Car Wars

by Mike Brogan

  Bruner still lived in the home where he, his wife, Abeela, and daughter, Bahiya, had lived, even though each room, each piece of furniture, each picture sometimes ignited painful memories of his loss.

  He needed the pain.

  The pain gave his life meaning.

  And fueled his revenge.

  He flipped the television to Channel 4 Local News. It showed his latest XCar surge. The XCar slammed into an abutment, bounced off and got hit by a taxi. His surges were working . . . as he knew they would. His years developing and refining his remote vehicle driving system was paying off. He switched to FOX News. Moments later, they showed a similar surge-slam-bam accident . . . graphic footage of the crashed XCar and the ambulance arriving at the scene. Then it showed two stretchers with bleeding, injured victims.

  It reminded him of the crash scene that killed his wife and daughter . . . the direct result of Global Vehicles’ criminal engineering negligence. Preventable deaths if Global Vehicles had only installed the safety braking components and systems he’d recommended. But no, they refused, citing “engineering concerns.” A lie. Their concern was saving money. “Your features cost too much,” they told him. Another lie. His features were a few pennies more per unit and far safer engineering, and they knew it.

  He’d learned a big lesson: automakers will build safer cars only after their unsafe cars cost the carmakers too many expensive jury-damages. Today’s car-maker-negligent deaths . . . make tomorrow’s cars safer.

  His burner phone rang.

  “Yes . . . ?” Robert Bruner said.

  “New instructions,” Van Horn said.

  “What?”

  “The boss wants you to surge more of the two hundred early-release XCars.”

  “But many owners already returned XCars to the dealers.”

  “I know. GV’s examining them to find what’s causing the surge,” Van Horn said.

  “They won’t find it.”

  “Good. But there are still a large number of early-release XCars driving around. So go after them.”

  “Happy to,” Bruner said. “What about the big upcoming national launch of the XCar?”

  “They still plan to launch the XCar nationally. The commercials start running this week. When they launch nationally, be sure to surge some national launch XCars so people know the surge problem has still not been fixed.”

  “I plan to,” Bruner said.

  “The boss wants something else, too.”

  “What?”

  “He wants you to surge some other Global Vehicles models, some non-XCars. Start with their most popular - the Carmel SUV and the 6Pack pickup.”

  “But we agreed - just the XCar.”

  “The boss changed his mind. He wants to hit their strength. Their best-selling cars. Quicker way to destroy the GV brand.”

  Bruner saw a quick way to increase his revenue. “A noble goal, and I agree with him. But this requires extra programming costs. More time and equipment. Expensive hacker assistance.”

  “How much?”

  Bruner paused. “On such short notice, another million for my hackers.”

  Van Horn paused a moment. “Deal.”

  “I’ll also need compensation for my additional work. And frankly for the extra risk from authorities this work will potentially subject me to.”

  Van Horn paused again. “How much?”

  Bruner said nothing for several moments, obviously knowing he had leverage. “Two million.”

  “I can maybe get you one million.”

  “Two million or no deal.”

  Van Horn paused, realizing he had no choice.

  “Agreed.”

  “Wire it to my Belize account. As soon as it’s deposited, I’ll begin work.”

  “It will be deposited within the hour.”

  They hung up.

  Bruner sat back and smiled at the irony of getting the millions more in programming money. Van Horn and Krugere had no idea he’d already completed the programming to surge all GV vehicle models. Surging all GV models had been his plan all along. And he had other plans that Van Horn and Krugere knew nothing about. Van Horn’s extra millions in programming was gravy money.

  The TV news anchor said, “We interrupt this program for a special news bulletin.”

  Brunner turned around and saw an XCar surrounded by police cars and three ambulances. He turned up the volume.

  “In Des Moines, on Route 65, Rachel Hayes and her nine-year-old daughter were involved in an accident involving a new Global Vehicles XCar. Eyewitnesses said the vehicle lurched forward and steered erratically until the woman lost control and swerved into an oncoming Allied Moving truck. The mother and daughter are in serious condition. Early toxicology tests revealed no substances that might have impaired her driving.

  In a related accident in Kokomo, Indiana, an elderly man died when his XCar went out of control and slammed into a cement mixer. His airbags had saved him . . . but seconds later, wet concrete poured through his open sunroof and entombed him before rescuers could free him.

  They showed a photo of the Kokomo man. He reminded Bruner of Mr. Raj Singh, an engineer from India whom GV promoted over Bruner, claiming Singh had better people skills than Bruner. Irrelevant nonsense! Better people skills have nothing to do with better engineering!

  Bruner understood. GV had penalized me for being more intelligent. They were jealous because he held so many more automotive patents than any other engineer in the company.

  After GV began treating him unfairly, dismissing his brilliance, he quietly started selling bits and pieces of technical information to other automotive manufacturers. A lucrative side business. Later, he sold more valuable information. His lucrative side business more than made up financially for the promotion increases GV denied him.

  In fact, his secret information-for-sale activities over the years allowed him to stash several millions in offshore banks in St. Kitts and Nevis. His Caribbean honey pots grew sweeter with interest each year.

  But a nosy GV engineer discovered Bruner’s information-selling scheme and told management. The next day GV fired him. They took away his GV company pension, profit sharing, savings account and health care, and marched him out of the office. Enraged, he considered suing the company, But he backed off, realizing the car industry headhunters would red-flag him as a litigious, highly undesirable employee.

  Highly undesirable is a label Bruner learned early in life. You learn that fast when you’re a Shia kid in a Sunni country. Especially one run by Saddam Hussein.

  Bruner’s father, Karl Bruner, was a German weapons scientist brought to Iraq by Saddam to build powerful weapons for Saddam’s war with Iran. Karl Brunner married Robert’s mother, Nadia, a local Shia, and a respected professor of English at the University of Baghdad. She spoke Arabic and English to Bruner. His father spoke German and English to him. As a result, he spoke Arabic, English and German without an accent. He also spoke fluent Farsi.

  Their family life was fairly normal until Sunnis started attacking their home. Sunni classmates also attacked him in school.

  Then came the day he got the highest science test score in the high school’s history. Sunni students and teachers were infuriated. They claimed his scientist father had somehow helped him with the answers. A lie!

  Walking home that afternoon, two students, Amir and Tariq, attacked him with plumbing wrenches. They broke his wrist and left several severe cuts and bruises on his back and legs. He hobbled home bleeding and weeping.

  The Sunni police came. But, as expected, they believed the Sunni attackers’ lie – that Bruner had thrown rocks at them first.

  Bruner wanted justice. He didn’t get it.

  So five weeks later, Bruner harvested some conium plants from a nearby field and extracted the conium maculatum. At school lunch one day, Amir drank his regular fruit juice and fifty minutes later died mysteriously at his desk.

  Three months later, Tariq ate his usual grape leaves and hummus and met a similar dea
th.

  Conium hemlock worked fast. Socrates knew.

  After graduating top of his class, Bruner’s parents knew he couldn’t get the advanced science and engineering education he needed in Iraq. His grades and special science projects won him a full scholarship to MIT where once again he excelled. Everything was going well.

  But not for his parents. The tide was turning against Saddam Hussein.

  And because Bruner’s father was critical to Saddam’s Iraqi weapons production, the scientists often met in secret at Bruner’s home.

  Which is why the American aircraft bombed his parents home the night scientists were meeting with his father. A direct hit. His father and mother died, along with his two sisters and several scientists.

  Leaving Robert. K. Bruner alone in this world.

  TWENTY FOUR

  Madison was impressed as she, Kevin, and Pete Naismith hurried into a massive building located on the Global Vehicle Engineering Campus in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The sprawling, four-hundred-acre campus, designed by the award-winning architectural firm, Daniel D. McCarthy & Associates, consisted of several stunning glass-steel-brick buildings, each connected by sidewalks and underground walking tunnels, and surrounded by attractive landscaping. Madison felt like she was back at college.

  They entered the spacious lobby. Pete introduced her and Kevin to DuWayne Jefferson, GV’s Executive Vice President of Engineering.

  Pete told her that Jefferson, who held PhDs in automotive engineering and computer science from the University of Michigan and Indiana University, had risen rapidly through the company thanks to the depth and diversity of his engineering skills as well as his creativity and team-building skills. DuWayne’s father swept floors in a Chevy plant.

  “Just follow me, folks,” Jefferson said.

  Easy to follow, Madison thought. At six-seven, two hundred thirty pounds, Jefferson sort of stood above the crowd. He retained his U of M basketball player’s physique and a two-inch scar on his chin from a nasty Ohio State elbow. His tortoise-shell glasses blended seamlessly into his smooth, chestnut-brown skin.

  Madison looked around the huge laboratory and saw at least fifty engineers: men, women, young, old, black, white, tan, all tapping on large screen computers displaying three-dimensional graphics and designs. Everywhere she looked she saw long tables with rows of unassembled components of car systems. The components were arranged in a this-part-fits-on-this-part display manner, so that the completely assembled system sat at the end of the long table.

  Madison saw several work zones: Transmission, Powertrain, Chassis, Electronics, Engine, Interiors, and more. CAD-CAM design computers glowed in vivid colors. A huge printer churned out a realistic three-dimensional, four-foot model of a new GV pickup truck.

  She watched white-coated engineers working in a glassed-in lab that looked like a biohazard chamber.

  DuWayne stopped at one workstation where he introduced them to a middle-aged engineer named Ravi Khan, wearing a white shirt, blue tie, and white Sikh turban.

  “Any luck, Ravi?”

  Ravi shook his head, his dark eyes seeping frustration.

  “Absolutely none, DuWayne. We’ve tested all related XCar systems from top to bottom. Three times. Every component in our engine control and drivability systems is functioning exactly as it should.”

  “How many parts and components in your drive systems?” Madison asked.

  Jefferson said, “Over a thousand. But as Ravi said, every single part or component has been tested. And re-tested! Each one is functioning properly. Yet something is malfunctioning.”

  “Or causing our malfunctioning,” Ravi said.

  Jefferson nodded.

  “Like what?” Pete asked.

  Ravi shook his head. “We don’t know. But it seems to somehow override or maybe shut down our XCar’s system codes. Or somehow circumvents them. Then it enters and disrupts the driver’s control of the driving.”

  “That’s my sense too,” Jefferson said.

  Ravi nodded. “My question is – why didn’t we have one single surge occur in the thousands of miles we drove our XCar test vehicles?”

  Madison wondered the same thing. “In the Toyota recall, there was speculation that outside electronic influences . . . cell phones, microwaves, and cell phone towers might have interfered with the car’s drivability. Could that be happening with XCar?”

  DuWayne Jefferson paused. “We checked all that out and have found no evidence of it, Madison. XCar’s systems are engineered to protect against normal outside electronic or microwave interference.”

  Pete Naismith said, “But could something circumvent our XCar protection system?”

  Jefferson paused a moment. “In theory, yes. Almost anything is possible with today’s new cars.”

  “Why is that?” Kevin asked.

  “Because today’s new cars are basically computers on tires. From fifty to one hundred tiny computers are installed on newer-model cars. They monitor your steering, acceleration, braking systems, and many other systems.”

  “But that’s a good thing, right?” Pete said.

  “Yes. But . . . it could be a bad thing.”

  Everyone stared at him, waiting.

  “Why bad?” Madison asked.

  “Because even as you are driving your car, you’re not the only one who can command your car’s systems. You are not the only one who can tell your car to brake or speed up, or turn. Your car doesn’t necessarily need you to tell it what to do next.”

  Madison stared at him. “If not me, who?”

  “Something else can authenticate your car to brake, or speed up, or turn,” Jefferson said.

  “Authenticate?” Kevin said.

  “Give your car permission to brake, or steer left or right, or speed up.”

  Madison still didn’t quite get it.

  Jefferson continued. “Let’s say you’re driving along and press on the brake. That means you authenticated your brakes to slow down, so your car slows down.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “But what if you step on your brakes and something blocks your signal to the brakes – and another signal enters your car and tells it to speed up instead? Or steer left when you want to drive straight?”

  “Are you saying this can happen?” Madison asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re saying something else can take over driving my car - while I’m driving it?”

  “Yes . . .” Jefferson said.

  Shocked, Madison took a deep breath and stared at DuWayne Jefferson.

  No one spoke for several moments.

  “But how is that even possible?” she asked.

  “The Internet,” Ravi said.

  Madison wondered how the Internet might affect driving a car. She felt out of her element and didn’t want to ask too many dumb questions, but she needed to understand the basics if she was responsible for helping protect GV’s brand image.”

  Ravi said, “Most of today’s newer cars have wireless connectivity. Wi-Fi. This Wi-Fi links them to the Internet. And as you know, the Internet is a two-way street.”

  “In brief,” Jefferson continued, “anything on the Internet can be hacked. Even cars with Wi-Fi. So a highly skilled hacker could command your car to do what he or she wants it to do.”

  “Even while I’m driving it?” Madison asked.

  “Even while you’re driving it!” Jefferson said.

  The room went silent as a morgue.

  Madison felt her throat clench, nauseated by the thought that hackers might be causing the XCar surges, injuries, and deaths.

  Jefferson said, “But we’ve always believed this scenario was impossible from a practical standpoint.”

  “Why?” Madison asked.

  “Because this kind of sophisticated car hacking system requires a lot of time, energy and money. And because the known instances of hacking into a moving car required the hacker to be in a car located physically close to the moving car. Usually beside or behind th
e car.”

  “But,” Ravi said, “these surge attacks are different. They’ve occurred in many states from coast to coast. One hacker could not surge all those vehicles thousands of miles apart in a few hours unless -”

  “- he has fellow hackers working with him?” Pete suggested.

  “In theory that’s possible, Pete. But again, extremely unlikely.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “All the equipment and teams needed to create and coordinate these individual surges in different locations nationwide would make it completely cost prohibitive.”

  “But there is one other possibility,” Jefferson said.

  “Our most frightening possibility,” Ravi said.

  Everyone waited.

  Jefferson walked to a wall map of the United States. “A hacker might have somehow created something we didn’t think could be developed. A remote system to attack our XCars.”

  “You’re suggesting he can enter the car’s systems from a remote location, a distance?” Pete asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Like from a mile or so away?”

  “Like from a thousand or more miles away.” He pointed to Los Angeles. “Maybe a guy in LA can surge a car in New York.”

  No one spoke for a while.

  Madison felt her stomach churn. “One question - didn’t car makers anticipate this kind of hacker access?”

  Ravi said, “Not really. Certainly, not remote hacker access.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because car makers all thought that remote access was not technically feasible. Or practical. And why would someone spend a lot of money to hack a car’s Wi-Fi? To steal music? Or make a phone call? It’s much cheaper to buy the music and phone service than driving behind a Wi-Fi car with expensive equipment to steal the latest rap music off Wi-Fi.”

  No one spoke.

  “Also, as you know,” Jefferson said, “all car companies have been in a competitive race to install more Wi-Fi consumer goodies into cars. We still are. We have to give consumers more reasons to buy our new cars than the other brands. But while all these Wi-Fi goodies provide more driver creature comforts and convenience, they also give the hacker more ways to enter the car’s drivability systems.”

  Madison understood. “But credit cards do a pretty good job of blocking most hackers. Why couldn’t car makers?”