by T I WADE
“That’s on its way, thanks to the general,” replied Carlos. “He’s been given four—one for Andrews, one each for you and Edwards, and one for Seymour Johnson in North Carolina.”
“I was told that he will be returning here by nightfall,” added the commander, “and then giving all of you a ride back to North Carolina. Captain Watkins and her backup pilots are dropping off gear at Andrews, then Seymour Johnson, then back to Andrews to pick up some passengers and then you are all meeting for breakfast in North Carolina. So let’s have a quick lunch, and then I will show you your ride up the mountain. You will have the pleasure of flying our old 1960s base snowplow that we used to clear the runway in the old days,” laughed the colonel. “We have it on a trailer behind an old troop carrier in the museum over there that we were able to start. With a dozen troops, you can go and get whatever General Allen wants you to get. Captain Watkins gave me orders from the general when she came in last night and we have worked all night to get prepared for your arrival.” Carlos thanked the Colonel. They all looked a little exhausted.
The food was served and they ate quickly. Carlos couldn’t leave until Buck arrived.
“I heard something about F-4s?” Carlos asked.
“General Allen has his semi-secret pet aircraft project stationed here. Mine, too. We have two F-4s rebuilt to flyable conditions, as original as Tom, Jerry, and Mother Goose are. Mother Goose is supposed to fly into your buddy’s airfield in North Carolina. She is an HC-130 tanker from the Vietnam era, and the only one flying at the moment. Two more tankers will be operational within the week. Again, she is totally original and was to be stationed here in our museum. She is currently ready to fly and looking good. Mother Goose is one of the old in-flight refueling Hercules, and was especially fitted to service F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam. Her engines were increased in power to get up to 330 knots and be able to refuel the jets, and she was the general’s project for the next Oshkosh fly-in. Mother Goose is the only aircraft we have at the moment that can fly coast-to-coast non-stop and can either refuel helicopters, AC-130 gunships, or F-4s. All our aircraft here are heading out tonight for Andrews and will be stationed there going forward. We have the second and third HC-130 and a third rebuilt F-4 on display at Edwards. All three are fully functional and they will be flying within the week. We have tons of munitions for the F-4s and they will be our primary fighter wing. I hear the DC-3 coming in,” added the Colonel. “We have a minute or two before you head out of here. There will be two more Hueys and a couple of other bits and pieces. We are getting ourselves together, and I’m interested to know what the Navy has functional, as well as the Coast Guard. They should have a couple of old C-130s on each coast, and they could be our early warning system if there’s an attack.” He got up, and so did Carlos and Lee Wang.
“I’m coming with you to the observatory,” said Lee, and Carlos nodded, looking at the janitor in surprise for a second.
Lady Dandy taxied up and stopped where Carlos’ Mustang had stood an hour earlier. The P-51 had been pushed back into a warm hangar and was being checked out by several mechanics that had little to do. A tired Buck and crew got out of the plane, and Carlos did the introductions before stating that he and Lee were leaving. The hungry pilots headed off to lunch.
Buck had installed two RV porta-potties in the back of Lady Dandy—one called Lady Dandy and the other called Lord Dandy. Both had a curtain on a rail that could be pulled around for privacy and the usage of the stalls made for more comfortable flying. Therefore, the crew of this plane was not so desperate to relieve themselves. Lady Dandy was attacked by several personnel who went about refueling and checking her out for her return flight. Several men unloaded the small generator and lifted it manually into a troop carrier standing by.
Carlos smiled at the small snowplow on the trailer behind a truck. It was about half the size of the usual snow plows found on ski slopes, had an open cab, and the plow feature had been removed and a newly installed machine gun installed in its place above the small windshield. There was room for four—it was about the size of a small car and had a flat rear bed for luggage. He jumped into the cab with the driver, Lee got in with him, and they drove into Salt Lake City, one soldier sitting on top of the cab with an M16.
Much like the rest of the country, there were dead cars everywhere, and twice they saw old vehicles driving on smaller side roads but not on the highway. People seemed friendly and waved. The weather was rather warm for January. The temperature had risen above freezing and the highway was wet and slippery but just passable traveling at 20 miles an hour. They covered the distance to the mountain pass within an hour, and the truck began its steep climb up. The idea was that the troop carrier would go as far as it could and then they would travel with the snowplow.
Parley’s Canyon was always a pretty dangerous piece of road at the best of times, with a steep 6% gradient for several miles. The old troop carrier was pretty old, but a powerful piece of machinery. It could be shifted into six-wheel drive if needed, and had been built for tough conditions. It ground its way up the canyon, winding around several crashed vehicles, many of which had dead and frozen bodies in them or twisted and broken lying around them. It would have been disastrous for anybody traveling on this piece of road going downhill and losing control in the middle of the night. A couple of trucks had skidded on the steep slopes and were burnt-out frames draped up against the sides of the canyon walls.
It took half an hour, but the military vehicle slowly made it up Parley’s Canyon and all the way to the turnoff to the road that would take them another four miles to the observatory. Here, the road had a steep downhill slope and the entrance to the road had several feet of snow piled up by the wind, creating a barrier for any road vehicle. It was time to test the snowplow.
The men got out of the troop carrier and set about getting the plow off the trailer. Carlos had no idea how to drive it but he was told he didn’t need to. Within minutes, the driver was ready, the snowplow was started up, and a second man got in behind the machine gun. Carlos and Lee were offered the rear seat, and a set of goggles and warm gloves were given to each of them as they took off over the mound of snow at a quick pace. As Carlos gave directions the snow, now about a foot thick underneath them, crackled as they moved forward at 15 miles an hour.
The four miles were covered in less than 20 minutes, and they had to shoot the lock off the main gate and drive over it where it stood— frozen in a couple of feet of snow. Inside the observatory compound, the drifts were more than two feet deep and the snowplow had to move slowly to stop from covering them all with the fine powder.
The parking lock was empty except for Lee’s old car still sitting where he had left it and just barely visible from under a pile of snow. The whole place was closed down for the holidays. They drove up to the observatory building and the door was locked. Lee brought out keys and within seconds the door squeaked open, still frozen from the icy wind. It was cold inside, very cold. There was no electricity and immediately Carlos went around to the rear of the building and tried to start the big generator—the observatory’s main backup system. The modern generator was also dead to the world. He then helped the men lift the lawn tractor generator they had brought. It was light enough for four men to lift and place the green four-wheeler by the outer door. One man started it and let it warm up.
Carlos then picked up the long, thick extension cord he had brought with them, and within ten minutes had it mated into the building’s main circuitry. He first made sure to turn off all the unnecessary switches that he knew they wouldn’t be using and shouted for the men to connect the power and engage the generator on-switch that Preston had built. He flicked the main electrical switch to “On” and several of the lights blinked on. He heard the growl of the generator deepen outside as it accepted the added feed.
Once the generator was warmed up and fully operational, Carlos walked over and checked the telescope, hitting the switch to power it up and move it. The large telescop
e creaked and then hummed as it activated itself very slowly. It worked! He tried to start his computer, but it was as dead as he knew it would be. He opened the side of the PC and took out several parts—parts he knew were useless. He had modified his own computer over time and it was very different from the average computers sold in stores since it was tweaked to his needs. He had replaced most of the parts, and he knew that without all the modern parts “Made in China” it should work.
It took an hour of messing around, but he switched it on and the “On” light lit up. He went through the rest of the observatory’s computer system so that they could begin transmitting signals to and from space. The old observatory system was much like the ham radios—30 years old—but had new modifications installed over time. He removed most of the modified parts and replaced the older parts found in the storage room. Carlos hoped the computers would start on his first try. They didn’t, however, and he spent another hour working on the electronics. Lee brought him a warm cup of water with a tea bag in it.
“Have you changed the communications oscillator from automatic to manual mode and the output and input DOS regulators to manual override?” Lee asked. Carlos looked at him with an open mouth.
“You know about oscillators and DOS regulators?” he asked, his face incredulous. Carlos was shocked. How did this Chinese janitor know about advanced computer electronics? “How do you know that?”
“I have Ph.D.s like you, friend Carlos. Maybe they are 30 years old, but I read to keep up with the modern advancements in electrical engineering and astronomical engineering, and I have often used the telescope when I was alone in here. I can give you a hand since my old-fashioned knowledge is perfect for what you are trying to modify, and maybe a little more experienced than your younger knowledge. Together we can get this thing working.” Carlos looked at him, still in shock and with his mouth open as he stared at the older man and then moved out of the way for Lee Wang to sit down.
It took Lee only minutes to remove parts and set up the commands of the system. A little work with a soldering iron and he asked Carlos to switch it on.
This time, the observatory’s main computer system lit up and the system worked, although it was extremely slow and the only working screen showed DOS characters. The modern screen was back in DOS mode and Carlos looked at Lee again and connected the two computers together. The telescope and its now simplified computerized system suddenly managed to transmit to Carlos’ computer. They were in business.
“We need to talk, friend,” Carlos said seriously as he looked for his notepad. It took him several pages, but he found the location of Navistar P and typed it into the computer. The whole system took a while to calculate the input with the computer thinking like an old man playing chess but slowly the transmitter attached to the telescope moved, as it was ordered to by the computer, and then stopped.
Carlos typed in the satellite’s call sign code he had written down on his pad and pushed the “Send” button. Nothing happened for several long seconds. The screen’s DOS cursor just blinked back at him, but suddenly Navistar P asked him if he wanted it to turn on.
“Nothing four Ph.D.s, an old man, and a young man couldn’t handle,” smiled Lee Wang. “If I remember my studies over the last three years here, this one might work like the Chinese communication satellites up there.”
“How many do they have?” Carlos asked.
“Several, and I have tracked them and also communicated with them,” replied Lee. Carlos suddenly felt like he was a student and Lee Wang was his teacher!
“Do you have your information here?” Carlos asked. “Of course,” was Lee’s answer. “It is in my head.”
“Let’s see what Navistar P can do first, and then we can check out the opposition,” Carlos said, typing in the command to turn the lost satellite back on. “I’ve just realized that whatever we do, we won’t be able to see the photos the satellite sends us anywhere.”
“Start-up will commence. Time estimated, three minutes,” wrote the cursor on Carlos’ screen.
“If it has digital pictures it can send us, how are we going to see them?” Carlos asked. “I don’t think this DOS screen is going to give us any color photos.”
“I think you are right, but I know what will,” Lee Wang answered, and he was gone.
“Main directory online,” wrote the cursor, and suddenly Carlos knew what this lost satellite was designed to do. There were several sections on the directory:
A. Continuous Feed Photo Display
B. Communication Feed-in
C. Communication Feed Memory Read-out
D. Communication Bounce Angle
E. Automated Setup for Bounce Feed
F. Termination Sequence
G. Deactivation
It was something that shocked him to his core. In the 1970s, the Air Force had actually designed a satellite that could send down continuous photos of Earth, as well as be used as a communications bounce-off system. A signal could be sent to its memory and the computer in the satellite would find the longitude and latitude coordinates of where the sender wanted the message to be relayed, and it would then relay the message. Carlos suddenly figured out how he could set up nationwide communications. It was a shock that they had built this system so early and had never used it. The Air Force had just let it get lost and forgot about it when it went offline.
Lee Wang came back with an old screen and the small computer it sat on. He began to put it together. “This is something that has been forgotten on the other side of the observatory and I think it is an original data-processing PC and terminal from the telescope from the early 1980s. This old piece of machinery was stored behind several more modern ones and I was surprised to find it. It is an Amiga PC computer sold by Commodore in 1985, the newer version of the old Commodore 64 and has better graphics. I studied this when I came over to America. This is the first computer I ever owned, and I pulled it apart and put it together several times. Unfortunately, it is not upgradeable.”
“That’s Steve Crockett’s old computer,” acknowledged Carlos, “and I think one of the original terminals he must have used when they built this observatory. They must have transferred over to more modern computers and a new mainframe in the 1990s.”
“It was, I think, in 1985 when Zedong Electronics started making parts for PC computers,” continued Lee Wang. “This model came out just before Zedong Electronic began to build the parts.”
“Zedong Electronics?” asked Carlos. “Zedong Electronics makes parts for everything in the world and has ever since I was a kid!” And then realization hit him like a brick and he hit his forehand with his open hand. “Zedong Electronics! It is all of their parts that have malfunctioned. Of course! All their parts have malfunctioned, or have all been directed to close themselves down, possibly through satellite communications!”
“Terminated,” corrected Lee Wang.
“And all the back-up spare parts, everything, even whole units, everything we use today are made by the same company!” realized Carlos, sitting back in his chair and looking upwards with his eyes closed. “They have crippled the world, the whole world, and every electronic gadget in the world apart from their own, I’m sure.” He sat quiet, his eyes closed and his brain working faster than any computer could ever do.
It took him a minute and then he opened his eyes and stared at the blinking cursor on the screen in front of him. “Lee Wang, you and I need to have that long talk. Tell me now, are you a spy or work for Zedong Electronics?”
“Yes, at least until they tried to kill me and my family last week,” Lee replied. “It was then that I became a real American citizen and wanted to resign from the company. They were terminating all of their employees, I believe, so that we couldn’t tell anybody about the plan. I wasn’t a spy like James Bond. My job was to find new products they could copy and then manufacture replacement parts, or obtain a contract to build those parts cheaper than any other company. That was my job. It was more the commercial ste
aling of blueprints or finding out future ideas. The first device I worked on in China was a new prototype of a Toyota engine-management system in 1982. I had to catalog all the small and important parts so that they could copy and reproduce them for the Japanese manufacturer. They gave me the same model back again a few months later and asked me to dissect it again and see if anything was different. I did, and the electronic parts manufactured by Zedong Electronics were well-made—perfect, but had a small microscopic antenna that you could only see with a microscope. One of these was included on every new part.”
“Big enough to receive an electronic impulse?” asked Carlos.
“I would never have seen them if I hadn’t used a microscope, and we were not supposed to use microscopes to dissect the new parts, just eyesight. I got curious and wanted to look through the powerful microscope on my desk and saw the antenna sticking out, but was nearly caught. The miniature part dropped on the floor and broke. I gathered it up, put it in a piece of paper, and looked at it again through my own microscope when I got home.”
One of the soldiers came over. They had been patiently waiting by the front door, eating cookies out of the observatory’s food dispenser, and had made some tea after Lee had shown them where it was.
“It’s time to go,” the soldier said.
“We can’t go now,” replied Carlos. “We are about to get important feedback. Lee and I need to stay here overnight. We brought enough gas for the generator for at least 12 hours and it is starting to warm up in here. The temperature in here must be at least 40 degrees. I recommend you return to the base and either tell General Allen to come up here or come back and pick us up at dawn tomorrow morning. What does the weather look like?”
