Blackbird, Chapter 3
Commissar Chao and Captain Yi have a conversation about his future.
This is chapter 3. You can go back to earlier chapters, here: https://wyattwerne.substack.com/s/blackbird
Synopsis:
When China steals advanced artificial intelligence microchips from an unknown source and uses them to attack the USS Enterprise, Ty Stone and his partner Alexis Kane are called to find its vulnerabilities before China capitalizes on its new first-strike capability.
To defeat this new technology, Stone and Kane need to find the lab making it. But whose technology is it? No known lab can print semiconductors this detailed. Stone and Kane must hunt the globe under the ticking time bomb of war.
Chapter 3
Yulin Naval Base, Sanya, China.
Captain Yi eyed his laptop, unable to breathe, as if a broad nylon packing strap ratcheted around his chest. He searched for news in his family’s town, a routine before coming home. He expected to be home soon since Zheng Chao, Fuzhou’s political commissar, ordered them to port after boarding.
Former Captain, he thought. Although nothing was confirmed. The startling search results glaring at him were one data point. Another, he should be in his in-port cabin, finalizing paperwork. Instead, Chao shuffled him off Fuzhou to a concrete building and sat him in this blank white office to wait for…whatever was coming next.
He replayed his memory of the conference in his cabin. According to regulations, decisions aboard Fuzhou were made by a five-person committee: him, his Executive Officer Lieutenant Commander Ding Heng, Chao, and her two deputy political commissars. Tactical control was his purview. His military orders came from the Rear Admiral. Political goals were her domain, and he never knew the genesis of her orders.
After boarding, the five of them met in his at-sea cabin, as they often did. Chao suggested they return to port.
When he was young, Yi’s mother told him what democracy was like in Hong Kong before China took over and forced its legislative council to enact national security laws. His mother described people speaking their minds and voting on their concerns. She denied it later, calling her stories warnings and claiming she’d misremembered and misunderstood.
Every year, he was required to re-read and certify his knowledge of the Chinese Constitution. A passing grade was nothing less than a one-hundred percent score on the certification quiz. If he missed a few questions, he was required to re-read sections. He couldn’t imagine what happened to those who missed a lot. Maybe they’d go on a watch list, or be forced into intensive study at a remote hamlet prison.
So, he knew, Socialism with Chinese Characteristics was defined in the Constitution as a people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class. Each year, he needed to recite on the test that the people’s organizations were those that embraced all socialist working people, all builders of socialism, all patriots who supported socialism, and all patriots who stood for the reunification of the motherland.
The shorter version, according to his mother, before she went to her political education in a remote Tibet village, only people who agreed with the party were patriots. If you disagreed, you weren’t the people. China wasn’t a people’s dictatorship. Just a dictatorship.
He never considered it as long as he had his career and family. A fist wrenched his gut as he considered the search results, wondering whether he had either a career or family left.
The conversation in his at-sea cabin, surrounded by Lt. Commander Heng, Chao, and her deputies, went as always. Cramped, his cabin stifled discussion. Chao suggested a course of action. No one disagreed, although there were many reasons to question the idea. Orders to leave the fleet came from the Admiral, not her. They were to start a military exercise soon.
The faces of her deputy political commissars were as stern as hers. They always voted first and always as a block on important matters. That way, there could be no misunderstanding: if someone objected to a political mission, they were going against the party. Lt. Commander Heng stood at attention, every muscle in his wiry body squeezing his face into resignation. He would vote with Chao because he valued his career.
Even if Yi asked why or debated the action, he’d be outvoted at best and written into one of Chao’s reports at worst. The decision was unanimous by all patriots who embrace socialist working people, she’d write. If he opposed, by implication, he wasn’t a patriot.
His only meek objection might be that he needed to consult with the Rear Admiral before leaving the fleet.
He stood, summoning his military discipline and replying before anyone spoke, saying, “I will inform Admiral Zhang.” He tried as much as he could to sound like her suggestion was natural, and that he wholeheartedly agreed. Lt. Commander Heng relaxed, exhaling audibly, and then coughed to cover his relief.
The decision landed him here, in this white office, staring at disturbing search results on his laptop that smacked sense into him, like his mother sometimes did.
When the Chinese censors wanted to suppress results, they set bots to redirect searches and spam news. So, instead of news about his town, he stared at links to porn sites, gambling, and escorts.
Protests. It meant that there had been more dissident protests. Messages to his wife, Shi, and mother were not going through. The strap around his chest constricted. He doubted they were involved in demonstrations, but the police jailed people and then asked questions ten years later.
Was he in this shore office because of the protests? Not likely. Chao received orders to return to port long before they’d armed the Islamists.
A coincidence? The Naval Academy trained him not to believe in coincidences. When there was smoke on a naval vessel, no one waited to see flames.
He leaned forward and typed his wife’s name into the search bar, receiving more ads for prostitution. He tapped the desk, then typed his own name. The People’s Liberation Army Navy was proud of all its officers. His name and picture had a spot on the Navy’s website.
He was, according to the bots spamming the results, one of eight porn actors or six male escorts. All in Navy uniforms, some tattered, opened at the front, with glistening sweat and defined muscles he never had. He guessed the images were AI-faked to bury something else.
He swiped more at the bottom of the results. Dangerous, perhaps, since search histories were logged in personnel files and used in social scores. They might accuse him of amorality. A ship’s officer should not be searching for porn or gigolos.
He found himself on page six. Still a captain in uniform. For now. His career had been buried, like his Navy bio. All that remained was for Chao to walk through the door and click delete.
He sat back and inhaled, trying to stretch the elastic band around his lungs, but could only take a scant breath against its grip. Searing heat radiated down his arms and shoulders.
Chao knocked on his door, and then her scowl leaned through the opening. She’d wrapped her long black hair into a donut bun, a favorite in the military, so tight he imagined it would whip open and lash his face.
“I ask you to come to my office.”
She wasn’t asking. His face burned. He didn’t move.
“I have news of Shi.”
He slammed the laptop closed, then regretted it. He’d done nothing wrong, so why did he act guilty? It didn’t matter. Chao had been monitoring his searches and knew he’d searched for Shi.
He gathered his PLA Navy discipline and marched for the door, following her out and down the ochre hall into her office. Chao sat between a teak desk and a teak bookshelf with family pictures, party leadership photos, and wooden cases displaying her awards. Befitting a general’s daughter, but not a working-class peasant’s office. In the corner, a green briefcase. The same as what she carried onto his ship? Did it contain the second copy of Blackbird? Was she this arrogant?
Not a dictatorship of working-class people, his mother whispered from the grave, a dictatorship of some people. Or just a dictatorship.
He locked the door behind him and stood at attention at Chao’s desk, the band around his gut and lungs squeezing all the blood into his pounding temples. He pinched his lips to stop his thoughts from overflowing.
“Do you know why you are here, Comrade Captain Yi?” The taught bun on the back of Chao’s head stretched her mouth into a grimace.
This was a trick question, one he’d asked of subordinates many times. Yes, an admission of guilt. No, an admission of ignorance. Either way he answered, he was wrong.
“I beg the party’s forgiveness, whatever I did.”
Chao sat back in her chair and eyed the door. Her grimace softened into a frown. “You are an exemplary officer, Comrade Yi—” He noted that she had dropped Captain. Likely, bots were scrubbing his name from military servers as she spoke. “Some, of course, support your decision to attack the American Navy.”
His decision. She ordered the attack on USS Enterprise. She brought Blackbird on his ship and suggested it was time to let it fly. He questioned the use of Blackbird. She’d replied, our victory today is assured, Comrade Captain Yi.
He would not be gaslighted. His fists balled up.
“You said it was a wise decision, launching from that spot, Comrade Chao.” His face burned. He didn’t have the breath to utter her rank.
“Yes, I advocated on your behalf. Some would call your decision patriotism. Unfortunately, with so many dead Americans…”
He saw the plan now. Attack the US Navy and then disavow the action. It was a political message, to show Americans that the Chinese military had a weapon, would use it, and they were powerless to stop it. After China disavowed the attack, America would take no action and retreat.
She would say the attack was his idea. The PLA would paint him as a rogue commander in league with the Islamists.
The PLA Navy uniforms were her idea. She set him up.
He eyed the green briefcase on the floor. Her father was a general—probably the general who arranged this—so it was his word against hers.
His punishment would be as harsh as the diplomatic fallout. He pumped his fists.
She stood, looked him up and down, lingering on his fists, then eyed the door.
He followed her gaze to the locked door, back to hers, then relaxed his fists. His heart pounded in his temples, and his breathing ran a marathon, but the adrenaline cleared and focused his mind like a laser. His mind worked out distances and pictured hopping over the desk.
“Forgive me, Comrade Chao—” He slipped, forgetting her rank again. He inhaled and held it to slow his speech to a more calming pace. Could he kill a woman? He’d simulated it in training. Chao was petite, but she’d taken hand-to-hand combat, like him, and had the advantage of a pistol in her drawer. Or pocket. Surprise was essential, and he needed to watch her hands. “I apologize. I am angry over the traitorous weakness that pervades these halls.”
A smile curled over her lips, and she fidgeted with the buttons of her white dress uniform. Her red tie looked like a waterfall of blood. “My father and I understand your passion. Your sacrifice will be honored.” Chao unbuttoned her uniform’s top button.
His sacrifice. Honored. It sounded like a funeral and an empty promise. He would not die a coward in some remote reformation camp. He was a Navy Captain.
Chao loosened another button and then set her hand too close to the desk drawer hiding her pistol. Her left hand was too close to her cell phone and security.
“I would like to enter a recommendation for my Executive Officer Lt. Commander Heng, to be promoted.”
Chao shook her head. “You are an excellent captain, Comrade Yi, thinking of your people. The party thinks Comrade Heng is tainted by this incident. He will be reassigned to Yixing.”
Yixing was a frigate. Heng, a good man, was being demoted. Yi’s arms tensed. He inhaled, stifling the impulse to squeeze his fists. Chao’s office was hot, with nowhere to settle his eyes except her black hair wound into a bun, her scowling brown eyes, and her lying, wan mouth.
“Through no fault of his. I gave the order.”
“I advocated as much as I could on your behalf.” Chao’s eyes flitted over the door, and she shifted her hips, folding her arms as if ready to deliver his sentence. “Of course, I can talk to my father. There is always room in this office for patriots who support socialism.”
She meant support the party. Or her. He would not be her errand boy. But he needed to distract her and set her at ease. “What news of Shi?”
Chao froze, her mouth half-open, her hands on her lapels, as if she’d forgotten she’d mentioned his wife.
“I’d been searching. You knocked saying you had news of Shi.”
If her offer was a pretext to bait him into her office, he’d kill her a different way. There would be a lot of noise and suffering. The guards would shoot him here. But it might be worth it.
“Yes—there was a virus outbreak in Potou District.” Yulin Naval Base was on Hainan Island. His wife, Shi, lived in Potou, outside Zhanjiang, three hundred and fifty kilometers away. “The city is under quarantine, sadly, including your wife.”
Quarantine. When he was a teenager, during an outbreak of a new variant of coronavirus, authorities ordered lockdowns. Meat, particularly pork, was scarce because meatpacking plants closed. Jobs were as limited as food, too, so people could not afford to feed their families. Residents in one housing unit near his childhood home evacuated and burned it down, an unprecedented demonstration against the authorities. The next day, tanks and military units rolled in and quarantined his town. This was after his mother’s political reeducation, so she said she admired the military’s ability to keep order.
Quarantine had since come to mean any lockdown, including one for a virus of the mind that caused dissent.
He’d only followed Chao’s suggestions. Now, his wife was a hostage, like the people in the housing units. He wondered whether there was a virus, or whether she’d invented a pretense to hold his wife as a bond for his performance as a loyal party patriot. Although, if they thought her grief would turn her into a dissenter, she’d be dead soon after him.
He would not submit like his mother did.
“How long will the quarantine last?” He knew the answer. Until his political reeducation ended, or his jail sentence, or they escorted him to the wall where they shot dissidents.
“This outbreak is an acute—”
He hurdled across the desk, flinging the chair across the floor, and squeezed Chao’s neck and carotids. She retreated a half-step against the bookcase, then gurgled her last word, wide-eyed, thrashing his back and chest.
Her eyes reddened as the blood filled them, then tears rolled down her cheeks. He lifted her body by the neck and smashed her spine against the bookcase’s thin shelf for more leverage. Her legs flailed, booting his knees, but she was lighter than he expected and felt like a rag doll. Her mouth opened and closed. She thumped his back and shoulders, shaking her head from side to side, then tried to push her arms between his. That was a power move taught in hand-to-hand combat training to break a chokehold. But she was ten seconds too late and too weak to thrust.
Her brown eyes rolled up and her pupils dilated, becoming big, black, empty disks. She went limp and heavy.
His pulse raced, and his lungs scarfed air. Like the end of a long run, he could see the banner, and his mind demanded he push himself to finish. He mashed her carotids, counting to sixty as he’d been trained. Her eyes hemorrhaged, and her tongue lolled from her mouth.
How much noise had he made? He replayed killing Chao. He’d stamped over the desk. She’d banged her feet against the bookshelf. The chair rolled across the office.
They made no more noise than if they had sex. He eyed her limp body inside the Navy uniform. Did she have sex in this office? For favors? Why had she unbuttoned her jacket? Was she going to offer to lighten his sentence in return for betraying his wife?
He ground her neck against the bookshelf.
His sixty count ended. He checked Chao’s pulse. None. He lowered her to the floor, curled her up in a fetal position, and shoved her under the desk.
Now what? His heavy breathing reverberated around her office, but he heard no footfalls outside.
He eyed the briefcase in the corner. Freeing his wife was his highest priority. He needed to be quick, but deliberate, and not stupid.
The green briefcase in the corner prodded him. Was Chao that arrogant? A hostage for a hostage.
He kneeled. The case clupped open to the combination 2-6-3-8. Inside, the Ministry of State Intelligence’s only remaining sample of Blackbird. He shook his head. Chao’s stupidity had become his luck.
He closed the briefcase and stood, exhaling and puffing his cheeks. How would they let him walk out with this? How long did he have?
Once on the mainland, the military used lazy conscripts as quarantine security, so there would be many gaps.
But how to get out of the building? And across the straight?
Flopping echoed from under the desk. Chao’s legs shifted and now stuck out. They had the gray pallor of death.
He eyed the bookcase from the front of her teak desk. An admirable office, befitting a general’s arrogant, dead daughter. Pictures, awards, and mementos all remained neatly arranged. He fidgeted with the desk, straightening it.
Her cell phone. It was on her desk. He turned it over. Her fingerprint unlocked it. He inhaled, then blew a ragged breath. The phone could help him. He circled the desk. Chao’s body tumbled to the side, her arm drooped on the floor. He lifted her index finger, pressing it to the phone to open it. He checked to ensure her phone was permanently unlocked and then wedged Chao’s body under the desk again.
Standing, thumb-scrolling through her messages, he found one from security with today’s passphrase.
He smiled. Karma spoke to him. He typed out a message to security: Captain Yi will exit with a briefcase classified red and then the passphrase.
Security didn’t have the authority to search a briefcase classified red. Nor would they challenge the order of a general’s daughter.
As he reached for her office door, he smoothed his uniform, a little rumpled like he’d had sex in her office, and straightened his hair.
He inhaled and opened her door. An empty hall. He exhaled, puffing his cheeks. The compression band around his chest had broken, and he could breathe.
He locked Chao’s office and clopped down the corridor with the briefcase. All the corridor’s doors were closed. He saw no one until he opened the stairwell door on the first floor to the security gate.
There, two guards, one to the right of a metal detector, the other behind a conveyor to an x-ray scanner. They saluted him. He returned the salute while marching around the metal detector to the front door.
Outside, he gulped the salty ocean air and sunshine. His lungs felt cavernous, like they could retain every last bit of the sea breeze. The sun cooled his face and melted the tension in his stomach. Oxygen to his hands and legs made them tingle.
To his right, two blocks beyond the outer security gate, a cab stand. The majority were automated taxis, but with a handful of human drivers he might be able to bribe to stay off the grid. Then he’d need a ferry across Qiongzhou Straight.
To his left, an insane thought. His ship—former ship—Fuzhou glinting in the sun. Four ropes, two on the bow and two on the stern, tugging its Navy-gray body against the dock. The walkway to the dock was unguarded because, he realized, he was still behind the Navy security perimeter.
It had a skeleton crew, with all but essential officers on shore leave. His Executive Officer Lieutenant Commander Heng was aboard. What about Chao’s deputies? He retrieved Chao’s phone from his pocket. She tracked her deputies, and they were in a bar four blocks down.
The outer security gate and the cab stand were the safer option. He eyed the line of passengers waiting for cars. He should be in that line to get a car, and then a ferry.
He pivoted from the cab stand to Fuzhou’s forward guns and missile batteries, undecided. He squeezed the green briefcase’s handle. A hostage for a hostage.