everything was fashioned from super-strong plastics or extremely-expensive radar-absorbing composite materials. Two flat-paned cockpit windows in the shark-like, pointed nose were tinted black to match the light-absorbing surface of the fuselage.
Palmer circled the high-tech stealth helicopter once. “This aircraft is quite amazing. But I have to ask, why am I here? This has nothing to do with the demonstration… Or does it?”
“The Blackfoot may have disappointed the Army, but it’s the perfect platform to carry the Malignant Wave device to the enemy,” Dr. Reed explained. “It’s low observable, has a range of over a thousand miles, terrain- mapping capabilities. It can fly nap of the earth, and because of the new vortex technology that powers the main engines, the Blackfoot can also attain altitudes no other helicopter can match.”
“I believe I’ve already expressed my amazement,” Palmer replied. He crossed his arms behind his back and waited for the other shoe to drop.
“We learned during early trials that the low-observable composite material used in the Blackfoot’s construction not only works to repel radar, it also deflects the waves generated by our weapon. Therefore the pilot and co-pilot can deploy Malignant Wave without risk.”
Palmer nodded. “I’m impressed that you’re thinking ahead, Dr. Reed. But I find it a little presumptuous, as well. Or wouldn’t you agree?”
Dr. Reed frowned. “I don’t think I understand, Senator.”
“Your research seems to be farther along than anyone on my Committee imagined. I’m even more eager to see this non-lethal technology demonstrated.” Palmer glanced at his Rolex. “Shouldn’t we proceed with the demonstration?”
“Of course, Senator,” Dr. Reed replied, still smiling. “I understand your eagerness and share it. I merely wanted to show you the Blackfoot, and let you know that
Senator Palmer frowned. “It’s nearly five thirty now. Is there a problem?”
Corporal Stratowski, who’d been standing quietly on the sidelines, stepped forward. “I’m sorry to report it’s a matter of security, Senator. The Chinese have taken a special interest in Area 51 in the last few days. Their last space-based surveillance satellite of the day won’t pass over Groom Lake for another ten minutes. After it’s out of range, we can proceed with the demonstration.”
Palmer nodded. “Sorry for my impatience, Corporal. I wasn’t aware of the facts.”
Then the Senator faced Megan Reed. “Well Doctor, in the mean time, perhaps you can introduce me to the rest of your team…”
Ignoring signs that promised “guaranteed two-hour ser vice,” and proclaimed that all cleaning was “done on the premises,” Yizi checked the address on the store front against the card she clutched between manicured fingers. Satisfied she’d arrived at the correct address, Yizi pushed through the glass door.
The tiny shop seemed empty, but an electronic buzzer sounded somewhere out of sight. The atmosphere inside the dry cleaners smelled of bleach. Behind the counter, hundreds of shrink-wrapped garments hung on a large circular rack.
A young Chinese man appeared at once, stepping through a curtained door in the wall. He wore nondescript pants and a crisp white shirt with a plastic nametag that identified him as Mr. Hsu. He smiled politely, though he’d never seen the woman before.
“May I help you,” Mr. Hsu asked in perfect English.
“This is an urgent job. My boss wants this cleaned at once,” Yizi replied, also in English. She slid the garment across the Formica table top. Then her dark eyes met his. “Jong Lee wants you to know there is a stain in the right sleeve, Mr. Hsu.”
Still smiling, Hsu nodded. “I understand completely. Tell Mr. Lee that the jacket will be ready in two hours.”
“Good afternoon, then,” Yizi replied. Without another word, she spun on her heels and left the shop immediately.
Mr. Hsu, jacket in hand, once again stepped through the curtain. He set the garment down on a stainless steel table and began his search. It didn’t take long for Hsu to locate the instructions tucked into the sleeve, exactly as the woman promised.
It took the man a few minutes to read and memorize the handwritten instructions. Then he dropped the message into a document shredder, along with his Green Card and plastic nametag.
“Yee! Uhr!” Hsu cried. Two young Chinese men with thick necks and close-cropped stubble on their heads hurried from the depths of the roaring, windy cleaning plant.
“Yes, Captain?”
“Alert the team. Make final preparations. The mission is on for tonight.”
A flicker of emotion crossed their faces. “At once,” they replied smartly. Uhr and Yee returned to the bowels of the cleaning plant, while Hsu hurried to the front of the shop and locked the door. He turned out the lights and hung the closed sign in the window. Behind him, he heard the dry cleaning machines power down and the steady whine of the dryers fall suddenly silent. For good measure, Hsu placed a fitting screen in front of the glass door, so that no curious eyes could see the activity within.
Though his US government-issue Green Card identified him as Anh Hsu, an immigrant from Hong Kong, only the name on the card was accurate, the personal history a careful fabrication devised by China’s military intelligence bureau, the Second Department. In truth, Hsu had never even seen Hong Kong, even after he fled the tiny rural village in the Jiangxi Province of South-Central China where he was born. Hsu’s village did not even have electricity until the mid–1980s, and Mao’s modernization programs passed them by. Consequently, Hsu was raised without the education or benefits of the city-bred youth of Beijing, or even China’s newest acquisition, Hong Kong. The people of Hsu’s village were perpetually poor due to abysmally low agricultural prices, so poor that no one in his town — not even the town doctor — owned a bicycle or a clock, let alone a radio or television.
Because of the Communist’s government’s Draconian birth control laws which limited Chinese couples to two children, most female babies born in Hsu’s village were placed outside to die of exposure. Girls were considered useless mouths to feed, while boys would at least grow up to work the fields. Considered too uneducated and unskilled for factory work, compared to those citizens born in the cities, Hsu faced a dull future as a subsistence farmer.
So, to escape that fate, he became a member of the two and a half million strong People’s Liberation Army, the largest military on Earth, enlisting just days after his seventeenth birthday.
Through drive, diligence and hard work — and by exhibiting a cold ruthlessness that impressed his superiors — Anh Hsu moved up the ranks, until he was promoted to a level seemingly unattainable for one of such lowly birth and questionable heritage — a Captain in the Second Department’s Human Intelligence Bureau. Among his newfound skills, he learned to speak English like an American. But Hsu was not content with a behind-the-scenes position analyzing data on some desk-bound general’s staff. In an effort to boost his visibility, Hsu volunteered for ser vice in the 6th Special Warfare Group, a unit that performed a variety of operational missions including counterterrorism, long-range reconnaissance, sabotage, hostage rescue, hit-and-run strikes, and deep penetration warfare.
Captain Hsu’s military achievements and fanatical drive eventually attracted the attention of Communist Chinese espionage agent Jong Lee, also a member of the Second Department. Lee, an active espionage agent who passed himself off as a Taiwanese lobbyist when spying on the West, was one of China’s greatest operatives. Because of his formidable reputation, Jong Lee was permitted to recruit Captain Hsu.
For his part, Hsu admired Jong Lee because he never displayed a dearth of imagination, nor the slavish lack initiative of his peers in the PLA. Lee was not afraid to act, and act boldly.
It was Jong Lee who devised their current mission to seize America’s most advanced technology from under the long noses of the United States Air Force, and it was Lee who convinced his masters in Beijing to go along with his perilous plan. Along the way, he also convinced Captain Hsu to join him, though in the end it did not take much convincing. Like Jong Lee, Captain Hsu despised the decadent Western democracies, and resented their phenomenal wealth and economic might.
