Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [79]
Bin Laden extended his hand and Yousef kissed it. “Sit,” bin Laden said, gesturing at a pillow.
Behind him Yousef sensed rather than saw the presence of the guards. “Fajer al Dawar, your history is not unlike my own,” bin Laden said. “Why have you come so far and at such risk to see me?”
“I wish to serve Allah. I wish to destroy the Americans, to rid our people of their corrupt king, to free us of the yoke of oil. I seek the restored caliphate, to see us once again the people Allah wishes us to be!”
“So. We have even more in common. Will you have tea?”
The men were served hot tea and spoke for nearly two hours. Most of the time bin Laden did the talking, explaining his long-range plan to continue striking at the economic foundations of the West. “Their great weakness is a love of money,” he said. “Because of that we will bring them to their knees.”
For Fajer it was as if he were visiting the Prophet Himself. He had never been more deeply moved by any experience. The time passed as if it had been but minutes. Before he realized it, he was again kissing bin Laden’s hand and bidding him Allah’s blessing.
Back outside it was already dark. In the distance he heard thunder. Omar approached. “The Americans. They are trying to hit the last camp at which we stayed.”
“Did they succeed?”
“We will know tomorrow. We leave at dawn. How was your meeting?”
Fajer, now once again Yousef, clutched the names and e-mail addresses he’d been given in his hand. He needed to find a safe place for them. “Good, Allah be praised. I am truly ready now for jihad.”
Away from the fire, Fajer raised his eyes to the stars overhead. How long would it take to establish the caliphate? A decade? Five decades?
Fajer did not know but believed that he had this day taken an enormous first step to achieve it. The time of the West was coming to an end, and with it a Muslim rebirth such as had not been seen since the days of the Prophet.
The very thought brought tears to his eyes.
36
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
US-CERT SECURITY OPERATIONS
MONDAY, AUGUST 28
10:11 A.M.
Daryl’s team-leader meeting was well under way. Her coffee was cold and her bear claw lay all but untouched in its napkin. Almost nothing she’d heard from the start sat right with her.
“You’re telling me the scope of this thing is growing daily?” she said to Michelle.
“Hourly, boss.” Michelle Gritter’s team was working on determining the extent of the virus. “And the more we learn about Superphreak, the more variants we locate, the more we understand how much we underestimated it. It’s been out there for months.”
“Tom,” Daryl said, turning to look at the man whose team was charged with developing a solution, “what have you come up with? No more depressing news,” she said, holding up a warning hand. “I need some answers.”
“The closest thing to good news I’ve got is that nearly all the Superphreak variants are tied to September eleventh as the trigger,” Tom said, sounding anxious. “The ones that aren’t, at least so far, are event triggered, but not until after September eleventh.”
“So we’re relatively secure for two more weeks?”
Tom hesitated. “Except for computers with the wrong date in the internal clock like you had at that law firm, the New York hospitals, and the Ford plant. I read that the Skunk River Nuclear plant emergency shutdown was caused by a computer glitch. A blogger who says he’s an employee there claims it was caused by a date-related virus.”
Tom glanced at his notes, then cleared his throat before continuing, “There’s some indication that the virus itself is causing these date changes. A couple of the samples we’ve obtained trip over their own cloaking mechanisms and alter the system’s clock.
“And, of course, we’re not secure from those viruses triggered by non-date-related events. Our concern is that we’re missing something. We’re depending on the date and the cyber handle of Superphreak to identify these viruses. We have no way of knowing if these are just a part of an overall effort. We’re assuming they identify everything this group is doing, but we don’t know