“So, the GPS system is down,” Jasper said. “And that’s just the start. Now, I’m going to conduct hourly cyber attacks, and you have just four hours until the main event. And I’ll tell you what . . .”
The camera zoomed in to Jasper’s face.
“If you think you can stop me, you can’t. It’s happening. It’s happening and I’m showing you just how vulnerable you are. For all the protections you’ve put in place over the years, for all you’ve done over the past twenty-four hours, you can’t keep me from doing it.
“Well, there is one way. One.
“So, I ask you, will the President do what must be done?”
The camera’s view widened out again, showing Jasper sitting in his orange jumpsuit.
“Three more hours, three more cyber attacks. First, GPS is down. Then, you know those drone things you like to fly about and kill people with? News flash—I’m now commanding them. How many are there over US air space? Where will they be flying? Are some of them armed? How will you stop them? What will you use to intercept them when every weapons system you can deploy, whether jet aircraft or missiles, are redundant, because I can own their computer systems. If you aim a missile at my drones, I will redirect that missile at a hospital. If you launch jets to fly sorties to gun down the drones, I will commandeer the controls of those jets and smash them into the ground—or maybe fly them at the fading sun or the moon, just to see how far they can go.
“Ask yourself: at what point do you pull the plug? You have a solution to this. Use it. I dare you.
“You have less than four hours. Tick-tock.”
•
Walker still had a book in his hand as they watched the latest threat. Monica had finished eating. Her hands seemed steady, the effects of the drug mostly abated with the adrenaline and the time and the food and water.
“What do you think?” Monica said, her eyes still on the tiny screen.
“GPS is a big deal. It’s going to wreak havoc on all kinds of transport and logistics. It’ll hurt in all kinds of ways.”
“Surely they can work around it.”
“In the next few hours?”
“They’d have contingencies.”
“Would your brother have factored that in?”
“You talk like he designed these attacks.”
“I think he did,” Walker said, voicing the thought that had been building. “The way he’s been talking. From the first presentation to what we just saw. Much heavier with the ‘I.’ ‘I’m now commanding them.’ ‘I will redirect.’ He’s owning it, don’t you think?”
“You’re saying they took him and forced him to make all this stuff up, or else?”
“Or else . . . what?” Walker said. “What kind of leverage could they be using? He’s not tight with family or friends, and those he was close to are you and your dad and Paul and none of you were taken. Unless he has a significant other you don’t know about, who is being held captive.”
“I really doubt that.”
“Okay.”
The newscaster crossed to a correspondent on Pennsylvania Avenue, the most famous landmark in the world behind her. With a gaggle of other news crews jostling for real estate, the reporter gave a serious précis of the events that had just transpired, as well as those threatened, and then crossed to inside the White House, to the Press Room, where the President stood with the Director of Cyber Command, General Christie.
“We are confident that the Department of Energy,” the President said, “in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security, have made every effort and taken every measure they can to safeguard the national energy grid. We ask for calm as we work toward fixing this. And given the global severity of this situation, I have authorized an executive order, giving the military, under the direction of General Christie of Cyber Command, authority to act on US soil in this matter of national security. General Christie.”
The General nodded to the President and took her place at the lectern, and then—
A noise, in the apartment. Someone was in the bedroom and the door to the living area pushed open.
Paul. He was wearing a climbing harness, and held a silenced pistol in his hand.
He said to Walker, “Put the book down.”