“What background is that?”
“You’ll be perfect. Your knowledge of the Navy should even help. But mostly… your knowledge of ARES.”
“What does this have to do with ARES?”
ARES was the codename for a cyberweapon that David had researched a little over two months ago. The NSA was enormously interested, and David had been sent out to evaluate and secure the technology for the US government.
“You’ll find out when you get there. Plan to discuss it. You know it better than anyone besides those MIT kids who created it. From my understanding, many of the people who will be going will have different pieces of the puzzle. The group that has put this little shindig together knows enough to realize the danger, but we need to get you all in a room together to really make sense of it. And that can’t be done easily; too many possible eavesdroppers to worry about. Hence the remote location.”
David glanced out the window. He could see the setting sun painting the tops of the clouds orange on the western horizon. He sipped his coffee and tried to make sense of it all. He wasn’t sure what to believe and couldn’t think straight. He was still too worked up from what had just happened. He was worried about his wife and how she would react to his being gone for three weeks without any phone calls. Hell, she would probably be a wreck after he didn’t show up tonight.
“You’ll call my wife soon?”
Tom nodded. “Scout’s honor.”
“Tom, I gotta be honest with you — this is all a little too insane. Is there anything else you can tell me about what I’ll be doing?”
Tom said, “I’ve seen some of the evidence. The threat is real. One CIA agent already sacrificed his life to get the word out. And lately, finding people we can trust has proven quite challenging.”
David said, “What do you mean?”
Tom shifted his gaze between Brooke and David. “There are… breaches… in several key parts of our government.”
“What?” said Brooke. Apparently David wasn’t the only one learning new things. “What agencies are affected?”
“Sleeper agents have been activated in several organizations, I’m afraid. Hence, the secrecy and unorthodox methodology that we are using. Trust me, if we could do this in the DC area, we would.”
“The NSA? Are there spies in the NSA?”
Tom said, “I’m sorry. I can’t elaborate. Protocol — you understand. You’ll get read in when you arrive at your location. Hell, even deciding on a secure location was tough. But here is what I can tell you. You guys are going to come up with plans that could help stop this war. There is a woman there running things. She’s very high up in the intel world. She’s excellent, and right at the heart of all of this. Give her whatever she asks for. You have full authority to talk about any of the things you’ve worked on in the past. That’s why you were chosen.”
David was processing, shaking his head. “Why would China go to war with the United States?”
Tom replied, “Can’t say for sure. The Chinese didn’t bother to tell me.”
Brooke finally spoke up. “Why does any country go to war? National security, land, economics, religion, politics.”
Tom said, “Times are a-changing in China. My personal opinion? Decisions to start a war always come down to what is in the best interests of the powerful few. The people in charge get scared that they will lose their throne. So they act. Powerful people like the ones we’ve been looking into don’t have the same inhibitions we little folk do. For them, every option is on the table. Even war.”
“So what will I be doing when we get to wherever we are going?”
Tom said, “It’s called a Red Cell. You’ll help to plan out scenarios — how they might attack us — so that we can be ready. That’s really as much as I can tell you. Probably more than I should.”
David nodded. “I see.” He wasn’t totally sure that he did. But he was starting to.
Tom asked, “Dave, can I count on you? I know this sounds cheesy, but your country needs you. I mean it.”
He hated it when people called him Dave. “Yeah, Tom… of course.”
Tom looked at his watch. “I need to get some sleep. It’s been a long few days. You hungry?”
Tom motioned the big guy that he could come back and sit down near them. Big Guy brought a cooler over and passed out submarine sandwiches and sodas. David took a turkey-and-ham sub and a diet cola. He took one bite of the sandwich and left the rest. He wasn’t hungry. The bumpy plane didn’t help. This still didn’t feel right. But if all of this was true, then of course he was going to do everything he could to help his country.
China. More than a billion people. The only military in the world that compared to the United States. It was the doomsday scenario that his instructors had talked about when he was back at the Naval Academy. David had once heard that if it ever came to war with China, every response plan that the United States had involved using tactical nuclear weapons. It was simple math. There were just too many Chinese.
If this was really happening, would the Navy call him back up? He had only been an active duty officer for a few months. About as long as it had taken the medical staff at Navy flight school to figure out that his eyes had gone bad. However, once you are commissioned, you’re commissioned for life, right? So was he going to be sitting on a boat a year from now, facing an onslaught of Chinese antiship missiles racing toward him? It was too incredible to seem real, and too distant to inspire the fear that seemed appropriate. Right now, he was more concerned about his wife being worried about her husband’s disappearance.
David still didn’t fully trust Tom after the kidnapping. But if this was all true, then this time in history could be like the days before Pearl Harbor. Or perhaps like the days before Germany invaded Poland. Much of the world was just going about its everyday routine, unaware of the massive conflict that was about to erupt.
Over sixty million people died in World War Two. Could a war of that scale really be on the horizon?
David was exhausted from the earlier drama. He turned and looked at the other two men, both of whom were now sleeping in their fully reclined seats. Well, they likely wouldn’t be leaving him unrestrained while they slept if they meant to do him harm. He still wasn’t sure that he wanted to sleep himself. Or that he even could. But he sure was tired.
Brooke came around and sat in the empty seat across from him. She smiled and raised her eyebrows like she wanted to talk.
She said, “How are you doing?”
“Well, I just got kidnapped from my home and now I’m being flown God knows where on some sort of CIA plane to help save the country from World War Three. I’m good. How are you?”
“It’s good to have a sense of humor about it.”
“I suppose.”
“I just found out about twenty-four hours ago. My boss made me meet him off the grounds of Ft. Meade. He introduced me to Tom and gave me the quick and dirty. I can’t believe it either. I work in signals intelligence. To be completely honest, I spy on the Chinese for a living. Used to be on the Iran team. Now I’m on China. I work in cyberoperations. We hack into their computers. They hack into ours. It’s like the Cold War all over again, but over the Internet. But just like the Cold War, there are rules. Over the past couple of weeks, though, I’ve noticed a few things that were very unusual. Some of the rules were being broken.”