Devil's Fork

by Spencer Adams

CHAPTER 36

  WEDNESDAY

  Langley, Virginia

  Sara was convinced everyone in the Command Room had just been on the verge of a heart attack. They watched on the big screen as Tom was observing the vehicle far ahead of him. Then suddenly he looked back and everyone saw KPA troops marching towards him. He started running back into the woods, eventually making his way down a hill where another patrol was right in front of him. They watched in horror as he dove under some kind of shelter – a rock or a tree. Then she could feel the room sweat as they watched the patrol walk up to what looked like ten feet of him. They stood there. The Command Room was so silent she thought she could hear everyone’s skin crawl. By the time everyone had time to process what they were seeing, the patrol moved on past Tom on the screen. He was now moving through the woods at his steady, measured pace. Everyone sat back and sighed at the same time.

  Anderson turned around. He took a deep breath as he put his hands on his hips. Sara saw the NSA analysts in the back of the room had broke into a sweat but were now recovering.

  “John, Sara we found something,” Mark quietly announced. Anderson and Sara walked over to the back of the room where Mark and J.D were sitting. Mr. Park also turned to his side to focus his attention on them.

  Mark continued, “This cyberwarfare boss we told you about just did something not too long ago you should know about. NATPAC made a phone call to the same number in Beijing he had called before. Then the person in Beijing made a call right afterwards to Pyongyang. The same phone he had called several days ago. What was strange is that the number in Pyongyang then made a call through China to a phone in Seoul”

  “Really?” Sara asked.

  “What did they talk about?” Anderson asked.

  “I don’t know. J.D. was not listening to the call. He was tracing the activity on the phone lines after-the-fact. All we know is that this chain of calls was made within the last hour,” Mark said.

  Mr. Park got up and left the room. Sara took a look at his face. He was knitting his eyebrows.

  “Does this mean that this NATPAC could have figured something else out? Could he have hacked us again?” Anderson said.

  “No,” Mark said in a comfortingly firm way. “Although his lieutenant SLOTHMAN thinks he just hacked you, they have no additional information.”

  “What do you mean SLOTHMAN thinks he hacked us.” Sara demanded.

  Mark leaned back, “SLOTHMAN just tried to install a rootkit onto the SAD servers.”

  “Rootkit? What’s a rootkit?” Anderson asked.

  “A rootkit is something a hacker will try to install on a computer to give him access to the files and programs on that computer and servers. It would give him access as if he were a user or administrator. A rootkit also protects the hacker by modifying the code in the operating system so that his movements—what he’s looking at—goes undetected. The worst level of a rootkit is known as Ring 0, which means that the hacker has complete access to everything on a computer or network. We think that’s what SLOTHMAN was trying to get on your systems.”

  “But what? He did not?” Sara asked.

  “No. J.D had been monitoring your systems since we got here and—“

  “Wait – how? Did we ever give you our Wi-Fi passwords or access to our server?”

  “Uh –you don’t need to worry about that.” Mark said as he blushed.

  “OK so you were saying that J.D.—“ Anderson said hurriedly.

  “J.D. redirected SLOTHMAN to a honeypot.” Mark finished.

  “What’s that?” Anderson asked.

  “A honeypot is a computer that appears to be part of a network. It typically looks easily hackable. The hacker gets inside and starts looking around, thinking he’s hacking the network he was targeting. However he actually hacked a “fake computer” set up by someone as a trap. J.D. set up a honeypot that looks like a computer within your SAD network. But it’s really our trap, and SLOTHMAN is inside. J.D. will keep SLOTHMAN occupied for some time. The honeypot can also help us learn more about them. Once we do, we can figure out what they are doing. Maybe we can help you with that facility too.”

  Sara turned to Anderson, “John—if you think about it, this doesn’t make sense. Why are they so focused on learning about us? Fine - Tom is in there, but if you take a step back, why us? First of all, China has nuclear weapons. If they want to help North Korea, why not just help them build those weapons? Or if they wanted to learn more about our nuclear weapons program, why aren’t they hacking Los Alamos?”

  Sara had been thinking about this for a while. Los Alamos was where the US performed its classified scientific research.

  Anderson looked at Mark, “Are they trying to get into Los Alamos?”

  Mark shook his head slowly “No. We monitor it closely.”

  Anderson looked down and said while in thought, “It’s true. It does not really make sense that this Cyberwarfare group is so protective of the North Koreans in general. Maybe you guys can figure that out.”

  “That’s what we’re working on.” Mark said with a smile.

  “I’ll be right back. I want to get some coffee,” Sara said. She was tired already from the day’s events.

  “I’ll go with you,” Mark said as he got up.

  Anderson turned around and went back to the middle of the room, staring at the screen that was jogging through dark woodlands.

  Sara and Mark walked through the bright hallways towards the kitchen.

  “I bet you didn’t expect to have such an exciting day when you woke up this morning,” she said to Mark.

  “I did not. But I bet you didn’t either,” he replied.

  Sara looked down as they walked.

  “The one who really walked into something completely unexpected was Tom,” she said.

  They both remained quiet until they arrived at the kitchen. Inside, Sara started filling up a cup for herself.

  “J.D. seems to be unstoppable on his computer. He’s doing all of these things I never even knew you could do before,” Sara said.

  “Yeah. He’s good.”

  “Who is this NATPAC anyway? Do you think he can figure that out?”

  “That’s what I’m working on.”

  Sara paused. Mark was staring at the far wall in the kitchen.

  “Why do they use usernames like that?”

  “It helps protect their identities. If we knew who NATPAC was we would have an easier time dealing with him. We could watch him more closely.”

  “Or do you think he’s helping protect others in the Chinese government?”

  Mark paused. “You’re sharp. That could be a possibility too, now that I think about it.”

  Suddenly J.D. appeared in the kitchen.

  “Sorry guys. I wanted to take a break too.”

  “No problem. Join us.” Mark said.

  Sara continued her thought. “Mark, do you use a username or handle like NATPAC does?”

  “I actually do.”

  “You really have one too?”

  “Everyone wears a mask out in the world, and some even like it. In our line of work, it is essential.”

  “What is your handle?”

  “DEMOCRITUS.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  “He was an ancient Greek philosopher. He united two separate philosophies that had existed in conflict with each other. Before him a philosopher named Parmenides argued that nothing around us ever really moved or changed. His idea sounded something like – if you build a house out of wood from a tree, that wood is unchanged after you have a house. It is the same matter, it just used to be a tree and now it’s a wall in a house. You modified it and it seems different to you but you did not really change the wood. Another philosopher named Heraclitus believed that everything around us was in a constant state of change – everything was moving. He famously said you could never step into the same river twice. Democritus solved the contradiction between the two philosophies by coming up with the ide
a of the atom as we generally know it even today. This idea reconciled the two philosophies because he argued that atoms do not change but the matter they created did change. This could explain both the wood in the house and the water moving around in the river.”

  Sara thought about it, “So he brought together the idea of something moving and something staying still—“

  “Exactly,” Mark replied with a smile.

  “How do you know so much about the ancient Greeks and philosophy?”

  “I studied classics in college.”

  Sara looked at him wide-eyed. “But I thought you were a mathematics or computer science standout. I thought that’s what you would have been studying in school.”

  J.D. interrupted his sip of coffee, “Mark could have taught most of the computer science courses in college.”

  Sara froze. She was staring at Mark – trying to understand with whom she was speaking. He was looking at the ground. Then he changed the subject,

  “Sara, let me ask you a question. How is it that countries like North Korea are able to get so far with their evil? I’m not just talking about nuclear weapons but also about their gulags, their gangster-style governance, or the famines they allow to happen in their country. How is it that we are only now scrambling to figure out what they might do? How is it that we have not done something before? How have they gotten this far with their nuclear weapons program and we are only now dealing with it?”

  Sara thought for a moment. “Well I guess part of it is the issue of whether means justify ends, which we always need to think about here. Does it make sense to take action which might be messy in order to get some far out goal we have?”

  “But if you think about it, history is filled with cases where evil was somehow allowed to go too far. The Nazis in World War II were given never-ending appeasements even though people knew how evil they were. Same with the Japanese during that time, who committed atrocities in China. You can keep going farther back in history. But in most cases, what small harm was permitted took us to terrible consequences, like World Wars or Cold Wars.”

  Sara lowered her eyebrows in thought. “Maybe it’s related to Zeno’s arrow paradox.”

  “How?”

  “Well we all see time moving slowly. We live minute by minute. Actually we probably really live week by week. We view the world in snapshots. We see the world in a certain state and agree that it is acceptable for the moment. We thought thirty years ago that North Korea was trying to get nuclear weapons but was nowhere close, and for the particular week where that analysis was done, everyone felt comfortable with doing nothing. Somehow people must have known that if the North kept working, they would eventually get to the point where we are now. But the contradiction between the snapshot of that moment, seemingly frozen in time, and the target in the distance was so great that it could be ignored. People always look at Zeno’s arrow, frozen in the air, but don’t really see that it is flying towards that target. Somehow their not having nuclear weapons that week, the following week, and the week after led to them having nuclear weapons today, 1,560 weeks later.”

  “That’s an interesting way to think about it. Now that you put it that way, it seems similar to Sorites Paradox.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a paradox, also from our friends in ancient Greece, that says if you take one grain of sand, it does not make a heap, or pile, of sand. If you put it on the ground in front of you and throw another grain of sand on it, you still will not have a heap of sand. But if you repeated this process and kept throwing grains on, after a while you will be standing in front of a heap.”

  “Exactly. That’s how these totalitarian regimes take advantage of us and their own people. In the 1930’s Europe thought that if Hitler were allowed to rebuild an army, that alone would not make him a threat to world peace. But after allowing him to rebuild an army, annex Czechoslovakia, take Austria, and rebuild a navy, he eventually became a real threat to world peace. Just like grains of sand turning into a heap. Each individual action was too small to threaten world peace, but taken together, all of those actions did threaten world peace. Few saw it coming because they were looking at each sequential step as another snapshot of that arrow. Few saw that it was actually flying at a target.”

  J.D. finally jumped in, “This reminds me of the British TV series Yes, Prime Minister. Do you guys know what I’m talking about?”

  Mark and Sara both gave a simultaneous “No.”

  J.D. went on, “It’s funny – the Brits make some of the best TV and few people in the US know. Anyway in the ‘80s there was this comedy series called Yes, Prime Minister. The setup was that it followed a somewhat incompetent prime minister. He loves to be in front of cameras and he loves to make bold statements or proclamations, but he is not very bright and often gets manipulated by the civil servants that work in the government. In one episode the chief scientific advisor to the Prime Minister is asking the PM when he would press the nuclear button. The PM responds that he would do so if Russia attacked. Then this advisor asks if the PM would press the button if the Russians invaded West Berlin. The PM hesitates, indicating he would not. Then the advisor asks if the PM would press the button if Russian tanks accidentally crossed into West Germany and then stayed there. The PM again hesitates and says he probably would not. Then the advisor asks if the PM would press the button if the Russians had similarly taken over all of Western Europe, through France and Spain. He asks if the Russians sat at the edge of France ready to invade the UK, whether the PM would press the button then. Again, the PM hesitates and now it appears he thinks he would not be able to. That’s either Zeno’s Arrow or Sorites Paradox at work, right? The advisor in the show called it salami tactics, in that your opponent takes advantage of you slice by slice.”

  Mark nodded “It appears that when the human mind encounters paradox-like situations, it is not able to take action.”

  Sara continued the thought “You know? This probably even applies to other dangerous situations. Think about climate change. How many times have you and I heard how many degrees the Earth will warm over the next fifty years? We know that target would be a bad spot for the arrow to hit. But we look around and say that for this week, the climate situation does not seem too bad, so we forget about it for the moment. We are only looking at that frozen arrow. The same goes for deforestation, overfishing, and other environmental issues that seem slow-moving.”

  “Going back to the totalitarian examples – where do you think the Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle plays in?” J.D. asked.

  They all thought for a minute. “Maybe a regime’s use of the Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle is a way for them to smooth out the process,” Sara said. “Maybe that extra veil over our eyes helps them throw grain of sand after grain of sand onto that spot on the ground. It makes us more likely to look at the arrow frozen. When Hitler was rearming, he not only made everyone else think of it as just a grain of sand. He lied about wanting to respect international law and peace to make everyone misunderstand what he was doing.”

  “What would you call it? When people are looking at the frozen arrow rather than the flying arrow?” Mark asked.

  Sara thought about it. Then she shrugged her shoulders and said, “to volerate? Maybe like we all have been volerating the North Korean regime’s behavior for the last thirty years? The rhyme with tolerate or tolerating makes it seem right.”

  “How did you come up with that?” Mark asked.

  “I studied French – it’s the only language I know other than English. I love France and have visited it many times.”

  “Really” Mark asked, “Where do you like to go?”

  “My favorite town outside Paris is Eparnay. Anyway, in France they have a problem where English is invading their language. English words are being used for more and more things. Maybe we can add a word from French into English for once.”

  “What’s the word in French?”

  “Voler. It means ‘to fly,’ and
I just combined it with ‘tolerate.’ Volerate. Does it sound right? It can be defined as tolerating an act that would eventually lead towards an undesirable conclusion because the act itself is tolerable. We tolerate the arrow flying because it is not yet at its target, which we cannot tolerate.”

  “It sounds interesting.” They all started repeating it.

  They had some more coffee and thought to themselves in silence. “I should probably get back to the Command Room.” Sara eventually said. Mark and J.D. nodded in agreement and they all left the kitchen. They walked down the hall quietly pronouncing Sara’s new word. Before entering the Command Room, Sara looked down the other side of the hall. Mr. Park was standing outside the conference room occupied by his analysts. His hands were on his hips and he was looking down.

  What are they doing?

  Then Anderson walked out of the same conference room, looking down. His hands were on his hips as well. Sara approached them slowly, with Mark and J.D. behind her. Anderson looked over as they got close.

  “Guys, we have something new that came up in Seoul,” Anderson said. His shirt’s top button was undone and his tie was loosened so that the knot sat lower than where it usually did.

  “What is it?” Sara asked as she came to a stop by them.

  Mr. Park began speaking in his systematic tone, “I believe one of my analysts has been kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped?” Sara, Mark, and J.D. said together.

  “After hearing that you traced a phone call from that phone in Pyongyang to a number in Seoul, I looked into it. One of my analysts – one of the two people that briefed Tom yesterday—was working late in the office. She was almost in her own apartment building when a group of three or four people took her and carried her into a car.”

  “Oh my God, that’s terrifying,” Sara said with her hand over her mouth. “How did you figure that out?”

  “The concierge at her apartment building saw part of it happen. He ran outside as they were driving away, and then called the police. He seemed to recognize her. I was just on the phone with the police and they are trying to find the car.”

  “Did he get the license plate number of the car before it drove away?” Mark asked.

  “He did not. It was too dark and he ran out too late.”

  “Did he see anything that could help identify them? Even if he saw the type of car, it can help.” Mark sounded like he knew what he was talking about, Sara thought.

  “He did not see anything like that. Nevertheless, all police stations in Korea have been alerted.”

  Sara prided herself on getting to the point fast. “Do you suspect this was done by North Koreans?” she asked.

  Mr. Park thought for a moment before giving his answer. “A kidnapping done this way, with a team, highly organized, and few clues left behind, has the markings of a North Korean kidnapping operation. This is the one area of foreign subversion they have developed to a high level.”

  Anderson looked up and put into words what everyone was thinking. “If they have her, they might be able to get her to tell them mission details. For now they still don’t know that our target is that base. If they interrogate her, they could figure that out, as well as Tom’s planned route and his exfiltration plan. They could even go into the water and look for his parked SDV.”

  Mr. Park picked up the thought, “Aside from this mission, they could learn about the entire network of illegals we have in North Korea.”

  “What is clear is we need to act fast. What can we do?” Anderson said.

  J.D. jumped in, “Let me see if I can trace that phone. Whoever received that call from Pyongyang is probably still carrying that phone around.” He ran into the Command Room to get on his laptop.

  “Let me make a phone call,” Mr. Park said as he walked back into his conference room with Anderson behind him.

  Sara peeked inside. There were several NIS analysts working on laptops. Piles of paper were stacked on the table around them. They looked like various documents, files, and printed emails. Some of the analysts were paging through the files, while others were working on their laptops. In the short time they had been there, they had created a small mess. Used paper coffee cups were stacked randomly throughout the table.

  “Who are they?” Mark whispered to Sara.

  “They are analysts from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service,” Sara whispered back.

  “What are they doing? Are they helping with the mission?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. I have no idea what they are doing. They have not been involved in the mission planning from what I can tell. Only Mr. Park comes out and talks to us.”

  “That’s strange. I wonder why they even needed to come with him over here.”

  “I know. It’s bizarre. And now this poor girl has been kidnapped. What is going on over there?”

  “Let’s step inside. Maybe we can help them think through it. Maybe I can think of some way we can trace something other than that phone.”

  Sara and Mark walked into the conference room. The analysts inside barely looked up. They looked disheveled to Sara. Their hair was messy and their clothes looked worn. They seemed to be working fast. The ones on laptops were typing as fast as they possibly could, their eyes never looking away from the screen. The ones going through documents were reading a page every fifteen seconds. Sara wondered how they kept such a pace after their all-nighter.

  Mr. Park got off the phone and looked at them. “I just called the Minister of National Defense at his home. I explained to him what happened. He is readying the White Tiger battalion. We need to find her and send them in to rescue her as soon as possible. Before they can figure anything out.”

  Anderson answered Sara’s question before she asked it. “White Tiger is their SEAL Team 6. They have a few Toms of their own.”

  Just then J.D. burst into the conference room with his laptop. “I just checked. Whoever received that call from Pyongyang turned his phone off. I can’t trace that person now.”

  “Can you set it so that as soon as he powers it back on we get alerted?” Mark asked.

  “Sure. I’ll do that now. But we have to find this girl another way.”

  “Mr. Park, one question I have is how they knew to kidnap her. The NIS has thousands of employees and your group, I’m guessing, is small. How did they know to target her?” Sara said.

  “I am trying to figure that out,” he said, nodding.

  “Is there anything else we can do?” Anderson asked.

  “The Minister of National Defense is also calling the Chief of Naval Operations. Our navy will send gunboats to patrol the west cost.”

  “Why the west coast?” Sara asked.

  “The western coast of South Korea is much closer to Seoul than the eastern coast. They could drive there quickly. Additionally, their navy is more active on that side. So if they wanted to grab someone and quickly get them to the North, that would be the fastest way to do it.”

  “If they can make sure no boats leave the west coast tonight, and Mark and J.D. can trace that cell phone as soon as it’s turned on, we might be able to keep them in South Korea. Maybe she can be rescued before they get a chance to move her anywhere,” Anderson said, his tone hopeful.

  “We should tell Tom,” Sara interjected, “He should know that his mission has potentially been compromised further.”