Midnight Strike — Vannetta Chapman

Midnight Strike
Cyber Division Series

Terrorists are targeting Dallas, Texas. Nora Brooks and Randall Goodwin have until midnight to stop an unprecedented cyber attack.

Who would want to bring about the collapse of the nation's ninth largest city? And if they succeed, what is their next target?

Nora Brooks has a new partner--Randall Goodwin is young, confident, and a computer genius. He thinks he wants out from behind the desk at the agency's headquarters, and so he joins Nora in pursuing cyber terrorists. When Dallas, Texas is hit with a coordinated attack, Nora and Randall board a C-20 Gulfstream Naval Jet bound for the Lone Star state. At risk are four different sectors--transportation, utilities, medical, and infrastructure. If allowed to proceed, the toll on the 1.3 million population will be devastating. Nora and Randall arrive at the Dallas command center to discover they're facing a coordinated attack from four different cyber terrorists, and at least one of them is on the inside.

Midnight Strike is book 2 in Vannetta Chapman's Cyber Terror series. The journey begins with Fading Into the Night, a novella set in the Amish community of Shipshewana which first appeared in the Summer of Suspense Anthology.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

“Have you studied this file at all?”

“Sure.”

“Looks like a cascading attack across transportation, communication, utilities, and medical.”

“Which is the reason it's a Level 4.”

“Transportation could stop air travel, ground travel, all traffic cams and lights…”

“A real mess in a metroplex the size of Dallas. Then with comms out you have no cell service.”

“Which means no 9-1-1.” Nora suddenly understood the director's concern. Most threats they dealt with hit one, possibly two sectors. They hadn't seen anything this invasive. “Utilities means no gas and electric.”

“Not as big a deal as it might be in the north. No one is going to freeze to death in Dallas, even in January.”

“And medical. How does that fit in? It seems…like an overreach.”

“Most hospitals are hooked up to the grid like everyone else. Tonya told me -- ”

“Tonya, the girl you dated exactly twice?”

Randall flashed her a smile. “The same. She was a pharmacist at Johns Hopkins. Told me they can't dispense a pill on their own. It's all done through a giant computer. Doctors put in their codes and the machine dumps out the meds.”

“They must have a backup plan in case the system goes down.”

“They have a generator.”

“Which won't help a bit if our perp has hacked into the actual system.” Nora's mind scanned the list of cyber-terrorists they'd encountered over the last ten years. Most were behind bars, but it seemed that for every one they arrested, two more sprouted up. “I can't think of a single cyberbug who has the ability to do something like this.”

Randall stuffed the small airplane pillow behind his head. He was really going to go to sleep. She couldn't believe it.

She nudged him with her foot.

“Any idea what we're facing here?”

“You're the experienced agent on our team. What do you think it is?”

She scanned back over the three pages, then closed the file and stared out the window. “No single group has the capability of doing something like this.”

“Which means...”

“Which means it's a coalition. Something has prompted our cyberbugs to work together.”

“All the more reason to get some sleep.”

Ten minutes later Randall was snoring.

Sometimes she envied his ability to shut everything off.

It didn't work that way for her. It never had.