The FSO Africa, a tanker carrying almost three million barrels of oil, slammed into Burg Doha’s twentieth storey. The time of day limited loss of life in the office tower, but the FSO Asia struck a more deadly blow, careening between the Japanese and Saudi Embassies above Diplomatic Street. She slammed into the thirty-first storey of the sixty-four floor Kempinski Residences and Suites. The huge vessel split itself against yielding cement and metal, sparks igniting oil spouting from the ship’s hold of three million barrels.
The huge quantity of oil exploded into flame and fell onto the second wave of the tsunami, covering all of Doha in a watery, burning twenty-metre high escalator of flames. People above the thirtieth storey survived if the skyscrapers they inhabited remained standing, but most threw themselves to their deaths when they saw the destruction. Wave surges sent fiery globules of oil and boiling salt water almost twenty-five kilometres inland, swamping all of Qatar and Bahrain in horrendous, blistering death traps. Sunrise would never be the same again in this region. The destructive power of the wave did not ebb until it reached about fifty kilometers from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
After the water returned to the gulf, indifferently carrying countless bodies of migrant workers, millions of wealthy Qatari citizens and the flotsam of a destroyed civilization, a curious phenomenon occurred. Inescapable fact defeated both the oligarch’s and Russia’s intended purpose of merely destroying a Chinese base of power in the Gulf created by the abdication of the Qatari Royal Family in favour of General Chou. However the catastrophe succeeded in watering the seeds of discontent in Sino-Russian relations.
Saudi Blackhawk attack helicopters, carrying Special Forces troops to the scene, recorded the disaster and fed it to world leaders by satellite around the world. A disaster of an unprecedented order of magnitude spread out before their automatically activated nose cameras. Streaming video made its way to rooms under the Pentagon as drones took off from USS Abraham Lincoln on patrol testing Iran’s resolve to attain the right to enrich uranium.
The US drones confirmed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what the Saudi early arrivals had first discovered. Nanosuited Chinese were walking nonchalantly around the shattered and drenched ruins of both Bahrain and Qatar. Despite everything, Qatar remained in Chinese hands. In addition, electronic chatter between the Chinese mainland and underground military installations in Qatar hummed with activity.
****
In Europe, around Russia, in the previous Russian Republics, and across the Middle East thousands of previously concealed, tiny drones were sent on their airborne paths. These drones fed dormant nanosuited Chinese men who lurked throughout the world waiting the order to move. Coded foglets initiated the movement of masses of indestructible soldiers, their nanosuits nourished by a pervasive utility fog. After a period of stasis, without a declaration of war, China invaded the world with men thought to be tourists. An Akula submarine’s commander, unbeknownst to the world, had made the first move in World War Three. Not for his country, not for his leader but at the behest of a supposedly ex-Fenian terrorist with an unknown agenda.
Mossad Makes A Cagey Peace With Macaulay
In Italy, about two kilometers outside the stunning medieval town of Polignano a Mari, Macaulay’s Quantum computer stirred in its limestone cavern. It processed its information feed then it used a macro to send a message to Macaulay’s phone in Israel. His phone received the video of the devastation in Qatar. Macaulay was satisfied. First, he sent a text message to Thomas, then to the others who were all sleeping in rooms on Yona Street.
Somewhat bleary eyed, they gathered in the kitchen area where Macaulay connected his phone to a plasma screen mounted on the wall. No one spoke for a while. Then Thomas cleared his throat.
“Did any of your ever see those images shortly after the Hiroshima bomb exploded?” he said.
Ekaterina got the first word in from her spot beside the espresso machine. “Wasn’t it the cockroaches that survived there?” she said.
“If roaches were five foot five on average after the Enola Gay dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, they’d’ve looked like this,” Thomas replied.
“What gives here? How’d this happen?” Yochana was clearly puzzled.
“Something tells me you might have something to say about that, Macaulay,” said Thomas, unable to hide his distrust.
“What’s with the bullshit? You know full well I did this Qatar business, or at least engineered it. It buys us some time, doesn’t it?” Macaulay’s response was cold and calculated.
“Or it starts World War Three,” Ekaterina observed with equal coldness.
“You don’t get the Chinese,” Macaulay said. “They’re greedy, just like the rest of us. You saw the consumption tax they imposed on the world. What about their demand to make the Renminbi the world’s reserve currency? Does that sound like a power that wants to end everything? Don’t be fools. Just like every civilization before them, they want to rule and collect taxes,” he continued.
“This does create suspicion of the Russians,” added Yatsick.
“Finally, someone’s using his noggin. Sino-Russian relations just went down the tubes. No one could possibly connect this to us.”
“Since when is it ‘us’, Mister Macaulay?” asked Ekaterina.
“We need each other right now. Stranger bedfellows've decorated human history,” said Macaulay.
“Much as I hate to admit it, he’s right,” Thomas said. Regardless of the current situation, he had more than this to worry about. He allowed his thoughts to turn to more pressing matters.
I have to get Kefira out of Chou’s clutches. This is gonna make him furious. Thank God I planted the idea that she was the key to the new diamond-based nanosuits. He won’t risk killing her. I hope.
Thomas projected a holograph from his mind into the room. The image replicated a server under attack by millions of bots. Multitudes of miniscule black dots floated, circled and finally kamikazed the server rendering it overheated and inoperable.
“They have a serious weakness in their technology that we can exploit,” Thomas said. “Look at this video I took for Al Jazeera in Samarkand.”
On the video, men filed out of the Bibi Khanym Mosque in Samarkand after prayers. Suddenly a scuffle started and a second group of men, all of them Chinese, broke into the ranks and bloodied many of the men leaving the mosque. Some of these men carried off women that were standing on the sidelines of the riot.
The film also captured drones circling over the crowd.
“I caught ’em by chance,” said Thomas, answering the questioning looks of his collaborators. “Watch this, I’m going to alter the transmission a bit.” Thomas used different colors to show the two directions of the molecules seeding the ‘walkers’ with utility fog from the drones. It was clear from the changing colors that some fog was returning to the drones to be recycled.
“How’d you manage that?” asked Yatsick.
“I just tagged the related pixels with different colors,” Thomas replied. “Not hard to do.”
“So, you believe the drones are in constant contact with their Quantum computer?”
“You got it. They have to be. I am going to attack them with a Denial Of Service bombardment. Our Quantum here and Macaulay’s in Italy should be enough to let us introduce a pair of worms into the system while they are preoccupied with the D.O.S. attack.”
“That was a mouthful,” Ekaterina grinned.
“Yatsick?” said Thomas.
“He’s right. It could work. We could get directly to Kefira through their system by the backdoor and have enough time to plan her escape.”
“We could also reproduce the lethargy often witnessed in the ‘walkers’ when their system has been destabilized. They’re like drug addicts. They go into hibernation when they don’t get replenished. It’d buy us time because we could simply repeat it,” Ekaterina said.
“At least until they learn how to counter it and close the backdoor I’ve opened up by discovering the retur
n trip of the foglets,” Thomas nodded.
“That’s where I come in,” said Macaulay. Yochana looked at him.
“How’s that?” she asked.
“While you people sat on your asses trying to figure out what to do, I pressed some of my connections in the Chinese military,” Macaulay started to explain. Ekaterina interrupted him.
“What connections could you possibly have in China?”
“Where’ d’ya think I got my Quantum computer in the first place? Chou, and more importantly, Lau and I, go back some.”
“My probe of your relationship with General Chou didn’t reveal much contact,” said Thomas.
“Only needed to see him once. We agreed to let me gather information for him and use the network of unrelated computers I had invaded all over the world to cover the cost of his building his first Quantum computer. Let’s just say that I found a way to finance it for him. As a reward he gave me a simpler version of his newer model Quantum to keep the cash flowing.”
“How does more evidence of your treachery with the enemy help us?” Yochana said with irritation.
“The newly promoted General Lau is Chou’s weakness.”
“Lau’s his technical genius. How’s that a weakness?”
“For a Mossad operative, you’re a bit slow on the uptake sometimes. You’re letting your distrust and hatred cloud your judgment.”
“Well?” questioned Ekaterina this time, coming to Yochana’s rescue.
“Thomas can confirm this information by probing my connections to Lau while he was moving up the ranks. Once, a long time ago, I impersonated a Syrian officer in China buying weapons at an arms fair there. By chance I overheard a conversation between Lau and Chou before they were what they are now. They never suspected my fluency in Chinese and I learned that Chou was blackmailing Lau and holding him on a tight leash.”
“What did he have over him?”
“Lau was a child genius with technology. He came from nothing in the Chinese hinterland. The army was the only hope for him. Where he lived there was a shortage of available women and the possibility for a poor boy like him to meet a woman and start a family was almost zero. Lau’s weakness is that he has always had an eye for the ladies.”
“Interesting history,” said Yatsick. “Lots of men have an eye for the ladies. Get to the point, would you?”
“Your hurry obliges you to miss important details and explains why I am alive and successful and you’re just a techie, son,” replied Macaulay smugly.
“Quit squabbling, all of you.” Thomas was losing patience. “Move on, will you?” But inside Thomas breathed a sigh of relief. They're all too preoccupied. No one's asking where Macaulay got the improved suit in the first place. How's he keeping it from my probes? No time now. I'll get to the bottom of this when Kefira's safe and sound. Of that Mister Macaulay, you can be sure.
“Lau was smart enough to see the corruption in the Red Army and he moved up the ranks by providing tech support to hundreds of illicit operations for each of his commanding officers in succession. Chou was one of those officers, except Chou is kind of like J. Edgar Hoover. He kept records of everything and used his records to corner Lau. Sure, he rewards him, but nothing like the amount his skills should receive.”
“You’re here. Lau’s in Qatar or maybe in central China. How does that help us?”
“I have an established link with him and I know something that’ll open him up to us. He is just a poor boy who wants to have a family.”
“More gibberish,” said Yatsick.
“We have something he wants,” said Macaulay as he glared at Yatsick spitefully.
“What’s that?”
“Sue Ann Lee.”
“He could’ve had her when she was interviewing Chou in Qatar. Why didn’t he take her?”
“You can take the Chinese boy from his loving mother in a small village in central China, but you can’t take the village and its relationships out of the boy.”
“Are you saying he’s an incurable romantic despite the climb to world domination?”
“I’m just saying that I know it’s important for him. He came from a village without women. It’s not for nothing his drones offer women to the ‘walkers’. There’s some serious psychology at work there. But that’s not all. Sue Ann looks remarkably like his mother when she was young."
“Where’d you come up with this kind of intelligence, if you can call it Intel?” Yatsick asked.
“The Chinese love to drink, but they can’t hold their booze. Now, the Irish, on the other hand-”
“I can enhance Sue Ann’s feelings for him,” said Thomas.
“I don’t like the sound of that, Thomas,” said Ekaterina nervously.
“Yatsick’s your watchdog. I can’t do that to you without him knowing, right Yatsick?”
“Does look that way, but you’re so much more capable with the suit, Thomas, I’m really not positive about that.”
“Guess you’ll have to take my word for it until we get Kefira back and then there’ll be two of you. Don’t forget I offered you a version of the suits too.”
“I guess you’re right. It’s just hard to-”
“Move on, please, ladies. We have to make some decisions and I have to initiate my Quantum attack from my phone here. We just need to coordinate things now,” Macaulay interjected.
At that moment there was a knock on the door. A bedraggled, exhausted looking young man came into the room on Yona Street. He was accompanied by one of the young women who worked in the hairdressing salon that fronted Ekaterina’s Mossad office in Haifa. They all turned to look at him.
“We never thought you’d get here,” Thomas greeted him with a smile.
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” said Jean Pierre interrupting the usual formalities of introduction.
“You’ve got what?” Ekaterina looked at him hard.
“BTX’s. We can use bent triple helixes to augment the storage on the molecular level.”
“Congratulations, Lanky, somehow I knew that if anyone could do it, it would be you.” Thomas briefly embraced him.
“What’s going on here?”
“He’s found our solution to the storage and personal safety problems surrounding my movement on the Net and the means to a way to attack Chou’s seeding process,” Thomas replied, an obvious pride for his friend showing in his voice.
“I need a shower, now.” Jean Pierre looked uncomfortable.
“How was the plane ride?”
“If you like roller coasters, wonderful.”
Thomas laughed. It was time to complete the introductions.
“Jean Pierre, this is Ekaterina, Yochana, Yatsick and Macaulay.”
“I... I was so excited, I forgot to-”
“Don’t worry about it, and welcome,” said Yatsick. “I’ll show you to your room and the shower. Wait! How thoughtless of me. You must be starved. What about some grub?”
“I’ll take the shower, thanks though, and eat after. Later, all.” He turned to leave.
Thomas raised his arm towards Ekaterina. She shook her head but Thomas was insistent. Reluctantly she pressed her thumb print onto the reader embedded in the gadget on his wrist. A soft gray haze surrounded Thomas as the suit emerged and came back under his control.
“You won’t regret it,” he said to Ekaterina, reading her apprehension at letting him have his power back.
“What’re we going to do with your friend’s information?” she asked.
Thomas projected the DNA of his suit’s diamond molecule into the air between them. The shape moved in an animated manner, rolling over and displaying all of its sides to the onlookers. Thomas then tweaked it with his mind. Two strands of the molecule bent as they came into contact with a third strand, then something happened. To everyone except Thomas the event was unexpected. A beautiful crystalline structure was born and as they watched it proceeded to copy itself and grow. The image was as captivating as it was beautiful.
“Now,
” said Thomas slowly, “if I manipulate the DNA at this level a little, watch what happens.”
The crystal evolved into another shape, equally easy on the eye, but much less bright.
“You see, the second shape takes far less power, as you can see by the level of illumination, but contains infinitely more information. This is very significant.”
“You’d be a good chemistry teacher, Thomas, but can you tell us what the application does for us?” Ekaterina asked.
Thomas just grinned. He turned to Yatsick, who had returned from showing Jean Pierre to his accommodation.
“I can see in your mind Yatsick that you’re on the right track, but you need to dream. Don’t hold back. And here, take these molecules for a new suit. It’ll help you make the logical jump necessary to understand the implications of Jean Pierre’s suggestion by giving you access to my thought processes too. This is a major step forward and I know you won’t waste it. Now, everyone, relax.”
As Yatsick eased himself into the suit, understanding dawned on him quickly.
“Ekaterina,” Yatsick's pride was apparent. “Watch, I'll show you.”
Thomas smiled and without any further warning he funneled himself into the computer systems, appearing on every screen in the room. As they watched in fascination he wrapped a copy of his new, replicating suit around each person present. At first they felt smothered and maybe a little frightened, but they rapidly absorbed a sense of comfort and confidence. Thomas controlled the experience carefully. He eased back on his mind control and allowed them to share the powers he chose for them in their replicated suits. Communication among them erupted spontaneously without the restriction of speech, dazzling all of them. Once he’d allowed them to experience the full effect, Thomas dropped the suits and let them notice the difference. They sat there stunned and weighed down, but amazed in their developing confidence.
Diamond Rain: Adventure Science Fiction Mossad Thriller (The Spy Stories and Tales of Intrigue Series Book 2) Page 14
