“Don’t be shy, dig in,” Jim Bob said. “Oh, I almost forgot. Where are my manners? Chris, this is Victor.” His hand gestured toward the quiet man, who glanced up from his papers. Victor had that thousand-yard stare like so many combat veterans Chris had known. “Victor was a case officer like me. Until we made the switch to SOG.”
Chris nodded.
“You worked for SEAL Team Six in Iraq, didn’t you?” Victor asked.
“I’m not aware of any such unit,” Chris replied. Maybe SEAL Team Six was public knowledge now and had a history of working with the Agency, but Chris wasn’t used to casually discussing such things with strangers, and Victor was already rubbing Chris’s rhubarb. Maybe he was testing Chris to see if he had loose lips.
“Oh, right,” Victor said. “But you were part of Task Force 88, Operation Snake Eyes?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny such a task force or operation.”
“On 12 September 2009, you killed a number of Syrian insurgents while rescuing a kidnapped CIA technician named Young Park.”
Chris felt even more uncomfortable, but he said nothing.
Victor leaned forward in his chair. “That mission cost you your right ear, and now you wear a prosthetic.”
Now Chris was pissed at having his personal history laid out so casually, but he hid his irritation out of respect for Hannah and Jim Bob — and because he didn’t want the others to think someone could get him riled so quickly. “Piercing and tattoos are so yesterday,” Chris said with a grin. He chewed a hunk of warm chicken breast. It tasted almost as good as home cooked.
Jim Bob chuckled. “Now Victor, you should show Chris more hospitality than that,” he said in that fatherly tone.
“Yes, sir,” Victor said, straightening in his chair.
“This chicken ain’t half bad,” Jim Bob remarked.
Hannah hungrily bit chunks out of a drum stick and chewed the meat quickly before swallowing. She cleaned off the remaining meat from the bone before moving on to a wing. She’d become so immersed in her eating that she seemed oblivious to her surroundings.
“Victor, would you give our non-disclosure agreement to Chris so he can take a look at it?” Jim Bob asked.
“Yes, sir.” Victor produced a form from his file and politely passed it to Chris.
Chris wiped his hands before taking it. He’d signed such agreements before, but he still took the time to read through it. Centered at the top were the words Secrecy Agreement. In the middle of the paper was a watermark of the CIA seal. After several pages of text, near the bottom, Chris signed and dated the contract. He gave the papers to Jim Bob, who signed and dated the last lines as a witness before returning the form to Victor, who placed it in his file.
“Wonderful,” Jim Bob said. “Victor, would you cut the lights and start the presentation?” He spoke it casually as if they were in an everyday business meeting instead of a secret government operation briefing. Jim Bob seemed so comfortable with it all that Chris guessed he’d probably been at it for close to a couple of decades.
“Yes, sir,” Victor replied. He flicked a switch on the wall, and a projection screen descended from above. Then he pressed a button on a remote control, and a projector mounted in the ceiling came alive. After dimming the lights, he began the brief. On the screen materialized a photo of a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). “This is the Navy’s newest UAV, codenamed Switchblade Whisper,” Victor explained. “With its wings collapsed, the UAV is stored in a canister small enough to fit in a backpack. Or the trash tube of a submarine underwater at periscope depth.” Victor showed a computer graphics simulation of a submarine. “The Switchblade Whisper in the canister is ejected from a submarine’s trash tube, floats to the surface, and launches into the air, where each wing flicks out like the blade of a switchblade. In the submarine’s combat control room, the operator controls the Switchblade Whisper’s flight, conducting reconnaissance and surveillance. Visual data is encrypted and streamed live back to the submarine. The drone also backs up the gathered intelligence, so even if the live stream is compromised, intelligence can still be retrieved from the Switchblade Whisper itself. Then it flies back to the submarine, retracts its wings, and splashes down in the water where it floats until the submarine’s diver retrieves it.”
The technology was impressive, but in Chris’s experience, technology without brave boots on the ground was always a goat-screw. He patiently listened for what his role might be.
Next, Victor displayed an actual photo of a submarine. “Three days ago, off the coast of Syria, the USS Mississippi took part in a covert mission during which they launched the Switchblade Whisper. The Mississippi was in the process of collecting critical intelligence when the Switchblade Whisper’s live streaming went out, and the Mississippi lost control of the UAV over land near the port city of Latakia, Syria. We need to retrieve that drone.”
Chris looked over at Hannah, but she was currently more engaged in her coleslaw than the brief. Maybe she already knew more about the mission than him. “I still don’t understand the urgency of this mission,” he said.
Hannah stopped eating her coleslaw and wiped her mouth. “I recruited an asset who was a technical analyst for Syria’s cyber warfare unit. He reported that the unit’s commander is Professor Yushua Mordet. During the Switchblade Whisper’s surveillance mission, it experienced a malfunction, and Mordet exploited the malfunction by jamming satellite and submarine signals to the Switchblade Whisper. He fed the Switchblade Whisper’s internal navigation system false information that it was being attacked. Then he gave the drone navigation data, spoofing a landing back on the submarine, so the Switchblade Whisper would actually land in Syria. But Mordet lost control of it before he could land it.”
The gears in Chris’s mind turned to figure out what could happen if Mordet got that data.
“I left a payment for my asset in a prearranged drop,” Hannah went on, “but he never picked it up.” She paused. “His head and some other body parts were found in the parking lot of an international food market. Mordet is obviously still trying to get his hands on the Switchblade Whisper, and we have reason to believe he’s going to use the technology to attack the US.”
Jim Bob cleared his throat. “We recently discovered that similar technology used in the Switchblade Whisper is being used by the same government contractor to protect utility and transportation information technology in New York, Virginia and Washington, DC,” he said. “We believe that Department of Defense weapons systems are also vulnerable. But the Department of Defense and Washington, DC disagree with our assessment. If Mordet gets ahold of the black box on the Switchblade Whisper before we do, we think he is capable of using that crypto, security and authentication to hack into the Department of Defense and DC’s critical infrastructures.”
“Do we have specific information about attempted hacks on the US that we can trace to Syria?” Chris asked.
“The FBI’s Computer Investigation and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center discovered a Syrian hacker cell breaking into New York City’s electrical grid,” Hannah said, “and the agents stopped the cell before they succeeded in introducing a virus into the system. Now New York is changing its utility and transportation IT security systems, but the Department of Defense and Washington, DC deny there is a credible threat. The Secret Service has contacted the DC mayor about concerns of an attack against the White House, and the mayor has agreed to reexamine the threat.”