“It matters if she was working with the Russians, Augie. If I can figure out who’s behind this, I have more options at my disposal.”
Augie nods, still looking off in the distance. “Threats. Deterrence. Mr. President,” he says, “if we cannot stop this virus, your threats will be empty. Your attempts at deterrence will mean nothing.”
But the virus hasn’t hit yet. We are still the most powerful country in the world.
Maybe it’s time I reminded Russia of that fact.
Augie returns to the basement. I pull out my phone and dial Carolyn.
“Carrie,” I say, “are the Joint Chiefs in the Situation Room?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll be on in two minutes,” I say.
Chapter
58
Mr. President,” says Chancellor Richter with his usual regal formality, as he shoots the French cuffs on his shirt. “I require no convincing of the Russians’ involvement in this attack. As you know, Germany has experienced several such incidents in our recent past. The Bundestag affair, the CDU headquarters. We are still experiencing the effects today.”
He’s referring to the 2015 hacking into the servers of the German Bundestag, the lower house of the federal legislature. The hackers scooped up e-mails and loads of sensitive information before the Germans finally detected it and patched it up. Leaks of that information continue to spill out on the Internet, strategic drip by strategic drip, to this day.
And the headquarters of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party—Chancellor Richter’s party—was hacked as well, involving the theft of many documents containing sensitive and sometimes blunt exchanges on topics of political strategy, campaign coordination, and key issues.
Both these attacks have been attributed to a group of cyberterrorist hackers known as APT28, or Fancy Bear, affiliated with the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service.
“We are aware of approximately seventy-five attempted cyberterrorist incidents since Bundestag and the CDU,” says Richter’s aide, Dieter Kohl, Germany’s top foreign intelligence officer. “I speak of phishing expeditions into the servers belonging to federal and local governments and various political parties, all of them hostile to the Kremlin. I speak of incidents involving government institutions, industry, labor unions, think tanks. All of them,” he says, “attributed to Fancy Bear.”
“Much of the information they have…” Chancellor Richter turns to his colleague, searching for the right word. “Exfiltrated, yes. Much of the information they have exfiltrated has not yet been leaked. We are expecting, as the election season approaches, to be seeing it. So, Mr. President, I can say to you that Germany requires no convincing on the question of whether the Russians are involved.”
“But this is different,” says Prime Minister Noya Baram. “If I am right about the virus you detected on the Pentagon server, there were no…bread crumbs, I believe you’d say.”
“Correct,” I say. “This time the hackers didn’t leave behind any trace. No fingerprints. No bread crumbs. It just showed up out of nowhere and disappeared without a trace.”
“And that is not the only difference,” she continues. “Your concern, Jonny, is not the theft of information. Your concern is the stability of your infrastructure.”
“It’s both,” I say, “but you’re correct, Noya. I’m worried that they’re attacking our systems. The place where the virus showed up, when it winked at us before disappearing—it’s part of our operational infrastructure. They aren’t stealing e-mails. They’re compromising our systems.”
“And I am told,” says Chancellor Richter, “that if anyone can do it, it is the Sons of Jihad. Our people”—he looks at his foreign intelligence chief, who nods—“they tell us the SOJ is the best in the world. One would think that we could find people just as competent. But what we are learning is no, in fact there are very few elite cyberterrorists and just as few, if not fewer, elite cyberdefense experts. In our country, we have formed a new cybercommand, but we are having trouble filling the positions. We have maybe a dozen, more or less, who would qualify as good enough to defend against the most able cyberterrorists.”
“It’s like anything else,” I say. “Sports, the arts, academia. There are some people at the very top of the pyramid who are simply more skilled than everyone else. Israel has many of them on the defense side. Israel has the best cyberdefense systems in the world.” I nod to Noya, who accepts the compliment without objection; it is a source of pride for the Israelis.
“And if Israel plays the best defense,” says Richter, “Russia plays the best offense.”
“But now we have Augie.”
Richter nods, his eyes narrowing. Noya looks at Richter, then at me. “And you are confident you can trust this man, this Augustas Koslenko?”
“Noya.” I open my hands. “I’m confident that I have no other choice but to trust him. Our people can’t unlock this thing. They can’t even find it.” I sit back in my chair. “He tipped us off to it. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t even know about it.”
“So he says.”
“So he says,” I concede. “True. Look, whoever is ultimately behind this, the SOJ or Russia or someone else—yes, they may have sent Augie to me. He may have some ulterior motive. I’ve been waiting to hear it. I’ve been waiting for some demand, some ransom. I’m not hearing it. And remember, they tried to kill him. Twice. So for my money, he’s a threat to them. Which means he’s an asset to us. I have my best people, and your best people, and Juergen’s best people, watching every move he makes downstairs, listening and learning and probing. We even have a camera on the room, just to keep an eye on him.” I throw up my hands. “If anyone has a better idea, I’m open to it. Otherwise, this is the best thing I can do to try to avoid…” My words trail off. I can’t bring myself to say them.
“To avoid…what?” asks Richter. “Do we have a sense of the possible harm? We can all speculate. We can all conjure up nightmare scenarios. What does the boy say?”
It’s a good segue, one of the principal reasons I’ve asked the German chancellor here today.
I turn to Alex, standing in the far corner of the living room. “Alex, bring Augie up here,” I say. “You all should hear this for yourselves.”
Chapter
59
Augie stands before the world leaders present in the living room, fatigued and frazzled, wearing ill-fitting clothes we found for him after a shower, overwhelmed in every way by the events of the last twelve hours. Yet this young man seems not even slightly fazed by the company he is keeping. They are men and women of tremendous accomplishments, with incredible power at their fingertips, but in this arena, he is the teacher, and we are the pupils.
“One of the great ironies of the modern age,” he begins, “is that the advancements of mankind can make us more powerful and yet more vulnerable at the same time. The greater the power, the greater the vulnerability. You think, rightly so, that you are at the apex of your power, that you can do more things than ever before. But I see you at the peak of your vulnerability.
“The reason is reliance. Our society has become completely reliant on technology. The Internet of Things—you are familiar with the concept?”