Hail Warning

by Brett Arquette

After his successful ejection and main chute deployment, the Lt. Commander’s world transitioned from chaos to serenity. After he had descended one thousand feet, he watched his ditch bag splash into the saltwater. Other than the sound of a lonely seagull, he heard only the loud hiss when the saltwater sensor activated a valve releasing air from a small tank which inflated his life rate.

  The water had been surprisingly warm. It had taken him less than a minute of dogpaddling around the Sea of Japan to reel in the cord that connected him to his life raft. The ten feet of paracord seemed more like a hundred feet. Floating in the dark ocean, suddenly susceptible to predators swimming under him, was more terrifying than the ejection itself. After what had seemed like an eternity, but in fact, was more like ninety seconds, he touched the edge of the tiny life raft, and he rolled himself into the middle of the orange ring.

  He was relieved to find himself in pretty good shape. His back and neck were a little sore, but his arms and legs were still attached and working. Things could have been a lot worse.

  Ten minutes after hitting the water, Foster Nolan focused his attention on a little green light steadily blinking on his saltwater emergency beacon. His location was silently transmitting his coordinates. The lieutenant commander had very little interest in being found by most of the people who may be paying any attention to the blip. He had a satellite phone in his kit, but he already knew that it would not be used. His commander on the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, less than fifteen minutes away, knew he was down. He was docked at the Fleet Activities Chinhae Navy Base in Busan, South Korea. But Lt. Commander Nolan had not scrubbed a mission as ordered, crashing the $337 million-dollar jet fighter. Thus, he wasn’t sure if the big man was willing to take the risk of picking Nolan up.

  The night was quiet and still. A full moon was blasting out white light like a mini-sun. The lieutenant commander felt isolated and naked. Isolated in distance to any vessel that could save him, yet naked, like a man sitting in a tiny bathtub in the center of a public fountain. There was no place to hide if hostiles came looking for him. To make matters worse, he was also stuck in a sitting position—not an optimal position to defend oneself. But he had no other choice. The life raft would not support his weight when he attempted to stand. He sat, feeling helpless, sitting in two inches of saltwater that had collected inside the raft.

  He heard the helicopter before he saw it. Nolan surmised it was two miles out and quickly closing in on his position. He looked in the direction of the sound but saw nothing, probably because the helicopter was flying without navigational lights. That nuance told him two things. First, whoever was flying toward him didn’t want to be seen by anyone else who might come to his rescue. Second, the only countries who fell into that category were either North Korea or the United States. If the chopper belonged to the United States (fat chance due to insubordination) it would fly in stealthily, doing its best to evade detection by the surrounding Asian countries’ radar. Otherwise, his mission into North Korea would be exposed to the world. If the helicopter closing in on his position belonged to the North Koreans, they also would fly in under the cover of darkness, pick him up and whisk him back to their country to secretly torture him for information. He would consider himself lucky if a Chinese or Japanese chopper pulled him out of the water. At least they didn’t have any pending agenda with him or his mission. They might even do him a solid, return him to the United States, and not make a big stink about it. That would be cool.

  The “whoop, whoop, whoop” sound was getting closer. The lieutenant commander estimated the aircraft was now about a mile out and closing at a conservative speed of 30 miles per hour. The helicopter’s tracking scope would alert them of his life raft’s location, and they would be reducing their speed so they didn’t overshoot his position.

  Rummaging around in his bag, Nolan located a flare gun. He stuffed it into one of the front pockets of his flight suit. He also withdrew a standard-issue Beretta 9mm handgun. He popped out the clip to ensure the pistol was loaded, stuck the clip back in the gun and racked the slide to chamber a round. He verified the weapon’s safety was off.

  The blade wash intensified and Nolan felt the helicopter almost on top of him. Pulling the flare gun from his chest rig, he held it in one hand and the Beretta in the other hand. In a purposeful manner, he gently placed the muzzle to the side of his head, and he pointed the flare gun into the air. Being careful to avoid pulling the wrong trigger, he fired the flare gun into the moonlit sky.

  The night burned bright red, and the helicopter came into sharp view. It was about fifty yards away with its broadside facing him. The chopper looked like a Sikorsky Seahawk. Nolan recalled that the Seahawk was used by the United States, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan. Neither North Korea nor the Chinese use that medium-lift helicopter. But this was no reason to celebrate. However, Nolan thought it may be a good omen. The chopper was painted a light color, maybe white, but it was hard to tell since the red flare had made everything appear red. Visually, he could not detect any sort of weaponry affixed to the Seahawk’s pylons. Typically, a helicopter sent out to do bad things might have an assortment of missiles, torpedoes or guns mounted to those tactical surfaces. Through the red hue of smoke and the water vapor being kicked up by the choppers’ large blades, Nolan could make out the words Hail Industries stenciled on the passenger door of the Seahawk.

  Hail Industries, Nolan thought to himself. He knew of Hail Industries in the same manner he knew of Johnson & Johnson, DuPont and Ford. If he recalled correctly, Hail Industries was involved with some sort of nuclear power startup. But why the hell would one of their helicopters be sent out here to pick him up? Nolan kept the muzzle of the gun pressed tightly to the side of his head with his finger resting lightly on the Beretta’s trigger. He dropped the spent flare gun into the raft and wiped saltwater out of his eyes. If this turned out to be a trick, and the chopper was full of North Koreans or any other nationality intending to do him harm, he would squeeze the trigger immediately, thus terminating his problems.

  *_*_*

  The chopper flew over the top of his position and transitioned into a hover. Nolan looked up and saw the large side door of the aircraft slide open. A light inside the chopper blinked on and a boom arm was swung out through the open door. A shiny hook was hanging from a cable which was threaded through the boom arm and coiled up onto a winch. Someone’s head poked out from inside the chopper, and a face encircled by a black helmet with a thick chin strap appeared alongside the boom arm.

  Nolan thought that the face looked young—like real young. He guessed she was between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Between the light of the fading flare, and the interior light of the helicopter, he could discern that the eyes of the youngster operating the boom were not Asian. This meant his rescuers were not North Koreans. In waters surrounded by Asian countries, he had expected the first responders would be Asian. Nolan eased his finger off the trigger of the semi-automatic pistol but didn’t remove it from his ear. The young Anglo female screamed something down at him he could not hear over the engine noise. Then the girl’s arm reappeared outside the aircraft, clipping a yellow sling to the J-hook to the end of the cable. The winch came to life and began to unroll a thin metal cable. Nolan watched as the sling began to descend toward his life raft.

  With his free hand, Nolan again wiped saltwater from his eyes. Having given the situation ample consideration, he lowered the gun from his head, clicked on the safety and stuffed the weapon into his chest rig. He waited patiently for the sling to make its way down the 100 feet that separated the helicopter from his life raft. The lieutenant commander scanned the ocean in all directions, verifying if other vessels or aircraft were closing in on his position. Seeing nothing, and having no other options, he grabbed the yellow sling when it came within his reach. He did his best to get off his butt and onto his knees. He pulled the ring over his head and then wiggled his upper torso through the sling, letting the rubber-coated cable rest under his armpits. No
lan looked up at the young girl, and he gave his rescuer a thumbs-up. There was nothing to do but wait.

  The winch began to take in line and the sling tightened around his chest. Nolan looked down as he was lifted out of the small life raft. The wind from the helicopter’s blades blasted the orange raft, and a second later, Nolan watched as the raft was blown into the air and sailed away in the darkness.

  “Who in the hell is this?” he mumbled to himself.

  Even before he was pulled into the chopper, the aircraft tilted forward and began picking up speed. Once he had been reeled in, the winch stopped, and the boom arm, with the lieutenant commander still attached swung back inside the cabin. The door was drawn shut, and the chaos of sound immediately reduced to a tolerable racket.

  Nolan found himself sitting on his butt on the floor of the chopper, still hooked into the cable. He looked up at the girl standing over him. She said nothing. Instead of talking, she reached down and grabbed the bottom of the sling and began to pull up on it. The lieutenant commander lifted his arms and allowed himself to be separated from the lifeline. The girl unclipped the sling from the boom arm and it fell onto the floor. She swung the heavy boom up against the wall of the helicopter, securing it with a thick metal latch that held it tightly against the frame of the chopper.

  “Are you hurt?” the girl yelled over the noise of the engines.

  “A little sore, but I’m OK. I was lucky,” he replied.

  “You still are lucky,” the girl said, handing him a thick blanket.

  “I’m not cold,” the pilot told her.

  “Wrap yourself in it. You could be in shock.”

  “I would know if I was in shock or not,” Nolan argued, but his words had no impact on his young rescuer. She took the blanket out of his hands, shook it out and draped it over his shoulders.

  “That’s what people say who are in shock,” the young woman insisted.

  Instead of saying thanks, he asked, “Who are you?”

  Initially, the young woman ignored him. Instead of answering his question, she located the yellow sling that had been discarded on the floor and picked it up.

  She replied, “My name is Paige.”

  Nolan looked frustrated and responded, “No, I mean who do you work for—the CIA?”

  The woman stowed the yellow sling in a compartment fused to the wall of the chopper and shut off the interior cabin light.

  “I work for Marshall Hail,” she responded. “You sit tight. We’ll board the Hail Nucleus in a few minutes.”

  “The Hail Nucleus?” Nolan responded. “What is the Hail Nucleus?”

  By the time the words had left his mouth, the girl had already moved forward and plopped herself down into the copilot’s seat.

  The lieutenant commander could only see the back of the pilot’s black helmet. Nolan didn’t know if the person piloting the Seahawk was a man or a woman.

  Thus, he had no idea that the person flying the twenty-eight million-dollar 17,000-pound Sikorsky was a sixteen-year-old boy.

  TWO YEARS AGO

  LAGOS, NIGERIA

  T he first time the Nigerian terrorist, Afua Diambu, saw the Russian 9K333 Verba man-portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile was in a warehouse. It was in an old building, hardly even a warehouse by Western terms. It looked more like a dilapidated wooden box with a few weathered wooden doors and a leaky roof. The few windows the building had were barred on the outside with rusty rebar. The windowpanes contained glass broken in several areas cheaply repaired with recycled Plexiglas now a milky-white due to weather, sun and time. In between the windows facing the alley behind them were two wooden garage doors. They did not slide on tracks. Instead, the two heavy doors swung open on hinges. Currently, both doors were closed and secured with a thick metal bar which slid between twin iron brackets. Inside the room, and nearer the windows, were a few large work tables hastily constructed using a few sheets of aging plywood and recycled two-by-fours. A dozen rotting mismatched chairs were scattered about the room.

  Afua Diambu had been driven to the port city of Lagos, Nigeria by his leader, Mohammed Mboso. This was his point of embarkation for his long boat ride to Caracas, Venezuela. The missile retrieved from its hiding place had been packed in a case which previously had belonged to an expensive upright bass instrument sold for a fraction of its value to a street vendor. The case itself had been kept and molded to hold the large launch tube and its projectile.

  “I didn’t think it would be this big,” Afua Diambu told his leader, Mboso, who was carefully removing the weapon from its new case.

  Using both arms, he held up the 5.5-foot launch tube for Diambu to admire.

  Mboso looked toward the muzzle end of the tube and scanned the weapon with his eyes, taking in every inch of the dark metal object, as if it had fallen from heaven.

  “Is it heavy?” Diambu asked.

  “Eighteen kilograms,” Mboso answered absentmindedly, still admiring the weapon.

  Diambu didn’t think the older man could hold up a 40-pound object for much longer. The jihadi stepped forward and handed the missile system to

  Diambu, who accepted the gift, bouncing it a few times in his arms, testing its weight and confirming its authenticity from nothing more than its existence.

  “Is it armed?” he asked, certain it wasn’t. But it never hurt to ask.

  “Of course not,” Mboso said curtly. “But it will be armed very soon. You need to know how to operate it. You will arm and disarm the device many times before your voyage. We only have one missile, so there will be no test firings. The first time you pull the trigger, you will be pulling it for Allah.”

  It was Diambu’s understanding that his voyage would begin the following day, which meant his training would begin very soon.

  Mboso nodded to one of his two armed soldiers keeping loose guard on the interior of the room. One guard was looking out the dirty front window. The other was standing with his back to the garage doors watching the two men with the missile. The guard by the door was dressed in jungle fatigues. He turned and pulled the bar from its anchors on the door, opening one of the doors wide enough to allow a person to enter. A tall, stocky white man with blond hair entered the dank room. He walked over to Mboso and Diambu and stood quietly, awaiting his introduction.

  “This man’s name is Kornev,” Mboso told Diambu in English. “He is an expert in using this weapon. He will teach you everything you need to know to fulfill Allah’s divine will.”

  Kornev held out his hand and said in Ibibio, “Nice to meet you.”

  Diambu was impressed that the white man spoke his native language so fluently and answered in Ibibio as well, “The pleasure is all mine,” and he added, “As-salamu alaykum.”

  The white man responded with the customary, “Alaykum As-Salaam.”

  With pleasantries out of the way, Mboso said, “I will leave you to your work. My men will get you anything you need. Just let them know.”

  Addressing Kornev, Mboso added, “Please make sure that my man, Afua, understands all the workings of this weapon before you leave.”

  “It is very simple to operate,” Kornev assured him. “Of course, I will explain everything, as I always do.”

  Mboso nodded and then exited the warehouse from the door Kornev had entered. The guard closed the door and sealed it with the bar.

  Kornev turned to look at Diambu. The African was still holding the missile launcher in both hands which had sunk down to his waist level.

  “Have you ever fired one of these?” Kornev asked the lanky man with skin black as coal.

  “No,” said Diambu without further elaboration.

  “Do you have experience killing people?” the arms dealer asked.

  Diambu was shocked by the bluntness of the question. He wondered what significance it made if he had or hadn’t killed someone.

  “Of course,” Afua responded.

  “Good. Because with one squeeze of this trigger you will kill hundreds. Make sure you hav
e your mind in the right place.”

  Diambu didn’t understand what the white man was talking about. As far back as he could recall, he had been killing people. His mind had never been in the right place. Did a place such as this even exist?

  *-*-*

  Afua Diambu was unlucky enough to be born on a Friday. Afua means Friday-born child in his native tongue. He was born in Katsina State of Nigeria in a dirty little town named Batagarawa. Luck didn’t come easy to those born in the northern part of Nigeria. Whereas, most of the country was covered by a thick mass of green vegetation, Batagarawa and the Katsina areas were located on the outskirts of the Sahara Desert. The State of Katsina, located in north central Nigeria had the highest poverty rate among all States within that region.

  Little could be grown in the arid climate and lifeless sand, and, therefore the sensation of hunger was something Afua had grown up knowing. Thus, as a child, his friends and family had gone hungry. That wasn’t to say he enjoyed having an empty belly.

  At the age of twelve, Afua Diambu began making trips into southern Nigeria. He walked to the Kano-Kankia-Katsina road, where he would catch a ride on any truck or vehicle that would stop for him. He was always amazed to see the land change as each mile clicked by. At first, there would be a green bush here and a healthy green tree there. But the further they distanced themselves from the harsh Sahara, the greener vegetation became more abundant. Afua always knew this was the best time to get off the truck. He waited until everything around him was green to disembark at the next town to seek work.

  Green was Diambu’s favorite color. It was the color of sustenance; it was the color of life. Green meant people could plant seeds in the ground and eat whatever wonderful edible crops sprouted from the rich soil. Green symbolized to Afua a full belly and work for those who didn’t mind helping the farmers rid the ground of all those tasty plants. He would work and steal until he had enough food to provide for his family in Batagarawa. That cycle continued for years and had become Afua’s way of life. That is until his nineteenth year when he met Mohammed Mboso, better known as Iniabasi.