Wipeout: Wipeout Book 1

by Richards, ES

  “The President?!”

  “We need to see if they can provide us with any aid, any sort of bail out. So, I don’t have long. Listen carefully – it’s not ransomware as they’re going to tell everyone, it’s everything. All the money is gone. And to be honest, I don’t feel confident that the government is going to be able to help us. They don’t have the money to cover this. The country just can’t support what we’ve lost. Things are going to get real bad when the truth comes out. You need to do everything you can to stay safe and away from it all.”

  “What do you mean, Jamie? Everything can’t just be gone!”

  “It is, mom. I’m sorry.”

  “But what will we do? How will we fix things?”

  “I’m going to work on that. We’ll come up with something,” Jameson paused again as there was a knock on his now closed office door and the same nervous-looking intern pushed it open and stuck his head into the room. Jameson looked up at the clock and saw the time for the conference call was finally upon him. Lifting a finger to the intern, he gestured for him to give him another minute. He couldn’t just leave things with his mom like this.

  “Look, mom,” he said. “We’ll figure something out, I promise. But in the meantime, I need you to stay safe and stay indoors. No matter how bad it seems like it’s getting, that’s where you’re safest. I’ll work something out and I’ll come and get you myself, okay? I promise, mom. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

  “To me?” Jameson’s mother slowed for a moment, a brief second of silence spanning out between her and her son. “I’m not worried about me, Jamie; it’s you I’m scared for. I know you’ll do everything you can, but if there comes a point when you know you’ve done all you can, promise me you’ll get out of there and keep yourself safe. Money isn’t the most important thing sweetheart. That’s you.”

  “Okay mom, I promise.” Jameson replied, a grim smile breaking out onto his face. “Now I really have to go. Stay indoors. I love you, mom.”

  “I love you too, Jamie. Go and save us all.”

  As the line went dead, Jameson Kildare felt the pressure of his mother’s words weighing heavily on his shoulders. He knew she hadn’t meant it quite so literally, but he felt like for New York at least, a lot of what was going to happen would be as a result of how this next meeting went. At least he could go to it now knowing that his mother was safe. She was a sensible woman and she would do as he had instructed. As would he. He had promised her that he would get out before it was too late, and he would do so. He loved Trident with all his heart, but nothing was quite as dear to him as his family.

  Standing up and straightening his tie in the mirror, Jameson prepared himself for the biggest meeting of not only his career, but his life. He didn’t really get along that well with Claire Manning to begin with, her father being a much better CEO than the woman could ever even dream to be. But with the added pressure of the President on the line and the things they were going to have to share, he didn’t feel very confident. Between them they had to try and figure out if there was a way to save the country, or at least keep things from completely imploding while they found the solution.

  “Okay,” he announced to the intern as he opened his office door fully, the young man – who Jameson doubted was long out of his teenage years – waiting dutifully. “Lead the way.”

  “Yes sir.”

  The walk was short, and Jameson found himself wishing it could last a little bit longer. He had no idea how he was going to approach the problem ahead of him, but throughout his career he had faced up to many big challenges and always managed to get the better of them. Nodding to the intern and opening the door to the boardroom, Jameson forced himself to feel confident and hopeful about what lay ahead. He knew that without that attitude, hope was already lost.

  “Madam President. Ms Manning.” he greeted the two largest faces on the large screen in the boardroom, before nodding to the two physical bodies who sat around the table. “Apologies for the delay.”

  “No matter,” the President replied. “Let’s get down to business now, shall we? Where is best to begin?”

  There was a moment of silence as everyone tried to work out what to say. President Morgan and Claire Manning weren’t the only faces to occupy the large screen in the boardroom. While they each filled a third of the screen, another segment showed two men from the Trident bank, one of whom Jameson recognized as Jasper Connolly. Jameson found it odd that they hadn’t dialed into the same line as Claire Manning, all of them undoubtedly in the same building, but that was just yet another one of Ms Manning’s traits that made her so disliked within the company. Jasper and his companion – who Jameson couldn’t place – were there to advise on exactly how the hack had taken place and whether there was any possibility at all of tracing it back to the source and the culprits. It was these men that eventually picked up the baton to speak first.

  “We’ve got an update ma’am,” the slightly shorter, rounder one of the two that Jameson didn’t recognize offered up. “Although I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

  “Go on,” President Morgan replied sternly.

  “Well,” the portly man cleared his throat. “We have confirmed that it is not a ransomware attack. This was carefully and meticulously planned out by an extremely talented group of hackers. We can’t see exactly how they wiped the accounts or how they got in and out of them. In fact, there are only one or two tiny breadcrumbs which give us any idea of the details of the attack.”

  The President’s face fell, disappointed with the results as she worried how this was going to affect her country. Nonetheless she remained quiet, the two techies from Trident seeing enough from her reaction that she wanted them to continue. Jameson watched on quietly, sharing a nervous look with the other two people he shared the room with. One of them was his deputy finance director, Angela Solomon, a strict woman not too dissimilar to the President herself. Angela was fairly new to the role, but having worked in the private sector most of her life her views and methods were steadfast and confident, her regime had certainly ruffled more than a few feathers when she first came into the job. Jameson trusted her now though, aware that she had the company’s best intentions at heart. The other was Charlie Hatton, the city’s chief of police and someone Jameson had known for nearly fifteen years. Both he and Angela watched the screen with equal devotion as Jameson did, keen to hear what their colleagues from Trident had discovered.

  “The first is a calling card ma’am,” Jasper continued, picking up the explanation. “This was naturally left behind on purpose and contains a number of Chinese symbols.” Jasper held a copy of the calling card up for everyone to see as Charlie clicked a button on the laptop beside him to make that window go full screen.

  “I’ve seen it,” President Morgan nodded.

  “We’ve got a top team working on this to decipher what the symbols mean, but apparently it’s not just one set form of the Chinese language, but a number mixed together to create some sort of code. The question is a big one though: is this legitimate or just a decoy left behind to confuse us?”

  At the tap of a button again, the screen returned to three windows, with the two men at Trident ready to continue. “We can’t see how the hackers got in and out of our systems undetected, but we have identified a pattern within the malware they used. Looking back at our records and the information your technical team shared with us, we have matched this pattern to a couple of other hacks which occurred within the last year. This means we’ve got past examples of work conducted by this group or someone within the group, which could help us to identify the perpetrators.”

  Now the President’s face lit up. This was clearly new information and good information at that. “Interesting,” she replied, “so will that help you narrow down the location? Determine whether the hack did originate in China or not?”

  “It should,” the man in glasses nodded. “We’re going to keep digging and we’ll keep your team updated.”

&nbs
p; “Good. I’ll send resources out to you. I want people working on this day and night until we find the hackers. But understand that this is a top-secret investigation: only bring in those who can be absolutely trusted, and even then I would like them to be screened first. Someone will contact you within the hour with further instructions.”

  Both men nodded, their faces conveying how serious the situation had become. Earlier that morning they’d simply worked in the cyber security team of Trident Banking Corporation. Now they worked for the President of the United States on a top-secret mission that could make or break their entire country.

  “That will be all for now gentlemen,” she spoke. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  Without another word, the two men from Trident disappeared from the screen, their connection to the conference cut as they were sent to fulfil their new duties. “Now,” President Morgan addressed everyone else again, “the only matter that remains is what we do to save our country while we track down these cyber bandits. Ms Manning, Mr Kildare, what is happening at Trident. Do you have a figure for how much we have lost yet?”

  Claire Manning spoke up before Jameson could offer his facts, the woman talking with an unavoidable tone of desperation. “Our building is entirely surrounded ma’am. We’ve locked the doors, but there are riots in the streets, and I fear for our safety. Is there any aid you can provide? Anything at all?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” the President replied, sounding rather dissatisfied with the answer she had received. “What of the funds? Mr Kildare, do you have a breakdown for me of what we expect to happen next? Of how far this disaster will spread?”

  Jameson swallowed as he let everyone’s attention switch onto him. “The reach is undoubtedly global. I’ve spoken to our branches in Europe and the scenario over there is the same. Mass panic and confusion. No one understands what’s happening and people are starting to get aggressive as a result. I’ve spoken to Chief Hatton about how New York is going to fare to begin with,” Jameson paused and nodded to his friend who sat by his side. “And it’s not good.

  “The city has never been well stocked, despite all efforts which have been made to better prepare us ever since 9/11. We’ve received reports that stores are already being looted for supplies and while Chief Hatton has men on the streets, a high percentage of them have deserted the ranks.”

  “Yes,” Chief Hatton nodded, offering some more information on what Jameson Kildare had eluded to. “Nearly half of our officers have thrown in the towel,” he hung his head as he spoke, ashamed of the numbers. “They don’t think they’ll be getting paid for their work anymore and as a result have given up. We’re doing what we can, but we just need higher numbers in the streets. If there’s anything you can spare…”

  Chief Hatton trailed off and paused, both he and Jameson looking up for a moment, to take in the President’s reaction to the news. The loss of emergency services had been a blow that was hard to receive, though not a wholly unsurprising one. Close to half of New York’s employees had given up and left their posts when they received the Trident news. Seeing President Morgan merely nodding along, Jameson spoke up again.

  “Without additional human aid, we’re already spread about as thin as we can go. By my estimations, the city can last perhaps a week, maybe ten days without external resource. We need the companies affected by the Trident collapse to purify our drinking water and put food on our plates. The power grid will collapse without the reserves and the manpower to maintain it. New York City is of grand design, but it requires even grander measures to keep the place ticking over from each day to the next. And we are just the beginning. If all of this can happen here, think about how everywhere else will be affected.”

  “Yes,” President Morgan spoke out, her voice crackling through the speakers located around the boardroom. “We’re aware how fragile the infrastructure of this country can be at times of peril. It is a pattern that is emerging in other areas as well. But with Trident at your epicenter, we expect circumstances in New York to escalate quicker than most.”

  “I agree. Is there anything the government can offer ma’am? Any help that the Federal Reserve can share with us?”

  President Morgan shook her head. “It’s not possible. Things are already past the point of being salvageable now. Anything we could offer would only make the situation worse.”

  Jameson waited for the President to continue speaking, expecting some kind of suggestion or proposal to come from the woman’s mouth. Instead he was met with silence, staring at the screen as he willed the President to give him a solution. “What do you suggest we do, ma’am?” He asked eventually, unsure what else he had to offer. Everyone knew how desperate the situation was, what he needed was more information and answers, not just a rehash of everything they already knew.

  But looking at the President’s face on the screen, Jameson could already tell that she didn’t have any answers for him. This was an entirely unprecedented event. The country had never been bankrupted on this scale before. They’d had hard times – desperate times – but there had always been something to fall back on. Never before had their country been stripped so bare, left so vulnerable. They were cast out naked to the elements, with nowhere safe left to turn.

  Chapter 4

  “Jessie! Get in here now!”

  Tucking her laundry basket under her arm, Jessie paused and tilted her head to one side. Arthur never shouted at her like that unless there was something serious going on. But it was the middle of the day on a Saturday. Both the kids were playing down the beach with their friends. Jessie could still see the outline of her young boys and the other children, darting in and out of the surf like they always did on the warmest summer days.

  “Jessie!”

  “What? What?” With her husband’s second shout, Jessie finally put down the laundry basket, leaving the remaining clothes on the washing line and heading inside. “What is it, Art?”

  “Look.”

  On their television screen, a reporter was standing about fifty yards away from a burning building, the fire behind her blazing freely. The area she was standing in looked familiar, but with the fire and the number of people rushing around in the background, Jessie couldn’t place it exactly. It was only when she focused on the words moving across the bottom of the screen and the words the reporter was saying that it all clicked.

  “…we are still waiting to hear what the exact cause of the collapse is, but early reports are blaming a ransomware attack. Despite this, an official statement from Trident is yet to be released as they calculate just exactly how many trillions of dollars have been lost and whether we will be able to get it back. Let’s go live now to Michael Forrester, who is stationed just outside the Trident building on Wall St. Michael, what’s it like over there?”

  Jessie’s mouth dropped open as the camera cut to another reporter standing in front of the Trident building. It was where her brother worked five – sometimes six – days a week and where he had made his livelihood for over twenty years. Michael Forrester started speaking, but Jessie could only hear a ringing in her ears now. The reporter was constantly dodging people that charged toward the building, desperately trying to get inside on the hunt for answers. Catching snippets of information, Jessie slowly glued the pieces together over what had happened in New York.

  “Oh my God,” she mumbled, grasping the kitchen counter for support as her knees became weak.

  Watching the television screen, Jessie could see rioters surrounding the Trident building, throwing all manner of objects from bricks to individuals’ own shoes at the windows, desperately trying to break their way in. Whatever security force had been protecting the building before was long gone, just the exterior of the building standing in the way of the rioters. And that didn’t look like it would hold up for much longer.

  “Sam…”

  “I’ve tried calling him already,” Arthur spoke softly to his wife, walking toward her and guiding her body into one of the st
ools that circled their kitchen island. “I couldn’t get through. But we’ll keep trying. He’ll be fine I’m sure, your brother is prepared to deal with something like this.”

  “Is he?” Jessie looked up at Art with a questioning gaze, searching her husband’s eyes for answers. “This looks bad, Art. Do you think it’s real? Do you really think all that money is just gone?”

  Arthur bit his lip and glanced back up at the TV. The news report had moved on from the scene in front of Trident and was back in the studio now, three men and women discussing the effects of what had happened. Their conversation was just a low drone over the thoughts swimming around his head though, Arthur quickly trying to process the magnitude of this disaster and how it would directly affect him and his loved ones.

  Shaking his head and speaking honestly, Arthur tried to answer Jessie’s questions and help put her mind at ease. “I don’t know, but if it is gone, they’ll find a way to get it back. Money can’t just vanish into thin air. They’ll print more or come up with some solution. I know it looks bad now, Jess, but give it a couple of days and this will just be a big blip. I bet Sam is locked away in his office as we speak coming up with a way to spin the solution and make all of this madness disappear. Mark my words, in a week we’ll have forgotten all of this even happened.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” Arthur replied, giving his wife’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “They’re always over the top with these things. It’ll be fine.”

  Standing just behind Jessie, Arthur tried to make himself believe his own words. He knew Jessie was intelligent enough to know he was only trying to make her feel better; to convince them both that what had happened wasn’t as extreme as the news reports were leading everyone to believe. The two of them watched the report in silence for a few minutes, calculating just how much would change if one of the world’s major banking groups had truly gone bust.