Natesh was a gardener. He was addicted to growing things on a massive scale and improving them: companies, industries, technologies. He had confided in Lena over the past few weeks. Natesh had told her about his recruitment, and why he had been so excited to work for Jinshan.
When Jinshan had pitched Natesh the opportunity to change the world for the better, Natesh had seen the opportunity of a lifetime. The ultimate cultivation project. There were so many problems with the way governments were structured. Watching politicians lie their way into office frustrated him to no end. The world was collapsing, and at the mercy of the worst impulses of mankind. Greed. Fear. Treachery.
What Jinshan talked about was doing away with the systems of government that plagued the globe. He envisioned a single elite class of decision makers that were hand-picked to ensure the long-term success and well-being of mankind.
Natesh would have an important role to play, Jinshan had promised him. Lena recognized this for what it was. Classic recruitment. Jinshan was flattering Natesh, appealing to his ego and idealism.
Lena knew the truth. If he was to be with them, Natesh had to forfeit his high moral ground. The only way to remove the governments of the world and get to the utopia that Jinshan envisioned was through deception and violence.
The Chinese soldiers and intelligence operatives inside this room were under the impression that China would be attacking America. But that was merely the beginning. This wasn’t about China. It was about the world. Jinshan had seen that China’s government control and economic prosperity weren’t sustainable. Not when the billions rose up from poverty and demanded better. But in order to achieve their goals, the millions of Chinese who were now conducting military operations needed to believe in the cause. That brainwashing was in progress. For now, they just needed to know what buttons to push.
But in the coming days, a flood of propaganda would be unleashed in Chinese media. The US would be accused of starting a nuclear war against North Korea. Chinese propaganda campaigns would convince the world that the unstable American leadership, now driven by religious zealots and political extremists, could no longer be ignored. China needed to act in order to keep the peace and protect the homeland.
None of this was true, but it didn’t matter anymore. People believed what they read on their smartphones. If the state controlled the information, like it did in China, it could ignite public opinion and convince the masses to move towards any objective.
Lena kept wondering if she herself was susceptible to Jinshan’s charms. Was she just his zombie assassin, following orders without thinking? Lena wasn’t one to soul-search much, but she knew herself well enough to know that she had changed after she had killed President Wu and his family. Lena would have been fine if it had just been the president. Maybe even if it had just been the president and his wife. But she hadn’t wanted to kill President Wu’s daughter. The teenage girl had reminded Lena of herself.
So did Natesh, a little — due to his innocence upon recruitment, and his natural talent, however different his skill set might be from Lena’s own. She admired his belief in Cheng Jinshan’s vision for the future. Natesh wanted a better world, and he had been forced to sacrifice his integrity in an attempt to achieve it. Lena was in the same boat, in many ways.
She looked to the duty officer. “I’m headed to the other side of the island. Inform the air operations center to fuel my plane and have a pilot standing by. I will need to travel to Japan immediately.”
The duty officer looked at her like she was crazy. “But Miss Chou…”
“Do it.”
29
Several hours later, Admiral Song stood on the bridge wing of China’s newest aircraft carrier, the wind blowing in his face. He gazed out at the gray ocean, wondering what lay ahead.
After the EMP attack, he had boarded one of the destroyers just before it had departed the internal pier on the island. It had sailed out into the South China Sea. Within minutes, a pair of Chinese naval helicopters had approached, one landing on the destroyer. The helicopter had taken him fifty miles to the north to his small and nimble fleet, where his commanders were already preparing for their opening wave in the attack.
Now, he stood on the admiral’s bridge on the magnificent aircraft carrier Shangdong—the flagship of his fleet. It was China’s second aircraft carrier, but the first that had been built domestically. Their first aircraft carrier was an old Soviet-era carrier, refurbished by the Chinese some forty years later. But this… this was something special.
The Shandong carried three squadrons of Chinese fighters and sixteen helicopters. It had modern radars and armaments and was flanked by a dozen of China’s most lethal warships. Two attack submarines protected her beneath the surface of the sea. Drones, reconnaissance aircraft, and satellite feed would allow Admiral Song to see and know everything that took place in the Pacific.
That was, if the satellites still worked after the EMP bursts — that was something that the scientists had argued about. And if the Americans hadn’t begun taking out their networks. That was something that his planners had agreed on. All the more reason to strike while the iron was hot.
He walked inside the admiral’s bridge, where his commanders and watch standers were able to give him instant updates.
“Do we still have GPS?”
“There have been some sporadic outages, Admiral Song, but right now it is still functional,” a captain in charge of cyberoperations and communications replied.
“Very well.” He turned to the captain of the aircraft carrier. “How long until we are ready to launch our aircraft?”
“A little over four hours, sir. We will be through the Luzon Strait at that time, and within range. The land-based tanker aircraft should be taking off shortly. But we anticipate American warships may be in the strike area. That could slow us down.”
“Make best speed, Captain. And ensure that our escorts keep a tight screen around us. We will need protection from the American fast-attack submarines. They will have been unaffected by the EMPs, and we should assume that they will attack us if given the opportunity.”
The captain nodded. Song knew that their own attack submarines and maritime patrol aircraft had spent the last twelve hours pinging away in the South China Sea. The maritime patrol aircraft had had to land during the EMP strike, for safety concerns. But the amount of active sonar activity throughout the Luzon Strait, and to the east, should have scared away most American submarines that could pose a problem to their launch.
Right now, the Americans were shell-shocked by the North Korean assault, timed to occur within hours of the Chinese-launched EMP and cyberattacks. With luck, the Americans wouldn’t be sure that the EMP and cyberattacks were Chinese in origin. But they would strongly suspect it. The North Koreans simply weren’t capable of that level of military sophistication. The confusion might mean that the Americans would be wary of taking retributive action against the Chinese. Jinshan had talked up “the fog of war” in his preparations. He was convinced that the Americans would suffer from confusion and indecision in the first few days.
This hesitation by the Americans was a key part of the Chinese strategy. Their desire for moral authority was their weakness. A strong leader should not wait until he had one hundred percent certainty that an enemy was responsible for an attack. If it was probable, then he should strike back. But the morally conservative American attitude demanded certainty. He had worked with them before in naval exercises and spoken to them at their diplomatic parties in China. If he had been in charge of their response, nuclear missiles would be flying toward Beijing right now. But Jinshan and his planners on the island had been certain that the Americans would not respond with nuclear weapons until it was their last possible option. And by then, it would be too late.