The Circle of Sodom

by Pat Mullan

  He resolved to see the President immediately.

  The Hardy Townhouse

  Washington, DC

  Four days later............

  Exactly four days later Senator Sumner Hardy presented his evidence. Tapes of conversations between the President and General Shields, between the President and FBI Director Redington, between General Shields and Owen MacDara. Enough evidence to hang the President. Enough to convict him in this 'court'. Even Zachary Walker had to admit that there was no doubt. The President intended to move against them. Zachary already knew that, of course. He considered himself fortunate that, on each of the last two occasions, he had met with the President in his living quarters, not the Oval Office. They must have a mole in the White House. He'd have to warn the President.

  The decision was taken. They would immobilize the country, cripple the nation's nervous system, send the financial markets into a downward spiral, castrate the military, force the President to capitulate, and then take control. All media, TV, radio and newspapers would be marshalled to spread the gospel and explain the action to a bewildered American people. They would pledge less government, not more; promise to protect and restore individual freedoms; guarantee the right to bear arms; commit themselves to ending the godless direction of the nation and restoring the reign of the righteous. This would be an act of unselfish patriotism. And they were convinced that the American people would agree with them. It would be evangelistic, liberating. Another 1776, another American revolution! They would be the Minutemen of the Nineties!

  The technical work to facilitate this action had commenced months ago. Several 'dry runs' had been undertaken recently. The teams and the organization were in place. All that remained was permission to execute. That permission had now been granted.

  Zachary Walker played his part. Senator Sam never doubted his loyalty to the cause. The Senator had a blind spot. He failed to comprehend that General Walker did not subscribe to the belief that the end justifies the means.

  General Zachary Walker went directly to the President.

  THIRTY-ONE

  0930 Hours

  ASSIST

  The phone rang incessantly on Aaronson's desk. Telephone answering machines were banned here. Central switchboard was just about to answer when Aaronson reached his desk and picked up the receiver:

  "Roger Aaronson."

  "Where the hell have you been?" It was his boss, Hank Hagan.

  "Taking a shit! Is there a law against that?"

  "Don't get wise with me, Aaronson. This is a Code 1. Get your ass in here right now. And don't take time to wipe it!"

  Hagan was a tyrant. A big, beefy tyrant. But you had to give the big guy his due, thought Aaronson. There was no-one, that's right, no-one in the world who knew more about computers than Hagan. A Code 1 was the highest emergency. Something real bad must be going down. Aaronson grabbed a pad and pencil and headed for Hagan's office. ASSIST stood for the military's Automated System's Security Incident Support Team. They occupied the fourth floor of an old refurbished Navy warehouse, just a stone's throw from the Pentagon and directly across from Arlington National Cemetery. ASSIST responded to security breaches in the military's worldwide computer network. Their last MIS report showed that they had responded to over 30,000 calls for help during the past year, an increase of 50% over the prior year. That statistic was giving 'the brass' sleepless nights. They had isolated thousands of hacker programs and code, caged the 'critters' and then took them apart. It sometimes seemed to Aaronson that they were detectives in a field of haystacks looking for a needle.

  Hagan simply grunted as Aaronson entered his office and took a seat. The other four members of the 'A Team' were there already and one individual he'd never met before. Hagan took the opportunity to curtly brief Aaronson.

  "We've got big trouble. At 0900 hours our command and operational data centers in Denver, San Francisco, Baltimore, London, Brussels and Tokyo started to crash. Everything's gone haywire. Communications lines scrambled. Hard hits on banks of disk drives. Data bases scratched. Bugs in update programs. Spurious messages issued to console operators. Backup and recovery systems sabotaged. Halon released for no reason. It's war, I tell you! War!"

  Nodding towards the individual Aaronson had never met:

  "This is Owen MacDara. He's our direct liaison with the White House. The President wants answers and he wants them now."

  Looking at the five members of the 'A Team', he said:

  "You're the 'A Team'. The best we've got. I'm going to tell MacDara to inform the President that we'll give him an update by noon. That gives you guys two hours. The 'morgue' is open. 'Critters' are coming in by fax, tape, disk, download, you name it. I want you to start carving them up now. I'll join you myself in thirty minutes. Mr. MacDara, you want to add anything?"

  "No, Mr. Hagan. You know how to reach me. I want a briefing every twenty minutes, even if you have nothing to tell me. OK?"

  "You got it," said Hagan and, standing up, he addressed the 'A Team':

  "Let's go. Move it. I want answers!"

  MacDara's beeper went off as he was leaving Hagan's office. It was Shields. He turned back, grabbed the phone on Hagan's desk and called Shields:

  "Owen, meet me in the Situation Room in the White House right away."

  That was it. No further explanation. Shields was gone. Owen MacDara didn't need to know any more. The tone in Shields voice was enough to light a fire under him. He was out of the building without even the courtesy of a 'goodbye' to Hagan and his team.

  The Situation Room had been turned into a Command Center. Banks of telephones, fax machines and television screens fronted maps of North America and the World. Three or four conversations were going on simultaneously, phones were ringing constantly, faxes were disgorging paper, CNN and NBC were competing for attention and someone was highlighting sites on the maps with information that seemed to change with every phonecall. The President was standing, sleeves rolled up, tie pulled down, hair tousled and looking unslept. He was surrounded by General Bart Shields, FBI Director Tom Redington and General Zachary Walker. Shields beckoned Owen to join them. The President nodded. He was getting an update from a youngish Major General:

  "Mr. President, this is the situation as of 1100 hours. Automated teller systems at Citibank, Chembank and Nationsbank have been debiting and crediting thousands of dollars in and out of customers' accounts. The banks have shut down the ATM networks but we're afraid it's been too late to stop the panic. People across the country are lining up to withdraw their money."

  "Bart, get me the Chairman of the Fed. And tell all the national television networks to standby. I'll need to talk to the American people real soon," cut in the President.

  The youngish Major General hadn't finished his update:

  "That's not all, Mr.President. Our telephone systems are also under attack. Southern Bell have already had three exchange shutdowns caused by viruses or bugs. Interconnect switches are down at two of our army bases and the reservations networks at Kennedy, La Guardia and O'Hare are out. These crashes seem to have been caused by waves of mass-dialing bombardment coming in over the Internet."

  The update was finished. For now, MacDara realized. This was escalating rapidly.

  "What about our Washington phones?", asked Bart Shields.

  "OK at present. But I don't think we can rely on that for too long. We'd better make the most of it while we're still up," responded the Major General.

  "Zach, I want all the Governors, all the Mayors, all the Fortune 500 CEOs, all Utility Company heads, all the major church leaders and every key person in this nation. Get them on a video conference link with me by one o'clock."

  As Zach turned to pick up the phone, the President continued:

  "And, Zach. Alert the National Guard. I want public order maintained at all costs. We do not need rioting on our streets."

  MacDara's beeper went off again. It was Hagan with another update. Owen called him on the nearest phone: />
  "We're still up to our asses in diagnostics. But we've had some luck. Aaronson traced a virus to a software release provided by a defense contractor in Cambridge, Mass. I know that software company and I know two of the directors personally. I'll cut this short. I called them. They gave me the names of the three programmers who worked on the release. I'd have them checked out.'

  MacDara took the names, briefed the President and Shields and turned the names over to Tom Redington. The Bureau was on the case in a matter of minutes.

  It was pizza for lunch and the President was halfway into his second slice, smothered in everything but anchovies. He detested anchovies. That's one thing we have in common, noted MacDara. Owen was just finishing his first slice of pepperoni when the phones started ringing off the hook again. Owen could see Tom Redington and that youngish Major General out of the corner of his eye. They were both intently making a beeline towards the President, each oblivious to the other. The Major General got there first:

  "Mr. President. More bad news. Wall Street's trading systems have gone crazy. They're executing irrational buys and sells and artificially inflating and deflating the value of stocks. Utilities and banks have lost 50% of their value in the first hour of trading. The Dow Jones has hit an all time low! There's panic in the markets. Overseas too. London and Paris reacted wildly. Lucky it happened toward the end of their trading day. But huge blocks of stocks are being dumped at great losses. And opportunists are buying in at the sharply discounted prices. The New York Stock Exchange has been shut down for the day."

  "Get me John Major and Jacques Chirac right away. And you might as well get me Helmut Kohl too. They need to know what's happening. Directly from me," said the President, "I'll be in the Oval Office to take the calls. I want a full update in forty-five minutes. I'll take the conference with the Governors and the Mayors and the others at one. Bart, you're in charge here."

  Tom Redington had been impatiently waiting to speak:

  "Mr. President. Before you go. We found the programmer who bugged the military's software. We traced three large cash payments to him during the past year. From an account in Switzerland. He's been living well beyond his means. We have him in custody and he's started to talk. Guess what? His good buddy. The one he blames for getting him into this. He's a programmer in Colonel George McNab's state-of-the-art facility in Tennessee."

  That stopped the President dead in his tracks. He looked at all of them:

  "That's proof enough for me. We can't sit around here like sitting ducks any longer. If I had any reservations about hitting these people, this sure takes care of it. Bart and Zach, I am going to take the actions we talked about. Now! I can't wait any longer!."

  The President's face was set in grim determination as he strode from the Situation Room

  Saturday morning

  11:00 am

  The President sat awkwardly at one corner of the table in the Situation Room. His jacket was off and his sleeves were rolled up. He was talking:

  "Ward, your RAT Force will move out tonight?"

  "Yes, Mr. President. They'll assemble at Fort Benning. I'll join them tomorrow and brief them on their mission", confirmed Captain Ward Dobson.

  "I want Owen to go with you", said the President as he looked across the table at Owen MacDara, "He's recently been a 'guest' of the Colonel's and I'm sure he's anxious to return."

  "Ward, that computer center must be taken out before they cripple the country. Owen knows exactly where it is. Right?", added General Shields, raising a questioning eyebrow at MacDara.

  "That's right, General", agreed Owen.

  "Bart, brief me again on Dania. I don't want a repeat of Waco", said the President.

  Bart Shields spent the next fifteen minutes thoroughly detailing each move planned against The Circle with special emphasis on what could go wrong and the actions they would take. Everyone knew what had happened in Waco, Texas in April of '93 when the Branch Davidian sect's compound had burned to the ground after US agents had launched an assault using tanks and tear gas. At least eighty-five members of the cult had died, including the founder, David Koresh, their self-styled 'Messiah'. The President had made it perfectly clear that he did not want to lose control of this one. And he wanted The Chosen One taken alive.

  "Tom, are you comfortable with this?", asked the President.

  "Mr. President, Bart and I worked this out together. It's our best effort. Most of the team on the ground are mine. That concentrates the mind", answered FBI Director Tom Redington.

  "Dick, I know you're not directly involved in these actions but I need your best assessment at this time. What are your operatives in the field telling you?", asked the President, bringing in CIA Director Richard Smallwood.

  "You're making the right decision, Mr. President. Strike them first! We've been keeping a close eye on Lord Haverford. Two weeks ago he held a secret meeting in London with five key directors of his Advisory Council. That group only meets when it's absolutely essential", stated Dick Smallwood.

  "Why did they meet?", pursued the President.

  "We don't know that. We weren't able to bug the place. Haverford 'sweeps' his homes and offices every couple of days. Scrupulous fellow", said Smallwood and then volunteered: "but we do know one very important thing. One of the people at that meeting is a household name in the 'world of finance'. He attended your Washington conference on trade last year. His name is James Scott Tsu."

  A low murmur rose in the room. Everyone knew of James Scott Tsu, architect of the new ACU, the Asian currency unit exchange mechanism. He made the cover of Time magazine in recent months.

  "There's more, Mr. President. The day after he returned to Hong Kong he left for Peking."

  Dick Smallwood didn't have to say any more. That information was sufficient proof that the Haverford meeting in London was important. Very important. A summit of the Advisory Council of the Thackeray Institute.

  The business in the Situation Room had come to an end. The President was sombre:

  "These decisions are mine. Mine alone. I'll explain them to the American people. And I'll accept total responsibility for whatever casualties we suffer as a result."

  THIRTY-TWO

  2200 Hours

  Saturday

  Fort Dix, New Jersey

  Walls was pissed off. He was supposed to be in the Bahamas with Angie this weekend. But all leave had been cancelled and they'd been on full alert for the past forty-eight hours. It was twenty-two hundred hours on a Saturday evening and they'd just received their orders. They'd been packed and ready to ship out since they went on full alert. Walls grabbed his duffle bag and piled into the waiting bus with the other nineteen. For tactical deployment reasons the hundred strong RAT Buster team was split into platoons of twenty, each commanded by a platoon leader. Two platoons were based on the west coast and three on the east coast.

  Walls squeezed in beside Farley."They just had to pick this fuckin' weekend, hadn't they?"

  "Shit happens, Walls. It goes with the territory!"

  "Bullshit, Farley. I'll bet this is just some chicken-shit exercise, that's all!"

  "Aw, relax, man! What's your beef anyway?," growled Pascarelli from the seat behind him.

  "I was supposed to be in Paradise Island with Angie this weekend. That's my beef. This better be for real!"

  "Where we goin', Lt. Johnson?," yelled Hedge from the rear of the bus as they moved out of Fort Dix.

  "Hedge, you got the same news as me. What you see is what you get. We fly out of Philly at 0100 hours. We'll assemble in Atlanta," Lt. Johnson yelled back.

  "Well, I'm still pissed off," griped Walls.

  Manhattan

  New York

  Sunday

  In the months since Jay's death Liz Russo felt as though she were on parole. The NYPD was still investigating Jay's murder. They had arrested no-one although Asst. D.A. Stern couldn't be blamed for that. He had hounded her. Interrogated her half a dozen times. He as much as told her that he beli
eved she was guilty. In a way she was. She had wanted Jay dead. Oh yes, she played the black-dressed, bereaved widow to the hilt at the wake and the funeral. But she hadn't fooled her close friends. They knew she was not in mourning.

  Tonight Liz Russo didn't give a damn. This was the first time she'd seen Tony Thackeray since Jay's death. There were things she needed to know. But that could wait. The taxi dropped her at Elaine's. Tony was already there and he took her hand and kissed it, lingering just long enough to make it erotic. She noticed famous and familiar faces as they were escorted to their table but all of that soon faded out of focus into the background. Dinner became a sensation of tastes, textures and touches.

  They went straight to bed when they got back to Tony's suite at the Plaza. Much later, as they showered together and Tony massaged her back, Liz said: "It was you, wasn't it?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Remember Miami. We were lying beside the pool at the Fountainbleau. I was wishing that Jay were dead. And you said that you wished you could make my dreams come true. Well, did you Tony? Did you make my dreams come true?"

  They were out of the shower and Liz was towelling Tony dry. He didn't answer. She let the towel drop to the floor and turned him around to face her.