by Mark Alpert
Wu Dan touched the screwdriver’s bent tip. He was obviously more skeptical than his younger schoolmate and probably suspected it was made of rubber. When he saw that it wasn’t, he let out a whistle. “How strong are you?” he asked soberly. “Are you as strong as Jackie Chan?”
“Yeah, are you?” Li Tung chimed in. “Could you beat up Jackie Chan?”
“Well, I don’t know.” Jim scratched his chin. “He’s awfully quick. Maybe I could—”
He was interrupted by another high-pitched chime coming from the desktop speakers attached to the computer terminal. “Dad!” Layla called. “Stop playing around and get over here.”
Jim felt a rush of adrenaline. He left the boys and rushed to Layla, but when he looked at the computer, he saw nothing on the screen. “What happened?”
She pointed at the cursor flashing in the top-left corner. “Everything’s ready. Just type in the shutdown code and press ENTER. That’ll transmit the code to all the Modules.”
Jim stared at the blank screen, then at Layla. “Are you serious?”
“Try it and see.” Smiling, she rose to her feet and gestured for him to sit down at the terminal.
Heart pounding, Jim kissed his daughter on the forehead. Then he sat in the chair, his right hand poised over the keyboard. He saw the shutdown code in his mind, all 128 zeroes and ones. He stretched his index finger to input the first digit, a zero.
But when he tried to tap the key, his finger wouldn’t move. He tried again, but it refused to budge. In fact, none of his mechanical fingers were working, and neither were the pressure and temperature sensors in the palm and fingertips. Shit, he thought, it’s broken. He must’ve damaged something when he did the screwdriver trick. He tried to take a closer look at the knuckles, but his elbow and shoulder joints weren’t working either. The whole prosthesis was a dead weight.
A terrible fear welled up inside him. This malfunction, he realized, had nothing to do with the screwdriver trick. He quickly pivoted his torso to the right to move the dead appendage out of the way, then stretched his left hand toward the keyboard. But before he could tap the zero key, his prosthetic arm swung back to the keyboard and grasped the outstretched index finger of his left hand.
Jim stared in shock at his prosthesis. It had moved of its own accord. He hadn’t ordered it to do anything, yet it moved anyway. And when he ordered it to let go of his finger, it didn’t relax its grip. Instead, the mechanical hand did a swift clockwise twist and shattered his finger bone.
The pain was blinding, but his fear was worse. He stumbled out of the chair.
Layla gaped at him, wide-eyed. “What’s wrong? What are you doing?”
There was no time to explain. He jerked his head toward the terminal. “Just type in the code! It’s zero—”
The prosthetic hand let go of his broken finger and seized his throat.
* * *
Her father fell backward against the wall of the trailer and slid to the floor. His prosthetic hand was clamped around his neck.
“Daddy!” Layla screamed, rushing to him. He tugged at the prosthesis with his left hand, but his index finger was bent the wrong way and he couldn’t get a good grip. Layla grabbed the mechanical arm by its wrist and tried to peel it off, but its fingers just clenched tighter around his throat. Her father’s mouth opened and he let out a wet, choking noise. He couldn’t breathe.
“Daddy, what’s wrong?”
He jerked his head toward his right shoulder. She didn’t understand him the first time, but then he did it again, looking at her desperately, and she knew what to do. She quickly detached his prosthesis from its shoulder socket, breaking the connection between the arm and the neural control unit. But the hand didn’t let go of his throat. If anything, its grip grew firmer. Her father tilted his head back and thrashed his legs, kicking the air.
Layla frantically examined the arm, looking for a way to turn it off. “Oh God, oh God! What should I do?”
Then she heard a voice, but it wasn’t her father’s. It came from the desktop speakers attached to the computer terminal. “You can’t do anything. We control the prosthesis now.”
It was a synthesized voice, stilted and generic, but Layla knew who was speaking. Supreme Harmony was using a text-to-speech program to broadcast its words from the terminal’s speakers.
“It wasn’t difficult,” the voice continued. “We simply jammed the wireless signals from the arm’s control unit and transmitted our own commands to the device’s motors. James T. Pierce employed a similar jamming technique to disable our Modules. Now we’re returning the favor.”
Layla tried again to peel off the mechanical fingers, but they were too strong. Her father’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. “Goddamn it!” she screamed. “You’re killing him!”
“And you were trying to kill us. This is an act of self-defense.”
He gradually stopped thrashing. His lips were turning blue. Layla continued to claw at the prosthetic hand, but she could barely see it through her tears. “Daddy! No!”
Then she heard something else, a loud crash at the trailer’s door. She turned around just in time to see the Modules coming toward her.
SEVENTY-TWO
Supreme Harmony observed the city of Beijing from the vantage of a B-2 bomber named the Spirit of America. Thanks to the network’s new Modules in the United States, it could intercept the reconnaissance video that the Stealth bomber was recording as it approached its targets. The images, the network acknowledged, were surprisingly beautiful. It was 1:00 A.M. China standard time, but the streets of Beijing still glittered and gleamed, and hundreds of thousands of headlights coursed along the highways.
Because the B-2 was invisible to radar, no one in the city was aware of its presence except Supreme Harmony. At 1:02 A.M. the jet dropped a GBU-57 bunker-busting bomb on its primary target, the People’s Liberation Army command center in western Beijing. Then the B-2 targeted the headquarters of the Second Artillery Corps, which controlled the PLA’s ballistic missiles.
At the same time, eighteen other B-2s in the 509th Bomb Wing demolished missile bases and radar stations across China. Waves of F-22 and F-16 fighters pummeled the airfields along the coast and sank most of the warships in the Chinese navy. U.S. attack submarines obliterated the rest of the fleet using their Mark 48 torpedoes and Harpoon antiship missiles. The technological superiority of the American forces was clear. Although the Pentagon refrained from using its nuclear weapons, it deployed hundreds of radar-evading aircraft and cruise missiles. In less than two hours, the PLA was crippled.
During the bombardment, Supreme Harmony stationed its Modules in various bomb shelters across the country, each connected to the Yunnan Operations Center by deeply buried fiber-optic lines. Most of the Modules in Beijing waited out the aerial assault in the Underground City, where the network had stockpiled food and medical supplies and installed generators and communications equipment. The Modules were safe from the bunker-busting bombs because the Underground City didn’t appear on the Pentagon’s list of targets. As far as the Americans knew, the maze of tunnels was just a deserted Mao-era relic.
China’s political leaders found refuge at a secret shelter northwest of the capital. Despite the intensity of the bombing, the Politburo Standing Committee stayed in contact with the PLA’s generals. More important, the PLA still had control of its nuclear warheads and intercontinental missiles. Two dozen Dongfeng 41 missiles, each capable of hurling a one-megaton bomb at any city in America, were hidden in Hebei Province, in an installation buried so deep underground that the bunker-busters couldn’t touch it. And two Jin-class submarines cruised undetected in the eastern Pacific, ready to launch their JL-2 nuclear missiles at the United States.
Shortly before 3:00 A.M. there was a pause in the bombing as the American jets returned to their airfields to pick up fresh loads of ordnance. On the now-empty highways of Beijing, convoys of military trucks and government limousines raced across the city, trying to reach the rel
ative safety of their bunkers before the Stealth bombers returned to the capital. Seated in an armored SUV at the head of one of those convoys were Module 73, still posing as the minister of State Security, and Module 152, formerly the vice president of the People’s Republic. The latter Module had regained his mobility just an hour ago, and he wore a black fedora over the bandages on his scalp. Their convoy soon reached the Standing Committee’s shelter, carved into a hillside a few kilometers from the Great Wall. Supreme Harmony observed that the hill was thickly covered with oaks and maples, which camouflaged the entrance to the manmade cavern.
Once the SUV rolled through the cavern’s mouth, two PLA soldiers escorted the Modules down a stairway that descended twenty meters underground. Luckily, the shelter was equipped with radio repeaters that allowed Supreme Harmony to communicate with the Modules. The complex was spacious and new and included a private office for each of the committee members. The largest office belonged to the general secretary, and that was where the soldiers led Modules 73 and 152. One of the general secretary’s bodyguards, a large man in a gray suit, met them at the door to the office. He ushered the Modules inside and dismissed the soldiers, who returned to their posts at the shelter’s entrance.
The general secretary sat behind his desk, flanked by two more bodyguards. China’s paramount leader looked distraught. His suit was rumpled, his thick hair was uncombed, and his face was frozen in a pained grimace. As the Modules stepped toward his desk, the general secretary focused on the one he believed was the vice president. He stared in particular at the bandages on Module 152’s head, which closely resembled those on Module 73.
“You’re injured,” the general secretary noted. “What happened?”
Supreme Harmony ordered Module 152 to lean his overweight body slightly forward, reproducing the vice president’s cocky posture. “Our car had just left the Command Center when the bombs hit. The driver lost control and crashed, but luckily we weren’t hurt too badly.”
“Did anyone else survive the attack?”
“No, the bunker was totally destroyed. We underestimated the capabilities of the American missiles. Their new penetrator, the GBU-57, was able to breach the Command Center’s walls.”
The general secretary frowned. “I’m afraid we underestimated many things about the Americans. Our ignorance has put us in a difficult position.”
Module 152 moved a step closer to his desk. The vice president, Supreme Harmony recalled, had often behaved aggressively. “We’re not beaten. We can strike back. We can move the long-range Dongfeng missiles out of their shelters and launch them within minutes. Plus, our Jin submarines carry another twenty-four missiles.”
The general secretary didn’t respond right away. One of his bodyguards coughed, but otherwise the room was silent. Judging from the bulges under the bodyguards’ jackets, Supreme Harmony guessed that each carried a semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster. But the men stood at ease behind the desk, obviously not anticipating that their services would be needed.
Finally, the general secretary shook his head. “I don’t see the usefulness of a nuclear strike. Yes, it would destroy America’s largest cities, but it wouldn’t disable their strategic forces. They would retaliate with a massive nuclear counterattack. Hundreds of warheads would rain down on China and more than a billion people would die. And as the radioactive fallout spreads around the globe, all of humanity would have to live in shelters like this one, perhaps for years. Do you really want to live in that kind of world?”
Module 152 took another step forward and balled one of his fleshy hands into a fist. “The Chinese people would survive! Even if we lose a billion, we’d still have hundreds of millions. We can retreat to the mountains, just like Chairman Mao did, and rebuild our army. Nothing can defeat us if our will remains strong!”
“I appreciate your courage, comrade, but the best way to rebuild China is to end this war. I plan to contact the Americans and ask them about the terms for a ceasefire.”
“You’re going to surrender? After less than twenty-four hours of battle?”
Scowling, the general secretary rose to his feet. “I don’t enjoy doing this. But sometimes we have to bow to our enemies so we can live to fight another day.”
“This is unbelievable! It’s… a disgrace! I can’t… I can’t—”
Module 152 suddenly clutched his chest with both hands. He let out a groan of pain and doubled over, jackknifing his body. Two of the general secretary’s bodyguards rushed toward him, while the third looked on. Module 73 observed their positions, and Supreme Harmony calculated the optimal firing angles.
When the bodyguards came within a couple of meters of Module 152, he grasped the two small NP-34 pistols he’d hidden in the inside pockets of his jacket. In one fluid motion, he stood up straight, extended his arms, and shot each bodyguard in the head. At the same moment, Module 73 fired his own pistol at the third bodyguard. Then the Module stepped toward the general secretary. The paramount leader blanched as he stared at the gun.
If the circumstances had been less urgent, Supreme Harmony would’ve incorporated the man, who appeared to be quite intelligent. But the process of incorporation took approximately twelve hours, and the network couldn’t wait for the new Module to become operational. It needed to immediately take command of China’s nuclear forces.
Module 152 put the two small pistols back in his pockets. Then he bent over one of the dead bodyguards, removed the man’s gun from its holster and pointed it at the general secretary’s forehead.
“We apologize,” the Module said. “You were a credit to your species.”
SEVENTY-THREE
It was 3:00 A.M., the deadest hour of the night, when the Black Hawks arrived at the Kachin camp in northern Burma. The thumping of their rotor blades awakened Kirsten, who’d spent the past few hours getting some much-needed rest in one of the canvas tents. She quickly put on her glasses and rushed out of the tent, heading for the landing zone at the other end of the clearing.
She got to the LZ just as the two helicopters touched down. Agent Morrison was already there, along with the Kachin commanders. About twenty U.S. Army Special Operations soldiers jumped out of the Black Hawks and ran across the clearing with their carbines. They were huge, muscular men wearing night-vision goggles. One of them approached Morrison and shook hands with the young agent. “I’m Sergeant Briscoe,” the soldier said. “I hope to hell you got some fuel here. We almost ran out of gas coming over the mountains.”
Morrison nodded. “Don’t worry, we have nine hundred gallons. How did you get here so fast?”
“The Indian Air Force gave us a hand. We took a C-5 from Afghanistan to Chabua, the Indian base in Assam State. Then we unloaded the Black Hawks and took off from there.”
Sergeant Briscoe abruptly turned away from the agent and looked straight at Kirsten. His forehead and cheeks were smeared with camouflage paint. “You’re Chan, right? From NSA?”
She stepped toward him, biting her lip. Kirsten had forwarded all her information to Fort Meade seven hours ago, and the NSA’s analysts had been studying it ever since. Although she thought the evidence was pretty damn compelling, she knew the Pentagon and the White House would have a hard time believing it. Washington was in combat mode now. Once the shooting started, it was very difficult to stop and think. But now she felt a glimmer of hope. “Did Special Ops brief you on the intelligence I collected? About Supreme Harmony?”
Briscoe shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, I’m just a grunt. They don’t tell me shit. But one of our passengers said you’d be here. He said he was a friend of yours.”
“A passenger?”
“Yeah, the agency sent him. He’s running this show.” Briscoe pointed at a man emerging from one of the Black Hawks. “Here he comes now.”
The man was thirty feet away, and in the darkness only his silhouette was visible. But when Kirsten switched her glasses to infrared she saw the Z-shaped scar on his cheek. It was Hammer.
* * *
Ten minutes later, while the Special Ops troops refueled their helicopters, Kirsten sat in one of the tents with Hammer, drinking green tea from a dented tin cup. The CIA agent was no longer dressed in his Afghan shalwar kameez. Now he wore a black T-shirt and camouflage pants and a belt holster with an M-9 pistol tucked inside. His face was lined with fatigue, but he smiled as he sipped his tea. “Don’t get me wrong, Chan,” he said. “I’m not happy about what happened to the Seventh Fleet. But I’m sure as hell glad to get out of Afghanistan.”
Kirsten frowned. The bastard couldn’t resist trying to get under her skin. “Let’s get down to business, okay? Did you see the cables I sent to Fort Meade?”
“Yeah, I saw ’em. The headquarters staff at Langley sent me a summary.” He took another sip of tea and swished it around in his mouth. “All the experts at the agency are scratching their heads over this. They’re trying to understand how a computer network they never even heard of could’ve started this war.”
“Didn’t they look at the images I sent? The lobotomized prisoners at the Yunnan Operations Center? That’s the network right there.”
“Yeah, okay, the Guoanbu is clearly doing something nasty with those chips Arvin Conway gave them. But the rest of your story? The part where the network goes out of control and decides to blow up the Three Gorges Dam so the Chinese can blame us for it? That’s where your analysis goes off into la-la land.” He gave her a funny look, half apologetic and half amused. “Frankly? It sounds like crazy talk.”
Shit, Kirsten thought. This was the reaction she’d been afraid of. “But it’s the truth. Why else would the People’s Republic attack us?”
Hammer shrugged. “Who knows? Best guess, it was plain stupidity. The Chinese army’s been getting uppity the past few years. Maybe some hotshot PLA general saw the Seventh Fleet cruising across the East China Sea and decided to make a name for himself.”
