Chapter 7 - Patriot

“He was a great patriot, a great man; above all, a great American. His country was the ruling, mastering passion of his life from the beginning even unto the end.”

Henry Cabot Lodge

Jake Felenstein was on the nuclear task force set up by the CIA. He had been working as a lead investigator in nuclear terrorism since the 1970’s. As was typical of most agents, Jake had been assigned top priority research domains that were his responsibility to track. He was in charge of Los Alamos nuclear anomalies, North Korean nuclear armament, Russian nuclear security arrangements, and investigation into the possible possession and proliferation of weapons grade plutonium in the northern hemisphere. Jake was the CIA’s top nuclear agent for good reasons. He was thorough, intelligent, dogged, and 100% loyal to the United States and the laws therein.

Jake was playing racquetball when his cell phone indicated that he had a message by beeping in the corner of the racquetball court. Jake went over to the corner and picked up his cell phone. He turned on the message facility. In a small screen the size of a 35 millimeter slide, a picture of his boss and friend, Joseph Conrad spoke to him, “Jake, the worst possible thing just happened five minutes ago. Chicago has been destroyed by a nuclear bomb. I need you Jake. Be in my office in 10 minutes with the priority targets.”

Jake was in Joe’s office in five minutes with the folders. Joseph took the top three folders and activated them for immediate attention by the CIA and the military. All three agencies worked very closely on the issues of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. Jake identified the most probable sources of nuclear terrorist attacks as, al-Qa’ida, Taliban, Iran, and North Korea. All had significant incentives, economic viability, and the scientific capabilities necessary to perpetrate the crime.

After handing over the primary targets, Jake started researching in earnest. He didn’t believe that North Korea, or Iran had anything to do with the nuclear weapon which had detonated in downtown Chicago. If any of the three most probable sources had intentions of doing something like this, Jake believed he would have known about it.

Through a first military appraisal of the explosion, Jake believed the explosion to be ground or subterranean based. The weapon was not dropped but planted. That meant that whoever planted the weapon had to have been in Chicago within the last couple of years. Jake knew there were only a handful of individuals in the world with sufficient knowledge and resources to put together weapons of the magnitude that caused the explosion in Chicago. He unlocked his specially designed portable computer with a finger print identifier. Before the computer would boot it displayed the number 27,391 and requested a password from Jake. The password was encrypted with a rolling encryption. Jake had to permute a series that was a part of the password for each entry into the computer. It took him several minutes to enter the password. He entered the three dimensional view of a library by touching the screen at that location. He then chose the aisle for individual historical research and touched the question mark at the end of the isle. A window appeared on the screen with selections for Person, Place, Thing, Event, Group, Date, and Activity. Jake selected activity and entered “finance, design, build, nuclear weapon”. A list of 53 groups and individuals was presented in a window on the screen. Jake saved the list under “potential nuclear weapons providers” and further filtered it with “terrorism”. Jake sorted the list by the data field, “Existing Probability”. He then saved this list under “Nuclear Terrorists” and selected the profile on the first name, Bin Laden.

Jake said, “Connect to Interlink, section Terrorism, individual Laden”.

His computer was immediately connected through WiFi to the Interlink massively parallel computer network. The Interlink network was a connection of thousands of computers worldwide and their associated databases. Included in the IPWeb where supercomputers for modeling the probable target locations of nuclear terrorism and through uplinks to military satellites the locations and probable movements of terrorist groups worldwide.

The audio requested, “Hello Mr. Felenstein, Please take the retinal scan.”

Jake placed a cupped device attached to the port on his computer over his eye and waited.

“Access number 31,135, Please enter your password.”

Jake entered the encrypted password. He wove his way through the IPWeb interface to determine the current whereabouts and known activities of Bin Laden. He finally had a list of daily locations and group activities associated to Bin Laden. The list included military activities, number of personnel, Bin Laden’s suspected location, armament information and most recent terrorist acts.

Jake checked the same thing for all seven names on the list. After inspection of the IPWeb information, Jack placed an emergency wide area network request for all agents and information experts that participated in the IPWeb to hook up for teleconferencing. Every computer attached to the net that had audio capabilities put an S.O.S blast loud enough for anyone within 50 feet to hear. Immediately windows started appearing on Jake’s screen of teleconferencing participants. Jack addressed the growing crowd.

“You are all aware of the situation. I have placed a primary list of the 7 most likely active nuclear terrorists on your queues. A secondary list of 46 names has also been placed on your queues. I need to know if anyone has information that indicates movement and possible activity from any of these sources. If anyone even remotely suspects a group or individual not on the two lists, I want information forwarded to all members immediately. Lastly, I would appreciate any ideas regarding a methodology for tracking down the most probable cause of this disaster and any information that might lead us to avert any further incidents like this one.”

“Jake, CIA agent Ben Hadu in Iraq. I have just received word from an informant. There is a claim from Omar Abdul-Mukhtar that he is responsible for this incident.”

“Thanks, Ben. I suspect the White House is already informed but will forward that to engaging parties. We are taking no chances. Anyone that claims responsibility for this terrorist act will be annihilated immediately. Ben, do you have his current location?”

“Yes, his last confirmed satellite location was eight days ago. The computer has generated three probable current locations. Here is a map with the three locations marked.”

“Thank you. Forward that map to me and Colonel Baker for immediate response. Any more possible leads or questions?”

“Jake, this is historical analyst Harold Ransom at Stanford. Are any actions being taken to investigate possible citizen activity, either by Neo Nazi groups, Black Activists, or possible religious groups?”

“Considered low priority. Run with that and get me any information on activities from citizen based groups. That’s all for now.”
Jake signed off the IL and his computer.