.
A Congressional investigation of the cyberattack also revealed how Dylan and his crew had gotten past the air-gapped systems at Indian Point nuclear power plant using a decidedly low-tech approach. A few flash drives containing the virus had been dropped in the facility’s parking lot, marked to indicate that they contained documents relating to plant operations. As soon as a curious employee picked up the flash drive and plugged it into his work station, Lurker had found its mark.
As the press investigated the origins of the Lurker virus, questions were raised as to whether it was derived from the US-developed Stuxnet virus. The National Security Agency made a statement in which it acknowledged that the Lurker virus represented a new level of sophistication for computer viruses and pledged to combat acts of “cyber aggression.” The NSA never responded, though, to the charge that the government had created the Stuxnet cyberweapon only to have it turned against its own citizens in the form of Lurker. Governments don’t just come right out and admit their mistakes—that was what the press was for, and it was digging.
