Kill Switch

by James Phelan

  From where Jasper sat at a computer terminal, he could see out a glass wall to where two of the guys were pointing and directing, as though they were expecting someone to come to the compound.

  Jasper felt a flush of heat rise up his neck. Had Paul got the message? Was he on his way? How would these guys react? Jasper stood and paced. He felt he had to tell these guys that Paul was not to be harmed.

  “Stay in there!” a black-clad guard shouted.

  •

  The van pulled to a stop. Walker heard an electronic gate opening. Another stop. Another gate.

  The guy opposite Walker said, “Where are we doing the handover?”

  “Up here,” Harrington said.

  “You sure you want to do this?” Walker called out. “General Christie won’t be too pleased.”

  Silence.

  Then, the guard opposite Walker said toward the front of the van: “How’s he know about General Christie?”

  “He saw the news,” Harrington replied. “Nice try though, fella.”

  “It’s no try,” Walker said. “Ask Paul here. General Christie and Team Black visited his house two weeks ago, asking about Jasper, to get him to come out to his old apartment this weekend. Why would she do that? Why, if she wasn’t driving this whole thing herself?”

  “It’s true,” Paul said through his hood, his voice calm. “She came to my house. Sold me a lie, about getting Jasper there to be picked up and taken away to do an exercise against Cyber Command.”

  “Shut up,” the guy opposite said.

  “She told me what would happen with Jasper,” Paul went on. “Well, in a sense. She told me it was an operation, that you were all in on it.”

  “Did she stay for dinner?” the guy asked, and his buddy laughed with him.

  “No,” Paul said, “but she drank a mocha with four sugars, which I thought was weird. Who drinks that, right?”

  There was a beat of silence, then Harrington said, “Stop the van.”

  •

  McCorkell strode into the White House like he owned the place. To be fair, he had as much stake as anyone and much more than most, given that his career there as a National Security Adviser had spanned three administrations, and a couple of others on an advisory basis.

  He took the stairs down toward the Situation Room. Somerville was by his side, although she would have to wait out in the aide staffing area.

  McCorkell could tell by the protective detail outside the closed doors that the President was still away, probably still on board Air Force One, where he would remain until all this was over, and that the Vice President was residing. Good.

  82

  Harrington said, “You had General Christie in your house?”

  “Yes,” Paul replied.

  “In Palm Springs?”

  “Yes.”

  “What date?”

  “Exactly two weeks ago. A Sunday. Just after lunch.”

  The guard opposite Paul said, “That’s the day Team Black rotated back to ’Stan.”

  “And how is it they could get taken from the field over there and placed here within twenty-four hours?” Walker’s opposite number said.

  “Look,” Walker said to them, and his face was pointed, under the hood, to the leader in the front passenger seat. “You know my name, so you’ve read my file. You know I’m ex-Agency. I know a set-up when I’m in one, and you guys are about to get burned. We’re your only bargaining chip here, and if you go in with the three of us and hand us over, then you’ve got nothing to negotiate with, and there’s little chance that you’re walking out of here alive.”

  “This cracker’s talking bullshit, Harrington,” the driver said. “No way would the General think like that. No way.”

  “Harrington,” Walker said, “if your buddy here is right, and I’m wrong, then why didn’t you know about this? Why isn’t it adding up? How is it that Team Black is here, where Jasper Brokaw is being held, and you’re only just now arriving? And why did the General use Paul here to make contact with Jasper? This whole thing stinks.”

  “Yeah, how’s that?” the guy opposite Walker said. “No way they could have got stateside and jumped ahead of us on this.”

  “And the fact is,” Walker continued as if that man hadn’t spoken, “if I’m right, and you do nothing about it and just hand us on over, we’re all dead, because you’re walking into a set-up. If I’m wrong, and you hand us over, then it’s just the three of us and Jasper that are screwed. Your call. But if you do something about it, be smart about it. Damn. You save the day, along with your lives and ours.”

  There was a long pause, then Harrington said abruptly, “Change of plans.”

  “No way—” the driver said but Harrington cut him off.

  “We’re not taking a chance, because this doesn’t add up,” Harrington said to him. Then, toward the back of the van he said, “Take these two, and wait back here. One stays with them, one sets up with eyes on a scope of the drop zone. Change comms down two bands to keep Team Black in the dark. And get the drone overhead.”

  Paul said, “This place is EMP-proof.”

  “The drone’s still handy,” Harrington said. “Await my orders. We’ll go in with Walker and see what’s what. If it checks out, I’ll tell you to bring them in, and we’ve done nothing other than be cautious for a couple of minutes.”

  The guy opposite Walker said, “And if it doesn’t check out?”

  •

  The door was opened for McCorkell and he entered and scanned the Situation Room.

  Seated at the table was the National Security team: the heads of the FBI and Homeland Security, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, two of the Joint Chiefs, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Vice President. There were a few National Security Advisers and senior military personnel at the end of the table and at chairs against the walls, taking notes and collating data and responding to questions that they could either answer straightaway or defer to those outside the room for clarification. That channel was a two-way street, with orders from the room being dispatched down the chain and implemented around the nation and the world.

  And on the large screen at the end of the room was a face, speaking to the room. The main screen was actually made up of three dozen smaller screens that could be tasked on different images and video feeds, but at this moment it displayed only one visual: General Christie.

  “Sir,” McCorkell said to the Vice President, who looked up upon McCorkell entering. “A brief word?”

  The Vice President, seated in the middle of the board table, nodded, got up and walked over to join McCorkell in the far corner, away from the large screen.

  “Sorry—what is this?” General Christie said. “What’s McCorkell doing? Someone turn up the audio at your end.”

  “Sir,” McCorkell said, his voice low, ignoring the General and talking to the man who trusted Jed Walker quite literally with his life. “Walker has intel from the field.”

  83

  Walker was now alone in the back of the van as it drove over concrete. The hood was still over his head and his wrists were still tied behind his back with the plastic cable ties. The seams in the road where the concrete slabs met acted like a trundle wheel and told him that they were driving about twenty miles per hour, and he figured they were headed west, because of the compass in his head. They were almost at the NASA super-computing lab.

  “Any chance I can get this hood off?” Walker asked.

  Silence from the front.

  “Is there anyone around?” Walker asked. “Employees?”

  “It’s a Sunday. This is NASA,” the driver said.

  “There’s no security?” Walker said. “There’s always security; there’s billions of dollars of tech sitting around here. Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  Silence.

  “What did General Christie say to you before, Harrington?” Walker said. “Did she mention Jasper Brokaw being here? That Team Black had liberated him from his ca
ptors—or that they were waiting for your arrival to use Paul Conway to covertly hack the systems here and override Jasper’s commands, then you boys would have to deal with the terror group?”

  No response.

  “Do you know for certain that Brokaw’s here?” Walker said.

  Harrington remained silent. Then, as the van started to slow, he said, “The drone’s just coming overhead now.”

  “I’d use it,” Walker said. “The EMP.”

  “You said before this place was EMP-proof,” the driver said.

  “But Team Black’s communications systems aren’t,” Walker said. “What are there, six of them? They’re your enemy here, don’t you see? And they’re set up. Defensive. They’ve got a kill box all organized. It’s a trap. It won’t affect what Team Black are doing with Brokaw—”

  “Would you shut up?” the driver said. He pulled to a stop. “This is it.”

  “Can’t see them,” Harrington said.

  “These guys have that reputation,” the driver replied. “Especially in the dark. You heard what they did in Syria, right? Shit. They hunted down half of IS’s hardest operators, and none of it was reported. I heard they even—”

  “You need to use the EMP to shut down their comms, now,” Walker said. “It’s a—”

  “You need to shut it,” the driver said.

  “The EMP is a smart move,” Walker said. “Put them on the back foot for a spell. I’d leave two on Brokaw, send four out here to mop you guys up. Maybe just three, if they think they’re so good and there’s four of you.”

  “Seriously,” the driver said. “I’m going to come back there and knock you right the fu—”

  WHACK.

  It was two sounds, a millisecond apart. First, the unmistakable sound of a high-velocity round as it punctured the windscreen, to the top left. The second sound came when the bullet hit the driver. It must have deflected on the laminated glass because while it was still a head shot, the driver was now gurgling. The sounds of death, before the silence. Walker imagined a .300 round, probably fired by an M2010 sniper rifle since these guys, Team Black, were US Army. The twelve-gram projectile, traveling at 3000 feet per second, deformed on the windscreen and hit the guy a little lower than aimed, then spun its way through the side of the driver’s skull and tunneled down and across through his face, tearing out the back of his neck. Air sucked and hissed as the guy’s final breaths expanded and deflated his lungs and escaped out of all kinds of new orifices. He slumped forward and came to rest on the van’s horn, which sounded long and loud and incessant in the still night air.

  “Put your hands up!” Walker said to Harrington. “Show them you’re capitulating—and start bargaining!”

  “Okay,” Harrington said. “Okay.”

  Walker’s breath was fast inside the hood. He felt his heart topping out and immediately forced himself to relax.

  “Make them take you inside,” Walker said, feeling his heart rate slowing a little. “Me too. Tell them the others are ten minutes out, that you had to separate in taking the three of us, and that you have to greet them when they roll in.”

  “They won’t buy that,” Harrington said out the corner of his mouth, barely audible over the horn’s blare. “Okay, I can see them approaching—two of them. Team Black . . . Sons of bitches. Traitors.”

  He rattled off a few more choice words.

  Walker said, “Your comms still up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your team heard all this.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, good. Tell them to put the EMP overhead in five minutes. And have them tell Monica: Paul Revere, one for come, two for stay put.”

  “What?”

  “Just tell them that. She’ll know.”

  Walker heard Harrington whisper into the microphone that was taped around his neck and picking up his vocal vibrations, and then he heard the front door of the van being opened, and then the rear doors.

  •

  “We can’t let the grid shut down,” the Vice President said. “How realistic is this?”

  “Sir,” said the Secretary of Homeland Security. “The national electric grid is comprised of three smaller grids, called interconnections, that move electricity around the country. The Eastern Interconnection operates in states east of The Rockies, The Western Interconnection covers the Pacific Ocean to the Rocky Mountain states, and the smallest is the Texas Interconnection system.”

  “No BS now,” the Vice President said. “Can it be brought down by a hack?”

  “It should be fine.”

  The Vice President looked exasperated. He said, “Should be?”

  “Since 2010,” the Secretary of Homeland Security said, “we’ve deployed a wide range of advanced devices, including more than thirty thousand automated capacitor feeder switches—”

  “Damn it!” the Vice President banged his fist on the table.

  Then, another voice came over the speaker on the table. The President of the United States. “We’ve spent hundreds of millions to make a resilient grid infrastructure that can survive a cyber incident while sustaining critical functions. Are you now saying that it’s all been for nothing?”

  “Mr. President,” the Secretary of Homeland Security said. “Most Internet attacks just affect users of one particular site or service. This one, however, will be aimed at breaking the whole thing. The fact is this: Jasper Brokaw is an insider. If someone can wreak havoc, it’s him.”

  The room fell silent.

  McCorkell looked around. “If I may,” he said. “We’ve got an option here, in Jed Walker. Give him time.”

  84

  Jasper heard the gunshot. It was a dull, muffled sound through the concrete walls of the computer lab, but his time on the range in Fort Benning in Infantry training and then all the hours of shooting he’d done at Ranger School told him what it was: a high-caliber sniper’s rifle. The thing he didn’t know was, who was shooting at whom? Was someone here to liberate him, and were they under attack? Or was it the armed guys here, defending the position? Either way, it wasn’t good—not now, not like this.

  I need more time.

  And help.

  He entered the final commands for the next attack and set the RATs to work. Networks that he had infiltrated weeks ago were now doing his bidding.

  One more attack remained. The power grid. And he couldn’t do it, not alone. His palms were sweaty. He stood and paced then went to the stack of snacks, popped an energy drink and it fizzed and spat at him. He wiped the sticky red liquid from his hands to the front of his jeans. He looked across at the orange jumpsuit lying over the back of another chair, thought about how he would have to put it on one more time and sit in front of the camera.

  In the meantime, chaos would reign. And the President just might buckle under the pressure.

  •

  Walker was forced to his knees next to Harrington, beside the van, and his hood was pulled off. Then Harrington’s ski mask. The guy had a shock of red hair, a mess of it, and a beard to match. This black-bag outfit was clearly not like other Army units, Delta notwithstanding. They were designed to be able to operate outside regular Army units. Probably specialists in assassinating High Value Targets. If this guy Harrington was sitting next to you in a cafe, you wouldn’t notice him as a potential threat until he’d stuck a knife between your ribs.

  Two operators, clad in black and ski masks, were standing over them. They were identical to Harrington’s team but for the weaponry. These guys were eclectic. They had the best of the US arsenal, plus the more exotic. Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifles, as used by Delta and SEALs. One had a battle-scarred AK74 carbine strapped to his thigh, the other a long curved kukri-style knife. The type of stuff they would have acquired from the field while on operational deployment. Trophy hunters.

  “This is Walker,” one of the guys said. “Where are Paul Conway and Monica Brokaw?”

  Harrington was silent.

  Good. Buy time. Walker calculated
the distances between the two men standing over them. The closest, the speaker, the one who had unmasked them both, who had stripped Harrington of his weapons, was a pace away, directly in front of Walker. The other stood sentry four paces back, his primary weapon, the HK416 assault rifle, action-ready in his grip. Walker knew he could snap out of the cable ties, but making the distance and disarming and subduing the man before his partner acted was near to impossible.

  The guy crouched down and pulled up his ski mask. He was a hardened nut. Burn scars marked his face and neck, probably from an IED blast a decade back.

  Harrington said, “Why are you doing this, Jones?”

  “Where are they, Harrington?” Jones said. “Where are your team?”

  “My team’s gone,” Harrington said. He gave a nod to Walker. “Thanks to him.”

  Jones’s eyes darted to Walker. “That right?”

  “They started it,” Walker said. “Some big bald oaf, on a bridge. Who knew trolls walked on bridges?”

  “Well, you always were the B-Team,” Jones said, looking back to Harrington. “You guys never deserved to be part of this outfit. You’re far too soft. And unless you cooperate, right now, you’re going to die here, tonight, by my hand. So, I’ll ask this just one more time. Where’s Conway? The computer guy?”

  The computer guy . . . Walker watched him closely. And he’s dropped any concern over Monica’s location. Why?

  “Why’d you sell out like this?” Harrington asked him. “What did the General promise you? How’d she sell it, to attack your own country like this?”