by Tim Washburn
Butler and Darnell climb up the stairs with Goodman and his men on their heels. At the top, there’s an open space that’s about six feet deep that runs the width of the building, with the door to the hospital centered on the far wall. Goodman and his troops take up positions on either side of the door and Darnell and Butler follow. Not knowing the accuracy of the weapons, they’re hoping for a point-blank shot through the door glass.
Butler nods at Darnell and she tucks the tear gas rifle to her shoulder and stands while Butler braces for the shot. Darnell ducks back beneath the window a second later and whispers, “It’s security glass. They must have replaced it recently.”
Butler nods, curse words zinging around inside his brain. He thinks about it for a moment and comes up with a new plan. He gets the attention of Goodman and mimics turning the knob.
Goodman nods. Butler and Darnell position themselves near the doorframe and wait for him to open the door. Carefully, Goodman turns the knob and opens the door about six inches. That’s all Darnell and Butler need. They jam the barrels inside, fire the tear gas canisters, and step back. Goodman and his team have their pistols out in a firing position as they stagger their entries through the door, one right after another. Once they’re clear, Butler and Darnell pause fifteen seconds and enter.
In their haste to end the hostage situation no one considered the difficulty of being able to see through the cloud of gas vapors. Butler clicks on a flashlight to find that only makes visibility worse, much like car headlights in the fog. He kills the light and tucks it into a pocket of his vest. Sweat is dripping down his forehead and onto the mask, making a bad situation worse.
Somewhere on the other side of the room, a shotgun roars and then roars again. Unable to communicate with the others, Butler has no idea what’s going on. He jumps when someone fires a pistol right next to him. Tracing the direction of the muzzle flash, Butler peers through the lessening fog, trying to find out what the target was. While he’s looking, he’s nearly bowled over a moment later when someone backs into him. Butler whirls around and his heart stutters.
The inmates also have gas masks.
Butler pulls the trigger three times and backpedals as the man lunges for him. After two steps the man begins to falter and collapses to his knees. Butler puts a bullet through the top of his head and begins searching for more targets. It’s still hard to see, but the cloud is dissipating. He can see another inmate creeping up behind someone over by the windows. Butler takes aim and fires two quick shots, hitting the man center mass.
The inmates might have masks, but they don’t have body armor.
Other pistols bark and the shotgun roars again. Butler wonders how many inmates are really in the room. Someone latches on to the wrist of his gun hand and Butler tries to twist his arm away, but it feels like it’s trapped in a vise. For the first time today, fear rears its ugly head as Butler fumbles for his knife with his left hand.
The man keeps twisting Butler’s arm and it feels as if his shoulder joint is going to give out any second. Feeling the pistol slipping from his grasp, Butler burns through his last reserves of energy trying to maintain his hold on his weapon.
If he doesn’t, he dies.
Butler flinches when someone fires a pistol right next to his head, the muzzle flash nearly blinding him. The man’s grip on his arm slowly begins to loosen and Butler eventually yanks his arm free. He switches the gun to his left hand and starts scanning for targets again. Someone had propped the door open and the cloud of gas is rapidly retreating.
After several moments of chaos and terror, Butler makes his way over to a window and cranks it open. That helps with the vapors, but it doesn’t do much to alleviate the pain in Butler’s right arm—the arm he uses to fill cavities and set crowns. With the guns now silent, Butler works his arm in a circle as he surveys the damage. Bodies and spent shell casings litter the floor and Butler’s hoping his men were successful in rescuing the hostages. Deciding that’s the most important question, Butler hustles out of the room and down the stairs. He takes off the sweat-filled mask, takes a breath of fresh air, and makes a radio call. “Butler to Parker, over.”
A couple of seconds later, he responds. “Go for Parker.”
“Status of the hostages?” Butler asks.
“Two males accounted for, sir.”
Butler mumbles a curse word or two. “What happened to the other two?”
“They were gone long before we arrived, Scott. Two females. And they didn’t die pleasant deaths.”
Butler stares out the window at the faint smudge of orange along the horizon and blows out a shaky breath as tears shimmer in his eyes. The long night is over, but the nightmares will linger long after. He puts the handset to his lips. “Roger, Freddy.” Butler wipes his eyes, takes a deep, calming breath, and sends out a radio call to Sergeant Vasquez.
“Vasquez, here, sir,” he answers a second later.
“I need a body count from upstairs.”
“Already on it, sir. I’ll have the number in a moment.”
“Roger,” Butler says. He looks up to see Lydia Darnell slowly descending the stairs. When she strips off her mask Butler can see tears are streaming down her cheeks. He steps over and meets her at the bottom, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s over, Lydia,” Butler whispers in her ear.
“It’ll never be over for me . . . Captain,” Darnell says between sobs. “I worked . . . with those people . . . laughed with . . . those people, and cried with those . . . people. And now . . . they’re all gone.”
CHAPTER 80
Somewhere near Boston
Target 1-A is a hack none of the grad students have performed before. Hassan doesn’t know if the same is true for Nazeri, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he had—probably more than a few times. They won’t know if this particular attack has worked for several hours or even days because they don’t have eyes on this target or any real-time access. What is assured is that every member of the team, if discovered, will be hunted to the ends of the earth if they’re successful, and that thought makes Hassan Ansari nauseous, especially in light of what he’s planning to do. If he could stop it, he would. But he can’t and there is no way for help to arrive in time.
If Hassan had any doubts about Nazeri’s intentions, they evaporated when the three armed men appeared. Dressed in tan fatigues, their uniforms are absent of any insignia and offer no clues as to their allegiance. All three men are dark haired with dark, olive-colored complexions, and all three look as if they were cut from the same cloth. If Hassan had to guess their origins he’d lean toward them being Iranian, or somewhere around that region. Regardless of their nationality, they’re here now, and Hassan and his cohorts must find a way to mitigate their presence.
And Hassan has a plan. A plan he can’t share with his cohorts now that Jermar’s chat program has been compromised. It will spell doom, but it just might save their lives.
“Have you acquired the device?” Nazeri asks Sheezal.
“Almost,” Sheezal replies.
Hassan is amazed that the general public remains uninformed about the dangers of their obsession to acquire wireless devices. They can’t seem to grasp that if something connects to the Internet, it’s hackable. Despite the continuing drumbeat of hacked databases, hacked nanny cams, or stolen usernames and passwords, their insatiable appetite for wireless devices continues unabated. Not only are consumers connecting wireless devices to their home networks, they are also allowing the implantation of wireless medical devices into their own bodies.
And it’s one such device that is the target of Nazeri’s current attack.
Unbeknownst to the general voting public, America’s newly installed president relies on a pacemaker to keep his heart in rhythm. It is a closely held secret to prevent the public from believing their new leader is infirm. Hassan has no idea how Nazeri received the information, but he has it, along with the precise serial number of the device implanted in the president’s chest. With that in
formation, and access to the wireless network the device communicates with, Nazeri can alter the device’s settings to speed up the heart rate, drain the battery, or turn it off altogether. Hassan knows that Nazeri’s plan is to choose the speediest outcome and, in this case, he’s planning to accelerate the president’s heart rate.
Hassan thinks it’s odd that Nazeri is acting as if nothing has changed as he and Sheezal work in tandem. But on another level, Hassan understands. This is the one target they all yearned for. Not only has the new president continued the merciless drone attacks, he has accelerated the program, dropping bombs all over the Middle East. Yes, this attack is about retribution, but Hassan hopes the elevation of the vice president to the highest office in the land will bring some sanity back to America.
While Nazeri and Sheezal make final preparations, Hassan is making his own plans. He checks the time to make sure the satellite window to the ship is still open then takes a moment to visualize his plan. It’s not foolproof. The signal could go unnoticed or, to the other extreme, it could result in a bomb being dropped on their heads. But Hassan can find no other alternatives.
“What are the odds the president’s pacemaker has the new firmware update?” Sheezal asks Nazeri.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nazeri says. “I have other vulnerabilities we can exploit.”
Hassan is not surprised. Where Nazeri came up with all of the zero days, including the one that allows Nazeri access to the White House’s wireless network, is still a mystery. But hopefully it won’t remain a mystery for long. Hassan launches one of his programs that he created long ago and refined over the years. The software scans deep into the hard drive, searching for spyware or keylogger programs with administrator-level access. Hassan will not underestimate Nazeri again. He has no doubt now that Nazeri is monitoring their computer activities somehow and he has to find out how for his plan to work.
Within moments, Hassan’s software produces a list containing two items. One is a keylogger and the other sends a chill down his spine. It’s an encrypted file that Hassan has never seen before. It’s obviously a file Nazeri has placed on his computer, but he has no idea of the contents. It could be a self-destruct mechanism or it could also be a dossier detailing every aspect of Hassan’s life, including his family, friends, and a list of crimes he has committed. Hassan might be able to crack the encryption if he had enough time, but that’s the one thing he doesn’t have.
Hassan tries to put it out of his mind as he examines the keylogger. He doesn’t want to remove the software, fearing its absence will trigger some type of alarm. What he would like to do is either blind it to his activities or simply turn it off for a few seconds.
“I’m in,” Sheezal announces.
Hassan tries to tune them out, knowing that time is his greatest enemy. The attempted killing or the actual killing of the president could be the culminating event that will lead to their demise. Luckily that information won’t be readily available, buying them a little more time. Hassan finds a way to momentarily disable the keylogger and does. With a clock ticking down in his head, Hassan logs out of the VPN they’ve been using and logs back on to the wireless network, unmasked. Navigating to the satellite, he types in a set of instructions and pulls up the USS Stark’s shipboard cameras. Using his keyboard and mouse, he spends a few seconds manipulating the cameras then kills the connection. After logging out, he immediately logs back in to the VPN, enables the keylogger, and sits back in his chair. All he can do now is wait.
CHAPTER 81
Fort Meade
Natalie Lambert drains the last of her energy drink and tosses the empty can into the trash under her desk. Outside, dawn is breaking—a fact she knows only by glancing at the clock. There are no windows in the room and there will be no warming from the sun’s first rays of the day. Paige is working on an adjacent computer as they continue writing a program to target the malware’s self-destruct payload. It sounds easy, but it’s not. The sophistication of the malware only makes it more difficult.
Natalie nearly jumps out of her chair when the office phone on her desk rings. She lifts the handset and says, “Lambert.” She listens for a moment then says, “Oh shit. Really?” She listens for another moment as she pushes to her feet. “Okay. Hold on.” She lays the handset down and races across the room.
“What is it?” Paige shouts after her.
Peyton glances back over her shoulder. “Signals. They got a hit on a satellite.”
Natalie flings open the door to her office. “Hank, get up.”
Hank rolls over and sits up. “What is it?”
“Signals got a hit.”
Hank rubs his eyes as he stands from the sofa. “What and where?”
“They want to talk to you.”
Hank grabs his cell phone and blinks against the bright lights as he follows Natalie back across the room. Paige stands and walks over as Hank grabs the phone. “Goodnight.”
“Agent Goodnight, I’m Sheryl Wilkins, an analyst in signals. We picked up some satellite communications that might be of interest.”
“I’m listening,” Hank says.
“The communications originated in Boston and were relayed over one of our satellites.”
“Where did the signal terminate?” Hank asks.
“A ship in the North Atlantic. I can’t tell you specifically which one.”
“Are you able to decipher what the communications were?”
“They’re encrypted. We’ll eventually decode it, but it might take a while.”
“Have you picked up any other communications from that location?”
“Negative.”
“Do you have the address and the coordinates for the ship’s location, Sheryl?”
“Yes. Do you want to grab a pencil so you can write it down?”
“No, just tell me.”
Wilkins relays the info and Hank passes on his cell phone number. “I need that decryption as soon as you get it. Thank you, Sheryl. You’ve been a big help.” Hank hangs up the phone, pulls over a chair, and sits.
“Are we going?” Paige asks.
“This is my end of the deal. There is no ‘we.’”
“Bullshit,” Paige says.
Hank holds up a hand. “Hold up. Let me think this through for a minute. We don’t know for certain it’s them. She couldn’t identify which ship received the communications. Hell, it could be a food warehouse ordering more tuna from a fishing boat.”
Paige takes a seat at her computer. “You asked for the ship’s coordinates. Tell me what they were.”
Hank recites the coordinates and Paige enters them into the computer. After pulling up a map to locate the general area, she scrolls through the list of satellites, trying to find one that will provide a visual. Since it’s dark, she’d prefer an infrared image, so she clicks on several different weather satellites, but they don’t offer the image resolution she’s seeking. She glances up. “Natalie, do you have access to images from the NSA satellites?”
“Yes,” Natalie says, taking a seat in front of her computer.
Paige pedals her chair over while Natalie logs in. “Hank, what were those coordinates again?” Paige asks.
Hank rattles off the numbers again.
“How does he do that?” Natalie whispers.
“I’ll tell you later,” Paige says. “Pull up any satellites that cover the North Atlantic.”
It looks like it’s going to take them a while to find what they’re looking for, so Hank rolls the latest information around in his mind. He wonders why this is the only communication the NSA has flagged from that address. He runs several scenarios through his brain, but none make sense. After all, these are sophisticated hackers and if they’ve camouflaged their activity to this point, why the aberration? Could it be a simple mistake? Hank wonders. The one thing he failed to ask Sheryl Wilkins was the duration of the signal. Hank stands. “Natalie, how do I get back in touch with Sheryl Wilkins?”
“Pick up the phone and dia
l star-639. That’ll get you to signals analysis.”
Hank picks up the phone and makes the call. He reconnects with Wilkins and finds out the answer to his question—forty-nine seconds. Hank sits back down and runs through the process of how that might happen. He tries to visualize the actions that would be required to transition from a secure private network to a secure, but less private one—one that would allow the NSA to intercept their communications.
“Got it,” Natalie says. She turns her monitor so that Hank can see. “This is an accelerated video loop of the last thirty minutes that covers the coordinates Wilkins provided.”
Hank leans forward in his chair. “Play it.” He watches it all the way through and leans back in his chair.
“Do we need to replay it or enhance it?” Paige asks.
“No. There’s only one ship currently at sea that has that bow and superstructure configuration.”
“Which ship is it, then?” Paige asks.
“The USS Stark.”
Paige and Natalie dance a little jig. “Hot damn. We’ve got the bastards,” Paige says.
“Not yet, we don’t,” Hank says, pushing to his feet. “For some reason they wanted us to find them.”
“Who?” Natalie asks.
“Someone on the inside of their operation.”
“Why would they do that?” Paige asks.
“I don’t know. That’s what we need to find out.” Hank runs a hand through his hair. “Natalie, you finish up with the fix for the malware. Paige, find some clean clothes and gather up your things. I need to make some calls.”
Daily News Website
—BREAKING NEWS—United States facing cyber attack? More details to follow . . .
