“My God, Hayley, are you okay? Shouldn’t you be at the hospital?” He stands and goes to her.
“I’m fine, sir. Really.”
Rodgers points at the blood on her forearms. “You’re bleeding!”
“Not mine. I was lucky.”
She allows him to guide her to a chair.
“You should take the day off.”
Hayley shakes her head, adamant. “I’ve wasted enough time, sir. Is anybody saying what caused the crash?”
“Metro’s system network went down. The entire Blue Line was affected. Cyber Jihad claimed responsibility ten minutes after the derailment.”
“Sir?” Hayley hadn’t even considered the possibility of sabotage.
“Fort Meade is all over it.”
“General Hernandez thinks Cyber Jihad is a Russian cover.”
“I was at the meeting. Remember?”
She nods, preoccupied. What she really wants to do is question the president whether or not he’d made contact with his GRU handler. Cyber sabotage of Washington’s Metro Blue Line required much more sophisticated skills and premeditation than the hack of the nation’s newspapers. Hayley guesses only a handful of players possess the know-how to hit, with precision, a single line of the district’s mass transit system. With nothing more than a layman’s awareness of signals intelligence, she feels ill-equipped to deal with the looming specter of a first cyber war between superpowers.
* * *
MONDAY, 2:15 P.M. Riding in the back of his chauffeured SUV, General Hernandez scans a report compiled by Unit F6. It’s the one department in the entire agency he trusts to get attribution right. Alfred Updike, nominated for a slew of prestigious prizes in computer science and winner of the Turing Award, runs the unit. The team he has assembled is equally superb. Their preliminary analysis of the incident suggests the malware inserted in the Metro’s computer network originated from the same server in Estonia that had been used in the newspaper hack. Fucking Russians. Hitting the New York Times so that a single day’s edition couldn’t make its press run is one thing. But derailing a train in the nation’s capital is a goddamn act of war!
As if that indignation isn’t enough, now he has to trot over to DHS headquarters to brief that know-nothing cabinet secretary. Plucked from Congress after a long stint manufacturing aircraft and missile systems, what does Clare Ryan know about cyber security? Hernandez, a combat veteran and holding master’s degrees from Defense Intelligence College and USC, resents answering to the refugee from Boeing’s executive offices. Less than one hour after the attack on the Metro, Monroe signed an executive order that expanded DHS mandate, merging it with Cyber Command’s spectrum of operations. Hernandez suspects Kyle Rodgers had something to do with the surprise move by the president, a ham-handed attempt to muzzle him. Fat chance of that happening.
Almost impossible to believe, Clare Ryan keeps him waiting in the reception area for fifteen minutes past their start time. A television mounted on the wall is tuned to CNN, with the volume turned down. Hernandez watches news coverage of the train derailment. The cyberattack on the newspapers, ironically, generated practically zero press whatsoever. Who cares about newspapers? Today’s media coverage is a different animal entirely. Though there were no fatalities, more than sixty passengers were taken to area hospitals for treatment, and a dozen of them are reported to be in critical condition. Fanned by the cable news hysteria machine, Cyber Jihad’s claim of responsibility stokes fears of Islamic fanatics attacking the nation’s transportation, financial, and utility networks with more and deadlier cyber weapons. In the aftermath of the Metro attack, public hysteria has gone from zero to sixty in a single news cycle. Some pundits—irresponsible nitwits who have no real skin in the game—go so far as to call the derailment of the Blue Line train a precursor to the next 9/11. In Hernandez’s opinion, the Metro attack is a harbinger of far graver dangers than what happened in New York.
Clare’s assistant replaces her desk phone handset in its cradle. “The secretary is ready for you now, General.”
Hernandez, wearing his army service uniform, stands and strides through the open door. Secretary Ryan is indeed waiting for him. Alert and relaxed, she stands up from behind an emphatically clean desktop and comes around to shake hands with the director of both the NSA and US Cyber Command.
“General Hernandez, thank you for coming over to my neck of the woods. Please, take a seat.”
He follows her into the expansive office. “What can I do for you, Madam Secretary?”
The general’s bearing isn’t friendly. They are rivals for everything there is to contest in Washington: money, power, and influence. Both recognize that one of them will ultimately prevail over the other. Monroe’s executive order has had the effect of throwing two pit bulls in the same ring, with a raw steak between them. There are no draws in this fight. One winner and one loser. Time will tell.
Clare suppresses a scoffing laugh. Hernandez’s casually insincere question hardly befits a day of America suffering its worst cyberattack. “General, we’re going to be asked by the president for our recommendation. It’s our responsibility to prepare a measured and thoroughly vetted report, especially considering some of the irresponsible news coverage of the attack. For the sake of the country, it’s time we shelve any animosity between us. A united front is highly preferable.”
The general is unmoved by Clare’s appeal for cooperation. “My advice to the president will be the same as before. We must respond to the Russian action with a cyberattack of proportionate scope. Anything less than an aggressive and dynamic response will be viewed by our adversary as an indisputable sign of weakness, and accurately so.”
“You’ve confirmed attribution, with a high level of confidence?” Clare asks with bald skepticism.
“No, not full attribution. But you can be confident I have my best people on it, Madam Secretary.”
“By best, I assume you mean Alfred Updike?”
“F6 has been on this since before the attack on the newspapers.”
“Good. I would love to see the report.”
Hernandez visibly stiffens. “The data is still pretty raw.”
“President Monroe’s executive order mandates our cooperation, General.”
Hernandez looks like he’s just taken a spoonful of lukewarm castor oil. “You’re not getting your paws on F6. Updike is mine!”
Clare is unfazed by the director’s outburst. “I could be persuaded to ease off. The Department of Homeland Security has mathematicians on staff as gifted as anyone over at Savage Road. But I need to know that we’re all on the same team.”
Hernandez has managed to compose himself. Losing his temper will help nothing. “What do you want, Madam Secretary?”
Clare smiles lightly. Male blowhards like Hernandez have been a fixture in a professional life that included Boeing and the House of Representatives. “If we’re going to advise the president to start a cyber war, attribution can be nothing short of gold plated, General.”
As he suspected, the executive order was Kyle Rodgers’s attempt to silence him. That’s tough. Hernandez has no intention of playing nice if it means ignoring his patriotic obligation to punish the Russian bear. “You’re free to tell POTUS whatever you please.”