Chapter 3
Another glass of champagne, sir?”
Dr. Chen Li looked up from his laptop to see a beautiful flight attendant.
A fluted glass was poised perfectly on her tray.
Her smile was effervescent, nearly genuine, and her clipped British accent brought back pleasant memories of the old Hong Kong—the vibrant place that had existed before its backslide under the yoke of communism.
He wondered if this was intentional. Had the airline selected her for this route with that much nuance?
Having already downed one glass of the wonderful elixir, an exclusive Boerl & Kroff vintage, he decided to take a pause. “No, thank you. Perhaps later.”
That eye-catching smile again. “Of course, sir.”
Chen was entirely out of his element. Admittedly, as a top-tier research scientist in China, he had enjoyed extensive privileges.
A European car, a decent apartment, the promise of a good pension.
There had even been a beachside villa on Yalong Bay for two weeks every summer.
He would have preferred Bali, but owing to the sensitive nature of his work, he wasn’t permitted to travel abroad.
Still, it had been nice. But compared to the luxury in which he was now cradled? It was like waking up in a new world.
Hemisphere Airlines was a unique, fresh entrant in global aviation.
An ultra-first-class carrier, its business plan targeted a niche of high-net-worth individuals: those who wished to avoid the headaches of private jet ownership, yet also demanded a discriminating experience.
A mere forty seats were spread spaciously across a cabin designed for six times that number.
Each “sanctuary” consisted of a plush leather recliner, entertainment suite, separate lie-flat bed, and a mahogany surface that doubled as a workspace and dining table.
A mid-cabin lounge offered barstool seating with fine wine and exclusive reserve liquor.
In the aft cabin a full-service spa massaged away stress, and private shower compartments allowed passengers to refresh before landing.
All of which, of course, came at a ruinous price.
For the CIA, however, Hemisphere Airlines offered one exceptionally alluring attribute—it operated out of Macau International Airport, a secondary airfield across the Pearl River Estuary from Hong Kong.
Better yet, its security screening and boarding practices were unfailingly discreet.
This was not by accident. The airline was a favorite among the Chinese Communist Party elite, who avoided the masses wherever possible, as well as corporate executives and foreign dignitaries.
Basic security measures were in place, but the intense surveillance of Hong Kong International or Shenzhen Bao’an International could be sidestepped.
Chen checked the flight display on his private flat-screen monitor. There were no overlays of territorial boundaries, but the map told him all he needed to know. They were closer to Japan than China, which put them in safe airspace. He was, at long last, free.
Glancing across the expansive aisle, he made eye contact with a woman.
She was attractive, in an understated way, with ash-blond hair and an engaging smile, probably in her late thirties.
It hadn’t escaped Chen that she had demurred on the first round of champagne.
He imagined the conflict his CIA escort officer must have felt.
Declining a drink at the gate would be out of character for a typical Hemisphere Airlines passenger.
On the other hand, since they had still been on enemy territory at the time, sobriety was the only responsible course.
He guessed that her partner, a young Asian man seated in the mid-cabin who spoke fluent Mandarin, had likely done the same.
Kate—probably not her real name—looked more relaxed now. She accepted the flight attendant’s offer, and as soon as the woman moved on, she raised her glass to Chen in a subtle toast. He grinned, then returned to his work.
His laptop appeared ordinary, a hardened model from a brand-name manufacturer. Yet while the shell had been bought in a store, what lay inside was anything but off-the-shelf.
The laptop interfaced with a revolutionary suite of software contained in its accompanying black case. The system was designed for portability, being intended for use in forward locations. The capabilities it provided were without parallel in modern warfare.
Communication was facilitated by a small satellite antenna, which was presently suction-cupped to the nearby window.
The antenna could link to receivers across various bandwidths, which was critical to the system’s designed mission.
That flexibility was now on display: Chen had locked on to a solid satellite signal, sidestepping the aircraft’s Wi-Fi system, which was neither reliable nor secure.
And as he knew better than almost anyone on earth, the greatest challenge in any cyber network was maintaining secure communications.
Satisfied that his plush pod prevented anyone from seeing his screen, he called up a real-time feed of the scene at the wharf.
Expropriating the feed from MSS channels had been virtual child’s play.
The battered taxi sat surrounded by police and MSS cars.
The bloody minister of culture and tourism was gesturing angrily at a cluster of men in suits.
Chen had no grievance with Luo Sheng, nor, for that matter, with the prostitute he had frolicked with last night.
They had simply been convenient dupes—in the right place at the right time.
The CIA had expertly orchestrated Chen’s extraction—smuggling him out via a delivery truck earlier that morning, changing vehicles three times over in a roundabout route to the airport.
Then, finally, a reservation on Hemisphere Airlines, complete with travel documents under a new assumed identity.
It had been tense, terrifying, and downright exhausting, but it had worked. Exquisitely.
Using the autonomous taxi and manipulating the tracking signals had all been his idea. A smoke screen of distraction to maximize confusion.
The driverless taxi was not only right up Chen’s alley, but also a perfect middle finger to the MSS.
For years they had experimented with inserting malwares into various Chinese-built cars.
Unfortunately, finding practical applications for a self-driving car with a kamikaze mode had proved elusive.
After a few hundred cars were shipped out with the hidden software, the project lost funding and had largely been forgotten.
Until the man who had conceived it brought it back to life.
If anything surprised Chen, it was how quickly his hand had been forced.
Fully expecting the MSS to be watching him, he had set up tripwires in various internal communication nodes.
Three weeks ago, shortly after the CIA had responded to his initial approach, one of those tripwires had gone off.
Within days, his name was racing through top-level MSS channels like storm-driven wildfire.
He didn’t panic.
Disgusted by the corruption of the regime and its disdain for human rights, he had been plotting his defection for the better part of a year.
The project he now oversaw, Tianhou, or Sky Fire in English, was the apex of ten years of work.
Chen’s transformative application of artificial intelligence could vault China’s military to the forefront.
For that reason alone, the MSS had ample concern to watch him.
What they never took into account, however, was the uniqueness of his position.
It never occurred to his MSS minders that they were monitoring him using systems that he himself had created.
With one last look at the scene along the wharf, he input a few final commands. His index finger hesitated slightly, then he tapped the final keystroke. Chen cut the connection, pulled down the antenna, and shut Sky Fire down.
Deep in servers a thousand miles away, in the MSS’s most secretive data center, his instructions were executed.
In a matter of milliseconds, years of work vaporized in an alphanumeric puff of smoke.
Owing to the highly classified nature of his research, the design records and data resided nowhere else. Recovery would be impossible.
The lone prototype of Sky Fire was now his, and his alone.
Dr. Chen Li put his head back and closed his eyes. The sense of relief was profound.
KASEY SHERIDAN WAS glad to see Chen shut down his laptop. She knew he was using it to facilitate their escape, but in the age of electronic tracking, clipping the only remaining signal was undeniably comforting.
She settled deeper into the oversize leather seat and sipped her champagne.
Bubbly wasn’t really her thing, but she had to admit it was superb.
And it felt good to switch off. The recent weeks had been nerve-racking.
Extracting Chen from China had been the most challenging assignment of her sixteen-year CIA career.
The mission had been green-lighted from the highest levels, yet its footprint was kept deliberately small.
In the final week, she and her partner, Walter Ho, had gone dark.
They cut all ties to the embassy, leaving only one secure comm channel to headquarters.
They had ducked and weaved through a tradecraft labyrinth, running surveillance detection routes that bordered on marathons in the world’s most pervasive surveillance state.
It had been exhilarating and exhausting, a once-in-a-career op that could shift the balance of world power.
Although she knew only the basics of what Chen was carrying, she knew it was pure dynamite.
And now she and Walter were bringing it home.