Sally phoned the general’s number and all she got was a busy signal. She tried again and again, until after the fifth time, she stopped and put the phone down. Carlos picked up the phone and called the President of the United States, who was still asleep down at Preston’s farm.
“Did you see where the missiles came from?” was the first question the president asked Carlos.
“I could tell by the feed that the missiles had come out of north China. It will take me a day or so to get the exact longitude and latitude from the directional computations that have been recording on the computer. We set that up yesterday. If it’s in code, Lee might be able to decipher it. If he can’t, then the closest I can tell will be within a couple hundred miles. There’s nothing much up there in Northwestern China apart from a few small cities, but we could set up a secondary code telling the computer to deactivate the directional information from its original source as soon as it begins and we might be able to neutralize any more missiles.”
“So what you are saying is that Zedong Electronics, or somebody else in China, is sending nuclear missiles into other areas of their own country?” asked the president.
“Yes, Sir,” Carlos replied.
“And they could have dozens more?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Can we direct our nuclear missiles into this area using the same system they are using?” was the president’s next question.
“Not yet, Sir,” replied Carlos, still stunned at what he had just witnessed—and potentially the beginning of the world’s first nuclear war. He asked Sally to get dressed and fetch Lee from the house he was using on base at McGuire using the jeep given to them. “I will need to write a program, Mr. President. It could take up to a week, and even if Lee and I achieve that, it won’t do any good if we don’t know the approximate location of the missile silos, plus they could have different silos in other areas. We only have half a dozen missiles in our armory.”
The president asked Carlos to keep him posted on any new developments and told Carlos to fetch him and the First Family. He wanted to move to McGuire. Lee arrived several minutes later and nodded when Carlos brought him up-to-date. He was saddened by the possible death of General Allen and asked Carlos if his wife was also on the aircraft. Nobody knew, and it took Carlos two phone calls to find out that Mrs. Wang was in Russian air apace and about to land in Omsk. He was comforted by the fact that Ghost Rider was the only fatality.
“The general must have known that something was about to happen,” said Carlos to Lee and Sally. “Pete always had a good sixth sense and I feel really sad for the loss this country is going to feel—Pete’s friends and so many respected colleagues—when they hear about his death. The country must not forget him. General Allen has almost single-handedly beaten back a massive attack against the world and the United States of America that was 30 years in the making by clever and educated opponents, by out-thinking the opposition, and we still need the general’s luck for the next couple of weeks.”
An hour later, Carlos and Lee were working on new code to send up to the Chinese satellites when Carlos’s satellite phone rang. As everyone usually did, he answered and waited for the caller to say Allen Key. This time, the caller didn’t say the code words, but asked in English to speak to Lee Wang. Carlos put his hand over the receiver.
“Lee, what sounds like a Chinese man wants to speak to you,” Carlos whispered. Lee froze and looked at Carlos for advice. There was no Chinese person who knew where he was and he shrugged his shoulders and said nothing.
“My name is Mo Wang,” said the voice on the other side. “I am an old friend of Lee Wang and I need to speak with him. My number is….” and he gave his number and hung up.
“What should we do?” Lee asked Carlos after hearing what the man had said. “He is the man—you know the one who recruited me and then tried to kill me and my family. He is an old friend, but I won’t ever trust him again.”
“Well, maybe he wants to discuss the upcoming attack and we could find out some information if we play our cards right,” replied Carlos. “Even though they have nuclear weapons, they don’t know that we have some and, like a game of chess, we could overplay our game and tell him we are ready to blow up the rest of their world. It will shock them to hear about our made-up strengths, and maybe they will all go home and dig holes to bury themselves in.”
“You mean bluff them into not attacking us?” asked Lee Wang.
“Why not? We have lost our commander, our queen in chess, and I don’t think we have much more to lose right now. Our element of surprise is running out, I reckon, and I know it’s a secret right now, but its time I told you that we also have nuclear weapons and the president wants you and me to set up an attack similar to what they have done in China. Maybe it’s necessary to attack them with nuclear warheads, but I personally don’t want the war to go that far.”
It took another several minutes before Carlos phoned the number back and immediately heard the same person’s voice on the other end. “Good morning, Mr. Mo Wang,” Carlos spoke into the phone. “My name is Carlos Rodriquez. My uncle is the Colombian Ambassador to the United States and you called me on my phone. I am putting my phone onto speaker phone.”
“You mean one of our phones, Mr. Rodriquez,” the person on the other end replied in perfect English.
“No, actually this has always been my own personnel phone since I purchased it a year ago. I don’t believe this phone ever belonged to you, or your organization, Mr. Wang. Maybe the new parts did, which I had to pirate from one of the phones we captured when your troops attacked ours last week.”
“So, you are in North Carolina, Mr. Rodriquez?” Mo Wang asked.
“No, I’m not, but I was there when we completely wiped out your men, Mr. Wang. And I believe we will do so again and again until you and your company is dead—in about ten days, I believe?” He heard the sound of a grunt of shock on the other side.
“You know where we are?” asked Wang, not believing what he was hearing.
“Of course we do, Mr. Wang. We have our own dozen satellites monitoring your movements right now,” Carlos embellished the truth a bit. “We destroyed your headquarters, most if not all of your troops here on the ground, and we are about to destroy what you have left. Oh, and thank you for your aircraft. They are going to really help us get all our troops back home to await your arrival.”
“You stole our aircraft?” asked Mo Wang, trying to fathom that he had actually been correct all along. “And Lee Wang has helped you find out about us?”
“Yes, we stole your aircraft in preparation for the aircraft you destroyed. And yes, to your second question. Mr. Wang works for me now and his wife is currently in Russia giving their government some of your captured satellite phones and telling the authorities there who is to blame for the destruction of their country. They are free to use our satellites and send over as many nuclear missiles as they wish to destroy your country, as we are about to, and I believe as your group has already started to do a couple of hours ago. It’s going to be a big turkey shoot over there. By the way, Mr. Wang, we asked the Russians not to destroy you. We want that pleasure for ourselves. I just don’t understand why you are destroying your own country.”
“You know about the missile attacks?” Mo Wang then asked, knowing that his chances of a long and fruitful life were now mostly likely in the hands of the Americans, rather than those of the chairman.
“Our satellite feed showed Beijing, Taiwan, and Hong Kong being destroyed by your own missiles coming out of northwestern China—not the United States or Russia—so don’t try and bullshit me, Wang. Your headquarters were destroyed, your satellites can be erased at any time, and if you think you can attack us with your modern weapons with no satellites to guide them, you are very much mistaken. Mr. Wang, we can take you out at a push of a button. If we had known that your organization had nuclear missiles, we would have taken out your three little satellites sooner. A small mistake on our part that cost over 40 million lives, unfortunately— innocent Chinese lives.”