Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late

by Marc Elsberg

  ‘Were there any other requests?’

  Outside, a grey sky stretched over the Talaefer AG building. The winter was dismal, especially when it was ten degrees in the office and you had to wear a scarf and winter coat. They presented a ridiculous sight. Wickley dreamed of Bangalore.

  ‘Three operators are reporting problems at several of their power plants that they can’t explain. They’d like our support.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to make sure they get it. What is it they’re struggling with?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. Normally, our service people log in to check the system. But as long as the Internet isn’t working, that’s not possible.’

  A strange noise started in Wickley’s ears that turned into a drone. He had already gone through two separate treatments for sudden hearing loss. He needed another incident like he needed a hole in the head. The sound grew louder and louder, developed chopping undertones.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked the head of technology.

  ‘You hear it too?’ Wickley tried to hide his relief. It wasn’t the moment to show any sign of weakness.

  The noise now filled his head. A shadow darkened the windows of the executive suite. Wickley could see a dark blue silhouette, then the whirring rotors of a helicopter slowly descending on the car park in front of the building.

  ‘What the—’

  They rushed to the window and watched as the aircraft touched down between the cars. Four figures had jumped out toting heavy bags that they tossed on the ground. Two of them ran towards the building, bent over, two stood where they were. Wickley was able to make out some lettering on the side of the helicopter.

  ‘Police?’

  ‘What are they doing here?’ cried the head of technology.

  Crates were being handed out from inside the helicopter, which were received by the two remaining men and set down on the ground next to the bags. Two more passengers jumped out. One of them gave a signal, the helicopter lifted off and rose in a long arc, up and away. The entire operation had taken less than three minutes.

  Someone rapped on the door.

  Wickley escorted them to a small conference room off the lobby. The CEO waited while they took their seats, then cleared his throat and demanded, ‘What is the nature of this investigation you’re conducting?’

  Hartlandt was accustomed to dealing with executives from large multinational corporations. He didn’t care for Wickley’s superior attitude, but he was unfazed by it.

  ‘To put it simply, our investigation concerns the activities of a terrorist organization. I’m not assuming you’re wrapped up in it …’ He wasn’t about to let Wickley off the hook, but didn’t want to antagonize him unnecessarily. ‘But someone at your firm could be. If that’s the case, you would surely want to get it cleared up as quickly as possible, yes?’

  Wickley weighed Hartlandt’s words. ‘Our SCADA systems? Impossible!’ he snapped, indignant at the suggestion.

  Hartlandt had expected this reaction. He took out the statistics that Europol had sent him, laid the paper out in front of the CEO and gave him the facts.

  ‘It has to be a mistake,’ Wickley insisted.

  ‘Mistake or not,’ replied Hartlandt, ‘we have to look into the matter. I’ll need a list of every employee who has worked on these projects. Additionally, we’ll need to interview those members of the management team who were responsible – preferably today. My colleagues here are IT forensics specialists. They’ll support your people in finding any errors.’

  ‘It’s not going to be that simple, I’m afraid,’ Wickley finally admitted.

  Hartlandt could see that this admission wasn’t easy for him. He said nothing, waiting for the man to continue.

  ‘Our backup power system wasn’t designed for an event such as this one. Without power, we cannot access our computers where all the data is stored. In addition, with no public transport and no fuel, many employees have been unable to get to work.’

  Hartlandt resisted the temptation to joke about a multinational energy supplier lacking a power supply. Instead he gave a nod. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  The Hague, Netherlands

  As he watched the convoy of military vehicles and tankers moving across the screen, Manzano couldn’t help but be reminded of an action movie.

  ‘The accident in France has caused unrest all over Europe. This closely guarded convoy of diesel tankers is required to ensure a sufficient supply for the power plants’ backup systems.’

  Everyone in the conference room at Europol followed the report.

  ‘With the exception of Saint-Laurent, the situation at power plants on the continent and in Britain is currently stable,’ declared the news anchor. ‘The International Atomic Energy Agency is reporting low-level incidents at twelve facilities. Only at the Czech Temelín power plant does the situation remain tense. There is, however, more bad news from the damaged French power plant …’

  Since the European TV networks had all ceased broadcasting, they were now dependent on CNN for news coverage. Blurred, grainy footage showed one of the Saint-Laurent reactors swelling up like a balloon, then suddenly it vanished behind a massive cloud.

  ‘This was the second explosion in the compromised facility. Buildings were severely damaged as a result.’ Figures in protective suits stalked the terrain around the power plant like giant insects, rattling boxes in their hands.

  ‘An hour later, a thirty-fold increase in radioactivity was measured.’

  Another insect-man, a Greenpeace logo emblazoned on his jumpsuit, held a measurement device up to the camera.

  ‘Environmental organizations claim to have measured life-threateningly high levels of radiation twenty kilometres away from the facility.’

  Columns of military trucks travelled along an otherwise deserted road, masked members of special units crowded in the back.

  ‘The French government has announced that it will, in the interim, be evacuating the population within a twenty-kilometre radius.’

  Manzano watched as Bollard reached for a telephone and dialled. He followed the report with the receiver pressed to his ear. Toy-like tractor-trailers trundled across an airfield and into the rounded bellies of giant planes, like plankton into the maw of a whale. More footage showed soldiers as they loaded crates and directed traffic.

  ‘The USA, Russia, Turkey, China, Japan and India prepare to send the first wave of aid units.’

  Bollard put down the receiver, without, as far as Manzano could tell, having spoken to anyone.

  ‘We have to put a stop to this madness,’ someone said.

  The others remained silent.

  Ratingen, Germany

  Hartlandt had set up their base of operations in one of the conference rooms off the lobby at Talaefer AG. The tables had been pushed together to form a long rectangle. At one end were laptops for Hartlandt’s people. The other end was used for conferencing. The backup generator behind the building produced enough power for their computers and a few sanitary facilities on the ground floor, as well as for the servers. The building technicians had disconnected the lifts and upper floors, forcing Wickley to abandon his top-floor executive suite and set up a makeshift office just down the hall, albeit with a few rooms’ buffer in between. For the moment, though, he had joined them at the table with some of his staff to deliver a briefing.

  ‘Our SCADA leadership team consists of seven people, two of whom are here today. The full staff totals about one hundred and twenty people. Mr Dienhof will give you the details.’

  At this, a gaunt individual with grey hair circling a bald pate, and a full beard, looked up from the notebook in front of him and said, ‘Three of our managers are on vacation; we haven’t yet been able to reach them. Two more live in Düsseldorf, but it seems they’ve had to move into a shelter and we haven’t been able to trace them. Maybe you could help us in this?’ He looked to Hartlandt.

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he affirmed.

  ‘As for the rest of the team,
we’ve only been able to round up ten so far – we don’t have enough people or cars with fuel to reach the others, and some of the addresses we called at were empty.’

  He laid the notebook aside.

  ‘Let us have a list of names and addresses,’ said Hartlandt. ‘We’ll find them.’

  Dienhof nodded. ‘As for the SCADA systems – we’ve started our analyses. The systems are based on certain shared basic modules, but are then individually tailored for each customer. Naturally, we’re looking at the shared elements first. If in fact our systems are partly responsible for the problems, the cause would most likely be found there.’

  ‘Good,’ said Hartlandt. ‘Keep at it. In the meantime, we’ll locate as many of your people as we can and bring them here.’

  The event hall was a modern, functional building. People huddled together around the entrance, talking and smoking. Hartlandt made his way past them and through an open door into what would have been the place where people met up with their friends and loaded up on popcorn and soft drinks before going in to see the show. Now it was full of people in winter clothes, even though it was warmer here than it was outside.

  Signs had been hung over the display boards for ticket, snack and drink prices. In plain black letters against a white background they announced: Check-in. Red Cross. Volunteers. Supplies. There were arrows pointing to toilets, showers and food stations. On a long wall hung scraps of paper and photos, a kind of community noticeboard, guessed Hartlandt.

  He made his way to the check-in. A heavy-set woman greeted him sullenly. He showed his identification and put a list in front of her with thirty-seven names on it.

  ‘Are any of these people staying in this shelter?’

  Without a word, the woman turned towards a tall cabinet and pulled out one of the drawers. She began rifling through files. Every now and then she glanced at Hartlandt’s list and made notes on a slip of paper.

  He found himself observing the people in the hall. They seemed neither agitated nor anxious. It was almost as if they were waiting for the show to start. Their conversation blended into indistinguishable chatter that filled the room.

  ‘Eleven of them are here,’ the check-in woman announced to Hartlandt’s back.

  The main hall consisted of one giant space filled with rows of single beds. In some places, towels had been hung between them as a makeshift way of screening off individual areas. The air was stale, it smelled musty – damp clothes, sweat and a hint of urine. People sat or lay on the beds. Others chatted, read, stared into space, slept.

  Hartlandt glanced down at his map, at his list, then headed towards his first stop.

  At Talaefer they had removed the portable wall partitions between the conference rooms on the ground floor and created a single large space. On two long rows of tables sat one hundred and twenty laptops. A good two-thirds of the workstations were occupied, mostly by men, many of whom hadn’t shaved in days. Hadn’t showered either. Hartlandt’s team had commandeered two portable showers with water tanks, and were setting them up for employees’ use.

  ‘We’ve got eighty-three,’ announced Hartlandt. ‘Of the rest, thirty are on vacation. Ten we haven’t yet been able to locate. Among management, everyone is here except for Dragenau, Kowalski and Wallis. According to his colleagues, Dragenau is on vacation in Bali, Kowalski in Kenya and Wallis is in Switzerland on a ski trip. We will continue trying to get in touch with them.’

  ‘We’re pretty much set up now,’ said Dienhof. ‘Nevertheless, it’s going to take a while. We’ll need to sift through modifications from previous years, because if there really is a saboteur in our midst, he can’t have modified the software overnight. Plus, we need at least two people going through everything.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Wickley.

  ‘If the saboteur is checking something he’s tampered with himself, he’s hardly going to tell us,’ said Hartlandt.

  ‘The biggest challenge, however,’ Dienhof continued, ‘is that we don’t know what we’re looking for. We’re turning over the proverbial haystack, but we have no idea if we’re looking for a needle, a tick or a mushroom.’

  ‘Or for nothing at all,’ Wickley added.

  Day 6 – Thursday

  Ratingen, Germany

  Hartlandt woke before dawn. Quietly he slipped out of his sleeping bag, dressed and used the employee bathroom. He would go without a shave for the time being.

  They had secured their provisional operations centre with locks so only he and his people could gain entry. Inside, they had set up their computers, servers and a TETRA radio, with which they could also transmit data.

  Alongside his field duties at Talaefer, Hartlandt was still responsible for leading the task force on energy producers and distributors. He fired up his laptop and looked over the most recent data to have come in. Berlin had sent the reports he’d requested on fires in substations. Sure enough, four of the six cases appeared to be arson: Osterrönfeld on Saturday, Güstrow on Sunday, Cloppenburg on Tuesday, Minden last night.

  Hartlandt pulled up his interactive map of Germany, on which he had marked all the incidents reported thus far. The locations were scattered across northern Germany.

  His colleague Pohlen, blond and as tall as a giant, padded sleepily into the room.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Hartlandt. ‘Fires were started in four substations serving the transmission grid.’

  Pohlen peered at the map. ‘They’d need a whole army of saboteurs to cover that area.’

  Hartlandt cleared the points off the map. ‘The fires didn’t all happen at once,’ he said. ‘They were spread out.’ One by one, he replaced the points on the map.

  ‘First north, then east, then west,’ Pohlen said. ‘But that doesn’t make any sense.’

  ‘It’s as though someone was zigzagging across the country, burning down substations. But there’s another report – four transmission towers that were blown up.’

  He entered the locations into his system.

  ‘Unfortunately, the teams on site couldn’t establish the exact time of the explosions. But …’ he trailed off. Now that all the points were showing on the map, Hartlandt connected the locations of the fires with a line from Lübeck to Güstrow in the east and from there to Cloppenburg and Minden in the west.

  ‘Two of the blown towers lie right in the vicinity of the Güstrow–Cloppenburg transmission line. It looks as though somebody was systematically sabotaging strategic infrastructure.’

  ‘In that case the remaining infrastructure has to be protected right away!’ cried Pohlen.

  ‘Impossible. Have you any idea how many transmission towers and substations there are? We can’t possibly guard them all, the police and army are stretched to the limit as it is.’ He reached for the radio. ‘Let’s see how the folks in Berlin see it.’

  The Hague, Netherlands

  ‘We’ve started following up on your suggestion,’ Bollard told Manzano. ‘Even as we speak, German authorities are looking into Talaefer’s SCADA systems. Ideally, I’d send one of my own people to assist, but we have no one to spare.’ He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his desk. ‘So, to get to the point: how would you like to go to Talaefer’s HQ in Ratingen and put your talents to use there?’

  Manzano raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I’m not a SCADA specialist.’

  ‘I believe you on a lot of things, even your theories, but not on that.’ Bollard flashed him a grin. ‘And even if it were true, you have the ability to recognize errors and anomalies in the system. Why don’t you download the reports – they’re already on our network. I can’t guarantee that there’ll be any hotels in Ratingen with hot water and working toilets …’

  ‘You really know how to make the job sound appealing.’

  ‘… But you’ll have a car at your disposal. I’m sure we can come to an agreement about your fee. Just don’t tell your girlfriend anything about it.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

  ‘Whatever you
say. So, are you going?’

  ‘As of now, the room’s all yours,’ Manzano told her as he packed his bag. Shannon had returned moments earlier from a trip around the city, taping a few short segments.

  ‘You’re leaving? Where to?’

  ‘Not important.’

  In the bathroom she heard the toilet flush, then the tap, then out stepped Bollard.

  ‘Ah, the star reporter,’ he sneered. ‘Would you mind leaving us alone for a few moments?’

  Shannon hesitated; after all, it was her room too. Well, OK, not really. She laid her camera down on the desk, left the room, closed the door from the outside and pressed her ear up against it. She could only catch a word here and there. Then a complete sentence.

  ‘Assuming, that is, that the Germans can connect to the Internet,’ said Manzano. So he was going to Germany, Shannon thought feverishly.

  ‘You can say what you want about the Germans, but they are organized,’ replied Bollard. ‘The federal police at Talaefer is sure to have the necessary equipment. Here are the car keys. The car is in the hotel garage, a black Audi A4 with Dutch plates and a full tank. It’ll get you to Ratingen’ – he pronounced the name with the stress on the last syllable, Ratingen – ‘and back without any trouble.’

  Shannon heard footsteps and ran on tiptoe two doors down the hall. There she leaned against the wall and crossed her arms, as if she had been waiting for an eternity.

  Bollard nodded to her as he passed.

  Shannon padded back to the room. Manzano was standing with his suitcase and laptop bag in hand, ready to head out.

  ‘Been a pleasure,’ he said, and held his hand out to her. ‘I hope we see each other again when this whole mess is over. Maybe you’ll do a story in Milan sometime. You’ve got my address.’

  Shannon waited till the door had clicked shut behind him. Then she began stuffing her belongings into her rucksack as fast as she could.

  New York City, USA