Excerpt: 'Breakpoint,' by Richard Clarke

Jan. 17, 2007 — -- If anyone is fit to write a government thriller, it's Richard Clarke, the veteran counterterrorism official and author of "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."

"Breakpoint" is an edge-of-your-seat adventure set in the year 2012. Clarke's story focuses on a computer software program that can outsmart the human brain. Designer children mingle with government plots in a tale that is gripping from beginning to end.

For any reader in need of a nonstop thrill, look no further than "Breakpoint."

Read an excerpt from "Breakpoint" below

0730 Eastern Standard TimeOff the New Jersey Coast

The yellow flame leaped into the air where the ocean hit the land.It was followed by a boiling, churning blue-black cloud, climbingup around the now orange-red fireball. The cloud kept growing,forming into a pedestal shape above the water's edge."Atlantic City, Atlantic City," the pilot said calmly into his chinmicrophone, "Coast Guard forty-one ten. We see what looks like agas pipeline explosion at our ten o'clock position about fifteen milesahead. Estimate position of flare as Pine Harbor. Over."From the flight deck of USCG 4110, an old twin-engine Casa212 maritime patrol aircraft flying over the New Jersey coast, theplume had stood out against the dull-gray Sunday-morning sky."Roger, forty-one ten. Proceed Pine Harbor for a visual and report,"the radio cackled. "We'll check with Ops at headquarters tosee if they know what happened."

Lt. Anne Brucelli had been out of the Academy for five years andloved flying, loved being part of the Coast Guard and theDepartment of Homeland Security.

She was looking forward to her new assignment in the verticalliftoff Osprey aircraft, but for now she was happy just to be in commandof an old Casa. It got her up in the air, over the sea, and lookingat things from a perspective that most people never had thechance to enjoy. Her copilot today was an Academy classmate, Lt.Chuck Appleton. He flipped down her visor and tapped it for telescopicmode. "Jesus, Anne, there's another flare way out there atour two o'clock," Appleton called. "That's over by Banning Beach."From the low cruising altitude of five thousand feet above the coast,the visual horizon was almost eighty miles. The second flameseemed to be coming from somewhere on western Long Island.Before they could report the second flare, they heard a cracklingand then: "Coast Guard forty-one ten, this is Atlantic City, cancelthat. Proceed south instead to Miller's Hook and perform low-levelsurveillance on white blockhouse at the end of point. Copy that?And, Anne, this one came to us from Department Ops, HomelandSecurity."

Brucelli pulled the bright red striped aircraft into a tight bank toreverse its direction of motion, reaching the waters off Miller'sHook in four minutes. Appleton looked again through the visorthat showed him the image from the aircraft's nose-mounted cameras.He zoomed in on the end of the point of land in front ofthem. "Got a visual on a small white building, no windows. Got afence around it. White truck next to it." He moved his head slowlyto the right and examined the road on the Hook. "Two bikers drivinginland pretty fast; otherwise it's pretty empty out there." Theaircraft continued its rapid descent toward the narrow promontory.The pilot flicked the toggle to report in. "Atlantic City, CoastGuard forty…Holy s---! Hang on, Chuck." A yellow-red tonguefilled the cockpit windshield with flame, as she pulled the plane intoa steep left bank. A klaxon sounded loudly and then a recorded femalevoice replaced it over the speaker, saying calmly, "Left enginefire. Fire in the left engine requires your attention."

Brucelli hit the big red fire-suppression button above her headand struggled to right the spinning aircraft. As she did so, Lt.Appleton spoke clearly into his chin mike, "Mayday, Mayday. CoastGuard forty-one ten. Going down half mile off Miller's Hook, requestSAR support." The problem, he knew, was that the unmannedaerial vehicle that would normally have been on patrol over theJersey shore was down for maintenance. They were the search-andrescuepatrol that morning and they were going to crash.

0745 ESTHorizon Communications Network Operations Center (NOC)New Creighton, New Jersey

Less than fifty miles to the northwest, under a rolling hill of manicuredgrass, Constance Murphy was getting the handover briefbreakpoint from the midnight shift director at the Horizon CommunicationsNetwork Operations Center. From the command balcony, Constancelooked out at a two-story-high map of the United States,criss-crossed in yellow lines, connecting blinking green dots. Theycalled it the Big Board. Below, on the floor of the NOC, the nightshiftengineers were handing over their seats to their daytime replacements.The blinking lights represented twenty percent of theworld's internet traffic, which was routinely carried on the fiberopticcables of Horizon Communications. Running in pipes andconduits under wheat fields, along rail beds, over bridges, and up citystreets, twenty-three thousand miles of Horizon Communications'specialized glass fiber carried the photons that routers would convertinto electrons and then into billions of Internet Protocol packetsof ones and zeroes: e-mail and web browsers, buy and sell orders,travel reservations, pornography, and inventory updates.

As she stood sipping her coffee, Murphy scanned the teams onthe floor below and half listened to Joshua Schwartz, the midnightwatch director, say five or six ways that everything was routine.Then something in her peripheral vision caught her attention andshe looked up to see a light just south of New York City switch fromgreen to red. Then another light, east of the city this time, blinkedred. She put her hand on Schwartz's arm to stop him from talkingand nodded toward the upper right of the Big Board."What…?" Schwartz said, furrowing his brow and squinting,"That's all three of our Atlantic cables.Why?" He quickly sat downat his computer console, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

"New Creighton is getting no reading from the Pine Harbor,Pleasant Bay, or Banning Beach routers. Syn-Ack messages arebeing black holed. Nada. How could all three go down at once?There are two rollover, backup routers at every landing."Constance Murphy stood over Schwartz and looked at hisscreen, "That says we got nothing going to or from Europe.""That's because we don't, Connie.We just had all nine routersat our beachheads simultaneously decide to shit the bed. HorizonCommunications is cut off from Europe!" Schwartz shook his head."We'll have to go hat in hand to Infotel and ETT and ask if we canredirect our load onto their fiber until we figure out what the f---is going on."

Murphy picked up a green phone on top of which a big light wasblinking furiously. "Horizon Communications, Murphy." As shelistened to the voice at the other end, she stared at Schwartz andher eyes grew. "Hang on one second," she said into the phone andthen leaned forward. She grabbed a long, flexible microphone thatwas connected to speakers on the floor below. "This is Murphy.Night shift, do not depart. Repeat, do not depart. Day shift, activatethe Emergency Engineering Notification Plan." Then shelooked back at Schwartz. "I got ETT on the green phone. We ain'tswitching load to them. All their beachhead routers are deader thana doornail, too."

They looked at each other, their expressions changing fromdumbfounded to horrified. Finally, Schwartz stood up. "You call aVP. I'll get onto the National Communications System."

0805 ESTAboard the MV Atlantic Star, Two Miles Off Squirrel Island,Booth Bay Harbor, Maine

"It's too cold to be diving, no?" the captain asked in Russian."Not with these," the diver replied, slapping his side. "New suit.Latest technology from Russian Navy labs. Never feel the cold.Besides, I'm just there to guide the drone. It does all the work,hauls the cargo down to the bottom, sends us back the pictures."The MV Atlantic Star was registered in Panama and flying itsflag. In smaller letters under the ship's name on the stern, it said"Colón." The captain and crew were Lithuanian, and paid by thecompany that owned the ship, in Antigua. For this trip, they werealso being paid by someone else who had also hired the sixUkrainians who had boarded in Newark. The ship's instructionswere to stop in a few places off the coast and let the divers placetheir experiments on the ocean floor, using the drones that hadbeen in a container on-loaded in Hamburg. For this odd businessand for total secrecy about it, each crewman got $50,000 and thecaptain got a million in cash. So maybe they were really the RussianNavy, the captain thought, as he watched the divers readying themselves.Maybe it was placing listening devices on the ocean flooragain to find the American submarines. It was smart to useUkrainians, in case they were caught. Moscow could deny. Moscowwas good at denying.

The diver went over the side. Despite the new Russian gear, hefelt the cold right away, piercing to his bones. He tried to think ofhow heated his body had been two nights ago, with the Americanhooker. She was not like the women he had hired in Europe. Shewas athletic, muscular. And yet she had beautiful fruit aromas, onein her hair, one around her full breasts…His daydream was terminatedby the voice in his ear. "Do you see the sled, Gregor? Is itstable?" He looked through the new underwater binoculars and sawshades of green and black on the ocean floor beneath him."I see it fine. It's sitting right next to the cable. Sitting flat. Thebig rock next to it will protect it from shifting in deep swells.Nothing fell off the sled on the way down. I can even see the littlelight blinking."

His whole body involuntarily shivered. Then he heard the voicefrom the surface again in his ear. "Good. Then come up.We needto deal with the crew."

0945 ESTHomeland Security Department, National Communications SystemArlington, Virginia

Two miles west of the Lincoln Memorial, in one of the many highrisesin the Ballston neighborhood of Arlington,Virginia, a quicklycalled meeting started in the Board Room of the NationalCommunications System. The NCS had been established after thebreakup of Ma Bell in the 1970s. It was a place where all the phoneand internet companies could come together, without worryingabout illegal-collusion charges, to share information necessary tokeep America's communication systems running in support of thePentagon and, of course, the consumers. It was one of the fewplaces where federal bureaucrats cohabitated with competing vendorcompanies.

Around the table, both industry and government representativeswere comparing notes, balancing coffee mugs, and trying to activatethe flat screens that were discreetly placed into the mahoganyand-cherry conference table.

"Okay, okay, let's get going," Fred Calder, the director of NCS,said loudly and seated himself at the head of the high-tech table.Around the table, the talking stopped as people sat down behindsigns that read "Defense Department," "Infotel," "FBI," "Pacific-Westel," "Homeland Security," "ETT," and a host of other threeletteragencies and corporations. "Jake Horowitz is the director ofinfrastructure protection at NCS. Jake, give us what we know.""Here's what we have so far. Between 0730 and 0745 this morningexplosions took place at seven of the ten Atlantic beachheads,the shacks near the beaches where the transoceanic fiber-optic cablescome ashore from Europe and go into routers and switches.About the same time, three of the Pacific crossing beachheads inWashington State were hit by explosions and ceased to function."The room grew quieter.

"New Jersey State Police have preliminary reports that suggestat least one explosion was a truck bomb. No one was injured inany of the explosions, because these places are usually not staffed.A Coast Guard plane saw one of the explosions and then wentmissing.

"Although three of the ten Atlantic beachheads are still functioning,they are the older ones and together carry about tenpercent of the load. State Police in Massachusetts and theMounties in Nova Scotia are setting up defenses at the remainingthree beachheads. Teams from Horizon Communications, Infotel,PacificWestel, and others have begun to shift the load to thePacific fiber, to get to Europe the other way round, but we gotserious capacity problems and we are dropping packets all overthe place.

"Couple of the older Sytho routers at PacificWestel began flappingunder the load, so we are coordinating flow control, but wehave no way of knowing what traffic is priority and what is grandmawriting to the kids at college. We're still at less than twenty-five percentof normal outbound traffic to European Internet ServiceProviders, and a lot of that is garbage because of dropped packets.Latest thing we heard is that traffic to the domain name root serversis way off. They act like the four-one-one of the internet, convertingwww addresses into numbers. Traffic to them is off becausemost of the world can't get to eight of the ten roots, which are allhere in the States. Means a bunch of internet traffic doesn't knowhow to get where it's supposed to go."

"What about protecting the Pacific beachheads? Isn't it just aboutseven A.M. there now?" the FBI rep asked.

"That's being done," Fred Calder responded. "We placed calls tothe state police in the three West Coast states.""State is unable to get through to any U.S. Embassy in Europe,Africa, the Mideast, or South Asia, doesn't matter whether itsclassified or unclassified comms," the Department of State repdeclared.

"You still have voice to the embassies, right?" the man fromETT asked.

"We can talk to them, but no data links," the State Departmentman complained.

John Peters from Treasury punched the button activating hismicrophone and announced in a high-pitched voice, "The NewYork, American, and NASDAQ exchanges are all reporting an inabilityto communicate test messages with London and the otherEuropean markets. Will we have this fixed by opening bellstomorrow?"

"No, we won't," Fred Calder said flatly, and turned to the threestarAir Force general sitting behind the Defense Departmentplaque. "General Richards, I assume the Pentagon still has connectivityabroad?"

The Air Force man frowned at being called on, but he pulledout a set of half-glasses and opened a loose-leaf notebook in frontof him. He had been a fighter pilot most of his career, but he wasnow in charge of Pentagon cyberspace activities. The General read,"PACOM reports some degradation to the classified SIPRNETand unclassified NIPRNET, but high-priority traffic is movingwithout problem on SIPRNET. EUCOM and CENTCOM reportserious outages in connectivity on both classified and unclassifiednetworks. Defense Information Systems Agency hasinitiated an INFOCON ALPHA condition, switching someSIPRNET traffic to unutilized bandwidth on space-based nationalassets, but four of the seven war-fighting commands are reportingnonoperational mission-critical functions because of NIPRNEToutages and, as Jake there just indicated, we cannot prioritizeNIPRNET traffic." With that, the General removed his halfglassesand closed his book.

There was a moment of dead air as some in the room ponderedthe implications of what the General had just said and others triedto figure out exactly what it was that the General had just said."I'm sorry, General…is it Richardson? I'm not a military manor really very technical at all. I represent the CommerceDepartment. Could you or somebody explain what you just saidin words I might, well, understand?" It was Undersecretary ofCommerce Clyde Fetherwill, who had played an important role inthe President's campaign in Florida.

Gordon Baxter, a seasoned CIA bureaucrat, leaned forward andactivated the microphone in front of his seat. "NIPRNET isDefense's unclassified internet system. SIPRNET is their internetfor classified information, Secret and higher. What he said was thatmore than half of our forces overseas could not fully carry out theirwartime missions right now because they do not have unclassifiedinternet connectivity to the U.S."

Harvey Tilden from the White House seemed surprised. "Is thatright, General? Is that really the meaning of your report?""Hell, yes," General Richards replied. "That's exactly what I justfinished saying."

Trying to regain control of the meeting, Fred Calder called uponthe industry representatives from Sytho and SpruceNetworks toreport on how quickly they could get replacement routers to thebeachhead locations. The Sytho man grabbed his mike. "Well, ofcourse, we do on-demand assembly and just-in-time delivery. It'snot like we have inventory. If we got a valid purchase order now, wecould have routers on location by the time the buildings to housethem and the electrical and fiber were restored. Or a little whileafter that, at the latest."

Tilden, the White House man, looked upset. "Mr. Chairman, ifI may, it seems to me the real issue is…Well, does the FBI haveany claims of responsibility…I mean, who the hell did this?"Without speaking, with a wave of his wrist, Fred Calder invitedthe FBI representative to speak. The man in the double-breastedsuit adjusted his tie. "Special Agent Willard Mulvaine, sitting in forDeputy Assistant Director Murrow.We will be reporting throughappropriate channels, but I must be frank -- it will be on a need-toknowbasis only, of course, in order to protect any potential prosecutionand to preserve sources and methods. But, since I have thefloor, I need to stress again, Mr. Chairman, that all agencies and theprivate-sector partners here must provide the Bureau with all informationthey acquire relevant to this criminal investigation andshould not share that information with the media or other agenciesof government, be that state and local, or federal. We are thelead agency on this, ah, incident. Sharing information with otherscould constitute obstruction of justice and make individuals involvedliable themselves for prosecution under relevant federalstatutes."

Fetherwill, from Commerce, leaned over to the CIA man whohad been so helpful earlier and whispered, "What the hell did hejust say? Is he going to arrest us?"

Gordon Baxter answered in a loud voice. "He said that if you givehim the dots, he may connect some of them -- but he won't tell anybodyif the dots paint a picture. Probably because he wouldn't know.""Mr. Chairman, I object to that lack of interagency comity…"the FBI special agent sputtered.

"Some comedy," CIA's Gordon Baxter muttered. "I thought CIAwas screwed up. The Bureau is FUBAR." He spoke up louder."Here's what our analysts conclude with high certainty: This attackwas carried out by a nation-state, perhaps subcontracted to awitting or unwitting criminal enterprise. Now all we have to figureout is who."

Through the large plate-glass window in the Board Room wall,Fred Calder looked at the National Communications System's ownBig Board, an integrated feed from all of the U.S. internet backboneproviders. Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston werenow blinking red. And as he watched, thinking of the Wizardstickets he had finally managed to get for that afternoon, and howhe would never get to use them, Chicago switched to red and itbegan blinking, too.

He leaned forward in the chair and let a moment of quiet passin the room. Then he summarized: "So let me see if I got this right:Some group has crippled the international financial system and degradedour military command control by blowing up obscure, unprotected,little buildings on beaches? We don't really know who didit or why they did it? And it will take us weeks at best to repair thedamage? And we don't know if the attacks are over yet? Is thatabout it?"

There were nods of agreement around the table. Harvey Tilden,the man from the White House, looked pained. "Oh, I can't tell theWhite House that. They won't like that at all."

1330 ESTPentagon Officers' Athletic Center (POAC)Arlington, Virginia

"I'm open!" Jimmy yelled across the court, then leaped to catch theball thrown to him in response. He spun, dribbled, and went for thethree-pointer. The ball rolled around the rim like a train on a rail,then just dropped in and through. As he raised his clenched fistsover his head, Jimmy felt the vibration near his waist and pulled theBluetooth earpiece out of his pocket. Walking to the side of thecourt, he pointed to the bench, to Darren, the tech-support guy whonever got to play. "You're in."

"Yah get one decent basket and yah walk off! What the f---,Jimmy?" he heard a teammate say.

"Detective Foley," said the voice in his ear, "this is Operations.The Director would like you to meet him at the British EmbassyASAP. Can I tell him your ETA?"

Jimmy Foley looked down at his sweat-drenched T-shirt andcalculated how fast he could shower, change, and get on his HarleyFat Boy. "Where's the embassy?"

There was a pause, which at first he assumed was the duty officeron the other end looking up the address. Then, from the officer'stone, he realized it had been stunned silence at Jimmy's ignoranceat what apparently everyone in Washington should have known."On Embassy Row? Mass. Ave?"

"Thirty minutes from now," Jimmy guessed as he moved into thelocker room. "Say, two o'clock." Turning the corner on the row oflockers, Jimmy's six-foot-two-inch frame almost collided with thefrail, naked body of a man in his seventies or eighties. The skinseemed to hang off the old man's body. The POAC, as Jimmy'smilitary buddies called their gym, always had retired colonels andgenerals doddering around trying to stay fit, trying to recall theiryounger, military lives. "Sorry, General," Jimmy mumbled as hedeked around the open locker door. He looked at the old man andadmired the fact that he was still keeping in some sort of shape. Hethought of his father, locked up inside a jumbled mind, staring ata television in an assisted-living home on Long Island. Wouldn't itbe great if he could take his dad to a gym and work out with himonce in a while?

"That's Admiral, not General, as----," Jimmy heard behindhim as he threw his clothes on the floor and moved off toward theshowers.

1335 ESTNortheast Women's Crisis Center2nd Street NE, Washington, D.C.

"I gots to get out of D.C.," the woman on the other side of the desksaid. "My man is gonna find me. Thought I saw his ass down thecorner yesterday. Only so many battered shelters in this town. Hegonna find me."

Susan Connor looked at the woman. It was possible they wereabout the same age, but the woman looked older, her eyes sunken,her nose broken. "You're afraid he'll hurt you again if he finds you?"Susan asked.

"He ain't bringin' me f--- flowers, sister. Wants his moneyback, but I done spent all that on the bus tickets, get the kids goneto my momma."

Susan felt unsure of what to do or say, which was unusual for her.This was really not her world. "I'm sure the people here at the center could get you a lawyer, get a judge to issue a restraining orderto keep him away from you…"

The woman's mouth dropped open and she stared at Susan,dumbfounded. "You talkin' 'bout me going to court? When I ain'tbeen arrested? And Darnell gonna care what some guy in arobe say?"

"Look, we can help." Susan stopped as she heard the tone in herearpiece. She pressed the receive button. "Connor here." Thewoman shook her head and wandered off to sit with three otherswatching a television.

"Ms. Connor, this is Operations. The Director is at the U.K.Embassy and wants you there now."

"On my way," she said, getting up from the old metal desk. "ETAfourteen hundred. Out."

As she moved quickly out of the cafeteria, Susan heard thewoman call after her, "No need you comin' back, with that kind ofadvice, b---."

Susan sped up Massachusetts Avenue from the Women's CrisisCenter on Third Street, through the underpass at Scott Circle,around the rotary at Dupont Circle, darting the new, ChineseChery K522 through the Sunday-afternoon traffic. In her head shekept hearing lines from a twenty-year-old song by Tracy Chapman:"Last night I heard the screaming, loud voices through the wall."Every other Sunday, Susan tried to help out at the shelter.Was ither way of atoning for her own success, of trying to reach out toothers of her own race? Whatever had motivated her to start, shehad almost convinced herself that she was doing no real good andshould find some other way of giving back.

The Chery, built in Shanghai, was powered entirely by ethanolfrom switch grass. Its engine kicked in as she accelerated on theopen stretch approaching the British compound. She smiled at thestatue of Churchill outside the fence line. Winston was one ofRusty MacIntyre's heroes. She wondered why Rusty was at theBritish Embassy on a Sunday afternoon and, more important, whyhe wanted her to join him. She had worked with MacIntyre for onlytwo years now, but they had been through a lot together. When he'dbecome director of the Intelligence Analysis Center last year, oneof his first acts had been to put her in charge of the new SpecialProjects Branch. It was a job that made it exciting to go to workevery day. She never knew what off-the-wall tangent Rusty woulddream up next, only to have it appear in the headlines a month later.As she shifted the car into park at the first guard booth, a motorcycleshot past her and skidded to a halt by the gatehouse. TwoRoyal Marines appeared from behind the gate. Both lowered short,Fabrique National P90 light machine guns. "Ho, I'm a friendly," thebiker yelled, peeling off his helmet.

Susan recognized Jimmy Foley, the NYPD detective who hadjust arrived on loan to the Intelligence Analysis Center. Her boss,Rusty, had assigned him to Susan's team at Special Projects a weekago, "to give you guys some street smarts," he said. Susan was stilltrying to figure out Foley. He was handsome, easygoing -- everybodyelse had instantly taken to him.

"Foley," Susan yelled out of the car window, "don't get shot. It'lllook bad on my record." Foley laughed, reluctantly handing over his.357 SIG-Sauer to the embassy security guard.

1350 ESTBritish EmbassyWashington, D.C.

As Susan and Jimmy walked into the grand foyer of the embassy,they seemed, amid the grandeur, out of place and an unlikely couple.Foley, tall, freckled, and in a polo shirt and jeans. Connor, shortand black, was wearing a blouse and chinos. Neither was dressed forthe British Embassy. The last of the departing luncheon guests weregetting their coats from the staff. The luncheon had been in honorof the visit of Sir Dennis Penning-Smith of the Cabinet Office,where he served the U.K. as the intelligence coordinator. As theBritish Ambassador said good-byes at the door to the usual suspectshe had invited to brunch with him and his honored London guest,Sir Dennis walked into the library with Sol Rubenstein. Sol had recentlybeen promoted to the position of director of national intelligence.Behind the two Intellocrats walked Rusty MacIntyre, thehead of the U.S. Intelligence Analysis Center, and Brian Douglas,newly installed as deputy director for Operations of the British MI6,or as it is officially known, the Secret Intelligence Service.

"…no proof yet," Rubenstein was saying as he lit a cigar. "Butit has to be China, of course. Some sort of shot across the bow overTaiwan. They really wanted to scare the shit out of Taiwan to effecttheir election.What happens? The voters, in a show of defiance,elect the Independence Party in an upset instead, and weannounce our support. Beijing said there would be consequences.Maybe this is the beginning of the consequences. A signal to us tostay away while they get ready to do something to Taiwan -- or theywill hurt us here in ways we had not even thought about."

"Perhaps. But still no claims of responsibility?" Sir Dennis said,pouring a snifter of Napoleon Cognac.

"Oh, there are plenty of claims of responsibility, Sir Dennis,"Rusty injected. "Al Qaeda of North America, which does not exist,the Aryan Separatist Army, which barely exists, and the Merpeoplefor a Clean Ocean, which might as well not exist." Catching Susanand Jimmy in his peripheral vision, MacIntyre waved them into thelibrary. "Sir Dennis, Brian, these are the SP Branch folks I mentioned."There was a round of handshakes.

"Now, James, as a policeman," Douglas asked Foley, "wouldn'tyou say that this took real skill? Ten truck bombs over five states andno one caught, no one killed? And the beachhead switches they leftuntouched -- they were so old and decrepit they weren't worthbombing. They obviously knew that."

Catching a perplexed look on Foley's face, MacIntyre responded."Susan and Jim are not read in yet, Bri. I just called them.""Well, you have to admit,Rusty, this was a very well planned andsophisticated operation," Brian said, turning away from Foley."Many players."

"Right. The explosive was a shitload of RDX, hard to get hereaboutsand hard to get into America in large amounts withoutsomebody in Customs noticing. And here's the latest I just got fromthe Watch -- Navy now says that in addition to the beachhead attacks,there were undersea explosions. So even if they rebuild thebeachheads, it won't be enough. The fiber has been cut underwater,and that's hard to repair."

"That says nation-state to me," Sir Dennis asserted. "I didn'tthink China was that capable."

"Could be they had help." Rubenstein exhaled a cloud of Cubantobacco smoke. He plopped down in a large, green leather chair andlooked up. "Well, SP Branch, that's your job, and you'd better findout fast. Because whoever's responsible, I can guarantee you this attacktoday is not the last."

"Us?" Susan asked, looking at Rusty and Jimmy. "But -- there's awhole big bureaucracy out there set up to do exactly this.""You mean the Keystone Kops?" Rubenstein said. "Oh, they'll beout there, don't worry about that. FBI, Homeland Security, theworks. But while they're stumbling all over themselves as usual,we'll do our own…nonconventional exploration. I need someonesmart, agile, quick, and that's you. We must find out who is doingthis, because they obviously know how to hurt us, figured out whereour weak spots are. And this is unlikely to be a one-off. What's yourlegendary instinct tell you, Russell?"

Sir Dennis, Brian Douglas, and Rusty shifted, forming a semicirclefacing the seated Sol Rubenstein. "With this many people involved in the attack and the preparations -- must be at least ahundred -- its a nation-state or a large terrorist network, or both,"said Rusty. "I agree, it's most likely China, but we can't rule out Iranand Hizbollah, getting back at us for the beating they got two yearsago in Islamyah. It would probably take that long to put a strike likethis together. Or the Iraqi Revenge Movement."

"Of course, we need to look at all possibilities," Rubenstein saidfrom behind a cloud of smoke.

"Quite right, Solly," agreed Sir Dennis, producing a series of instrumentsto pack and light his Peterson pipe. "You have your peoplecharge hard, and Brian and his boys will do the same,separately. We'll compare notes in a week or so. But we must beswift. Whoever they are, these people have done enormous damageto the global economic system already. And they seem to knowour dirty little secret." He looked at all of them. "The GlobalVillage is held together by a very few, very fragile strands. Cutthem and the thin veneer of civilization disappears. Like a puff ofLatakia." He exhaled, lifting smoke from the Turkish tobacco inhis Petersen. A small gray cloud floated toward the fireplace andwas gone.

In the parking lot outside the embassy, Jimmy Foley recovered hisHarley Fat Boy and walked it over toward his new bosses. Susan ignoredhis presence. "Rusty, you don't have to tell me this is a bigdeal. I get that. What I don't like is that we aren't part of the big,formal investigation. We're outside the tent, picking up the droppedpopcorn. That's bull --"

She turned to acknowledge Foley. "I'm sure Jimmy here is a greatdetective, but you give me one guy, and the Bureau is putting thousandson this, and you expect me to compete?" Foley flashed an ingratiatingsmile that made him look like a teenager. And thatsomehow made Susan more mad.

"Look, both of you, you have an important part of this," Rustysaid. "You are not supposed to be competing with the other agencies.You're doing it our way, small and smart, unconventional, iconoclasticand separate." He put one hand down to Susan's shoulderand one up to Jimmy's. "We've seen before what happens whenthere is groupthink: WMD in Iraq. Look, there's more to this thanSol wanted to say."Rusty scanned the embassy lot to make sure thatno one was within earshot. "The President is ripshit that this happened.He doesn't understand how we can spend over eighty billionon intelligence and law enforcement, and then some outfitplans and executes a series of bombings like this, and we didn'tcatch it. For one thing, he doesn't understand why these internetnodes were unprotected."

"Good question," Susan agreed. "Why do we leave importantplaces unguarded?"

"That's something we need to rethink," said Rusty. "Meanwhileour operating assumption is that this whole thing is China achievingescalation dominance."

"Excuse me, sir, but what's that?" Jimmy asked.

"It means they not only hurt us, they demonstrate that they canhurt us a lot more, they can escalate in ways that we don't expect.That way, we're deterred from doing anything against them," Susanexplained.

"Right. In this case, deterred from helping Taiwan, if China'snext move is to attack Taiwan and stop them from declaring independence.But this President is not going to be deterred." Rustylooked from Susan to Jimmy, making sure they understood his implication."FBI and Homeland have the lead, they'll crash away investigating.But there are two large tasks that we don't trust themto get right. That's where you in Special Projects come in. Therewere not a bunch of Chinese agents running around the countrypreparing these bombings, we'd have known about it. They hiredsomebody. Your first task is find out who.

"Second, somebody figured out an Achilles' heel in our technologyand national infrastructure, one we obviously hadn't recognizedourselves. They will probably do it again. Before they do, you mustfind out what their next target is likely to be. FBI and Homeland willprobably focus on refineries and bridges and things like that. But thiswas an attack on our technology -- that's where we've got to look."Susan nodded and smiled. She knew he was right; they had toavoid groupthink again. It had been way too costly before. Andthey had to focus on protecting what mattered now, in an informationage, not back in the twentieth century.

"Sounds good to me," Foley said. He turned to Susan. "See youin the office in about an hour, boss." He grinned and moved off withhis Harley.

Rusty read Susan's irritation. "Foley is not what he seems, Susan.Forget that surface attitude. The Commissioner told me he's thebest detective they've had in years. He only loaned him to me togive Foley some Washington experience. The skills you have willcomplement each other well." He could see that she wasn't convinced."Just crack this case for me, Susan. Crack it fast. TheBureau, Homeland, they're looking for the keys where the streetlightsshine. You go into the shadows."

2100 ESTSpecial Projects Office, Intelligence Analysis CenterNavy Hill, Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C.

They had been reading reports for five hours when Jimmy Foleysuggested he make them some snacks. From the little office kitchenette,he called out to Susan, "You know what I still don't get? Ithought Taiwan was independent?"

Susan Connor looked up from an ATF report on her flat screen."Yeah, well, it is, for all practical purposes. Has been for almostseventy years, since the Nationalist Party fled there from the mainlandwhen the Communists took over. But they maintain the fictionthat they are still a province of China. And so does China.Beijing wants them back someday, like Hong Kong. WheneverTaiwan says they're going to formally declare that they are no longerpart of China, Beijing goes nuts."

Foley did not reply, but there was a continued clanging of potsand pans from the kitchenette. Susan went back to her report andyelled in the direction of her new staffer, "Man, there is one shitloadof explosives stolen in this country every year. You knowthat, Jimmy?"

"Uh-huh," Foley responded from the break room. "Most of it getssold back to construction firms on the black market. Come getyour dinner."

"My what?" Susan laughed and got up to see what the NYPDdetective had been up to. "Jesus, Jimmy, you trying out for IronChef ?" she gasped as she surveyed the spread on the little table."Pasta à la pesto.Where's some Mick learn Italiano?"

"You mean some Mick cop, don't you?" Jimmy smiled and pulledback a chair for his new boss. "Five boys in my family. I'm numbertwo, and for some reason Dad tagged me as the cook.""And Mom?"

"Died when I was ten. Dad worked 'til dinner every night.Lawyer. So I got the dinner ready. After a while, even a bunch aguys get sick of pizza or beans and franks. So…""Hmmm…nice pesto. Lots of garlic." Susan spoke while eating."I hereby forgive you for not working harder researchingthe case."

"Who says I haven't been researching the case, boss?" Jimmysaid, putting down his knife and fork. "You want to know what I'vefound out so far? The Fibbies are all over the trucks, VIN numbers,tracks, witnesses, explosive residue. They have twelve hundredagents on it already in a little over twelve hours. They'vegiven it a major-case name -- Cybomb; catchy, right? -- and put anassistant director in charge. And so far they got dead ends, bupkis.For their part, NSA is going back over all the calls originatingnear the beachheads around the time of the explosions. Nadathere, too."

Susan was impressed, but assumed that Jimmy had a source inthe FBI who had simply read him a summary written for the assistantdirector. That did not count as research, as far as she wasconcerned. She had been spending the hours since they'd receivedthe new assignment trying to understand the importance of whathad been destroyed. "Okay, good, but we have to get to the whybefore we can find the who.Why does somebody want to reducecommunications to Europe and Asia? The internet is still workinghere. It's slow from all the messages wandering around cyberspacethat can't be delivered, but it's working. So who and why? An attacklike this must hurt China, too. We've got to figure out whythey'd do it."

Foley shook his head, rejecting the question. "Look, I figuredthat's what the FBI and NSA were doing, going after China. LikeRusty said, the Chinese army isn't running around Jersey. Maybethey hired someone. Maybe misled them, a false-flag operation. SoI'd look for that. Also think about the Unabomber in a way.

Kaczynski was a whacked-out professor who wanted to stop technologicaladvance. So what does he do? He starts sending bombsto other professors at universities around the country…professorspushing technological advance." He shrugged. "Something tothink about. Also the fact that the Fibbies never caught him untilhis own brother dropped a dime on him." He went back tohis pasta.

"Okay, so…little mail bombs fifteen years ago on college campusesand ten really big truck bombs today at internet nodes -- oneguy then, dozens now." Susan cocked her head and squinted. "Andthe connection is…what?"

"Come on, boss. What's cyberspace? Technology. The Chineseare after our technology. Stealing it first. Now for some reasonblowing it up. Here, don't forget your salad. Good balsamic," hesaid, passing a little bottle across the table. "I did a search on incidentsat technology-related facilities over the last twenty-fourmonths. There's been an interesting pattern over the last six months.A cyberspace company or biomed lab has gone up in a fire or explosionof some sort almost every month for the last six. That bigfire at the data centers on the Columbia River last month? The BioFab in San Diego? A place at MIT just last Friday."

She stared at him, locked eyes. The dumb-cop routine was an actand she had fallen for it like some stereotypical Washington bureaucrat.Foley gave her a cherubic little smile that revealed twodimples. Then he winked. She tried hard not to be charmed likeeverybody else in the office. She was the supervisor, damn it.

"Okay, Detective. What have we got on those incidents? Has theBureau opened a major case on them, too?" Susan realized her voicewas too flat, too professional. She should be friendlier. Even if hehad caught her up with his big-jock act, he had also cooked her anot bad dinner, and using the office kitchen.

"Nope. Six minor cases, and mainly it's the local PDs and firemarshals investigating. The FBI hadn't seen the pattern; still hasn't."He shook Parmesan flakes over the pasta on his plate.Susan digested the new information, and the pasta. "If thoseother attacks are related and we can find out who did them…wemight be able to answer both of Rusty's questions: who the Chinesehave doing their dirty work and what kind of things they are likelyto attack next."

Jimmy nodded vigorously while he chewed. "Got a statie up inBoston I know who's workin' the MIT explosion, says he'll walk usthrough it if we come up."

Susan smiled and shook her head admiringly. "So let's go.""We're on the seven-thirty JetBlue shuttle in the morning, boss."Although she was beginning to wonder exactly which of themwas in charge, all she could say was "How do you happen to knowthe State Police detective on that case in Massachusetts?""Cousin. All us Mick cops are related."

Laughing, Susan almost choked on her last bite. "All right, if Ihave to be up at five-thirty, I'm going home." She picked up theempty plates and put them in the sink. Then, gathering up her coatand bag, she walked to the door. "See you at the shuttle. Nice worktoday, and on the food. But unless you want me to call you JimmyOlsen instead of Jimmy Foley…I'm Susan. Don't call me boss."As the door shut behind her and she walked to the elevator,Susan Connor could swear she heard Foley say, "Right, Chief."Walking to her car, she conceded to herself that it might be valuableto have a cop assisting her, since this project was clearly goingto require fieldwork and in the U.S. Even if Foley didn't seem to beappropriately deferential. That was not a new problem. Susanlooked so much younger than she was and Rusty had promoted herrapidly despite her lack of experience in government. Of course, shethought as she drove by the security guard house, some of it mightbe due to her own attitude. She'd always resented men who seemedto make things look easier than they were, who got ahead on a winningsmile and a pleasing patter. Maybe she should give Foley achance. He did cook well.

2245 Mountain Standard Time22,300 Miles Above the Pacific Ocean

The twelve-thousand-pound New Galaxy satellite sat still relativeto the Earth below. Its antennae were simultaneously sending andreceiving gigabits of digital packets via radio and laser channels.When reassembled on the planet below, the packets would turninto e-mails, data streams, voice conversations, and television programs.

Few of the packets were processed onboard, only thoserouted to the satellite's housekeeping computer. With that minorexception, the packets merely passed through New Galaxy, quickly,quietly, from Los Angeles to Tokyo, from San Francisco to Sydney.In the frozen near-vacuum of space, as billions of data packetssoared through its large antennae, New Galaxy made no sound thatcould be heard. Even when its ion xeon gas thrusters fired burstsfor a microsecond to keep the station in the geostationary orbit,there was only silence.

At 2248 mountain time, the satellite received an update message,a series of packets on the antenna and frequency used only byPacWestel, New Galaxy's owner. From the header information onthe packets, they were routed to the satellite's onboard housekeepingcomputer, decrypted, and reassembled into a message. The messagewas longer than any of the satellite's normal instructions. Itfilled the format line in the station-keeping program and thendropped an executable code into the computer. The code was in thesame format as the many maintenance messages that adjusted theantennae or ran diagnostics on an onboard system, but it wroteover the existing program, eliminating certain limitations. The codeadjusted the ion xeon thrusters to the six o'clock position and performeda xeon gas release. The thrust time in the code was not theusual three seconds. It was 300.00 seconds.

Quietly, New Galaxy moved farther away from Earth, its speedaccelerating as it did. Then the last instruction on the update messagewas executed: New Galaxy went into energy-conservationmode, shutting down all systems for 999 days.When the systemsrebooted, New Galaxy's antennae would not be facing towardEarth. The satellite would be well on its way to escaping thesolar system.

2310 MSTSpace Tracking and Detection Center, U.S. Space CommandCheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs

"…so I had to leave home with the Avalanche down by one,"Captain Fred Yang complained to Master Chief Sergeant BradAnderson."That's what TiVo is for, Captain. By the way, you missed theshift-change briefing." Anderson was fifteen years older than thecaptain, who was technically in charge of the center for the nexteight hours.

"I know, I know. I'll read in by running the change software.Nothing ever happens here anyway. I don't know why we have tobe inside a mountain. It's so twentieth century, so Cold War…"Captain Yang mumbled as he sat down at his console and startedkeying in. For several minutes, Yang stared quietly at the screen, andthen he said, with a note of concern, "Sarge? The change-detectionprogram says we have three fewer birds aloft. And the ones that aremissing don't make any sense."

Sergeant Anderson had just picked up the ringing green phone,the drop line to the National Security Agency at Fort Meade,Maryland. He placed a hand over the mouthpiece before answeringit. "Captain, we get debris all the time, old birds flaming out in theupper atmosphere. It's no biggie." He turned to the phone whileYang pounded away on a touch screen. "Yes, sir, this is Spacetrac. No,we haven't seen anything unusual over the Pacific.Why?" Andersonwrote down what they told him. "Okay, we'll keep an eye open.Right." He hung the phone on a hook next to four other colorcodeddrop lines, then spun his chair toward the young captain.Yang stood up from his console. "Sarge, New Galaxy 3, Netstar5, and Pacific Wave 7 are not old birds with decaying orbits."

"No kidding. NG-3 just went up last month, right after Sinosat-12. " The sargeant got up and walked toward Yang's screen. "Whatare you talking about…sir?"

"They're gone. Not deorbited. Goneski." Yang pointed atthe screen.

"What the…," Sergeant Anderson said, sitting down at the captain'sposition.

As Anderson began typing in commands, the white phone rang.Yang answered as the sergeant worked the screen. "Spacetrac…yeah.We just noticed that, too…Well, I thought there might bea problem with that bird…that one, too…We're checking. Sure.Get right back to you."

Anderson looked up at the captain questioningly. "It was DISAin Virginia," Yang reported. "They said they lost connectivity withsome commercial comm sats in the Pacific. I thought the Pentagonhad its own satellites."

Anderson reached for a headset. The Defense InformationSystems Agency was the phone company for the entire DefenseDepartment, globally. "Yeah, they rent space on private satellites, alot of it. They can't fight a war without them." As he spoke, heflipped through the Space Command directory, then hit the touchpad to connect. "Maui, this is Spacetrac, Colorado Springs. Weneed a visual on three geosyncs immediately…We have theCommander's override priority and we need to look at thesebirds now!"

At the summit of Mount Haleakala, nine thousand feet abovethe waters of the Pacific, Space Command's Maui SpaceSurveillance Site turned its optical telescopes and laser-trackingdevices to three parking orbits twenty-two thousand miles overhead.Fifteen minutes later, the results of their search were clear."Spacetrac, Maui here. There are no satellites in those locations,turned on or stealthy. Nothing but cold, black emptiness," the civiliancontractor from Raytheon reported back to CheyenneMountain. "We can broaden the search, use the Deep Space trackersif you got the juice to pull them off their current missions.""Thanks. We may have to do that. Get back to you," SergeantAnderson, said and took off the earpiece. "Captain Yang, I thinkyou'd better do this yourself." Anderson got out of Yang's chair."Do what, Sarge?"

"There is a preformatted message in the system you need to sendto the Commander and to the Pentagon, Flash precedence. Thesubject line is 'Major Incident in Space.'"