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As my eyes focused, I looked around the room. It was piled high with bricks of C4 explosive. There was also what appeared to be a closed-circuit television screen mounted on the wall. The view was of a mini mission control. It was a hacker’s paradise. There were at least a dozen clusters of three computer monitors, each manned by a computer operator. If they knew what they were doing, and I had no reason to believe that they didn’t, this operation was more than capable of taking down a grid system in the United States or anywhere else in the world.
All the computer stations faced an array of video screens that linked together into a giant video wall. Most of the wall was taken up by a map of the Earth with several countries highlighted in red and one in green. A smaller screen showed a view of the Earth from the International Space Station. There was a real-time digital clock on the left side of the screen and a countdown clock on the right. It showed 00:35:07 until whatever was going to happen. Were they planning a coordinated global power grid attack?
Sullivan’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“I hope you had a nice rest, writer.”
“This is quite a man cave you have here,” I said as I gingerly felt the bump forming on the back of my head. “What are you expecting, World War III?”
“Something like that.”
“You could tell me but then you'd have to kill me, right? I figure that's coming, anyway.”
“That depends on what you’ve done with that missing link. You see, it turns out that Mr. Heskett wasn’t the nerd without a cause that he pretended to be. He was an agent with the United States Secret Service.”
“So you had him killed because he discovered your plan to send the United States back to the 1800s. But why would the Secret Service be investigating that? That’s more in the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security or the FBI. Were you also targeting the president?”
“Hardly!” said Sullivan with a chuckle. “If we harmed the president of the United States, half your country would cry, and the other half would cheer. There would be nothing to be gained by us and the United States would continue on.”
“Then it can only be for one other reason. If I remember my high school history, Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service to investigate potential threats against the monetary system of the United States. Building a retirement fund, Sullivan? You won’t get away with it. I’ve already shared everything with the authorities.”
“I don’t think you did,” Sullivan said with a smile. “If you had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because you’d be in custody as a suspect in the murder of a federal officer.”
And then it hit me. “You set me up. I sent everyone off in the wrong direction. But if Heskett had switched sides, why kill him? I would think a double agent would be an asset.”
“Ah, but he hadn’t switched sides. He believed everything he told you.”
“Then why kill him?”
“Because his death made everything credible. The ball was already in play and I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for the authorities to check out the validity of his information. I needed them to go to code red and that’s exactly what they did.”
“Except that I broke Heskett’s steganography code and gave the information to an associate. If I don’t make a call within a couple of hours,” I said, glancing at the clock on the wall, “the powers that be are going to get a rather extensive list of bank account numbers.”
“You’re bluffing,” Sullivan said, the smile now gone from his face.
“That’s a possibility. Hey, I’m getting hungry. You wouldn’t happen to have any sliced salami and chips, would you?”
Sullivan stood there for a moment. The coin chipping reference was nothing more than a hunch, but my shot in the dark must have hit the bullseye because Sullivan told Kong to leave us for ten minutes. I heard the door slam as Sullivan sat down in the now vacant chair across from me.
“How much do you know?” he asked, with a stare that told me even a little was too much.
“Apparently more than everyone else in this building. They all think you’re a super terrorist, but we both know the true method to your madness,” I said, putting air quotes around the word madness.
Sullivan stared at me for a good thirty seconds before replying.
“I’ll let you make a phone call. After you do, I will transfer one million dollars into any bank account of your choosing.”
“Writing isn’t as lucrative as it once was. I think ten million would make my silence last longer.”
“I'll give you five.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Sullivan. We have a deal. Hey, as long as we've gone into a partnership of sorts, you mind answering a few questions?”
“That depends on the questions.”
“I know the what but I'm still curious about the how and why. Coin chipping takes a long while to accumulate any appreciable amount of money. A hit and run wouldn’t be worth the risk.”
“What if it wasn’t meant to be a hit and run, as you put it? Tell me, writer, have you ever installed the Windows operating system?”
“Of course.”
“And what happens during installation?”
I thought for a second before I realized that the computer reboots.
“You need the computers to reboot for your virus to infiltrate the operating systems. The power grids only need to go down for a second before the backup power kicks in and you’ve covered your tracks. Automatic power supplies are designed to be instantaneous, and no one would suspect a reboot. It could be weeks or months before bank IT departments compared notes. That’s ingenious, Sullivan.”
“There’s only one thing that’s more ingenious,” Sullivan said with a smile.
“And what would that be?”
“Not taking down the power grids. Does the name Stuxnet mean anything to you?”
“It was malware jointly developed by Israel and the United States. They introduced it into the computers controlling the Iranian nuclear centrifuges. It sped up the centrifuges until they self-destructed.”
“Very good, writer.”
“I try my best,” I said sarcastically.
“It also did something else,” he continued. “It masked what it was doing. The computer operators monitoring the centrifuges had no idea that anything was wrong until everything crashed. There was even an unexpected bonus. The worm found its way into outside computers and started to multiply.”
“So your plan is to introduce a Stuxnet type worm into banking computers, access the money in the accounts, and then wipe out the computers?”
“Hardly,” said Sullivan. “That would be the quickest way to set off alarm bells and shut down the entire operation. My worm convinces the computer operators that something has infiltrated the system.”
“Which causes the computer operators to shut down the computers,” I interjected. “I imagine they find a decoy worm, while your worm is sitting dormant in a non-essential section of the system. After neutralizing the threat, they restart the computers.”
“And that action wakes up the worm inside systems that have just received clean bills of health,” he said. “The Zero Day attack commences, and the salami slicing begins.”
“But what's with the geography lesson, Sullivan?” I said, gesturing at the screen on the wall.
“That is what you Americans so quaintly call killing two birds with one stone. It's a bit of a diversion as well as insurance against the ATM running out of money too quickly.”
Sullivan stood up as I heard Kong open the door.
“One last question, Sullivan. Why tell me all this?”
“Because it's already begun, writer. You can't stop it.”
‘Hey, I have five million reasons why I don't want to,” I said with a smile.
Kong came down the stairs and walked over to where Sullivan was standing.
Picking up my crutches, Sullivan handed them to him.
“Bring Mr. Berlin to my office in thirty minutes. Until then, make sure he doesn't wander off.”
With that, he turned and walked away. Kong sat down in the chair and placed the crutches on the floor beside him. He just stared at me without saying a word. I could tell that he wasn't too pleased at being relegated to guarding a gimp.
“Hey, Kong!” I said, breaking the silence.
I gestured toward the C4 explosives.
“Is this to hold off the townspeople when they come after you with torches and pitchforks?”
All I got was a cold stare and more silence.
“Come on, Kong. Or can I call you King? Sullivan says we're all gonna be on the same team. Show some team spirit. Those computer geeks upstairs wouldn't know which end of a gun to hold, so what gives?”
“The rocket guys do their job and I do mine. That doesn't include talking to you, so shut up!” He said with a look that told me I was testing his patience.
What did he mean by rocket guys? Why would you need rocket expertise to hack into global banking networks? Or was that just a small part of a much larger plan? Since I was on a roll, I decided to play another hunch.
Victoria, my little mind reader, are you there?
Of course.
Look at the map on the screen. Militarily, what do the red and green countries have in common with each other?
The green country is within missile strike range of all the red countries.
Can the green country reciprocate?
That is a possibility, but it is highly unlikely.
Why?
The green country is North Korea. It does not have missile technology sophisticated enough to initiate a precise strike over 1,000 nautical miles. Even if it did, the initial infrastructure damage sustained would be too massive to allow for multiple missile retaliation.
So North Korea couldn't launch a defensive missile attack. What about an offensive attack?
That is a possibility but, again, highly unlikely.
Why is that?
Humans have an ingrained characteristic of self-preservation. The first retaliatory missile strike would be to neutralize any further strikes. The second strike would be to neutralize the leadership of the country. While a totalitarian leader might risk the lives of others, that same leader would not risk his own life.
Victoria's analysis of human nature was entirely correct, and I already knew that Sullivan wasn’t out to make a political statement. So the question was, why would a missile strike on North Korea keep the ATM from running out of money? I felt as if the answer was staring me in the face; I just couldn't see it.
I studied the screen again. Why was there a separate screen dedicated to the view from the International Space Station? Maybe Sullivan just wanted a bird’s-eye view when the war games began. But the ISS was too high up to see the aftermath of a North Korean missile strike. That's when the answer I couldn't see became painfully visible.
Victoria, what is the altitude of the International Space Station?
The International Space Station is 254 miles above the Earth.
When North Korea test fired an intercontinental ballistic missile. How high did it go before it began its descent?
The apogee of the intercontinental ballistic missile fired from North Korea was 2,200 miles.
Sullivan wasn't hacking into a North Korean missile to launch it at another country. He was going to launch it at the International Space Station! It was all starting to make sense. At any given time, there are about a half dozen astronauts who live on the ISS. They come from an astronaut pool of fifteen countries, including the United States, Russia, Japan, and England. Destroy the ISS and you instantly start World War III. China would align with North Korea against Europe and the United States. With its military stretched thin and its economy stretched even thinner, Russia would probably just kick back and watch both sides fight it out as President Vladimir Putin contemplated regaining Russia’s once dominant position in the world order.
The military industrial complex would ramp up production and no one would notice the few pennies disappearing from every country’s military banking transactions. Sullivan’s ATM would spew out money for years or even decades. Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. Then sit back and get filthy rich. The countdown clock showed 00:00:31 seconds and counting. There was only one way to stop a global bloodbath.
You cannot do what you are thinking. We could lose our connection. I may not be able to keep you safe.
If I don't, a lot of innocent people will die. Energize me.
I do not know if I can across this distance. Even if I can, it may not last ten seconds.
I’ll have to take that chance. Take your best shot.
But I cannot allow you to cease to exist.
You already know that there is a high probability factor I will escape unharmed, but the window of opportunity will be small so keep your finger on the button.
There is no button.
We really need to have a talk about you taking things literally. Energize me and get ready to pull me back.
Okay.
Hey, Victoria.
Yes.
I enjoyed dancing with you. Energize me, now!
I felt my body tingle as Kong said, “It’s time to go upstairs.”
I lunged at him as he reached down to grab my crutches. The MVP worthy tackle sent him crashing to the floor. A combination of surprise and his own body weight kept him from getting up quickly. Before he could, I was lying prone on the floor and gripping his Taser with both hands. I aimed it at the bricks of C4 and pulled the trigger, sending 50,000 volts into the bricks just as Kong got me into a chokehold. I was gasping for air when I felt the Taser yank out of my hand.
The room erupted into a cloud of dirt and debris and my ears felt as if two pillows had just been jammed over them. The second wave of explosive pressure slammed my head against the cement floor and my world went dark.