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Robson, William
Elevated Threat, 2nd Edition
ISBN: 978-1-61339-785-5
1. FICTION / Thrillers / Political
2. FICTION / Thrillers / Suspense
3. FICTION / Thrillers / General
DEDICATION
This book paints a disturbing picture of one possible imagined future. The opportunity for all Americans to freely peer into their futures, ponder each of the myriad of possibilities, and then choose their own reality. This is only possible because of the bravery and dedication of soldiers like Captain Matthew Dobyns and all the men and women that fight with him on our behalf. The fact that the scenarios depicted herein can still be presented to the reader as fiction, and not as history, stand as a testament to their effort and skill in keeping us safe.
CONTENTS
PROBING
SLEIGHT OF HAND
NO MORE SECRETS
CRUISING FOR TROUBLE
NO POLITICAL WILL
MOVING TARGET
SHIPPING DEATH
THE MACHINES TAKE OVER
THE INTERNET NEVER LIES
MANIFESTO
PERCEPTION BECOMES REALITY
THE SLEEPING GIANT AWAKES
AMERICA DEVELOPS A BACKBONE
WHAT IF WE FOUGHT WARS TO WIN?
FOREWORD
In the brief sliver of time that lies between what has been, and what will be, lies a world of endless possibilities and infinite probabilities. It’s within that tiny sliver of time when the universal question “What If” becomes entirely valid and every answer to that question becomes plausible. People willing to ask that question at just the right time are able to prepare themselves for any reality their imaginations can create. Those not willing to expand their minds and ask the question can only expect to deal with the aftermath when time shifts from what’s possible and into that new reality.
This book inserts us into that sliver of time and paints one version of our possible future reality by asking the questions:
What if the people who were bent on terrorizing Western civilization were not just disgruntled young men with pressure-cooker bombs whose effects on our society could only be felt as far as they can make the nails and ball bearings fly?
What if a new organization of “True Believers” arose that consisted of scientists, medical professionals, and computer engineers who shared a common insidious goal, and possessed the capability to pull it off?
What if this new type of terrorist organization could not be stopped with metal detectors and bag checks? We must trust that our security professionals are prepared to protect us from an intelligent adversary that knows how to stay one step ahead.
What if this new type of terrorist had the ability to reach into everyone’s daily lives and force us into a new reality? A reality that we never saw coming, even in our most heinous nightmares.
Are we prepared for a new type of terrorism? Are you?
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ability to put away the concerns of daily life and ponder the “What Ifs” of the world do not come easy. Without a wife’s support for my dreams, a daughter’s tireless effort to help make the words resonate, and a son’s endless optimism about life, the question would have always been: What if I had written a book?
To them I send my everlasting gratitude and love.
PROBING
Name: Dr. Faisal Barija MD/PhD
Age: 47
Nationality: Pakistani
Education: Linköping University Sweden, Department of Medical and Health Sciences. Specialized in Immunology.
Professional History: Primate Research on retro-virus mutations.
Family history: Father (Kameel), Mother (Kehkashan). Both parents were medical doctors. Both deceased. (Note-believed killed by Taliban attack in Peshawar).
Current whereabouts: Unknown
Current watch-list status: Green
April 15, 2015
Seattle, Washington
It was only 6:30 a.m. but Clyde was already having a bad day. Working as a dispatcher offloading cargo containers on the Seattle docks meant he never really would have a great day, but this one was shaping up to be worse than normal. Those stupid new M21 Remote Sensing Chemical Agent Alarm (RSCAAL) sensors that the Homeland Security boys had installed last week to replace the Joint Service Lightweight Standoff Chemical Agent Detector (JSLSCAD) were turning out to be a giant pain in his ass. Clyde decided they had been created to generate false alarms, and now he was dealing with one more. When they had installed the first generation detectors a couple of years ago the grief they caused was bad enough, but with these new ones, it was just getting ridiculous.
Being born and raised in a quiet suburb of the Seattle area requires that you adopt several idiosyncrasies if you intend to stay sane, and Clyde was no exception. Even now as a short, balding man in his 50’s he still wore his Save the Orca’s t-shirts to work. If it wasn’t for the silly requirements that all dock workers must wear steel-tip boots, he would have his Birkenstock sandals on his feet twenty-four seven. Yes, socks and all.
Goof ball that Clyde was, he even took the steel from some old casters he had laying around the house one weekend and drilled some holes through the edges and with some leather straps tied the steel onto an old set of sandals and wore them to work as a joke. His boss thought it was real funny. So funny he gave Clyde the day off without pay so he could think up some other funny stuff to bring to work. Union bosses have no sense of humor. Then again, after 30 plus years on the job, Clyde was still weighing trucks on the docks while the other “less funny” workers had been promoted to more appropriate jobs for someone their age.
Usually a bad day started with Clyde’s worn out knees telling him it was time to retire. But today, the sun was not even warm yet and when Clyde looked out his trailer window he could see that the short-haul truckers were already backed up all the way down First Avenue waiting for their load to be weighed. And as Clyde knew all too well when the short-haul truckers get anxious, they never shut up.
As Clyde sat in the operations room (the drab white single-wide trailer the workers called their office) trying to reset the RSCAAL, the remaining short-haulers started honking their horns in a not very quiet protest at his delay. Clyde was now much more worried about having to explain to his boss about why he had already worked for two hours and so far had only sent three loads on their way. With only two years left before his retirement, it seemed like each new day on the job for Clyde was turning into an eternity. Clyde was running out of hair to turn grey.
When the containers are lifted off the ships by the crane operators, they are placed on a skiff and then locked in place on a fifth-wheel trailer. The short-haulers snap onto the trailer and then pull it acros
s the dock to the weigh station where Clyde would record a weight, sign a bill of lading, and send the driver to one of three holding centers where the load would be dropped off. From the holding center, the load would be turned over to a long-haul trucker and it would be sent to all corners of the country. The short-haul trucker would speed back to the dock and pick up a new load. Simple.
In the good old days, getting a container full of goodies from the ship to the warehouse only took three sets of blue-collar hands, lots of coffee, and some Peterbilt trucks. After 9/11 though, all manner of investigators (federal, state, and local) had descended on the docks. Each investigative unit had their own agenda, groups of techies, and wads of cash from the taxpayers. To Clyde, each new security team and the equipment they brought only had one goal in mind – to make Clyde’s life a living hell. Each team that descended on the docks brought new rules, and worse, new electronic gear that was supposed to keep us safe from the invisible invasion that would come from the sea. Each new antenna, each new monitor, each new procedure made getting a container from Point A to Point B slower and costlier.
These latest RSCAAL chemical sensors that had recently been added to the ever growing arsenal of security were proving to be particularly troublesome. Clyde’s weigh scales were shut down for a solid week while it was being installed and calibrated by all the geeks with the spiky hair and laptops. Despite the techies’ assurances that everything was good to go, Clyde was discovering that after a good rain (and how often would that be in Seattle?), the RSCAAL’s alarms would sound off for no apparent reason. Since the main gate to the lot wouldn’t open if the RSCAAL’s alarm had been triggered, unloading a ship would come to a standstill every time they went off, even if it was a false alarm.
Each time the RSCAAL’s alarms would go off, Clyde would shut down the line and call the special alert number on his communications panel. Everyone would wait until the techies in the white vans would show up. Scads of young men and women would swarm the equipment, plugging in laptops, and after spending another $8,000 of taxpayer money, they would reset the system from the office and head back to wherever it was that they came from and wait for the next call.
Clyde decided that on this April day the cycle had to be broken. So when the chirp, chirp, chirp from the RSCAAL console started its annoying warning sounds this morning, and the truck driver stared at him through the window with the look of death if he did not let him leave with the load, Clyde had an epiphany. Clyde leaned out of the station office and yelled at the driver to pull off the scale, make a U-turn and enter the scale from the other direction. While the driver was turning around, Clyde reset the console panel the way he had watched the smartasses with the acronym surnames do it. Hopefully, by having the truck enter the scale from the other direction, the sniffer would be tricked into resetting. Besides, Clyde figured that even if this didn’t work, it would at least keep the driver’s yap shut for a while.
While the truck was clumsily turning around in the confined space, Clyde reset the digital counter on the sniffer to zero, queued up the weight recorder, and hoped this was the miracle idea he needed. As the truck pulled back onto the scale, Clyde rolled his eyes up to the heavens and held his breath. Then came the sweet sound of silence. No alarms. All dials were showing green status and a valid weight was showing on the scale.
“Sweet. I guess you don’t need a PhD after your name to beat the system after all.” Clyde thought to himself. The main gate reopened and the driver even gave a smartass wave out the window as he headed out into the morning traffic. Thankfully, for the next several hours the alarms stayed quiet.
The short-haul drivers are not given much respect by the dock workers. They are primarily lower-educated foreigners doing the dirty grunt work of getting the containers to the holding depots. It does not help that many came to Seattle from Middle Eastern countries where their countrymen are often on the evening news declaring death to the “Great Satan”. The drivers don’t help their cause with the dock workers by always congregating together and speaking in their native language to each other. Despite the fact that they are just trying to feed their families like everyone else, they tend to not get any sympathy from union boys named Smitty or Mike, whose families have been working these docks for three generations.
To the short-haul drivers, the Americans running the cranes and the scales and the big equipment were lazy and overpaid. The short-haul drivers only get paid by the number of loads they can move in a day, so if they are delayed for any reason they make less money. When they feel slighted they start complaining. Sometimes they complain about traffic, sometimes about the rain, but they mostly complain about the dock workers. It is no secret then that the two groups do not much care for the other. However, since everyone working the docks has their paycheck intertwined with each other’s, the distrust and tension between the two groups is mainly kept in check. But it continues to simmer just below the surface.
Despite that distrust and Clyde’s deep union roots, there was one driver that Clyde got along with, even if he may never admit it out loud. A young man named Assad Nakhti would always keep to himself and never argue or complain like the other drivers. After every load, Assad would always stop his truck as he exited the scale and thank Clyde for his help. Assad did not chain smoke like the other drivers and he always spoke in his best broken English, never in his native Egyptian language. Clyde saw in Assad a young hard worker just out to do his best and support his family. Clyde couldn’t help but respect Assad for that.
Assad Nakhti moved his family to Seattle from Cairo right before the Arab Spring started turning his home country into a fight between political factions. Assad was like the vast majority of immigrants to America in that all he wanted was to provide for his family and raise his children in a safe environment. Free from the binds of religious doctrine saddling his choices, he did his best to assimilate into the society around him. That effort got him noticed.
Occasionally, one of the depot chiefs would run short on long-haul drivers and would ask Clyde if he could recommend any of the short-haulers to take the route. Since a single long-haul run could earn a driver five or six times more money than they could make offloading ships for a day, all the drivers were keen to get that work. Some of the drivers would go as far as offering bribes for getting a recommendation. Clyde would always recommend Assad when the opportunity came up. Clyde never acknowledged to Assad that he was responsible for the extra work he was given, but both men silently knew that was the case.
So when Clyde saw Assad’s face in the truck window looking back from the scale on this morning, he was happy to let him know that a delivery into Idaho had become available, and that the depot dispatcher had already agreed to send Assad on the trip. Assad was thrilled at the news because he needed some money for his son’s school supplies. Clyde smiled – it was the first bright spot in his day.
Unfortunately, that bright spot was quickly blotted out by the sound of that stupid RSCAAL sniffer acting up again. Squawk. Squawk. Squawk. “Oh shut the hell up”, Clyde yelled.
Clyde was hopeful his new found trick would work again. Clyde informed Assad to turn his truck around and enter the scale from the opposite direction while he fiddled with the controls. Sure enough it worked again. The main gate opened and Assad was on his way to Idaho. Clyde was starting to feel pretty smug about himself.
The rest of the morning went without incident. Trucks came and went and the pile of containers stacked on the ship deck continued to get smaller and smaller. Even when the inevitable afternoon Seattle rains started blowing in from the Puget Sound, it looked like Clyde’s day was going to end normally. Then:
Squawk. Squawk. Squawk. “Crap, here we go again.”
Clyde, hoping the third time would be a charm, asked the driver to turn around and cross the scales from the other direction. But this time, Squawk, squawk, squawk came the alarm, the gate didn’t open, and the instruments in his control room froze. No amount of Clyde’s newly found bag o
f tricks were able to fix the problem this time around. It was time to call that stupid number again and wait for the white vans to arrive.
Clyde came out of the office and told the drivers what had happened and explained that there would be an hour or more to wait before he could weigh any other loads. The drivers responded by honking their horns and giving Clyde a collective one-fingered salute. Clyde knew by the way the truckers were all standing together, pointing at him and speaking rapidly in some God-forsaken language that he should probably leave them alone right now. But when he saw them packing up and leaving the lot he couldn’t believe his eyes. They all just turned off their trucks, right where they were, and walked away.
Since it was now late in the work day and the union boys were soon to be heading home, the short-haul truckers apparently knew no more loads were going to be off loaded from the ship anyway, so they just abandoned everything right where it was. Soon, other than the occasional passerby, Clyde found himself more or less alone on a one-square-mile patch of concrete waiting for the second shift to arrive. Clyde had never seen anything like it.
To top it all off, the techs in the white vans were taking their own sweet time showing up. It was now getting cold and the rain was starting to get heavier. Just wonderful. After sitting in the office for what seemed an eternity, curiosity started creeping into Clyde’s head about what was hiding inside that container. He started daydreaming that maybe there really was some evil plot unfolding right before his eyes. Perhaps he could be the hero, stopping the latest evil empire from invading our shores. Or maybe there was just some dog crap on the container setting off the alarms. Despite all the rules to the contrary, Clyde’s curiosity started to get the better of him and finding the answer was quickly becoming more important than following rules. Besides, taking a peek was certainly better than sitting alone in a trailer waiting.
All container shipments are sealed by the inspection authorities at the port of exit and again at customs (if opened). But it wasn’t uncommon for the thin metal security straps to break when the containers were bumped into each other or when the workers moved them, so Clyde figured it was worth a shot to see if he could get a look inside. When Clyde went around to the back door of the container, he discovered that not only was the seal firmly in place, but that the doors had a very sophisticated padlock on them as well. That was most unusual. The first thing Clyde thought when he saw the padlock was he hoped the company or person receiving the container had the key, as that large padlock wasn’t coming off easily.
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