Hail Warning

by Brett Arquette

The bass case was sitting on a wooden table adjacent to the one they were working on. Kornev stepped over to the table where he opened and removed the missile launch tube. Very carefully, he removed the missile from its hiding place in the bass case and walked to the table where the launcher was waiting. Slowly and cautiously, Kornev slid the missile into the front end of the launcher. He lifted the nose of the launcher and allowed gravity to do its thing. Afua and Kornev heard a

  light chink as it found its home. The Russian held the fully loaded missile system in front of Afua.

  “Did you see how I did that? The missile goes into the front of the launch tube,” Kornev said, pointing at the muzzle of the launcher. “Then the entire launcher, with the missile inside, gets hidden in the hull section.”

  Kornev demonstrated, placing the large weapon into a foam cutout that was carved inside the hull section. He pressed the weapon system into the foam rubber; it fit perfectly. It had taken Kornev less than twenty seconds to stash the entire missile launcher into the aluminum hull section.

  “I want you to try,” Kornev told Afua, pulling the launcher back out. Kornev located a missile release button, tilted the nose of the launcher down, and caught the projectile as it slid back out the front of the tube. He then set the two pieces on the table and moved out of the way.

  Copying the arms dealer, move for move, Afua slowly slid the missile into the launcher. He pointed the nose of the launcher toward the ceiling and heard the metallic clank. He then carefully placed the launcher into the hull section.

  “Good,” the Russian said. “Now look at this,” he said, pointing to a metal cap on the hull section. The cap was connected to a metal tank that ran down the inside of the hull section. “Water goes in here,” Kornev explained.

  Kornev walked over to the wall and grabbed a black hose jumbled loosely on the floor. He bent the end of the hose so it was pinched closed before turning on the spigot. The hose came to life like a snake that had been electrocuted, flopping and wriggling on the floor. Kornev released the kink in the hose to allow the pent-up pressure which sprayed the wall. He placed the end of the hose inside the mouth of the tank and watched as it filled with water.

  “See these?” Kornev said, pointing at three black boxes mounted inside the hull section next to the tank. “Those are the batteries. You do not want to get those wet, so be careful when you fill this up. Hopefully, you won’t have to mess around with any of this. But if you do, then you need to know how to set it all back up.”

  As soon as the tank was full, Kornev quickly yanked the hose away from the opening. He dropped the hose, letting the water splash onto the floor. He asked one of the guards to turn off the water. He picked up the metal cap and screwed it back on the hull’s water tank.

  “The batteries have enough charge to blow the ballast tank at least three or four times, so you shouldn’t have to worry about charging them. Each time you blow the ballast, you have to refill this tank.”

  Afua shook his head. “Ballast tank?” he asked.

  “Yeah, you see—” Kornev stopped talking, realizing that the Boko Haram jihadi was a dumbass. He didn’t understand a damn thing he was talking about. If the terrorist didn’t understand what the middle of the hull of the boat was for, he sure as hell didn’t know how it worked, or what he was supposed to do with it.

  “OK, let’s start from the top,” Kornev said, anticipating a very long night.

  SEA OF JAPAN—ABOARD THE HAIL NUCLEUS

  P rior to the meal, Foster Nolan been escorted to a locker room. He was liberated of his combat vest and flight suit, and given a pair of thin gray sweat pants and a blue Polo shirt with the Hail Industries logo embroidered on the front pocket. A table for four had been set at the ship’s Italian restaurant. Gage Renner, Kara Ramey, Lt. Commander Foster Nolan and Marshall Hail filled the seats.

  “Wow,” was the only thing he’d said since they entered the restaurant five minutes ago. He appeared hypnotized by the full-length windows. The windows were 82-inch LCD monitors that ran the entire length of one wall of the restaurant. Playing on the windows was a video taken from the inside of an Italian restaurant looking onto a city sidewalk and the passersby. Foster Nolan watched a man stroll by walking three dogs. A thick wooden vertical beam separated each of the massive display screens, so as the Italian man left one screen, he momentarily disappeared behind the wooden pillar and then reemerged in the next window. Nolan watched the man walk all the way to the end of the block before turning at the corner, or the end of the restaurant, until he was lost to sight.

  “Wow,” the jet pilot said. “Who dreamt up this place, and why?”

  Hail answered, “I have a lot of people aboard who don’t get a chance to leave the ship very often, so I spent a little extra Moola to make the restaurants on board special.”

  “Restaurants?” Nolan asked. “You have more than one?”

  The smaller man to Hail’s left, Gage Renner, responded, “There are five restaurants on board, as well as a few bars.”

  “And they are all like this with the special fake windows and all?” the jet pilot asked.

  The woman, Kara, if Nolan remembered her name correctly answered, “Yes, they are. Of course, if you are eating in the Asian restaurant, the videos playing on those windows are of China or Japan.”

  Kara Ramey was dressed in a white blouse. Her hair was red and hanging in long loose curls resting on her shoulders. Her skin was fair. Her eyes were emerald-green and inviting. Kara looked at her menu.

  “Wow,” Nolan said again, but this time he was looking at Kara, not at the windows.

  A waitress arrived at their table. She was a cute woman in her mid-twenties with dark hair. She was wearing a white button-up shirt with a checkered handkerchief around her neck which looked like a festive tie.

  “Good evening,” the waitress stated. “What can I get y’all to drink tonight?”

  The lieutenant commander detected a Texas accent and asked, “Where in Texas are you from?”

  “Houston,” the woman responded.

  “Dallas,” he replied, pointing at himself using his thumb.

  “It’s great to have more of us Texans on board,” she said, smiling warmly at the pilot. “Remember the Alamo,” she joked.

  “What’s the Alamo?” Nolan shot back with a coy smile.

  The waitress smiled at him and asked, “What would y’all like to drink?”

  Once the drink order had been taken, the waitress removed the single flower from the vase in the middle of the table. She retreated behind a door leading to the centralized kitchen.

  While they were waiting, Hail asked the pilot, “So, how long have you been in the military?”

  He gave the question some thought before answering, “Ever since I was 22 years old. So, that would make it about fourteen years. I took ROTC in high school and entered the Navy right after college.”

  “Let me guess,” Kara said, “Texas A&M University?”

  “Man, you must have a crystal ball or something,” Nolan replied. There was a slight southern twang in the jet pilot’s speech which Kara found interesting. Very few Texans from Dallas had any twang at all these days, since Dallas was much more metropolitan and less rural.

  “What is this all about?” Nolan asked. “I mean, this ship and these youngsters picking me up in an expensive helicopter? What’s going on?”

  Hail looked first at Kara and then to Gage. They looked back at Hail and smiled.

  “What?” the pilot asked.

  “This information thing works the same way as in the Conference Room,” Hail informed Nolan. “We answer a question of yours. Then you answer a question of ours.”

  “Ah, we still doing that? I thought that we were all friends now?” Foster Nolan asked.

  Hail told him, “The answer to your question is that this ship - my ship is a sophisticated cargo ship that hauls thousands of tons of nuclear waste to my repurposing plants scattered around the world. We repurpose nuclear waste to burn in m
y traveling wave reactor power plants that we also manufacture.”

  “So, what does that have to do with the kids pulling me out of the drink in the Sikorsky Seahawk?”

  “Sorry, that was your question, and I answered it. So, it’s my turn,” Hail said. “My question is, do you want to stay on this ship, or do you want to go back to your Navy carrier?”

  Foster Nolan hadn’t had much of a chance to think about his future. Up until Hail had asked this question, he had assumed that he was here for the day. Then he would return to his own ship. Now that he thought about it, going back to his squad would be ugly. After all, he had disobeyed orders and had attacked a North Korean hotel. To compound his insubordination, he had been shot down, losing the 337 million-dollar aircraft. Chances were, he would be court-martialed and thrown into the brig. Best scenario, he probably would never fly jets again for the Navy or any other branch of the military. Hell, he would be lucky if he got to fly commuter flights for Delta.

  The lieutenant commander rubbed the stubble on his chin before cupping his jaw with his right hand. He huffed once and asked, “Do I really have a choice?”

  “I think so,” the beautiful woman responded. “I believe we have some latitude and a bargaining position with the Armed Forces.”

  “How’s that?” Nolan asked the CIA agent.

  Kara looked at Hail, and Hail gave her a little nod.

  “Well, Marshall here, has started taking on military types of projects. And currently, he doesn’t have anyone in an advisory position with any military background. Many of the methods he uses in completing his projects use air-based assets. You, being a pilot, have specialized knowledge in those areas. Thus, you could be of significant use to him.”

  Nolan shook his head and said, “I don’t really get what you’re talking about. What types of projects are you referring to? Why does a cargo ship need an advisor in military avionics and tactics?”

  Gage, Kara and Hail looked among themselves again. It was a conspiratorial look of three people deciding the extent of information they could divulge, especially to a person who could very well be headed back to his aircraft carrier within the next hour.

  “Do you have any family or any other personal issues that would prohibit you from staying on board?” Hail asked.

  He was going to protest and repeat his question prior to remembering the rules regarding information exchange.

  “No. No wife or kids. I had a twin brother, but he was killed in The Five.”

  The faces staring at him looked shocked.

  “You had a brother who was killed in The Five?” Gage asked.

  “Yeah,” said the pilot. He then dropped his head and looked down at the assortment of silverware that was set neatly in front of him.

  Everyone at the table knew about The Five. Hail assumed that the only people in the world who had never heard about that terrorist attack were the entire population of North Korea. The Five, the lieutenant commander referred to, was a mass terrorist attack that took place two years ago. Five terrorist organizations had shot down five commercial aircraft, using five shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles, within five minutes of one another and in five different countries. The combined death toll had been 1716 people.

  Hail broke the silence by saying, “I lost my entire family in The Five—my twin daughters and wife.”

  Before Nolan could offer his condolences, Kara added, “And I lost my mother and father in The Five.”

  “Holy hell!” Nolan said finally.

  The long moment of silence was broken by the waitress who arrived with the drinks. She placed the various beverages in front them and asked, “OK, so what will y’all be having for lunch?”

  Gage, Marshall and Kara all ordered, while the lieutenant commander looked over the menu.

  When the waitress had finished jotting down the orders on her electronic tablet, the pilot told her, “I will have the spaghetti and meatballs.”

  She said, “Very good, it will be done in a jiff. If you need anything just put the flower in the vase.” She turned and walked back toward the kitchen.

  “Is she single?” the pilot asked.

  “Yes, she is,” Hail responded.

  “So, what does this cargo ship have to do with military projects for the CIA?”

  Hail said, “Nope, it’s my turn. You just asked about the status of Jacky, the waitress.”

  “But—” Nolan began. Hail cut him off.

  “What do you think would happen to you if you were to return to your squad?”

  The question caught Nolan off guard. It took him a moment to assemble an answer. “I don’t know for sure,” he said in a crestfallen tone. “I would probably be washed out. Maybe serve some time in the brig.”

  “Is that something that you want to do?” Hail asked. It seemed like a dumb question, but maybe the lieutenant commander was into paying for his mistakes as part of some skewed code of honor.

  “No, if I didn’t have to go back and face all that drama, I’d rather not. There is no longer a future for me in the Navy. And to tell you the truth, I have already done everything I wanted to do for Uncle Sam.”

  Nolan looked up from the table with a hopeful expression. “Is there something you can do for me, to avoid going back?” he inquired.

  “Maybe,” Kara said.

  “So, what kind of projects do you do?” Nolan asked.

  “Nope. It’s our turn to ask a question,” Hail said. “When you said that your brother was killed in The Five. Which plane was he on?”

  “Virgin Atlantic flight 1082. It was shot down leaving Orlando International.”

  There was a long silence.

  Hail told Nolan, “It’s your turn to ask a question.”

  He took a moment and then asked, “What type of projects do you do?”

  Hail answered, “After my family was killed in The Five, I just couldn’t go on with life as usual, business as usual. So, I decided to have my ships modified with both defensive and offensive weaponry. I did this in preparation for killing every person on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Terrorist list. The CIA also has a list, but it’s classified.”

  Nolan laughed, “And how in the world do you expect to do that? Most of those targets are so hot and dug in so deep, it would take a volcano to bring them into the light.”

  Hail nodded toward Kara and said, “That’s why we have Ms. Ramey on board. She provides us with CIA intelligence, so we can track down the terrorists and kill them.”

  The pilot chuckled again and shook his head. “Do you have any experience killing people, let alone taking out hardened targets?”

  “We just killed Kim Yong Chang,” Hail said with pride. “The public doesn’t know this, but he was a North Korean who was trying to buy and build ICBMs. We also blew up his warehouse, the place where all the ICBM parts and pieces were located.”

  Kara picked up where Hail left off, and she said, “That was what your mission was all about. Blowing up the warehouse just in case Hail’s crew failed.”

  “That was you?” he asked, truly stunned.

  “Yep, and then you came along and screwed it up,” Hail added with an accusatory edge to his voice.

  The lieutenant commander cringed at the accusation and sat back in his chair. He looked like he’d been hit by a blast of arctic wind.

  “So why did you bomb the hotel?” Hail asked, now sounding more fatherly than antagonistic.

  Nolan remained pushed far back in his chair—as far from the table as he could get without physically getting out of his chair. At first, he said nothing. But Hail let the question hang out there. They were waiting for an answer. For some reason, Foster felt that this answer was pivotal to his future. He could give them some BS story, and Hail might keep him on board, but he sensed that they already knew the answer. They were simply waiting for him to confirm or deny it the truth.

  “I think it has something to do with my brother,” he began, explaining quietly, as if the weight of the truth was crus
hing his words before they could leave his mouth.

  “Like I said, he was killed in The Five. We were very close. Hell, man, we were twins. I don’t know many twins who aren’t close. But after my brother was killed, I was really bummed out. I didn’t give a damn about anything. I stopped doing a lot of stuff that normal people do, like bathing and eating and taking care of myself. And deep down, I knew that I needed to resolve the unresolvable, and the only way I could think of doing that was by getting some payback. You know like bombing the hell out of the people who were responsible. It’s my only gift. Bombing and shooting people is my only talent.”

  Nolan paused for a moment and looked down at the table. He continued, now softer than before.

  “How sad is that?” Another pause. Tears formed in his eyes.

  Continuing in a shaky voice, Nolan said, “But that payback thing never happened. The United States never really responded to the attack of The Five. The intelligence side of the government went into overdrive trying to figure out the who and the why, but like killing Osama bin Laden, it was taking too long. At least

  too long for me. So, I guess when the mission to go into North Korea was given to me, it seemed like it was destiny. It was my time to do something to avenge the death of my brother.”

  Nolan paused and took a sip of water.

  “When my commander came over my radio and told me to return to my ship, the words just didn’t register. I mean, you must understand, it was my destiny to go in and bomb the hell out of North Korea. And then, right when I’m five miles off the coast, I get called back.” Nolan’s tone oscillated to anger.

  “I was pissed. I switched off the radio and decided to have a look around, maybe find some prime targets. The two things I didn’t count on was taking out a hotel and being shot down by a Chengdu J-20. Hell, the North Koreans weren’t supposed to have any advanced aircraft like that at their disposal.”

  The lieutenant commander pulled back on his justification as if he were slowing wild horses. He realized that his little speech may have been interpreted as a rant, but it was true. Up to this point, he had never shared those facts with himself, let alone perfect strangers.