Rubicon

RUBICON is the story foreshadowing the next September 11th attack; you want your government leaders to read before the next attack. RUBICON, a cybersecurity thriller, is an epic battle of good versus evil where Xander Ridge and Paul Ross are locked in a fight to control the ultimate cyberweapon —hospitals collapse —planes fall from the sky —power and communication grids collapse —financial markets and economies plummet —the fate of the world to hangs by a final thread on the precipice of Armageddon on the hope that Xander Ridge vanquishes Paul Ross. Imagine that you awoke to sporadic power outages, traffic backing up behind failing traffic control lights, the trains stop running, and a series of bizarre news podcasts sharing odd stories of chaotic financial markets and empty bank accounts. You roll over, snatch up your phone –the battery almost depleted, and check your bank account –your money is gone. Your stomach snarls and pits as the fear grips you. The phone goes dark. A sinister force helps Iranian agents avenge the assassination of General Soleimani by murdering American and British deep-cover spies and coordinates global cyber-attacks —leaving the world with one hope: Xander Ridge. Only Xander can stop Ross and his axis of evil. Paul Ross and his evil partners unleash hell with asymmetrical warfare bringing the world to Hell's precipice. With the world on the precipice of Armageddon, the American President presses Ridge into service to defeat Paul Ross. Paul, jealous and spiteful of Xander's success, holds firm that he is the preeminent cyberweapon designer. Paul Ross will stop at nothing —to destroy Xander's life and business to steal Rubicon. Ross brings the fight to Ridge. Ross drags Ridge through hell—ceaselessly attacking Ridge's conviction to secure Rubicon. Ross is incapable of producing a Rubicon-esque cyberweapon. Ross must force Ridge to use a version to steal Rubicon's code. Ross unleashes a cyberattack crashing a commercial airliner. After the crash, Xander realizes that Ross wants Rubicon at any cost. Ross poisons Amelia, Xander's terminally ill daughter, with a dastardly cyberattack altering the chemical makeup of the IV fluids and medicines. Ross tries to crash Xander's plane. Unable to kill Ridge, Ross unleashes the cyberweapon on civilian aviation —spinning the world into terror. Upping the pressure on Ridge, Someone orders an attack on Xander's home, endangering the Ridge family. Xander must come to terms that he must use Rubicon to stop Paul. RUBICON is the story that you want to read before the world goes dark.

A thirty-plus-year career with an insider's perspective motivated Barry to write RUBICON.  The failure of imagination blinds thought leaders to the adversary's ingenuity and motivation to attack with terrifying methods.  Civilians and critical infrastructure are within reach of threat actors with little more than a keyboard.  The ‘across-the-pond’ defense mentality faded to obscurity at the dawn of the cyberweapon.