Threat Vector jrj-4 Page 18

  President Ryan sided with Burgess. “Just because everyone is making money does not mean that the Chicoms won’t muck it up. Money has never been their only aim. There are other paths to power over there. You may be absolutely right, Scott, especially in light of all the good tidings at the moment between the mainland and Taiwan. But don’t forget that this rapprochement is reversible by the Communist Party of China in a heartbeat. The CPC leadership is not satisfied with the status quo with relation to Taiwan. They want it back, they want the Republic of China in Taipei gone, and a few direct flights between Shanghai and Taipei isn’t going to change that long-term goal.”

  Adler conceded this point.

  Ryan sighed. “So… the admiral has outlined a worst-case scenario that I want everyone to keep in mind while we work on this. We thought Wei’s term would be the most friendly toward Taiwan, but the attempted coup and Chairman Su’s strength have, possibly, changed the equation.”

  Ryan could see most people in the room thought Jorgensen was being overly pessimistic. He himself felt Wei’s going after Taiwan was doubtful, even with Su urging him forward, but he didn’t want his top people caught napping if that happened.

  The United States had officially recognized Taiwan, and the United States could easily be forced into war if fighting broke out between the two nations. And though Jack Ryan was called a warmonger in much of the world’s press, he sure as hell hoped open war in the Pacific was not on the horizon.

  Ryan next said, “Okay. President Wei said China owns the sea due to some historical precedent. What about international law? Laws of the sea, whatever. Do the Chinese have any rights at all to make these claims?”

  Secretary of State Adler shook his head. “None whatsoever, but they are smart. They have made a point to not join binding agreements that could allow their neighbors to band together to gang up on them on this or on any other issue. To the Chinese, the South China Sea is not an international issue; they call it a bilateral issue with whichever country they are up against in the region. They won’t let this go to the UN or any international body. They want to fight their arguments one by one.”

  “Divide and conquer,” Jack said under his breath.

  “Divide and conquer,” agreed Adler.

  Jack stood and began pacing around his desk. “What do we know about what is happening inside China?”

  This opened the meeting up to the various members of the intelligence services present.

  For the next twenty minutes, the national security adviser and the head of the CIA, as well as the director of national intelligence, spoke about covert technical means of espionage. Aircrafts and ships that monitored the country flew and sailed just offshore, satellites raced by overhead, and radio signal interception means were positioned to pick up much Chinese unsecure communication within the country.

  It all left Ryan comfortable that America’s electronic eyes were turned toward the Middle Kingdom. Signals intelligence, measurement and signatures intelligence, and electronic intelligence means were well represented in America’s intelligence community’s coverage of China.

  But something was missing. Jack said, “I’ve heard a good bit about SIGINT, MASINT, ELINT. What human intelligence assets do we have in the PRC?” The question was, naturally, posed to the head of the CIA.

  Director Canfield said, “HUMINT is sadly lacking, sir. I wish I could report we were well positioned inside Zhongnanhai, Mr. President, but, in truth, we have very few human assets in place other than officers working out of the U.S. embassy in Beijing who control relatively low-level agents. There have been quite a few arrests in the past year of our best assets.”

  Ryan knew about this. After a ring of agents spying for the U.S. was rolled up in China in the spring, there was a rumor of a mole in the CIA working for the Chinese government, but an internal investigation revealed that to be unlikely.

  Ryan asked, “We don’t have nonofficial cover assets in Beijing anymore?”

  “No, sir. We have a few NOCs in China, but none in Beijing, and no agents I would classify as highly placed. We have been working tirelessly at getting more agents in the PRC, but our efforts have been met by surprisingly robust counterintelligence operations.”

  Robust counterintelligence operations. Ryan said the term to himself. He knew it was a polite way of saying the fucking Chinese had been executing anyone they thought might be spying for the United States.

  The President said, “Back in the last go-around with Beijing we had a NOC that gave us a mother lode of intel from inside Politburo meetings.”

  Mary Pat Foley nodded. “Who knew that those were the good ol’ days?”

  Many of those in the room knew the story, but Ryan explained for those who had either not been in the government at the time or else did not have a need to know. “When Mary Pat was deputy director at CIA, she had an officer who worked for NEC, the computer company. He sold a bugged computer to the office of a minister without portfolio, one of the premier’s closest confidants. At the height of the conflict we were getting nearly daily reports on the leadership’s plans and mind-set. It was a game changer, to say the least.”

  Mary Pat said, “And then, a couple months after the war, Minister Fang had to go and have a fatal aneurism while boffing his secretary.”

  “Damn inconvenient of him,” agreed Ryan. “The case officer who pulled this off. Chet Nomouri, was it?”

  Mary Pat nodded. “That’s correct, Mr. President.”

  “He must be a station chief by now.”

  CIA Director Jay Canfield shook his head. “He left the Agency a long time back. Last I heard he took a job with a West Coast computer firm.” With a shrug he said, “More money in the private sector.”

  POTUS mumbled, “Don’t I know it?”

  That earned a burst of laughs from a room that was in need of a light moment.

  Secretary of Commerce Barnes said, “Mr. President. I hope we don’t forget what Wei said in his speech. ‘China is open for business.’”

  Jack countered, “You mean you hope I don’t forget how much we need China’s business.”

  She shrugged apologetically. “Fact is, sir, they own a big chunk of us. And they could call in those chips at any time.”

  “And be destroyed,” said Ryan. “They hurt us economically and it only hurts them economically.”

  The secretary of commerce came back with a quick retort of her own: “Mutually assured destruction.”

  Jack nodded at this but said, “Hey, it was ugly, but you can’t say MAD didn’t work.”

  Barnes nodded.

  “Let’s finish up with talk about capability,” Ryan said as he turned to his secretary of defense. “If they wish to exert themselves in the South China Sea, what exactly can they do?”

  “As you well know, Mr. President, China has added over twenty percent to their military budget every year for nearly two decades. We estimate they spend over two hundred billion a year on their offensive and defensive weaponry, logistics, and manpower.

  “China’s Navy has been growing by leaps and bounds. They have thirty destroyers, fifty frigates, seventy-five or so submarines. The Chinese have two hundred ninety ships in their Navy, but not much in the way of a blue-water capability. Not yet, anyway.”

  Chairman Obermeyer said, “They have also been focusing on fourth-generation aircraft. They get SU-27s and SU-30s from Russia, and they have their own J-10 fighter, which is made locally although, at this juncture, they are buying their engines from France. Additionally, they have about fifteen SU-33s.”

  Burgess said, “But it’s not just their Navy and Air Force; they have expanded in all five war-fighting domains: land, sea, air, space, and cyber. It could be argued, and I would agree with this assessment, that of the five, land has gotten the least attention in the past five years or so.”

  “What do we make of that?”

  Burgess said, “China does not see enemies attacking its turf, nor does it see large wars with its neighbor
s. It does see, however, small conflicts with neighbors and large conflicts with major world powers who are too far away to land armies on China’s shores.”

  “Especially us,” the President said. It was not a question.

  “Exclusively us,” the SecDef replied.

  “What about their aircraft carrier?”

  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “Mr. President, the Liaoning, China’s carrier, is a source of national pride, but that is all that it is. It is no exaggeration when I say we have three mothballed aircraft carriers, the Ranger, the Constellation, and the Kitty Hawk, that are still in better condition than that old piece of retrofitted junk they bought from Russia.”

  Ryan said, “Yes, but despite its bad condition, is that carrier giving them the impression that they have a blue-water Navy? Could that make them dangerous?”

  Obermeyer answered, “That might be their assumption, but it is an assumption that we can relieve them of quite easily if this should turn into a shooting war. I don’t want to sound overly boastful, but we could put that carrier on the bottom of the sea on day one.”

  Ryan said, “Short of sinking their aircraft carrier, what other options do we have to show that we take their threats seriously?”

  PacCom Admiral Jorgensen said, “The North Carolina is in the SCS right now. She’s a Virginia-class fast-attack boat. One of our most stealthy.”

  Ryan gave Jorgensen a long look.

  The admiral said, “I’m sorry, Mr. President, I did not mean to patronize. You know about Virginia-class boats?”

  “Yes, and I know about the North Carolina.”

  “Apologies. I briefed your predecessor… and sometimes I had to fill in some details.”

  “I get it, Admiral. You were saying about the North Carolina?”

  “Yes, sir. We could have her make an unscheduled port visit at Subic Bay.”

  Ryan liked that. “Just surface right there in the danger zone to show China we aren’t going to lie down and play dead.”

  Secretary of Defense Burgess liked it, too. “And show the Filipinos we support them. They will appreciate the gesture.”

  Scott Adler held a hand up. Clearly he did not like the idea. “Beijing will see that as a provocative act.”

  “Shit, Scott,” Ryan said. “If I eat Italian tonight instead of Chinese, Beijing will see that as a provocative act.”

  “Sir—”

  Ryan looked to the admiral. “Do it. Make all the typical statements about how the port visit has been scheduled for some time and the timing is in no way meant to signify blah, blah, blah.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Ryan sat on the edge of his desk and addressed all his guests now. “We’ve said for some time that the South China Sea was the most likely place for bad stuff to happen. As you can imagine, I am going to want a lot of information from all of you on this one. If you have anything you need to discuss with me personally, just get with Arnie’s office.” Jack looked to Arnie van Damm. “This subject goes to the top of the batting order. If someone in this room wants a few minutes of my time, I don’t want you sending me on a meet-and-greet with the Girl Scout who sold the most Thin Mints last year.”

  The room laughed, as did Arnie, but he knew his boss was serious.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The annual DEF CON Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, is among the largest underground computer hacking conventions in the world. Each year as many as ten thousand computer security professionals, cybercriminals, journalists, federal employees, and other tech enthusiasts come together for several days to learn about new techniques, products, and services and to enjoy speaker presentations and competitions pertaining to all aspects of hacking and code breaking.

  It is an annual Woodstock for top-level hackers and tech geeks.

  The conference is held at the off-strip Rio Hotel and Casino, and most attendees stay there or at one of the many nearby hotels, but each year a group of old friends pitch in together to rent a house a few miles to the east in Paradise.

  Just before eleven p.m. Charlie Levy pulled his rented Nissan Maxima into the driveway of the luxury vacation home at the end of South Hedgeford Court, in a neighborhood of quiet residential streets full of zero-lot vacation rentals. He stopped at the gate, rolled down his window, and pressed the intercom button.

  While he waited he looked around him at the high iron fence lined with palm trees and the landscaped driveway that led up to the six-bedroom house. He and a group of longtime DEF CON attendees had rented this same home for ten years now, and it was good to be back.

  After a beep from the call box a nasal voice said, “DarkGod? What’s the password, you fat bastard?”

  “Open, sez me, you piece of shit.” Levy said it with a laugh, and seconds later the driveway gate silently opened.

  Charlie stomped on the gas pedal and burned rubber in the drive, squealing his tires loud enough to be heard by those up in the house.

  Charlie “DarkGod” Levy was not a founding member of the DEF CON conference, but he’d been coming since 1994, the year after it started, and as a member of the old guard, he was something of a legend.

  Back in ’94 he’d been a freshman at the University of Chicago, as well as a self-taught hacker who cracked passwords for fun and wrote code as a hobby. His first DEF CON had been an eye-opening experience. He found himself a part of a huge group of like-minded enthusiasts who were careful to not ask anyone what they did for a living, but instead treated everyone with equal measures of suspicion and bonhomie. He’d learned a lot that first year, and more than anything, he learned that he had an intense desire to impress his peers with his hacking exploits.

  After college Levy was hired by the computer gaming industry as a programmer, but he spent the majority of his downtime on his own computer-related projects: building and configuring computer software and working on new malware and penetration tactics.

  He hacked every device with a processor known to man, and each year he took his trip to Vegas to show his friends and “competition” what he had done. He became one of the major presenters at the conference and garnered something of a cult following; his exploits were discussed on Web chat boards for the rest of the year.

  Each year Charlie Levy had to outdo himself, so he worked harder and harder in his time away from the office, dug deeper and deeper into operating systems code, and sought bigger and bigger victims to attack.

  And after his presentation at this year’s conference, he was sure, the whole world would be talking about Charlie Levy.

  He climbed out of the Maxima and greeted five friends whom he hadn’t seen since last year’s meeting. Levy was only thirty-eight, but he looked a lot like Jerry Garcia, short and heavy, with a long gray beard and thinning gray hair. He wore a black T-shirt with the white silhouette of a busty woman and the phrase “Hack Naked” written underneath it. He was known for his funny T-shirts that stretched across his fat frame, but this year he had been careful to pack a few button-down shirts as well, because he knew that after his presentation on day one of the conference, he would be doing a lot of media interviews.

  He unpacked his suitcase in his room and then met his friends down at the beautiful backyard swimming pool. He took a Corona from a full ice chest, made a few minutes of small talk about what everyone else had been up to in the past twelve months, and then stood by himself near the rock waterfall so he would not have to answer questions about his own activities or what he had in store for tomorrow.

  Looking around him, Charlie Levy saw tech royalty. Two men were Microsoft execs who flew in from Washington state this afternoon. Another guy was a technical director at Google; he was worth more than the Microsoft guys combined. The remaining two were just mere millionaires; one worked the hardware side at AT&T and the other ran the IT department of a French bank.

  Charlie was accustomed to feeling a bit like the odd man out at these annual get-togethers.

  Charlie was a video-game programmer, and it paid well, but
he had turned down a decade’s worth of promotions because he did not want to be rich.

  No, Charlie Levy wanted to be a legend.

  And this would be his year.

  Tomorrow he would reveal during his presentation his discovery of a zero-day vulnerability he had exploited that allowed him to infiltrate JWICS, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System — known as “Jay-Wicks,” and through it Intelink-TS, the top-secret secure intranet used by the U.S. intelligence community to transfer their most highly classified data.

  Charlie “DarkGod” Levy had — and he planned to use this as a punch line during his opening comments — wormed his way inside the CIA’s brain.

  Although the CIA’s website had been brought down several times by “denial-of-service attacks,” Levy would be the first to claim, and to prove publicly, that he had hacked into actual top-secret CIA cables, thereby reading classified information sent between CIA Langley and CIA stations and officers abroad.

  This would be huge news in the amateur hacking world, that a “garage hacker” had infiltrated America’s spy agency, but this was not the most interesting part of Levy’s discussion, for the very simple reason that Levy would also announce that he had proof that he was not the first to do this.

  When Charlie entered Intelink-TS and began poking around he discovered that another entity had beat him to it, and was, at that very moment, reading CIA message traffic via a RAT, a remote-access Trojan.

  Charlie had the screen shots of the intrusion, the code, a thumbnail sketch of the entire brilliant RAT itself.

  It was clear to Charlie that the malware was brilliant and he had already decided he would not mention that the RAT the other hacker used was several orders of magnitude more advanced than the code he had managed to put together to access the zero-day vulnerability.

  This was an absolute bombshell, and in the thirty-five days since Levy had made this discovery, he’d told no one about it.

  He looked around the pool deck at the glitterati of DEF CON here with him, and he knew that in twenty-four hours they’d have to take a number to talk to him.