Act of War

CHAPTER 35

Colonel Shi studied the report on his screen. He was not happy with what Cheng had discovered in Nashville.

Ren Ho had personally approved each of the Somalis for the operation. He should have been able to anticipate that Wazir Ibrahim would be a problem. Cheng had done the right thing by eliminating him. Ibrahim was a disaster waiting to happen. On the other hand, Mirsab, the engineering student who had been paired with him, was a different problem.

One of the greatest difficulties of dealing with educated people was that they made educated guesses. It had been assumed that the engineering students would ask questions, and Ho, posing as their handler, “Henry Lee,” had been instructed what to tell them.

The devices they would be assembling had been smuggled into the United States in pieces. In their training, they had been given a wiring diagram, several innocuous components, and a battery. There was no way that they could figure out what they were being asked to build. When the students did ask what it was, Ho delivered his prepared response.

Because of all the secrecy, the students naturally assumed they were participating in something illegal. They each came from a very poor family and the money being sent home was more than they would earn in a lifetime. That alone should have cut off any questions, but the Second Department had wanted the engineers to be told what to think, rather than trying to figure things out on their own.

What Ho had conveyed was that they were creating a “temporary Internet” that would act like a network of nationwide cell towers. With it, a series of incursions into corporate computer systems would be conducted and never be traced. The fact that the targets were corporations, the item to be stolen was data, and that the network was untraceable had satisfied all of the students. All, it appeared, except for one.

When it came time to practice launching the attack, Ho provided dummy containers for the devices and stressed the importance that they all launch at the same time. If they didn’t, he warned that the network would not be fully functional, and their plan would collapse. That’s why the students had been issued partners. The Somali men were there not only as an extra set of hands to help transport and assemble the equipment, but also to handle any problems that might arise en route to or during the launch.

Once their task was complete they would all rendezvous with Ho in Boise, receive their final payments, and be provided with routes to return home.

It was a solid, plausible explanation, but somehow their Nashville student, Mirsab, had discovered the real purpose of the devices. What Shi put down to an educated guess may have been just that, or it may have just been wildly lucky. Either way, the colonel wanted to know how Mirsab had arrived at his conclusion and, more important, if he had shared it with anyone. It was bad enough he had shared it with Wazir Ibrahim, but if he had been foolish enough to reveal it to the other engineering students or, heaven forbid, someone outside the operation, drastic measures would need to be taken.

Based on the seriousness of Cheng’s report, Shi had some difficult decisions to make.

As he pored over maps of the United States, as well as the most recent weather reports, he transmitted a message to the PLA’s hacking unit in Shanghai with instructions. They were already standing by and he wanted to make sure they had the latest information, as well as his precise instructions. It was important that every participant be on the same page.

The biggest question plaguing Shi was, Was Nashville salvageable? What they were planning had never been done before. Like the mythical Snow Dragon itself, the attack was designed to stretch from tip to tail across the United States. The efforts of each cell were designed to overlap, and they had run contingency scenarios to account for losing up to half of the cells, but no one knew for sure how successful the attack would be if even one of the cells was taken offline. If the dragon was incomplete, would its fire still burn as hot?

There was, of course, no way to know for sure. They were in the realm of the hypothetical. Formulas, diagrams, charts, and assumptions were of no use now. Their time had passed. Shi had made a command decision and Tai Cheng had been given his orders. At this point, all Colonel Jiang Shi could do was wait. It was all in Cheng’s hands now.