by James Rosone
Zhou shook his head in dismay. This was the first time in his life that he was truly at a loss as to what to do next or how to navigate his country’s economy through these turbulent times.
Chen leaned forward in his chair. “Can’t we just ride this trade war out with them?” he asked. “I mean—surely this will hurt the American consumer in the short run. There has to be a way we can leverage that financial pain to our gain, right?”
Zhou shook his head again. “No, Mr. President. If these tariffs go into effect and stay in place for more than six months, we could see a GDP contraction of more than six percent. If that were to happen, it would result in tens of millions of our people being laid off and thousands of our factories and businesses being forced to shut down. If the trade war lasted more than twelve months…it could completely collapse our economy.”
President Chen narrowed his gaze. “It can’t be that bad, Zhou,” he insisted, clearly becoming angrier by the minute. “Surely we could pick up the export slack by increasing our trade with Europe, the Middle East and South America.”
Zhou tilted his head to one side, considering the outcomes. “Yes, we could offset some of this through increased trade with our other trading partners, but none of our partners consume the sheer volume the Americans do,” he finally said. “A twenty-trillion-dollar economy that consumes more than $650 billion in trade with us couldn’t be quickly replaced. To essentially lose access to it would devastate our economy.”
Zhou leaned forward. “The way I see it, Mr. President, we have two options. We can either concede some of these trade positions the Americans are demanding, or we need to make a move that will replace the current American administration or bring the country to its knees.”
“If they do move forward with these tariffs, we must retaliate with our own,” Zhou asserted. “My only concern in doing so is finding other sources we can purchase those products from. For example, we import more than fifteen billion dollars in soybeans; civilian aircraft parts and scrap metals also account for more than twenty billion dollars. These are the areas where we could hit the Americans with tariffs, but while that would hurt them, it would create a shortage in our own markets unless we already have a pipeline to replace those imports.”
President Chen was silent as he thought for a moment.
“The Americans have their midterm elections in little more than a month. What direct actions can we take to shift the political power in their government to one that would be more favorable to our way of thinking?” Chen asked.
Zhou smiled. Up to that point, Chen had been hesitant to interfere in American elections. He’d preferred for Russia and other nations to draw that kind of political heat. However, it seemed that he had finally come around to the bank administrator’s way of thinking.
“I’ve given this some thought, Mr. President. Now that we know what their intentions are postelection, there’s no need to be cautious.” He paused for a second as he collected his thoughts. “First, we target the President’s strongest trade war supporters. We identify what specific manufacturing and agricultural products are coming from their districts and we place targeted tariffs on them. This will directly affect those constituents the most and hopefully they will vote against the Senate or congressional candidates that are supporting the President’s hostile trade agenda.”
Chen nodded at the idea, effectively giving his go-ahead.
“Next, we look to start crashing their stock market as they head toward election day. This will cause the voters to become angry at the party in power and create angst over a continuation of the President’s trade war policies.
“The quickest way for us to cause a short-term stock market crash is to start dumping our Treasury holdings. At the same time, we would devalue our own currency through a series of quantitative measures aimed at reducing the impact of the tariffs and the effects of us dumping the American treasuries.
“Make no mistake, Mr. President. This will hurt China in the short run, but I think we could ride out this type of turmoil easier than we could a protracted trade war with the Americans.”
Chen quickly countered, “And what do we do if the President’s political party remains in power? We’ll have fired the few remaining economic bullets we have, and we still wouldn’t have helped our cause by electing a friendlier government.”
“That is a risk we’d have to take, Mr. President,” Zhou insisted. “In the end, I think the Americans will blink and come to their senses. If they don’t, well, then there’s always trouble we could stir up in North Korea or the South China Sea. We have other levers of influence and power we can pull.”
The two of them sipped their tea as they contemplated their options. During the next couple of hours, a plan was hatched to deal with the current American government until the midterm elections. Following the results, they’d reexamine their options and see what more might need to be done to bring the Americans to heel.
*******
Tampa, Florida
MacDill Air Force Base
US Special Operations Command
The conference room in the SCIF was full that morning. All the department heads were present for this particular brief. Seeing that everyone was already present, the FBI briefer who was slated to lead things off walked to the front of the room.
Clearing her throat before she began, Special Agent Leslie Clancy announced, “What I’m about to tell you is classified top secret and not to be openly discussed outside this room,” she announced.
Everyone nodded.
“The FBI’s Cybercrimes Division was able to link the initial Gmail hack to a relatively small Albanian hacker group called Kosova Hacker’s Security, or KHS. The attack originated out of a small town in Macedonia called Veles, which is just south of the capital city of Skopje. This is also the same small town in Macedonia where the brunt of the fake news articles that caused so much chaos during the 2016 election originated.”
She saw a few looks of concern in the audience but continued on. “The FBI’s legal attaché group in Belgrade was able to coordinate a raid on the home of the hacker we believe was responsible with local law enforcement personnel in Skopje. Unfortunately, when they entered the apartment, they found the hacker deceased. It appears the woman in question had had her neck broken.
“What remains unclear is if this particular hacker was also responsible for the cyber-attack against the White House communications network.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “This is obviously an ongoing interagency investigation, but it’s going to take some time to figure out who else was involved, what all was stolen and for what reason.”
Sitting near the rear of the briefing room, Leslie saw Major Mitchell raise his hand to ask a question. Since Leslie didn’t see any hands raised by any of the generals or senior officers at the table, she nodded for Mitchell to proceed.
“I have a technical question for you,” Seth stated. The colonels and general turned to face him, waiting expectantly for what he’d say.
“You said the initial Gmail hack was carried out by this Albanian hacker group, KHS. I can buy that, but the cyber-attack carried out against the White House network was far more complicated an attack than what KHS could’ve carried out. Specifically, the hacker toolset used to gain entry into the White House system has electronic traces of ATP1, which we know has direct ties to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Unit 61398. If your office could perhaps share with us specifically what it was the Chinese were looking for in the White House network, we might be able to piece together a better picture of exactly what they’re looking to do with the information they stole.”
Several of the colonels and generals nodded and then focused their attention back on Leslie, who suddenly became very nervous and fumbled in her response, eventually giving what was essentially a nonanswer.
The lone CIA LNO jumped in. “I think this is something we can talk about offline, Major,” he asserted.
Seth nodded, and Leslie breathe
d a sigh of relief.
*******
Seth knew the CIA LNO, George. The two of them had worked together in the past when he’d been on loan to the Agency. Once everyone else had filtered out of the room, George jokingly poked Seth in the arm.
“You kind of put the poor girl on the spot there with your question,” he said with a grin. He’d obviously enjoyed watching his interagency counterpart squirm a bit.
“I suppose, but the more we’ve been digging into this case, the more it just doesn’t add up,” Seth insisted. “I’ve looked into that Albanian hacker group. They’re small and mostly focus on what’s going on in the Balkans. They were heavily involved in the fake news business during the last election cycle, but it appears all the people involved were just doing it to create clickbait farms that generated a lot of marketing money. Most people in the region tend to earn maybe five hundred dollars a month, and these clickbait farms were earning more than twenty-five hundred a month in advertising revenue. Kind of ingenious when you think about it.”
George nodded. “Let’s head to your office,” he said. Seth’s office space was inside a secured SCIF, so they could continue their sensitive conversation there.
The two of them made their way back. Once they entered the SCIF, George guided the two of them away from the prying ears of the analysts working in the open desk format of the center room.
“Look, Seth, from our perspective, you’re right,” George admitted. “This whole KHS thing appears to be a smokescreen, designed to send us down a few dozen rabbit holes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the login credentials of 110 million people is pretty valuable on the dark web, but it wasn’t the real target of the attack.”
Seth smiled. “I knew it,” he said, slapping his friend on the shoulder. “So, fill me in—what was the real target, and can I share this with the boss? The CG’s been all over us for answers on this.”
George pulled a chair next to Seth’s cubicle and sat down. He leaned in close so their conversation couldn’t be overheard. “Look, this is super-classified right now. I’m not even sure how much of this I can tell you.”
Not wanting to put his friend in a bind, Seth thought about that for a moment. “Perhaps I can ask you some questions and you can just tell me if I’m getting warmer,” he offered.
George smiled. “I can neither confirm nor deny what you’re asking,” he said with a wink.
Seth nodded. “From what I can tell, the Gmail hack was just a cover for the Chinese to make their real move on the White House staff accounts. But as to what they were after? Perhaps they wanted to gain more information about our military technology secrets. We all know how the Chinese like to steal our designs.”
Leaning in, George said, “You’re right on one level. The Gmail hack was a smokescreen to distract us, and it would have worked had the NSA not placed some sophisticated tracking codes in the emails sent between the President and his cabinet members. This was done a little over a year ago, when the President was hell-bent on identifying who was leaking confidential emails between him and his staff secretaries to the media. The codes actually helped us track down a couple of midrange government employees who are no longer working for the federal government,” he said with a wry smile of enjoyment at ending the career of a few bureaucrats.
“Seth, what the hackers stole was specific communiqués between the President, his senior trade representatives, the Treasury Secretary and a handful of other senior advisors. The communiqués were all related to the recent trade talks with China and potential repercussions the President was considering if the Chinese do not agree to the new trade terms. It appears they also stole a drafted copy of an executive order the President was considering signing following the coming election. It would formally label the Chinese a currency manipulator and direct the Treasury Department to begin slapping a 45 percent tariff on all Chinese goods coming into the US.”
Seth let out a soft whistle as his mind wrapped itself around the implications of what that would do to the Chinese economy, not to mention the price of common items people bought every day at Walmart and on Amazon. He sighed and shook his head.
“Thanks for filling me in, George,” he remarked. “So, what do we do next? I mean, the election is just a handful of weeks away, and given what you just said, I can’t imagine a scenario where the Chinese don’t try to use this information to impact the results. What can truly be done to counter it?”
George shook his head glumly. “Nothing, really,” he said despondently. “The best we can do is continue to work with the tech companies to help them identify the fake news sites and work to get them shut down, or at least banned from their platforms.”
The two talked for a bit longer, frustrated that neither of their organizations could take a more direct role in stopping this kind of activity. It wasn’t like they could knock on the doors of the individuals in these various countries and kindly ask them to cut it out. Until the groups crossed the line from spreading false information to outright manipulation of physical votes, there wasn’t a recourse that allowed them to get more involved.
*******
Mitrovica, Kosovo
Enar Duka ran down the alley at a breakneck speed, panting as his eyes darted back and forth, looking for a building he could run into.
“Stop. Police!” shouted the officer who was pursuing him.
Enar didn’t turn around to look, but sensing that the man was gaining on him, he increased his pace as he rushed toward the end of the alley. Suddenly, a police cruiser appeared out of nowhere, blocking his exit. Unable to stop his forward momentum, Enar leapt onto the hood of the vehicle, and ran up over the top before jumping down the other side. When he landed on the ground, Enar turned to the left and continued to run, trying his best to put as much distance between himself and his pursuers as possible.
“Stop. Police!” shouted the officer again. His partner threw their vehicle into reverse and raced after Enar, who ducked into a café along the street.
Enar shoved his way past several patrons and burst through the door that led to the kitchen. Ignoring the surprised cooks who began to yell at him, he found the back exit and swiftly ran through it into a back alleyway.
As he continued racing down this narrow road that separated the buildings on either side of the block, Enar felt like his heart was going to explode. He hadn’t run this hard since he’d gotten back from Syria two months ago.
He came around the corner of the alley and turned right, only to be summarily punched in the face. His arms flailed out as he tried to stop himself from falling. When Enar’s body thudded on the ground, the police officer was already on top of him. In one swift movement, the officer had grabbed his left arm and was in the process of twisting him over onto his belly so he could place his handcuffs on him.
In that moment, Enar knew if he was arrested, he might not ever leave whatever hole the Ministry of Internal Affairs would put him in. As the police struggled to flip him over onto his belly, Enar grabbed the SIG Sauer he had in the front pocket of his coat. In one daring move, he kicked the officer hard with the back of his heel, which momentarily caused the officer to loosen his grip on Enar’s other arm. When that happened, he twisted back around, pointing the SIG right at the officer’s head.
He fired the weapon without hesitation, hitting the man squarely in the center of his forehead. Blood splattered on Enar’s face and the front of his jacket as the back of the man’s skull exploded outwards. The officer’s facial expression registered a brief look of surprise before his body fell limp to the right of Enar.
“Don’t move!” shouted the man’s partner as he rounded the corner, his pistol drawn.
Enar sat up and grabbed the body of the now deceased officer to act as a shield. He swiftly fired several shots at the second officer, hitting him with two of the bullets and knocking the man to the ground.
Throwing the corpse off him, Enar stood up and walked over to the wounded officer. The man grasped at his shoulder, but b
right red blood continued to squirt through his fingers with each heartbeat. The man looked up at him, appearing to beg for his life before Enar raised his pistol and fired again, this time hitting the man in the head.
Enar surveyed the scene. People were running every which way to get away from the shooting. Very few people were standing around wanting to see what was going on, which suited him just fine.
He ran back into the alleyway and made his way to a friendly mosque on the other side of town. He threw away his jacket, which was covered in blood, and managed to find an old blanket that had been discarded near a dumpster that he could throw over his shirt to help keep him warm as well as conceal his identity for the time being.
When he walked into the mosque, Enar immediately had a sense of peace. This was the one place he felt safe. He removed his shoes and went to the back rooms, where he found the man he was looking for, Luan Rexhepi, teaching a small group of followers. Enar waited just long enough to be respectful to the leader before he got his attention and asked to speak with him privately.
When he explained the situation, and what transpired, Rexhepi calmly responded, “Don’t worry, my brother. The Islamic State of Kosovo will take care of you.”
One of Rexhepi’s students gave Enar some new clothes, and then they moved him out of the city to one of their safe houses. A week later, Enar was told that his brother had vouched for him, and he would embark upon a great mission. The two of them would travel to Germany, where they would await further instructions. In the meantime, they would work at a mosque operated by a friend of Rexhepi, receiving free room and board in exchange.
Enar didn’t care what the mission was. If Rexhepi could get him out of Kosovo and back into the fight for Islam, he was more than willing to do it. The fact that he’d have the opportunity to fight again with his brother was an added bonus.
