Chapter 19

Shanghai, China

Residence of Dr. Fa

January 12, early morning

Fa Lau-sung, doctor of computer sciences and chief architect of the Chaing project, sat at his kitchen table in the modest apartment that he shared with his daughter, Fa Li-shen, and his grand-daughter. The little girl, Fa Mae-shen was at almost out the door on her way to school; Li-shen had gone to work. She was a pediatric surgeon and worked at the Shanghai People's Hospital, the largest hospital in the largest city in the worl. Almost 24 million people lived in the four direct-controlled municipalities that made up Greater Shanghai.

Lau-sung looked at the laptop computer and at the strange message on it. Ostensibly, it was a message from Chaing, containing numbers and words relating to the computer program's memory dump after the most recent shut down. When he looked at it, it made little sense. It contained strange digits in places they should not be – could not be. His heart tightened.

He began the laborious process of decoding the message. It was undoubtedly from the American agent whose code name was IO. The message read:

Dr Fa. Do not be alarmed. This message will not appear in any computer log or stored history. You have the only copy.

This seemed impossible to Fa Lau-sung. He was a computer expert; no one in China knew more about the internet than he. He knew – KNEW – that everything and anything sent on the internet must be recorded in many computers; each node that a part of the message went through would have it. This IO person was an idiot. He considered discarding the message entirely, but continued decoding. If he had not, the effort would be incomplete, and he was obsessive about completing things.

Does this seem preposterous to you? Is it more preposterous than the fact that Col. Sun holds your daughter's life hostage for the completion of the Chaing project? We have spoken before about your desire to leave China. The time is upon us. You will leave in two days, on Saturday evening. Your daughter will leave with you. Even now, my agents are in Shanghai. Before I risk them further, I require proof that you are ready to leave. I require the access code that only you have. The back door to Chaing's master control program. Encode it, and send it from your personal laptop, to the return email account. That message, too, will disappear. – IO

This IO knew things that were impossible. Perhaps the message would be stored in network nodes, but Col. Sun could not reassemble them easily. Could this be some sort of trap by Colonel Sun? Unlikely, Fa thought. Sun wasn't adequately sophisticated in computer technology to arrange this himself, and he was too untrusting of others to get help.

He thought about it for several minutes, sitting, unmoving at his kitchen table. Chaing could not be derailed, with or without his help. A great disruption would follow. The rulers of the Politburo of China would die, and new – and equally corrupt – men would follow in their place. China would survive and prosper, as it always had. But he knew that Sun would not honor his word and lift the threat from his daughter. He was not a man who would give up a position of valuable leverage. He must remove his daughter and grand daughter from Sun's pressure.