Tim Washburn - Cyber Attack

“I can’t see it being a one and done,” Griffin says. “Penetrating the ship’s systems would have required enormous effort and I can’t see them walking away from that. So that leaves us option one. The ship is cruising around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and unless they’re following us on another ship, their only access would be via satellite.”

“Bingo. Weather could be a factor or it could be the satellite they’re using is out of position.”

“So we didn’t fuck up?” Griffin asks.

“No, Griff, we didn’t screw up. What’s the admiral doing now?”

“We’re preparing a missile test.”

“Keep a hand close to the kill switch, Griff.”

“I will, Cap. Later.” Griffin hangs up the phone and reluctantly tells Admiral Malloy that the missile test is ready.

“Very well, Mr. Griffin. Fire when ready.”

“Roger, sir.” Griffin has the Sea Sparrow programmed to launch precisely three seconds after the launch of the first missile. He runs through the numbers again and positions his finger over the launch button. “Launch in three, two, one…” He presses the button and the first missile erupts from the vertical launching system. Three seconds later, the second missile blasts from its launcher. Griffin tracks the missiles and he gets a sinking feeling in his stomach when the first missile makes a long looping turn to the left. He checks the progress of the Sea Sparrow and that sinking feeling he felt is now a burning coal in his gut. Whatever the Sea Sparrow is tracking, it sure as hell isn’t the target it’s supposed to be tracking.

“Admiral, we have a problem!” Griffin shouts. He watches the screen as the first missile veers left again, taking dead aim at the USS Stark . “Incoming,” Griffin shouts as more missiles roar out of their launchers. Everyone in the mission center dives under the desks.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Malloy shouts, racing over to the weapons station.

“It’s the comp—”

His last words are obliterated when the first missile plows into the helicopter sitting on the deck and detonates. Shrapnel rips through the upper superstructure, shredding everything in its path. Griffin hammers the now-inoperable kill switch with his palm before diving under his desk. He catches a glimpse of the forward deck camera on a video screen and cringes as more missiles roar out of the launchers.

The admiral is the only person still upright, as he pounds on the keyboard above Griffin’s head. Shrapnel continues to zing around the room, tearing through video monitors, computers, and those unlucky few who chose the wrong spot to hide. Malloy seem oblivious to all of it as he pounds the buttons on the weapons center console. “Kill power to the goddamn ship!” Malloy shouts at the top of his lungs.

Within seconds, the control center is plunged into darkness and the barrage of missiles stops. Only then does Griffin hear the moans of the wounded. The battery-powered emergency lights kick on and Griffin climbs out from beneath his desk as others do the same. The admiral is standing and staring into the distance as if in a trance. “Are you injured, Admiral?” Griffin asks.

Malloy turns to look at him. “What?”

“I asked if you were injured, sir.”

“No, no. I’m not injured,” he answers in a flat, lifeless tone.

Medical personnel rush into the room and begin triage. Griffin pulls a chair over and positions it behind Malloy. “Sir, why don’t you sit down for a moment?”

The admiral nods and slumps into the chair as Captain Hensley hurries into the room and says, “Mr. Griffin, disable the weapons.” Hensley takes a second to survey the damage then turns to his executive officer. “I need a ship-wide damage assessment, Kat.”

She nods and hurries away to carry out the captain’s order, as Hensley starts barking out more orders. The injured members of his crew are either being carried out or being helped out by medical personnel and taken to the infirmary. Luckily, no one inside the mission center appears to have sustained any life-threatening injuries. Hensley doesn’t know if that’s true for the entire ship or not. He won’t know that until Connelly returns with the damage report. He walks across the room and squats down next to Malloy’s chair. “Are you okay, Admiral?”

Malloy turns to look Hensley in the eyes. “No. I’m not okay. What the hell just happened?”

Hensley wants, badly, to shout I told you so, you arrogant bastard , but he doesn’t. “The same thing that happened to us during the first live-fire exercise. This computerized piece of shit has been compromised, Admiral.”

“What were the missiles targeting?” Malloy asks.

“We won’t know for sure until we power the ship back up, but I’d assume they were targeting the same thing as before?”

“Norfolk?”

Hensley nods.

“Jesus Christ. What a nightmare. I need to talk to Admiral Young,” Malloy says, referencing Admiral Ronald Young, the commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

“We continue to have communication issues, Admiral,” Hensley says. “We can’t make a radio call, a phone call, or send an e-mail.”

“Don’t you have someone aboard who can fix it?”

“We’re trying, sir. Am I to assume, sir, that I’m no longer confined to quarters?”

Malloy takes a moment, looking at the damage inside the room. “You are correct. We’ll be lucky if either of us has a job after this clusterfuck.” Malloy pauses, then turns to look Hensley in the eyes. “It’s a little late now, but I owe you an apology, Captain. If I’d listened to you and your crew, this would have never happened.”

Hensley is momentarily taken aback by the admiral’s honesty. It’s not often that a two-star admiral admits fault—the old adage that “shit rolls downhill” is usually the prevailing attitude in the navy. Hensley is just hoping the admiral’s story doesn’t change between now and their inevitable date at the general court-martial. Hensley, unable to come up with a meaningful answer, simply says, “Thank you, sir.”

Malloy nods. “Power this ship back up and take us back to port, Captain.”

Cushing, Oklahoma

Cushing is a sleepy little town of 8,000 residents that lies about an hour northeast of the capital city, Oklahoma City. The town is not much different from other small cities across the country. They have a school, a grocery store or two, local restaurants, a pharmacy, and doctors’ offices. But Cushing has one thing those other towns don’t. Known as the Pipeline Capital of the World, Cushing is home to one of the largest oil-storage facilities on the planet. With up to eighty million barrels of crude oil in storage, the town is a major strategic player in U.S. energy policy—and a potential terrorist target.

Over the last few years, the companies have erected tall fences topped with concertina wire and fortified the ingress and egress routes with guard shacks. Security cars patrol around the clock and the employees are on constant lookout for new strangers to town who might have nefarious purposes in mind. With the exterior fortifications in place, no one gave much thought to what happens on the inside—specifically the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems that interface with the computers.

With over three hundred storage tanks scattered around the area—many large enough to fit a 747 jet inside—there are just a handful of companies that control how the oil flows in from the drilling fields or out to a refiner downstream. And everything is controlled with the click of a computer mouse. Working for Black Gold Energy, shift supervisor Sadie Turner sits at one of the banana-shaped desks, her eyes darting back and forth among the eight video screens stacked horizontally on the wall. Arrows indicate which way the crude oil is moving and red and green tank icons indicate whether the tank is emptying or filling. Beneath the tank farm are hundreds of miles of pipelines that Sadie controls by electronically opening and closing the valves. The crude is pumped at pressures as high as 1,000 psi, and Sadie also keeps a close eye on the pressure readings for each section of pipeline.