Full Black - Brad Thor [84]
“Me, too,” replied Harvath, nodding toward the minifridge on the opposite wall.
Nicholas nodded. “Help yourself.”
Crossing over to it, he opened the door and peered inside. “Does the Old Man know you’ve got a bottle of wine in here?”
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, with the hours I’ve been putting in, I deserve a drink now and again.”
“Do you have any beer?” asked Harvath.
“Do I look like I’ve suddenly turned into a beer drinker?”
Though a man of diminutive stature, Nicholas had perhaps the best taste of anyone Harvath had ever met. From clothes to wine and food, Nicholas was a connoisseur of all the good things life had to offer—and that included beer. Harvath had sat and drunk with him before. “Seriously, you don’t have any beer?” Harvath asked.
“It was hard enough getting the wine in here without Carlton knowing. Five percent per volume versus twelve. You do the math.”
Wine packed a stronger punch than beer. Harvath got it. He settled on a Red Bull instead and closed the fridge door.
“I thought you didn’t drink that stuff anymore,” said Nicholas.
“Only in emergencies,” he said, popping the lid and rolling a chair over. “Like when there’s no beer.”
Nicholas smiled and made room for him. “How’s Chase? I heard he got shot in the shoulder.”
“Bicep,” Harvath corrected, pointing at his own. “I think it hit the bone. He’ll be riding the bench for a while. So,” he continued, changing the subject, “the Old Man says you’ve made some progress?”
“I have,” replied Nicholas, as he pulled up an instant message screen and typed a note to the Old Man that Harvath had arrived.
“Is he still in the office?”
“Yeah. He wanted me to let him know when you got here so we could go over everything together.”
“While we’re waiting for him, why don’t you give me the thirty-thousand-foot view of the situation?”
Nicholas nodded and turned back to his computers. Moving his little fingers across the keyboard, he brought up a series of images on the screens around the SCIF. “In the early 1990s, the Chinese watched in utter fascination at how rapidly the United States defeated Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War.
“They realized that there was absolutely no way they could ever meet the technologically advanced American military on the conventional battlefield and win. They also realized something else. As they studied how the United States had waged its wars, they saw that leaps in technological innovation drove innovation in American military tactics. Not the other way around.
“The Chinese considered this quite a profound discovery and began to embrace the idea that in a China-versus-America conflict, the inferior China could beat the superior United States. In fact, China’s defense minister, General Chi Haotian, even stated that war with the U.S. was inevitable and that China would not be able to avoid it. He posited that the key issue for the Chinese armed forces was going to be controlling the initiative, or how the war would be fought. It would all come down to how each side approached waging war. China knew exactly what their plan would be. Their blueprint became known as unrestricted warfare.
“The first and most important rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules. Nothing is forbidden. The plan calls for merciless, unconventional out-of-the-box thinking. The key is asymmetrical attacks on every sphere of American life—political, economic, and social.
“Using the ancient martial doctrines of leaders like Sun Tzu, they focused on the time-proven methods of surprise and deception, particularly by weaponizing civilian technologies and employing them without morality, mercy, or limit in order to crush American society.”
“What do you mean by weaponizing civilian technologies?” asked Harvath.
“What is one of the most important technologies that touches every single home and business in America?” said Nicholas.
Harvath thought about it for a moment and replied, “The Internet.”
“You are correct, but the Internet is the second most important.