Shadow Command

by Dale Brown

  “Why wasn’t I briefed about this?”

  “It was first put into use on McLanahan’s planes deployed to the Middle East,” Carlyle said. “He disabled a Russian fighter by commanding it to shut itself down. Most digital radar systems in use these days, especially civilian sets, don’t have any way to block these intrusions. He can do it with all sorts of systems such as communications, the Internet, wireless networks, even weather radar. Plus, since a lot of the civilian networks are tied into the military’s systems, they can insert malicious code into the military network without even directly attacking a military system.”

  “I thought he shot a missile at the fighter!”

  “The Russians claimed he shot a missile, but he used this new ‘netrusion’ system to force the MiG to turn itself off,” Carlyle explained. “McLanahan had his heart thing before he could explain what happened, and we took the Russians’ word on the incident after that.”

  “How can he send a virus through radar?”

  “Radar is simply reflected radio energy timed, decoded, digitized, and displayed on a screen,” Carlyle said. “Once the frequency of the radio energy is known, any kind of signal can be sent to the receiver, including a signal containing digital code. Nowadays the radio energy is mostly digitally displayed and disseminated, so the digital code enters the system and is treated like any other computer instruction—it can be processed, stored, replicated, sent out over the network, whatever.”

  “Jee-sus…” Gardner breathed. “You mean, they could already have infected our communications and tracking systems?”

  “As soon as McLanahan decided to embark on this conflict, he could have ordered the attacks,” Miller said. “Every piece of digital electronic equipment in use that receives data from the airwaves, or is networked into another system that is, could have been infected almost instantly.”

  “That’s every electronic system I know of!” the President exclaimed. “Hell, my daughter’s handheld game machine is tied into the Internet! How could this have happened?”

  “Because we ordered him to find a way to do it, sir,” chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Taylor Bain replied. “It’s an incredible force multiplier, which was important when almost every long-range attack aircraft in our arsenal was destroyed. Every satellite and every aircraft—including his unmanned aircraft and Armstrong Space Station—is capable of electronic netrusion. He can infect computers in Russia from space or simply from a drone flying within range of a Russian radar site. He can prevent a war from happening because the enemy would either never know he was coming or would be powerless to respond.”

  “The problem is, he can do it to us now too!” the President exclaimed. “You need to find a way to shield our systems from this kind of attack.”

  “It’s in the works, Mr. President,” Carlyle said. “Firewalls and anti-virus software can protect computers that already have it, but we’re developing ways to plug the security gaps in systems that aren’t normally considered vulnerable to network attacks, such as radar, electronic surveillance such as electro-optical cameras, or passive electronic sensors.”

  “The other problem,” Bain added, “is that being the unit that developed and is designing the netrusion systems, the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center has been in the forefront of developing countermeasures to it.”

  “So the guys who are employing the thing are the ones who know how to defeat it,” the President said disgustedly. “Swell. That helps.” He shook his head in exasperation as he tried to think. Finally he turned to the two congressmen in the Oval Office. “Senator, Representative, I asked you in here because this has become a very serious problem, and I need the advice and support of the leadership. Most of us in this room think McLanahan is unhinged. Senator, you seem to feel differently.”

  “I do, Mr. President,” Senator Stacy Anne Barbeau said. “Let me try talking with him. He knows I support his space program, and I support him.”

  “It’s too dangerous, Senator,” the President said. “One man has died, and several more have been injured by McLanahan and his weapons.”

  “A frontal assault with armed troops won’t work unless you’re going to attempt a D-Day invasion, Mr. President,” Barbeau said, “and we can’t pen him up inside Dreamland when he’s got spaceplanes, unmanned aerial vehicles, and bombers roaming around inside a thousand square miles of desert, patrolled by gadgets no one’s ever heard of before. He won’t be expecting me. Besides, I think I might have some folks on the inside who will help. They’re just as concerned as I about the general’s welfare.”

  There were no other comments made—no one had any other suggestions, and certainly no one else was going to volunteer to stick their heads in the tiger’s jaws like the Navy SEALs had. “Then it’s decided,” the President said. “Thank you for this undertaking, Senator. I assure all of you, we’ll do everything possible to see to your safety. I’d like to speak to the senator in private for a moment. Thank you all.” The White House chief of staff escorted them all out of the Cabinet Room, and Gardner and Barbeau moved to the President’s private office adjacent to the Oval Office.

  No sooner had the door closed than Gardner’s arms were around her waist and he was snuggling her neck. “You macho hot bitch,” he said. “What kind of crazy idea is this? Why do you want to go to Dreamland? And who is this guy you say you’ve got on the inside?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough, Joe,” Barbeau said. “You sent in the SEALs and they didn’t get it done—the last thing you want to do is start a war out there. Your poll numbers will go down even farther. Let me try it my way first.”

  “All right, sugar, you got it,” Gardner said. He let her turn in his arms, then began to run his hands over her breasts. “But if you’re successful—and I have no doubt you will be—what is it you want in return?”

  “We have a good deal going already, Mr. President,” Barbeau said, pressing his hands even tighter around her nipples. “But I’m interested in one thing Carlyle was talking about: the netrusion thing.”

  “What about it?”

  “I want it,” Barbeau said. “Barksdale gets the network warfare mission—not the Navy, not STRATCOM.”

  “You understand all that stuff?”

  “Not all of it, but I will, in very short order,” Barbeau said confidently. “But I do know that Furness at Battle Mountain has all the bombers and unmanned combat aircraft that use netrusion technology—I want them at Barksdale, along with all the network warfare stuff. All of it. Downsize or even eliminate the B-52s if you want, but Barksdale runs network warfare for anything that flies—drones, B-2s, satellites, the space-based radar, everything.”

  The fingers on Barbeau’s nipples tensed. “You’re not talking about keeping the space station?” Gardner asked. “That’s five billion I want to go to two aircraft carriers.”

  “The space station can fry for all I care—I want the technology behind it, especially the space-based radar,” Barbeau said. “The space station is dead anyway—folks consider it McLanahan’s orbiting graveyard, and I don’t want to be associated with it. But the nuts and bolts behind the station are what I want. I know STRATCOM, and Air Force Space Command will want netrusion aboard their reconnaissance, airborne command posts, and spacecraft, but you have to agree to fight that. I want the Eighth Air Force at Barksdale to control netrusion.”

  The President’s hands began their ministrations once again, and she knew she had him. “Whatever you say, Stacy,” Gardner said distractedly. “It’s a lot of hocus-pocus gobbledygook to me—what bad guys around the world understand is a fucking aircraft carrier battle group parked off their coastline, in their faces, not network attacks and computer magic. If you want this computer-fucking virus thing, you’re welcome to it. Just get Congress to agree to stop funding the space station and give me my two aircraft carriers, minimum, and you can have your cyberwar shit.”

  She turned toward him, letting her breasts slide tightly across his ches
t. “Thank you, baby,” she said, kissing him deeply. She placed a hand on his crotch, feeling him jump at her touch. “I’d seal our deal in the usual manner, but I have a plane to catch to Vegas. I’ll have McLanahan in prison by tomorrow evening…or I’ll expose him as a raving lunatic so severely that the American people will be clamoring for you to take him down.”

  “I’d love to give you a big going-away present too, honey,” Gardner said, giving Barbeau a playful pat on her behind, then taking a seat at his desk and lighting up a cigar, “but Zevitin’s going to call in a few minutes, and I’ve got to explain to him that I’m still in control of this McLanahan mess.”

  “Screw Zevitin,” Barbeau said. “I suspect that everything McLanahan said about the Russians putting a super-laser in Iran and firing on the spaceplane is true, Joe. McLanahan might be going off the deep end by ignoring your orders, attacking without authorization, and then battling the SEALs, but Zevitin’s up to something here. McLanahan doesn’t just fly off the handle.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Stacy,” Gardner said. “We’ve got good communications open with Moscow. All they want are assurances that we’re not trying to bottle them up. McLanahan is making the whole world, not just the Russians, nervous, and that’s bad for business.”

  “But it’s good for getting votes in Congress for new aircraft carrier battle groups, honey.”

  “Not if we have a rogue general on our hands, Stacy. Take McLanahan down, but do it quietly. He could ruin everything for us.”

  “Don’t worry about a thing, Mr. President,” Barbeau said, giving him a wink and a toss of her hair. “He’s going down…one way or another.”

  Barbeau met up with her chief of staff Colleen Morna outside the executive suites, and they walked quickly to her waiting car. “The trip’s all set, Senator,” Morna said after they were on their way back to her office on Capitol Hill. “I have the billing codes for the whole trip from the White House, and they even gave us authorization for a C-37—a Gulfstream Five. That means we can take eight guests with us to Vegas.”

  “Perfect. I got a verbal agreement from Gardner about relocating and centralizing all of the DoD network warfare units to Barksdale. Find out which contractors and lobbyists we need to organize to get that done and invite them along with us to Vegas. That should water their eyes.”

  “You got that right, Senator.”

  “Good. Now, what about that hard-body boyfriend of yours, Hunter Noble? He’s the key to this Las Vegas trip as long as McLanahan is up in that space station. What did you dig up on him?”

  “You had him pegged from day one, Senator,” Colleen said. “Our Captain Noble seems to be stuck in junior high school. For starters: he got a woman six years older than him pregnant in high school—the school nurse, I think.”

  “Happens every year where I’m from, sugar. The only virgin in my hometown was an ugly twelve-year-old.”

  “He was expelled, but it didn’t matter because he already had enough credits to graduate two years early from high school and start engineering school,” Colleen went on. “Seems his way of celebrating graduation is getting some woman pregnant, because he did it again in both college and grad school. He married the third one, but the marriage was annulled when yet another affair was uncovered.”

  “McLanahan he definitely isn’t,” Barbeau said.

  “He’s an outstanding pilot and engineer, but apparently has a real problem with authority,” Morna went on. “He gets high marks on his effectiveness reports for job performance but terrible marks for leadership skills and military bearing.”

  “That’s no help—now he sounds like McLanahan again,” Barbeau said dejectedly. “What about the juicy stuff?”

  “Plenty of that,” Morna said. “Lives in bachelor officers’ quarters at Nellis Air Force Base—barely six hundred square feet of living space—and has been written up many times by base security for loud parties and visitors coming and going at all times of the day and night. He’s a regular in the Officers’ Club at Nellis and piles up a pretty hefty bar tab. Rides a Harley Night Rod motorcycle and has received numerous speeding and exhibitionist driving citations. License just recently returned after a three-month suspension for unsafe driving—apparently decided to race an Air Force T-6A training aircraft down the runway.”

  “That’s good, but I need the real juicy stuff, baby.”

  “I saved the best for last, Senator. The list of female visitors admitted for on-base visits is as long as my arm. A few are wives of married men, a couple known bisexual women, a few prostitutes—and one was the wife of an Air Force general officer. However, visits on-base seemed to have subsided a bit in the last year…mostly because he has signature credit authority with three very large casinos in Vegas for a total of one hundred thousand dollars.”

  “What?”

  “Senator, the man hasn’t paid for a hotel room in Vegas in over two years—he’s on a first-name basis with managers, doormen, and concierges all over town, and uses comped rooms and meals almost every week,” Colleen said. “He likes blackjack and poker and is invited backstage a lot to hang out with showgirls, boxers, and headliners. Usually has at least one and many times two or three ladies in tow.”

  “One hundred grand!” Barbeau remarked. “He beats out every Nevada legislator I know!”

  “Bottom line, Senator: He works hard and plays hard,” Colleen summarized. “He maintains a low profile but has made some fairly high-profile transgressions that have apparently been swept under the rug because of the work he does for the government. He’s contacted regularly by defense contractors who want to hire him, some offering incredible salaries, so that probably makes him cocky and contributes to his attitude that he doesn’t have to play the Air Force’s games.”

  “Sounds like a guy living on the edge—and that’s exactly where I like ’em,” Barbeau said. “I think it’s time to go pay Captain Noble a little visit—in his native habitat.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The deed is everything, the glory nothing.

  —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  MASHHAD, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN

  THAT NIGHT

  The city of Mashhad—“City of Martyrs” in English—in northeastern Iran was the second-largest city in Iran and, as the location of the shrine of the eighth imam, Reza, it was the second-largest Shiite holy city in the world and second only to Qom in importance. Over twenty million pilgrims visited the Imam Reza shrine every year, making it as noteworthy and spiritual as the Haji, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Located in a valley between the Kuh-e-Ma’juni and Azhdar-Kuh mountain ranges, the area had brutally cold winters but was pleasant most of the rest of the year.

  Located in the hinterlands of Iran, Mashhad held relatively little military or strategic importance until the rise of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Fearing that the Taliban would try to export its brand of Islam westward, Mashhad was turned into a counterinsurgency stronghold, with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps operating several strike teams, intelligence units, counterinsurgency fighter-bomber and helicopter assault and attack units from Imam Reza International Airport.

  When Hesarak Buzhazi’s military coup hit, Mashhad’s importance quickly grew even stronger. The remnants of the Revolutionary Guards Corps was chased all the way from Tehran to Mashhad. However, Buzhazi barely had the resources to maintain his tenuous hold on the capital, so he had no choice but to let the survivors flee without mounting a determined effort to root out the commanders. With the surviving Revolutionary Guards Corps commanders freely moving about the city, and with a very large influx of Shiite pilgrims that continued almost unabated even during the growing violence, the Pasdaran had lots of recruits to choose from in Mashhad. From mosques, the marketplaces and malls, and from every street corner, the call to jihad against Buzhazi and the Qagev pretenders went far and wide and quickly spread.

  Spurred on by the powerful spiritual aura of the city and the entrenched power of the Revolutionary
Guards Corps, acting Iranian president, chief of the Council of Guardians, and senior member of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Hassan Mohtaz was emboldened to return from exile in Turkmenistan, where he had been living under the protection of the Russian government. At first there was talk of all of the eastern provinces of Iran splitting from the rest of the country, with Mashhad as the new capital, but the instability of the coup and the failure of Buzhazi and the Qagevs to form a government postponed such discussions. Perhaps all Mohtaz had to do was encourage the faithful to jihad, continue to raise money to fund his insurgency, and wait—Tehran might drop right back into his hands soon enough all by itself.

  Three full divisions of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, over one hundred thousand strong, were based in and around Mashhad, nearly the entire surviving complement of frontline elite troops. Most of the Pasdaran forces, two divisions, were infantry, including two mechanized infantry brigades. There was one aviation brigade with counterinsurgency aircraft, attack and assault helicopters, transports, and air defense battalions; one armored brigade with light tanks, artillery, and mortar battalions; and one special operations and intelligence brigade that conducted demolition, assassination, espionage, surveillance, interrogation, and specialized communications missions such as propaganda broadcasts. In addition, another thirty thousand al-Quds paramilitary forces were deployed within the city itself, acting as spies and informers for the Pasdaran and theocratic government-in-exile.

  The Revolutionary Guards Corps’ headquarters and strategic center of gravity was Imam Reza International Airport, situated just five miles south of the Imam Reza shrine. However, all of the tactical military units at the airport were relocated to make room for a new arrival: an S-300OMU1 Favorit air defense regiment from the Russian Federation.