Tim Washburn: Cyber Attack

The facility is equipped with backup diesel generators and a pair of emergency generators if those backups fail to start, a scenario that appears unlikely but has happened in the past. Two months ago, the two nuclear reactors shut down due to a weather event and the backups failed to start, as did the emergency generators. Roark and his crew had to scramble to keep the water flowing to the pool where the fuel rods are submerged. But according to the maintenance logs Roark scans every morning, the generators are now up and running and in tip-top shape. Roark will have to see it to believe it.

Both units at the plant are pressurized water reactors, and the fission of uranium heats the water to produce steam that is then used to spin massive turbines, generating electricity. Roark pedals his chair across the floor to check the computer display for turbine speeds. A tall, lean man with a shock of wavy red hair, Roark’s most noticeable feature is his oversized Adam’s apple. That big ball of cartilage is now bobbing up and down as he dry swallows repeatedly while watching the turbine speeds continuing to ramp up. “What’s up with the turbines?” he shouts to his four coworkers.

“Both started speeding up a moment ago,” his coworker Charles Lewis says while looking at a video screen at the front of the room. A cascade of alarms begins to sound and the front wall lights up like midnight in Times Square. “David, shut the turbines down!” Lewis shouts.

Roark begins typing the shutdown sequence on his keyboard and looks up to see his monitor frozen. He reaches across the desk and grabs the keyboard of a second computer only to find that one is also unresponsive. “The damn computer is locked up,” he shouts. “Try for a manual override.”

“Trying manual override,” Lewis shouts, pounding his palm on a button that’s supposed to cut the power to the turbines. “The manual override won’t enga—”

A loud shrieking noise pierces the room, followed closely by two loud explosions. Inside the plant, the turbines, spinning ten times faster than they were designed for, rip apart, launching a wave of shrapnel that rips through the other equipment, including two critical pumps used to transfer water from the bay.

“Pressure’s droppin’ like a rock on two of the water pumps on unit one,” Lewis shouts over the continuing wail of alarms.

“Bypass them,” Roark shouts.

“I’m trying. None of the controllers on the bypass valves are responding.”

Just when Roark thinks things couldn’t get any worse, the control room is plunged into darkness. “Where’s my backup generator?” he shouts into the black void.

“Checking,” another coworker, Emily Edwards, says.

“Check faster,” Roark shouts. The battery-powered emergency lighting kicks on, providing some light, but it’s no help for the rapidly failing pumps. He can hear the radio chatter between Edwards and the technicians, but can’t distinguish the actual words.

“Emily?” Roark asks.

She holds up a finger and moments later Roark sees her shoulders slump. “Both backups failed to start,” Edwards says, “and the emergency generators are off-line for maintenance. They’re trying to get the generators started.”

“They better hurry the hell up,” Roark says. “We’re about two minutes from disaster.”

After a very long two minutes with no word from the techs and the power still off, Roark reluctantly picks up the phone and pushes a preprogrammed button on the console. When the call is answered, he says, “This is shift supervisor David Roark at Calvert Cliffs. The emergency code is 746W3. Please initiate evacuation procedures.”

—BREAKING NEWS—All air travel halted after a series of accidents. More details to follow…

National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force

Operations Center, McLean, Virginia

FBI Special Agent Hank Goodnight has his feet up on the desk and a keyboard in his lap, his eyes glued to the computer screen as he scrolls through the latest surveillance reports on a suspected hacker. Hank doesn’t have a clearly defined role within the agency and his job description has been reduced to two words— special projects . He does have a boss, though—Assistant Deputy Director Elaine Mercer—who decides which projects would best fit Hank’s unique abilities. The two have been a team for the last eight years and for the last four years they’ve been working on a joint task force focused on cyber threats. It’s a field of investigation that didn’t even exist twenty years ago. But that’s all changed and now the general public is bombarded by daily news reports about data breaches and stolen identities. Hank’s office phone rings and he leans across the desk and glances at the caller ID to see Mercer’s name. He picks up.

“My office, now,” Mercer says before hanging up.

Hank lowers his feet and stands, lays the keyboard on the desk, grabs his cell phone, and strolls out of his office. The official name of the agency Hank and Mercer are assigned to is the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force (NCIJTF), which occupies two floors of an unassuming building in downtown McLean, Virginia. A multiagency task force, it is run by the FBI and includes members from nineteen other government agencies—Homeland Security, the National Security Agency (NSA), Secret Service, Justice, Energy, State—along with a passel of military people mostly from the intelligence and special investigation units. According to the task force’s mission statement, not only do they coordinate, integrate, and share information about cyber attacks, they are also tasked with hunting down the perpetrators. And that’s where Hank comes in.

Hank places his palm on the scanner by the elevator and waits for the car to arrive. He dislikes the endless security gauntlet the agency installed when the space was remodeled for the agency’s use. He understands the need for security, but it’s a little over the top to suit him. He does, however, like the location and that’s the reason this building was chosen—it’s a short trip to both CIA Headquarters and the National Counterterrorism Center, with the added bonus that Dulles International Airport is just down the road.

The elevator car arrives and Hank climbs aboard. When he arrives on three, the doors open onto a sparsely decorated corridor devoid of any signage. Hank hangs a right and heads down the hall. In this building you’re supposed to know where you’re going. Of course there aren’t many slackers roaming around when you have to run through an onslaught of security measures just to enter the building. Hank supposes the government saved a few bucks by not springing for signs, but he doesn’t know that for sure. He sighs as he comes to a stop in front of a plain wooden door and positions his face in front of the iris scanner attached to the wall. Hank did a little research on the scanner and learned that it can detect two hundred unique points of reference on the iris as opposed to a fingerprint, which offers sixty to seventy points of reference. And much like a fingerprint a person’s iris is unique. He didn’t find anything in the stuff he read about repeated exposure to the damn things, but Hank wonders if he’s doing permanent damage to his eyes every time he puts his face up to the scanner.

The computer, satisfied that the person standing in front of the scanner is Hank Goodnight, triggers the door lock and he steps through, the door closing silently behind him. In the center of the large room is a cubicle farm that houses junior personnel who are doing the bidding of those people in the private offices that line the perimeter of the space. A set of double doors on the far side of the room leads to another large workspace with access to some of the fastest computers in the world. Hank bypasses everything and heads for the door tucked into the far corner of the room. This time there’s no scanner or security device to please and he pulls open the door and enters a handsomely decorated reception area, complete with leather wing chairs and a comfy leather sofa. Hank moves deeper into the space and waves at the older, silver-haired woman manning the reception desk. “How’re you doin’, Darla?” he asks.