Arabian Collusion

by James Lawrence

  “They must be confident they have it under control. Despite my lack of knowledge of computers, as the owner of the system, I think they’d let me know if I was about to lose our biggest intel asset.”

  “Yeah, they seem to have it under control. But the attack is taking all of the machine’s capacity, which has effectively shut down the search for our bad guys.”

  “It feels like we’re losing the momentum. Omer and Abbas are in the hands of your interrogators. Have they given you anything useful?”

  “No, not really. Omer had a slightly different agenda than Prince Turki. They threw in together because Omer wanted Turki’s funding and they both had an axe to grind against Saudi, albeit for different reasons.”

  “I get that Turki wants payback for his Riyadh Ritz experience. What’s Omer’s grievance with the Kingdom?”

  “Omer’s a nationalist; he wants a return of the Ottoman Empire. He dreams of a second Turkish caliphate. Restoring the empire requires knocking down and then retaking pieces of the old empire. Saudi Arabia—especially Mecca and Medina—is an important part of the old empire’s identity.”

  “That boy is delusional.”

  “He’s bat shit crazy. All of the Grey Wolves are.”

  “What next?” I asked.

  “The Director gave the order to take Prince Turki in. The cousins cooperated, and a team of MI-5 accompanied by our people went to his home in London to arrest him. They searched his estate and he was gone.”

  “Didn’t you have him under surveillance?”

  “We did, around the clock. We found a tunnel connecting to an adjacent building. He bolted and now we’re trying to find him.”

  “Clearwater is great at those kinds of searches, but from what you’ve told me, they’re not going to be any help this time, as they’re too busy battling it out in cyberspace, fighting off the hacker hordes.”

  “We’ll find him. He owns a lot of properties around the world, and it’s going to take some time to check all of them.”

  “If he’s dumb enough to hide in another place he owns. Although I’m sure they’re all owned by untraceable shell companies. How’s the situation in the region?”

  “It’s calming everywhere except Iran and Saudi. KSA is on the edge. The Saudi government may not be able to hold on; the situation is escalating into a full-blown civil war. Iran’s fully mobilized, and is now cracking down hard on the protestors. The Mullahs looked to have stopped the revolution and will stay in charge.”

  “Do you think if we find Turki, he’ll lead us to the source of the propaganda campaign, and that once we shut the social media network down the tensions will decline?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Sounds too easy. It’s hard to believe people can be influenced so easily by media that you can incite a civil war with Twitter messages.”

  “The Spanish American War was purposely triggered by a media giant who planted a false report about the U.S.S. Maine. ‘Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain’ was yellow journalism at its peak. To this day, nobody knows why the Maine blew up in Havana harbor, but that didn’t stop Hearst from fanning the flames until the US declared war on Spain. Never underestimate the power of the press. In the Middle East, they have ten times more faith in the accuracy of the internet and social media because the state-controlled television and print media have been feeding them propaganda for decades.”

  “I suppose it could be possible.”

  “It’s definitely possible. We need to find Prince Turki; he’s bound to know the source of the information campaign.”

  “He manages an empire. It can’t be very easy for him to remain out of communication with his businesses for long.”

  “Believe me, we’re working that angle. Having Clearwater distracted doesn’t help.”

  “You’re not the only one paying the price. I haven’t seen Cheryl for days.”

  “What are you doing with yourself?”

  “Lots of fishing. How much time do you have? If you want, we could leave now and get in a couple of hours.”

  “It’s going to be dark soon.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of night fishing? It’s a thing.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t; I have work. Don’t you ever get bored with your life of leisure?”

  “Never. What bores me is all this talk of cyber warfare. Nerds battling it out behind computer screens. The face of warfare has gone from Conan the Barbarian to Doctor Forrest. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “You’re an anachronism.”

  “Yeah, and if that’s not bad enough, I’ve lost the attention of my soulmate to the nerd warriors.”

  “That’s what’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, a little bit.”

  “Are you hungry, do you feel like grilling up some steaks?” Mike said while tapping the gas grill bolted in behind his chair.

  We were downstairs in the Salon watching the first game of a Red Sox-Orioles double header. We had switched to wine; I found an Insignia 2012 Bordeaux from Napa, and I was showing Mike the reviews on my phone app when a text message came in from 99999999.

  “From David Forrest. ALICE has been penetrated, disconnect all network devices from the internet and remove all power sources until further notification.”

  “Who’s Alice?” I asked.

  “ALICE is the name of Professor Forrest’s artificial intelligence.” As he was speaking, Mike looked at his phone. He must have received the same message.

  “He was smart to keep that from me. I never would’ve let him play with the cool kids if I found out he was naming his computer.”

  “It stands for Artificial Learning Intelligent Computing Experiment; it’s had that name since he first filed for grant money with the University of Edinburgh.”

  “That ends the ball game. I need to unplug everything on this boat connected to a network, and then we can drive to Clearwater and find out what’s going on over there.”

  “What are you going to do about your iPhone?” Mike asked.

  “I’m going to shut it off and put it in the Faraday box I keep downstairs. You should let me put yours in there too.”

  It took a full thirty minutes to unplug my personal computer, satellite dish, Apple TV, boat NAV system, and emergency locator beacon (EPIRB). I put the stuff with a battery that I couldn’t remove, like the sat phones, iPhones and iPad, into the Faraday box I keep in the engine room. I’ve done enough tactical operations in stealth mode using the Sam Houston to know what systems connect to a network that could compromise my position. It wasn’t the first time I’d been through the drill.

  We drove to Clearwater in Mike’s rental; he said the opposition could hack into the OnStar on my Suburban, but they were less likely to know about his rental.

  “This scenario has a 2001 Space Odyssey quality to it,” I said.

  “HAL, is that you?” Mike replied.

  When we arrived at Clearwater, we couldn’t get into the building. The security system had been disabled and the card reader and biometric reader were not operating. I banged on the heavy steel door for fifteen minutes before Cheryl finally opened it. She was soaked with sweat, her hair was in a ponytail and all she was wearing were running shorts and a t-shirt. The hangar was sweltering hot.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I’m disconnecting all of your equipment. The plane, the helicopters, the drones, the communications systems, the navigation aids. It’s too much; I could use a hand.”

  “I’m on it. How far did you get?” I said.

  “Both of the unmanned helicopters are disabled. I started with the most dangerous first. Everything else still needs to be disconnected.”

  “Sachse, McDonald, Migos, and Jankowski showed up within the next hour. It took another three hours to get everything unplugged. The air conditioning returned as we were finishing up.”

  Sitting around the conference room table there were
eight of us drinking sodas. We were all dirty and sweaty. David Forrest looked the worst. He’s older and heavier than the rest of the team to begin with, and the overwork and lack of sleep were taking a heavy toll. This was the first time I’d ever seen him without a sports jacket. He looked completely distraught and broken.

  “What just happened?” I asked.

  “ALICE was penetrated. It was a complete breach. Before they overtook everything, ALICE sent a dying-breath message to everyone connected, or who have been connected to the Clearwater network, to protect themselves from further infiltration.”

  “The bad guys got into your computer system. What did they take?” I asked.

  “Everything. A complete data theft. Not only that, they almost succeeded in taking control of ALICE. They were the ones who were shutting off lights, locking doors and taking control of the hangar.”

  “Is that it? Is everything OK now?”

  “No, far from it. The people who launched the attack were able to defeat one of the most advanced AI systems in the world. ALICE is powered by a CRAY supercomputer; very few people in the world own that much computing power, and even fewer have the programming skills to do what was done tonight. These people now know everything ALICE knew about you and about Clearwater.”

  “This is a total security breach,” Mike said.

  “Yes, and we’ve been networked to CIA, NSA, NRO, FBI, DOD & JSOC networks with ALICE. Everything is compromised. They know who Clearwater is, and they know who every one of you are. I think you should expect them to go after your personal life, your financials and every other aspect of your life that can be harmed through a computer. These people mean serious business.”

  “The government agencies have their own firewalls. I’m sure they haven’t been breached,” Mike said.

  “Not yet they haven’t, and whoever did this, probably doesn’t want to take on the US Government. It’s already toppling several in the Middle East, and it just killed ALICE,” David said with enough emotion to make one believe he had just lost his wife.

  “Jankowski’s going to have his Tinder account hacked. That’s going to create serious havoc at the local high school,” said Migos.

  “Let’s stay focused. Before ALICE caught a bullet on the digital battlefield, did we learn anything about where this attack was coming from?” I asked.

  “No, but we did learn some things that may help in narrowing it down,” David Forrest said.

  “OK, narrow it down for us.”

  “The attacker has greater capabilities than we do, which means they have faster computational speed which requires a very well-funded organization with top programmers. They most likely were using some form of artificial intelligence,” David said.

  “How many organizations in the world fit that profile, and where are they?”

  “There are roughly four hundred and fifty supercomputers in service around the world. There are eleven manufacturers. Almost all of the manufacturers are in the US, except for three in Japan, and one in China. NUDT in China has built the world’s most powerful computer and the Chinese have the worst reputation for this sort of thing.”

  “Do you think this attack came from China?” I asked.

  “Doubtful. We were able to trace the path of some of the code used against us, and I believe the origin is in the Middle East or North Africa.”

  “What you’re telling us is that we need to locate every super computer in the world, all four hundred and fifty or whatever the real number is. And if we can find a system that’s located in the Middle East or North Africa, we’ll have found our attacker,” I said.

  “It will narrow down the suspects,” David answered.

  “We keep track of that information. I’ll reach back to Langley and get you answers ASAP.”

  “What are we going to do now about communications?” asked Migos.

  “I am going to restore ALICE from backup and keep her offline until I know I can protect against another penetration. Understand that what just happened is the exploitation. They took hundreds of terabytes of information. What they do with that information will be the actual attack. We don’t know what that attack will be, or when it will happen,” David said.

  “Don’t you think the purpose of the penetration was to get you offline because you were searching for the source of the information campaign against the Saudis?” Mike asked.

  “Sure, it’s possible they’ll stop now that ALICE is offline. But, I don’t think we should assume that will be the case,” David said.

  “That doesn’t answer my question; how do we communicate?” Migos asked.

  “Burner cellphones. Assume an alias ID until this is over,” I replied.

  “What’s the impact on Trident?” Cheryl asked Dave.

  “Clearwater does the intel workup for every Trident mission, even the routine cargo deliveries. They took a lot of information on Trident they can use. What they didn’t get is any of the logistics and financial data that flows between Trident and the US Government agencies.”

  “That’s good news, so they probably didn’t drain the Trident bank accounts yet,” I said.

  “These guys are good enough to do that. You should add extra protections to everything you do online,” he said.

  It was getting late, and I tried to get Cheryl to return back to the boat with me, but she refused. I settled for sharing her twin bed in her office bedroom. She was exhausted and fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Words cannot describe my disappointment.

  I woke up the next morning alone. I put on a fresh pair of jeans and a black t-shirt that said Glacier Rafting and headed out to find coffee. In the kitchen area of the Trident side of the hangar, I found a fresh pot of coffee and a box of donuts. Holding out the donuts was Migos. He seemed particularly pleased with himself.

  “What’s with the grin? Don’t you know we’re experiencing cyber Armageddon here?”

  “I know boss, it’s serious, but watching you wander around aimlessly is just funny as hell.”

  “I’m not wandering aimlessly. I came to the kitchen focused like a laser on coffee and donuts.”

  “Admit it; you have no idea what to do in this situation.”

  “Of course, I do. I’m going to find these hacker geeks and then I’m going to strangle them. But first, I’m going to eat this jelly donut.”

  “Boss, what we’re seeing here is the future and I don’t think you have a place in it.”

  “In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, the future isn’t what it used to be.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Computer hackers will never replace soldiers. If the nerds figure out how to disable modern weapons, that just means future wars will be fought the old-fashioned way, with swords and spears.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah, I do. Right now, there’s a computer whiz somewhere out there, filled with self-confidence and absolutely thrilled with himself for shutting down our network. He’s probably more stoked about re-wiring the social media platforms. But when guys like that break the modern technology, guys like us counter old school. Everybody has a weakness. To quote the great philosopher Yogi, ‘even Napoleon had his Watergate.’”

  “Don’t underestimate the computer whiz.”

  “I won’t, but he shouldn’t underestimate us, just because his computer beat up our computer.”

  A low-pitched wail was heard over the hum of the hangar air conditioning system.

  “What was that?” Migos asked.

  “I don’t know; it sounded like one of the Ents in Lord of the Rings,” I said, before taking a bite out of my donut. Then we heard it again.

  “It’s coming from the Clearwater office. Let’s check it out.”

  I took a 9mm P226 from the weapons locker on my way to the Clearwater wing. We went through reception into the computer room. Cheryl was standing over Doctor Forrest who was seated behind a computer console. Dave’s hands were covering his face and he was making deep guttural
sounds that can only be described as what absolute anguish sounds like.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “GSS in Scotland has been compromised; that’s the first thing we learned this morning. We have contagion. When David tried to turn ALICE on this morning, he was locked out of the system. He’s received a ransom message,” Cheryl said.

  “The computer’s being held hostage?” I said.

  “Yes,” Cheryl said.

  “Can I see the message?”

  “It’s still on the screen.”

  “Migos, can you sedate Doctor Forrest? The poor guy hasn’t slept in days, and he’s useless in his current state.” Migos grabbed the semi-catatonic David from his chair and led him away from the computer console. Like most special operations units, the guys on our team had a mini-pharmacy at their disposal. I was sure Migos would find a way to guarantee Doctor Forrest a good twelve hours of rest.

  I looked at the screen to see the message.

  “Transfer ten million dollars to the swift code and account number below and you will receive the password to access your computer,” it said.

  “What does this mean?” I asked.

  “It means they inserted a Trojan horse in the backup. Dave stayed up all night scrubbing and cleaning the drives, then when he restored the system from the backup, he brought in the ransomware.”

  “That’s just great.”

  “Are you going to pay?”

  “No, I don’t think these guys care about the money. If I tried to transfer money to them, they’d probably hijack my bank account or do some other mischief. I’d rather just ask them for the password face-to-face.”

  “We need to find them.”

  “Mike’s people are working on it. You should focus on the same; do some old-fashioned intelligence work, pre-ALICE. David will be good after some rest, and then he can help out,” I said.

  “Do you think so?”

  “I’ve been so tired before that I’ve had hallucinations. Migos will put him down, and when he wakes up, he’ll be good to go.”