Winter Kill - War With China Has Already Begun

by Gene Skellig

  Certainly now was not the time to consider purchasing a dairy cow for the HOTH itself. But getting the right design features into the barn, feed storage and other requirements needed a lot of hands-on learning. The entire family looked forward to each visit to Moonstruck Farm to see Angelina, their new cow. And with every outing Casey was becoming more and more comfortable with his overall comprehension of the dairy farming construct, even if he still could not grasp how to milk by hand.

  A few other ALI properties had been given an initial assessment, but a great many remained un-assessed. If Casey was right, that there were maybe two or three years left before things got really dangerous, then he still had time. So as the complexity of Casey’s research seemed to be getting out of hand he decided to slow down, and keep his attention on building the HOTH. The research would continue; he would keep at it steadily like eating an elephant – one piece at a time. For the time being, completing the initial survey on the most prominent Agricultural and Light Industry sites would suffice.

  The fourth classification was the most trouble. “Medium-size Residential Homes”, MRH, which Casey thought of as “Mr. Hungry”. Mr. Hungry was a problem because that was where families lived. Children. The precious future. It was one thing for Casey to imagine how difficult survival would be for elderly people when the supply chain fails, but it was another thing altogether to think about suffering children. At least the elderly would succumb quickly to starvation, radiation sickness, pre-existing health problems, stress, and in many cases, simply giving up. The death of large numbers of elderly people was something that Casey could philosophically come to terms with. But families, with small children, that hit much closer to home. After all, the motivation behind Casey’s entire project was the survival and well-being of his own children.

  Regarding local food production, his overall assessment was bleak. He considered how quickly the stockpile of locally produced and stored food would be exhausted. The Oceanside region would run out of food supplies within ten weeks of a major crisis. Numerous men, desperate to feed their starving children, represented a serious operational risk that had to be mitigated.

  He had to find a subtle way to encourage people to squirrel away emergency food. He would also have to put some attention to developing contingency plans that would help the community conserve and extend the local food supplies once the crisis occurred. He needed to call Marty and Katy.

  12

  HABIB

  07 October: 19 Months Before NEW

  When Habib underwent his mission training in a small town one hour’s drive from Amman, the beat up old A6 he was provided did not have a working stereo, but at least the air conditioning worked. Habib Al Hassan had spent the past six months driving the Audi. It was better than his old job as a taxi driver. At this point, it was still a game. He knew that the men playing the roles of Israeli police, border agents, and the other security personnel were actually part of a team sent to Amman by VEVAK, Vazarat-e Ettela’at va Amniyat-e Keshvar, the Intelligence Agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

  They recruited Habib not long after he was diagnosed with colon cancer, and found him to be an easy convert. He was a devout Muslim, adhering to the Shia sect predominating Iran, in contrast to the ninety percent Sunni Muslim of his home country.

  Life was very simple for Habib. He obediently followed any guidance or Fatwa his Imam told him, so he was eager to serve the cause when he was introduced to two impeccably dressed men from Tehran. Having four children to support and knowing that his cancer would kill him soon enough, he quickly agreed to the death benefit of $100,000 in Gulf Dinaris for his family upon the completion of his mission. He also believed that he would be given additional rewards in paradise for any small services provided to the Holy Jihad, as he reflected on his favorite quote from the Qur’an: 3:185,

  Everyone shall taste death. And only on the Day of Resurrection shall you be paid your wages in full. And whoever is removed away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise, he indeed is successful. The life of this world is only the enjoyment of deception.

  The actual mission was a bit unclear. At first he was trained in the art of driving according to the erratic rules that applied to Muslims driving inside Israel. He had to appear relaxed, polite, and servile. The objective was to become seen as a friendly, professional driver and a “good” Arab.

  Once he mastered the responses and body language, Habib’s training expanded into actually crossing the Jordanian – Israeli border.

  Establishing his identity as a driver for the British Embassy in Amman had been the most dangerous part of his training. He had been added to the pool of drivers by an Iranian plant within the British Embassy. The British embassy had a fleet of new Audi A8 sedans which were similar to the A6 he had been training, only his A6 did not have the new-car smell, luxurious leather interior, and gleaming white exterior of the Embassy fleet. Along with a new suit of clothes which the Embassy gave him to wear when driving, Habib and the other drivers were also issued multiple-entry visas by Israel as a favor to the British government.

  Habib’s medical condition had at first been suppressed, and then disclosed by Habib when he had been instructed to do so by his handlers. The British, humanitarian to a flaw, decided to keep him employed as long as his medical condition would permit.

  The first crossing had been quite difficult. He set off a radiation detector and security personnel swarmed out of the bunkers at the border crossing. After a major search of the British Embassy’s A8, and a full body-cavity search of Habib revealed nothing, the security personnel turned to the documents in his possession. His documentation as a driver for the British was verified, along with his personal identity documents. Eventually they found the medical documentation he was required to carry on his person, both by the Jordanian Medical authorities and further insisted upon by his Iranian handlers. These showed that Habib was undergoing chemotherapy at a cancer clinic in Amman. There would be low levels of radiation in his urine as his body removed the Strontium-89 and other doses applied to kill the cancer cells in his colon.

  The High-Pure-Geranium Detectors widely used by the Israeli security personnel to detect Gamma radiation could not distinguish between Sr-89 in the medical isotopes used for chemotherapy and the Highly Enriched Uranium, HEU, such as that produced at the enrichment facility at Natanz, Iran. As a result, the more the border guards responded to the alarms raised by Habib’s low level of radioactivity, the more complacent they became. Each time Israelis dealt with Habib, with his friendly demeanor and respectful submission to their security protocols, the more humanely they began to treat him, even asking after his health on occasion - especially when he carried British diplomats.

  Habib crossed into Israel with a simple implosion type of nuclear weapon installed in the heavily modified Audi A-8 that had been swapped for the identical A8 he normally drove.

  The radiological alarms had gone off as usual, and the security forces carried out a cursory search before allowing Habib to continue on with his British passenger. The diplomat had ridden with Habib many times and did not notice that the sedan was eight hundred pounds heavier. Nor did he feel the 2,200 roentgens per hour that his body was being exposed to from the radiation leaking past the minimal lead shielding surrounding the device installed in the car.

  It would take the diplomat nine days to die from the radioactivity he was exposed to on his two-hour drive from Amman to Jericho. Habib was equally unaware of the contents of his vehicle, however he suspected that there could be a bomb as it felt heavier and rode lower than the other A8s. If this was to be his day of martyrdom, he reasoned, then so be it. His only regret was that he not had undergone the purification rituals that he would have liked. Shaving off his chest and facial hair would have cleansed him for the uplifting to paradise.

  After dropping the diplomat off at the International Hotel Jericho, Habib continued on to Tel Aviv. During the drive Habib tuned the Audi’s radio to BBC World News. He turned the
volume up a bit and listened to the broadcaster: …at least 900 dead in the blast. Local officials in Jinan City are calling for people to go to local hospitals to donate blood, which is badly needed to help the hundreds of badly injured students. The cause of the explosion at Shandon University is unknown at this point. Officials are investigating reports of a natural gas leak in the Climate Sciences building, where the students had been sitting examinations when the Great Hall…. Tragic, Habib thought to himself, while turning the radio to another channel. He was happy to find one of his favorite songs, “Al Mu’allim”, The Teacher, by Sami Yusuf, was playing.

  He remained vigilant for security personnel throughout the drive to Tel Aviv. It was a beautiful day. The trees looked greener than ever to Habib, on this, the last day of his life. He was feeling great pride and joy in carrying out his task, and relished each passing second as his last on earth. His sensory pleasure was intensified by his anticipation of the joys he was going to experience once he reached paradise.

  Passing Ben Gurion Airport, he watched a large passenger jet making its approach to land. Then Habib merged to the Ayalon North freeway before taking the LaGuardia Interchange onto Ha-Tsfira road. He was careful to be in the right lane in time for the obscure exit from Yehuda Halevi onto the very short Shadal Road. Arriving fifteen minutes before the planned time, Habib calmly stopped the A8, blocking one of three lanes of the busy street. A beautiful new Audi double-parked near the Israeli Stock Exchange did not draw any attention.

  Within a few moments, another olive skinned man noticed the A8 and swung into action. His assignment had been to park a vehicle along the right side of Shadal, and pull out to liberate the parking spot for a white, Audi A8. When he saw Habib stop and wait for a spot, he quickly pulled his delivery truck out into the traffic and drove off. His mission was complete. His orders were to then carry on driving his normal delivery route, stopping to toss out bundles of newspapers, as usual.

  After parking the Audi, Habib left the air conditioning on to keep the vehicle comfortable. He picked up the cell phone which he had never used. A pre-programmed phone number was set in the phone’s memory. Habib’s final act would be to select the number and hit “send”. Twelve minutes before the scheduled 4pm timing, Habib took out his well worn copy of the Qur’an and read verses to pass the time before making his ascent to paradise.

  It was nearly 10:00pm in Jinan when General Bing was interrupted by Colonel Hua. Colonel Hua had been given strict orders to ensure that the General was awake in time to receive Major Yip’s report from Amman. General Bing had adjusted his sleep cycle so that he would be awake during the night hours in China and catch the working hours in London and Washington.

  He was comfortable with delegating authority over the more routine aspects of his plan which were playing out within China while he slept, and wanted to be awake at night to keep a close eye on the counter-intelligence operations going on around the world. Knowing what was about to happen in Israel he had been far too excited to get any real sleep, and just lay awake all day long.

  “Honorable General, Sir, are you awake?”

  “Yes, Simon. What is it?”

  “Sir, Major Yip’s wire has arrived. We have the report from Amman.” Colonel Hua held the single page message.

  “You read it to me, Simon; I don’t have my glasses on.”

  “Message reads: Package delivered, will be opened on time.”

  “Excellent!” General Bing was now wide awake. He had gone to bed worried that the Israelis would intercept the Iranian bomb as it crossed the border. Chinese agents had learned of the plan by virtue of some highly paid double-agents within VEVAK. He was still unsure if the Iranians had planted the tip as a test of Chinese support for their attack on Israel or if the intelligence was a genuine penetration of VEVAK.

  Regardless, after having confirmed the plot was indeed real, General Bing allowed the Iranian operation to go ahead without Chinese interference. In fact, Chinese agents had been mobilized to terminate a traitor within the Iranian diplomatic corps when General Bing’s Internet Security Division picked up on contact made between an Iranian diplomat and MI6 in London.

  That was a risky operation, but essential for protecting the Iranians from discovery. On General Bing’s order, Chinese agents had taken out the Iranian diplomat before the traitor was able to pass his information on to his MI6 handler.

  Seeing he had a few minutes, General Bing asked for an update on the students killed at Shandon University that day. When he had gone to quarters for rest, his men had triggered the explosion but they had not confirmed that all of Dr. Sun Tingting’s students had been successfully terminated.

  “There were 14 survivors, however most of them had not yet regained consciousness before we got to them in the hospitals,” Colonel Hua reported, with a little too much excitement for General Bing’s taste. “All 340 have been accounted for. The follow-on seizure of their home computers and analysis of any extra-campus contact is now underway. Any lateral leakage will be promptly taken care of, Sir!” Colonel Hua concluded.

  “Very good, Simon. I’ll be in the Ops Centre in five minutes to watch the show. Make sure everybody is in place ready for Phase Two to begin.”

  Colonel Hua was already backing his way out of the General’s quarters, just twenty meters from the Ops Centre in the bunker deep under Jinan Military Region Headquarters, China.

  A few minutes later as Habib closed his Qur’an and held it to his chest, taking in his last few breaths before pressing “SEND” on his cell-phone, General Bing was striding into his Ops Center. The General made brief eye contact with the influential men he had selected for the honor of watching the Iranian pawn poke its finger into the Israeli eye.

  General Bing was pleased to see that ops had managed to arrange real-time satellite imagery over Israel, with both a wide image view of the entire Middle East, as far as Tehran, and another image zoomed down to a smaller scale, focused on Tel Aviv. He saw the countdown timer passing the two minute mark.

  Another screen divided into four squares showed the live feed from CNN, Al Jazeera, RT, BBC International and some German channel he did not recognize, showing routine broadcasts of weather, political talking heads, and daily stock-market images. The stage was set for the big show.

  In another operations centre, eight hours behind Jinan time, a discussion was taking place.

  “Sir, we’re picking up another unusual spike in Chinese activity,” announced Squadron Leader Albert Jones , gaining the attention of Richard Jessup, the senior analyst with whom he shared the overnight watch at the Chinese Desk.

  “What is it, Albert?”

  “Well, the level of internet activity out of that region has just peaked. Coincedentally, a great deal of their space bandwidth is now dedicated to transferring data from their Sunrise-One satellite. It looks like they're watching something along its track.”

  MI6 had found a way to monitor the energy being directed through Chinese military satellites, using cryptological algorithms obtained from the French in a quid pro quo. It couldn’t provide the actual data being transmitted, but it was able to pick up on the magnitude of transmissions and, by Doppler analysis, the source and destination of transmissions. This was one of the few windows into Chinese internet and space-based military communications, and one area in which MI6 had an advantage over their American colleagues.

  “Where is Sun-One?” asked Jessup.

  “Coming up over the Middle East, tracking very slowly. It appears that they’ve expended a great deal of fuel and moved Sun-One into a much higher orbit. It’ll have perhaps ninety minutes coverage over the Middle East. It’ll close the gap!”

  “What gap?”

  “There was a thirty-minute gap between Sun-One and Sun-Seven, which had been in serial orbits with Seven following One by ninety minutes. Even at widest aperture they would lose coverage over any area of interest for at least thirty minutes. But now, with Sun One in a higher orbit, it’ll have more hang-time
over the Middle East before moving on to the European AOR. Sun Seven will then give them another hour or so of coverage before the next gap in their satellite coverage happens, in just under three hours.”

  “But isn’t it highly irregular for them to do that? Doesn’t that use up their fuel too quickly?”

  “Yes, Sir, but Sun One was due for replacement later this year anyhow, so they must have a bit of fuel to spare. Or else...” he paused, then spoke more slowly, “whatever they’re doing now is that important to them. I think we better give the Americans and Israelis a heads up that the Chinese are watching something in the Middle East.”

  Squadron Leader Jones had only just picked up the phone to call the message centre when he froze, looking at one of the TV monitors in MI6’s International Divisions Operations Center. “Richard, tell me that’s not Tel Aviv!”

  13

  SQUIRREL’S DEN

  09 November: 18 Months Before NEW

  When Marty Penner first heard about the idea, he almost choked on his popcorn. He and Katy had been settled in for a quiet evening of movie watching. Their two small children, Grover and Charlotte, were sleeping over at their grandparents on the other side of town. Casey Callaghan had interrupted their rare night off by calling to ask Marty to drop what he was doing and fly down from Whitehorse to Vancouver for a three month project. And Casey wanted an answer right away.