Empire Rising (47 page)

Huan tightened his grip, pushing her head back against his desk at such a sharp angle it felt like her neck would snap any second. Pain shot through her chest as she arched back, trying to ease the angle. The tangy taste of blood seeped into her mouth between clenched teeth as Huan spoke again.

“I'll ask you one more time. Why did you come here?”

His hand squeezed her neck so tightly she doubted she could speak—she could barely breathe. Her plan to distract Huan from calling security had bought some time, but her situation hadn't improved. It was time for Plan B.

Whatever that was.

Out of the corner of her left eye, she noticed a lamp on top of Huan's desk. An emerald-colored glass lampshade, supported by a round column of one-inch-thick green marble, attached to an ornately carved metal base. It looked nice and heavy. And it was just within reach.

Plan B
.

But she needed to distract him while she grabbed the lamp. Huan was standing over her, his feet straddling her thighs. Christine pulled her right knee up against her chest, ignoring the pain shooting through her ribs, then kicked up as hard as she could. Huan winced, but his grip around her neck held firm. He glanced down as Christine prepared for another kick, and that was all the distraction she needed. She stopped trying to pry Huan's hand from her neck and reached for the lamp. Her palm hit the marble and she closed her fingers around the smooth stone.

Huan noticed her movement, but it was too late. Christine's arm was already swinging upward. The base of the lamp hit Huan squarely on the side of the head, impacting his skull with a solid thud. Huan's hand around her neck went limp, and he collapsed onto the floor next to Tian, blood oozing from a four-inch gash in his scalp.

Christine dropped the lamp, then pulled herself to her feet, assessing the situation. Huan was either dead or unconscious—that was the good news. The bad news was that she couldn't stand straight without pain shooting through her chest. Pushing the pain from her mind as much as possible, she bent down, dragging Huan, then Tian behind the desk.

After pulling Tian on top of Huan, Christine stopped by the sofa, kneeling down to retrieve the Glock. With the pistol back in her hand, she paused at the door to Huan's office, glancing back to assess her work. Both men were hidden behind the desk, and by the time someone discovered the bodies, Christine would have uploaded the virus. The communications center was only a short distance away.

Turning the knob, she slowly pulled the door open, peeking out into the hallway. No one was there. Opening the door wider, she stepped into the corridor and turned right.

*   *   *

Christine hurried down the hallway, pausing briefly at two intersections to peer around the corner. Thankfully, the hallways were empty. Turning left at the second intersection, she stepped into a long corridor lined with doors along the right side. The entrance to the communications center was easy to identify. It was the only one with a security panel.

Stopping beside the door, Christine shifted the gun to her left hand, then placed her right on the center of the display. The bright red line appeared again, scanning her palm. A few seconds later, the door unlocked with an audible click. After returning the Glock to her right hand, Christine pushed against the door.

The door opened, revealing a dimly lit room containing computer consoles lining the far wall. There were four terminals, each one containing a keyboard and two displays, one above the other. Two of the consoles were occupied—one on the far left and the other on the far right, each by a man seated with his back to Christine. During her transit down the corridors, she had thought ahead, planning to coerce whatever information was required from whoever was in the communications center, tying them up or locking them in a closet afterward. She stepped into the room and shut the door behind her as both men turned in her direction. Their eyes widened when they spotted the pistol in her hand.

“Freeze! Do as I say and I won't harm you!” Christine hoped they understood English.

Apparently not
.

The man on her left lunged forward, his outstretched hand reaching toward a red button protected beneath a hinged, plastic cover.

Christine aimed the pistol at his shoulder. She didn't want to kill him—one or both of the men might be instrumental in figuring out how to upload the virus. But there was little time to aim carefully before she squeezed the trigger.

The Glock recoiled in her hand with a whisper. Christine's aim was off and the bullet hit the man in the side of his neck. An unbelievably large gush of blood began spurting from the bullet hole. Christine stared in horror as the man clamped his hands around his neck, but blood continued to pulse from between his fingers. It was only a few seconds before the man slumped onto his console. Blood continued to ooze from the man's neck, coating his console and running onto the white tile floor in thin rivulets.

There was a flash of movement to Christine's right. The second man had bolted from his chair, headed to a side exit door only six feet away. Christine fired quickly, aiming for the center of the man's back. This time her aim was perfect and the bullet hit him right between the shoulder blades. The man collapsed against the door, then fell onto his stomach, his face turned to the side. His eyes were open and moving, but he was otherwise immobile. So much for the humane approach; her plan hadn't worked out too well.

After a final glance at the man by the door, Christine slid the pistol into her waistband and retrieved the flash drive from her pocket. Her eyes scanned the communications center, spotting two USB ports on the vertical portion of the first man's console. Christine stopped by his chair, pausing to examine him. The blood had stopped flowing from his neck; he was clearly dead. Christine shoved him onto the floor and took his seat, doing her best to avoid the blood coating the workstation. She inserted the flash drive into one of the ports, turning her attention to the two displays. On the bottom screen, various icons were loaded on what appeared to be a desktop, and Christine waited impatiently for the computer to recognize the flash drive.

A few seconds later, a new icon appeared. The name of the icon was written beneath it in Chinese characters she couldn't read, but she was certain it was her drive. Noticing a flat metal touchpad on the right side of the keyboard, she slid her finger across it and the arrow on the screen moved. After positioning the cursor over the icon, Christine tapped the pad twice and the icon opened into a window containing a single file. She repositioned the cursor and tapped twice again.

A horizontal status bar appeared on the display, with the color of the bar changing from left to right, turning from gray to bright blue. Beneath the bar, a digital timer appeared, starting at two minutes, counting down the time remaining until the process was complete. Christine watched the timer tick down, and when the time reached zero, the status bar turned green.

The status bar disappeared a few seconds later, leaving the desktop blank except for its icons. Christine waited for something to happen. She had no idea what to expect, and couldn't tell if the virus had accomplished its intended effect. She waited a minute, listening for approaching personnel as she examined the various displays in the communications center.

Nothing.

There was no indication that a lethal cyber virus had been injected into the Chinese command and control system. Deciding that waiting any longer would do no good, she pulled the flash drive from the USB port, sliding it into her pocket as she stood, turning her thoughts to escape from the Great Hall of the People for the first time.

The SEALs were supposed to get her out of the Great Hall, but she was on her own now. She needed a plan. She was inside the Politburo security perimeter, and successfully shooting her way out was iffy at best. She could head back out the way she came in, shuffling along the ledge outside the building, but it was daylight by now and she would be clearly visible, even to a casual observer. She needed a better exit plan, and the communications center wasn't the place to sort through the possibilities.

And then there was Harrison. Where was he? Had Tian told her the truth and Harrison had been captured, or was he hiding in an office somewhere, leaning against the wall as he bled to death?

Either way, she had to take care of herself now. She turned and headed toward the exit, stopping at the door. After listening for sounds, she cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. There was no one present. She stepped into the corridor, then turned around toward the plasma display beside the security door and pulled up the schematics of the Great Hall of the People. As she searched for an escape route from the building, an idea began to take hold.

 

ENDGAME

 

68

NINGBO, CHINA

Inside the East Sea Fleet's Command Center, Admiral Tsou stood at the back of the facility, his eyes skimming across six rows of consoles before coming to rest on the main screens at the front of the Command Center. The PLA was on the verge of capturing the last beachhead on Japan's main island, and only an injection of American airpower could stave off the advancing PLA forces. America's last aircraft carrier in the Pacific had launched its air wing, and China's new
Hongqi
surface-to-air missile batteries had locked on to the first wave, the aircraft almost within range. China was about to deliver the fatal blow.

Scattered across Japan in PLA-controlled territory, red icons marked the location of over one hundred mobile missile batteries, while three waves of blue symbols over the Pacific Ocean speeding west represented
Ronald Reagan
's air wing. The aircraft were accompanied by twice the usual number of radar-jamming EA-18G Growlers for protection. But China's
Hongqi
missiles, far surpassing the capability of the Russian S-400 they had copied, would overwhelm them. In less than a minute, the lead missile batteries would begin firing, and America would be forced to accept defeat as the last remnant of their airpower in the Pacific was destroyed.

Tsou glanced at the timer on the main display as it counted down toward zero, when the first of their missiles would begin launching.

Only ten seconds remaining.

The consoles on the left side of the Command Center suddenly flickered off. In a cascade of darkening displays flowing left to right, console after console dropped off-line, their displays going black. The disciplined communications between console operators and their supervisors deteriorated into chaos as supervisors rushed to assist the nearest operators, directing them to reboot their consoles. One by one, the console screens turned blue, with white characters scrolling across the displays. After a few seconds, each screen went dark again. Operators frantically rebooted their consoles again, obtaining the same result; the displays went dark at the same point in the start-up process each time. Tsou looked toward the front of the Command Center. The main screens were frozen, no longer being updated. The entire Command Center was paralyzed.

Captain Cheng Bo, in charge of the Command Center, approached a moment later.

“A hard fault has occurred, Admiral. We must do a cold start of the entire system.”

“How long will that take?”

“Ten minutes, sir. But it might not fix the problem. We have no idea what's wrong.”

“Are we the only command center affected?”

The Captain shifted uncomfortably on his feet before continuing. “No, sir. All command centers are down, including weapon systems in the field linked to our tactical networks.”

Captain Cheng's report was alarming. Their most potent missile batteries were linked to their tactical networks. That meant the
Hongqi
batteries,
Dong Feng
anti-carrier missiles, and
Hong Niao
surface-to-surface missiles were inoperable.

Admiral Tsou checked his watch. If the batteries could be brought up again, ten minutes was acceptable. When their missile batteries returned to service,
Reagan
's aircraft, and then
Reagan
itself, would be destroyed.

 

69

USS
ANNAPOLIS
• CNS
JIAOLONG

USS
ANNAPOLIS

“Conn, Sonar. Hold a new contact, designated Sierra two-four, bearing two-six-zero. Classified submerged.”

Standing on the Conn with his crew still at Battle Stations, Commander Ramsey Hootman acknowledged Sonar's report over the open mike. Ramsey glanced at the geographic display on the combat control console as a red half-circle appeared on the screen. It was almost certainly another one of the Yuan class submarines forming an underwater barrier two hundred miles east of the Japanese islands. And it was most likely the submarine that, earlier this morning, had almost sunk
Annapolis
.

He had pushed it too far, and they had barely escaped with their lives.
Annapolis
was stationed near the center of the Atlantic Fleet submarines, awaiting the arrival of both
Ronald Reagan
and their new torpedo software. In the meantime, their task was to probe the waters ahead, mapping out the defensive screen of Chinese submarines. The only wrinkle was—don't get killed in the process. With no functioning torpedoes to defend themselves with, that was easier said than done.

Annapolis
had been counter-detected by a Yuan class submarine, and it had been a harrowing three hours, attempting to shake the Yuan that had caught a sniff of them. Ramsey had been tempted to kick it in the ass, going to ahead flank and vacating the area quickly. But that would have announced his presence to every Chinese submarine in the area. Not knowing if others were nearby that could have taken a shot at him while he fled, he decided to take his chances with the submarine that had detected him. It had been a cat-and-mouse game, with
Annapolis
constantly maneuvering, preventing the Chinese submarine from obtaining a firing solution until
Annapolis
had sufficiently opened range and broken contact.