Cyberstrike

by James Barrington

  All the underwing weapons pylons were occupied, carrying the maximum load of four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, two 500-pound GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bombs and one 500-pound GBU-38 JDAM – Joint Direct Attack Munition – precision-guided bomb. The missile’s ‘AGM’ designation simply meant ‘air-to-ground missile’ while ‘GBU’ stood for ‘guided bomb unit’.

  That particular Reaper was, as American pilots are so fond of saying, ‘loaded for bear’.

  On the hardstanding, with the two main wheels chocked and the brakes engaged, the engine was started and the various systems, like the rotatable camera mounted under the Reaper’s nose, were tested to ensure they were in correct working order. The power lead and telemetry lead were unplugged, the final safety pin, marked by a prominent red flag, was removed, and the drone was ready to taxi.

  As the Reaper headed towards the runway, just as on a conventional aircraft a series of pre-take-off checks were carried out to ensure that it was in a flyable condition, the most visually obvious of which was a test of the brakes, the nose of the drone dipping as Nagell applied them. Then the UAV proceeded steadily to the threshold of the active runway. Once the local controller was certain that the runway was clear of turbulence – wide-body passenger jets, in particular, create vortices on landing that are powerful enough to flip a light aircraft onto its back – take-off clearance was granted. The drone accelerated down the runway, lifting off at what was obviously a much slower speed than the passenger jets that had preceded it, and after a much shorter take-off run, thanks to its light weight and straight, glider-like wings.

  Until 2019, all Reapers launching from Syracuse Hancock International Airport were required to be escorted by a piloted aircraft to ensure separation from other air traffic, the concern being that the comparatively small UAVs would be difficult for commercial pilots to see and avoid. The rule was that a Civil Air Patrol jet would follow the Reaper from the airfield up to a height of 18,000 feet and act as the eyes and ears of the UAV pilot on the ground. This system also meant that the Reapers were not permitted to fly in marginal weather conditions, because it would not be possible for the pilot of the chase plane to reliably maintain visual contact with the drone.

  All that changed in 2019 when a company based in Cicero, just outside Syracuse, developed a ground-based radar known as LSTAR that could accurately detect all aircraft, including drones, and determine a contact’s altitude even if it didn’t have a functioning transponder. The new radar had been created for an entirely different purpose – to detect and track incoming mortar rounds as fast as possible in a battle situation to allow retaliatory fire – but despite its comparatively short range it had proved to be capable of monitoring air traffic around Syracuse both accurately and reliably.

  In the thirty-foot-long air-conditioned ground control station, No Sweat Nagell sat in a comfortable chair that looked more like the kind of seat to be found in an upmarket airport lounge than in a military establishment, but with Predator and Reaper drones routinely able to remain aloft for twenty-four hours, and with even longer duration UAVs on the drawing board, the comfort of the remote pilot was a paramount consideration.

  In front of him was a control panel, the most important element of which was a fairly standard flight stick, a multipurpose vertical lever that could control most aspects of the Reaper’s flight path. The pilot would use that just as if he were sitting in the cockpit of a conventional aircraft, the main difference being that the inputs he made were transmitted to the UAV initially using a C-band line-of-sight data link. The other difference was that all the pilot had to rely on, his eyes, as it were, were the video screens in front of him that displayed the feeds from the Reaper’s on-board radars and cameras and provided a limited view of what was in front of the UAV. This was nothing like the all-round vision experienced by a pilot flying any kind of an aircraft, hence the ‘looking through a straw’ analogy.

  Once the drone moved outside line-of-sight range, as was the case when the pilot was sitting in a GCS in Montana or Nevada or somewhere, but the Reaper was taking off from an airfield near Mosul or Kabul, almost literally on the other side of the world, the routine was somewhat different in that a local pilot would handle the taxiing, take-off and initial climb out of the vehicle and then hand over control to the remote pilot once the drone had reached a safe altitude. Control from then on, until the mission had been completed and the drone was returning to its base, would be handled via a Ku-band L-3 Com satellite data link system. Recovery was the reverse of take-off, the local pilot again taking control as the drone approached its home airfield and then handling the landing and taxiing to its hangar or shelter.

  For this flight, Nagell would be both the local pilot and the remote pilot and would be using both the line of sight and satellite communication systems to control the drone at different stages and locations. He levelled the Reaper at 30,500 feet, adjusted the speed and heading and then relaxed as the drone continued on its planned track towards the southern shore of Lake Ontario. The on-board radar showed no contacts close enough to be a problem and even the limited view through the cameras confirmed that it was a lovely day out there.

  With a bit of luck, Nagell thought, the weather might hold until he could hand over to the second pilot in a few hours and head off home to enjoy what was left of Independence Day.

  Chapter 47

  Washington D.C., United States of America

  Ben Morgan picked up a filter coffee from the counter of the Hard Rock Cafe on the corner of 10th Street and E Street, almost opposite but just out of sight of the FBI building. That was the only hot – or in this case still very warm – drink the staff could offer because all of their machines had shut down due to the blackout. Then he took a seat at an outside table. As he did so his mobile beeped. He opened it up to see he’d received a message containing a longish piece of text, a big data file and several audio files, all from Natasha Black.

  He read the message and scanned the data file but didn’t bother listening to the audio files because of what he read in the message. The audio files, Natasha explained, were the original take from the GCHQ intercepts, but the participants only spoke in Arabic, knowledge of which, she pointed out in her usual slightly acerbic manner, was not part of Ben Morgan’s very limited skill set. The analyst at Cheltenham, or more likely one of the linguists on the staff there, had translated the Arabic messages into English and included the results within the data file, as well as the contents of a handful of SMS messages, all of which had been written in English.

  By the time he’d finished his coffee he’d read the entire file. He knew nothing more about the putative attack than he had done before he’d started, but he did have several pieces of potentially vital information, none of which were the slightest bit of use to him personally, but which he knew that the FBI – or at least Grant Rogers – could, and should, be able to act on. Just as a precaution, he took out a notebook and pen from his pocket and made a written note of the most important data.

  You can always rely on a pen and paper when everything else fails and, looking up and down the street at the noisy chaos being caused by the non-functioning traffic lights and the increasing number of people now wandering along the sidewalks, Morgan reckoned the situation in DC was probably going to get a lot worse before it got any better. His phone was almost fully charged and was still working, but he had no idea how long it would be before the service provider shut down the system because of the power outages.

  Morgan decided not to call the FBI agent in case he was still being bellowed at by Charles Bouchier and simply sent him a five-word text message: ‘I know where they are.’ That should, he thought, provoke the reaction he expected.

  His mobile rang less than a minute later.

  ‘Where are you?’ Rogers asked.

  ‘Sitting outside the Hard Rock. Fancy a drink?’

  ‘Yes, but not there. That’s far too close to your new best friend in the Bureau. Meet me at The Smith on the corner
of Ninth and F Street. Ten minutes.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  Morgan headed north on 10th, then turned east on F Street before crossing the road to the opposite side where the restaurant was located, taking his life slightly in his hands because none of the traffic lights there were working either and the cop standing in the middle of the intersection clearly had his hands full just trying to unravel the angry automotive jigsaw surrounding him. He obviously had no time at all to help pedestrians get where they needed to go.

  Rogers walked into the restaurant a few minutes after Morgan had taken a seat, plopped himself down in the chair opposite him and nodded his thanks for the can of Coke that was already on the table. Just like the Hard Rock, the interior of the restaurant was a confusion of shadows barely illuminated by wall-mounted emergency lighting, but the staff were doing their best, serving cold drinks and salads and only taking payments in cash. American ‘can do’ in action.

  ‘Did Bouchier give you any trouble?’ Morgan asked. ‘I don’t think he and I got off to the best of starts, somehow.’

  ‘You got that right. I don’t think anybody ever called him a brain-dead sack of shit before, but I know quite a few people who wouldn’t disagree with that description. He’s typical of the kind of desk-bound bureaucrats who clamber over everybody else to get to the upper floors of the Bureau where they can sit and pass judgement on the guys who actually do the work, who get out on the streets and mix it with the bad guys. Anyway, he can’t ban me from talking to you. The FBI is there to serve the public and as far as I’m concerned you’re a member the public, so fuck him. Okay, what have you got?’

  Morgan quickly explained about the trace and intercept program that the analyst at GCHQ had been running on Natasha Black’s orders, and the results that had been obtained.

  ‘This woman a friend of yours?’ Rogers asked, when he’d finished.

  ‘She’s both a friend and a colleague,’ Morgan replied. ‘We move in different circles and different disciplines but our paths often cross. And she’s definitely a wheel, not a cog, in the GCHQ machine.’

  ‘Well, it looks as if she’s managed to do some stuff that I didn’t even know you could do. So these intercepts can pin down the locations of these guys – Ganem, Halabi, Sadir and Wasem – or at least the locations of the mobiles they’ve been using, plus another three potential suspects whose names and involvement we don’t know. Not that knowing their names would help much, because they’ll probably all be using aliases.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Morgan said, leaning closer and showing Rogers the screen of his mobile phone, on which he’d brought up a map of DC. Overlaid on that were four locations each marked with a capital letter: G, S, X and Y.

  ‘Those are the places where the four suspects were staying in DC,’ he said. ‘The letter G, obviously, is Ganem, the suspect you first identified, and you already had his address. But the important thing is that they’re not there any more. The trace shows that at exactly eight thirty-eight this morning all four of them – not just Ganem – started moving, and I don’t believe that was a coincidence. That was a pre-planned and timed move designed to throw off any surveillance they might have picked up.’

  Morgan used his finger and thumb to change the scale of the map display and then pointed over to the west of DC where the letters G, X and Y were showing.

  ‘That’s where Ganem’s now located,’ he said. ‘He’s in an apartment building in Woodstock, and if he’s there for the music he’s half a century too late and in the wrong Woodstock. X and Y are Halabi and Wasem, but I don’t know which one is which, and they’re out here, at opposite ends of Harrisonburg, but the one we should be concentrating on is Sadir, because he’s way up here in Fairview, north-east of Baltimore.’ He altered the display again to show the area around Bel Air. ‘The rats are scattering, abandoning the ship they’re trying to sink.’

  ‘So you think Sadir is the one pulling the strings?’

  Morgan nodded. ‘He’s the only one who switches his mobile off and on at irregular intervals. The other three – in fact the other six people involved, if we include the people he’s got lurking out at Damascus, Fairview and Syracuse – have their phones on all the time. So they’re the ones waiting for orders and instructions, and Sadir is the person giving those orders. He only turns his phone on when he’s got something to tell them. And what he’s doing is issuing orders. You can see that from the translations of some of his calls and what he’s said in his text messages. Sadir is definitely the one we need to nail.’

  ‘If we take him down, do you think that will stop the attack?’

  ‘I still don’t know what the attack is, or how they’re going to do it, but if we can take Sadir out of the loop that might be all we need to do. If he can’t issue his orders then maybe the others involved will stop whatever they’re doing. My guess is that they won’t, because of the mindset of the kind of people we’re dealing with. But whatever you decide to do, I think you need to do it quickly, before the cell phone system dies.’

  Rogers nodded, pulled out his own mobile, opened his contacts list and selected William Clark’s mobile number. ‘Bill, we’ve got a good solid lead on these suspects but we need to move real fast. First, get onto the Baltimore Field Office and tell them to prep their SWAT team to take out a confirmed target in a district called Fairview. The type of property and number of hostiles is unknown, so we’ll need overkill, probably double whatever number of agents they’d normally use. Tell them this is an unfolding emergency situation in response to the blackouts in DC and proper authorisations will follow. Any problems, give them my number.’

  There are 56 FBI field offices, and each one has its own Special Weapons and Tactics team. The Baltimore Field Office is located at 2600 Lord Baltimore Drive in the city and is also responsible for eight smaller offices, known as resident agencies, located at Annapolis, Bel Air, Frederick, Rockville, Salisbury, Dover and Wilmington.

  ‘We’ll need a chopper on standby just in case the suspects run, but the SWAT team should prepare to approach by road, no sirens, no lights, until we know what we’re dealing with. We’ll need a chopper to pick us up in DC ASAP and fly us out to somewhere in Bel Air. We can use the resident agency there to brief the SWAT guys and decide on tactics. What? No, the chopper will have to pick up you and me, along with Ben Morgan, because he’s the guy who unravelled this particular ball of string. Bring a couple of satellite phones along with you just in case the mobile network goes down. And don’t tell Bouchier, obviously. I’ll sort that out when this lot’s over.’

  Morgan’s mobile rang at that moment. ‘Yes, Natasha?’ he said.

  ‘Two things you need to be aware of. First, the mobile out at this Fairview place has been switched on all morning, which is not typical of the way it’s been used up to now, so I think the user was waiting for a message or messages. Second, about an hour ago he sent a one word SMS to the mobile up in Syracuse, just asking for the ‘Estimate’, and the response was ‘ETD 1330’. Our intercept system put the Syracuse mobile at the Hancock International Airport there, so maybe he’s just waiting for some associate of his to fly out of the country. What we can assume is that whatever flight he’s talking about is not one that Sadir plans on catching, because there’s no way he can get to Syracuse and go through the shuffling horror of check-in within the time he has left. So that’s a minor mystery.

  ‘Third, in the last twenty minutes he’s had one call from each of the three mobiles out to the west of DC. Each conversation was more or less the same, again in Arabic, and each caller just told him that they’d completed their task. More significantly, each caller also finished their message with just two words.’

  ‘The Takbir?’ Morgan suggested.

  ‘I’m pleased you’ve been paying attention,’ Natasha said. ‘Exactly. Each of them said Allāhu akbar – ‘God is great’ – and the man they were talking to repeated it before ending the call. And a few seconds after each of these three men had finished
the conversation he switched off his phone and it’s been off ever since.’

  ‘Got it, Natasha, and thanks.’

  Morgan looked across at Rogers, who was waiting expectantly. Morgan explained what Natasha Black had told him. ‘At the end of the call they each said Allāhu akbar and then they switched off their mobiles. I don’t like the sound of that. The obvious implication is that they’ve done their bit in this attack, and the obvious conclusion is that these are the three guys who’ve been orchestrating the blackouts and outages here in DC. So they might well be packing up ready to leave any time now.’

  Rogers nodded. ‘I’ll get Dave Nicholls – he’s another member of the team I’ve been using for this – to get the wheels turning. The fastest way to reel them in is to let the police out at Woodstock and Harrisonburg handle it. If these three perps aren’t in the wind yet the local boys in blue should get them.’

  He dialled another number on his mobile and crisply issued a series of instructions, including the precise lat and long figures the GCHQ tracking had provided.

  ‘Get them moving immediately, Dave,’ Rogers instructed, ‘and as soon as you can send them ID photos and the best of the pictures we took when these four guys met out at Tysons. And keep me in the loop.’

  ‘Where do we pick up the chopper?’ Morgan asked, when Rogers finished his conversation and stood up. ‘The roof of the Hoover building?’

  Rogers shook his head. ‘Only in The X-Files,’ he replied. ‘These days you need a whole bunch of top-level senior seat-shiners to approve something like that, plus there’d be the problem of sorting out permissions and getting you into the building and up to the roof while Bouchier is on the war path. We’ll use the South Capitol Street Heliport. Much more discreet and a lot fewer questions will get asked.