Dark Winter

by Anthony J. Tata

  He could listen to Belina’s voice forever. Seductive. Reassuring.

  But where could she be? He needed her now. He tried a backup number. Another voice mail. Another sigh of relief at hearing her voice, even if recorded. Like a junkie with a quick fix. He needed to talk to her. She had deconstructed him to his core. Unpacked his layers. Unpacked his brain compartment by compartment. Like moving into a new house. Getting the boxes into the correct room. Then opening them. Remembering some of what was in the boxes, but always being surprised by what you would find. Always a surprise. Every room. Maybe even every box.

  He knew who he was and what he was meant to become, but needed her. Wanted her? No, most important, he needed her to help him navigate the depth psychology therapy they had been undertaking for the last two years.

  He shook his head again. Boxes littered on the floor of his mind. Some opened. Some closed. He needed everything organized. Stat. Biggest mission of his life happening over the next seventy-two hours.

  He had watched the big man in the bar stop the trial run of Computer Optimized War, or as he called it, ComWar. His machine learning, computer optimized, satellite-based method of controlling combat forces integrated the most powerful aspects of the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence in an offensive cyber role.

  His phone buzzed as the driver of his car made quick turns heading to the Detroit Airport private terminal where his Gulfstream 5 jet waited for him. He had chosen the smaller airplane as opposed to the Boeing 777 he normally used.

  “Go ahead,” Gorham said.

  “Konstantin Khilkov here,” the man said.

  “Mister President, how are you this evening? I trust we are on secure lines?” Gorham looked at his phone and saw that his corporate encryption was active as he spoke with the president of Russia.

  “We are. You are a bastard. You know this, right?”

  “I don’t know this, actually, sir. My parents are still alive and married. So that’s technically not true. What do you mean?”

  “You have frozen our nuclear response capability.”

  “Oh that. Well, yes, I did do that. You can have it back, if you wish.”

  “If word leaks that we cannot respond against the Americans they will destroy Russia!” Khilkov said.

  “Perhaps, but it is unavoidable,” Gorham replied. “As we’ve discussed, meet me in Iran in twenty-four hours and bring your human biometric key. He can walk through the chamber, confirm his identity, and you can nuke whomever you wish.”

  “This is not possible. The Americans have attacked us from Estonia. I cannot leave the country now.”

  “It’s your choice, Mister President. I have been asking to meet with you for several days. It seems you’ve got an issue now and you need my help. All I want is you to agree in person on the spoils of war,” Gorham said. “Should it occur, of course.”

  A long moment of silence followed. For a moment, Gorham believed the man had hung up until Khilkov said, “This is very risky. What you are doing is unheard of. It’s unacceptable.”

  “But you’ll meet me. You’ll bring your man. You’ll agree to the terms. Or you lay there naked waiting for the Americans to continue their attack. It may stay conventional or it may go nuclear. And without mutual assured destruction, your country is nothing but a giant bullseye.” Gorham took a deep breath, still transitioning in thought from the failure at the bar to his success at checkmating the Russian leadership. “We all must decide what to do with our time and I personally think this would be a worthwhile investment of your time.”

  He saw his airplane waiting as the car slowed in front of the Signature terminal.

  Gorham’s chief hacker, Shayne, had penetrated the Russian, Iranian, and North Korean nuclear command and control systems. In Russia, Shayne overrode the launch capability but couldn’t gain full access to launch, which was ultimately what Gorham wanted. In Iran and North Korea, Shayne was able to override and take control of the entire system, albeit those nuclear platforms were much smaller and far less capable.

  “Why do you need me to bring my biometric key?”

  “Because he will walk into the chamber in Iran and unlock your nuclear arsenal. It’s that simple. The Russian Cyber Command has effectively locked down our code, and we cannot unlock it without the biometric key. It’s a simple security matter. You’re stuck and we’re stuck.”

  “You’re stuck? You didn’t belong in our system in the first place!”

  “Come on, Mister President. You’re going to sit here and tell me that your cyber soldiers are not hacking China and the United States every day? Please. You’re just pissed off because we were able to do it where nobody else could.”

  “You’re damn right I’m pissed off!”

  This conversation was making Gorham feel better about the botched pub raid. He was back in his element negotiating with powerful individuals as opposed to watching a tactical mission. But still, it was important for him to see the boots on the ground. It was the experience he wanted that he didn’t possess.

  He had read Sun Tzu and Clausewitz many times. He understood the theory of warfare and applied it in his business. At the same time, he needed to smell the gunpowder in the air. He wanted to know what it was like in the foxhole, just as he visited his employees all over the world. Dr. Draganova had helped him discover this need to be present and in the moment.

  Shaking his head, he boarded the airplane. He was so close to having control of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. If he could lure the Russian president and his biometric key to Yazd, Iran, then he would be back in business.

  “I’ll see you in Yazd, Mr. President.” Gorham clicked off, boarded the airplane, and flew to the Idaho Falls Airport, a few miles from the Manaslu global headquarters.

  CHAPTER 5

  MAHEGAN WALKED TO THE COMMAND CENTER IN THE MIDDLE OF the barn. “I need three screens, Sean. The Korean DMZ to Seoul; Baghdad to Jordanian border; and the artillery fight along the Estonian and Russian border,” he said. “Wide field of view. We don’t know exactly what we’re looking for, but I think I’ve got an idea.”

  As he was spinning the globe to get the shots for each screen, O’Malley said, “Look at that.”

  Russian tanks were lined up along the Belarus border, well south of Estonia.

  “Yeah, give me that. Estonia was a head fake,” Mahegan said.

  While O’Malley worked the command center optics, Mahegan called General Savage at Fort Bragg, his former Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, commander over the last several years. As the phone rang, three eighty-inch flat screens were displaying the Reunification Highway from North Korea into Seoul, capturing most of the South Korean capital; the city of Minsk, with its main highway running east from Moscow toward the west, into Warsaw, Poland and Berlin, Germany; and a high shot of the sprawling city of Baghdad situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

  “Send it,” Savage answered.

  “We got them. They were going after a computer hacker who for some reason was working as a fry cook at a pub in Detroit.”

  “About as good a disguise as any,” Savage said.

  “She gave us a lot, but not everything.” Mahegan recounted his discussion with the cook.

  “She?”

  “Yeah. Trying to look like a guy, but she’s a she.”

  “Okay. Hiding out. Doesn’t bode well. She holding out for a deal?” Savage said.

  “Roger. You calling PACOM, EUCOM, and CENTCOM commanders?”

  “I never needed guidance before and don’t need it now, son,” Savage said. “Don’t trade but get the information from her.” He hung up.

  Mahegan turned his attention to the matter at hand. “Nine PM here. Makes it four AM in Europe and five AM in the sandbox.”

  “And nine AM tomorrow in Korea,” Cassie said.

  “Something like that.”

  “What’s that?” Cassie asked.

  The entire city of Baghdad went black in successive waves,
each grid shutting down. To the southeast, near Basra, Iranian tanks and command vehicles massed in the hundreds, then began moving toward Baghdad. On the next screen, the city of Minsk followed suit, the white lights disappearing and leaving behind a black screen. Thousands of Russian tanks, self-propelled artillery, and command satellite vehicles huddled, lined up, and began moving west. And while it was daytime on the Korean Peninsula, there was a discernable difference in the hue of Seoul as its lights hammered shut. North Korean tanks and artillery rumbled along the 38th Parallel—the Demilitarized Zone—like racehorses bucking in the starting gate.

  “Power grids? That’s been done before,” Owens said.

  “More than that. Everything.” Mahegan looked across the barn at the cell that contained the cook. “We know the woman in there is more than a cook. The question is, who is she?”

  “And can she help? This is World War Three,” O’Malley said, toggling the satellite camera to zoom in on a North Korean field artillery battery just north of the demilitarized zone.

  Six North Korean self-propelled artillery pieces fired the first salvos of its 172-millimeter-high explosive round with rocket boosters to propel the rounds into the center of Itaewon, the business district of Seoul, South Korea. Then they began rolling toward the main highway, guns remaining aimed at Seoul. Another volley spit from the tubes. And then another. The tracked artillery pieces looked like giant tanks. They could shoot and move at the same time to avoid the counterfire from South Korean and American artillery.

  “Radar picking them up?” Mahegan asked, knowing that the beefed-up defenses in South Korea included Q-36 Firefinder radars that allowed for quick counterfire, the key to the defensive plan in South Korea.

  “We’re getting no hits from Q-36. The cyber bomb must have gotten them, too,” O’Malley said.

  “THAAD?” The Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense system was intended to intercept any North Korean ballistic missiles, including those with nuclear warheads.

  “Nothing tested it so far.”

  “Tanks piling up on the road to Seoul,” Cassie said, pointing at the screen. “As far as the eye can see.”

  “All kinds of targets for our Navy and Air Force pilots,” Owens said.

  O’Malley slewed the satellite camera over the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier off the coast of North Korea. “Jets in the air.”

  F-35-C’s screamed off the deck of the aircraft carrier, leaving vapor trails in their wakes. They paired up in twos and raced toward the targets lined up on the road to Seoul. The radar in the command center showed ten American jets in route to the North Korean attack formation when an equal number of North Korean MiG fighter jets swarmed onto the screen.

  “Dog fight,” O’Malley said.

  Mahegan watched, thinking the American jets should make quick work of the inferior Russian manufactured equipment. O’Malley had panned the camera to follow the two lead American fighter jets. They released air-to-air missiles and, to Mahegan’s surprise, watched the missiles smoke harmlessly past the MiGs, which returned fire accurately. The first two American jets exploded when the North Korean missiles impacted.

  “What’s going on?” Cassie asked. “No way that should be happening.”

  Watching comrades in arms perish in combat was perhaps a warrior’s most challenging task.

  “Computer optimized warfare,” Mahegan said absently, thinking. “If the RINK alliance has been planning this for a few years, especially when we were disengaged globally, they’ve had time to infect our weapons systems. Those missiles just flew into outer space instead of knocking the MiGs out of the sky. The Q-36 radars aren’t working. This is cyber blitzkrieg. That’s how the cook described it. The computer hackers have been distracting us with cyber-attacks on banks, cars, everything else while they’ve been quietly infecting our weapons systems.” Mahegan paused. Was the unthinkable happening? Russians, Iranians, and North Koreans all in alliance to start World War III?

  “Remote access Trojans. RATs. They infiltrate one of the big defense contractors and get a guy past the firewall and put a RAT on every missile so that it’s one degree off, for example,” O’Malley said.

  The command post fell silent as the other eight American jets all maneuvered, attempting to close the gap and use their guns as opposed to the malfunctioning missiles. While two were successful in destroying North Korean MiGs, all ten of the American jets were downed.

  Mahegan answered the ringing phone. “Roger.”

  “I know you’re watching this. Minsk has just taken a thousand rockets. Russian combined arms teams are on the highway to Minsk now. Looks like the action in Estonia was a feint or fixing action to keep the Eighty-Second Airborne in place. Baghdad is in Iranian hands. Two Iranian tank divisions are pushing through Tikrit toward the borders of Syria and Jordan,” Savage said.

  “Roger. We’re focused on Korea, but tracking all.”

  “All right. I’ll see you guys in a few hours. This thing is going nuclear.”

  “Literally,” Mahegan said.

  “That, too,” Savage replied and hung up.

  “Boss is on the way,” Mahegan announced to his team. “We need to talk to the other guys and pull apart that briefcase before he gets here. Not much we can do about this, right now anyway.”

  He nodded at the screen. The North Korean engineer unit had constructed a series of bridges across the tank ditches beyond the DMZ and on South Korean territory. The Russian made T-72 tanks rolled slowly, infantry walking on either side of them, artillery providing deep fires, and Hind and Hip helicopters leapfrogging into unresponsive villages, disgorging special operations commandos. The sun was up on the Korean Peninsula, shining a bright spotlight on the carnage. North Korean tanks were blowing holes in the sides of buildings as infantrymen followed, clearing the way.

  “Oh my, God,” Cassie said. “This is World War Three.”

  “Not sure this is all there is to it, but agree that’s where we are,” Mahegan said.

  As they waited for Savage to fly from Fort Bragg to the barn, O’Malley ripped apart the briefcase, finding some interesting circuitry. Cassie interrogated the three prisoners, who claimed to not speak English. They were low-level operatives, she told Mahegan.

  “This is an electronic, digital, and directed energy warfare platform. It has state of the art nanotechnology that miniaturizes everything while increasing emission power,” O’Malley said. “There are probably more like them in the country. The briefcase is like a reverse JackRabbitt. It throws out a cyber bomb and small electromagnetic pulse to shut down power grids, IP addresses, and Wi-Fi hotspots. It has artificial intelligence and monitors its effectiveness—how many substations it shuts down, number of smart meters turned off, and so on. It learns what it did right and what it did wrong, then self corrects to be more effective the next time. The hospital attack in Miami a few months ago? That was probably a trial run. Every operating room was shut down; every heart monitor turned off. If they hadn’t had a generator for critical functions, most of the patients would have died. That kid in Europe that prevented a similar attack? All that means is that they’ve been probing for a few years. Testing.”

  “Total combat?” Owens asked.

  “It’s coming. Trust me,” Mahegan said.

  A loud chime rang inside barn. The four operatives looked skyward even though the barn loft—filled with high tech radars and weaponry instead of hay—did not afford them an outside view.

  “UAV!” O’Malley shouted.

  The images on the big screens all flickered from the faraway precursors of combat to a thermal image of each cardinal direction from the barn. Coming from the north was a fixed wing unmanned aerial vehicle about the size of a racing jet. Its bat-wing shape was darting and diving, attempting to appear as much like a live bird of prey as possible. However, it was an air breather with a thermal signature and therefore detectable by O’Malley’s radar array.

  “Standoff at a half mile, Sean. Where are the guns?”
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  “Should be up, boss.”

  “We’ve got about five seconds to figure this out.”

  “Shit. They’re cyber-bombing us. They severed the slew to cue Wi-Fi link.”

  “Go to manual,” Mahegan ordered.

  O’Malley was working his hands across the keyboard. “Manual override,” he said.

  The big screen showed four Gatlin guns elevate from platforms disguised as mounds of hay.

  Patch Owens was in the “gunner’s chair” next to O’Malley on the command and control platform. He was holding the joy stick as if he were playing a video game. “Guns active.”

  The drone bore down on their position, then elevated to gain altitude in what Mahegan presumed was a top attack. When the drone exposed its belly, Owens was quick to fire hundreds of fifty caliber rounds at the angling aircraft. He clipped the wing, causing it to erratically veer from its designated path.

  Owens switched to the western set of guns and put the spiraling UAV in his cross hairs and spat machine-gun rounds until it fell from the sky and exploded in the dense forest surrounding the farm.

  “Radar showing any others?” Mahegan asked.

  “Not at the moment. Working a fix for the cyber bomb,” O’Malley said.

  “This place is burned. We’ve got to move,” Mahegan said.

  Just then General Savage’s voice boomed over the radio. “Saddle up and meet me at the airfield.”

  Mahegan and team stared at the receiver for a moment.

  Then, with no time to investigate the crash site or who might have called in the barn as a target, Mahegan pointed at O’Malley and said, “Give me a quick wide field of view along the road frontage.”

  O’Malley switched from the drone defense targeting array to their satellite zoom view of the farm property.