“So they’ll put a bullet in my brain. Or my family’s.”
Vail knew this was his pressure point—and her leverage. “Fair enough. Here’s my best offer. And you have thirty seconds to accept it: I know a couple of Feds. I turn you over to them, they’ll make sure your wife and kids are placed in the federal witness security program. Renata, Kathy, Zach, they’ll be safe. And they’ll be given a monthly stipend and protection.”
“And me?”
“My guess is that you’re going to prison. But I’ll make sure they put in a good word for you with the sentencing judge.” And I’ll leave out Rusakov’s hand job. “Best I can do.” She wiggled her fingers. “Now. Tell me.”
“I want to meet with the Feds. I need to hear it from them.”
“Not gonna happen. Because if you lie to us—and your track record is pretty sketchy so far—there’ll be no deal. You’re just gonna have to trust me on this, Jason. And I think I’ve proven that I tell you the truth. Everything I’ve told you so far has been spot-on.”
He sighed, closed his eyes tightly. “A woman approached me about three years ago. She said she had some information about me. Some … things I wouldn’t want people to know about.”
“People?”
“They’d start with Renata. And my parents. Friends. Then the Washington Post.”
“And this information was legitimate?”
Lansford dropped his chin and nodded.
“Did she say where she got this information from?”
“Didn’t matter. She told me what she had. It was true. I didn’t care who gave it to her.”
“Was this something you disclosed on your NASA background check?”
He looked to his left. “I wanted the job and they do a pretty thorough job when security clearances are involved. The stuff they had on me wouldn’t have kept me from getting the job. But if I didn’t tell them about it, if I lied, they never would’ve hired me. So yeah, I disclosed it. Some of it. Enough to cause a lot of personal problems for me.”
Had to be from that stolen laptop.
“She offered me money, $100,000 that they put into an offshore account every year. And all I had to do was periodically get them information.”
He’s not telling me everything. “What kind of information did they want?”
“Projects we’re working on for NASA. And the military.”
“We want to know exactly what you gave to them. And we need to know now. No more games.”
Lansford swallowed deeply. “Design plans for the operating system. And the hash algorithm, a private key of sorts. The machine, or the astronauts, holds the corresponding public key used to verify the algorithm’s signature.” He hesitated. “Eventually the Russians wanted the code too, when testing had been completed. I only gave it to them once.”
Only once. That’s comforting. “What else did you give them?”
“Information about certain things that were at my security level.”
“Who’d you meet with in Russia?”
“No idea.”
Vail frowned.
“Honestly. I don’t know. He doesn’t say, ‘Hi Jason. My name’s Vladimir.’ Just someone I meet in a park. We’re not friends. I just get them what they ask for. When I can. If I can.”
“You had to go all the way to Russia to give them info?”
He sucked on the side of his cheek a moment, then said, “First time I went for training.”
“Training on what?”
“How to be an effective conduit for them without getting caught.”
Translation: how to be a spy. “What else?”
“Training on how to make sure the code they gave me went undetected.”
“So you did know what the code was supposed to do.”
He bent his head left. “Yeah.”
“We’ll need a full list of everything you gave them—and what that code was designed to do.”
Lansford sighed. “Can I have a moment with my family to, you know, explain what’s going on before you turn me in? I wanna try to make them understand.”
Vail clenched her jaw. Everything in her told her not to do that because there was too much risk. He could pass a coded message to his wife. Or it could simply be an innocent apology. And a heartfelt good-bye. “It’s not my decision. Very least, you could record a message to them.” Perhaps that could serve as evidence of admission because this interrogation sure can’t ever be used in court.
The door opened and Rusakov entered with a yellow legal pad and pen. She handed it to Vail and gave Lansford an icy stare before leaving. Was that because he’s a spy? What he’d done to Orion? Or because I’d gotten the info and she didn’t?
As he started to write, Vail said, “If there’s one thing you gave them, something that’d be the most valuable to them, what was it?”
“I’d need to know what they intended to do with this stuff. I really have no idea.”
“Bullshit!” Vail kicked her chair aside. “Lives are at stake. And given the nature of what they wanted from you, you have a pretty damn good idea.”
Lansford chewed on that a moment, then returned to moving the pen across the page. He stopped and lifted his gaze from the pad. “The hash algorithm was obviously important. But the element that was discovered from the soil samples brought back on Apollo 17, I think that’s what they were really after.”
“What?”
“You asked what would be most valuable to them. I’m just guessing, but … they asked for that before they wanted the private key.”
“Before?”
“It’s like once they knew about that element, they shifted gears and started asking me about the operating system. And …”
“And what?”
“I think it was the most sensitive thing I gave them. That element supposedly increases the yield on nuclear weapons. Had a weird name, something like Caesar.”
Vail had to fight to keep her expression impassive. How would he get hold of classified documents? He did more than just insert code into an operating system. He used his security clearance to get into NASA’s internal systems. He’s in deeper than he’s saying.
He turned his attention back to the pad.
“You’re not telling me everything, Jason. That information was not at your level of classification.”
He nodded. “They wanted me to hack into the secure system. They showed me how to get into it. I tried a few times and finally penetrated the firewall one night and searched around until I found some things I thought would interest them. That element was one of them. There was a bolded sentence in one of the top secret reports.” He put his head down and continued writing.
“I want the name of your handler.”
He stopped his pen. “Not until my family’s safe.”
“You’re not understanding where we’re at here, Jason. You’re not calling the shots. You’ve proven over and over that most of what you’ve told me are lies. So you will tell me what I want to know—right now—or I’ll personally make sure nothing I’ve agreed to will be honored.”
Lansford closed his eyes again. “Her name’s Jessie Kerwin.”
“Jessie Kerwin. A Russian handler? Give me a break. What’s her real name?”
“If you know how this works, you know she didn’t give me her real name—and never will.”
“How do you contact her?”
“She contacts me. If I have something for them, I use a DLB.”
DLB—a dead letter box, a “drop” in plain sight that both parties know about. They insert information then leave a signal that indicates something is waiting there for them: a chalk mark, a certain kind of flag hanging, a colored rag, a piece of duct tape. Standard espionage tradecraft.
“Where?”
“The northeast, near Union Market. I’ll have to show you.”
“You’ll do better than that. You’ll put something in there for her. No one knows we have you, so if you leave a note for them they won’t be suspicious.”
“They’re suspicious by nature. And very careful.”
“So are we.” She gestured at the pad. “Keep writing.”
Vail walked out and met up with Rusakov in the observation room. “We need to get on this before they start to wonder about him. In case they’ve got someone watching his home. Or office.”
“We’ve had teams at both locations. They haven’t seen anyone who could be surveilling him or his house. They haven’t gone inside in case the premises were being watched remotely.”
Vail looked at the two-way glass where Lansford was still hunched over the table. “Soon as he’s done, let’s put him in a car and get him over to the DLB. Put a tracker on him and someone in the backseat, on the floor. Can’t afford to lose this guy.”
“We’ve got his family. I don’t think he’ll be going anywhere.”
Vail tilted her head. “People do irrational things, take extreme risks, when their backs are up against the wall. Assume nothing.”
Rusakov nodded. “Point taken.”
33
Deep Space
Stroud dropped his hand from the display. “Anyone find anything?”
“Everything looks good,” Uzi said. “Just like CAPCOM found. Ship’s healthy. Except that it’s not.”
Stroud sighed. “I know. But that doesn’t make sense. So where does this leave us?”
“Let’s first deal with the oxygen tank and fuel cell failure. My honest assessment is that it wasn’t a failure at all.”
“I agree with Uzi,” Carson said. “Apollo 13 saw gas escaping from the tank into space. We didn’t see anything. The exterior cameras didn’t show anything either. So … what? Computer error?”
Stroud flipped a switch. “The systems were tested rigorously for months. No such glitch showed up. None of these did.”
“No they didn’t,” Uzi said. “And that’s where I was going with my comment. These issues we’ve been having. They’re not errors in the computer code—a glitch, as you called it. That would’ve shown up on all the rigorous validation and testing the engineers have been doing. This was done on purpose. Malware. Inserted into the flight software.”
They were silent a moment as they absorbed that.
“Malware works on personal computers,” DeSantos finally said. “Someone clicks on a file and it installs a malicious program on their PCs. But how can it infect a … a spacecraft?”
Uzi chuckled. “Malware is computer code written to carry out specific tasks. In this case, it’s designed to infiltrate an OS, or operating system—which is exactly what our flight software is. The avionics, which includes the OS, controls our sensors, effectors, displays, controls, radios, navigation—everything that happens onboard, every reading we get, every engine burn and for how long.
“You’re right, Santa. Typical routes of infection involve tricking a worker or the average Jack husband or Jill wife into clicking on a file sent through email that they think is legit. It surreptitiously installs a program on their server or computer and that malware runs and does whatever it’s been designed to do—steal passwords or corporate intellectual property like blueprints or secret sauce ingredients, and so on.”
“Yeah,” Stroud said, “but how can it affect the operating system of a rocket, of a spacecraft? Not to mention one operated by the military.”
Uzi shifted in his seat so he could face Stroud. “Most obvious explanation is that someone had access to the OS code.”
“Lots of people had access to it. Software engineers have been working on it for years.”
“It was built by a contractor,” DeSantos said, “right?”
“Aerospace Engineering,” Carson said. “But they’ve all been vetted, they’ve all got clearance.”
“There are ways to bury errant commands amidst a hundred million lines of code,” Uzi said. “If the malware was created by one or more software developers in the program, they could hide the functionality by making the code so it passes static analysis and proves nonharmful during normal dynamic analysis.
“There are also attacks generated from hardware sources like multi-layer circuit boards and chips, which are difficult to fully validate—making it a feasible place for an attack if you can get someone on the inside to pull it off.”
“So we have a spy or spies at Aerospace Engineering?” Carson asked.
“I think that’s the most likely scenario,” Uzi said. “But it could also be at NASA. And that answers your other question, about it being a military operation. The Defense Department has piggybacked on NASA’s SLS and Orion project. They’ve codeveloped certain aspects of it. But SLS/Orion cost billions of dollars and took over a decade to design, build, and test, so there’s no way the Pentagon would duplicate those efforts, especially when it’d only fill, at best, a very infrequent need.”
“I get that,” Stroud said. “Our defense budget has been under fire for years. But malware in a military operation … Jesus, the implications.”
“Malware’s never been an issue on a spacecraft,” Uzi said. “I’m sure it wasn’t something anyone was checking for. Until a few years ago, the concept of putting malware in, or hacking into, medical devices wasn’t even considered. The engineers didn’t plan for it. Pacemakers and insulin pumps had little to no security controls. As with so many things, whether it’s technology or government or human nature in general, it’s not a problem until it becomes a problem. Then you fix it.”
“Well,” DeSantos said, “it’s become a problem.”
“Military drones have been hacked,” Stroud said. “I guess this is something that was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“We’ve got to get word to Kirmani and Eisenbach.”
“Assuming we’ll be able to talk with them again,” Stroud said, “that’ll be the first words out of our mouths.”
34
Opsig Mission Control
Space Flight Operations Facility
Vandenberg Air Force Base
Status on that Russian launch?” Kirmani asked, examining the wall-size screens.
“Definitely a super heavy lift rocket,” Eisenbach said, standing behind the chair of a mission control technician and peering over his shoulder. “Took off from Vostochny Cosmodrome, not their usual Soyuz facility at Baikonur. All we know so far.”
“And the Russians say it’s a mapping mission of the lunar surface.”
Eisenbach shook his head derisively. “You don’t need a rocket taller than the Statue of Liberty to map the lunar surface.”
“Yeah, no shit,” Kirmani said. “We knew we weren’t going to get the truth. But this is China’s ballgame. Why is Russia involved?”
“Maybe for the same reason,” Eisenbach said. “Caesarium. Do we have any intel about recent activity in their space program?”
“I’ll check with Geospatial. And NSA.”
“I’ll notify McNamara.” Eisenbach picked up the handset of the secure phone.
“I may have an explanation,” McNamara said after hearing the news. “We finally got Jason Lansford to talk. He placed malware in the Orion operating system. It could explain that malfunction you had on launch. Worth looking into.”
“Who’s he working for?” Eisenbach asked.
“Russia. We don’t have independent verification so it’s unconfirmed. But given what we’ve been told, it makes sense. It also explains why they were able to launch so quickly after seeing Patriot lift off. They’ve been planning this for a while because they knew we were readying a mission.”
“We can’t wait for verification,” Eisenbach said. “We need to find a way to get word to Patriot. Its comms are being interfered with.”
“How?” McNamara asked. “By who?�
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“We’re working on it,” Eisenbach said.
“What the hell does that mean? Uplink jamming is very difficult because the jamming platform has to be within the footprint of the antenna to Patriot’s location. And once the jamming starts it’s not covert by any means. We should’ve been able to geolocate the jamming source.”
“Right. Except that we haven’t been able to,” Eisenbach said. “We’re not sure what’s going on. If I had to guess—and you know I hate to guess—it’s not jamming but whatever’s infected the spacecraft operating system is also affecting the comms.”
There was a long silence as McNamara digested that. “Keep us posted,” he finally said.
Eisenbach hung up and briefed Kirmani on what McNamara had told him.
“You think our guys have figured it out?”
“Uzi has an extremely strong background in computer science,” Eisenbach said. “He’s done some hacking, too. If any of them are going to key in on this, it’d be him. But I have no idea what they’re thinking or how they’re approaching it.”
“We told them to run diagnostics.”
“Will that show anything?”
Kirmani scratched his forehead. “Probably not. NASA and DOD ran all sorts of verification tests before deploying the software, as did our contractor.”
“But our contractor is the one who employs the spy who planted this stuff.”
“Exactly. He knows the system intimately, knows how it’s tested, what we’re looking for and how we do it. The fuckers pulled a good one on us.” Eisenbach yanked off his headset. “Bastards.”
“So they covered their tracks well enough for NASA and DOD engineers not to catch it. That said, I’m sure they weren’t looking for it. Malware on spacecraft operating systems is—it’s just not something that ever happens.”
“Past tense.”
“I feel so goddamn helpless.” Kirmani looked down at the control panel. “Have you heard anything about us launching a counterattack?”
Eisenbach drew back. “What are you talking about?”
“This is an act of war.”
Eisenbach glanced around. “Obviously the Russians are being very aggressive. But so are we. We’ve destroyed communications between China and its own spacecraft, for Christ’s sake. You don’t think that’s an attack?” He shook his head. “We need to ride this out, see where it leads. We have the laser satellites ready to deploy. But we’ve got to give our team a chance to do their thing.”
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