Driving Heat by Richard Castle
“I did. They said the entire department is crashing. They’re not sure why, but they said it could be a hacking attack. Either way, all of NYPD tech is shut down, citywide.”
“Intranet’s back!” Raley hollered from the hallway. Nikki was in her office, vainly attempting to get a call connected to her district commander. She raced back into the squad room, where an antsy cluster of detectives and Rook stood around a desktop monitor as if witnessing the historic first broadcast of color television.
Just as Heat joined the semicircle, something happened to the screen. The dark blue top banner of the NYPD intranet homepage began to pixilate and the white-and-gold letters of its slogan, “The Nation’s Premier Crime Fighter,” digitally melted and began to streak down the right half of the display like candle wax. The screen went black, then flashed rapid-fire images of raised fists, bright flames, and a close-up of a human eye. Middle Eastern music blasted, and Raley reached out to turn down the ear-splitting volume on his external speakers.
Ochoa gestured around the room. Every flat screen was playing the same thing in unison. “What the fuck is this?”
The distorted music blared on, but the video gradually pulled back from the close-up of the human eye until a young man’s face came into view, trapped behind Photoshopped black bars of a jail cell, with bold script in both English and Arabic flashing over it: “FREE MEHMOUD!!!”
Detective Raley, ever the King of All Surveillance Media, circulated around the office, dialing down the tinny musical assault, but leaving the screens alive so that they could be monitored. But everyone knew what they were witnessing, even if they could hardly believe their eyes. The NYPD had been hacked.
As commander of the Twentieth Precinct, Captain Heat took immediate action to assess the impact on New York City’s technology infrastructure. It wasn’t easy. Trying to get in touch with One Police Plaza resulted in nothing but call failures on all cell phone numbers and busy signals on the landlines. In these early moments of a crisis, even though she wasn’t certain how deep it went, one thing Heat knew for sure was that no police force in the world would be better prepared or more quick to respond to any incident than New York’s Finest. This was the stuff they spent countless hours prepping for—drawing up scenarios, crafting contingency plans, running drills. Mobile command center RVs would roll out, personnel would be deployed, rapid-response teams would spring into action.
Now if Nikki could just get someone to answer a telephone.
When the department’s crisis contingency logistics finally engaged—translation: when old-technology landlines got plugged in downtown—Heat’s official telephone briefing from the Incident Response command basically only confirmed what everyone had known the instant Habibi Bass kicked in on the secure NYPD intranet: New York City was under orchestrated cyber attack, making good on the threats of retaliation for the arrest of Mehmoud Algafari.
The impact was still being assessed, but the early news was stunning: the NYPD intranet, the official platform used by the 53,000 members of the force to communicate, send department email, broadcast bulletins, post crime alerts and stats, run vehicle checks, and make reports had been completely disabled; MISD also indicated that all department-issued personal devices—including BlackBerries, tablets, and laptops—were inoperative. One PP was a mess. Although headquarters was finally able to accept and make landline calls, service was sporadic because of the overload. Worst of all, perhaps, the databases of the Real Time Crime Center, the Enterprise Case Management System, and the Crime Data Warehouse had all been shut down. Also disabled was ShotSpotter, a network of audio sensors that detected and mapped gunshots in real time throughout the city. Since the repercussions of the problem had not been fully evaluated, it remained too early to tell if any information in sensitive files had been compromised. That would be sorted out later.
The police department wasn’t the only victim. The mayor’s office, the City Council, the DA, and courts were also hobbled, as were all city surveillance and traffic cams. But not all services were affected: 911, FDNY, emergency paramedics, city hospitals, subways, and traffic lights were fully operational. So far, consumer Internet and cell phones were still up and running. Same for the IT capability of the financial markets. At the headwaters of money’s digital river, Wall Street was still buying and selling, in a blink, around the world.
“Welcome to 1965,” said Heat, trying to play it nonchalant and stay big picture in the Homicide Squad Room but, inside, knowing that whatever its cause, there could not be a worse time for this blackout of tech resources. Nikki didn’t care that more than four million transactions and investigative searches were made on the NYPD’s system every year. Right then, all she wanted was for nothing to stand in the way of finding a killer who had murdered two people and could be in the early stages of a plan to kill more. “Until this gets fixed,” she said, “we are going to have to try to catch our bad guy with Cold War technology.”
“Actually, it’s kinda cool.” Heads turned to Rook as he waltzed in from the break room with his hand buried in a bag of kettle corn. “It’s like we’ve hopped into a classic YouTube clip and we get to be that cool collection of private eyes on 77 Sunset Strip. Or that sixties TV lawman who was so formative in my development as an investigator.”
“Barney Fife?” asked Raley.
“Zing. No, I am speaking of none other than that two-fisted loner, Peter Gunn.”
Ochoa said, “I prefer the seventies. I always saw myself in Starsky & Hutch.”
“Except you’d want to be both,” muttered Raley, obviously still harboring some serious resentment toward the other half of Roach.
Rook set aside his snack and grew serious. “This has been a shoe waiting to drop. We live by technology, and now technology is the new battlefront in state sabotage. China hacked the Pentagon’s contractor networks, the Russians breached two systems in the White House—the White House, for God’s sake—by gaining entry first into the State Department’s computers. The Iranians just hacked a casino in Vegas. So Clooney’s got his plot for Ocean’s 21. The Iranians are highly skilled hackers, and are allies of whom? The Syrians. And here we are, all because young Mehmoud got busted for passing bad currency. So find your carbon paper and stop and smell the mimeo machine. This could be a rough one.”
In her decade-plus at the Twentieth Precinct there had never been a general roll call until Captain Heat ordered one that evening, the first, they said, since 9/11. In the hour since the cyber shutdown, not only had more information come in but public safety and that of her officers, detectives, and staff made it important for Nikki to provide information, direct resources, hear concerns, and answer questions. In other words, to lead.
She held her meeting in the precinct lobby because it was the only indoor area large enough to accommodate all the personnel. It also allowed Annette Caesar to stay at the switchboard behind the glass and get the same information as the uniformed patrol officers, detectives from various squads, traffic unit, civilian clerks, administrative aides, jailers, and interns. “Let me begin by saying this is about two priorities: safety and communication. I am going to ask all of you to keep in mind above all that you can’t have one of those without the other.” For a packed room, it was church quiet. Clearly the group wanted to hear all they could about this bizarre occurrence. There was also a sense of appraisal, and Heat could feel her words and comportment being judged, even if in silence.
“As for safety, until further notice, I want all uniformed patrols to be in threes only. No pairs, no lone wolves out there. Whoever is watching your back is going to have his or hers watched, too. All days off and vacations are canceled, TFN. We need all personnel available. One PP has reaffirmed high-alert status. And, given the bulletin from Counterterrorism, be extra vigilant about potential terror activity now that we are vulnerable.” Of course, Nikki—like just about everyone else assembled there—had her own private suspicions that this hacking incident was terror activity.
??
A patrol sergeant raised his hand. “What happens if this thing grows and knocks out our personal electronics?”
“There’s always a party pooper,” said Heat, winning some relieved chuckles from the group. “We don’t know what course this is going to take. And we live in an era—and a city—not equipped for this. Can anyone here remember the last working pay phone he or she saw?” Nikki held up the walkie-talkie she had placed on the table beside her. “In the meantime, Sergeant, to answer your question, two-way car radios and walkies are still good to go. But that’s going to mean more air traffic, so be mindful of who you are stepping on, and keep it short. As for here in this building, we have located additional landline telephones in the basement and they are being brought up. Hopefully, we’ll have enough jacks.” A glance at her crib sheet. “Oh, for those of us who were here in 2009 and used to make fun of the department for forcing us to still use typewriters to fill out our Complaint Informational Follow-up forms…” She paused while an amused murmur about the old DD5 Pinks circulated among the cops. “You’ll be happy to know that there are about a dozen typewriters with some of your fingerprints on the keys headed up from storage for use in completing reports. What can I say? Even a cyber blackout can’t defeat a bureaucracy.” After the chorus of moans had faded, she added, “For now, we are going back to the way cops did it in the old days.”
“Graft?” said Detective Feller.
“We’re going to have to resort to some retro work-arounds,” Heat told Raley and Ochoa when she called them in to her office after her roll call. “Fewer instant searches and more shoe leather, for starters. Sorry, Your Highness,” she said to Rales. “No surveillance cams makes you a peasant like the rest of us.”
“We’ll find other ways, like you said.”
“And what about you two?” Estranged as they might have felt, the longtime partners continued to share nonverbals. For instance, at that moment, each shifted his crossed legs at the same time. “Well?”
“You don’t need to worry about us,” said Ochoa.
Raley nodded. “We’re all about the job.”
Nikki knew the difference between game faces and masks, but before she could go deeper, they dove in and laid out their plan to deploy their squad, adjusting for the blackout. Detective Aguinaldo would drive down to RTCC and retrieve the raw license-plate video from the Roosevelt Island Bridge cam, hand-search all tags recorded that morning, and run them through the DMV. State cyber structure, so far, remained unaffected by the hacking. With all police databases kaput, Rhymer would go analog and hit the mug books, armed with Sampson Stallings’s artistic rendering to search for the intruder at Lon King’s apartment. Since Joseph Barsotti had gone MIA, Randall Feller would pack a thermos of coffee and an empty milk jug for an all-night stakeout of Fortuna’s Wheel in case the mob soldier showed up to talk with his boss, Fat Tommy. Roach’s own task would be to continue reaching out to the other members of Wilton Backhouse’s cadre of whistle-blowers. When Raley and Ochoa had finished, rather than poke at the wound, Heat just said, “Team Roach,” and let them go to it.
“What’s your take on Tangier Swift?” asked Rook after he had checked in at the hostess station for their ten o’clock reservation at ABC Cocina.
“And…he’s off!” Nikki said with a grin.
“What?”
“What what?”
As the hostess ushered them through the lively late dinner-and-bar crowd, Nikki said, “This is so you. You want me just to race out and arrest him without evidence.” When they reached their table, she took the banquette side against the distressed brick wall, not for the cushion but following her cop’s habit of always maintaining a full view of her surroundings. They accepted their menus, then Nikki waited for the hostess to leave before she continued. “I can’t go around busting people for murder just because Wilton Backhouse pointed a finger and Swift reminds you of Largo from Thunderball.”
“See, this is why I’m crazy about you. Excellent recall of Bond villainy.”
“I can’t help it. It’s catching.” She rested a hand on the center of the table, palm up, and as he gently lowered one of his to complete the sandwich, Nikki felt his warmth flow into her. “Are you trying to distract me from my point?” He shrugged impishly. “Well, I can hold hands and still advocate.”
“And a man’s dream comes true.”
“Unfounded allegations and dick measurement by motor yacht are not sufficient cause to break out my cuffs. That’s a luxury you have as a writer that I don’t. I need evidence.” Heat studied him. “Unless you know something and are still holding back.”
“I think we’re past that, aren’t we?”
“Are we?”
“Look, Nik, I’m sorry I kept a secret from you. But not so sorry. It sure wasn’t to hurt you, and certainly not to impede your investigation. But, c’mon, everybody has secrets, right? In fact, what do the two of us do for a living? We dig out the truth behind people’s secrets. We uncover the stuff they’re hiding for one reason or another.”
“Well, let me make something clear. I don’t want to have to dig out yours.”
“Oh, you made that very clear. I believe you invoked a threat of jail with a denial of my constitutional right to due process.”
Nikki held up her menu to study it and smiled. “I have my moments.”
They both ordered margaritas, which Rook, as he always did, declared to be the best south of ’Cesca and east of the Zuni Café. The Jean-Georges kitchen turned out chic Latin American and, even though they had both said they would mix things up, they went for their standbys. He ordered the glazed short-rib tacos with habanero relish, and she went for the charred octopus with guajillo vinaigrette.
“Do they even have mug books anymore?” Rook asked as they traded bites.
“They’d better, because Detective Rhymer is going to be spending all night flipping through something.” She explained to Rook that, as high-tech as the NYPD was, they had had enough foresight—or, maybe, stubbornness—to have paper backups of everything. “That’s the good news. The bad is retrieval. We’ve all gotten used to our instant info at the swipe of a finger. Some foreign hacker with a grudge decides to teach New York City a lesson, and suddenly we’re back to paper-based everything.”
“Which only makes me yearn all the more for my Montblanc.”
“Rook, nothing’s keeping you from your computer to write.”
“True, but when all technology fails us, and someday it will, I shall have my pens. My mother bought that Hemingway for me when I was in school to encourage my writing.”
“And how’d that work out, you of two Pulitzers?”
“Do you know, back then Mother paid six hundred dollars? On eBay now bids on the Limited Edition Hemingway top out at thirty-five hundred. Although I’d never sell.”
Nikki leaned in close to his face. “I’ll go thirty-six and a sexual favor of your choosing.”
“Sold.”
They laughed and she picked up her margarita glass. “One more of these first.”
He cackled. “Joke’s on you. That pen’s going to be community property soon enough.” But the smile had fallen from her face and, in the pool of light from the votive candle between them, her complexion had blanched to the color of a white-marble tombstone. “Maloney,” was all Heat
A table full of hedge-fund boys rose and stood in her path to check their smart phones, oblivious to the server with the tray waiting to get by and the police captain hemmed in by them all. She found another path, side-squeezing between the chair backs of other diners, then hurried past the bar overflow and dashed through the reception area to the street.
Heat rotated east, then west, scanning 19th Street for a sign of him. To the east, the sidewalk was clear, except for an old recycling picker pulling empties out of a stack of curbside garbage bags. A taxi turned onto the block from Park Avenue South, but its vacancy light was lit, and Nikki could make out no passenger inside as it approached. From the opposite direction, four laughing women formed a chorus line as they marched toward her. Heat’s view behind them was blocked. She scanned both ways again, then asked a couple braving the night chill at one of the cocina’s outdoor tables if they had seen a guy staring in the window a minute before. They both gave her New York signature you-fuckin’-kidding-me? looks and went back to their conversation about somebody getting beaten by his own selfie stick.
Nikki heard Rook call her name as she jogged west, giving a wide berth to the Sex and the City reenactors, but she kept going, choosing that direction because it had the blocked view. Heat scanned a stoop behind a big carpet store and an alcove across the street. Other than that, there were no nooks or crannies to hide in. When she reached the corner at Broadway, moviegoers had just begun spilling by the dozens out of the AMC Loews. If Maloney was around, he could easily blend in. And would. She had gotten a firsthand lesson in his evasion skills the previous night in the park.
Heat threaded her way through the crowd anyway, searching, sweeping—what else could she do? When she caught a favorable red light, Heat took a step out onto Broadway to do an uptown-downtown check, but came up empty there, too. On the green, a lead-footed cab driver nearly brushed her with his car. He gave her a honk with one hand and a finger with the other as he went by.