All Necessary Force Read Online Free PDF Page B

entered the concrete structure. It was small, only two rooms with a closet. Most of the area was filled with analog equipment and circuit breakers to pull the substation off-line in an emergency. He didn’t see anyone inside the building, which caused him to let out his breath. He also didn’t see the server, which made him wonder if his information had been wrong. He opened the closet door and smiled. Inside on a desk was a normal-looking desktop computer. The screen was off, but he knew it was running by the blinking hard-drive light. He looked around once more, then pulled out a thumb drive and stuck it into a USB port.
    He had no expertise at all in what he was doing, but then again, he didn’t need any. His contact from the prayer group had told him to simply stick in the thumb drive and it would do the work. The mass hysteria and multiple news reports of cyber threats and the vulnerability of the U.S. system to hackers had caused a phalanx of firewalls and other security measures to be implemented in the BGE power grid. All were directed outward, at the access points to the Internet, where the threat was supposed to live. Nothing had been done to protect from an attackon the inside, using BGE’s own hardware. A lesson they would learn the hard way.
    Watching the erratic blinking LED on the thumb drive, Keshawn was startled by light spilling in from the outside door. Before he could react, he heard, “Hey, what are you doing?”
    He turned around and saw a smallish man in a coat and tie.
Shit. Management
.
    Blocking the view of the computer, he said, “Nothing. A buddy of mine did some work here yesterday and thought he’d left his sunglasses. My route was over here today, so he asked if I’d look.”
    The man cocked his head suspiciously. “And he left them inside this building? What’s he do?”
    “He’s a cable dog. Like me. I don’t know what he did at this substation. Look, they ain’t here anyway, so I’ll just go.”
    Keshawn could tell the man was still suspicious, but the fact that he worked for BGE seemed to be tipping the scales. He turned to close the closet door, which was a mistake. The man saw the blinking thumb drive.
    “What the hell is that? What are you doing with the server? Do you know how bad you could screw things up?”
    Keshawn said nothing. He simply reached out and clamped both of his hands around the man’s neck, squeezing with all of his might. The man fought back, at first trying to pull Keshawn’s hands away with brute strength, then resorting to ineffectual hitting. When his face went bright red and his eyes began to bulge, he seemed to realize he was truly in a fight for his life. He began clawing at Keshawn’s face, scratching gouges on his cheeks. Keshawn maintained the pressure until the man passed out, then continued on, kneeling on his chest and squeezing until he was sure the man was dead.
    Keshawn slowly let go, looking deeply into the half-closed eyes of the body on the ground for signs of life. He saw none. He smiled and whispered, “
Allahu Akbar
.”
    Finally, after years of waiting, he had begun his part of the jihad.

5
     
    I

heard Radford’s transmission in disbelief. I just couldn’t picture Jennifer completely breaking down. Then again, she had never been placed under so much pressure in so little time. Even given her experiences last year.
    Turbo, the guy in charge of this section, said, “Well, that’s it. Let’s wrap this up and go get a beer.”
    “Wait a second,” I said. “We don’t do anything until we get a debrief from Radford. Let it continue.”
    Turbo rolled his eyes and said, “Pike, are you shitting me? You think your chick’s going to come through that door? Radford’s right, and you know it. This whole thing was a waste of time and money.”
    Like most of the men inside the Taskforce, Turbo was a he-man woman hater. Any thought of a woman encroaching on his meat-eater world caused a fit. He wanted Jennifer to fail, with all