The UUVs arced lazily, with only their forward inertia to pull them through the turn. Once they were lined up with the cable, Jerry had the operators begin the glide, pitching down five degrees. Both vehicles noted a slow increase in velocity as they traded altitude for speed. Comparing the two flight trajectories, Jerry saw that José’s speed was creeping up faster than Walter’s. “Careful Steven, you’re pulling out too far ahead,” warned Jerry. “Ease off a bit on the pitch.”
“Yes, sir. Backing off to four degrees down bubble.”
There was no way to synchronize the movements of the two UUVs perfectly, but Jerry wanted them to be matched as close as possible. The lead shot had to be dropped at about the same time on both hydrophone sections if they were to disguise it as just another ambient noise spike. Staring at both UUV imaging sonar displays, he waited for the telltale bump that marked the first hydrophone. Petty Officer Frederick beat him to it.
“Contact! First hydrophone. Range is seven eight yards.”
Alvarez blurted his report out seconds later. Time to bleed off some speed. “Execute flare, ten degrees up bubble!” Jerry commanded. Both pilots responded instantly and the status display noted a decrease in forward velocity.
“Careful now,” he grunted softly. The vehicles’ depth was dropping quickly; both pilots struggled to keep them on a steady course. All were aware that the UUVs would be very sluggish in their maneuvering. The sonar operators called out the range as they came up to the first drop. Over the intercom Jerry heard, “One thousand yards to minefield.”
Once the range dropped to twenty-five yards, Jerry ordered the UUVs level and checked their respective depths. Walter’s depth was perfect at three feet above the seafloor. José was a tad higher, but acceptable; speed was just over three knots, which was good enough. Nodding his approval, Jerry instructed, “Pilots, drop lead ballast at your discretion. Remember to allow enough time for the command to travel to the UUV.”
Ford and Lawson acknowledged the order and the warning. A few seconds later, they started dumping the lead shot. “Pooping lead!” declared Lawson. Jerry just shook his head in silence.
After another twenty seconds, both pilots announced the glide bombing run had been completed. Jerry ordered the UUVs’ propulsion motors started up again, and at a two-knot creep speed, he had the pilots bring the vehicles around to see how they’d done. As each hydrophone location came into view, Jerry noted that each one had been pushed deep into the silt due to the heavy lead pellets resting on top. With a feeling of triumph he reported to Weiss, “Conn, UCC. Sever hydrophone sections are obscured. Recommend we proceed to the target.”
“UCC, Conn, concur. Bravo Zulu, UUV operators.”
Turning back to the two teams, Jerry added his own congratulations. “Yes indeed, gentlemen, well done. Now let’s get to the reason why we are here. Set course one eight five, speed five knots, and get the vehicles down to ten feet off the deck.”
Twenty-two minutes later, Jimmy Carter slipped through the muffled acoustic fence.
Dieter Hoffmann swilled down another Red Bull, then tossed the empty can across the room. It had been a long day and there was no sign that it was going to end anytime soon. Rubbing his eyes, he suppressed a deep yawn and tried to focus his blurred vision back on to his computer screens. The caffeine and sugar in the energy drink would take a little time to work its magic on his groggy brain. Until then, he’d have to force his way back to work — and there was a lot of work to do.
Russian-based cyber attacks had jumped markedly in the last couple of days; most were annoyances, unsophisticated denial-of-service attacks, ransomeware, and spear phishing attempts, but others weren’t quite so easy to figure out. The Moskito virus was proving to be a royal pain in the ass. Reports from several other European countries indicated it was widespread, but the infection appeared to be constrained to business websites only. All twelve of his fake company websites had been infected, but what was even more troubling was that a new version had popped up less than an hour ago. Hoffmann saw the Russian malware’s antics as a personal challenge; one he gladly accepted.
Once the malware was safely ensconced in his machine, Hoffmann put it into an isolated test environment, or “sandbox,” and attempted to disassemble the code. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded, as the malware code itself was encrypted and proving to be quite resilient to cracking. Hoffmann and his colleagues had suspected the Russians were using a polymorphic engine that changed the code’s appearance with each infection, but he’d busted more than his fair share of those during his music pirating days. The young German computer geek opened up his special electronic toolkit and got to work.
Recalling that the Moskito virus tapped into a computer’s real-time clock, he had a hunch that the revised malware was a last-minute change, and that the change involved time. If the Russians were in a big hurry, then perhaps they hadn’t changed the encryption/decryption engine. He pulled down the work from the forensic team and looked at their progress. They’d done a lot of emulation runs and Hoffmann could see they were getting close. Picking up where they left off, Hoffmann pulled out his favorite “nut cracker” as he called it and started more runs.
Thirty minutes later he let out a satisfied chuckle. “Ho-ho-ho, you sneaky little bastards. Got a little sloppy, did we?”
Triggering the now located encryption/decryption engine, the gobbledygook on the screen instantly transformed into readable JavaScript. Scrolling down, he saw over two dozen Internet Protocol addresses, some he recognized immediately; these must be the targets. Breaking down the code further he saw that the virus would be launched by the business websites but the actual attacks would be from a vast network of closed-circuit television cameras located all over Europe. Then he saw the clock function and noted the time and date.
“My God!” he whispered. Grabbing the phone’s handset, Hoffmann excitedly punched his boss’s home number. Hoffmann fidgeted impatiently as the phone rang. The ringing stopped suddenly, but it was several seconds before a disoriented Klemmer answered, “Hello?”
“Johann… Johann, it’s Dieter.”
“Dieter?” replied Klemmer, still a little wobbly. “What’s the matter? Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, I know it’s very late, but Johann, I cracked the Moskito virus.”
“You did?!” Klemmer’s tone instantly transformed from annoyed to intrigued. “What is its function?”
“Johann it’s a huge BOTNET. Designed to execute a massive distributed-denial-of-service attack on the twenty-five largest banks in Europe. This verdammt code will disrupt virtually all electronic transactions throughout Europe; commerce will come to a crashing halt. The chaos this thing will cause is on a legendary scale, and Johann, it has a time fuse that is scheduled to go off in a little more than forty-eight hours!”
The harsh wind tore at Captain-Lieutenant Mirsky’s parka, and while it wasn’t quite as bad as the day before, it was still blustery. As he approached the small wooden hutch situated at the extreme end of the station, he grumbled that it was as far away from the flight line as it could possibly be and still be considered part of the base. The wind had shifted during the late evening and was now coming from the north. And even though it was the height of summer, the temperature dipped down below freezing. It was with a sense of relief that he closed the outer door, pulled back his hood, and removed the heavy arctic mittens. Walking into the main operations room, Mirsky was immediately struck by how cramped it looked, as well as its haphazard arrangement — he was not impressed.