Bandwidth

by Angus Morrison

  “Panther 12, this is Ajax 31,” York said. Silence. He listened intently for anything that sounded like a voice, but only heard static in his headset. He tried again, this time more abruptly. “Panther 12, Ajax 31.” Just as he was about to make another transmission, he heard the familiar crackle of someone keying a mic.

  “Ajax 31, this is Panther 12.” It was Murphy. He was okay. “Proceed with your check-in.”

  “Panther 12. We’ve got you broken but readable. Ajax 31 is a section of Tomcats currently five minutes out, each carrying two by GBU-12, two by GBU-38 and 1,000 rounds of 20 mike-mike. Playtime one hour. How do you copy?”

  Murphy sensed the Taliban guys were about to make their move. Murphy sensed the Taliban guys were about to make their move. line” meant Murphy wanted a bomb on the ground ten minutes ago.

  York got on his mic. “Panther 12, this is Ajax 31. Ready to copy.”

  Murphy started spewing out coordinates. “Ajax 31, this is Panther 12. Target location 36 degrees, 42 minutes, 31 decimal 7349 seconds North; 67 degrees, 6 minutes, 54 decimal 4265 seconds East, elevation 1,451. Troops in the open. Closest friendlies 2,000 meters south. How copy?”

  York inputted the coordinates into the weapons system on his aircraft’s data entry pad. Everything looked good. Checked. Doublechecked. “Panther 12, this is Ajax 31. Ready for read back?”

  “Ajax 31, go ahead.”

  “Panther 12, Ajax 31. Target location 36 degrees, 42 minutes, 31 decimal 7349 seconds north; 67 degrees, 6 minutes, 54 decimal 4265 seconds east, elevation 1,451. Troops in the open. Closest friendlies 2,000 meters south.”

  “Ajax 31, this is Panther 12, good read back. The enemy is hunkered down in an open position at the bend of a river oriented north to west. That river then extends into rising terrain. Friendlies are south of that position. You are cleared from present position to commence your attack. Make your attack axis east to west.”

  “Ajax 31, copy all. East to west attack axis. Ajax 31 is pushing,” York said. His “pushing” call meant the game was on. After triple checking the coordinates, there was nothing left to do but wait for the final clearance from Murphy and then push the little red button for weapons release.

  “Panther 12, this is Ajax 31. Two minutes out.”

  “Ajax 31 – cleared hot!”

  Cleared hot meant bombs away. Murphy had called in the strike. Now less than five miles to the target, York could just make out the bend in the river that defined the enemy’s position. Check. One minute to release, but something seemed out of place. Attack axis was correct, coming in from east to west. Check. York scaled in on his situational awareness display to take a closer look at the target’s symbology. Now thirty seconds to release. The moving map and the target didn’t correlate. York thought to himself out loud, there must be some display error here, that target looks…

  Suddenly his headset erupted with what sounded like gunfire. On the ground Murphy and his team were now under attack from the enemy’s position. Yelling into his mic, Murphy called York. “Ajax 31, Panther 12, say your status!”

  “Ajax 31, 15 seconds to release.” A swell of doubt started to build inside York. Something was not quite right. He needed more information. He needed more time.

  “Ajax 31, this is Panther 12. Put that ordnance down range now!” Murphy yelled.

  “This is Ajax 31, copy all!” Shit, shit, shit. After making a mental coin toss, York reasoned that it must be an error in the display. “This is Ajax 31, one away.” The knot in York’s gut just got bigger. The weapon he had released had a time of flight of approximately sixty seconds.

  On the ground, Murphy yelled to his team that a bomb was on the way. Welcome news that would hopefully silence the enemies’ machine guns. “Everyone keep your head down; less than a minute until impact!”

  From his crouched position, Murphy tried to hear the faint whistle of the bomb guiding to impact. At first, he could hear nothing except the clack-clack of intermittent gunfire. Then, he could just start to make it out. It was getting loud, too loud. The whistle became a deafening howl as the percussive thud of detonation rattled him. “My God,” he said, just as a blinding light, a shock wave and then a flood of heat snuffed out his life.

  ***

  Hayden dangled in a basket, attached to a cable as he was being raised into a helicopter. He had walked right off the side of the ridge and fallen into a ravine. Luckily, another hiker below witnessed the fall and built a makeshift shelter for the two of them to ride out the storm until they could place a cell phone call to the mountain patrol. Hayden had a badly sprained ankle, two cracked ribs and a bruised ego. He was confused. What the hell had, happened? How could the GPS have been so wrong?

  High above, something had indeed happened. A GPS satellite was spitting out wrong information.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  It was winter in Zurich. Otto Jagmetti loved this time of year – a time for reading and drinking warm drinks, a time for getting the skis out and lighting the fire.

  These years following September 11 had been a time of schaedenfreudic satisfaction for Jagmetti. Finally, the Americans had gotten what was coming to them. All the years of duplicity and empire building in the name of freedom and liberty, all the self-interest cloaked in a Yankee noblesse oblige to defend the world from any of the nefarious ills that it had brought upon itself, all had come tumbling down.

  Yes, a large number of people had died, and that was tragic. But for the first time in his entire life, Jagmetti felt that he was witnessing American vulnerability. It was his sincere hope that the attacks and the drumming the Americans were taking in Iraq would spell change – change in the way that America viewed the world and its place in it. To Jagmetti, it was as if an overconfident teenager used to getting his way had received his first, humbling playground beating.

  Admittedly, Jagmetti was as startled as anyone by the magnitude of the destruction he had seen on the television screens, by the bodies raining down onto the concrete. But what was the whole event in the grand timeline of human history? Why did that event deserve more tears than the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, or the seven million Ukrainians starved by Stalin, or the one and a half million Armenians massacred by the Turks in 1915-16, or the young men and boys forced to watch their wives and mothers raped during the war in Yugoslavia, or the hundreds of thousands hacked to death with machetes in Rwanda?

  To Jagmetti, what happened to America amounted to a loud knock on the door from the rest of the world, a knock that said, “Get over yourself.” But as a businessman, the war on terror meant something else to Jagmetti. In hockey, it was a “power play” – America was being penalized and was playing shorthanded.

  Now was the time for Europe to capitalize. The window of opportunity would be short, but Jagmetti had every intention of rushing through it. To him, the historians would one day write about September 11, not as the defining moment when a new foe called terrorism replaced Communism and Fascism, but as the moment when America’s hegemonic halo began to fade, once again giving others a chance to play.

  And so, Jagmetti took particular pleasure doing what he had promised Eatwell he would do – send a steady stream of information about Cheyenne’s technology to its closest competitor, N-tel.

  It was all coming together nicely. Beyond helping Cheyenne secure the Russian satellite from Riga-Tech, Jagmetti had forged a solid relationship with Timmermans. Sometimes, feigning a deep interest in the technology, Jagmetti would ask Timmermans for a few more details. Timmermans was always forthcoming.

  Jagmetti had also gotten Eatwell to reverse his decision on Lyrical’s acquisition of Cheyenne. And the Client, whom he only knew by the Swiss IBAN number CH10 00230 00A109822346, was very pleased that Jagmetti was able to give him a heads up when Cheyenne’s satellite was launched - pleased enough that he had sent Jagmetti an antique fob watch on top of his fee. Yes, things were coming together nicely.

  It was late in the day. Jagmetti neatly stacked th
e papers on his desk and walked over to the open safe. He had a clean desk policy. Every night, without fail, he took whatever was on his desk and put it in the safe. He placed the papers inside, slammed the heavy door shut, and turned the combination dial several times.

  His stomach growled. He craved veal. Zürcher Geschnetzeltes – that’s what he would have for dinner. He loved how his mother used to make it with mushrooms, onions, and just a bit of paprika. Yes, that’s what he would have for dinner.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The Langley crowd had been alerted to the GPS problems. All the intelligence agencies were having a difficult time figuring out the cause.

  CIA programmers had broken off into two teams – one dealt with the bad information emanating from the satellites, the other with what appeared to be a security breach at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA). The mapping agency had an enormous database of satellite-generated targets upon which the Department of Defense, the Pentagon and the CIA depended heavily.

  In the thick of the headiness was Benbow. Two programmers called him over.

  “What?” Benbow asked.

  “Sir, it’s a significant breach. They appear to have access to images in Afghanistan,” the programmer said, continuing to type. “They also ... ”

  “What?” asked Benbow.

  “Sir, they appear to have had access to our images in Saudi Arabia, as well.”

  “Jesus. Ok, do what you need to do. Maureen, get CENTCOM for me,” Benbow barked, pacing.

  “Sir, CENTCOM is on the line.”

  Benbow picked up a nearby phone and peered at a computer screen over the programmer’s shoulder.

  “General. In addition to the GPS problem, there’s a security breach at NGA.”

  “How bad?”

  “Bad, general. They’ve had access to our Afghan maps. Also Saudi.”

  “Saudi?”

  “Yes sir. Any of our planned strikes could be in jeopardy.” “What’s the recommendation, Benbow?”

  “Suspend all sorties until we can verify to what extent we’ve been compromised.”

  “How long will that take you?”

  “Forty-eight hours.”

  “Make it less. Keep me posted.”

  Benbow hung up the phone and rubbed his eyes. For a whole host of reasons, some vague, others clear, he really did not want to make the next call that he was going to make, but he knew he had to.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Hayden arrived at Benbow’s office at the designated time. “Here’s the situation, Hayden,” Benbow said, taking his usual interrogation position by leaning on his desk with one buttock. Shelly sat on a couch.

  “You didn’t see any of this in the headlines, but we’re losing good men for bad reasons in Afghanistan. We’ve got sorties being aborted and special forces teams calling in airstrikes on themselves. Three days ago, we lost an F14 and a refueler. From what we can tell, there’s a thread.”

  “What kind of thread?”

  “GPS,” Shelly said. “There’s a problem with GPS data coming from the satellites, Hayden.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Bad information, just plain wrong,” Benbow said, standing up to pace.

  Hayden had a flashback to being slowly lifted in the basket after his snowshoe hike. He winced and held his side. His ribs still hurt.

  “Benbow, do you think …?”

  “Your accident in the mountains? Could be related, yes.”

  “What’s causing the problem?”

  “We think it’s another satellite,” Benbow said calmly.

  “Are you serious?”

  Benbow looked to Shelly to provide the explanation.

  “From what we can tell, Hayden, there’s interference coming from another satellite – we think a communications satellite. We’ve never seen this type of GPS spoofing before. Whoever is doing this isn’t just jamming GPS signals.”

  “What are they doing?” Hayden asked.

  “They’ve somehow figured out a way to feed the GPS satellite fake GPS signals …”

  “And then the GPS receiver thinks the fake signal is actually the true GPS signal from space …” Hayden said, finishing Shelly’s sentence. “Amazing. And the receiver then calculates the wrong position or time information based on the false signal.”

  “Exactly,” Shelly said. “We’ve got a rogue satellite on our hands.”

  “Unbelievable,” Hayden blurted. “Have they been able to pinpoint it?”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Benbow said, stepping in. “We think the rogue may be the satellite that Cheyenne launched.”

  Hayden let the words sink in. “But how? I mean … do you think … Aaron or Timmermans ...”

  “The only thing we suspect Cannondale of being is an opportunistic son-of-a-bitch,” said Benbow. “He had no motive to knowingly get involved with this kind of science fiction.” Again, Benbow looked to Shelly to provide the details.

  “From what we can tell, someone got their hands on the satellite before it went up,” Shelly said. “Security at Baikonor is like a sieve these days. But we don’t think anyone actually made physical contact with the satellite.”

  “What do you mean?” Hayden asked, confused.

  Benbow stepped back in. “What he’s saying, Hayden, is that we think someone hacked into the satellite.”

  “Remotely?”

  “Yes, through a software patch.”

  “But what about our encryption?”

  “Within our facilities, yes, but we’re dealing with a rental property in the middle of a steppe in Kazakhstan run by a government with no budget,” Benbow said. “Those boys over at Baikonor have let things slip a bit. It’s not anthems and motherland bullshit anymore. They’re fighting for scraps. The launch pads in Indonesia and French Guiana are stealing their customers.”

  “Who did the hacking?” Hayden asked, turning to Shelly.

  “We’re not certain.”

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “Nothing conclusive. We’ve been scouring the voice intercepts from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.”

  “And Syria?”

  “And Syria, yes.”

  Hayden became pensive. “You know geography is irrelevant with these kind of things.”

  “We’re aware of that, Hayden, but we had to start somewhere,” Benbow said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  “Why haven’t you just gotten the Baikonor guys to disable it?”

  “Because if we take out this bird, the hackers will just move onto another one, and we risk losing the trace. We want to get these bastards by the tail before they do any more damage. The trick is not to let these assholes know we’ve found them out. I want us in and out of there. Not even the Russians will know. We can’t afford to screw this up.”

  “In and out of where?” Hayden asked, puzzled.

  Benbow paused and looked at Shelly. “We picked up an intercept in Yemen. We’ve got our boys studying it a bit more, but so far it’s the best lead that we have.”

  “What kind of intercept?”

  “Bill Tully, our man in Sanaa, picked it up. You remember Bill?”

  “Of course. Love that guy.”

  “It’s still fuzzy, but whoever is doing the hacking seems to know what they are doing. We need to send some folks in, Hayden.”

  “Who?”

  “A Delta team.”

  “Delta, huh? Seems to me we’ve been down that route before. They’re not bulletproof, you know, Benbow.”

  Benbow knew what Hayden was talking about. He didn’t want to be reminded. When Hayden was still with the Agency, Benbow had sent him and another agent on a one-off to Zaire with a Delta team to hack into the files of Mobuto’s foreign minister. They wanted to blackmail him. Through a series of miscommunications and bad intelligence, one of the Delta boys was gunned down. Hayden barely got out with his head still connected. He remembered the peaceful look on the dead soldier’s face on the body swaying back
and forth over another soldier’s shoulder in front of him, that face with the dead stare looking right at him as they made their way to the riverboat.

  Hayden shook his head. “I’m not going to Yemen, Benbow.”

  “No, you’re not Hayden. You’re going to Europe.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Hayden packed his bags. His near death experience in the Adirondacks, the ongoing odyssey of Cheyenne, Michelle – it was all washing over him. That, and the fact that he had drunk his client’s Kool-Aid. When he went into the speechwriting racket, he swore to himself that he wouldn’t let that happen, but it had. He was ticked at himself.

  Hayden had never had any misconceptions about his role as a hired pen, because at the end of the day, that’s what his clients paid him to do, but Aaron had won him over. Aaron had put his arm around him and said, “Follow me,” and Hayden had.

  After Aaron’s speech in Detroit, Hayden could no longer discern what was real or wasn’t real about Aaron anymore. Rumors were beginning to circulate that some creative accounting was going on at Cheyenne. Hayden didn’t know if Aaron was guilty, innocent, or just a bystander in Cheyenne’s great leap forward. It didn’t really matter anymore. Hayden’s cell phone rang.

  “Hayden, it’s Feegan. Tom Feegan. Surely you remember me – from Aaron’s Cannondale’s lame party out in Salt Lake.”

  “Yeah, Tom. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, Hayden, but I wanted to talk to you about Cheyenne.”

  “What about it?”

  “I’m hearing things.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, bad things.”

  “Is that right.”

  “Yeah. Now, you seemed like a pretty reasonable guy when I met you, Hayden. I know that whatever may be going on at Cheyenne, you’re not a part of it, but I’d like to meet up for a beer and a chat if I could.”