“OK. And? So why the history lesson here, Robert? Mr. Burns will be here soon,” Mark said impatiently.
“Because that black tail in the hangar is a decoy,” Robert announced.
“A decoy? Bloody hell! How do you know?” Emily excitedly asked.
“Our smartphones and fitness tracker data are finally in. Complete ones. The data shows they are currently way over here at the Xishuangbanna Airport in Yunnan, China,” Robert explained, showing them on a digital map and image.
“I don’t understand. Our U-2 image showed the tail out of a hangar in Guiyang, China, in Guizhou,” Mark said.
“Maybe that’s what Chen wants us to think. Here’s why. The cell phone locations connected to the towers don’t match the airport where that black tail was spotted. Actually, hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. So I looked at some more imagery from the U-2 flights, and searched the commercial imagery specifically for where the phones were currently located. I remembered that Wu told us they moved Devil Dragon every night to a new airport,” Robert told them, pausing.
“Yes? Keep going,” Mark said.
“Agree, keep going,” said Deputy Director Calvin Burns upon his arrival to their cubicle office area. He said hello to all and encouraged them to keep talking.
“Hello, sir. Yes, well, Wu said that General Chen flew in his own business jet, a Dassault Falcon 8X. Look right here,” Robert said as he pointed to his screen. “That’s a Dassault Falcon 8X parked on the ramp at the Xishuangbanna Airport. And maintenance travelled in a Y-9, a… Shaanxi Y-9 aircraft, right? The medium-range transport aircraft? That’s it parked right here, at the Xishuangbanna Airport,” pointing to the other side of the ramp.
Calvin leaned in. “I’m impressed. I see you guys have been busy. So you have phones and fitness trackers of the two suspected pilots again, Chen’s jet, and their maintenance bird, all at the Xishuangbanna Airport?” he asked, smiling.
Mark could hear in Calvin’s tone that he was ready to ask about fifty more questions. This wasn’t the first time Mark had worked with the deputy director of the agency, and he always worked to beat Burns at his own game, hoping to answer all the questions he may have before he got a chance to ask them — in other words, to anticipate his questions ahead of time.
“Actually, we have more data than that. Perhaps we could bring you in the conference room and share what we have so far?” Mark asked.
Calvin Coolidge Burns, the principal deputy director, was a career Defense Intelligence senior executive. If there was ever a senior executive in the civilian federal government with a picture-perfect level of emotional intelligence, it was Cal Burns. He had dedicated nearly his entire adult life to the military and DIA and was looking forward to retirement in only what seemed like a few days. Cal, born in Richmond, Virginia, was well respected by all. He was an undergraduate of the historically black Savannah State University, later earning an MBA degree from the Naval Postgraduate School. He had all the academic credentials to climb the career ladder.
His most treasured educational experience was The Power Lab up at Cape Cod, where he learned to see organizational systems as a whole. Learning about these systems in organizations helped him lead at DIA, making the crucial connections between bottoms and tops, or entry-level employees and senior leaders, as they were known at Power and Systems’ Power Lab. It was here where Calvin learned also about using the middle-level leaders as conduits between the two. This was where Calvin derived his special leadership touch in running efficient organizations.
Calvin’s wife convinced him to stay the remainder of this year, which he did, and then Devil Dragon came along. He led the Operation WHIRLPOOL mission for DIA, then was ready to call it a day and retire, until this latest gem of an issue arrived with a red bow.
“OK, conference room it is. Let’s go,” the deputy told them.
Mark led the way until Emily called him back, asking him if he had a minute. “Mark, I know you and Robert will kick this off, but we need to check the hourlies. You know he’ll ask, and we never checked.”
Mark thought about it for about a half second. “Good idea. That’ll be the second question out of his mouth.”
As aircraft commander Dai Jian did one last scan of the instruments and pushed the throttles forward, and they taxied on the runway. He stopped just forward of the white numbers painted on the runway.
“Clear for takeoff,” announced Chung.
Dai scanned inside again, then outside, and slid his feet off the brakes and pushed all four throttles forward. They were slammed back in their seats as the two main engines lurched them forward. Once they built up some airspeed, the two scram jets in the center of the fuselage, engines two and three, auto-ignited and came to life. Their heads were now pressed back in their headrests.
Chung spoke quickly. “That’s a hell of a jolt. Speed looking good. All four engines in the green. Airspeed rapidly building. A hundred and twenty knots. Keep the throttles forward.”
“OKaakkkay,” Dai said, voice vibrating.
“Almost there… 155 knots. V1. Rotate,” said Chung quickly, eyeing the airspeed indicator.
There were no obstacles in front of them, such as power lines, trees, or terrain. The jet screamed into the night sky, sucking the cool spring air into her four massive engine air intakes. Her roar on takeoff had the maintenance crew outside of the hangar lined up to see her, feeling the physical vibration and tremble of her sound waves passing along the ground.
“Roger, gear up,” Dai commanded Chung as he lifted the small wheeled landing gear handle on the right side of the cockpit. The cockpit was pretty wide, and the gear handle was far enough over to the right that it was nearly impossible for any pilot in the left seat to reach.
The high-tech cockpit was nearly a spitting image of Devil Dragon, with multiple colored glass screens in front of the pilots that displayed flight instruments, engine performance, and radar displays, among other indicators. In between the two seats were four throttles, radios, navigation, flaps levers, and some autopilot dials. The cockpit also had a hatch on the floor, which opened to the ground near the nose landing gear. This was the same hinged hatch where Ford was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Devil Dragon copilot Liu. Ford fought, and eventually threw, copilot Liu to his death during the final takeoff roll.
Lieutenant General He Chen, ever one to constantly steal ideas from the US defense community, continually scanned the cyber networks to see what other countries were doing in research and development. After the Chinese cyber sleuths unearthed the US Air Force B-21 Bomber plans and their new heads-up display, a HUD, he had one installed for Black Scorpion. One phone call to the Russians, to his friends over at Sukhoi, and a HUD was rapidly built for him by Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association and integrated into her avionics systems.
The upgraded stealth technology on both Devil Dragon and Black Scorpion was remarkable, giving a radar return of a parakeet. Chen was constantly all over the contractor, ensuring every step was as detailed and precise, in addition to as secret, as possible.