David said, “What can I do?”
“You do exactly what General Schwartz asked of us. Work on your special projects. The people in this room will keep me appraised of the status of combat operations. From here, we will look at the situation on the ground, see how it fits into the bigger strategic picture, and then feed information to the appropriate parties.”
David nodded. “I’m headed down the hall after this.”
“Good. I’ll be down later today.”
David left Susan and headed to the building’s east wing, where his teams were assembled.
After his Camp David discussion with General Schwartz, David had been placed in charge of Silversmith’s special projects division. Of Silversmith’s several hundred members, about half knew of The Special Project’s existence. And among them, the name was shortened to just The Project.
There were no computer documents describing the program. No paper trail that politicians on the Intelligence Committee could read about or Chinese operatives could hack into.
If The Project was to work, no one could know about it. Its plans would be carried out as orders issued by General Schwartz, or one of the other recently promoted combatant commanders. It was amazing how easily a fifth star could move mountains.
But first, David and his team needed to create the plan.
Two dozen men and women were working on The Project team, and they were all living on base, under heavy security, until further notice. The group included some of the best minds the country had to offer in the areas of defense and intelligence. David had also recruited top-level talent from outside the government. Six team members were brainiacs from private sector companies. The Whiz Kids of their generation.
David couldn’t help but be reminded of a similar group he had been part of a few years earlier, set to work on a Pacific island under Lena Chou’s supervision. With this group, he had taken a page out of her playbook.
On the first day, David had sat everyone down and asked them a series of what-if questions.
“What if China takes Hawaii? Panama? Alaska?”
“What if China perfects their hypersonic weapons program before us? What if we perfect ours first?”
“What if the Chinese army continues to move north through Central America? What if we defeat them in the Battle of Panama?”
These led to some second-level questions.
“How will the Russia-China relationship change as China gets more powerful?”
“What weapons programs do we have that would make the biggest impact on stopping a Chinese advance?”
Each question was designed to uncover new insights. To understand the situation in a deep and accurate way. To question every assumption and turn the current war strategy on its head. From these conversations, they could uncover new solutions and strategies to pursue.
After the first day, David divided the team into smaller groups, each tasked with separate objectives. The group leaders were to summarize findings on a good old-fashioned chalkboard in each room. The limited space forced them to get specific on actionable strategies.
Each day David floated among the groups, listening to the conversations and offering his own questions and ideas. He gathered the entire Project team together each day to see how their individual group plans could be intertwined and strengthened. David and Susan then passed on information and recommendations to General Schwartz so he could take action.
Now David joined the first group in their huddle room.
“Morning, ladies and gentlemen.” Three engineers and a Marine colonel with a PhD in astrophysics greeted him. Three members of the group sat facing the chalkboard, with the fourth standing, leading the discussion. This group was tasked with identifying new military technology innovation that could be scaled to gain an immediate, major advantage over China. About as easy as coming up with a new billion-dollar invention.
“Morning, David,” said Kathleen Marshall, the team leader. She’d been plucked from one of the big tech firms, and was arguably one of the top artificial intelligence experts in the world.
“Morning, Kathleen. Progress?”
“We narrowed it to these four.” She pointed to a dozen technologies listed on the board with notes scribbled next to each one. All but four had a line through them.
David said, “You’ve crossed out R.O.G. Remind me what that stands for?”
“Rods of God,” one of the other engineers explained.
Another said, “The tech sounds great, but there’s a weight issue. Tungsten and other heavy metals would be best, and the energy-to-mass ratio needed to get them in orbit is a major barrier.”
The Marine colonel said, “Not to mention that the moment we launch en masse, Russia and China would detect it and probably see it as an ICBM launch.”
David said, “Noted. But remember, the physics should be your reason for crossing it out. We have other teams working on countering enemy detection capabilities.”
Kathleen said, “Hey, David, is it true that the fighting in Panama has begun?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
Forlorn faces around the room.
David said, “We’ll give everyone an intel brief at today’s team meeting. But we need to focus on this.” He continued studying the board. “So, the four technologies you believe we should concentrate on are hypersonic weapons, robotics, AI, and directed energy.”
Kathleen nodded. “Based on our research and team discussions, these technologies show the most promise. We’ve carved out specific ways we could use each one.”
“I know I don’t need to tell any of you this, but we have defense research and weapons programs in all of these areas,” said David.
“Yes. Some of us in this room have worked on them. We’ve gathered the research data and status updates on all existing programs.”
“If you had to pick one that would give us the biggest advantage the quickest, what would it be?”
Kathleen said, “No question. Hypersonics.”
David recognized one of the DARPA scientists at the table, who said, “Your CIA briefer showed us the prototype of Chinese hypersonic cruise missiles. Six months ago, I would have said that the US was actually ahead of China on hypersonics developments. But the Rojas technology overcomes the heat issues. This will allow them to keep their medium-range ballistic hypersonic weapons and hypersonic cruise missiles at much higher speeds. And speed kills. The Rojas tech is a quick fix. The intelligence reports say that they are getting close.”
David said, “What about our programs? Any progress on reverse-engineering the Rojas technology?”
“We have machinery that could spray on the new coating. But the materials science is like an art form. We need Rojas. If we had him, we could quickly upgrade our existing Hypersonic Glide Vehicles.”
David pointed to the board. “What about the other technology options?”
“We have more work to do before we’re ready to share anything on them,” replied Kathleen.
“Keep working.”
David departed the room and walked into the next. Inside, the second group stood around their own chalkboard beside a large screen showing the current positions of all US and Chinese forces in the globe.
Five men and two women were in this group, each hand-picked strategists and tacticians. Two were recruited internally from the Silversmith team, a CIA operations officer and a DIA analyst. Three were military officers sent from different Pentagon and Combatant Commander staffs. These officers were intimately familiar with the latest battle plans and organizational capabilities. Together, this group consumed intelligence reports like a bunch of Wall Street floor traders analyzing the moving stock ticker.