Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (28 page)

“
Not only that, but the
nation cannot continue to send its men and women to fight an enemy
that grows larger every day. Our national debt is over $25
trillion, well over 100% of our Gross Domestic Product.
Historically, that’s when bond defaults occur. We can’t afford to
fight terrorists all over the world with human soldiers—not if we
want to remain a prosperous nation. Compared to American lives,
Swarmbots are cheap. They’ll get less expensive as we expand the
program. It’s a type of war that allows us to scale with an
asymmetric enemy.”

Becca remained
stone-faced.
“General, what happens when
they
get robots?”

General Shields looked at
Becca dismissively. “Rebecca Roberts, I appreciate your work. You
did a good job with Gecko Insurance.
Your castle
was a real work of art.
Your
trebuchets were
exquisite.
I need to remind you that
everything we just discussed is TOP SECRET.”

“
You don’t need to worry,
General Shields. I’m not a whistleblower. I don’t want to end up
hiding in Russia, or Ecuador, or Hong Kong. I want to see my loved
ones. But someone will be braver than me. Someone will leak
this.”

“
That may be the case,”
replied Shields, “but if you disclose any of the information we’ve
just talked about, you will be arrested for treason. And, I imagine
your father will have some problems with the IRS regarding his
church finances. Also, I suggest that you
convince
your boyfriend to cease
all activities regarding his search for the Ark. That’ll be in
everyone’s best interest. It’s too dangerous for either one of you,
and it’s too dangerous for our country.”

Becca was stunned
speechless.

“
Now,
these NSA police officers
will escort you out. Your last day is today. Thank you for
your work at Gamification Systems and for Defense Innovations
Accelerator.”

It took every ounce of Becca’s
strength not to cry. She didn’t want to give the General the
satisfaction of her tears.

*

The General knew Becca had a solid
point regarding his legal jeopardy. He was skating on the thinnest
of ice. He could face indictment if FOGGY or SWARM ever
leaked.

After Dabiq-gate, the
President fired Walt Black as DCIA. But, POTUS’ nominee for
replacement was stuck in a filibuster until questions were answered
about Dabiq,
specifically,
and collateral damage from drone strikes, more
generally. With the election looming, the President didn’t want to
deal with those
issues
.

POTUS signed a letter for
the General. Shields kept it in his safe. The letter authorized
Shields to take ‘extraordinary measures’ to ensure the defense of
the nation. If FOGGY or
SWARM
ever leaked, General Shields
would argue that the letter made his actions legal. But, he wasn’t
sure how he’d fare if
indicted
, especially if President
Goodson lost the election.

The good news was that the chance of
the President’s defeat looked remote. Dabiq-gate was not hindering
the President in the polls. The nation didn’t respond to the CIA
contractor’s murders like they had the SEAL’s deaths, five years
earlier.

Despite the legal risk, avenging
Charlie Shields’ beheading by destroying the Caliphate’s senior
leadership was what mattered most to General Shields. So little was
being done to punish the Caliphate.

*

Josh was out of control.
Literally. His Faraday 777 GTS Convertible was driving itself. Josh
lost the ability to turn the steering wheel. Nothing happened when
he pressed the gas pedal or brakes. The doors were locked. The
windows wouldn’t move. Nor could Josh budge the convertible top.
His
cell phone
was still jammed
.

The car—or
rather a
hacker—was driving safely. At least for now. Josh was on
Jessup Road, heading southeast. Then, the car made a quick right
onto Brock Bridge Road. “Where am I going?” asked Josh, aloud. He
knew the hacker would be monitoring car’s speech recognition
system.

After a few
minutes,
it
became
apparent
. Josh’s car
was led
to a dead stop at the entrance to the Maryland
Correctional Institution, a prison just a few miles from the
NSA.

The
prison guards
waved at Josh.
The
onboard
computer screen in the Faraday displayed a message: ‘MOVE ON
JOSH.’

After a few moments, Josh regained
control of his car. His phone rang. It was Becca. She was crying
inconsolably.

“
Where are
you?”

Between
sobs,
Becca
said, “I’m in the Starbuck’s parking lot.”

“
Alright, I’ll be right
there.” Josh was surprisingly resolute.

1:30 a.m., Tuesday, October 20, 2020 -
Dabiq, Syria

Muhammad Rahmati scaled a
small hill. He slithered on his belly to a point overlooking Abu
Omar’s temporary hideout.
This
was
the same Abu Omar that tricked the CIA
and POTUS into Dabiq-gate, nearly two months earlier. Omar had
returned to Dabiq after the beheadings of the four American
contractors on the CIA payroll.

The
lair
was a single-story,
white, stucco house. It was 250 yards away from Rahmati. The
residence couldn’t have been more than 1800 square feet. Located on
the outskirts of Dabiq, the dwelling rested in the middle of
a
barley
field. The
grain
was sown earlier in the month. In daylight,
bright green
sprigs were newly
visible,
popping their heads out of the
soil. Omar was once again in Dabiq to bait the West into military
action.

Once Western troops
were deployed
,
the Caliphate could begin their Viet Nam style,
death-by-a-thousand-cut assault.
The
Crusaders’ defeat would
fulfill
Islamic prophecy and initiate
the Day of Judgement. This End of Days triumph would see
Sunni-Islam reign victorious over all other religions and
worldviews, including Shia-Islam, Judaism, and Christianity.
At least,
that
was the Caliphate version of Islamic Armageddon. Shiites, many of
them living in Iran, had
their own
interpretation.

The Caliphate
was more
radical
than Al Qaeda. While Osama Bin Laden wholeheartedly disagreed with
Shiite doctrine, he didn’t believe that Shia-Muslims deserved
death. He said that Muslims should not kill fellow Muslims.
However, the Caliphate regarded Shia-Muslims as ‘kafir,’ or
infidels in English. By Islamic definition, infidels were
non-believers—any non-Muslim.
Therefore
, Shiites were worthy of
death; as were Jews, Christians, or anyone else that did not
convert to their version of Sunni-Islam.

Muhammad Rahmati was 42
years old. He resided in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Rahmati was a
Commander in the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
Corps, otherwise known as
the
Revolutionary Guards. All Guards
pledged an allegiance to protect Iran’s Shiite Ayatollah, who bore
the moniker of ‘Supreme Leader.’ Ayatollah
Khomeini started the Revolutionary Guards in the
dicey
first days
of the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
In
exchange for their loyalty, the Ayatollah gave the Revolutionary
Guards
an
ever increasing series of perks.

The Quds Force was the
elite special operations and intelligence branch of the
Revolutionary Guards; similar to a combination of the Green Berets
and the CIA. ‘Quds’ was Arabic for Jerusalem. The name highlighted
the fact that Iran believed that Islam would once again
reign
over
Jerusalem in the days ahead.

The Quds Force operated
all over the Middle East, spreading Iranian influence. They closely
watched political and military developments in the region. They
were also in charge of Iran’s proxy strategy. This proxy strategy
involved training local forces, like Hezbollah in Lebanon,
to serve Iranian geopolitical goals
surreptitiously
. Iran
supplied arms to its proxies. That was
the main reason that the US labeled Iran as a
significant terrorist state.

The power vacuum created
in 2011 by the withdrawal of US troops, and the Iraqi-Shia
crackdown on Iraqi-Sunnis, helped prepare the womb in which the
Caliphate gestated. When the US left Iraq, Iran was jubilant. The
Americans had knocked out all of the threats on their
borders.
This included
the
Baathist-led,
Sunni government
of
Saddam
Hussein, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Now, the US was
gone. Iran had a free hand in their sphere of influence for the
first time in nearly a decade. They quickly moved to consolidate
Shia power in the region, especially in Iraq.

Iran didn’t count on the
Arab Spring in 2011. More specifically, protests in
Damascus
led to
a Syrian civil war by 2012. Syria was a long-time ally of Iran.
While the US invasion and withdraw from Iraq planted the seeds, the
Syrian civil war birthed the Caliphate.

The ascension of the Caliphate was a
concern of Iran. It was not as important to them as stabilizing the
government in Syria. But, Iran sought to stop the Caliphate in
Syria and to contain their growth in Iraq.

Iran’s greatest fear
regarding the Caliphate was the popularity of its radical
apocalyptic, Wahhabi-Salafi-Jihadi message. This mouthful of terms
encompassed two core ideas. The first notion was
that
over the
centuries, Islam had been corrupted, especially by Western society.
Through the prism of a literal
reading of the
Koran, Muslims needed to
return to their
seventh-century
roots. They
needed
to go back to the
pure
days of Muhammad. The Prophet
Muhammad was the best example of righteous Islamic living and total
submission to Allah.

The second concept was
that Islam was the last religion. As the last revealed religion, it
was a superior religion to Judaism, Christianity, or any other
worldview. Hebrew and Christian
Scriptures
had
been corrupted
through the ages by
inaccurate translations and worldliness. Therefore,
in order to
promote Islam to its rightful place as a theocracy that ruled
the world through Sharia law, violent struggle—Jihad—had to
be waged
against
any infidel that threatened Islam.

The Caliphate augmented
these central tenets with an emphasis on the End Times,
ultra-modern branding, and fear-inducing
savagery—
especially against
Shiites. The spread of the Caliphate’s
puritanical
ideology meant death
to Shias and therefore, many Iranians. Increasingly, the Caliphate
was moving beyond Iraq and Syria; to Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Jordan,
Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and
other
Gulf States
.
All of this was territory
in which
Iran wanted to increase its influence.

The Caliphate’s
sophisticated social media posts and videos attracted disaffected
Muslims, typically angry
young
men.
These followers were influenced to believe that they could
join a prophetic movement and serve God. They could
fight infidels and establish a new Islamic state
in which Sharia Law would produce utopia and expedite the End of
Days. Sex, wages, and power would be
theirs
after they joined. The
Caliphate’s social media strategy was brutal, persuasive, and
cutting-edge.

Iran sought to counter the
Caliphate’s social media popularity and recruitment strategy. It
was Muhammad Rahmati’s job to articulate an alternative
message
that was
more appealing than the Caliphate’s propaganda.

Rahmati correctly
diagnosed the problem. The war against the Caliphate was not solely
a military battle. Rahmati knew that the
actual
destruction of the
Caliphate, and for that matter all the Sunni-Jihadists,
was
an
ideological battle,
first and
foremost

Rahmati did not answer to
the General of the Quds Force. He reported directly to Major
General, Farhad Javan—the Commander of the Revolutionary Guards.
And Javan’s boss was the Ayatollah, Alireza Saatchi. General Javan
and the Ayatollah empowered Rahmati with complete autonomy in
crafting an
alternative
message. His only directive was to ‘make it
work.’