Chapter 12
Beijing
Zhang fixed a penetrating glare on Dr. Chen’s number two, the AI researcher named Wu. “So?” he demanded. “Have we succeeded?”
“I believe so,” the woman replied. “We have ended the jamming by our satellite. The Hemisphere Airlines craft appears to be no longer sending data and is not responding to air-traffic controllers.”
“I don’t care how it appears! We must be certain!”
Wu looked up with barely masked annoyance. “With more warning, I might have built a better plan. I am doing the best I can.”
Zhang would have excoriated most underlings for such impertinence.
But the researcher was unique, and unfortunately, she knew it.
She understood better than anyone what Chen had created; irrespective of whether they recovered the Sky Fire prototype or had to rebuild the system from scratch, Wu would play an instrumental role in repairing the damage Chen had done.
He ratcheted down and addressed the other person he’d summoned to the conference room, the MSS operations center chief. “When the Americans realize contact has been lost with this jet, how will they react?”
The chief said, “Their CIA will coordinate with other intelligence agencies to listen for emergency beacons and monitor radio traffic. Within an hour, two at the most, it will become clear that the aircraft has gone down. They will monitor the official search and, given the stakes, probably stand up one of their own.”
“What about our mission from Canada? Was it successful?”
The chief rotated his laptop screen so everyone could see it.
A polar map was presented, and one tiny bright square blinked with the precision of a rapid-fire metronome.
The Challenger and its two pilots were on their way back to Beijing.
“The crew did well. The decoy was dropped over two hundred miles from our estimate of the true crash site.”
“And there are no emergency beacons sounding where the aircraft actually went down?”
The man gestured to the otherwise featureless map. “Complete silence. The beacons would definitely have gone off during the crash, but by now they are on the bottom of the sea. Fortune is with us.”
Zhang could not contain his smile, excruciating as it was. “Good. Our head start has gotten larger.”