Introduction
You live in the year 2010 where global networks connect every aspect of daily life through virtual reality constructs and personal assistants called virgils. Securing these vast digital infrastructures against coordinated cyber attacks and physical assassinations presents a massive challenge. You face the constant threat of rogue syndicates exploiting system vulnerabilities and deploying high-tech killers.
Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik present the solution through Net Force, a specialized federal agency designed to police the electronic universe. The book details how this division combines tactical operations with deep cyber investigations to neutralize high-tech threats.
This summary explores several core questions:
- How do investigators track digital sabotage signatures across global networks?
- What methods do strike teams use against technological assassins?
- How does leadership manage covert operations in hostile regions?
1. Assassination and Technological Setting
Commander Steve Day is assassinated in Washington by professional killers using military-grade tactics, prompting Alexander Michaels to take command of Net Force.
The Virgil and Security Setting
Net Force is a specialized government unit operating in a technologically advanced 2010 where high-tech multi-tool devices called virgils serve as ubiquitous personal digital assistants. The Virtual Global Interface Link, or virgil, functions as a phone, computer, GPS unit, clock, radio, TV, modem, credit card, camera, scanner, and weavewire fax. The military-grade GPS is accurate to within five meters, and the device allows secure communication over scrambled hyperdigital channels known as pipes.
Steve Day uses his virgil to check in with his wife Marilyn and to access mainframe data networks before his assassination.
Assassination of Steve Day
Commander Steve Day is assassinated in Washington, D.C., by professional killers employing military-grade explosives and armor-piercing tactics. The attack begins on September 7th, 2010, at 11:24 p.m. when a landmine under a manhole cover disables the armored limousine. The assailants then attach a marine limpet mine to blow open the door and open fire with 9mm submachine guns, wearing body armor and specifically targeting the head to bypass protective vests.
Despite the ambush, Day manages to draw his SIG .40 pistol and fatally shoot one of the armored attackers in the head before being killed himself. Bodyguard Boyle fires twelve rounds while Day fires three shots before dying.
The assassination is carried out by a professional hit team with former Soviet intelligence and military backgrounds, orchestrated from Chechnya. The team includes Mikhayl Ruzhyo, Grigory Zmeya, Nicholas Papirosa, and an American driver named Winters, operating under the distant direction of Vladimir Plekhanov. Mikhayl Ruzhyo reflects on his fifteen-year partnership with the late Nicholas Papirosa in the SRV and his deep grudge against Zmeya for his military actions in Chechnya on Papirosa's intended forty-second birthday.
Following Steve Day's murder, Alexander Michaels is appointed Acting Commander of Net Force and must brief the President and national security advisors. Director Walter Carver promotes Michaels to head Net Force due to the crisis. Michaels presents evidence of the attack at the White House at 0730, noting similarities to previous gang-related hits on mobsters like Thomas O'Rourke and Joseph DiAmmato.
Michaels briefs the President in the White House Situation Room using a holographic projector and a secure data disk protected by a ten-gram Thermoflex self-destruct mechanism case.
Assistant Deputy Commander Toni Fiorella practices an Indonesian martial art called silat, which relies on base, angle, and leverage rather than brute muscle. The Pukulan Pentjak Silat Bukti Negara-Serak system taught by eighty-two-year-old Guru Susan DeBeers focuses on primal, highly efficient techniques containing eight short forms or djurus designed to handle multiple larger opponents.
Toni easily floors an arrogant FBI trainee named Spandex in a matter of seconds using the foundational movements of the first djuru. You can apply these biomechanical principles through specific training movements:
- Establish base and footing
- Control the angle against the opponent
- Apply leverage to execute sweeps or throws
2. Tactics and Cyber Investigations
Net Force strike teams and webwalkers utilize advanced virtual reality constructs and tactical suits to investigate distributed network anomalies.
Strike Teams and Gear
Colonel John Howard leads a Net Force Strike Team through a tactical simulation in Sarajevo before receiving a priority call regarding an explosion in Germany. Operatives wear modified SIPEsuits featuring cloned spider-silk hardweave, ceramic plates, Kevlar and titanium inserts, and shockproof backpack CPUs. The twenty pounds of added weight remains manageable through tactical comps for encryption, satellite uplinks, and heads-up displays with motion sensors and thermal scans.
Commander Michaels orders Colonel John Howard to take his top teams to augment Marine guards at the U.S. embassy in the Ukraine under a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. Colonel John Howard informs his son Tyrone before deploying his strike teams to the Ukraine to intercept a planned attack. Thirty minutes represent the time required for Howard to get his teams in the air. Eighteen hundred marks the arrival time of the commuter flight carrying Howard's wife.
Cyberspace Navigation and Webwalkers
Jay Gridley rides the net using a virtual scenario where he drives a black Dodge Viper down a German mountain road and onto an autobahn. Traffic speed on the virtual autobahn reaches 160 kilometers per hour, while top speed of the Dodge Viper hits 260 kilometers per hour. Net walkers use WebWeaveWare to program personalized travel pieces and vehicles to traverse network streams, treating virtual environments intuitively.
Jay Gridley investigates multiple simulated highway wrecks and traffic jams spread evenly across international network links, realizing no single system was hit harder than another. Jay Gridley reports to Commander Michaels that houndbots have found no source for the automated routing disruptions causing delays across commercial netways. Half-a-dozen major netways Gridley rode to inspect highway wrecks reveal distributed network anomalies and artificial traffic jams across global netways that indicate subtle and widespread hacking attempts.
3. Covert Operations and Raids
Operatives execute targeted covert operations, such as impersonating law enforcement to abduct syndicate figures and raiding terrorist warehouses.
You can capture targets without resistance by exploiting their expectations and biases. Ruzhyo and Grigory the Snake impersonate FBI Special Agents Arnold and Johnson to abduct Luigi Sampson, Security Chief for Genaloni Industries, outside a New York restaurant at 1:25 p.m. on Friday, September 17th.
- Wear identical inexpensive suits, dark sunglasses, and short haircuts
- Carry forged badges that pass examination up to destructive tests
- Use local co-conspirators for driving and operational support
Following the abduction, you must ensure complete destruction and dispersion of evidence. Luigi Sampson's remains are dissolved in an industrial acid storage tank in New Jersey, his teeth are hammered out and thrown to seagulls off a Staten Island ferry, and the FBI disguises are completely destroyed.
- Burn and flush IDs and clothing
- Pound badges into flat scrap and recycle
- Wipe and mail weapons to a non-existent post office box
- Dissolve biological evidence in corrosive industrial acid
Kiev Warehouse Raid
Reconnaissance and targeted infiltration neutralize terrorist cells planning attacks on diplomatic facilities. Sergeant Fernandez distracts a warehouse guard by asking for the men's room in Ukrainian before neutralizing him with a lunch pail, allowing Colonel Howard's tactical teams to storm the building at 11:50 a.m. on Tuesday, September 21st in Kiev.
- Deploy cameras, motion sensors, and parabolics outside target buildings
- Use local coveralls and a work bus for covert insertion
- Coordinate entry timing to align with terrorist meeting schedules
Julio Fernandez uses a leather bag packed with twelve pounds of lead shot to knock out a guard before Howard's team raids the warehouse, resulting in nine terrorists dead and six wounded against zero team casualties inside the meeting of eighteen men and three women.
Advanced physical disguise and environmental integration allow a high-level operative to bypass surveillance undetected. The assassin known as the Selkie, operating as an elderly woman named Phyllis Markham with a toy poodle named Scout, walks past the FBI surveillance car outside Alexander Michaels's Washington, D.C. condo at 10:45 p.m. on Sunday, September 19th.
- Apply latex makeup and masks taking over an hour
- Use a rented trained pet to blend into a residential environment
- Carry a legal martial arts cane capable of delivering lethal force
- Establish a complete, verifiable background identity including fake relatives and work history
4. Global Cyberattacks and Investigations
Vladimir Plekhanov orchestrates global infrastructure cyberattacks while Net Force tracks specialized weapons and digital sabotage signatures.
Although network sabotage links originate from multiple loci and use standard off-the-shelf firewalls, the underlying rhythmic patterns in the trails point to a single programming team or conductor. Jay Gridley meets Alexander Michaels in a virtual reality Louisiana bayou scenario to report that multiple sabotage paths share identical structural rhythms at 7 a.m. on Monday, September 20th in Quantico.
A sophisticated hacker manipulates core industrial systems, traffic lights, and public databases across multiple countries, leading to massive logistical failures and public exposure of political figures. Plekhanov simulates historical sniper scenarios while executing digital exploits that cause Bombay traffic signals to turn green simultaneously, resulting in fatal transit collisions and train crashes. The Bombay computer system controls two hundred main traffic signals directly. Fifty people are known dead in the Marine Drive traffic pile-up. Twenty-four deaths result from a sightseeing aircraft crashing into the Gateway to India monument. Two hundred and sixty-eight passengers are on board the unconfirmed Air India jet crash.
Jay Gridley tracks a masked programmer to a bank branch in New Orleans, but his vehicle is disabled when the suspect deploys spiked caltrops during a high-speed chase. Jay Gridley pursues a blue Corvette in his Viper through narrow streets until caltrops shred his tires at eighty miles per hour, sending him crashing into a New Orleans bakery.
Infrastructure Cyberattacks
Agent Jay Gridley uses serial and model information from the weapon used against Alex Michaels to trace the purchase back to a commercial martial arts store, leveraging federal subpoenas to extract client lists. Gridley visits the VR Cane Masters store in Incline Village, Nevada, and uses his Net Force credentials to demand sales records from the manager. Company sales records cover a ten-year time period and involve complex tax code issues.
Organized crime syndicates transition toward employing educated professionals to maintain operational security and handle complex logistical problems. Crime bosses replace compromised or missing operatives with university-educated personnel who possess business degrees, aiming to reduce reckless errors while maintaining strict internal security. Ray Genaloni employs Johnny the Shark Benetti—who holds a business degree from Cornell—to manage operations and investigate the disappearance of Luigi. Johnny Benetti's marriage duration is two years as of December 14th, and Big Nose Kate dies in 1940 at age ninety.
Tracing Assassins and Cane Masters
When an electronic break-in is detected, security programs can deploy leeches to backtrack the intruder's initial signal back through the network and crosscheck the address against reverse directories and corporate records. Mora Sullivan uses a leech program in Miami to trace an intrusion back to Ruark Electronic Services, a subsidiary of Genaloni Industries, where Electronic Enterprises Group owns 75 percent of outstanding shares.
- Log on to the security program when warning lights flash
- Deploy leeches to backtrack the intruder's signal through firewalls
- Crosscheck the resulting address with reverse directories and corporate records
Investigators can narrow down purchasers of specialized items by eliminating legitimate users and checking post office box rentals and state driver records, though sophisticated operatives use false identities that vanish upon closer inspection. Jay Gridley tracks a unique cane used in an attack to various purchasers, narrowing the list down to eight possibilities and leaving five subjects interviewed out of eight.
- Eliminate legitimate teachers, collectors, and paranoia buyers from purchase records
- Interview remaining subjects and check post office box and driver license records
- Crosscheck addresses and credit records for signs of electronic identity creation
The five interviewed subjects include a 70-year-old survivalist in Grant's Pass, Oregon, a 41-year-old white male in Erie, Pennsylvania, and a 27-year-old Hispanic male in Austin, Texas.
5. Climax and Clandestine Extraction
High-security facilities can be penetrated by exploiting routine employee access and non-metallic weapon smuggling.
The assassin known as the Selkie murders 29-year-old Christine Wesson and assumes her identity. She wraps Wesson's body in plastic bags and melts ice in a bathtub to buy time. She uses Wesson's car and ID card to pass the biometric entrance scan at Net Force headquarters.
- Select a low-level unmarried employee living alone to imitate.
- Call the employee's supervisor to delay suspicion with a medical errand excuse.
- Schedule a timed e-mail to buy additional hours of delay.
She smuggles a 9mm short caliber non-metallic Brazilian ceramic pistol with a 20-meter effective accuracy range past detectors.
Infiltration and Quantico Climax
Professional killers use specialized techniques and maintain composure during life-or-death close combat. The Selkie carries a white-bladed combat knife and employs a sequence attack of feints, shifting the weapon between hands, and aiming for vital points. When fighting an expert like Toni Fiorella, who blocks high and low, the attacker targets areas with fewer major blood vessels.
Toni practices djurus and sambuts in the gym at 12:18 p.m. on Friday, October 8th, before being lured into the locker room. In the Quantico locker room, the Selkie fights Toni and Alex Michaels. Toni suffers eighteen stitches inside and out for the cut on her arm before breaking the Selkie's arm. Alex Michaels shoots the assassin in the back.
Alex deduces that the Russian Plekhanov orchestrated the attacks on Net Force, listening posts, and Steve Day simply as a diversion. Plekhanov used these system crashes to keep Net Force busy while he executed a political power grab and rigged an upcoming special election.
Grozny Extraction
Covert cross-border operations require meticulous logistical planning, regional allies, and plausible deniability. Colonel John Howard runs computer operations modules to evaluate the success rate of a sub-rosa extraction of Plekhanov from Chechnya. His computer calculates a 78 percent success rate for the optimal military extraction scenario and sets 2300 hours as the new operational begin-time.
- Assume legal extradition is impossible and plan a covert extraction team.
- Equip troops with dog tags under civilian clothes.
- Establish an escape route by air that flies fast and stays under radar.
Colonel Howard and Sergeant Fernandez plan a black-ops mission using vintage UH-1H Hueys, local reciprocal courtesies, and unmarked commercial gear. Colonel Howard's team flies into Grozny at treetop level in the dark to avoid radar detection, violating fifteen kilometers of Ingushetian airspace and going twenty-five klicks inside Chechnya through forty kilometers of unfriendly territory. They establish a tactical base at a dairy farm, deploy a four-trooper collection squad using motor scooters and a truck, and snatch Plekhanov from his home.
10 Key Ideas
- Commander Steve Day is assassinated in Washington by professional killers using military-grade tactics, prompting Alexander Michaels to take command of Net Force.
- Net Force strike teams and webwalkers utilize advanced virtual reality constructs and tactical suits to investigate distributed network anomalies.
- Operatives execute targeted covert operations, such as impersonating law enforcement to abduct syndicate figures and raiding terrorist warehouses.
- Vladimir Plekhanov orchestrates global infrastructure cyberattacks while Net Force tracks specialized weapons and digital sabotage signatures.
- High-security facilities can be penetrated by exploiting routine employee access and non-metallic weapon smuggling.
- The Virtual Global Interface Link, or virgil, functions as a ubiquitous personal digital assistant that serves as a phone, computer, GPS unit, clock, radio, TV, modem, credit card, camera, scanner, and weavewire fax.
- Toni Fiorella utilizes an Indonesian martial art called silat, which relies on base, angle, and leverage rather than brute muscle to handle multiple opponents.
- Jay Gridley investigates distributed network anomalies and artificial traffic jams across global netways that indicate subtle and widespread hacking attempts.
- Investigators track specialized weapons and trace unique items to narrow down purchasers of specialized equipment by eliminating legitimate users and checking records.
- Colonel John Howard plans a black-ops mission using vintage UH-1H Hueys, local reciprocal courtesies, and unmarked commercial gear to snatch Plekhanov from his home in Chechnya.