Cyberstrike

by James Barrington

  They needed an entirely new direction and, after spending much of the day in heated discussions, they finally thought they had one. In fact, they had two. Two very different targets and attack methods in their two principal target countries.

  It was the youngest member of the council, a thick-set and heavily built man whose intimidating physical appearance belied his keen brain, who came up with the idea for the bigger attack, based upon an article he had read in an American magazine. Mahdi Sadir was no poet, but he was very well aware of the meaning of the expression ‘poetic justice’. It seemed to him to be entirely appropriate that the Americans would experience death raining down upon them in a very similar fashion to the carnage inflicted upon ISI soldiers at the hands of the Americans in Iraq with their armed drones and ground attack aircraft. A war waged by technology had given the infidels the upper hand, and ISI had been slow to respond.

  He also knew that the elders would wish to see a game-changing attack on London as well as the much more complex and devastating assault on the second and more significant target, and accordingly he came up with ideas for two very different attack strategies. The first was easy for him to explain because it was simply an enhanced version of the kind of retribution attacks that had been launched against the West over the last few years, and he knew that the elders would grasp its inherent simplicity and potential effects almost immediately.

  The second phase of the operation he was proposing was a more difficult sell for a variety of reasons, but mainly because Sadir frankly understood very little of the science behind the method of attack, and the elders he was talking to understood even less.

  The concept was simple enough, though it would be anything but simple to implement because there were massive technical challenges and obstacles that would have to be overcome. But the idea was so apposite that everybody on the council agreed it was well worth pursuing, even though Sadir explained to them, several times over, that it might take years before the plan could be implemented. There would be several separate components to the final strategy, and to make it work they would have to enlist or recruit specialist helpers in at least two very different disciplines: electrical engineering and computer science. They would also need to find somebody who was employed in an organisation that represented everything they were fighting against. They would need to consort with their deadliest enemy.

  But he was both enthusiastic and persuasive and after a further three hours of talking – a comparatively short time for any decision involving a group of Arabs, who liked to explore every possible angle of every possible subject in every possible way, repeatedly – he was given permission to investigate the second proposed attack and, if it appeared to be feasible, to implement it.

  Sadir was surprised to have been given so much responsibility, but as well as his clear ability to think laterally, he had one other vitally important attribute that made the elders decide he was the ideal man for the job: he was a cleanskin. A man who had never come to the attention of the authorities in Iraq or anywhere else, his face and description would be completely unknown in the West. He also spoke fluent English, which was perhaps the clinching argument, and when he was recalled before the council once they had come to their final decision, he was told that the entire operation, both the bombing that would mark its beginning and the much more devastating attack on the other side of the Atlantic that would signal its conclusion, would now be his responsibility.

  ‘And there is another consideration that needs to be addressed,’ the leader of the council, an elder named Rashid, said. ‘We have no doubt that the best principal target is the one you have suggested, but the secondary target, the one that will be attacked first, is equally important to us. We need both countries to feel the full force of our anger and resolve. You will have to recruit several shahids in order to carry out that attack, but it is essential that they have no usable information about the second attack, or about you. Never use your real name unless it is unavoidable. Decide on a nom de guerre and always use that. And you must ensure that there is no possibility of them surviving the attack if it should fail.’

  ‘It will not fail,’ Sadir replied confidently. ‘I will make sure of that.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Rashid insisted, ‘you are to devise a way of guaranteeing their deaths. Once they are outside your direct control you must ensure that they will not live long enough to betray our jihad. Whatever method you choose must be foolproof.’

  Sadir nodded. That was something he had not factored into his initial calculations, but it made sense. And he did have one idea that might well work, again based upon something he had read about in an American journal. It could also, he realised, be used in an entirely different scenario.

  ‘This will be a long game,’ Rashid told him as the meeting drew to a close. ‘You have much to research and investigate, and you must first ensure that you can deliver what we have discussed. If you cannot, then we will need to devise an alternative strategy to achieve our aims. For our security, you must sever all connections with your family here in Iraq until you have completed the mission.

  ‘You will need substantial funds, which we will provide when you require them. When possible, we will make use of hawaladars to transfer money, but once you reach your two principal targets we will have to rely on Western Union.’ Rashid smiled slightly at the idea of funding terror attacks upon the West by making use of a Western money transfer system. ‘When you leave here to begin your mission you must assume that you will be watched, so on no account are you to proceed directly to your objective. Travel slowly, watch everyone and trust no one outside the brotherhood.’

  Rashid was not referring to the Muslim Brotherhood organisation but to the concept enshrined in the Hadith, the record of the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed and second only in Islamic religious authority to the Koran, that ‘the Muslim is a brother to another Muslim. He does not wrong him, nor surrender him.’ In that sense, every Muslim in every nation is a brother to every other Muslim in the world.

  ‘Your journey will be long. Take care and ensure you keep us fully informed through the usual channels. If we do not know where you are or what you need we will not be able to help you. And remember that this is a part of the most important jihad we have ever embarked on, so when the moment comes to strike do not hesitate.’

  Mahdi Sadir left Iraq three weeks later and began a journey that would take him to places he had never even dreamed of visiting.

  Chapter 1

  Ten years later

  Vektor, Koltsovo Naukograd, Novosibirsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia

  Koltsovo is a naukograd, a Russian term meaning a ‘science city’, located in the Novosibirsk Oblast, roughly 1,800 miles due east of Moscow on the eastern outskirts of the city of Novosibirsk itself, the largest city in Siberia.

  In the heyday of the USSR some naukograds were also designated as closed cities or ZATOs, meaning that specific permission was required before they could be visited by outsiders, but Vektor, as a relatively new institute established in 1974 and which only became a naukograd in 2003, twelve years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, was never a ZATO. Vektor is the core around which Koltsovo, originally the village of Novoborsk, grew. It’s a group of nondescript buildings, dominated by a main six-storey structure and all located within a boundary road. Despite its proximity to the city of Novosibirsk it’s fairly secluded, though probably not secluded enough bearing in mind what its vaults and freezers contain. Vektor holds samples of virtually all of the species-killer bugs found on the planet, including the deadliest of them all, the Filoviridae family, which includes the Ebola and Marburg filoviruses, as well as the less lethal but still profoundly unpleasant and sometimes fatal dengue, Lassa and yellow fever viruses.

  Russian authorities are not big on identifying buildings, and particularly not those where activities of a classified or covert nature take place, but one fairly obvious clue that the buildings at Koltsovo contain something unusual is the permanent g
arrison of Russian Army soldiers who ensure that all visitors are both legitimate and expected.

  The man who approached the Vektor complex that afternoon was very obviously, from his appearance alone, not a local.

  The CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States, is far and away the biggest national unit on the planet, covering well over 20 million square kilometres and bigger than the combined landmasses of North America and Canada. The population is equally massive, numbering about 240 million people speaking ten officially recognised regional languages and a host of minority tongues and dialects. With the freedom of movement that gradually became possible following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 a certain degree of population mixing has occurred, creating something of an international flavour in the bigger cities. But even in the most cosmopolitan and crowded of environments, the visitor to Koltsovo would have stood out.

  Physically, he was about half a head taller than the average Russian male, and noticeably broad across the shoulders, but his build alone did not mark him out from the crowd. The complexions of the citizens of the CIS vary considerably with genetics and location, with people living in the north of the huge landmass tending to have a lighter skin colour than those from the south; there is also a kind of folk-belief in Russia that people hailing from the north of the country tend to be tall, white-skinned, lacking body hair, of good character, kind and pure. In contrast, those from the south are supposed to be the precise opposite, with dark complexions, lots of hair, short of stature and generally speaking of a bad or evil character. And it is certainly true that many Russian women, perhaps even a majority of them, tend to wear cosmetics that make their skin look a few shades lighter than its natural colour. In the West, of course, using spray tan to achieve precisely the opposite effect is more common.

  But the one skin type that is rarely seen in Russia is an olive complexion, especially a dark olive complexion, and that was probably the defining characteristic of the visitor. Coupled with his imposing build, the combination meant that he was particularly noticeable. It also meant that when Mahdi Sadir had approached the Vektor buildings at Koltsovo on his first planned visit, almost a decade earlier, he had been immediately stopped at gunpoint by a Russian Army patrol and held for nearly half an hour while his documentation was scrutinised and his reason for being there questioned and checked. It was only when a senior member of the Vektor management had been contacted that he had been permitted to be escorted into the complex. That embarrassment had only occurred on his first trip to Koltsovo: the documentation he had carried with him after that had ensured his access to the building with a minimum of fuss on each of his later visits.

  Sadir’s first visit to the complex had set the tone for his subsequent meetings, and the request he had made of the management and two of the scientists, in tandem with the financial package he was offering, had taken Vektor in an entirely new direction, into a field they had never explored before. It was new technology, with exciting and almost limitless potential, and the scientists at Koltsovo had embraced it. They were helped initially by the considerable amount of information they found published openly on the Internet, but quite quickly they had moved beyond that and begun carving their own paths and developing their own techniques and methods. And all of it had been funded by that single and effectively anonymous investor client who had told the Vektor management exactly what he wanted, what he needed it to do and when he wanted it.

  And the Vektor scientists had risen to the challenge.

  They had developed the product Sadir had wanted on time. It had been a relatively simple device and had proved comparatively easy to fabricate, ‘easy’ in this sense meaning that it was only required to do one thing, while the actual manufacturing process had been complex and detailed, involving manipulation at the smallest possible scale. It had also been complicated by the need to use external substances to achieve the required result.

  But they had done it, and a slightly modified version of the product had been live-tested on an anonymous subject in front of the client in a suite of sealed rooms located deep inside the complex.

  Sadir had declared himself happy with the result and had handed over the balance of the agreed fee in cash – in American dollars, in fact – and then left Koltsovo. That test had been performed on his second visit, when he had also authorised the manufacture of specific variants of the product in the quantities he required, to be collected the next time he visited Russia.

  Delivery of the product had been the easiest part of the entire process. For each of his visits Sadir had followed exactly the same routine. He had arrived in Russia with a tourist visa, flying in to the Tolmachevo Airport in Novosibirsk on an internal flight from Saint Petersburg. He’d booked into the Marriott hotel in the city centre and then spent about a week acting as a tourist in the third most populous city in Russia. On one day that week he’d taken a taxi to Koltsovo, ostensibly to visit the railway museum, the park and the churches. The day after that he’d flown back to Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport and from there to Rome by Alitalia, and from Italy onwards to his final destination.

  Each of his visits to Koltsovo had only lasted half a day, but that had been easily long enough for him to visit Vektor. On his third and final visit to the laboratory, when Sadir collected the products he had ordered, there had been ample time for him to pick up the goods in an isothermal cool pack. This was a grey fabric bag that looked something like a small washbag with two compartments secured by zips, which had been prepared for him by the staff at the laboratory. In fact, very little preparation had been needed because the bag and its contents – which in the larger compartment included a meter, testing equipment and other peripherals and in the second compartment space for a number of vials, needles and syringes as well as a pouch of cooling gel to keep the contents at the appropriate temperature – was an absolutely standard off-the-shelf item. Because of the quantity of the product he had ordered, he was also given a second isothermal pack that only contained vials.

  There had been remarkably little chance of Sadir being stopped or searched anywhere along his route – the Russian authorities were always very wary of targeting or interfering with any tourist spending the hard currency that the country desperately needed – but the reality was that even if his bags were to be opened and searched by some inquisitive customs officer, and even if the isothermal pack was handled and examined, it would make no difference. Nobody would interfere with it and he would be allowed to continue his journey.

  The product was only a single weapon in Sadir’s armoury, and it wasn’t even a particularly important part of his plan. It was just a device that would allow him to snip off one specific loose end that would inevitably be created because of what he was going to do, and it represented the only method of achieving the result he needed in the way he needed it to be done. And he had already decided that he would make additional use of the product ahead of the operation itself. It would be a useful test of its functionality, not to mention acting as a small payment towards a debt that in his opinion was long overdue.

  More importantly, the first phase of his operation would begin in less than a month, and his preparations for it had already started, albeit from a distance. Now that Sadir had the product from Vektor he could make his final preparations and then begin the journey that he had planned for so long.

  Chapter 2

  Six months ago

  Lewisham Central, 43 Lewisham High Street, London

  According to the Internet, the greatest single repository of information, misinformation and disinformation in the world, the smallest police station in London is concealed inside a stubby lamp standard in the south-east corner of Trafalgar Square. It’s just about big enough to accommodate two standing adults who, if they weren’t close friends when they entered the structure, probably would be by the time they stepped out of it.

  On this occasion the Internet is almost, but not quite, correct. The decorative lamp standard is a police building,
but it is not, and never has been, a police station. In fact, it’s an observation post constructed to allow a police officer to be hidden from view and at the same time to be able to observe demonstrations or other activities taking place in Trafalgar Square. The lamp post was initially equipped with a direct telephone line to Scotland Yard – the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police when the observation post was in use – to allow the observing officer to summon reinforcements if needed.

  In reality, the smallest police station in London is almost certainly what looks like a substantial but generally unremarkable detached house at 1 Waxwell Lane in Pinner, Middlesex, unremarkable that is apart from the word ‘POLICE’ carved in block capitals into the stone lintel above the main door. That, unsurprisingly in view of its location, is Pinner Police Station.

  One fact the Internet does get right is at the other end of the scale. The largest police station in London is, by a very substantial margin, Lewisham Central in Lewisham High Street. It’s a fairly new build, constructed on the site of the old Army & Navy Store. Building work started in November 2001 and it was officially opened in April 2004. Not only is it the biggest police station in London, it’s actually the biggest purpose-built police station anywhere in Europe, and as well as containing a large car park it also has stables for three dozen police horses and the biggest custody suite in London.

  Perhaps the number crunchers and the pointy heads in the Met decided at the beginning of the twenty-first century that Lewisham was for some reason going to become a hotbed of crime, and to combat this predicted future wave of lawlessness they would need to construct the biggest and most modern police station it was possible to build right there in the borough. Or maybe it was just a big site and they needed a big building to fill it.