The President Is Missing: A Novel Read online

  Chapter

  45

  The calm before the storm.

  The calm, that is, not for him but for them, for his people, his small crew of computer geniuses, who’ve spent the last twelve hours living the good life. Fondling women who normally would never bother to glance in their direction, who screwed them ten different ways, showed them delights they’d never experienced in their young lives. Drinking Champagne from bottles that typically reach the lips of only the world’s elite. Feasting on a smorgasbord of caviar and paté and lobster and filet mignon.

  They are sleeping now, all of them, the last of them retiring only an hour ago. None of them will be up before noon. None of them will be of any use today.

  That’s okay. They’ve done their part.

  Suliman Cindoruk sits on the penthouse terrace, cigarette burning between his fingers, smartphones and laptops and coffee on the table next to him, pulling apart a croissant as he lifts his face into the morning sunlight.

  Enjoy this tranquil morning, he reminds himself. Because when the sun rises over the river Spree this time tomorrow, there will be no peace.

  He puts his breakfast to the side. He can’t find peace himself. Can’t bring himself to eat, the acid swimming in his stomach.

  He pulls over his laptop, refreshes the screen, scrolls through the top news online.

  The lead story: the aborted plot to assassinate King Saad ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and the dozens of arrests and detentions of suspects in its wake. The possible motives, according to the newswires and the supposedly “informed” pundits who fill the cable channels: The new king’s pro-democracy reforms. His liberalization of women’s rights. His hard-line stance against Iran. Saudi involvement in the civil war in Yemen.

  Story number two: the events in Washington last night, the firefight and explosion on the bridge, the shoot-out at the stadium, the temporary lockdown of the White House. Not terrorism, the federal authorities said. No, it was all part of a counterfeiting investigation conducted jointly by the FBI and the Treasury Department. So far, the media seems to be buying it, only a few hours into the story.

  And the blackout at the stadium immediately preceding the shoot-out—a coincidence? Yes, say the federal authorities. Just mere happenstance that a stadium full of people, and everyone within a quarter-mile radius, happened to experience a massive power outage just a heartbeat or two before federal agents and counterfeiters lit up Capitol Street as if they were reenacting the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

  President Duncan must know that this ludicrous story will not hold forever. But he probably doesn’t care. The president is just buying time.

  But he doesn’t know how much time he has.

  One of Suli’s phones buzzes. The burner. The text message traveled around the globe before reaching him, through anonymous proxies, pinging remote servers in a dozen different countries. Someone trying to trace the text message would land anywhere from Sydney, Australia, to Nairobi, Kenya, to Montevideo, Uruguay.

  Confirm we are on schedule, the message reads.

  He smirks. As if they even know what the schedule is.

  He writes back: Confirm Alpha is dead.

  “Alpha,” meaning Nina.

  In all the stories online about the violence last night at the baseball stadium, the shoot-out and explosion on the bridge between the capital and Virginia, there was no mention of a dead woman.

  He hits Send, waits while the text message travels its circuitous route.

  A flutter runs through him. The sting of betrayal, Nina’s betrayal. And loss, too. Perhaps even he didn’t fully appreciate his feelings for her. Her revolutionary mind. Her hard, agile body. Her voracious appetite for exploration, in the world of cyberwarfare and in the bedroom. The hours and days and weeks they spent collaborating, challenging each other, feeding each other ideas, offering up and shooting down hypotheses, trials and errors, huddling before a laptop, theorizing over a glass of wine or naked in bed.

  Before she lost interest in him romantically. That he could live with. He had no intention of remaining with one woman. But he could never understand how she could take up with Augie, of all people, the homely troll.

  Stop. He touches his eyes. There’s no point.

  The reply comes through:

  We are told Alpha is confirmed dead.

  That’s not quite the same thing as confirmation. But they’ve assured him of the professionalism and competence of the team they dispatched to America, and he has no choice but to believe them.

  Suli sends back: If Alpha is dead, we are on schedule.

  The response comes so quickly that Suli assumes it crossed paths with his message:

  Beta is confirmed alive and in custody.

  “Beta,” meaning Augie. So he made it. He’s with the Americans.

  Suli can’t help but smile.

  Another message, so soon after the last one. They are nervous.

  Confirm we are on schedule in light of this development.

  He answers quickly: Confirmed. On schedule.

  They think they know the schedule for the detonation of the virus. They don’t.

  Neither does Suli at this point. It’s now entirely in Augie’s hands.

  Whether he realizes it or not.

  Chapter

  46

  “…need to wake him.”

  “He’ll wake up when he wakes up.”

  “My wife says to wake him up.”

  Far above me, the surface of the water. Sunlight shimmering on the rippling waves.

  Swimming toward it, my arms flailing, my legs kicking.

  A rush of air into my lungs, and the light so bright, searing my eyes—

  I blink, several times, and squint into the light on my face, my eyes slowly coming into focus.

  Focus on Augie, sitting on the couch, wearing shackles on his wrists and ankles, his eyes dark and heavy.

  Floating, time meaning nothing, as I watch his eyes narrowed in concentration, his lips moving slightly.

  Who are you, Augustas Koslenko? Can I trust you?

  I have no choice. It’s you or nothing.

  His wrist turning slightly, almost imperceptibly. Not looking at the iron shackle. Looking at his watch.

  His watch.

  “What time…what day…” I start forward, stopped by pain in my neck and back, an IV protruding from my arm, the tube strung along behind me.

  “He’s awake, he’s awake!” The voice of Carolyn’s husband, Morty.

  “Mr. President, it’s Dr. Lane.” Her hand on my shoulder. Her face coming between me and the light. “We performed a platelet transfusion. You’re doing well. It’s 3:45 in the morning, Saturday morning. You’ve been out for a little over four hours.”

  “We have to…” I start up again, leaning forward, feeling something under me, some kind of a cushion.

  Dr. Lane presses down gently on my shoulder. “Easy now. Do you know where you are?”

  I try to shake out the cobwebs. I’m off balance, but I definitely know where I am and what I’m facing.

  “I have to go, Doctor. There’s no time. Take out this IV.”

  “Whoa. Hold on.”

  “Take out the IV or I will. Morty,” I say, seeing him with his phone to his ear. “Is that Carrie?”

  “Stop!” Dr. Lane says to me, the smile gone. “Forget Morty for one minute. Give me sixty seconds and listen to me for once.”

  I take a breath. “Sixty seconds,” I say. “Go.”

  “Your chief of staff has explained that you can’t stay here, that you have somewhere to be. I can’t stop you. But I can go with you.”

  “No,” I say. “Not an option.”

  She works her jaw. “Same thing your chief of staff said. This IV,” she says. “Take it with you in the car. Finish the bag. Your agent, Agent…”

  “Jacobson,” he calls out.

  “Yes. He says he has some wound-control training from his time with the Navy SEALs. He can remove the IV when it’s d
one.”

  “Fine,” I say, leaning forward, feeling like I’ve been kicked in the head six or eight times.

  She pushes me back. “My sixty seconds isn’t up yet.” She leans in closer. “You should be on your back for the next twenty-four hours. I know you won’t do that. But you must limit your physical exertion as much as possible. Sit, don’t stand. Walk, don’t jog or run.”

  “I understand.” I hold out my right hand, wiggle my fingers. “Morty, give me Carolyn.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Morty places the phone in my hand. I put it to my ear. “Carrie, it’s going to be today. Get word to our entire team. This is my formal acknowledgment that we are to move to stage 2.”

  It’s all I need to say to get us ready for what we are about to face. Under “normal” disaster scenarios, at least those occurring after 1959, I would reference the DEFCON levels, either for all military systems worldwide or for selected commands. This is different—we are facing a crisis never conceived of in the fifties, and pieces must be set in motion in ways far different from what we would do during a conventional nuclear attack. Carrie knows exactly what stage 2 means, partly because we’ve been at stage 1 for two weeks.

  Nothing from the other end but the sound of Carrie’s breath.

  “Mr. President,” she says, “it may have already started.”

  I listen, for two of the quickest—and longest—minutes of my life.

  “Alex,” I call out. “Forget driving. Get us on Marine One.”

  Chapter

  47

  Jacobson drives. Alex sits next to me in the backseat of the SUV, the IV bag perched between us. Augie sits across from me.

  On my lap is a computer, open to a video. The video is satellite footage, looking down on a city block, an industrial area in Los Angeles. Most of the block is consumed by one large structure, complete with smokestacks, some kind of large factory.

  Everything is dark. The time stamp in the corner of the screen shows 02:07—just past two in the morning, about two hours ago.

  And then fireballs of orange flame explode through the roof and the side windows, rocking and ultimately caving in the side of the industrial plant. The entire city block disappears in a cloud of black-and-orange smoke.

  I pause the video and click on the box in the corner of the screen.

  The box opens onto the full screen, which itself is split three ways. In the center screen is Carolyn, from the White House. To her left is acting FBI director Elizabeth Greenfield. To Carolyn’s right is Sam Haber, secretary of homeland security.

  I’m wearing headphones plugged into the laptop, so the conversation from their end will reach only my ears. I want to hear this first, in full, without Augie overhearing.

  “Okay, I saw it,” I say. “Start at the start.” My voice is scratchy as I shake off the hangover from the treatment and try to focus.

  “Mr. President,” says Sam Haber. “The explosion was about two hours ago. The blaze has been enormous, as you can imagine. They’re still trying to get it under control.”

  “Tell me about the company,” I say.

  “Sir, it’s a defense contractor. They’re one of the Defense Department’s largest contractors. They have a number of sites around Los Angeles County.”

  “What’s special about this one?”

  “Sir, this plant builds reconnaissance aircraft.”

  I’m not making the connection. A defense contractor? Recon planes?

  “Casualties?” I ask.

  “We believe in the tens, not the hundreds. It was the middle of the night, so basically just security personnel. Too soon to know for sure.”

  “Cause?” I ask, careful to limit my side of the conversation.

  “Sir, all we can say with certainty is a gas explosion. Which doesn’t automatically suggest a hostile actor. Gas explosions happen, obviously.”

  I look up at Augie, who is watching me. He blinks and looks away.

  “There’s a reason I’m hearing about this,” I say.

  “Sir, that’s correct. The company reached out to Defense. Their technicians insist that something, somehow, reset the pump speeds and valve settings. Sabotage, in other words, that produced pressures that overwhelmed the joints and welds. But it wasn’t done manually, there in person. Those places have tighter security than government offices.”

  “Remotely,” I say.

  “Sir, that’s correct. They think it was done remotely. But we can’t yet say for certain.”

  But I bet I know who could. I peek over at Augie, who glances at his watch, unaware that I’m watching him.

  “Suspects?” I ask.

  “Nothing obvious to us yet,” Sam says. “We have ICS-CERT looking into it.”

  He’s referring to DHS’s cyber-emergency response team for industrial control systems.

  “But we know this much, sir. The Chinese tried to hack into our gas pipeline systems back in 2011, 2012,” he says. “Maybe this means they succeeded. If they exfiltrated credentials from a system user, they could do whatever they wanted inside the system.”

  The Chinese. Maybe.

  “I guess the number one question is, do we think…”

  I glance at Augie, who is looking out the window.

  Carolyn says, “Could this be Dark Ages?” She understands my reluctance to say too much in front of Augie. Once again, she’s right there with me, reading my thoughts, finishing my sentence so Augie won’t hear it.

  I’m asking the question because I want to know.

  But I’m also asking because I want to hear the secretary of homeland security’s response. Sam is one of the circle of eight who know about Dark Ages. Carolyn didn’t leak it. Liz Greenfield didn’t leak it. I’ve ruled out two of the eight.

  Sam Haber is one of the six I haven’t ruled out.

  Sam lets out air, shakes his head, like it feels wrong to him. “Well, Mr. President, Ms. Brock just informed me that we have reason to believe that today is the day.”

  “Correct,” I say.

  “She didn’t tell me our source for that information.”

  “Correct,” I repeat. My way of saying, And we’re not going to tell you the source, Sam.

  He waits a beat and realizes that more will not be forthcoming. Cocks his head, but otherwise doesn’t respond. “All right, well, sir, if that’s the case, then I acknowledge that the timing is suspect. But still, I must tell you that this feels different. Dark Ages is malware, a virus we discovered.”

  Well, we didn’t exactly discover it. They—Augie and Nina—showed it to us. But Sam doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know that Augie even exists.

  Or does he?

  “But this—this seems to be a more conventional method, like spear-phishing,” he continues. “Trying to compromise a company executive, lulling him into opening an attachment on an e-mail or clicking on a link, which installs a malicious code that lets the hacker gain access to credentials and all kinds of sensitive information. Once you exfiltrate credentials and have that kind of access, you could do all sorts of things—like what happened here.”

  “But how do we know that’s different from Dark Ages?” Carolyn presses. “We can’t say that Dark Ages didn’t come from spear-phishing. We have no idea how the virus got on the system.”

  “You’re correct. I can’t rule it out yet. It’s only been a couple of hours. We’ll get right to work on it. We’ll get an answer ASAP.”

  ASAP has a new meaning today.

  “Mr. President,” says Sam, “we’ve reached out to all the gas companies about pipeline security. ICS-CERT is working with them on emergency mitigation protocols. We’re hopeful we can stop this from happening again.”

  “Mr. President.” Alex nudges me. Our SUV has reached the helipad in eastern Virginia, the majestic green-and-white Marine helicopter illuminated only by the lights around the pad.

  “Sam, I’m going to let you get back to it for now,” I say. “Keep Carolyn and Liz in the loop at all times. And only
them. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m signing off.”

  Sam’s third of the screen disappears. The screen adjusts, and Carolyn and Liz appear in larger images.

  I turn to Alex. “Get Augie onto Marine One. I’ll be right there.”

  I wait for Alex and Augie to leave the SUV. Then I turn to Carolyn and Liz.

  I say, “Why would they want to blow up a defense contractor’s airplane plant?”

  Chapter

  48

  I have no idea,” says Augie when I ask him the same question.

  We are sitting inside Marine One, seated across from each other in lush, cream-colored leather seats, as the helicopter lifts silently into the air.

  “I am not aware of any such action,” he says. “I played no part in such a thing.”

  “Hacking into a pipeline system. Or a defense contractor’s system. You never did things like that?”

  “Mr. President, if we are speaking generally, then yes, we have done such things. You are talking about spear-phishing, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then yes, we have done these things. The Chinese perfected the art initially. They attempted to hack into your gas pipeline systems, did they not?”

  The same point Sam Haber made.

  “This is a matter of public knowledge, what the Chinese did,” says Augie. “But we did not do that here. Or I should say, I did not do that.”

  “Is Suliman Cindoruk capable of hacking into our pipelines without you?”

  “Of course he is. He has a team of such people. I would say that I was probably the most advanced, but we are not speaking of something that is difficult. Anyone can load a virus onto an e-mail and then hope that the target clicks on it.”

  The Wild, Wild West, this cyberterrorism. This new, scary frontier. Anyone sitting on a couch in his underwear could undermine the security of a nation.

  “You never heard anything about Los Angeles.”

  “No.”

  I sit back in my chair. “So you don’t know anything about this.”

  “I do not,” he says. “And I cannot understand what would be to gain from blowing up a company that builds airplanes for you.”