DEAD BEEF (Our Cyber World Book 1) (42 page)

Chapter 53

Unlike everyone else in the room, the president did not breathe a sigh of relief when news of the D.C. missile’s demise came. Still ashamed that he had lost a few minutes of updates as Secret Service agents rushed him down to the White House bunker, the president knew one more missile was away, flying to the birthplace of three religions, a land he had toured as a young college student, a place he still loved.

Upon arriving in the bunker, the president received an update that a few minutes prior, Cynthia had announced she was on her way to Julian’s location. The president hoped that would make a difference, but for twenty minutes, making no progress to gain access, two Special Ops teams had been banging at the abandoned warehouse where Julian was thought to reside.

“Tel Aviv undergoing evacuation,” someone was saying. “Estimated impact in 25 minutes.”

Several calculations had been performed on the fly because no one had ever documented how long a LGM-30G Minuteman III missile would take to reach an Israeli city. Unofficially, the unclassified range of the minuteman was 6,000+ miles, with a wink-wink emphasis on the plus sign. The distance from the missile’s launch site to Tel Aviv was estimated just short of 8,500 miles. With this distance in hand, and taking into account the varying speeds the missile would use at various stages, including a maximum speed of 15,000 miles per hour at one point of the flight trajectory, analysts had produced several estimates, ranging from 26 to just shy of 37 minutes.

The real critical time now, however, was the time left to issue the destroy command, and after that the time to disarm the single warhead. These times were far shorter, on the order of one fourth to one third of the total time to impact, respectively.

Seconds after launch, two patriot missile batteries in Massachusetts had scrambled and emptied their quivers. None of the interceptors hit their mark.

The president hoped that somehow, somewhere someone would be able to issue the destroy or disarm sequence, which he had already authorized, but which, as the rocket had been reprogrammed by Julian’s Cyber payload, no one knew.

Martin returned to his laptop, and he could tell the others thought maybe he had some grand idea that would bring the missile down. Truth was, he had no grand idea because there was no grand idea to be had. Julian had won, and the only thing he could do now was to acknowledge that.

“What are you doing?” Sasha asked as he opened up a face-time video connection.

“Officially resigning,” he said.

“God, Martin. This isn’t a game of chess,” she objected.

“To Julian it is a game. That’s our only hope. To let him know he won. That he’s the best, epic hacker awesomeness in the flesh. Please kill that missile now.”

Outside, gunfire and explosions had filled the better part of two hours. Inside Masoud was shouting at him again, asking him why the D.C. missile had self-destroyed. It had taken more than a handful of minutes for Julian to figure it out, primarily because after assuming the missile failure had been Martin’s work, he had failed to look in the one obvious place.

“There it is,” Julian said pointing at the screen, “Little bro’ Fayez did it. It was his control that issued the kill command. And he used his swarm to do it.” What Julian didn’t say is that he was impressed Fayez had been able to do that. He wished he could talk to him and ask him how he had figured it out. Julian also didn’t say how Fayez had modified Julian’s code to do it — code Julian had surreptitiously stashed in Fayez’ laptop. The other thing he didn’t say was that if Fayez had brought down the D.C. missile, maybe Julian should do the same with the one heading to Tel Aviv?

Julian was starting to weigh his options, when a video request flashed on his screen. It was Martin. “Just want to say, congrats, Julian. You rocked this one, one heck of a one-on-one face-off it was, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess it was,” Julian said, all the while sensing Masoud’s anger rising.

“I know now you’re going to do the right thing, Julian,” Martin said. “Whatever happens, remember that I loved you like a brother.”

The true Brother Spencer, Julian thought. “Hey, that’s great, Martin,” Julian said. “Listen, I’m still a little busy here so...” Julian killed the video feed and typed two quick commands into his command window.

“What did you just do?” Masoud asked.

On Martin’s laptop the video screen went black. He closed his eyes and hoped against hope that it had worked.

“Martin, your screen!” Sasha said.

He clicked on the message notification from Julian. Inside it he found a hyperlink. He clicked it, and his browser opened up a Bible website listing a single quotation. “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

“What does that mean?” Itzak asked.

Chana replied, “It means Julian just did or tried to do the right thing, and it cost him his life.”

Martin lowered his head and wept.

“Mr. President!” the Chairman of Chiefs of Staff shouted. “The Tel Aviv missile, it’s dead. It should come down somewhere in the Atlantic.”

“In the WNC area, Spencer’s team confirms all hovercrafts down, with eight unused spares recovered from an intersected SUV,” another uniformed staffer said. “Spencer’s team is currently returning control of missile sites to Warren Air Force Base, and also is working on restoring the power grid.”

Behind him, Masoud wielded the sword and said a prayer in Arabic. Julian, tied to a chair, closed his eyes, lowered his head and awaited his fate.

“Prepare to die for your many sins, you
Kafir
. Prepare to enter hell, you infidel,” Masoud said, followed by what Julian guessed was the equivalent Arabic phrasing.

To his right, Julian heard the blade cutting the air as it swung upwards. Then he heard a boom, echoing over and over again throughout the empty warehouse. He felt no pain and felt no change, and he imagined the boom was what the brain registered when a head was severed from its neck.

Julian opened his eyes to see whether hell or heaven stood before him. Instead he saw a lone frail figure limping toward him, using a rifle for a walking stick. To Julian’s right, what remained of Masoud’s head lay in a pool of expanding blood, the rest of his body twisted in unlikely and awkward angles.

It was little Brother Fayez, Julian saw now as the young man limped into the light. Julian saw his right leg, too, bloodied from thigh to foot. Fayez looked weak, as if he had just one more step left in him, and then he took another, and another, until finally he dropped to his knees right before Julian.

“I’m glad to see you, Fayez,” Julian said. “Thank you for showing me what I had to do.”

Fayez blinked his eyes, as if to clear his vision, then said, “There is no house of Islam, no House of War, either. Only Allah’s house, the House of Justice, Mercy and Love. One house, Brother Julian. One house that brings together order and chaos, the sum of which we find in Love. Thank you for joining me in avoiding the despoiling of Allah’s house.”