“Alright. I’ll see if I can get this to the president today. It might be hard to slow down the wheels of this thing right now, but this will certainly help if we can find evidence that links Jinshan to the Iranian attacks. Keep at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
9
Natesh fought back another wave of nausea as their minivan curved around a corner. Everything in this godforsaken city made him sick. The food, the weather, the driving.
The strange food they served him at the Chinese military base was awful. The Chinese security men who brought them their meals must have thought it would be funny to give Natesh a local delicacy — cow brain. Natesh didn’t eat it, but just watching them go to town on it, and then eat actual chicken feet, disgusted him. The odd taste of their tea made him want to vomit. He gave it a try, but then decided to stick with bottled water, not trusting what might come out of their tap. He missed the sushi houses of Silicon Valley.
A constant smog filled the Guangzhou air. It was so thick that it limited visibility to a few hundred yards. It was like being stuck in a bad dream — the world fogged over in toxic brown. By the end of each day, he grew nauseous, and a massive headache consumed him.
The pollution was much worse this time of year, he was told. During the winter months, the coal factories kicked into high gear to provide electricity and heat for the burgeoning population. People walked around in it, coughing and complaining. Many of them wore little white masks over their noses and mouths. Many locals even had an app on their smartphones that told them how intense the pollution was that day. For Natesh, breathing that crap in just made him want to puke.
It didn’t help that he had to be taken to and from his living quarters in the back of a dark-windowed van. Security precautions, they were told. Driving in Chinese cities was like a mad derby race. Lots of honking horns and unexpected braking. Angry passengers.
Natesh and Lena had arrived on one of Jinshan’s jets the night before last. They were kept in hiding at a local military base until called upon. Finally Jinshan had summoned them for this strategy session, and their handlers had sped them through the crowded city streets.
The van came to a halt outside what Natesh now recognized as Jinshan’s residence here in Guangzhou, the third-largest city in China. A guard conversed with the driver, and then the entrance gate rose.
As they moved forward, Natesh glanced at the seat behind him. Lena stared back, that same cold look on her face. He turned back around to face forward.
The elevator was cramped. Tiny by Western standards. Lena, Natesh, and their three armed escorts squeezed in for the ride up. No one spoke. The escorts disappeared when they arrived at the penthouse.
The décor was similar to what Natesh had seen in high-end hotel suites. Modern furniture and paintings. Well decorated. No personal effects.
Natesh was glad that they were having these strategy sessions in Jinshan’s penthouse, rather than the godforsaken military base Lena and he were holed up at. The air in the penthouse smelled cleaner, and the food wasn’t the local cuisine. It was high-quality gourmet dining — fit for the billionaire that Jinshan was. Plates of steamed dumplings, but also Western-style sandwiches and salads. Two glass bottles of carbonated water in an ice bucket. A stocked liquor bar was off to the side, although no one approached it.
“Mr. Jinshan will be with you in a moment,” said one of the assistants.
“Thank you,” Lena said, unconsciously rubbing the burn scar that ran up the side of her neck and face. She did that a lot, Natesh noticed.
Jinshan had summoned Lena and Natesh to discuss the current state of their operational planning and make changes where needed. Natesh had previously made a living consulting for some of the best companies in the world. He had been around the block enough to recognize a nervous executive when he saw one. Jinshan was worried — with good reason. It wasn’t all supposed to happen this way.
The Bitcoin mess was not one of Natesh’s ideas. He’d tried to tell Jinshan that it wouldn’t work. Frankly, it wasn’t necessary. If the Chinese army was going to conquer the West militarily, why did they need to attempt economic warfare?
But Jinshan didn’t like putting all his eggs in one basket. He had argued that if enough nations began using the Bitcoin-backed currency, and Jinshan was able to manipulate the value, it would be an enormously powerful tool in their arsenal. But that idea had fallen apart before it could get off the ground. The CIA had uncovered the plot. And when David Manning and Henry Glickstein had escaped from the island, that had triggered a chain of events that moved all their plans up by several months.
Natesh had explained how critical it was to conduct all the information warfare attacks at the same time — the cyberattacks, the EMP attacks, cutting the undersea cables, destroying the US satellite communications. But they had not executed that way. Instead, some of these information warfare tactics were used for diversion. Jinshan and his planners were worried that the two escaped Americans — Manning and Glickstein — would shine a light on Jinshan’s entire operation.
Perhaps Jinshan was right. One thing Natesh had to admit was that he knew how to manipulate the media, and as a result, people’s opinions. When David and Henry had escaped, Jinshan had insisted that they use a few of the weapons in their arsenal immediately. Months earlier than Natesh had recommended.
So Jinshan’s cyberwarfare team had used the ARES weapon to disrupt the American Internet and permanently damage many US satellites. The results were mixed. US-owned GPS satellites were out of commission until they could be replaced. Most military satellite communications were damaged to a similar level of harm. But the US Internet, as Jinshan had warned, was a self-healing monster. It had grown so large and interwoven that attacking only some data centers and root servers would only create a temporary setback.
Still, Jinshan’s foresight into the behavior of the media, and the minds of the people, proved incredibly accurate. The Chinese intelligence team had inserted false information to several media centers about David Manning and Henry Glickstein providing the Iranians with a classified cyberweapon. Couple this with the Blackout Attack, and a media disinformation firestorm soon erupted.
The next few days were days of record-setting ratings for the TV news stations. First, Iran and two American traitors were implicated. Then, the Americans were captured in Australia. Then, they escaped captivity somehow. Then, the Iranian politician was assassinated. Then, the Iranian military attacked US forces in the Persian Gulf region. With the Internet down, everyone was glued to their TV.
With so much confusion, there was almost no coverage about China. Even after it came out that David Manning and Henry Glickstein had nothing to do with the Iranians, their claim that the Chinese had kidnapped Americans wasn’t widely believed. The US government’s own penchant for secrecy helped there. The two men weren’t allowed to do interviews.
When news that China might have been involved did break, it was widely discredited. Many of the more extreme media outlets cried cover-up — claiming that certain political and media groups desired to appease Iran, and blame China. Jinshan’s cyberwarriors fed this, of course. They paid third parties to write and publish articles that pointed to David and Henry as Iranian sympathizers. Spies. Traitors.
This disinformation strategy prolonged the time that the US government spent investigating and questioning the two men, and reduced their credibility. It also gave Jinshan and China enough cover to deny any involvement in the Iranian incidents, or the “ludicrous” idea that the Chinese could actually be holding American citizens on an island in the South China Sea. With all the Iranian-US hostilities, the Chinese connection was soon buried.