After introductions, the General began: “What I’m about to describe is a TS/SCI project that I’ve code named, SWARM. I would like SWARM to involve both of your companies. You’re going to need to collaborate closely with one another.
“If you choose to be read into this program, I believe you’ll make the United States safer. Of course, I can’t make any guarantees. But if everything proceeds smoothly, you may both be rewarded with lucrative contracts. As a mentor to you both, I strongly suggest that you each elect to be read into SWARM. Lin, please disseminate the NDAs.”
An NDA was a legal document that precluded the signer from talking about information—in this case, anything related to SWARM. “Please read and sign this, if you agree to the terms. The General and I have already executed our NDAs,” said Lin.
The representatives from Swarmbot and Gamification Systems each completed their NDAs. The Swarmbot team took much longer than Gamification. The General looked gratified. As Lin collected the documents, General Shields said, “Welcome to Project SWARM.” Introductory talks discussing capabilities and integration issues proceeded.
*
After a little over 90 minutes, General Shields was in his office with Lin and Samantha. The ladies were seated in the two chairs in front of his desk. Josh had texted that he’d work in his CyberAI office, until the General was available to meet. Shields directed Josh to come up in 15 minutes.
The General was smiling broadly. “That went great, don’t you guys think?”
“Yes, I believe that it went very well,” said Lin. “I tracked all the milestones and deliverables that came up today. If we achieve them all, we’ll meet your eight-week demo deadline.”
“That’s terrific Lin,” snarled Samantha, “you’re such a good secretary.”
“I’m the Director of the NSA’s personal aide.” Lin glowered at Gamification’s CEO.
Samantha continued, “General, I think the real key is the API that allows communication between the drones. If it’s as easy as Swarmbot says, then we essentially emulate their controller with G-Bridge. That’s the REALSPACE side. On the GAMESPACE side, we then need to translate all the mappings—”
“Excuse me General?” interrupted Lin. “Shouldn’t this discussion be conducted in a SCIF—Samantha just referenced two TOP SECRET projects: SWARM and FOGGY.”
Samantha seethed.
“Lin, you’re right. I’m sorry. That was my fault,” said the General, trying to diffuse the situation. “I can say that I’m extremely pleased with the progress we made today. I believe that the demo deadlines are very doable. Now, if you all will excuse me, I’ve got a meeting with Josh Adler in a few minutes.”
Samantha and Lin began to gather their notebooks and purses.
Lin asked, “General, are you sure I shouldn’t attend this meeting?”
“I’m sure.”
Samantha then said, “General, I’d just like a second of your time to talk about Becca. It’s going to be hard to meet all of our deadlines without—”
General Shields pounded his fist on the table. “Rebecca Roberts is not to work on any of the classified projects. Any further discussion of this topic is closed.”
Samantha glared, steely-eyed at the General.
“You know Lin, on second thought, why don’t you stay and take notes.”
Irritation radiated through every limb of Samantha’s body. Lin flashed a toothy smile in Samantha’s direction. The door to the foyer, leading to General Shields’ office, opened. Josh Adler rapped on the General’s door.
“Come on in, Josh.”
*
Josh felt the thick tension in the room. Samantha darted past him without saying a word.
“Hi, General. Hi, Lin,” he said, in his typically cheerful manner.
“Take a seat. Tell me what’s going on,” said Shields.
“Since my last demo, I’ve been working on an approach that incorporates a new type of AI algorithm—deep learning. It doesn’t replace the other algorithms; I’m just adding deep learning to the AI Kernel. General Shields, the improvements are astonishingly good! I now recognize 91.5% of the cyber-events on my test set.”
“Outstanding Josh! You’ve gone from a little over 80%, to 90%—in a week. What does Vish say?”
“Actually, I’ve been so busy with this over the past week; I haven’t briefed Vish yet.”
“Ok, what are your next steps?”
“I’d like to get some time on the NSA supercomputers that incorporate a GPU fabric. The numerous layers of the deep learning algorithm are the key. I want to employ genetic algorithms to enhance each layer of the neural network. If I use that strategy, I feel we can get close to our 95% goal.”
Genetic algorithms mimicked the process of natural selection in evolution. Josh was telling the General; that for each layer, he would rapidly move through many possibilities, until he found the best design. This approach optimized each layer of the neural network.
“I think I can make that happen. Lin, can you get with the senior leadership of the Supercomputing Center at the Fort and schedule some time for Josh?”
“Sure,” replied Lin. “Josh, how much time do you think you’ll need?”
“I don’t know exactly. Probably about two weeks? But I can do it in off-hours.”
The General laughed. “There are no off-hours at the NSA. Josh, I’m very proud of you. Once again, you’ve impressed me. The minute I laid eyes on you; I knew you were a winner.”
Josh beamed with pride. He’d never received such meaningful words of encouragement before. CyberAI’s CEO couldn’t remember when; or if, his father ever complimented him. Come to think of it; Josh did remember his father’s only compliment. Jared Adler had congratulated him on getting accepted into MIT.
“Thank you, sir.”
After 30 more minutes of conversation, the General asked, “Are your algorithms narrowly defined—is it weak AI? I mean, are they only applicable to cybersecurity, or are they more general?”
Josh’s expansive smile grew even larger. His dimples looked as big as his eyes. “I’ve designed the neural network to process natural language. It’s English in this case, but I think the overall approach will work for any language. The AI is very broad; it’s much closer to strong AI than narrow. One of the most interesting things is that the AI can render predictions from the information the neural network ingests.”
“What kind of predictions?” asked General Shields, sounding intrigued.
“Predictions about sports, markets, and even the Ark of the Covenant—I think. The AI predicts the Ark is somewhere in the Middle East.”
“What?” yelled the General, angrily.
Josh didn’t know how to process the General’s reaction. He’d never before heard that sharpness in his voice.
Shields continued, “I don’t care if you make a few bucks for yourself playing the market. But the last thing I need from you is to create an international incident. Drop the Ark predictions. It’s off-limits for you. Do you understand? Focus on your job as CEO.” The ebullient atmosphere in the room instantaneously morphed into something dark and ominous. Josh felt like a storm cloud had just moved into Shield’s office—and lighting struck.
“General, it doesn’t work like that,” said Josh, awkwardly. “I have no control over what the computer learns and predicts; it’s—”
“Bullshit,” said the General. “I’ve programmed computers before. You’re in complete control. You are to shut down the computer’s ability to process information about the Ark. I don’t want you to discuss this with anyone else. Consider discussions about the Ark as a TOP SECRET program you weren’t read into. You have a company to run. You don’t have time for this. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Josh, meekly.
The General abruptly ended the meeting. Lin walked the shell-shocked executive out the door.
General Shields sat back in his chair. He reached for his cell phone and texted Samantha.
; “General, I think Josh was very shaken up,” said Lin.
“Good,” replied the General, calmly. “I need him focused on CyberAI and not engaged in some digital goose-chase. The Accelerator does not invest taxpayer funds in companies that dabble in things that can disrupt geopolitics, especially in a region with as many fanatics as the Middle East.”
Again, the General and Lin heard the front door to the foyer open. Samantha sauntered into the General’s office, completely ignoring Lin. By now, Samantha had regained her composure.
“What’s the agenda for this meeting?” asked Lin. “I don’t have it scheduled.”
“I don’t need you to attend this meeting,” said Shields. “Why don’t you go home and enjoy the rest of your Sunday afternoon? I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Very well, sir.” Lin quickly glanced past Samantha’s smug face and left.
Samantha poured two scotches. “General, what did you want to discuss?”
Chapter 15 – Abu Omar
3:05 a.m. (EDT), Thursday, August 20, 2020 – Fort Meade, MD
DIRNSA’s Residence, 4526 Butler Street
General Shields was sound asleep in the official DIRNSA’s modest residence. It was a multi-story, red brick house. On-base, government provided housing was one of the perks of being DIRNSA.
The General’s phone vibrated. Lisa heard it first. She poked her husband’s side. Shields grabbed the phone and opened one eye. He’d found if he opened only one eye; he could get back to sleep, if the buzzing were unimportant. This buzz was urgent.
It was a text message from Phil Callahan, the Senior Operations Officer of the National Security Operations Center—NSOC. NSOC was pronounced, ‘N-sock.’ The text read, ‘Need to communicate securely, ASAP.’ While General Shields was asleep, Phil Callahan was the acting DIRNSA.
NSOC was the beating heart of US SIGINT—the SIGINT command center and situation room for the United States of America. It was manned 24/7, 365 days a year. General Shields rose from his bed and blearily walked to his upstairs SCIF. He shut the metal door and reached for the secure telephone. “What is it, Phil?”
“Good morning, General Shields. Sir, the analyst working in the Caliphate operational cell, here at NSOC, just intercepted an email from Abu Omar’s wife—Nafisa. The email is from Nafisa to her father in Fallujah, Iraq. We issued a CRITIC. The email pinpoints Omar’s location in Dabiq, Syria. It’s 10:00 a.m. in Dabiq right now.”
A CRITIC was a Critical Intelligence message. The CRITIC system was designed to distribute CRITICs to the President and other senior leaders; including the CIA Director, in under ten minutes.
Dabiq was a small farm town six miles south of the Turkish border. It was an hour’s drive north of Aleppo, Syria. There were only 3000 residents in the city. Strategically, the town was unimportant. But the Caliphate believed in the veracity of a specific Islamic Hadith that read, ‘the last hour will not come until Muslims vanquish the Romans at Dabiq.’ After this defeat, another prophecy foretold of the Muslim armies advancing to sack Constantinople—present-day, Istanbul, Turkey.
Hadith meant ‘report’ or ‘account’ in Arabic. When originally written, Rome was seen as the city of the Catholic Pope and his army of Crusaders. Over the course of time, Rome had come to mean all Christians, or simply the West.
The Hadith was second only to the Koran in terms of authoritative Islamic texts. Hadiths clarified some of the sayings and doings from Muhammad’s life that were unclear or absent from the Koran. These details were important because Muhammad was the exemplary man in Islam—all Muslims’ behavior was measured by Muhammad’s standard, as portrayed in the Koran and Hadith. While Muslims revered figures like Moses and Jesus, Islam now superseded Judaism and Christianity.
Different branches of Islam, like the Sunni and Shia, believed different collections of Hadiths. The Caliphate was in Dabiq to quicken their End Time, Islamic version of Armageddon. Dabiq was also the site of Charlie Shields’ decapitation. Its landscape, spattered with his son’s blood, was seared into General Shields’ consciousness.
While increased air strikes were the initial response after the Navy SEAL beheadings in 2016, by the election season of 2020, the US was at a stalemate with the Caliphate. Killing Omar was a chance to break the deadlock.
“Who’s the email provider?” asked Shields.
“A-Mail.”
“That’s odd. We’ve been tracking these people for nearly 10 years. We’ve never intercepted an A-Mail from anyone associated with Omar. Hmm. Alright, I’ll be there in the next few minutes. I want to talk to the analyst before you send out validation of the CRITIC.”
The CRITIC message was simply an acknowledgment that SIGINT was intercepted—in this case, the email. Now the NSA had 20 more minutes to validate the message. For this intercept, validation meant that the NSA was confident that the sender was indeed Nafisa. The CRITIC didn’t tell anyone what to do with the information.
“Roger that, sir,” said Phil. “I’ll see you soon.”
General Shields exited the SCIF and walked downstairs into his bedroom. He threw on his NSA sweats and Nike tennis shoes. Shields moved like a mouse to avoid awakening his wife. Any other day, he’d be arising in two and one-half hours to throw on the same clothes, and complete his morning jog. Now he went downstairs, snatched a 5 Hour Energy mini-drink, and hurriedly walked to his vehicle.
He jumped in his 2020 Ford Bronco. A quick left, right, left, right, and the General was on Cooper Avenue, heading towards the four buildings that constituted the NSA’s main headquarters complex. All four buildings were connected. No one ever had to go outside.
Cooper Road conjured up memories of Charlie. Charlie’s favorite mentor was named Coach Cooper. If he weren't in such a rush, he would have driven the long way, staying on Mapes Road, avoiding Cooper altogether.
Charlie’s decapitation now flooded his thoughts. The A-Tube video ran continuously in his mind. Nucleus quickly removed the video. But it had been viewed by millions. It was still available all over the web, if you knew where to look.
Now, Shields was pursuing a lead on the very man that paid the Caliphate fighters to behead his son. Abu Omar probably wired the money that paid for the knife—the knife that sawed through Charlie’s neck. Rage welled up in the General. He wanted to kill every one of those Islamic Jihadists.
The only thing better than SIGNIT on Omar, would have been SIGINT on the leader of the Caliphate—Caliph Abu Bakr al-Mosulaydi. American Intelligence shortened his name to Abu Mosulaydi. Shields’ heart raced. He broke into a sweat in the muggy August morning.
Typically, Shields would park in his reserved spot outside the eight-floor glass building—Ops 2B. If pressed for time, he could take his private elevator to the Director’s Suite on the top floor of Ops 2B. Everyone called that the ‘Top Deck.’
On ordinary days, the General by-passed his private elevator. He liked to mingle with his silent, SIGINT warriors, as he made his way to the Top Deck.
The Ops 2A Building was next the General’s building. Its exterior looked exactly like Ops 2B. At 11 stories, it was taller and squarer. Somebody once described the building as a giant Rubik’s cube. Shields felt that was an apt moniker. One of the many NSA nicknames was the ‘Puzzle Palace.’ This name was due to the encryption puzzles the NSA cracked.
While these smoky glass structures looked like any other building, they were covered in copper mesh. No SIGINT could leak from the building and be scooped up by adversaries. In actuality, the two buildings were massive SCIFs. Ronald Reagan dedicated Ops 2A and 2B in 1986.
Today was not an ordinary day.
The General rushed to the Ops 1 Building, the very first NSA building. It was constructed in 1954. The three-story, A-shaped building was home to the SIGINT Directorate—the NSA’s largest Directorate.
Shields dashed up the stairs to Room 3E099, on the third floor of Ops 1. The automatic sliding glass doors hissed as they opened, sounding the Enterprise’s doors in Star Trek. The Gen
eral briskly walked over the inlaid NSOC logo on the floor and met Phil. Seconds later, they both peered over the shoulders of the Caliphate analyst. It was 3:19 a.m. There were six minutes left in which to issue verification of the CRITIC.
Tonight, NSOC was staffed with nearly 40 analysts. Each was tasked with specific areas of responsibility. Waist-high cubicles separated the various work cells. Fluorescent overhead lights, arranged in concentric circles, gave the room a blue tint. The analysts worked around their curved desks to process SIGINT from around the world. Their computer equipment was state of the art, just like the video walls that encircled the massive room.
The Caliphate analyst said, “Sir, this email was definitely sent by Omar’s wife. I’ve been comparing it to three emails and some hand-written letters we’ve intercepted in the past five years. All of them are to her father. I ran a lexical analysis on the email we just collected. Then, I compared it to our known samples. The program is 96% confident that the emails were all written by the same author.”
Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller Page 12