Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late

by Marc Elsberg

  Bollard nodded. ‘That was one of the first things we looked for. Do you want to see?’

  The man at the keyboard tapped away and some text popped up on the screen.

  6, 11:24 GMT

  tancr: looks like the Italian escaped from the Germans.

  b.tuck: But he’s still under suspicion?

  tancr: Don’t know, think so.

  b.tuck: Caused us enough trouble.

  tancr: Yeah, well. Somebody had to catch on sometime. In I, in G.

  ‘The Italian,’ said Manzano, ‘that’s me. And the Germans, that’s that guy Hartlandt.’

  ‘There’s more,’ said Bollard.

  5, 13:32 GMT

  tancr: The Italian’s getting annoying. Tipping them off about  Talaefer. Would really like to give him something else he  can deal with

  b.tuck: What’s that?

  tancr: Fake mail

  b.tuck: Ok

  ‘Thank you!’ Manzano cried out in relief and gave Bollard a triumphant look. ‘I hope that finally convinces you that I’m innocent.’

  ‘If you’re with them,’ Bollard replied without batting an eye, ‘you could have got your buddies to set this up.’

  Manzano groaned. ‘Do you believe anybody?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What I’d be interested to know,’ said Manzano, ‘is how these guys got the idea to plant the emails on my laptop, and how they knew I was on my way to Talaefer.’

  Bollard gave him a long look. ‘After you insisted to Hartlandt that the information had to have come from us, our IT people checked over our system.’

  ‘And they found something in Europol’s systems?’

  It was clearly painful for Bollard to admit it: ‘They found programs that could read the email correspondence on most of our computers, and could also activate cameras and microphones.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t want to be the guy in charge of security here …’

  ‘Nor me. And the same goes for the German, French, British and other government crisis teams. It seems these guys got in everywhere. They read, saw and heard everything.’

  Manzano saw no sense joining in on the analysis of RESET. Thousands of highly qualified specialists across half the world were taking care of it. That fake email – Headed to Talaefer. Looking for a bug. Won’t find a thing – was still bothering him. And so he had withdrawn to one of the quieter rooms and was studying the error reports from power plants that had come in to Talaefer.

  ‘Do you ever get tired?’ asked Shannon.

  All day long he had watched her as she looked over the men’s shoulders, studied the diagram on the wall, filmed and photographed. Bollard had given his blessing after Manzano had made it clear yet again the role Shannon had played in the discovery of RESET. ‘Might actually be a good idea,’ the Frenchman had said, ‘if someone documents us working.’

  Manzano stretched, felt his joints popping. She was right, he needed a break.

  ‘Coffee?’ she suggested.

  Together they found the small kitchen a few doors down. At the tables sat two Europol men with bags under their eyes and steaming cups in front of them.

  Manzano stuck a coffee capsule in the machine. As he watched the cup fill, he marvelled at the backup power system that even now allowed Europol this luxury. ‘Small but strong for me,’ Shannon said.

  He pressed the button again, waited, handed her the cup. A red light indicated that the container for used capsules was full and had to be emptied. Manzano pulled out the compartment and saw that there were only two capsules inside. He took them out, pushed the container back in and made his coffee. He had no sooner sat down than he got up again and walked over to the coffee machine. The little red light was still lit, even though he had emptied the container. Manzano pulled it back out and pushed it back in again. The red light was still on. ‘The instruments,’ he whispered. ‘It’s probably the instruments.’

  ‘What are you muttering about over there?’ Shannon asked.

  Manzano knocked back his coffee in one gulp. ‘The error reports might just be the instruments’ fault!’

  ‘What instruments?’

  ‘In the SCADA software.’

  ‘And the coffee machine told you this?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Madrid, Spain

  blond

  tancr

  sanskrit

  zap

  rtwo

  cuhao

  proud

  baku

  tzsche

  b.tuck

  sarowi

  simon

  ‘These twelve are the ones leading the majority of the discussions,’ Hernandez Durán, interim leader of the department for cyber-crime and terrorism in the Brigada de Investigación Tecnológica in Madrid, announced to those present. ‘Some are obvious, like Blond or Rtwo. Presumably the latter is a Star Wars fan. We’re not so sure about Proud, Zap, Baku, Tzsche, B.tuck and Sarowi.’ He paused for effect, then continued, ‘Our colleague Professor Belguer has an interesting theory, which could provide us with information about the motive. Proud, Zap, Baku, Tzsche and B.tuck could – emphasis on the conditional – be abbreviations. More specifically, Proudhon, Zapata, Bakunin, Nietzsche and Benjamin Tucker.’

  ‘Zapata and Nietzsche I get,’ one of the listeners spoke up. ‘As for the others, I know I’ve heard of them, but …’

  Initially, only IT forensics specialists had analysed the information. They’d soon realized that they needed to bring in experts from other fields, among them the sociologist, Belguer.

  ‘Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,’ explained Durán, ‘was a Frenchman who lived in the nineteenth century. He’s considered to be the first anarchist. He was the one who came up with the line “La propriété, c’est le vol” – “property is theft” – which became a standard quotation. Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian nobleman, was another influential anarchist in the nineteenth century. Benjamin Tucker was an American who translated and published the writings of Proudhon and Bakunin.’

  ‘Revolutionaries, anarchists,’ noted another. ‘Sounds as though we’re on the right track with this theory, given what these bastards have done.’

  Berlin, Germany

  ‘What do we know about the incidents in the correctional facilities?’ asked the chancellor.

  ‘Wherever possible, inmates were transferred from facilities lacking provisions and consolidated into centralized facilities,’ said the minister of justice. ‘We couldn’t very well let them starve to death or die of thirst.’

  ‘How many criminals are we talking about?’

  ‘I can’t say exactly,’ the minister admitted. ‘In addition, news has come in from Dresden that angry citizens have stormed the Saxony state parliament building in an attempt to remove the crisis team from power.’

  His gaze froze. With his eyes locked on a single point, he stood up and went to the window, which overlooked the Spree. The others followed, curious.

  Michelsen could not believe her eyes. Across the river, on Holsteiner Ufer, behind the leafless willow trees, wandered a giraffe and two of her young. The sight of the animals striding past with such dignity threw them all into a stunned silence.

  ‘What the hell?’ said the interior minister.

  ‘The animals from the zoo,’ answered State Secretary Rhess. ‘It’s only two and a half kilometres away, and nobody’s left to run the place.’

  ‘What about the—’ someone asked.

  ‘—rest of the animals?’ Michelsen paused. ‘Jesus Christ. Lions? Tigers?’

  Rhess nodded. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said.

  Ratingen, Germany

  ‘There,’ said Dienhof. ‘No idea how the guys at Europol figured this out, but they’re right. We cracked the code half an hour ago. For simplicity’s sake, we’ve translated it into pseudocode, so everybody can understand what it says.’ He handed the printout to Wickley.

  If time = 19:23 + (random number between 1 and 40)

  for 2% of all objects,

 
change object status to different value

  display the corresponding different colour

  communicate the change in status back to the calling program

  ‘This means,’ explained Dienhof, ‘that …’

  ‘… by adding an element of randomness, you cause more and more instruments in the control booth to start reporting errors that aren’t there,’ Wickley completed the explanation. ‘That,’ he added in a whisper, ‘is insidious.’

  Wickley’s mind raced ahead. If this was true, Talaefer was indeed among the main parties responsible for the disaster.

  ‘It truly is,’ Dienhof agreed. ‘The false displays don’t themselves disrupt the machines, which continue to function properly throughout. There was nothing preventing power plants from starting up again and continuing to operate. Whoever implemented this was betting on the most critical weak point of the system …’

  ‘People.’ Wickley nodded. He couldn’t deny a grudging respect for whoever had designed this code. Here was somebody who knew what it all came down to. A brutally intelligent mind. Diabolically clever. ‘So even though the power plant is running smoothly …’

  ‘The staff in the control room are bombarded with error reports and system alarms,’ said Dienhof. ‘They respond by taking action that results in damage to the facility. Because of the erroneous instrument readings, they do the exact opposite of what is required.’

  ‘How do we address this?’

  ‘We write a new version of the library, without the malicious code, and install it at the power plants. With a working Internet connection on both ends it could be done in a matter of hours. But I’m guessing that, given the circumstances, the BKA will ensure we have sufficient technicians and transport to—’

  ‘Can we not keep the BKA out of it?’

  London, England

  ‘We struck the mother lode,’ sang Phil McCaff, deep in the bowels of MI6 headquarters. He hadn’t left the building in Vauxhall Cross in a week. His neighbours at the computers looked up.

  ‘Look here,’ he called out, hitting a key to project the contents of his screen on to the wall where everyone could see. He had highlighted two lines of a conversation thread.

  rtwo: Ok, got it

  tzsche: Almost midnight. time to go to bed. Enjoy your breakfast

  ‘These lines come from a thread that’s a few weeks old,’ he explained. ‘Tzsche and Rtwo belong to the inner circle. It’s almost midnight where Tzsche is, meanwhile Rtwo is supposed to enjoy his breakfast. What does that tell us?’

  ‘That they’re on opposite sides of the world,’ reasoned Emily Aldridge.

  ‘Exactly. Here I’ve got another one …’

  Fry, -97, 6:36 GMT

  baku: Raining cats and dogs. Thought this was a sunny country.

  zap: Full moon here. No clouds

  He brought up a world map.

  ‘On this map I can load the position of the sun, the phases of the moon, weather reports and more from various databanks. Together with the date and time when the conversation took place, I can be relatively precise in establishing Zap’s location to be in a time zone between five and seven hours behind Greenwich Mean Time.’

  ‘Somewhere in America,’ Aldridge concluded.

  ‘After evaluating other remarks like these, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are at least two groups.’

  He looked around, let the news sink in.

  ‘You should all double-check this one more time, but I’m pretty certain that one group is in Central America, the other on the eastern Mediterranean.’

  The Hague, Netherlands

  ‘This is brilliant!’ cried Bollard. He tore the paper from the printer. His eyes flew over it. ‘Bien,’ he murmured. ‘Très bien.’

  Printouts, images and notes detailing the most essential findings now covered three walls of the incident room. One wall was reserved for the suspects. They still didn’t know for certain if Jorge Pucao and his contacts were involved with the power outages, but the evidence was mounting.

  More than three dozen portraits were scattered on the wall. In the last twenty-four hours the notes had piled up around one photo in particular, that of Balduin von Ansen. The subject was a skinny man in his mid-thirties. He wore a three-day beard and fashionable rectangular glasses, his mid-length hair carefully parted on the left. Below the photo were six sheets of A4 paper arranged in two rows. On them was an elaborate graphic: dozens of lines connected boxes in which names and combinations of letters and numbers were noted.

  ‘We’ve had confirmation,’ Bollard announced, ‘that the two million from the account on Guernsey belonging to Karyon Ltd flowed in seven instalments over a six-month period to an account in the Caymans belonging to Utopia Enterprises, as well as to the Hundsrock Company in Switzerland. From there it went to an account registered to Bugfix in Liechtenstein and a numbered account in Switzerland. One of the owners of Bugfix – which is listed as a software consulting firm based in Tallahassee, Florida – is Siti Yusuf. His partner in the business, John Bannock, is one of Jorge Pucao’s two US contacts. Bannock hasn’t been heard from since 2011.’

  He added the corresponding entries to the graphic.

  ‘From these accounts, the money immediately went on to others. We’re looking into this. And I’ve just received word from the analysts in London that the attackers are working from two bases: one in Mexico, the other on the eastern Mediterranean or in the Middle East. That means we’re going to prioritize our analysis of money transfers headed to these regions.’

  Follow the money. ‘That was the …’ he heard Manzano mumbling. The Italian was rubbing his stubble as he leaned over one of the analysts, peering at the screen.

  ‘Look for … Stanbul! Type Stanbul in there.’

  Day 12 – Wednesday

  The Hague, Netherlands

  Bollard stuck the photo of a building alongside the other notes on Balduin von Ansen. The architecture didn’t immediately register with Manzano.

  ‘This complex on the Asian side of Istanbul was purchased by a firm named Süper Kompüter, which, according to information we’ve received from Turkey, rents the building out to six companies, all operating in different industries. The building lies in a part of town popular with international companies. Foreigners don’t draw attention here. The Turkish investigators have dug deeper into the companies’ ownership structures and business dealings, going over bank accounts and data from the Ministry of Finance over the past few years. The first match to come up was one of the owners: John Bannock. Then Dr Lekue Birabi, Pucao’s contact from Nigeria, showed up as a partner in a second company.’ He pinned up another printout. ‘They’ve also identified a transfer of two million euros from Costa Limited, Esmeralda and two other companies to Süper Kompüter.’ He tapped the image of the nondescript building with his finger. ‘One of the terrorist cells is probably here. Our Turkish colleagues have begun surveillance.’

  Ratingen, Germany

  ‘Did you follow up on the lead?’ asked Hartlandt.

  ‘The instrument displays, yes,’ answered Wickley. ‘We didn’t find anything.’

  ‘Show those parts of the program to my people,’ Hartlandt ordered. ‘They will double-check your findings.’

  Wickley and Dienhof exchanged nervous glances, which didn’t escape Hartlandt.

  ‘What?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘No problem,’ the executive replied suavely. ‘You’ll get them. Dienhof, take care of it.’

  It seemed to Hartlandt that the two of them were hiding something. Wickley was never going to crack, but Dienhof was sweating heavily and looking distinctly uncomfortable.

  ‘Functioning power plants are essential for rebuilding the grid,’ Hartlandt reminded them, determined to make clear to Dienhof what was at stake. ‘The grid cannot function until there are enough power plants to supply it – and they cannot get their generators up and running so long as these problems with the SCADA systems persist. Extremely critical situations are playi
ng out in two nuclear power plants. I realize you don’t develop software for nuclear facilities, but the backup systems at those two plants rely on the regular grid for their power. Already, thousands of people have been exposed to radiation, forced to evacuate their homes . . .’

  He paused, observing the reaction to his lecture.

  ‘Ghastly,’ said Wickley.

  Dienhof grimaced, swallowed, managed to nod.

  ‘If the grid is not restored, the same thing could happen in Germany …’

  ‘I’d like to, um …’ Dienhof cleared his throat, ‘show you something.’

  Wickley closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. When he opened them again, Hartlandt could see that he had won.

  McLean, Virginia, USA

  Richard Price, interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center, studied the printouts his deputy had spread out on the table. Europol’s investigation into the suspects’ revenue streams had led them to an address in Mexico City. The building in question had been purchased two years previously by a US citizen.

  ‘What do we have on this Norbert Butler?’ asked Price.

  ‘The guy’s a fanatical opponent of the state. He was active in the Tea Party for a while, then disappeared four months ago.’

  Price looked up from the photograph of Butler. ‘A Tea Party member and he’s working with Pucao and Birabi – a Latino and an African, both of them left-wing anarchists?’

  ‘Left, right, doesn’t seem to matter to Butler as long as they’re against the state. Natural enemies, united by their hatred of the ruling system and their determination to dismantle it.’

  ‘But why would Butler actively enable these bastards to kill American citizens?’

  ‘Why not? It didn’t bother Timothy McVeigh when he planted his truck bomb in Oklahoma City. One hundred and sixty-eight American citizens killed, nineteen of them kindergarteners.’