Ten minutes later, while the Special Ops troops refueled their helicopters, Kirsten sat in one of the tents with Hammer, drinking green tea from a dented tin cup. The CIA agent was no longer dressed in his Afghan shalwar kameez. Now he wore a black T-shirt and camouflage pants and a belt holster with an M-9 pistol tucked inside. His face was lined with fatigue, but he smiled as he sipped his tea. “Don’t get me wrong, Chan,” he said. “I’m not happy about what happened to the Seventh Fleet. But I’m sure as hell glad to get out of Afghanistan.”
Kirsten frowned. The bastard couldn’t resist trying to get under her skin. “Let’s get down to business, okay? Did you see the cables I sent to Fort Meade?”
“Yeah, I saw ’em. The headquarters staff at Langley sent me a summary.” He took another sip of tea and swished it around in his mouth. “All the experts at the agency are scratching their heads over this. They’re trying to understand how a computer network they never even heard of could’ve started this war.”
“Didn’t they look at the images I sent? The lobotomized prisoners at the Yunnan Operations Center? That’s the network right there.”
“Yeah, okay, the Guoanbu is clearly doing something nasty with those chips Arvin Conway gave them. But the rest of your story? The part where the network goes out of control and decides to blow up the Three Gorges Dam so the Chinese can blame us for it? That’s where your analysis goes off into la-la land.” He gave her a funny look, half apologetic and half amused. “Frankly? It sounds like crazy talk.”
Hammer shrugged. “Who knows? Best guess, it was plain stupidity. The Chinese army’s been getting uppity the past few years. Maybe some hotshot PLA general saw the Seventh Fleet cruising across the East China Sea and decided to make a name for himself.”
“Bullshit.” Kirsten shook her head. “You know that wouldn’t happen.”
“It’s unlikely, I admit. But it’s easier to believe than your story.”
Kirsten was furious. She wanted to smash her tin cup into Hammer’s smiling face. “Fuck you! It’s not a story! I saw what the network did at Yichang. It murdered millions of people, and now it’s getting ready to kill more!” Her eyes stung, but she stopped herself from crying. Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to cry in front of this prick. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice. “Pierce is at the Operations Center right now, trying to shut down the network. But if he fails, the nukes will start flying, maybe in the next few hours. Then we’ll be done for, understand? That’s what Supreme Harmony wants.”
Hammer stared at her. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “All right, you had your say. Now let me tell you what my assignment is. The agency ordered me to coordinate the Special Ops raids into southern China. The air force is trying to eliminate the PLA’s nukes, but the Chinese have hidden their long-range Dongfeng missiles in underground bases that our bombers can’t destroy. So Special Ops is inserting commando teams all over China. There are three targets in Yunnan Province where the agency thinks there might be warheads or missiles. Our team is supposed to infiltrate the bases and disable any nukes we find.”
Kirsten held up her hand to stop him. He was still missing the point. “Your plan won’t work. A solid-fuel missile like the Dongfeng can be moved out of its shelter and readied for launch in fifteen minutes. Once the PLA makes the decision to go nuclear, the game’s over. That’s why we have to focus on the Operations Center.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out Arvin Conway’s bulky flash drive. “I have a copy of the shutdown code in here. If we can just get access to one of Supreme Harmony’s computers, we can stop the war right now.”
“Hold on, I’m not finished. One of the three targets on my list is the Yunnan Operations Center.”
“What?” She was confused. “What are you talking about?”
“All the agency knows for sure is that it’s a newly constructed base buried deep in the mountains. Our analysts think there might be some nukes hidden there.”
“But… but there’s no missiles or warheads in the place. It’s Supreme Harmony’s headquarters. I put all that in my report.”
“Well, our analysts don’t consider you a reliable source, so they kept that base on my list of targets. And the agency left it for me to choose which target we’re gonna hit first. So I think we’ll go visit Yulong Xueshan this morning.” He smiled once more. “We’re gonna hit the base before sunrise. Want to come along?”
For the first time, Kirsten smiled back at him. He was still a prick, but at least he was on her side now. “So you believe me after all? After all this crap you’ve been giving me?”
He let out a harsh laugh. “Hell no, I don’t believe you. But I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt, how’s that?” Raising his tin cup, he tilted his head back and finished off his tea. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “And to be perfectly honest, I have my own reasons for going there. If the world’s gonna go up in smoke today, there’s something I gotta take care of first. I owe a debt to your friend Jim Pierce.”
Kirsten was confused again, but then she remembered the battle in the mud-walled compound of Camp Whiplash. So much had happened since then, she’d almost forgotten. “That’s right. Pierce saved your life.”
“Please, Chan.” Hammer grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
SEVENTY-FOUR
Jim opened his eyes. The world was a bright, disorienting blur. He shut his eyes against the brightness, but the beam of light was so intense it penetrated his eyelids. He wanted to go back to sleep, but even with his eyes closed, he could see the beam moving. The backs of his eyelids turned orange as the light swept across his face.
His throat hurt and he felt sick to his stomach. He hoped to Christ this wasn’t heaven.
Then he felt a rough finger on top of his right eye, pulling up the lid. Instinctively, he tried to swat the offending hand, but his prosthesis was missing and his left arm was paralyzed. He couldn’t move his legs either. He’d been injected with some kind of nerve agent, probably similar to the one carried by the drones. The only parts of his body that seemed to work were his eyes and mouth. His lips were numb, but with great effort he pursed them and curled his sluggish tongue. “W-w-w-wha-what…”
The finger released his eyelid. “We’ve confirmed your identity. Your name is James T. Pierce. You were born February first, 1964. Place of birth, Avondale, West Virginia.”
Jim recognized the voice. The diction, the phrasing. He’d heard it before, at the Great Wall, when he was eavesdropping on Arvin Conway’s conversation with the Modules. Now he opened both eyes and saw a thin Chinese man holding a silver penlight. The man wore a white lab coat and stood to the right of the operating table that Jim was lying on. Judging from the stubble on the man’s head and the healing of his sutures, Jim guessed that this Module had been incorporated three or four days ago.
“Y-y-you.” Jim was furious. Some feeling came back to his tongue and lips. “Who the… hell are…”
The Module smiled effortlessly. “This body was formerly occupied by Dr. Yu Guofeng. He was the chief assistant to Dr. Zhang Jintao, whose Module is no longer operational. Layla A. Pierce terminated its life functions.”
Jim’s throat tightened at the sound of his daughter’s name. The last thing he remembered was her terrified face, her hands gripping his prosthesis, her tears wetting his shirt.
“Layla!” The name came out loud and clear. He glared at the Module. “Where is she? Where—”
“We transported both of you from the radio tower to the Operations Center.” The Module stepped to the side. “She’s right here.”
Jim strained his eyes to the right and saw another operating table. Layla lay on her back with her eyes closed and her hands resting on her stomach. She wore a new, unwrinkled hospital gown. One of the Modules had used a Magic Marker to draw a pair of crosshairs on her bare scalp. They marked the place where the bone drill would go into her skull.
“Layla!” His voice grew louder, becoming a scream.
The Module slammed his palm over Jim’s mouth. “We can’t allow you to wake her. The process of incorporation is stressful, and both of you are suffering from exhaustion. To wake her now, just before we start the procedure, would needlessly increase her stress.”
