Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (49 page)

Now, Rahmati’s laugh
bellowed through the whole office. “That’s just one more knife to
use in a street-fight. Whatever we’re paying the Russian
cryptographers, we should double
it
. We can only keep AVICENNA
hidden
for so
long. The Americans may be cowboys, but they’re not dumb. They’ll
guess that we have a quantum computer pretty
quickly,
after we implement
the rest of our plan.”

“
Yes,” said Javan. “It’s
been very instructive reading about the NSA projects. It gives us
deep insight into all their SIGINT capabilities.
The sheer number of files is
massive. We’ve worked only through half of them.
Also, we’ve identified more Persians on the American and British
payroll. We’re going to use them to plant
disinformation,
before we take
them out. Muhammad, one of my
analysts
discovered an
extremely interesting
project. It’s called SWARM. I think you should take a
look.”

Rahmati reviewed the file
for a long time. “This is
fascinating
.”

Against numerous
naysayers, Muhammad Rahmati had made substantial progress against
Daesh in the past six weeks. Iraq was such a basket case since the
American’s left
10
years ago, that most pundits predicted the
Rahmati Effect
would
fade.

They prognosticated that
the forces that had consumed all other Iraqi
governments,
would
ultimately overcome Rahmati. Iraq would face
renewed, centuries-old
sectarian violence. The blood of Sunnis, Shias, and
Kurds
would
run red in the streets—
once
again.

Rahmati couldn’t
wait
to prove the conventional
wisdom wrong. Much of that wisdom came from countries that
benefitted from a weak Iraq. They wanted its oil fields, or at
least, better oil concessions.

R
e-Baathification was indeed playing a
critical role in Rahmati’s fight against the Caliphate. While not
every Baathist joined Rahmati’s government, enough high ranking
ones did. They provided
crucial
intelligence on Caliphate
operations. It was a risky situation for
Rahmati, since the
Baathists were
Sunni.

The Prime Minister was
trusting significant responsibilities to former enemies. However,
most of the Baathists cared more about power than they cared about
religious doctrine. After 15 years, many Baathists were just
thankful to walk the halls of power once more. Rahmati also
effectively
united with the Kurds with promises of support
in
their efforts
to establish an independent state carved from Turkish
territory.

Iraqi forces; aided by
Shiite militias, Persian special
forces,
and Russian airpower had driven
Daesh from the cities of Ramadi and Tikrit. Next, the Coalition was
planning on waging an offensive in Mosul and Fallujah. Daesh forces
were fleeing to the Syrian Desert, Libya, or the Sinai. Others were
melting away into Europe.

The world was in awe of Rahmati’s
progress against the Caliphate.

Regaining control of
Iraq’s oil was just as important as pushing Daesh out of populous
Iraqi cities. Rahmati was expelling Daesh from Iraqi oil fields and
stopping their oil tapping operations. The
oil wells
were returning to the
exclusive control of Iraq. Daesh’s finances were in
disarray.

With the oil fields coming
under Iraqi control, Rahmati’s financial coffers were finally
expanding. He closed a lucrative revenue splitting arrangement with
the Kurds, also furthering their alliance.
The oil production-rich
town
of
Basra
was quickly reestablishing itself as the crown jewel of Iraq.
Rahmati sought new foreign investment in the oil fields, offering
attractive oil concessions. Babylon’s construction was also
proceeding rapidly. The Chinese knew how to build cities
quickly.

Rahmati continued to
leverage social media to further his personal brand and advance his
ultra-popular message. He used A-Tube and Snapchat to detail
the
highlights
of his strengthening government. The PM live-streamed and
Snapchatted his walks in the streets of
Baghdad,
his interactions
with
Iraqi
citizens, and Babylon’s progress. His social media team developed
custom
filt
ers for Snapchat and generated memes for other social
platforms. The
filter
that made everyone look like Rahmati went
viral.

*

Responding to a text, General Shields
hastily arrived at Defense Innovations. He stepped into the SWARM
Op Center. “What’s going on?”

“
As I’ve been tracking
Josh Adler and Becca Roberts, I noticed some anomalies,” replied
the SWARM analyst. He pointed to his computer monitor. “Look at
this. They’re staying at a SuperNight Motel every evening, as they
make
their
way across the country. I’ve been looking
carefully
at all
the se
nsors from
the A-Car, just to see if anything jumped out at me.

“
It’s clear the car is
driving autonomously across the US. So that’s the first thing I
noticed. Wouldn’t they want
to
drive manually, at least
some of the time?
Their A-Car does have the steering wheel option.”

General Shields laughed. “Well, they
are getting married. They’re probably just really enjoying each
other’s company—in the back seat.”

The analyst smiled.
“Maybe, but there’s more. Check out this graph. The tire pressure
in this A-Car never changes. I mean, due to friction from the road,
it varies when they drive. But study these readings. They’re
measurements of the tires in the
morning,
when they’re cold. Now,
look at
the
pressure readings
when the car
begins the d
ay’s journey. There’s no
variance. No one is getting into or out of this car.”

“
Do the doors
open?”

“
Yes, but they can be
remotely opened and closed.”

“
Ok,” replied the General.
“Go on.”

“They do check in, check out, and make
payments using Becca’s credit card. But this is interesting. Becca
is a SuperNight Star Member. She’s not getting any points for her
stay.”

“
Maybe she didn’t give
them the card number? Or, maybe the rewards are batch
processed?”

“
No,
they have it. And, I examined other people that
are Star Members. Look at this.” The analyst depressed the keyboard
to switch to another application. “When guests check out;
immediately, their points are updated. It works the same way for
every Star Member. SuperNight’s Star Member system is
real-time.

“
At the same time, Becca
and Josh’s personal
SIGINT
leads me to believe they’re in the car. There are
messages to friends and family that talk about their journey’s
current scenery and real-time micro-weather. Josh talks to his dad
about the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl. Becca did tell her best
friend that they’re considering elopement
.
Their SIGINT makes it hard to
believe that they aren’t in the A-Car.”

“
What about the phone’s
cameras or the A-Car’s voice recognition system?” asked the
General.

“
Becca must have disabled
all of
them,
because
they’re
unavailable to us.”

“
Ok,” replied Shields.
“Let’s get eyes on the car. Where are they?”

“
They’ve just parked in a
lot at the Grand Canyon. I assume they’re taking a tour from
there.”

“
Get the FBI on this. Tell
them to tail the car. If they ask, show them the FISA warrant,”
ordered the General. Shields texted Samantha.

*

Hours later, in the
waning
light
of the Grand Canyon’s purple dusk, an FBI agent arrived at
the
A-Car.

The
G-man
called the Op Center.
“There’s no sign of anyone.”

“
I’m going
to remotely open
the trunk,” replied the analyst.

The trunk popped open, revealing Becca
and Josh’s luggage. Their cell phones were in the interior. “These
A-Cars are cool,” exclaimed the agent. He searched a little longer
and then returned to his vehicle.

After a while, the A-Car’s ignition
system engaged.

“
I’m going to follow the
car,” said the agent.

Nucleus Corporation’s
flagship model SUV drove back to the Grand Canyon SuperNight. It
parked. The gull wing doors spread
open for a few seconds
and then
closed.

“
Damn it!” yelled General
Shields. “They sure as hell didn’t elope.” Samantha never responded
to Shields’ text.

*

Becca’s looked at her
A-Car monitoring app. She saw the notification.
Someone
remotely
accessed
the
A-Car’s trunk. Now, the A-Car was
parked
in
the SuperNight lot. She activated the A-Car’s exterior camera
system. Then she saw
him.
Becca could spot an FBI agent from a mile
away.

11:35 a.m., Tuesday, February 2, 2021
– Jerusalem, Israel

City of David

Professor McMillan threw
his
woolen
, felt fedora on the ground.

“
Bloody
hell
, Josh. We’ve been digging through
limestone and dolomite for 23 days straight. The tunnel is now a
little over 425 feet long.
We’re
almost half-way to your
geo-marker. We may be ahead of schedule, but we’ve found
nothing.

“
No artifacts, no hint of
any other shafts—nothing. There’s not been one iota of
evidence to indicate that there’s
anything
down here, let alone the
Ark. If we
were on the right
path,
I’d have expected to find something by
now
…a
shard of pottery, a coin, something man-made.”

Josh nodded his head. “I
know it’s disappointing. I can tell you that the neural network
predicts
that we’re
getting closer every day.”

McMillan grimaced. He
turned his hunched back on Josh
and
huffed off.

Living in a tunnel for
nearly a month was fraying
everyone's
nerves
. There were brief respites up
top, in the house. But it was not enough to feel normal. Josh felt
like a mole. Aside from fresh Jerusalem air, everyone looked
forward to the daily resupply provisions from Ismael’s construction
team. At
least
the food was fresh.

Josh made his way back
toward Becca. He walked the length of the tunnel, passing minecarts
full of dirt and the
wooden
reinforcements supporting the excavation. El
Minero
insisted
on the supports,
despite
the fact that the bedrock was
much
sturdier than the clay soils
of the Mexico-Texas border.

Becca was working comms in the
anteroom. “The Professor is upset,” said Josh.

Becca replied, “Yeah, he’s
not the only one.
It’s been
almost three weeks since the FBI discovered our
cover story. I’m pretty sure the General didn’t buy the elopement.
Every day we don’t find the Ark is a day the NSA is getting closer
to locating us.”

“
You can bet that they’ve
been pouring through the video feeds at customs and border
crossings in the Middle East. The good thing is they have to search
a broad area. All you told the General was that the AI predicted
the Ark was somewhere in the Middle East. But, they’re probably
working with Mossad and Shin Bet. We don’t have much more
time.

“
Josh, what if all of this
was for nothing? We’ll
be
arrested
. And we won’t have anything to
show for it.”

Josh wrapped his arms
around Becca. “It’s going to be ok. I believe we’ll find the Ark.
Whether we do or whether we don’t; you become more beautiful to me
every day. We wouldn’t be here at this
moment,
if it weren’t for you.
It’s an honor to be on this quest with you, Princess. Thank you for
being by my side. I love you.”

Becca blushed. She held onto Josh as
tightly as she could. “Princess…I like that a lot better than
Dorcas.”