The Devil's Ransom, page 32
In the corner he saw Gordon Dillard arguing with the lead engineer. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he could clearly see Gordon wasn’t happy. He waited until the conversation was over and Gordon had gone back to his desk at the top of the room. He pulled out his cell phone.
“Gordon! Looks like the Iranians backed off. Good news!”
“Yeah, it’s good news. We have control of the capsule now and can bring it down safely, but these idiots want to continue.”
“What do you mean?”
“Skyler is saying he wants to continue the mission.”
“You’re kidding. Bring the damn thing home right now. You have no idea what that malware corrupted. If you have control right now, you need to use it.”
“That’s exactly what the astronaut said, the one in charge of the mission inside the capsule.”
“And? What happened?”
“Skyler Fitch overruled him, saying it would be a public relations disaster for his company. He’s basically saying this is just a reset, and that we’re all systems go.”
“But the astronaut’s in charge, right? Skyler’s just a paying passenger.”
Gordon laughed and said, “Yeah, sure. A paying passenger who happens to own the company that’s doing the launch. At the end of the day, this isn’t like a government thing, like NASA or the military. The astronaut is an employee of Fitch.”
“So what are they going to do?”
“Circle the globe until they’re sure the systems are clean, then attempt to link up with the space station as intended.”
“That is insane. They should spend a month going through those systems before ever attempting to use them again on a live launch.”
“I know, I know. At least I got them to agree to firewall the entire abort procedure. The initiation is tied off from the main systems now so if these idiots proceed with the lunacy, and some latent corruption occurs, we can always initiate.”
“What’s the timeline?”
“Probably going to try to leave orbit in six hours. From there, the docking will take another four.”
“Well, good luck with that.”
He hung up and tapped his lips, wondering if the plan could be salvaged. One thing from the last NSC meeting stuck out to him: one of the men in that room had said that maybe the attack had been compartmented from even the hierarchy within the IRGC. And that gave him an idea. The U.S. government was already primed to blame Iran, and if “they” attacked the systems again, there would be arguments back and forth, but the war would come. After Americans began to die, the country would coalesce around a common enemy.
The key would be to initiate after the Valkyrie left orbit and started on the final trajectory to the space station. At that point, an abort would kill all aboard.
Chapter 65
Six hours after we’d single-handedly saved the United States from a ridiculous war, we landed at the FBO on Reagan National Airport, the sun rising slowly over the runway. We’d been going on no sleep for over twenty-four hours, and I was looking forward to a bed and a beer, not necessarily in that order. While it was dawn here, I figured it was past noon where I had just come from, so it was justifiable.
It would have been appropriate to have a marching band and a bunch of civilians waving flags, but all we got were a couple of federal agents to take Branko into custody. I didn’t tell them who we were, and they didn’t ask. All they wanted was Branko.
While the Iranians were being blamed for this latest catastrophe, he was still wanted for a massive number of ransomware attacks in the United States. I’d told George Wolffe about his help, and that would hold sway in his ultimate sentence, but he was still a criminal, and the Department of Justice was making a case against him for all of the Dark Star attacks over the past couple of years.
I appreciated his work helping us and felt a little sorry for him. The Russian Andrei and whoever this Sphinx guy was would escape justice, while the minions would bear the brunt of the punishment. But Branko had still harmed many, many people’s lives here in the States and very well might have been complicit in Carly’s death. If he hadn’t shut down Blaisdell Consulting, maybe we’d have executed that mission a little differently.
Hard to tell, but my sympathy only went so far.
We’d left the plane for the pilots to take care of—they had to work sometimes, too—and drove over to Blaisdell Consulting headquarters in Clarendon, right next to Arlington National Cemetery. Technically, Grolier Recovery Services personnel shouldn’t ever come to the HQ, because if someone was watching the comings and goings at the facility, they might make a connection they shouldn’t, but I figured this was a special occasion, and I wanted to talk to George Wolffe face-to-face.
We entered through the parking garage in the back instead of the official one in the front, ringing the bell outside a glass door leading to a small anteroom about the size of a service elevator, with a steel door beyond. We waited, then heard Marge coming through the speaker mounted in the cement of the garage wall. I looked at the camera, convincing her to let us in, and she did. But she refused to open the second steel door.
The glass door closed shut and locked, leaving us trapped in the anteroom. Marge really took her job seriously. The anteroom was an initial trap for anyone wishing the Taskforce harm. Once in, you weren’t getting out, with the glass of the first door being bulletproof, and the second door being reinforced steel. I looked up at the camera and said, “Come on, Marge. It’s me!”
I got nothing. Two minutes later the steel door opened and I saw Blaine Alexander. I huffed, “This secret spy shit is getting to be a bit much.”
Blaine laughed and said, “She’s just doing her job. She’s convinced that if you don’t have a badge to get in, you’re going to kill everyone inside like that movie Three Days of the Condor.”
We walked upstairs, me saying, “Yeah, well, it gets a little old.”
We entered the Taskforce conference room and took a seat, Blaine saying, “George will be here in just a second. He’s on a call with Alexander Palmer.”
Knuckles and Brett put their arms on the table and cradled their heads, immediately falling asleep like soldiers anywhere. Veep took a seat in a chair against the wall, leaning his head back and doing the same thing. Jennifer and I stayed awake, wanting to know what had happened.
I said, “So everything’s okay now? Billionaire space pirate saved?”
Blaine grinned and said, “Yeah, and it worked out well for us. Nobody knows it was the Taskforce that solved the ransomware problem. They all think it was Iran backing down, which helps us both ways—nobody in the U.S. government is wondering what assets were used to stop the attack, meaning we don’t have to worry about any questions, and Iran might just think twice before attacking us for real because they know we’re serious.”
“Well, I’m glad to be of service, but please tell me that POTUS doesn’t believe that shit about the Iranians. He needs to know that was hogwash.”
“I don’t know what he believes. I’ll leave that up to Wolffe to tell you. In the meantime, while we wait, you can have a front-row seat for your most favorite space tourist heading up to the International Space Station.”
“What? What do you mean? Are you saying they didn’t bring the capsule home?”
“Nope. Esteemed billionaire and international space expert Skyler Fitch overrode everyone at NASA and the commander of the capsule himself to say they were going forward with the mission.”
“And we let them do that?”
“Not a lot we could say. It’s the first purely civilian flight. He owns the capsule, the rocket, the control systems, you name it. NASA owns the launchpad, and that was used days ago—after he paid to rent it.”
“He doesn’t own the damn space station.”
“Yeah, well, someone had to give concurrence to allow him to dock, I’ll give you that, but it’s not our problem.”
“He’s an idiot.”
Blaine turned on an overhead monitor and said, “No argument there. They left orbit about forty minutes ago and are now headed toward the space station.”
The live stream began feeding, and the control room looked like a bad zombie movie where the surveillance camera is showing everyone inside turning into monsters. Instead of seeing calm men working behind a computer, everyone was running around the room like they were trying to escape something.
I said, “What the hell is going on?”
George Wolffe burst through the door, waking up the team. We all looked at him expectantly and he said, “Where’s Branko?”
“With the federal agents you sent. Why?”
“The computers just locked up again with new ransomware, right after they left orbit.”
Chapter 66
Inside Valkyrie One, Fabio was apoplectic about the new turn of events, although his placid demeanor belied that fact. He keyed his radio, speaking calmly. “Say again, mission control?”
“We’ve been hit again. We’ve lost all control of the capsule. They hit us again.”
He broke radio protocol, saying, “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
“Unfortunately, no. You’re headed to the space station at Mach five, and we can’t do anything about it.”
Skyler Fitch cut in, saying, “But you firewalled the abort, right? We can abort?”
The engineer said, “Yes, sir. We can still abort. That would save the station.”
“What’s that mean?”
Nothing came over the net.
Skyler repeated, “What’s that mean?”
Finally, a new voice came on the net. “Sir, this is the lead engineer of mission control. We can abort, but we believe you’ll have about a fifty percent chance of survival from the attitude and trajectory you’re currently on. The abort protocol is designed for orbit. After that, once you’ve left orbit, the abort protocol is controlled by us. We’re supposed to safely bring you home.”
“And if we don’t?”
The capsule heard nothing. He repeated, “And if we don’t abort? What then?”
“You’re going to smash into the space station.”
Fabio cut in, saying, “How long do we have to solve this problem?”
“Two hours, give or take.”
“Is someone working it on the ground?”
“We’re all working it.”
“I mean someone who can actually do something.”
The Situation Room at the White House was not much better than Auriga mission control, with everyone arguing back and forth at the new turn of events, all trying to assess what the attack meant.
President Hannister entered the room, quieting the scrum. He took his seat at the head of the table and said, “Okay, what the hell is going on?”
General Baggetti, the commander of both the NSA and Cyber Command, said, “Sir, my opinion is just what I said earlier. There is a rogue element within Iran that’s doing this. The IRGC or the mullahs found the original cell and shut it off because they don’t want to go to war, but somehow, that same cell is now initiating again. There’s a fight going on within the Iranian government over who is the true leader against the Great Satan.”
President Hannister said, “Okay, so they know it’s been initiated again. Even if it’s a rogue cell, they’d have to prepare the regime for our response. That’s the whole point. What are we seeing for posturing? We sent the back-channel message saying they chose the right path by turning it off, and told them we were standing down. The rockets stopped, the Hezbollah activity ceased. Are they ramping back up again?”
General Baggetti rubbed his hands and said, “No. We’ve heard no chatter about mobilization. In fact, the only thing we’ve heard is that their posturing caused us to back down. They’re bragging about it to each other.”
Kerry Bostwick, the D/CIA, said, “Meaning they don’t know what the hell is going on and are taking this as a victory of deterring the Great Satan. Sir, they aren’t doing this.”
“Then who is?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t.”
President Hannister said, “How much time do we have?”
The hapless NASA liaison said, “About three hours before they impact the space station.”
“And can we abort?”
“Yes, sir, but if we do, the spacecraft has about a fifty percent chance of survival. Without the ground control, it’s a flip of the coin whether they survive.”
President Hannister rubbed his face, then looked around the room, going face to face. He said, “This is my call. We abort. I’ll take responsibility for the disaster if it occurs. I can’t have that ship destroying the International Space Station.”
The NASA liaison looked pained at the statement. President Hannister said, “You don’t agree?”
“No, sir. It’s not that. We don’t own the capsule. We have no legal ability to order Auriga to abort. It’s not our ship.”
That caused President Hannister to chuckle. He said, “The space station is a government thing, not private. We own the right for them to go there. Tell them they no longer have permission to dock. Let them figure it out.”
The NASA liaison nodded, looking sick.
President Hannister said, “That won’t work?”
“Sir, they’re headed to that space station at Mach five. They aren’t going to dock. They’re going to bring it down.”
President Hannister said, “Get me the CEO of Auriga. I’ll order him to abort.”
The NASA liaison said, “Sir, he’s on the capsule.”
President Hannister looked around the room, supposedly the greatest minds of the finest country on earth. He said, “Is there anyone here with a solution?”
Chapter 67
I saw the people on the screen doing their zombie dance, running back and forth, and said, “Branko’s no help. This isn’t him.”
Wolffe said, “Well, somebody’s doing it. And either it’s the Iranians, or it’s Dark Star. One thing’s for sure, if this thing goes bad, we’re blaming Iran.”
I said, “Creed’s got everything Branko had. Tell him to start working it, but I’ll bet Branko’s codes are no longer valid. It’s not Dark Star, and it’s not the Iranians.”
“Then who?”
“It’s Sphinx. It’s the American. He’s at the heart of this thing.”
“Who is he?”
“I have no idea, but I know how to find him. Can you get Kerry Bostwick to do some work? I have a linkage, but it’s not in our problem set. It’s CIA.”
Wolffe smiled and said, “Yeah, I think I can.”
“What’s the smile for?”
He went to the gray phone on his desk—a secure, encrypted line directly into the CIA—and dialed, saying, “Nothing. I told him you might need some help.”
The phone rang through and Wolffe got a flunky telling him Kerry was at the White House for an update. Wolffe told him in no uncertain terms to get Kerry to a gray line immediately and call.
While we waited, I told Wolffe everything I knew about Sphinx. He was here, in the United States, had given the Auriga gateway to Dark Star, had tricked Branko about the target, and had also supplied the malware code to penetrate. I’d thought Branko was Doctor Evil, but it was Sphinx, and I was sure I could find him. If I had enough time.
The phone rang and it was Kerry. Wolffe passed the handset to me and I said, “I need someone to squeeze a Russian oligarch, and I need it in the next hour.”
“Russian oligarch? Why?”
I explained the connection to Sphinx as quickly as I could, and he said, “Okay, given that, how am I going to find him? I need more than the name Andrei.”
I said, “I have his house. It’s in Liechtenstein, but I don’t know who he is. You guys keep track of that stuff, right? Being the CIA and all?”
“Yeah, if you can give me something to go on.”
I snapped my fingers off the phone, holding my hand over the receiver, saying, “Get Creed’s ass up here with a computer. One networked to the CIA.”
To Kerry I said, “I’m sending all I know. He’s the key to Sphinx. He knows who he is.”
Creed showed up with a laptop and I motioned to Jennifer, knowing she would have already read my mind. She started talking to Creed, and he started pounding the keyboard. On the phone I said, “It’s coming to your counterterrorism mission center now.”
Kerry said, “Give me a minute,” and hung up.
Literally one minute later, the gray phone rang again. I answered, and he said, “It’s Andrei Obrenovic. He’s a tech sector guy, large-scale computer systems and database management, made his money after the fall of the Wall. He does a lot of black market stuff, but he’s not into geopolitics. He lives in Liechtenstein because he doesn’t want to deal with Putin in Russia. He’s an unlikely guy to be doing this.”
“He’s not doing it. He was bankrolling Dark Star, and now he’s hip-deep in this mess even if he doesn’t know it. Sphinx gave him the gateway and a zero-click malware attack that allowed the penetration. Sphinx is some computer guy on this side of the pond, but he knows who he is.”
“I can’t squeeze him in person. We don’t have any assets in Liechtenstein with the requisite skill set. They’re in Switzerland.”
Shit.
“Get me a number to him. Some way to talk to him. We have about two hours to find out who Sphinx is.”
“I think you have less time than that. POTUS is going to order them to abort.”
“Abort? They’ll be killed.”
“Better them than the entire space station.”
“Just get me that number.”
I hung up and turned to Wolffe saying, “POTUS has ordered them to abort. We need to turn that off, immediately.”
George Wolffe called Alexander Palmer in the Situation Room, putting it on speaker. Palmer answered saying, “George, I don’t have time right now.”
