by Dalton Fury
Kolt and Rocco had known each other for years. They’d served in Iraq together on several tours and swapped out in Afghanistan more times than they could remember. Rocco was a badass—Kolt knew that much. And now was not the time to give Rocco and his SEALs a scolding about their tradecraft. Besides, even Kolt agreed that they had the correct target house identified. The J-staff was sure of the correct target house. The two trigger-happy SEALs on the sofa were sure as well and really somewhat amazed how easy the house was to find. And although Kolt couldn’t put his finger on it, something about a terrorist safe house with no indicators worried him.
“Rocco, out of all of us, I’m probably the last guy to do this op,” Kolt said, lowering his voice just enough for the SEAL leader to hear him across the table. “But my language skills are steady and I’m not near as swole as you guys. I don’t have the hair these days either, so I’m probably the logical choice.”
Kolt could see his logic had hit a button with Rocco. Even Rocco knew his guys had spent too much time in the gym, and their muscles, although highly valued in a direct-action door-kicking gig, were likely to get them compromised or, worse, killed on a crowded bus full of locals.
“Racer, I’m not so sure, man,” Rocco said, matching the tone and volume to keep the one on one between the two of them. “I’m not interested in losing even you for this shit.”
Kolt sensed Rocco’s uneasiness and appreciated the concern for his health and welfare, but that was something Kolt knew had to be subordinate to the greater good. All the operators in the safe house were trained to operate as singletons; they all had language training—most, like Kolt, in multiple disciplines. Kolt also appreciated the fact that, even though the SEALs had been at war since 9/11 as well, JSOC had rarely required them to employ their low-visibility skills. AFO missions were typically sidelined by the SEALs, opting for more high-profile, aggressive assaults like killing bin Laden and smoking the Somali pirates in the Arabian Sea. As such, their James Bond skills suffered.
“We don’t have a lot of time to debate it, Rocco. I can shave my head, leave the goatee, dig into the low-vis locker for plenty of Yemeni clothes, and be in a wadi at first light,” Kolt said, trying to turn Rocco by downplaying the difficulty of what Kolt was proposing.
“Fuck, Racer,” Rocco said under his breath. “You talking about inserting tonight?” Rocco knew Kolt had been to the border of Saudi Arabia and Yemen before on a different operation years earlier. It was one of the reasons the SEAL Team Six commander had requested him by name for this particular op. But inserting him tonight in an area unfamiliar to him and his fellow SEALs was pushing it.
“The intel is, Nadal returns tomorrow,” Kolt said. “He is driving the timeline here.”
CyberInternet Café, Hadda Hotel, Sana’a, Yemen
Farooq was running late this morning. At the end of the ninety-minute regulation play, the football game was tied. Farooq knew he needed to call it a night, get back to the safe house for a good night’s sleep since he had an important task the following day.
A task Nadal had spent extra time explaining the importance of, how it actually worked, and what Farooq’s responsibilities would be while Nadal was away. A task Nadal had trusted Farooq to undertake as he spent a few days visiting his father in Mecca.
A task Farooq had forgotten to do this morning. A fact that he could not share with Nadal.
Farooq wanted to get up from his seat and leave. The rain had been steady all night, slowing down the typically fast-paced game but having little impact on the excitement. But considering his excellent front-row seats at the midline were hard to come by, costing him a good amount of rupees, he remained seated. Besides, Nadal was not expected back from his Saudi trip until midday prayers the following day. Yes, he could enjoy the two fifteen-minute overtime periods—he had earned that much—and his required task from Nadal, to download the information, would still get done. But in the morning.
After the thirty-minute overtime, the game was still tied 0-0. The two opposing teams, their waterlogged and mud-stained uniforms untucked and sagging, trotted back onto the field like warriors. As they lined up near the twelve-yard line to begin their penalty kicks, hoping to outmatch their opponent and squeeze one kick, maybe two, past the opposing team’s goalie, Farooq knew he had received his money’s worth.
Now, as Farooq stood off the edge of bustling Hadda Street under the tiny awning that hung over the locked front door at a few minutes before 7 A.M., trying to shield himself from the sprinkling rain, he was hungry but content. The game had been worth it, his team winning 1-0 on a dramatic last kick attempt. Even though he failed to get much sleep and was unable to eat anything this morning, he was pleased he had arrived before the café doors opened. He would complete his task, Allah willing, and then move into the dining area for a bowl of saltah. Just the thought of the national dish of brown meat stew called maraq, a dollop of fenugreek froth, and sahawiq, a mixture of chili peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and herbs ground into a salsa, put him in a better mood. Maybe he would add some rice and vegetables to the saltah, which would not only improve the taste but make using the traditional flat bread to scoop up the food easier.
Farooq watched the young café attendant through the glass door unlock the door and open it. Relieved, Farooq nodded but didn’t stop—he would pay him later—and moved directly to the back corner of the room. It was the most secluded of the fifteen desktop CPUs available to the public at the CyberInternet Café at the Hadda Hotel—well, number 15 to his left was the most secluded, but the prominent out-of-order sign taped to the screen forced him to settle for number 14.
Farooq slid the cracked plastic chair from the cubicle and sat down. He checked the battery life of his cell phone, logged in to the Internet, and unfolded a small piece of scrap paper he had pulled from his pocket.
Maintaining a watchful eye with his peripheral vision, Farooq accessed the browser and began reading a lengthy number-letter combination. As he did, he very carefully typed it in with his right forefinger. He waited for the underground Web site to fully load, frustrated by the slow Internet. After a few moments, happy with what he was seeing on the screen, he reached up and turned the screen a few inches away from any nosey bystanders.
Staying for the entire game was worth it, after all.
Farooq reached into the left breast pocket of his knee-length egg-white salwar kameez and pulled out a small yellow thumb drive. He rotated the protective cap to expose the male end and inserted it into the female end of the CPU’s single USB port. He clicked the appropriate prompts, confirming the drive was accepted and reading fully.
Farooq turned back to his cell, tapped in the three-digit international dialing prefix, then the two-digit country code, then the ten-digit number, and pushed the green SEND CALL button. In a few seconds, the cell phone chirped, confirming a connection with the hunting cell phone packages inside the main access facility at Yellow Creek Nuclear Power Plant across the Atlantic Ocean.
Farooq dropped his shoulders, relieved that the cell phones in the package still had battery power. Nadal had estimated the window of access, based on Abdul’s practice with dummy packages and rehearsing the U.S. mail system numerous times. Nadal was adamant that Farooq be at the café yesterday morning, when he believed the cell phones hidden inside the tubular containers would be in the middle of their internal battery’s life of eighteen to twenty-four hours, their prime hunting time. At least that’s what the vendor advertised. Farooq knew Nadal wasn’t so ignorant to rely simply on the internal batteries. Not at all. Even at its best, even if the vendor was right that it would power the phone for a full twenty-four hours, it wasn’t enough.
No, for this to work, for the cell packages to remotely pull the two dozen target sets, some 212 pages with colored photos and intricate details, from the secure LAN, the cell phones had to have much more power. Enough power to keep the cell alive, to support the attack vector, and to upload the sensitive data wirelessly, and Nadal’s univer
sity education provided him the knowledge to understand all of this. He knew special lithium-foam-cell batteries were needed. The kind that powered the latest, most powerful, featherweight laptops. Actually, they weren’t hard to find. Amazon shipped four directly to Abdul’s apartment in North Carolina.
All those late nights of studying by Nadal to earn his engineering degree, while Farooq became lazy, ignored his responsibilities, followed foosball, and even chased women, were about to pay off.
Nadal understood that America had been slow to react to the imminent international cyberthreat, and worried more about domestic eavesdropping than about protecting its own systems. He’d talked to Farooq about it at length until Farooq thought his brains would run out of his ears. Major vendors were reluctant to share lessons learned in the cybersecurity software industry. The bottom line was what mattered, and as long as the Internet was powering the hopes and dreams of millions of businesses worldwide, software vendors would continue to protect their institutional knowledge base. If Farooq had heard Nadal say it once, he heard it a hundred times: The hardware vendors are making the same mistakes that Microsoft made twenty-five years ago.
Digital equipment, present in practically all of America’s energy-related critical infrastructure and required to manage whatever the source of electricity is—coal, wind, solar, hydro, or nuclear—is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. To protect safe shutdown systems from cyberthreats, a defense-in-depth strategy similar to the physical protection provided by armed guards and robust barriers is needed. The security basics are fundamentally equal and equally vulnerable. Something Nadal had capitalized on fully.
But the difference in protecting against cyberthreats is that you are not looking to stop a human body from attacking but, rather, are hunting for “data.” Some of the critical systems involve digital components, which become attack vectors in cyberspace. Viruses can be carried in by a thumb drive or cell phone to infect systems. It’s well documented that the United States government has been concerned with cyberattacks for close to a decade now, requiring commercial power plants to defend against them after adding to the Design Basis Threat shortly after 9/11. Nadal devoured this open-source information like a child mesmerized by the latest Harry Potter adventure.
It is much easier to overload a response system from a keyboard an ocean away than it is to physically attack a well-protected critical-infrastructure facility inside America. Yes, Farooq knew Nadal was very smart and very careful, even if he was very controlling and smothering of their sleeper brother Abdul in the United States. He would not want any more mistakes. Never mind that the model-airplane mistake that took his two fingers off was all Nadal’s fault.
Knowing Nadal had everything covered, and seeing the information downloading to the yellow thumb drive presently, Farooq forgot all about neglecting his duties yesterday morning.
Yes, this is easy.
Farooq waited patiently as he watched the data download to the thumb drive. He was pleased with himself, knowing he was acquiring the most sensitive data on how nuclear power plants in the United States function and how they protect their assets. Another minute or so, tops, and he would be back at the safe house for a well-deserved nap before brother Nadal returned.
Nadal will be very pleased.
The download sequence on the computer screen suddenly ended. Farooq blinked and sat up straight. He leaned forward to grab the computer monitor and shook it vigorously. No luck.
He grabbed his cell phone off the table and checked to ensure the call was still active. It was. Farooq settled into the plastic chair, unsure what to do. He thought of calling Nadal but abandoned that idea for fear of his certain wrath. Yes, it was a simple task Nadal had entrusted him with. All he had to do was visit the CyberInternet Café, log into a single Web site, make an overseas call to the hunting phones, and plug in a thumb drive. A child could do that. Nadal and Abdul had seen about the difficult portion of the operation. Farooq didn’t even have to hold a conversation with anyone. Yes, it was a simple but extremely important task that Nadal trusted him with, and had he visited the café yesterday, as Nadal directed, he might not be facing these troubles today.
Something has happened, something in America, not on my end.
FIFTEEN
Secret Compartmented Information Facility, Delta compound, Fort Bragg
In a small room deep in an obscure vault known as a SCIF, militaryspeak for Secret Compartmented Information Facility, the top-secret domain of Delta’s intel and imagery analysts, the two enlisted operators sat in silence on the same side of a long gray table. Their sterile olive-colored full-body flight suits covered black nylon running shorts and tan T-shirts. Tan Oakley assault boats or Salomon mids covered their feet, and their Delta access badges hung from their necks. Their clean-cut color head shot adorned their badges, pictures that were taken when they first joined Delta. The passport-size mug shots looked very similar to a college yearbook picture. But only the troop sergeant major vaguely resembled his freshman-year photo.
Known as Slapshot inside the ranks of Delta Force, MSG Jason Holcomb appeared the most militarylike since he’d recently shaved his thick red beard. It had only been three days since, and, like Kolt Raynor, he was up for promotion. Slapshot was a shoo-in, of course, given his superlative track record in hostile-fire areas around the world. The photo was a simple requirement that even Delta operators were required to abide by. Even so, it seemed ridiculous to most of the guys since it took months to grow a beard that provided them a unique edge on the battlefield in Afghanistan. It was just one of the cultural barriers of the inflexible peacetime U.S. Army that had yet to be breached by the long war on terror.
The younger of the two sat on Slapshot’s immediate left. At twenty-eight years old, MSG Peter “Digger” Chamblis was six years Slapshot’s junior, one of the youngest master sergeants in the army and the guy that executed that hair-raising breach on top of the hijacked 767’s fuselage over Indian soil about a year ago. He barely blinked as he sat as still as a statue. His ID photo seemed ridiculous now because his features were hidden by a brown full beard and long, dirty-blond California surfer hair.
Compared with Slapshot, Digger dressed a little more informally. As was common among operators, he had the top portion of his jumpsuit pulled down with the sleeves tied around his waist. A former accomplished triathlete, his tan T-shirt did little to conceal the lean muscles on his six-foot, nearly fat-free frame. And his titanium prosthetic lower leg, a product of an IED blast in Iraq years earlier, remained hidden under his flight suit.
It was obvious that the JSOC lawyer standing over them was an outsider. He just looked out of place. Lieutenant Colonel Seymour Spencer had never been inside the secret Delta compound before. He wasn’t surprised that he required an escort wherever he went, even to the bathroom. Today’s escort was the gray-headed longtime unit-command sergeant major, who stood conspicuously off to the side
In fact, LTC Spencer was a relative newcomer to the entire special operations community, hired to assist with the increased workload brought on by years and years of war. Spencer came with all the soft-skill attributes of a desk officer. Double chin, bulging belly testing the tensile strength of the lower two buttons of his fatigue top, and wired-rimmed glasses that sat atop a pointed nose with mismatched nostrils. If there ever was a fish out of water that didn’t know it, it was Seymour Spencer.
Spencer figured this morning would be easy. After all, he directly represented Admiral Mason. In fact, Spencer’s visit was driven by the general dissatisfaction with the two operators’ sworn statements that were part of the written record in the AR 15-6 investigation. Mason sent Spencer across post to get it straightened out. Sure, Slapshot and Digger would treat him with the respect deserved by the rank on his collar. As long as the colonel reciprocated in kind, there would be no problems. But someone should really have briefed Spencer before he entered the Delta compound.
From the beginning, the balding and chubby army lawyer
was all business. He pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose and leaned forward on the table, still looking over his glasses and into Digger’s eyes. He paused for effect and then shifted his attention to Slapshot. With straight arms, his hands covered two documents. He slid the papers forward on the table a foot or so until they rested in front of the two Delta operators.
With every bit of stereotypical sarcasm they expected from a non-special-ops staff officer, Spencer finally spoke. “So, it appears that the two statements you two submitted referencing one Major Kolt Raynor are severely inconsistent with what we believe to be true.”
Slapshot and Digger looked down at the written statements. They took a few seconds to look them over to ensure they were authentic. When they were done, Slapshot looked at Digger. Digger nodded.
“No, sir!” answered Slapshot. “Our sworn statements look fine.”
“Gentlemen, maybe we have a slight misunderstanding here.” Spencer smiled as he lifted his arms from the table and straightened up, pushing his midsection a few inches over the edge of the table. “Look, you both are stellar soldiers with a lot to offer the army. I know that,” he said with a sense of pleading. “But Admiral Mason has sent me here to give you men one more chance.”
Spencer paused for a moment, then said, “Sergeant Holcomb, tell us what really happened on the helicopter in the Goshai Valley last month, and in your case, Sergeant Chamblis, on the highjacked Boeing 767 last year.”
Slapshot sat up straight in his chair. Digger locked eyes with Spencer as the veins in the seasoned operator’s neck stood out like thick climbing rope. Slapshot picked up both statements and held them out for Spencer to take back. “Sir, are you implying we fabricated these statements?”
