Tim Washburn - Cyber Attack

“My shoes,” Eric says, trying to free his hand.

“No time,” Peyton shouts, giving his arm a hard tug. “C’mon.”

Entering the living room, Peyton discovers that the fire is spreading rapidly, with two walls now engulfed and flames flickering across the ceiling. With smoke stinging their eyes and filling their lungs, Peyton grabs Eric’s hand and pulls him out the door. When they reach the ground, they stagger onto the front lawn and collapse to their knees, coughing, as the fire roars behind them.

Newark Liberty International Airport

With much work to do, Hank and Paige snap out of their melancholy moods as they board the agency plane at the private jet terminal at Newark International Airport. That location was chosen for one reason—New Jersey still has power. Hank follows Paige up the jet stairs. The pilot takes one look at Paige’s grease-stained clothes and says, “Rough day?”

“You could say that,” Paige says, dumping her bag on one of the seats and plopping down. This is a different jet and a different flight crew from this morning’s flight. Hank steps inside and offers his hand. “How ya doin’, Michelle?”

“Still waiting on my phone to ring, Hank. You?” Michelle Miller asks.

“Been a long day. I still have your number, I just haven’t had the time.”

Michelle smiles. “You’re a busy man, Hank. Are we going back to Davison?”

“No, Baltimore. Is that a problem?”

“No, I just need to modify the flight plan. We loaded on some food. You two make yourselves comfortable and we’ll be in the air momentarily.”

Hank ducks his head inside the cockpit and the copilot, Carlos Torres, turns in his seat. “Damn, Hank, you travel more than the president.”

“You may be right, Carlos. You doin’ all right?”

“Living the dream, Hank. Living the dream.”

Hank walks deeper into the cabin and drops his bag on the floor and takes the seat diagonally opposite from Paige. This jet has seating for eight with two clusters of four leather chairs that face one another.

“How do you remember all their nam—never mind. Forget I asked. But, hell, you can’t do that, either.”

Hank offers her a tired smile as he digs out his cell phone. “There’s food.”

“I heard. Don’t have much of an appetite at the moment.”

“Can’t blame you for that.” Hank powers on his phone and finds a dozen missed calls and ten text messages, most from Elaine Mercer, but a couple of the recent calls are from Nana. He decides to return her call first. He touches Nana’s picture, puts the phone to his ear, and the call goes straight to voice mail. He disconnects and tries her home phone, but the call won’t go through. Worried, he scrolls quickly through his text messages and finds out why Nana isn’t answering in Mercer’s last text. “Looks like the hackers have been busy.”

“What now?” Paige asks.

“They’ve taken down more power grids. This time they hit the heartland.”

“Figured that was coming sooner or later.”

“Yeah, me, too. Do you think they’re going to take them all down?” Hank asks.

Paige pulls out her smartphone and turns it on. “I don’t see why not. Anything else from Mercer?”

Hank scrolls through the messages. “Looks like they hit two more nuclear power plants, one in Arkansas and the other in San Diego.” Hank tosses his phone onto a nearby seat and stands. He steps over to the small galley area, grabs two bottles of water from the mini fridge, and hands one to Paige. “You callin’ Natalie?”

Paige takes the bottle, unscrews the lid, and takes a long drink. “Yeah, as soon as I recharge my batteries a bit. I’m physically and mentally exhausted.”

“We both need to eat somethin’.” Hank drains his water, screws the lid back on, and walks back to the small galley area. He pulls open the warming drawer and the doughy, cheesy aroma from the pizza inside instantaneously triggers his hunger button. He pulls the large box out and lifts the lid to see a half-dozen different slices of deep-dish pizza inside. He grabs a couple of plates from the overhead cabinet and carries it all back to his seat. After handing Paige a plate he offers her first choice and she selects a slice of sausage and mushroom.

“Change your mind about bein’ hungry?”

“I didn’t think I was hungry until I smelled the pizza,” Paige says, scrolling through her e-mails, hoping to see one from her sister, Peyton. No such luck.

“Works every time.” Hank grabs a slice of meat lover’s, closes the lid, and returns the box to the warming drawer. He grabs two beers from the fridge and returns to his seat, passing a cold brew to Paige. Once they’ve eaten their fill and drained their beers, both pull out their laptops and sign on to the jet’s secure Wi-Fi network.

Paige shoots off an e-mail to Natalie while Hank does a little digging into the operation of the nation’s power grids, hoping to prove his theory that the hackers are targeting specific PLCs. What he finds only reinforces his original theory. No matter the fuel source—coal, natural gas, nuclear—the heat they generate is used to create steam that powers a spinning electrical generator, most often a steam turbine. And the same principle applies to hydroelectric facilities although the movement of water is the fuel that spins the electrical generators. But, no matter the source, they all rely on some type of controller to regulate the speeds of those spinning devices and those controllers are interfaced into the facility’s computer networks for ease of use.

After a little more digging, Hank discovers that only a handful of companies actually make the PLCs that are used to manufacture everything from dog food to the power that enters a person’s home. Hank sits back and thinks about that for a moment. He glances at Paige and says, “What do you know about programmable logic controllers?”

“Other than the fact that they control almost everything on the planet, not much.”

“Easy to hack?”

“Of course. They’re simple devices that operate on a few lines of code. Are you back to your theory the hackers are targeting PLCs?”

“It’s the only theory that makes sense.”

“I agree, but that’s not going to tell us how they did it or who’s doing it. Until we know those two things we have no way of stopping them.”

“And you’re tellin’ me it may be a while before we know that information. I’m tryin’ to find ways to mitigate further damage. Maybe we can prod some people to take their critical systems off-line.”

“Funny, when I mentioned that you said, rather adamantly, it was absolutely impossible,” Paige says.

“I still don’t think it’s a realistic scenario, but I don’t like sittin’ on our hands waitin’ for the next disaster.”

“I e-mailed Natalie. She has dozens of people working on the malware and they’re making progress.”

“What does that mean?” Hank asks.

Paige shrugs. “Progress is progress, Hank. It’s going to take time.”

“That’s the one thing we don’t have.”

—BREAKING NEWS—SECOND attack on Naval Station Norfolk! Further damage reported. Attackers unknown. President raises threat level to DEFCON 3. More details to follow…

—BREAKING NEWS—Power outage occurs in large swath of the Midwest. As many as 18 million people may be affected. More details to follow…

—BREAKING NEWS—Power out in parts of New York State. Manhattan included in outage.

New York governor calls up National Guard to patrol streets on NYC. More details to follow…