Operation Hail Storm

by Brett Arquette

  Kara looked at Pepper like, Who the hell is this guy? As long as she had known the man, he had never said a single positive thing about her, let alone brag about her in front of the POTUS.

  Hail looked at Kara, who was looking at Pepper. It was just so damn difficult to take this supermodel for real. Hail did his best to separate his stereotyped preconceptions from what Pepper had just told him, but failed to do so. As far as he was concerned, the vote was still out on this woman. The only way Kara Ramey could convince Hail of her usefulness was by her actions. After all, her boss had his own agenda.

  Hail wasn’t a stupid man. He understood that Pepper wanted to get Ramey into the mix so she could report Hail’s best kept secrets back to the CIA. That wasn’t going to happen. Kara could go back to his ship, but she wouldn’t be a very happy supermodel once she discovered the restrictions she would be under.

  “Is that it?” Hail asked the group.

  “Well, you didn’t give us an answer,” Pepper said.

  “If we have four days then we need to leave now. Do you have any bags?” Hail asked Kara.

  “No, I really don’t need anything. I assume they have stores in Madagascar, right?”

  “Right,” Hail smiled.

  The president picked up her desk phone. Without dialing any numbers, she said into the handset, “Please bring in the helicopter to take Mr. Hail plus one back to Andrews.”

  Hail looked at a smiling and radiant Kara Ramey.

  He could think of worse secret agents to have aboard his ship.

  *_*_*

  Hands had been shaken and good lucks had been thrown all around.

  Now Hail found himself standing on the back lawn of the White House next to his boyhood friend, Trevor Rodgers, waiting for the helicopter. About thirty yards away and well out of earshot, Pepper and Ramey were having a conversation.

  Hail looked at the two and could only imagine what was being said. He could hear Pepper in his head.

  Kara, I want to know everything about Hail that you can get your hands on. I want to know about his technology, about his people, size, numbers, dollars, research, production, anything and everything you can get your hands on. I want a full update every day. I want schematics and designs and blueprints and sketches and basically everything about everything that Hail has ever done since the moment of his birth.

  Or something like that.

  Hail was certain Pepper wasn’t telling her to go and have a good time, get a tan and bring him back a hand whittled set of ring-tailed lemurs. The CIA was the CIA, after all, and they were not hard to figure out. They did CIA stuff.

  “I wish you could have stayed longer,” Rodgers said. “I thought we could have had some dinner and catch a ball game or something.”

  “Maybe next time,” Hail said.

  “There isn’t going to be a next time. Is there?” Rodgers asked. “I mean you haven’t been back in years. When do you plan to come back?”

  Hail didn’t say anything.

  “I didn’t think so,” Rodgers said flatly.

  “Well, what about you taking a boat ride someday?” Hail offered. “You know, when you don’t have a month of important FBI stuff to do.”

  Rodgers laughed. “I think you might be back before that happens. Mine is not a job you can just leave for a month.”

  “I didn’t think so,” Hail said. “And mine really isn’t either.”

  Rodgers looked thoughtfully at his friend.

  “And what is your job these days, Marshall?”

  “Nuclear power for the downtrodden masses. Pennies for power,” Hail said as if he was reading a Hail Industries pamphlet.

  Rodgers shook his head slightly and looked disappointed.

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Rodgers asked.

  “It’s as good a job as any.”

  “No, I mean your new job is killing people. Doesn’t that bother you at some level?”

  Hail looked his friend square in the face and said, “It revives me, Trevor. It brings me back from the dead. It might be the only reason I’m still around and haven’t jumped off my ship on some moonless lonely night. I don’t know if that’s something you can understand or not.”

  Rodgers said nothing.

  The lull in conversation was filled with the flap, flap, flap sound of approaching rotor blades.

  The private conversation between the CIA folks broke up, and Kara walked over and stood next to Hail and Rodgers. Pepper headed back up the lawn toward the White House. He didn’t wave goodbye.

  Kara looked nervous and said, “I hate flying.”

  “Wow,” Hail thought. The beautiful tough CIA woman is afraid of something. Not the first card he would have played if he had been in her shoes. Best not to show any faults until you were firmly in place.

  “I’m afraid of flying as well, but only on commercial aircraft,” Hail told her sympathetically. “Don’t worry. The Marine guys fly these things in their sleep.”

  Kara said nothing, and Hail let it go.

  The calm day turned into a wild windstorm as the White Hawk touched down in front of them.

  Hail shook Rodgers’ hand and yelled, “Take care of yourself, my friend.”

  Rodgers said something that Hail couldn’t quite make out, but he shook Rodgers’ hand and nodded his head nonetheless.

  Hail and Ramey turned and ducked their heads and began walking hunchbacked toward the door that had been pulled open on the helicopter. Ramey used her right hand to uselessly corral her mass of red hair. The same marine lieutenant was waiting at the door and offered his hand to Kara, who took it, and stepped into the aircraft. The soldier then offered his hand to Hail, who didn’t take it, and also stepped into the aircraft.

  Both were seated, buckled and the door was drawn shut. Through the tinted glass, Hail waved at Rodgers as the chopper spun up and began to rise into the Washington haze.

  Kara startled Hail by reaching over and clutching his arm as she nervously looked out the window. Hail thought the woman actually looked terrified, and he didn’t think she was acting one bit. As they got higher, her grip tightened. It was a short ride to Andrews, so Hail decided to allow her to cling to him. He wondered if he would have said something if Pepper was the one grabbing his arm. Pretty women got all the breaks.

  In less than five minutes, the big helicopter touched down next to Hail’s jet. The door slid open, and Hail and Ramey disembarked.

  Kara looked toward the hangar to her left then began to walk toward it. Hail caught her elbow and, instead of screaming over the howl of the White Hawk, pointed toward the Gulfstream to their right. Kara began shaking her head, no. The White Hawk lifted off, and Hail nodded his head, yes. For a moment, Hail thought that Ramey was going to make a break for it and dash across the tarmac and hide inside the hangar. But she didn’t. Reluctantly, she began walking toward the sleek jet, and Hail released her elbow.

  When she was certain the White Hawk was far enough away so she could be heard, she said, “I hate flying. Can’t we take a train or a ship or something?”

  “Is that how you get around on the CIA’s dime?” Hail asked.

  “No, but I take Xanax before I fly. Do you happen to have any?”

  “If I did I would have overdosed on it years ago,” Hail thought.

  Hail was getting tired of reassuring the CIA agent and said, “If you don’t want to go, I understand. Just give me your phone number, and I will call for the information we need.”

  “That ain’t gonna happen,” Kara said, all of a sudden finding the courage to walk up the jet’s stairs.

  Hail followed her up and closed the door behind them.

  “Wow,” Kara said. “Nice digs!”

  “It beats flying commercial,” Hail said, sounding a little ashamed of the opulence of the aircraft.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a plane like this. I mean when I went on trips with my folks, we went first class, but this—this is first class.”

  Hail did
n’t know what to say, so he just stood there waiting for her to sit down somewhere.

  “Where should we sit?” Kara asked.

  Hail gestured toward the CEO flight seats to their left.

  “I really like to sit in the flight seats when we takeoff or land. Just in case it gets bumpy,” Hail said.

  Kara didn’t look like she liked the word bumpy all that much. She sat down in a chair, away from the window and faced forward. Instead of sitting across from her so they were looking at one another, Hail selected the window seat next to Kara’s chair.

  Kara fuddled around with her seat belt, until she was sure that everything was snapped and in place. Hail noticed that her right eye was twitching a little, a nervous tic of some sort, to be sure. Besides that, Ms. Ramey still looked good. Really good.

  “Where should I put my purse?” she asked.

  Hail flipped opened a compartment between their seats, and she dropped it in. Hail then released the padded top, and it fell shut.

  “So, you said that you have your own pilots that fly your planes?” Kara asked.

  Hail felt that the question was more than just idle conversation.

  “Yes, I do,” Hail said.

  “And they are all great pilots, I assume,” Kara said with a nervous laugh.

  “I trust my life with them, and I can’t say that about just any old pilot.”

  Kara winced when she heard the engines begin to start.

  There was a click of an intercom being activated, and a voice above them said, “Hi, Marshall. We have received clearance to taxi and should be in the air in about five minutes.”

  “Sounds good,” Hail said into the air. “Let’s make sure we keep things extra smooth for our guest here. She doesn’t like flying.”

  “No problem-o,” the voice responded.

  The plane started moving forward in a tight, right turn and pulled away from the hangar area. The engine’s tone rose in pitch as they strained against the still air to push the aircraft forward.

  “The pilot sounds so young,” Kara said.

  “Would you like to meet him?” Hail asked.

  Kara shrugged indifference.

  Hail pressed a button on the side of his chair. A video link to the pilot appeared on the screen mounted to the bulkhead wall in front of them. The camera angle inside the cockpit was shooting the back of the pilot’s head. Hail and Kara could see the entrance to the taxiway through the windshield of the jet. The plane completed its turn and began to pick up speed as it neared the head of the runway.

  “Is this a bad time to talk?” Hail asked his pilot.

  “No, I’m good,” the pilot responded.

  The plane came to a stop and waited for final clearance to takeoff. Hail could hear radio chatter from the tower.

  “This is Kara Ramey,” Hail said by way of introduction. “She will be staying with us for a while.”

  Hail reached down and switched the camera angle so it was now looking at the pilot’s face from a camera on the plane’s dash.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Daniel Chavez, looking into the camera and giving a little wave.

  Kara looked disturbed and leaned over to Hail and whispered, “He looks so young. How old is he?”

  “How old are you?” Hail asked Chavez.

  “Almost seventeen next month,” Chavez said, smiling into the camera and giving a thumbs-up.

  “You have got to be kidding me?” Kara said in a stunned tone.

  “It’s OK,” Hail tried to comfort her. “He has probably 200 hours flying this bird. Well, simulated hours,” he corrected himself.

  “What are you talking about?” Kara asked, panic rising in her tone.

  Hail wondered how much he should tell the CIA operative, but he was having fun with the situation and decided to play it out a little longer.

  “Well, this is only like the second time Chavez has ever flown this plane. I change pilots a lot as more of them become certified on this model.”

  “Oh, good,” Kara said, letting out a big breath. “So, there is another pilot in the cockpit that is more experienced.”

  Hail let air escape through his teeth. “Well, about that. There are no pilots on this plane.”

  “What do you mean?” Kara asked, sure that Hail was trying to mess with her mind. “I see him right there. The seventeen-year-old that doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

  Hail made an I’m sorry expression and shook his head. “No, what you are looking at is a flight control center about twelve thousand miles from here. That’s where Chavez is located. He’s flying this plane via remote control.”

  Kara began to frantically fumble for the latch on her seat belt.

  “I’m out of here!” she screamed.

  Hail clicked off the video, and the big screen went black.

  He reached over and placed his hands over hers. She yanked at the seat belt latch, and Hail caught her hands and held them still.

  “No time,” Hail told her.

  The plane’s engines wound up, and the high pitch of the turbines screamed outside the Gulfstream’s windows. The brakes on the jet were released, and the plane accelerated forward, pinning Hail and Kara to their chairs.

  “I hate flying!” Kara cried out as the jet reached rotational speed and the wheels left the runway.

  *_*_*

  “So, what are your thoughts?” the president asked the men.

  General Quentin Ford spoke first. “Well, I don’t know about all of you, but I think that Marshall Hail is a godsend. By knocking off Kim, he has already proven that he is operationally proficient, and if he is able to pull off this new mission for us, then, hell, we could use him for all sorts of covert tasks.”

  The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jarret Pepper, said, “I’m not as warm and fuzzy on Hail as is the general.”

  Pepper looked at the general to gauge his reaction.

  The general looked at Pepper like he didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Pepper continued, “Inserting Ramey into Hail’s operations was the best we could hope for. Given enough time, Ramey will gather sufficient intelligence on Hail, so we can make an informed opinion about him, not simply relying on an impression that is either correct or horribly wrong.”

  The director of the FBI, Trevor Rodgers, said, “As you all know, Hail is a personal friend of mine, so my opinion is biased in that respect. However, I can tell you that Hail is one of the most respectable people I have ever met; for what it’s worth.”

  Pepper laughed. “Yeah, a respectable billionaire. That would appear to be a conflict in terms. Men like Hail didn’t make all that money being respectable. I mean, what do any of us even know about this man and his operations. What kind of subterfuge was he feeding us that his operations are located in Madagascar? Does anyone here believe that?”

  The Director of National Intelligence, Eric Spearman responded, “I wish we would have had more time to talk to him. I understand that time is a critical factor if we want to have a chance at intercepting this missile shipment. But realistically, how much time did we have—like ten minutes with him? I don’t think that’s enough time to hire an office temp let alone make a deal with an assassin.”

  “Two things,” the general began. “I don’t think it would matter if we had ten minutes or ten days with Hail. He wasn’t going to tell us squat about his operations. And if I was in his shoes, neither would I. Also, no―I do not think that his operation is being run from Madagascar. It was pure subterfuge.”

  “I don’t either,” said Pepper, “but we’ll know where Kara is going because her cellphone is being tracked, as we speak. No matter where she ends up, we will get a blip on a map, and that will pinpoint her position.”

  “What if Hail takes her cellphone away?” Rodgers asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. They can even turn it off and take out the battery. The phone has a hidden battery, and it will still send out its blip,” Pepper told the group.

  The
president, who had been listening to the conversation and absorbing the content said, “My interest is accountability. Yes, I understand that we want to collect as much information about Hail and his assets as possible, but my real interest is accountability. If Hail goes after the missiles and completely screws up, I need to know if it will point back to this office.”

  The president looked at each of the men.

  “Do we have any insight on that end of things?” the president asked them.

  None of the men looked like they wanted to field that question but the general, who was never shy to speak up, said, “If Hail is not using people, instead using some sort of advanced drone technology, mechanical soldiers or whatever, then I don’t see how that could lead back to us. A failure would constitute no more than a pile of parts left at the scene. And what could that tell anyone?”

  “I agree,” Spearman said. “Really, the worst-case scenario I can see is that Hail can’t complete the mission and the missiles get built.”

  The president asked, “Do we have any concern about Kara Ramey’s safety? After all, we just let her fly out of here to God-knows-where with a man we know very little about.”

  The general said, “His father was the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So how bad can the guy be? No, he didn’t ask for Kara’s help, and I’m sure that he would be happy to cut her loose if we gave him the intelligence he wants.”

  “So far, everything is working out the way we all wanted it to go,” Pepper assured the group. “Ramey has infiltrated Hail’s organization, and Hail is more or less working for us right now. How much better can it get?”

  “How much worse can it get would be my concern,” the president commented.

  Above the Atlantic Ocean—Aboard Hail’s Gulfstream

  O

  nly a few moments into the flight, Kara started shaking uncontrollably like she was having a panic attack. And now, ten long minutes later, she still looked tweaked but was starting to calm down a little. Hail felt bad for ribbing her so badly by letting her know that no one was flying the plane. But he hadn’t anticipated she would freak out so badly.