by Jack Slater
Kim grimaced.
“That was not an answer,” he said calmly, though his finger grazed the sidearm holstered at his hip. Eight pairs of eyes followed his every move, dancing between Kim’s terrifying complexion and the stolid, expressionless faces of the commandos who flanked him on either side.
“Please,” one of the men whimpered. Kim’s nose wrinkled as he noticed a stain of dark urine on the man’s khaki pants. “What do you want from us?”
“If Dr. Chu does not step forward immediately,” Kim growled, “my men will be forced to execute you one by one.”
A short, spectacle-wearing scientist dressed in a white lab coat broke free of the crowd and aimed an accusing finger at one of his colleagues, his outstretched arm shaking as he pointed at the woman Kim presumed was Dr. Chu.
“Do whatever he says,” the sniveling man said, “and maybe we’ll get out of this alive.”
Kim smiled. At least, that was what he tried to do. On his gaunt, scarred face, it was more of a sneer. “Listen to your friend,” he said.
In truth, the man’s cowardice disgusted him. Kim hadn’t risen to command the feared Unit 61 without an inordinate reserve of bravery. The things he had seen and done and lived through would have broken most lesser men. The life he had lived fashioned him from raw rock, chipping away at his weaknesses until all that was left was power, cruelty and resolve.
Kim stepped forward, stroking Dr. Chu on the chin. “Now, doctor,” he said, leading her to a control console, “I need you to activate your weapon.”
Dr. Chu was not much shorter than Colonel Kim himself, though that wasn’t saying much. She had an oval face and dark brown eyes. Commendably, even though she had to be terrified, when she spoke, her voice was level. “Why?”
Kim pressed his hands against her shoulders and pushed her down into a computer chair. “No questions,” he said, sliding a sheet of paper out from inside the breast pocket of his uniform jacket, unfolding it and handing it to her. “If you do as I say, you and your friends will survive.”
He left the flipside of that statement unspoken. Dr. Chu was an intelligent woman, with an undergraduate degree from MIT, and a PhD from the Beijing University of Technology. She would work it out.
She accepted the sheet of paper with trembling fingers and brought it close to her face as she studied it. “These coordinates…” she whispered. “Do you know what they are?”
Kim nodded curtly. He didn’t approve of women questioning his decisions. But she seemed pliable enough, so he resisted the intense urge to deliver a backhand slap. “I do.”
“What do you want me to do with them?”
“Target them.”
“Which ones?”
Kim was tiring of this. He pressed his fingers against Dr. Chu’s shoulders and gripped hard enough to draw tears from the woman’s eyes. “All of them,” he snarled.
Dr. Chu was a brave woman. She drew on one last reserve of strength, though it might well have risked her life. “If you do this, you’ll start a war…”
Kim leaned toward her, seeing his own reflection in her eyes, the jagged scar on his cheek, the hunger in his expression plain for all to see.
“That,” he said, “is what I am counting on.”
Two of his commandos stepped out of the nearest building, carrying a squat green box that was hinged around the middle, and about the size of a small suitcase. Kim clenched his fist, a wave of fierce joy overcoming him. Despite themselves, several of the scientists turned to see what had caught his attention. Mostly, they looked blank—not comprehending the gravity of the device his men had acquired.
But one of them moaned, the sound low and deep and broken.
Kim grinned. “Ah, Dr. Chan,” he chuckled coldly. “You thought I didn’t know about Project Songbird?”
The squat, graying scientist did not reply—in fact, he could not speak. His chin collapsed against his chest. He had none of the delightful Dr. Chu’s resolve. It was a shame, Kim reflected. But then again, he did not need the man.
“No, Doctor,” the colonel snarled, “you should be proud. Your invention will help me destroy a nation.”
Trapp paced the length of the suite’s long glass window as the scrambler connected his call to Langley.
“Kyle, it’s Trapp.”
“Jason, we lost contact. What the hell’s going on down there?”
“It went to shit,” Trapp replied simply. “The two shooters are dead, Ikeda’s been taken, and I’m on my own.”
Kyle Partey breathed in sharply, the air whistling between his teeth. “Jesus. You’re saying the Chinese have her?”
Trapp shook his head, though Kyle couldn’t see him. He was wound up like a flywheel, alive with nervous energy. “Not the Chinese,” he grunted. “Someone else. Professionals; they clearly knew who Alstyne was and what he was carrying.”
“Shit. What’s the status of your mission?”
“I think Alstyne got tagged. If he’s not dead already, it won’t be long.”
“And the drive?”
“I’ve got it. Maybe.”
“I don’t like the sound of that maybe,” Kyle replied. “You know what’s at stake here, Trapp. We can’t let that drive fall into Chinese hands.”
Trapp gritted his teeth. “Kyle, next time you want to question me, do it in person. I know the threat we’re dealing with. Besides, if I’m holding the dummy, then it’s not the Chinese who have the real drive. It’s these new guys. And if someone’s gone after us, we need to find out who they are. I thought there was no way of cracking into those files without Alstyne’s passcodes? We should be safe, right?”
It was Kyle’s turn to prevaricate. “Maybe.”
“What the hell does maybe mean?” Trapp growled. “Can they hack it, or not?”
“We can’t. So probably not. But that’s not a guarantee.”
Trapp gazed down at Macau. Lights glistened off the skyscrapers and reflected down onto the shimmering waters of the perfectly still bay. There was a blackness at the bottom of the Ritz-Carlton, where the swimming pools had glowed earlier that evening. Thin lines of red and white lights snaked around the structure in neat blocks.
Trapp linked his smart phone with the satellite connection. “I’m sending you some photos. Ikeda killed one of the tangos, and they left his body behind. It was rigged to blow, but I got there in time. There’s a tattoo. I don’t recognize it, but your guys might have better luck.”
“Got it. Hangman—I need you to get that drive back to Langley like yesterday. We need to know if the real one got taken. If it did, then we are in a whole world of shit. I’m tasking the Cheyenne to pick you up.”
Trapp barely listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. “What’s our satellite coverage like over Macau?”
“What—?”
“Kyle, get your head in the game. I’ve got an operative in the wind. We need to get her back.”
Kyle’s voice was softer, more conciliatory now. It was as though he was attempting to calm Trapp down. “Jason. This is bigger than Eliza. She knew the risks when she signed up. You can’t go after her. There are greater priorities at stake.”
“Says a man who’s never been in the field,” Trapp spat back.
Maybe he was being irrational, but he couldn’t help it. And besides, he’d spoken the truth when he said the new guys were the greater threat. Trapp knew in his gut that the USB drive now on a chain around his own neck was the real one. With Alstyne assuredly dead, and his files most likely in Trapp’s possession, they needed to know who had attacked them—and why.
Trapp decided to take a less adversarial path to convincing Kyle. “You’re right. There’s more at stake here than just Ikeda’s life. Someone knew about what we were doing here. We’ve got a leak, and we need to plug it. I need you to trace every vehicle that left the hotel in the last ten minutes. Anything bigger than a fucking tricycle. You got that?”
“Trapp…”
Trapp froze. The phone at his ea
r beeped twice, but he was too entranced by the unusual sight unfolding in the skies above to notice. He thought they were fireworks at first. It wouldn’t be unusual for a party town like Macau.
But the lights were too high up. They grazed the very atmosphere itself, like shooting stars streaking through the night sky, or overexposed airplane taillights at an impossible height. First one, then two, then half a dozen. First they were streaks of light pulsing in the darkness, and then they shattered into an orgy of sparks.
“Kyle,” Trapp said, pulling his attention away from the spectacle in the skies. “Are you still there?”
But the line was dead. And Trapp didn’t need to be an astrophysicist to figure out why. The lights in the heavens were too high to be fireworks or planes. They were satellites. American satellites.
And they were burning.
15
“Get me up to speed, General,” Nash said, speaking loud over the dull rumble of Air Force One’s powerful jet engines. “What the hell is going on out there?”
The famous jet was returning him to DC from the opening of a semiconductor factory in the Midwest–an event that was supposed to herald America’s bright new industrial future –and just as importantly, get Nash’s agenda back on track, after months of economic gridlock that had followed the attacks in January. The day had started on an optimistic note, for once. It was ending on one that was anything but.
“Yes sir,” came the clipped terms of General Jack Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was being beamed in from a wood-paneled conference room somewhere deep in the bowels of the Pentagon. His complexion was ashen, and an aide to his right was quite literally holding his head in his hands.
“About fifteen minutes ago, we suffered a massive attack on our satellite surveillance and communication capabilities over the Pacific and most of Asia. As of this moment, the United States military is completely blind across the entire region,” Myers said.
Nash’s stomach clenched as though a two hundred pound prizefighter was winding up to land a jab at it. His mouth felt suddenly dry. “Who is capable of this? Terrorists?”
Myers shook his head solemnly. “No, Mr. President. This is exclusively a nation state capability.”
“Stop playing games with me, Jack,” Nash muttered. “Which nation state? Are you telling me that the United States is at war?”
“We don’t know, sir,” Myers admitted. “Several countries in the region have the capability to take down one satellite. Maybe two. That includes the Indians, the Japanese, the Russians and maybe the South Koreans.”
Nash could almost smell the elephant in the room. The one country that Myers hadn’t mentioned. “You’re saying it’s the Chinese,” he stated.
Myers closed his eyes for a second, then nodded curtly. “Yes, Mr. President. China is the only country in the region capable of downing all of our satellites at once.”
“Jesus Christ,” Nash whispered.
He leaned back in the conference room chair. He wished he could tilt it backward, to get some distance from this unfolding disaster, but it was bolted to the floor of the cabin. He ran through the scenario in his mind. Out of nowhere, China had unleashed a sucker punch at the United States. But why? Was it a prelude to all-out war?
“This doesn’t make sense,” Nash said. “I saw Premier Wang at the G7 last month. I saw no indication he was planning anything like this.”
Which only meant, Nash realized, that either there was an innocent explanation for all this–or he had been played for a fool.
One of Myers’ aides pushed a piece of paper toward his boss. The general scanned it briefly before replying. “Mr. President, my people are telling me that we lost 90% of our ballistic missile distant early warning capability in this wave of attacks. They are recommending–”
“English, General,” Nash growled. He didn’t need his people talking in riddles right now. He needed actionable information, transmitted in plain English.
“Yes sir. With the exception of the radar installations on Guam and Hawaii, we are currently blindfolded. The Chinese could fire their missiles at us, and we’d have just minutes to respond.”
“What kind of missiles, Jack?”
“The nuclear kind, sir.”
Nash blinked. Had he heard that right? “Say that again?”
Myers’ expression was grave. He leaned forward, elbows on the mahogany table in front of him, fingers clasped together. “Mr. President, it is my belief that we are currently in a state of war with the People’s Republic of China. The navy currently has three Ohio class ballistic missile submarines within range of China’s nuclear launch sites: the Nebraska, the Louisiana and the USS West Virginia. If you give the order now, we can have missiles in the air inside fifteen minutes.”
Nash knew the armament carried by the Ohio class submarines. They weren’t cruise missiles. They were nuclear. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was proposing that he launch a nuclear attack on China.
“Jesus, Jack. You’re talking about a first strike. A nuclear first strike. The American people would never forgive us.”
Myers shook his head. “I disagree, Mr. President. The Chinese struck first. This is a proportionate response, targeting only China’s nuclear weapons program. We have to act, and we have to act now–before it’s too late.”
Nash thought fast. He felt the sweat beading on his temple, felt the weight of his advisors’ stares beating down on his shoulders, and he heard the drumbeat of war. After almost six months in the job, Charles Nash was no ingénue. He knew that the term ‘leader of the free world’ was a crock of shit. The American public thought that their president was God–and in some ways, he was.
Nash had the power to reach out from his office and order the death or destruction of any person or place on the planet.
But most of the time, Nash knew, he was a glorified firefighter. And that was the situation at the present moment. Only he wasn’t fighting to save a factory, or even a national forest. His job was to stop the whole world from going up in flames.
“Jack, I can’t start a nuclear war to prevent one.”
“Mr. President –”
Nash slammed his palm down on the conference room table. “That’s my final decision, Jack,” he growled, cutting off the general’s protestations in their infancy. “Before the satellites went down, was there any indication the Chinese were planning anything? Troop movements, anything like that?”
Myers shook his head. “No, sir.”
Nash let out a deep sigh. There was something else going on here, he was sure of it. The Chinese had too much to lose by starting a war. Their economy was on the rocks, and a shooting war with the world’s only remaining superpower wasn’t exactly his idea of a stimulus package.
Nash glanced left, the way his chief of staff, Emma Martinez, was sitting. “What about State? Have there been any political developments I haven’t been briefed on?”
Martinez shook her head. “I’ll confirm with the State Department, sir, but I haven’t seen anything of note.”
Nash addressed Myers directly. “Jack–have we got any eyes in the region? Any satellites that didn’t get taken out?”
“No sir. The air force can re-task assets, but moving orbits takes time. And getting new birds in the air will take weeks, maybe months.”
“What else have you got?”
“The Nimitz battle group is a few hundred miles off the Chinese coast. We can get surveillance drones in the air immediately–but that only gives us minimal coverage.”
Nash flicked his fingers irritably. “Get them flying, Jack.”
“Yes sir. Additionally the USS Reagan and her escorts are currently refitting at Pearl Harbor. The navy wants to get them out onto the ocean, where they can’t be hit.”
Nash ran his fingers through his hair, exhaling deeply as he took in the import of that statement. Would the Chinese really be so brash as to try and repeat the attack on Pearl Harbor? He could picture it now: thick oil
shimmering black on the water, sailors swimming for their lives as fire rained down from above.
Only this time, the danger wouldn’t come from propeller planes. The US Navy would be hit by laserguided missiles fired from planes capable of traveling beyond Mach 3. The death and destruction would be on a completely different scale. The vision was humbling. It could not be allowed to happen.
“Do it, Jack. Report back to me the second you hear something.”
General Myers saluted and signed off. Nash turned to his chief of staff, recalling a conversation he’d had a couple of days before with Mike Mitchell, and spoke in a hushed voice. “Emma, get Deputy Director Mitchell on the line. It’s urgent.”
President Charles Nash knew something that not even America’s most senior generals were briefed on. At this very moment, a man named Jason Trapp was on the ground in China, conducting a mission that was of paramount importance to America’s national security.
Trapp was an operative like no other: deadly, effective, and entirely off the books. Perhaps he could acquire the intelligence that his country so desperately required.
America was on the brink of World War III, and her generals were urging their President to strike first and to strike fast. But Nash had not ascended to his current position by allowing himself to be bullied into action. He had no intention of dragging the United States into a war with the second most powerful country on the planet unless all available intelligence suggested that was the only course of action.
The US military was blind. But Jason Trapp wasn’t–and he was his President’s ace in the hole.
Nash had not long retired to his private suite on board Air Force One when Emma Martinez thrust her head around the cabin door with an urgent, taut expression on her face. The presidential plane was essentially a flying communications suite. Nash could ask the onboard switchboard to place a call to anyone on the planet, and have them on the phone within seconds. He could also command the full might of America’s armed forces from this very chair. It was a double-edged sword. There were times, like right this very second, when all he needed was a moment to think.
