Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [102]
Despite himself, Jeff found his anger rising. “For me the deciding point was when you said that the variants were targeting IP addresses for the United States and Europe. Given that, plus the number of people who must be involved, this attack is every bit as real as flying planes into buildings. The potential loss of life and economic meltdown is tremendous. It’s what they were after on 9/11. They didn’t pick the World Trade Center by accident. They knew how much disruption it would cause. It’s as if they’re after what makes Western civilization what it is.”
Daryl nodded. “We’ve become so dependent on computers the Western economy would grind to a standstill if what we think is true. When computers only replaced what we did by hand, it wasn’t so bad. You can always go back to doing it manually. Those hospitals I saw were forced to return to old procedures. They don’t have enough staff to handle all the paperwork, and no one working there now remembers how it was done. They had to reinvent the system and made a lot of mistakes in the process.”
“But in too many cases, computers are doing things we can’t do by hand,” Jeff pointed out. “You’ve got computers instructing other computers. We can’t replace that with a human being. And once we rebuild, we’ll still be stuck with an Internet system, and a host of computers, we can’t trust.”
Jeff finished his beer and opened another, but with a shake of her head Daryl refused another bourbon. “If you transfer what’s happened to Fischerman, Platt and Cohen to any number of similarly sized businesses,” Jeff said, “not just us but the world will go into a depression unlike any we’ve ever previously experienced. I can’t imagine the level of unemployment and the resulting social implications.”
“It could be the zero day to end all zero days,” Daryl agreed. “This time, we don’t really know how extensive this’ll be, until zero day.”
“And it’s been going on for months, at least. Have you ever heard about an operation of this scope before?” She shook her head again. “Let’s face it, we aren’t even in the position of the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike. We can do all we can for the next ten days and a cyber Apocalypse will happen regardless. There are so many variants, with such a high level of sophistication, we’ll never solve this, not in time.” Jeff’s face hardened as he made his decision. “We’ve got to get to the source so we can start on the countermeasures.”
“Koskov?” Daryl said, her eyes opening in disbelief. “But we aren’t secret agents. I wouldn’t know how to go about it. I’ve sent my request. That’s all I can do.”
The two stared at each other while a feeling of sadness bordering on despair slowly crept over each of them. Wordlessly, Daryl reached out to Jeff. He took her in his arms and held her tightly. This had been a long time in coming. He kissed her lightly on the forehead for the first time. His lips moved down her cheek. Then their lips met. He felt her stir and they kissed more deeply; it was as if a wall between them had suddenly vanished, as if they were one. She gripped him fiercely and the tenderness turned to passion. He ran his hands along her body, and then she murmured, “Get the light, Jeff. I’m really very shy.”
52
PARIS, FRANCE
5ÈME ARRONDISSEMENT
GRAPHISME COURAGEUX
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2
8:44 A.M.
Two hundred and seven hours to go, Fajer al Dawar thought. After so long, so many frustrations, and so many disappointments, not much time was left until all the work would be realized. “Allahu Akbar,” he muttered.
In these long months since he and Labib had launched their cyber jihad, Fajer had found himself increasingly torn asunder. The part of him that he thought of as Arab relished his role as warrior for Allah. The destruction of the West was the holy goal of all Arabs, he believed. The Prophet had decreed that Islam would, by force of arms, be the one true religion of the world. America and the West were the only significant obstacles