General Yang knew the President wanted to talk about how the Americans had found out where the PLA had moved the Committee members, and he knew the answer. He also knew the President was going to be furious once he was made aware of how thoroughly penetrated the Chinese communications system had been. He had only found out how big the vulnerability was himself the day before, and he’d wanted to wait to brief the President until he had a solution in place to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the Americans’ nearly complete decapitation of the PRC’s civilian government had moved that timeline up.
When General Yang’s deputy finished briefing them on the strike, Yang immediately dismissed everyone in the room and asked for Colonel Su to be brought in. President Xi looked at him with curiosity but also fire in his eyes.
President Xi seemed a bit put off at having some colonel he’d never heard of join the meeting, but he remained silent and gave Yang a chance to explain.
“Mr. President, I wanted to bring Colonel Su in to speak with you about our mole,” Yang said, cutting to the chase.
President Xi sat a little straighter. “Go on,” he said eagerly.
“Colonel Su is the Director of Unit 61398, one of our cyberwarfare directorates. More specifically, his unit conducts foreign communication penetration activities and defensive activities. I’ve had him looking into the possibility of a mole within the PLA for a while. Actually, I’ve had him looking into this since I took over as the overall PLA commander,” Yang explained.
Xi leaned in, a devilish smile spreading across his face. “I knew you were a clever man, General. So, you’d thought we had a mole this entire time, and now you’ve found him?”
Yang allowed a half-smile as he bowed his head slightly. “I merely used deductive reasoning, Mr. President. However, I’m afraid the situation we’re about to brief you on is far more severe than we thought possible. It’s also not something we can readily fix by simply executing someone.”
Now Xi had a look of concern on his face.
“He’s probably wondering if there is a coup ready to take him out,” Yang realized.
Colonel Su asked, “Do you want me to go into the technical specifics right away, or do you want to provide some background information and then allow me to go over the details?”
“I’ll give the President a brief summary of what’s happened, and then you follow up,” Yang replied. He saw a bit of relief on Su’s face at not having to be the main bearer of bad news.
Clearing his throat, Yang explained, “Mr. President, the Americans have done to us what the British did to the Germans during World War II.” He held up a hand to forestall the interruption he knew the President was about to make. “If you’ll allow me to explain, I’ll go over what happened, how it happened, and what Colonel Su and I are doing about it. Because of the sensitive nature of what we’re about to tell you, I’ve asked that no one else be present. Right now, Mr. President, the list of people who know what’s happened can be counted on one hand, and I want to keep it that way.”
The President nodded. “This had better be good,” he grumbled.
Yang took in a deep breath before he began. “In the early part of World War II, the British had captured one of the German Navy’s Enigma radio systems and the codebook. The Germans never found out this happened and so they didn’t change their codes or develop a different type of cipher code system. Once the British had the tools to decipher the Germans’ communications, they were able to read all of the military’s messages for the duration of the war. That has essentially happened to us.”
Xi’s face turned beet red. He interjected, “How did the Allies do this to us, and how long has this been going on?”
Yang turned to Colonel Su and signaled for him to take over.
Colonel Su stood and walked over to a whiteboard, where he wrote several names down along with a few other pieces of information. He then turned to face the two of them. “Mr. President, in the lead-up to this war, the PLA Air Force had been working on the Y’an communication UAV for several years. We knew in a war with the West, we’d need to disable or eliminate the Allies’ satellite communications system because the Western militaries are heavily dependent on this capability.”
“Yes, but somehow the Allies have managed to bounce back from that dependency much faster than anyone had anticipated,” Xi retorted.
Nodding, Su continued. “We can thank the Russians for that, Mr. President. At the beginning of this conflict, the Russians’ DDoS attack on the American GPS and military satellites was successful in disabling their systems for a few months, but once the Allies figured out how to overcome it, that option was off the table for us to use further down the road. Instead, we moved forward with the Y’an UAVs. In producing the UAVs, we acquired tens of thousands of microprocessors from an American company with which our Ministry of Industry had a joint venture. Because of the strict timeline required to get the Y’an into production, we purchased tens of thousands of these microprocessors rather than produce them ourselves.
“One of the engineers — a Chinese citizen, no less — had worked at the company’s American plant for five years. During that timeframe, he was recruited by the American National Security Agency. When he came back to China prior to the war, we believe he was activated. Using his position as one of the lead engineers on the communications package of the Y’an, he inserted a piece of malware into the microprocessor. When we then activated the Y’an and moved all of our communications systems over to it, the malicious code was activated. From the day we transitioned our communications to the UAVs, the code mirrored all of our transmissions to each other and sent them to the Americans.”
President Xi looked positively ill. “How could this happen?” he yelled. He screamed a stream of curse words, the obscenities flowing out of him like a geyser. When he calmed down a bit, he asked, “So what can be done?”
“We do have a plan to fix this problem, Mr. President,” Colonel Su said gently. “Now that we know where the problem is, we’re able to begin swapping out these microprocessors for ones that aren’t compromised. I’ve spoken with the Y’an program director, and he informed me that they could begin removing the corrupted processors immediately.” He paused and shifted uncomfortably. “Unfortunately, it’ll take us several months to fully fix the problem,” he admitted.
Turning to look at General Yang, Xi asked, “This is how the Americans were able to kill so many of the Standing Committee members yesterday and the day before, isn’t it?”
Yang nodded. “Yes, Mr. President. It’s also how the Allies have been able to anticipate every offensive move we’ve made. It’s why our forces are getting pummeled before they even make it to the front lines, and how the Allies have been so successful in finding our fuel or ammunition dumps and storage facilities. They’ve had complete access to our communication systems for the past fourteen weeks.”
“Colonel Su, thank you for your efforts in finding this problem,” said President Xi. “I trust that you all will handle the traitor that brought this about. Make sure his family is dealt with as well. Now, if you’d please leave, I have some matters I’d like to discuss with the general alone.”
Su bowed and hastily made his exit.
Once he’d left, Xi sat there silently for a few minutes. General Yang hoped he was only trying to figure out what to do next and not contemplating whether or not to execute him.
Finally, Xi sighed. He looked at Yang, defeated and deflated. “The war is lost, isn’t it?” he asked.
General Yang nodded cautiously. “Mr. President, I’ve tried to be honest with my assessment that we will inevitably have to surrender. It has never been a matter of if, but more a matter of when. I’ve done the best I could to hold Shanghai and Guangdong Province, to no avail. We’ve lost over 500,000 soldiers in Guangdong Province, and nearly 400,000 more in Shanghai. I have more than two million soldiers and militia men positioned to defend the capital region. However, I just don’t have any more men or material to retake Guangdong Province or Shanghai.”