Washington, DC
11:45 PM Monday, January 19
America, quite possibly, was on the verge of being attacked.
Brynn felt it in her gut, and when she and Jack made the call to Director Walsh, they expected President Allen would return home immediately. However, the president seemed bent on not giving whoever was behind the plot the satisfaction and passed along a message to Jack and Brynn that she was relying on them to figure it out. So, you know, no pressure there.
For the last several hours, Director Walsh had monitored a remote team working with SNAP’s clients to warn them about a potential cyberattack while she and Jack were trying to “figure it out.” Brynn didn’t know if it was frustration or exhaustion or the throbbing ache in her elbow, but the facts were starting to blur together.
She used her thumb to pop the lid off a bottle of Tylenol, and her hand slipped, sending the little white pills skittering across Jack’s desk.
“I’ve got it.” Jack collected the pills. He pressed two of them into her hand and twisted the cap off a bottle of water. “You should rest.”
She swallowed the medicine with a gulp of water and shook her head. “Do you really think I’m going to be able to sleep right now? Besides”—she offered him a tired smile—“I’m trained for this.”
“You’re cute when you’re ornery and tired.”
“He isn’t.” Brynn tilted her head in the direction of Kekoa.
He was like a bulldog with a bone—unstoppable and focused as he and a remote cyberteam worked to create their testudo. Brynn didn’t even see him get up for a snack.
Not that she was sure any of them could eat. At least she couldn’t. Her stomach was tied in a tangle of knots as she tried to decipher the facts they had in time to prevent . . . what? Brynn still wasn’t sure. What if all this was for nothing? How often did CIA intel suggest a threat, only to lead nowhere? Except for the facts they’d been staring at for hours surrounding Riad’s death and the virus Kekoa discovered, was this whole thing just a big presumption?
“Let’s go over this again.” She rose and went to the acrylic board that was covered in their writing. “Riad begins investigating the National Liberation Jihad and their involvement in missing Egyptians. It leads him to come to the US in search of a family friend, Moustafa Ali, a student who hasn’t been heard from since December when he finished his fall semester of classes.”
“That leads you and Lyla to the farmhouse in Clifton, where Riad was looking for Moustafa, and you find Seif El-Deeb and Tarek Gamal.” Jack tapped a pen against the table. “Both are kidnapped and then killed shortly afterward.” He pressed his lips together. “And we still don’t know who was involved or where they are.”
“Right.” Brynn yawned. “Riley lets me know about Joseph Ansari, who may have been the person Riad was trying to meet before he was taken. However, Ansari doesn’t know Riad but does remember Moustafa, who he said was excited about an opportunity.”
“An opportunity to what?”
Her thoughts went back to Agnes Buchanan’s home. “It doesn’t make sense. If El-Deeb and Gamal were trafficked to work here in the US, how does Moustafa fit in?”
Jack’s phone rang. He glanced down at it and then back up at her. “It’s Agent Samson.”
As Jack answered, she checked her watch—it was nearly midnight. A call this late never meant anything good.
“Sure, hold up. Brynn’s here, and she’ll want to hear this,” Jack said before pulling the phone from his ear and setting it on the table between them. “I’ve got you on speaker, so go ahead.”
“I have to be quick because it seems like we stepped into a massive hornet’s nest here in Texas.” Brynn exchanged a look with Jack. “After finding the schematic for the Texas power grid, the team and I flew to Houston. The agents here began pulling information on known characters of interest. They’ve been watching a fella by the name of Hashem Mazdani, an Iranian, who’s been here for a few years. He works part-time driving for one of those ride-share companies and also for a data engineering firm.”
Brynn made a face. “That’s an unusual career path. Did he attend school here in the States?”
“No. As far as we can tell, he never attended anything beyond high-school level back in Iran. We don’t believe he’s an engineer, but he works for Protech, a Russian-owned data mining company that doesn’t like to share their information without getting lawyers involved.”
Brynn chewed on her thumbnail. Now the Russians? Stepping into a hornet’s nest was starting to feel like a cakewalk at this point. “What is it about Hashem Mazdani that attracted the FBI’s interest?”
“He’s been known to spread NLJ propaganda at a few of the local mosques here in Houston.”
Brynn glanced at their notes on the board, her pulse beginning to race. If the NLJ was involved, it escalated the threat.
“What kind of data are they mining?” Jack asked.
“We’re working on finding that out thanks to your boy, Moustafa Ali.”
“Moustafa Ali?” she nearly shouted. “You found him?”
“One of our informants noticed someone new living with Mazdani and working at Protech. The office here identified Moustafa Ali, but since he was in the US on a student visa and didn’t have any records, they had no reason to be concerned until I contacted them. Last night we had one of our informants follow Ali to a café, and without too much difficulty, the kid began talking about his family in Egypt, going to school in Virginia, like you said.”
“And you said he’s working for Protech?”
“An internship.” Agent Samson answered Brynn’s question. “Apparently, his professor at GMU set up the program, but the kid is worried about missing school, failing his classes, and disappointing his parents. When the informant pressed further, Moustafa revealed the internship wasn’t what he thought it was. Said it seemed illegal.”
Brynn looked at Jack, his expression troubled.
“The informant convinced Moustafa to talk to agents at the FBI field office. He walked one of their tech guys through what he was doing for Protech, and it turns out he was hacking into the electrical service of customers here in Texas. We contacted the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, and they said they’d noticed a surge in outages but couldn’t figure out where they were coming from or why.”
Jack ran a hand through his hair. “So we’re right. They were planning to attack the power grid just like the one in California.”
“Not at all. They attacked the station in California with assault weapons. This is a more sophisticated plan.”
Brynn heard the warning in Agent Samson’s tone. “What’s the name of the professor who set up the internship?”
There was some noise over the speakerphone before Agent Samson answered. “Dr. Abu Hamadi, teaches computer science.”
Of course he does. Brynn’s pulse sped up as pieces were beginning to come together. She grabbed her phone and started searching for information on Abu Hamadi. “According to the GMU faculty page, Hamadi is a tenured professor at GMU, where he’s been teaching computer science for almost seventeen years. He’s originally from Heliopolis, Egypt. Moved to the US in 1984 with his wife.” Brynn read the last line of his bio, and her blood turned cold. “He’s quoted here saying it’s his privilege to teach students how they can use technology to change the world.”
“Or attack it.” Jack’s voice was tight.
“We’re waiting for warrants now to search the house where Moustafa and Hashem live, and we hope that’ll lead to a warrant for Protech.” Agent Samson’s voice was muffled by more background noise before he continued. “If Hamadi was recruiting students to engage in cyberterrorism, then the agency is likely going to want to proceed with caution. Maybe even hold off on making arrests until we ascertain who all the players are. We can’t afford to not cut this snake off at the head.”
Brynn glanced up from her phone, her jaw slack. “Agent Samson, the president is in Egypt, and we’ve potentially uncovered a plot threatening America’s infrastructure.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Ms. Taylor, and I’ll do my best to communicate the urgency of the matter, but you know how bureaucracy is.”
She did know. Protocol was there to protect, but it also slowed down the process, and that was something they couldn’t afford to do when seconds counted. Kekoa walked over, signaling to them that he had something.
“We appreciate everything you’re doing, Brett. Let us know if you need anything from our side.” Jack ended the call with Agent Samson, both men promising to keep the other updated. He turned to Kekoa. “What’ve you got?”
“Brah, you ready for this?”
Brynn read the uncertainty in Jack’s expression. “Go ahead.”
“You’ve seen the movie Independence Day with Will Smith, right?”
“Yes,” Jack answered, and then Kekoa turned to her and she nodded.
“Okay, so you remember when the only way they could defeat the alien mother ship was to go up inside of it and infect it with a virus so they could disable the defense system and the world could attack the ships destroying cities around the earth?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what this virus is doing. Or trying to do.” Kekoa took a breath. “My team’s been working hard to counter the attacks, but like I said before, the more we fight, the more their defense grows. So I thought, what happens if we let them in?”
Brynn’s heart froze, and her eyes slid to Jack.
“Please don’t tell me you allowed them to breach a client’s system?”
“No way, brah.” Kekoa chuckled. “We created an alternative. Set up the defense to direct their attacks, and then we allowed them to breach that one so we could see what would happen.”
Brynn released a breath and then shifted in her seat, carefully moving her injured arm into a more comfortable position. “What happened?”
“It was so weird. It was like a spider—a million little baby viruses released and it froze the system. We couldn’t get in or stop it or anything.”
“What does that mean, Kekoa? Real world now,” Jack asked.
“I think these viruses are an indicator of what the attack is going to do. The diagrams of the electrical and mechanical systems are only one part. I spoke with Colonel Green, the commander of US Cyber Command at Fort Meade. They’ve been monitoring an increase in activity surrounding military installations overseas. It’s not unusual because there’s always some local group of rebels or political protesters who don’t want the military in their country, but these installations are also noticing attempts being made to breach their systems.”
“There’s always some . . . who don’t want the military in their country.” Like the National Liberation Jihad not wanting Wadi Basaela in Egypt. What were they willing to do to stop the US?
Brynn sat forward. “What installations have noticed this?”
“Forward Operating Base, Abu Ghraib, and Sykes in Iraq.” Kekoa ticked them off on his fingers. “Aludeid Air Base in Qatar, Kunsan Air Base in Korea. Even Fort Gordon in Georgia.”
“Wait.” Jack frowned. “Isn’t that where the Army Cyber Command is?”
“Yep. Spoke with them an hour ago. Their CAC system went down a few days ago without cause.”
“That they know of.” Alarm coursed down her spine, causing goose bumps to line her arms. “If the common access card system goes down, does that disable someone from using it to access their computer systems or enter the facility?”
“It’s supposed to, but no program is infallible.” Kekoa’s voice lowered. “That’s another reason why I wanted to talk to you. The team is working hard and not giving up, but I don’t know if we’re going to have the testudo up in time. The unknowns of a potential attack put us at a disadvantage. My plan was to go shields up before the attack happens, but we’d need to know—”
“When,” Jack said with a sigh. “Will you be able to have anything up?”
“Trying, brah.” There was defeat in Kekoa’s tone, but then his mood shifted. “I do have something else for you.” He looked at her. “A picture of the driver who tried to run you down, B.”
Brynn tucked her chin, unable to avoid the smile playing on her lips or the way Kekoa’s use of Jack’s nickname for her wriggled its way into her chest. When she dared to look up, she caught Jack watching her, his tender smile sending a thrill all the way down to her toes.
Kekoa pointed a remote at one of the television screens on the wall. A black-and-white video from a gas station with the camera angled at the pumps started playing. Brynn checked the date stamp in the corner.
A van that looked like the one Brynn remembered—probably gray, though it was hard to tell in a black-and-white video—pulled up to a pump and a man got out. His head moved up and down like he was listening to music as he began putting gas into the van. It was odd. The man wasn’t fidgety, didn’t appear nervous, and there was nothing in his demeanor to suggest he had just used his vehicle as a weapon. Maybe he wasn’t the right person?
“He looks young,” Brynn said, squinting. “Early twenties? Can you clear up the video or zoom in?”
“I can do better.”
The video switched, and now they were staring at the man from the inside of the gas station as he paid. Even though the man kept his chin tucked, hoodie over his head, there was a moment when his eyes flashed to the camera—like he knew.
And so did Brynn. “It’s him.”
“Who?” Jack looked back at her.
“The guy who poisoned Joseph Ansari. Kekoa, can you pull up the video from that day?”
“Sure.”
Kekoa set the videos side by side. He paused the footage from the poisoning at the only point offering the smallest glimpse of the man’s profile, a shock of blond hair peeking out from beneath his coat hood, but it was enough for Brynn.
“It’s the same guy.”
“It’s hard to tell,” Jack said. “There’s a better shot of the man in the video from the gas station.” He looked at Kekoa. “Is it enough for facial recognition?”
“I thought you’d never ask, brah.” Kekoa flexed his fingers and pointed to the television next to the bank of ones reporting news from across the globe.
It was barely after midnight here in the States, but across the Atlantic the world was waking up. Brynn noticed Al Jazeera was already reporting about President Allen’s trip to Egypt and the ceremony dedicating Wadi Basaela happening later that day.
“Chad Bowman.” Kekoa’s voice moved her attention to the screen, where a Virginia driver’s license photo of a Caucasian man with blond hair and blue eyes stared back at them. “He’s twenty-two and doesn’t have a criminal record. Not even a parking or speeding ticket.”
“I would have said he was just a distracted driver if he hadn’t swerved toward Brynn,” Jack growled. “What else do you know about him?”
“He’s a student at George—”
“George Mason University?” Brynn and Jack said at the same time.
“Yeah, this is his final year.”
“Please don’t tell me he’s a computer science major.” Brynn closed her eyes, knowing the answer before Kekoa spoke it.
“Nope. Computer engineering.”
Brynn groaned and opened her eyes. “Can you pull up Chad Bowman’s transcript? Something tells me he was or is a student of Professor Hamadi.”
“Yep, four semesters.” Kekoa nodded and then frowned. “Hmm, this is interesting. There’s an article about him in the Army Times. He’s one of two students who received an internship at”—Kekoa glanced up, his eyes moving between her and Jack—“US Cyber Command at Fort Meade.”
Brynn’s pulse skyrocketed. She stared at the image of Chad. He looked like an all-American kid, but her own words haunted her. “Homegrown Violent Extremists don’t look like the stereotypical terrorist . . . they can be your next-door neighbor, your child’s teacher, or the teen who delivers your pizza. That’s what makes them so dangerous—their ability to blend in and deceive you.”
“Jack, we need to find Chad Bowman right now.”