report and brought it to the White House along with a proposal for a training camp in which the top counterterrorism teams in the United States and allied nations would run the scenarios over and over again until they had discovered or invented adequate responses.
The response from Homeland and the Oval Office was not exactly a blank check but close enough. Homeland leased land in Washington State and Vox bought the old White Trails Resort. Terror Town was born.
That was more than a decade ago, and now T-Town was the centerpiece for counter- and antiterrorism training. And now many key players in the War on Terror could boast of having been “vetted by Vox.”
As online social networks flourished over the last few years, all manner of fringe and splinter groups had begun using resources like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and message boards for anonymous communication. Vox wanted someone to monitor these networks, someone with the credentials and the intelligence necessary to find even the most obscure clues that might reveal the presence of tangible threats. When Circe O’Tree’s résumé had crossed his desk, Vox knew that he had found a perfect fit. Her reports had stopped a number of attacks and put some dangerous people in jail.
“So,” Vox said, gesturing to her laptop with a jelly doughnut, “who’s being scary today?”
“I’ve been tracking some spooky stuff with Israel and Islamic key words.”
“Anti-Semitic stuff?”
“Not exactly. It’s militant, but it appears to be more pro -Israel militancy. Let me read some of them.” She opened a Word document and brought up a file. Circe wore half-glasses perched precariously on the end of her Irish nose. “Here’s one. ‘Why would God put a sword into the hand of Israel and forbid him to use it? It makes no sense to sit by while Jihad is waged against the Chosen People.’”
Vox grunted.
“And another one: ‘As David did to Goliath shall Israel do to the giant of Islam.’” She adjusted her glasses. “On the surface these are anti-Islamic statements couched in pseudobiblical phrasing, but they have an—oh, I don’t know—a sense of meanness about them. It doesn’t feel like simple rants.”
“Who’s posting this stuff?”
“That’s the thing; most of these are anonymous posts on Twitter, but they’re from accounts started at places like cybercafes. They create an e-mail account, use that to open an account on a social network, and then either abandon it or log in from a different site. We’ve seen that kind of behavior before, Hugo. Remember all that ‘war in heaven’ and ‘Armageddon in the shadows’ stuff from a couple of years ago? This has the same feel. Careful and anonymous.”
He grunted and nodded. “Yeah, sounds like it. Have you checked with our friends in the Bureau?”
“I did, and I got the usual ‘we’ll look into it’ reply, which translates as ‘ignore the rantings of the crazy lady.’”
Vox grinned. “How about Homeland?”
“Same thing, dammit.” She cocked an eye at him. “Any chance we can bring it to the DMS? Maybe let MindReader—”
“Too soon,” Vox said firmly. “Deacon’s been very clear that he doesn’t want to hear anything from us unless it’s actionable.”
“Okay.” She felt deflated. “Let me collate what I found first. If I’m going to make a report even the DMS will accept, then I’ll want to bring all of it.”
“There’s more?”
“Like this? Hundreds of postings, and thousands of places where these posts have been reposted and retweeted.”
“Re what ?”
“Tweeted. A post on Twitter is called a ‘tweet.’ When someone likes it and wants to pass it on, they ‘retweet’ it.”
“Good God.”
“I know it sounds silly, but Twitter has become the most powerful tool of business on the Net.”
Vox smiled like a tolerant bear. He had coarse, thick features, a bulbous nose, and rubbery lips, but his smile was charming. “Tweets by terrorists. You
The response from Homeland and the Oval Office was not exactly a blank check but close enough. Homeland leased land in Washington State and Vox bought the old White Trails Resort. Terror Town was born.
That was more than a decade ago, and now T-Town was the centerpiece for counter- and antiterrorism training. And now many key players in the War on Terror could boast of having been “vetted by Vox.”
As online social networks flourished over the last few years, all manner of fringe and splinter groups had begun using resources like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and message boards for anonymous communication. Vox wanted someone to monitor these networks, someone with the credentials and the intelligence necessary to find even the most obscure clues that might reveal the presence of tangible threats. When Circe O’Tree’s résumé had crossed his desk, Vox knew that he had found a perfect fit. Her reports had stopped a number of attacks and put some dangerous people in jail.
“So,” Vox said, gesturing to her laptop with a jelly doughnut, “who’s being scary today?”
“I’ve been tracking some spooky stuff with Israel and Islamic key words.”
“Anti-Semitic stuff?”
“Not exactly. It’s militant, but it appears to be more pro -Israel militancy. Let me read some of them.” She opened a Word document and brought up a file. Circe wore half-glasses perched precariously on the end of her Irish nose. “Here’s one. ‘Why would God put a sword into the hand of Israel and forbid him to use it? It makes no sense to sit by while Jihad is waged against the Chosen People.’”
Vox grunted.
“And another one: ‘As David did to Goliath shall Israel do to the giant of Islam.’” She adjusted her glasses. “On the surface these are anti-Islamic statements couched in pseudobiblical phrasing, but they have an—oh, I don’t know—a sense of meanness about them. It doesn’t feel like simple rants.”
“Who’s posting this stuff?”
“That’s the thing; most of these are anonymous posts on Twitter, but they’re from accounts started at places like cybercafes. They create an e-mail account, use that to open an account on a social network, and then either abandon it or log in from a different site. We’ve seen that kind of behavior before, Hugo. Remember all that ‘war in heaven’ and ‘Armageddon in the shadows’ stuff from a couple of years ago? This has the same feel. Careful and anonymous.”
He grunted and nodded. “Yeah, sounds like it. Have you checked with our friends in the Bureau?”
“I did, and I got the usual ‘we’ll look into it’ reply, which translates as ‘ignore the rantings of the crazy lady.’”
Vox grinned. “How about Homeland?”
“Same thing, dammit.” She cocked an eye at him. “Any chance we can bring it to the DMS? Maybe let MindReader—”
“Too soon,” Vox said firmly. “Deacon’s been very clear that he doesn’t want to hear anything from us unless it’s actionable.”
“Okay.” She felt deflated. “Let me collate what I found first. If I’m going to make a report even the DMS will accept, then I’ll want to bring all of it.”
“There’s more?”
“Like this? Hundreds of postings, and thousands of places where these posts have been reposted and retweeted.”
“Re what ?”
“Tweeted. A post on Twitter is called a ‘tweet.’ When someone likes it and wants to pass it on, they ‘retweet’ it.”
“Good God.”
“I know it sounds silly, but Twitter has become the most powerful tool of business on the Net.”
Vox smiled like a tolerant bear. He had coarse, thick features, a bulbous nose, and rubbery lips, but his smile was charming. “Tweets by terrorists. You
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