by James Phelan
“Major cyber breaches and attacks occur every day,” David continued, pacing. “We’re always worried about hackers who will hurt critical infrastructure such as the electrical power grid, financial systems or transportation networks. That’s the sort of scenario that some policy-makers are most concerned with. An attack could cause large parts of the country to lose power by overpowering transmission systems—big lumps of iron that transmit our electricity, and if one is destroyed, there’s no spares and each one takes nine months to build. Remember Obama’s Wall Street Journal op-ed., offered an example of train derailment, since many transportation systems rely on computer networks to function?”
“I missed that one,” replied Walker. “How worried should we be?”
“Worried—but let’s not get too paranoid. These are doomsday scenarios. Experts agree that it’s a definite possibility but not the easiest or most likely way someone would try to inflict damage. The simple repetition of the worst-case scenarios tends to make people think it’s the most likely, which isn’t true. But does that mean we shouldn’t prepare for it? Hell no.”
“Do you think this group has perpetrated some of those, as proof of concept?”
“It’s possible.”
“And a threat has just been made?”
“You’ll see a tape of it in a moment.”
“This threat is enough to make you believe that this is the next Zodiac cell?”
“The person making the threat will be taken seriously and this will play out unless they’re stopped.” David shifted so that he was leaning against the wall with his shoulder, his arms still crossed. “So, yes. This is it; the next Zodiac cell. And it’s going to activate the next.”
“And on we go . . .”
“And on we go.”
Walker drank some water; condensation dotted the bottle from the humidity. There was a watermark a couple of feet up the walls of the room, along with patches of black mold, as though the house had flooded in a climatic event. Walker felt sweat running down his back. He was wearing a navy blue cotton shirt, the sleeves rolled up, over a black T-shirt. Black jeans. Walker welcomed the sweat, specifically, the sensation of it—he reckoned that his senses were now fully online. The only hold-up would come from his legs and back and arms having been stationary for so long that he wouldn’t be as quick as he could be. But adrenaline would play its part, if called upon.
“Switching off the Internet has to be impossible,” Walker said. He took off his shirt and used it to mop his face. “There are servers all over the place; the Internet is an entity with no master—and certainly no master switch to turn it off. An earthquake here, a tsunami there, grid failures—it survives those things. Maybe not in spots, but as a whole.”
“There’s a way. There’s always a way.”
“What are we talking—some kind of super-virus?”
“Nope. Like you said, the Internet’s too spread out for that. Programmers could take steps to stop it before it reached world-wide proportions. And you’re right that the Internet is an entity unto itself. It’s like a living organism—a brain, with synapses firing through pathways that are able to duplicate and find new ways of transferring and directing traffic.”
Walker wondered if his father thought of his mother when he gave that brain analogy. How her pathways got muddled, blocked off, shut down. How, in the end, as complex as the brain is, it can be turned off. He searched his father’s face but the man had shifted again, his hands now on his hips, his feet spread apart.
“A big virus like an updated Stuxnet,” David Walker said. “Sure, it might crash a whole range of networks or servers, but it can be stopped. Servers can be disconnected, the virus purged; the Internet would slow significantly in the meantime but it would find a way to keep going.”
“But you’re saying that there’s a way to literally switch it off?”
“Yes.” Walker Snr paused to make sure he had his son’s undivided attention. “It’s called the law.”
9
“What’s our response?” General Christie asked the Director of the FBI’s Cyber Crime Division, after waiting five full minutes for the call-back.
“We’ve got a team on it. Big team—I just retasked five hundred agents here and in Atlanta and New York.”
“This Jasper Brokaw,” Christie said, watching the news scenes. “There were no known threats against him?”
“Nothing telling. And the guy was a star at the NSA. Super-nova bright. Never flagged a follow-up in security clearances, aside from the usual stuff when posted overseas. He’s as clean as they come. Cleaner, actually, with pedigree background. But we’re shaking trees and rattling bushes or whatever it is that we’re doing.”
“I read his file,” Christie said. “He used to be Army.”
“We’ve just spoken to his superiors—old Army COs as well as his NSA department head. Brokaw is good at what he does. Among our best, they say. Certainly capable of attacking critical infrastructure.”
“Where’s Homeland on this?”
“They’re planning for the worst while hoping the sky doesn’t fall so that they might actually have to do something real.”
“Those guys . . .”
“I know. There’s simply too much to protect and they’re still green. This kind of thing is out of their league.”
Christie leaned forward on her desk, said into the phone, “You’re briefing the White House?”
“Half-hourly. We’ve got a team set up in the Situation Room. They’re keeping the President informed. I’m across this, believe me.”
Christie smiled, knowing what that meant: we’re making sure that Homeland Security is kept in check, and we’re ready to use our gravitas to intercept ineptitude.
“POTUS is in Hawaii?”
“And he’s staying put,” the Director replied. “Either there or on Air Force One, until this is over. The VP is in the Sit Room. Congress isn’t in session, and the Hill’s largely deserted, so that’s one security headache we don’t have in the face of however many cyber attacks are headed our way.”
“We might need them on the Hill to make decisions.”
“The President has all the power he needs.”
General Christie smiled again. He sure does. “I’ll connect in to the next Sit Room briefing, patch into the video con.”
“You’re expecting to be called in on this?”
“If the President needs us, we’re ready and willing to act.”
“God, I can’t fathom it will get to that.”
“Plan for the worst, right? It’s happened before.” 9/11. Pearl Harbor. She didn’t need to say it. They both knew what destruction looked like. Plan for the worst . . .
•
“There’s a law that says they can turn off the Internet?” Walker said. He stood, moved to the plastic bag of cold water bottles and took another. Neither TSA guy moved, but they both watched him. He passed them around, saying to the two big guys, “No hard feelings.”
“Sure are laws, a whole load of them, in fact.” David sipped his water. “Here and in most other countries. But we’re not just talking China or Iran or Syria or Russia turning off their Internet to stop people talking online to prevent civil unrest in those autocracies. Look, Jed,” David continued, still standing but shifting positions again, “this is about switching the Internet off in North America and among our allies around the globe. What’s left will be a ghost network, cut off from the world, small pockets here and there.”
Walker nodded. “Effectively all that’s left would be intranets and local-area networks in far-flung corners of the Middle East and Africa.”
“That’s right.”
“Who enacts this law here—the Supreme Court?”
“The White House,” David said. “A raft of laws have been passed since 9/11, probably the most pertinent to this being the Cybersecurity and Internet Freedom Act.”
“Don’t you like how they put ‘freedom’ and ‘patriot’ in bills through Congres
s so that they sound all rosy?”
“Whatever works.”
“And why will the White House enact these laws?”
“The coming events will force the President’s hand.”
“Over the next thirty-six hours.”
“Yes.”
“At what point? At events that we don’t even know are coming . . . they’re going to have to be catastrophic.”
“That’s the unknown, the multi-trillion-dollar question,” David said, pacing. “What will come, where, when . . .”
“Say the Net is shut down for a period of time,” Walker said. “That will do what—stop more cyber attacks only until it’s switched on again? To put up bigger walls of defense.”
“Maybe. In theory.” David Walker exhaled. “Maybe it will buy the time to find this guy and those who have him captive and put a permanent stop to it. But there’s more to it than that—it won’t be that simple. It can’t be.”
“I’ve always heard it’s much easier to attack than defend in cyberspace . . .”
“Correct. But what we’re talking about—enacting this law—won’t happen easily. I mean, this is not like the President has a literal button or switch to shut off the Net; orders have to be given and papers served and lawyers across the globe briefed, and all the while the world’s biggest companies will challenge at every turn to save their very existence. Even if the Net is down for an hour, or two, or six, can you imagine the shock to the global economy? Let alone all the systems that rely on the Net, from personal-safety to a national-security point of view.”
“I’m more worried about getting to that point of the President’s decision,” Walker said. “Nothing happens fast in Washington, so shutting down the Net inside of thirty-six hours may be a moot point. The President will have to deliberate with the National Security Council, Congress and the Senate will have to be recalled and they’ll be arguing—it’s going to take time, and we’re going to see what these events are, and that’s all going to happen before we see any private-sector push-back.”
“But there are laws in place, and a few executive orders, that authorize him to direct the Department of Homeland Security to shut it down, fast.”
“To prevent further attacks . . .”
“That’s right. They sold it as a what-if scenario. Like, what if a terror group were using cell networks or wi-fi to detonate bombs around the country—how do we stop that? How do we make sure it’s all shut down?”
“How are they going to know the attacks are from this group?” Walker said. “That they’re different from the thousands of cyber attacks on US networks every day?”
“Because a credible threat has just been made. We’ve under six hours until the next cyber attack, and it will involve all US government personnel.”
“That’s vague. That’s it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Who knows about it?”
“It was on the news two hours ago.”
Walker checked his watch. “That’s after you picked me up and brought me here.”
“Yes. I moved fast.”
“You had advance warning.”
“No. I was watching for signs. I told you: patterns.”
Walker nodded. That’s what his father was known for, how he’d been so in demand as a professor who specialized in global security and foreign policy.
Walker said, “What can I do?”
“I’m not certain. But you won’t be working with the NSA or FBI or DoD. Nor your friends in the UN.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re all going to be looking into this the wrong way. They’re on defense, remember?” David looked at Walker, and in his eyes was something that wasn’t there before: pity. “And they don’t have what you have.”
“What’s that?”
“A connection.”
10
Walker’s connection had watched the news, and she now sat with her father in the sitting room of his home. The air was humid and heavy. Neither father nor daughter had spoken for five minutes. Nervous tension arced between them. The house was dark, because all the curtains were drawn. Not for any reason other than practical safety. The coffee table before them held a jug of iced tea, two glasses poured, neither touched. Her father’s face was flushed. Anger, she figured. Anger that was soon replaced by a feeling of impotence, of being on the sidelines, of not being allowed to interfere. It wasn’t just that he was retired from military service. It was that this was not a military affair. That, and they were being watched.
The watchers were in the form of two Special Agents from the FBI, one in the kitchen and one seated in the hallway. There was another security presence, outside, where two police cruisers from the San Diego PD sat parked at each end of the residential street, screening all those who came and went. A quiet street, mainly retirees and a couple of military families.
We’re here to ensure your safety, the lead FBI agent had said upon arrival. You’re to stay here, under our supervision, until we hear otherwise. The assistant SAC from the LA Field Office will be here soon to discuss the matter further. In the meantime, you are to cease all communications—for your safety, of course, and that of Jasper, whom we are doing everything we can to locate and rescue.
So, this was what it felt like to be captive. Inside the house, sitting on a couch next to her father, Monica Brokaw felt numb. She’d seen the news feed and had not spoken since. Within twenty minutes the police had shown up, and five minutes after that, the FBI agents. She sat next to her father and watched the news. The volume was down because her father, hard of hearing from decades in the Air Force near fast jets, preferred to read subtitles. The newscasters were analyzing and dissecting what had been demanded in the face of a pending cyber attack. Experts were being questioned. Hypotheticals were being thrown about. None of them knew what they were talking about.
Monica glanced out the open doorway to the agent sitting in the hall. For our protection? she thought as the agent looked from the front door to the television, and back. Then why do I feel like a prisoner? I might as well be the one in the orange jumpsuit. And that won’t do. Not at all.
•
“A connection?” Walker said.
“I’ll get to that,” David replied.
“Time’s ticking, right?” Walker said. His father was silent. “Do we know the first target at least? A clue, something to go on, besides the fact that it will involve all government employees?”
“No. That was it.”
“Do we know who’s making the threat?”
“Partially.”
“China?”
“No.”
“If you’re going to tell me it’s some nerd in a basement—”
“No. This is quite real.”
“One person can really do this?”
“An insider can.”
“An insider? Like, an NSA guy or someone?”
“Exactly like an NSA guy. He’s hostage, his captors unknown and unseen.”
“And he’s on the news?”
“Yes. They’ve dressed him in an orange jumpsuit and all. Apparently he’s been through the ringer a bit.” Walker watched his father stretch out against the window frame. The old man had always had a bad back, the result of a childhood accident on the family farm outside Amarillo, and had suffered through multiple surgeries over the years. He’d heard his father claim that the injury was caused by a slip on a hoodoo in Palo Duro Canyon and Walker had vowed one day to get the truth. But not today. “You might know him, actually.”
“The NSA guy?”
“His name’s Jasper Brokaw.”
Walker thought about the name. Nothing. “No.”
David turned around. “You sure?”
“I don’t know the name at all. I’ve only ever met a handful of guys from the NSA. It sounds like this guy’s at the tech end, and aside from a couple of guys attached to a high-profile-target cell-phone tracking unit in Baghdad, I haven’t met any others. Certainly no Jasper.
I’d remember that name. Friendly ghost, right?”
“Okay,” David said. “What about Brokaw?”
“Common enough name,” Walker said to him. There was silence for a moment, and Walker added, “You look tired, worn out.”
“So do you.”
“I’ve been busy.”
David merely nodded. Walker wondered how much his father knew about who was behind Zodiac. It was not that long ago that he’d been the one standing over his father, whom he had captured, in England. Now this. Could David Walker prevent all the Zodiac terror threats that he admitted to helping brainstorm years ago, when he was part of the intelligence system? Or was this it—doing whatever it was that he could from the shadows and directing his son to do the point-work?
“So, in the scheme of things, what’s the big deal with shutting down the Net?” Walker said. “I mean, turn it off, we switch it straight back on, right? Threat’s over. Close the guys out and prevent whatever threats they’re making. Use the opportunity to track them down.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Can’t be too hard if the President has the power to do it,” Walker said. “Having no Internet for a minute or two will be annoying, sure, it might cost billions of dollars to the global economy for every second it’s off. But that’s it—turn it back on, freeze whoever it is out, right? We use the full powers of the NSA and global partners to track down those doing the hacks. Problem solved.”
“It won’t be that easy,” David repeated. “I can’t be . . .”
Walker could tell his father’s mind was elsewhere, trying to catch up and piece together the threat.
“You wonder how I knew this was happening before anyone else?” he said, returning his gaze to his son. “How I had all this in play before you got to the airport?”
“Either someone told you—”
“No one told me.”