The air in the trol room at the Third Department』s Haidian pound in Beijing was thick with tobaoke and the hum of puter soles. A dozen tired teis typed away, eager to give the majeneral the impression that they were still alert, even after seventy-two odd hours on the job. Several of them had been asleep at their terminals when the majeneral had walked in. They were now fearful of the trajectory of their various PLA careers. The time on the digital wall clock read 7.08 AM.
The majeneral looked pissed. He had stormed in demanding to have an ao the niggling problem of the work intrusion which had been discovered the day before. Hundreds of man hours after the initial discovery, they were still he wiser. And Lieutenant Liu』s future was looking even more precarious than theirs. That fact was being increasingly apparent. The youeis watched from the er of their eyes as the lieutenant, pale-faced and blotchy-skihrough lack of sleep, veins throbbing violently in his neck, tried to explain to the majeneral the teical details of why they were not making progress iing the source of the work intrusions. Yet, the majeneral was only ied in the solution not the meics. His bulky uniformed frame just stood there like an immovable object, puffing away on his cigarette, his eyes dangerously fixed on the lieutenant.
「Sir, the intruder seems to be rewriting the work code to avoid dete. This makes it impossible to detect,」 Lieutenant Liu offered weakly. He was rapidly approag the point where he didn』t really care if the majeneral fired him on the spot. He just wao go home, make peace with his wife and fall asleep.
「You are tellihat with millions of New a Yuan of intrusioion AIs, state-of-the-art Id the fact that you see every bit and byte that is geed on the system using this very fand very expensive equipment of yours that you have no idea who the intruder is and what they are doing?」 the majeneral howled, pointing his burning cigarette at the numerous displays showing the life signs of the system and its subjects.
「Yes, sir,」 Lieutenant Liu said simply, feeling the energy to try to explain drain out of him.
The majeneral was visibly taken aback by Lieutenant Liu』s apathy. He tried to speak but the words stu his throat. In the blink of a seemed that his entire blood supply rushed to his fleshy face. The majeneral was about to explode into a torrent e when his cell ph. A deathly silence desded on the room.
「Speak,」 the majeneral anded. Some internal calming teique had been applied and the storm seemed to have resided temporarily.
「It』s me. The student was in Hong Koing up with some Russian.」
「And you have him?」 The look on the majeneral』s face suggested that this was not a question but a statement. However, this was lost on the assassin who was not physically present.
「No. Had him in my sights but lost him.」
「Lost him? What the hell do you mean lost him? Is everyone in the PLA inpetent?」 the majeneral roared, the storm threatening te again in a violent explosion of thunder and lightning. The men in the room flinched. Yet, the assassin』s voice remained calm.
「He』s go was lucky that I even found him given the circumstances. At any rate, he was in Hong Kong doing a deal with some Russian to sell a puter chip.」
「puter chip?」 The majeneral』s face turned from red to a pale white in the blink of an eye as the blood drained from his face. His whole world seemed to be collapsing around him.