Tran checked his watch and subtracted some hours in his head. He browsed the video screen and found the gate number for his connecting flight to Buenos Aires. He had over two hours to wait. Tran spotted several televisions mounted from the ceiling in a larger waiting room and walked over. He could see what he was looking for before he even got close.
Only two of the seven screens displayed live video feeds from China. The rest were covering the rioting in South America which was still escalating over the loss of the Pope. The two locations of the China feeds were different, but the images of the crowds were very similar. Unable to read the Spanish captions at the bottom, Tran watched silently as the effects of his super virus took hold. Behind the reporters were huge lines outside government buildings with hundreds, even thousands, of Chinese yelling and frantically pushing forward.
Tran’s attack was in full force with millions of computers around the globe attacking every government controlled server or system they could find. Most were outward facing systems such as government controlled banks, social service departments, public utilities, and even airports. With millions of people unable to travel or access their bank accounts, fear quickly spread and a run on the banks ensued. Thousands more gathered around the country’s limited social program buildings, demanding their assistance checks in cash instead of deposits into their bank accounts. To make matters worse, many of those working within the areas hit worst by the enormous crowds had left work when the panic began, leaving critical services such as gas and electrical plants mostly unmanned, and the ripple effect quickly began to spread through the country’s economy.
Politicians and other public officials desperately tried to calm the crowds, which only seemed to deepen the fears of the citizenry. The panic was spreading rapidly, and the Chinese government was trying to identify the sources of the attacks and find a way to stop them. But the sources were far too numerous and distributed. The attacks were coming from virtually every country in the world with the highest concentrations originating from both the United States and Russia.
Yet, what no one was watching was the internal systems and networks where Stux2 had silently begun spreading the moment it detected the global attack on the outside. While both the government and the public continued to panic, Stux2 moved from server to server at lightning speed, finding vulnerabilities and compromising them, then checking for the unique technical characteristics of China’s Command and Control System.
Tran continued watching the monitors as the chaos unfolded. The attack had begun barely eight hours prior, and the country was already in turmoil. He thought about what things would be like in another twenty-four hours, or forty-eight. They were all sheep.
Tran covered his mouth and shook his head, trying to show just the right amount of concern in case someone was watching him. He displayed a worried look and searched for a public phone. He found one and stood in front of it, pretending to dial and then speak to someone for several minutes. Finally, he nodded and hung up the dead receiver. He looked around again; no one was watching. Satisfied, Tran walked to a small café and sat down. He guessed it would take twenty-four more hours for Stux2 to find what it was looking for. When it did, it would quickly disable the overrides and safety switches by informing the system that all switches had already been turned off, and the nuclear authorization codes already entered. Finally, after it had found and programmed all 240 of the remote warheads, it would take full control of China’s nuclear arsenal.
If people were afraid now, they would be absolutely petrified when they saw the exhaust trails of China’s missiles overhead. By that time, everyone in the airport would be crowded around those televisions. And he would be gone.
55
The XB-70 Valkyrie had the honor of being labeled one of the most exotic airplanes on the planet. First conceived in the 1950s for the Strategic Air Command, it was a bomber prototype capable of traveling at a mind numbing Mach 3. But in the end, only two were built due to funding limitations, and they ultimately served only as research aircraft. Their hulls, still unique to this day, were made of stainless steel and titanium and their design allowed the Valkyrie to drop its wingtips by sixty-five degrees, radically improving stability during supersonic flight. They were also the fastest way to get two people all the way to Chile in time for another flight.
In contrast, the C17 was much slower and served as the primary means of transporting one of the world’s toughest and deadliest Special Forces teams, the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Paratroopers.
While many Special Forces teams were well-known to the public, paratroopers were more obscure and trained in conditions that many could not even fathom. Put through every stressful environment and every mission challenge conceivable, paratroopers were the result of numerous secret military programs, all with the same goal: to create a truly and utterly fearless fighting force.
One such program, and the Army’s most controversial, was termed COHORT, short for Cohesive Operational Readiness and Training. First documented by James Pulley in 1988, the COHORT program was designed to regain a fighting ability not seen since the United States’ Civil War, where a soldier's ability to fight and resist was in the realm of legend. Nowhere in history was that ability found to be stronger, and after studying it for over a century, the Army finally knew why. Resistance ultimately came down to a single underlying factor…the strength of the group, and the COHORT program was America’s modern equivalent. Yet, while official records showed mixed results in other brigades, the results in the 82nd Airborne were very different.
Captain Daniel Clausen stood at the back of the giant Boeing C17 transport plane, packed with exactly half his company. Men filled both “sticks” of the fuselage, with their ninety-pound packs wedged between their knees. The second plane with the other half of Clausen’s team followed directly behind the first, both racing just 800 feet above the ground to avoid radar.
Clausen’s COHORT company was as tight as any in the Army. No one had rotated in or out of the company since it formed, which meant his men had spent nearly every waking minute together for years.
Clausen eyed the two strangers at the front of his plane with disdain. He didn’t know who they were or why they were aboard, and he had no intention of finding out. As far as he was concerned, they were on their own.
Near the front, Bazes watched Rand slide back and forth as both aircraft flew along the nap of the earth. Thundering along at 180 mph, they constantly dipped in and out of canyons like a giant roller coaster, sending Rand back and forth against the cold metal wall. He did look a little better than when they left, but Bazes could still see Rand grimacing with every sudden jolt of the plane. This flight was much worse on Rand than the supersonic Valkyries. Their rides to South America on the Valkyries was a dream compared to the C17.
Bazes turned to look at the rest of the paratroopers. They sat quietly with their heads and helmets bobbing along with the movement of the plane, patiently waiting. The paratrooper maxim was “anywhere in eighteen hours” but Clausen’s company had been in the middle of high altitude maneuvers in the Chilean Alps. This put them just over 400 miles, or two hours, from Argentina and the identified target.
The White House had managed to get a forensic team on the ground immediately after shooting Zahn’s 757 down, only to find far fewer remains than they expected. But Benecke already had his team working around the clock and found Zahn’s old aircraft before their ruse was complete. Just thirty minutes before landing in Buenos Aires, Benecke found the old ATR-42 airplane. He watched from a satellite feed as Zahn’s team exited the plane and was whisked away by several Argentinian military trucks.
Clausen’s paratrooper company was immediately called upon, but they were instructed to sit tight until Bazes and Rand arrived. Fortunately, it gave the men more than enough time to restock their supplies and ammo.
The giant plane dropped again, causing Rand to lurch forward. Bazes instinctively reached out just as Rand caught himself. They were les
s than an hour from the drop, and he was having serious doubts about Rand.
56
Zahn stared at Christine and grinned. “So, how do you like the place?” he asked looking around the room.
Christine followed his gaze but remained silent and defiant.
“Do you know what this place is? It’s a tad outdated as you can see.” He picked up a magazine from a corner table. It was seven years old. “This, my dear, is a genuine Nazi bunker.” He enjoyed watching her try to suppress her surprise. “You may not know, after World War II ended, many high ranking Nazis managed to escape Europe and relocate to Argentina where President Peron offered them sanctuary. Discretely, of course. But you see, the Nazis, while demented, were not stupid. They knew many people would never forget and would never stop looking for them, people like Simon Weisenthal who found many of them. So the Nazis, never much for accountability, built this bunker as a place to hide if and when that time came.”
Zahn dropped the magazine back onto the table. “It was built to house dozens of people for years without any communication to or from the outside world. Alas, I had to make some modifications. And since all of those good Nazis are now dead, I found it an ideal place to watch my finale.”
Zahn watched Christine with a tilt of his head. “Still not talking?” He shrugged and walked toward her, suddenly grabbing the back of her chair and picking her up with it. Christine slumped forward, almost falling out of the chair, and was caught only by the ropes that bound her. She hung forward as Zahn demonstrated his incredible strength and carried her across the room with one hand.
When he reached the far side, he opened the large, metal door and carried her into a hallway, then turned right into another brightly lit and much larger room. With a jarring impact, he dropped Christine back onto the chair and its four legs, causing her to rock momentarily from side to side. She gritted her teeth hard but made no sound.
In front of her was a wall of monitors with several desks before them. On each of the desks were large computers and even larger screens showing a myriad of video camera angles around both the complex and what appeared to be the darkened jungle outside.
However, it was the wall of monitors where Christine could not help but look. On each of the four-dozen monitors were live news videos from all around the world, covering scenes which Christine could only describe as chaotic. Huge crowds of people from Spain to the United States to South Africa, all rioting and destroying cars and buildings. Reporters cowered behind large objects and continued to film from a distance. One monitor caught Christine’s attention as a giant department store window was smashed into hundreds of pieces and people surged inside, grabbing any merchandise within reach.
She was shocked. She shook her head in disbelief as she watched the carnage on a global scale. After several moments, she noticed a different set of channels broadcasting from the streets somewhere in China. The people looked different, but the panic in the crowds was the same.
“Behold,” Zahn said, spreading his arms out wide. “My vengeance!”
Christine blinked hard. “What, what did you do?” Her eyes caught sight of giant pictures of the Pope held high over the crowds, and she gasped. “The Pope! What happened?” No sooner had she finished the sentence than she stared at Zahn in horror. “You did this? You…you killed the Pope?!”
Zahn turned and looked at the same monitor. “I sent him back to god! If I could have put a bow on him, I would have.” He quickly stepped forward and pointed at another monitor. “And there is the nexus of it all, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.”
“What?”
Zahn turned back to Christine. His eerie expression had returned. “It’s where it all began, so very long ago. It was only fitting that the end of the world begin where this all started, where young Ryan Kelly was trampled to death, and where I was denied my destiny. Irony at its best.”
“Ryan Kelly?”
“He was my mission,” Zahn said almost in a whisper. “The young boy who I was supposed to protect. A boy with a gift of intellect the world had not seen in a hundred years. Killed right before my eyes. At the very steps of where Saint Patrick’s was being built.”
Christine couldn’t believe her ears. She was in total shock. “So you killed the Pope?”
“Oh, you’ve missed so much,” smirked Zahn. “The Pope was merely a favor. A gift to those who have given so much to help make this happen. I owed them that much. And while they are fierce, my Middle Eastern friends are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. They haven’t given much thought to what comes next. To them, the Pope was their mission, the end goal. To me, he was merely a stepping stone.” He paused. “I was the wrong person to abandon, wouldn’t you say?”
Christine was beginning to shake. “What are you going to do?”
Zahn took a slow, deep breath. Oh, how he was enjoying this. He had waited so long. It was all decades in the making. Now, all of the anticipation, all of the anxiety, the frustration, the excitement, it was all bubbling out…and it was intoxicating.
“Observe China,” he said, pointing back to the Chinese news feeds. “Surely, you don’t think they’re rioting because of the Pope. They’re not Christian; well, at least most of them aren’t. No, China is under attack. After years of Chinese hackers attacking other countries, they now get a taste of their own medicine.” Zahn watched a huge crowd of people screaming and throwing rocks and bottles in downtown Beijing. “I’ve always found it fascinating that with so many different human emotions available to them, you people will inevitably act the same way under various types of extreme stress. You panic. Which, I can see, is precisely what you are starting to do.”
Christine closed her eyes and tried to control her shaking. She could feel the fear and hopelessness edging inward. There had to be something she could do. There was always something.
Zahn could barely contain his gloating as he continued watching the carnage on the screen. Oddly, he had no particular ill will toward the Chinese as a people; in fact, in some ways he admired them. But, unfortunately, they were the country that served his purpose best. “The Chinese,” Zahn continued, “have been in such a hurry to catch up with the modern world that they’ve progressed too fast. Too fast to establish sufficient protocols and manual safeguards to protect themselves against the very technology that will destroy them.”
Zahn knew, due to their explosive growth over the last few decades, China’s nuclear arsenal and their Command and Control systems were more modern than those of the other super powers. This meant, in China, technology was more relied upon to maintain and control certain safeguards with their nuclear missiles. It was, therefore, more vulnerable to Stux2, which had already found and circumvented safeguards for 22 nuclear warheads.
“In just a matter of hours, the most insidious computer attack known to man will overcome and change the programming behind China’s nuclear system and make it fully reactionary. Our virus will assume control of their early detection and warning system and convince it that a full-scale nuclear attack is occurring. And when China launches their missiles in an automatic response, the United States and Russia, who have very clear protocols after verifying real missiles are airborne, will retaliate in kind. Then comes Germany, France, Israel and India. And in case you haven’t picked up on the irony, most of the world’s nuclear warheads are both located and targeted within the Earth’s northern hemisphere, which is why we’re in the southern hemisphere. And no,” he smirked, “I don’t expect to survive, but I do intend to live long enough to enjoy watching the end of it all. Unlike those in the North, down here we won’t simply go poof!”
Christine’s mouth hung open. She was speechless. It couldn’t be, it just couldn’t be true. No one could do that. No one would do that. But the longer she stared at him, the more she began to believe it. “My god,” she said, “you are completely insane.”
“Insane?” Zahn scoffed. “Mengele was insane. I’m unforgiving. God left me here. I never got to go home. So
now, as my revenge, I’m going to send billions home.”
57
At the ten-minute warning, the bright lights went out in the C17 and were replaced by the plane’s low, red, combat lights. The Jumpmaster standing near Clausen cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled as loud as he could over the deafening engines. “TEN MINUTES!” He held up both hands and flashed all ten fingers.
The paratroopers near the front nodded and turned to the men directly behind them, repeating both the message and hand signal. One by one, the message was passed down the line with a nod from each paratrooper.
Both planes thundered forward, continuing to hug the ground through every fold of the terrain below them.
Zahn turned when one of his men stepped into the room. He was dressed in black fatigues with his face painted to match. Zahn looked past Christine at him. “What is it?”
The man glanced briefly at the monitors behind Zahn and then replied. “Something just showed up on radar and disappeared again. Something big.”
The look on Zahn’s face changed instantly. “How big?”
“Very big. Probably four engines.”
Zahn narrowed his eyes. That meant a transport plane, probably a C17. And if they saw one, that meant there were probably two. “Paratroopers,” he said. They were coming in with a company of paratroopers, which was one of his most likely scenarios. But how did they find him so quickly?
“How far away?” Zahn asked.
“About eight minutes.”
Zahn looked at his watch and thought for a moment. “Get your men ready. They’ll drop about twelve to fourteen kilometers out and in the dark it should take them three or four hours to hike in through this terrain. They’ll want to strike about 4:30 a.m. so the sun is rising by the time it’s finished. These men are some of the best in the world, and they’re going to come in hard.”
Amid the Shadows Page 24