Silver Shirts

by Lee Perry

  I wish this fucker just had one account so I could transfer the entire hundred in just one fucking transaction… Fear began to creep along the back of his neck and when the computer beeped softly, signaling the latest transaction was complete he nearly jumped out of his skin. Fuck this. He closed that program and initiated the one that would strip the computer’s hard drive of every bit of data. He felt increasingly anxious and unsteady as he watched the progress bar, and when it completed he yanked his flash drive free and froze.

  He heard a door close and the sound of plastic grocery bags rustling distantly. Holy fucking mother of… He hurried from the room on tiptoe. Peering down the long hallway, he briefly glimpsed a short, squat woman depositing grocery bags on the kitchen counters.

  “I’m back!” He heard her call out, “And I got a lot more bags in the car if anyone wants to help me!”

  Jeffers ran for the front door and never looked back.

  New York City, NY

  Bea sat absolutely still, not wanting to stir the air lest it disturb Doctor Bernard’s deep concentration. Catherine sat at a large, ergonomically designed workstation in what Bea called the Project Room next to her office; the tip of Catherine’s right forefinger rested on the page-down key and her expression was quietly intense as data scrolled up and off the top of the screen. She had dimmed the overhead lights and Bea watched how the fingers on Catherine’s left hand skimmed over the tops of the keys, as though she were feeling as well as seeing the code that flowed on the monitor.

  She’s been at this for hours now… When Jordan called Bea looking for Catherine, Bea told her she was deep into Jeffers’s code and didn’t want to disturb her. Jordan asked her to please make sure Catherine ate lunch and Bea promised to have one of her techs bring her the specified menu items from the cafeteria. She made sure he brought the egg salad on challah bread, grapes, potato chips and ice tea in a bottle with a straw, all, as Jordan explained, easily consumed with one hand while Catherine worked. I know what it feels like to have my brain sucked into seemingly endless code, Bea marveled silently, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so focused.

  Jordan spent the day reviewing the growing mountain of forensic evidence with Stewart and when she got back to her office and discovered Catherine had still not returned she decided to pay a visit to the leader of the bureau’s Cyber Division. She pushed her way through the large glass doors and frowned as she approached Bea’s empty glass office.

  The lead assistant waved at her from his desk, “She and Doctor Bernard are in the Project Room.” He pointed to a long window next door and Jordan nodded when she saw them inside,

  “Thanks.”

  She chose the most direct path through the rows of cubicles and gave a slight wave as she opened the glass door and stepped inside. Catherine’s expression was grave and Jordan felt her stomach lurch, “Okay tell me right away, is something bad happening?”

  “I found something rare in Jeffers’s code; it’s something called a Zero Day Exploit, a seeming flaw that wasn’t being used in his banking transactions.” She pointed at the hundreds of rows of data that filed the large screen, “It’s extremely dense, every bit of this code is doing something, somewhere.”

  “Uh…” Jordan squinted at the screen, “okay.”

  “It was unrecognizable at first, but this is a programming language for PLC’s…” Jordan gestured helplessly and she clarified, “Programmable logic controllers. PLC’s are small computers …” While she spoke, she quickly opened a browser and searched for a suitable image. She pointed to a picture of a man holding a rectangular black box in his hand. “Like this, they control things like factory equipment and power plants.”

  Jordan felt bile rise in her throat, “Excuse me?”

  “Jeffers has programming language buried in his code that can control PLC’s in things like power plants.”

  “Nuclear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s a virus?”

  “Oh yes, and when this virus infects a computer it’s designed to begin hunting for one of these PLC’s, and fingerprint it.”

  “Why?”

  Catherine switched her screen back to what looked like miles and miles of text, “This virus is looking for something specific, it’s looking for a PLC that performs a specific function; it has to have a particular model number and attached peripherals…” She caught Jordan’s look, “things attached to the small computer… Then it’s designed to just sit there and observe normal operation of the target.”

  “Which is?”

  “Nuclear power plants, probably.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Do you need me to tell you where this is going?”

  “No.” Jordan shook her head, “it sounds like Stuxnet from a few years ago…”

  “Yes, the United States teamed up with Israel to hack into an Iranian nuclear facility and shut it down…” Catherine added, “I’ve found several ID numbers so far… I’m pretty sure they belong to PLC’s…”

  “Can they tell us which of our nuclear power plants are infected?” Jordan asked, sounding hopeful.

  “I hope so. I’m running a search in the communication protocol between the PLC’s and the peripherals that are attached to it. The peripherals all have ID’s associated with them too and there’s a catalogue you can use to look them up.”

  Bea leaned on a desk behind them, her arms folded tensely across her chest, “We’re waiting for the results now.”

  Jordan folded her arms across her chest as well, “Okay...” she murmured, nervously licking her lips.

  Catherine brought her search window back on the center screen, “This could take a while…”

  Jordan rotated her neck, “Should I go get Cameron?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Okay.” She repeated and began slowly pacing the length of the room.

  They waited for Catherine’s program to complete in leaden, anxious silence for more than half an hour before the screen changed and she sat up straight, “Okay,” she squinted at the results, “the ID’s belong to frequency converters.”

  Jordan pulled up a chair and sat next to Catherine and Bea hovered over their shoulders, “For what?”

  “They’re devices that change the speed of machinery, but these…” Catherine’s fingers flew over the keyboard and Jordan did a double take when she saw how the data on the screen reflected in Catherine’s pupils. “These are specific models with a dedicated task;” she turned to Jordan, “they spin centrifuges in nuclear facilities.”

  “Power plants?”

  “Yes.”

  “So this virus is about uranium enrichment?”

  Catherine nodded, “The PLC model numbers match data from the International Atomic Energy Agency.” Her fingers flew again over the keyboard, “and PLC’s used in their power plants…”

  Jordan closed her eyes, feeling faint, “Power plants as in more than one?”

  “Oh yes,” Catherine spoke quietly, “several, at least.”

  La Jolla, CA

  Once he was home, he stripped inside the front door and walked naked into the kitchen to retrieve a brown plastic garbage bag then returned to the foyer and stuffed his clothes and shoes inside. He took the bag into the kitchen and retrieved his garrote and flash drive and other personal items, dropping the garrote in the sink for cleaning. He walked out to the patio and yanking the cover off his stainless steel barbeque, lifted the center grill and threw the bag onto the ash. He soaked it with half a can of lighter fluid and lit a long wooden match, hearing the soft whoosh; he leaned away from the tall flames. He dropped the grill and the cover to prevent flaming ash from escaping and after making sure the vents were open, went back inside to take a shower.

  He fumed, glaring at the taunting message on the screen:

  “Be nice and share...”

  You fucking asshole…, he turned away from the monitor and paced the room, his arms crossed angrily over his chest. The PLC’s are now ready… The time has c
ome and I cannot start over rebuilding my war chest from scratch. I have to find out who this fucking hacker is… if it even is some hacking motherfucker and not the fucking feds… He shook his head and wandered from the room. He had a steak dinner delivered from one of the finer restaurants in town and he retrieved a beer and leftovers from the fridge. He opened the foil container and sat at the counter, alternately munching cold fries and taking swigs of beer from the bottle. I need to bring my SS online too.

  What attracted him to the now renamed We Are Silver Legion was Bill Patton, a disillusioned Special Forces veteran and the group’s founder. After completing six tours in Afghanistan as a sniper, Patton found he was unable to return to a normal home life and leaving his wife and three kids in Wisconsin, moved south to Georgia. There he drifted from one white supremacist fascist group to another until he was inspired to form his own, Pelley’s Silver America, with his own agenda embracing the views and beliefs of William Pelley.

  Picking up his beer, Jeffers wandered from the kitchen and back to his computer. Sitting again, he tried accessing another offshore account,

  “Come to the Big Apple so we can talk.”

  He glared at the screen, “Fuck you, I don’t think so…” His voice faded and his head cocked to one side as he stared at the glowing red letters. A long minute passed until finally he smiled, I can’t tell him the real reason… I’ll tell them it’s a test… like an initiation, a final test to make sure they can follow orders.

  It’s my money, and so help me, if it is some hacker then he has to go so I can shift everything from the Goodale accounts into Fowler’s. Feeling better, he closed the browser and reopened it, clicking on the bookmark for We Are Silver Legion. That hacking asshole is fucking dead.

  New York City, NY

  “Once the network is infected with Jeffers’s program it will likely use attack mechanisms to either speed up the spinning centrifuges that would make the aluminum tubes inside the centrifuges vibrate uncontrollably and shatter apart, or lower the speed and make them basically fall like when a spinning top slows and wobbles. When the centrifuges begin to spin out of control, the virus will begin playing recordings it made of the network’s normal operation, so no one will notice the plant’s imminent shutdown until it’s too late.”

  “You can see all this in his code?” Jordan asked.

  Catherine nodded, “Yes.”

  “And the recordings record what?”

  “Normal operation,” Bea said, still standing behind them, “like bank robbers patching in fake security footage so no one sees them robbing the safe.”

  “Exactly,” Catherine nodded, “these PLC’s are designed to shut down gracefully but this virus blocks that signal, allowing the attack to continue…”

  “Are we looking at a Chernobyl meltdown?”

  Bea shrugged, “Could be.”

  “It’s possible,” Catherine agreed, “but having read Jeffers’s manifesto I think he’s aiming at a temporary shutdown, like a system reboot, so he can takeover the power grid.”

  “Really,” Jordan felt lightheaded, “on the western or eastern seaboard?”

  “There are one hundred four nuclear power reactors licensed to operate in the United States; California has two, Washington State, one and three in Arizona.” She accessed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s website and when she scrolled down to the map, Jordan gasped aloud,

  “Oh… my god…”

  “Yes, most of them, ninety-eight, are located in the eastern half of the U.S. and if we don’t stop his program I believe the most likely result will be rolling blackouts and possible irreversible damage to, I don’t know how many nuclear reactors.”

  “Okay so…” Jordan’s neck muscles were tight and she gripped them with her fingers, squeezing the muscles. “All you have to do is write a program we can send to every PLC in every nuclear power plant in the United States and kill the virus, right?”

  “No.” Catherine shook her head, “because this code is masked as part of normal operation, if I bypass it the plants will still shut down for safety and Jeffers will still succeed in causing rolling blackouts in at least half the country.”

  “Goddamit.” Jordan muttered, “How much worse can this scenario get?”

  “The best way to stop his code from implementing an aggressive shutdown is to stop it at its source. Now, in order to launch the shutdown Jeffers has to pull the trigger himself.” She snorted, “I have no doubt he designed it that way so he can feel the power of shutting down the power grid with his touch on a keyboard.”

  Jordan added dryly, “And get a tingly feeling in his pants.”

  “If you can find the workstation he’s using I can make a program to shut him down and disable the attack programs and stop them at their source. I can load it on a flash drive that will give me control over his code from here; all you’d have to do is plug it in his USB connector and it will connect me no matter where you are.”

  Bea muttered, “I’d like to plug more than that into his USB connector.”

  Jordan drew a deep breath, “Then let’s find this fucker and shut him down, I don’t want to think how bad this could get if we don’t.”

  “There’s a chunk of code in here that worries me.”

  “What?”

  “Starting here,” Catherine pointed at a section of code on the screen, “I need to study it more, but if his girlfriend Nancy cracked RSA… or he did…”

  Jordan’s brow knit in concentration, “Uh… RSA… encryption codes; multiplying two giant prime numbers and getting a semi prime that’s used in banking and stuff.”

  “Yes, if that’s what this code is…” Catherine’s voice dropped to a murmur as her fingers again flew over the keyboard and her eyes gazed ever deeper into the data flowing on the screen, “Everything, from the power grid to banking systems, communication and transportation networks… I mean everything online is at risk, Jordan. Because once Jeffers hacks one part, he may have hacked the whole network.”

  “You mean in the U.S.?”

  “I mean the Internet… everywhere.”

  “Do you like your special vacation bed for tonight?” She held the toddler in her arms and Cameron nodded enthusiastically in spite of the yawn that escaped him.

  “I got Toy Story sheets, like at home…”

  “Ooo…” Jordan cooed, “That should be warm and cozy.”

  “Yep.” He dropped his head on her shoulder, “Mom’s up here?”

  Cameron was going to turn three in another ten weeks and Jordan marveled at how his language acquisition had kicked into overdrive, “Yep, we’re working here tonight so you’re staying too, and tomorrow we’ll have special Captain Crunch pancakes for breakfast.”

  Cameron’s eyes flew open and he peered intently into her eyes, “Captain Crunch…” He whispered intently, “I love Captain Crunch!”

  The elevator doors opened and she chuckled, “I know, maybe you’ll dream about them tonight, huh?”

  “Yes! Captain Crunch!”

  She carried him to the Project Room and he slid from her arms when she opened the door and he saw his mother.

  “Hey, buddy!”

  He ran to her, “Mom!” He scrambled onto her lap, “Jordan says we’re having Captain Crunch for breakfast tomorrow!”

  “The special pancakes,” she grinned, hugging him close, “that’s right. This is our first time spending the night here, so we have to celebrate in the morning. Did the night nanny tell you how to get us if you wake up?”

  He nodded, “Melissa says all I have to do is tell her I need to talk to you…” Big brown eyes turned to the ceiling in concentration, “And she’ll call you so you can come downstairs.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Jordan got my special bag from the car,” he pulled from her arms, “I gotta’ go get in my pj’s now.”

  “Hey!” Catherine pulled him back to her, “Where’s my goodnight kiss?”

  Cameron stretched up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on
her lips, “Good night mom.” His eyebrows suddenly arched high, “Can Jordan pray with me for bed?”

  “Of course.” Both Jordan and Catherine spoke at once and exchanged secret smiles.

  “Ready, Cam?”

  He ran back to Jordan and she pulled him into her arms as he scrambled back onto her hip, “’Night mom…” he waved to her.

  “Good night, Cameron.”

  Catherine’s grin was huge as she watched Jordan carry him through the darkened and now mostly deserted Cyber Division. Oh my god we’re so lucky… When they disappeared from view, she turned back to the console and emitted an exhausted sigh that transformed into a huge yawn. I just need to work out a few kinks and test this puppy… Then I can give it to Jordan on a flash drive. She gazed at and into the screen, and the smile gradually faded from her lips and eyes as she constructed the new code in her head and let it flow from her brain and through fingertips that flew in a blur across the keyboard.

  Madison, GA

  “We’ll leave in a few minutes,” Jeffers nodded dismissively, his hands on his hips, “so go double check your vehicles and we’ll review the itinerary one last time… Patton,” he motioned with his chin, “can I talk to you a minute?”

  They waited until the other members of the group, John Parker, Erik Johnson and Andy Holden, left the ramshackle house to recheck their packed vehicles. Jeffers turned and sat at the kitchen set that looked as though it dated back to the 1950’s, “I am making this sound like an exercise, but I cannot stress how important flushing out this hacker is so I can launch my program.”

  “I understand.” Patton stood where he was and Jeffers silently marveled how his second-in-command resembled molded steel. “As long as the floor plan of the hotel is accurate and the room is facing the park, I don’t care if it is three blocks away, I can shoot a fly in his asshole, that range is not a challenge.”