Both men, visibly nervous standing in front of the unpredictable general, both replied to him favorably.
They walked away as Chen stood alone, staring at the nose of Black Scorpion, cracking each knuckle on his hands, one by one. He then blew his nose, forcing out the mucus without a tissue and onto the pristine hangar floor, as was popular in Asia. Chen then spit on the hangar floor. I have that same feeling again, Chen said quietly, to himself.
Paul and Martha both received a DIA Deputy Director Challenge Coin and a grateful handshake from Calvin. They were appreciative to brief the boss, and left the room, leaving only Mark’s team behind.
“Well, what’d you think?” asked Calvin.
Mark Savona spoke up first. “Nothing we didn’t really know already, but always good to get a refresher. Would have been nice to specifically ask about General Chen, but then we’d be tipping our hands. Not surprised about the mention of the H-18 and H-20, but no firm data that’s widespread.”
Calvin bowed his head, looking at his notes. “Concur. Who else?”
No one said anything. Only head bobs among the team.
“Bathroom break, and then I’d like to hear what you guys have for a plan,” Calvin announced.
A bit caught off guard, Mark jumped right in to reply. “We’re only in the idea phase, sir.”
“That’s OK. Let’s talk through it. At a minimum, Ford, let’s get you to Vegas. I’ll think about briefing the director and see if we should brief SecDef.”
Everyone got up from the room, and Robert grabbed Emily. “Hey, let’s check on those phones again. You got a sec?” They all sat together and looked at the timeline a bit closer.
Robert sat down in his cubicle to work the large monitor as everyone else eventually crowded behind. They scanned websites, and nothing was catching their eye until they found their “hidden diamond.” The data on the screen was a combination of social media sites like Qzone, Sina Weibo, Facebook, and Instagram, all geo located at and around the Xi’an Xianyang Airport.
Overlooked by many, Qzone had over 850 million users and Sina Weibo, known as Chinese Twitter, was close behind at 415-plus million users. To put this in perspective, that would be every single American using Weibo, plus an additional 95 million users. Leading the pack was Facebook at 2.1 billion users. If Facebook were a country, it would be the largest one on earth.
“Hey, well look at this,” Robert said to Emily.
“What is that? A phone map?”
“Exactly. Shows all the phones near our two pilot phones. If we click here, like this, we can get all sorts of data right off the phone.”
“Like what? Show me,” Emily said back to Robert.
“Geotags on certain posts contained metadata, which indicated where and when messages were sent. This map shows how they can be searched and plotted on a map. Look. I can click here on a marker, and we can see when and where the messages were sent, as well as their images and words,” Robert said.
“This is cool. Show me these phones here… no, not those. Scroll in. Right there. They seem to be inside the hangar,” Emily asked.
Different commercial firms across the world had the technology and were contracted to defense, humanitarian assistance, and intelligence community organizations for a variety of reasons. The geospatial software technology, made recently popular since the Syrian conflict had increased, allowed experts to follow the increasing numbers of displaced civilians flowing into countries like Turkey and Greece. As an example, at a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey, 87 percent of the young refugees owned mobile phones, and 82 percent owned personal SIM cards. This was the perfect opportunity to follow, watch patterns, and if you were in certain agencies in the federal government such as the US State Department or USAID, and working global health engagement, to then aid more efficiently. Today, though, Emily and Robert were just looking, able to watch and read.
“Shite. Look at all these texts! These people are discussing a drunk general with an injury. You think they are talking about General Chen in that hangar?” Emily said, excitedly.
Newly sworn-in Secretary of Defense Samuel Price was reading the Early Bird News when his new junior military assistant came in to discuss the upcoming travel to the west coast.
“Morning, Mr. Secretary. Here’s the Trip Book for Nellis, Los Angeles, and San Diego,” said Rear Admiral Chuck “Rocko” Cooper, US Navy, carrying a white three-ring binder with colored divider tabs. Rocko, a Surface Warfare Officer, was the former commanding officer, USS Gettysburg. Not by coincidence, he was selected for both promotion and this junior military assistant position for working the location of the Devil Dragon aircraft off Okinawa.
“Thank you, Rocko. Standard Andrews jet, et cetera?”
The secretary of defense had his choice from a variety of VIP air force aircraft from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. From the large Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post, call sign Nightwatch, to the smaller C-37A, a Gulfstream V, the SecDef had speed and comms on his side.
“Yes, sir. Speechwriters and the advance team have you at each facility thanking military families, meeting two mayors, one group of Team Rubicon, another from the Headstrong Project, and some returning injured at Balboa Naval Hospital,” replied Rocko. “Also have a request from Mr. Burns at DIA. Wants to talk with you regarding the undersecretary position at air force, and, what he phrased as a special topic. Asked to chat in person for about an hour.”
“An hour? I don’t have an hour,” barked the SecDef, looking back down at the Early Bird. “Rocko, just put him and a few of his guys on our jet to the west coast. We can chat on the plane.”
“Will do.”
Ford Stevens was already in Nevada for the past few days, getting oriented to Creech and its remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) systems and missions. Creech Air Force Base, located north of Nellis Air Force Base in the Las Vegas area, had paved runways and sprawling buildings and was the home a variety of flying squadrons. Also located on the desert base was the air force’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab.
Creech, specifically located in Indian Springs, Nevada, was the home of the 732nd Operations Group, flying remotely piloted aircraft around the world for its mission. This unit trained airmen to provide special capabilities and developed new technology for operations requiring remotely piloted aircraft. This was a unique Air Reserve Component mission, consisting of members from both Air Force Reserve and the Nevada Air National Guard. Because they were reservists, Ford felt right at home.
Ford was attending a modified RPA orientation course for pilots in the 17th Reconnaissance Squadron, hoping to gain the minimum orientation experience to fly the Black Scorpion from a laptop. The hushed plan was still in play for him to sit in a B-2 jump seat with a specially configured laptop and fly the jet to touchdown after a remote ejection. While the cyber portion may have been discussed, the practical, hands-on pilot stuff needed some work.
The regular RPA training program in the US Air Force is six months in length for RPA pilots and six weeks for sensor operators. Sensor operators controlled the cameras and weapon systems on the remotely piloted aircraft, and air force RPA crews consisted of one pilot and one sensor operator. Air force training for aircrews was as follows: attend a screening course at Pueblo, Colorado, then a qualification course at Randolph AFB, Texas, followed by the RPA fundamentals course. For this SANDY mission, though, Ford would only be provided a few days’ orientation without a sensor operator. He had, though, selected a copilot.