“Did he remember bringing me into the loop? Did he not expect me to be curious?”
“I get it, Mobi. We’ll deal with Rand later. What you need to know now is that we’ve been engaged in a space race of sorts with the Chinese for a number of years now. That prototype below? That's our interpretation of the Horten — not the plane itself, but the cold fusion reactor it contained. It looks a little different because we had to make modifications to the original plans, but that’s largely irrelevant now. What is relevant is what you already know — that the Chinese version of the Horten reactor complete with a secondary plutonium coil is on a crash course with LA County.”
“What can we do?”
“Listen carefully.” Alvarez eyed the hallway outside her office to ensure they were alone. “Rand is here because he thinks he knows how to deal with the problem. He wants to use one of the DOD’s orbital anti-satellite weapons’ platforms to blow the Chinese bird out of the sky.”
“Which would be a good plan if it worked,” Mobi said. “Except word is the last time they deployed one of their ASAT platforms, it couldn’t hit the broad side of the moon. And I mean that literally.”
Alvarez lowered her voice. “That’s why you’re here. Look, from what we know, the Chinese haven’t so much built a new reactor as reverse engineered what was left of the Horten found in that rice paddy. As far as we know, they don’t entirely understand what they’ve done. Our sources tell us that they haven’t changed much about the project. They weren’t able to isolate the original communications system from the reactor control, for instance. Instead they just built a new shell, added a few processors, and stuck the whole damn thing on the end of a rocket. Call me crazy, but I’m betting that if we can establish communication with its onboard mainframe, we can keep it in the sky.”
Mobi considered Alvarez’s words. He tended to smile when he was nervous and what Alvarez had said put a grin on his face.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I wouldn’t call it a laugh.”
“Spill it, Mobi.”
“You’re telling me you want me to establish communication with their satellite.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re also telling me that this thing’s communications systems date back to World War II.”
“Like I said, yes.”
Mobi shook his head. “You know the Chinese are cautious. Who knows what kind of encryption protocols are in place? If it’s an analog system, and given its age I don’t see how it isn’t, we’re talking about infinite variations. To break that kind of encryption I need a strand, a thread, something to start parsing their code. What possible resource can you offer me to do that?”
“This is where you listen very carefully.”
“I’m hearing you.”
“Quiann,” Alvarez said.
“What?” Mobi asked incredulous.
“I can offer you Doctor Jie Quiann.”
***
Doctor Jie Quiann was a legend. He was infamous in the halls of JPL and Mobi knew the man’s career path by rote. A brilliant young mathematician who had been born in China, but claimed refugee status in the USA just after the Second World War, Quiann had soon found his way to California and Caltech where he began his career as a Doctoral Candidate in Applied Physics. From there, Quiann’s career trajectory had been straight up and he soon became one of the world’s preeminent rocket scientists. That, however, was a long time ago. Because before Mobi was even born, Dr. Quiann had defected back to China where he had single handedly founded his mother country’s space program. Nobody knew what spawned his defection; if he had been a plant from his first arrival on US soil, or if he had simply longed for the county which he had left behind, but whatever the case, Quiann went on to become a bona fide hero to the Chinese people.
As such, even if little known amongst average Americans, he was an embarrassment to the US government and the alma mater which trained him. What made the sting of Quiann’s defection particularly acerbic, however, was not the general technical know-how that he had brought back with him years ago. Any number of rocket scientists could have taken those secrets to China. It was the project Quiann was chosen to lead — the Horten Cold Fusion Project — and all that entailed. Many considered cold fusion technology to be key to the long term exploration of space and when Quiann defected in the late-nineteen fifties, a whole lot of research was said to have left with him; potentially dangerous research that many people feared he had yet to share with his colleagues.
From that point, Mobi’s knowledge of Quiann was sketchy at best, which is what made Alvarez’s mention of him seem odder still. It wasn’t like Mobi had a relationship with him, or knew him beyond the lore. In Mobi’s mind Quiann was an infamous footnote, a piece of JPL history that had been all but forgotten to this moment. What could Alvarez possibly expect to achieve by means of illicit communication with a known traitor? But Mobi didn’t have long to think about it, because before he could even fire the question back at Alvarez, Rand and his men had marched into the room.
Chapter 26
There were some things Michael’s dad didn’t bother telling him much about at all. Like sex. Michael’s dad never talked to Michael about sex. He never told him about the birds and the bees, or what he should expect his first time, or what he should do not to get a girl pregnant. Michael knew that the other kids’ fathers had had this talk with them and he wondered why his dad hadn’t. Finally, Michael didn’t want to wait any longer. So he asked his dad. Not about sex. But about why his father hadn’t told him about sex. When Michael’s dad asked him what he wanted to know, Michael said nothing in particular, he just wanted to know why they hadn’t had the talk.
Michael’s dad was very clear. He said that sex was one of those things that if you had to ask about, you probably weren’t ready to hear. It was a cruel irony. But a lot of life was like that. And understanding the irony was far more important than any father-son chat about the birds and the bees. Because Michael could learn everything he needed to know about sex on his own in about five minutes flat. But life’s ironies took a lifetime to comprehend. And it was only through conversations like this one that his dad would be able to point the way.
***
Michael was exhausted. They’d made it back to their room at the Whispering Bamboo, but he doubted he’d be able to sleep. He was beyond that. Beyond anything really.
“What are you doing?”
Kate, who had entered the room a step ahead of him, had stripped the mattress off her bed and now held it folded like an accordion between her arms.
“What does it look like?” she said, plopping the mattress down on top of Michael’s. “I’m doubling up the mattress.”
“For who?”
“For who do you think, Michael? Don’t be such a prude. We’ve each got a sleeping bag. Maybe this way we can actually get some sleep.” Kate unrolled her sleeping bag and lay down atop the double mattress staring at the ceiling. “Much better.” She rolled onto her side so she could face Michael. “What do you think about Ted?”
“What about him?”
“Showing up on the bridge the way he did. Saving our asses. His timing was a little too perfect.”
“I don’t know if I’d be throwing stones, Kate. You’re telling me you had no idea Ted used to be Agency?”
“Agency. Listen to you now. You’re talking the talk.” Michael shot her a look and Kate relented. “I met him for the first time the other night at Chungking. Crust invited him. I swear.”