“Did the grandchild die?” asked Zhang to Song.
“No. The intent was to cause only a serious injury, but either way, we believed it would force Lin home. I won’t go into the details unless you’re interested, but I’ll let Colonel Chan continue with integrating what we learned from her and our other units’ analyses.”
Chan nervously shuffled papers from a folder he had opened.
“I’ll say we still don’t grasp why this base is on Ellesmere Island, but the information passed to us from Lin tells us it may be something even more important than we previously imagined. Although we do not have regular or complex communications with Lin now that she’s back on the base, we are able to get simple, short messages from her.”
Zhang interrupted. “How does she manage to get the messages to us? Security must be severe.”
“Lin’s daughter works in California’s Silicon Valley. She’s a computer scientist and mathematician. The mother and the daughter both love puzzles and had developed a code system when the daughter was growing up and showed an interest in mathematics and programming. It’s actually quite simple, though limited in how much information can be passed through emails that are scrutinized before being allowed off the site. A serious attempt at detection evidently hasn’t been used by American security on the emails. This allows for minimal information to be passed in both directions, though not on a reliable timetable.”
Chan pulled out a sheet of paper from the folder. “What I will tell you is a summary of what she reports.”
He looked down at the sheet and began reading. “She confirmed there is no land route to the base. Everything comes and goes using a crude landing strip about fifteen kilometers away.” Chan looked up. “We’ve checked existing satellite images of the area and have confirmed the likely place is where I briefed you about before. The image quality suggests a flat surface, as judged by sunlight reflection and an almost complete lack of shadows compared to the surrounding terrain. There’s also a feature that may be a small structure of some kind, though we can’t confirm it without better images, which might require retasking a satellite.
“The base has about eighty to ninety staff members . . . she doesn’t know the exact number, but she said the number was close. Evidently, she does not socialize much with the others. There are both military and civilians, with a major general in charge. She does not know how to identify which service he’s from, and we only think we know the rank from the stars she has seen on his clothing.”
Chan made a stabbing motion with his finger at the tabletop. “This alone raises important questions. Why is a major general commanding fewer than a hundred people on Ellesmere Island? As close as we can estimate from her descriptions, about a quarter are military. Five of those are armed and seem to change every six months. Those are the only weapons she has seen. We assume that’s the extent of the serious physical security.” Chan looked up. “Being so remote and hidden probably leads the Americans to think no more is necessary.”
“Foolish, is it not?” asked Zhang.
“Perhaps,” answered Song for Chan, “but I can see the rationale. More security means more people to keep whatever the secrets are. Plus, it is on the soil of an allied nation. Speaking of which . . . ,” he waved at Chan.
“Uh . . . yes . . . the question about the Canadians. About one-fifth of the staff are Canadians. Approximately eighteen of them. We do not fully appreciate the political arrangement. However, since most staff members are Americans, as are the only security personnel, we infer the Americans are paying for everything and the Canadians are allowing the base on their territory in exchange for some of the staffing and results from the activities.”
“And those activities are . . . what?” asked Zhang, hinting at impatience.
“Now it gets interesting,” said Chan. “Most of the staff believes there are two distinct units at the base. The first is called ‘Level 1’ and involves well over half the personnel. This Level 1 handles all the basic maintenance and operational tasks to keep the base operational. It also includes a weather station with meteorologists and radar facilities and staffing for early warning of aircraft approaching North America from Russia. As far as we can tell, these activities are genuine.
“Then there is a unit referred to as ‘Level 2’ with about thirty staff members who include linguists in Russian, Chinese, and Korean, along with technicians for listening equipment and computers. The story is that those are the only two units, Level 1 and Level 2. However, Lin says she only has knowledge of what half of the Level 2 staff is doing—the listening section she is part of. She has no information on what the other half is doing. So . . . effectively, we actually have three units. Let’s call the third one Level 3.
“What we now believe is that the Americans have two levels of deception to hide the real purpose of the base. The meteorological and radar activity is supposed to hide the listening in on us and the Russians by Level 2, which is the second diversion of attention from what goes on in Level 3.”
“Which is what?” asked Zhang.
“That’s where we’re at a stalemate,” said Chan. “Lin is neither aware of what happens in this hypothetical Level 3 nor, we believe, able to find out more. We believe she has been pushed as far as she can be, both psychologically and mentally. If we applied more pressure, she might have a breakdown or end up telling the base commander what she has been doing. It is best to leave her as she is. At least, we have someone partially on the inside for rudimentary communications, even if sporadic.
“What I’ll cover next summarizes the most salient points about the base’s operations. It is powered by a nuclear reactor, probably a smaller version of the type Americans use on their submarines. If true, it would provide more than enough power for the base, including recharging vehicles, which are all electric, and it solves the problem of providing fuel to generate electricity and heating.”
Chan stopped again to look up from the folder. “This is just one more example of how important this base must be. Batteries have notorious problems in the coldest weather. So far, the only electric vehicles used in such conditions were small carts for two people at the U.S. base at McMurdo on Antarctica, and even those had limited range. Here, the Americans have heavy snowcats, as they call them, pulling trailers for round trips of at least thirty kilometers to their airstrip. We believe they are using a new type of battery, but Lin has not given us any details. That alone would heighten our interest in this base. What are these new batteries, and since we have not heard of them before, why use them only at this one place? You would think such a breakthrough would be more widely known.
“We also know that major additions to the computer resources were recently added. Exactly which machines and capabilities Lin did not know, but she said the equipment came in large crates that were handled extremely carefully—as if very delicate or very expensive or both. It also diverted all the Level 2 computer staff for several weeks, presumably to set up the new systems.
“Then we come to the staff supposedly assigned to Level 2 but whom Lin has not found out what they are doing. Lin says they work in a different section of the building and never talk about their work. She apparently does not socialize with them, but she has given us several of their names, though not their backgrounds or where they come from. We believe we have identified them, but this raises more questions. Many of the people seem inappropriate for a listening station.”
Chan looked down at his notes. “Howard Mueller is a physicist of no particular distinction, except that we can’t find any traces of him starting about four years ago.”
“Elizabeth Wilkens,” said Chan, moving on. “She’s a biologist and probably the oldest person at the base. Although her main research area has changed over a long career, she has produced notable work on species interactions, extremophile organisms, and their adaptions. She has also carried out important genetic engineering experiments with bacteria whose DNA uses different bases than the four for almost all organism
s. Not part of her research career, but a topic she has written on in several well-regarded papers is speculating on the biology and associated psychology of extraterrestrial sentient races. The latter apparently is something of a hobby for her.
“A third person is Klaus Christiansen, a Swedish geophysicist best appreciated for work in quantum physics. He took a leave of absence a year ago from his position at Lund University in southern Sweden. One of our agents in Sweden has learned he has not communicated since he left, and no one knows where he is. He is supposed to return to the university in two months, and his department is worried he has been recruited by another university. Rumor is that the California Institute of Technology has been wooing him for several years.
“Finally, we have a twenty-eight-year-old man named Fred Hoyle. And General Zhang, this is a name you may have heard before. A famous British scientist with the same name is credited with originating the term ‘The Big Bang’ to describe the beginning of the universe as we conceive it and the origin of heavier elements in stars through nucleosynthesis.
“As it happens, our Fred Hoyle is the great-grandson of the famous British scientist. It turned out that this Hoyle was the easiest person to find information on. He’s semi-famous internationally in the mathematical community. He has no formal degrees, even at the first levels, such as the bachelor’s degree in the United States. Despite that, he is considered a borderline savant like the famous Indian mathematician Ramanujan. According to the people our agent contacted, Hoyle has produced some of the most original mathematics in the last decades.
“Hoyle has been a coauthor on several mathematics papers in the last year and a half that are considered significant advances. He always has coauthors. He does not seem able to write papers or interested in doing so, and he interacts with other mathematicians via email. This is the one exception to the strict communication control maintained at this base. But even in this case, his collaborators don’t know Hoyle’s location.
“Based on publicly available comments on these papers and our agents’ conversations with a couple of students of the coauthors, this new mathematics is potentially revolutionary. As yet, no obvious practical applications exist, but a consensus is those will come once the entire mathematical community has had enough time to fully digest the depth and originality in these papers.
“Now . . . here is the mystery. Why is this man at a secret base on Ellesmere Island? Attempts to meet the parents were stopped when our agent realized that trying to penetrate the security layer around Hoyle’s immediate family risked revealing our interest. Obviously, the Americans do not want anyone approaching the family about Fred Hoyle’s location and activity.
“There are other Level 3 staff members whose presence on this base is questionable, but Lin has not found out enough for us to make identifications. We are continuing to investigate as she gives us names. Also, five or six new people arrived a few months ago, but Lin hasn’t had any significant contact with them.”
“And you think it unwise to pressure Lin to find out more?” asked Song.
“Regretfully . . . yes. Besides her mental state, the limited contact and the simple messages she is able to send make this too difficult. I don’t see a reason to risk Lin’s discovery.”
Zhang had been jiggling his foot impatiently the last few minutes.
“Move on to the Canadians,” said Song.
“Ah . . . yes. We do not believe the Canadians are aware of everything happening in Level 3. If the Americans behave as usual, they are paying all the bills, and the Canadians are happy to let them do it . . . even if they do not know everything going on.
“Yet for whatever reason, they are going along with the Americans. The Canadians have kept everyone away from this region for at least the last few years. No new permits to explore, trek, or survey have been issued—requests have been met with either unexplained delays or suspicious rationales. This is odd because of the immense coal deposits on Ellesmere. Despite environmental concerns about using coal, the resource is so great you would have expected extensive surveying to occur in case of future development. In addition, important fossil sites exist on the island, but exploration has been restricted, particularly around the American base. These are more indications the area is strictly ‘off-limits.’”
Song had served under Zhang long enough to recognize when his superior was losing interest in a presentation. He decided to cut short Chan’s part of the briefing and took over.
“All this is tantalizing, General, but it becomes even more interesting when we add two other pieces of information. The Lin woman had already told us that the base commander has left the base on empty resupply planes at least twice in the last year and then returned about two weeks later on a second flight. These were the only times when such flights were so close together. The rest of the time, they were a month or more apart.
“Lin recently got a message out giving us the name of the commander of the base. She had not remembered it when our agent first interrogated her. His name is Lionel Sinclair. We are still researching his background, but he retired several years ago as a brigadier general. Now we see him resurfacing as a major general commanding a secretive base on Ellesmere Island. We were able to find photographs of him off the Internet and fed them into our facial recognition database center outside Hangzhou. Although most data fed to the center is from inside the homeland, we have cameras from selected locations worldwide, including cameras surveilling two of the main entrances to the Pentagon, the United States’ military headquarters.
“Fortune smiled on us, and we have identified him at the Pentagon on two occasions using the same entrance. We were thus prepared and followed him after a third visit. After leaving the Pentagon, he traveled to Lima, Ohio, where the Americans produce their main battle tank, the M1 Abrams. The facility is named the Joint Systems Manufacturing Center and is run by the company General Dynamics. It is currently producing the latest upgraded model of this tank.”
“A tank factory? Why would this Sinclair go there?” asked Zhang. “And how is it connected to an Arctic island with no roads? It is unlikely the Americans plan on stationing Abrams tanks at their base. The only aircraft that can carry that load is their C-5 cargo plane, and it can’t land on a crude runway.”
“Yes, General, here is where we have yet another mystery. To complicate things further, we have a report from another intelligence unit that a relatively new project is going on at this Ohio plant. The Americans usually produce upgraded models of the Abrams about every seven years. Despite what some comrades in our armor units say, the American tank remains the best in the world, due to its basic design and periodic upgrades. At this time, the latest upgrades are being put in existing tanks and in all new production. If they stick to their usual schedule, the next upgrade would not be for another four to six years. Yet we have found out about an unannounced slowing of new production. A possibility is that they are anticipating a new model tank in the next few years.
“One of our cyber warfare projects in Shanghai managed to pull out a few files from this Ohio plant. None of them were at the higher levels of classification, but internal worker memos and emails hint that the Americans are close to producing a tank that is so different from the current Abrams that workers were betting on the name of this new tank. We also have hints that this new tank would have revolutionary features, perhaps dealing with the armor and total weight. Unfortunately, that’s all our cyber intrusion could pull out before it was detected.
“On the same trip to the tank factory, Sinclair went to the White House. There would not seem to be any other likely explanation except that he delivered a personal report directly to the president.
“We also photographed people he was seen with. When those individuals were run through our facial recognition database, one of the matches was a person who was associated with Intel. The American microchip company operates the world’s biggest microchip research and development program. This person has shown up several times
at the Intel headquarters in Santa Clara, California. How this person might be associated with Sinclair and have any connection to Ellesmere is unknown, but if we detect him again at Intel, we have agents who will track him. What is interesting . . . actually, I will admit I am starting to feel I should say worrisome, is a similarity to the Ohio tank factory. With Intel, we have indications of a project where even more security and classification than usual is surrounding a project that we have to assume, given the location, is related to microchips.”
Song sat back in his chair. “There you have the report, General. The Americans are hiding something at one of the most inhospitable and uninhabited places on Earth, only surpassed by Antarctica. They have taken great pains to hide the location and ultimate purpose, the latter with two subterfuge layers. At this site is a mathematical savant some think might one day be thought to rival the greatest in human history, plus two scientists at the top of their fields, one in quantum physics and the other in related fields of theoretical biology.
“We now also know that the commander of the Ellesmere base has connections to two different areas of technology of great interest to us—weapons development and computers.”
Song smiled ruefully. “And before you ask . . . no, we do not have conclusions for you, but we do have a recommendation. Despite this site being so remote, so far from China, and within the territory of an adversary’s ally, we believe we need to develop much more intelligence.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” asked Zhang. “You have already said it is not plausible to push the Lin woman for more information without risking exposure and letting the Americans know how interested we are in what they are doing. I can see directing agents in the United States to put more emphasis on this, and I suppose we could attempt to plant more agents, but that takes time.”
Song nodded. “I agree there are limited options for adding new agents within the Ellesmere base and possibly increasing efforts within the United States. That leaves us with what to do outside the United States or the base. Our space department is about to begin launches to replace and add surveillance satellites. One of those is intended for a polar orbit. The Americans will not be suspicious when it happens to pass over Ellesmere Island. Naturally, we must be cautious about changing its orbit to deliberately get better Ellesmere views. However, a slight change in the planned orbit would give us better regular views as the satellite passes over the island.”
Harbinger (The Janus Harbinger Book 1) Page 33
