The Germans who wanted results had set an ultimatum for the new boss in New York. They wanted to see if he had the balls to pull off what they wanted. What he was to do was to carry out an attack on something very minor. It had been discussed that this would be something in the manner of taking out something in the healthcare field. While they wanted to make sure their demands were met, they didn't want to become overly confident that they would be able to succeed in their endeavors. So, the new boss in New York will be a guinea pig of sorts. If he pulls this off, he will be given more responsibilities. If he doesn't get the job done, well they will be confident that there will be an opportunity for new leadership in the city.
Xx
Elsewhere in NYC...
32 6th Ave, New York, NY is nothing you'd think about being a headquarters for anything. The property is run down and blends in with its surroundings. Even though there is an actual structure on the street level it is almost falling and should be condemned. But all the important stuff happens fifteen stories below. This is the actual address of the newly formed New York City Cyber Command.
The Cyber Command is under the direction of the Mayor of New York City. It is run by the Chief Information Security Officer of New York City. NYPD, FDNY, EMS, and other government and city-wide agencies report directly to this woman. In the event of an actual cyberattack, her office is locked down and there is no information released until the threat is over.
Keeping ahead of the hackers who try to get into the system that they protect is becoming more than a full-time job. Their budget has increased tenfold since the unit was started in 2017. To date, they have anywhere from fifty to two hundred and ten employees who diligently thwart attacks from every intrusion that comes across their systems. She can only hope that in the future they can hire more techs to combat what she sees will be an increase in hacking and cyber attacks against the city. If she only knew how right she was.
Xx
Meanwhile at the 12th…
Kate had been working on the paperwork for a murder case for the past hour and a half. This was the case that she and the boys had closed earlier today. She had bet them that they had no clue about who the murderer was and if they solved the case with the facts before she figured it out, she would do the paperwork for the case. They were able to put the facts together faster than she could and with their tenacious investigation skills and they had information that led to an arrest and confession. So here she is sitting at her desk late on a Friday night all alone and she was the one who was stuck doing the paperwork. Her and her big mouth. She had promised that if they solved this case on their own then she would take over writing up the case file. Boy was she ignorant. She resettles in her chair and gets ready to type.
When eight-thirty rolls around she is so involved with her report that she never hears the elevator ding depositing a very handsome man onto her floor. She keeps on typing on her computer and then she notices the overhead light being blocked from her view and she finally looks up.
"Rick?"
"Hey, Kate."
"Rick what are you doing here?"
"Well, I saw the lights on and decided to make sure that you were okay."
Kate looked at Rick with a serious look on her face. She was still looking at him and could tell that he wasn't kidding; he thought that she could have been in danger.
"Rick, you do know that I'm a cop, right? And that I'm in one of the safest buildings in the city." Kate told him.
The second that Kate finished her sentence Rick looked around and saw cops everywhere. So, she was right she wasn't in danger. But at least she didn't kick him out and that's a good sign in his eyes. She resumed her typing.
Rick looks around where Kate works. He sees what is probably a break room because there is a refrigerator and microwave and coffee machine, the restrooms, and some offices that are probably her boss's office. His eyes land on a big white dry erase board. On it are pictures of people and below the pictures are detailed notes for every picture hanging there. He's intrigued so he asks her this question.
"So Kate, tell me what this board is for right here?" Rick asks as he walks towards the board pointing to the pictures on it.
Kate stops typing up her report and looks at where he's pointing and sees that he is looking at her murder board.
"Rick this is where I sort out the suspects and victim or victims of a murder. I start with a basic timeline from when the victim was murdered and move forward gathering clues as I go along. It's old school, this whiteboard, but I can't even think about using the new smartboards. To me they are impersonal. Advances in tech are okay for some people but just not me."
"I see," Rick said as he eyes the chair right next to her desk.
"May I?" He asks as he points to the chair beside her desk.
She waves her hand towards the empty seat permitting him. When he sits, he looks around, and then his eyes land upon her as hers land upon him.
"Okay Kate, I have a proposition for you that might be beneficial for mostly you but it will give me something to do to give me a break from writing."
"Oh? What might that be?"
"I was thinking that I could give you a hand solving your cases. I don't know that much about murder investigations but I'm sure that I could fit right in. And I could always use my gift."
"Rick, first you are not a cop. The training alone would give you what you need to be a cop. That takes at least six months to go through. I could never ask you to jeopardize yourself like that. And then there is the gift that you have. Could you imagine if someone found out what you could do, hell what I could do? We would both be guinea pigs and the government would take us apart piece by piece just to get to what we can do. I'm sorry but I don't want to live my life that way."
"Kate, be reasonable. This could be the one thing that moves us forward. We could work together, and I know that having a partner is something you don't like but I could be your partner I'm someone that you know. I promise we wouldn't expose our gifts, but we could also use them to our advantage. Think of all the people we could get justice for."
If it's one thing she can't stand, it's when he's right. Although she would never expose her power to get justice for certain people or cases, he has a better chance of finding out what happened than she does. He can look three minutes and twenty-two seconds into the future. That would be a good tool to have in solving any case. Reluctantly she's on the fence. Should she, or shouldn't she?
"Okay how about we do this. No pressure involved, we will go out to a great restaurant, have a good meal and in the process, you can think about my proposal."
It didn't take long for her to make up her mind. The rest of the report that she was working on can wait until tomorrow because she was hungry. She nodded her head in the affirmative. Kate wasn't used to people treating her with kindness but when Rick pulled her jacket off the back of her chair and held it for her to put on she knew that he cared deeply about her. Maybe even loved. He was someone she could tell her deepest secrets to and they would stay safe with him.
Xx
Six hours earlier…
Piter is worried. Never has he been trusted with an operation like this. He wanted to show the organization that he could do what was asked of him and his team.
As it stood right now, he had six IT techs or hackers if you will. They were all the smartest people in their field. He shudders to think about what they could do if they had gone unchecked. But for now, he has them all corralled in the pit as he calls it.
"Piter, when will we initiate this attack?" Rodolfo, his lead hacker asked.
"The situation we are currently facing is that New York-Presbyterian hospital is not bowing to our demands in a civilized manner. They think that they will be able to get around our threats. They are sadly mistaken. They will be the first NYC organization that we will make an example of. Expect to hit them within the hour."
"We are ready. Just give us the word."
Piter made a motion with his hand and Rodolfo turned and left his office. He knew that a lot was riding on this, and he hoped that everything went off perfectly for Piter's sake.
Piter watched as Rodolfo left the office and a bad feeling came over him. His mind was filled with both fear and doubt. He knew that whatever would happen, he would either be rewarded or dead. He just needed to put his faith in his minions and hope for the best.
Xx
Piter has the final okay to launch his attack. He gives his order to his minions, and they get to work quickly. Rodolfo and Kim told him that the attack will take place in less than three minutes. While they are busy strategizing, he stands to watch over their every move making sure that nobody screws this up. For something so sinister he can only hope that it goes off without a hitch.
Xx
New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center is a very busy hospital. Annually they delivered 16,000 babies, scheduled about 8200 major surgeries, and deal with epilepsy and stroke patients. They also have a top-notch Alzheimer's disease research unit.
The Weill Cornell Brain and Spine Center serves as one of the country's premier providers of minimally invasive surgery for adults and children. The Kidney and Pancreas Transplant Program, the oldest kidney transplant program in New York State and one of the highest volume programs in the country, is nationally recognized for developing innovative strategies that allow for successful transplants. New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell is also home to the William Randolph Hearst Burn Center a world leader in burn treatment, rehabilitation, research, and education.
The Komansky Children's Hospital at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell is a full-service, multidisciplinary pediatric program. Here highly skilled doctors, all of whom are affiliated with Weill Cornell Medicine, have expertise in the full range of pediatric subspecialties, including respiratory conditions, cancer, and congenital heart disease. The Center's Pediatric Emergency Department is a Level 1 Trauma Center and a New York City regional burn center.
Today was just another day of deadlines, and the staff was stretched thin. Too thin.
One of the nurses who was working for the surgeon who was getting ready to operate on a child was finding it hard to access the child's most recent MRI. She had accessed the network and came up with something she had not recognized. At first, she thought it was something that she could fix herself, so she shut down the terminal she was at and rebooted it. When the screen lit back up again there was a message that she had never seen before. On the terminal screen, there was a skull and crossbones displayed. The skull and crossbones were colored white, and the background was red. Thinking that this was a prank by someone in IT she moved over to the main computer terminal at the nursing supervisor's office and tried to pull up the same information on her patient. Then everything got nuts. Along with the skull and crossbones that were present on her last terminal, this terminal had the same thing but then it started with demands that were scrolling across the computer screen. It said that their entire system was now the property of Der Chaosclub (The Chaos Club) and they wanted a ransom to release the system back to the hospital.
Xx
Dr. David Garcia had been the first in his family to become a doctor. He was a competent and efficient surgeon and his bedside manner straight forward. He pulled no punches when he was explaining to his patients what they needed to have done to them surgically. He also cares about his patients. There was nothing that he wouldn't do for them. He was in the operating room elbow deep into his patient's chest cavity when suddenly everything went wrong. He was performing a Maze needed to create a pattern of scar tissue within the upper chambers of the heart to redirect electrical signals along a controlled path to the lower heart chambers. The surgery blocks the stray electrical signals that cause atrial fibrillation. This is the most common type of serious arrhythmia. Then everything went dark. The lights in the operating theater slowly faded out to nothing. From being in a surgical room so many times the usual sounds that were there were no longer there.
The anesthesiologist had told Dr. Garcia that he was no longer able to provide the anesthetic that kept the patient under. And then it snowballed from there. The scrub nurse had informed him that the respirator that was breathing for his patient had now shut down. The lead surgical nurse who was keeping an eye on the procedure itself had informed him that patient's heart had stopped beating. With everything that was happening in front of him, there was no way he was going to get ahead in the care for his patient. So, he dealt with the first problem. He addressed the anesthesiologist with his first order.
"John, I need you to start bagging the patient so we have oxygen to his brain. Cecilia, I need you to assist me in finishing up the surgery before it's too late. I'm going to need you to try to massage his heart as I complete the last redirect of the electrical signals to the lower heart valves."
"Yes, doctor I'll start right away." Cecilia had her hands in the patient's chest cavity, and she was massaging his heart while he worked around her hands trying to finish the surgical procedure. Just then everything went from manageable to worse. The sutures that he was trying to tie into the man's heart went too deep into the heart because the light that the assisting nurse was shining into the chest cavity was not bright enough to see what he was doing. He stabbed the wall of the heart that started to bleed profusely. By the time they could recover to stop the blood loss it was all over. The patient he had so desperately tried to save with a simple life-saving procedure ended up dying on the surgical table at 0924.
Xx
Peter was ecstatic. His plan to take down one of the major hospitals in New York City had been a success. It was still too early to tell but they were in the midst of negotiating with the NYC Health and Hospitals for them to get the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center systems back up and running. They didn't realize that they meant business and they would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. As he looks out at his minions, he can tell that they are just as pleased with the operation as he is. It would just be a matter of time until they send the ransom money for their precious systems to be released, but he calls this a win for his cause. He can't wait until the next attack. He's hoping that the Germans give him a bigger piece of the pie. Time will tell.
A/N: First I would like to thank all the guests who left their thoughts and prayers for my son-in-law. I would thank you properly but since you are a guest I cannot respond to your messages directly. Just know that your prayers and thoughts have not gone unacknowledged.
To the readers of my stories to whom I have PM'ed, I would like to thank you for your concern and well wishes too. You know who you are.
My son-in-law had surgery on Saturday 11/20/21. The tumor the doctors removed was roughly the size of an apple on the left side of his head. The lab came back with the results saying that it was not cancerous. He was released from the hospital the day before Thanksgiving. While he was home with my grandchildren he was not allowed to have traditional Turkey dinner. His dietary restriction stopped him from enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. But the main thing is that he is home recovering. Physical and speech therapy have been to my daughter's house and this will be one of the hardest hurdles he will have to overcome. His speech is not 100% and his motor functions are slow from the surgery. But given time I'm sure that will all change. My wife should be home on Monday.
A/N2: Without the ideas from DKfan, this chapter would have not turned out the way it did.