Tim Washburn - Cyber Attack

Paige glances over her shoulder, turns, and begins walking toward the truck without saying a word. When they reach the vehicle the driver pushes a button that opens the rear hatch and Hank piles his stuff in. Paige is struggling to lift her suitcase and Hank grabs it and tosses it in. Paige brushes past, a scowl on her face.

“You’re welcome,” Hank says to her backside. He closes the hatch and opens the passenger-side door and looks at the driver. “Well, hell. When the hell did they make assistant directors in charge taxi drivers?”

“Hi, Hank, climb in. We’re burning daylight,” Assistant Director Tomás Morales says.

Hank climbs in and shuts the door. “How ya doin’, Tomás?”

“Busy. Very, very, busy,” Morales says, dropping the shifter into drive and punching the gas. He glances at the rearview. “I’m sorry you got paired with Hank.”

“Me, too,” Paige says. “I’m Paige Randall, a computer programmer at headquarters.”

“I know. I read your file. I must say you have a very impressive résumé. I’m Tomás Morales. Nice to meet you, Ms. Randall.”

“Paige will do. And nice to meet you, also, sir.”

“No sirs around here. It’s Tomás.”

Paige nods as Morales exits out of the airport and picks up the Grand Central Parkway for a mile before exiting onto Interstate 278 south.

“I don’t suppose you’ve found out who the hackers are?” Hank asks.

Morales sighs. “No. Not even a whiff. I’ve got agents scouring the stock exchanges, agents out at their data centers in New Jersey, and more agents working with the Wall Street banks. And we still don’t have a damn thing. You hear the latest?”

“No. What?” Hank asks.

Paige leans forward in her seat so she can hear.

“We don’t have all the details yet,” Morales says, “but apparently they somehow triggered the detonation of a very large bomb at an army ammunition depot. I think it was one of those MOAB bombs.”

“Damn,” Hank says, balling his hands into fists. “It had to be the plant in McAlester.”

“It was,” Morales says, “now that you say that.”

“When we find these bastards, I’m goin’ to stomp a mudhole in their asses and walk it dry.”

“Where is McAlester in relation to Ada?” Paige asks.

“The plant is forty-nine miles east of Ada.” Hank pauses, trying to keep his composure in check. After a moment or two he says, “There’re a lot of people around town who work at the plant, includin’ some people I’ve known since kindergarten.” Hank turns and stares out the side window for a few moments, his mind clicking through images of friends who might have been at the plant. He eventually turns to look at his friend. “The death toll had to be staggerin’, Tomás.”

“It was, Hank. The blast radius extended out to a mile or more. It could be days before they have a final tally.”

Hank nods and takes another deep breath. “Any idea how they detonated it?”

“No,” Morales says. “The plant is still burning and there’s extreme concern the other ordnance will cook off. They’ve cordoned off a wide area around the plant. I guess they’re going to wait and let the fire burn out.”

“That’s the only choice they have.” Hank says. He pauses another moment before continuing, “That place has enough ammo to not only start a war, but end it, too.” Hank, knowing there’s nothing he can do for his friends, tries to refocus his mind. “Do we know if their computer network was interfaced with the Department of Defense network?”

“ I don’t know, but we can damn sure find out.”

“I’m bettin’ it was,” Hank says. “Might be another avenue of investigation.”

“I’ll assign an agent to look into it,” Morales says.

“I have a question, Tomás,” Paige says.

Morales glances at the rearview and says, “Shoot.”

“If they’ve detonated one of these bombs at the manufacturing plant, what’s to keep them from detonating them elsewhere? Surely, some of these weapons are deployed.”

“They are. The bombs are stored at several air force bases. The military is working to disarm the remaining bombs.”

“That leads to my next question,” Paige says. “If the hackers have access to this particular bomb why not other types of military hardware?”

“I think the military folks are hoping the ammunition plant is the weak link in the chain. An isolated event,” Morales says.

“And what do you think?” Paige asks. “So far, they’ve hacked the power grids—which is not all that difficult to do—a dam, a series of chemical plants and nuclear power plants, a fairly sophisticated piece of aircraft flight software, and now some military ordnance. What’s to stop them from escalating their attacks to other military weapons?”

Morales’s eyes drift to the rearview mirror. “You think the military people are wrong, Paige?”

“Yes, I do.”

Morales glances over at Hank. “You feel the same?”

“Absolutely.”

“God help us,” Morales mutters.

North Atlantic Ocean

Hoping to build the next great class of ships for twenty-first-century warfare, the U.S. Navy commissioned a trio of defense contractors to do just that. After years of design and building, the result of their efforts is the USS Stark , a Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyer. Designed to be stealthy, the ship is a marvel of modern technology. From her knife-edged bow to her totally enclosed superstructure, the 610-foot-long USS Stark has the radar signature of a 50-foot fishing boat.

The modern marvels continue inside the ship with racks of computer servers that run every system on the ship from bow to stern. The servers are enclosed in what the navy calls an Electronic Modular Enclosure (EME) and the Stark has sixteen such enclosures on board—each jam-packed with computer equipment. Everything on the ship, from the showers to the gun turrets, is controlled by what the navy calls the Total Ship Computing Environment (TSCE). And all that computing power and the sophistication of the ship’s weapons and navigation systems require an enormous amount of software to operate. Even without several systems online for sea trials, it requires nearly six million lines of code to get the ship out of port.

The navy originally hoped to purchase thirty-two of these advanced war machines, but as costs ballooned to the point that each ship was going to cost over $3 billion to acquire, the order was cut in half. But similar to many other government programs, the costs didn’t end there and the navy cut the total number of ships to seven. Flash forward to today, and the navy capped the number of ships at three and the whole program ran aground and was eventually canceled.

Today, Captain Bruce Hensley is commander of the USS Stark , a ship that is far from complete and years away from combat readiness. Despite the Government Accountability Office’s assessment that only three of the ship’s eleven critical technologies are fully operational, the U.S. Navy ordered the USS Stark out for sea trials, the navy desperate to show something from all those billions spent. Hensley glances at one of the camera displays hanging overhead. The view he’s looking at is from the bow camera and there are storm clouds on the horizon. To say they have bugs to work out would be an understatement. The last time they were out to sea, both of the ship’s propellers seized while they were traversing the Panama Canal and the ship had to be towed out of the canal and back to port. After eleven months waiting for repairs, they are now back out on the high seas and the captain is wondering if his career is going to crater along with this piece-of-shit ship.