Chen landed at Xi’an Xianyang International Airport, satisfied from his flight in his private bedroom with the girl, and the pilots parked his jet on the near-empty ramp. The Dassault 8X taxied next to the maintenance Y-9 aircraft, but no one was there to greet him.
The copilot opened the door, and Chen shuffled his overweight, drunken body down the staircase in the golden morning sky. Upon stepping off the last step of the stairs to the tarmac, he stumbled and fell down hard. He put out his hands in front to catch himself, but it was too late. Chen slammed his hands on the ground, as well as his chin. He let out a low grunt, as his aide, Bai Keung, came running down the stairs to lend a hand.
“General, are you OK?” Lieutenant Keung asked.
“Get awaay. Get awaay. I’m fine,” he yelled, in a complete drunken slur.
Chen staggered across the open tarmac, passed his portable trailer that was flown in for him previously, and went into the aircraft hangar where Black Scorpion was parked. He opened the door with a purpose, and it slammed open, bouncing off the large hangar doors.
WHAM!
The maintenance crews turned their heads to see a disheveled and bleeding general, and the men instantly stopped what they were doing for a quick stare. The chief of maintenance hurriedly came over to him with a roll of paper towels and asked him if he needed assistance.
“General, you are bleeding from your chin. Please allow me to help.”
“Whatt are youu looking attt?” Chen yelled to the maintainers, waving his arms around. They rapidly lost eye contact with him and went about their repair work again. The blood was dripping slowly off his chin and onto his uniform and floor.
The chief took the sheet of the paper towel and gave it to Chen for placement on his new wound. It was saturated in moments, telling Chen he probably needed stitches.
“What… what is the status of… of the… aircraft, Chief?” Chen asked him.
The chief of maintenance was nervous to answer the general because of his condition, including both the alcohol and the gash on his chin. There was no getting out of this one.
“Chief! I asked youuu.”
“General, the pilots hit a flock of birds on the descent last evening. They fouled engine number one, resulting in a shutdown while airborne. Engine number one was destroyed. It requires an engine change, which will take us some time. They also hit multiple birds on the left wing, exposing both the wing spars and the bleed air used for deicing. Large hole. This also resulted in multiple cracks to the wing, which will also result in a delay.”
Chen continued to sit in his drunken stupor, and the chief of maintenance wasn’t sure if the general was comprehending what was happening. Chen’s eyes were glazed over, but he still could drill his eyes into you, giving you fear that would last a lifetime. He looked at the chief.
“General? Do you…”
“I heard you. Show mee. Nowww,” Chen said loudly, still slurring his words.
The chief of maintenance brought Chen from the right wing of the aircraft, around past the nose, and he stopped in front of the left wing. Chen followed right behind him. A maintenance team of eight men were busy working, and stopped to see their visitors. The chief waived his hand, telling the maintenance team to get away.
“No. No delays. No,” Chen yelled out, looking at the eight-inch hole in the wing. It looked like someone had shot the aircraft with a Civil War cannon, wounding her.
The chief knew he was in no position to explain anything.
“Fix it. Fixxxx it now, Chieeff,” Chen boomed in a fit of rage, then walked over to the small transportable red tool chest and leaned on it. “Now!” Chen leaned and pushed on the heavy toolbox to hold himself up, knocking it over. Hundreds of aircraft tools and spare parts that were perfectly lined up on display racks and drawers spilled on the white hangar floor, sliding far and wide, making a thunderous roar in the cavernous ceiling and echoing.
Chen shuffled his way back toward the doorway he entered, walking slower than his normal pace. He threw the bloody paper towel on the hangar deck, and the red blood stood out from the immaculate gloss white floor. It made a wet, squishy sound upon impact. No further words were spoken by anyone as Chen returned to his trailer to sleep off his drunkenness.
PART 8
HIJACK
“Jeanie, look, no offense, but Mark said you are a cyber expert. What does that have to do with aviation?” Ford asked, taking a little offense and showing some jealousy that someone new was joining the team.
“Well, Mr. Hot Shot Pilot,” Jeanie said, noticing how attractive Ford was but stuffing it right back to him, “it has everything to do with it.”
Mark detected the tempers of the team getting heated and suggested moving the meeting to their conference room. They agreed, and everyone walked down as a group, mostly in silence. Ford was really thinking that if Mark brought her into the fold, she must be trusted and good at her work — and pretty hot, too — but he also had his doubts. They all sat down at the wooden table in their meeting room, and Mark stood in the front, as did Jeanie. Jeanie picked up a black dry-erase marker and started using it.
“That one is dry,” Robert told her. “Sorry. These suck.”
Jeanie grabbed a green marker this time. “So, Cyber has everything to do with Operation SANDY BEACH. It should be the core ingredient of the op.”
She even knows the name? Emily thought. My, my, the pillow talk is powerful these days.
“Mark has told me that you have detected EMI from this aircraft. If I understand it correctly, you have fitness trackers, smartphones, GPS navigation off our satellites and theirs, and a live oxygen and carbon dioxide link, or transmission from ChinaSat 2 Charlie. Is that correct?” Jeanie asked.
Everyone shook their head yes. “That’s correct, Jeanie,” Robert confirmed. “Their coms and data are on our birds as well as theirs, ground-based cell towers, and an aircraft performance app that communicates with their phones and the jet.”
Jeanie looked at Mark for acknowledgement. She drew a rudimentary two-line stick figure aircraft on the dry erase board resembling something of an X with a tail. Then she drew out two satellites, which were ovals with some stubby lines coming out, directly over the aircraft. She also drew a little lightning bolt, which looked like communication between the satellites and the jet. Her final stick figure was a second aircraft, above the first one.
“What is all that?” Ford asked, then slowly glanced down at her tan legs. She has a toe ring? Emily didn’t catch him, but if she did, he’d get a good punch to the arm. She doesn’t look like a government employee, Ford said to himself silently, smirking.
“Please allow me to show you. OK. So, your jet is in outside communication with a phone or phones, in addition to satellites for navigation. Someone in Chinese-land can see their live data, while flying… while airborne. Yes?”
“Yes,” Robert answered. Others in the room nodded.
“I am proposing that I cyber-hijack into both their phones and our GPS satellites while they’re on one of their test flights, then get into their flight computers. While airborne. Stay with me, OK? While airborne, we then, remotely, reroute the aircraft and fly the jet to a destination of our choosing. I’m able to see all their avionics and flight instruments, and we should be able to control the aircraft remotely, like flying a flight simulator on a home computer. Or, like we currently fly our Global Hawks and Reapers. And then we land her.”