“Oh, boy. BlackScorpion? That’s gonna be an issue. What else did you learn from the U.S., Wu?” replied the Deputy.
“Um, well, we learned about your stealth jets from Have Blue, Hopeless Diamond, and Senior Trend, and we…”
“Wait, Wu, the beginnings of the F-117 Nighthawk?” the Deputy interrupted.
“Yes, sir. From Amazon books. And believe it or not, from your Smithsonian Air and Space Museum at the Dulles Airport. And the internet, of course, computers,” Wu said, then coughing.
“Did you say Museum?” asked the Deputy
“Yeah. Sir, did you know that on display, in, ah… Ohio… at your Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Museum, sitting in the open, all in the same hangar, is a U-2 Dragon Lady, an SR-71 Blackbird, an F-117 Nighthawk and a B-2 Spirit? All in the same location? Chen couldn’t believe it. He had college students take the detailed pictures, if I remember correctly. You in the U.S., ironically enough, sought out Chinese college students to attend U.S universities and then paid their tuition money with U.S. dollars and grants. Chen laughed at the opportunity. All the college students did was drive to Dayton for him, from, ah… your The Ohio State University, with a smart phone. And your government paid for it.”
There was silence.
“Oh, and your downed aircraft,” Wu added, as if the museum story wasn’t insulting enough.
“Downed aircraft?”
“Yes. If I recall the story correctly, you were using F-117 Nighthawks over… um… former Yugoslavia in Operation Allied Force. Serbian radar detected your jet when your pilot opened his bomb bay doors. He was shot down, and… ah….and both the Soviets and China grabbed the wreckage.”
The DIA team all exchanged glances.
“That’s how we learned about the iron ferrite coating to absorb the radar. And your slippery fuel, what you call… I think, JP-7? It was all over the wreckage. I heard it barely smelled, which threw off the Science and Technology people.”
The Americans invented the hypersonic and stealth game know-how many years ago. The Area 51 gang had designed and tested the technology on bench tests, had a few mock-ups and demonstrators, and since 1959, were flying the SR-71 Blackbird way back then. Along came the 1970’s and 1980’s with the design of the F-117. This news today, though, that China had taken the extra step faster than the Americans, learning from history, and doing something about it, was breathtaking. Area 51 had terrific standoff and security, but it was rare to keep the Chinese out of their electronic and computer records. No wonder we’re behind… Chinese did their homework. And cyber. Damn it! thought Calvin.
Wu continued. “As a follow-up,” coughing, “on the gear… I can’t be sure of the landing gear required for your ships, but it’s not built like your naval aviation jets. It’s for runways. If I remember your History Channel episodes, we’ll slam down pretty hard,” Wu said.
“History Channel?” Emily mouthed quietly to the DIA team.
“Mark, can you relay via your networks for the Lincoln CO to have the barricade up, and spray the landing area with foam? The chance of a mishap here is pretty high, and since we don’t have a tailhook, we don’t have a snowball chance in hell of stopping without it,” Ford asked.
“You got it, kid. Consider it done,” Mark replied.
“I’m also concerned about the avionics of the jet, Wu. You’ll never get our encrypted ship TACAN channels or the instrument landing system on the Devil Dragon, so I’ll have to hand carry something that provides some type of satellite navigation,” Ford added.
“No, we receive all the signals. All of them. X and Y channels on TACAN. We have the GPS moving map, and, ahh… we can see all your navaids from the ships,” Wu said, without skipping a beat.
“Wait a second, those are all highly encrypted. How can you receive those?” asked the Deputy.
“We got em, Mr. Burns. This jet has the keys to all your high technology. The cyber teams in China have worked hard over the past few years, and Chen has been aggressive on capturing intellectual property from both the government, military, and private sectors. We can see you, but you can’t see us. Only way for you to see the Devil Dragon is visually.”
“That is just amazing,” Robert said. “All our technology firewalls and U.S. Cyber Command, and the Chinese walk through the front door.”
“Yes, open source. Free admission,” Wu said, like he was referring to an admission ticket at Disney World.
Ford was thinking that for some reason if the navigation avionics did not work, there was no way for them to know the location of where they were. He was somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of going that far out to sea, in the blind. The wrist watch GPS from the jump would have to be the plan B.
“Mark, I’ll have my smart phone with me, as well as Wu’s. Certainly, a moving map from the wing suit jump will be close by. Maybe as the first back-up, NSA and the Lincoln could ping us for a position. It would make me feel better. As a second, maybe a visual from a nearby pilot. If there are any guys in the area, they can call in with a pilot report. A PIREP, as we go by,” Ford asked.
Mark quickly wrote down all the requests in his notebook, and Emily copied them down on the white board. They both did not want to miss anything, especially since they were so close to executing the mission. The plan was really starting to come together after discussing it verbally, and looking at the big picture on the white board.
“Any other last minute items?” Mark asked. No one said anything. “Wu, we won’t chat or text again until you contact Ford as you are inbound to the airfield for the Ford swap out. Maybe use the codeword JOJO RISING. I don’t know. You’re good with that? We’ll have doctors on the ship, in addition to the infirmary, to help you upon arrival. Yes?” Mark asked.
Wu took a swig of water from his plastic water bottle and took one of his remaining pain pills. He was nearly complete with the first of the two prescriptions. No one could see him on the conference call, but he was pleased with the timeline, especially since he was running out.
“Yes. I’ll be there,” Wu said, clearing this throat. “Thank you,” as Wu terminated the call.
“I cannot believe we gave the Chinese all the components to build this thing,” the Deputy started out after Wu hung up. “Right under our noses. Our sweat. Our test flights. Our dead test pilots over the years. All our engineers and years of flying out west. Really? Open source conferences? The Dulles Air and Space Museum? They came right in, like Robert said, right through the… the motherfucking front door.” The Deputy was angered and his tone and volume changed. “We gave it to them on a silver platter. I mean, the Wright-Patt Museum? Who the fuck approved putting four of our stealth aircraft on display? What’s next, public libraries? You have got to be shitting me. They got the blueprints off our backs, did their homework faster than we could, and… and we’re paying the price for being such an open nation. Damn it!”
Mark had never heard the Deputy curse and lose his composure like this before, and could tell how bothered he was. The DIA team could also not see that the Deputy threw his notebook across his office. No one dared to answer his rhetorical questions.