Chapter 22
Arctic
Crash Site
For all the cruel turns of fate that day, Kasey finally caught a break. Dr. Chen Li regained consciousness.
“How are you feeling?” she asked him.
“Like I was run over by a bus,” Chen replied weakly.
She held a water bottle to his lips, and he took a tentative sip.
He had begun stirring minutes earlier, and she’d taken a seat next to his makeshift bed.
What began as a series of spasms and moans stabilized when he opened his eyes and saw her.
Kasey tried to project an aura of calm to counter the chaotic scene around them.
It seemed to work. Chen was obviously in pain, but with each passing moment he became more lucid and clear-eyed.
“What ran over you was a lot bigger than a bus. Tell me what hurts.”
“There is pain in my ribs when I move or cough. And there.” He looked down at the bloody bandage on his leg.
“I suspect it’ll be sore for a while, but I don’t think there’s any permanent damage done. If you need pain meds, there are some in the emergency medical kit.”
“That would be appreciated.” He studied the faces around them. “Where is your partner?”
Kasey shook her head. “Only nine of us made it.”
He took a moment to process this. “My condolences. I know the two of you worked together, but I sensed you were friends as well.”
“We were. I’m going to miss him.”
Chen took in the greater scene: the shattered hull of the jet, the rubble of fixtures, the strewn personal belongings. “It is a miracle anyone survived.”
“It is.” She looked over her shoulder. Chen was somewhat isolated from the others, but all the same she lowered her voice. “But my mission hasn’t changed. I’m going to get you safely to the United States.”
His gaze went to the nearest oval window. “Where are we?”
“On an ice floe somewhere in the Arctic. The first officer survived and he’s in charge now.”
“That is good. He will know what to do.”
“He does. But there’s a bad storm outside and he thinks it could be a day or two before help arrives.”
Something in Chen’s expression deepened. Notwithstanding his physical injuries, his brilliant mind was recovering quickly. “But who will come?”
She gave a subtle nod, happy with how quickly their thoughts had merged. “That’s the million-dollar question.” She looked around cautiously, wishing they had more privacy. In the tight confines of their makeshift refuge, having a private conversation was going to be a challenge.
She lowered her voice further. “Could the Chinese have brought this airplane down?”
“Tell me what happened.”
“According to the copilot, both engines shut down without warning and wouldn’t restart.”
He thought about this for a long moment. “One of my research associates was working on exactly such a capability. She was removed from my team and assigned to the MSS. They wanted to exploit a related technology—hidden malwares in chips exported from China in recent years.”
“So it wasn’t Sky Fire?”
He shook his head. “The prototype I carried out is unique, and before I shut it down on the flight, I executed a final command that destroyed all the existing databases and design records.”
She looked at him incredulously. “You had that much control over the program?”
“It’s not unusual. For a scientist living in the PRC, the best way to advance is to make oneself indispensable.
All my colleagues keep their greatest innovations hidden as long as possible to provide leverage for advancement.
But perhaps, in the back of my mind, I also knew it gave me the power to destroy everything. ”
“What was your reasoning?”
“The program had been metastasizing in ways I never envisioned. Sky Fire was originally designed as a defensive system.”
“Defense against what?”
“China is an autocracy, and all such governments have one thing in common—those at the very top are forever nervous. Threats from within are usually a greater concern than those from abroad. The ability to ‘take away the keys’ from an internal military rebellion allows leaders to sleep better at night.”
“And that was Sky Fire’s goal?”
“Originally, yes. But when the first tests showed remarkable success, its offensive potential became apparent. The regime is desperate to leapfrog America militarily. They ordered that Sky Fire be expanded globally to target the digital architecture of as many Western civilian and military systems as possible. Seeing the project being increasingly weaponized, I became nervous. I had envisioned Sky Fire as a stabilizing force. When I made the decision to defect, I inserted a kill switch into the primary server. Ten years of work, tens of billions of dollars spent on research. I was able to wipe all of it out in seconds.”
Chen coughed and his face furrowed in pain.
When his eyes opened again, Kasey said, “We need to think this through. If we allow that they did take the airplane down, then they did it here, in the Arctic, for a reason. Chances are, they assumed that neither you nor Sky Fire would survive. They failed on both counts.”
Chen’s eyes scanned the cabin. “You found the case?”
She nodded.
“Where is it?”
“In a safe place.”
“Then the question becomes, does Beijing realize there are survivors.”
“At some point they will, but probably not yet. That gives us a window of opportunity.”
Chen looked at her quizzically, clearly not following. He was a genius when it came to controlling the binary world, but clandestine operations were far more capricious than ones and zeros.
“We need to tilt the playing field in our favor. The first officer told me the crew weren’t able to send a distress call as we were going down—something about a satellite communications outage.”
He reacted with a slow, contemplative nod.
“Yes, that makes sense. If the Chinese were willing to risk bringing down an airliner, it would be a small additional step to jam communications. That would help hide their crime and also make a search more difficult.” She could see his thoughts accelerating.
“The capabilities of the device in our possession are virtually limitless and would take years to replicate. The MSS knows this and will make it their highest national priority to get it back.”
“Won’t they assume it’s at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean?”
“Probably, but that might not matter. The control unit is designed for the field, hardened for combat conditions. It could conceivably be damaged beyond repair in a severe air crash, but right now the MSS can’t know how it fared.
Even if the critical drives are exposed to seawater, they’re recoverable if they can be salvaged quickly.
If found and returned to Beijing, there’s a good chance the entire system could be reconstructed—which would save years over starting from scratch.
I assure you, the MSS will stop at nothing to find Sky Fire.
“Conversely, if we can deliver it to your compatriots and they’re able to exploit the prototype… we would be handing them a blueprint for a new weapon that could devastate the Chinese military.”
“Which is why nobody but the Americans can be allowed to get their hands on this thing.”
“Exactly.”
“Then here’s my question. Can we use Sky Fire to send a message to the CIA right now? One that the MSS won’t see?”
A deep look of concern washed over Chen’s face. “I think I could get a message through to your headquarters. But to do it without giving away our position to the Chinese… that might be difficult.”
“Difficult or not, we need to find a way. Otherwise, we’re as good as dead.”