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As the family slept, he’d quietly shut down every device in the house, just as he had in the FIRST offices. He started with Shay’s laptop, Madison’s multiple computers and tablets, then Ava, Luke’s video game console, even the damn complicated smart refrigerator that seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
No bugs.
Unless it was a bug sophisticated enough to beat his high-end RF finder, a potentially catastrophic setback Chase wasn’t yet ready to consider.
There was nothing left to do but continue what he’d started at FIRST’s offices: conduct a risk assessment of DC’s sprawling transportation system.
No big deal.
By the Voice’s own admission, it had masterminded two cyber operations with physical manifestations. Cyber/physical convergence. Chase’s research showed that terrorist attacks on transportation systems were primarily physical. Still, he couldn’t discount “old school” methods.
If past was precedent, Chase should expect another breach. But where? Metro, traffic lights, bridges, airports? Mechanical and digital machines were increasingly, inextricably linked.
London, 2005. Four terrorists conducted suicide attacks with IEDs carried in backpacks—on three Tube trains and one double-decker bus, killing fifty-two and injuring over seven hundred.
Madrid, 2004. Ten IEDs exploded almost simultaneously in the commuter train system at morning rush hour, three days before Spain’s general elections. Nearly two hundred people were killed and two thousand injured.
Tokyo, 1995. The Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin gas into the subway, killing over a dozen and injuring thousands.
These didn’t even account for the rash of vehicle-ramming attacks around the world in recent years…
As dawn broke, Chase settled on a course of action. A risky one.
Madison was still sleeping when he left a note in her bedroom: “Contact Will Shannon at Metro. He’s an old friend. Tell him to QUIETLY conduct full security sweeps on the Metrorail, Metrobus, and MetroAccess systems. Remind him he owes me a favor. Will explain later.”
Will was another JSIVA friend, a former navy pilot and championship rifleman, who, upon retiring, went to work for the Metro Transit Police Department as an emergency management consultant. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA, or Metro to the locals) was a massive transportation system serving the District of Columbia, the State of Maryland, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. WMATA would listen to Will’s security recommendations. Convincing him to sound the alert was another matter, but Madison’s reminder would hopefully jog Will’s memory of the debt he owed.
The Voice had said no cops and no tricks, but waiting for another call or, worse, another attack would put Chase at distinct disadvantage. Preemptive action was simple fair play.
Now he took a sip from the monstrously large coffee sitting in the cup holder of his Acura as he crossed the Key Bridge against DC morning rush hour traffic, heading toward the Rosslyn neighborhood of Arlington.
He was on his way to pay Miles Gillen a personal visit.
CHAPTER 11
AVALON HEADQUARTERS SHIMMERED iridescent in the morning sun. Superstar CEO Miles Gillen and Avalon had a familiar origin story—he’d created the telecommunications juggernaut in his garage decades ago—but now they were housed in an all-glass modern structure, a beautiful blend of art and commerce.
Chase had only met the man once before, when he’d attended Avalon’s annual holiday ball as Shay’s plus-one. That night, the building was shining with LED lights, but no glow was bright enough to camouflage a bird as odd as Gillen.
The CEO had stood out among the crowd—tech geniuses and a few of Shay’s lawyer colleagues—as even more uncomfortable than Chase. When in full-on sales mode, Chase excelled at working a room, but this kind of holiday party wasn’t his scene.
Gillen was the CEO. What was his excuse?
Shay made the introductions, then immediately drifted away in the swirling currents of revelers, temporarily stranding Chase. He suddenly felt like a grade-schooler set up on a play date.
“Some party,” said Chase.
“I hate parties,” said Gillen.
“It’syourparty.”
“It’stheirparty,” he said, gesturing to the black-tie crowd. “I’m normally in bed by now.”
Chase laughed. It was barely 9 p.m. The man was maybe a few years older than Chase, but hardly ready for the early bird special. “Seriously?”
Gillen glared at him, narrowing his famously ice-blue eyes.
“I wake up every day on the dot at 4:30 a.m. I journal, I meditate, I exercise. I own the morning so that I can own the day.” Gillen said it by rote, as if it were an interview question he’d answered a hundred times before.
