Sir. Something is going on, though we are not sure what,” she replied.
“Any ideas?”
“We are of course keeping an eye on them, Mr. President. They are broke, their population is declining precipitously. We are unsure of their future – as they seem to be, as well. Their recent elections, as you know, were less than open and honest, Sir, but the people seem to prefer the order they have now to the chaos of the early post-Soviet days. They have immense natural resources but lack both the technology and manpower to exploit them and the money to do so. Frankly, Mr. President, we don’t know what they will do next. We’re not at all sure they do, Sir.”
Hopkins turned to Shari Striplin, studying her a moment. “You were telling me something earlier about China…?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Several things, actually,”
“Go ahead.”
“Mr. President,” she began, “China has hired one of our best oil drilling companies and, well, moved it to China – every man and his family …. But we’re not sure exactly where in China, Sir.”
“Why…?”
“Well, Sir, they also seem to be issuing orders for large amounts of oil drilling equipment – drilling pipe, drill bits, pumps, trucks, drilling engines. But we are unaware of any new finds in China, Sir.”
“How much equipment?” he began to turn away, not impressed with this information or the necessity of having it now.
Secretary Striplin hesitated before replying, “Over two-and-a-half billion dollars, Mr. President.”
He turned back. “That’s quite a bit, Ms. Striplin, isn’t it?”
“Sir, it would be enough to start an entire new field into production – a large one, a very large one, or perhaps two medium-sized ones. Or they could start a new one and retrofit several older ones. It would seem, Sir, that China either has found or expects quickly to find more than one large new oil field.”
“And you’d like to ask them about that,” he said; a statement, not a question.
“Mr. President, if we are to understand our oil manufacturing requirements, and global drilling, in order to effectively plan our own energy needs, we need to understand what China has found or is… or … well, what they are up, to Sir.”
“Very well,” replied Hopkins, “Let’s ask him about the American company, the pipes, and the other stuff you mentioned, at dinner tonight. If there is time.” Again he began turning away.
“Mr. President?” asked Secretary Striplin again. “Sir, well, Boeing late yesterday afternoon reported orders from China for several hundred aircraft. That’s billions of dollars – and they’ve paid half up-front. And enough foodstuffs have been ordered – and futures bought, we think from China – to feed a small country for a year or more. We really are puzzled as to what is going on.”
“Where are the foodstuffs being sent?” Hopkins asked.
“Sir, they have ordered millions of tons of cereal grains, beef, pork, potatoes. It is to be delivered soonest possible to ships now arriving in, or being re-routed to, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and New Orleans.” She paused. “It really is quite a lot of food. We just have no idea where it’s going… or why it’s all been ordered now.”
Hopkins was intrigued. But he also realized that she had no more information to provide. “Let’s ask Premier Fang about this commerce this evening, shall we?”
Hopkins looked around the room and said, “Thank you,” dismissing the meeting. He rose and returned to the Oval Office.
13
West of Quetta, Pakistan
Thursday, 11 April, 13:20 hours GMT (18:20 Local)
Night was falling. Colonel Li finished the targeting process for the final missile. He disconnected the communications cable connecting his computer to the guidance input port on the side of the missile, and then initiated one final application on the laptop.
As it executed he looked up into the twilight, seeing the first bright stars, like cold, hard diamonds in the darkening sky, and listened to the peaceful desert evening surrounding him.
And thought of the fires of Hell.
This final application would “scratch” the hard drive by writing zeros to every byte position on the disk, writing-over the data, application program and operating system files, leaving only those portions of the application and operating system active in memory.
In the extremely unlikely event that the laptop ever came into the hands of an enemy, it would be useless. Standard procedure.
Once completed, the application committed suicide, deleting itself from memory. The computer “hung” in an electrically active, but computing-dead state. Colonel Li watched this process silently, then closed the laptop, stood and walked back toward where he had spoken with the Arab earlier in the day, the computer almost absently in-hand. Arriving, he waited for the other man to come to him.
Remaining in their defensive positions, the North Koreans impassively observed the Arabs at their camp. A helicopter could be heard closing on their position.
60,000 feet above, and miles away, Staff Sergeant Elmo Racher, AWACS radar operator asked of no one in particular, “What’s that?” pointing at his screen.
His commanding officer, Colonel Hebb, quickly walked over and punched the “record” button to store the data. A small, slow-travelling blip was being traced in the farthest corner of his area of observation as the AWACS banked from a southeast to a northeast heading through yet another of its racetrack orbits.
As Hebb punched record, Racher jotted a quick note on the pad on the table before him, writing the time of the observation and the latitude and longitude of the craft, whatever it was, just as it disappeared from the radar view of the turning AWACS.
Hebb knew they’d be back over this area shortly. On the terminal before him he called up satellite images of the area to get a feel for the terrain below them, studying the images with interest. He next retrieved the satellite orbit and availability schedule. Just as he remembered, a bird was on its way and available to him for tasking to keep an eye on this area for a while. He re-tasked it immediately and continued the tasking for its next several orbits. If he had seen something real, he would have recorded not only radar, but digital imagery as well.
He called the pilot, Colonel Sullivan, informing him of the acquisition of a large helicopter crossing the wasteland below them.
“What’s he doing, Hebb?” Sullivan asked.
“Don’t know. But I’m locking him in to our observation platforms. Maybe in our next circuit we’ll pick him up again?”
The Arab raised himself from his reclining position near his men, stood and stretched and then strode imperiously over to Col. Li. “You have completed?”
“Yes.”
The
