Free Kill Chain by J Robert Kennedy

guys need
a new special effects company.”
    “Pretty cheesy,” agreed
his best friend and fellow Squad member Clarence. “How can you be taken
seriously as a nuclear power if you can’t even make a realistic looking
propaganda video?”
    “What’s the difference
between North and South Korea?” asked Vic, the third member of their group he
had managed to reach.
    Jeff stared at a monitor
to his left, it split screen with his two friends. “Are you kidding me?”
    Clarence shrugged. “I
don’t know either. Which one’s the bad one?”
    “They’re both bad, aren’t
they? I think my grandfather fought them.”
    Jeff shook his head.
“Man, you guys are useless. North is bad, South is good. We all fought the
North, and we all tried to protect the South.”
    “Where’s Nancy again?”
asked Vic.
    Jeff let out a low growl.
“South.”
    “So then she got
kidnapped by the North in the South.”
    Jeff nodded. “Yes.”
    “I call bullshit on
that.”
    Jeff glanced at
Clarence’s feed. “Why?”
    “I’m pulling timestamps
from the metadata on these posts all over the web and they’re too close
together.”
    Jeff tore his eyes away
from the video showing the dead bodies. “What do you mean?” 
    “Well, this is an HD
file. It’s pretty big.”
    “So?”
    “Sooo, according to what
I’m reading here, North Korea only has 2.5 gigs of bandwidth for the entire
country, all through China.”
    Vic spun in his chair.
“Are you kidding me? I’ve almost got that coming into my house!”
    “Exactly! So how the hell
did they upload that much data in seconds with that little bandwidth? They couldn’t
have!”
    Jeff agreed. “There’s no
way.” His eyes narrowed as he watched the video. “Maybe someone did it for
them?”
    Clarence nodded. “That’s
the only way I can think of.”
    Jeff leaned forward and
cracked his knuckles. “Then we need to find out who.”
     
     

25

    Operations
Center 1
CIA
Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
     
    “Show me
their bandwidth usage.”
    Leroux watched the
display as Child brought up the data. “Looks like they’re pretty much tapped
out, but then again, they always are.”
    Leroux agreed. The North
Koreans had a single line connecting the country to the Chinese networks,
though there were rumors of a second, high-speed line reserved for the elites.
There were also satellite connections, though those were limited in capability.
    Bandwidth was at a premium,
and a high-definition video, uploaded to hundreds of sites within seconds, just
wasn’t possible unless they had shut down all access, reserving all the
bandwidth for this one task.
    Something he highly
doubted.
    Child motioned toward the
screen. “You’d think the Chinese would give them more bandwidth than that.”
    “I don’t think they trust
them anymore. What with Bureau 121 out of control in Pyongyang, they’re
probably afraid they’ll become targets if they piss off the psycho.” Leroux
tapped his chin. “It definitely wasn’t transmitted from within North Korea.”
    “What are you thinking?”
    Leroux looked at Child. “Someone
transmitted it from the outside.”
    “We already know Bureau
121 does a lot of its work from outside. China mostly.”
    “Exactly. We need to find
them. Whoever uploaded the original video knows where the hostages are.”
    “Sir, got something.”
    Leroux turned toward Tong,
who pointed at the screen. A video showing a busy city street appeared,
pedestrians passing, cars farther in the shot, a fairly steady though not heavy
stream.
    “What am I looking at?”
    “An ATM on Sapyeong
Street. Watch.”
    The video continued when
Leroux smiled, a bus, G20 logos emblazoned on the side, driving past. “Okay
everyone, concentrate your efforts on buildings that could house a bus on that
route from that location onward.” He pointed at Tong. “And get that to Delta.”
     
     

26

    Embassy
of the United States Seoul
32
Sejongno Street, Seoul, Republic of Korea
     
    “It