Mark listened intensely. “Go ahead. Keep going.”
Robert knew his slides were next. “The satellites tipped us off to check other sources, so we started with the US embassy and consulates. There was no news from the US embassy in Beijing. But we do have audio recordings of distant sounds, now identified as an aircraft, off the US consulate in Chengdu. Our good friend, Chris Sans, sent in some exceptional audio recordings that don’t sound like much, but when they were run through the software were very close to Devil Dragon’s signature.”
“OK. Pretty good sign.” Mark nodded in agreement. “How do we know it’s an aircraft and not some other machine or factory somewhere at the same audio frequency and length?” Mark asked, wanting to ensure the data was valid.
Robert shook his head in agreement. “Well. This is the triangulation microphone package, Mark. It is normally used to track gunfire on the ground. You know, from, for example, the Pentagon or the White House, or even at a football stadium. This is the commercial, off-the-shelf tech State Department uses. We can accurately pinpoint the sound, and from the speed and direction, it’s no ground sound. In addition, in addition,” as he raised his index finger, “we have, believe it or not, EMI.”
“EMI? What? Electromagnetic interference? From the jet? Again?” Ford questioned, thinking that the jet had to have some type of filter to protect its signature. “How the hell did you capture that?”
EMI was the interference of an electronic device when it was physically close to an electromagnetic field in the same radio frequency spectrum as another. It can also be something as a simple signal from one device to another. White noise static on an FM radio is EMI.
“Yes, Ford,” Robert showed him on the screen. “Check this out. We detected it from the roof of the consulate. Again, Chris Sans as the source — two smartphones at altitude that match the same location as the sound, as well as two fitness trackers. Emily and I were still running the data down when you guys walked in, but if you combine the flashes, the sound, EMI, and this one additional item we’ll tell you about next, we have something brewing.”
Emily warmly peeked over at Ford while Robert was talking. Emily had been dating Ford for some years, and she was familiar with his facial expressions, detecting something was amiss. She didn’t say anything to him, but made a mental note to do so later.
She stood from her seat at the small table and walked toward the screen. “Robert and I are waiting for the fitness tracker cross check and the rest of the cell phone data to come back from the search, but we did some other homework. We do have some initial cell data that is most interesting, but there is something else we need to show you first. We reviewed the last feed from the 6th Intelligence Squadron out of Osan Air Base in Korea. Yesterday morning, a U-2 Dragon Lady was on her Indo-Pacific Command routine run, and discovered this gem,” Emily said, putting an image on the screen.
Everyone stared at the screen.
“What the hell is that?” asked Mark, looking at the screen and pointing.
“Let me zoom in a bit for you on these next few slides,” she told the team, secretly beaming with pride that she and Robert had found it. Emily flipped through the PowerPoint, and the images from the U-2 became clearer and clearer, and the details were coming into view.
“Whooooaaaa. Where is this?” asked Ford.
“Looks wonky, eh, blokes? This is Guiyang, China, in Guizhou, at the airport. A commercial airport.”
Ford knew some cities in China from living there for years, plus could read and speak Mandarin, but had no clue as to where this was on a map. He was thinking of where it might be located, but he was not familiar with anything in Guizhou.
The room was still silent as Emily zoomed in as far as she could. The image was now pretty clear, and if you had never seen one of these on the screen, you’d miss it.
“What is that? I can’t really make it out. Is that an aircraft hangar?” Mark asked.
“Abso-bloody-lutely. Standard aircraft hangar, sitting on their tarmac. Those are nearly closed doors on the hangar,” Emily replied.
“Sooo… what is that sticking out? Sticking out of the hangar doors there? On top — that black object?” Ford asked. Ford thought it looked familiar but wasn’t sure.
“That, my friends, is the tail of our latest problem. Correction, our latest challenge. That black object is the rear of a jet. The jet is now known, from this point forward as…”
“As what? Come on, Emily,” Mark said, getting impatient.
“Black Scorpion.”
“Another jet!” Ford exclaimed. “Black Scorpion?”
“Another jet seems about right. Wait. Black Scorpion is her name?” Mark said out loud, seeing the back of the black jet for the first time with his own eyes. Mark looked at the screen and thought of the factual data presented. “How the hell do you know the name already?” tapping his pen on his yellow legal pad.
Robert nodded. “The names ‘Black’ and ‘Scorpion’ kept repeating in the reports, and we cross-checked the Devil Dragon engine data from Wu’s app. Seems there was another empty set of lines for engine data, for a second aircraft.”
“Holy crap. OK, OK, calm down everyone. We have work to do. We have on our hands”—he paused briefly—“one hell of a world-class shit show.”
Emily nodded her head and smiled, winking at Ford.
“Who else knows about this?” Mark asked, realizing the magnitude of what they were discovering.
PART 4
REPORT
Two Chinese girls in their late twenties left Lieutenant General He Chen’s portable airfield Airstream trailer after spending the night. Chen woke up with his standard baijiu headache and stumbled about his small bedroom wearing only his plain white boxer shorts, large potbelly hanging out and over the waist band. He looked at the wall clock and saw he had plenty of time to get cleaned up and over to the hangar.
Chen was scheduled to fly a two-seat Su-35 Flanker fighter chase plane later this evening to follow Black Scorpion during a portion of her flight test card. Russia recently supplied China with twenty-four multirole Su-35 fighters at the cost of $83 million each. The Su-35, codenamed Flanker by NATO, was a fourth generation plus high-end fighter and provided an improved addition to their air force — modernization plan.
Chen got into the hangar spaces and went directly to his first-floor temporary office. Along the way, he passed a bunch of maintenance technicians, who greeted him, and as usual, he ignored them. His office connected to the wide, open hangar space where aircraft were parked and worked on.
Freshly printed and placed on his desk this morning was the new, internally published report of the Devil Dragon mishap, which were the facts and analysis of the limited wreckage found, along with autopsy information on the two pilots. He sat down at his metal desk to read the report, which was written by one of the other test pilots on his staff. Chen knew if he had others outside the stealth program do a mishap investigation, the amount of people who knew of the program would get out of hand. This Black Scorpion jet, along with Devil Dragon, was still a guarded secret from most of the rest of China’s military. Plus, the info contained here could interfere with his promotion potential, so it was as close hold as possible.
Chen scanned the executive summary in the front of the report. The spiral-bound paperwork titled “MISHAP INVESTIGATION: DEVIL DRAGON” looked to be about half an inch thick. The summary mentioned that no aircraft parts were found on the water’s surface, and that only the bodies, aircraft wiring, and some paper aviation charts were located. The publication said, “Due to the high speed and impact of the aircraft on the surface of the water, there was no wreckage and no survivors. The bodies were unrecognizable due to the impact and post-crash fire. The pilots, both captains, were aircraft test pilot Wu Lee, 30, and copilot Liu Nie, 32.”