He walked down the hallway. Cheap tile floors and concrete walls. Fluorescent lights. It reminded David of an old elementary school. Everything was simple, functional, and clean. He walked to the third door on the left. Inside was a small meeting room where Natesh sat at the lone white plastic table.
Natesh smiled and said, “Hello, David.”
“Morning.” He nodded back. Even common courtesies felt forced after what he had seen last night. David gritted his teeth and sat down. It took everything he had in him to hold it together.
Three others entered the room. Brooke, the woman who worked at the NSA. Henry Glickstein, the telecom expert who rarely stopped joking around. David had met those two on the plane ride to the island. A young woman that David hadn’t met walked in behind them. The woman had short blond hair that was dark at the roots. She looked intense and proud. Like someone who ran the rat race each day and tried to win.
She put out her hand to David and Natesh, saying, “Hello, guys, my name is Tess McDonald.”
They exchanged greetings.
Natesh asked, “And what do you do for a living, Tess?”
“I’m a consultant. I work out of Boston.”
Henry said, “Isn’t everyone a consultant nowadays? I mean, the guy at Blockbuster Video is a consultant. I consulted with him on movie recommendations.”
Tess raised her eyebrows, not sure how to take Henry’s humor. She said, “I’ve done a lot of DOD projects. I specialize in East Asian Affairs — policy and political analysis. And I have worked on a lot of the DOD’s weapons acquisitions programs. I’m pretty familiar with what weapons technology we have and what our capabilities are. If you tell me what you want blown up, I can tell you the right bullet. And I can name most of the members of the Central Politburo of the Communist Party of China. My two specialties seemed to be a good fit for this group. That’s why I’m here, I believe.” Her tone was polite, but all business. Like she was working with a client.
Natesh said, “Excellent. Well, we’re very glad to have you with us, Tess.”
The five group members stared at each other momentarily, then Natesh said, “Okay, let’s get to work. This morning our group is going to get more detailed on how to disrupt the US communications networks. What do we think China would need to do? I agree with yesterday’s hypothesis that taking out electricity would be important. How could we do it?”
The group began offering ideas, just shouting them out.
David didn’t know what to do. He no longer believed in their reason for being here. He wasn’t fully committed. He didn’t want to say anything that could be helpful to a potential enemy nation, if that was a real possibility. After what he had seen last night, he couldn’t speak freely and keep a good conscience. He decided to keep quiet. It turned out to be pretty easy. The others were all talkers.
Henry cleared his throat and said, “Okay, where did we leave off yesterday? I don’t know how you would do it, but I would try to cut the transoceanic fiber-optic cables that connect the United States with the rest of the world. If I were going to lay siege to a house, I’d cut the phone lines. I think the same works for a nation at war.”
Brooke asked, “Could you use some type of depth charge, like in the old war movies?”
Tess said, “Actually, the Navy doesn’t really use depth charges anymore. You had to practically hit the sub with the canister for it to work. During the Cold War the US and the Soviets developed nuclear depth charges. But I’m pretty sure they’ve gotten rid of all of those. It wasn’t the best situation to be in for the attacking force, for obvious reasons.”
Henry raised his eyebrows. “Well, if that’s the best way to get the job done, we should still recommend nuking the cables. I didn’t really want to be the first one to start talking about nukes, but if cutting the Internet and phone lines across the oceans means using nukes, let’s include that as a possible way to do it. Leave everything on the table until we find a better way. Anyone have any other methods?”
Brooke said, “You could get one of those deep submergence vehicles and place explosives on it. It would probably take more time and precision. But then again, you wouldn’t have to worry about setting off a nuclear bomb underneath your boat. I would imagine that most sailors wouldn’t like that, huh?”
Henry said, “I believe those were the obvious reasons Tess mentioned. But, if that’s the best way, let’s look at it.”
Natesh said, “Okay, so we’ve got a submarine laying explosive charges on the cables and/or someone dropping nuclear depth charges. Either way, we recommend destroying the cables, right?”
Henry nodded. “It would be a very effective way to wreck Internet and phone communications that lead into and out of the United States.”
Natesh said, “How many underwater cables are there?”
Henry raised his eyebrows, thinking. He said, “I mean… there are a lot of them. There must be over a dozen locations on both coasts. On the East Coast of the US, the major land entry point locations are near New York and Miami, and in New Jersey. California has a ton of landing zones. A lot of these cables are actually private. Most people think that the Internet is all open. But a lot of the big tech companies and telecoms have cables that just ferry their private data back and forth. It makes it more efficient. All of those cables are spread out far from each other as they cross the ocean floor — diversification.”
“Why?” asked Brooke.
“Safety. That way if there is some catastrophe like an earthquake, the other cables will pick up the load. That makes for a more logistically challenging operation. But eventually, they all end up pretty close to each other when they get to the coast. If you want to ruin as much bandwidth as possible, it would make sense to do it closer to shore where there is less distance to cover by the attacking asset. There would be a smaller area to deploy your explosives to if you did it right off the coast of the US. But then you have to think about the cables that connect Mexico and Canada with the US also. I mean, ideally you would destroy those as well. But even if you don’t, the bandwidth mismatch that you would have created by destroying the submarine cables would crush the flow rate.”
Natesh said, “Okay, that makes sense to me. Let’s just get all this stuff down on our sticky notes, post them up on the board, and we’ll come back to it. Now, what about inside the US? How would you go about disrupting the communication there?”
Henry said, “I’d cut power sources and damage all of the major highway intersections. If you cut the electrical grid in enough places, there will be some real issues. Generators for major buildings would go through their fuel supply pretty quickly.” He got up and went over to the mini-fridge in the corner of the room and opened it up. “Anyone want a bottled water?”
A few people nodded and he tossed bottles to them.
“Why would you hit the highways?” asked Tess.
Natesh spoke. “Snail mail?”
Henry said, “Yeah. Snail mail, and even word of mouth. If phones and Internet are taken out, that’s going to have everyone shifting to TV and radio to get their information old-school style, with antennas. I’m not sure most people even still have antennas. But I would imagine that China would also try to target the media centers.”
Natesh said, “Try to remember, for this exercise, we are China. What would you do?”
David didn’t like the sound of that.
Henry said, “Maybe take out phones, TV, and radio with a cyberattack prior to cutting power? That’s how I’d do it. Anyway, people will eventually get their information through word of mouth. If we make traveling long distances hard to do, that will mean that we can control the information better. We could keep parts of the country in the dark longer while we’re invading.”