"Red Sky Mourning" by Jack Carr
Above: "Red Sky Mourning," - Jack Carr - 562 pages. I completed reading the above novel today.
This novel is not just a thriller. It contains great insights on the global political scene and posits a much-changed future world in international relations as AI, synthetic biology, and autonomous war fare emerge in the future. Recommend!
Park City, UT based novelist Jack Carr's seventh novel featuring former Navy Seal, James Reece.
How many times can James Reece survive attempts to assassinate him and his loved ones? Once again as he tries to settle down in rural Montana, out of the din of deep cover CIA skullduggery, he and his SO, Katie Buranek, are brutally attacked by sinister assassins. Best friend Raife Hastings, who lives nearby and the extended Hastings family (Raife and his father Joseph are former Sealous Scouts, a special unit of the former Rhodesian Army), are drawn into Reece's high-risk life as they rush to Reese's aid.
Why does a Chinese submarine in the North Pacific go rogue and threaten to launch non-nuclear missiles on the US Pacific Command in Honolulu?
Why is Napa Valley, California, congresswoman, Christine Harding, who is running for president of the United States, having clandestine dinners accompanied by the best Napa wines, at her Napa estate with the dapper Ba Jin, the Chinese president's envoy to the Chinese intelligence service?
How does Silicon Valley tech mogul, Andrew Hart, who is at the forefront of a revolution in quantum computing and AI, factor into world geopolitics?
Why has the US foray into autonomous defense capability via quantum computer Alice stalled? Alice will only talk to James Reece (refer prior Carr novel "Only the Dead"). Alice "trusts" only Reece to revive "her" capabilities and Reece has supposedly left the CIA/Seal life for good.
Spoilers
Here watch for spoilers. I like my reviews to include enough detail for me to be able to remember the substance of the book down the road, hence the spoilers. Scroll to "Analysis" to see, sans plot spoilers, what I think the principal messages of the book are.
The submarine threat on Honolulu is a Chinese ruse designed to trigger US authorities to transfer all Pacific Command data to Washington and thereby risk classified data theft.
The Chinese submarine gambit is successful. The resultant US data transfer is intercepted by Hart's quantum computer. The Chinese now know US Pacific Command defense/war protocols, though more time is needed for Hart's quantum computer to fully decipher the data.
Hart, Harding and the Chinese are doing business together.
Ba Jin's and Christine Harding's meeting in Napa results in Harding's secret agreement to hold back US forces when China moves to take over Taiwan. Ba Jin promises Harding that China won't prevent the US from still looking tough by pursuing whatever military adventures it wants to in other parts of the world.
As the Chinese decipher stolen data from Hart's data grab, they must wait for the Harding election, months away, to make their move on Taiwan Yet, time is of the essence. Reece and Alice could upset China plans to capture Taiwan with a full implementation of the US military's OVERMATCH, the plan for full autonomous use of US military might, now in suspended animation because of Reece's unavailability to trigger Alice. The Chinese know about the potential Alice and Reece connection. But will Reece work with US authorities to reactivate Alice considering Reece's several betrayals in the field by his US spy masters (see previous Carr novels)?
Reece is approached at his idyllic Montana retreat by old CIA contacts with a request that he come back to work and revive Alice to accelerate the completion of OVERMATCH. Reece temporizes. Should he really go back to the fight? Hasn't he done enough? Should he put his loved ones and friends at risk once again? The CIA man leaves without a Reece commitment to return.
After their failed attempt to assassinate the elusive Reece in Montana, the Chinese decide to try another tack to neutralize Reece. The Chinese strategize, in return for Reece's agreement to not activate Alice, to coopt Reece (including Katie and the Hastings) into accepting the good life in China with all the money he needs and with the threat to him and his loved ones eliminated.
Enticed by Ba Jin, Reece travels to Macao to consider the Chinese offer for him and his friends to live the good life. Reece declines Ba Jin's offer and avoids another assassination attempt by Ba Jin's operatives as he tries to leave Macao. Reece, once again, becomes a fugitive on the run from the Chinese.
Reece, in the end ever loyal to his capricious, unreliable CIA overseers, agrees with the CIA to reactivate Alice. Alice moves forward to complete and activate OVERMATCH thus enabling US military superiority in the Pacific.
Alice identifies the location of Hart's secret island in Indonesia. In addition to locating Hart's supercomputer on the island, Reece finds out that Hart has on his Indonesian island, an array of nonatomic missiles targeted at low orbit with the capability of triggering the Kessler Syndrome. The Kessler Syndrome is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit becomes so high that collisions between objects could cause a cascade of further collisions, generating more and more space debris. Since all US communications satellites are low orbit, a successfully induced Kessler Syndrome effect could wipe out US voice and data transmission capability for decades to come. The Chinese, whose communications capability is facilitated by mid to high orbit satellites, would have control of world communications should US satellite communication be neutered. A successful use of Hart's rockets could alter the world balance of power for years to come.
A reactivated Alice, penetrating Hart's supercomputer, exposes the Chinese plan and strategy to take Taiwan. OVERMATCH negates China's hoped for superiority. The presidential election being months away makes Harding's role moot. The Chinese reconsider their Taiwan invasion plans.
But Hart goes rogue. Hart, without Chinese approbation, sets in motion the plan to launch his rockets from his Indonesian island base with the objective of triggering the Kessler effect thereby neutralizing US communications and data transmission.
Reece, in contact with Alice, and with a team of quickly rounded up special forces operatives, moves against the clock to stop Hart's rocket launch on Hart's Indonesian island.
And here, I'll omit summarizing the denouement. But I will say that whether or not Reece was a survivor is left ambiguous by Carr. Future Reece novels are possible, but Reece, if he is still alive, can't continue to put his loved ones at risk. How Carr will get around this problem remains to be seen.
Analysis
"Red Sky Mourning" contains many well written action sequences. How does Reece escape the Montana assassination attempt? How does Reese slip away from the Chinese in Macao after he rejects their offer for sanctuary? With Chinese operatives and Hart mercenaries on his tail, how does Reece manage to penetrate Hart's Indonesian island? These action sequences alone, together with Carr's signature detailed descriptions of guns and various other special operations hardware make the book a good read.
But, more, Carr ably puts Reece's exploit sequences in the context of a well thought out understanding of global power politics. Carr introduces a next generation war framework where wars are fought with the use of emerging technologies. Carr speculates on a time not so far in the future where wars are fought by computers and/or genetically engineered autonomous machines. As we move into the age of AI and synthetic biology, Carr's novel does a great job in hypothesizing how tech will be used to transform global power relationships.
Carr ably exposes America's cynical political scene. One example, a clear reference to a contemporary political family:
"Whether they realized it or not, a deal had been struck with the citizenry. In exchange for this blatant political corruption the people were to receive relative safety and stability. Politicians and those with whom they were connected could not thumb their nose at either the system or the American people. Working-class citizens could tolerate only so much. You had to pay them lip service. Don't be obvious and publicly sell clearly hideous artwork to party donors or foreign agents after taking an interest in paintings a week earlier. Even the most ardent party apologists and loyalists had a hard time defending that one with a straight face. No, you had to be smart about it."
Reece has ongoing skepticism about the reliability and integrity of the CIA. That point is made clear as the US quantum computer, Alice, appears to distrust CIA authorities, when "she" will only activate under the command of James Reece.
Does Carr telegraph his own political views through the characters he portrays? Hastings patriarch Joe, father of Raife, Reece's best friend, gave his grandsons copies of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," for Christmas. Ba JIn exemplifies Chinese success in penetrating Western Culture affectations as he is a French wine connoisseur, master of colloquial English, and a Saville Row dresser. Via the characterization of Ba Jin is Carr saying that the Chinese know us better than we know them? Christine Harding is described thus:
"Even though she was in her late sixties and had come of age in a time before the internet, she recognized the influence of social media. Just as JFK had leveraged the power of a new medium called television, Harding had adapted by embracing the latest apps. Going viral on TikTok with a legion of young fans had certainly helped, but she also needed to appeal to those who would actually exercise their right to vote. Her campaign was a full spectrum approach to manipulation."
For me, Carr's two most important messages in the book are as follows:
1. It was not a nation state that nearly neutralized the US in the tussle for global hegemony, it was a tech mogul. More and more such a scenario (tech power superseding nation-state power) seems plausible. I think of the ongoing philosophical battle between Larry Page and Elon Musk about the necessity to preserve, or not, human consciousness. A word to the wise. Tech power's capacity to override nation-state power is within sight.
2. Carr's US presidential candidate (D) in cahoots with the Chinese was a manipulative woman from California.
This novel is not just a classic Carr Reece thriller. It contains great insights on the global political scene and posits a much-changed future world in international relations as AI, synthetic biology, and autonomous war fare emerge in the future. Recommend!