Read Online Early Warning by Michael Walsh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Michael Walsh
Tags: United States, Fiction, thriller, Suspense, Thrillers, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Suspense fiction, Intelligence Officers, Political, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Mystery And Suspense Fiction, Terrorism, Fiction - Espionage, General & Literary Fiction, Prevention, Officials and employees, Cyberterrorism - Prevention, National Security Agency
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when the Langley Home for Lost Boys told him they weren’t interfering with the CTU he believed them; most of them, in his estimation, were too dumb to tie their own shoelaces, and the thought of them getting a jump on his boys was laughable.
The National Security Agency, on the other hand, was something else. The former “No Such Agency” had seized an inordinate amount of power in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and even under the reformist President Jeb Tyler, it still wielded a hell of a lot of clout. Was it eavesdropping on their eavesdropping? Of course it was, if the Black Widow was doing her job.
Lannie was making clucking noises under his breath as he punched the keyboard, which Byrne knew was actually Arabic. He’d learn Arabic someday, he promised himself, right after he learned Irish Gaelic, Urdu, and Esperanto and maybe even French. “Speak English,” he commanded.
Lannie stopped clucking and wrapped his tongue around words everybody could understand. “Not good. We have a major DoS coming from”—he punched in a blur—“coming from, it looks like…Bulgaria and…Israel…”
“Typical Arab,” said a good-natured voice Byrne recognized as Sid Sheinberg’s. “Always blaming Israel first.” Sid was Sy’s nephew, a smart lawyer who had dropped his fledgling practice and joined the force when Frankie recruited him for the team. The former Medical Examiner, Sy Sheinberg, had been Byrne’s friend, mentor, and rabbi, and he still missed him after all these years. Almost enough time had passed for Byrne to be able to forget the last time he saw Sy, when he found the body after the suicide…
“In this case, Sid, I’m blaming Israel second,” Lannie snapped. “And then Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and…”
Byrne ran an emotionally loose ship. The CTU was no place for hurt feelings; you checked your resentments and entitlements at the door and you elbowed your way to the table like everybody else. Festering grievances were the worst—if anybody had a beef, let him air it out. Byrne and Matt White had worked that way for two decades, and were not about to change now.
“What have we got—are we blind?” Instead of answering, Lannie turned to Sid. “Gimme a hand here.”
Sid slid into the seat next to Lannie’s and for the next five minutes, neither of them said a thing. Instead, they worked furiously, in some kind of mental rapport, their agile minds leaping to the same hypotheses almost at once.
As they worked, the playfulness fell away, to be replaced by a grim, serious look that played around their lips. The CTU computers had been fucked with before—that much was SOP in this business—but something told Byrne that this time it was different, that this time it might be very, very bad.
“We’ve got a shitload of traffic going across the core switches—forty gigs a sec minimum,” shouted Sid Sheinberg.
“We’ve got timeouts…we’re out of CPU on the core switches…impossible,” barked Lannie.
“What’s this ‘multicast’ shit?” said Sid. “Come on, you fuckers!”
“Is it a virus?” asked Byrne.
Neither man turned to look at him. “No, external,” said Lannie. “Incoming ports are swamped by ‘bots.’ What the fuck?”
“Rebooting the cores,” said Sid, and one by one the machines went down. For all practical purposes, the CTU was now blind, if only for a few moments…
The screens blinked on again. “Fuck,” said Sid. “We’re still greened out, to the max.”
“Impossible—”
“Connections dropping like flies off a camel’s ass—”
“Origination point?”
“Dunno. Cabinet switches…ten gigs apiece. Fubared.”
“Isolate.”
“Isolating now…gotcha suckers!” Sid was nearly out of his seat.
“Kill the downlink ports.”
“Killing…”
“Rebooting now…”
Everyone in the room held his breath and the screens winked out again…and then blinked back on. One by one they came back up—and held.
Lannie never took his eyes
The National Security Agency, on the other hand, was something else. The former “No Such Agency” had seized an inordinate amount of power in the wake of the terrorist attacks, and even under the reformist President Jeb Tyler, it still wielded a hell of a lot of clout. Was it eavesdropping on their eavesdropping? Of course it was, if the Black Widow was doing her job.
Lannie was making clucking noises under his breath as he punched the keyboard, which Byrne knew was actually Arabic. He’d learn Arabic someday, he promised himself, right after he learned Irish Gaelic, Urdu, and Esperanto and maybe even French. “Speak English,” he commanded.
Lannie stopped clucking and wrapped his tongue around words everybody could understand. “Not good. We have a major DoS coming from”—he punched in a blur—“coming from, it looks like…Bulgaria and…Israel…”
“Typical Arab,” said a good-natured voice Byrne recognized as Sid Sheinberg’s. “Always blaming Israel first.” Sid was Sy’s nephew, a smart lawyer who had dropped his fledgling practice and joined the force when Frankie recruited him for the team. The former Medical Examiner, Sy Sheinberg, had been Byrne’s friend, mentor, and rabbi, and he still missed him after all these years. Almost enough time had passed for Byrne to be able to forget the last time he saw Sy, when he found the body after the suicide…
“In this case, Sid, I’m blaming Israel second,” Lannie snapped. “And then Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and…”
Byrne ran an emotionally loose ship. The CTU was no place for hurt feelings; you checked your resentments and entitlements at the door and you elbowed your way to the table like everybody else. Festering grievances were the worst—if anybody had a beef, let him air it out. Byrne and Matt White had worked that way for two decades, and were not about to change now.
“What have we got—are we blind?” Instead of answering, Lannie turned to Sid. “Gimme a hand here.”
Sid slid into the seat next to Lannie’s and for the next five minutes, neither of them said a thing. Instead, they worked furiously, in some kind of mental rapport, their agile minds leaping to the same hypotheses almost at once.
As they worked, the playfulness fell away, to be replaced by a grim, serious look that played around their lips. The CTU computers had been fucked with before—that much was SOP in this business—but something told Byrne that this time it was different, that this time it might be very, very bad.
“We’ve got a shitload of traffic going across the core switches—forty gigs a sec minimum,” shouted Sid Sheinberg.
“We’ve got timeouts…we’re out of CPU on the core switches…impossible,” barked Lannie.
“What’s this ‘multicast’ shit?” said Sid. “Come on, you fuckers!”
“Is it a virus?” asked Byrne.
Neither man turned to look at him. “No, external,” said Lannie. “Incoming ports are swamped by ‘bots.’ What the fuck?”
“Rebooting the cores,” said Sid, and one by one the machines went down. For all practical purposes, the CTU was now blind, if only for a few moments…
The screens blinked on again. “Fuck,” said Sid. “We’re still greened out, to the max.”
“Impossible—”
“Connections dropping like flies off a camel’s ass—”
“Origination point?”
“Dunno. Cabinet switches…ten gigs apiece. Fubared.”
“Isolate.”
“Isolating now…gotcha suckers!” Sid was nearly out of his seat.
“Kill the downlink ports.”
“Killing…”
“Rebooting now…”
Everyone in the room held his breath and the screens winked out again…and then blinked back on. One by one they came back up—and held.
Lannie never took his eyes
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