by Mike Maden
Al Rus knew that the French would use electronic jammers—that was standard operating procedure against wireless remote IED detonators. But the jammers couldn’t stop an old-fashioned hand-cranked generator connected to copper wire. Primitive, but effective, especially in the hands of a trained engineer like Al Rus. The former BP employee had converted to the true Islamic faith, Salafism, when he was stationed in Saudi Arabia. Before he joined AQS, white German jihadi brothers in a Waziristan village taught him how to handle weapons and explosives and took him on their raids into Afghanistan against NATO forces, where he killed his first European infidels. He had a talent for it.
Al Rus stepped back over to his truck and dug around under the seat. He pulled out a radio and called his second-in-command, informing him it was now safe for the plane on the far horizon to land on the road ahead. In an hour, the cocaine would be loaded onto Algerian trucks and shipped north, making its way to the heart of the land of the Crusaders. If depraved Europeans wanted to pay good money for the poison he sold to them, so much the better. That money was used to wage jihad and help the poor and widows, and so it was blessed.
34
CIOS Corporate Offices
Rockville, Maryland
7 May
Jasmine Bath’s paranoia knew no bounds. She was determined to live long enough to enjoy the wealth she had accumulated over the last few years, and even more determined to enjoy a long and happy retirement, which, according to her schedule, would begin in precisely seven months, given current revenue streams.
It was probably time to get out by then anyway. Computer security was about to make a great leap forward with DARPA’s PROCEED initiative, exploring methods that would allow data computation of encrypted data without first decrypting it, even in the cloud, making it virtually impossible for hackers like her to write malware code to break it. Worse, security operations themselves would become automated, just like future combat. Advanced machine learning algorithms would soon become the security gatekeepers, not only preventing but even anticipating human-designed attacks.
Bath’s first line of defense was to remain hidden from the NSA. The easiest trick was to leak NSA training documents to various media outlets under the names of known whistle-blowers. That kept the NSA in a constant state of paranoia and self-limiting defenses as media and congressional inquiries escalated. The NSA simply didn’t have time to look for someone like Jasmine, especially not even knowing she was there to begin with.
The most effective tool in Bath’s defense arsenal was the alliances she created with other unwitting players in the field. Posing as an anonymous member of various hacktivist groups, Jasmine would empower them with resources that both distracted the NSA and created new targets of national interest. In the last few years, the anarchist hacker group ALGO.RYTHM had made frequent headlines by breaking into DoD computer bases, stealing embarrassing State Department cables, and disabling the LANs of the big national laboratories, then publishing their exploits. Of course, ALGO.RYTHM hackers managed to complete these missions only by following the guided maps through agency software defenses fed to them by Jasmine Bath. If ALGO.RYTHM hackers got sloppy with their opsec, CIOS would dispatch a specialized field operative to pinch off the potential leak, usually with a small-caliber bullet to the brain.
The closest anyone had ever come to identifying Jasmine occurred just weeks after the Utah Data Center at Bluffdale had gone online. She still wasn’t quite sure how he’d picked up her digital scent, but he did, and his abilities were far superior to those of anyone else she’d ever encountered at the Q Group, the NSA’s security and counterintelligence directorate. She finally evaded him by destroying his career, falsely linking him to the most recent Utah Data Center catastrophe. It was one of her best ops.
Jasmine knew the security protocols at the UDC because she’d designed half of them while in the NSA’s employ. The UDC was NSA’s vast, multibillion-dollar server farm, and the crown jewel in its burgeoning intelligence-gathering empire. It was deemed impossible to infect the computers there with any kind of virus thanks to the external firewalls, which suffered tens of thousands of automated attempted hacks daily.
But the internal security procedures were equally important. Those protocols kept any devices from being smuggled in that might carry infectious malware. The NSA knew that it was a USB thumb drive infected with the Stuxnet virus smuggled into the Natanz nuclear facility that wiped out over a thousand Iranian centrifuges. The NSA took every precaution to avoid a similar attack on the UDC.
Every precaution but one, Jasmine determined.
A search of UDC employees uncovered the medical records of a senior programmer at the facility. The fifty-eight-year-old woman had recently had one of the new wirelessly programmed heart pacemakers implanted. The wireless pacemaker was monitored and updated via a cell phone call. All Bath did was hack into the poorly secured mainframe of the medical device manufacturer and install a Stuxnet-like worm on the woman’s pacemaker via the cell phone. Once the infected programmer was at her computer station, the self-propogating worm used the pacemaker’s wireless capabilities to infect the SCADA system Wi-Fi routers. Those SCADA computers, in turn, controlled the air handler units that cooled the 1.2 million square feet of the vast server farm. Once the air handler units failed—along with the warning alarms and software monitoring the failure, disabled by the same worm—acres of servers overheated and eventually caught fire, destroying 400 terabytes of collected foreign intelligence. While this represented only a small fraction of the total amount of data stored at the UDC, it was an amount of data equal to all of the books ever written in the history of the world.
Internal security inspections investigating the multimillion-dollar catastrophe located the worm, and it was traced back to the home computer of the Q Group investigator who had nearly uncovered CIOS and its operations. His hard drive also contained encrypted links to offshore bank accounts affiliated with the anarchist hacker group ALGO.RYTHM.
The innocent Q Group investigator was swiftly arrested, tried, and convicted. A life ruined, a family bankrupted, all thanks to falsified evidence created and planted by Jasmine Bath.
35
Adrar des Ifoghas
Kidal Region, Northeastern Mali
7 May
The convoy of five Toyota pickups sped through the desert toward the mountains in a long, steady line, spread out enough that the sand kicked up by the truck in front didn’t spatter the windshield of the one behind. Overladen with extra ammo, weapons, gear, and people, they couldn’t do top speed for fear of hitting the soft patches of sand and either busting shocks or, worse, spilling the trucks over and tossing their human cargo onto the ground. The ride was hardly smooth, though. The extra weight caused the trucks to rise and fall like a ship on a heavy ocean swell, especially in back where Pearce and Early rode in Mossa’s truck. They’d suffered far worse in years gone by, but hours of sweltering heat and stinging sand in an open truck bed wasn’t exactly a Disneyland ride, either.
“I’m getting too old for this shit,” Early complained through his shemagh and aviator glasses. “Bring any Dramamine with you?” Early was on the verge of puking from motion sickness.
“Beats working for a living, doesn’t it?” Pearce shouted back.
As they neared the mountains, the sand began to give way to small rocks, then hundreds of larger rounded stones as large as soccer balls as they approached the mountain range. They slowed. The steep hills in front of them were covered with piles of eroded granite blocks, some over five meters tall, like broken teeth thrusting out of a sandy jaw. Impassable by vehicles.
At the first steep incline Mossa signaled a stop and the convoy halted. Early and Pearce jumped out. It felt good to stretch their limbs after hours of riding folded up in the back, crowded in with two other fighters and Pearce’s gear. Pearce was the only man without a tagelmust. He pulled off his boonie hat and glasses and shook t
he sand out of his long hair and shaggy beard.
“Didn’t exactly come prepared, did you?” Early asked.
“It was supposed to be an extraction, not an insertion,” Pearce said.
“There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere, but my brain is too rattled to find it.”
Mossa had stepped out of the cab and was calling on a handheld walkie-talkie. The boy stood close by him. Pearce didn’t understand the lingo. It certainly wasn’t Arabic or Pashto.
“What’s he saying?” Pearce asked Early.
Early shrugged. “Beats me. I never picked up on the patois.”
“He’s calling ahead to his men, though they surely have watched us all the way here. He wants to be sure they don’t fire on us on the way up,” Cella said. She took a drink out of her canteen and held it out to Early.
“Thanks.” Early took a swallow as Pearce glanced up the rising chain of ragged mountains. The tallest peaks in the far distance rose some eight hundred meters.
“On the maps they call this the Adrar des Ifoghas—the mountains of the Ifogha clan,” Cella said. “The Imohar have fought many battles here. Algerians, Chadians, the French, and, lately, al-Qaeda Sahara. And yet they still remain.”
“How do they survive?” Pearce asked. “There’s nothing but rock and sand here.”
“The massif has many shallow valleys and wadis, and villages are scattered here and there.” She rolled away one of the larger stones with the toe of her boot. A yellow scorpion flared its stinging tail, then fled for the cover of another. “And a few surprises.”
Pearce nodded at the top of the hill in front of them. “The welcoming committee.”
A dozen Tuareg fighters stood on top of the big granite blocks, faces shrouded in indigo, rifles perched on their hips.
“Now we climb,” Mossa said.
“What about those?” Early asked, pointing at the Toyotas.
“They have another purpose,” Mossa said. “Grab your boxes, Mr. Pearce.”
Pearce pulled the two big Pelican cases out and shouldered his rifle. Early slung his SCAR over his good shoulder.
Mossa barked orders and the trucks sped away back toward Anou, each with a driver and gunner. The rest of his men and everybody else remained, including the four women and the boy.
“Follow my path exactly,” Mossa called over his shoulder. Mossa led the way up, snaking his way through the field of stones.
They climbed the mountain in silence, never following a straight line. Sand and rocks crunched beneath Pearce’s boots. Some of Mossa’s men wore sandals. The women and the boy did, too. Pearce assumed the mountain must be mined. He kept looking for trip wires or other triggers but never spotted any, so they must have all been buried. His practiced eye couldn’t spot any of those, either. Every now and then he saw a spent shell casing, the brass sometimes gleaming, sometimes tarnished. Depending on how long ago they’d been fired, he assumed. He counted five different calibers he recognized, and a couple more he wasn’t sure of.
The sun was kneeling down toward the far horizon behind them, but the heat was still miserable, though perceptibly less miserable than before. Pearce felt like the slacker in the group, struggling to keep up the pace on the rising grade. His thighs burned and his clothes were drenched. He realized how badly he’d let himself go. It had been six months since he’d done any serious running or any other kind of regular workout. The Tuaregs moved easily through the stony field and the heat. Even Early seemed immune to it. Halfway up they picked their way through a steep trench, whether natural or man-made Pearce wasn’t sure. The entire approach up the mountain was a natural barrier to all kinds of vehicles, wheeled or tracked. A great defensive position. No wonder the Tuaregs had been able to stand their ground here.
A few minutes later they were close to the summit of granite boulders. Mossa’s fighters dropped down from the rocks and came down to greet them. Pearce couldn’t understand a word of what they said, but the laughter, backslapping, and hand gestures were universal. Comrades greeting comrades after a harrowing, successful mission, recounting the action, moment by moment. Pearce knew when they reached the part about the Switchblade UAV and grenade launcher, because the entire group turned nearly in unison toward him in stunned silence.
“Mr. Pearce, come meet my commanders,” Mossa said, gesturing with his hand.
Pearce ambled over to the knot of indigo turbans and combat fatigues. Pearce felt strong hands clapping his back now, too, as he pressed in closer. Strange that the men still didn’t uncover their faces, he thought.
Mossa introduced him to the local commanders, each the head of his own small clan, and a fighting leader in his own right. Fierce, sharp eyes shined beneath the headdresses as Mossa named each man and listed his particular prowess in battle or recent victory. Many had fought for Gaddafi in the Libyan army. The old dictator had recruited hundreds of Tuareg fighters over the years and were considered some of the best soldiers under his command. When the regime fell, most Tuaregs fled back to their native homelands with as many weapons as they could carry. Too closely identified with the murderous Gaddafi regime and hated by ethnic Libyans, the Tuaregs knew the wrath of the foreign rebels leading the Libyan revolution—many of whom were radical Islamic jihadists—would soon turn on them as well.
Pearce nodded his head slightly to each in deference, and nodded further as he acknowledged each man’s honorific.
“And what of you, Mr. Pearce? I know nothing of you, except that you are friends with Mr. Early and my daughter-in-law. But first, explain to my men the nature of the weapon you unleashed on the dogs in Anou.”
Pearce hesitated. Since he was a kid growing up in the wilds of Wyoming he’d been a loner. The only son of a drunken, angry father, he took solace fishing and hunting in the mountains by himself, or lost himself in books by the fire at night. Even when he served with the CIA he’d mostly been alone behind enemy lines or in very small groups of fighters. Both his nature and his training drove him to stay in the background, unseen, unnoticed—until he struck. He hated being the center of attention of anything, whether it was a toast at a wedding or a sales pitch to a group of potential clients. He was uncomfortable even now, though it only involved explaining to a curious group of Tuareg warriors the technical aspects of a new weapons system. But Pearce knew the cultures of the East. He dared not embarrass or shame Mossa by refusing his invitation to share his exploits.
So Pearce relented, explaining the basics of the modified M-25 system. But he didn’t break open the Pelican case and pull out the gear to show them.
“And you are American military?” Mossa asked. He was translating for one of his men.
“No.”
“CIA?” Mossa asked. A wave of murmuring swept through the group. None of them apparently spoke any English, but the dreaded three-letter word was universally recognized.
“No.” Technically, true. Pearce had been out of the service for a decade.
“Then how do you come by such weapons?” another man asked through Mossa.
“I own a company that develops these weapons. We train others for money, and sometimes we sell the drones, too.”
Drones! The Tuaregs muttered the hated word to themselves over and over. Another American word understood and feared the world over. Some of them were clearly agitated. Pearce knew that the American government had sent drones to help the Libyan rebels. Tuareg soldiers in the Libyan army must have died because of that decision.
“You’ve come to fight for us?” a man called out in Tamasheq. Mossa translated.
“No. I came to help my friend.” He patted Early on the back. “Now he is safe. Now I must leave,” Pearce said.
Pearce saw the disappointment in their eyes. A few even glared at him. Did they think he was a coward?
“Come. We need to make plans for your departure,” Mossa said. He clapped an arm around Pearce�
�s shoulder, a sign of his favor to the dissemblers, and led the way.
“Mossa!” A man high up on the rocks pointed just moments before Pearce heard the whump-whump-whump of rotor blades hammering the air.
An attack helicopter roared in the distance, a thousand feet off the deck, barreling straight for their position. Pearce had to shield his eyes to see it. The chopper was framed by the blinding circle of the sun, but its huge, ugly frame was familiar. He’d seen them before, up close and personal, but he also knew their history. In the 1980s, the Soviets hunted Afghan mujahideen with the big armored Hinds to great effect until the CIA smuggled Stinger missiles into the country. The mujahideen feared and hated the big ugly air machines. Ironically, the modern Afghan air force flew them, too. It pissed Pearce off that Afghans were allowed to buy military equipment from their former enemies instead of from the allies who saved their asses. And they bought them with U.S. taxpayer dollars, too.
Down on the plain, four of Mossa’s trucks sped four abreast, bouncing and slewing in the sand, racing back for the mountain.
“Where’s the fifth truck?” Early asked, then cursed himself. In the far distance he saw a black, oily smudge.
“The Devil’s Chariot,” Mossa said, binoculars to his eyes. “Mali air force.”
That’s what the mujahideen had called them, too, Pearce remembered. At least when the Hinds were hunting them.
Mossa kept his eyes glued to his binoculars. Spoke an order to Balla. His lieutenant turned and disappeared behind the towering rocks behind them.
The trucks were three, maybe four miles from the mountain, the big chopper half that distance behind them. Didn’t have to be an air force general to figure out the math wasn’t good for the slower-running Toyotas. Sparks flashed from the nose of the Hind, and a second later, the air cracked with echoes of machine-gun fire from the Russian four-barrel Gatling gun.