Dragon Head

by James Houston Turner

  Talanov jerked awake, not realizing he had dozed off until a thump from somewhere in the plane awakened him. He glanced at Wilcox, who was still asleep, then at Straw Sandal three rows ahead. She, too, looked to be asleep. He then glanced toward the front of the plane and saw Stephanie at work behind the curtain.

  After a yawn and a stretch, Talanov raised the window shade and looked out at the Milky Way. The original fairy lights, he thought with a smile, and after another yawn, he pulled down the shade.

  He then heard another thump, this one from the rear of the plane, and after stepping quietly into the aisle, made his way to the rear galley. The cabin lights were off, although a nightlight enabled him to see the area was deserted. To his left were some luggage compartments. To his right was a small kitchen. Ahead was a small bathroom. He checked the bathroom and found it empty.

  Habituation, or training the subconscious to determine which sounds were normal and which were not, especially when asleep, was a skill he had learned during his military training. Normal sounds triggered no alarm and required no response. Abnormal sounds did trigger alarms. The trick was learning which sounds were normal and which were not.

  Talanov listened for several more minutes but heard nothing. But as he turned to leave, he heard a scuffing sound.

  Stepping back into the galley, Talanov looked closely and saw that one of the luggage compartment latches had been rigged with a piece of folded paper that kept it from locking. Alarm bells sounded in his brain and he knew why. The staircase of the Gulfstream had been open upon their arrival at the hangar. A sterile area, Wilcox had replied when he voiced his concern about no guard having been on duty outside.

  Talanov looked around but there were no potential weapons of any kind. Standing opposite the hinges, Talanov readied himself to pull open the door and deliver a front kick to whoever was inside. Surprise would be his weapon.

  But when he yanked open the door, he jerked back when he saw Jingfei and Kai staring out at him.

  “What are . . . how did you . . . ?” stammered Talanov.

  “We are not about to let our sister get killed because of your incompetence,” Jingfei snapped.

  Talanov stepped back while she and Kai unfolded themselves from the cramped compartment just as a yawning Wilcox appeared in the doorway.

  “What are you looking at?” hissed Jingfei. She pushed past Wilcox and stormed up the aisle toward the front galley.

  Wilcox watched her go, then looked at Talanov with obvious bewilderment.

  “Man, those compartments are tight,” said Kai, rolling his shoulders.

  “Does Zak know where you are?” asked Talanov.

  “He probably does by now. Ginie was in on it from the start. I mean, we knew we had to tell someone, but we couldn’t tell Zak or Emily, who would never let us do something like this, so we told Ginie but swore her to secrecy.”

  “So you ditched him?” asked Talanov. “And ran off without him knowing it?”

  Kai nodded sheepishly, then said, “You said we couldn’t come, but we knew you needed our help, so when Zak stopped to fill up at the Valero, we asked him for some money so that we could go next door to the IHOP and get something to eat. We used the money for a taxi instead.”

  “How did you beat us to the hangar and get on board without being seen?”

  “Ginie called us a cab when she went to the bathroom, and the plane was, like, totally unguarded when we got to the hangar.”

  After a quick glare at Wilcox, Talanov shook his head.

  “Please don’t get mad, okay? Su Yin’s our little sister, and those ninja guys are, like, super bad news, and there’s, like, a million of them, and they know a whole lot more about phone viruses than you do. Besides, you really can’t get mad, because aren’t you and Spy Bill doing the same thing by, you know, like, stealing this jet?”

  Talanov wanted to say something, he really did. He wanted to lecture Kai about their foolhardy, irresponsible actions. Except Kai was right: he did need their help, and he was doing the same thing. So how could he be mad at these younger versions of himself, when in truth he was glad they were here?

  “Can I get something to drink?” asked Kai. He looked toward the front galley, where Jingfei was gulping down a bottle of orange juice. When Stephanie held one up for Kai to see, his eyes lit up, but he hesitated and looked up at Talanov, as if waiting for permission.

  Talanov nodded in the direction of the galley.

  Kai grinned and gave Talanov a hug. “You are a total badass superhero. You, too, Spy Bill,” he added, giving Wilcox a hug. “Cool plane, by the way.”

  Talanov and Wilcox watched Kai hurry up the aisle toward the front galley.

  “How can two kids be so lovable and so infuriating at the same time?” asked Wilcox. “And what is with the Spy Bill stuff?”

  “What I want to know, is why didn’t Zak call to tell us what happened?” asked Talanov with a worried frown.

  “Probably because we don’t have cell service out here over the Pacific, so there is no way he could have gotten through. Even if he’d tried phoning Charlie, his call would have gone to voicemail.”

  Talanov watched Stephanie take out a tray of sandwiches and begin unwrapping them to eager smiles from the kids. “Those two are certainly a handful,” he said.

  “Which we don’t need,” agreed Wilcox. “Good thing we’re sending them home.”

  Talanov did not reply.

  Wilcox noticed the lack of response and turned to face Talanov. “I know that look,” he said, reading Talanov’s thoughtful frown. “You’re thinking of letting them stay.”

  Talanov did not reply.

  “Do you know how much danger you’ll be putting them in? They’re kids, Alex. Minors. You have to send them back.”

  Talanov rubbed the bridge of his nose.

  From her seat midway up the aisle, Straw Sandal quietly smiled.

  CHAPTER 41

  In the windowless computer room of the Zhongzhen Martial Arts Academy, Chao looked over AK’s shoulder at the monitor, which showed a digital map of an open section of the Pacific Ocean. No coastlines or islands were visible to give a perspective on where that section of ocean might be. The only indicators were some numerical coordinates along one side of the screen. Also visible were two small, blinking orange triangles with flight numbers beside them.

  “What are we looking at?” asked Chao in English.

  “Two commercial aircraft, bound for Hong Kong,” AK replied.

  “American?”

  “This one,” said AK, pointing at one of the triangles. “Other one Chinese.”

  “Probability of success?” asked Xin Li in Russian.

  “Ninety-four percent,” responded AK in Russian. “Our first attempt, Shāng Yī, did not accomplish what was desired, thanks to quick reflexes by two of the pilots, although it did enable me to adjust our algorithms for our second penetration, Shāng Èr. We now control not only the Americans’ GPS network, but also the speed, altitude, and direction of any aircraft using it. We can now bring one aircraft down upon another, without either detecting the other, quite literally as if this were a video game that I alone control.”

  Chao looked quizzically at Xin Li, who translated what AK had told her.

  “Why the names, Shāng Yī and Shāng Èr?” asked Chao.

  Xin Li replied, “Entropy One and Entropy Two, as the terms translate, indicate our ability to send the Americans’ GPS into a state of entropy, or uselessness . . . chaos.”

  “The extortion value of such a program is incalculable,” said Chao. “As will be the price on your heads. Are you certain your signal can’t be traced?”

  “I am certain,” Xin Li replied. “Beijing and Washington will blame each other.”

  “Incredible. I’m impressed.”

  “How impressed?” asked Xin Li, locking eyes with Chao.

  “Enough to give you what you want.”

  Xin Li smiled. With Chao’s backing, she would soon be the new D
ragon Head. Moran’s empire would be hers.

  “Execution has begun,” AK announced, drawing their attention while he worked three keyboards simultaneously.

  High above the Pacific Ocean twelve hundred miles to the east, two airliners pushed westward through the nighttime sky. With no visible points of reference apart from the stars, and with modern navigation dependent solely on satellite technology, coordinates and speed were all but impossible to gauge. Hence, neither of the pilots detected any change in their direction. That’s because their instruments indicated everything to be normal.

  “Chao?” a voice called out.

  Chao turned to see Dragon Head enter the room with several of his Shí bèi fighters.

  “Very impressive,” Chao remarked with a nod toward the monitors.

  “Get him out of here,” commanded Dragon Head.

  The Shí bèi fighters surrounded Chao and muscled him from the room.

  “You will regret this!” Chao shouted angrily while being manhandled across the gym floor and out the front door.

  Dragon Head knelt beside AK and rested his elbow on the edge of AK’s worktable. The pistol was still in his hand. “You allowed Chao to witness Shāng Èr?”

  “Do not blame him,” Xin Li said. “I was the one who invited Chao to witness our achievement.”

  Dragon Head stood and moved to within inches of Xin Li’s face. She was several inches taller than he, but his muscular presence dominated the room. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Because of the predicament we are in.”

  “A predicament that is set to change if what you told me is true.”

  “It is true,” Xin Li replied. “We have the girl. Talanov will give us what we want.”

  “Then why involve Chao?”

  “Because he is a powerful man. Better to have him as an ally than an enemy.”

  “He is the enemy.”

  “But an enemy you can own. An enemy you can use.”

  Dragon Head turned to AK. “Will Shāng Èr be a success? Your first attempt was a failure.”

  AK entered an unimportant command on one of his keyboards and thought about what to say. The fact that Dragon Head failed to appreciate the lessons learned from Shāng Yī was irrelevant right now. No one had ever managed to do what he, Bogdan Kalashnik, had done, and yet Dragon Head called it a failure. What an idiot. It was, of course, a thought he dared not utter. Instead, he pointed to the monitor, where the blinking orange triangles grew closer.

  “Last forty-eight hours have been to me very useful,” AK explained in clumsy English.

  “Meaning what, exactly?” asked Dragon Head.

  Speaking in fluent Russian, which Xin Li translated, AK talked of newly developed algorithms, packet sniffers, hash encryptions and rootkits, adding that his unheralded zero-day attack was the first of its kind ever. He then used information being displayed on other monitors to illustrate technical points, adding sidebar explanations about the electronic dance taking place between his software and the GPS network of the United States.

  “My virus keeps mutating and attacking with increased speed,” AK continued. “That’s because I’ve factored their response codes into my next generation of attack codes, which allows us to be proactive while they can only react. That is because they do not know who we are or where we are, nor can they trace our signal in order to penetrate our defenses with a virus of their own.”

  Dragon Head glared briefly at Xin Li, who could tell he did not understand a word of what AK had said.

  “Continue,” Dragon Head said, looking back at AK.

  Tapping the screen with the blinking triangles, AK said in English, “With Shāng Yī, which was first generation, we had seventy-six percent success chance. With Shāng Èr, which is second generation, we have now ninety-four percent.”

  “Why not one-hundred percent?”

  “Impossible with outdated equipment that I use.”

  “If you need a new laptop, buy one.”

  AK thought for a moment, gathering his vocabulary to express himself in English. “It not just matter of buying new hardware, but constructing new hardware to handle software, which I am all the time creating, with codes that, how do you say, transmutatsiya . . .

  He looked back at Xin Li, who said, “Transmute . . . evolve.”

  “Yes, transmute codes, that contain own intelligence that react in instant to American defense and strike back.”

  He paused and looked back at Xin Li, asking if he could speak again in Russian so that he could better explain himself.

  Xin Li smiled and nodded.

  Speaking in Russian, AK continued, with Xin Li translating into Chinese.

  “Thus far, thanks to cloaking techniques I’ve managed to create, I’ve caught the Americans off guard by striking quickly and then vanishing. This will only work a few times before they respond with countermeasures that close those windows permanently and backtrack our signal. Without advanced capabilities and speeds, I cannot guarantee how much longer we will maintain our advantage.”

  “Which is why I brought in Chao,” added Xin Li, looking at Dragon Head. “He has money. He can help us construct the new hardware that we need.”

  “I do not want Chao involved,” Dragon Head replied. “Talanov will give us what we need.”

  “And if something goes wrong?”

  “Then you had better make sure that it doesn’t. How soon before we know whether Shāng Èr is a success?”

  AK worked his keyboard against a hum of electronic activity, and almost immediately, rows of numbers began scrolling down one side of his screen. The information let AK know the exact positions of each aircraft, their speeds, angles, altitudes, and other fluctuating factors. “Minutes,” he replied, wishing he could watch what was about to occur. If only there were a giant camera up in the sky.

  There were, of course, many cameras in the sky. They were called satellites. Hacking those satellites, however, would require algorithms of infinite complexity, not to mention military-grade enhancement software that was beyond the capacity of his hardware. He just hoped Xin Li’s trap for Talanov proved successful.

  As for Shāng Èr, hacking the Americans’ GPS network a second time was another example of his own brilliance, in spite of Dragon Head’s antiquated equipment. One plane would collide with the other. In his mind, he could see a massive fireball lighting up the sky for hundreds of miles. Satellites would record it. Ships on the ocean would see it, as would other aircraft. The elegance would be spectacular.

  China and America would be dumbfounded and, by design, would each blame the other, although factions in the American government would no doubt blame the Russians, especially with the discovery of Talanov’s presence. Their incompetence would be comical, and no one would know what happened, or how, or by whom. Even Dragon Head, for all his fearsome power, bowed before such skill. Even Xin Li, who was more terrifying than Dragon Head, bowed before such skill. Neither of them knew what he knew. More importantly, neither of them could duplicate what he knew.

  AK smiled to himself. My survival – my prosperity – is assured.

  He looked again at the blinking triangles on his screen.

  An instant later, both of them vanished.

  CHAPTER 42

  Stephanie had just served Wilcox a breakfast frittata when Mark signaled Wilcox to the cockpit for an emergency call from Gustaves. The fact that Gustaves had chosen to contact him on a secure line meant she knew what he had done, which meant the proverbial shit was about to hit the fan. The call, however, was not what Wilcox was expecting.

  “Two hours ago,” Gustaves said gravely, “there was a midair collision over the Pacific. Not a near-miss, like last time, but an actual collision, with over a thousand people killed.”

  “Was it Dragon Head?” Wilcox asked.

  “It was the same signal echo and the same origin of Shenzhen,” said Gustaves, “so our experts, including Charlie, are saying yes.” Her phone was on speaker and her eye
s were fixed on the large flat screen television in the bookshelf across the room. She had been flipping from channel to channel, witnessing the faces of grieving family members collapsing into the arms of friends.

  Having seen enough, she switched off the TV and turned her attention to her phone, which was laying on her desk.

  “Beijing is blaming us,” she continued, “because the signal was made to look as if it originated at the NSA’s SIGINT

  Operations Center in Oahu.”

  “Are you serious? The Hawaii Cryptologic Center?”

  “We detected the Shenzhen origin, but China hasn’t – or can’t – make that determination yet because their tracking and analysis programs are not as sophisticated as ours. But that’s not all. The hackers made the signal appear to have been relayed by way of the CIA’s ground control facility at Pine Gap, Australia.”

  “How on earth did they manage that?”

  “We don’t know, but it makes us look guilty as hell, since Australia is arguably our closest ally and since FORNSAT and COMSAT interceptions are one of Pine Gap’s major functions. For whatever reason – obfuscation, is my guess – Dragon Head wants to pit China against America, which of course keeps the spotlight off him. I know it wasn’t us, but we can’t prove that to Beijing without some kind of proof that Dragon Head was responsible, which we can’t do.”

  “Are you certain the hackers were Chinese?”

  “Like I said, we traced the echo to Shenzhen, although Charlie thinks Dragon Head is behind it.”

  “Isn’t Dragon Head in Hong Kong?”

  “Yes, he is. But a good friend of mine at the NSA let Charlie take a look at his data on the hacking-stream, what little they were able to grab, and Charlie found several highly specific code sequences in both the hacking signal and the virus that Straw Sandal planted in our system. Charlie likened it to the same fingerprints found at two different crime scenes, with the presence of those fingerprints proving the same perpetrator committed both crimes.”

  “Dragon Head.”

  “Exactly. And since Dragon Head controls Hong Kong and most of Kowloon, Charlie’s take – and I tend to agree – is that Dragon Head is behind this but is masquerading his signal to make it look like someone in Beijing is disguising the signal to look like it originated in Shenzhen. That keeps China and America squabbling with one another, which diverts attention away from what he’s doing.”