OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE, SUITLAND, MARYLAND
“This is taking forever.”
Inside the four-story National Maritime Intelligence Center in eastern Maryland, Cindy Pon stood with a coffee mug in her hand, peering over Jay Wood’s shoulder, examining his computer monitor. She had stayed late tonight, in case her analytical and language skills were required, but the decryption algorithms were still crunching away, the contents of the secure flash drive still unknown. Cindy took a sip of her coffee; it was 10 P.M. and she needed a caffeine jolt before the drive home.
Sitting at the workstation in front of her in the windowless, high-security enclave, Jay monitored the progress of the algorithm running on the computer, attempting to break the encrypted flash drive they had received from Okinawa two days ago.
“Have faith,” Jay said without taking his eyes off the monitor. “It’s just a matter of time.”
Only twenty-seven years old, Jay Wood was ONI’s best cryptologist. He had spent the last two days running various algorithms on the drive, evaluating how each algorithm performed before selecting the next. He had already determined which algorithm had been used to encrypt the flash drive, and was now attempting to determine the encryption key. Unfortunately, the key permutations were almost endless, and the process took time. The encryption key at the bottom of the monitor continued morphing—it had now increased to fifteen digits, each digit rapidly scrolling through the over-fifty-thousand characters of the Chinese language. Cindy had a hard time wrapping her mind around the number of permutations possible. A trillion had twelve zeros. The number of permutations in a Chinese encryption key with fifteen digits had seventy zeros. It definitely could take forever.
“I’m calling it a day,” Cindy said. “If you happen to decrypt the drive before morning, give me a call. Also let Jina Hong know. She’s got the night shift and will take a look at whatever you’ve got before I get in.”
Jay nodded absentmindedly. He was focused on the monitor. Several of the encryption key digits had stopped changing, each displaying a different Chinese character. One by one, the other digits locked.
“Bingo!” Jay said. “Don’t go anywhere, Cindy.” He opened up a new windowpane on the monitor, displaying the icon of the flash drive they were attempting to access, then positioned the pane above the encryption key. He double-clicked on the icon, and several Chinese characters appeared on the screen.
“Your turn,” he said.
Jay slid his chair out of the way as Cindy pulled one up, taking Jay’s place at the workstation. She read the Chinese instructions on the monitor—they directed her to enter the encryption key. She had to type in the fifteen Chinese characters displayed below. The problem was she was using a computer keyboard with English letters and Arabic numbers.
Fortunately, this computer was loaded with the necessary software, allowing Cindy to type Chinese characters using pinyin—a method of writing Chinese using the English alphabet. She typed in the pinyin name for the first Chinese character, selecting the exact variation of the character from a pop-up menu. One by one, she entered the encryption key, then looked over at Jay.
Jay nodded. “Hit Enter.”
Cindy reached over and hit the Enter key, and the icon on the screen opened, revealing a folder. She double-clicked on the folder and it opened to reveal eleven files with names in Chinese. The first four were titled after the PLA’s four main branches: Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, and 2nd Artillery Corps, the last branch being in charge of China’s nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles. The second set of files was named after China’s seven military regions. An analyst at the Office of Naval Intelligence, she opened the Navy file first.
The file opened up into a PDF document. Cindy skimmed the Chinese characters, attempting to gain a basic understanding of the content. As she translated the Chinese to English in her mind, she realized she was reviewing a battle plan. She digested page after page, soon realizing the battle plan was divided into two phases. As she began to read Phase 2, she broke into a cold sweat. She slowed down, reading and then rereading the key elements of the plan.
‘My God,” she said, not realizing she was thinking out loud.
“What is it?” Jay asked.
She turned to Jay. “If China has developed the capabilities in this document, the Pacific Fleet is in big trouble.” She reached for the phone and dialed the Director’s home number, wondering if it was already too late.