Robert Smith - The Planner

“It’s Robert,” he said.

“You missed our scheduled call yesterday,” said the old man smoothly but clearly indicating some irritation.

“Many apologises, Sir. We were in the air all day and all night.”

“All night?”

“In flight refuelled; In the air all of yesterday and all of today,” said Planner.

“Impressive. Let me know if this might happen again. As you can imagine, we have many very nervous stakeholders in this operation. They like to be kept informed.”

“I understand, Sir.”

“Good. And progress?”

“We’ve refined the scenarios and have covered the Big Event and side shows. We have worked through all expected scenarios and have demonstrated that we are fully flexible with pre-recorded transmissions, live transmissions, disruption mechanisms and have established over-ride protocols. As you know all communications from other Stage B operations will be routed through our command center. We’ve tested that. We have total visibility and control of the air picture, no-one else will. All ground operation teams are green, although they need a final push next weekend to make everything ready.”

“So the contingency plans? Any need for the simulations?”

“No, no need for the contingency plans. We will work with the cruise missile for the first target, to save money, as agreed, and so need the first video rendered. I presume the computer graphics work on the second target is still progressing?”

“Yes, still progressing even though it will not be required from the sounds of it.”

“Right,” confirmed Planner. “It will not be required.”

“Good. And the news media?”

“We have Gatekeepers in place at the big six TV channels. They’ve all been briefed. Operation Las Vegas has additional people on the ground ready to promote our story.”

“Communications?”

“We’ll be using the Special Routing Arrangement Service 117, to ensure the COG are kept informed with reliable information,” stated Planner.

“So are we ready to go?”

“We’ve planned it, simulated it, rehearsed it and now tested it. We have just one final test with the drones. It’s a formality. We are ready to go.”

“Any loose ends? I know that you worry about them.”

“There’s bound to be some. I’ll tidy up the ones I find as we go, as best I can,” said Planner smoothly.

The Lodge Master sounded delighted, “That’s the spirit, Robert. Very good. I’ll make sure everything has the all-clear. Stage B will be initiated.”

At 3am at the World Trade Center Plaza, thirty people exited the North Tower via the underground car park and dispersed into the night. The office cleaning crew, they work every night from 6pm to 3am. 118

Across the road, four men in a white van were dozing. The back of the van was piled high with numbered colored packages.

A cell phone woke up the guy in the driver’s seat.

“Ok. We’re ready for the elevator upgrade,” said a voice on the phone.

“Yeah,” replied the sleepy man and clicked off the phone.

“Oi, guys. Come-on. Elevator — Upgrades — R — Us,” he called to his colleagues.

The driver started up the van and drove across the road into the WTC underground car park.

* * * *

Planner skipped breakfast to arrive at the aircraft in advance of the rest of the team to go over some changes in the day’s schedule. He entered the rear door of the E4-B and was greeted by Colonel Purple.

“All ready for another day, Sir?” he said.

“Locked and loaded,” said Planner. They exchanged a few pleasantries as they walked down to the small conference room.

Planner extracted a document from his briefcase to explain to Purple his proposed changes. “We need to go over the communications systems and the radars again. As well as listen again to the aircraft transmissions.”

“As many times as you need, Sir.”

They agreed the changes and Planner prepared to go to the galley to make up for missing breakfast and casually said, “Thanks, Colonel, that’s much appreciated. Oh, and I’m apologising in advance for the changes of plan that we’ll be making on the day.” Planner knew it was inevitable that they would be changes to the plan as events transpired. However, Purple seemed to read a different meaning into this innocuous statement.

“Indeed, Sir,” said Purple with a fixed smile. Then the Colonel, stepped to Planner’s side and said in hushed tones, “I have been briefed about that by the Shadow Team…”

Planner was electrified by this comment but tried to hide it, “Shadow Team… Right.” Planner fumbled with his folder and dropped the document he was holding.

Planner said, thinking fast as he picked the document back up, “I presume they’ve only told you the minimum you need to know, not the complete picture.”

“Just about the tidy up, Sir. I think that’s enough,” said Purple carefully.

“Indeed that’s enough. The bigger picture will become obvious later on,” said Planner. He faked a smile and left hastily. The Colonel raised his eyes to the ceiling.

* * * *

The lining inside the Communication Room, muffled the noise of the engines and the hum of air conditioning. Planner was being briefed by Captain Ochre on the communications equipment.

“Unlike SRAS 119, there really is not any non-repudiation on civilian communications,” explained Ochre.

“You can spoof any number, any communication?” asked Planner.

“Sure”

“So how do you do it?” enquired Planner.

“So to spoof 120any number, cell phone or land line, you enter the calling id here,” said the young man, pointing to an odd-style, push button telephone pad. “Do that first before making the outgoing call which you do using the standard keyboard. You can save all the caller ids and outgoing call numbers in this preset list: Only ten per terminal though. The technology used here is quite old.”

“So you can call any number from any number?” said Planner.

“Any number to any number. All voice calls are beamed to our dedicated communication satellite and just patched through into the public telephone traffic. It will even be billed to the calling number,” smiled Ochre.

“Right. And Radio?”

“Aircraft Radio transmissions are trickier. They use ACARS 121but these too can be spoofed using a similar technique. The only problem with spoofing ACARS is the inclusion of navigation and maintenance data. And you can roughly track the source transmission; plus or minus fifty miles,” he explained.

“Right. So when we switch to drones, we need to switch off ACARS on the real flight and switch on our spoof recorded transmissions transmitted by the E4-B,” said Planner.

“Hey, it’s like you planned it,” joked Ochre.

“Thanks but I don’t think I went into this much detail. It was just a note on a To-Do list. Someone else made it happen,” smiled Planner.

Planner was just about the leave when he had a thought, “Just wondering whether I could test some of this out and make a private call,” he said.

“Go for it,” said Ochre. “I’ll be outside if you need me.”

Ochre stepped into the corridor, allowing Planner to make a private call. He typed his cell phone number into the old-style keypad and entered another number into the computer.

He could hear the phone ring on his headsets. The phone was picked up. “Hi, Turq. It’s Planner,” he said.

“Hi, Boss,” came her cheerful reply over the headset.

“Can you see my caller id?” asked Planner.

“Yes. Calling from your Blackberry? When will they get you flying?” Turq said.

Planner smiled, the test of the spoof system had worked.