Perilous Skies (Stony Man)

by Don Pendleton

  The pilot had then been ordered by Zordun to flee the battle. No amount of stealth could give his plane the advantage over antiaircraft artillery with line-of-sight targeting.

  As the stealth aircraft winged away over the jungles of Malaysia, there had been a brief, glimmering rain shower.

  And that was unusual.

  Zordun replayed the rain shower. It was indeed just moments of strangely fine mist. It seemed unnatural for such a mist to be in the skies over the jungle in the late evening.

  So could it have been man-made?

  The rain did indeed have a curious scintillating quality to it. It released a rainbow of color in the dim illumination of moonlight. The mist appeared almost oily.

  Curious, Zordun switched back to the interior camera. He watched the video at the time sync of the mist. He saw the pilot frown and peer through the windshield. He was having difficulty seeing, as if the rain was not being blown by the wind immediately off the windshield.

  As if it was adhering.

  Zordun nodded. Now things were falling into place.

  The Chinese had devised a method of tracking his stealth aircraft, even if they couldn’t see it on radar. They had showered it with some sort of oil, perhaps containing infrared reflective particles. The oil would allow them to track the path of the stealth jet, and they had followed it to Taiwan and blown it up minutes before it would have landed.

  And now they would assume Zordun was in Taiwan.

  Could this explain the reason for the sudden Chinese buildup off the coast of Taiwan? Did they want this stealth technology that badly?

  Could the soldiers in South America have been Chinese-hired agents? There were always mercenaries for hire, from every country in the world. Would the Chinese hire a British merc to track down Zordun’s aircraft in South America?

  It didn’t make sense. What purpose would it serve the Chinese to destroy aircraft in South America?

  Another beep and his eyes were drawn to a red and blinking icon on his screen. He switched to it. It was a security alert from the CMC plant.

  Had the Chinese already landed agents in Taiwan to track him down?

  He hurriedly pulled up the most recent video streams from the cameras at the CMC plant. He saw fire. He saw bodies. He saw the wreckage of equipment.

  He backed the video up several minutes and watched in growing horror as a group of soldiers infiltrated his materials plant. He stopped cold on one of the faces. For some reason, this man, standing in his materials facility not ten miles away, reminded him very much of the blurry image of the man standing on the salt pile and detonating the explosives in Argentina two days ago.

  It seemed impossible that it could be the same man.

  And the image from Argentina had been too blurry to make any sort of identification.

  But he kept watching. And there was another face. He switched from one camera to another and witnessed this man roll a grenade into his armory and shoot his guards dead. The invader appeared in almost perfect profile in the camera for one brief instant—

  Zordun felt sick with dread. This man he recognized, without a doubt.

  It was the British soldier from the ruins in Mexico. Somehow this soldier had tracked him down. From Mexico to Argentina—which he believed now must be connected—and all the way to Taiwan.

  He looked at the time code, his common sense suddenly and finally kicking into gear.

  The time code showed the departure of the soldiers from the CMC plant eight minutes ago.

  Zordun had no doubt where they were headed. They were headed here. To his plant. To his home. And they would arrive any minute.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Darrell Carpenter—Carp to his friends—got a call on his personal cell while he was in the middle of a roundtable meeting.

  The topic of the meeting was system security. The company had sunk almost half a billion dollars into a satellite network that was supposed to make the Worldwide Weather News network the star in its field.

  But two days ago the system had been hacked and some asshole had been using it with apparent impunity ever since.

  Darrell Carpenter, who right now wasn’t Carp to anybody, wanted to know why they couldn’t stop it. And he wanted to know why he couldn’t stop the goddamned phones from ringing when he was in the middle of this meeting.

  He thumbed off the phone midbuzz and dropped it into his pocket. The conference room phone began to ring. The second conference room phone began to ring. His secretary, Alice, poked her head in at that moment and said, “Mr. Carpenter, there are some people trying to reach you by telephone.”

  His cell began to buzz again in his pocket.

  Both phones in the conference room stopped, then both started ringing again.

  What in the hell?

  “They seem to think is very important that they speak to you immediately, Mr. Carpenter.”

  “Which line?” he demanded.

  Alice looked nervous. “All of them.”

  His personal cell phone buzzed insistently. His subordinates around the conference table weren’t sure what was going on, either.

  “Give me a minute,” he said. He poked at the screen of his smartphone. “Who is this?”

  “Hello, Mr. Carpenter. This is Aaron.”

  “Aaron who?”

  “Just Aaron. I’m calling about your satellite security problems.”

  Oh, great. The media had finally got wind to the breakdown of the WWN system.

  Time to deny, deny, deny.

  “What satellite security problems?”

  “I know you have satellite security problems, Mr. Carpenter.” Aaron said. “I’m friends with a guy who hacked you.”

  Darrell Carpenter’s mouth became very dry. “What?”

  “I know this is going to be hard for you to believe, but your satellite system has been seconded by a certain intelligence agency to assist in a certain highly volatile geopolitical crisis. Believe it or not, your new satellite system has been an extremely useful tool.”

  “What the hell do you want with us?” Carpenter stormed.

  “As I said, it’s going to be very difficult for you to believe what I’m about to tell you. Please open your mind and listen to what I have to say. We have something to offer you. We discovered a new capability that you did not even realize your system possessed. It’s going to enable a new and truly unique type of programming. Not the kind of programming your network has ever done in the past, but I guarantee you it will be of great interest to viewers around the world.”

  Darrell Carpenter simply did not know how to respond to the crazy person on his line. And he was deathly afraid that the crazy man truly was the hacker. And if he insulted the man, the man would retaliate by crippling the WWN satellite system permanently.

  “Mr. Carpenter, you still with me?”

  “I’m still here.”

  “I’m going to explain to you now what your system has been used for.”

  “Okay, buddy. You go ahead and explain it.”

  And then the man who called himself Aaron explained to the CEO of Worldwide Weather News Corp. exactly how the WWN satellite system had been appropriated for intelligence use. The explanation left Darrell Carpenter flabbergasted.

  “You are with...who? Taiwanese intelligence?”

  Aaron said, “I would never try to deny such a thing, Mr. Carpenter. But I don’t know how you could possibly believe a word I’ve said without me actually proving it to you.”

  “How could you prove it?”

  “Here’s what I will do,” Aaron said. “I would like to have my technical man talk to one of your top system specialists. Somebody who understands the satellite operating system. My tech guy is going to send your expert the same software we have plugged into your system. You can run it in a digital vault if you’re worried that it might contaminate your system. But when you do, you’re going to see that what I say is true.”

  “We’re going to see unidentified flying planes,” Carpe
nter said incredulously.

  “You’re going to see stealth aircraft that belong to the Chinese military, as well as drug smugglers from around the world. A very specific kind of stealth technology will be made visible on your systems. And when I give this to you as my gift, the only thing that I ask of you in return is that you broadcast it.”

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  THE AMASSING CHINESE FLEET was the focus of the news on every channel. U.S. senators were calling the move by China simple, bald-faced aggression. Unprovoked and unmotivated.

  Others were saying that China had been planning this move for decades and simply now decided that the time was right.

  Even Taipei had been mystified by the abrupt change in tenor in its relationship with China. The ongoing stalemate had changed so rapidly into preparation for war that it had caught the government in Taipei off guard.

  Publicly China was making no demands. Behind the scenes, the story was different.

  The message had been delivered to the government in Taipei.

  Taipei was stalling for time. It had no idea what exactly it had in-country in terms of the stealth technology. It had not even heard of this technology until the message was delivered by China.

  Taiwan’s leaders reasoned that if China was willing to take the geopolitical gamble of making war, or even the gamble of preparing for war on Taiwan, then the technology they were after must be immensely valuable.

  There were some who suggested that Taiwan should confiscate this technology and exploit it for its own good.

  Put Taiwan in the seat of power for a change.

  Cooler heads seemed to prevail. Whatever the technology, and however it could be exploited, it could not possibly be located and exploited in the few hours remaining before China’s aggressive military buildup turned to military action.

  And there were those who worried both privately and in the government houses in Taipei and in Washington, D.C., that nothing would stop China this time. That China would send its force into Taiwan, if for no other reason than to confiscate the technology that it claimed ownership of, and as long as it was finally taking an aggressive act against Taiwan, it would go for broke. Exert control. Conquer Taiwan.

  The problem for China had always been one of global perception. It had Taiwan outgunned easily. Militarily there was nothing stopping it. The problem with a military takeover of Taiwan would be the large-scale damage done to China’s interests the world over. Its economy would suffer devastating losses when nations chose to no longer do business with China.

  This reality had been mystifying to China in decades past, but as the leaders became more exposed to the Western world and understood the depth of the world’s disdain for aggression, if not the sentiment behind it, China knew it was stymied in this regard. Military expansionism was simply no longer tolerable in a world filled with billions of bleeding hearts.

  China had long ago determined that there was more to gain in appeasing those bleeding hearts and supplying them with consumer goods than there was in alienating them and hamstringing China’s own industries.

  It was a matter of simple market economics versus military ambition.

  And yet there were times when military ambition became the top priority. Because the military was required to protect the business interests. And thus China had put a focus on making its military the superior global force.

  And for once, they found the technology within their own borders that gave them military predominance. A technology that they did not have to steal or reverse engineer. It was theirs. It belonged to them.

  The fact that the technology had actually been developed and perfected in the United States was conveniently ignored.

  When the demand was passed along to the government in Taipei, there was no mention of the fact that this technology originated anywhere but China. It was characterized as technology that belonged completely to China. The message to the government in Taipei reminded them how highly China valued intellectual property and how it brokered no casual or premeditated violation of intellectual property rights.

  The message delivered to the government in Taipei was quite clear: China felt justified in invading Taiwan, if for no other reason than to retrieve that which Taiwan had stolen from it.

  * * *

  THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD, and the pundits populating the global news-media industry, speculated endlessly on the motivation behind China’s actions. When the timeline became publicly known, the speculation escalated.

  There had been no activity from the Chinese military as recently as twenty-four hours ago specific to its military buildup. Such a rapid buildup on this scale was unprecedented.

  This had also not played out like simple military exercises or scheduled maneuvers. In the past, when China decided to flex its muscle, it let the world know. It moved ships and positioned military resources for weeks at a time. It deployed troops. It sometimes made veiled threats.

  This time, nothing until just a few hours before. Peace had transformed into the largest single-location buildup of military power in years, or decades. There was evidence of inefficiencies and sloppy work, clearly indicating that this had been an unplanned venture.

  The more the world watched, the more the pundits became convinced that something had happened behind the scenes. Some diplomatic disaster or international insult must have triggered the activity.

  And now, even as it was still moving ships to the South China Sea, China had delivered some sort of a deadline to Taiwan. It was not a deadline of days, but of hours. Someone had leaked the information or had overheard it in the conversations among high-level Taiwanese leaders. It was a deadline of twelve hours.

  * * *

  “TAIWAN IS RESISTING,” Price said.

  “How can you blame them?” Kurtzman said. “Why should they suffer these fools?”

  “Because they can’t win. Not if it comes to war.”

  “That’s always been the case. Taiwan has always faced that inexorability. If China ever found itself truly willing to attack Taiwan, they could throw a million soldiers at the island. They would sacrifice whatever materiel and lives were required to not lose. It was always about saving face for China.”

  Barbara Price had heard too much about saving face. Intellectually she understood it; as a human being it revolted her. “Sacrificing one million soldiers to save face? Even if they did it, they’d look like fools. It would reinforce the world’s view that they care about their power base far more than about their people.”

  “The old boys and the militarists are still there, still breeding and still in positions of power,” Kurtzman said.

  Price turned away from the news screen and looked at Kurtzman. “Aaron, do you think they would really do it? They’d really turn this crisis into some sort of impulsive expansionist aggressive act?”

  Kurtzman nodded. “Maybe. The keyword is impulsive. Taiwan has been an itch under their collar for as long as they can remember. Every time they threaten Taiwan, you better believe there is always that urge to actually follow through. Despite the cool heads in Beijing, there are hotheads, too, and the hotheads might someday have the political leverage to make the attack actually happen. Is it today?” Kurtzman spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know.”

  “To save face,” Price said bitterly.

  “Not if we can help it,” Kurtzman reminded her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Darrell Carpenter gazed at the flat panel, not daring to believe what he was seeing.

  His tech was trying to explain it to him.

  “This is an aircraft being picked up by our satellite system. This is the air traffic control radar signature.”

  He flipped back and forth. The aircraft was there, and then it was gone, and it was there, and it was gone.

  “And that’s Chinese?”

  “Not officially. But yeah. We’re looking at the South China Sea. That is a Chinese stealth aircraft.”

  “And this software in ou
r system, it can see only a specific kind of stealth aircraft?”

  “With the programming that’s in place, yeah.”

  “Listen, kid,” Darrell Carpenter said, “if we go public with this thing there has to be no doubt that we’re not compromising U.S. military technology. We do that, we’re traitors. We’re out of business.”

  “On the other hand,” the IT guy said, “if it’s only the bad guys, then we’re heroes.”

  “How are we supposed to be sure?”

  The IT guy shrugged. “I just barely have an understanding of what’s going on here, let alone how the programming makes it happen. The stuff is beyond me. All I can tell you is this thing can see stealth aircraft in all parts of the world. When we tested it an hour ago with Aaron we saw eight or ten of these things flying around in South America. We saw some in Europe. They’re concentrated outside of the United States, although I was told that there are also drug smugglers who do use them to come in and out of the United States. From what I have seen, and from what I’ve been told by these people, and for whatever that is worth, Carp, these are all bad guys.”

  Carpenter nodded. “So do we risk it?”

  “This is one of those days,” the IT kid said, “when I’m really glad I’m not the boss.”

  * * *

  IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT in Taiwan, and getting on to noon in Washington, D.C.

  Tokaido leaped up from his seat and pointed at the plasma screen. “Worldwide Weather News has just gone live with Stealth Cam Global!” he exclaimed. “Check it out!”

  The image was on the screen. It was Tokaido’s software, prettied up with better graphics.

  The announcer was explaining, and the words were scrolling at the bottom of the screen, but Barbara Price only caught some of it. “Some connection to the crisis in the South China Sea...stealth technology claimed by China...dozens of aircraft around the world using the technology...China assumed to be selling stealth technology to drug smugglers, crime organizations and possibly even terrorists. Proprietary software provided by an unknown source with direct connections to the crisis in China.”