Black Flagged Apex

by Steven Konkoly

  He had been surprised to learn that she wasn’t a permanent part of Sanderson’s entourage and still wasn’t sure what to make of this disclosure. Her current employer was a mystery that a basic background check hadn’t resolved, though her security clearance had sailed through without issue. She had provided his administrative personnel with a phone number that had apparently satisfied all of their requirements, without disclosing any information. He’d asked O’Reilly to dig further, but she came back with the same results. She’d never seen anything like this before, but agreed that it was completely legitimate. Callie Stewart, former marine counterintelligence officer, worked for a highly secretive, extremely well-connected private group within the Beltway. He didn’t like it.

  He activated his computer screen and selected O’Reilly’s name from the communications directory. His earpiece came to life with the sound of a ring tone.

  “Panera Bread. Will this be for pickup?” he heard.

  “I’m sorry. What the…I think…”

  “Just messing with you, boss. What’s up?” she said.

  “Do you see the two walking up the stairs by my office?”

  “The snake charmer and his cobra?”

  “Don’t worry. Admiral DeSantos will make sure she stays in her basket,” he said.

  “Good. Because if I run into her in the bathroom down here, I might not be able to restrain myself.”

  “She’ll be using the second-floor bathroom.”

  “You better keep the ladies’ room down here clear for me. You don’t want me wandering upstairs.”

  “She’s under orders to steer clear of the task force personnel, and you’re now under orders to stay away from her. Are we clear on that?” he said.

  “Yes. Is that why you called, sir?”

  “No. I need you to personally track her communications. I don’t trust her any more than you do. You can tap into her communications node. I don’t expect you to monitor her calls and emails live, but I want you to review them as soon as possible. She’s not to pass operational information to Sanderson. If she violates that rule, she’s out of here. I also want to know what she’s telling the field team.”

  “Easy enough. I’ll brief you as soon as I review any outgoing communications.”

  “Thank you, Dana. I’ll be out on the floor in a few minutes,” he said.

  “Sir, I think the whole purpose of this communication system is to keep you in your office.”

  “Am I really that bad?”

  “Better than Mendoza,” she admitted.

  “I presume he’s standing right next to you?”

  “Of course. I just texted him the context of our conversation. He looks confused. This is too much fun for me. Technology is like old guys’ kryptonite. You should see him fumbling with his phone, while trying to interpret my veiled insults. How long are we going to be trapped in this room?”

  “Too long. Now get back to work.”

  **

  Callie Stewart walked along the second floor catwalk with Admiral DeSantos. Neither of them said a word until they had entered the Department of Defense’s assigned office and closed the door. The office had been configured with two sparse inward facing workstations that occupied the rear half of the space. One of the workstations had been labeled with a placard reading “DIA,” which she would share with DeSantos, and the other read “SOCOM.” A small couch had been pushed up against the floor-to-ceiling window at the front, crowded against a small wire and glass end table. She stepped several feet into the crowded office and turned to the window, hoping the glass had been equipped with the same privacy feature as Sharpe’s office.

  “How was my performance?”

  “Convincing. I think he expected more of a fight, but that would have given him a reason to boot you off the task force. I think you skirted the line appropriately with a few well-placed, sarcastic comments. I guarantee they’ll be watching your calls closely.”

  “Our people have full access to their system, so they won’t be able to spy on me unless I want them to,” she said.

  “Already?” he said, staring at her with a look of disbelief.

  “I’m pretty sure Sanderson’s people had full access even before we went into Sharpe’s office.”

  “I probably don’t want to know how you pulled that off.”

  One of her first acts of subterfuge upon arriving was a little sleight-of-hand trick. She knew about NCTC procedure better than most of the members of the task force, having spent plenty of time here in the course of her duties at Aegis Corporation. Of course, nobody assigned to Task Force Scorpion was aware of this, and any of the duty personnel assigned to NCTC would be strictly forbidden to mention it. She knew that the NCTC checkin technicians would kindly transfer all of her cell phone contacts to the “loaner” phone provided by NCTC. She also knew that this would be one of the last parts of the checkin process, which would provide her with the opportunity to pull her trick.

  The cell phone she brought with her had been equipped with a sophisticated bar code scanner, which she used to scan her security pass card. Prior to surrendering the phone, she insisted on placing one call to her office, to give them her “loaner” cell phone number. She told NCTC personnel that her office colleagues might not answer a strange number and the task force couldn’t afford to waste time squaring away the situation in the middle of this crisis. Everyone at NCTC knew what was at stake on the watch floor, so her request drew no attention from the technicians. Her call transmitted the security pass card’s data to a Black Flag cyber-operations team that had set up shop within a small office in nearby Merrifield, Virginia. The team wasn’t sure if this would be enough for them to hack into NCTC’s system, so they had given her other options.

  One of the “contacts” transferred from her phone to the NCTC “loaner” contained a designer virus engineered to access NCTC’s computer network. The virus would install a backdoor into the system for the waiting cyber-ops team, while covering its own tracks with the latest generation rootkit software. Once the team had access to the system, they would download a more sophisticated and robust kernel-mode rootkit to conceal their direct access to the operating system. Since kernel-mode rootkits operated at the same security level as the operating system itself, they were difficult to detect and nearly impossible to remove without rebooting the entire system.

  Activation of the virus had been simple. Before walking onto the watch floor with Admiral DeSantos, she placed a quick “check in” call to General Sanderson on her new phone, which was digitally routed through NCTC’s computer system. Once her “loaner” phone started negotiating NCTC network protocols, the virus took off for its destination, and her job was done. She chatted with Sanderson for less than thirty seconds, which was twenty-nine seconds longer than necessary.

  She had checked the contact list on her NCTC phone upon leaving Sharpe’s office, noticing that the contact containing the virus had disappeared. The cyber team had told her that they would erase the contact once they had full access. At this point, she could place and receive calls on her phone, which would remain invisible to Sharpe’s surveillance efforts. She could also access Sharpe’s desktop, eavesdrop on his calls and “attend” all of his videoconferences. She wouldn’t have to do any of this, of course, since Sanderson had over a dozen operatives tracking Task Force Scorpion from his own operations center at the headquarters lodge in Argentina.

  At this point, her job was to maintain a semblance of legitimacy for Sanderson’s organization. She’d push the envelope a few times, as would be expected by Sharpe’s team, but overall she’d demonstrate respect for his ground rules. Ground rules that had been rendered meaningless by Sanderson’s cyber-warfare operations, but would appear to remain intact.

  “Sorry. Trade secret. And you never know when I might have to pay the DIA a little visit for Sanderson.”

  “I’ll make sure we confiscate your cell phone before issuing a security badge.”

  “You saw that? Impre
ssive.”

  “I’ll be back later tonight with some dinner. The food here sucks, and I’d hate to think of you eating alone. I’m not even sure Colonel Hanson will want to be seen with you. Looks like he’s made himself at home in one of the conference rooms.”

  “And you don’t mind being seen with me?”

  “Well, it’s too late to save my reputation. I was seen escorting you into the building,” he said.

  “Poor you.”

  “Someone has to take the dirty jobs,” he said.

  “They really hate Sanderson that badly?” she said.

  “With a passion. All they remember is what he did two years ago. Fucking over the FBI was bad enough, but that’s not what everyone remembers. He made a huge mistake killing Derren McKie inside the Pentagon. McKie had sold him out to General Tierney, who in turn blew the lid on the Black Flag program, so I can understand the feeling of betrayal…but he had the man killed right inside the Pentagon. Pretty high profile to say the least.

  “Then one of his operatives accidentally killed an off-duty police officer the same night, in the middle of massacring several Brown River contractors at a grocery store in Silver Spring. Not a good public relations night for Sanderson. He’s back in the fold because they need him. Beyond that, nobody will touch him.”

  “I think they’ll always need someone like Sanderson,” she said.

  “You’re absolutely right, but I don’t think the general will ever get to point where he can put a for sale sign up in Argentina. He’s stuck there. So, I’ll be back around 7 p.m. with some Thai food.”

  “I can’t wait,” she said.

  “Stay out of trouble.”

  “That’s what I do best.”

  “We’ll see,” DeSantos said and left.

  As soon as the door closed, Stewart searched her desk for the controls to obscure the window. The last thing she needed was for someone suspicious like O’Reilly to glance up and see her talking on a call that didn’t show up in the NCTC system. She looked around the room until she spotted a second light switch near the door. She flipped the switch down, and the glass fogged, leaving a translucent screen to cover the front of her office. Satisfied with her privacy, she dialed Sanderson’s number, which was instantaneously masked within the system. Her call was connected within seconds.

  “Nice job. I have full access to the system. I saw a request go to the Department of Justice to authorize surveillance at Muhammad’s mosque.”

  “Sharpe and I had a little talk about putting people on the inside. He didn’t seem optimistic about the chances of securing a warrant.”

  “At least he’s not opposed to the idea. We can still get a head start on finding Muhammad with the two operatives working outside of the task force.”

  Sanderson had wisely chosen to send two of his best Al Qaeda group operatives ahead of the Sayar’s group, traveling under their flawlessly crafted false identities, well below FBI radar. Aleem Fayed, of Saudi descent, was the head of the Middle East-Al Qaeda (MEAQ) group. A former army intelligence officer, he had been marginalized for years until 9/11 brought the war on terror into focus. Fortunately for Sanderson, Fayed had resigned his commission in May 2001, opting to help a forward-thinking Sanderson recruit operatives for the Middle East group.

  Tariq Paracha, a native-born Pakistani, was the second operative to join Sanderson, recruited by Fayed while still in college. Paracha’s family had moved to the U.S. when he was ten, leaving Pakistan behind to put their engineering degrees to work, while removing their son from the ever-tightening clutches of the Pakistani madrasa system. Tariq had been approached by Fayed in 2002, during the spring of his senior year at the University of Colorado Boulder. By July he was back in Pakistan, attending madrasa school for six months to bring back everything he learned.

  “I’ll put Fayed into the mosque for now and keep the mobile surveillance team close by. Paracha is with the surveillance group and can join Fayed at a moment’s notice if necessary. Unmask your phone and contact Sayar to explain the official situation to him. He’ll put up a fight, you’ll agree, but in the end, everyone will respect and observe the FBI’s lead on this one.”

  “I know the drill.”

  “I’m sure you do. We’ll keep you posted through emails to your phone. They’ll look like basic updates to anyone that grabs the phone out of your hand, but one of the words will be linked to the real message. Anything that requires immediate attention will be preceded by an innocuous checkin call from me or someone at my ops center. Other than that, have fun on your little vacation.”

  “This is what I do for a living, General.”

  “Until I can convince you to join us full time down in Argentina,” Sanderson said.

  “Offering a full-time paycheck would be a good start. I’ll be in touch,” Stewart said and hung up.

  She had a good feeling about Sanderson. Everything about his group was run professionally, leaving nothing to chance, and she liked his philosophy. He was a rogue, a fallen angel thrown out of paradise for refusing to sacrifice his ideals in a world that rewarded compromise. He wasn’t afraid to bend the rules to make the hard decisions that everyone else avoided, or tell the truths that needed to be heard to make progress. He told her from the very start that he “makes a living in that gray area where the best decisions rarely sit well with anyone.”

  She liked the idea of working on the “outside” and secretly hoped that Sanderson would make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. She worked on a consulting basis for the Aegis group, so she could most likely fit her work for Sanderson into that schedule, but eventually she would run into a conflict. She’d risk her job with Aegis every time she stepped into Sanderson’s world. D.C. was a small world, especially among private contractors working the counterintelligence circles. Worst-case scenario, she would be “outed” to the Aegis group, and they would blackball her in D.C., forcing her to join Sanderson’s merry band of outlaws living in the pristine wilderness of western Argentina. She could think of worse outcomes.

  She turned her attention back to the task at hand and dialed the six-digit prefix that would “unmask” her call to Abraham Sayar from the watchful eyes of Task Force Scorpion.

  Chapter 9

  8:25 PM

  Mount Arlington, New Jersey

  Abdul Mohammed Abusir drove the stolen Honda Odyssey minivan down Howard Boulevard searching for the turn onto Old Drakeville Road, which would lead them to the service road that reached the Mount Arlington pump station. They had driven past the entrance to the service road earlier, but couldn’t make any sort of assessment about the level of security guarding their target. The Mount Arlington pump station was one of four targets originally assigned to his cell. It wasn’t his primary target, but a drive by the Morristown pump station left him feeling uneasy.

  The pump station had been located in a busy section of the township, well within sight of regular traffic. They could see a police cruiser parked inside the gate leading to the complex, which was a new development. This was not the standard procedure in America, and they had never seen a law enforcement presence during any of their previous reconnaissance visits to the four targets assigned to their cell. His two remaining cell members agreed that they should choose a more secluded target. All of them immediately suggested Mount Arlington, located in the thick woods off Lake Hopatcong.

  When Ghazi Hamar failed to show up for evening prayer at the Islamic Center, Abusir had placed a call to Hamid Muhammad’s mosque and listened to the prerecorded message on the answering machine. The message contained none of the emergency code words he had memorized, but he still felt that something was wrong. Hamar had left the el-Halal variety store, one of their usual hangouts, in the middle of the afternoon to visit a nephew that lived in Elizabeth. He’d done this before on several occasions, successfully rejoining them for evening prayer. He had never missed Maghrib before. This was the one time they gathered without fail to pray together as brothers for the strength and wisdom to strike
a devastating blow to their sworn enemy, the United States.

  That evening’s Maghrib was to be their most significant. Earlier that morning, Abusir had received a call on his cell phone that he had anticipated for months. He immediately recognized the number, which he had memorized in the hills of Kandahar several months earlier. The caller simply told him that the package would arrive at his apartment before noon. He knew what this meant for his team.

  They would each take one of the canisters and hide it in a location unknown to the rest of the cell. This would ensure the continued survival of their plan if any of them were captured. As far as he was concerned, the arrival of the virus canisters signified the imminent destruction of America. He would take no chances with the weapons provided by Allah himself.

  Hamar’s failure to show up that night had been too much of a coincidence for him. He ordered the rest of his cell into hiding, to be contacted the following morning. He gave each one of them an envelope of cash and told them each to take a taxi to a motel and await instructions. In the morning, he called Hamid Muhammad’s mosque and listened to the prerecorded message on the answering machine. Something had definitely gone wrong the night before. The code words imbedded in the message told him to execute his plan immediately. He could only assume that the sudden order was somehow related to Hamar’s disappearance.

  It didn’t matter. They would succeed regardless of the obstacles placed before them. They had been chosen by Allah to carry Jihad straight into the heart of enemy territory, and it was God’s will that they would succeed. This much had always been clear to Abusir, even if their directions from Imam Muhammad had been murky at times. The Imam had served as a conduit of information from their network overseas, directing them through files imbedded in links accessible through the mosque’s website or more urgently through the answering machine.