God's Lions - The Dark Ruin (25 page)

“Yes ... an operation you yourself were involved in, my friend. After the Times broke the story, it became almost a matter of public record that the United States and Israel were joined at the hip in developing a cyber weapon that destroyed thousands of Iran’s uranium-enriching centrifuges in Natanz.”

Shane Trent glared across the table at the big Australian. “Let me remind you that you’re talking about a program that’s still highly classified.”

Zamir’s face turned red. “Classified! Since when do you include members of the press in your security briefings at Fort Meade, Mr. Trent?”

“Now wait just a minute, Zamir! That never happened. The leaks about our joint cyber warfare program didn’t come from us.”

“He’s right,” Doug Peterson said. “We suspect they came from someone with contacts inside the White House. These kinds of leaks have been plaguing us for years now despite the best efforts of some very dedicated intelligence officers who are trying their damndest to protect our country from those who would like to see us wiped off the map. As far as I’m concerned, whoever leaked the details of operation
Olympic Games
to the press is guilty of high treason. I can guarantee you that if one of our people had been involved they’d be in jail right now. Think about it for a moment. We finally found a way to stall a hostile government from developing nuclear weapons without bombing the hell out of them, and then the liberal media can’t wait to tell our enemies how we did it. For your information, there were three subs sitting on the floor of the Arabian Sea just waiting for orders to launch their missiles into Iran if the cyber attack didn’t work, but because of the success of our cyber warfare program we were able to destroy the Iranian centrifuges without firing a single shot or harming a single living soul. So much for good intentions.”

Zamir could see the CIA man’s frustration building. “I know, Mr. Peterson. Two of those subs sitting on the floor of the ocean were ours. We’re on the same side ... remember?”

Pope Michael continued sipping his coffee as he watched the intelligence people go at it. “Well, it seems to me that, since the genie is out of the bottle so to speak, maybe one of you would be so kind as to enlighten us about this cyber weapon of yours?”

“What for?” Trent asked. “I mean, with all due respect, Your Holiness, what good would that do?”

“Well, for one thing, Mr. Trent, I believe it may have some bearing on our current situation.”

Peterson nodded his head. “Go ahead, Trent. I don’t suppose it can hurt anything at this point.”

“OK, boss ... if you say so.” Trent’s shoulders visibly slumped. “The code name for the project was
Olympic Games
, as you’ve already heard from Mr. Zamir. Several years ago, a few of our more talented computer engineers were working with some nuclear experts in an effort to come up with a way to stop the Iranians from developing a nuclear bomb without going to war. In the course of their discussions, they discovered that the computers running the highly temperamental centrifuges used by the Iranians to enrich uranium were especially vulnerable to a cyber attack. For one thing, the programmable logic controllers—the specialized computers that ran the machines, were virtually undefended. I mean, they didn’t even have the basic anti-virus software most people use every day on their home computers. Also, the centrifuges the Iranians had purchased from the Pakistanis would routinely spin out of control and tear themselves apart, so they thought if they could engineer a computer worm that would cause them to self-destruct on a regular basis, it wouldn’t necessarily tip the Iranians off to the fact that their computers had been sabotaged. But there was a problem. Even though the controllers were undefended, they were surrounded by an
air gap
, meaning they weren’t hooked up to the internet, which probably accounts for their lack of security. That’s when our friends in Israel became involved. We needed Mr. Zamir’s intelligence assets in Iran to somehow physically access the controllers inside the plant.

“Working together, we developed a bit of computer code known as a
beacon
. Essentially, this beacon would map the operations inside the Iranian facility and report back to NSA headquarters with a description of how the plant operated. But we still had to figure out a way to get the beacon into the logic controllers. We finally hit on the idea of using Iran’s own scientists who routinely carried their laptops home with them and then back to work the next day where they plugged them into the computer network inside the facility. An agent inside Iran simply waited until one of the nuclear scientists left his apartment and inserted the beacon code into his laptop using a thumb drive. When he went to work the next day and plugged it in ... voila! We were in. Pretty soon we knew more about the crown jewel of the Iranian nuclear program than the Iranians did.

“After that, some of the most brilliant computer guys working at the NSA and the CIA were drafted and transferred over to the new U.S. Cyber Command where they quickly went to work writing code for one of the most sophisticated and elegant worms ever developed. For security reasons, they never gave it a name. Usually only computer geeks who want to tout their work to other geeks do that, but the press dubbed it
Stuxnet
, an amalgam of some of the key words in the software code that had no real meaning. After some trial runs on some identical controllers and centrifuges purchased by the United States, the worm was smuggled into the computer network inside Natanz using the same method we used to insert the beacon ... and there it sat, just waiting.

“When all was ready
Stuxnet
finally struck and the Iranian centrifuges began spinning out of control. Now comes the good part. Our guys had thought to add a bit of code that made the Iranian’s believe everything was working perfectly. There was no warning—no bells or whistles sounded to let the Iranians know that something was wrong. I mean, they just sat there in their control room, blissfully unaware that over a thousand of their centrifuges were tearing themselves apart in a metallic whirlwind. They didn’t have time to shut them down because there was no warning. It was beautiful!”

Trent smiled at the thought of all the Iranian centrifuges spinning wildly out of control. “I don’t know if anyone else in this room can appreciate what I’ve just said, but the historical significance of this cyber attack is truly mind-boggling. All previous cyber attacks had always been against other computers, but this was the first time in history in which a cyber attack was used to cause actual physical destruction. It was brilliant. We destroyed a large portion of a uranium enrichment facility belonging to an enemy state ... one that had threatened to wipe Israel off the map, and we did it without ever firing a shot. We set their nuclear program back at least two years, and the world is a safer place because of it.”

Eduardo’s hands trembled uncontrollably in his lap as he glanced over at Pope Michael. “What did I tell you, Marcus? If these people can develop something as elegant and sophisticated as
Stuxnet
, then surely someone who had the power of the universe at his disposal would have no problem in developing something infinitely more powerful.”

The look of pride on Trent’s face slowly began to fade. “He? I’m afraid I’m not following you, Acerbi. Are you saying you can put a name behind this so-called monster computer?”

Eduardo’s eyes looked hollow as he stared back at Trent without answering.

“Mr. Acerbi, if you or anyone in your party is holding back information about this cyber attack, then we need to know about it ... and we need to know about it right now. There’s a definite time factor in stopping a worm, especially if it has the global implications you mentioned earlier.”

“Thank you, Mr. Trent,” Eduardo finally said. “You’ve finally heard what we have come here to tell you. Earlier, you all wanted to know what Pope Michael and I—two men who don’t fit your criteria for sharing classified material, could possibly offer you in the way of valuable information that might well preserve your way of life. You postured and boasted of how successful you were at protecting your secrets, but up until this moment not one of you has asked the right question.”

“And just what question would that be, Mr. Acerbi?” Peterson asked.

“The source, my friends ... the source. You’re about to be hit by a computer worm powered by a computer the likes of which the world has never seen before ... a worm that will set us all back to the Stone Age, and not one of you has asked where your destroyer will come from.”

The mess hall cook laid the last trays of freshly-baked pound cake on the counter and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a dish towel before peering through a small round window in one of the metal kitchen doors. Although he couldn’t hear what was being said, he could see the two Israeli security men standing just beyond the doors, and thirty feet away, sitting around the long table, were his targets. Glancing around to make sure he was still alone in the kitchen, the cook was finally free to reveal his latest creation.

Arching his stiff back, he looked around one more time before walking back into a small break room behind the walk-in cooler. Taking time to exhale slowly, he stood in front of his locker for a moment before opening the thin metal door and pulling out a small nylon backpack. He could feel his heart pounding as he walked back into the kitchen and carefully placed the backpack on the counter before removing the safety tape from a thin metal wire that extended from a small hole in the side.

Now, as he had been trained to do, he closed his eyes and ran through a mental checklist, repeating the steps to himself before taking another deep breath and opening his eyes. With his decision made, he could feel the tension slowly fade from his body. It felt as though he were watching events rather than participating in them. After all, what did he really have to be afraid of? Wasn’t he about to enter the glorious afterlife that had been promised to him by the men who had given him the backpack? They had assured him that he wouldn’t feel any pain, for there was enough C4 explosive inside the compact nylon bag to shatter his nerve endings before the chemically induced signal ever reached his brain to alert him to the fact that he had just died. He would never feel the hundreds of metal ball bearings inside that would tear his body apart before they found their true targets—the group of people seated at the long metal table.

Without hesitating, the cook reached out and grabbed the backpack by one of the straps while holding the end of the wire with his free hand. He then peered through the window in the door one more time to make sure the people at the table were still together. Now, the only barriers that lay between him and his intended targets were the swinging metal doors and the two Israeli security men who would soon be vaporized after he entered the mess hall and pulled the wire that would send him to heaven and everyone else to hell.

“Freeze!”

The startled cook swung around to see a man crouched in the classic handgun combat position with a Glock pistol aimed right at his midsection. It was Graham Childs, and he was well aware that at this distance and in this enclosed space, the explosion would rip both of them apart. Without waiting, he raised the Glock slightly until the white-outlined sights were lined up with the center of the cook’s forehead. Both men stared at one another, each weighing his options—watching for the blink of an eye or the twitch of a finger. The cook’s grip on the thin metal wire tightened.

“I said freeze!”

Hearing Childs’ shouts, the security men peered through the windows in the kitchen doors and instantly saw what was happening. “Run!” they shouted to the group seated around the table. Beads of sweat were beginning to form across Childs’ forehead as he kept his aim steady on the forehead of the cook. He knew the men on the other side of the door had already shouted out a warning, and he needed to gain only a few more seconds to allow them to hustle everyone into the stairwell behind the solid concrete wall.

But time had run out. The cook spun on his heels and hurled himself against the swinging doors just as Childs fired two quick shots before dropping behind a row of steel ovens. Two holes sprang from the back of the cook’s head as his already dead body dropped straight to the floor, but in his death throes his twitching hand had somehow managed to pull the wire.

The massive explosion rocked the kitchen, turning the metal doors into deadly, spinning blades that flew over the steam table and into the mess hall before slicing through the two security men who had bravely warned the others. The tiny metal ball bearings that followed shot in all directions faster than the speed of sound, ripping through walls, chairs, and tables in a circular pattern as the fiery explosion roared through the enclosed space, setting everything ablaze in an inferno that began to melt anything that wasn’t made from steel or concrete.

Despite the fact that he was sitting with some of the best trained men and women in the world, it was John who had been the first to react to the security men’s shouts. Grabbing Ariella, he had flung her toward the stairwell just as Alon jerked both Eduardo Acerbi and Pope Michael from their chairs and pushed them ahead of him as everyone ran for the stairs.

After the deafening first effects of the explosion had been felt, those who had made it into the safety of the stairwell lay crowded together on the stairs behind a thick concrete wall that had just saved their lives. Looking out into the smoky darkness, they could see small fires blazing in what remained of the mess hall—and there were bodies.

Coughing in the acrid smoke, the blackened face of Graham Childs suddenly appeared at the foot of the stairs, startling the already shocked survivors. In one hand he held the Glock pistol, while the other hung down at his side, dripping blood. Miraculously he had survived when he had ducked behind a row of heavy steel ovens just before the cook triggered the explosion.

“The emergency lights should be coming on at any moment,” he said, his voice raspy from the smoke. “Stay where you are until we check the rooms upstairs. There could be more bombs.”