Operation Hell Gate - Marc Cerasini [25]
"Sorry. I was sitting so long I kinda needed to stretch..."
Nina had watched with arms folded and a look on her face as if she were indulging a child. Now that Tony and Captain Schneider had arrived, she was ready to begin. "Miss Soo Min, apprise the group of what you've uncovered."
"Right," said Doris. She knocked her shoes off the chair and slid into it, then tapped the keyboard.
"Getting the data off the chip was actually, like, a whole lot easier than I thought it would be. Whoever programmed this used the same algorithm the South Koreans use in their toy computers — the stuff they make for their kids. I worked on this kind of program in my uncle's toy factory in Oakland, so I recognized the pattern immediately. The encryption overlay that the North Koreans tried to hide the data behind was very basic, too. It was almost too easy to break, even without an encryption protocol, which I brought with me and downloaded from my own PC..."
While Doris babbled on, the large HDTV monitor sprang to life and a half dozen data windows appeared. In each display box, the digital representation of a different type of aircraft appeared. The image shifted so that each individual aircraft was displayed from various angles, followed by an image composed of its heat signature.
Dozens of aircraft were on display — all civil aircraft used in the West — passenger airliners, cargo craft, even research, firefighting, and weather monitoring aircraft were included in the chip's extensive database.
"What is all this?" asked Jamey Farrell.
"This is all the data I downloaded from the memory stick," said Doris. "There's nothing left beyond some random data strains here and there I have yet to decrypt. I'll continue working on them though; maybe I'll find something important."
"What exactly are we looking at?" Milo asked.
"It looks like a pretty thorough civil aircraft registry," said Tony.
"Real thorough," said Doris. "This software can recognize dozens of specific types of European, American, and Japanese aircraft by profile and heat signature, IFF frequencies, radio frequencies, you name it. And there's even a program to compress and download the necessary data into some other system which interfaces with the memory stick through the USB port..."
"That would be the computer guidance system inside the anti-aircraft missile itself," said Captain Schneider. "Once programmed and fired, the missile can guide itself to the target with the data downloaded from the memory stick."
Nina's face was tight with tension. "With this device at their disposal, terrorists could pinpoint and down any aircraft they wanted to. They..."
Captain Schneider raised her hand. "Not quite," she interrupted. "The effective range of a shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile is very limited. A civil aircraft at its normal cruising altitude would probably not be at risk. A target aircraft would have to be flying at a fairly low altitude — as it is when it takes off or lands — for a Long Tooth missile to be truly effective."
"That explains why the terrorists were at the airport," said Tony. "They wanted to maximize their chance for success."
"But it doesn't explain their choice of target," Nina replied. "There was absolutely nothing aboard the cargo aircraft Dante Arete's gang was aiming at to warrant a shoot-down. It was a standard, cargo-configured 727 packed with overnight mail and packages. The cargo was checked after landing and cleared by National Transportation Safety Board screeners under our supervision."
"Maybe the shoot-down was supposed to be symbolic. Maybe the terrorists wanted to send a message," said Jamey.
"Or maybe it was a test," said Tony. "Maybe they wanted to see if the target recognition system really worked as advertised before they went after their real target."
Nina tucked strands of her short black hair behind an ear. "Whatever Dante Arete's goal, we know that with this technology, he and his accomplices have the ability to target specific aircraft, even in the crowded skies over a busy airport."
Nina faced Captain Schneider.