David saw a pen and paper on the table and decided to write his wife a note. He wrote down what he thought he would be allowed to say. Mostly he just wanted to let her know that he was okay. He put in a few details to let her know that it was really him. Then he leaned back into the cold plastic of the window and shut his eyes. Sleep was not quick to come. The window pressed up against his forehead, and his mind began to drift to thoughts of what a war with China would really be like, and what kind of world his daughters might grow up in.
David awoke to a firm shake of his shoulder. It was the big guy in tactical gear.
“We’re here. Time to go. ”
He looked up, dazed and still sleepy. “Okay. Where is here?”
“Let’s go,” replied Big Guy.
The plane was shut down. David hadn’t intended on sleeping but eventually the fatigue got to him. He had slept through the landing. He started walking down the cabin of the plane, feeling guilty that he wasn’t immediately going to call his wife, when he remembered the note. He grabbed it off the table, got up and walked out the open door of the plane.
An empty twilight sky cast grey and purple hues over a silent runway. There was an identical aircraft parked next to the one that David had just arrived on. Other than that, the airport was deserted. The faint runway lights were the only manmade illumination.
Tom walked around the nose of the plane and handed David a large black duffel bag. “Here. It’s clothes and toiletries. Not your own, but they should fit. You’ll get your phone and wallet back when you return. Sorry about the inconvenience.”
David realized that there were voices coming from the other plane. He ducked under the fuselage to see people getting on the other jet.
“Who are they?” David asked.
“A few of the other consultants. That’s what we’re calling you guys. Consultants. You’ll meet them on the plane,” said Tom. “We’ve got to go. Like I said, I’ll tell your wife you’re okay, and don’t worry about work. It’ll be there when you get back.”
He grinned, but the wrinkles stopped at his eyes. David didn’t have a good feeling about this.
David handed him the note and said, “Here. Please deliver this to my wife.”
Tom looked down at the paper. He nodded and said, “Of course. Sure thing.”
“Mr. Manning?” called a voice. David looked over and saw a guy in a silly-looking airline uniform, his cap half-cocked to the side.
“That’s me.”
“Right this way, sir.”
Tom waved and said, “Good luck. Remember, this may be one of the most important things you ever do. So do your best and don’t screw it up.”
David frowned at that. Hell of a pep talk. He walked over to the other plane, still unsure whether this was the best decision. David took a deep breath and walked up the ladder and into the aircraft.
A few minutes later, Tom and his assistant stood on the flight line and watched as David’s jet disappeared to the west. Tom closed his eyes and took a long drag from his cigarette. No turning back now.
The man in tactical gear said, “Are you really going to call his wife?”
Tom glanced at him. This guy was such an idiot. He was barely a step up from the henchmen on The Sopranos.
“No,” Tom replied.
There is no need. They’ll never see each other again.
Tom said, “Come on. Let’s get in the plane. We’ve got work to do.” He flicked the smoldering cigarette onto the tarmac and headed up the stairs of the jet.
CHAPTER 2
Our historic dominance… is diminishing… China is going to rise, we all know that. [But] how are they behaving? That is really the question.
The plane ride was long and uncomfortable. David’s face was covered with day-old stubble, and his eyes were slightly bloodshot from the lack of sleep. He also needed a shower. Badly. While the seats on the jet had the same luxury cushions as the first aircraft, there is nothing in the world that can make a nine-hour plane ride comfortable.
As soon as they had gotten in the aircraft, a male “flight attendant,” who David was pretty sure held no formal position with an airline, had given them each twenty-page briefs to read. He also provided them food and drinks. Other than that, the man didn’t speak for the duration of the trip.
David rather liked the two other passengers he met on the plane. Each of them was going to participate in the same capacity as David. Brooke and he found that they were the best informed of the group. All the other two had been told was that they were to be consultants on a national security project.
Bill Stanley was a defense contractor who lived in Nevada. He had retired from the Air Force more than a decade ago, and had a wife and two grown boys. He worked on drones and “a few jets that you wouldn’t believe existed if I told you.” David learned that Bill commuted to work every day on a US Air Force Boeing 767. He would drive to Las Vegas’s McCarran International Airport, then fly to what was once known as Area 51. They joked about UFOs and aliens, and then realized that nothing was very funny now that World War Three might be on the horizon. Bill spent most of his time working on the long-range satellite communications to and from high-tech US military aircraft and drones.
Henry Glickstein was a self-proclaimed “maker” and telecommunications guru who had worked for several of the big-tech companies. The entire time they spoke, he never stopped smiling or walking around the plane’s cabin inspecting every element. He had designed data farms and overseen the layout of fiber optic networks for a living, and gave David the impression that he was a workaholic; an engineer who couldn’t stop trying to solve whatever problem lay in front of him. He was a jokester, but a competent and driven one. It was like his mind was moving so fast that he had to throw in a few one-liners every so often so he didn’t get bored.
They were each astonished to hear David’s story of being kidnapped. Their invitations had been markedly different. As with Brooke, a single person in their chain of command had contacted the two men just twenty-four hours earlier. They each had been sold on the importance of the mysterious project. They had been told not to discuss it with anyone, and to pack for several weeks.
They hadn’t understood why the secrecy was so important, but all of them had complied with the request. David had been surprised that they’d all gone so willingly, without knowing more. Each of the three had trusted the manager who had approached them. And they felt a sense of duty to participate in what was deemed a crucial project. The two men hadn’t known about the connection to a possible Chinese invasion.
David and Brooke told them. They were floored. Most of the plane ride was spent talking about different scenarios for why China would do something like this. The more David thought about it, the more he realized how hard it was going to be for Americans to believe something like this could really happen. Americans were comfortable. Human beings were reactive, not proactive, when they were comfortable. It was hard to get people to prepare for a hurricane if they hadn’t been hit in recent years. And that’s exactly what this was: an approaching storm of monumental proportions. A world war hadn’t happened in David’s lifetime. Would people prepare for the storm? Or would they watch the news reports from their couches in disbelief, waiting for a resolution?