Digital Winter

by Mark Hitchcock

  Amy would be proud.

  3

  Shavetails

  Jeremy was a kind man, taught by his parents to be respectful and polite. He prided himself on his calm, nonconfrontational demeanor. It was the way he thought all humans should act—except in uniform. The military way of communication was different from that of polite society. Rank existed for a reason, and Jeremy admitted to enjoying the often formal and disciplined way warriors spoke.

  Inside the USCYBERCOM wing of the National Security Agency—to most, NSA stood for No Such Agency—ten newly minted Army officers, fresh from cadet training, chatted and joked as they awaited the arrival of the man who would deliver their indoctrination lesson. Jeremy had no intention of teaching like a college professor or delivering a speech like a politician. As the head of operations of the joint military unit, he was concerned with focus and knowledge. His team had no room for men and women looking for coattails to ride.

  He paused before stepping into the small, theater-style classroom. From his position he could see twelve soldiers—eight men and four women—dressed in Army combat uniforms, similar to his airman dress uniform. The biggest difference was the sewn grade insignia on the collars: Theirs were single bars, indicating second lieutenant; his was the eagle of a bird colonel. Mixed into the group were eight other newly graduated cadets, four from the Air Force and four from the Navy.

  As he stepped into the room, one of the soldiers glanced his way, blinked once, then shot to his feet. “At-ten-tion.”

  Twelve junior officers came to attention.

  Jeremy strode to the front of the room and approached a metal podium with an artificial wood top. He let the group stay at attention for a few moments as he gazed at each of their faces. All so young; so fresh-faced. “At ease. Sit.”

  As only former military cadets can do, they sat at attention. He fought a smile.

  “I am Colonel Jeremy Matisse. I lead day-to-day operations of USCYBERCOM. Welcome to the world of digital defense…and digital warfare. I am told you are the best and brightest to come out of the academies. I am told each of you has distinguished yourself in this year’s cyberwar games.” Several smiles crossed young faces. “You shouldn’t feel too bad that the Air Force took the Director’s Cup.”

  The Cyber War Games were held annually with teams from the various military academies to see which group of cadets could best defend a military network. The competition met outside Las Vegas and lasted four days, as cadets faced off against NSA specialists and the 57th Information Aggressor Squadron from Nellis Air Force Base. It was a real-world simulation and was essential in training the newest and most-needed breed of military assets.

  One of the former Army cadets started to raise his hand but thought better of it. Jeremy had no doubt that the man wanted to remind him that Army usually won. He would be in his rights. West Point recruited and produced some of the best cyber warriors.

  A motion at the back door caught Jeremy’s attention. Two men entered the room. One wore an expensive-looking dark gray business suit. The other wore an ADU like Jeremy’s but with a noticeable difference—two stars on the collar. Major General Tom Holt was nearly sixty but looked a decade and a half younger. He was six feet two and had the narrow build of an Olympic swimmer. His gray hair clung close to his head, and his aquiline nose and straight spine gave him an aristocratic air. The general raised a hand and gave a quick nod to Jeremy without breaking eye contact. The act kept Jeremy from calling the group to attention.

  Bringing a visitor into the session had not been part of the plan. Holt and the senator sat in the back row, their entrance unnoticed by the others.

  The visitor was no mystery to Jeremy, who prided himself on being a news junkie. Senator Ryan O’Tool looked as Irish as his name sounded: reddish-brown hair, ruddy skin, and a square jaw. According to rumors, the new head of the Armed Services Committee had the stereotypical Irish temper. He wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow. A surprise visit? Jeremy wouldn’t put it past the ambitious man.

  Jeremy returned his attention to his charges and placed his hands behind his back. “Operation Shady RAT.” He gazed at the group. No one spoke.

  He waited.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “Operation Shady RAT. Anyone?”

  A young man who looked too young to shave raised a hand. “It was a recent—”

  “Stand up when you address the group, Lieutenant.”

  The thin man scrambled to his feet. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Had this been a college class, snickers would have circulated, but this group knew better.

  “Carry on.”

  “Yes, sir. Second Lieutenant Rabin, sir. Operation Shady RAT was a hacking effort discovered by McAfee a few years ago. It was a five-year-long hack that embedded software on hundreds of computers around the world.”

  “Define ‘around the world.’”

  “Well, the US was the worst hit, and there were others.”

  “Sit down, Rabin.” Jeremy frowned, searched the group for signs of intelligence, and pointed at a female Navy ensign. “Can you do better?”

  The woman stood. Her round face was pretty, even with almost no makeup. “Yes, sir, I believe I can. Ensign Jody Liddell. The lieutenant is correct in calling it a five-year hack. The US received the most attacks. Forty-nine to be exact. Canada discovered four compromise attempts. South Korea and Taiwan each suffered three compromises. Other countries include Japan, Denmark, Vietnam, Indonesia—”

  “Areas of attack?”

  “Government agencies mostly, from the federal level down to county. Thirteen defense organizations were also attacked, including those in electronics, computer security, and satellite communications.”

  “Who did it?” Jeremy stepped to the side of the lectern.

  “I’m not privy to that information, sir, but my best guess is the Chinese government or a group sponsored by them.”

  “That’s a serious accusation.”

  “Yes, sir, I agree. But some of the attacks had to do with international sports, and the earliest part of the attack occurred before the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, so it is appropriate to suggest China as the state player.”

  Jeremy looked at General Holt, who was smiling. Jeremy fought not to smile. “Thank you, Ensign. I don’t suppose you know what fell off the truck.” Jeremy always liked that metaphor.

  “Again, sir, I have no proprietary knowledge, but the news and scuttlebutt is that the computer of the secretary-general of the United Nations was compromised, although as far as the public knows, nothing was transferred. However, in its report, McAfee suggested that a great deal of material was copied and sent to the actors.”

  “Very good, Ensign. Please take your seat.” He addressed the group. “Every day, computer systems around the world are attacked. As I stand before you now, the network of the NSA, the Pentagon, the White House, congress, and military bases around the world are under attack. Make no mistake. We’ve been compromised in the past. There’s a good chance we will be compromised again. We are no longer facing off against pimply-faced geeks living in their parents’ basement. We’re matching wits with powerful and very rich countries, several of which have technology equal to our own.”

  He paused to let the information settle, although he was sure the new officers already knew this. The speech was for the man in the gray suit scowling in the back.

  “Your job will be to help stop that and, if called upon to do so, reverse the attack.” He wondered how many people in the country knew that the military and intelligence communities not only defend the technology networks of the country but also had taken the offensive on several occasions. The war against Iraq began at a computer terminal. “Some of you will work here or at one of the bases around the country. Some of you will deploy to foreign fields to set up and defend computer systems in combat zones.

  “The world has changed,” he continued. “We are moving from megatons to megabytes. You will take us to the next level. W
ho can tell me the formal USCYBERCOM mission?”

  An Air Force man near the back stood. He looked older than the others. “Second Lieutenant Ogilvy, sir. I believe I can.”

  Jeremy motioned for him to try.

  “USCYBERCOM plans, coordinates, integrates, synchronizes, and conducts activities to direct the operations and defense of specified Department of Defense information networks, and prepare for—and when directed, conduct—full-spectrum military cyberspace operations in order to enable actions in all domains, ensure US/Allied freedom of action in cyberspace, and deny the same to our adversaries. The command is charged with pulling together existing cyberspace resources, creating synergy, and synchronizing war-fighting effects to defend the information security environment. USCYBERCOM is tasked with centralizing command of cyberspace operations, strengthening DoD cyberspace capabilities, and integrating and bolstering DoD’s cyber expertise.”

  “Word for word, Ogilvy. Homeland Security handles threats to commercial cyber security. We focus on military—”

  The lights flickered and then went out.

  “Remain seated.” Jeremy ordered.

  Darkness lasted thirty seconds before the lights came back on, slightly dimmer than before.

  “Is this a simulation, sir?” someone in the group asked.

  Jeremy didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the general and on the tech sergeant who appeared almost magically at the door. The sergeant whispered in Holt’s ear. The general nodded then rose.

  “The base is now on lockdown.” He looked to Jeremy. “Colonel, get someone to take these people to the cafeteria and join me in the sit room.” He exited with the senator on his heels.

  Roni worked with feverish determination, clamping several bleeders around her patient’s liver. She was determined to save the Amy look-alike, mostly because it was her job but partly because she had been unable to do anything for the real Amy so many years ago.

  She kept her head down and her eyes directed into the abyss of blood and tissue that was the woman’s abdomen. She called for surgical instruments with a soft but authority-laden tone. Each tool was quickly but carefully laid into her gloved hand. Med school had given her a new perspective on many things. One was that all people, regardless of age and ethnic background, looked pretty much the same on the inside. Women had a few organs men did not and vice versa, but everyone came equipped with one heart, one spleen, one stomach, one spine, and one liver. All of those had been damaged in this patient.

  “She’s still bleeding.” Dr. Marc Middleton was assisting.

  “I can see that, Marc. It’s kinda hard to miss. Hang another unit of blood.” The last comment was directed to a surgical nurse. “This girl’s liver is a mess.”

  “She may be beyond hope,” Middleton said. “We’ve got patients lining the walls in pre-op.”

  “I know that too. Clamp.” The surgical nurse placed a vascular clamp in her hand. “Jan?” Roni cut her eyes to the anesthesiologist.

  Jan’s fifty-eight-year-old eyes took in the digital information on her monitors. “BP is 102 over 80. She’s dropped another five points. Respiration is normal. Pulse is 123 and thready. That should come down as soon as we get the blood volume up. We may need to deepen her sleep to get the pulse down so she’s not pumping herself dry faster than we can fill her up. Still—”

  “Suction.” Roni applied the clamp and searched for other bleeders. Things had gone south quickly. The woman seemed to be trying to die. Every time Roni clamped another oozing vein, a new one appeared, most likely from the increase in the pressure. The woman’s BP rose and fell like a roller coaster.

  The patient was beyond Roni’s skill, beyond any surgeon’s skill. Middleton was right. Other patients needed her, but Roni couldn’t give up. Not now. Dr. Mayer’s sad eyes played in her mind; her voice rang in her ears. We did all we could…She hated those words but had said them plenty of times herself. She didn’t want to say them again, but she knew she would before this day was over.

  The lights went out. One of the nurses gasped. A second later, the emergency battery-powered lights over the door marking the exit came on, casting the OR in harsh lights and stark shadows.

  “Great. As if this weren’t challenging enough.” Roni kept her head down, eyes straining to distinguish one blood-covered organ from another.

  “Monitors are off,” Jan said. She placed gloved fingers to the side of the patient’s neck. “If the generators don’t kick in soon, we’ll be doing this surgery old school.” A second later, she added, “I’m gonna need a BVM.”

  “Someone help Dr. Barry with the Ambu bag.” Roni stood still, her hands deep into the patient’s abdomen. “Come on, come on. Someone kick the emergency generator.”

  Seconds passed like geological ages before the lights came back on. The sound of the respirator sounded like music.

  “Resetting the monitors.” Jan’s fingers worked the electronic devices around her.

  “Duration?”

  “I make it to be about twenty or thirty seconds. Seemed longer, but I don’t think things were down long.” Middleton leaned over the surgical area. “We still have bleeders.”

  Roni didn’t answer the observation. There was nothing to be said. She was losing the battle.

  The phone in the surgical room sounded, and one of the nurses answered. “OR-3.” She listened. “Understood.” She hung up and turned to Roni. “Power is out in the city.”

  “The whole city?”

  The nurse shrugged. “I assume so. That was the head of ER. He said we need to prep for an influx of trauma. There are likely to be accidents and the like.”

  “A train wreck wasn’t enough—now we have to lose power?” Roni shook her head as she searched for the next bleeder.

  “They’ll have the power on soon,” Middleton said. “It’s not our first power outage.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Roni said. “DC has enough problems without trying to get by without electricity, especially in January—” The pit of her stomach dropped. “Suction!” She blinked as if doing so would remove the image of blood rising in the patient’s abdominal cavity like water filling a sink.

  “That’s arterial,” Dr. Middleton said.

  “You think?” Roni pushed her hand deeper and behind the woman’s organs, searching for what she didn’t want to find. When she did, her heart came close to stopping. “There’s a breach in the descending aorta. She’s bleeding out. Hang another unit. I’m thinking endograft.”

  Her fingers traced the abdominal aorta. Middleton pushed the intestines to the side. Blood poured into the space with every beat of the woman’s heart.

  “Dr. Matisse—”

  “Don’t say it, Doctor. I’m not giving up.”

  “Doctor.” He put a bloody hand on Roni’s. “The descending aorta has been crushed in several spots. The moment you stop the flow there it will break loose elsewhere—if not from the aorta itself then in another dozen bleeders.”

  “I won’t give up.”

  Middleton sighed and then called for several aortic stents.

  “This will work, Marc.”

  He shook his head. “No it won’t. I’ll help you do whatever you call for. You know that. But it won’t work. There’s just too much damage.”

  A half hour later, the patient died.

  Roni removed her soiled surgical gown and gloves and donned new ones. OR-5 had another patient waiting.

  “The IRS is always changing the rules. They have more than a hundred thousand employees to keep busy. A simple tax structure would put a bunch of them out of work.” Stanley stepped into the elevator near his office on the twenty-fifth floor of the Mission Financial Building near the heart of San Diego. The elevator had one glass wall overlooking San Diego Bay, its waters bejeweled by sunlight. Stanley still loved the view and watched the man next to him. He tended to distrust anyone who didn’t pause to notice beauty.

  “Including you?” The man turned to the window, his eyes drawing in th
e scenic waterscape.

  Stanley laughed and put a hand on Ben Joiners’s shoulder. The man was wide and tall and waddled more than walked. His body was out of shape, but he was the intellectual equal of anyone Stanley had ever met, and Stanley moved among the intellectual elite of the business world—people who used their brains to make money by the truckload.

  “There’s more to my work than taxes, Ben. Businesses like yours need everything from investment advice to legal counsel. OPM has more than just accountants. We have attorneys and investment brokers. We do more than count your money—we help you make it.”

  “You sound like a television ad.”

  “I suppose I do. I love my work. I tend to get carried away. But that’s attracted a lot of people to our firm. That and confidentiality. We never discuss your business with any of our other clients.”

  “Even if they pay more than I do?”

  “It’s a matter of principle, not money, Ben. A couple of times I’ve threatened to break ties with customers who have tried to use me or my firm for what amounts to industrial espionage. No one has ever pressed the issue. They need the same commitment to secrecy as you.” He pressed the button for the first floor.

  “But you do work for other people in industrial real-estate development.”

  Stanley nodded as the elevator began its descent. It was an executive car available only to certain people in his firm. “Yes. We have six of your competitors on our books.”

  “Which competitors?”

  “I won’t tell you that, Ben. That’s my point. I don’t talk to them about you, and I won’t talk to you about them. That’s the deal.”

  Ben narrowed his eyes. “There are other high-end accounting firms, you know.”

  Stanley nodded. “There are. I can have my executive assistant send you their contact info if you’d like.”

  This time Ben laughed. “Just testing you, Stanley.”

  “I know. I’ll have contracts drawn and sent to you for review by day’s end. Then—”