“He lost ALICE 2 here with Clearwater, and now he’s lost ALICE 1 with GSS in Edinburgh. The man is devastated; it’s his life’s work.”
“You should notify GSS of what could happen if they try to restore from backup,” I said.
“Good idea, the backup of ALICE 1 is all he has left,” she said.
Chapter 22
Tangier, Morocco
Prince Turki was on a PlayStation 4 located in his palace in Tangiers. He forbade his servants and his mistress from entering the entertainment room during his daily noon gaming ritual. He scrolled through the “God of War” menu, and made his way into the chat room. He found a private message from XOES: “I have vanquished Aphrodite; she’s off the board,” the message read. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess who lived in Cyprus, and the message meant that his man had neutralized the source of the intrusions that had been coming from Cyprus over the past week. Prince Turki typed: “Congratulations on your victory. How goes the campaign to the East?” he messaged under the username NEJD.
“Fighting escalates daily. Casualties yesterday reached seventeen hundred dead, many times that wounded. Military and police salaries were not paid this month due to a computer glitch (he he), but social media reports it’s because several key leaders have fled the country with the funds. Defections among security forces are growing. Estimated time to victory is projected to be between four to six weeks.” XOES.
The news brought a smile to Prince Turki’s face. He erased the messages and shut the system off. Except for the daily update on the computer game chat-board with a man he liked to think of as his general in the field, he used no other media devices. He banned all cell phones and computers from the house. His favorite Moroccan mistress was particularly upset about being denied her iPhone, but he was able to overcome her protests about Facebook withdrawal with the promise of a new car. He needed to lie low for only another six weeks. Final victory was so close he could taste it.
Chapter 23
Paphos, Cyprus
Communications were restored, and Clearwater returned to operations without its feature asset, ALICE, a name I had never heard until the crisis. Cheryl soldiered on without the aid of supercomputer-powered artificial intelligence. David returned to Scotland to nurse his precious ALICE 1 back to health. ALICE 2 remained a hostage to the nefarious computer hackers. Cheryl was working more reasonable hours and coming home to the boat at night. The Trident cargo deliveries and resultant revenue resumed. Everything was not completely back to normal, but two weeks after the cyber-attack, a sense of normalcy and equilibrium had been achieved.
I was in the galley fixing a chicken stir fry when Cheryl walked in. I turned when she opened the triple sliding doors leading into the salon. She looked magnificent; she always does. She’s drop dead gorgeous and knows it. She’s fashion model thin and, at 5’7”, she’s exceptionally tall for a Chinese woman. She came up behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist. I put down the spatula, turned and gave her a hug. She has a tiny waist and a really nice body; I like holding her a lot.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Good, we’re making progress.”
“That’s nice.”
“We’ve had to create an ad hoc team between the Agency and Clearwater. It’s too early to say for certain, but I think we’re close to a breakthrough.”
“Anything I can do?” I asked.
“No, this isn’t your thing. Do I have time to change?”
“Yeah, if you hurry.”
I finished up and set the table. Cheryl joined me on the bench seat at the galley table as I was serving.
“What no wine, no beer?” she said.
“It goes right to my hips,” I said. “I have sparkling water with lemon and, by the way, thanks for asking about my day.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I cook, I clean, I work so hard. Today I ran, I lifted, I went to the pistol range, I detailed the engine room and serviced the tender. You didn’t ask, you didn’t even notice what I’m wearing, that I put on my brand new Under Armour t-shirt tonight that accentuates my biceps and shrinks my waist to get your attention.”
“Are you feeling underappreciated, darling?”
“Yes, and it wouldn’t hurt if you took me out once in a while. I have feelings, you know.”
Cheryl started to giggle and then transitioned to a full out laugh. It was contagious, and I did the same.
“Look at us,” she said with a smile.
“Total role reversal. The world is upside down, dogs sleeping with cats, the works.”
A breakthrough arrived, but it didn’t come from Clearwater. It arrived the old-fashioned way, from the CIA station in Egypt. It was almost entirely by accident. A member of the Egyptian MOI on the CIA payroll supplied information on a content-farming operation in Cairo to his handler. MOI was monitoring a subject who worked at the facility.
The facility had all of the appearances of a legitimate operation. It was a registered company. Alexandria Marketing Services was a call center that provided contract support to a number of major retail brand-name electronics manufacturers in the Middle East. AMS had over three hundred service representatives working on each of its three shifts. The company owned an eight-story building in the Al-Zaytoun area of Cairo near the airport. Like most of Cairo, Al-Zaytoun is a heavily congested urban area. The AMS building was nondescript and nothing about the operations stood out. If the MOI had not been tailing a political activist who also happened to work at AMS, it likely never would’ve been identified as a content farm. The MOI was lucky when they found it, and the CIA was lucky when they found out about it from MOI. The Egyptian authorities are not all that friendly to the USA these days, and the Egyptian government doubtlessly has no objections to the content-farming operation. Had one of the MOI investigators not been on the CIA payroll, it’s unlikely the US ever would’ve known of its existence.
I flew to Dubai with Cheryl to meet Mike. He was on a layover, but couldn’t share any of the details. Le Meridien in Dubai is an old, sprawling, three floor airport hotel. Cheryl and I flew Emirates and then took a taxi from Terminal 3 to the hotel, which was less than a mile away. We met Mike in his room.
“Cheryl, you look fantastic!” Mike said after giving Cheryl a hug.
“Thank you, Michael. It’s nice to no longer be reminded of our experience in Istanbul every time I look in the mirror.”
“Well, you’re as beautiful as ever.”
“Did I tell you I’m cutting down on the carbs and I’ve dropped an inch in my waistline?” I mentioned.
“Hey Pat, yeah that’s good to know,” Mike said taking Cheryl by the arm and leading her to the couch in the sitting area.
I followed and sat next to Cheryl on the couch, across the coffee table from Mike who was seated on a lounge chair.
“Based on the information provided by Clearwater before the cyberattack crashed your system and what we’ve discovered, this is how we think the information war is being waged.
“There’s at least one content farm where social media messages, YouTube videos, and images are being created by fake users and sent out to the Twittersphere to undermine the Saudi Government.
“In addition to the synthetic messaging, there are also organic messages being created from actual Saudi users that are harmful to the Saudi Government.
“On the major platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp— the anti-government messages are reaching subscribers who are not followers, friends and addressees. The anti-government messages are reaching an audience many multiples beyond the normal ranges of the social media services. Pro-government messages are having the opposite experience.
“The barriers Saudi has in place to shut down and limit access to the internet are not working. Widespread use of VPNs by the people is one reason. A bigger reason is hacks into the Saudi communication companies that are shutting down the gateways that filter communications. This has thwarted the Saudi Government’s ability to counter
the threat.
“Believe it or not, we have a good working relationship with the heads of the major social media companies. We’re all in the information business. We’re convinced they’re not complicit, but we believe their platforms have been compromised in some way, so as to make the anti-government messages more effective.
“By more effective, I mean geometric multiples more effective. The same message sent out to an audience with the same number of followers will actually reach a hugely different number of subscribers, 1000 to 1 in some instances where it has been tracked. A pro-government message will reach a thousand people, while an anti-government message is reaching a million, and that’s when both senders have the same number of contacts or followers in their network.”
“Can’t you request the social media companies stop it?” Cheryl asked.
“We have, but it’s not that easy, because it shouldn’t happen, and they don’t know how it’s happening.”
“And you believe them?” Cheryl said.
“We do. There’s no motive or reason why all four of these publicly traded companies would incite a revolution,” Mike said.
“But they are.”
“Each of them is diving into the inner workings of their code to figure out how their systems are being co-opted; they’ll get it figured out eventually. In the meantime, we need to disable the content-farming operations,” he said.
“This must be why I was invited to this meeting,” I said
“Exactly, we have a target package of AMS managers we want you to capture. We want to interrogate them for any clues connecting the content farm to Silicon Valley, and we want the site permanently disabled.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“It’s a work in progress. A modified CHAMP device is being shipped to your headquarters in Paphos. The fastest and easiest way to permanently take out hundreds, possibly thousands of computers, servers, tablets, phones and electronic devices at the AMS building is with an EMP weapon.”
“CHAMP is an EMP weapon?”
“It stands for Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project. It’s designed to go on a cruise missile, but we’re sending you a system that’s fitted onto the bed of a full-sized pickup truck. It has enough power to fry every electronic device inside the AMS building.”
“You want us to drive an EMP device to the AMS building and explode it?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t explode; it pulses a directed beam of microwave energy. The device is safe for humans, and only kills electronics. This one has been modified. The EMP will create an ultra-high frequency field with a range of up to 3.5 kilometers, and has a hundred gigawatts of power, which is a nuclear level EMP burst. I’ve been assured it will destroy every electronic in the AMS building and maybe even one or two of the buildings nearby.”
“OK, so we land in Cairo. Drive to AMS. Kidnap the three guys on this target list and nuke the electronics.”
“Yes.”
“How do we get an EMP device through customs at the Cairo Airport?”
“The system we deliver will be inside the housing of a 30KW generator. The people at customs won’t be able to tell the difference. Pay the duties and fees on the fake generator and drive it away.”
“What do we do with it when we’re done? Is it a one-time use?”
“It’s reusable. You’ll make two shots against the target to be sure and when you’re done, you need to demolish it and make sure it can’t be copied by our opposition. There’s only enough power in the battery for two shots.”
“OK, we can figure out the rest with what you gave us,” I said.
“What are the backgrounds of the three guys on the target list?”
“Dr. Hany Al-Sahkowi and Dr. Ahmed Zahran are Muslim Brotherhood. Both are faculty members at Cairo University in addition to being Senior VPs at AMS.”
“What do they teach?”
“Sahkowi teaches sociology. Zahran teaches political science.”
“Who’s the third guy?”
“The CEO, Osama Attiyais, is a Qatari citizen. He spends most of his time in Doha, and only visits the facility for a few days each month. The daily operations are managed by Sahkowi and Zahran. We think Attiyais is the money man.”
“He probably won’t be at the facility when we attack; we’ll have to grab him later.”
Chapter 24
Cairo, Egypt.
I drove my rented Citroen C5 past the AMS building for the second time. We had two days to wait for the pickup truck carrying the fake generator to clear customs, and I was using the time to conduct reconnaissance. It was the afternoon rush hour, and I was creeping along in front of the AMS building while the sound of car horns filled the air. I was scanning for available parking in front of the building when a van abruptly cut in front of me. I jammed on the brakes, narrowly missing the rear bumper of the van by inches. Cairo traffic and the bizarre behavior of the local drivers were going to make the timing of this operation challenging.
I returned to the Hilton, made a quick change, and located the gym. After lifting, I did another change and headed to the pool for a swim workout. My latest workout kick is fifty-meter sprints. After fifteen or twenty, I’m exhausted; it’s a great combination strength and cardio workout. The Hilton has three pools—a lap pool, a kiddy pool, and a big pool for the loungers. I try to limit the break between sprints to thirty seconds, but by the last one, I took over a minute. I had trouble hoisting myself up the ladder to get out of the pool. On my way back to my room, I found the other four guys occupying loungers next to the pool. There was some kind of conference going on at the hotel and whatever business the attendees were involved in, it required some of the prettiest girls in North Africa. If I had to guess, I’d say cosmetics, fashion, or pharmaceutical sales.
We were supposed to meet later in my room for the final go, no-go briefing, but I decided to get it over with.
“Let’s talk,” I said as I stepped out of my flip flops and jumped into the pool. The other guys followed me into the shallow end. I looked around and made sure it wasn’t possible for anyone to listen in.
“Where’s the truck?” I asked McDonald.
“It’s in the eastern parking lot. Not too far from the lobby.”
“Did you check it out.”
“It passed the diagnostic routines I was given.”
“What time did Sahkowi and Zahron make it into work this morning?” I asked Migos.
“Zahron showed up at 8:45 and Sahkowi at 11:10,” he said.
“Did you put the trackers on their cars?” I asked.
“They both have drivers who drop them off, because it’s impossible to get a parking spot in that area. We had to follow them. Burnia tagged Zahron’s car after his driver stopped at a coffee house. Jankowski caught Sahkowi’s when his driver stopped for afternoon prayer,” Migos said.
“We’re a go for tomorrow. We’ll execute on order, when both Shriners are at work.” We nicknamed the two targets as Shriner 1 and Shriner 2 after Zahron was seen wearing a red fez hat like the one sported by the Shriners.
“We’re off tonight, boss,” Migos said returning the attention of two young ladies sitting on the stairs leading into the shallow in. They were both looking our way.
“Stay focused Romeo, we’re on an operation.”
“If I don’t go and say hello, that would be a big red star-cluster telling the world that we’re on an operation. You don’t want me to blow our cover, do you?”
“No, of course not. Don’t get stupid.”
“Burnia, I need a wing-man and it’s time you began your education at the feet of the master. Come Padawan, let’s go.” The two broke off from our group. It wasn’t hard to figure out what the two ladies were staring at; Burnia, Jankowski and Migos are physical specimens. Combined, the three don’t have a bodyfat content adding up to over twenty percent. I left to shower and coordinate our exit from Egypt with the aircrew who were staying at the neighboring Sheraton.
&nbs
p; The next day, I was seated in the passenger side of the pickup truck that was carrying the CHAMP. McDonald was beside me at the wheel. We were both looking at a tablet that was propped up on the center console of the dash. We were following a circular red icon as it traversed across a map of the city. I touched the covert transmit button on my ring.
“Shriner 2 approaching objective; ETA five miles.”
“Romeo, are you in position?” I decided to call Migos ‘Romeo’ for this operation. He was in a stolen van with Burnia and Jankowski, along with McDonald and my backup electronics.
“Romeo is set, as is Padawan and the Monk. Just in case you’re wondering, our boy grew up last night. Padawan is no longer an innocent. I say again ‘the eagle has landed,’” I heard over the Bluetooth earbud in my right ear.
“Clear the net,” I said.
I was wearing running shoes, blue jeans, and a loose, short-sleeve button down. I had a Walther 9mm tucked into a concealed holster that was irritating my back. We waited until the icon stopped in front of the AMS building before getting on the road. I wanted both Shriners in the executive office suite on the eighth floor where I could find them.
It took almost ten minutes to reach the AMS headquarters, as we hit every light and the traffic was as bad as expected. All of the parking spots on both sides of the road in front of the building were occupied. McDonald double-parked our white Ford F150 as close to the front entranceway as he could get. We both got out of the truck. The traffic began to back up and horns began to blare. McDonald dropped the tailgate, stepped into the bed, and began to work at the operator’s console. I opened the hood to signal to the angry car drivers that we had a maintenance problem. It didn’t seem to matter to at least five of the backed-up drivers who were leaning on their horns without stop.
“Firing,” I heard McDonald’s voice say inside my earbud. The CHAMP started making a loud whine like a jet engine spooling up and then it stopped. When it did, the horns from the angry drivers stopped with it. Peace at last. I tossed my phone, earbud, and PTT ring into the back of the cab and walked around to the tailgate. I checked the AMS building and I couldn’t see any lights, but it was daylight and the building doesn’t have a lot of windows, so I wasn’t completely sure the first pulse did the trick. The CHAMP spooled up again and just the same as the first time, the whining suddenly stopped. McDonald opened a five-gallon jerry can of gas and began dumping it on top of the CHAMP and on top of the cab of the vehicle. He jumped off and I handed him two thermite grenades. He tossed both of his on top of the CHAMP. I threw one in the cab and another on top of the engine. Our vehicle went up in flames.
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