Lethal Code

CHAPTER 6

Lana left NSA headquarters with a clear assignment: Join Deputy Director Holmes’s team, which was tasked with identifying the unknown enemy.

“Then we’re going to crush them,” Holmes vowed.

Right now Lana had to rush back to Kressinger to arrange care for Emma. She also needed to find out how Jeff Jensen, her second in command at CyberFortress, was doing with his own battle against those APTs — the viruses that were almost certainly Chinese in origin.

“Yes, Lana,” Jeff said, picking up on Lana’s direct line.

“How’s it going?”

“I’ve corralled most of the troops, and I think we might have found the last of the viruses. But do you remember the code you wrote just before the first cyberattack?”

“Sure.” Tailor-made to stop a Chinese hacker who had singled them out on another matter.

“That might help us,” Jeff said, “in setting up our firewalls.” Software that Lana had written to analyze the data coming into CF to make sure it was actually welcome.

“I’ll encrypt and send it as soon as I get home,” Lana told him. “Anything else?”

“No.”

“Gotta run.”

She speed-dialed Emma to check on her. No answer. That left Lana in a mild panic because of the girl’s experiments with alcohol. It petrified Lana to think that Emma might have decided to imbibe while taking pain medication. Her daughter’s behavior of late was off the rails, even when judged against the low bar of adolescence.

Kicking Irene in the belly?

Minutes later, she tried again. Still no answer. On the drive, Lana turned on the radio, hearing NPR say that it had regained control of its own airwaves. In a series of “alerts,” the network told listeners that it had also become a victim of the cyberattack and was not aligned with the enemy — despite the claim of various nutbars on the extremes of the political spectrum.

The network also snagged her attention with a report about the heroics of the Baptist church choir, which included an interview with its director, three of its members, and a reporter for the Washington Post. The woman had just written a front-page story headlined “Courage in Kressinger.”

Lana smiled; she’d called the incident to the Post reporter’s attention.

Otherwise, little good news filled the air.

Lana used the electronic garage-door opener, relishing the device anew, and hurried inside. She found Emma asleep in bed, covers curled tightly around her chin. No bottles of gin or vodka or scotch sat on the nightstand next to the prescription drugs. Lana’s worst nightmare vanished at the innocent sight of her daughter sleeping.

The air-conditioning was on, too, and the house had cooled. But what proved deeply unnerving for Lana was knowing that such normalcy could end any second — a possibility that gripped her so intensely she feared she would sicken. The first panic attack of her life had begun.

Her ears rang sharply, and her heart beat so furiously that she gripped her chest and had to sit on the edge of Emma’s bed. Slowly, she was able to take deep, deliberate breaths. Perspiration streamed down her face. But her heart rate slowed, and the shrillness in her ears faded.

Lana’s sudden unraveling shocked her, even as it eased. Her entire adult life she had been a steadying force for others — for the country. If this could happen to her, she thought, an entire generation of children and young people was going to need intense help to adjust to the intimidating world that had dawned that week.

Thankfully, Emma remained blissfully unaware of her mother’s duress.

Calmed, Lana walked out to the kitchen and drank a large glass of water, as if to douse the final embers of distress. With another deep inhalation, she switched on the small screen under a corner cabinet. A CNN anchor was reporting that the “unknown enemy” had released a six-hundred-word statement.

Lana wheeled right back down the hall, scooting past her bedroom to her study, where she powered up her desktop computer. She found the message just as it was posted on an NSA website.

Though the author claimed he was not the same man who had voiced the last “communiqué,” he stated in his opening paragraph that he had written the man’s words. So it was not surprising that Lana still heard that smooth male voice in her head as she read the following:

“Now that we have given you back your precious electricity, all of you can read my words. And if you read fast, you might even finish my message before you lose power. You should pay close attention, because I promise to give you a jolt or two at the end.”

Without thinking, Lana moved back, as if she might be zapped any second by her own computer. But that was absurd, and she knew it. No one could execute such an attack through the Internet, though clearly they could execute much more devastating blows.

Just print it out, she admonished herself. Before it disappears and he does whatever he’s going to do.

She retrieved the hard copy and resumed reading her screen.

“By now, you must know that we have done great damage to you, more than any of your enemies could ever have dreamed of doing. Do you want to know more about us? I think you do. But I won’t tell you too much. I shall not play a cat-and-mouse game, as you Americans like to say…”

That’s exactly what you’re doing.

“… but I will say that we are never far from you. Just a keystroke. That is all. But that is the great significance of the world we live in now. You send your drones to the Middle East, South America, Asia, Africa, wherever you want. We send out little soldiers wherever we want. Fair is fair. You assassinate. We retaliate. Then you boast that you will kill us. Good luck with that. Isn’t that another of your favorite expressions? Or maybe I should say, ‘How’s that working for you, America?’

“Some of your leaders say America will ‘pulverize’ us, as if we are rocks you can grind to dust. We are not so easy as rocks. We are working very hard, and we have humbled you. All you can do is shout and shake your fists. That used to be scary. Now that we have democratized the battlefield, that is not so. Battlefield democracy is the only true democracy, and we have achieved it: one man and one computer in a world made ‘one’ by the Internet.

“That is the magnificence of the moment we are living in. History will record that we have brought fairness to warfare for the first time. That is the real reason you shake your fists, America. You cannot bear fairness because it bodes your end.

“Meantime, you don’t even know where to point your trillion-dollar arsenal. For all you know, you should point your guns and missiles at New York City or San Francisco. Your enemy could be staring you right in the face or standing by your side, all the while smiling at your misery. You do not know.

“But you have heard the story of David and Goliath. Christian, Jew, Muslim, we all know about the boy with a sling and five stones. But in our version, there are many Davids. I can assure you that right now your leaders are meeting and pointing their fingers this way, then that, saying, ‘Where is David? Where is he?’ Here is the answer: David is everywhere. David stands in the shadows defeating Goliath with bytes that you cannot trace.

“Now, do you remember what David of the Old Testament did once he brought Goliath crashing to the ground? He cut off the giant’s head. That is what we will do to you. Do not doubt us, America. We will cut off your head and hand it to you.

“So this is your last chance, Goliath. Do not fail the American people again by continuing your ruinous adventures abroad. Do not fail them for fear of shame. As you now know, there are much greater threats to worry about. The ones that come true. Delay, and we will behead you. That is a promise.”

The message disappeared, but the screen remained lit.

Lana sat on a stool, reminding herself that all the capability the enemy had displayed had been the subject of her own reports to NSA. The president had read them. The Joint Chiefs of Staff had been given copies. So had the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress. All of those officials had been strongly warned that this day was coming. They had banked — in every sense of that loaded word — on U.S. supremacy in cyberwarfare when it was patently clear that the country’s vulnerability had become manifest to friend and foe alike.

Emma walked into Lana’s office. “What were you looking at?” she asked.

“A message.”

“From work?”

“Yes, exactly. Come here.” Lana opened her arms.

For a second, she worried that her daughter would spurn her overture. But Emma let herself be held. She seemed to want to be comforted, and hugged her mother back.

Then the lights dimmed.

They both stiffened. But the power came back on. The screen returned to life. Lana looked to see if the bastard had uploaded another message. Nothing.

But the lights went right off, then came on and off repeatedly. She heard the air conditioner groan from the sudden surges and losses of power.

It lasted for at least sixty seconds before the power stayed on for more than a few seconds. Lana gasped, realizing that she’d been holding her breath.

Then the screen went dark.

At the very moment she squeezed her eyes shut in anguish, the power returned once again, and her screen glowed with these words: “Any time now.”

“What’s that mean, Mom?”

Lana paused before telling Emma the truth: “It means they really want to hurt us.”

Then she offered her daughter the kind of solace that often turns out to be a lie: “But we’re going to stop them, Emma. You’ll see.”