Chasm Waxing: A Startup, Cyber-Thriller (55 page)

General Shields groaned.
“The CIA
has
lost
a substantial number of human assets in Iraq and Persia. We haven’t
lost all of them, but we don’t trust the information from any of
them. We’ve never seen a packet of SIGINT from Rahmati, not even an
email. He’s in Babylon, using
new
fiber that’s
recently
been
lit
. It connects him to Tehran. I can tell
you that plans are being worked to rectify this situation. But
Becca, it’s not like you to be obtuse. What are you
saying?”

A small
ahem
removed the
frog from Becca’s throat. “I’m
not
trying to be
an alarmist,
but it’s not
just that Rahmati hacked the Swarmbots and used them to execute our
crew. He
knew
everything about our mission; from our
names,
to the fact that we
were looking for the Ark. He was way too prepared.

“
Couple that with that
fact that our HUMINT in Iraq and Persia is
totally
compromised, and I think
we need to extend our worst case thinking. There may be no mole. It
could be that he’s derived an algorithm to defeat AES-256. Not just
the AES in Swarmbots—all AES 256. I know we all think that’s
impossible, but we’ve got to start considering that possibility, as
remote as it is.”

General Shield’s eyes
glazed over. “That would be unthinkably
dangerous
for America. It would be
like Alan Turing’s mechanical computer, the Bombe. We used the
Bombe to break the code for Hitler’s Enigma machine. If Rahmati has
a digital Bombe, we
need to
destroy it. History tells us how it turned out
for Germany—once we broke their
codes
.”

Becca focused on the
word,
digital
.
The thought crossed her mind,
What if
Rahmati isn’t using a digital computer
?

10:05 a.m. (EDT), Thursday, April 29,
2021 – Columbia, MD

Suite 502, ElectricMind’s
Offices,
Defense Innovations
Accelerator

General Shields looked deeply into
Josh’s eyes. “Tell me again Josh. I’ve set up a meeting for later
this morning with POTUS. I’ve requested the attendance of the new
Director of the CIA, Roscoe Tanner, and POTUS’ National Security
Advisor.”

Josh was afraid the
General’s hopes for eM were too high. He replied sheepishly,
“eM
hasn’t
made as
definitive a
prediction as when she located the
Ark—”

“
I certainly can’t tell
the President about the Ark,” barked Shields.

“
I know. I’m just trying
to manage your expectations. eM is producing statistical
representations based on mathematical models as to the cause of the
Swarmbot’s compromise.”

“
He means,” said Becca,
“all we can give you are probabilities.”

Josh continued, “Not all
of the predictions are mutually exclusive. But for the
sake
of
simplicity, let’s just say they are.

“
eM lists an outright hack
at a 15% probability. This prediction incorporates her search of
the Deep Web and examination of
zero-day
vulnerabilities.

“
She also thinks there’s a
15% chance that a hacker somehow
exfiltrated the
AES encryption
keys
. This was Becca’s original
line of inquiry.
From there, the
predictions are
more
dire
.

“
eM guesses a 25% chance
that the information was leaked by a
high-level
mole or moles, with access
to the Swarmbot program. If the moles exist, they are probably
members of
the IC,
with
superuser
privileges.
This would
mean
that Becca, all of the
Swarmbot
team
, and eM have overlooked an
exploit—that the hacker recognized—in the technical
documentation.

“
Her most disconcerting
statistical prediction is the one to which she assigns the single
highest probability—a 35% chance. That’s the possibility that
Rahmati has created a quantum computer that he's employing to break
our encryption.”

Shields got more agitated
than
when he’d
heard it the first time. “I just can’t see how that’s
possible
. I
thought only public key encryption was susceptible to cracking by a
quantum computer?”

Becca replied, “Maybe he’s developed
other algorithms, in addition to Shor’s algorithm.”

“
I think eM weights a
quantum computer as most
probable,
because we came across some
interesting facts in the archived files Lin had delivered,” said
Josh.

“
While the
main
action in
Iran-Contra involved American weapons shipped to Iran, by way of
Israel;
valuable
technical information
was also included
in the deal.
Incidentally, I can’t believe that Bush didn’t get indicted for
Iran-Contra. The then Vice President
was involved
up to his
elbows!”

Shields laughed. “If he got away with
Operation 40 and J. Edgar Hoover’s letter linking him with the Big
Event in Dallas, Iran-Contra was never going to touch him. He
pardoned most everybody when he became President. So, what sort of
technical information?”

“
Back then, it was cutting
edge. We sent the latest US research on computing.
This included
information on Intel 386 processors, supercomputers, and
quantum computation. All of this data went directly to Abdullah
Rahmati. By then, he was a high-ranking member of the Revolutionary
Guards.

“
After the Iran-Iraq war,
Abdullah Rahmati retired from the Revolutionary Guards and started
Iran’s computer industry. I found
little
on Abdullah after that. But,
it’s possible
his company
has been researching quantum computing since
then. He looks to have
substantial
ties to Russian and Chinese
academics.”

For the
first time
, Josh
saw an
apprehensive
expression sweep over General Shields. It scared
Josh.

“
Damn, that’s a nightmare
scenario,” said Shields. “No one was supposed to beat us to a
quantum computer. It’s not like we haven’t considered this
development. We just thought everyone was behind us. All we possess
are prototypes. We’re not even close to a fully operational quantum
computer. And, we were always just concerned about public key
encryption. Cracking AES
was
deemed
impossible—even by a quantum
computer. By the way, that doesn’t add up to 100%, does
it?”

“
No,” replied Josh, “eM
has a catchall. She guesses that there is a 10% chance that there’s
some unknown cause for the Swarmbot’s hack, like a backdoor in the
chips or sensors.”

General Shields
sighed
out all
the breath from his lungs. “There’s no end to the damage that
Muhammad Rahmati could do to our national security with a quantum
computer that can crack public key and AES encryption. He’d
essentially have the full resources of the US DoD
and IC at
his
fingertips. He’d also have visibility into every single financial
transaction in the world.

“
POTUS loves this
guy.
He thinks
he’s the new savior of the Middle East. He follows his
Twitter and Snapchat accounts on his phone. He subscribes to his
A-Tube channel. I’ve got to find some way to make the President
worry about Rahmati, preferably without talking about the
Swarmbots.

“
Keep up this line of
inquiry. If
he
does have a quantum computer, I need eM to figure out its
location. I’ll try to get you more information on Persia,
especially right before and after the Iran-Iraq war. And, I’ll get
you everything else we have
on
Abdullah and his
conglomerate.”

*

General Shields entered
the Oval Office and greeted President Goodson. The DCIA,
Roscoe
Tanner,
was already seated on the couch in the sitting
area.

The Assistant to the
President for National Security Affairs, known more informally as
the NSC Advisor, sat on the other couch, looking at the
DCIA.
The presidential seal
was visible on the circular blue rug.

As they rose to greet
General Shields, DIRNSA recognized an unexpected visitor. The Vice
President, Alexander Cain,
sat
in a
wing-backed
chair, at the far end of
the sitting area. He directly faced POTUS’ Oval Office desk. VPOTUS
was a former governor of California. As a one-time Texas Senator,
President Goodson selected Cain to appeal to
the most
moderate members of
his party.

“
General Shields, I asked
Vice President Cain to join our meeting. Later this afternoon, we
have to attend a lunch engagement. I thought his knowledge of the
Middle East would be helpful.”

“
Outstanding,” replied
Shields, as he shook Cain’s limp hand.

Shields and Cain crossed each other’s
paths occasionally during Goodson’s first term. They respected one
another, although Shields thought Cain to be a soft liberal, and
Cain pegged Shields as a digital cowboy.

“
Mr. President,” said the
General, “I’ve come
in
person
to reiterate a very troubling issue
regarding the Prime Minister of Iraq, Muhammad Rahmati.
Of course,
we’ve
all been abuzz about Rahmati. He’s achieved a level of
popularity—among Arabs and Persians, Sunnis and Shias, and
worldwide—that no one ever even imagined.

“
We’ve talked about the
many positive developments in Iraq. Rahmati has become the unifying
leader we hoped would
rise
after Saddam fell in 2003. He’s nearly wiped out
the Caliphate in Iraq. He’s done
significant
damage to them in Syria.
He’s dealt fairly with the Kurds and Sunnis.
Of course,
he’s a major ally
of Persia, but this does fit nicely with our strategy of Persian
rapprochement that we kicked-off with the nuclear deal. Rahmati is
the most popular leader in the region. The closest thing to him in
recent memory is Nasser, in the 1960s.”

POTUS knew Shields well. He expected,
maybe just one more platitude, and then the other shoe would
drop.

“
However,” continued
Shields, “as the chief signal collector for the United States of
America, I can tell you that the NSA is completely in the dark
regarding Iraq. And, we know less about Persia then after the
Revolution toppled the Shah.”

“
Our SIGINT on Rahmati and
his inner circle is less than negligible. He’s a ghost. We’ve never
intercepted any communications between Babylon and Tehran, even
though we’ve got pictures of Rahmati and General Javan meeting
regularly. His operational security in Babylon is
impeccable
.

“
He appears to be
assembling
a robust,
cyber-operations
division,
located
with him at his new Babylonian headquarters. We
assume that they’re working in close coordination with Tehran.
Recently, we discovered that these cyber-forces
have
hijacked some US
systems—in ways we can’t yet explain.

“
Thinking beyond just
SIGINT; Rahmati seems to anticipate our every move. In my opinion,
he has access to some of our most classified information. Rahmati
may have spies operating at the highest levels in the US or
the
UK
.
Mr. President, our
analysts
think it’s very likely that Muhammad Rahmati or
General Javan have cracked our military encryption.”

President Goodson
looked
perturbed. “Bernie, all during my first term, you were on my
ass to do more about the Caliphate. As you know, that was a tricky
situation. We had to thread the needle with Syria. But, the
Russians and the Persians stopped the Caliphate from overthrowing
the Syrian government and drove them east, into the Syrian
Desert
.

“
Rahmati destabilized the
mullahs in Persia. Then, he did more dirty work for us in Iraq.
Heck, even the Europeans had to
pony up
cash and air power. Now,
the
Caliphate is nullified.
And
it’s only
negligibly impacted
our $25-plus trillion
national debt.
Muhammad
Rahmati has done the hard work for us. He’s a
godsend.” Goodson looked to his Vice President.