Book 2: Episode 5

CIA Forward Base Echo

Nogales, Sonora, Mexico

Peters leaned back in his wooden Adirondack chair on the main veranda of the estate.  He wasn’t really sure what else to call the sprawling facility.  Supposedly, it had previously belonged to a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel.  Since the man was currently very dead, he didn’t need it anymore.  None of the locals had asked any questions when men wearing black body armor, but no insignia, arrived years ago to stake a claim to it.  It was strange to Peters, but the locals had learned to mind their business when the cartels were involved.  The very idea of black combat gear was pretty dumb and always made Peters chuckle a little.

He looked out over the harsh, ruggedly beautiful terrain.  Situated on the hills above the Nogales airport, he could see Mexico 15 which was a large part of why the CIA task force had taken over this house.  Mexico 15 eventually became I-19 only a few miles away to the north when the road crossed over the border.  It was a known smuggling route and had been the focus of US law enforcement for years.

Unlike those teams, Peters wasn’t really interested in arresting people, finding evidence, or bringing charges in court.  His job was much simpler.  Identify, locate and kill violent members of the local drug cartels.  It was a mission he was well trained for and a duty he was happy to perform.  These drug gangs caused problems for the USA and made the local population miserable; in some ways they were worse than the Taliban who he had also fought in his career.

Unlike Afghanistan, the locals seemed to actually be happy he was here.  Nobody threw rocks at his vehicle when he drove through town, and he hadn’t been spit on since entering the country.  He was also about an hour’s drive from Walmart which was handy when he ran low on Slim Jim’s.

Park came out of the main building with two cold Coronas.  Sighing, he sat down and handed one to Peters before taking a huge swig of the other.  “Good work today, Peters.”

Peters took an appreciative sip.  “Thank you, jefe.”  He pronounced it “he fe” with a slight Argentinian accent.  His original Spanish teacher had been Argentine, and he still used their pronunciations when he wasn’t thinking about it.

Park regarded the view for a few minutes.  “Intel is really worked up over the latest SigInt.”  SigInt, or “Signals Intelligence” was a constant bone of contention for the anti-cartel team.  The USA had the ability to intercept any cell phone call on earth and most other forms of communications short of full-on near peer military encryption, but that data was rarely shared with the team in Nogales due to national security concerns.  The folks in Fort Meade didn’t trust the Mexicans and the local team in Nogales was basically one step up from the Mexican military as far as they were concerned.

Peters snorted.  “What, we get like two intercepts a month for six months and now we get six in one day?”  He finished off his beer in a long swig.  “Why should we be concerned about that?”  He returned Park’s scowl with an ironic grin.

Park laughed a short bitter laugh.  “I can’t decide if your cynicism is disturbing or inspirational.”

Peters closed his eyes and leaned back.  He had been in the field for a week and was bone tired.  Field operations was a game for young men.  He was very fit for a 40-year-old, but in no way was he up to the standard of his old special forces team.  “Facts are facts man, those fuckers in Fort Meade don’t care about us.  If they’re shoving SigInt up our ass, someone in your chain of command told them to do it.”

Park pulled out a folder with red and white striped tape.  “Read.”

Peters opened one eye and glared at Park.  Park just held the folder at eye level.  Finally, Peters sighed, opened the other eye and started to read.  After a full ten minutes he closed the folder.  “Well, fuck me with a broom.”

“When do you leave?”

“We need backup.  Can you ask your amigo over at FES to assign a team?”

“Yeah, I’ll call him.”

“And see if we can scare up that Commander.  What’s his name?  Bustaman?”

“Bustamante?”

“Yeah, get him.  He knows which end the fire comes out.”

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“Roger that.”

Book 2: Episode 4

United States Cyber Command

Fort Meade, Maryland

The years since the war in the South China Sea had not been kind to the United States Cyber Command.  As was normal in the global defense community, once you did something clever, everyone immediately attempted to copy you.  That meant that cyber warfare as a means to achieve political goals had exploded in the years since the USA’s successful cyber attack on China became public.  Meetings like this one between the commanding general of Cyber Command, their CIA liaison and the National Security Advisor were generally tense.

Of course, the Chinese had been investing in this area for years before the war, but now investments in cyber war were exploding everywhere.  When generative AI became a thing, it accelerated even more.

The general at the table was his usual cranky self.  “Goddamn it, if we can’t keep track of what the Israelis are doing, how will we know what the fuck is going on over there?  Did they attack Iran last week or what?”

The CIA deputy director was calmer.  Clinical, even bookish, he was in charge of analysis and tended to focus on the long game.  “We know an attack occurred, the Israelis are the likely source, but it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that we captured the code.”

The general wasn’t mollified.  “I don’t care about the code, I care about the attack.”

The deputy director sighed.  “If you have the code, you don’t need anything else.  We put it into our red team system and our AI hackers are pulling it apart line by line.  We know exactly what it can do, how it did it and we have a pretty good guess about who wrote it.  These things are like fingerprints.”

The national security advisor was a politician, of course, so he was only worried about how things looked and how it might affect the administration.  “It’s important to ensure that the USA is not blamed.  We need to reduce the temperature between the Shia and Sunni factions in the region.”

The deputy director nodded, fully aware of the administration’s goal of appearing to “do something” about the middle east but also aware that actually getting something meaningful done wasn’t the goal of the administration.  Working in Washington was strange sometimes but it helped to understand the motivations of the players.  It made them more predictable.  He opened a file folder.  “More important, I think, is the activity we see within US military systems.  The PLA has been stepping up their efforts to compromise nuclear command and control systems.”

“We cannot let that get out.  Classify the anti-hacking investigation top secret and get one of your black teams on it.” 

The deputy director smiled.  It also made them easy to manipulate.  The People’s Liberation Army (People’s Republic of China) had been hacking on the US military for years.  No news there.  However, the CIA had been trying to get more funding for their “black teams” recently and this PLA activity was a good excuse to do that.  “We will need additional staffing to make that happen.  As we discussed, those teams are at max capacity at the moment.  Perhaps we should refer this to DIA or the FBI?”

The national security advisor shook his head.  “The Defense Intelligence Agency isn’t set up for this kind of thing and there is no way I’m going to let the FBI wander around those systems.  No, it has to be outside of the DOD but secure.  That means your black teams.”

The deputy director hid his pleasure.  “Certainly, we’ll get right on it.  The emergency funding request will be on your desk in the morning.”

“I’ll make sure the president signs it.”