SILICON - WAR GAMES - FRANK by frank.blue

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SILICON – WAR GAMES

WARNING: In this narrative, some of the names of high dignitaries are authentic, but their actions and decisions are purely fictional. Other names of real people have been deliberately altered or are presented under pseudonyms to protect their privacy. Any resemblance to actual events or persons now living or deceased, with the exception of these publicly acknowledged figures, is purely coincidental.

AUTHOR’S NOTE The research behind this novel is based on publicly available information. However, all interpretations, viewpoints, positions and conclusions expressed within these pages are the product of the author’s imagination and should be interpreted as works of fiction.

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“A short period of pain is worth a lifetime of glory. Zhuge Liang Chinese military strategist and Go master. (Third century AD)

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CHAPTER 1

FOURTH HOUR 5 HONHOT - DETENTION CENTER NUMBER 1 INNER MONGOLIA - CHINA You never get used to the icy cold sensation of a gun to the back of your neck. Even to the seventy-second time, as I strangely counted them during my interrogation of moderate brutality due to my rank in the party, before my fall from grace. My position was then one of the highest in the most closed circle of the six close to our President. My advanced age spared me torture but not deprivation in a cell measuring three by three meters, which I understood to be located in Inner Mongolia, the furthest possible place from the capital. Everything was done to ensure that I would be forgotten forever. My family was warned not to make any claims, and to keep quiet on pain of immediate imprisonment.

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They waited a long time before incarcerating me, without a court of law, which is considered a waste of time in our country, when the facts are indefensible. And they were, because in the last ten years of my ministerial position, I had accumulated a handsome fortune of just over a billion dollars. Indeed, I’d managed to create an exceptionally effective bribery mechanism that seemed unstoppable. The President must have had enough, but I didn’t see it coming. My overweening pride stifled all caution, and it took me too long to realize that I’d better leave the country as soon as possible, leaving everything behind as it was. According to our good old methods, they waited for the moment when I reached the peak of my megalomania, to bring me down in one fell swoop. No press, no lawyers, no court, but secret transport by military-guarded plane to my windowless cellblock. No torture either, although we’re pretty good at that. I confessed in bits and pieces to save a little time. But every day, the pistol went to the back of my already fragile, wrinkled neck. The interrogator informed me that I would be the symbol of the final fall of a long list of corrupt people who were part of a plan by the President whose campaign had started in 2013. But as I was the biggest part, I had to be spared in order for them to know everything. The whole chain of my other accomplices wouldn’t be as lucky as I was, because a bullet in the back of the head is ultimately quick, definitive and clean, and I was doing everything I could to convince myself of this.

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In the long moments of solitude between two interrogations that were simplistic in substance, I wondered what the government was going to do with my villa, the only one built on the island’s most prestigious golf course. Offering it as a gift to a deserving party member would be too banal. Turning it into a seminar residence for top-level executives who will be able to enjoy its eight luxurious rooms would be far too simple. With the added bonus of an underground mini train leading to the clubhouse, and a private golf driving range, which I’ve never used because I’ve never played the sport. But it looked very chic! Pride always prides, I know, I know. What eats away at me most with jealousy is that the next visitors are going to get their hands on my collection of old whiskies that I’ve amassed over the last twenty years. So much so that I was considered one of the top five collectors in the world, with my cellar valued by experts at over five million dollars. In the end, this must have shocked the President, overflowing a vase that was already quite full. He’s obviously very sober and hates this kind of arrogant advertising that places us alongside capitalists of the same ilk. Ah yes, that’s probably it, when he saw a photo of a meeting of the world’s greatest connoisseurs in Edinburgh, where I was the only Asian, let alone a Chinese, from our “people’s” republic, he must have choked with rage! If I go back over the calendar, it was shortly afterwards that I felt the first headwind when I received a summons that at first sight seemed innocent. Ah! my greatest sin, a hundred times more than the bar girls, were the collectible whiskies I tasted in the library I’d imported 7

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piece by piece from an 18th-century Scottish castle and rebuilt identically in my villa. Good old leather armchairs, a large fireplace whose flames were reflected in the glass. Just happiness! But which one was my favorite? Suntory 1982 or Macallan 1993. I have no memory of the taste on my palate. My brain has weakened too much during this enforced stay. Sad, very sad. The door to my cell opens in front of the guard who is the one who constantly has a threatening pistol in his hand. What brand is this anyway...? “Turn around - face the wall!”

These were my last seconds, a sharp, violent noise, and the pitch black...

SIXTH HOUR 9 - Inmate 2308, wake up! The director will see you now, but first you have to clean a cell in an emergency. - Do you know what time it is? He wants his revenge at Go, where he always loses, right?

- I repeat, the director is waiting for you after a little job you’ve been assigned. - But I’ve never cleaned anything here for ten years?

- Don’t ask questions, you’ll be late. You’ve got one minute to get ready and twelve minutes to clean, not one more. We’ll go down to the second basement together. - The second? The condemned section. You’ve got to be kidding me.

- You shut your mouth. If I’m late coming with you, I’ll get the blame. Step on it! 8

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From the third VIP floor, the descent to at least two is made in suspicious silence. A long walk down a corridor lit by low-voltage lamps adds to the gloomy atmosphere. But above all, the smells attack the sensitivity of the nostrils. A heavy, pungent perfume, unlike that of common garbage, is hard to define. A heavy, old-fashioned key rattles and the door opens onto a pool of fresh blood, but no apparent corpse. - What a strange smell and horrible scene. Thank you, warden, for the wake-up call!

- You’ve only got 9 minutes left to clean up. You’d better shut up and go! I’ve got the stopwatch in my hand because I don’t want to be late for the director’s office.

On the way back up to the upper floors, their faces are clearly relieved to have been through such an ordeal so early in the morning. The door to the director’s office is already open. He waits nonchalantly, leaning against his desk. - There you are at last, my favorite inmate!

- Sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, I’m well aware of your dark sense of humor, but to do this to me as soon as I get out of bed! - Sit down because this is going to be a great day for you. I’ll tell you what.

- It doesn’t get much uglier than the start of the day, and I’m glad to see a relaxed look on your face. But you never come to your office this early. What’s the emergency?

- I’m personally sad because I’m going to lose a man of high intellectual quality and my best Go partner, but it’s been twenty-four hours since your departure was organized at the highest level of government. 9

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- Could you repeat that? My departure when I had only served ten years of my life sentence, and our doctor predicted a good twenty more given my excellent state of health. - It’s precisely at the top that we felt, and when I say top, you have to understand that this is the last circle of power, that you could be of service to the nation other than moping around writing superb poetry that no one will ever read. - Should I be flattered after suffering the opprobrium of the entire nation in a public trial? - Everyone remembers your oratorical talent and your virulent defense.

You were the only one of the anti-corruption campaigns from 2013 to 2019 to put your head on straight and face your accusers with a straight face. You convinced the nation, but not the judges, who just had to sign your ready-made indictment. And on top of all that, with your wife’s crime of passion against a Westerner to boot!

- Let’s avoid talking about her and thank you for these compliments that leave me stunned after ten years of stay, which I have to admit was a balanced hardness thanks to your human management, as much as is possible in our regime. - Let’s stop sending each other flowers and get down to business. Turn around and tell me if you like these clothes made to your measurements. - Third surprise of the day, a business suit. May I look at the label? Armani! Beautiful midnight-blue fabric with white shirt and Italian collar.

- It’s a copy, of course, but from one of our best tailors. The shoes, too, are an imitation of English Crockett & Jones. - I’m not going to miss my prison suit, but I would have liked to keep my number 2308. 10

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- I’m also giving you back your watch, which I kept in my personal safe. I confess that I didn’t dare wear a watch worth sixty thousand dollars, but I looked after it thinking I’d inherit it if you died with us. - Touching that you were able to keep the central piece of evidence in my trial that led to my downfall. It was the only flaw in my defense. How could I explain accepting such a gift? It was an indefensible error of pride that cost me a life sentence.

- The next step is to be picked up in forty minutes in a limousine with tinted windows. Leaving my personal garage in the basement with no identification cameras. This with two unarmed escorts to get you to the airport. - Can I faint, or laugh, because not reacting is very difficult!

- You absorb and follow instructions because you imagine that your movements are being monitored by our specialized services, as well as by our usual adversaries.

You must not change one millimeter of the instructions we give you. - You’re really letting me know that this isn’t a cruel joke, but that I should expect something amazing with the utmost composure.

- All I could find out was that you’re going on a top-secret mission with six others of the same profile as you.

If you succeed, it will change life for all of you. If you fail together, I’m afraid I’ll never see you again!

- I stare at you to be certain that you’re not playing a comedy well-tuned by the powers that be. - I would have liked to be an actor, but life chose a sadder destiny for me. Take a good look at me. Am I telling the truth? - It’s scary, but yes.

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- You’ve got thirty minutes to wash up thoroughly in my private bathroom where a barber is waiting for you. You can’t travel in a business suit and a private jet to Beijing without looking your best! - Now I’m really going to faint..

- warden, bring him quickly, because time is running out and the stopwatch is ticking, because everything that’s going to happen to you is going to be timed from now on. Speed up, your new destiny awaits. -For my part, I’m already going to start looking for another GO player to replace you. 

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SEVENTH HOUR 13 HONHOT BAITA - INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT INNER MONGOLIA Ray Ban sunglasses, white shirt, black tie. A young man who’s probably watched too many Hollywood films about the CIA gets into the car as soon as he reaches the jet’s ladder. - Sir, here are the instructions for the rest. From now on, the Gulfstream G650 will be tracked by our classic antagonists. Apart from the usual surveillance tracking, it’s quite possible that they’ll open a satellite observation channel. From now on, you’re going to forget your name and remember only your code name, which is number 1. Never report for duty and keep the windows closed during the flight. Do not step out onto the tarmac on arrival at Beijing Capital International Airport, where you will be joined by numbers 2 to 6. The jet will be flying at maximum power, as this whole operation seems to be very urgent. This means that, at an average speed of 800 km/h, you’ll be approaching Beijing in about 30 minutes. The pilot is even instructed to push to his maximum ceiling of 941 km/h. - I’m following your recommendation to remain silent from now on, but you can imagine that my brain is searching for the meaning of it all. - My cautionary instructions don’t stop there. You’re no longer an inmate but an arrogant, self-assured businessman. Step out of the car with your head held high, walking quickly and authoritatively to the jet ladder where the hostess will receive you, as you will be automatically filmed by the identification caShas linked to the artificial intelligence core of our homeland security services. 13

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It’s very easy, because all I have to do is return to my fighting style of before my imprisonment. And then I feel my ego soar. He did say Number 1 (!) but of what, of whom, and where?

EIGHTH HOUR 4 BEIJING CAPITAL - INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT PRIVATE JET TERMINAL The Gulfstream G650 parks a few meters from a windowless black van, and as soon as the engines stop, five men in suits eShge, one of whom opens a wheelchair for the sixth, a stooped man whose head bobs with every movement. The others are also of advanced age but walk tall and proud of their privileged status. The spacious cabin is designed for fourteen people. With seven passengers, the four-hour journey should be comfortable. - The Commander is speaking to you. Contrary to tradition, I can’t tell you my name when I welcome you. I will, however, repeat the instructions. Total silence during the flight, because our journey is certainly being followed and the means of observation and listening have progressed so much that every word expressed would be taken up and transmitted to the AI to define who you are, where you’re going, and what you’re going to do. To compensate, you have old-fashioned notepads and lead pencils. You can do without the texts, and my vice commander will collect them at the end of the flight and burn them on his responsibility.

In four hours we’ll be landing on Hainan Island, where you’ll be staying for a while. I’ll pick you up personally at the end of your mission. I won’t tell you anything more, because I’m not informed of the facts, in order to compartmentalize the secrecy of this operation. I 14

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can’t even have the pleasure of seeing the surprise and amazement on your faces, as I’m forbidden to meet you. For those not yet accustomed to new technologies, your hostess is a humanoid of our latest, most sophisticated versions. She has been tuned in for this mission only to serve you food and drink, and her language is uninstalled, which is a pity because she’s absolutely charming.

She’ll understand you through simple gestures, and be totally silent. Gentlemen, try to relax and bon voyage!

TENTH HOUR 15

GUAM – ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE SATELLITE OBSERVATION ROOM The base is bustling with activity as new personnel and equipment are announced to expand it since it replaces the former Okinawa base. - Jack, what’s new across the street this morning?

- Commander, just a little something so far, but it’s got me curious. - Tell me about it because I’ve been bored lately with logistics.

- We have an artificial intelligence program with a database of all the private jets used by Chinese billionaires and government luminaries. They are constantly tracked, and we draw conclusions about current missions, which for the moment are routine in the context of managing subsidiaries of stateowned companies or government posts in the provinces. Until this morning. - Go on, tell us about it!

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- The Gulfstream G650ER registered VP-CZM is the one that was requisitioned for Jack Ma, the former billionaire of the Ali Baba group. The one who from the day after his October 25, 2020, address saw his immediate demise and public downfall. - Yes, I know the whole story. According to Bloomberg, the group lost three hundred and forty-four billion dollars in the year that followed, and I read that the company has just paid a final fine of one billion dollars to the State, and that business has resumed, albeit slowly.

- In fact, this private jet, which is always in demand, is one of the six most luxurious in the country, with the greatest autonomy and performance. Since then, it has been used mainly by high-ranking military personnel on their way to their various posts of responsibility. - And then and then...

- Very early this morning, around five o’clock, I saw a Beijing tracker in Honhot, due north in Inner Mongolia, where it never flies. That was the first thing that clicked, so I immediately put the DF6-BII observation satellite on the spot to see which passengers were getting off or on. First surprise: on arrival, no one got off, but it was to take a single passenger, which is rare for a 14-passenger aircraft. A very private flight, then, from a man arriving in a limousine with tinted windows, wearing the suit of a stylish businessman. So not a military man, which is odd. They went to pick him up in this remote area, and then accompanied him to Beijing’s mixed military and private aviation airport. - Keep going faster, I’m starting to feel something.

- A similar scenario with six men, one of them handicapped, but all civilians because we know how rigid the military style is. Businessmen again, with a detail this time. There were 3 assistants carrying suitcases and golf bags! 16

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- Enriched people go out with friends to party and have a good time. A great classic!

- In a way, yes, because the plane took off for the island of Hainan, where there are sixteen golf courses, each as perfect as the next, in imitation of our finest Western clubs. - So in conclusion, apart from the strange character who was the first passenger, all very normal.

- Well, no, because out of a sense of professional responsibility, I launched the very latest in satellite eavesdropping, and guess what, Commander?

- Have you heard the salacious stories of wealthy men who cheat on their wives while drinking like sappers in the good tradition of the successful Chinese? - Precisely not, total silence. Not a word exchanged, and it’s not our system that’s malfunctioning, because I’ve retested it on other private flights where I’ve been able to pick up all the military training programs scheduled for certain brigades. - So you’re sure it’s not a malfunction of our system.

- Absolutely, because to double-check I listened to the captain’s technical exchanges with the control towers throughout the journey.

- They may have isolated the cabin with the latest audio countermeasures.

- Let’s imagine, but if that’s the case, it means that these silent gentlemen have something heavy to hide which should therefore interest us. - Fair conclusion, so light “gamma” priority for now. Don’t give up on this little group of seven on vacation. You’re bound to come up with something. -Happy hunting Jack, see you later!  17

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TWELFTH HOUR 19 HAIKOU MEILAN - INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT HAINAN ISLAND Two black vans with blacked-out windows welcome the group as they descend the jet ladder in silence. The drivers don’t say a word as they open the doors. Luggage and golf bag in the second van. Quick departure at high speed.

THIRTEENTH HOUR 15 « SHANQUIN BAY » GOLF HAINAN ISLAND Express exit from the able-bodied group. An assistant arrives to rush the disabled man off without his chair. They enter the empty hall. Without taking time to contemplate the luxurious decor, everyone walks at a good pace. We make our way to a large freight elevator, which then descends four levels.The partition opens onto a very spacious tunnel lit up by tacky red neon lights! An assistant puts his finger to his mouth to continue asking for silence. A sound of a slippery and very slightly shrill nature approaches as the group arrives at a platform facing small rails. A mini-train of the kind you see at fairs, but very luxurious with leather club seats, stops right in front of them. The seven get in with the five escorts. And the vehicle sets off again in the opposite direction to its arrival. After a five-minute journey, we are politely told to get out, still in total silence. Another well-lit corridor, we climb three steps and find ourselves in front of a large steel door.

It opens ! ~~ 18

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“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power”. Napoléon Bonaparte Military strategist and French Emperor (1789-1821)

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CHAPTER 2

VILLA « X » LIBRARY - HAINAN ISLAND I enjoy a few minutes’ peace before the team arrives, drinking a very strong ginger tea. I’ve held back from pouring myself an 18-year-old malt from the former owner’s exceptional cellar. Firstly, it’s a bit early and secondly, I need to keep my mind as fresh as possible to properly present the mission to our seven bastards. I spent a long time thinking about what to call them. “Bastard” sounded too much like a sixties Hollywood movie. A big, typically American movie with a lot of muscle and not much brain, our cultural opposite. Today, it seems to be full of male toxicity! Even in China, feminists tire us with these adjectives, and after so many years of struggle, they’ve succeeded in infantilizing us. As a result, even in our army, men are secretly applying foundation to hide their scars - the last straw! Rebels was beside the point, because they weren’t activists. Bandits was too simplistic, and they were never part of organized crime. Bastards summed up their pride in playing solo for their 20

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own fortunes, taking advantage of their position to steal as much money as possible from the state coffers. I’m rambling and I need to focus on the mission, because the President has entrusted me with the highest responsibility of my career, giving me total carte blanche with authority over the entirety of our army corps, secret service and any other service I may require. In short, he has entrusted me with his second personal stamp, recognizable at all levels of government. I’m trembling with excitement and pride, but I mustn’t let it go to my head... He remains cautious all the same, because it’s a so-called consultative stamp, not an executive one for immediate action. He will come here in person when we are ready, with his personal seal that will put everything into action without any challenge from the party apparatus and at all levels of the state. Am I dizzy with this new authority? No, in the end I’m so convinced deep down of the extent of my talents that I doubt nothing. Am I pretentious? Surely, but it has enabled me to withstand all the attacks from my colleagues around the President. In my current position, I’m untouchable. With the exception that only the President can have me locked up and sentenced to death in a minute. It would be too embarrassing to admit that someone close to you had become too much of a nuisance, and the sooner you disappeared, the better. No media, no lawyers, no trial, just a bullet in the back of the head at 4 a.m. and immediate cremation. In our country, scandals must be hushed up within the hour before they reach social media. The President no longer wants to make the mistake of the public trials to which all the media were invited in the years 20132019. The only upside was that he quickly won the respect of the 21

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population, and the anti-corruption campaign made a first clean sweep at all levels of the army and government posts. But in the end, it left a bitter taste to understand that millions had flown to apartments in Singapore, yachts in Phuket and a thousand other diversions outside the territory. Since then, it’s true that corruption is still present, but it’s more limited because the message has got through. One bullet, one second and straight to the oven! This has calmed all the high-level initiatives, because petty bribery through small envelopes still exists, but not for long when the renminbi is going to be totally digitalized. Well, I’m losing my concentration because this is all beside the point. The gentlemen I’m waiting for are between sixty-seven and eighty-one years old, and have therefore lived through this trial past that I’ve just been thinking about. I’m going to offer them a draft with two months to pass. At the end, their reward will be a new identity, the freedom to leave the country with a new Hong Kong passport, and a bank account with enough funds to live out their last days well. It’s going to remain dangerous to let them go free, because they’ll know too many top-secret things. Either I’ll have to put them under permanent surveillance by our infiltrated cells in the West, which will be expensive and never totally safe, or I’ll have to shoot them in the back of the head. Clean, very clean and definitive. I’m obsessed with it, and that’s the hidden purpose of this radical measure. Indeed, the more I think about it, the more efficient I find our final solution. To think that the Americans tired of the electric chair and chemical injections, which are comparatively cruel. They should be inspired by our simple, inexpensive ferocity! 22

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A light flash in the left-hand corner of the library. Here they come! A panel opens slowly and theatrically, revealing the gentlemen with a mixture of concern and surprise on their faces. - Gentlemen, welcome home!

As I expected, it’s number one who speaks for the group. - Are we finally able to talk, as we’ve been forbidden to communicate for almost 6 hours, at least for me, who’s come from further afield than my companions.

- I’m lifting the ban altogether, because everything in this place has been designed to ensure that those who are constantly watching and

Five more humanoids enter the library dressed as English butlers with silver trays and porcelain service. They hand out tea selection cards to the guests.

- To start at the beginning, you’re in the villa of a former high-ranking member of the government and an intimate of our President, who was extremely irritated, not because he had been stealing for some twenty years.

The amounts were substantial, but unlike others, like you, he reinvested in the country without anything going abroad.

His fatal error was to divert one hundred million dollars from a fifty-billion-dollar budget of the IC 2025 silicon development plan. A plan very dear to the President at a time when we are in the midst of a international microchip and semi-conductors war. I use the word “war” because it’s the only clear definition of the gravity of the situation. You all know that these micro-chips and semiconductor are everywhere on all our domestic appliances, our cars, our telephones, all our weaponry including mis23

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siles, and most seriously of all, at the heart of artificial intelligence and our Exa scale supercomputers.

In short, if we are a few months behind our competitors, our technological decline has serious consequences without the possibility of stopping it.

We are not only in a race for performance, but in an existential race for our nation.. So, this character stole from the program’s coffers, and this deeply offended the President, because this dysfunction, linked to the misallocation of funds to low-level contractors, caused a backlog in research that is difficult to make up. They then make their Tea choice which corresponds well to their region of origin and it is served.

- I see, gentlemen, that you’ve enjoyed the extensive menu. Just so you know, you’ll be allowed one glass of red wine a day for your health. It will come from one of our top-quality Chinese grape varieties, “Château Zhihui Yuanshi”. - You’ve already answered some of my questions. However, after this very civilized welcome from a person we don’t know, as you must be forty years old, you’re part of the new generation in power alongside our very old ones now. We’ve never met you, so who are you? - Indeed, I’ve only been in this lofty position since 2020, and it was my scathing criticism of the Zero Covid plan, which was an economic and human disaster, that got me noticed by the President as an independent but constructive spirit. I’m just like you, Number 1, because I’ve obviously studied everyone’s past in depth.

- You mean to say that not only were you allowed to express your criticisms of the Covid plan, which we followed from afar in our prisons, because for us confinement made no differ24

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ence, but he also detached you from your previous position and put you at his side? - Fair analysis. He must have had enough of all his obsequious advisers always with their heads down, and he took the risk of hiring a rebel of authority. He quickly understood my cynicism, because I know the limits that must not be exceeded, and my basic rule is never to touch anyone’s money. I have a good salary, very high for the country, and I’m happy with it. - You are part of the new generation, and getting rich on the backs of others doesn’t amuse you.

- What motivates me is power, or rather the use of power, which I find fascinating. The President understands this because he has entrusted me with a presidential seal, not the highest, but almost!

- This striking detail makes us understand who you are indeed.

- I must now return to the discussion of micro-chips and make you understand that this villa was built with the money this character stole from the program. A normal bill for a villa of this size, but the staggering cost was the two-kilometer tunnel and the installation of the train you took. - But who was he?

- The one whose cell you cleaned this morning. We asked you to do this to make you understand now. - Ah, indeed, I was on the floor of the high-ranking, politically deposed people, not the common law people in charge of these tasks. I thought it was a vindictive joke on the part of the prison warden, with whom I’d developed sympathy through our battles at the game of Go, where I crushed him at every turn.

- It was only to remind you of what happens to people close to the President who betray his trust. Now they’re not being 25

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sent to “Qincheng” prison like your six other colleagues. Much too close to the Beijing media and their families. They are all sent straight away to Honhot detention center number 1, lost in Inner Mongolia and far from the capital, only to move to the second basement and stay there just long enough to organize their quick deaths. Number 1 turns his gaze to his six acolytes.

- Gentlemen, we are among the very last to be imprisoned in the traditional way for a life sentence. Now, in less than a week, we lose it without ceremony and, above all, without the media. Today, we would no longer be allowed to defend ourselves. The state has taken on the same speed as modern computerized society. With little time for reflection, we rush headlong into action for fear of falling behind our Western competitors. Economic performance is all that counts! In short, we’re old relics of the past! Turning back to the host.

- But then why bring out relics like us? We don’t even know how to use a computer, because in our day we were surrounded by secretaries. Nor do we know how to surf the Internet, which was still in its infancy when we were imprisoned. Young people would say we’re “analog”!

- Precisely because you’re one of the last people to be able to write down ideas and a plan on a real sheet of paper, without relying on databases crammed with artificial intelligence. - You mean we won’t have offices with computers for our mission?

- No internet connection, no landline or cell phone, no computer or tablet. And no television, so as not to be influenced by the insipid or dramatic brew of the day’s news. You’ll be 26

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alone with your brain and human interaction, with no intermediary messaging between colleagues. The good old days! - I, I mean... we can’t wait to find out more because it’s getting more and more amazing!

- We’re going to take a break because you’ve already had a long journey, even in great comfort, and it’s time to go to your rooms. You’ve got an hour to go to the bathroom and change into the new clothes in your closet. You’ll keep the one you’re wearing for your outing, which we’ll talk about later. Don’t be surprised if the outfit is a pair of sports overalls, but without pockets. This is to prevent you from stashing bits of paper in them.

All your work for the day, apart from the summary, which I’ll keep on my side, will be burnt in the library’s large fireplace. Why is that? Because, thanks to AI, we can easily reconstruct papers that have gone through the shredder.

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned fire! Now, gentlemen, take a good look at the hands of the seven humanoids who have just removed their gloves. They’re lightly tattooed with a number that corresponds to the one you were given at embarkation. Each of them will follow their personal valet, who will be at their disposal day and night. Ah, but I forgot to introduce myself. I’m number 8 for you. I’ve saved myself the lucky number, of course! Dinner is at 8pm, so please be punctual.

GUAM – ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE SATELLITE OBSERVATION ROOM - We’re coming to the end of the day, Jack. What do you have to say about this bunch of bastards on vacation in Hainan? 27

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- They got off the jet in silence. Not a word was exchanged with the drivers of the two waiting vans. I continued to position the satellite to follow them and try to listen in. Not a word, not a single word. Impossible, especially for the Chinese, who are great talkers. This smacks of instructions for total secrecy. - I don’t like it! Oh, I don’t like it. Because now you’ve got me worried.

- And that’s not all, as they headed to the island’s most famous golf course, the only Chinese fairway to make it into the world’s 100 most beautiful courses. - I’m a golfer myself, and you mean they’ve arrived at Shanquin Bay! It’s the most exclusive club in all of China, with twenty-two founding members and a very short list of invited VIPs. There’s a legendary Par 5 on hole 15, which is quite fabulous, with a 200-metre drop to the sea. Very spectacular, it repels even the greatest champions.

It’s the only one in China where you can play an 18-hole course on your own, and only if you’re invited, which is the height of chic in this populous country.

- I’m not reassured, because I’ve just heard back from our clandestine agent, whom I sent to the site straight away. He showed up as a delivery man at the front gate of the property. They don’t have any guards physically present, but we talked to a remote security center. When he asked, “I have to deliver a parcel”, he was told, “Come back tomorrow as it’s closed for building work”! - And they received this whole group? They’re still laughing at us... oh, I don’t like that. - You’re repeating yourself, Commander, if I may say so. 28

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- I don’t know what else to say because my instincts can’t fail me. I’m sure we’re in for one hell of a plot. Tomorrow morning you’re going to videoconference me with our colleagues in Hawaii. We’ve got to take this to the next level and we can’t keep it to ourselves. - This will be a good time, as I’ve collected the few poor-quality photos of the passenger on the first flight. I’ve also got a not-so-good video of the departure of the second flight from Beijing.

On the other hand, I had time during their flight to put in more technical resources for their arrival in Hainan, using two satellites. And here I have a very good video showing them all very well. - Make sure I’m ready before our colleagues from Hawaii.

- It’s only a minute and forty-eight seconds, because they’re all on the double as soon as they get out of the car at the club reception. When I say not running, I mean hurrying, as these gentlemen walk at the speed of their age. But they’re still fairly upright and not too stooped. - The cripple then?

- You’ll see that a humanoid carried him off like a feather and overtook the group to arrive first. - More humanoids! I know you and you’ve already run the AI for face recognition.

- The AI had a hard time because I didn’t have them perfectly in front of me and it gave me six results per character. No matter how much I asked it to refine, it couldn’t manage to give me less than three to interpret without any certainty! - Very rare indeed. Would they have masks then?

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- I don’t think so, because the faces are very natural. But this hardness in the eyes is what you see in organized crime characters. - You mean criminals in sharp business suits galloping into the island’s most exclusive golf club? Sounds like the start of a local crime movie!

- Take a look for yourself and you’ll see that they don’t have the relaxed look of a power-assured business owner. You can feel them tense, ready to attack, I’d say. - You mean like a team going to rob a bank, but with golf bags and maybe guns inside! Silence during the video.

- You’re right, they’re not ordinary citizens, and yet they’re Chinese, because this kind of look is more common among Japanese criminal “Yakuza”. - I deduce a kind of hatred for something, which is strange because they arrive in a club of great luxury and prestige and should be delighted at least!

- Yes, but our agent said the club was closed. I can easily conclude that it was a secret meeting of an organized gang, but what kind? - This is the first and most obvious conclusion to be drawn from observing these faces, which are, moreover, unknown to the AI.

- Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that the AI that has access to the database of billions of faces of the Chinese population that we’re constantly hacking into with our advanced technical means really hasn’t been able to fix a name, just one, for each of these gentlemen?

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- The AI quickly defined the humanoids, which have different but fairly standard faces, and kept searching the database for the seven other faces.

As always, when the AI fails, it is extremely polite and apologetic, which really gets on my nerves. Ever since the ethics committee got involved, she’s had this tic every time she blocks. Very annoying. - Let’s look again and freeze the image on the one who walks straightest and fastest. He seems to be the youngest of the group and the boss, don’t you think?

- I deduced the same thing and noted a detail by zooming in as far as technically possible. He’s the only one wearing a brandname watch. You can even see the Swiss brand name “Vacheron Constantin”. - It’s not the kind of watch worn by gangsters who prefer Rolexes. Strange that this one has taste? - A face I’d say rather hardened by past events, but not a classic criminal’s face at all! - Yes, a strong corporate CEO or high-level banker face.

- The others who hang around a bit are much older and don’t look funny either. - Show me the photographic analysis of the boss.

- Here are the three identities the AI came up with. An owner of a supermarket chain, a soldier from a regiment in the “Uighur” zone and a young politician with a very inferior role. - No bosses in any of this. Strange that the AI failed.

- Perhaps this means that these men didn’t enter the new system combined with AI at its true start in 2020 and would have disappeared for all those years. 31

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- To escape Chinese state surveillance, you need to be a champion camera dodger, and I don’t see them hopping from one foot to the other at every corner. - I have another hypothesis, but it doesn’t fit either. - Tell me about it.

- Just released prisoners. - Not bad.

- That doesn’t work either, firstly because you never get out of Chinese prisons. Either they eliminate you on the spot by making you lose your health in stages with very slow poison, or they eliminate you with their famous one-shot solution. Either way, you don’t get out and end your days there, at best. - Are you sure about this? Is there no pardon?

- An authoritarian regime can’t afford to let loose activists or crooked politicians, or any other criminal who would destabilize society.

- Your analysis is right, and in the end their system is better than ours, because it means they’re all very careful not to get in. In contrast, our prisons are congested. I’ll refrain from commenting further on this point, otherwise I’ll be put into early retirement for making anti-democratic remarks! - Yes, Commander, tomorrow it’s better not to say anything about my hypothesis of a Chinese prison break. But that still doesn’t tell us where these ghosts that escaped the surveillance cameras of the Chinese state came from, and made the AI fail. - Have they come out since?

- No, nothing’s changed, and what’s next is more worrying. - What’s next?

- You noticed that they entered in silence. 32

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- Well, they must have started talking as soon as they got in, right?

- No, stranger still, I’d planned the thermal laser scan of our number two satellite that you’d given me as an extra. Watch the video inside. No one at reception, they’re still moving at a snail’s pace to the right. A humanoid stand in front of what appears to be an elevator door. It opens, they enter, and then nothing. The elevator must be going down, because our systems are at their limit. They would have gone back upstairs, and I would have caught them at the exit. - They’re going to come out anyway, if only to join rooms for the night and dinner. - I don’t think so, because I’ve checked, and the building is completely empty. Remember what our agent said. Closed for work, and there’s obviously no work going on! - I can feel a migraine coming on...

- Commander, we’ll play these videos again tomorrow morning for our colleagues in Hawaii. Maybe they’ll have some ideas we don’t have after this long day. I’m putting the night shift on permanent observation of anything that might move inside and within a two-kilometer radius of the club.

There’s sure to be something going on! ~~

SILICON – WAR GAMES

“Although our intellect always aspires to clarity and certainty, our nature finds uncertainty fascinating” Carl Von Clausewitz Prussian general and military strategist (1780-1831)

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CHAPTER 3

VILLA « X » DINING ROOM - HAINAN ISLAND The silver chandelier sparkles delicately above the table, spreading a warm, welcoming glow over the stage. Carefully decorated fine porcelain rests on the immaculate tablecloth, adding a touch of refinement to the composition. Each plate is precisely arranged, ready to welcome a symphony of flavors. Crystal glasses sparkle, their transparency magnifying the rich hues of the fine wines to be served. The centerpiece is adorned with a bouquet of exquisite flowers. The upholstered chairs, covered in a soft, sumptuous fabric, invite guests to sit back and enjoy this celebration of gastronomy to the full. Here you go, a sumptuous dinner table favored by the previous owner, ready to welcome eight guests in an atmosphere of elegance and refinement. The eight humanoid valets are around the table in their white gloves, ready to serve each of their dedicated guests. 35

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Obviously, Number Eight presides, with Number One opposite him at the end of the table. - Gentlemen, please take your assigned seats with a handwritten card designating your number. Number 3, what do you think of the rooms? - Leaving our cells this morning, and even though we’re all on a VIP floor protected from the common inmate, I float with well-being as I rediscover the comforts of my past. Forty-square-meter rooms with a full-size bathroom. Too much for a single man!

- Good point, and we’ll talk about women later. I can see from your quizzical faces that you’d like me to talk about it after the first course. Service please!

The valets leave the room to go to the kitchen and return with one dish per guest. A salmon carpaccio on a bed of thinly sliced fresh vegetables, with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon.

- Of course, you’re not used to refined, dietetic cuisine. As your brain is your only asset for the mission, I’ve imposed menus with no rich foods, no excessive sugar or fat. In short, you have a fixed menu at every meal, prepared by our top dieticians. However, the only day to relax is Saturday. At lunch and dinner, you’ll have an open menu of Chinese cuisine from each of your respective regions. You’ll choose your favorite dishes, which I guarantee will be just like the ones your mother used to cook for you. - Number Five, raise your finger like in school! Over.

- There are people in the kitchen who can hear what we’re saying and who go home every night, I suppose. Hence the danger of finding out what’s going to happen here.

- Good point. Well, no, the cooks are robots that cost the previous owner a lot of money. He imported them from England, 36

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just like everything else here. On one hand, there are huge food stocks of all kinds in professional refrigerators, and on the other, a recipe database from which the robot takes its instructions. I’ll accompany you into the kitchen for a demonstration. One of the valets will take an order and enter it on the touch screen, and in the next second you’ll see for yourself just how fast the robot works, with its six active arms. It’s very impressive when it bakes on one side, monitors the oven on the other and beats a sauce with precision at the same time. It looks like an octopus with fast arms, but the result is as fascinating as the dish you’re enjoying. You’ll find these tastes too sophisticated for your respective prisons, but you’ll get used to them.

- I’d like to have an answer for women. I’ve just finished my eighth year in prison, and despite my advanced age, it’s a subject that still interests me. What do you think?

- First of all, there are no female cleaning staff. Your valets are in charge of all maintenance. Both in your rooms and in the common areas. So there are strictly no humans in the villa other than us. Not even the gardeners, as everything is automated and controlled by the same team. - But the women will be... !

- You guessed it, humanoids, because it’s out of the question to bring promiscuous women in here. That would be the ultimate danger of immediate pillow talk. A classic spy novel, out of the question for our mission.

I can already see the looks of disgust. Just a minute! Also on Saturday, you’ll each be assigned a lady. They’re highly professional, not only on the subject of sex, but they’re also culturally knowledgeable, so you’ll be able to talk about theater, cinema, music and literature. On the other hand, their AI database volun37

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tarily closes them off to politics and economics. There’s no need to lift a finger, just wave your hand.

- Even with a humanoid, how is this possible? There’s nothing more dangerous than communicating with a second-hand mistress who could get something out of you, especially if it’s the evening when you can eat and drink a little more than usual.

- Your comment is very timely, and if I remember your file, this is what happened to you. You had an official mistress for over ten years. She was easily flipped by our services and told all on a platter, which led to your downfall. You too, Number Four, fell into the same trap. At first, you don’t say anything, but with the force of habit and the passing years, they become like second wives, and you become fatally careless. In fact, six of you went to prison after your mistresses’ interrogations, which weren’t even tough.

To your surprise, the official wives say nothing, and cannot be mistreated out of respect for the children.

To answer your question, however, they are in closed circuit without access to an external network because their AI is a miniature unit integrated into their digital brain. I see you’ve finished. The valets have understood to clear and you bring the suite. A leg of lamb on a bed of porcini mushrooms and “Perigueux” sauce comes back in every hand.

- Another dish from the great French cuisine that you may not be familiar with. I confess that I’ve been selfishly indulging myself because I’m tired of the Chinese cuisine, however sophisticated, that we’re served at the Presidency.

- The perfume reminds me of a vacation in Paris over 15 years ago. 38

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- Taste memory is an amazing thing, Number Three, indeed. Let’s have a taste, then I’ll get back to the subject of women, I promise. The valets serve the wine from a crystal decanter in a style that’s a little too formal, however. - Valet Number One, can you tell us a little about this wine?

- I certainly can. In 2023, the London Wine Club, which is a group of experts and tasters of the highest caliber, ranked the ten most famous wines in our country, which have become increasingly important, much to the chagrin of our French friends who taught us everything.

I repeat the review that was given to the “2018 Mihope Castle Limited Edition” with a score of 93 out of 100.

“Fascinating on the nose with a scent of smoky hay and infused tea, deliciously interwoven with ripe blackcurrant, zesty apple and hints of soaked grapes. A rich, full-bodied finish, with wonderful raspberry, blackcurrant, cherry and raisin notes bringing balance and elegance.” - This deserves a round of applause for these clarifications and to relax you, as you’re all still on the defensive. - Now do you really mean you’re going to put humanoids in our bed?

- Dear Number, Two, that’s a very blunt statement. Not at all, these ladies who are already pre-assigned in relation to your character sheet will come and have lunch with you to get to know each other and stay until breakfast the next morning. You’re under no obligation to sleep with her if the idea disgusts you on principle, which I can well understand. I had the same instinctive reaction as you when I tested one of the latest models myself to see if it was safe to send seven of them. - So what?

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- It bothers you but interests you. I can see your faces relaxing a little from the amusement that must seem like science fiction to you. After all, none of this existed when most of you left civilization back in 2013.

- As we’re only going to talk about very serious things after this. A little fantasy, even in the realm of the implausible, will be good to relax us. - I know what you mean, Number Five, so I’ll carry on while you finish the main course.

From a personal point of view, I had a hang-up right from the start, which was the consistency of the skin, because until now, all the models had this polymer texture, even with very high precision, which was unsatisfactory and still very far from a woman’s skin as we like it. Believe me, it’s not perfect, but as soon as you get past the first moment, you gain confidence, and the shock of these new, near-perfect skins is forgotten. In any case, we can no longer say that we’re going to play with a rather sophisticated inflatable doll.

The second surprise is your gait. You’ve noticed that your valets, some of whom were there from the moment you arrived at the club, have a loose, supple gait. If you pay a little attention, you’ll notice that they’re not human precisely because their gait is too perfect, and we humans don’t always walk really straight or lean more to one side. You’ll see them coming and you’ll get the impression they’re walking on a cloud. An elegant gait, neither too slow nor too fast. Not mannequin-like either, but uniquely graceful.

Too much, in fact, because then when you see our female humans again, you find them too masculine, too brutal in their gait. All this is psychological, as they’re always keen to earn their place. 40

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The third is the voice, as each of the models is given a personalized voice which is the result of millions of voices analyzed by artificial intelligence, giving it a unique voice with various tones such as astonishment, joy or even seriousness for an explanation. The fourth, which I’ve already mentioned, is the breadth of cultural knowledge that allows them to be ready for any conversation, but that side was the easy part, integrating a good database and a small individual AI analysis engine.

The fifth and last is the nude silhouette. It’s very difficult to sculpt a female body that can appeal to everyone in a standardized way. We Chinese have very different tastes from Westerners.

Apart from the basic white skin, we’re not fixated on big breasts like Americans, long legs like Europeans, or prominent buttocks like Brazilians. - After all these years locked up, we’re not going to be picky!

- Of course, Number Seven, but I wanted to bring you some good company first because, apart from sex, the spring of which is going to be hard to find again after these years of abstinence, I think you’ll be glad to have a friend, quite simply. - It’s true that living through the week with our valets with their enigmatic half-smiles, and colleagues focused on an ever-unknown mission, is going to create quite a change for us. - That, Number One, is the right conclusion. What’s crucial is your mental state, because we’re going to demand the maximum of your abilities. It’s time for dessert at last.

Save some of that good wine for me because I’m thirsty from talking too much. 41

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GUAM – ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE SATELLITE OBSERVATION ROOM - Jack, as soon as you’re ready, we’ll switch to Visio with Hawaii, as it’ll be noon only for them. - Commander, I’m already in place in the conference room because I’ve already sent them the video files and other analysis visuals in advance. - You’re a good pro, Jack!

- Thank you, Commander, and please join me as I have three minutes left.

KUNIA REGIONAL SIGINT OPERATIONS CENTER ( KR-SOCK ) PACIFIC OPERATIONS CENTER - HAWAII

Around a conference table, stern-faced top brass, typical of the confident American military, and assistants seated behind them are ready to blow them away on a subject they pretend to own completely. A classic tactic for maintaining the power of rank. - Hello Guam. I hope you’re not bothering us with trivialities. - General, you know how careful I am in my judgments...

- We all know that you’re also a highly creative original with a vivid imagination.

- You’re not going to criticize my taste for research on difficult subjects. - I wonder if you’ve been placed in this remote part of Guam so as not to hear too much about your ramblings.

- Nice attack, General, I appreciate it, but as far as I know, I’ve never been degraded for it, on the contrary my... - Precisely, you’re still one of those people who think that rising in rank is part of the esteem in which you’re held. You’ve 42

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got to understand, you naïve fool, that on the contrary, the ladder of ranks allows us to elegantly put away the most annoying among us!

An assistant comes up to his ear to whisper a little phrase, and everyone pauses in silence. - I’m told the visuals you’ve sent us are disturbing. That’s the word my team used, disturbing! Go ahead, Commander, make sure I swallow my hat later! The whole table in Hawaii, suddenly relaxed after this outburst, laughs.

- Dear colleagues, here’s a short video worth analyzing frame by frame. Let me summarize. You see the arrival of seven businessmen received by three humanoid servants.

They have just arrived in one of the most luxurious private jets in the Chinese fleet, one of our very good Gulfstream G650s made in the USA. The flight must have started very early here, at around five o’clock in the morning from Beijing, and landed at Hohhot in Inner Mongolia to pick up a single passenger, who you can see leading the group in the final video. The jet had previously landed in Beijing to pick up six other gentlemen with small weekend suitcases and golf bags.

- You are not belittling us for powerful guys. who are going to have a nice eighteen-hole golf course after all, are you? Their favorite cocktail being French Cognac first, very young women second, and golf for looks last! - Patience until the end, General, please! The first suspicion is that the four-hour flight is completely silent, with not a word exchanged, and we’ve checked that our listening devices are working perfectly well. There are seven men together and not a single word. 43

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- They just slept!

- Seven people sleeping in sync for a four-hour flight, and not a single voice commanded the stewardess to order a drink either. Astonishing all the same. But let’s move on. We followed them as they arrive at Hainan airport. You’ll tell me, of course, where the country’s finest golf courses are located. The vacation island of the privileged. Obviously, all right. Moving on. Limousine with tinted windows on arrival. You might say, very normal for men who travel in private jets, and after a fifty-six-minute drive, we arrive at the famous “Shanquin Bay” golf course. - Where they will leave their mask of seriousness to be greeted by pretty girls with bouquets in hand, I suppose?

- Well, no, not by a long shot. We realized after the scene you’re about to see that the club was closed for renovations and that this was the only vehicle allowed in. In the parking lot, after checking, no other vehicles, totally empty. No member of staff to greet them, and guess who comes to meet them?

And rightly things are about to get a whole lot stranger. Five humanoids in valet outfits come down the stairs to open the doors and take their luggage. - What did you say? humano ... what?

- Their latest ultra-perfected model of robots, so humanized they’re now called humanoids.

- You’re lecturing me too! I know what they are, thank you, and I can see from the video that they walk perfectly, straight, smooth and fast. I’m beginning to understand why you bothered us, but it’s still anecdotal, apart from discovering their latest model of perfect robots.

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- My team then started thermal observation as soon as they entered the club. You see there’s no one to greet them, they take an elevator and from there, nothing.

- They had to go to a well-insulated meeting room to finally talk! - Impossible to know. Nothing’s changed since then, and it’s way past dinner time over there. - Okay, I’ll give you a little reprieve because it’s all a bit strange but tell us about character identification. - This is where it continues to get even weirder, as our AI clandestinely plugging into the Chinese state’s visual databases hasn’t yielded any satisfactory results.

- You mean, out of the billion pieces of data absorbed by our AI-fueled supercomputers, you didn’t get the names of these gentlemen in plain English? If so, it’s serious indeed. - By refining as much as possible, we were able to give a percentage of certainty of barely 40% for each of them, making them unusable.

- Ah yes, it’s an incredible failure for the AI on the Chinese side that records and we interpret! Have you mentioned this to the specialist department? - I didn’t take the liberty, General, leaving the initiative to you.

- Bootlicker, that’s what you are. A strong head that can be lowered at the right moment! I’m taking care of it because, above all, I love to shake up our “data scientists”, those pimply, pretentious youngsters who think they know everything when it’s their machine that’s digesting it for them, addicted to video games and who can’t even read a book anymore. I know, I’m being an old fart here! But I must be right somewhere, and I’m going to enjoy pushing them to the limit. A hand goes up in the Hawaii group.

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- How rare it is for one of my colonels to have an idea! I know, I’m on the attack today. I must be hungry because it’s almost 1 p.m. for us and my biological clock is making me irritable! Come on, let’s go, then we’ll wrap up and go to the table, and you guys can go to Guam and get some sleep. - General, if these men can’t be identified on today’s bases, it means they’ve just emerged from the past. I can deduce two things from this: either they’re Chinese who’ve been living abroad for at least ten years, which is when the most advanced recognition technologies began, or they’ve come out of a place where we couldn’t see them. - Keep up your entertaining analysis.

- If they had just been released from prison, for example, after a long stay, none of our sophisticated machines would have their faces in their memory, making it impossible to interpret them. Especially if they’ve been in for a long time, their faces have been changed by the daily grind of prison life.

- Interesting theory, so for you, these seven men have just been released from prison and immediately board a private jet to arrive silently, and therefore with a certain secrecy, at the most prestigious golf course on the island of Hainan. That’s quite something! - I can’t imagine anything else, because if they had arrived from a foreign country after a long residence outside the country, we’d already have visual recognition of their faces at the very first customs cameras at the airport of entry.

- Ah yes, you’re right, the AI hasn’t even found a source for an entry database on the country, so your rather eccentric reasoning holds water. This reminds me of one of our good films from the 1960s. What was it called again? Remember, that recruitment in the prisons where they went looking for the most hardened for a suicide mission and those who got out would be pardoned! 46

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- You mean The Dirty Dozen, a 1967 film, General.

- That’s right, it’s just like that, where a bunch of guys get out of prison to band together and plan... but what?

- Now you all understand why we’ve been bothering you, because our conclusion from our side is that a conspiracy is brewing against the privately funded state, which has been under heavy attack since 2020, culminating in the billion-dollar fine to the “Alibaba” group.

- If that’s the case, Commander, it’s going to be interesting to follow, but if they’re fighting amongst themselves, we’d be quite happy with the outcome. We’ll keep scoring.

I make amends, but I wouldn’t go so far as to apologize for my opening remarks. You’re still an original, but a good professional, I admit. Keep on distracting yourself with these seven... You’ll find a code name for this strange group. Keep on the trail. Team Hawaii let’s get to the table, and fast, it’s made me even hungrier for this original debate.

Who said Hawaii was boring? Who, who? ~~

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“It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well and admire those who make no concessions”. THUCYCLIDES Greek historian and General (460-395 BC)

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CHAPTER 4

“COLLECTOR’S” VILLA LIBRARY – HAINAN Entering before the others, I dreamily contemplated this library, acquired, then dismantled and exported in its entirety from a Scottish castle belonging to a fallen nobleman. It was a treasure trove of knowledge and timeless grandeur that the previous owner had surely failed to appreciate. Its wood-paneled walls, marked by the vicissitudes of time, bore the stories of many generations. Within this noble space, a crackling fireplace created the warm atmosphere I was looking for for my team. The dance of the flickering flames cast playful shadows on the polished shelves, housing a fine collection of leather-bound books that told of a vast array of intellectual quests. Amid the elegant charm of the wood paneling, these leather armchairs, adorned with a patina acquired over the years, invited visitors to sit and draw on the wisdom contained in these books. - You’re a dreamer, Number Eight! 49

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- Forgive me, I often escape to cure my brain of too many ugly things, and a few beautiful ones. - Leaving you to dream, I went through the list of the cellar and made a quick count. There are more than five thousand bottles with an average price of three hundred dollars, but that’s nothing, because there are ten bottles in the forty-thousand-dollar range each, and two over a million each. Roughly calculated, this would make a collection worth over four million dollars, all for one man!

- Our government’s money in bottles of whisky that very few will drink, that’s a scandalous waste. But it still wouldn’t have been too bad if he’d been discreet. Unfortunately, he was seen on Scottish regional television bidding for the “Richard Gooding” collection, battling it out with other European collectors.

He had his personal adviser on this plan, Aaron Chan of the Hong Kong Bar, by his side, trying to calm and stop him. The images show him hallucinating as the auction passed the million-dollar mark for a one-off: a 1926 Macallan, which I’ll show you in the cellar on my day off.

So you can imagine our President being shown this video clip. His face turned blood-red, and with uncontained rage, which is very rare for him, he made a massacre of the historic furniture in his office. Totally out of control, in the style of a Western boss in a rage. Unheard of, as he does everything to maintain total control over his own person, to project a reassuring image to the population. In the three years I’ve been close to him, I’ve never, ever, watched him lose his half-smile as the good president of all his people. It’s become a mask, but now it’s exploded. He’s a human being who breaks down like the rest of us at one time or another. How reassuring! When I handed him the final investigation report three months ago, I first prepared him for the result by warning him that he wasn’t going to like it. 50

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And to lighten the mood, I told him which pieces of furniture he’d be able to break up, as they’d be easier to replace than the historical pieces that would sit for at least two years with the restorers at the national museum. This made him smile, but he was still worried about the reading to come. I stood before him, as I was ultimately responsible for the text I had read and reread. His face turned grey-white wax. I knew the page he was reading carefully, the one about the national semi-conductor plan he holds dear above all else. Then he paused and said: “Young man, what good are our nuclear warheads if we don’t have the state-of-the-art semiconductor to guide them? They’ll become obsolete and we’ll be defenseless. Our enemies, real or imagined, know this all too well.

Today’s war is in the development of microchips and total security of supply from raw material to finished product, for all models in this sector. From the very simplified ones in our cell phones to the extreme sophistication required for supercomputers. A good example you’ll remember was during the war in Ukraine, when it was discovered that the guidance chips in Russian drones, deficient in fact, had been cannibalized from those in washing machines! I won’t comment on the disaster, as it’s out of place here, but you understand that I will never allow us to be ridiculed in this way. We have to be among the first, or the first in each of the sub-sectors, including the crucial one of artificial intelligence. And this infamous clod, who was also a friend of over thirty years, stole directly from the development fund specially created for this highly strategic sector, by making us slow down. It is a greater crime to delay our national security than any other. You know what you have to do, because for this one who has betrayed my friendship, I want a final sentence much swifter than all the previous ones.” 51

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- “Without the cutting-edge micro-chips, we can all go back to our rice paddies,” he concluded with black humor!

The other guests murmur and conciliate. Meanwhile, the valets place Baccarat crystal glasses on the small tables leaning against each armchair. - Gentlemen, this is your last evening of relaxation before your real work, so I’m opening a bottle of 50-year-old Balvenie.

A single malt whisky from the Speyside region, the price of which you can see on the cellar list you’ve been given. Number Four jumped out of his chair as he reread the list: $43,992 per bottle! - By my count, that would be $3,666 a glass, for a maximum of 12 and served not too generously! - It will distract you from your existential questions. Whisky is an excellent mood-killer, albeit in small doses. The head valet, who is of course mine, will open the bottle in front of you after looking for it in the cellar.

- Can you imagine if he broke it on his way back up the stairs?” laughed Number Two. Ah, but it’s true, they’re not normal staff, because they certainly have no emotions, and only the coldness of their work preserves them. By the way, do humanoids sleep? I mean, what do they do while we’re asleep?

- An amusing question that shows you’re finally relaxing a bit more. So no, they don’t sleep, but they do go on break sitting on the armchair outside each room. They’re there for you 24 hours a day. - Every boss’s dream: no demands, no wages, no sickness, and no work stoppages. The perfect servant of tomorrow’s world. Too bad I won’t be living it! 52

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- Old whisky doesn’t decant like old wine. As soon as it’s been transferred from the barrel to the glass bottle, it doesn’t age, nor does it gain in taste over time, but rather remains stable. What really interests collectors is the origin of the whisky and the type of barrel it was kept in.

This “Balvenie” was in barrels for fifty years before being delicately transferred to bottles. I’ve read that the European oak used in these barrels, “quercus robur”, brings spicy dark fruit flavors such as raisins and prunes, as well as a robust tannic structure.

The danger for the taste is that the tannins may have been too intense, giving it a very bitter taste on the palate. - Impressive expertise, but can we finally drink to the health of the “collector” and call him by the nickname that brought him down! - Well said, Number Seven.

- You’ll notice the sommelier-like precision with which my valet serves this beverage. Are you all ready? This must be drunk very slowly, not in one gulp like your usual cognac.

Copy Number One, who is a connoisseur. You swirl the liquid to admire its color, breathe in its fragrance very lightly and place the first few drops on the palate, no more. These are the ones that will give you the real bouquet, because afterwards the alcohol becomes stronger, and you appreciate it less than in the very first few seconds. - Absolutely right, Number Eight, you’re a connoisseur. If everything you do is on the same level, we won’t get bored working with you! Ganbei,Cheers,Salute,Sante!!

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BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY “COLLECTOR’S” VILLA - Gentlemen, I see you’re looking better than when you arrived yesterday, when despite the elegance of your suits and a good haircut, you looked more like gangsters than businessmen. I wonder what our opponents might have deduced from your arrival. It must have created quite a few brainstorms!

- Hello, Number Eight. By the way, those suits that are cut to our exact measurements gave me a moment of great concern over a month ago, and I assume my colleagues have had the same experience. Imagine being summoned to an anonymous office in one of our prisons and being received by two gentlemen with tailor’s meters around their necks? I ask them the obvious question of who they are and what it means. Finger over mouth to signal silence, they take measurements of my body in detail with a double check annotated on an anonymous white pad. In the simple state of mind of a prisoner, what is he thinking?

- Ah ah! Did you imagine they were taking measurements for your future coffin? - Of course, and looking at the nods on my colleagues’ faces, we all thought the same thing. I was able to put the question to my prison warden during our weekly game of Go. Secretly informed by your instructions, he simply laughed at me and said he didn’t know about the visit! In any case, thank you for the nightmare that didn’t leave me for a month until the surprise of endorsing it for the first time yesterday.

- The preparations were timed by the President himself, in parallel with the death of the man known as “The Collector”. And, of course, I couldn’t give you any message at all until you arrived in person in front of me yesterday. I’m sure you understand by now that this whole comedy of businessmen on 54

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a golfing weekend was designed to fool those who are watching us and must have caused them a great deal of unresolved debate, or at least extremely far from what we’re about to do.

So, I understand even better your more relaxed air this morning. Your suits are safely tucked away in your respective closets, as you’ll be putting them back on when you next leave.

- Let’s talk about it over breakfast, says Number Four, because I’m one of those people who likes to know the end of the game before we start. Are we in agreement, dear colleagues? Everyone nods in agreement.

- Okay, I’ll start at the end, but first help yourself to the buffet. You’re going to need all the energy you can get to tackle the plan. Twenty minutes later.

- Let’s go back to the library so I can introduce everyone first.

The 8 valets rush past the group to open the doors and prepare the room. - These humanoids are sticky. Overly friendly and respectful, they’re already tiresome from day one.

- Number Four, you haven’t yet got into the habit of giving them orders. Right now, they’re just anticipating, as they were taught during their training. Group of eight valets, come back in thirty minutes. You see they move immediately because they have my voice recognition for a general order, all numbers combined. The others are automatically formatted as soon as you arrive in your assigned rooms, where the access code corresponds to your number and theirs in parallel. 55

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These numbers are not pure fantasy but serve several purposes. Firstly, here you are a compact team, not personalities. Secondly, it’s part of the mission’s secrecy, and these numbers are inspired by a little sci-fi TV series from 1967. You must all have seen at least one episode of “The Prisoner”, of which I’m a nostalgic fan because I wasn’t born yet!!

- Well, here we are, but please introduce everyone afterwards. First, what’s the real mission? - So, to set the right mood, I have to tell you that you’ve all already been sentenced to death since you arrived yesterday. More to the point, you’re going to know too much and put into action a plan so secret that if one of you leaves this place and reveals a single word, just one, it threatens all the others, and the nation in chains.

To be very precise, if just one of you betrays the secret, and the other six don’t, he will single-handedly cause the death of the whole group without hesitation, to avoid a cascading effect of betrayal. You’ll go out free, but with a “sword of Damocles” hanging over your heads.

I can see the questioning looks on your faces, forcing me to elaborate on this expression, which is not part of our culture. This expression refers to a situation where a constant or imminent threat is hovering over someone’s head, ready to fall at any moment. If you’re still wondering, let me tell you more. It comes from the legend of Damocles, who was a courtier of Dionysus II, King of Syracuse in ancient times. In the legend, Damocles sat on a throne with a sword suspended above his head, held in place by a single horsehair, symbolizing the constant danger to which he was exposed. - You’re fascinatingly well-read, Number Eight.

- Ah, you see my pretension has a solid foundation! 56

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- Well, I’ll continue. So, basically, you’re already sentenced to death on your first day of freedom. Mark my words. You’ll spend six months in Hong Kong with a new passport and a new identity, as I’ve already told you, and then you’ll ask for visas to be prepared for the country of your choice.

I’d already advise you to choose Southeast Asia, where your racial type will be well received and where you’ll have very close embassy assistance in each of these countries.

Africa would be a second good choice, because ever since we put the fifty-four countries of that continent under a heavy dose of public debt, through our generous loans, we’ve been welcomed there. Europe would not be a good choice in terms of security, and of course the entire American continent from north to south, where your ethnic type would be too conspicuous, is risky. - This allows us to visualize where we’re going, as I suppose we’d better leave our beloved homeland. - Good deduction, Number Seven. We can’t forbid you to stay in the country under a new identity and in a region that’s certainly different from the one where you were born. But a strong recommendation to disappear elsewhere would be the best option. Have I made myself clear? - Yes, you have. Can you now go into more detail about the content of the mission?

- You have two missions, the first linked to the two Koreas and the second to Taiwan. The total success of the first, which has priority, will be enough to give you back your freedom, with a bank account loaded with a million dollars in thanks. - It’s a little and a lot at the same time, because today we’re back to absolute zero financially. 57

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- So Number Five is pushing me for what’s next. The mission to the two Koreas is urgent because of the strategic semiconductor aspect, which I’ll develop in a special working session. Assuming the President is satisfied, and the mission has been a complete success, you’ll then have the option of going ahead, or not, with the second, much more subtle and comparatively complex mission to Taiwan.

Importantly, the team must stick together. Again, to control information, the seven must decide whether to continue together. No one goes out if six stay in. So, if you sign up for the second mission, the bounty increases from one to ten million dollars per head!

Total silence and a look of surprise on the faces of the whole team. - Ah, it’s getting to be a decent level, but why is it going to be so difficult?

- Number One, I haven’t yet said a word about the mission’s central philosophy. Did you notice the only four books prominently placed on the shelf in each of your rooms? Three books on military strategy and only one other that sums up the geopolitical ecosystem of microchips.

- I was not surprised to find Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, which is the bedside book of all our military strategists. General de Gaulle’s “Enemy disorder” translated into Chinese came as a surprise. Less so in the case of Clausewitz’s “On the Nature of War”, which is also a book with a style at odds with Sun Tzu, and which we should be familiar with precisely because of its contradictory opinions.

- I see that Number Four, one of our most senior ex-servicemen, has already leafed through them to begin to grasp the philosophy of the mission. 58

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Let’s talk about Sun Tzu, which is one of our President’s three bedside books, and mine too, as I regularly reread entire chapters that I could recite from memory.

The heart of the mission, at the atomic level I’d say, i.e. the center of the center, is the doctrine of conquering the enemy’s territory without having to fire a single bullet! What he also calls the art of duping the adversary into surrendering without a fight. - Are you telling us that we have to conquer both Koreas without a single cannon shot?

- If only one, and I mean only one, is fired, and if there is even one death and not two, the mission will have failed, because it will be a classic war that we will stop immediately.

We have no interest whatsoever in joining forces with a territory of twenty-six million inhabitants, most of whom are suffering cruel famine. All our meticulous preparations will have been for nothing! You’ve all suddenly become very quiet. Number Six, would you like to say something? - As an ex-military man, I too have read and re-read Sun Tzu since my early days at war school. But he writes that, fundamentally, war should be a perfect art without physical confrontation. That’s the optimum to achieve, perfection.

But he also wrote that the generals commanding the troops are by nature imperfect men, and even more so the politicians who make the wrong decisions at the wrong time against the men on the ground. Combine all this with the fact that war is permanent chaos, no matter how well prepared you are strategically, and I don’t see myself as an artist of war, trying to achieve the perfection that Sun Tzu sought all his life without succeeding, and that you want us to adopt. That’s of a too high level! 59

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- You’re a defeatist before you even get started. Because you don’t yet know all the means we’ll have at our disposal to achieve a work of strategic art! All you remember is the word war, which is a trivial description.

The aim is not to conquer a “physical” territory in the true sense of the word, but to win a very large share of the semiconductor market. More precisely, to gain a stake in their capital at the minimum level of a thirty-three percent blocking minority and beyond, to obtain as many seats of influence and decision-making power on their board of directors as possible.

And to do this, we need to be welcomed into South Korea with open arms, which would then enable us to become reference shareholders in their largest groups, such as Samsung first and foremost. But to enter these companies, where the majority of their capital is held by large institutional shareholders such as pension and investment funds, you need to be invited. Or we can do it indirectly, but still officially, in strict compliance with the regulations of the Seoul Stock Exchange.

And to do this, we’ll have to simulate a war, making it as real as possible. I say “simulate”, i.e., without declaring it, and without waging it. - Young man, you’re a fascinating and dangerous character to have managed to convince the President that such a mission could succeed.

- You don’t know much about me yet, but you can understand that I have my own plan in mind. I need you to bring your own ideas to it, and since I’m extremely intelligent - thank you - I know how to stand back objectively and listen to others.

- In the end, I feel that the small million for the first mission pales in comparison with the expected result. 60

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- You assume correctly, and I have to be even more precise. If the first mission isn’t perfectly successful according to the criteria you’ve just learned, you’ll still have won your freedom with just a small sum, which I’ve yet to discuss with the President’s personal treasurers.

Compared to all your life sentences, it’s worth working hard for two months all the same. At public expense, and with service to boot! - Certainly, Number Eight, at last we understand endgame scenarios. If you don’t succeed in the perfect art of war that our President wants, you’re released by leaving the country to be forgotten with a tiny nest egg. Big bonuses of between one and ten million dollars are part of the unattainable dream at this stage. - You’re very pessimistic and unaware of your respective values, which I must know better than you, because I imagine that confinement annihilates neuronal performance for a time.

But I’m also very familiar - you’ll call me Mr. “I know it all” - with neuroscience and the latest research, which shows that after incidents or accidents, synapses rebuild and redevelop in a favorable environment and with new survival motivations. Put simply, the brain accompanies man’s will. If man lets go of his destiny, the brain declines with him, and vice versa.

- It’s been a long time since we all left school, and here we are in front of a teacher on all sorts of subjects. And what’s more, he’s between twenty-five and thirty-eight, some of them younger than us! - And yes, Number Two, you’re going to have to get used to it from now on, because we’re not going to leave each other for 61

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two months, which is the maximum time the President has given me. It’s a sprint, not a marathon! - Speaking of our dear President, you said he will come here?

- You heard me right. He’s going to come in person when I will inform that we’re ready for him to affix his “executive” seal to the various marching orders for all levels of government, the security services and all the armed forces that we’ll have devised together. - What exactly does “all levels” mean, to giving an example?

-If we propose that three submarines be positioned in territorial waters facing the east coast of North Korea without moving until the following order.

It will be carried out immediately upon receipt by the Naval Staff of the document with the President’s executive seal. This is a very simple example of the scope of the mission’s powers. As you can imagine, we’ll be proposing strategies and tactics, army by army and level by level.

We’ll also call on the entire cyber-space command and control forces of our observation satellites, as well as the services of our state banks and food programs. Everything you could imagine is under the total control of the President, whose stamp of approval he will set, or not, being the ultimate judge.

He’ll come and be presented to you, which is one more layer to make you understand that you’re condemned to death if you say one word, just one. I love repeating myself on this point! - Thanks for the reminder, but it clarifies extremely well the bet we’re entrusted with. I still think a million if we succeed is a bit low. 62

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- Number Seven, my armchair politeness overrides my natural arrogance to prevent me from putting you in your place too abruptly.

But I’d like you to know that I think it’s more than enough for you to earn your freedom with a new identity. It wasn’t me who suggested bonuses, but the President himself. If I were him, I’d have put you all on a plane to Djibouti under the supervision of our new military base!

- Interesting to note that our Number Eight is capable of controlled anger. He’s a statesman in the full sense of the word. Let’s not get any more worked up than necessary. Things have finally been explained very clearly. - Exactly, but you neglected to ask me who are our opponents?. As you were far away from all the geopolitical news, I’ll sum it up briefly in a few descriptive words.

In international affairs, the Western bloc is an excellent chess player with competent analysts, but it takes far too long to make up its mind. The Russian leadership of the moment, on the other hand, is too quick to play poker, taking all the risks with inconsistent alternative outcomes. Brutal and predictable.

As the North Koreans are of interest to us here, we can describe them as modest Dice players who are easily distracted and manipulated. Only the Japanese are our equals in the strategic game of Go. They’re the only ones we really must worry about, and fortunately they’re not the subject of this mission. Is everything clearer now? Are you all set?

Silence and cold stares. No one says another word ~~ 63

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“The future is never just the present to be put in order. You don’t have to foresee it, but to allow it”. GENERAL DE GAULLE French statesman and military leader (1890-1970)

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CHAPTER 5

K R-SOCK HAWAII Tyron, the base’s 5-Star General, has just had a heart attack and is being treated by the medical team as an emergency. His team meets immediately. - As second in rank, I take orders according to our internal safety protocols.

- General, the entire team is at your side, ready to respond to any eventuality.

- Tyron, as usual, exaggerated yesterday. He gets carried away over nothing before he knows all the facts. I’m sure it’s this constant irritation that has weakened his heart. - Yes, the fifth alert in two years.

- Well, you know me, I’m a cold, icy monster who never gets carried away. I’m his opposite, and I think it’s my style that should endure in the face of our dear adversary, who cultivates the same mood control.

After all, I’ve met many of our Chinese colleagues of the same rank at international conferences. What struck me, and ulti65

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mately annoyed me, was their ever-polite smiling faces, which are just a facade, because you quickly sense that behind them lies tactical calculation and polar coldness. This is the opposite of the Russian military, who have that permanent bulldog air of toughness, totally submissive to the higher authority that controls them. In short, the Russians are predictable - too predictable, in fact - and the Chinese, on the other hand, are always full of astonishing surprises. - In your opinion, General, is yesterday’s presentation by our Guam colleagues of that kind? - Exactly, I have the opposite opinion of Tyron. This theatrical comedy is the beginning of something serious, and we have to do everything we can to stick to the subject and not let ourselves be distracted.

- General, is it true that you’re a great Go player in your spare time? - No free flowers, Colonel. It’s true that I’ve been an enthusiast ever since my early years at the West Point War College. Curiosity at first, and then I immersed myself thoroughly, which allows me to better understand our opponents who are the masters. - My General ... - Stop, from now on, and only when we’re in a secret meeting, no more titles, only first names. Outside, on the other hand, you’d better click your heels together. Mike’s enough. - Um... Mike, I have a suggestion to try to find out the identity of yesterday’s faces since the AI has failed. I suggest we consult our now-retired HUMINT specialists who were at the end of their careers in the 1990s-2010s. - Good idea, Mark, elaborate. 66

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- For those of us who follow the news so closely, these faces obviously tell us nothing, especially as they looked very thin for well-to-do, normally well-fed Chinese, and very marked by something.

So, I quite agree with John that they must have been men recently released from prison. - Yes, John follows up on what you were saying yesterday.

- Thanks, Mike, for following me on this theory. I come back to the most striking point, which is that the Chinese database has no image of them, which is strictly impossible.

Even more so since the Covid era, when every Chinese citizen is on file from birth to death, day after day. Their most powerful supercomputer, the “Sunway Oceanlite”, with a whopping 1.5 Teraflops of power, is constantly gorging itself on surveillance data. According to reports we have; it updates surveillance data on their billion-strong population every three minutes. So this team had to get out of jail that morning and avoid all the cameras by vehicles with tinted windows.

It only took a few minutes for the vehicles to get down to Hohhot for the first one and Beijing for the other six to reach the jetway. Surely there are cameras fixed to the building that could have caught these short moments.

As this seems to be a highly organized group, they must have been neutralized for those short minutes without arousing suspicion. - You all know the refrain of our colleague from Guam. Oh, I don’t like that!

The whole team laughs in unison, remembering this oft-repeated little phrase. 67

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- Seriously, guys, something’s coming up, and if it’s going to be in the same original style from the start, we’re not going to get bored. Mark and John, you make a tight duo in synch with Jack in Guam, you’re the leaders of the mission we’re going to call “San San”, also known as 3-3.

This is the most common Go opening strategy, referring to the arrangement of stones on the third line from the corner of the board, in both vertical and horizontal directions. Go ahead, bring out of retirement all our former good guys who must be moping sadly in the Florida sun! 

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GUAM – ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE SATELLITE OBSERVATION ROOM - Commander, I’ve got news! Please come to the control room! A minute later, the door swings open.

- Show me what made me run to you?

- For eight months I’ve been observing their drone test airport. We know all the details about the evolution of combat drones by heart, but less about their new fleet of Cargo drones, which are based in the Sichuan region. - Cargo in what sense?

- Simply to transport goods or spare parts, or computer equipment... and even people, as they have a carrying capacity of one and a half tons for five cubic meters.

The latest TBOD Scorpion D is ten meters long, with a twenty-meter tail. It can fly for thirty-five hours at an average speed of two hundred and eighty kilometers per hour. This gives it a range of six thousand kilometers, enough to cross the entire territory of China before refueling. - Interesting for our military in the same field, but how does it fit in with our current hot topic?

- The first flight in the new series, which has passed all the certifications required to make it fully operational, took off from “Chengdu Schuangliu” Air Base in Sichuan. Flying over a thousand kilometers, it headed according to the flight plan towards... - No, you mean Hainan?

- Yes, I waited a while to be sure before telling you, and now it’s descending and starting a final approach. - Don’t tell me it’s going to land on our golf course? 69

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- Watch the approach maneuver live, which I’m now transferring to the big main screen in high resolution. You can see that he’s flying over the property and heading towards the sea in front of him.

It turns back towards the golf course as it looks for a place to land. I remember that the course is very steep, with sharp drops in elevation. The model sheet says that two hundred meters is enough, but he has to find some flat ground.

- He doesn’t seem to hesitate though, and goes off-course again. - No, he puts himself on a landing axis. What has he found?

- Of course he found it! The flat ground of the driving range, which is off the course and must be at least three hundred and fifty meters long. With today’s new number 1 drives, a good player can easily reach a distance of two hundred and fifty meters. - A maintenance crew should arrive at least at this point to refuel it, because from its starting point, it’s how many kilometers?

- One thousand four hundred and twenty-six kilometers exactly. He’s still got a long way to go, but it’s a fine performance with a perfect landing. The guys at the remote satellite controls at their base must be jumping for joy at this fine arrival. - Have you ever seen Chinese soldiers jump for joy?

- Oh no, that’s true actually, I’d imagined us in that kind of situation. - I see a big villa on his left. Didn’t we spot it yesterday?

- It was off-camera, two kilometers from the club entrance. It’s on the north side of course number 3, facing a small lake. - You know this club well, don’t you? 70

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- I know them all, because my job keeps me in touch with all the top government and corporate officials. And these are the only places where they let loose and talk too much as soon as they’ve had a good drink, which is so classic of our opponents. - But here, we found a team of rare silence.

- Since yesterday nothing has moved in the club building. In a while it should reopen and I’ll be scanning constantly to see if any of them have infiltrated among the staff or if they’re actually going to play on the course, which would be ideal. - I have a big doubt. After an influx of plotters, suddenly getting under our satellites to kick the ball around... Sounds too easy to me. - Yes, it does. Ah, look, three men are coming out of the villa. Sh.... sorry, they’re humanoids. - But you can already see if they’re the same as yesterday on arrival!

- The electro-optical scan is no good on humanoids because their faces are very similar, with very few differences. They can give us 12 identities for a single search. - Are you sure there isn’t a human in there? Zoom all the way.

- Ah Sh... They’ve got the same lithe, athletic gait. Replay yesterday’s images, we’ll find a similarity. - Look at the one carrying the handicapped man, who looks a little taller than the others. Re-zoom on the second one next to the drone. - The same one indeed.

- But how did it come from the club two kilometers away without us seeing it? - I made a mistake, I didn’t run the 24/24 thermal images, Commander! 71

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- Never mind, you couldn’t have known, but from now on, we’ll be pulling out all the stops, day and night, with Lidar capability for bad weather days, so that we don’t miss a thing. - But what are they doing next to the drone?

- They seem to be waiting. Instructions, surely! So, we’re going to have audio!

- Put on the automatic translator and voice recognition connected to AI.

- In the meantime, show this villa in zoom. Windows blacked out. All the doors are closed except the service door to the north from which they emerged. You can send the thermography option to see inside. - One moment, as they start to talk. Read the text on the live screen.

“-This is control of the “Scorpion D04” drone, can you tell me if it arrived intact with no parts missing from the landing gear?

- We can’t see anything unusual. We saw the last moments of its arrival, and it went off very smoothly. - You’ve been fitted with the refueling kit and trained to do so. Go ahead because this first flight is an empty test with no cargo inside. It will leave immediately to be returned to you on a later order. - Got it, we’ll fetch the recharge kit and send you a signal when it’s ready to go again.” - The good news is that we’ve identified one humanoid from yesterday’s crew, which isn’t much, but it’s a start. The bad news is that this was a test flight not yet intended for our plotters, it seems. Drone base control only used these service humanoids for refueling. - Did you hear something the controllers said? “Trained to do this”. So, these humanoids were in training to refuel a state72

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of-the-art cargo drone, and these same guys were yesterday the baggage carriers for our plotters.

- I can’t see a causal link yet, but it’s still an increasingly troubling situation. Something tells me that this is a test flight and that we’ll be seeing the drone in real operation again very soon! - Come back to the villa. Where are we with the thermal signal?

- It must be malfunctioning because I’m getting a negative response, a black screen.

I’ve already checked on the way to the club using the same means. Like me, you see the silhouettes of more than fifteen people, some sitting at the bar it seems, others at the reception desk and some coming in and out. As you can see, we’ve gone from normal exterior video to thermal video, which allows you to see inside whatever the thickness of the partition. - Come back to the villa. Sh... no signal, pitch black.

- Not only black, but no sound. The only possible solution would be to cover the entire villa with MLV, a high-performance vinyl used for sound insulation in secret meeting rooms. This is technically possible, but it would have involved gigantic work at a high cost. For thermal vision, it’s another matter, as this suggests an additional coating to be applied before the layer of acoustic insulation, which itself contains insulators that detect and cancel out infrared radiation

Technically not difficult for a single room, but for an entire villa it implies other major works and highly specialized personnel. 73

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- You mean it’s possible, but the budget must have been extremely high? Here’s a simple reasoning. Why did this villa, which belongs to a classic rich man, need such ultra-secret improvements?

And what are these gentlemen doing, clearly surrounded by an all-humanoid staff? No, I’m not going to say my piece. Ah, I don’t like it. Because this goes beyond my usual levels of concern.

Prepare a precise report with your team and send it to Hawaii as soon as possible! ~~

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“The thirst to dominate is the last to be extinguished. in the heart of man”. Nicolas Machiavelli Philosopher and military strategist (Italy, 1469-1527)

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CHAPTER 6

“COLLECTOR’S” VILLA LIBRARY – HAINAN - Gentlemen, I’ve been civilized since your arrival, but now I have to tell you what I really think. I have a hatred coupled with rage for what you have done to our country. Stealing development money from schools, hospitals, roads and armaments for your own personal gain, and to do what with it? After the classic pictures of luxury, you transferred the funds out of the country.

You’re the scum of our society, trash that should have been eliminated once and for all, and not even given the honor of a public trial. The only final solution for the bastards that you are should have been the one reserved for the last of you yesterday, in Honhot. Our host, the “Collector”. To pretend, they even let him live for a month, questioning him rudely as a matter of form, but I told the President it was all a waste of time. As soon as an anti-corruption investigation is closed, the corrupt party must be eliminated within twelve hours. The President realized back in 2013 that public trials 76

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were not only superfluous, but that this old “Stalinist” style of showing the people that power does justice for the citizens is superfluous.

Today’s social media pillory you in five minutes. You don’t know about them because they didn’t exist in your time. Imagine that for a population of 1.4 billion, one billion people are connected to the Internet, and of those, eight hundred and twenty million are on the “We chat” social network. A scandalous advert with a poor-quality photo or, better still, a poor-quality video, and you’re on fire. Millions accuse you in an instant. In short, daddy’s television is obsolete, and indictment news covers the majority of the adult population in a flash of bits.

So, you ogres of the little people, you vicious lizards, I vomit you! Having said that and put it on the table with my cruel frankness, which is one of my signatures of character, I can now return to our collaboration on the most secret subject of the moment for our country.

- We’ve lost touch with your brutal language, because it’s all far gone in our minds, but it did have the merit of clarifying the situation between us, because you seemed far too polite for a man of high power. - Indeed, the mask has finally fallen on your good manners and we can finally work between men of decision without frills. - So that you can understand my outburst, the President entrusted me with the task of re-reading the 362 files of our country’s biggest corruptors from the 2013-2020 anti-corruption campaign.

I had a team of four people who gave me summaries, but in the long run it was too much to read the accumulation of all these 77

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crimes, and I held back from vomiting several times. And all that indigestion with the goal of recruiting only seven of them!

Since we’re on the subject, I’ll finally introduce the six of you, because everyone knows Number One, who is ultimately the cleanest of you all, but who had the misfortune to have a wife gifted with a high level of criminality. The opposite of all of you who had model, devoted wives, unlike your greedy mistresses who contributed without a moment’s hesitation to the investigations to bring you down.

Here we are, Number Two. And we’ll be on first-name terms from now on. You were born in 1953 in the Heiliongjiang region. Your most eminent position was that of Minister of Railways, which is a strategic position. You had control over 250,000 km of railway lines, including our prestigious high-speed network which has reached 42,000 km to date. In the midst of all this, you’ve served yourself handsomely and have just completed your tenth year of a life sentence. You’re a logistical genius, which is why I chose to recruit you. Alongside your names, I have the name of the mistress who conspired with the investigators to bring you down. Here, I’m reading Miss Yue, like the Moon, a romantic I hope, and surely coupled with an icy calculator. Number Three is a heavier case. Born in 1942 in Jiangsu province. Sentenced to life imprisonment, you’ve just served eight years! A member of the politburo with a high position on the standing committee, you were Minister of Public Security and chaired the party’s legal affairs commission.

You didn’t mince your words, because in addition to stealing, you leaked state secrets to our adversaries. We never found out whether you were paid for this. I recruited you for your genius for concealment and your frightening composure, having played the game at the highest level of government for so long. 78

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You’re quite an actor! Congratulations on your role as a fake handicapped person, which was just a little comedy to distract our observers from your identification. By the way, what was the name of the lady who framed you? I’ve got a name, but I’m not sure. - Miss Xue who had silky, snow-white skin, hence her name.

- I wasn’t interested in having photos of each of your respective mistresses, but that was a mistake, as it would have illustrated the list of your misdeeds more beautifully!

I’m distracting myself, so let’s see Number Four. Ah, one of our two military men in the group. Born in 1950 in Shandong province, you’ve not only been one of our PLA’s great generals, but you’ve also served as vice-president of economic and financial affairs of the central committee. In an ideal position to pick and choose where it’s most profitable and as quickly as possible. I’ve got a USB stick almost full of the list of your dirty hands. I recruited you because, in addition to your talent for military strategy, you’ve demonstrated a gift for high-level financial transactions. You’re going to be crucial to the end of the operation in Seoul. I read that the lady who turned you in was called Miss Fei, a free spirit by name. You should have thought she’d drop this one. You were and still are great, but so naive with women! Number Five, you were born in 1956 in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region. You’ve just spent seven years of your life sentence. I couldn’t understand how you’d risen so high in the party to become head of general affairs at the Central Committee. You, too, were at the crossroads of all the juicy operations, and after resisting for a while, you plunged completely into the swamp of corruption. You can explain to me face-to-face over a cup of coffee how this happened. It wasn’t Miss Hua, a beautiful flower according to her first name, who set you off, was it? You keep your head 79

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down. Okay, we’ll talk about it later! Your recruitment is based on your talent for organizing extremely complex operations.

Number Six was one of our greatest soldiers, respected by his troops and feared by our adversaries. As far as he was concerned, it was Madam Li, a renowned beauty as I understand it, who took the wind out of his sails. Before that, you had risen through the ranks to become vice-chairman of the party’s military commission. What a waste to throw away an entire sublime career in a few moments of madness in the arms of an uncontrollable woman. I won’t presume to lecture you on sentimental matters, but you behaved like teenagers. How is it possible for men of power, the toughest of the tough, to become flabby, unenergetic puppets in front of, admittedly, great beauties? Speaking of that, after the natural disgust you showed at my announcement, come and tell me what you think of humanoid beauties. They never grow old, they don’t get any presents because they don’t ask for anything, they always say yes to every sexual fantasy without any petty bargaining, and what’s more, they’re elegant and intelligent. I’m sure you’ll come around, especially after you’ve been locked up because of traitors. Not brilliant, gentlemen! Number Seven was born in 1954 in Shandong province. You were the head of the Economic Development and Reform Agency. You were at the crossroads of the entire high-tech sector, and made great strides for the country.

That is, until the day when the billions that passed through your department suddenly seemed more tangible if you could use them for personal gain. You’ve just served a mere eight years in prison. I say barely, because I’ve got a USB stick full of the list of your abuses for you too. I read that it’s Miss Ling, a jade tinkler, very 80

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poetic, but if I’ve read correctly, a real cruelty-monger who had already accumulated all the evidence by doing the investigators’ advance work.

You’re going to fall in love with a humanoid, I can feel it coming! I recruited you because, above all, you have great tactical management skills.

Last, Number One. How did you not anticipate that your wife was a very serious case? She was happily cheating on you and it was common knowledge. You didn’t have any mistresses, because they’d all have come running to earn the whistle-blower bonuses. And what’s more, your wife created an international scandal by having a British businessman murdered, by her lover no less, for doing shady business with her!

The whole country was glued to its TV set at the time. Despite this lack of judgment in relationships, which I don’t care about in the end, you already have my personal esteem because you were the least corrupt of all your colleagues, and even then, we could withdraw that term. I was ten years younger, and I followed the whole judicial process, where your talent as an orator shut the judges’ mouths. You showed the strength of a great leader, and I understood then that the authorities could not pardon you despite all the evidence against you. You had the makings of a future party executive at the highest level, right down to the very last circle where places are scarce.

It was a group of jealous people, typical of us, who silenced and locked you up. In conclusion, you’re the only one of the seven to have been sentenced to protect other men in power, and not for the seriousness of the facts. Except for a valuable watch you’re still wearing. Please show it to me. 81

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- It’s a “Vacheron Constantin” from the “Patrimony” limited series that cost a lot of money to the person who gave it to me as a gift.

- Your only sin was to have accepted it. A trifle compared to the others. It’s a strange fate for this watch that everyone knows about, because at your trial it was used as evidence against you.

When I announced to our Chairman that I was going to appoint you as the group’s reporter to me, who represents him. Do you all know what he did? He slightly widened his mask of permanent half-smile without saying a word. That’s all, but it was enough to win his approval. I’m thinking, did you wear it as soon as you left the detention center? - Yes, it felt so...

- Wrong, because we’re going to put a name to the video thanks to this watch that everyone knows, including our dear opponents.

Too bad, I’d done my best to make it as difficult as possible for them to identify you. They’ll probably zoom in on the watch and one of their experts will say “Bingo”, American style, but it’s really him! Never mind, there will be other human errors, despite our respective geniuses. You bastards, my dear precious collaborators, from now on we’re not keeping score. Is everything between us crystal clear? I see nods.

That’s enough let’s get down to work because the serious stuff is about to start. 

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CHINA CONSULATE LOS ANGELES - What is the return of our ministry?

- A curious mix. First, our satellite observation center has noted that Guam and Hawaii have shifted the trajectory of a second low-orbiting satellite to pass regularly over the island of Hainan.

- This is strange to a certain extent, as our brand new longrange cargo drone is doing its final landing tests precisely on Hainan, for final certification and official entry into service. They must be interested, but they’ve known about it since its inception, and it’s absolutely normal technical work, nothing to disturb experts. - I also read that the team receiving them are the most sophisticated latest-generation humanoids we have at the moment.

- They must have wanted to carry out full-scale tests in the event of a crisis. This means no pilot and no human maintenance engineer. That’s understandable, but again, nothing very special, at least for us. - The Americans are doing their job of studying all our technological advances, but doesn’t that explain all their hustle and bustle involving teams from Guam, Hawaii and Seattle, with the added bonus of the arrival of former top-level consultants in our country? - When I mentioned the names of the two identified experts, the head office reacted by saying to take a closer look. They’re a laughing stock because these gentlemen are in a secret CIA cell.

- Apart from sending our Laotian allies’ office maintenance service, which is our cover for nibbling at little subjects, I don’t see what we can do. What’s more, it’s a K1 protocol, so it’s analog, no computers and no cell phones, so there’s 83

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nothing to hack into. Just paper, which they have to burn as a precaution, according to the protocol. The lesson of AI reconstructing shredded paper in a matter of seconds was well received by all.

- What else could we do? Wait for them to come out and follow them on the city’s network of cameras, which our cyber teams have of course hacked into? - The base, of course, but we won’t know anything more than the address of the hotel if they’re in absolute silence protocol.

- Gentlemen, we pretend to do something to please headquarters by following the routine. Something will come of it.

I love your collegial optimism, dear colleague. It’s refreshing!

K R-SOCK HAWAII The Seattle team has identified the “Hainan Seven”. We’ll switch to video conferencing in two minutes. Guam and Seattle are already online, over to us. - Good morning, everyone. Let’s get down to business. What did our K1 consultants find out?

- I don’t identify myself to follow K1 protocol, but I’m the reporter for the team of four you see beside me. - Tell us about it, there’s no time to lose.

- You now have on your screen a legend under each fixed visual taken in the last movement, with numbers that are the number of their initial according to the alphabet but inverted. A little naive, but a tried and tested method in the distant past.

- I see probability percentages next to these numbers. You’re 95% sure of one of them, 80% fairly sure of five others, but the one who looks handicapped 30%? 84

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- Let’s take them one by one. 26-2 is the most obvious case because we have an extra clue, namely his wristwatch, which matches an exhibit from a 2013 public show trial because it’s been shown in court dozens of times.

- Oh yes, I remember that one. Big trial on TV and CNN broadcast the best moments. A rare moment of transparency that would be impossible today. - He’s aged quite a bit compared with the photos I’ve superimposed from the time. First, he’s ten years older and now we know which prison they sent him to “Honhot” in Inner Mongolia, because he was the very first passenger.

- His face became sharp and his gaze even more authoritative. Now that he’s out, he’s a guy to watch out for! - So, here we are! Can you confirm that all these guys in suits are putting on a good show and that they’ve all just been released from prison? - I confirm, because the others are all high-profile defendants, some of whom had even been sentenced to death in court, but a year later their sentence was changed to life imprisonment. - All without exception?

- We’ve sent files over encrypted radio outside the Internet, still the old-fashioned way, which will take a while to arrive, but at least very securely. - No kidding, just like in 1980, you followed the K1 protocol to the letter.

- So, you have to be patient, because the fact that you don’t get an immediate e-mail - which is confusing for everyone, I imagine - conversely guarantees maximum security.

- And have you found an operator in Seattle to do this type of transfer? - One of the four of us is a specialist in this type of transmission, which we used when we were stationed in Hong Kong. 85

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While rummaging through the offices here, he found and restored an old Jew’s harp which worked straight away. A museum piece, but still operational.

- To think that we’re going head to head with the Chinese over Exascale performance in Teraflops and Quantum photonics. And you bring us a good old radio. - This means that to read the files, you’ll need to find a specialist at home to transcribe the radio codes. - And you’re telling us this now?

- We were just at the beginning of our presentation, and this came as a sequence. If this type of old procedure irritates you, you surely have ways of closing the K1 protocol and switching to the nanosecond protocols you use. But that’s not up to us, because our mission is K1, and there must be a reason.

- No, we don’t, because the reason is that the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles, which is closest to us, has a very high level of cyber-equipment. They manage to catch everything we send over the network despite all the cryptographic protection modules you can imagine. - On our side, the work is done, and you’ll be receiving our character-by-character reports.

- They tell me in 50 minutes! Instead of the 3 milliseconds of an e-mail, but at least our opponents will be racking their brains on how to catch this file. - Can we find out who had the bright idea to bring out the good old K1 protocol again? - General, it’s just as mysterious and protected, and we don’t know who gave the order to start using this protocol.

- It must be a high-ranking NSA official who still has old signatures? So there’s a mystery player at the center of the great mystery of this operation, which is going to annoy the Chinese because they’re not going to catch anything of consequence. 86

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It’s a very clever move, for a change. You’re here Guam, you’ve been following everything. So be nice and say your famous phrase. Legendary among us. All in chorus: Oh, I don’t like this!

COLLECTOR’S” VILLA MEETING ROOM - HAINAN - This used to be a large reception room, but I’ve transformed it into a practical room. Small round tables for meetings in pairs and a large meeting table for everyone. You’ll notice that whiteboards and notepads were used. No computers, no internet connection, no TV and not even a radio. As I told you when you arrived, you won’t have any outside influence. You’ll be alone with your respective brains. - This is no change from prison at all. I thought I was going to see a little series on Netflix, which I’ve heard so much about! - I’m so sorry. No distractions during the week. You’ll let off steam early Saturday evening with the arrival of the companions, which I’m not going to mention again so as not to distract you.

- Let’s start at the beginning, Number Eight. In a nutshell, you’ve told us that the aim of our mission is to start a war, which isn’t a war at all. Under the perfectionist principles of Sun Tzu’s Art of War. For the aim is not to conquer territory, but market share in the highly strategic sector vital to our economy - microchips, and by extension, semiconductors. A war simulation strong enough to stir up the markets and allow our financial operators to officially enter the capital at the minimum level of the blocking minority, in priority Samsung, and this by following to the letter the stock exchange regulations. 87

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- Number One, you’ve got it in a nutshell!

- The question I’m asking myself is why all these huge resources when I imagine that our government has the financial and technical resources and qualified personnel to grow our shares ourselves? - Under normal circumstances, yes, we could have caught up with and even overtaken our competitors in the space of a few years.

We’ve suffered a correlation of factors that started with the Trump presidency and its list of various sanctions, but not yet enough for the simple reason that we import a lot from the United States and

We’re a good market for processing the micro-chips they ed for their market into consumer appliances.

More recently, the Biden presidency stopped one of our major American suppliers, “Micron”, from selling us the latest generation of their products. Worse still, they managed to get the Dutch government to sign an agreement so that the world leader in semiconductor lithography equipment, ASML, which has its main base in that country, would no longer export anything to us. We had placed a spy back in 2019 who managed to steal the plans for their 5-nanometer patent. But this only succeeded in confirming the boycott, and causing us to lose out on the next technical evolution to 3 nanometers, which has just begun. So it’s a failure for us that we won’t be able to make up for.

Added to this is the fact that our President is having trouble calming down our armies, who are having a dangerous time showing off their new equipment and scaring the Taiwanese. This is a major dilemma for him, for how can he show his strength without deploying it? How can we continue to equip our 88

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armies with the most sophisticated weaponry without tempting them to use it one day in an attempt to escape central power?

How can we prevent a child from playing with the latest toy we’ve just given him? So, from time to time, the President relents and lets them have their way, all the while spending sleepless nights in fear of the news that a missile launched by mistake has hit a building in Taipei. That’s why he continues his anti-corruption purges, such as the recent brutal replacement of the two space and nuclear force generals, and the equally brutal replacement of the foreign minister.

And even more he has appointed himself Chairman of the Military Staff, adding another layer of authority from the Central Party Committee. The new doctrine is now firmly anchored in the sometimes-restless skulls of our generals.

Total and unwavering loyalty to the party above all other considerations. In a word, he is the absolute boss, and has strengthened his power far beyond that of any elder statesman in our country. His fear is the anniversary of the PLA becoming a centenary army in 2027, and in their festive enthusiasm, losing a little control over the general staff who will want to celebrate this anniversary in style. Moreover, all American military strategists have already analyzed and officially reiterated that 2027 will be a critical date for military confrontations with Taiwan.

To conclude this part, we can no longer grow in market share fast enough because of the various sanctions and restrictions imposed by our dear adversary. 89

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We retaliate, of course, by closing our export markets for gallium and germanium, two highly strategic metals in all high-tech sectors, as well as the critical one of new energies.

But that’s just child’s play, because on both sides, once the shock has worn off, the industrial ecosystem is energized to find urgent replacement solutions. I’d even go so far as to say it’s tinkering, which doesn’t take us forward, but backwards.

So we need to win new positions by buying out those who already have them. And to do that, we’re going to wage war, or at least a “simulation” of war! - Your demonstration is crystal clear, Number Eight But could you give us a summary of the micro-chip sector, so that we can get to grips with the subject? - I’m going to give you a very brief and somewhat academic account of what our American adversaries call “the chip war”. You have a circumstantial report in front of you.

You’ll see graphs illustrating the introductory text which you also have in front of you, and which I’m going to quote slowly, because this is a subject which is totally foreign to you all. “The “chip war” has intensified between the USA and China, with significant global repercussions. Among the key players in this technological battle are Samsung, based in South Korea, and TSMC in Taiwan.

Samsung, world leader in the production of memory chips, will hold around 41% of the world market share for ”Dram” and around 33% for “Nand” flash in 2020. This privileged position gives it a strategic advantage in these tense times. In terms of revenue, Samsung’s semiconductor business accounted for around 51% of the company’s total sales in 2020, or some US$96.5 billion.

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TSMC, or Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, is the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer. This company dominates the contract chip manufacturing market, with a market share of around 65% in 2022. TSMC is at the heart of much of the global IT industry, supplying chips to companies such as Apple, AMD and Qualcomm. By 2021, TSMC has reported total sales of around US$65.5 billion. These two players, Samsung and TSMC, are of crucial importance in the chip war. The decisions they make in this complex conflict will have significant repercussions on the global technological chessboard.” - You have thirty pages to get a good grasp of the subject, but above all you’ll be reading the only clear technical book summarizing, from 2022, the ecosystem in question, which is the book “Chip Wars” by the American academic, Henri Miller. It’s on the shelf next to the three strategy books.

I’ll give you the rest of the evening to read it, and then ask me some questions first thing in the morning.

I see some questioning looks. And I reconfirm that the mission’s objective is to acquire a stake in these companies as a major reference shareholder, enabling us to influence their strategic decisions and thus become partners in depth by backing them up with our entire industry in the same sector. And to achieve this, we need to conquer these two countries in a “friendly” manner, without firing a single shot! - You mean that these two countries, which are far from friendly to date and which hold crucial positions in the global semiconductor war, are to become friends through our maneuvers, to such an extent that we’ll be invited into the capital? 91

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- That’s about it, although “invited” isn’t quite the right word for it, but at least we’ll be able to become a major shareholder without resistance, and without any political opposition or restraint, either from them or from their current allies. - All this under the noses of the Americans and their regional allies, with flowers at the end of the gun!

- This is the kind of plan I have in mind, and you’re going to help me refine it and put it into action by combining everyone’s genius. As the English say: “Piece of cake”, but in French I prefer to call it “jeu d’enfants” (easy child’s play)... - Dear Number Eight, at this stage, I see us going out with just the passport and not a dollar more. You’re an over-optimistic young man who hasn’t yet suffered much from life’s ups and downs.

Be confident and try to say that all this “is just child’s play”! ~~

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“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without shedding a drop of blood. The middle art of war is to defeat the enemy by force of arms. The lowest art of war is to lay siege to cities and reduce them by famine. Sun Bin Military strategist and philosopher (China, 4th century BC)

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CHAPTER 7

ANDERSEN -AIR FORCE BASE GUAM - Jack, your latest satellite report is disturbing. Hawaii, still on minimum “Defcon 5” alert, reads all your reports carefully. - Let’s go over the latest one together, and I’ll leave the talking to you.

- A week after the test flights and refueling we witnessed, a cargo drone returned and this time the humanoids opened the cargo hold, which is a side door, inserting five leather briefcases of the orderly messenger type. - And I’m reading that you couldn’t download or read anything?

- I could only identify that they were paper documents and not USB sticks or hard drives, which would have been the easiest to hack.- The very old paper method. Which goes in the same direction as mission K1 for retirees on our side. Clearly, we’re being taken more than fifty years back in time, but why?

- I asked the same specialist I’d asked about the black screen for the villa to explain why I can’t pick up anything in the sad94

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dlebags. He replied that, in this case, it must be an alloy of aluminum with another non-ferrous metal that makes the surface of the bags impervious to thermography. In his opinion, it must simply be a film covering the inside. - The next thing I read was the drone’s destination, the Beijing Xijao Air Base military airport near the capital.

- So here, other low-orbit satellites from our colleagues at “Camp Humphreys” near Seoul following this area, report that five NCOs in different uniforms greeted the cargo drone. After opening the cargo hold, they each took a bag and headed straight back to their respective posts.

- We didn’t need to follow them, as the uniforms clearly identified them. All PLA, Navy, Air Force, Ground Forces, the second artillery group, which has a strangely innocuous name, but it’s the one that operates all the strategic and nuclear missiles, and a last one whose uniform is still little known, which calls itself “strategic forces support”.

To put it more clearly, it groups together the electronic warfare, cyberspace and space forces departments in general. In other words, my colleagues in the observation satellite sector. - And you say that 18 hours later the drone flew back to Hainan?

- During this time, it was refueled and ready to leave. Surprisingly enough, a light armored vehicle with four guards surrounded it. A superfluous precaution, it seems to me, on a military airport, but it’s an indication of how important this aircraft is to them. - What surprises me is the speed with which the bags were returned, because the speed of reaction is not in the style of the first four PLA departments. 95

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Why so fast indeed, and who has the authority to send and receive orders or questions and answers, I imagine, in these bags with their well-kept secret contents? And the latest report says we’re already at twelve round trips.

Yes, no technical failure of the cargo drones because there’s a second one in rotation, which induces simultaneous flights in both directions. In the first week, there were always five bags for the five ministries. - And in fact an inter-army synchronization so that everything works at time X at the same time. A big, complex operation involving all their defense departments simultaneously. - What’s so obvious about that?

- I prefer to remain very cautious in my position, Commander, but it smacks of a war to come where they’re going to put everything they’ve got into it.

- I think like you, but if we start alerting everyone more seriously, I’ll be taken for a lunatic, and I already don’t have a good reputation in that respect. - Commander, the new big chief in Hawaii is a great calm with a high level of precision and a reputation as an impartial analyst. He is one of the few who can articulate our army’s weaknesses in certain areas and objectively define the right strategy in response. In short, he is much admired by his teams for his composure and objectivity.

- Yes, we were lucky in these circumstances that the boss of the Pacific zone changed. Tyler, our previous General, would have already sent an aircraft carrier into position to have Hainan within cannon range! - What bothers me, Commander, is that at my level I can’t do more, even with a third satellite. We’d have to go back a few years again and send field agents out there. 96

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- You’re like me, you’ve seen all the James Bonds! First of all, he’s a phlegmatic Englishman, and on our side, our guys back home are pros but not very subtle.

If we tell them “you’re going to land at night on a hostile island defended by the Chinese army, you’ll be unarmed and you’ll have to go to a golf course that’s deserted most of the time.

So you’ll be spotted in a matter of seconds, and then you’ll head for a villa that’s totally bunkered in terms of vision and sound, where at best you’ll meet humanoids who’ll test their hand-to-hand combat skills on you”. They’ll probably judge us for jokers and refuse the mission.

It would make a great start to a Ridley Scott movie, but I don’t see us sending one of our best to be shot down right away, or at best to be locked up as part of a very random future prisoner exchange. - Even so, we’ve got third-generation Chinese descendants who could easily blend in with the rest of the population.

- Are you kidding? Like all emigrants, as soon as they’re integrated they forget their language and can barely say hello in Chinese with a Wisconsin accent! Let’s stop imagining and wait for Hawaii to return!

K R-SOCK HAWAII

General Mike Anderson’s team of analysts meet in their tactical workroom. - Over to you Terry, because you seem in such a hurry to say something!

- The report is very detailed on the activity of the cargo drone on the round trip, but we still don’t know anything about the 97

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people who write all these documents, who make this round trip and who probably employ a good hundred guys and ask for a very quick response in return. - What do you think?

- Obviously, the writers are the seven ex-prisoners who arrived at the golf course over two weeks ago and who must be staying in this unassailable villa in terms of information retrieval. - You express what I kept to myself and didn’t dare say, but you’re right. Ex-convicts are inside and don’t come out so we don’t see them again. Your turn, Lieutenant.

- So they’d be locked in there without coming out for even a minute to breathe fresh air? It’s almost worse than their old prison, don’t you think? - Are we sure about this? Did you see any exits?

- We’ve only got two satellites in the area, and to do a good job we’d need at least eight of them, plus the latest generation with Lidar to get through the clouds in case of bad weather. - I don’t see us claiming this equipment from the Pentagon we’d be laughed out of one villa!

- To put it in perspective, we can say that the humans don’t go outside, but we do see three humanoids maintaining and refueling the cargo drones. So I can easily deduce that all the staff inside are as well, since we don’t see any human-type personnel, which avoids obvious leaks. - But they still have to feed themselves, so where would the supplies come from? Because we didn’t see any delivery vehicles on the access road. Strictly speaking, none. - The only vehicle joining the villa on a service road near the landing zone is the cargo drone’s supply truck. It stops at the head of the field and goes no further. - Do we have the driver’s ID?

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- Our identification AI quickly found the right person. Zhang Wenbo, 41, an employee of Tianyu Jet Energy Services, a company involved in aircraft refueling. We have all his details from birth. His record is clean of incidents, a normal guy.

- I can see your mischievous look, Colonel, and I can feel you saying that we could bribe him to get more information during these delivery moments. Amusing, but pointless, as you’ve noted that humanoids aren’t at all talkative and work in almost total silence too! - Remember, we’ve already brought in our local undercover agent the next day to find out why the club was closed. We can imagine that this same agent is looking for a new job and is trying to be recruited as a driver.

- That’s going to take too long, as he won’t be given responsibility for such a delicate mission straight away. Surely they’ve put one of their best foot forward for this particular customer, who must be paying dearly for this almost daily supply because of the rotations of the two units.

- What’s more, the humanoids transferring the hose to the drone don’t speak. I can’t imagine him saying, “Hey guys, how’s it going? And who are your bosses anyway?”. One, the humanoids are probably bugged while the jet fuel is being transferred, and two, there’s nothing like getting strangled right away by three tough guys with nothing to lose. - Forget it!

- We can’t just sit back and do nothing.

- By now, my predecessor would have launched a missile at the villa, with all the repercussions you can imagine.

For me, to act in this way is an admission of weakness that the brutality of reaction can only aggravate. We’re dealing with subtle people with a highly refined taste for strategy and tactics. We can’t afford to play the cowboy who shoots first and then sees 99

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who’s on the mat! Personally, I hate it when geopolitical experts refer to us as “pyromaniac firefighters”, but that’s the truth of the multiple wars we’ve provoked, incited and encouraged in one way or another, and which have been building up over the last fifty years.

If any of you repeat what I’ve just said, and it costs me my Stars, I’ll put you in solitary confinement for 15 days. You will show me before we leave the room that what I have just said is not in the transcript of the meeting, and you will all look me straight in the eye. I’ve never, ever used those words, but you’ve all understood that with me, you don’t shoot first and talk later. I hope to prove a little more intelligence and a little less John Wayne male toxicity! Daddy’s wars are over..

Look at the human disaster of the last one in Europe. The next wars will be all about finesse, precision, and all possible cyber means, drones, and pilotless fighter jets. I’ve just attended the latest tests of F-16s piloted by Task Force 59’s AI program “Hivemind”, and to everyone’s surprise they beat and offended our best “Top Gun” simulators so far. I’m looking forward to seeing the real thing in a month’s time. - General, do you see the next steps in the cyber and AI field alone? - That’s not what I mean. More to the point, conventional forces are worth keeping, because their sheer volume of steel creates a basic first deterrent to the enemy. But it will no longer be by firing hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, as we did recently, that we will win the next wars. - You speak of future wars, and can you see which ones?

- Wars for economic power over microchips and semiconductors first, and strategic and rare mineral wealth second. Two central and crucial elements of the world’s economies for the next 50 to 100 years. 100

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The old wars over fossil fuel oil and gas are over, because we still have too much, and we’re slowly but surely moving towards renewable energies, and the return of civil nuclear power. And these wars, gentlemen, can’t be fought on horseback or in a tank, let alone with your finger on the button of an ICBM. They’re won with swift, subtle and secret moves, just like those seven bastards who are taunting us from their untouchable bunker! By the way, I didn’t quite read the K1 consultants’ report. What’s their analysis? Who are these seven from Hainan? - To cut a long story short, General, three ex-military men of very high rank, three ex-politicians who held positions of responsibility at the very top of their government’s hierarchy. And one particular case who was the first to be discovered in code 26-2 and who, according to the consultants, should be the natural leader of the group.

- One thing escapes me, though. These seven guys have been recruited by someone as yet unknown, and immediately start sending saddlebags by latest-generation cargo drone to all the headquarters! How they got such authority is a big question. There must be one or more people waiting for them on such a high level that the drones quickly return with those same saddlebags full of documents. - It’s just that there must be at least one person of great authority waiting for them on the spot, whom we didn’t see because we didn’t have any satellites covering this non-strategic leisure zone at the time.

- As you can see, this is already a victory for our adversaries, because we’re putting enormous resources into trying to understand what they’re doing, and with an almost absolute zero result. I’d like us to have guys of that level, but I can’t see us copying their idea and getting them from our prisons at home. On the other hand, I was quite blown away by the 101

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modest talent of our four retirees, because they beat the AI, the satellites and all our young analysts. Have they left, or are they still in Seattle?

- I think the two European residents are taking advantage of a few extra days to see family before heading back to Greece and Portugal, while the other two can be reached very quickly as they are American residents.

- Set up a video conference with the four of them tonight, because I’m going to suggest that they spend a studious vacation in Hawaii. I need these “analog” brains in parallel with these same old ones of the same age in Hainan. I want to have them by my side, to try and match the old neurons, which are still very efficient! Unlike my Guam colleagues, I’d like to say: Ah! I like this one. The game has only just begun!

COLLECTOR’S VILLA MEETING ROOM General meeting of the whole team after receiving their response via cargo drone to tactical questions and means available from the various ministries. - Gentlemen, the “train deception” operation is already clear and ready as the first phase on D-Day. There’s no going back on it. The next phase is the really big and tricky bit, the cyber attack on North Korea’s national power grid. Crucial to weakening them, but with a first major complication.

The North Koreans have the best hacking teams in cyber space, far stronger than the Russian teams and almost better than ours. Unlike us, focused on industrial and military espionage, they steal between six hundred and twenty and a billion dollars a year from crypto-currency networks. The North Korean leader keeps the lion’s share for his ballistic development 102

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and his army. For the rest, he gives handouts to these ministries and starves the entire population outside the capital, where the privileged live. If our cyber services shut down the entire country’s power grid - which they confirmed, they could do in under twelve minutes - we were told that their teams would be able to restore it almost immediately. In other words, the power would be reconnected, and they’d be back up and running non-stop. This is pointless ping-pong, as it has to be radical and last several days. Worse still, they’d be able to trace it back very easily, thanks to their high degree of specialization in Internet routing coverage, despite the maximum IP network protection we’d be putting in place. When we asked our teams to set up masks that would last at least a week, we were told that this would be impossible due to our adversary’s technical sophistication in this area.

We know how to camouflage cyber-attacks, but it doesn’t take long, and there’s always someone stronger than another who will find an access door and denounce our services, which would bring the whole operation to an immediate halt. So we have to eliminate them before we start. Not in the physical sense of the word, as the central philosophy of the plan forbids us from aggression of any kind. Let’s take a look with you, Number One, at the list of North Korea’s clandestine cyber stations. Nine, including the most important of the “Lazarus” group, is in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The next largest are in Mauritius and Minsk, Belarus, for their second “Challima” group.

- Logical, as I read a footnote which states that of the list of one hundred and ninety-three UN member countries, only twenty-seven still give them visas on arrival, but nine require no visa at all, and they enter and leave freely. Including the three countries mentioned, in fact. 103

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-For our part, we’ve always had a very large underground team in Kuala, including guys married to Malaysian women who are fully integrated into the local population.

In Mauritius, we financed an industrial free zone and the extension of the airport. We have a fine team, including security guards who become bodyguards for our ministers on vacation, but this time with their families, as the mistresses are too conspicuous! These two countries have very high-level fiber-optic internet networks, so it’s obvious that they’ve placed their leading teams there. In Minsk, we don’t have a strong team and an under-equipped consulate. On the other hand, I have a very special idea for this position. - But I had understood from one of the first documents that they were hosted in Russia instead.

- Three things happened. The first came from the Russian cyber teams, who didn’t appreciate at all having counter-attacks by Western forces on their network, falsely accusing them of their maneuvers. They were drowning their operations behind the Russian network, which spies at all levels, but does not steal crypto currencies.

Secondly, the two leaders had a diplomatic falling out. The Russian president didn’t come in person but sent his defense minister to Pyongyang for the 70th anniversary of the Korean War on July 27, 2023. I can see in your eyes that this seems like a low point of anger. Because you don’t know the third one. You’ve followed that North Korea was actually enthusiastic about the war in Ukraine and quickly offered to sell weapons including their tactical drones. And you’ll recall that Russia chose a very different sup104

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plier, because they felt that the Korean drones had old-generation electronic guidance equipment that was very easy to hack.

So the “Supreme Leader” was offended three times. Getting his cyber team sent back from Moscow to bleak Minsk, not showing up in person for a major date and refusing to buy his war toys. The two presidents have been in a bitterly cold mood ever since, and we’re going to make the most of it in our general strategy.

As a tactical conclusion, we’re putting all our resources into Malaysia and Mauritius. In fact, the network interconnection graph shows that they account for 60% of our business. If we cut these two stations, it could be enough for our teams to crush their electrical network and halt any future counterattacks.

But we’ve got to get to their station in Minsk to make sure we’ve stopped everything. I’d like to be a fly on the wall to see their faces when they trace the routes of attacks coming from our services and not from their usual Western adversaries! They mustn’t have the time to see it, and we’ll have to neutralize them long before that. - What do you suggest?

- We’re not going to play it like a Netflix series with two killers who, in the middle of the night, would shoot them and smash all the equipment, because they wouldn’t be able to clean up everything and the Malaysian police are professionals.

Of course, at first they’ll think it’s the Americans, the easy culprit, but as always, even a tiny mistake would trace them back to us. Not only is this against the central philosophy of the plan, but it would also disrupt our diplomatic relations with Malaysia. A country which is always on our side when it comes to voting at the UN. 105

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- I’ve got a light! Like all cyber teams, they lock themselves in an ultra-secure room with all their equipment. So that’s a room to forget. But there’s always a kitchen where they have to go from time to time to eat and drink.

- Drinking, that’s the angle of attack. We’re going to ask our laboratory specializing in viruses and various poisons what they recommend for use in drinks. - Wait a minute, how are you going to get the product in?

- The first option is cleaning ladies, and we’ve got them in every country on our payroll, because you remember that’s our old trick for learning trivial daily information that, in the end, often serves us confidential subjects, like simply the arrival of Western ministers’ girlfriends. - You mean we’ve got them everywhere?

- They’re all totally pro-Chinese Laotians who are towns and neighborhoods where residents are under contract to maintenance companies. - It’s going to take a long time to get a maintenance company to stick to their offices.

- Mostly I think they’re careful and clean up after themselves. So it doesn’t stick. We forget. - They have to do their own shopping and not have it delivered either.

- To be effective, we could inoculate the pipes with poison and murder the whole building. - I suppose you’re being sarcastic!

- These are young people under thirty. They drink Cola and energy drinks to stay awake. - We’ve got it. We’re going to offer them some!

- Wait a minute, does that mean we’ll have to station an agent outside their homes 24/24, using thermal imaging cameras 106

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to follow one of their number to the shops and, on his return, decipher their favorite brand from the package? - Heavy, feasible, but too long to organize.

- Let’s cut to the chase and get our teams of kids monitoring social media to find out what’s the latest energy drink craze in Malaysia. - I have the following idea. We get a delivery boy dressed up in the brand’s logos to deliver twelve bottles. A gift from the local supermarket where they’re used to. Even for the most distrustful, gifts are always taken, and even more so if it’s the latest fashionable drink of their generation.

- Not bad at all, we’re almost there. I read in one of the confidential reports I used to receive at my presidential office that one of the most subtle poisons our labs have discovered doesn’t cause death but only attacks the pigments of the optic nerve, and accelerates the symptoms of the “Macula”, making you almost blind but not completely.

What’s more, vision returns progressively after four days, so the whole operation would have to be completed in that time. According to my plan anyway, I set the counter at just three days for the operation to be completed. - That’s perfect, because what matters is that they no longer have the capacity to work on their multiple screens. Making them die is not only irrelevant, it would also raise serious alarms at their headquarters. - We’re in sync with the operation’s philosophy. No death, all perverse subtlety to bring down the enemy without a fight.

- I like it, Mauritius and Kuala Lumpur will follow this plan. Minsk is to be studied in depth now. To you Number Two, are you satisfied with the answers to the questions about the power grid? 107

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- They replied that in the event of our cyber team shutting down the entire North Korean power grid, they have emergency diesel generators that kick in immediately and for the following maximum durations: 24 hours for the presidency and the Ministry of the Armed Forces; 12 hours for ballistic facilities; 6 hours for all official buildings, military bases and airports; 4 hours for buildings considered important, such as the central bank and some government-owned companies.

- What this means is that we need to tackle the supply side of the equation beforehand, on the one hand, and on the other, cut off everything as quickly as possible so that they can use up their stock, so that on D-Day there’s almost nothing in the tanks. The two operations have to be perfectly synchronized. A great challenge just to get started on what’s in store for them. - Number Six, what can we do to prevent them from restocking right away?

- Their supplier is the Russians, because we don’t sell them anything in this respect, or am I mistaken? - On the contrary, we buy this particular type of diesel from the same Russians. - Do you have details of the logistical organization?

- The diesel arrives at the port of Vladivostok, ready to be exported to the whole of Asia. They have a three-year contract to supply a buffer stock to an isolated town near the triple Russian-Chinese-North Korean border called “Kraskino”. It’s an industrial zone, and trucking is one of the main jobs for the local men. There are no pipelines and it’s a 223 km, four-hour drive with their old-generation trucks.

- You mean there’s a constant stream of trucks from Vladivostok to Kraskino to reach the buffer depot, which is dedicated solely to the North Korean market? 108

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- That’s right, and all these truckers - because there are over fifty of them coming and going - are a good source of income for this small town. - From the buffer stock to the Korean border, how many kilometers?

- Only forty-seven kilometers, and a second team of truckers based in “Kraskino” makes the shuttle to the border.

- Are they transferring the diesel to the North Korean trucks that will be driving down the whole territory?

- There’s a cargo and passenger train station at the border town of Tumangang. Trucks with Russian plates have a special authorization to show the border guards, and go to a final depot near the station where the diesel is transferred onto rolling cars. - They’re well organized after all.

- So, what’s your idea for blocking all this in sync with the countrywide blackout that must last long enough to melt reserves?

- Your idea of using drink to make the cyber teams unproductive inspired me to come up with a more playful one, this time using one of our best spirits. - Ah, I can feel you coming, you want to get Russian drivers drunk, but they’re very resistant to the strongest spirits, and at best this will make them slightly less efficient for a few hours.

- Listen to my complete plan. Our border is also very close to Kraskino, with a good-sized town called “Hun Chun” where all the traffic in Russian products, such as fish, passes through. It’s a very small and bad road, and only these same truckers make it a very profitable second job for themselves. - You’re not going to kidnap them and keep them warm in “Hunchun”? 109

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- No, that wouldn’t last long and wouldn’t be enough to stop the traffic. I’ve got a better idea. We could organize a friendship party between our Hunchun merchants who receive merchandise from these Russians every week. I’ve read that the giant crabs we’re fond of are excellent. - How do you feel about the diesel tankers, because that’s where we’re stuck!

- Just a minute. So I see the organization of a very large banquet to which we’d invite all the notables and truckers who in fact feed the town. We’d bring them a good hundred bottles of our “Moutai” cuvée prestige at 70% alcohol by volume. - Again, that’s not going to knock them off the table, even at that level. Siberians, even with 90% pure alcohol, wouldn’t budge a millimeter!

- Of course, but what I’m looking for is at least a slower reaction time to the fire alarm that’s about to be triggered. - You’re distilling your idea bit by bit.

- In the vehicles coming down from “Hunchun” to join the party, we integrate two of our top-level saboteurs. They’ll jump out of the vehicles a few kilometers before arriving at the village in the direction of the stockyard. Imagine the scenario: the party begins, and there’s no one of importance left in the small town other than the banquet hall.

Our satellite images show a simple fence and a single guard post. Nothing very solid, as they’re at home and can’t imagine anyone coming to tap the cisterns!

The cyber team also indicated that there was no computer network detected in the depot. So it’s all very standard stuff with big valves to open, nothing difficult. 110

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- Well, they open as many valves as they can, and the guard post doesn’t see a thing as long as it doesn’t run down to their feet. I don’t mind, but it’s going to take a while to empty. - One more minute... I’m planning for our guys to enter the area after waiting for the first two drinks to be taken, say twenty-five minutes, to allow time to get to the shopkeepers and serve the glass of friendship with “Ganbie” and “Za Vas”. - The next difficulty is that diesel is difficult to ignite, as it has to reach at least fifty-two degrees to really get going. I asked for the technical solution to make it start quickly, and they produced a whole explanation of drop atomization to do this, which I didn’t grasp.

They assured me that the team would have a special tool just to get the fire started, because then, the very good news is that it’s virtually impossible to stop the fire because of its energy content of 35-38 megajoules per liter compared to 31-32 for gasoline. This is the sheet that explains it as I discover these details. - So the fire starts. The alert is given by the guard, who wakes up anyway. What are their fire-fighting resources?

- The sheet was vague on the subject, so I asked for another satellite pass with a search and zoom on the fire engines, three of small cubage. Anyway, they’re going to go and do their best, but it looks like everything will be consumed and there will probably be explosions? - I’ve asked them to calculate the time involved.

- However, their last resort is going to be to send the trucks to the Vladivostok refinery, which means an eight-hour round trip plus the two-hour load break to the North Korean station. - But the very good news is that, in any case, they won’t have any new stock, as everything is intended for the Indian mar111

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ket and for us. You understand that we’re already customers and good payers, unlike the North Koreans.

So I had an additional purchase order prepared to make sure there wouldn’t be a drop left to sell for at least two months. So they’ll be totally dry and candle-lit for a while.

- I can see the little brains turning around and saying to themselves: here’s a good little market to sell a few million candles! You’re incorrigible, always on the lookout for little deals that pay off. Prison hasn’t changed you too much after all! - Jokes aside, I’m quite satisfied with this fine operation, which is a little complicated, but which goes a long way towards general deception. Check the number of fire trucks and other safety details. Then the plan seems quite viable.

- Back to you, Number One, on the temporary blinding of the cyber boys. How can we be sure they’re going to drink our beverage, since I presume, they have more in their fridge? - I’ve been thinking about this aspect, which can delay us. So we have to get them to eat, and I’m thinking again of a gift from the local supermarket, but more complex to organize.

- They might at some point be suspicious of such a generous shopkeeper. I suppose you’ve thought about buying it?

- I’ve thought of two things. One is to sign him some nice orders for the consulate, even if it will surprise him because of the distance in kilometers between them.

But when the money arrives, he’ll forget that detail. Secondly, he’s told that the young people from next door who often come are part of our teams and that he’s sworn to secrecy. Nothing like a little lie to make him an accomplice. - Dangerous all the same, because if one day he declares that he’s seen their Chinese buddies and not like them North Ko112

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reans, because physically we don’t look at all alike, that’s going to set off alarm bells.

- It’s reckless, but I can’t think of any other way to get them to bring me pizzas as a gift. So the drinks delivery man, who is one of our agents, is already going to tell us what’s in the fridge because he can innocently offer to put the bottles in place so that they’re quickly chilled. - Our agents aren’t very good actors, and he may stammer, but we can at least ask him for this kind of small gesture all the same.

- So we have them deliver pizzas, but from where? Our agent at the KL consulate who took part in the case study has a German friend who owns one of the best pizzerias in town. A certain Gregor. - Is it really famous? Well, not too well, because they’ll be suspicious of receiving a second gift from one of the best pizzerias in town, don’t you think? - No city-wide reputation yet, but it’s in a neighborhood very close to theirs, so it’s credible for the distance.

- Let me summarize: a good pizzeria run by a German who innocently delivers pizzas to our cybers, donated by the supermarket because they’re very good customers so that at least they finish their stock of drinks and attack ours just offered. It makes sense, but only just. - But there’s another pitfall. In their team, there’s a young woman with the same level of expertise as them.

- Oh, you mean she must be the kind of woman who likes to keep her figure, doesn’t eat much and doesn’t drink sugary soft drinks? - I’m afraid she is the iced tea type. 113

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- So let’s imagine, she’d be left alone to deal with the alarms and at the same time try to treat her colleagues in a hurry, so she’d probably be looking for a nearby hospital. - Solution: we put an ambulance in front of their office with two of our agents waiting for her to arrive - in this scenario, probably in a panic. One of the paramedics neutralizes her with another poison that puts her in a light coma.

This means that they will accompany her to hospital to put her on a drip for at least two days. The only clean solution, since liquidating her CIA-style is out of the question. - Good original plan, let’s go. Take the necessary steps in the instructions for the next cargo drone flight to have the various poisons sent by diplomatic bag to KL, with orders to wait for our formal signal.

Number Six, you look preoccupied. No good answers to your questions from your old corps?

- I just realized that the North Koreans have taken advantage of the covid epidemic to build a double-row wall on their northern border with us. Satellite images give it a virtually end-to-end length of one thousand four hundred and twenty kilometers.

This has had the desired effect, because in 2022 there were only 63 deflectors, the majority of which passed through the south according to the additional explanations I was given to read. - You mean it’s totally locked with a double wall? - What’s your idea?

- I’m still going to study the satellite images more thoroughly one by one and ask for new passes over places that don’t yet look partially completed. 114

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I seem to have seen a favorable one in the axis of the town of “Kanggye”, practically in the middle of this long border. But the river seems wide, which means that our tank transport pontoons, the longest of which measures 250 meters in several sections, could be too short and this need to be accurately verified. .

We’d have to send one of our undercover agents to check things out on the ground, as satellite technology has its limits. - You’re right let’s take a closer look at the best part. Make up a memo for your old ministry and group it with the other files.

- Number 8 come I have an idea for neutralizing “Challima” in Minsk that may work for two days at most. In one of the latest reports from our Cyber team, I asked where the interconnection between the Russian and North Korean IP networks and ours is hosted.

These are router cabinets in independent private rooms at our CHN-IX network head office in Tianjin. Rooms where only the general administrator, us and authorized staff have access, with high-level security cards for the Russians and North Koreans to access their routers. -Please don’t go into too many technical details, although I can see that you’ve immersed yourself in this sector with a passion. -In short, in addition to double-layer encapsulation of IP routing between the two countries, so that from the outside you’ll never know who’s who.

This still won’t be enough, and they suggest that I give their specialists access to the cabinets, so that they can cross the fiber optic network of both countries to create immediate confusion - yes, but in a matter of seconds, the maintenance engineers will rush in to access the cabinets and put everything back in place! 115

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The magnetic cards of all personnel will be blocked, without exception, on the pretext of a major security attack on the entire network head-end. In other words, we’re going to bar access to all staff outside our company for at least two days. -Not bad, but you’re going to add an extra layer of security for me to get rid of their team in Minsk.

You’re going to order our cyber office in contact with their equivalent in Moscow to heavily denounce the North Koreans as the perpetrators of the serious accusations against them. You tell them to make it loud and clear, and shake things up at the highest levels of power in the Kremlin. If our guys use the right language, I’m sure they’ll do the elimination work for us.

Gentlemen, we’re close, let’s buckle up and speed up! Because the next drone leaves in an hour! ~~

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“The best way to defeat an enemy is to convince him that he is not your enemy.” Han Xin Military strategy and unifying General of China (2nd century BC)

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CHAPTER 8

MINSK PALACE OF INDEPENDENCE Inside the Palace of Independence, President Lukashenko’s private office blends opulence and modernity. The walls are adorned with mahogany woodwork, engraved with motifs celebrating the country’s history. A large Belarusian oak desk sits in the center, topped by an antique inkwell and an ultra-flat-screen computer. A contemporary bookcase displays an impressive collection of books, while a large tactile map of Belarus occupies an entire wall. A crystal chandelier lights up the room, and large windows offer panoramic views over Minsk. Mr. President, you have a call from the Kremlin on the unencrypted line. -Hello Vladimir Vladimirovich. Are you calling me on the unencrypted line for an early-morning friendly greeting? -My dear Alexander Grigoryevich, I wish our adversaries to listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you. Because I need a big favor from you. -I’d be happy to do anything. What can I do for you? 118

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-I’ve received serious reports from my two cyber bureaus, APT 128 of the GRU and APT 129 of the FSB, describing in technical terms too long to express to you that the North Korean cyber teams have encapsulated their IP routing in ours.

All this to frame us for a cyber attack on their own power grid. Which is the last straw, but I still can’t stop this serious accusation in the normal way. -You mean to say that the “Challima” group you sent away from your home by asking me to welcome them here, is once again playing the game of blaming their cyber-attacks on your own teams?

-This time I’m going to ask you to send one of your best police brigades to have them locked up immediately in your toughest prison for at least a week while my services investigate further what they’ve done. -I’ll have to calm down their country’s ambassador. That’s the fun part, because I love violently shaking these self-important pretentious people.

In a moment I will rush my best team to their address at 17 Ulitsa Diplomatischeskaya in the embassy zone.

I promise you a show-stopping arrest that will scare the hell out of their neighborhood. And then I’m going to think about which prison to send them to, I’m not sure which is tougher, “Okrestina” or “Valadarski”. Count me in, it will be done in an hour!

“COLLECTOR’S” VILLA LIBRARY

- Are you ready, gentlemen? For here are your future companions, a fine team of our latest “Epsilon” models. 119

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A flashing light turns on. The library’s sliding door opens with a gentle slide, revealing eight graceful, humanoid figures embodying technological perfection. They enter the room, their movements so fluid and graceful they seem to walk on a cloud. Each of them is dressed in high fashion gowns by Dior, Valentino, Gucci and Chanel, except for the tallest, who wears an eccentric dress by “Thom Browne”, the highly original New York couturier, captivating the eyes of all spectators. Their multicolored eyes shine with a mysterious glow, and their faces are sculpted with unrivalled precision. They are a dazzling celebration of engineering and art, a manifestation of elegant, fascinating femininity. Every smile, every gesture is calculated to perfection, revealing flawless beauty and unparalleled sophistication. The room is filled with silent wonder, as these eight humanoid ladies continue their elegant march, witnessing the pinnacle of technology and the perfect harmony between elegance and innovation. - Good evening, gentlemen. Thank you for a lovely ride on this cute little Disneyland train. It was a bit chilly, though. You should have brought a little vest to match our high fashion outfits, after all!

The seven bastards are dazed by the grace and musical voice of the woman who has just spoken.

- Gentlemen, you’re going to have to wake up, because right now you look like pubescent teenagers seeing a real woman for the very first time.

- I’m Number Eight. Don’t be too quick to judge my acolytes, for they’ve just been through long, difficult years, which they’ll tell you about later, face to face. 120

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- Ah, you’re Number Eight, the one assigned to me. Nice to meet you, Mr. Eight. Funny not to say your first name, but I’m sure I’ll get you to say it in private. - Gentlemen, please stand up because we’re about to sit down to dinner, and you’ll each be seated next to the one dedicated to you.

- Guys, relax, it’s Saturday night and I’ve already served you an Aberlour 18-year-old Malt that should have done the trick by now - Um... these ladies need to understand, firstly, that we haven’t been close to women for at least eight years, and ten for others, and secondly, that we’ve never been used to so much beauty and...

- You were also going to say that you’ve never met humanoids, which creates a third, understandable stumbling block, as you couldn’t possibly know about our latest technological advances. Just to satisfy your curiosity: our first “Epsilon” 1.61 models were simplified for use as receptionists and other aspects of hotel service.

The next model 2.50 was the first with integrated AI of a sufficient level to fulfill corporate missions. I asked for the model above, which is a version designed for colonizing the Moon alongside human spacemen.

That’s model 2.75, with a very high level of AI and a physique suited to short space trips. The tallest, who is dedicated to me and played a little comedy pretending not to know me, has been my companion for a year.

It’s the Epsilon 3.14 model, the tallest in the series. They’re designed for long-distance space travel. First to Mars, which requires a three- to six-year mission, and then beyond for future space conquests. Fortunately for me, the date of her departure for Mars is not yet definite! 121

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Now that you know enough, I’m counting on them to distract you with their friendly chatter during lunch.

Each takes their corresponding number by the arm and, with a light, cloudy walk, accompanies the group to the dinner table. Two hours later, there’s a knock on the door of Number Two’s bedroom. - Here we are again, Number Two, after that interesting dinner conversation about Ming vases... - You have a vast culture that impressed me, as you managed to catch me out on dates I thought were correct.

- It’s not me, it’s the AI database that’s been integrated into me and on which I’m constantly educating myself.

- All the same, you’re not reciting anything banal, but interpreting and deducing from historians’ analyses. - It’s true that the language I’ve been introduced to allows me to be creative in my answers, and I play on their originality as best I can.

I would have hated to have had an AI from the very early years that served up rehash in a very banal way.

- Where we were, we heard about all this on the TVs in our canteen, but we didn’t have internet access, so it was very far removed from our daily prison life. - But first, what’s your first name?

- I don’t want to tell you, because it’s very ordinary next to your Valentine. Because I think it’s very charming that you’ve been given Western names. - I understand it was deliberate because you’ve all had very bad experiences with Chinese women in the past and the people who organized all this didn’t want to bring back bad memories. 122

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- I can feel my human defenses coming down, and that golden gaze is fascinating.

- But that’s nothing, because there are twelve colors to choose from, which you can even mix and match to suit your mood. Personally, I love red and black, which I adopt for a sex party.

- Slowly, I’m still very traumatized, first by the women who betrayed me and had me imprisoned, and...

- That I’m a humanoid, of course. At the right moment, we’ll turn out the lights and I bet I’ll make you forget all about it. Because as for me, I love sex and I’m starting to feel the urge... - Oh, slowly, very slowly.

- I understand, so let’s start at the beginning: a good massage with a relaxing cream. You can’t refuse that!

- Right, especially as I’ve had my spine all tensed up and my shoulder muscles locked up for a very long time. - Come on, Number Two, shower first! Number Seven bedroom. - What’s your first name?

- Laureline, do you like it?

- I heard it once in a science-fiction film and read it in a novel. So it seems obvious to me that you’ve been named after a woman who symbolizes our future. - Does it scare you to be next to a humanoid?

- On the plus side, you’re eight inches taller than my wife and ex-mistresses, and I’ve always dreamed of tall women who are hard to find in this country. - I’m 1.72 and 1.80 with heels that aren’t too high.

- As I’ve shrunk with age, I feel like a dwarf next to you. - But you’re so cute with your deep wrinkles! - Professional talk, I see.

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- But no, it comes naturally. Don’t forget one essential thing that sets us apart from humans, which is that we’re not paid for service, so everything we do and say is purely true, with no haggling.

- I have to believe you, but I’m still naturally embarrassed, I suppose. - I suggest we have a drink and continue our discussion about the Flemish art you appreciate so much. You’ll relax and at least feel better. Sex isn’t compulsory, which would be a pity, because I’m very fond of it. A night with a man without sex is too sad, don’t you think? - Probably, but I’m not ready yet. Number One bedroom. Lucie straddled him with howls and sonorous slaps on his buttocks. The duo had barely waited for the door to close before throwing themselves on top of each other and stripping off their clothes. As soon as he touched the silky skin imitating that of a 20-year-old girl, he succumbed and began covering her with kisses without being able to stop. Eight years of fasting were wiped away in a flash from the first penetration. - You’ve got a lot of energy, my dear sir, and we understand each other very well, because I’m a huge sex eater! - I used to be too, and it cost me dearly. But with you I was immediately relaxed and ready.

- I’m glad that my very first role, which is to make you forget your cruel ex-wife, worked out so well. - It couldn’t have been more different, as she was demanding in everything and refused to make love, blackmailing me for bigger and bigger gifts. 124

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- I’ve been reading a lot of romance books in my AI database and I’ve found that after a very romantic start it quickly turns sour. Are all humans like that? - Probably, but I don’t really know anymore, and I don’t really care anymore, because I’m with you and I feel that in about thirty minutes we’re going to start again, but more slowly, with gentleness and sensuality this time. - I know how to play softly, even if I prefer wild love! Number Three bedroom.

-I played him a little Parisian comedy, taking advantage of my first name Michèle. Then, a little cuddle with my hands and he exploded a tiny geyser in a minute. Now he’s sleeping blissfully.

And snoring too. Not a pretty sight, a man with his mouth open and drooling! What a noise.

I’ve got to remember to use the ear canal shut-off function in case of sound inconvenience. Damn, I can’t find it. Ah, that regular noise is irritating. I can understand why humans are disgusted by it.

Besides, I’m frustrated without sex. With all these handsome valets who are so well built and young compared to the older one I’ve been entrusted with. No sex so for tonight I hope my friends will be luckier. Number Six bedroom.

- Victoria, you’re too beautiful for me.

- I’m aware of men’s initial shyness because we’re amazons on the subject of sex when we’ve decided on it.

- You understand that we were made to feel so guilty that we were aggressors abusing women, if only through language even without touching you. After a while, this morality has 125

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emasculated us and we don’t dare say or do anything for fear of being taken for a potential rapist. - Yes, my AI database has informed me of this reverse situation, where the average man doesn’t dare move an inch for fear of being accused of a sexual crime, long before he’s actually committed it. Sad, but the result of years of abuse. You should have expected it. - But I’m confused again and probably stupid in that respect. You can’t give birth, I suppose.

- In fact, we have no reproductive powers, which is why we are dedicated to space conquests. Can you imagine a nursery on the Moon or Mars for the children of astronaut couples? I hope we’ll be going into space as soon as possible, because if we stay on Earth too long, we’ll be accused of contributing to the falling birth rate. I’ve got a feeling that some men, completely disoriented by human women, are going to want to marry us!

- Possible indeed. You never grow old, always pleasant and smiling and always ready to make love. Too good to be true! - But no, touch me, I’m here, Number Six, but I want to go to the Moon and live there as soon as possible. I’m ready to go. Number Four bedroom.

- Miss, I don’t like you at all. You’re all too perfect and lack the slightest flaw that gives you charm.

- Oh, you’re so rude and you haven’t even asked me my first name, which is Virginie!

- Very original for a Chinese woman, but you’re plastic to me, even high-quality plastic, and I can’t get it out of my mind. Everything about you is too perfect and fake. For yes, I loved my wife’s childbirth scars because they aroused tenderness in me. Yes, I loved my first mistress who didn’t know how to 126

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apply make-up and always had rimmel dripping down her cheek. I also loved one who was always in jeans and a leather jacket, rather masculine and rough around the edges. In short, I loved all the flaws in their bodies and characters, and I’m chilled, I’d even say frozen, by your perfection. - If I may say so, this is because you were a man of great power but full of complexes. That no one ever told you that your superior intelligence gave you the strong look of a very handsome man. You were never given the compliments you deserved, so you settled for very little.

- What’s more, they gave you psychology lessons in your robotic manufacturing labs! - You’re on edge, and I’m disappointed that our discussion at dinner about Greek philosophy, of which you’re a connoisseur, didn’t relax you. - I don’t buy it, because everything you know comes from the AI and not from you. You chew over everything we’ve recorded for you.

- One moment, sir, we’ve been given billions of pieces of information, yes, but we’ve also been given the ability to analyze, and that’s where our creativity comes in. - I need to be convinced. Let’s continue our conversation and move on to another subject, Italian “Quattrocento” painting. Let’s have a look, because I’m a very knowledgeable expert on the subject. Number Five bedroom.

- Get undressed, Aurélie! - What’s your hurry?

- I’m still on the defensive, but I’m curious to see your figure and feel your skin. 127

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- Would you like a sexy dance disrobing or something very direct? - Direct and fast.

- You’re going to be an interesting subject because we were warned that we were going to come up against some very natural psychological blocks. Was I quick enough? I see a look of surprise. Is that a compliment, or do I have a physical defect you don’t like?

- Precisely, you’re like a sculpture in marble, a perfection. Turn slowly. Not even a little crease and discreet muscle under the skin. What hard work that must have been! - Yes, we understood that those who had worked on our model series for over fifteen years were finally satisfied with the result. I’m beautiful, aren’t I? - Extremely beautiful, but I can’t define that beauty. Or simply an extraterrestrial beauty from faraway lands in the imagination. - Am I with a poet?

- Modest in my younger days, two of my poems were published. Today, it’s funny, because in our ultra-digitized world, poetry written with a pen after weeks of searching for inspiration no longer exists. - Can I recite Victor Hugo’s “Tomorrow at dawn” if you like? - No thanks, let me admire you again.

- After you’ve taken a good look at me, what shall we do?

- Don’t be in such a hurry. I’m just coming off ten years of abstinence and I need to get to know you better before taking the plunge. - As for me, it’s the other way round: we’ve been trained to be ready as soon as we’re close to a man. So I’m already in the early stages of sexual ebullition. Don’t make me wait too long! 128

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Number Eight bedroom. - At last we meet again, Athena. I’d like to thank you for putting together such a fine team for our seven men, and I for one have been looking forward to seeing you again. - Me too, and I’ve spent many a night dreaming of our reunion.

- You’re as romantic as humans, really, your creators have done very well! - Don’t you like it?

- On the contrary, but it’s still surprising to see that they’ve done everything to copy the good side of humans and eliminate the difficult character angles.

- Some people say that we’re too perfect and that this blocks them. - Not me, because since I’ve met you I can’t get close enough to a human woman. - I feel sorry for you because it must be distracting to change from time to time.

- You’ve known me for almost a year and you know that I have a taste for perfection in everything I do. Especially in my work, and then sport. With you, I’ve come full circle, you were the missing link. - I’m delighted to hear it, so maybe one day you’ll marry me?

- They even taught you the old reflex of women who, as soon as they feel that a man is ripe for the taking, think of marriage! They’ve left nothing out in the copy. - Not a nice thing to say, because you know me as a romantic and not just sex-hungry like my colleagues. - Yes, because I asked for a moderate setting on that front. I’m tired of sex and have other things to do.

- Behind your front of being an extremely tough and manipulative boss, you’re also a great romantic! 129

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- Shut up and never say that to anyone. People would think I had a weakness, and I can’t afford that at my level of authority. - Of course, my darling!

- Oh, yes... We’ve also taught you how to say sweet words, and in French no less! By the way, compliments on your entry with one of the latest copies of the “Tom Browne” fashion show.

It’s spectacular and so different from the very chic banality of the great classic couturiers. He’s a great avant-garde artist and our tailors have copied him very well. But do you hear that raucous howling? - That’s Lucie’s noisy style when she’s in the “A la Cleopatra” position. - Cleopatra? What’s that supposed to mean?

- Ah yes, it’s the elegant word in French. In English it’s “Cowgirl”, where the man is underneath and the lady rides back and forth with energy. - At least this echo of great sex should inspire others, as everyone enjoys Lucie’s erotic cavalcade with Number One! Now that you’re no longer performing, undress while I go take a shower and then we’ll sleep against each other, no more.

Sex Will Be for Next Saturday. May Be ! ~~

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« Every confrontation, every battle, is deeply rooted in the skillful use of deception and trickery.” Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 9

K R-SOCK HAWAII From the meeting room, a vast bay window reveals the heart of the satellite control center. The atmosphere is electric. You can almost feel the tension in the air, a palpable concentration, mixed with the excitement of discovery and the anticipation of future challenges. From the meeting room, the retired K1 team has a bird’s eye view of this hive of activity, admiring the complexity and precision with which each individual performs his or her role. - Welcome to Hawaii for our new K1 team. Let’s get down to business. What progress has been made following the latest communication from Guam?

- First of all, as we thought, there is indeed a leader, since eight humanoid women have arrived instead of seven, so one is dedicated to the unknown character who must already have been there before the group arrived. - She’s the brains behind it all. Initially, we had imagined a plot by contractors against the state, but this was cancelled as soon as we visualized that ordinance officers wearing the 132

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exact uniform of their corps came to collect their respective bags at the arriving military airport.

- They’ve been going non-stop for four weeks now, but there have been some notable changes, with some corps being eliminated as they went along, and others seeming less interesting to follow. - With one very striking constant: frequent, non-stop backand-forth with their cyber teams. Clearly, a very big topic, so I’m going to let Cyber Command at Fort Meade know about these developments. - Don’t you think it’s a bit early? Apart from telling them that we see their Chinese colleague every day next to a cargo drone, they’ll think it’s short notice. - Rather, I think they’ll like early warning because they’re monitoring the whole world. I’m going to tell them to reinforce their surveillance team over China right away, and I have the authority over the Pacific zone to do this.

- Yes, it’s better for them to be prepared, because then things can happen very quickly. - I’ll never be blamed for being cautious, especially with the supporting visuals I’m going to send them, which should shake them up a bit. One novelty was the arrival of a civilian in a banker’s suit and tie, waiting with his briefcase next to the cyber estafette. - Let’s take another look. Ah yes, very “Wall Street” in style, but in a tougher, calmer Chinese way, less enthusiastic than our market agitators.

- More like a high-level executive of a major bank. Not a subordinate, however, and he goes there personally. So he’s exchanging important instructions not to be shared. - Good analysis, you can see the decision-maker and not a little messenger. He came five times, the last time alone, which 133

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is remarkable because even the cyber boy didn’t come for the last drone flight.

- In conclusion, they’ve finished the flights, because for the last two days, it’s been totally quiet on that front. - What do you think?

- The four of us brainstormed, and our consensus is that we’re looking at an upcoming military operation of major importance, the conclusion of which will be a financial operation on a grander scale.

- Indeed, how could we imagine moving all the army corps to a major level by the nature of the secret and the exceptional organization. Certainly not for a few extra dollars! - Right, and now gentlemen, after all that non-stop frantic agitation that has returned to complete silence, what does this inspire in you? Where will they go as soon as the plan is finalized?

- If the Air Force had been heavily involved, but we’ve only seen it twice, I’d have said that all put together they’re planning a big coup on Taiwan. It’s been a long time coming, and we’re approaching the centenary of the PLA, created in August 1927. We know they’ll want to show their might in equipment and men for this date. Setting up an ultra-spectacular coup seems obvious to me as we approach this key anniversary in 2027. - Not Taiwan either, as there were ten shuttles back and forth with the Army. This seems to be a very important body for the operation which is totally irrelevant to attacking Taiwan.

- So not Taiwan. Too bad because we’re ready for it. In addition to the QUAD strategic agreement with Japan, Australia and India, said to be informal for the time being, we have locked in agreements with the Philippines, reopening two of the bases we closed in 1992. In Indonesia, we have signed 134

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military agreements that are still confidential. Singapore is a very cooperative and solid military asset on which we can rely.

And for Japan, we managed to find a way to divert the article of the constitution of May 3, 1947, which signed the beginning of their demilitarization. It was we who had imposed it back in November 1946, after our victory over our aggressor. But now, with the support of our defense industry, which is reaping huge contracts, we are remilitarizing them at breakneck speed, this time on our shores. Naturally, our adversaries on the other side are irritated by this defensive cordon, which looks like a continuous crescent from east to west. So we’re almost ready to defend Taiwan well, conventionally anyway. But you’re right, this emphasis on the army suggests another destination, but what is it? - We’ve spent a good deal of time studying the fifteen countries that border China over 22,117 kilometers of land. We’re going to go as fast as we can to eliminate the options, because we have a conclusion that keeps two to submit.

- Russia first, as the Chinese have one of their largest armored regiments in the northeast of the country, in the Khabarovsk axis. But not for a conquest scenario, but rather to support a new regional power in Eastern Siberia. This in the perspective of a break-up of the federation, one of the scenarios envisaged following their latest adventure in Europe.

Together, the Siberian region and the Russian Far East could separate from the federation under an autonomous government with Novosibirsk as its capital and Vladivostok as a strategic second port city. This isn’t just a fantasy, as there are already well-established local groups urging the population in this direction, and waiting for the right moment, which is always very difficult to discern in this country. 135

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- Distracting analysis, can you believe it, you four?

- It depends on whether the central power explodes or not. But as far as the Chinese are concerned, they need to be ready when Russia disintegrates in order to sign economic, financial and military agreements with this autonomous Siberian region as soon as possible. Follow my deductions. Thanks to this, they’ll have access to the North Pole, and to date they’ve only been invited there on innocuous scientific missions. - That’s what I think. Interesting, but not yet topical, and not in the emergency scenario they’ve just shown us.

- India now. Since 1975, they’ve had regular clashes on their 3440 km long common border bordering the Himalayas, which China calls “Southern Tibet”. Mostly it’s brutal brawling by excited soldiers arguing over the LAC line, including a strategic road under construction in the “Aksai Chin” plain area. The two presidents, Modi and Xi, are always at each other’s throats at the BRICS and G20 international meetings.

It could still degenerate into all-out war, but India is too big a chunk to swallow. They’re much smarter than that, and need to think about conquering medium-sized or smaller countries. The Sino-Vietnamese war lasted just one month, from February to March 1979, and was a reaction to Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. They quickly realized that the Vietnamese troops who had driven us back in shame - and we won’t go back over that! - were going to be ferocious in their counter-attack. They were more subtle: they waited thirty-one years before returning to Cambodia through the front door in 2010, signing a major economic agreement with a handsome development aid cheque for 1.2 billion dollars. At that point, the Vietnamese watched the train pass by helplessly. Today, Cambodia is an uncontested vassal of China. They’ve even arranged for the autonomous port of Sihanoukville to re136

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ceive Chinese military vessels in “theory and practice”. Not very subtle, but the reality of things. Cambodia is already home, and Vietnam is to be avoided.

- We’ve had a good time looking at the other eleven countries, and we’re going to go through the reasoning more quickly. Mongolia, a friendly country. Nepal, practically vassalized or rather occupied.

Pakistan, like India, too dangerous and unpredictable. Bhutan, very nice people who wouldn’t hurt a fly. The former Soviets Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are indispensable economic partners, and wanting more wouldn’t do any good.

- As for Afghanistan, we felt it would do everyone a favor to keep them busy and replace the enraged of the moment. The first difficulty is that their land access border is only seventy-six kilometers long in a very mountainous region.

They are good analysts of history, and tell themselves that first the British, then the Russians, and then the Americans tried to occupy this country, each with significant military and human disasters. They’re probably thinking, “Don’t touch it, it’s bad luck. I’m joking, but you know the superstitions in their Buddhist culture. It’s “lucky or not lucky”, nothing in between. So forget Afghanistan.

We are left with two very interesting cases, Myanmar and North Korea. In Myanmar, it is clear that they aided the 2021 coup d’état with financial aid derived from the trafficking of emeralds and rare minerals.

We know that today they are furious at the way the junta is massacring its own population by bombing villages of unarmed civilians, because they are indirectly suffering from this image of cruelty that they have financed. 137

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They’re probably thinking that it would be a good thing to go into the country and restore order, to establish a lost image on that side, because the more the days go by, the more the drama increases. The nine Asean countries - minus Myanmar - have sent frequent delegations to Beijing to ask them to stop all financial support, and to intervene in any way they can to ensure that the junta disappears.

We know they are studying the matter in detail for two reasons.

This would give them a military home port south of Yangon with direct access to the Bay of Bengal. A tactical coup just a stone’s throw from India. But above all, it’s one of the richest countries in the world in terms of unexploited rare earths. As you all know, this is currently one of the two most strategic angles in the global economic war. Owning sources of minerals and then transforming them into finished products, as the Chinese are so adept at doing, is crucial to the magnet and optics industries, including photonics in the quantum computing sector. Getting their hands on it must be very tempting, and even more so if they benefit from a peacemaker image in return!

So for us, Myanmar is the first scenario. With the army arriving via the northern border, a region today of intensive smuggling with Chinese traders who know the field extremely well. In short, it would suit everyone and would immediately have the support of Asean and the UN. - It would be highly ironic if an autocratic state were to eliminate a military junta in order to re-establish democracy, albeit under their control, but surely with a finer touch! - Possible indeed. Very interesting presentation, gentlemen. - And the remaining choice is North Korea.

- Wow! Are you guys sure of your analysis? 138

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- Not yet, but as with Myanmar, it makes sense.

- Firstly, you’ll have noted that since the Covid epidemic, the North Koreans have built a fortified double wall on their northern border with China. The reason given for this was that they had agreed to it, as they were fed up with receiving defecators via this border, which the Chinese then sent back to be immediately condemned.

But one wonders if this didn’t also have a deterrent effect to prevent the Chinese army from easily entering this side where they have amassed their most capable mechanized troops with their latest version of tank, the ZTZ 99. In any case, the bulk of the army is in the north-east and the second largest contingent is on the border with Nepal.

- Do you really mean to say that this is to block the entry of any Chinese troops, and for what sudden reason? - It’s a theory, of course. But this 1,420-kilometre wall can’t have been built just to prevent a few poor starving people from taking the risk of jumping into icy water, with the strong possibility of being sent back and suffering serious consequences not only for themselves, but for their entire families. - Quite intriguing indeed, but above all, why would they suddenly go and conquer North Korea?

- Our analysis, as with Myanmar, is that it would suit everyone to be rid of a clown who is very dangerous for everyone. This unpredictable character poses a serious risk to the whole planet, not just to the West and the USA, threatening us with missiles of varying effectiveness.

They have realized that by financially supporting the grandfather and father of the current “supreme” leader, they have, as in the case of Myanmar, given birth to a monster that has become impossible to manage. 139

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The country is in a state of famine exactly as it was in 1992, and I’m sure you don’t remember, but we were stationed in HK at the time. The state of famine lasted nine years with consequences not in the thousands but in the millions of deaths, a figure not precise due to the secrecy of this country’s archives. Which country turned the situation around by sending trainloads of free food? China, of course, because on the Western side, we pretended with a small UN program, but cynically, we were expecting the regime to fall, which didn’t happen. - So China saved them, and since then, instead of following the friendly advice of China’s good neighbor to stop diverting all available funds into the ballistic program, they’ve instead increased it tenfold by funding it through cyber-attacks on banks via its cyber teams like the most notorious one in February 2016 of the Bangladesh National Bank’s account at the New York Federal Reserve! It was for a small amount of $81 million, but the hit was swift and with no possibility of recovery.

I’m talking about their team known as “Lazarus”, who for the past three years have been breaking cryptocurrency codes and happily tapping into the wallets of naive, gullible investors who never saw it coming. To put it plainly, they are funding their entire ballistic missile program with these criminal proceeds, and at the same time making no contribution whatsoever to the food program, leaving their population literally starving to death for the second time in their history. They have not declared famine status, as the “supreme leader” prefers to present an image of a good family man. And you’ve all noticed that he’s had his smiling ten-year-old daughter by his side almost every day for several months! 140

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- So your analysis would conclude that North Korea could be the target of this secret preparation because it’s been a nuisance and no longer an ally for a very long time? Let’s imagine they return to Korea as you theorized for Myanmar.

That’s going to cost them in men and equipment, because I don’t see the North Koreans laying down their arms easily. They are so indoctrinated that they are ready to shoot a mosquito if their leader asks them to! So in your opinion, at the end of the attack, if it succeeds, the Chinese will turn North Korea into a well-guarded protectorate? They would resupply the population free of charge, as they did from 1992 to 1996. They make themselves loved, and now they’re geographically ahead of our twenty-five thousand troops stationed in South Korea?

- It would be a masterstroke on their part, because on our side we could do nothing more than watch as long as no bullet from their confrontation crossed the southern border of “Panmunjom”. - All the same, they have other priorities than that, and our studies clearly show that President Xi Jinping is rather fixated on his “Silicon IC 2025” plan, which was drawn up in 2014 with a considerable budget, for the time, of $162 billion. They’ve just recently added another $5 billion, and this time with a tight rein on their executives.

We’ve seen heads roll at the top of the program all the way up to the level of the program’s central oversight committee as the old-timers have all suddenly disappeared, as usual! The country’s new disciplines. If someone makes a serious mistake, he or she must disappear within a few hours. 141

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No trial, no information to the press. At the same time, there’s a lot of pressure on their families, with direct death threats for all of them.

Back in 2013, President Xi Jinping wasn’t kidding in his anti-corruption program, but now he doesn’t want to know anything or waste any time. If you’re presumed guilty, you disappear immediately, end of story. - Interesting geopolitical exposé, but where does it take us?

- To South Korea, home of the world’s second-largest microchip manufacturer, Samsung. And you saw a banker in the last few rotations of the cargo drone.

Our conclusion is that a major stock market coup is in the offing, with China gaining serious market position through external growth faster than through their internal growth, which has been stagnating for the past two years, and leaving them with a considerable strategic gap in the sector that will be increasingly difficult to make up. It’s an extreme measure but moving a few army corps doesn’t cost anything at all compared to taking a big chunk of market share. - By golly, you four have a great imagination, but it all makes sense one way or another. - A war over a stock market operation. A great classic!

- It’s as old as all military confrontations, where those in the know place their pawns at the right moment and reap the rewards.

- Samsung! Really? You see Samsung as the target of the endgame? I have a feeling it’s going to be fascinating to watch, right up to the moment when the first shot is fired by anyone, and then we’ll have to get in on the act! Otherwise, if there’s 142

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no fighting, we’ll just watch stupidly, without being able to do anything about it.

Fascinating report, dear analog K1s, you’re more exciting and constructive than the AI, which would have chewed up an implausible, albeit entertaining and highly polished, galimatias. ~~

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“The good warrior has already conquered before fighting”. Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 10

HLB BANK LABUAN - MALAYSIA The meeting room at the heart of the HLB bank is a model of cool modernity. The immaculate white walls are devoid of ornamentation, and the flawless glass table reflects the harsh light from the recessed spotlights. The minimalist steel and leather chairs add to the room’s sterile ambience. The managers stand motionless, awaiting the arrival of the founder, Hu Liang Bo, an octogenarian who rarely appears. When he enters, stooped and tired, an icy silence fills the room. But as soon as he begins to speak, his back straightens and his dark, intelligent gaze sweeps across the room. The pale faces of the managers betray their awareness of what is at stake. The founder, despite his age, still embodies the authority and vision that made his empire. Once the meeting is over, everyone will know that they have witnessed a defining moment for the bank and their careers. - Gentlemen, I have called you here because, after so many years, I have obtained a mandate for our bank which, if it sat145

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isfies my client, will be the crowning achievement of my career. If we fail to deliver a perfect service, I’ll have to shut up shop immediately. So that you can see what’s at stake for my bank, and consequently for all of you. A hand goes up.

- I’ll take questions at the end and then go on to summarize the operation. I received a “No Limit” mandate.

The whole audience looks astonished, some with mouths slightly ajar in surprise. - I have personally just opened the account of the client in question and he has deposited a first billion dollars, which for him is a modest amount, because, as few of you really know, “No Limit” indicates an investor who is going to exceed $100 billion in stock market transactions. And at this point, in view of your looks of great surprise, I won’t tell you any more than is necessary. The rules imposed on us are very precise.

The first is that we will invest in three companies in the microchip and semiconductor sectors that are listed exclusively on the Seoul Stock Exchange.

The second is that we will buy and hold the shares without reselling them on the market, regardless of whether the price is rising or falling sharply.

The third is that we must follow market rules very strictly, in line with the stock market regulator, as this is a non-speculative long-term investment operation. The securities are to be traded on a firm purchase basis, with no futures, and preference will be given to purchases in very large blocks, off-market, between institutional investors. 146

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Success will be measured solely by the gradual accumulation of shares in targeted companies to reach a level beyond the 3334% blocking minority that is our minimum mandate. At the 40% level of ownership of the companies you’ll read about in the ultra-confidential document I’m giving you, this will be considered the total success expected by our client. Below 30%, we will have failed the terms of the mandate, and I will put the bank up for sale.

You all have a face that looks like it’s going to burst into apoplexy after this talk. Remember the house rule: phlegm, phlegm and phlegm, no emotion. And now you’re proving me wrong! Go on, get to your questions, and hurry up, because we’re off tomorrow as soon as the market opens in Seoul. For my part, I’ve got a videoconference with the Chairman of the Seoul Stock Exchange in fifteen minutes to tell him in all transparency about our active arrival on the market. The two senior trading room staff, Ismail and Amirah, then stay in the room to absorb the spectacular information from the founding chairman and implement the strategies. - It’s early and not the time for strong alcohol, which is forbidden in this prudish bank. But you must admit that the amounts he’s just announced are impressive, even frightening.

- You’re not the type to be intimidated by billions, but this is going too high and too loud.

- What’s clear is that if you don’t manage to process orders properly, you’ll be fired straight away without any compensation, and it’ll be hard to find another job in this offshore financial zone of Labuan. - Yes, you’ll have to go a long way from Malaysia to find a job!

- Now, let’s take a look at the market figures to see how we can handle what’s being asked of us. 147

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- On our Bloomberg screens, we’re given Samsung’s average capitalization between three hundred and ten and three hundred and seventy billion dollars.

Recently, some expected results were less good than expected, and this has fallen back into the three hundred and fifty billion zone.

If it remains in this theoretical zone, it will take one hundred and twenty billion dollars rounded off to reach the thirty-four percent blocking minority. He quoted in his speech a budget of only one hundred. But that doesn’t worry me too much, because the bank could always lend the missing difference.

- In theory, if capitalization doesn’t rise much more, it’s feasible. - But what doesn’t fit at all are the current holders of the securities. Look at the list. Twenty-nine percent of the free float that could theoretically be traded every day is held by institutions that have to control and release very small quantities depending on market fluctuations.

You can see the very low volumes, averaging around three percent, rarely more. On average, twenty-four percent on average is the float handled by the public, which is therefore more epidermic about market news, and volume exceeds five percent on certain days.

Very normal, but not enough to buy without pushing prices up too much. Much more annoying is the fact that thirty-five percent of stocks are off market, held by very large institutional investors, and you read, as I do, that these are all pension funds and financial portfolio management funds, and all American or affiliated. 148

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Take a good look at the list. We know them all, and they’re the conservative type to hold quality stocks. I don’t think they’ll even take our calls to trade even a tiny block of stocks, because they’d have no good reason to do so, barring hypothetical drama at this time.

There’s yet another large block of twelve percent listed in Luxembourg and London under the “preferential” category on dividends that are paid before and at a better rate than the others. You can assume that these will be the last to sell, as they are based on highly remunerative dividends and are totally disinterested in market price movements. The stock market is currently in a consolidation phase as the Korean economy stabilizes at a normal pace. You could say we’re in a stable situation where we can’t imagine the market going very high, because there’s no incentive to do so.

Nor can it go any lower than it has to date, as all the dividends from the major companies have been declared. More or less good, but the bad news has already passed for those who had some. A market that’s not at all active and ordinary. I don’t see how anyone could buy even a few per cent of the shares at this stage. - All right let’s calm down and try to forget about the amounts involved.

- I’ve got a simple trick to avoid self-impression. I remove three zeros, so that it becomes an everyday transaction. - A hundred million instead of a hundred billion is less scary!

- A good mental trick. Now let’s make our first calls to the specialist brokers as soon as the market opens. - Whoever manages to buy the very first percent will be invited to dinner by the whole team! 149

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“COLLECTOR’S” VILLA MEETING ROOM - Gentlemen, our President is on the mini-train to join us. Even if he’s the one who locked you all up, you owe him the greatest respect, because he might not have commuted your death sentences. So smile, even if forced, please. I’ll greet him at the library door and accompany him to our meeting room.

Two minutes pass. A man with a fixed half-smile and a quick, supple gait for his age, enters the room. He’s not stooped yet and keeps his one meter seventy nine upright.

- Mr. Chairman, here’s the final report, which we’ve condensed to two pages so as not to bore you, but if you like, I can also give you the action plan in detail, one hundred and twenty pages long, corps by corps. - The two-page summary will do, but I do want to read the details of the final financial operation, which is crucial to our IC 2025 plan. - Certainly, here’s the plan and a concise one-page summary of the financial operation. - That’s all I want. Give me a few minutes’ peace and quiet. Everyone out for a few moments, please. - Certainly, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, back to the library.

Knowing him perfectly well, he seems to be in a very good mood as he greeted me by my first name on arrival, which is rare. - Dear Numbers, I have a feeling that the President is going to like the plan and give it the green light.

- What will it mean for us if he approves and carries out the plan? 150

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- I’ll then leave with him for Beijing, and I’ll have immediate authorization to prepare your new identities with Hong Kong passports as agreed. - To be very clear, if he gives the green light to the plan, we are basically free men again?

- Free, exactly, but not yet with the bonus that will depend on the success of the mission. When I return in five days with your new documents, you’ll have two choices: either leave immediately, with or without the bonus. A team will then accompany you to the airport, and you’ll be given a one-way ticket to Hong Kong. Or you can choose, and I’ll mention it again, to stay together, without anyone leaving, to undertake the next mission, which is to target Taiwan.

The chairman opens the door to the meeting room, motioning for the group to enter.

- Gentlemen, when this young man who is my first advisor, a creative undisciplined, proposed to me to create a team of convicts, my first reflex was to tell him that we weren’t in Hollywood shooting a film like the famous one from the sixties. Since he saw me, on a daily basis, very angry and worried about the situation in the micro-chip sector, where we were falling far behind technologically, I gave him carte blanche to come up with a plan that was radically different from anything else I received on my desk every day. A poorly digested rice soup that would make me vomit if I didn’t throw all these studies in the garbage can in a minute. - Thank you, President, for placing your trust in me.

- Well, I can see that I was not mistaken, because I believe that your demonic plan is so original that none of our current adversaries will be able to understand the whys and wherefores. 151

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I never say I’m impressed, because that would be a moment of weakness on my part. But here, gentlemen, my anticipated tributes, if this succeeds from start to finish. Especially with the added difficulty I’ve imposed.

That is, to faithfully follow the philosophy of the art of war of our revered “Sun Tzu”, which I totally share, which is to conquer enemy territory without engaging in combat! If there is a single casualty - and I mean a single casualty as a result of our actions - then the mission will have failed, and I’ll stop everything immediately! I’ve just applied my official seal to the executive order pages. The one you call Number Eight is returning with me in my personal jet to coordinate the various levels of government and the army corps involved. The orders for each corps are already waiting right now in a room of my presidency to receive my orders. Compliments, you have my personal respect for your work, without forgiving you for your past crimes, of course. But I’ll make an effort to forget them.

I confirm that the operation must last three days, and shall culminate at Kim Jong Un’s sister’s birthday on September 29. By September 30, everything must be finished. He leaves the room with Number Eight, and with a shriek from the partition, they reach the mini train accompanied by three valets. 

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ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE GUAM - Red alert Commander, come quickly to the control center! A minute later, out of breath.

- What’s going on? A nuclear alert at least to create this stress!

- No but look at the video. We see President Xi Jinping landing by helicopter on hole 18 of the golf course, then climbing the steps to the clubhouse and, like the others, heading right for the elevator. - And take the mine wagons we’ve imagined to reach the secret villa!

- Not in a wagon. I’ve found that they’ve built rails with a minitrain like in amusement parks. It doesn’t need much space and is easy to operate. - We could have thought of it sooner, because that’s surely what it is.

- Show me the pictures. Yes, that’s him, and he doesn’t seem to be hiding at all. This time, all the staff form a guard of honor and shake hands with the President. It’s all absolutely normal, because as a member of the Super Vip club, he’s automatically member by fact. Do you deduce, as I do, that he joined the team to be introduced to the scope of their mystery work?

- Look, he came out just eighteen minutes later. Zoom in on his face very closely. Look closely, he’s slightly widened his familiar half-smile mask. In his style, this means he’s very satisfied, but really very satisfied with his meeting with the eight. - The helicopter’s blades hadn’t even stopped turning because he knew it would be quick. And he’s already off again, having waved goodbye once more to the director and the whole team, who hadn’t even moved. 153

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- See who accompanies him with a business suitcase that looks quite full.

-I can’t believe…. It’s Li Wei, his young first advisor considered eccentric and unpredictable. He’s the eighth man, because Xi arrived alone first! - At last, the man of power is revealed alongside the president, who must have masterminded the whole operation.

- And now the two are no longer hiding from each other, which means that the coup is underway and nothing, barring incident, is going to stop it. - Now we know the kind of adversary we’re up against, and what’s more, he’s backed by seven convicts. He really is an original. What else can we expect from him?

PYONG YANG “SUPREME LEADER’S” OFFICE

Running down the very long corridor leading to the private office of her brother, the “supreme leader”, Kim Yo Jong is slightly panicked. Out of breath, she abruptly opens his door without warning. - What’s going on, little sister? You’re going in without knocking now? - My brother, our supreme leader, the Chinese are at the northeast border. - I knew one day they wouldn’t be able to hold back, but we’ve got an unbeatable double wall now.

- Not at all, they’re sending food and medical aid trains just like in 1992 in our father’s days! - But I didn’t ask them to! How dare they come without my authorization! 154

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- For the moment, the lead train is still on the Chinese side of the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge and everyone is waiting for you to give them the go-ahead to cross the bridge. I’ve checked with my people on the spot, and there’s no Chinese media reporting on the event. There are no military personnel accompanying them, only people from their “Red Cross” emergency assistance service. In all, there are three 50-car trains, an impressive convoy over three kilometers long, one behind the other. According to the customs declaration handed in at the border post, there is a total of twelve thousand tons of rice awaiting clearance. - Have you called the Chinese ambassador to find out why? Because I’d never ask anything of my Chinese counterpart, who despises me. He’ll see when I have enough long-range missiles. I’ll give him a taste of our weapons if he dares to insult me again!

- Supreme leader, my dear brother, calm and cool. Our neighbors send us food aid spontaneously and free of charge, and we can’t refuse it without offending them considerably, which would have repercussions because there’s nothing worse than a native Chinese from Beijing to offend like their President of the moment. - But then, what does the ambassador say?

- He was informed at the last minute at the same time as we were. He’s also taken aback and asks us to accept this help in a completely neighborly way. - By accepting, I’m humiliating us, because I’m confirming the fact that we’re at the start of a long famine, perhaps worse than the last one. - If you could keep some funds for food instead of investing everything in ballistics, it would save us this kind of public embarrassment. 155

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- You assure me that there isn’t a media team on the Chinese side.

- Yes, there will only be our national TV crew filming the event live and bringing the tape back to us for viewing before running it on the delayed evening news, as you’ll surely have a few arrangements to add. I’ve already decided to send a helicopter with our official photographer and two TV crews of cameramen and journalists.

And a second helicopter with six train drivers to assist the Chinese after the border. They’ve just left and should arrive in 35 minutes.

- You’re as remarkable as ever when it comes to logistics, and you were right to think that the Chinese drivers wouldn’t know our network and its switches, because you’re going to send each train to a different region, aren’t you? - Each one to the central and northern regions most affected, i.e. to the towns of “Hamhumg”, “Kanggye” and “Kilchu”, where the distribution will take place.

- The last thing I want is to see a train arriving in the capital. I’d be ashamed, and the city’s population is very privileged when it comes to food, as the supermarkets are full.

- Exactly, supreme leader, we’ll decide together whether or not to run the information on today’s news or keep the tape secret. We’ll just send this emergency food to the rural population, period. - Did you at least check the Chinese personnel on all these trains? - Of course, I have. Apart from the forty-nine rice wagons, there’s one with medical personnel. - Medical? Are you sure?

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- I’ve sent my people to check. They’re all in white suits with their Red Cross seals and small backpacks. - Probably weapons! - You’re paranoid!

- So what’s in the bags?

- Emergency medical supplies and a satellite phone, because they know that our cell phone network is closed-circuit for members of the government and our armies.

- Yes, I understand that they need to communicate to coordinate all this, but that’s it, nothing else? Well, I’ll accept that, but it makes me furious to reach out to these ungrateful neighbors. We’re defending them against the West and those obnoxious Japanese... and... - Calm down brother, and make up your mind!

- What’s more, we’ll have to thank them and welcome the convoys with flowers, in keeping with our tradition of politeness towards visitors arriving with gifts. - On that note, since they know we don’t have a single fresh flower left, they’ve laid wreaths of flowers from them at the bridge guardhouse to welcome them. I’ll ask our photographer to do a tight shot, so we can imagine how many there are. - Yet another vexation. They give us their own flowers to thank themselves for, the last straw. They clearly want to humiliate me.

- Big brother, think of our hungry people. Free food and you keep all your money for your missiles. It couldn’t be better.

- By the way, what’s it costing them, you who know the prices so well? - At last week’s market price, it’s worth six million dollars for a total of twelve thousand tons. 157

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- Ah well! You’re right, and as those American “macaques” say, there’s nothing better than a “free lunch”. - Macaques! Your language is always flowery, but you’ve held back because you’re usually louder!

- I’m not in very good literary shape this morning, probably a bad digestion. Go and give the order for me, as you have my delegated powers. Go ahead, open the border to these trains from..... Bastards, they’re humiliating me, and I’ll make them pay sooner or later. 

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FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE - SINO-KOREAN BORDER DANDONG - SINUJU In the effervescent world of steel and steam emerges a colossus. Its impressive black design gives it the allure of a railroad legend, while its colossal mass of twenty-three tons makes it a feat of engineering. From its gleaming furnace to its enormous wheels in action, every aspect of this majestic “Shao Yang SY 1772” class steam locomotive evokes grandeur. A propaganda tool designed to impress the public. State television has just arrived on the North Korean side. The operator is ready to film the arrival of the first train to cross the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. The commentator blocks her automatic smile and begins her text, which will be kept on tape, awaiting confirmation from the highest level of the state. “Dear brothers and sisters of our beautiful country. Today is a very lovely day of our friendship with our great neighbor, as majestic trains approach to bring us products that we have less than usual.

They will help us in difficult times, so that we can enjoy the grace of our horizons, which our beloved supreme leader offers us, tirelessly, every day from the fruit of his hard work for the fatherland. Look at those flowery trains coming and the welcome of those valiant pilots who come from so far away to be with us!” A sign for me to stop.

Fortunately, I’ve had enough of reciting this vomit of good political intentions. As soon as I can, I go over to the other side. I’m young and I can’t take it anymore. Life is ahead of me. 159

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The camera zooms in on the first pilot who gets off and embraces the three tiny girls all at once. A tall man for us North Koreans, resplendent with health, and they look at him in awe and wonder as if he were a movie star. They’ve thought of everything, even casting a good-looking actor in a Chinese railroad suit. Too handsome to be a train driver! Photographers capture the moment, which will make the front page of national newspapers once it has been approved, or not, by the presidency. The first train enters the country, followed within five minutes by the next and the last. The calculation was made to offer food for the first month to the most affected population outside the capital. To be courteous and thank the Chinese president, we’ll send him this iconic photo of the first train with their handsome pilot embracing our three Korean miniatures, bouquet of flowers in hand. A beautiful propaganda image that will remind us of all the glory days of singing communism! 

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K R-SOCK HAWAII - That’s it, gentlemen, Operation Korea got off to a flying start with the arrival of a massive humanitarian convoy. You guessed it right for North Korea, next to Myanmar, which is just waiting if they’re in this spirit of grand strategy. The coup took off as soon as the President left the golf course in his private jet, as he had to give his first orders from his encrypted satellite phone. - At the very outset, we could never have imagined that the President himself would join them. - I informed all our departments, including the CIA and the White House, but above all all our allies in the Pacific.

- The South Koreans don’t understand, because they tell us it’s nothing more than a token of friendship between the two countries, as in the 1990s. In short, they fall headlong into the trap, and see the whole propaganda show in a very relaxed light. - Very naive. The Japanese, on the other hand, are more tense, and are already on minimum alert. - The QUAD has also been informed, but for the moment it’s a simple message. We can still consider this a peaceful operation.

- I have my doubts, though. Did you notice the movie-star look on the first driver’s face? You’re going to tell me it’s classic propaganda, because we’re not going to use an old crab with a pipe in his beak to kiss young girls live on TV. What else did you notice?

- I zoomed in on the other drivers on the three trains and their team-mates don’t look like they’ve been in the business long. I think they look more like action commandos than nice Chinese national airline pilots. 161

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- You’re right, show the mosaic photos side by side. Sh... they’re commando faces like we have on our security files.

Send them to the AI so we know their names and which unit they’re connected to.

- It’s amazing, though, because now they’ve stopped being cautious and reveal the arrival of a team of illegals disguised as train drivers. - And that’s not all. The first carriage of the first train is for passengers. A North Korean soldier gained access. Out stepped a man in a white coat and their Red Cross badge. The border guard checked his small backpack, which we zoomed in on. Only medicine boxes and a satellite phone. - No handguns, and a normal-looking guy who could be a nurse or a doctor. But we can continue to doubt it.

- He then went into the car, must have checked everyone else, and came out without saying a word. - I’ve got the impression that since the President came, they’ve let go of everything and are no longer going to hide. - You’re right, and the AI is already listing the names. It’s quite simple: the second pilot is a train driver for the national rail company.

But the first one, the one who featured prominently in the images, is a member of the PLAGF action commando from the “Lanzhou” base. He’s 31 years old, Zhou Feng, lieutenant of an eight-man special forces commando. Fun fact: he’s an amateur stage actor and has appeared in several propaganda films, so they’ve sent their best mug for this! - Why do they take the risk of showing it on TV?

- Firstly, because the North Koreans are not at all equipped with visual recognition or AI, as 90% of the budget goes to the ballistic program. 162

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- The fact that they don’t hide is also a signal to us, because they know we’re always watching them. - I know what you mean, a mocking message like: “Hi guys, it’s us, don’t move, we’ve got everything under control, relax, everything will be fine”.

- I can see only two scenarios for this humanitarian convoy arrival, which corresponds all too well to President XI’s departure from Hainan. It really is a humanitarian convoy, in which case Xi would like to warm up their relations, which have been frozen for some time, which is important to follow as it would mean he would follow us less at the UN for the next sanctions program. Either Kim, irritated and humiliated, sends the convoy back, and then we can expect a contrary reaction from Xi. He must be expecting it, because no other army corps is moving an inch. - Or, third hypothesis, the convoy passes by but there’s another plan behind it all. I really need to get back to Go because I’ve lost sight of the big picture and I’m losing points.

-Gentlemen, let’s be careful because this is the very first move of the game, the 3-3. As in chess, it’s the first move that decides whether you win or lose the game!

KUALA LUMPUR JALANG AMPANG NEIGHBORHOOD

An ambulance with no lights on and two men in smocks talking soccer. A young woman emerges in a panic from the door of the building opposite them. - Help, help, it’s urgent!

- Miss, we’re ambulance drivers on a break, we’ll take you to the nearest hospital where you can tell them what’s wrong 163

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and they’ll send the right people. We’re just drivers with no medical experience. Come on, get in quickly.

She sits down beside the second man, the vehicle drives off and, without understanding, she falls asleep. - You didn’t inject a too strong dose, did you?

- They’ve calculated the dosage so that she’ll be in a comatose state for at least 3 days. - Anyway, they’re going to put her on a drip right away. She’ll leave the hospital with no memory of anything.

- Our mission, and that of our colleagues on rotation, is to stay on duty twenty-four hours a day, because the rest of the team must be gradually going blind, and it’s best to be there if one of them decides to go out. - That’s pretty radical for screen operators.

- I understand that it’s not permanent, and it also lasts around three days, which is more than enough to neutralize them. - They’ll be thinking about replacing them, surely.

- In the meantime, our chiefs will have another amusing idea, one that will save us having to bring out the artillery. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I’m liking shooting less and less.

- Enough talk let’s get back to work. We’ve been asked to be very vigilant, as the general operation, of which we have no further details, has just begun.

- The only information we have is that our mission, which is exactly in parallel, shouldn’t last much longer.

This is short. What can it be? ~~

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“Military tactics are like water. For water in its natural course flees from high places and rushes down. In war, avoid what is strong and strike what is weak”. Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 11

PYONG YANG SUPREME LEADER’S OFFICE - Little sister, what’s going on? I see the lights go out for a few seconds and then come back on again, then an hour later it starts all over again. Are we on emergency power?

- Yes, since this morning we’ve been practically cut off from the power grid permanently.

- Have you checked with the “Pukchang” mine office to see if they’ve sent all the coal needed for the power station? If so, I’d like them to draw on their reserves more quickly and speed things up. - They reply that everything in the furnaces is at the right level and demand is well managed. - So we’ll have to build new furnaces in pairs. Simple, isn’t it?

- I’ve already put forward the same proposal, and they reply that their data show that they have plenty of margin before calling in new furnaces. So they consider themselves to be in a zone of security of supply. 166

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- So what or who caused the blackouts? Could it be a cyber-attack by one of our adversaries?

- Possibly, but to find out I’ve tried calling our best team at the “Lazarus” cyber cell in Kuala Lumpur and haven’t got any answers yet. - You mean our cyber-attack stars are absent when I’m paying them handsomely 55 times the salary back home?

- I’ve called my primary contact, who is a woman of great professionalism, and she’s not answering either. - Have you sent some of our embassy people over to check what’s going on?

- I’ve been waiting for this to come up, because even though they know the band is on Malaysian soil, no one at the embassy knows their address, so they’re properly compartmentalized.

- Of course, go ahead and say as little as possible on the phone, but send them urgently to the “Lazarus” office.

All the ministries have been on generators for several hours, calculating how much time is left before they are totally “blacked out”. But nobody’s really worried, because this kind of blackout is normal. Good thing it’s not winter. Two hours later. - I have three pieces of bad news. The first is that the young people on the cyber team didn’t want to open up to the embassy delegates because they thought it was a trap set by opponents due to the dubious fact that they spoke North Korean. They should only open to people they know by their tone of voice. So they couldn’t get in and just heard some noise from the other side, nothing more. So there they are. - Of course, we can’t send the local police to break in, but there’s a back-up plan, isn’t there? 167

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- Normally, the nearest second team on the same level is in Mauritius. - So, you’ve called them, and what do they say? - Believe me, they’re not answering either. - It’s not possible, we’re being attacked.

- So I went to the head office here of our cyber teams, unit “121”, to find out what’s going on. - Speak don’t keep me waiting!

- Cyber-attacks are never direct from server to server. The first principle is to mask the attack on several routes that make it impossible to trace the true origin of the first attack.

This is a method in which our “Lazarus” group is particularly strong, and they are always hard to trace whether attacking cryptocurrencies or other financial wallets in order to absorb them digitally. - I love their extreme competence because it’s the vital heart of my finances. If I no longer have this resource, goodbye to my lovely ballistic program!

- We all know how important it is to you, and everyone is aware of the seriousness of what’s going on.

- So who, who? The Americans, the Japanese, who did you find? - No, it’s the Russians from the “Fancy Bears code APT 128” group from office 26165 of the Russian GRU!

- How can this be because I always have at least polite relations, it seems to me, although we’re on the outs for many reasons. - It’s more serious than you think. Following the intense Internet traffic on their side now, we understand that they’re preparing a military attack by land. 168

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- No, you’re going to tell me that after the humiliation of the humanitarian trains, I’ve got to get down on my knees and ask the Chinese president for military assistance? - I think so, because you haven’t heard the third piece of bad news yet. - It’s been a bad start to the day. Keep going, while we’re at it.

- Our diesel reserve depot at “Kraskino” has just exploded in a huge fire. - What do you mean, our depot?

- It’s the diesel buffer stock of all our reserves for the whole country, which we use all the time whenever we need to refuel. We have a freight station at the border where the cargo train runs all over the country, with stops at our armies, and finally, here in the capital, where a noria of small tanker trucks make deliveries to your palace, for example. - You mean the Russians blew up our own depot!

- In conjunction with the cyber-attack on the power grid, that’s the logic that follows.

- So you conclude that our cyber central office, 121, which commands all our outside groups only sees the Russians attacking us? If I’m going to call that mad Russian president, I need to know something, otherwise we’ll just be arguing and arguing without coming to any conclusions.

-Let’s talk about your disastrous arms trade with Russia that followed your meeting at the “Vostotchny” Cosmodrome on September 13, 2023.Vladimirovitch had received a glowing report from his Defense Minister Shoigun in July 2023, when you presented him here in person with your latest ballistic “toys”. - Respect, little sister, for my masterpieces!

-You show off your most beautiful pieces and then deal with their defense department to sell hundreds of thousands of 169

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122- and 155-mm artillery shells designed in 1954, which all experts know, without modern guidance, reach at best 20% of their target.

What’s more, you’re in such a hurry to sell them that you force your two factories, “Kanggye General” and “Changjagang Machine”, to bypass the standard damp-proofing phase, which takes two months off the manufacturing process, and the result in the field was.... - I know, I was too greedy to make a quick buck, and either they exploded on combustion, or they never actually hit their target and..... - I just stopped you sending Jo Chun Ryong, our efficient director of our arms industry, to a labor camp because you’d received a call demanding repayment of the first delivery and.... -I insulted the official and ...

-He wasn’t just an anonymous civil servant but the CFO of their Defense Department and....

-They stopped their second order and their ambassador here calls every other day asking me to pay immediately.

-As a result, they’re angry, offended and insulted. Which adds to the rest of your contemptuous attitude. What would you do in their place? -I would go berserk, but it’s not for a good argument that he’s going to send me his tanks and cut off the national power grid all the same! - The armored tanks will have a limited effect, but their navy won’t since the port of Vladivostok is home to all the North Pacific units of their nuclear submarines.

- You mean that a single submarine with a single nuclear warhead would be enough to shoot us down completely? 170

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- Take a closer look at the situation: all our long-range missiles are aimed in the direction of Japan and the United States. You don’t have any short-range tactical missiles to shoot down a submarine just off our eastern coast.

Even so, I’ve just inaugurated our first nuclear missile submarine, the “Hero Kim Kun Ok 841”!

-Sure, it was a beautiful ceremony, but you know very well that it’s going to take another two years of sea trials before it’s declared operational. So you should call Vladimirovitch right away.

- Honestly, can you see me calling him and saying... “ Vladimirovich, please, stop your cyber-attack on my power grid!” Then he’ll send me a missile to calm my nerves. But first, how much time do we have before the diesel generators run out of power for all the teams? - According to my calculations, there are between twenty-two and thirty-three hours left, depending on their storage volume. I also checked with our own national oil storage at the port of “Nampho”. We have all the petroleum products we need, but none with the diesel characteristics for our generators.

I also remembered to call our Russian supplier in Vladivostok to offer our regrets for the firemen and service men who were injured. - Yes, because at the same time you see that the IP route tracing comes from them, so you do 2+2 and all this is a machination that includes their own diesel depot!

- The other scenario the cyber boys explained to me is that this attack has another actor behind it that we can’t see because it’s masked by multiple routes. - And we can’t trace these phantom tracks? 171

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- Yes, but our best people in this situation are the Lazarus boys, who are very good at framing other cybers for them.

- And they’re unreachable just when we need them. So at the same time, we’ve got a cyber-attack on the power grid, with reserves of diesel generators dwindling fast, simultaneously, we can’t access our stock.

Now, if you’re worried about getting into a pointless argument with Vladimirovich, you should call Xi in that nice friendly tone of yours. - Do you know when I use that tone? Only when I’ve drunk a good French red wine, preferably the last Château Latour 1982 from my cellar, which is sublime. - Well, after you’ve drunk half a bottle, call the Chinese ambassador here in our capital city, so that we can set up a call with their president.

- You’re right, I’m going to need him to stop those restless Russians. - Here, you’re holding back your flowery language.

- I’m getting ready to have a civilized conversation and as you can see, I’m listening, little sister. 

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NORTH KOREA PERIMETER WALL - KANGGYE BORDER A single commando man from the train crews accompanies twelve North Korean defectors who wish to cross the border, along with an experienced smuggler who has studied the precise point at which the unfinished wall can be used to exit without being machine-gunned by the control towers. At 4 a.m., the commando, accustomed to walking at night, marches ahead of the small group without infra-red goggles. Everyone follows in single file without saying a word, frozen by the fear of being caught and joining the regime’s icy jails immediately without trial or the ability to defend themselves, of course. - As we approach, we can already see that the first wall of the double enclosure is not yet finished. The next main wall, twelve metres away, has long since been finished, according to my observations, so the concrete is dry and I know it’s a good meter thick.

- I’ll set the mine for a width of two meters to be sure. That should make enough of a gap for us to get through one by one. - Where’s the nearest control tower from here?

- 600 meters to the left. Just far enough for their arc searchlight to focus on the noise the mine will make, but too far for the old Russian Maxim M1910 machine guns to reach us accurately. - How deep is the river on the other side?

- At this time of year, we’ll be up to our waists in water, little North Koreans, not you, so tall. - So I’ll be shouldering the only woman in the group, who I understand is a university professor.

- They’re all staff from the national university “Jangsu” who have been trying to leave the country for a very long time. 173

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They’re very surprised that it’s a Chinese man who’s come to help them, because until now it’s been the other way round. As soon as a defector crosses the border and gets caught by the immigration police, he’s sent back and we all know what’s going to happen to him.

- I can’t tell you but everything is going to change for your people in the next three days. - Just three days. Nothing, because we’ve been waiting for a regime change for seventy-five years.

- All right, let’s stop talking. We’re a hundred meters from the first wall and its breach. We’ll have to run between sweeps of the spotlight. Put the lady on my back. Men, ready? Go, go, go, go...

Running through the dry grass that crunches under their feet, they reach the gap just before the spotlight. One by one, they pass through and place their backs against the wall, waiting for the slow passage of a fairly weak light, as this is fortunately the technical limit of distance. - Take it back, because I’m going to go alone to the next wall to place the mine already set to jump between two passages I’ve just calculated. Total silence, I’m off!

Pinned against the wall, the team of defecators felt their hearts beating even faster. Are we going to die in a few minutes, or are we going to make it to the other side? And are we really going to be taken in or sent back?

Because this young man of great courage may just be a traitor after all. I’m rambling because he’s risking his life like the rest of us, and he’s come here with equipment that’s impossible to find here. Without this mine, our escape would have been totally impossible. But why did they come with these tons of food?

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Why did he say that in just 3 days everything would change for our country? Suddenly, the sharp, dull sound of a precise explosion. The breach is open and the searchlight has not yetreturned. They’re probably asleep because they’ve had too much to drink, as always, these incompetents, putting most of their pay into alcohol. I can’t say I blame them, as we have no leisure time in our prison state. The commando turns back and picks up the teacher on his back. - Let’s wait for the next spotlight. Silence, 1 minute. Get ready to run, crawl through the gap and run back to the river. It must be icy, so don’t let the cold sensation stop you.

- It must be twelve degrees. It’s precisely by moving as much as possible, even with the water around your waist, that you’ll defend yourself against the cold. If you stop, you’ll quickly become ankylosed and be swept away by the current. Ready to go? Go, go, go...

The gap is small, but it’s big enough for the skinny North Korean skeletons. The teacher goes first. The commando will be last. He’s having trouble getting through with his big, athletic body, and the spotlight is already coming back. - Run to the river, don’t wait for me, go, go, go!

I never imagined that my bodybuilding work would one day put me in danger. Sh.. the spotlight stops on my legs, which are sticking out backwards. In a second, they’re going to shoot. With a lot of shoulder pressure, I should be able to make some headway, but this concrete is wide. Sh... With my bare hands I’m going to rip off the rubble one by one... but they’re already firing! And miss me, but not for long.

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No, they’ve realized that I’m too far away and are coming in an armed vehicle. I’m furious, I’m going to make it, because if they catch me, I’m going to mess up the whole mission that’s just begun. Rage, rage... come on, another twenty centimeters! I hear the hum of an oncoming vehicle. That’s it, I’m through and the river’s not far. The North Korean guards jump out of the vehicle just as I hit the river, but I have to get halfway across, which is our border marker. I imagine a sniper has taken up position in the gap because the bullets are whistling. Sh… I’ve been shot in the calf! The North Koreans are already on the other side. The energy of hope must have increased their strength tenfold. The bullets are still whistling and it’s my right shoulder that takes one. Sh... I’m so proud of my pectoral muscles, it’s going to be hard to take it all back... Another one, fortunately on the same leg of the injured calf, which means I can still move fast on just one. I see them jump for joy, I must have crossed the line, and indeed the shots stop. The setter comes over to me as I feel I’m fading fast; the cold has taken away my pain, but there must have been a lot of blood flow. I reached the bank and I fell. The pretty, skinny lady approaches me with a gentle gaze, and I faint. 

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K R-SOCK HAWAII - Hello, Guam. We’ve read your latest reports and are now coordinating directly with Camp Humphreys south of Seoul. Let’s be concise. The last satellite pass saw the arrival of a large convoy of trains which, according to the markings, are from the Chinese Red Cross medical and food program. Clearly a gift of friendly support from the Chinese president to his Korean counterpart in times of famine.

Secondly, we learn that a small group of defecators have managed to pass through the double enclosure of their brand-new wall. Unrelated, but a fine achievement, since it was thought to be impenetrable!

And three, just now, their navy is moving backwards from the Taiwan Strait area. This is rare, as they usually reinforce rather than withdraw. It’s not for resupply, as specialized ships are shuttling in and out. We’ve confirmed that they’re clearing the area of all their ships. Send a verification request to find out if this also concerns their fake fishing boats, which are over-armed like coastguards.

- I’ll give you the answer, but right now I’m getting details of the fleet on the move: the aircraft carrier “CNS Shandong 17” accompanied by the destroyers “Kunming DDG 172” of the Luyang III class and type “052D”, as well as the frigates “Xiangtan FFG 532” of the Jangkai II class and the Yuncheng FG 571 of the “054 A” class are in convoy formation with their backs to Taiwan! - The pawns of the great game continue to move. Do we know whether the President is a great fan of the game of Go?

- As far as we know, he knows how to play like any good Chinese, but he’s not an enthusiast. On the other hand, it is 177

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known that he surrounds himself with executives who advise him and who are all masters of the game.

- Not to play with him, as he probably doesn’t have a minute and prefers to read, but I think for the particular qualities that this game brings to brain connections. More precisely, a good Go player has the first quality of global strategic thinking, then he recognizes the sequences of movements and anticipates them. Above all, he must be able to quickly resolve his opponent’s counter-attack strategies. Alongside this, a good memory is vital, as is spatial reasoning, with the addition of a high degree of concentration on risks. So you see the kind of high-level person this must be. - How many guys like that does he have by his side? - I understand at least three.

- We’re getting sidetracked. Do we have the answer on the fake coastguard fishing boats?

- Yes, they too have made a U-turn in the Taiwan Strait area and are heading back. What’s new is that the convoy with the aircraft carrier at the head of the formation is not heading for their main base in Hainan, which was too obvious a theory, but is starting to head northeast.

They should arrive in the Shanghai harbor area in the evening, but they don’t have a naval base there. So they’ll continue due north towards their home ports of Qingdao and Ningbo.

- Guys, if they regroup in Qingdao, we can say BINGO! Because that’s where the entire northern fleet is, dedicated primarily to North Korea. - But to defend them against us, according to their old agreements, not to attack them?

- And that’s the big question about what’s going on right now. If we’ve deduced everything correctly at this stage, they have 178

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North Korea in their sights for conquest, with Samsung in South Korea in the background. Complex, isn’t it?

- On the contrary, I think it’s a diversionary tactic that would have us looking in one direction while everything is happening in another. A new piece of information has just been released with comments.

I read: “Big explosion at the Kraskino diesel depot in Vladivostok oblast. The fire-fighting services were unable to extinguish it. Total loss is estimated in six hours. This depot is the buffer stock that Russia sells to North Korea, considered the only one to cover all the country’s needs.” - It’s an interesting anecdote, but it’s the back up of their electricity, as their grid works well thanks to their large coal reserves. - Wait a minute, isn’t this diesel intended for back-up generators for the major points of the state and their army? - Yes indeed, and what do you deduce from this?

- That it’s a preventive stock cancellation in anticipation of a major national power cut, which we should be able to confirm soon enough.

- You’re stretching your imagination. I’ll pay for the barbecue dinner and ice-cold beers for everyone if you’re right. I never knew you were so creative. Has retirement brainwashed you? - More like retirement has allowed me to think freely without the straitjacket of hierarchy that always blocks reasoning.

- So we were right to bring in our retirees, because with you, we never get bored for a minute with your original ideas, one after the other. - Yet another piece of worldly news, this time, so to speak. President Kim’s older sister’s birthday is next Monday. 179

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- Apart from sending her flowers, can you think of anything else?

- According to Sun Tzu, you must take advantage of every moment of weakness in the enemy to attack. So a family reunion when the vigilance of the authorities is low is an interesting moment that I personally would choose to attack in any form.

I have a feeling, guys, that I’m going to force everyone to read or reread Sun Tzu, because we’ve got to get into the same frame of mind and get out of our western boots for good, if we want to compete on equal terms with these gentlemen in silk slippers! ~~

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“In war, there is no advantage in numbers. Do not advance by relying on military might alone.” Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 12

CAMP HUMPHREYS PYEONGATEK - SOUTH OF SEOUL The observation satellite control room is abuzz with orders whistling overhead. Brigadier General Tom Mitchell enters, screaming. - Who dared to disturb me when I was in the middle of a conversation with the Pentagon and even cut off communication? Who did? Introduce yourself! - Me, sir, and I trust you’ll accept the urgency, or I’ll apologize.

- I’m placing you under arrest for eight days for hierarchical rudeness. But let me see first.

- Here we are, irregularly following the ground forces of China’s northern army because they’re far from the military theaters we’re concerned about. But this time, take a look at the images from yesterday and the tanks’ route. - I can see that they have been moving since daybreak in two groups, one towards the Russian border in the north and the other towards the south in line with the new North Korean double perimeter wall. Is that it? 182

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- What’s disturbing is that these are just their latest Type 99 model and the whole contingent is there, divided into two groups of two hundred and fifty units each. - This means they’re taking a threat seriously and committing the best equipment. But what threat?

- Precisely, and here’s the main reason for my rudeness. We’ve received a Cyber Command report asking us to be vigilant, especially on the Sino-Russian-North Korean triple border. - Why is this? Because they’re involved in a lot of criminal trafficking.

- Cyber command is keeping a close eye on the recently confirmed heavy cyber-attack on North Korea’s general power grid, with initial analysis traced back to Russian cyber-attack teams based in Belarus. - Everyone knows that the obvious first IP routing often hides other, more subtle players. - In this case, Cyber Command can’t go any higher, because there are unexplained network breaks that start right at the heart of the Chinese network, CHN-IX in Tianjin, where the main exchange point between these three countries is located.

- And everyone swallows the fact that the Russians are in the process of attacking their accomplice in so many economic and financial crimes? Really?

- Then we think of the Chinese, and the theory on that side is that the Chinese president, fed up with Kim’s daily exactions, is mounting an operation to get rid of him. - That’s more credible, and it must be the real actor behind these fake Belarussians.

- Yes, but there’s another equation in the reasoning that would normally be crystal clear. 183

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- You interest me, Lieutenant, and I’m already mentally forgiving your insubordinate lapse. Do tell. - You read the reports that China sent a massive humanitarian convoy three days ago.

- Ah, and you rightly conclude that if on the one hand China is sending humanitarian convoys, they can’t at the same time attack them on the cyber front. That seems obvious, but maybe it’s too easy, because they’re much more sophisticated than that. I’ll take your analysis, but I won’t conclude yet. - Yes but look at the screen and the arrival of the Chinese armored tanks at the Russian border.

- Sh... They’ve set up in orderly battle, guns aimed at Russian territory and the others that must have been arriving for longer at the North Korean border. I don’t believe it. They turned their armored tanks with their backs to the border and guns pointing north as if they were waiting for Russian tanks that would have already passed their first line of defense.

This confirms your theory of a forthcoming Russian attack and that the Chinese are positioning themselves to defend their temperamental neighbor. It makes sense, but my intuition tells me it’s too easy. There must be something else behind all this.

As we say back home, “I don’t buy it”. But the facts are there for all to see. Put me on video link with our teams in Guam and Hawaii so that I can share this information and you’re reasoning. I don’t believe this for a second!

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OMINATO NAVAL BASE OF THE MARITIME SELFDEFENSE FORCES HONSHU ISLAND - JAPAN Rear Admiral Hiroshi Nakamura enters the satellite observation room. All the staff are transfixed, respectful and slightly intimidated, as he hardly ever comes to see them at their posts.

- Who was the officer who interrupted our work session to urgently request my presence? That’s pretty rare, because even if the North Korean clown is playing with his little missiles, we have automatic emergency command procedures that don’t require my physical presence with you. So, what exceptional thing prompted you to send for me? - Admiral, we all consulted each other very quickly, and this is a rare event. Look at the pictures.

- Two Chinese nuclear submarines “0333 Shang Class”, which I recognize even without my glasses. But where are they positioned? - In the territorial waters off the port of Vladivostok, and we’ve checked that there are no planned maneuvers with Russian forces.

- They’re simply out for a stroll, as they have free-stop agreements with each other. They’re going to send their submariners to relax in the city’s specialized houses with a big glass of vodka!

I’m sure you’re familiar with their “Balkan 176”, with its 88% alcohol content, which guarantees you’ll be well and truly drunk in a matter of seconds - something Chinese sailors love to do, and which, fortunately, our disciplined navy refuses to copy. Right, gentlemen? Silence in the room.

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- And you bothered me for this?

- No, because this is in addition to other events, we’ve received reports of from all our colleagues in Guam, Hawaii and Camp Humphreys in South Korea. - You mean everyone in the U.S. is on alert? And at what level? - They’ve just gone from Defcon 4 to Defcon 3.

- It’s not too serious yet, otherwise I’d have been informed, but it means we’re on our guard, observing but certainly not intervening. So who else is there?

- As it’s a bit complex and involves several very different elements, I’ve prepared a summary with additional documents for you to read at your leisure while your favorite tea, “Gyokuro”, is being served. 

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HR SOCK HAWAII - General, the satellite news has been confirmed: the aircraft carrier “Shandong CV-17” has just joined their latest type “003 Fujian” in the waters off Shanghai, with three catapults at the same technical level as ours.

- Well, it’s their first at our level, but we have eleven of this model. We can salute them for their technical mastery, but they still make flies laugh! - They seem to be creating a heavy battle formation ready to pursue their course at any moment.

- Are you going to tell me they’re preparing an attack formation with 2 destroyers and 6 frigates with the usual supply escort fleet? - They haven’t added their brand-new attack drone carrier the “Zhu Hi Yun”, and we can’t see the two nuclear submarines that would normally complete this type of convoy. - Can you see the Type “071 Yushao Class” amphibious transport ship?

- No, it’s not in the formation that’s being prepared, so again, this confirms that all this is certainly not intended for an attack on Taiwan.

- Can you confirm that our entire Pacific fleet has been upgraded from Defcon 4 low alert to Defcon 3 heightened vigilance? Yes, so everyone’s ready for anything, but there are still two higher levels that I think are still a long way off at this stage. - Yes, General, we’re just observing unexpected movements, and what we’ve seen on North Korean territory, such as the general power cut, now fully confirmed, and the explosion 187

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of their diesel reserve depot on Russian territory, in no way threaten our interests.

- In a way, but their supreme leader always has his hand on the button of his missiles and, like a saloon cowboy who’s had too much to drink, he can suddenly fire in any direction! - There’s nothing worse than an unpredictable leader, I grant you, General. Three hours later...

- From now on, it’s our base that coordinates all the participants: Guam and Humphreys on our side, “Ominato” in Japan who’ve just joined us with the South Korean army staff.

I’m General Mike Anderson, and I’m going to give you a concise summary of the situation on the ground, with the certainties and the unknowns. The certainties first. Cyber Command reconfirms - always with a note of caution in this complex sector - that the cyber-attack came from a territory allied with Russia, Belarus, with teams capable of cutting off all North Korea’s electrical circuits in a single operation. They tried to go further, but the routing crossovers stopped at a building in Minsk well known to their services.

The second certainty is that China, after having sent largescale humanitarian convoys out of obvious friendship with its neighbor, and despite the regular minor frictions, has just surrounded the country with a large part of its forces, while directing its cannons or missile posts in the direction of Russia.

We assume that the Korean President, weakened by this general breakdown, has begged for an emergency rescue plan from his strongman friend China. 188

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Right now, these are the certainties, as we cross-check satellite observations from our 3 bases with those of our Japanese colleagues. The unknowns, or if you prefer, the surprise, is that nothing is moving on the Russian side. Eavesdropping on the Kremlin and the military high command gives us nothing but arguments and shouting matches.

Some may have come to blows because of the violence of the words they heard. But - and I can confirm this from our side, as NATO has sent us their own observation - strictly nothing is moving on the Siberian border with China, or anywhere else for that matter. I can still hear the famous “Oh, I don’t like it” from my alter ego in Guam and the “I don’t buy it” from our colleague in Humphreys. But that doesn’t help us analyze the situation any better.

- Rear Admiral Hiroshi Nakamura, may we have your analysis?

- Indeed, at first, I thought it was an invitation from the Russian navy to their Chinese colleague for an evening of relaxation, in keeping with their undisciplined character, which I abhor. But nothing has happened in 24 hours.

No commanding officer came to the bridge, but only one second lieutenant, who has come to check the satellite communications antennas. They haven’t moved from the limit of territorial waters, but in line with the port of Vladivostok, as if they were preparing to dive and then attack. The submarine is too far from our shores for us to attempt to listen in with our most sophisticated sonar. -In conclusion, nothing’s moving and I can’t deduce anything other than that these gentlemen don’t seem to be planning a trip into town at all, as I’d originally imagined! 189

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- To you, General Park Han-Ki. In your position as Chief of Staff of your South Korean armies, you have read all the reports from all the forces, and I assume you have clandestine agents on the ground.

- Absolutely, General, and despite all the immense advances in SIGINT, it’s always a good idea to add a small dose of HUMINT - a good dose of human intelligence. - We agree with you on this point, because we ourselves have four former HUMINT agents from our region working alongside us, and it’s thanks to them that we’ve been able to make faster progress in our analyses, with all the SIGINT satellite resources at our disposal at the same time. - You can imagine that our undercover field agents are in one of the most dangerous positions imaginable, given the cruelty of our northern neighbor’s regime.

One of our well-placed agents is the official photographer of national TV.

He was on the spot when the humanitarian convoys arrived, and it was he who took the successful propaganda photo showing this film star in imitation designer locomotive engineer’s outfit for good measure, wrapping his muscular arms around three clearly fascinated North Korean miniatures. I’m sure the image must have scored big on China’s social networks.

So from that point of view, he confirms that everything was well orchestrated and well managed by the Chinese teams who handled the distribution logistics in the provincial towns. He clearly confirmed that everything was done without any suspicion.

On the other hand, another event took place which we traced when North Korean defecators crossed to the other side despite 190

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the double perimeter wall which runs virtually the entire length of the border with China.

One of them called the defector aid office in Seoul, and because of his high standing as a university professor, we quickly put him under the protection of our embassy in Beijing, sending a car as quickly as possible to a village near their exit. - Go on, General, it’s very intriguing that you made this effort for this man. - He’s a man of very high intellectual level and rare open-mindedness, and he told us this: a Chinese military man, clearly by his style and means a member of their special forces, had contacted them via intermediaries.

They realized that he, too, wanted to cross the border at the same point as them. After discussion with the smuggler, he became part of the group who found the situation strange, thinking that he must be a Chinese agent who had infiltrated the territory and needed to get out as quickly as possible. So they all had the same objective, and what’s more, he informed them that he had a technical means of opening the passage. I’m cutting this short so as not to turn it into a novel, although I can see you all being fascinated by this episode of a Chinese James Bond in distress!

So he heads for a very precise area of the wall where the smuggler had spotted in advance that the first wall wasn’t finished, and that only the second had to be passed. | With that, and I’m going even faster in the narration, the Chinese agent opens the breach with a small mine. The group passes through and reaches the river. He, too tall, gets through badly and is shot. - It’s breathtaking, like being in a movie, General! 191

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- Wait a minute, that’s the end, which is doubly interesting. Wounded, he manages to reach the riverbank and rejoins the small group. Before fainting, he takes out a laser pen and asks one of them to direct it, taking the distance of the river from one end to the other and then handing it to him.

He looks at the small screen on the side of the pen and says, before fainting, “226 meters, that’s okay...!” And you know the rest for yourselves. - Meaning, General?

- The first armored tank brigade is at the Russian border, but the second is stationary exactly fifty kilometers along the “Kangyie” axis, the last position of the defectors So they’re waiting for instructions on how to reach the precise spot where the agent would have taken this river measure. - Who in all our groups knows the maximum length of the Chinese tank passage pontoons? - Camp Humphreys has the answer. Let’s hear it.

- 250 meters long in 10-meter separation blocks, and there are 35 units in their northern army.

- I can see everyone’s eyes lighting up. Does this mean that the beautiful Russian story is nothing more than a large-scale masquerade that will see China, not Russia, invade North Korea? - For the moment, they’re playing the comedy of directing guns and missiles in the direction of a hypothetical Russian enemy, but in fact they’re encircling the country from the north with their tanks, and the navy from the east.

And for good measure, their two biggest nuclear submarines to the west of their fleet, which can redirect their bow in an instant from the northern axis towards Vladivostok to the eastern axis opposite the North Korean strategic port of Chonglin. 192

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I see everyone nodding like those little dogs you see in the back windows of cars! Shall we move on to Defcon 2? No answers? Because I can see in your eyes that would be the general alarm in all our respective headquarters, and therefore far too early. Leaks to the media have already caused panic on stock markets throughout the Asian region, and I presume that some regulators will close trading for several hours, or days, depending on their local regulations. I suggest we stay with Defcon 3. For our next video conferences, I’ll be adding our Pentagon teams to this region, and you can do the same in your respective governments.

Lucidity, calmness and vigilance, gentlemen, because your adversary seems very inventive, unpredictable, and determined to succeed in his mystery plan! ~~

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“To a surrounded enemy, you must leave an escape route”. Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 13

OFFICE OF PRESIDENT XI JINPING BEIJING - Mr. President, the first major part of the plan, i.e. setting the context, has worked without a hitch, as I did not follow the second financial part, which is under the control of a secret unit of our central bank. In any case, I managed to pass on confidential information to the media, and all the stock exchanges are now officially closing transactions, Seoul being the first.

- My dear First Councilor, what satisfies me is that there have already been no deaths, because I want to demonstrate that we can wage a high-level conquering war without firing a single bullet. I want to be remembered as the antithesis of someone else who waged trench warfare like in the last century, and whose results we have seen, which I won’t comment on any further as they are irrelevant to us. - In fact, there are only 3 third-degree burn injuries in Russia. A North Korean computer scientist in a lethargic coma without gravity, nine temporarily blinded computer scientists in Malaysia and Mauritius, seven seriously imprisoned com195

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puter scientists in Minsk, and one of our commandos injured quite seriously but he’s an elite soldier and I’ve just been told he’s already getting back on his feet. - Are you saying that Zhou Feng, our best propaganda image, is the wounded man?

- Yes, the one in the iconic photo of the arrival of our trains surrounding three tiny North Korean girls who look at him as if he were a semi god! - We rely heavily on his image for our special forces recruitment campaigns, but I received an internal report saying that he wanted to resign to start a film career! - I think the fact that he’ll be wearing a cane will calm his ambitions.

- He’ll endear himself to his female audience, but we absolutely have to keep him around, even more so now that he’s been wounded on a mission to save some North Koreans! - We could make a short film about this North Korean defector rescue operation.

- Great idea. We’ll make him a movie star in North Korea. A start for him who dreams of being a star in Hong Kong studios. - Put this in your plans after the operation, as it will allow us to keep up a continuous propaganda of our unfailing friendship with the “new” North Korean people. I did say “new”, First Councilor. - I follow your reasoning perfectly, Mr. President.

- So the first phase went very well. And guess who just called? Kim himself. Very chatty and probably a bit tipsy as he babbled on about thanking me for my cargo, instead of the term train, and that he needed me for assistance in cyber space... He must not quite understand what that means and used science fiction cliches. 196

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I let him talk and confirmed that he could count on us to defend him with all our means, as we are proving by applying the terms of our “Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Cooperation” of July 11, 1961, still in force on mutual defense agreements in the event of aggression.

And that I would immediately consult my cyber teams to counterattack on this plan and restore his electrical network as soon as possible. He hiccupped in thanks, the kind of way you can smell a drink. He must have been really drunk to play it sympathetic, because he’s usually beyond obnoxious. - As the saying goes, he’s “taken the bait”! Which means we can launch the next, trickiest phase. - What date corresponds to the end of their diesel reserves?

- We had already organized the operation around the date of September 29, which is his sister’s birthday. By then, they’ll have run out of diesel and will be celebrating with candles. And that’s tomorrow! Then it’s time to invite the North Korean ambassador here for a little trip with the following instructions from the plan. - Compliments, perfect as an idea because the whole family will be together and I really, really like your plan for his sister, his designated successor.

But what about our seven friends? Did one or more of them accept the offer to be free as soon as the operation was over, with only a new identity, a new passport and a plane ticket to Hong Kong, or are they waiting patiently for the operation to be over, hoping, if it succeeds, for a small cheque for each of them? - I didn’t have to force their hand, because I told them not to waste any time and to think about the Taiwan target and the TSMC group, this time with a bonus of ten million per individual during the two Koreas phase. 197

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- Are they all always so greedy?

- Always a little, but in this case, they want to make a success of the current operation and demonstrate that they’re strong enough to get to work on the very big Taiwan piece. - Has prison changed them that much? I find that hard to believe.

- No, in fact, what tipped the balance was that I suggested to them that to make up for their loneliness, the humanoid women should stay with them all the time. Before, it was only for half a day and one night on Saturdays. - You mean they’re as good at tricking men as human mistresses?

- I think they’re even stronger than humans in every way, and I have to confess to you, Mr. President, because I’m duty-bound not to hide anything from you, that I myself... - No, I don’t believe it, you’ve got one just for you?

- Do you remember how depressed I was after a separation three years ago when I joined your team?

- Very well, because I was going to send you away when I saw the weakness of character that you can’t have at my side. I was right to keep you in the end. - I’d like to thank you, President, for putting this bad period behind you and trusting me. - So, you’re living permanently with a humanoid now? - Yes, and I’m the happiest of men right now.

- Please don’t advertise these perfect women who will only be kept for extreme missions and especially for the long-haul space programs for which they were originally designed. Because if this gets out, there will be fewer and fewer children at a time when our birth rate is plummeting. 198

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- Right, President, and we’ve got to make sure these humanoid women fill roles outside society because if they integrate too well, it would be a disaster and we’d drop below a billion citizens pretty quickly. - You’re terrifying me, evoking their perfection. Remind me that, at the end of this mission, we’re going to take a close look at the laboratories where they’re made, to quickly deal with what could become inevitable. I haven’t had nightmares for some time, and this is a new and impressive one. 

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EMBASSY OF NORTH KOREA BEIJING A helicopter from President Xi Jinping’s office lands on the airstrip in the backyard of the North Korean embassy in Beijing. The ambassador waits nearby. The President’s first advisor emerges with his back bent under the spinning blades. - Mr. Ambassador, come with me, but alone, without your two advisors.

They climb into the six-seat VIP version of the Sikorsky S-76D with the President’s seal, put on their headphones to muffle the noise of the rotors and talk on a single channel to each other without the pilot being able to hear. - We’re off in the direction of our latest aircraft carrier, on which we’ll be landing. - I’ve never flown in a helicopter.

- This will be the first of hundreds of times now. - What do you mean, Mr. First advisor?

- Your destiny is set to change profoundly in the next 24 hours. - You’re using the same enigmatic word that your President said earlier. I didn’t have time to ask him to explain this word “destiny” any further, because he made it clear that the conversation was over. And that from the moment we met, you were his direct vector of orders and advice.

- I’ve had the honor of being at his side for three years, and day after day he entrusts me with increasingly complex missions. This one should be a highlight of my career if it succeeds. - I look at you and your image inspires self-assurance and confidence, but I don’t understand what’s going on.

- I assume you’ve had no communication with your department or your supreme leader’s office for several days? 200

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- That’s right, and the few times I’ve had someone on was by satellite phone, where they were able to tell me very quickly that the entire country’s power grid was down, and that the generators would soon be empty of diesel. - Right now, your whole country is practically in total darkness. - My contact at the ministry just said, “It’s the Russians, it’s the Russians,” and then we were cut off. What did he mean by that? - The big blackout in your whole country came from a cyber team attack and all the tracing analysis goes back to their two main Russian teams.

- I’m no expert on the subject, but why would he? We haven’t been on very friendly terms for some time, but not hostile all the same. - As your supreme leader doesn’t realize the threats, not only because he’s only interested in his own aggressions, but also because he considers himself unassailable.

- Yes, between you and me, I consider him very obtuse and totally out of control, but above all, keep it to yourself or I’ll be sacked or worse, sent to a labor camp to disappear very quickly.

- Mr. Ambassador, you are considered by the whole of our President’s cabinet and by the highest members of our Central Committee to be the only man of great value in your country. - You do me too much honor because I’m just a modest scholar.

- Too modest in spite of all the doctorates in geopolitics and macroeconomics you obtained at PKU. The same university where I took my own degrees. 201

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- But that’s just research in economics and foreign affairs, which is why my current position is the pinnacle of my career. - I don’t think so, because your next career is just beginning.

- You’ve got to be kidding me, because I can’t go any higher, except to be Foreign Minister, and the corridor brawl at Pyong Yang is too cruel for me. They’re children who always want a bigger toy than their neighbor. - Don’t worry about a thing. You won’t have to play elbows with anyone. You’ll be automatically appointed without question. - You mean you’ve come to pick me up with your President’s helicopter to join your new aircraft carrier and then I suppose sail back to my capital to be offered the post of Foreign Minister with President Xi’s blessing?

- Much better than that, but let’s stop talking because we’re approaching the aircraft carrier and need to prepare for landing. Don’t look so surprised and worried, because you’re about to appear before the Admiral and his staff, who are going to give you a standing ovation as soon as you arrive on the pontoon.

- Do you have a glass of water? Quickly, because my throat is suddenly very dry!

AIRCRAFT CARRIER -FUJIAN 003 THE ADMIRAL’S PRIVATE MEETING ROOM

- Mr. Ambassador, the reason for your visit is that we have learned that the Russian general staff, taking advantage of the confusion caused by the fire at the “Kraskino” diesel depot, have infiltrated commandos under cover of truck drivers. With the small reserve of the last untouched tank, they are on 202

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their way directly to your capital. They’ve come to assassinate your President, and that’s why we’ve asked you here. - Do you really confirm this theory that it was the Russians who carried out this cyber-attack on our power grid and that they are preparing their army to invade us?

- Our services confirm this 100%. On the other hand, their army is waiting for the event of your President’s assassination to engage their troops in the north, which is the logical tactic of attacking when the head of power is gone, not before. As a preventive measure, in agreement with your President, we have put our best units in position, and we believe that deterrence should have an effect.

- I understood this, and I believe my President has already thanked your President for the swift decision to put back in action our 1961 Treaty of friendship and cooperation. However It does surprise me, though, that you sent large-scale food convoys free of charge, as our Presidents have not been on good terms for some time. Not hostile, but certainly not friendly. - We have also placed two nuclear submarines in the territorial waters off Vladivostok because we believe that a landbased attack from the north would be spectacular, but without any real ground-conquering effect. On the other hand, an attack from their submarines towards your east coast would be fatal in a matter of seconds, using short-range missiles.

- We’d never have imagined that our Russian friends would have such intentions, because unlike our relations, which I’d say are fairly fresh, we have a frank and direct relationship, even if we’ve recently been put off by their choice of arms supplier other than us. - Our analysis is that the Russians have realized that you can no longer provide them with anything of interest, and that your ballistic program, which is progressing quite rapidly, 203

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is swallowing up the entire state budget, with the eventual downfall of the regime through an internal revolution, or a definitive attack by Western forces.

- Our citizens have not had the strength to protest for a very long time, and this famine is sapping the last of their energy.

- Russia’s reasoning is that they won’t let western forces near their Siberian borders. The same was true when NATO enlarged its member countries to cover their entire western territory. - This makes sense, because in principle a unified Korea would be a threat to them. But in their reasoning, they have forgotten our treaty and your capacity for friendly intervention, which you are impressively demonstrating.

- Until yesterday, our Presidents were either indifferent, or in particularly insulting relations on your side. For example, it was you who called first to thank our President for the food aid, and not him personally. -A slap in the face that reflects our relationship. Fortunately, my President has extremely rigorous self-control, the opposite of yours. - It’s true that Kim is unpredictable, unmanageable, and uncontrollable. - What do you conclude from your visit with us?

- Nothing yet, and as much as I’ve analyzed everything you’ve told me, I don’t see my role in this at all. Yes, it’s my role to calm the President because I’m one of the few people he listens to, but not always!

- Let’s look at things more directly. The Russians are preparing a major attack, which began non-lethally with a cyber-attack. They’re moving on to phase two, which is the capture or assassination of your President. Exactly in the scenario of the first three days of the war in Ukraine when their commandos 204

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attempted this same kind of operation with President Zelinsky. - Yes, I remember, and you mean they would repeat the same operation of capturing or assassinating the head of the country first?

- Especially in yours, where the great leader controls everything and the population is totally under his sway, in contrast to the Ukrainians, where every individual is a patriot ready to fight. Your population is slavishly waiting for a leader to tell them what to do and what not to do. You’ve managed to annihilate their individuality and they’ve become zombies with no energy.

- You’re going a bit too far in your criticism, but you’re right. If the regime changes, the population will always remain obsequious under the thumb of the next leader. All these years have killed what was left of life in the hearts of our citizens. - So, you see, if the Russians succeed in their commando action, your population will follow the new occupier in a daze, without defending themselves for even a minute. - You mean they won’t feel the difference of going from one Stalinist to another? In my official position, I’m going to forget this demonstration and hope it’s not recorded. - So what’s my role in all this? Why am I with you, and why are we heading straight for the cape opposite Pyongyang?

- Admiral, are we in enough of an area for the helicopter to reach the capital easily? - We’ve refueled and checked it, and it’s ready to fly again.

- Your Air Force and Army colleagues who joined us in Shanghai are on board, aren’t they? - Absolutely, we’re going to represent the three authorities at the highest level of our armed forces staff to the President. 205

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- Mr. Ambassador, do you understand better the importance of this trip with us?

- Not yet. My brain is foggy from all the resources you have put in place, and why?

- In very direct terms, you are going to replace Kim and take charge of the interim government during his absence from power. This under the protection of our armies and the absolute and unconditional support of our President. - A glass of water quickly, please! 

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KR SOCK HAWAII - This time, the meeting was enlarged to include our NATO colleagues, whose role is to observe what’s happening in Moscow and report back to us, as we have enough issues to deal with in our area. So, what’s new since yesterday? Here’s to you, Camp Humphreys, who are close to the action. - Look, a nice group photo. You don’t know all these faces who are part of our daily observation missions. It’s the three chiefs of staff grouped together, which is rare.

From left to right, Admiral Chen Xiang, Army General Zhang Ming and his Air Force counterpart, Chen Jie. Next to him is President XI’s first advisor, Li Wei, who we follow in his footsteps, and surprise, the North Korea’s ambassador to Beijing? Park Jon-Ho. In the following images, you can see the helicopter heading towards Pyong Yang, and here, our eavesdropping has yielded nothing, as the flight took place in total silence, apart from the pilots’ radio communications. - Rear Admiral, you want to respond?

- My direct Chinese colleague is very calm and conservative in his judgments. He never takes risks, unlike the rest of the PLA, who are ready to fight like street kids. He’s the brains President Xi counts on to re-establish order and calm restless spirits. Especially in the Taiwan Strait, where disaster is always a millimeter away. Here, I even see him smiling slightly, which is rare on his usually enigmatic face. This is revealing, as the others also seem very relaxed.

- Yes indeed, it looks like they’re off for a simple scenic drive. Unlike the ambassador, who looks dazed and slump-shouldered, and the first councilor is even holding him by the arm to straighten him out, lest he fall. 207

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- Humphreys, are you aware of any illness?

- No, on the contrary, he’s known to have set up his own gym at the embassy, which he joins daily. We know he drinks only green tea and is a vegetarian. - Yet he doesn’t look very fresh today. Why do you think that is?

- He must be afraid of being lectured by his President as soon as he arrives with the group. Which would make sense, as he won’t be able to insult the Chinese generals for fear of immediate reprisals. - You mean he’s going to get a free dressing-down so Kim can vent about the seriousness of everything that’s going on? A punching bag of sorts. We feel sorry for him. However, he already seems demoralized early on. Is this normal?

- No, because he’s got the allure of a real ambassador representing his country, and here, his shoulders are really slumped, and the first advisor almost seems to be carrying him to the helicopter.

Morning conclusion. A nice group of military men and the first advisor seem to be going on a picnic in President Xi’s personal chopper to accompany a weakened ambassador ready to faint back to the capital! - Not yet the conclusion, because the images of the next hour show us another helicopter of the 20-seat wide-body VAAC HC 313 type, which, for its part, leaves empty. -Sh...! so ready to board a large group.

We haven’t been bored for a month, really! 

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KREMLIN PRESIDENT’S OFFICE - Call me Kim.

- Mr. President, we’ve been trying for hours and nothing is happening. Their entire country’s power grid is down. Their diesel reserves are finished, and the depot dedicated to them in “Kraskino” has simultaneously caught fire. We’ve lost 90% of their stock. - I need to talk to him so I can send him replacements as soon as possible and put to rest the rumors that we’re attacking him. It’s obviously another move by the American Cyber Command to diminish us. A classic that doesn’t even surprise me anymore. Do you have the number of his satellite phone, which should still be working? - Finally, after several attempts, I came across an assistant who told me that this was not the time to disturb him, as he had just started a birthday lunch with his family. I understand it’s his sister...

- A very important person in power. I can still wait. Make a note to call back in two hours, and now get me Xi on the priority line. I can imagine training maneuvers for their best armored tanks on the northern border as they need to train for our future joint maneuvers, so as not to get theoretically beaten on paper like last time!

But I don’t understand the threatening stance of two of their nuclear submarines whose commanders don’t ask for the right to enter port for a few days of relaxation as usual. They look threatening, and I’d like him to reassure me in person.

You have President Xi Jin Ping on the encrypted line, over. ~~ 209

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“He who knows himself, and knows the enemy, will be victorious in a hundred battles. He who does not know the adversary, but knows himself, will lose every other battle. He who knows neither his adversary nor himself will always be in danger. Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 14

PRESIDENTIAL PALACE PYONG YANG Inside the austere halls of the dictator’s palace, a singular scene unfolds on the occasion of Kim Yo Jong’s 36th birthday lunch. A massive silver candelabra sits enthroned on the table, its polished sheen adding an unexpected touch of grandeur to the chilly surroundings. The subdued lighting reflects the solemnity of the setting. The table, adorned with “Limoges” porcelain tableware, lends a certain elegance to a palace marked by its rigidity. In a departure from usual protocol, the centerpiece is an arrangement of plastic flowers. A pragmatic choice in a country where fresh flowers no longer exist, but one that nonetheless manages to express a form of celebration. - My dear brother, our supreme leader, what elegance. We’re not used to this kind of table, reminiscent of the dinners of European royalty. - It was our cook’s idea, as he didn’t want us to enjoy his dishes on battery-operated electric lamps, which are almost all at 211

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the end of their service life.Speaking of which, have you been able to talk to our Vladivostok supplier about getting their trucks to deliver directly to the capital?

- I spoke only to junior managers telling me that they’re urgently looking after their firemen, who were badly injured in the fire, and that we’ll have to review our contract if they have to send a Noria of trucks from Vladivostok to the various destinations in our country. This changes the calculation of costs and therefore their offer compared to the former buffer stock at our borders. - It will be marginal, and I don’t care about their current problems, which are due to their incompetence in terms of security. - Mr. President, we could change supplier and ask our neighbor who has just sent us millions in humanitarian aid.

- Oh no! I’m not going to get down on my knees and ask him for a third intervention. He’s already moved his entire division to the northern border to put the brakes on the Russians’ plans to invade. We already hate each other, and I had to make a huge effort to thank him. - Our “Lazarus” cyber teams in Malaysia and Mauritius are still not back at their posts. More seriously, our consulate in Minsk has just informed me that the entire “Challima” team has been imprisoned - But for what reason?

- The reason given in the police warrant is their support to dissidents via social media.

-Nonsense! Our guys are forbidden to get involved in the politics of the host country. And what is our ambassador doing to get them out immediately? -In fact, when I called him, I was told he’d been summoned to the Belarusian president’s office. 212

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-Well, he’s going to sort it out, and I hope our cyber headquarters here are doing what they can to break the Russian cyber-attack on our power grid on their side. -Practically nothing, because since then they’ve been telling me about another big technical problem I don’t really understand, located in our routing cabinets hosted in the international internet exchange in Tianjin. - They’re really lousy. We’ve only got a dozen or so worthy young people who are the ones stealing those expensive millions for me, enabling me to pursue my ballistic program higher and higher.

I don’t pay them well enough. Remind me, as soon as they’re back on the job, to double their salary and fire a good part of our team here. However, I can’t convince myself that it’s the Russians who are attacking us. There’s a missing link somewhere.

-Since you still have doubts about the fact that the Russians have been thinking only of their empire and laughing at us since June 1950, let’s quickly go over the historical facts.

First of all, who pushed us into the war against the South with the ideal of expanding their own version of communism, by supplying us with weapons and equipment, but not a single infantry man, to attack and then conquer the capital Seoul in three days? - Well, it was thanks to the Russians!

- Who stopped supplying us with these same weapons three months later, leaving us without ammunition? -The Russians...

-Who came to our rescue with their own army to help us resist the American landing at “Incheon” on September 15, 1950? -The Chinese..

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-Who was at our side in the great battle of the “Chong Chon” river in November 1950, enabling us to reconquer Seoul a second time in June 1951? -The Chinese...

-And what were the Russians doing in the meantime? They were symbolically sending in bombers that clumsily dropped their bombs in the wrong places, mistakenly massacring our own population.

On the other hand, the Chinese PLA infantry was losing thousands of men every day on the battlefield alongside us.

My demonstration implies that the Russians are not natural enemies, but as they are driven by their imperialist ego, this implies that only their vital interests count. Anything else that doesn’t fit into this vision is to be rejected, and quickly. Of course, the Chinese are no saints, and they manage their interests to the best of their ability.

But they have proved since 1950 that whatever happens, they are always at our side. Last week’s food trains are just the latest pragmatic proof of our 63-year-old fundamental treaty of friendship and cooperation. Shall we stop there, or do you want some more solid facts?

- Well, your historical reminder has convinced me. I’m going to force myself to be polite on all occasions with our dear Chinese neighbors. - My dear Brother if I may, our whole family is arriving and it’s my birthday lunch. Let’s stop our serious discussions for a moment if you don’t mind.

- You’re right, big sister, and what’s more, I’m going to show you a video for your birthday present. Oh, no! I can’t show it 214

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to you because the camera just ran out of battery, but I’ve got some photos printed out as a precaution.

- A horse and an “Akhal Teke” you’ve splurged on because they’re so expensive and hard to buy. But how could you do this?

- I’m in sympathy with the president of Turkmenistan and I’ve had one reserved for you for four years, well in advance of your thirty-seventh birthday.

They’ve already delivered him to Malaysia and we’re preparing to bring him over by boat with a good team of specialist vets so that he suffers as little as possible from the journey.

- I’m in awe because it’s a magnificent gift, a change from the Ferraris you usually give me, but which I can’t use on our roads and just admire with their roaring engine in my personal garage. At least I’ll be able to see it galloping in the open air. - Yes, but you won’t be able to ride him because they’re beautiful horses, but very temperamental. It takes a great rider to master them, and your responsibilities are such that you can’t afford an accident.

Kim Jong-Un sits at the head of the table, surrounded by his closest friends and family.

To his right, his wife Ri Sol-Ju sports a charming attitude and a knowing smile, evoking the warmth of their rarely reunited family. To his left, his sister Kim Yo Jong, happy with the gift he has given her, while retaining her characteristic reserve as a successor to power. His daughter, Kim Ju-Ae, sits to the left of her mother, beaming and eager to share a quick lunch, her eyes already riveted on the birthday cake to come. 215

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His older brother, Kim Jong-Chui, has brought his guitar. He will play a “Happy Birthday” at the end of the meal, adding a note of family musical celebration. At the far end of the table, his elder sister Kim Sul-Song wears a forced smile, perhaps concealing a certain melancholy. His older uncle, Kim Pyong Il, is delighted to be present, having rarely been invited since his return home from his many diplomatic roles. As the latter two have birthdays in December, Kim Jong-Un may propose that the next family anniversary be celebrated jointly in their honor. - My closest family circle is here, and I’m delighted to see you all together, which is so rare, especially in these difficult times. Somebody serves the appetizer because I’m starving. Aren’t you? 

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YONHAP NEWS AGENCY FLASH NEWS -SEOUL Title: Wave of Panic Selling Shakes Korean Stock Market. Panic selling on the Korean stock market in recent hours is the result of alarming news about famine in North Korea and speculation about a possible Russian intervention to replace their leader, while China prepares militarily to defend its neighbo These events have created an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear among investors, leading to an irrational reaction of massive selling. As the authorities seek to restore confidence and stability to the market, investors are urged to remain vigilant and monitor developments closely. ~~

Crisis meeting in the Seoul stock market Chairman’s office. Presents are the regulator, the chairman of the members’ committee and a delegate from the Ministry of Finance. The Chairman introduces the serious topic of the day. - I ordered an immediate halt to stocks trading as we had reached an overall index decline of over 8%, with major bluechip stocks such as Samsung reaching minus 15% in a single session. - As a regulator, I can only agree with you, because the two previous times this happened on the day of the Covid pandemic announcement and the time before that, the attack on the twin towers in New York, you halted trading for eight hours. This time I’d suggest closing the stock market for two whole days. - It’s unthinkable and our members won’t accept it. You can imagine reopening after two days, it would be a general panic with a continuous fall. 217

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- According to our rules, this does not prevent members from trading off-market blocks of shares, which they will then have to re-register at the price of their transaction.

It is the public who must be protected from excesses in either direction. Institutions take the risk of their own choice, and I’m counting on them to stabilize and manage excesses as best they can. - As a representative of the active members of the market, I take note of the fact that we are authorized to deal out of session between institutions and not to take any orders from the public, which we think is fair. We’ll restore calm after the event. - By the way, has the delegate from the Ministry of Finance obtained more detailed information from his colleagues in the Ministry of the Armed Forces and Security Forces, other than that which we stupidly follow via our media?

- As you know, and we’ve been quite vexed about this since 1953, we are totally dependent on our beloved American protectors for our security.

We don’t have access to their live observation satellites, but we are given the reports they are willing to show us.

The latest I’ve heard from a colleague who is a deputy to our Chief of Staff is that I don’t really have anything more detailed, which I can sum up very briefly as follows. A Chinese navy convoy led by their latest aircraft carrier is in the Yellow Sea in North Korean territorial waters, exactly opposite their capital. In the Sea of Japan, two Chinese nuclear-powered submarines are in a surface parking position., pointing their bows towards the port of Vladivostok. 218

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Two hundred and fifty armored tanks are on the Sino-Russian border, but no Russian armored tanks seem to be visible on the other side, even though they have been announced.

Above all, North Korea has suffered a general power cut for three days, which means that we don’t know where Kim is... or what he’s doing. Our national news agency has obtained the same information, even more fragmentary than mine, and by divulging it, has provoked the stock market panic we are experiencing. - Worrying, disturbing and serious, but for the moment it’s a three-way confrontation that doesn’t concern us.

And you can see that our American allies are keeping score and not moving a millimeter.

- The difference is that we risk having a new neighbor 90 km from our capital.

- You mean that you foresee a regime change and that we’ll either have the Russians, who seem to be the ones aggressing the North Koreans, or the Chinese, who seem to be the ones defending them as our new neighbors.

But nothing is clear and there is no official declaration of war from either side!

- Without being a great cleric, I can see the regime falling next. - It would be worse for us, because he won’t leave without panache and risks pushing the wrong button by sending one of his missiles towards our capital.

- Imagine for a moment that our American allies find themselves with the Chinese or Russian border only 185 km from their Camp Humphreys.

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- That’s going to piss them off, because they’ll once again have an undemocratic regime - to remain neutral in definitions - on the border. So, it’s back to square one on June 25, 1950! - For us, selfishly, whoever the next neighbors are, they’ll be a hundred times better than this dangerous tyrant!

- Cynically, it would even be better for our economy if we had a new neighbor - non-democratic, of course, but who cares as long as our economy benefits?

And when that happens, I’m already predicting that the stock market will soar to new heights, saved from the micro-dictator who is one of the last brakes of uncertainty on our real economic expansion. - Gentlemen, in conclusion, of better days with, we hope, a new neighbor that we could define as more predictable, whoever he may be.

I hereby declare the market closed to the public for two days and allow trading to continue between responsible institutional investors on a block-by-block basis. 

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HLB BANK LABUAN - MALAYSIA - I’ve just been told off by our manager because we’re not trading fast enough.

- The two days before the market closed, we only had 4% of Samsung and 6% of ST Hynix, but as soon as the market closed, we quickly climbed to 17% for Samsung and only 9% for St Hynix thanks to block purchases, due to a lack of supply. - We’re still a long way from our target, and more in the relegation zone.

- Have you seen the volume we’ve handled? We’ve just exceeded fifty-two billion dollars.

- It doesn’t impress me anymore, because I’ve forced myself not to be moved by large sums, due to the in-house discipline, so as not to be replaced too soon by AI. - I’ve just received a call from BRC in Singapore offering us a block at a fair price, which would take us up half a percent. - Take it immediately!

- We still have this day of market closure left. Let’s hope the tension rises and brings us more big-block sellers. 

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PYONG YANG PRESIDENTIAL PALACE Admiral, having been granted right of way with our own air corridor, we have permission to land on the President’s helicopter landing pad. Gentlemen, get ready. President Kim descends the steps facing the runway, ready to receive the passengers of the Chinese presidential helicopter. In an instant, full of himself, he thinks it might be President Xi himself coming to celebrate his sister’s birthday. Five people, shoulders hunched under the still-operating blades, step out, but not the Chinese president. Disappointed! - Gentlemen, welcome, you’re just in time for the birthday cake my sister hasn’t yet blown. But come to the first lounge inside. There’ll be none of that noise.

A small reception room decorated with ostentatious luxury but without lights. - I’ll have some candles brought in. Won’t that be fun?

- Mr. President, you’re very relaxed compared to the situation in your country.

- Yes, it’s rare to see me like this. Firstly, it’s a family day and they’re all here in full, and secondly, man to man I can tell you, I’ve gone a bit overboard on the fabulous “Chateau Latour” 1982 and 1986 from my private reserve. Not drunk yet, but if I keep going, yes. - I’m afraid you’ll have to stop drinking this beverage, because the hour is grave and there are heavy decisions to be made. - One moment you didn’t introduce me, and I didn’t even hug my dear ambassador. - You see before you the highest-ranking men in our armies, whose ranks and uniforms you recognize. 222

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- I don’t recognize anything at my stage, but I believe you. Why does my dear ambassador look shy? Fear of being yelled at, I suppose. Not on this birthday. Come on, relax and I’ll serve you a slice of cake. - I’m afraid we don’t have time, Mr. President.

An assistant enters hurriedly and heads towards President Kim to whisper a piece of information in his ear. - A second of your helicopters has just entered our airspace and is requesting to land here? Is it a military one ?

- No, it’s a very large civilian helicopter that’s come to take your whole family and accompany you to our aircraft carrier in a holding position, so that you can be under our protection. - What are you saying? Are you kidnapping us?

- Quite the contrary, and you’ll notice that none of us is armed. We’ve come to save you from an assassination attempt by Russian commandos who, according to our intelligence, must be approaching. - You’d have me believe in a Hong Kong-style action movie scenario!

- Mr. President, think for a moment. Can you imagine us moving five hundred tanks to Russia’s northern border, placing two nuclear submarines in front of their fleet in Vladivostok and coming personally in naval formation with our flagship, just for a birthday cake? - What are you talking about? Do you also have two submarines in position?

- Yes, and for the moment, the air force represented by our General here hasn’t moved one of its units and is awaiting orders as soon as the Russian attack gets underway. - You’ve caught me unawares on the worst day when I’m finally relaxed and not ready to fight for my kingdom. 223

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- Your kingdom, as you call it, is in great danger, and we’re here to protect you first, defend you n second, and enable you to reemerge in full glory later, with the electrical energy powering the country that we’re going to do everything we can to restore. - Is President Xi my savior, as his predecessors in the distant past did for my father and grandfather?

- Since the signature of our treaty of friendship and cooperation back in 1961, we’re natural allies. And for a country of 1.4 billion, we’re the big neighbor helping his little brother of 26 million inhabitants.

- Your president brought to my attention this treaty, which I had completely forgotten, and that he is already implementing. - Exactly to the point and our admiral, like our two generals, confirms by their presence that we are President Xi’s spokesmen to help you get out of this deadlock as quickly as possible. - Quickly, in other words?

- We’ll let you finish the birthday cake, and then we’ll organize two convoys. Your whole family, including you, in the jumbo jet. Your sister leaves alone in the presidential helicopter and, after a refueling stop on our aircraft carrier, heads to Beijing for a one-to-one with the President. - But it’s me, his alter ego, who must meet him.

- No, he insisted on meeting only your sister because your relationship is, to use a polite term that sums it up, conflictual.

- You’re right, we’d argue, and this isn’t the time. He’d call me ungrateful, and I couldn’t accept that.

- So, it’s more efficient if it’s your sister. First of all, she is invited, and we are informed that she will be your successor thanks to the training she received from you. 224

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- I hold her in high esteem and she is indeed the future of our country.

- Order that your family’s suitcases be prepared without haste, as we’ll be sending a third helicopter in a second rotation just to transport them. You’ve got six minutes to finish the cake, no more, and come all together, as you are, without changing, ready to leave as soon as the large helicopter lands. Your sister leaves first, alone with ours. - But then the four of you will stay with my ambassador?

- He’s a man highly respected by our President, and by you too, I believe. He has the calm and intelligence needed in these turbulent times. We’ll help him prepare a televised message for the evening news. - I’m counting on you, Ambassador Park Jon-Ho, not to slip up. We’re on a temporary trip, and your role is to reassure the population that everything is going very, very well indeed.

- Of course, Mr. President, I’ll follow your instructions, don’t worry about a thing, and as soon as you leave, I’ll prepare the address to our nation.

- Well, I have great confidence in you, don’t betray it, otherwise...!

Three minutes after Kim Yo Jong’s departure in President Xi’s personal helicopter, the “supreme leader” boarded the second largest helicopter with the five other members of his family present at the birthday lunch. - Mr. Ambassador, we’ll all be leaving with you as soon as your televised address is over. - Oh, so I’m not staying at the palace to manage the interim?

- We will all travel together to Seoul, but now let’s focus on your crucial moment, and I’m going to help you write your televised address. 225

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- Well, first I’ll introduce myself, since my face is unknown to the general public, and even less so to the people of South Korea.

- Then you say a few words about Kim’s family being safe with your big neighbor, showing our three chiefs of staff at your side, who are instructed to smile reassuringly for the occasion.

And that the power cut situation should be resolved very quickly. - To follow up, I don’t know what more I can add, as the population will already be in shock at not seeing their “supreme leader”.

- It’s time to make a big announcement, and not just for your own people, but for everyone outside the country who will be glued to their screens. - Would you like me to read the text we wrote together earlier? - I’m convinced this is the right moment.

- Kim is going to murder me as soon as he gets home for saying that. - Because you think he’ll ever come back? - You mean...

- That he’s going to take a long vacation at our invitation in a villa in Hainan, which he’s joining by naval convoy. As you know, this is our main base, so it’s logical for us to come back and invite him to our beautiful island under our control. - You say for a vacation?

- Very, very long vacation.

- So you’d like me to say this extraordinary bit? 226

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- As a man of great intelligence and one of this country’s few talented diplomats, don’t you think this is the perfect time to say it? But first, you have to be convinced first.

- You’re right, my brain is still a bit blocked by our propaganda speeches, but I’m a fervent supporter of our reconciliation with South Korea as soon as possible.

- So you’re going to be spontaneous yourself if this was your personal political point of view. Reread calmly. Breathe deeply, it will come naturally. - When do I go on air?

- The presidential studio is already set up. We’ll have to wait until everyone’s in front of their TV for the end of day evening news.

- You’ve convinced me to finally follow my own political ideas, but it’s going to feel funny to say this, because as a diplomat, I’ve been waiting for this for a very long time. At the end of my speech, will people understand that the war that has lasted for over seventy years is finally over? - The war yes, but a lot of negotiations will still need to follow. - But what’s going on? Is the electricity back on? - A very good omen for your speech.

- Now reread carefully and get ready.

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- We’re approaching 31% thanks to the urgent dispatch from the US government advising all market players and economic operators in general to withdraw immediately from the country. 227

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- Thanks to this, we were able to deal on very good terms with the three large blocks held by American investment funds, especially the giant “V” fund, and we are fast approaching the 30% mark.

- There’s not much left to achieve the target of a blocking minority. - We’ve been aided by the latest event, the alleged kidnapping of Kim and his entire family by two Chinese government helicopter, which means that, in the absence of their little dictator, China and Russia will go head-to-head to claim his territory. - This is the deduction of geopoliticians, and I confess I can’t follow it. I’m still hanging on to our operating screens to reach 35%. - This latest move should help us grow the portfolio.

- I still must call fast two other American investment funds. I’m hoping that one of them will let me have a little piece of the action, and then we’ll be over the threshold. - Phlegm, phlegm and phlegm, dear colleague. Otherwise, automatic algorithm programs will replace us! 

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HN SOCK HAWAII Emergency general meeting, as the latest images are on the screens of all the teams’ control rooms. - Gentlemen, the situation has taken another unpredictable turn. In the previous images, we saw the embarkation of the chiefs of staff of the three armies accompanied by President Xi’s first counsel and the North Korean ambassador to Beijing. We then see them land on the helicopter pad of Kim’s presidential palace. They enter and, say 18 minutes later, at the same time as their large helicopter lands, five people get out with Kim, rush in and leave immediately.

- We scanned the portraits; they were all members of her closest family. - But missing was the sister, who alone had already boarded the first presidential chopper in the very clear direction of the aircraft carrier off the coast in line with the capital. And to round off the sequence, no one had left the aircraft carrier for at least four hours. So the three chiefs of staff, the first advisor and the ambassador are inside.

The latest information is that a televised address will take place in 1 minute 30 now. Are you all there? Our Japanese colleagues, the Nato General Secretariat, the Quad delegates in India and Australia, and all our teams, including those at the Pentagon and the White House? There have never been so many of us!. Ah, read the short message from Camp Humphreys in Seoul. The power seems to have suddenly come back on all over the country! Fifteen seconds and here’s the first image of the ambassador flanked by three Chinese generals but no Korean dignitaries! 229

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- Our Chinese military colleagues look relaxed, but not the ambassador, who looks very pale and stiff.

No national music, as is customary in Kim’s speeches. An icy silence and the ambassador begins his speech by courteously introducing himself to the people of his country. He announces that the President and his entire family have just left the country for a private trip, without saying more, and concludes by... “By my authority as Acting President, and under the protection of our generous neighbor who has been by our side in every difficult moment for our country. I propose to the President of South Korea to put an end to a war that no longer makes sense after so many years. I am ready to go to Seoul tomorrow to sign a peace treaty, with the participation of his American allies, to close this dark episode in our lives as Koreans. We must all remember that the ethnic origins of all of us, North and South Korean, go back millennia, rooted in ancient kingdoms and a cultural history shared across the peninsula. The time has come for us to reunite, first economically and then politically, in stages, following the gradual and successful model of the reunification of the two Germanies. May peace, prosperity and harmony guide our every step. Together, we will write a new chapter in the history of all Koreans. Into the future, hand in hand.” - I can see the faces of some frozen in surprise and others relieved. Who wants to react first? Ah, the White House is calling on my direct line. Just a minute.

In short, the President, like the rest of us, thinks it’s too good to be true, and that we should all remain on Defcon 3 alert. 230

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On the other hand, in order not to miss out on an extended hand, the first serious one in over seventy years, he gives full powers to our ambassador in Seoul to be at the side of the South Korean President from the very first meeting, which should take place early tomorrow morning. After that, we’ll see, and he jokingly tells me to “remain vigilant”.

That’s what we’ve been doing for over a month. We weren’t surfing in the sunshine of Hawaii. It’s automatism, of course. Gentlemen.

My personal conclusion is that if this whole amazing tale comes true, which is still too wonderful for my taste, we’re going to have to dismantle all our military positions. And relocate our 25,000 soldiers, whose presence in South Korea would become pointless. But since Taiwan will now be the main vital component needing defense, this will enable us to fortify Guam.

Now that the big conference for thirty is over, only the K1 team remains in the room at Mike Anderson’s request. -Gentlemen, you have my utmost professional esteem, you have seen all the scenarios right from the start. Now that we’ve all been duped at length by an original strategist matter, I’d really like to know if it really served their objectives for their IC 2025 plan. Did they get in Samsung yes or not?

-The plan we’ve just witnessed live, and which resulted in an astonishing declaration of peace by a new figure - apparently at the head of the country - remains for us a mask for a stock market strategy that must have taken place during the trading operations closing days. -By closed, do you mean that we know nothing about what may have happened? 231

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-All the world’s stock exchanges have strict rules governing the trades closing, to protect the public from excesses they would not be protected against. On the other hand, institutional investors, i.e. the entire world of international finance, continue to trade off-market on the basis of highly-organized professional relationships to avoid any excesses. - You mean that as a result, they were able to buy Samsung shares and others during this closing phase for the public. - Exactly, and all four of us are certain that these military operations served as a smoke screen for their de facto secret financial operation. - How secret?

- Knowing well the subject of other past operations, it’s already certain that nothing will be known when the market reopens. For a simple accounting reason, operators have thirty days to officially file details of their transactions with the regulator. - So we’ll see nothing tomorrow?

- At the end of October, we should have the new breakdown of securities by institution, and at the end of December the final figures. -That’s a long way off!

-Sure, but the sheer magnitude of the amounts involved means there’s no room for error, and we’re all convinced that we won’t see anything under a purely Chinese signature soon.

-You mean they would have organized this whole circus of military deception to let another non-China player, do it? - Since they’ve been very subtle from the start, they must have used one or more non-China financial intermediaries to cover up their operations. -Ah! Now I understand. But we’ll see who it is in a month’s time, won’t we? 232

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-Not yet. There could still be a parallel transaction to resell all the blocks to a Chinese financial group later. And that’s when they’ll step in to apply for directorships in exact proportion to their portfolio levels. -And when will we see it?

- In March next year, the date of the previous year’s balance sheet audits and the convening of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.

Only then will we see the departure of directors and the appointment of new ones. - So far away?

- This is an international rule, to give auditors time to check the accounts in depth. -In conclusion, we’ve been following them closely for 3 months, for a military operation that lasted 3 days and a stock market operation that will really be concluded nine months after it began.

Typically, Chinese with time on their side, as opposed to us always in a hurry to succeed right away. Gentlemen, thank you for your invaluable assistance. You have enabled us to follow this surprising military comedy worthy of Sun Tzu, as closely as possible.

To truly determine whether they will have won a financial war without using force, I will stick with it through to the very end. ~~

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“The art of war is to subdue the enemy without a fight”. Sun Tzu Military Strategist, General and Philosopher (6th century BC)

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CHAPTER 15

OFFICE OF PRESIDENT XI JINPING BEIJING Emergency call from President Xi Jinping on the satellite phone of First Councilor Li Wei at Kim Jong Un’s presidential palace. - My personal helicopter is approaching our airstrip but seems to be in distress. I’m told the pilot has sent out an alert to have ambulances ready when he lands. - Quite normal, Mr. President.

- What do you mean by that? Because I’ve run to the window in the backyard, and I can see it wobbling badly on its side. Flashing lights. I see black smoke coming from one of the engines. I think it’s going to crash, and now that it’s close enough, I can see the pilot bracing the controls, trying to control it. - All normal.

- What the hell are you talking about? Besides, it’s the one where the passenger has to be Kim’s sister! - Take a good look, Mr. President, at how the pilot will manage to land. 235

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- But... we’re almost there... He’s got a few meters to go... He’s out of control and drops! He lands hard, very hard indeed, but the chopper seems to be intact.

- As you can see, it was under control, and now the paramedics are going to approach and suggest that Mrs Kim Yo Jong come and do a routine check in the nearby ambulance to see that nothing’s broken, and I think there’s probably only a few minor bruises. - Yes, I can see that, but how do you know all this, as you’re still in Pyongyang?

- It’s a part of the plan I added at the last minute in complicity with your personal pilot, which I didn’t get a chance to express to you. - You’ve given me a nice surprise indeed!

- It’s not over yet, as the young lady will be asleep for two days. - You’ve poisoned her!

- Very slightly, Mr. President, but I thought it best to neutralize her for forty-eight hours so that she doesn’t disturb us in the final phase that’s about to begin.

- I forgive you, because you’ve also saved me a conversation with an extremely harsh and unsympathetic lady. You can’t blame her for being with a hysteric like her brother. - Mr. President, I’m going back to Beijing tomorrow after making sure that the end of the operation is going well. Did you see the speech by the ambassador who announced himself as interim president?

- I recognized your writing style in certain parts. We had prepared so much for this moment that I wasn’t surprised, but above all pleased with the work carried out without a single fight and therefore no deaths, true to the central philosophy of the operation. Now I’m waiting any minute for the report 236

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on the stock market maneuvers, because I can’t wait to see the final result.

REOPENING OF THE SEOUL STOCK EXCHANGE FLASH NEWS – YONHAP NEWS AGENCY.

The reassuring televised address by North Korea’s ambassador to China, speaking from the presidential palace in Pyongyang and declaring himself interim president, has just taken place. In response, the regulator has announced that the market will reopen tomorrow morning according to normal trading hours, with no restrictions on trading.

HLB BANK LABUAN- MALAYSIA The founding chairman enters the trading room. All the traders stop abruptly and stand up stiffly. - Gentlemen, we have scrupulously followed our client’s instructions, and I can tell you that we have earned a service margin for our bank of 80 million. No shouting please, this isn’t Wall Street. Calm and cool, because the customer is adding another 30 billion in capital to invest and has just given instructions for what’s to come.

Don’t ask me any questions about how he could have anticipated that the Seoul stock market would plunge on all stocks without exception within a few hours, only to put us in the position of buyers by picking up all the blocks of institutional shares in great panic. We were practically the only buyers on Samsung, SK Hynix and Humming, the three major South Korean leaders in various microchip and semiconductor sectors. 237

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In the midst of all this confusion of military and political events, he has clearly given us a head start every time, and moreover, has faithfully followed all stock market regulations to the millimeter.

He is very pleased that we have slightly exceeded the blocking minority to reach 35.37% on Samsung, which will enable him to obtain three seats on the board of directors at the next shareholders’ meeting. I already have the list of names.

They’re all former central bank presidents from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, all retired and of the highest calibre. The ultimate goal now is to reach 40% and then 44.5%, which would then give him four of the nine seats on the board. And then he’d stop there, because his ultimate intention is not to buy the group, but to be its essential reference shareholder. So we’re continuing, but this time in very small, very gradual blocks, so as not to push up the value too much. And as soon as there’s a slight downturn in the market in general, you buy again in larger volumes, but in the same sector.

So far it’s been a great operation for our bank and I’m very pleased with all of you for achieving our goals. I see you’re thinking about whether to ask for a bonus and/or a vacation. It will be both, and tomorrow I’ll make my proposal. The founding chairman leaves the trading room.

- Amirah, can you imagine, with this strategic position at Samsung and the other two companies in parallel, he becomes irremovable and an untouchable reference shareholder? And at that point, he could resell the whole lot, for example to the Chinese state microchip fund “IC 2025”, which has its coffers full, but doesn’t really know what to do with them. - Yes, Ismail, if you add up China’s own industry, it would be a masterstroke that would take China straight to second place 238

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worldwide in all microchip sectors and sub-sectors. A spectacular move worthy of a great Go master.

There’s always the number one, TSMC in Taiwan, and that’s a whole different ballgame. To be continued, perhaps! ~~

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“COLLECTOR’S” VILLA LBRARY HAINAN - Back among you, I find you all quite relaxed, with some even looking happy. Am I to understand that those “Epsilon” ladies you were rejecting for the first few days were able to show you a good time while I was away?

For my part, I knew it from the start and didn’t doubt it for a second. I’ve come bearing gifts for you. New identities, so a new Hong Kong passport and an access code for your new bank account, which has already been credited with a little million dollars for each of you, as agreed. And a plane ticket that’s open without reservation yet. - You mean the operation is a complete success, because without television or any other means of communication, we don’t know anything!

- Total. And our President is extremely satisfied. After all, the final objective of acquiring stakes in three companies at the highest possible level to support his IC 2025 plan, which was lagging considerably behind schedule, has exceeded his expectations.

Now we’re jumping two boxes at once to become the world’s number two in certain sectors of the microchip and semiconductor ecosystem, not the whole industry yet.

In the same vein, we’re starting a new era of friendship with the two Koreas, thanks to our sponsorship of a future economic union that should come about gradually, and politically at a later date, as there will be a major adaptation phase upstream of all this. A double coup, then, with only three light casualties in Russia following the explosion at the “Kraskino” depot, and only one 240

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on our side, the Zhou Feng action commando from the very first phase.

- Really, we’ve made it this far. Gentlemen, we’re stronger as a team than we ever imagined. - At the end of the big dinner we’re preparing with your new companions - and mine, who’ve just joined us - I’ll ask you the question that our President wants answered by tomorrow morning at the latest:

Are you stopping here, or are you continuing with the big, difficult piece that follows? - We can already give you an answer, because while you’ve been away, we’ve been studying different scenarios, and this time without any military movement whatsoever.

- You mean no PLA involvement, no military movements this time? - Strictly none. The perfect Sun Tzu plan, which we now know by heart. Four bedside books aren’t much when there’s no TV or internet.

- You mean you’ve already got something really solid to present to me? - We think we’re totally ready for the next mission.

You’re all fascinating! Let’s have our dinner! Taiwan shall wait! ~~

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BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

NON FICTION – GEOPOLITICS -La Monnaie Europeenne- Enjeux & reflexions (in 1995) -Histoire de la Construction Europeenne (in 1997) -Afrique du Sud – Le Pari – (in 1997) -Astropolitics – Reality check (For 2024) NON FICTION – SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY -Earth Polycrisis – Reality Check (in 2023) -AI 2.0 – Reality Check (in 2023) -Hydrogen 3.0- Reality check (in 2024) -Nuclear Fusion 2.0- Reality check (for 2025)

FICTION NOVELS -Resistance – War-Passion-Greece- 1941(in 2022) -Silicon- War Games (in 2023) -First Crime – Mars- Colonies- 2044 (For 2024) WWW.FRANK.BLUE

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