Susan gave him a warm smile. “Of course. But you know this discussion is just between you and me today. I was hoping for a more informal conversation between friends to clear up some important misunderstandings.”
“If you would please indulge me for a moment,” Donghai said, glancing down at his notecard. “The Chinese president wishes to offer you his warmest greetings and express his sincerest hope that China and the United States will continue to collaborate on key issues of concern to both of our countries as we have recently done on the clean energy deal. The basis of such cooperation has always been a mutual respect for national sovereignty. On that note, we ask that the United States refrain from meddling in the internal affairs of Hong Kong.” He stopped reading and gave Susan an apologetic look. “Forgive me, I had to read the message per my orders from Beijing.”
“Donghai, that’s perfectly fine. I do understand your position. Now that we have your president’s official statement out of the way, I’m wondering if we might resolve some important issues. Can we start by discussing the tweets from the China Xinhua News handle this morning?” Susan waited for her friend to nod in acknowledgement. “Our intelligence analysts have been attempting to discover the origin of the posts. We don’t think they came from your government. Perhaps you’re able to shed some new light?”
Donghai’s forehead creased, and his body tensed. “The true origin is China Xinhua News.”
Susan furrowed her brow. She hadn’t expected Donghai to deny the strange circumstances surrounding the posts. Especially given the information her people had received through back channels with Chinese intelligence analysts. “Then you’re saying the posts amount to official communication from the Chinese government?”
Maybe the analysts weren’t authorized to communicate with us.
He nodded but avoided eye contact.
“No one hacked the handle of your state news agency and uploaded the tweets to stir up trouble between us?” Susan asked, pressing the issue a bit further.
Donghai shook his head. “The posts reflect the current policy of the Chinese government.”
Why are the Chinese so sensitive about this hack? Is there something else going on?
Susan shrank back, her gaze clouding for a moment. This didn’t sound like her old friend talking candidly as he had in previous months. Not one bit. There was only one possible explanation. Donghai must have been given strict orders from Beijing to keep silent and wasn’t able to deviate from the official message for some reason.
But why?
“In other words, the Chinese government intends to threaten the use of nuclear weapons against the United States?” Susan asked, trying one more time to get through to him.
He nodded stiffly.
“Donghai, it’s just the two of us here,” Susan said, giving him direct eye contact. “I can’t possibly imagine your government would want to antagonize us. Please speak as freely as you can. Whatever you say will remain private between us, for the sake of reducing our countries’ strained relations.”
“That is all I can say on this matter,” Donghai said curtly and pressed his lips together. “My leadership was not pleased with your statements at the press briefing earlier today. You implied we’ve lost control over our internal affairs. That is simply not the case.”
“Donghai, any suggestion that the posts did not come from the Chinese government was intended to decrease tensions. I’m trying to defuse a conflict between our countries and prevent certain constituencies within the United States from calling for decisive action in response to the Hong Kong situation.”
“That is not how we see it.”
Susan’s heart sank with a thud. The issue of the rogue tweets was by far the easiest item on her agenda. And for some reason, her friend was stonewalling her, possibly to cover up a cyberattack interfering with Chinese official communications.
Did we get it completely wrong? Are the Chinese shifting to a more aggressive policy?
36
Black Box
ARJUN
1230
National Military Command Center
The Pentagon
Arlington, Virginia
Arjun’s fingers raced across the keyboard as he typed a few more lines of code. His suit jacket hung on the back of his chair, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. He tried to ignore the beads of sweat gathering on his forehead, but the heat was starting to get to him. It felt as if someone had cranked up the temperature by ten degrees.
For the past hour, Arjun had been working diligently to carry out his CEO’s onerous demands. Not only was time extremely limited, but he had to make sure to keep his work a secret from everyone. He’d just finished tweaking the last of ARC’s algorithms.
Taking a momentary break, he wiped sweat from his brow with his sleeve and glanced over his shoulder, making sure he was still alone. Then he looked up at the wall clock overhead. Each tick seemed to thud against his chest, reminding him there wasn’t much time before ARC’s big test was scheduled to take place.
So far, Arjun had been extremely lucky that everyone was either at lunch or in some big meeting before the test. But if he couldn’t finish the last few tasks to cover up the changes he made, his luck would be out. To his relief, he was almost done. A few more touch-ups, and no one would know the difference.
A crisis of conscience nagged at him since his conversation with Warren. Although he’d often questioned his CEO’s lack of transparency, Arjun assumed he knew everything there was to know about ARC. His stomach roiled, thinking about how he had been deceived.
This isn’t right.
Per his boss’s orders, Arjun had reprogramed the ARC system to behave within expected parameters for the monthly test. This would prevent Pentagon leadership from taking it offline when ARC did something unexpected. But he wasn’t sure if he bought into Warren’s excuse for the subterfuge. Even if the adaptable ARC system would improve its performance over time, justifying the interim deception, Arjun believed that full transparency was a better policy. Unlike his boss, Arjun believed Pentagon leadership would give the ARC system a fair shot and not completely lose trust if they knew its limitations. Sadly, the decision was way above his pay grade.
Arjun’s thoughts drifted to the autonomous weapons legislation he’d read about in the news earlier that morning. The integration of any AI-enabled system into military operations would face the same challenges—the so-called black box of a deep neural network. No one truly understood how they worked or the full range of what they could do. The complex network of algorithms and the interactions among them were often too complicated to grasp for skilled mathematicians and computer programmers, let alone senior-level leaders. For that reason, he’d never envied Grace’s position where she was expected to explain the network to them.
And I haven’t made things any easier for her.
Although it caused him serious heartburn on each occasion, he’d been able to dance circles around Grace’s attempts to tell her bosses about ARC’s weaknesses. All Arjun had to do was speak a few incoherent technical sentences that appeared to refute her valid points. Then he would dazzle the senior leaders with the amazing features offered by the ARC system.
It helped that Pentagon leadership desperately wanted to believe that ARC effectively solved a critical problem with nuclear deterrence—that it mitigated the shrinking time window for making nuclear decisions.
This is no different than anything else I’ve done.
Arjun had operated in an ethical gray zone ever since he’d accepted the lucrative job with Centoreum Tech, just out of grad school. When he first started, they’d promised him the opportunity to make history and help program one of the most important defense systems of the 21st century. But it wasn’t long before he learned about some major issues with ARC. Of course, by then, he’d signed a nondisclosure agreement, any breach of which would cost him his job and potentially much more.
In the end, Arjun justified his actions based upon his family’s survival
. He’d made his deal with the devil long ago, sacrificing his morality to save the people he loved. He couldn’t turn back now.
Or could he?
His father’s words rang in his ears. Arjun swallowed hard and tried to refocus on the task at hand. Before proceeding, he checked his work several times. Everything looked good to him on the surface. But this was not a time when he could afford to make any errors. He began reviewing his changes one last time.
When he was finally satisfied with his work, Arjun reread the detailed instructions his boss had given him to recalibrate the ARC system and verified the final steps.
Just a few more things, and I’m done.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Grace asked in a stern tone, coming up behind him.
Arjun caught his breath and froze for a moment. Unfortunately, he’d missed his chance to delete evidence of his changes in the system’s event log. Somehow, he hadn’t heard her open the door to the office suite. Taking a deep breath, he spun around to face her with a big smile.
“I’m just prepping the ARC system for the test,” he said, mustering up as much confidence as he could.
Grace moved to look over his shoulder and read his screen. “No, you’re not.”
Arjun stood up to block her view, but she shoved him to the side. He thought about pushing Grace back but realized that more people would be arriving shortly. He couldn’t afford to have anyone catch him in a physical tussle. That would be grounds for his immediate dismissal. Grace sat down in his chair and stared at the screen intently.
“Grace, please get up,” Arjun said. “C’mon, I need to finish what I was doing.”
“I don’t think so,” Grace said, her eyes still glued to the screen. She moved the cursor, opened up the system’s event log, and began scanning a list of recent processes and events. A few moments later, she looked up at him, her dark-brown eyes wide and full of anger. “You’re making changes to ARC’s algorithms. Why?”
“It’s not what you think,” Arjun said. “I’m making some minor corrections.”
“Bullshit,” Grace said, a dark scowl forming on her face. “You’re making sure the Pentagon’s leadership doesn’t realize I was right. You’re covering up your own incompetence… or worse, your company’s corruption.”
“That’s not true. I’m making a few corrections, that’s all,” Arjun said. He tried once more to force her out of his seat, but she resisted. Then, without warning, Grace got up quickly from his chair and moved toward the door. “Hey, where are you going?” he asked, his heart racing and a lump forming in his throat.
Grace put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to tell Colonel Martinez about what you’ve done and stop the test this afternoon. Then I’m going to report you to the J6 and get security to haul your ass out of here.”
Arjun leapt up from his chair, lunged toward her, and grabbed her arm, stopping her from exiting the room.
“Let go of me,” she shouted, struggling to break free.
“Grace, please. Don’t go. Please. If you stay, I’ll tell you everything. Please, listen to me. I beg you. I can’t lose this job. You don’t understand… my whole family depends on this job.” A tear rolled down his cheek. “My mom is in the hospital. She’s very ill. If I get fired, she won’t receive the necessary medical care to save her life.”
She pulled her arm away and glared at him, her eyes bright with rage. But she must have seen the look of terror on his face and noticed his tears because her features softened.
“Fine,” Grace said. “I’ll hear you out, but I can’t promise not to report you.”
37
The Stone Wall
SUSAN
1240
Yellow Oval Room
The White House
Susan shook her head at Donghai and stared down at her sheet of talking points Elise had prepared for her. Her attempt to clarify things with the Chinese ambassador had not gone as planned. His refusal to cooperate with her was baffling.
“Okay, let’s turn to the situation in Hong Kong,” she said. “Initially, we received reports of massive casualties caused by Chinese police against the protesters. News reporters called the incident a massacre on the scale of Tiananmen Square. But after Truthbusters, a global nonprofit think tank, ran deep forensic analysis on the videos from social media, they claimed that much of the footage was faked.” She stopped for a moment to see if he might respond.
When Donghai said nothing, she continued, “For this reason, we had our intelligence community collect and analyze all the satellite imagery available for Hong Kong. Although we have detected some protester casualties resulting from police violence, we have confirmed there was no massacre. That means someone is actively working to distort the events occurring in Hong Kong. Specifically, we believe the deep fakes were created by Russian agents as part of a disinformation campaign. Do you know anything about this?”
“I know nothing about any deep fakes,” Donghai said, his face expressionless. “All we ask is that the United States refrain from interfering in the situation in Hong Kong.”
Susan clenched her jaw, looking directly at her friend. “Donghai, what’s going on? I invited you here for lunch today to resolve escalating tensions between our two countries. I’ve brought some troubling information to your attention in the hopes we can get to the bottom of this together. We need identify who might be attempting to cause a conflict between us. But if you deny everything and refuse to go public, then our two countries will come closer to the risk of nuclear war. Is that what you want?”
Donghai crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. “I’m sorry I do not have answers that are pleasing to you.”
Susan straightened her posture in response to the chilly distance between them. She didn’t understand what had changed in their friendship. Her only thought was that Donghai had to be under some sort of unrelenting pressure from his government in Beijing.
Did they threaten him somehow?
“Can you at least explain the anti-satellite missile test that took place this morning?” Susan asked, squishing her brow together.
Donghai nodded and gave her a half smile. “Yes. That’s a rather simple issue. The test was part of our scheduled war game.”
Susan sighed. “Donghai, we’ve always kept our lines of communication open on these matters. The missile test was rather provocative. It destroyed a satellite in a highly elliptical orbit. Surely, you must know what sort of signal that sends. I don’t think China wants to threaten our early warning systems. Why didn’t you warn us in advance to prevent any misinterpretation?”
He gave her a blank look. “My government felt there was no need for an additional warning. Two weeks ago, we announced a war game with a nuclear component. As you know, satellites assume an important role in nuclear conflicts. The missile test was part of our naval exercise scheduled to begin in a few hours.”
Susan fell silent for several moments, unsure of where to go next in the conversation. She hadn’t even raised the most important issue—the presence of China’s submarines lurking under the surface of the ocean, somewhere off the coast of Canada.
She took a deep breath and gave Donghai direct eye contact once more. “I have brought these issues to your attention for urgent clarification. If I am to interpret today’s incidents to be intentional expressions of China’s official policy, then my national security team would be compelled to view your country as engaging in nuclear brinkmanship. We would have to act accordingly to defend our interests.” She paused to watch her words register in Donghai’s eyes, which she noticed, for the first time, were a bit red and unusually moist. For a moment, she thought he might want to say something, but he remained stubbornly silent.
Seeing no other way out of the situation, Susan folded her linen napkin neatly and set it on the dining table in front of her. She rose slowly from her chair, and Donghai followed suit.
Then she turned toward him, handing him a piece of paper, and said, “You will please
deliver this message to your government as official communication from the United States.”
He took the paper and nodded in acknowledgement.
“It says that we know that two of your submarines have separated from their flotilla and traveled into the Northwest Passage near the coast of Canada,” Susan said flatly. She watched his expression like a hawk, trying to decipher if he knew about the submarines. But Donghai’s face remained blank, except for a faint flicker in his eyes. She continued. “We believe they are now located somewhere in the Beaufort Sea. You will bring these two submarines to the surface immediately and redirect them through the Northeast Passage instead. If China refuses to take these measures to indicate their peaceful intentions, we will have no choice but to take actions to remove the threat against us.”
Donghai nodded solemnly but said nothing. For a moment, Susan thought his face had turned a shade paler, but she couldn’t be sure in the bright midday light. Susan led him to the door. Before opening it, she turned to him and gave him a firm handshake.
“I had sincerely hoped, given our history as friends, we could make some sense of all of this and back away from the risk of intensifying the conflict between our countries,” she said. “If you change your mind and wish to contact me, please feel free to use my direct number.”
“Thank you for a delightful lunch, Susan,” Donghai said, smiling. “I will pass your message to my government and let you know of any response.”
Susan watched him stride down the hallway, a pit forming in her stomach. Suddenly, she felt as if she would be sick and hurried to the closest bathroom.
38
Octane Grill
DREW
1300
Octane Grill
Washington D.C.
Pulling a hand-sized tablet from his apron pocket, Drew approached his newly assigned table where two men were deeply engaged in a conversation. They didn’t seem to notice his arrival and kept talking. The two men wore the standard business attire, but they dressed a bit too drab to come from the private sector.
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