The Joint Chiefs chairman, Moore, spoke first.
“Mr. President, as you know, the Pentagon has recently concluded that computer sabotage coming from another country constitutes an act of war. For the first time, the door is open for the U.S. military to respond to such attacks using traditional military force. More will be declassified in coming months. But I will tell you we now regard this as a changing world, one where a hacker can pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, public transportation in the air and on the ground, or, let’s say pipelines, as a hostile country’s military.”
McCloskey lit a black cheroot, inhaled, thought a moment, and expelled a plume of blue smoke. He reached down to rub the head of his dog, Ranger, asleep on the rug beside him. Still looking fondly at his pet, the president continued.
“Charlie’s right. What we’re saying is this. If you shut down our power grid, maybe we will put a multiple warhead ICBM down one of your smokestacks. That about sum it up, David?”
Vice President Rosow got to his feet and began pacing the room. When he spoke, it was with his trademark candor and no-nonsense demeanor.
“Let’s just skip the chase and cut right to the goddamn outcome, okay? As you all know, two days ago we had an electronic tsunami in America. A rolling blackout that came ashore at Santa Monica, hit Los Angeles, and then swept across the whole damn country. Denver, Chicago. All the way to New York City. The power grid was down in New York for exactly sixty minutes, then, at the stroke of midnight, pop, the lights all came back on. Now, that tells me something. It tells me somebody is dicking around with us. Having himself a little fun at our expense. Not to mention our country. No goddamn hacker dicks with America, gentlemen, and gets away with it.”
McCloskey nodded in agreement. “At least not on my watch, anyway. And I’m not putting up with it. We’re not leaving this room until we figure out a way to put an end to this-whatever the hell it is-phantom-once and for all. I welcome your ideas.”
“Whoever they are, they’re probing, pushing us around, Mr. President,” Rosow said. “Just to show the rest of the world they can do it. It all began with that Russian sub in the Caribbean. The tragedy up at Fort Greely, the slaughter caused by that TGV train in London.”
“No question about it, David. Somebody, somewhere, has gotten hold of technology we can’t even begin to understand, much less match. You boys know what a ‘rat lab’ is? That’s what we used to call ’em back at MIT. Meant a room full of people ‘running around thinking.’ We got every rat lab in America working on this and they haven’t come up with squat. That’s why I invited Sir David Trulove of MI6 over here. He and Commander Hawke have been talking to artificial intelligence scientists over at Cambridge. I think they have some answers for us. Sir David?”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. President; Commander Hawke and I both appreciate being invited to participate in this critically important meeting. The good news is, we actually may have brought along a bit of good news to share with you this morning. MI6’s Red Banner, a joint spec-ops unit working in concert with the CIA, has made significant progress. I’ll let Alex take you through it. He’s been spending productive time with the AI scientists at Cambridge.”
Hawke leaned forward and locked eyes with McCloskey. “Mr. President, I’m honored to be here. I worked closely with your predecessors and I look forward to continuing that process with you. A question first, if you don’t mind. I believe you have been briefed on Project Perseus, correct?”
“I have been.”
“Then you know that a scientist at Stanford, Cohen by name, had achieved enormous theoretical breakthroughs in the field of AI-ideas he considered so dangerous he built an impenetrable firewall to protect them.”
“I’m aware of all this.”
“The quantum supercomputer at Leeds, used by Cambridge scientists, has determined that someone hacked into Cohen’s encrypted life’s work and stole his ideas for a Singularity machine. I don’t want to understate the ramifications of what I just said. This is not just another of the many cyberthreats to national security in the West, sir. According to Dr. Partridge at Cambridge, this particular theft is analogous to the Soviet KGB acquiring the secrets of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos.”
“He said that? Those words?” the president said, some of the color draining from his face.
“He did, sir. Precisely those words. He added that the individual responsible, or whatever state wields this power, is now the most dangerous threat to human existence on the planet.”
“Wait a second. Can we replicate Cohen’s design ourselves? On a crash-and-burn basis?” Anson Beard, the ruggedly handsome secretary of state, asked.
“Unfortunately not, Secretary Beard. It isn’t crash-and-burn science,” Hawke replied. “According to the Cambridge group, it will take at minimum two years to replicate this technology. If we’re lucky.”
“Mr. Hawke,” the president said, “you said there was good news. Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Quantum has finally been able to determine the whereabouts of the hacker, Mr. President.”
“Yes?”
“Iran.”
“Damn, I knew it,” the president said. “Who else but Iran could be behind the most dangerous threat on the planet-those crazy mullahs and that pinhead president of theirs? The latest intel shows the cabal of mullahs in Tehran are convinced that the End of Days is near. That their divine ruler, the Mahdi, is going to appear and set the world straight. Meaning, kill all the nonbelievers. Were it up to me, I’d turn that country full of Islamofascists into a parking lot. But it isn’t up to me. It is, unfortunately, up to those deadlocked, dithering bureaucrats on the Hill.”
Hawke said, “Mr. President, if I may continue, as I said, we were able to identify the hacker. An Iranian scientist who worked on the original Perseus Project at Stanford with Dr. Cohen. He’s also the man we suspect of murdering Dr. Cohen and a number of other key scientists who worked on the project. He goes by the name of Darius Saffari. But his real name is Sattar Khan. Ironically enough, he is a nephew of the late Shah of Iran. His mother was the Shah’s sister.”
“The deus ex machina,” McCloskey said. “We know his name and we know where he lives. Am I missing something here?”
Hawke said, “Sorry, sir, your question?”
“Why isn’t he dead?”
“He will be. Director Kelly and I were discussing his demise at breakfast this very morning. Brick, you want to take over?”
“Thanks, Alex. Mr. President, we have a nonspecific location in Iran, but at least we know it’s an area in the southeastern portion, on or near the Persian Gulf. We immediately put a dedicated bird in the sky over that area. I have sat photos here of locations we consider the most likely possibilities. I’ve a set for everyone.”
Once each attendee had the photos, Kelly said, “The site we favor is the one marked IR-117. A compound located directly on the Gulf. As you can all see, it looks to be heavily fortified. But the thing that interests me most is the mammoth power plant you can see on the mountainside below what appears to be an observatory. It is surrounded by twenty-foot-high fences topped with concertina wire and is patrolled by guards with dogs twenty-four hours a day.”
“Why does that interest you, Brick?” the president said.
“A supercomputer of the size and complexity we are talking about would require enormous amounts of power. This particular plant is big enough to supply a small city. And, as you can see, the complex looks to be primarily residential, a large palace, surrounded by countless streets of ancient buildings. It is substantial and well fortified by a massive thirty-foot-high wall. A citadel, in fact. There’s something inside that compound that needs a whole lot of juice, Mr. President.”
“A ghost in a machine.”
“Yes, sir. That’s what I believe.”
“So who’s going to take out the ghost, Brick?”
“Commander Hawke and I, sir. CIA will assist under the aegis of our joint Red Banner unit. We are already in the planning stages. I’ll brief you when we’re ready to go. Black ops, off the grid, untraceable. Complete plausible deniability should Commander Hawke, his team, or any of our special forces be killed or captured during the incursion.”
The president said, “How do plan to get in and out of Iran, Commander? Their air defenses are
