Running With The Big Dogs: Sybil Norcroft Book Six by Carl Douglass Read Free Book Online

at a worse time, given the precarious status of our economy vis-à-vis the national debt. Since the attack was discovered yesterday morning, we have thrown every cyber asset—government, military, and private—into the investigation. The FBI, CIA, USCYBERCOM, Homeland Security, General Motors, Delta Airlines and their cyber protection group, the SEC, and the United Banking Cyber Coalition are all involved.
    “We are all but certain that the Russians are behind it, but we could never prove it in a court of law. We do know for certain that the Russian Mafia is involved because we have found signatures embedded in the hacking worms in our computer systems which are known to be the mark of two infamous Russian teen-age hackers, Afanasy Fedoseev and Lyosha Demidov. Although we have no such direct evidence, we can always be sure that the daughter of the head of one of the largest russkaya mafiya organizations, Renata Leonidovna Zaslavsky, is in the thick of it.”
    “Well, that could not be more ticklish,” Secretary of State Thompson Kennedy said, “a public accusation against the Tikhondnko regime would be such an insult that the Russians would be duty bound to strike back. They are crude, and their strike would probably be a military one, and one to which we would be honor bound to reciprocate. We need to be creative and to tread lightly.”
    President Willets agreed, “We are in no position to give in to a scenario that includes military adventurism. However, Director Wallace is also correct; this assault will cripple us—probably permanently—and cannot be allowed to go entirely unanswered. Unfortunately, for us, we do not have any kind of grace period during which diplomatic endeavors can be of any significant benefit.”
    Secretary Kennedy had more to add, but decided to wait until a later point in the discussion to say his piece.
    “Let’s hear your ideas, ladies and gentlemen,” President Willets asked.
    “I think we have what may be an acceptable answer—one which cuts right to the chase,” DCIA Andrew Dillon said.
    Director Dillon was chronically ill with congestive heart disease and was nearing the end of a one-year courtesy stint as DCIA as a reward for his forty years of service to The Company. He was tired and no longer felt that he had the strength to tackle such horrendous problems as the one currently under consideration. He knew that President Willets had chosen his successor and that it would probably be the current Surgeon General who was also a high-ranking special agent of the CIA. It could not happen soon enough for his liking.
    “We have a special agent who holds an Ultra SCI [Top-Secret, Sensitive Compartmentalized Information, i.e. “above Top Secret”] clearance rating with SSBI [Single Scope Background Investigation rating. The president has authorized me to tell you the agent’s name because she is almost certainly going to be my successor, and he will need your help to get her confirmed because her accomplishments cannot be made public. She is Dr. Sybil Norcroft.”
    In a day of striking revelations, that one ranked right up there with the rest. For most of the attendees, Sybil’s involvement with the CIA was a revelation; and that she was of such a rank within the Company that she would be considered for the position of director was nothing short of a shock.
    Dillon continued without allowing discussion of his revelation; so, he could go on to an even more sensational one.
    “Some time ago, she planted software from a USB device into the Russian president’s own computer and also into the SVR computer system. That software enables us not only to get every scintilla of information that passes among the administration, the intelligence community, and the military; but also allows us at the push of a button to interfere with almost any computer based function in the country. I will spare you the details of the intruder; but, trust me when I tell you that we can stop trains, cut off