“Did you give them an audible warning of any type?”
“Yeah. Jack in our Reactor Security Center played them the canned blurb in Haitian that told them to leave the premises or they would be arrested.”
“That’s funny,” Hail said. “We should change that. Instead of the word arrested we should replace it with the phrase hurt or be killed. The Haitian police are a joke.”
“Sure, we’ll get right on that, but first we need to deal with these guys.”
Hail watched the boys as they passed a tall cylindrical pole that had the signage 10-D written on it in big red bold letters.
“What are your thoughts?” Hail asked Renner.
“Less than lethal is a good start,” Renner responded.
“Are you thinking of blowing the Airsoft on 10-D?”
“Yep,” Renner said.
“Is the charge prepped on 10-D?”
Kara whispered to Hail, “What’s less than lethal at 10-D?”
“In each quadrant, we have those poles you see there.” Hail pointed them out to Kara on the video monitor. “Each pole has several different colored plastic rings that go up the pole. See the rings?” He pointed to them on the monitor. “Each ring is filled with a different projectile type. Inside each ring is also a few winds of primer cord, you know, an explosive that is made out of pentaerythritol tetranitrate.”
Kara nodded her head even though she knew little about primer cord, let alone the explosive it was made from. She had gone through a short course in explosives at “The Farm” at Camp Peary, but it had only covered the basics. And the only thing she remembered was if an explosion is imminent, RUN.
Hail was still talking.
“This white one,” Hail said, pointing toward the top ring on the pole, “is filled with Airsoft BBs. The exact same kind that we kids played with when we were growing up.”
Kara nodded her head that she understood.
“This next ring down,” Hail explained, pointing at a blue ring under the white ring “is filled with regular steel BBs. And so on and so forth,” Hail said, “each ring becomes more and more lethal. The next one down is filled with broken glass, the next one down from that is filled with jacks, like the kind that kids don’t play with anymore. Each ring is deadlier until we get down to the bottom ring which is filled with ball bearings. The amounts of primer cord we use are calculated carefully for each stage of lethality.”
Kara looked concerned.
Hail said, “Needless to say, if we blow the bottom ring, then we have gone from the less than lethal to the fully lethal option.”
Kara looked at the video of the men walking toward the reactor control building. Just within the current angle of that one camera, she counted five such poles.
“All right,” Hail said, getting back to business. “Renner, tell Jack to blow ring one on 10-D.”
Renner pushed a button and said, “Jack, blow ring one on 10-D and await further instructions.”
A few seconds later, the white ring on top of the pole stenciled 10-D exploded. A ring of white blasted out into the open area as the shockwave left the pole. But it wasn’t a shockwave. From every direction, 20,000 white Airsoft .20-gram BBs spat out. The concussion of the blast caused the video stream to jitter for a few seconds and then it was clear again. Kara thought it was peculiar to watch the explosion without any sound.
All three juveniles had fallen to the ground and were grabbing at different parts of their bodies. They had been stunned by the blast, peppered by the BBs and now they were just beginning to come around. One of the boys, the tall one, got back to his feet and began looking around in all directions. Hail was certain that the Haitian didn’t know what had just happened or where the blast had originated.
“Don’t walk toward the control center,” Hail said to himself as if pleading with the boy who could not hear him.
“Do we have any Haitian speaking interpreters online right now?” Hail asked Renner.
Renner responded, “Nope. Sorry, Marshall. Our only interpreter is on the rack right now. We can get her up and online, but it will take a few minutes.”
“I speak a little Haitian,” Kara told Hail.
“Do you?” Hail smiled at her.
“Renner, patch our mics through to the control building speakers in Haiti. Kara wants to talk to our friends.”
“Patching now,” Renner said making the changes on his console. “OK, you are good to go.”
Inside the jet, the sound from the jungle in Haiti came over the flat screen’s speakers. It was one of those iconic sounds where the birds were chirping and the insects were buzzing, and it gave Kara the impression of only one thing. Hot. It was the sound of a hot, thick jungle. The men’s dark skin glistened in the heat. They were all very thin and looked desperate. Kara felt sorry for them.
“What should I say,” Kara whispered to Hail.
“Tell them to go home.’ Tell them there is nothing there that can help them. Tell them that they will get hurt or killed if they approach any of the buildings.”
“I told you I speak a little Haitian. Not all of that,” Kara said.
Kara sat up straight in her chair. She said something in Haitian, talking loudly so she could be clearly heard.
“Ale kay oswa ou a ap fè mal.” Translation – Go home or you will be hurt.
The boys inside the fenced area of the reactor compound heard the words and reacted with nervous stares and twitches. By now, the other two boys on the ground had recovered from the Airsoft onslaught and were standing next to their tall friend. All their heads were on swivels, looking this way and that.
Kara spoke again, “Ale konnye a, ni n' a blese.” Translation - Leave now or you will be hurt.
Her words seemed to convince the juveniles there were easier places to rob. They all turned and began walking back toward the fence, trying to rub away the pain from the areas that had received Airsoft hits.
“That seemed to do it,” Hail said. “We hate to hurt these people unless the reactor is at risk. They are just poor people who would strip the aluminum off the door jams if they were allowed to get that close.”
“Disaster averted,” Renner said flippantly. “Have a good flight, and we will see you when you get back on board.”
“See you soon,” Hail said.
“Nice to meet you,” Kara said, but the monitor had already gone black.
Kara went back to looking out her window. A big truck was pumping jet fuel under the right wing of the aircraft.
“What’s up with that whole situation there?” Kara asked.
“What do you mean?” Hail responded, selecting a magazine from the center console. He flipped it open.
“I mean with the reactor security stuff. Why don’t the people at the reactors handle it?”
“Well, that would be because there are no people at the reactors. No security either.”
Kara looked surprised, “You mean the reactors run themselves?”
“Pretty much,” Hail said, turning the page in his magazine.
“So, people don’t need to monitor the reactors?”
“Yes, and they do. All of our reactors are monitored remotely from the Hail Reactor Center.”
Kara looked disturbed.
“I can’t believe that a nuclear reactor site doesn’t need workers present to run the place.”
“They really don’t. The reactors themselves are very stable since they operate at atmospheric pressure. No chance of blowing the lid off the thing. They also burn their fuel bundle very slowly, so that eliminates the task of lowering or raising rods to regulate the reaction. The fuel bundle regulates the burn rate.”
“Well, that’s all well and good, but what about what we just saw? There is no one around to protect the reactors.”
“Which is why we have the Reactor Security Center,” Hail countered.
“It’s hard to believe any government is going to allow you to plop down an unmanned and unsecured nuclear reactor in their country,�
�� Kara stated.
“On the contrary,” Hail responded defensively, “countries beg for us to install our reactors. For example, in Haiti, the electricity sector owned by the government is called Haiti Electric. They were in a deep energy crisis with only twelve percent of the population with regular access to power. For all practical purposes, they were living in the dark ages with no chance of proliferation. We installed two reactors in Haiti; one in Gonaïves and the other in Miragoâne. Now Haiti has more power than they will ever need. Just like that. It’s wonderful.”
“And how much money did it cost those poor people?” Kara asked.
“Not one penny. That’s the beauty of providing power to underdeveloped nations. They don’t have any money, so they barter for the reactors. They write us a blank check when it comes to land. We can build industrial plants where we can make the reactors, put beta reactors online to see how they perform and have a home base for my ships as well as shipyards to build my ships. These little countries virtually throw away all the red tape that we encounter with tight-asses like the United States; countries that at the mere mention of the word of nuclear go running for the hills.”
“I heard that the United States has several Hail reactors that are in production,” Kara stated.
“Now they do, but they were very late adopters. They wanted to monitor these little countries for years and make sure our reactors didn’t explode or maybe even something worse ― a meltdown,” Hail made a scary face and made quote signs with his fingers.
“I thought you said that your reactors can’t meltdown.”
“They can’t. It is physically impossible, and I’m saying that as a physicist.”
Hail could tell that something else was on Kara’s mind.
“Aren’t you concerned that someday a big-armed contingent of men will take over one of your reactor sites?”
“No, not at all. The sites are armed to the teeth and well protected. You saw the poles that have all the rings of explosives and projectiles?”
“Yes, I saw them.”
“Well, what you didn’t see was the .50 caliber machine gun under the camera that was streaming the video. We have two of those. One gun is on top of the control building and the other gun is on top of the containment vessel. Both of those guns are laser guided. Let’s assume there was a force of 300 men and they begin to break in through the wire. Our first line of defense is distance. We have more than one hundred yards of clear-cut all the way out to the fence line, 360 degrees with a clear line of sight. A robotic lawn mower cuts it every day to keep it clear. So, the 300 men cut through the wire and the .50 caliber could start cutting down their army even before they made it through the wire. Our guns, by the way, are belt-fed from ammunition stored in a huge box next to the gun. We’re talking thousands of rounds per gun. But let’s say for the sake of argument that 200 men make it in through the wire. We have fifty of our explosive poles in the ground arranged in quadrants. For nonlethal, we blow them after the trespassers walk by, so their backs are facing the poles. That way they don’t get BBs in their eyes or face. For fully lethal, like for a full jailbreak, if we just lit up twenty-five of our ball bearing rings, anything in the area would be rendered Swiss cheese. So, they would have to go get another 300 men and try again.”
Kara asked, “And why wouldn’t they do just that? It doesn’t appear that they place much value on life.”
“Because the endgame for them doesn’t make sense. Death would still be a win for them.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The control buildings at our reactor sites are nothing more than thin cement towers. They are about as wide as a big closet. There are no offices or anything else inside them but electronics. They weren’t designed for people; they are essentially cement cell towers that house servers and sophisticated communications. So, if the army of men somehow made it inside that control room, they would be very disappointed. There would be some weird racks of computers that they wouldn’t know what to do with, and that’s about it. Now if they were to break into the reactor itself, they would be immediately exposed to massive amounts of radiation and die within minutes. So, you see, there is no real win for them.”
“Do they know that?” Kara asked. “All the families in the villages who live next to your reactors?”
“Yes and no,” Hail replied. “They have been told pretty much what I just told you, but then the world is full of crazy people if you haven’t noticed. Therefore, we have the guns and exploding poles to deal with those types.”
Hail purposely didn’t tell Kara about all the airborne deterrents that Hail Security deployed. She would have to earn the right to know about those things.
“And what if they destroyed the control building? What would happen to the reactor?” Kara asked.
“Like I stated before, the reactor is a stable machine. It doesn’t need to be told what to do. It’s just like lighting a long campfire. You light one end, and it just keeps burning until it gets to the other. You don’t have to monitor the campfire to keep it burning. It just burns until there is nothing left to burn. The equipment associated with the power plant that breaks down is the steam generator, but that equipment is on the other side of the fence and is Haiti Electric’s responsibility. I mean they have to play some sort of role in the infrastructure. They are also responsible for building and maintaining the high-voltage power lines that carry the electricity to its citizens.”
Outside on the tarmac, a dark-skinned man reeled in the gas hose and drove his truck away from the jet. Kara heard the plane’s engines come to life, and a few minutes later their aircraft was rolling.
Hail thought that she looked more comfortable than she had when they had taken off at Andrews, but her face was still twitching pretty good. He wanted to ask her some personal questions, like where did she live? Did she have a family? Did she believe in God? The normal stuff that a billionaire asked a beautiful CIA agent, but he knew there would be plenty of time for that later.
Kara said, “When your friend Renner was saying goodbye, he said I will see you when you are back on board.”
Kara looked at Hail. “On board what?” Kara asked.
Hail looked at his watch.
“You will have that answer in about nine and a half hours.”
“I can hardly wait,” Kara said as she braced herself for takeoff.
The engines opened up and the g-forces kicked in. Kara yelled, “I hope that Chavez is not falling asleep at the wheel.”
Hail didn’t have the nerve to tell her that they had just changed pilots at Dakhla. The new pilot had never flown the Gulfstream before, but she had over 25 hours on the simulator for this exact model. On the simulator, she had only crashed the Gulfstream once in heavy weather.
*_*_*
“You have got to be kidding me?” Kara Ramey said as she stared at the massive AgustaWestland helicopter parked on the tarmac of the Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport.
“No, it’s just a short hop to our next location, and I’m a great pilot. Look, I have no burns or contusions on me at all,” Hail said, showing Kara his arms and legs.
“How much have you flown this thing?” Kara asked, still making no effort to approach the idle aircraft.
“Lots,” Hail lied.
“Nothing in your file indicated that you are a pilot of any type,” Kara said skeptically.
“Your files are old. I learned how to fly over the last couple of years. After my family——” Hails words trailed off, and he wished he wouldn’t have brought that up. Each time he did, it was like taking another bullet to the heart.
Kara softened a little. As if the air that surrounded them contained some sort of anti-anxiety powder, she sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes and mumbled something to herself. She let out an equally long breath and looked like a beaten soldier. Looking down at her purse clutched in her right hand, she threaded her arm through the thin strap, placed the strap on her shoulder and beg
an walking toward the helicopter.
“Is this the last flying contraption I will see in a long time?” she asked Hail.
“Until you leave us,” Hail confided in her. “And when you leave us, you can take a rowboat back to the States if it makes you happy.”
Hail’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on the woman, and she flashed him a “screw you” expression.
Hail’s mechanic held the door open for her, but he didn’t offer her his greasy hand to help her on board.
Doing her best to cope with her four-inch high heels, Kara awkwardly boarded the chopper, found a plush seat and sat.
Hail went in after her and stood quietly for a moment, unsure if he should ask the question.
“What the hell,” Hail thought and said, “Why don’t you come up front and sit with me in the cockpit? It will be fun.”
Kara looked at him as if he had escaped from a mental hospital.
“I’ll be fine here,” she said. “Let’s just do this, so I can calm down.”
“Understood,” Hail said, opening the door to the cockpit.
“It will be a short flight, like five minutes,” he added before disappearing through the doorway.
Kara watched the door close and attempted to locate her seat belt. The mechanic slammed the exterior door shut and everything became very quiet. Unlike most helicopters, the AgustaWestland was built for comfort and was one of the quietest helicopters in the world—at least quiet on the inside.
Kara clicked her belt buckle together and heard the three turbofan engines whine to life. A minute after that, the big blade over her head began twirling around. A minute after that, she felt the aircraft lift off from the ground as she held her breath. The chopper tilted forward and began to pick up speed. The trees, houses, cars and people got smaller and smaller as they gained altitude. Kara sighed and did her best to stay calm. So far, Hail hadn’t killed them. That was good.
The machine banked to the left, and now all the trees and houses and cars were a blur as the aircraft poured on the speed. Just when Kara was getting used to the feel of the aircraft, she felt the nose come up a little and sensed they were slowing. She could see the ocean, sand and some sort of shipyard approaching from the east. Slower still, the helicopter finally came to a dead stop in midair. Kara looked down and saw a landing target drawn on the deck of a massive cargo ship below them. She was indifferent to where they landed, as long as they landed. The aircraft began to descend toward the painted target on the metal deck below. Kara’s heart raced and her face twitched. The blue sky was replaced with the sides of strange-looking shipping containers. Each of them was white and had the bright yellow and black symbol for nuclear radiation affixed to them. Kara felt the feet of the helicopter touch down, and she would have thanked God if she truly believed that one was paying attention.
Operation Hail Storm Page 22