by Andrew Watts
Access to information, workers, resources, and money was made extremely difficult. With the internet inoperative, millions of jobs disappeared overnight. That alone was enough to cause panic and chaos. But when combined with electrical blackouts and food shortages, it was devastating.
Even if there was food in the grocery store, how were you supposed to pay for it? Most people didn’t carry much cash around anymore. The little they had dried up fast. The world had grown completely reliant on technology to perform the simplest tasks. Now credit cards and smartphones were both worthless. The panic of survival instinct kicked in fast.
The bus ride down had been eye-opening. They saw firsthand what a fearful society could become. During those first few days, some scenes reminded David of a zombie apocalypse. Riots. Shootings. Fistfights over gas shortages and bare grocery stores. Everyone was scared, trying to protect their families and stay alive.
Within the first thirty-six hours, the new president had declared martial law. Together, the American military and law enforcement had taken to the streets and ensured order and discipline. The national guard and military reserves were fully activated. A week later, most utilities and electric grids were still down, but they were being restored, however slowly. While the internet and cell phone networks weren’t going to be the same for a while, people were adapting.
Emergency centers were formed in every town. The trucking industry was nationalized. The military and government disaster response agencies worked with businesses to ration resources and allocate them the best they could. It was like a Cat 5 hurricane had hit every city in America overnight. There were many deaths. Estimates varied, but the low range was over one hundred thousand, and the counting had only now just begun. Dehydration or starvation. Accidents and sickness. Hospitals without electricity. Prisons where the guards had stopped showing up for work. Railroad accidents. Car pileups. Plane crashes.
But the worst events often bring out the best in people, and David was moved by the stories he heard of private businesses and citizens putting their own interests on hold in order to help their fellow Americans. In times of trouble, people come together. They turn to the brave. Rescue personnel. Soldiers. Nurses and doctors. And the untested often find that they are capable of more than they ever thought possible.
David thought of this as he looked out his front window, a blue-gray dawn illuminating his front yard. A few men and women walked to work on the base road. Driving was discouraged unless absolutely necessary. Gasoline had become sacred.
“There’s cereal on the table.” David’s wife touched his arm, breaking his spell.
“Thanks.” He kissed her on the forehead, pulling her close and feeling the softness of her bathrobe. “You sleep at all last night?” The baby had been crying enough that Lindsay had ended up staying in the other bedroom.
“A little.”
David poured himself some cereal and milk. His wife had gone shopping at the commissary on base the day before. The shelves were sparse, but better stocked than the empty civilian grocery stores in town. And life on base was much better than the stories he’d heard about the emergency food distribution centers rationing bread and water around the nation’s worst-hit areas.
They were lucky that David’s job had put them on base housing at Eglin Air Force Base. A single-floor Florida-style home with two bedrooms and a quaint backyard. Running water and electricity were available upon arrival, which was more than much of the country could say right now.
David finished his breakfast, said goodbye to his wife, and walked a mile to his office building, arriving just after six a.m. He worked for an hour at his desk in the SILVERSMITH team’s new operations center before jet noise overhead told him that it was almost time for the morning brief. The fighter squadrons took off at the same time each morning, when the field opened.
Susan tapped on the top of his gray cubicle. “You coming?” A throng of team members walked by her on the way to the morning meeting, most carrying folders and cups of coffee.
“Yeah. One sec.” David grabbed his classified notebook. He had to check the notebook in and out of the document control office each day, but it helped if he could jot down important facts and figures at these meetings, all of which were classified.
David got up and walked with his boss.
“I saw in my inbox that we’re now connected to the Raven Rock data stream.”
“Yes. Most of the Pentagon leadership is working from there now.”
“ONI put out a request to our group on that channel. Something about a new class of Chinese warship?”
Susan glanced at him, impressed. “They must have sent a thousand requests over this morning, yet you always manage to pick out the most relevant bits. We’ll be working on that one. Our mission is evolving.”
“Yes, I imagine it would.”
“We’ll need to provide an evaluation on that Chinese ship. And there’s something else I’d like to bring you in on. A special project we’ve set up on the other side of the base.”
“Oh?”
“We’ll talk later.” She held the door for him, and they entered a classroom that was being shared with some of the F-35 training squadrons on the base. Now that David’s team was using the room, an NSA tech was doing a sweep for bugs every few hours. An Air Force Security Force sergeant checked IDs at the door. David held up his name tag, which the young man studied. The Air Force kid waved David through, and he took his seat.
General Schwartz and Susan sat up front. There were a lot of new faces around the room. With the China expertise on the team, SILVERSMITH was quickly becoming a premier resource for the brass. Whereas a few weeks ago, their job had been to prevent war, now SILVERSMITH was an analysis and idea factory. An information hub where top-level members of the intelligence community, military, and law enforcement shared what they knew and offered solutions up the chain of command.
The door shut, and everyone went silent.
The screen at the front of the room came on, showing a map of the US.
General Schwartz said, “Good morning, ladies and gents. Our INCONUS SOCOM task force is making solid progress. We now have over nine hundred Chinese INCONUS killed or captured, with an estimated five hundred remaining. Local law enforcement is sending tips to the regional military liaisons, which are forwarding their info to the SOCOM cell. Our hope is to destroy any remaining Chinese INCONUS units by the end of the week. Prisoners will be held in detention centers, where they will be interrogated.”
General Schwartz shot Susan a look that David didn’t understand. Did she have something to do with prisoner interrogations? It made sense that she would want to see any intelligence that was gleaned from Chinese prisoners.
A man sitting towards the front of the room raised his hand. “General, isn’t this ongoing Chinese INCONUS activity evidence that they aren’t abiding by the cease-fire agreement?”
“Obviously, yes. It is.”
“So…are we going to do anything about it? I mean, diplomatically speaking?”
General Schwartz said, “The State Department has raised objections through official channels on the continued presence and illegal activities of Chinese military units within the boundaries of the United States. The Chinese are denying the veracity of these claims. They say that they don’t have anyone here. The international community is in disagreement, and somewhat useless to us in this matter.”
Eye rolls and scoffs from around the room.
The man who asked the question said, “But if they’re violating the cease-fire—”
Susan spoke up. “Excuse me. We don’t want the cease-fire to end. The powers that be have decided that we’ve lost any realistic possibility of holding Korea or Japan, and negotiated a truce to remove our people from those nations. So, every day of this cease-fire is another day we can use to get Americans out of harm’s way.”
David knew she was right. Commercial aircraft and ships were packed with American servicemembers and their families
leaving Japan and Korea.
Someone said, “Why would Cheng Jinshan agree to the cease-fire in the first place? I mean, if China is attacking the US…”
One of the CIA analysts said, “Two reasons. One, it allows him to get VIPs out of the US. Children of politicians and wealthy businessmen. That’s important for him to do because it helps him to keep the power brokers in China happy. Which helps keep him on the throne.”
“Why didn’t he just do that before the war?”
“It would have telegraphed his intentions.”
“What’s the other reason?”
David said, “Because he gets to keep Korea and Japan. He just moved the football forward, big-time.”
General Schwartz nodded. “Exactly.”
David said, “Sir, if I may? Cheng Jinshan’s ultimate goal isn’t just to take control of Asia, or even the Pacific. His ultimate goal includes taking control of the United States. This would eradicate his only real opposition to power around the globe. His ultimate goal is a world dominated by China.”
Someone said, “Russia know that?”
Susan narrowed her eyes. “What’s your point, David?”
“We all know that there’s a third reason for the cease-fire. Jinshan is using this lull in the fighting to his strategic advantage. He’s an extremely detail-oriented individual. There must be some reason he needs us to abide by these specific terms.”
General Schwartz said, “Well, Mr. Manning, that’s why we’re here. To identify enemy intentions and create ways to counter them.”
The general pointed at the young military officer manning the computer. The screen changed to a view of the Pacific. “The Chinese Southern Fleet, as it has been dubbed by our friends at the Office of Naval Intelligence, has traveled beyond the Luzon Strait and is now in the Philippine Sea. We have lost communications with two submarines in the vicinity of this fleet over the past few days. We believe they were sunk by assets from the Chinese Southern Fleet. There’s a high demand for ISR on this group. Right now, we have a rough idea of where they might be, but that circle of uncertainty is expanding.”
David thought of the message he had read on the possible new Chinese antisubmarine warfare capability. He thought about his family members out there right now. Without the US submarine advantage, the Chinese would be much more formidable opponents in a naval war.
Susan stood up and the screen changed to an image of a very odd-looking container ship.
Susan said, “They call them the Jiaolong class. It’s a battleship. Or the PLA Navy’s take on what a modern battleship should be. This picture was taken several weeks ago, when the ship was under construction. It’s the only one we have. It’s big. It’s secretive. And beyond that, we don’t know much about it.”
David studied the image. The container ship was painted haze gray, like a warship. A tall superstructure with a wide bridge on the aft end. Strange-looking platforms extended outward amidships, two on each side, and two tall towers protruded upward from the fore and aft section of the ship. Scaffolding surrounded the towers. It reminded David of the Washington Monument when it was being refurbished, although these towers appeared to be metallic, and functional components of the massive ship.
Someone asked, “What’s with the towers?”
“We think it may be a new type of radar.”
“And those are flight decks?”
“We don’t know. But HUMINT sources in China reported that at least one of these ships has left port this week, under the cover of darkness. We believe it’s now accompanying the aircraft carrier Liaoning as part of the Chinese Southern Fleet.”
David looked up at the map on the screen. He could see a group of American Navy near Guam. Surface Action Group–121. David’s sister Victoria was on one of those ships, the USS Farragut. The expanding circle showed where the Chinese Southern Fleet could be. It was approaching her ship. And in another week or two, that circle might extend closer to Midway Island, near the USS Ford. His father was there.
General Schwartz continued the brief. “The US military is reinforcing Guam. If hostilities resume next week, it will become a major hub for US air power. If the Liaoning Strike Group tries to reattack Guam, they’ll have a surface action group and significant air power to deal with. We’re already planning offensive operations if the Chinese Southern Fleet comes within range. The problem is still in locating them. We have the submarine USS Columbia located in between Guam and where the Chinese fleet might be, but that’s past the one forty-fourth east longitude line, and we’re very nervous about her getting too close without a full understanding of this new ASW technology. Satellite recon birds are still a week from launching, our UAVs have proven highly susceptible to electronic attack, and the U-2s would be sitting ducks against Chinese SAMs.”
David frowned. “Sir, when I was with In-Q-Tel, I worked on a project that involved the…” He looked around the room, suddenly aware that he wasn’t sure whether he was allowed to discuss the program.
Seeing this, General Schwartz said, “Spit it out, son. We don’t have time for the normal bullshit.”
“…the SR-72. The Air Force’s future aerial reconnaissance aircraft, with the scramjet propulsion. It’ll be high and fast, and able to get imagery well over the one forty-fourth without being impacted by electronic attack. And it’s too fast for SAMs.”
General Schwartz shook his head, “That program is several years away. They don’t even have a full-scale prototype.”
David smiled. “Sir, I beg to differ.”
18
Tonopah Test Range Airport
Nevada
Day 11
Colonel Johnny “Flipper” Wojcik crept around the outside of his aircraft, examining every rivet. Each step he made was under the close watch of Air Force security services. This hangar had five armed guards at any given time, and it was only opened at night. Tonight was special, however. Three additional men were also watching Wojcik conduct his preflight. Two had recently traveled here. The third was a defense contractor, there to provide support on behalf of his company.
Colonel Wojcik had been a pilot for the last thirty years. A test pilot for the last twenty. The last eight years, though, had been spent in the arid Nevada desert, at Tonopah. This was where the fun stuff happened. The projects that didn’t exist. The jets that no one knew about. Colonel Wojcik was one of the few active-duty military men that got to take part in all of this. The others were all former military, now contract test pilots. While they had more expertise, it was his active-duty military status that had made him the right choice for this particular assignment.
There were two identical-looking aircraft in the hangar. Dark metal, futuristic. Sleek aerodynamic angles rounding out the fuselage. Colonel Wojcik had spent a few hours a day for the past few years in this hangar, and he still thought the thing looked like a goddammed spaceship. The SR-72 had all the sex appeal that a top-secret reconnaissance aircraft should have, he thought to himself. The engineering design team had outdone themselves with this one.
He conducted tonight’s preflight with love. Colonel Wojcik felt like a jockey brushing his prized racehorse before the Kentucky Derby. Don’t let me down now, baby. We’ll win this together.
The operational capabilities of the optionally manned prototype he was about to fly were known only to a few people in the world. Articles on the Air Force SR-72 program had been put out by his company, of course. That helped generate buzz around Capitol Hill, which helped ensure funding.
But only a few knew the specifics. One of those men happened to be David Manning, a former employee of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s private equity firm. David was now watching the colonel conduct his preflight inspection of the aircraft.
“So they made you come all the way out here to watch me take off?”
“Actually, sir, I won’t see you take off. I leave for D.C. in about fifteen minutes. My new bosses wanted me to make sure we effectively communicated the mission requirements, since communicatio
ns haven’t been particularly good of late.”
The colonel’s hand paused on the smooth surface of the left wing. He turned to meet David’s eye.
“What are you headed to D.C. for?”
David hesitated, and the colonel saw the look of discomfort and held up his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ve been doing this long enough. I know when I don’t need to know. You have effectively communicated the mission requirements to me, Mr. Manning. I am to go fly halfway around the world and take some pictures of a Chinese super-fleet, then fly back and get those pictures to the thirty-pound brains so they can figure out what the hell is killing our submarines.”
The thick-mustached test pilot looked up at David again and winked. “That about sum it up?”
David smiled. “That’s about right, sir.”
“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Manning. Those towers you showed me on the top of the ships—any chance that’s why you’re headed to D.C.?”
David smiled again, remaining silent.
“That’s what I thought. Told you I been doing this awhile.”
David and two other members of the SILVERSMITH team had been flown to Nevada once the Air Force and Lockheed had agreed to use the SR-72 prototype for this mission.
“Now, Johnny, you will need to be careful once you get her above Mach 4.”
“I know, Al. I know.”
“And we haven’t tested any of the ISR pods they made us install. Those were meant for the U-2. We did the best we could to integrate the systems, but…well, it’s possible that you’ll fly out there and have nothing to show for it.” The company guy was getting all worked up. “There’s a big difference between operational capability and a prototype for reusable hypersonic aircraft! This was something we explained to In-Q-Tel when Mr. Manning was here last year.”