Stephen Coonts - Combat

To prevent this Bobby Sung would momentarily block all outgoing traffic. To the average user this interruption would appear to be nothing more than a delay in finding an open circuit at his or her Internet service provider. Even the most astute computer geek would have difficulty detecting the hiccup Bobby Sung’s break in service would create.

“Hey, Bobby,” Eric called out. “You ready?”

The EWK looked up at the big screen, where he could clearly see that Eric had the existing IP header information highlighted and ready for deletion. “On the count of three,” Bobby Sung replied. Then he began his count, “Three, two, one, break.”

In the Spook Booth, the NSA agent pointed to the screens displaying what Bobby Sung and Eric were doing. “The interruption in service comes first,” he explained to the rep from the National Security Council. “Then the Cyberknight making the hack wipes away the old header information and substitutes the one we came up with, the Trojan horse.”

Though he really didn’t understand everything that was going on in the Pit, the NSC rep grunted and nodded knowingly.

Back in the Pit, Eric drew his hands away from his keyboard and into the air. “Done!”

Bobby Sung, alerted to this by his compatriot’s actions and announcement, removed the block from the targeted system. When the warning banner on his screen was replaced by a “Service resumed” message, the EWK let his hands fall away from the keyboard and to his sides. Dispassionately he watched his monitor, which was now showing him the same thing the systems administrator of the hacked computer was seeing. If anyone had noticed the break in service, they would notify the system administrator, who would, in turn, initiate some sort of action to find out what had happened.

Again the Pit became still as everyone watched for a flurry of activity on the portion or the big screen showing them Bobby Sung’s screen display. From his seat the OIC took note of the time. It had been decided that a thirty-minute pause would be sufficient to allay any fears that their insertion of the Trojan horse had gone undetected.

As before, Eric found himself unable to contain his nervous energy. With all his pencils out of reach, Eric began to drum his fingers on the tabletop as he watched the big screen. He was in the middle of rapping out a tune when he felt a sharp slap across the back of his right hand. Stunned, he looked over at the interpreter next to him. Surprised by her action and the scowl she wore, Eric pulled his injured hand up to his chest and began to rub it as he stared at his attacker as if to ask, “Why did you do that?”

Having anticipated this, the interpreter shoved a note in front of his face. In angry strokes, the note read, “Stop with the noise, before I am forced to break your fingers. ”

Reaching over and snatching the pencil from her hand, Eric turned as he took up his notepad and jotted out a response. When it was finished, he flashed his response at her. “Oh yeah!” it read. “You and what army?”

Seeing an opportunity to pass time by engaging in something more exciting than watching the big screen, Eric and the female interpreter exchanged a flurry of notes.

They were still at it when Captain Reitter broke the silence. “It looks as if the Trojan horse is in place and doing its thing. It’s time to move on to phase two.”

Before breaking off the silent war of words, Eric scribbled out one more message to his neighborly foe. “We’ll continue this later.” After delivering that, he swiveled about in his seat and took up where he had left off. “Okay, Scottie,” Eric announced over the intercom, “beam me up.”

Without a word the pathfinder prepared to launch back out into cyberspace from the computer they had hacked into and on to the one at the chemical plant chosen for destruction. Using macnife’s screen name, he initiated the new hack from macnife’s own computer. Unlike before, he made no effort to cover his tracks or weave his way through the Internet along a predetermined route. For this part of the operation to be successful, the pathfinder had to leave a traceable path from macnife’s machine to the chemical plant for the cyberwarfare specialists in the other nation to find.

The point of entry at the new site was the computer system at the chemical plant that handled the shipping and tracking of the plant’s products. This point, according to the system expert, would be the easiest port through which they could enter and gain access to the rest of the system. While he watched the pathfinder hand off the attack to Bobby Sung so that he could crack the security codes, the system expert unfolded a diagram of the chemical plant’s network.

As before, Bobby Sung wormed his way through the security gateways and worked his way through the system until he had reached the network’s root directory. From his seat, Eric looked at up the big screen before him. “Gee,” he muttered as he took in the screen before him. “I thought you said this plant had been built by a German firm.”

“The plant is German,” the SE replied. “But the computer network is based upon an American design.”

“I sure hope the American firm got some royalties out of this deal,” the interpreter remarked.

Bobby Sung snickered. “Not likely.”

From his seat, Reitter called out. “Let’s settle down and deal with the issue at hand.”

Unlike the previous sessions that had passed in near-total silence, a lively exchange began between the system expert, who guided Eric through the computer network that ran the plant, the interpreter, who translated when they came across something in Chinese, and Eric himself, who asked them both questions. To assist in this effort, each of these three had laser pointers with which they could point to the word or section of the plant’s computer screen that was now displayed on the big screen.

“Okay,” the SE stated triumphantly. “The second file down contains the program that runs the control panel.”

“Well,” Eric mused as he highlighted the file and clicked his mouse. “Let’s see what we shall see.”

After taking a moment or two to study the series of computer commands, the language/program expert heaved a great sigh of relief. “They’ve not changed a thing. All the pre-programmed defaults are still set.”

The system expert nodded. “Agreed. We can proceed as planned.”

Leaning forward, Eric locked his fingers and flexed them as a concert pianist would before playing. “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Now, for my first number, I shall play, ‘Let’s fuck with the emergency shutoff.’”

“He’s a cocky little bastard,” the NSA agent commented to the group assembled in the Spook Booth.

Coming to Eric’s defense, Colonel Shrewsbery countered. “He’s twenty-five years old, playing the world’s most sophisticated computer game.” Turning, he looked over at the NSA man. “Like you, we recruit brains, not personality.”

Quickly Eric moved from item to item, changing the settings. In some cases he reversed values, so that when the computer screen in the control room showed the operator that a valve was open, it was actually closed and vice versa. Simple mathematical formulas were added to lines that displayed temperatures of the huge vats where chemical reactions and mixing took place. The inserted formulas were written so that the measured temperature at the vat showed up on the control room’s computer as being substantially lower than it actually was. Together with the disabling of the automated-shutdown sequence and fire-suppression system, the new settings were designed to initiate an uncontrolled chain reaction. Not only would the personnel in the control room be unaware of what was going on until it was too late, when they did take steps to shut down the plant or activate emergency procedures, the false readings they were seeing and the reversed controls they were manipulating would only serve to increase both the speed of the disaster and its magnitude.