Operation Thor's Hammer
Irregular Saturday, September 15. President Al Gore's 9/11 memorial ceremony was held in the plaza in front of the United States Capitol. The grotesque sight of the building—half-collapsed from the plane's impact and left scorched and unfinished—remained fully exposed as the massive federal-led memorial service began.
Having handled an enormous amount of work during the week, Yoo Jae-won was watching the ceremony from his study. He had originally planned to watch it with Tiffany on the large LCD TV in the living room, but an urgent matter at T&U Research had forced him to head into the office.
Tiffany's path, now firmly decided and backed by Yoo Jae-won's full support, was unstoppable. Thanks to her, the new succession structure at Chevron was rapidly taking shape. Marina, Frederick's eldest daughter and Tiffany's mother, had declined, while her two aunts had naturally joined the race. Surprisingly, only one of their children—Tiffany's cousins—had expressed interest in joining Chevron. Unlike their mothers, who had caused such a scene at Jacob's funeral, their children were different. True to their generation, they refused to move unless it was something they genuinely wanted to do. Frederick had no intention of forcing anyone who was unwilling into Chevron either.
As a result, the race to fill Jacob's vacant successor position had begun as a four-way contest. In terms of performance alone, Tiffany was undeniably the strongest candidate. But a massive corporation like Chevron did not run on performance alone. Many within Chevron had been loyal to Jacob, and the two aunts shared a particularly close relationship with him. Consequently, internal support within Chevron placed the aunts in first and second place, while Tiffany remained a solid third. It was an absurd situation, but the results had been cross-verified through ID Group's intelligence team, making them highly reliable.
"Corporate politics really is poison," Yoo Jae-won muttered.
For a nation or company to overcome any crisis and continue growing steadily, the best outcome was for proven capable individuals to hold decision-making power. Yet within organizations, people often preferred those who treated them better over those who were merely competent. This frequently led to support for incompetent leaders. ID Group was no exception to internal politics, but the systems designed to prevent it were operating steadily—through system integration and artificial intelligence.
The entire group's business processes were being consolidated onto a single system, connected to AI so it could learn employees' workflows. Once the learning phase ended, the AI would begin assisting with tasks, allowing performance to be assessed at a glance. It would clearly distinguish who possessed genuine skill and who was receiving inflated evaluations through political maneuvering. However, it was still too early to blindly trust the AI's judgments. Despite nearly ten years of development, the current AI was only capable of processing data; extracting meaningful information from that data remained unsatisfactory. It was a hardware limitation that time would eventually resolve.
—……Furthermore, we Americans will not harbor blind hatred toward the entire Islamic world. That is precisely what the terrorists want. The great spirit that built America today has never included hatred or discrimination.
Yoo Jae-won's thoughts had begun to wander when President Al Gore's strong voice on the television pulled him back to reality. As expected, Al Gore was different from Bush. Unlike Bush, who had immediately declared a "war on terror," Gore offered words of comfort to Americans still reeling from the psychological shock of the attacks while clearly pointing out that what the terrorists truly desired was the amplification of hatred.
Still, there was concern that his conciliatory tone might seem too soft when over 80% of Americans were demanding immediate retaliation. Yoo Jae-won, who knew the full course of events, understood that Bush's war on terror would ultimately end in complete failure after countless blunders—but that was not the case now.
Of course, President Al Gore was not ignorant of public opinion. On the contrary, many in the Pentagon and the White House advocated for even more aggressive measures than the average American. Al Gore himself was, at heart, a hardliner. Without Yoo Jae-won's intervention, he would have deployed carrier strike groups to the Arabian Sea near Oman, close to Afghanistan where al-Qaeda was based, and launched massive airstrikes accompanied by large-scale ground troop deployments.
The shift in the White House's stance had begun once Yoo Jae-won successfully tracked Osama bin Laden's recent movements. Bin Laden had personally confessed on the internet that he was behind the 9/11 attacks. Capturing him alive and bringing him to trial in an American court would significantly quell public anger. It would also demonstrate America's overwhelming power to other terrorist organizations aspiring to become the next al-Qaeda. This approach would allow the U.S. to avoid the enormous costs of large-scale troop deployments while restoring the nation's wounded pride.
—Therefore, there will be no compromise with terrorism. We have secured irrefutable evidence proving that al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden are the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks.
—Afghanistan must hand over all al-Qaeda members and the prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, to the United States within 24 hours. We also demand that China promptly secure and extradite the hacker group responsible for the 9/11 cyber terrorism.
—There will be no negotiations regarding these demands, and we will make it absolutely clear that terrorism cannot rewrite history.
Unfortunately, President Al Gore's memorial address ended somewhat vaguely with the phrase "we will show you." Yet no nation took it lightly. Afghanistan had descended into chaos the moment it was revealed that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 and Osama bin Laden appeared on the internet. China, however, being targeted in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks was unprecedented.
Following the collapse of Russia, China had risen as the largest communist nation and was like a rising sun. Some suspected that America was using 9/11 as a pretext to begin containing China's alarming ascent. Of course, nearly all Americans were focused on Afghanistan rather than China. The cyber 9/11 attacks were difficult for ordinary citizens to grasp unless they were internet-savvy, and there was no strict time limit. Afghanistan, however, had been given a clear 24-hour deadline. The implication was that military action would commence in earnest once that time expired.
The truly unfortunate part was Afghanistan's response.
—The 9/11 incident was God's judgment upon America!
—America's demands are absurd, and Osama bin Laden will never be handed over.
The moment President Al Gore's memorial ceremony ended, Afghanistan issued an official statement. Despite being given a 24-hour deadline, the Taliban had rejected it. They had even gone so far as to provoke an America still burning with rage. The Taliban, a coalition of Islamic fundamentalists, had never properly governed the country, and it seemed they had no understanding of the international situation either. From their perspective, acting immediately or waiting 24 hours made little difference, so they chose to reject the demands outright to save face among other anti-American Islamic nations.
But there was a twist. The White House had already anticipated that Afghanistan would reject America's demands. That was precisely why President Al Gore had mentioned the 24-hour deadline. As a landlocked country, Afghanistan rendered America's proud amphibious assault ships useless. Any U.S. military deployment would have to pass through Pakistan, Iran, or Turkmenistan—all strongly anti-American nations. Moreover, the regime currently in power was the infamous Taliban, who dismissed America's conditions as meaningless.
"The operation is already underway, after all."
The U.S. military had been moving even before the memorial ceremony began. The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet was deployed in the waters off Oman. The withdrawal of all carrier strike groups back to the United States had been a feint. The Fifth Fleet, which had appeared to be returning from the Gulf, had instead turned around off the coast of Oman and immediately commenced operations.
"Operation Thor's Hammer, huh. Does the Pentagon have a Marvel comics fan?"
This was the final option the altered White House had chosen after Yoo Jae-won's visit—different from what had happened before his regression. Operation Thor's Hammer consisted of two major branches. One was the capture of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11. The other was a wide-scale strike operation aimed at the complete destruction of al-Qaeda. Naturally, the operation did not involve large-scale troop deployments. Instead, America's finest special forces units would be mobilized—though Yoo Jae-won did not yet know which unit would be selected. Delta Force? SEALs? Or perhaps DEVGRU? Regardless of which unit it was, the stakes of this operation were enormous. America's national fortune, as well as Yoo Jae-won's own future, hung in the balance.
In truth, simply knowing that Operation Thor's Hammer had already begun was an extraordinary feat. Even within the Pentagon, only a select few were aware of it. It was an event that had never occurred in his previous life. The fact that he could accurately track this highly classified military operation was possible because ID Group was participating as an observer. The reason the Pentagon had been able to formulate Operation Thor's Hammer in the first place was thanks to the drones from ID High Tech's research institute.
When Yoo Jae-won had briefed the White House alongside Agent Skinner, the drones that had been kept under wraps were finally revealed—not just their appearance, but detailed specifications and test reports for actual deployment. Afterward, the White House leadership and the Pentagon repeatedly asked whether the performance figures in the reports were accurate. The capabilities of the drones ID High Tech had disclosed to the White House far exceeded imagination.
Ding!
Just then, Yoo Jae-won's ID Talk chimed.
—Chairman, we will soon enter the operational area. Data link commencing.
It was Director Andrei from ID High Tech.
"Understood. I'll connect as well."
Yoo Jae-won replied immediately and launched a special program installed on his computer—a program designed to connect to a classified server. After completing several complex access procedures, a screen resembling multiple CCTV feeds appeared. In the upper right corner was Director Andrei's face, the one who had just messaged him, and below it were the stern faces of U.S. military officers.
—Is that Chairman Yoo Jae-won?
"Yes, this is Yoo Jae-won."
—Please provide the authentication key.
Yoo Jae-won recited an eight-character combination of letters and numbers.
—Confirmed.
The login process had already involved considerable complexity, yet the final authentication key request demonstrated the U.S. military's rigorous security protocols. The officer's tone was extremely stiff—speaking to a computer might have felt more natural. Still, Yoo Jae-won had no complaints. This feed was not being transmitted to him alone; it was also being sent to the Pentagon and the White House. More importantly, everyone on the screen understood that Operation Thor's Hammer was a mission to capture Osama bin Laden, the true perpetrator of 9/11, and the tension in the room was palpable.
—In five minutes, the mothership will enter Kabul airspace.
It was Dr. Andrei's report. As he stated, the drone from ID High Tech's secret laboratory had already violated Afghan airspace and was nearing the capital, Kabul. Even though Afghanistan had fallen under Taliban control, it was still a sovereign nation. An unauthorized drone from a private company entering its airspace should have caused an uproar, yet neither Dr. Andrei nor Yoo Jae-won so much as blinked. The drone had already been traversing Afghan airspace for nearly an hour. Yet Afghanistan's air force had not shown the slightest sign of response. This was because the United States had already established complete air superiority over Afghanistan.
The air cover Afghanistan had hoped for from Pakistan never materialized. As Operation Thor's Hammer commenced, fighter jets launched from aircraft carriers had casually passed through Pakistani airspace, prompting only verbal protests from Pakistan. Even those protests ceased when the White House pressured them to choose whether they would be America's ally or its target.
Having pierced the skies over Pakistan and entered Afghanistan, the fighters unleashed a relentless barrage of bombs upon tactical targets. The objectives hidden in Afghanistan's mountainous terrain were al-Qaeda strongholds—training camps, garrisons, ammunition depots, and other high-value targets. The strike list had been compiled from the world's most advanced reconnaissance satellites, human intelligence, and internet data. The Taliban in Afghanistan must have been stunned. Only minutes had passed since they rejected America's proposal, yet the bombing had already begun.
—Mothership entering Kabul airspace!
—Beginning target tracking.
While the carrier strike group's bombing campaign appeared to be the main effort in scale, it was actually a diversionary attack meant to draw attention away from Afghanistan and al-Qaeda. The true core of Operation Thor's Hammer—the capture of Osama bin Laden—was only now beginning.
Just as the computer field had undergone a complete transformation over the past decade, drone technology had advanced dramatically as well. The massive black drone's lower bay opened above Kabul, and eight small quadcopters detached and descended. It was a clear demonstration of why the large drone had been codenamed "mothership." The separated quadcopters, remotely controlled by Director Andrei's team from the field, slipped into Kabul's upscale residential districts.
"Is it showtime now?"
Yoo Jae-won, who had poured enormous capital and unwavering time into advancing drone technology, was about to witness whether his choices had been correct.