Walker stood and stared.
The car was a 1971 Plymouth Hemi Barracuda; the Cuda. The car was older than Walker and just as banged up. Shiny black once, now a dull matt finish from decades of sun and rain and wind and grit. The panels had a few dings and scrapes and bad repair jobs. California plates.
It was a thing of beauty.
There were no feminine curves like on an old Porsche or Ferrari or Bugatti. This was a beast. Old-school American muscle. It was something he had wanted as a teen, desperately. He’d had a poster of it in his room in Philly. His friend’s father had owned one, bright yellow, which they’d snuck out in a couple of times, cruising the streets like kings.
He walked around it. The fat tires were near new, plenty of tread front and rear. Sixteen-inch things with mid-sized walls, none of these modern sports car types where the rubber wall was only an inch high and you felt every bump like it would rattle your teeth loose.
Walker popped the hood. The engine was clean and tidy. Not gleaming new like in some kind of Transformers movie, but an engine that had been taken care of, probably overhauled recently by someone who cared. He checked the oil. It was honey-colored and to the full line. Coolant was as it should be. He closed the hood and looked around. Nothing doing. He got in the car and put the key in the ignition. Under a hundred thousand miles on the odometer. Nicely run in for a big engine like this, over such a lifespan.
Walker told himself he’d spend five minutes online, then watch the movie file and then ditch the tablet a few blocks away. The camera had black tape over it so that those tracking any search hits on keywords such as “Brokaw” and “NSA” and “hacking” and so on could not take his picture or video feed. Tape covered the microphone too, but he wouldn’t be talking. But they could still geo-locate him, so time mattered. Ideally he’d search Monica on a different device, in a different location, so that anyone analyzing the Web-traffic would not make a connection, but there was no time.
First, he Googled Monica Brokaw. She had a lot of hits, mainly social-media pages. She looked good. She’d looked good at twenty-one, but now she was a woman and had lived in her skin, and it suited her. Google images brought up a raft of shots, almost all of them business related, at events and public talks. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail in all of them. She had a tan. She appeared the same height and physicality as he remembered her: five-nine, athletic. She was slightly curvier now. A woman.
Walker gave himself another couple of minutes. He had her father’s address in San Diego written down in his father’s handwriting. He wanted to know as much as he could about Monica inside of a minute on the Net.
Her Pinterest page was the only one of the social-media pages to show her personal side, her likes and dislikes outside any business thoughts or motivations. She liked home and decorating design, Cape Cod–type places, green gardens, wide open rural spaces, beaches with breaking waves. Her LinkedIn profile gave her CV. Currently joint director of Brokaw Jennings & Associates, a human resources company. She’d previously worked at Yahoo and at an executive recruiting firm in LA, the latter going bust in the GFC. She held a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Master of Arts in Communication. He couldn’t find any confirmation of a partner or family. Her Twitter page had more than a thousand followers, all of whom seemed business related, and there were no Brokaws among them.
Walker then Googled Jasper Brokaw. A million-plus hits in the results. He clicked on the news search, and the gist of the reports showed that every news outlet was taking this seriously. The first dozen pages were American sites, the remainder a mix of global news sites and then pages of chatter. Reddit was in overdrive with users discussing the possibilities of the coming attacks. Walker could spend hours scrolling through them.
He’d already blown through ten minutes, carried away by what was being discussed.
Time to go.
He turned the ignition. Life. The sound was awesome. A thrum and a roar, the whole vehicle vibrating.
He checked the map to General Brokaw’s house on Google Earth. Zoomed in on the local streets. Memorized them. He was good with maps; from hiking with his father to years in the military.
Time.
He clicked on the video file of Jasper Brokaw’s appearance. It went for two minutes three seconds. It was date and time stamped: just on two hours ago. Walker pressed play.
“My . . .” Jasper looked up, off camera. As if looking to someone. He hesitated, then continued reading the prepared speech in his hands. “My fellow Americans. My name is Jasper Brokaw. Until yesterday I was an employee of the NSA. I’m a programmer, a coder, a hacker. I’m one of the best, working for years in the shadows to defend our nation—and by the time this has aired, you will all know my name.” He paused, swallowed. “You will know my name, because my employer, the United States government, will go into turmoil. They will go into a state of panic, and then distress, and then anger and vengeance. Finally, they, and you, will be on the other side of this. And it will be better. This will all occur not just because of what I have to say, but for what—for what, for who, I am.”
Walker watched the feed, headphones in his ears.
“As of this moment,” Jasper continued, “those who hold me captive are requesting that the US government shut down the Internet. How this will play out is entirely in the government’s hands.” He looked up to the camera, said, “They have the power to act, to stop what’s coming. I—they—suspect that it will take time. That the government, as usual, will drag their feet. They will argue and—” He looked back to the speech “—and they will bicker and talk in circles. But this isn’t up for negotiation. It’s inevitable. The timer is set. We’ve made our move, given you warning. Now it’s time for you to make your move. You’ve got thirty-six hours. You’ve seen our first data breach, and you will feel its effects. Our next cyber attack will occur in six hours. It will involve every federal employee. The next attacks will become more frequent, and more . . . threatening. How this ends is up to you.”
The movie file ended at a black screen.
•
Captain Cam Harrington, US Army, stood with the five soldiers in his six-man team and waited. He was nervous. They were nervous.
They’d never met the General before.
They were a rag-tag group. The Dirty Half-Dozen, some called them behind their backs. It was apt for a couple of the members in his team, Harrington figured.
Each man was dressed in head-to-toe black tactical gear. Their Kevlar vests and communications equipment and weapons were already stowed on the plane, a US Army Gulfstream V.
A car rolled in. A single star. Brigadier General. Everyone just referred to her as The General. Some, far, far behind her back, called her Ice Queen.
Harrington stood at attention and watched as the General’s lap-dog second lieutenant got out from behind the driver’s seat and went around and opened the door of the Army-spec town car. General Christie emerged and walked over to Harrington, looking the line of his team up and down.
“We haven’t met,” General Christie said.
“No, ma’am,” Harrington replied.
Christie was silent, watching, appraising.
“Have your men board the aircraft,” she ordered. “You and I need to talk.”