Cyberstrike

by James Barrington

  He had nothing illegal about his person or in the car, although the mirror and torch on the pole in the boot would probably raise an eyebrow if he were to be stopped, on the grounds that normal law-abiding American citizens do not normally carry purpose-built devices for checking the undersides of their vehicles. But all in all, it was better not to be pulled over for some kind of minor traffic offence to avoid his name becoming known to any branch of American law enforcement, so Sadir simply trundled along in his average and invisible Honda, just one more anonymous vehicle in a line of other anonymous vehicles.

  A little over an hour after he’d sat down in the driving seat of the car, he steered it off the road and up the tarmac driveway of the house in Damascus.

  He switched off the engine, opened the driver’s door and for a few seconds simply stood there beside the vehicle, staring directly towards the property. If he’d arrived by night, he would have been staring into the glare of the two floodlights mounted on the front of the house and fitted with PIR sensors to detect any arrival. His temporary immobility was a simple visual confirmation to the three men in the house of his identity. He knew they were armed, and that at least one of them would have been staring at the car over the sights of a weapon as the vehicle had approached.

  He waited until the front door opened and then stepped forward, walking through the porch and into the house.

  ‘As-salam alaykum, Abū Tadmir,’ the man who’d opened the door said in traditional greeting, and Sadir made a standard response: ‘Wa alaykum as-salam’ – meaning ‘and peace unto you’.

  ‘You are very welcome here, my brother.’

  Although he hadn’t seen this man or the other two people in the house for almost a year, Sadir got straight down to business.

  ‘Is everything prepared?’ he asked.

  The Muslim brother in front of him – he was using the alias Nadeem Ramli – gave a smile and nodded.

  ‘All the devices have been assembled and every component has been checked. We will be running several further final sequences of checks until it is time for the weapons to be deployed.’

  ‘And you are sure that they will work as intended?’ Sadir was still acutely aware of the depth of his failure to successfully prosecute the London attack. Ever since the day of the failed attack on the Palace of Westminster, his contact with Rashid had been increasingly tense and strained as he had been reminded time and again of his earlier certainty that both attacks would be not merely successful but devastating. To make matters worse, he still had no idea why it had failed, only that it had. He’d found nothing substantive on social media, the Internet or anywhere else. It was almost as if nothing had happened on the river that afternoon.

  The only thing that Sadir could take comfort in was that the Thames attack was a one-shot operation. If the explosive charge had failed to detonate because of a defective blasting cap, or the cabin cruiser had struck some object and been holed or the engine had failed, that would have marked the end of the attack. A single simple glitch that could have ruined everything.

  But the DC attack would be very different, with multiple components and built-in redundancy measures. The failure of a single part of the operation, or even three or four parts, would not derail it. And after London, Sadir was going to check every single factor and event to make absolutely sure that it would succeed and vindicate him in the eyes of the elders in Iraq. This time there would be no mistakes.

  Ramli nodded again. ‘The technology is fairly simple in both concept and execution and the theory behind it is almost a century old.’

  ‘And they will work?’ Sadir asked again.

  ‘They will. I have been told that the Americans themselves have such weapons, though as far as I know they have never deployed them. And a few months ago, as you instructed, we fabricated a miniature version of the device and tested it in a remote location. Apart from its size, it was identical to the full-size weapon. We used the same components and precisely the same design and, as I reported to you after the event, it functioned exactly as we had expected. These devices will work. They will do what we want them to do. And they will be ready on time. In fact, they’re ready now.’

  Ramli’s obvious confidence and his known competence in this field helped Sadir to banish, to some extent, the spectre of his failure in London. And he knew that the test of the miniature device had been successful because he had seen a video of the event and of the effects that it had caused.

  ‘Good, my brother,’ Sadir said. ‘Now show me the results of your labours.’

  Ramli led the way through the property to the rear door and then across the backyard of the house to a substantial concrete outbuilding, which had been one of the main reasons for selecting this particular property: it offered somewhere private and secure where Ramli and the other two technicians could work. The outbuilding was entered through a pair of large doors at one end to allow access for a vehicle, and an extension of the tarmac driveway terminated in front of them. The wooden doors appeared battered and on the point of falling apart, which was quite deliberate, but the wood was securely bolted to new solid steel doors underneath. There was also a separate steel pedestrian door on the side of the building, and Ramli led the way to it.

  He knocked twice on the door, paused for a couple of seconds then knocked three times more. Almost immediately, Sadir heard the sound of two heavy bolts being withdrawn and then the door opened outwards, because you can’t use a battering ram to force a door that opens that way. Silhouetted against the light, he recognised Rafiq Khayat, and behind him Imran Wardi, both men using aliases that would withstand at least a superficial level of investigation.

  ‘No check to see who was outside?’ Sadir asked, quite sharply, as he stepped into the building.

  Ramli pointed to a small flatscreen television mounted on the wall beside the door, where four colour images were displayed, one in each quadrant, and showing views of different parts of the property.

  ‘Those are the feeds from four cameras with infrared capability covering the approach to the house, the outside of this building and the path between the two. Installing them was one of the first things we did when we took over the property. Rafiq would not have opened the door to me unless I’d given that specific knock, which meant that I was not under duress with a gun sticking in my back. If I’d just hammered on the door it would have stayed closed but Rafiq would have opened that flap—’ Ramli pointed at a steel shutter located in the middle of the door ‘—and we would have received a very different welcome.’

  He gestured to a workbench bolted to the wall beside the door on which was a simple gun rack. Sadir saw that it held three weapons, all pump-action shotguns with cut-down barrels, and an open box of twelve-bore cartridges.

  ‘Much better than pistols in a close quarter fight,’ Rafiq Khayat said, ‘and a lot easier to buy than any kind of handgun. All three of them are kept fully loaded all the time so all we have to do is click off the safety catch and pull the trigger. Luckily, so far we’ve never even had to pick one up.’

  ‘Good,’ Sadir said, looking around the inside of the building. His attention was immediately drawn to a freestanding bench more or less in the middle of the room, on which was a tubular object about six feet long and over two feet in diameter that appeared to be composed only of tightly wound copper wire. ‘Is that it?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s part of one of them,’ Ramli replied. ‘As I said to you in the house, all six of these devices have been completed but we are thoroughly examining each of them one last time before they’re deployed. That’s really only a matter of checking the integrity of the stator winding and making sure that the heavy-duty battery is fully charged. And of course checking that the remote triggering circuitry is intact and functioning properly.’

  ‘And you’ve confirmed that the mobile phone is synchronised to the trigger?’

  ‘Yes. In some ways, that’s the simplest part of the whole thing. We’ve set up a call cascade system and ini
tiated a five-minute delay within the software on the tablets before the ignition sequence starts. All you have to do is use the mobile phone to call the first number. The call will not be answered, and after three rings the call cascade will dial the second number, and three rings later the third number, and then the fourth, fifth and sixth. The moment each of the mobiles detects the incoming call it will activate the tablet, which will initiate the five-minute countdown and then trigger the ignition. We’ve been testing it this afternoon so I can show you if you like.’

  Sadir nodded and followed Ramli across to another workbench where half a dozen cheap mobile phones lay, each connected to a small tablet computer which was in turn linked to a dry cell battery and a small low-voltage light. Ramli accessed each of the tablets in turn, making a change to something within the program, then stepped back. He picked up a seventh mobile phone from the bench, turned it on and handed it to Sadir.

  ‘There’s only one favourite number listed on that mobile, and that’s what you need to call to begin the sequence. I’ve altered the timing in the software to one minute so you can see how it works. Give it a try.’

  Sadir pressed the telephone symbol on the screen, then the star symbol to open the favourites menu. He glanced at the six silent mobile phones in front of him, then started the call. Almost immediately the screen on one of the mobiles illuminated and he heard the sound of three rings both from the speaker of the smart phone and the called mobile. Then it fell silent and the second mobile began ringing, followed by the third, then the fourth and the fifth and the sixth. A few moments after that the lamp connected to the first mobile illuminated, followed about five seconds later by the second and then by the others until all six lamps were burning.

  ‘We know the timing is critical on the ignition sequence,’ Ramli said, ‘and we’ve worked out that it takes about five seconds for the second mobile to be called after the first one, and we will be building in that slight delay to the timing sequence. So the first tablet will initiate it after five minutes, the second after four minutes and fifty-five seconds and the third after four minutes and fifty seconds, and so on down the cascade, which means all six devices will detonate at almost exactly the same moment.’

  ‘For maximum effect,’ Khayat said.

  Sadir nodded and looked around the workshop. The other five devices were on the floor of the workshop, their heavy steel jackets removed to reveal the stator winding to allow testing to be done. ‘And you’ve organised transport?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ve already hired six vans and we picked them up yesterday,’ Ramli replied. ‘They’re parked on quiet streets around this house, and we’ll prepare each vehicle and weapon today and tomorrow to provide a margin of error in case something goes wrong.’ He pointed to a piece of heavy-duty equipment standing in one corner beside the steel double doors. ‘That’s an engine hoist, designed to lift engines out of cars. It’s got wheels so we can use that to move the devices around here in the workshop, and we will also be using it to transfer them into the backs of the vans here in the workshop. We’ll have to do it in two stages because the weapons are so heavy. So first we’ll transfer the steel cylinder, which is the heaviest and bulkiest part of the device, and bolt that to the floor of the vehicle to make it secure. Then we’ll load the core of the device, the part surrounded by the stator winding, into the cylinder and bolt it in place. We’ll run final continuity checks on all the circuitry, then position the mobile and the tablet for that weapon on a vertical wooden board that we’ll bolt inside the van behind the cab. Finally, we’ll secure the heavy-duty battery to the floor of the van, but we won’t connect the other components to it until after we’ve positioned the vehicle.

  ‘And then,’ Ramli finished, ‘all we’ll have to do is drive the vans to the positions we agreed, make our final checks and then leave the vehicles.’

  ‘Will the steel of the vans’ bodywork affect the weapons?’ Sadir asked.

  ‘No. There’s nothing that can affect the output of these devices in that way.’ He pointed at a stack of steel sheets resting against the rear wall of the workshop. ‘But what we will be doing before we start loading the weapons is welding one of those sheets into the van behind the cab and four other sheets on both sides, the roof and the floor to make a kind of open-ended steel box around the device. That should help channel the force and slightly increase its effectiveness.’

  That was something Sadir hadn’t thought of, but it did make sense.

  ‘That’s a good idea. Just confirm the locations where you’ll be leaving the vehicles.’

  ‘The three biggest weapons will be positioned outside the centre of the city. One is probably going to the bend in the road near St Luke’s Church, because that’s the closest we could get to the base. Because a vehicle stopped there might look suspicious because there’s nothing in the area, nowhere for people to walk to, we’re going to stage a breakdown. We’ll back the vehicle off the road so that the back doors are pointing towards the target, then we’ll jack up one side of it and take off one of the wheels. That way anyone who sees it will assume we’ve just had a flat and taken the wheel away to have a puncture repaired.

  ‘The other two will be a lot easier because there are plenty of car parks in the vicinity of both locations, so we’ll just pick one where we can correctly position the van. Then we can just lock it and leave it. The other three slightly smaller weapons we’ll be leaving wherever we can find space around the centre of the city. We have got ideal locations already planned, but it will depend upon what’s already in the area when we arrive. If something is parked in one of the spots we planned, we’ll just find another suitable location as close as possible to it. But the positioning isn’t that critical, because the weapons are big enough to do what we want them to do more or less wherever they go.’

  Sadir spent about another half hour checking and inspecting what the three men had done for their part of the operation, then confirmed that the final component of this part of the plan, the slightly different seventh weapon, was also fully prepared and ready to go. That was the smallest of all the devices, because Sadir had already identified a suitable detonation point and the weapon would be deployed against a relatively small target at a fairly short distance. And because it was intended to work independently of the other six, it had its own separate detonation system, not linked to the other weapons. It was also different in that Sadir intended to deploy it himself, and also initiate the firing sequence.

  ‘You’re a strong man,’ Ramli said, looking at the width of Sadir’s shoulders, ‘so you should be able to manage this without any help.’

  He led the way over to another bench in the workshop where a visually similar but significantly smaller device was positioned.

  ‘As with the others, there are three main components: the steel jacket, the stator winding that fits inside it and the battery, and as long as you move them individually it shouldn’t be a problem. The steel jacket is the heaviest, so give that a try now.’

  Sadir braced his feet slightly apart, got a good grip on the tubular steel jacket and lifted. It was heavier than he expected, but he was able to raise it clear of the bench, walk a few paces with it and then return it to its original location.

  ‘I can manage that,’ he said, panting slightly. ‘And have you also prepared the cover?’

  Ramli nodded and picked a waterproof sheet off a nearby shelf. It bore an obvious camouflage pattern, grey and green and brown random splodges covering it. He also picked up about a dozen steel pegs and a wooden mallet.

  ‘You told us you were positioning this in a woodland setting. My advice would be to hide it in the densest undergrowth you can find, cover it with this sheet and then use these pegs to hold the sheet in place. That way, nobody will have any idea it’s there until the moment you trigger it. I suggest you try and drive the pegs home just with your feet, but if you can’t, use the wooden mallet. Wood on steel is a lot less noisy than steel on steel.’

  About an h
our later, Sadir left the house, the seventh weapon separated into its component parts and locked in the back of his Honda, entirely satisfied that everything had proceeded according to plan.

  Still he worried all the way back to the parking garage in Washington that something would go wrong, that something he had not foreseen would somehow prevent the crippling attack on the Great Satan from going ahead. But by the time he reached his hotel room he felt better, calmer, and more certain that he was in control of his own destiny and that the operation was going to succeed.

  He prepared a draft email using the web-based account he had set up. In it, he explained to the elders back in Iraq who would be reading it later that night exactly what progress he had made in the various phases of the operation and confirmed the date of the attack and the time it would be launched. That was important, because from the start this had been a costly enterprise, and as well as crippling America the elders also intended to reap as large a profit as they could from the event, just as Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda had done because of the 9/11 attacks. Back in 2001, al-Qaeda had used proxies to purchase large numbers of put options, mainly on American airline stocks, knowing that their value would fall calamitously once the method and the full extent of the attack had been realised.

  This time, proxies would again be used to do the same thing, but not simply on airline stocks. Once this attack had been carried out Sadir expected that there would be massive and prolonged falls across every sector of the market. And not just in America. He guessed that once news of the attack was made public stock markets around the world would go into freefall within a matter of minutes. He had no doubt that the elders would also be buying put options in all of the major exchanges.

  Chapter 33

  J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C., United States of America

  ‘I’m not entirely sure why you’re here,’ Grant Rogers said, looking across the table in the small interview room at Ben Morgan’s slouching, casually dressed and faintly jet-lagged – though this was not visually apparent – figure.