Chapter 4
Beijing
How the hell did you let this happen?” said the iron-fisted Minister of State Security, the only man between Zhang and the president himself. The minister was linked in by video as they dissected what had happened that morning. And right now, he was fuming.
Zhang resented his presence. They were in the middle of a massive manhunt, and the last thing he needed was his boss tossing recriminations around the operations center like hand grenades.
It not only eroded morale, but also undermined Zhang’s authority.
With every barb and with every flake of dandruff that dropped off the old man’s scalp, Zhang wanted to wrap his hands around his brittle, scrawny neck and squeeze until it snapped.
Had the man been in the room, he might have done just that.
Forcing himself to focus, he returned his attention to the security camera footage from Macau International Airport and the lavish boarding lounge of Hemisphere Airlines.
The video they were studying had been taken two hours before the debacle on the pier. There was no mistaking the bespectacled figure of Dr. Chen Li. He was typing furiously on a laptop in the minutes before boarding. The laptop was connected to a familiar black case on the floor by his knee.
“That is the system,” said a woman named Wu Mei. She had been the lead AI researcher under Chen and had been summoned to the operations center for the insights Zhang hoped she could provide.
“Are you sure?” Zhang asked.
“Absolutely.”
The minister, his face contorting on an adjacent screen, looked like he might pop an aneurysm. “Where is his airplane now?”
The researcher called up a map on the main monitor. Hemisphere Airlines Flight 777 was presently transiting Japanese airspace. Its flight path was projected northward on a polar route.
She said, “It will arrive in New York in roughly twelve hours.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it!” the minister countered.
Zhang watched as the minister picked up a secure phone without killing the video link.
Over the course of the next ten minutes, Zhang and the researcher heard half of two very agitated conversations.
The first was with a Chinese Air Force general who confirmed that, if the order was given soon, interceptors could probably catch up with the airliner and shoot it down.
In the second call, a Chinese Navy admiral was more confident.
He had two destroyers near the airliner’s projected flight path, and both carried surface-to-air missiles with enough range to knock the massive jet out of the sky.
The minister then paused before initiating his most perilous call.
He set up a three-way videoconference, to include the operations center, before inviting the last participant to join.
Zhang knew blame-sharing when he saw it, and he watched nervously as an assistant answered.
Sixty seconds later, the well-coiffed visage of the president of China appeared.
Two of his closest advisers were visible on the screen, one over each shoulder.
The MSS minister confessed what had happened.
The fireworks began immediately, a rapid-fire exchange that engulfed all the players.
Potential casualties?
There are forty passengers on the aircraft and sixteen crewmembers. Most are either American or Chinese, with eight other nationalities represented…
Yes, the Japanese, the Russians, and perhaps the Americans will see the shoot down…
No, we haven’t yet come up with justification for use of force…
A heated debate ran, and as it did, Zhang found his eyes flicking to a second monitor. The symbol representing Hemisphere Flight 777 ticked farther away with each second.
The discussion digressed into a shouting match between the president’s advisers and the MSS minister.
Shooting the jet down would resolve their intelligence disaster, but at the cost of generating a political firestorm.
The Americans would surely know the real reason for bringing the jet down.
Only one point brought consensus. Dr. Chen Li could not be allowed to reach New York with the secrets in his possession.
Zhang suddenly realized that one person was not paying attention to the heated back and forth. Glancing over at the researcher, he saw her typing feverishly on a keyboard. When she finally looked up, she locked eyes with Zhang. Her expression implied that she had discovered something important.
“What is it?” Zhang asked.
The men on the videoconference fell silent, also seeming to notice her pent-up exhilaration.
The AI researcher hesitated. She clearly wasn’t used to having the exclusive attention of the most powerful men in China. “Forgive me,” she said, “but I think there might be another way.”
She explained her idea, an option none of them even knew existed.
Silence followed, everyone deferring to the president.
“Do you have full confidence in this technology?” asked the president.
“Absolutely. I designed it myself.”
“How quickly can it be done?”
“I think the better question is, where should it be done?” She directed everyone’s attention to the map and explained her reasoning. “Doing it that way would give us time to prepare.”
The president began a slow nod that gathered momentum. “Very well,” he said. “Proceed.”