Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (19 page)

“
Outstanding Josh! You’ve
gone from a little over 80%, to 90%—in a week. What does Vish
say?”

“
Actually, I’ve
been so busy with this over the past week; I haven’t briefed Vish
yet.”

“
Ok, what are your next
steps?”

“
I’d like to get some time
on the NSA supercomputers that
incorporate
a GPU fabric. The numerous
layers of the deep learning
algorithm are the key.
I want to employ
genetic algorithms to enhance each layer of the neural network. If
I use that strategy, I feel we can get close to our 95%
goal.
”

Genetic algorithms mimicked the
process of natural selection in evolution. Josh was telling the
General; that for each layer, he would rapidly move through many
possibilities, until he found the best design. This approach
optimized each layer of the neural network.

“
I think I can make that
happen.
Lin,
can you get with the senior leadership of the Supercomputing
Center at the Fort and schedule some time for Josh?”

“
Sure,” replied Lin.
“Josh, how
much time
do you think you’ll need?”

“
I don’t know exactly.
Probably about two weeks? But I can do it in off-hours.”

The General laughed. “There are no
off-hours at the NSA. Josh, I’m very proud of you. Once again,
you’ve impressed me. The minute I laid eyes on you; I knew you were
a winner.”

Josh beamed with
pride.
He’d never received such
meaningful words of encouragement before.
CyberAI’s CEO couldn’t remember when; or if, his father ever
complimented him.
Come to think of
it; Josh
did remember his father’s
only
compliment
. Jared Adler had
congratulated
him on getting accepted
into MIT.

“
Thank
you,
sir.”

After 30 more minutes of
conversation, the General asked, “Are your algorithms narrowly
defined—is it weak AI? I mean, are they only applicable to
cybersecurity,
or are they more general?”

Josh’s
expansive
smile grew even
larger. His dimples looked as big as his eyes. “I’ve designed the
neural network to process natural language. It’s English in this
case, but I think the overall approach will work for any
language
. The AI
is very
broad;
it’s much closer to strong
AI
than narrow. One of the most
interesting things is that the
AI
can render predictions
from the
information the neural network ingests.”

“
What kind of
predictions?” asked General Shields, sounding intrigued.

“
Predictions about sports,
markets, and even the Ark of the Covenant—I think. The AI predicts
the Ark is somewhere in the Middle East.”

“
What?” yelled the
General, angrily.

Josh didn’t know how to process the
General’s reaction. He’d never before heard that sharpness in his
voice.

Shields continued, “I
don’t care if you make a few bucks for yourself playing the
market. But
the
last thing I need from you is to create an international incident.
Drop the Ark predictions. It’s off-limits for you. Do you
understand? Focus on your job as CEO.” The
ebullient
atmosphere in the room
instantaneously morphed into something dark and ominous. Josh felt
like a storm cloud had just moved into Shield’s office—and lighting
struck.

“
General, it doesn’t work
like that,” said Josh, awkwardly. “I have no control over what the
computer learns and
predicts;
it’s—”

“
Bullshit,” said the
General. “I’ve programmed computers before. You’re in complete
control. You are to shut down the computer’s ability to process
information about the Ark. I don’t want you to discuss this with
anyone else. Consider discussions about the Ark as a TOP SECRET
program you
weren’t read
into
. You have a company to run. You don’t
have time for this. Do you understand me?”

“
Yes, sir,” replied Josh,
meekly.

The General abruptly ended the
meeting. Lin walked the shell-shocked executive out the
door.

General Shields sat back
in his
chair. He
reached for his cell phone and texted
Samantha.

“
General, I think Josh
was
very
shaken up,” said Lin.

“
Good,” replied the
General, calmly. “I need him focused on CyberAI and not engaged in
some digital goose-chase. The Accelerator does not invest taxpayer
funds in companies that dabble in things that can disrupt
geopolitics
,
especially in a region with as many fanatics as the Middle
East.”

Again, the General and Lin heard the
front door to the foyer open. Samantha sauntered into the General’s
office, completely ignoring Lin. By now, Samantha had regained her
composure.

“
What’s the agenda for
this meeting?” asked Lin. “I don’t have it scheduled.”

“
I don’t need you to
attend this meeting,” said Shields. “Why don’t you go home and
enjoy the rest of your Sunday
afternoon?
I’ll see you
tomorrow.”

“
Very well, sir.” Lin
quickly glanced past Samantha’s smug face and left.

Samantha poured two scotches.
“General, what did you want to discuss?”

3:05 a.m. (EDT), Thursday, August 20,
2020 – Fort Meade, MD

DIRNSA’s Residence, 4526
Butler Street

General Shields was sound
asleep in the official DIRNSA’s modest residence. It was a
multi-story,
red brick
house. On-base,
government
provided housing was one of
the perks of being DIRNSA.

The General’s phone
vibrated. Lisa heard it first. She poked her husband’s side.
Shields grabbed the phone and opened one eye. He’d found if he
opened only one
eye;
he could get back to
sleep,
if the buzzing
were
unimportant
. This buzz was
urgent
.

It was a text message from Phil
Callahan, the Senior Operations Officer of the National Security
Operations Center—NSOC. NSOC was pronounced, ‘N-sock.’ The text
read, ‘Need to communicate securely, ASAP.’ While General Shields
was asleep, Phil Callahan was the acting DIRNSA.

NSOC was the beating heart of US
SIGINT—the SIGINT command center and situation room for the United
States of America. It was manned 24/7, 365 days a year. General
Shields rose from his bed and blearily walked to his upstairs SCIF.
He shut the metal door and reached for the secure telephone. “What
is it, Phil?”

“
Good morning, General
Shields. Sir, the
analyst
working in the Caliphate
operational
cell, here at NSOC,
just intercepted an email from Abu Omar’s wife—Nafisa. The email is
from Nafisa to her father in Fallujah, Iraq. We issued a CRITIC.
The email pinpoints Omar’s location in Dabiq, Syria. It’s
10:00
a.m. in
Dabiq right now.”

A CRITIC was a Critical
Intelligence message. The CRITIC system was designed to distribute
CRITICs to t
he
President and other senior leaders; including the CIA
Director, in under ten minutes.

Dabiq was a small farm
town six miles south of the Turkish border. It was an hour’s drive
north of Aleppo, Syria. There were only 3000 residents in
the
city
.
Strategically, the town was u
nimportant
. But the Caliphate believed
in the veracity of
a
specific
Islamic Hadith that read, ‘the
last hour will not come until Muslims vanquish the Romans at
Dabiq.’ After this
defeat,
another prophecy foretold of the Muslim armies
advancing to sack Constantinople—
present-day,
Istanbul,
Turkey.

Hadith meant ‘report’ or
‘account’ in Arabic. When originally written, Rome was seen
as
the city
of the Catholic Pope and his army of Crusaders. Over the
course of time, Rome had come to mean all Christians, or
simply
the
West.

The Hadith was second only
to the Koran
in terms of
authoritative Islamic texts. Hadiths clarified
some of the sayings and doings from Muhammad’s life that were
unclear or absent from the Koran. These details were important
because Muhammad was
the
exemplary
man in
Islam—all Muslims’ behavior
was
measured
by Muhammad’s standard, as
portrayed in the Koran and Hadith. While Muslims revered figures
like Moses and Jesus, Islam now superseded Judaism and
Christianity.

Different branches of
Islam, like the Sunni and Shia, believed different collections of
Hadiths. The Caliphate was in Dabiq to quicken their End
Time,
Islamic
version of Armageddon. Dabiq was also the site of Charlie
Shields’ decapitation. Its
landscape,
spattered with his son’s
blood, was seared into General Shields’ consciousness.

While increased air
strikes
were
the initial response after the Navy SEAL beheadings in 2016,
by the election season of 2020, the US was at a stalemate with the
Caliphate.
Killing Omar was
a chance to break the
deadlock.

“
Who’s the email
provider?” asked Shields.

“
A-Mail.”

“
That’s odd. We’ve been
tracking these people for nearly
10
years. We’ve
never intercepted an A-Mail from anyone
associated with Omar. Hmm. Alright, I’ll be there in the next few
minutes. I want to talk to the analyst before you send out
validation of the CRITIC.”

The CRITIC message was
simply an
acknowledgment
that SIGINT was intercepted—in this
case,
the
email
. Now the
NSA had 20 more minutes to validate the message. For this
intercept, validation meant that the NSA was confident that the
sender was indeed Nafisa. The CRITIC didn’t tell anyone what to do
with the information.

“
Roger that,
sir
,”
said Phil. “I’ll see you soon.”

General Shields exited the
SCIF and walked downstairs into his bedroom. He threw on his NSA
sweats and Nike tennis shoes.
Shields
moved like a mouse to avoid
awakening his wife. Any other day, he’d be arising in two and
one-half hours to throw on the same
clothes,
and complete his morning jog.
Now he went downstairs, snatched a 5 Hour Energy mini-drink, and
hurriedly walked to his vehicle.

He jumped in his 2020 Ford Bronco. A
quick left, right, left, right, and the General was on Cooper
Avenue, heading towards the four buildings that constituted the
NSA’s main headquarters complex. All four buildings were connected.
No one ever had to go outside.

Cooper Road conjured up
memories of Charlie. Charlie’s
favorite mentor was named Coach
Cooper.
If he
weren't
in such a
rush,
he would have driven the long way, staying on
Mapes Road, avoiding Cooper altogether.

Charlie’s decapitation now
flooded his thoughts. The A-Tube video ran
continuously in his mind
. Nucleus
quickly removed the video. But it had been viewed by millions. It
was still available all over the
web,
if you knew where to
look.

Now, Shields was pursuing
a lead on the very man that paid the Caliphate fighters to behead
his son. Abu Omar probably wired the
money that
paid for the knife—the knife
that
sawed
through Charlie’s neck. Rage welled up in the General. He
wanted to kill every one of those Islamic Jihadists.

The only thing better than
SIGNIT on
Omar,
would have been SIGINT on the leader of the
Caliphate—Caliph Abu Bakr al-Mosulaydi. American Intelligence
shortened his name to Abu Mosulaydi. Shields’ heart raced. He broke
into a sweat in the muggy August morning.

Typically,
Shields would park in his reserved spot outside
the
eight-floor
glass building—Ops 2B. If
pressed
for time, he could
take his private elevator to the Director’s Suite on the top floor
of Ops 2B. Everyone called that
the
‘Top Deck.’