Hail Warning

by Brett Arquette

  “Yeah, Oliver is flying another drone named Bad Company. In its physical form, the drone looks just like a falcon.”

  “You mean like the bird—a falcon?” Nolan verified.

  “Yep. The drone can fly all day long above a target, and no one on the ground can tell it’s actually a drone.”

  Nolan looked impressed, but a little skeptical. He asked, “Why do you need both of the drones?”

  “You watched my meeting with the president. And what I told her was accurate. The falcon, Bad Company, sent laser signals to Cheap Trick, because all radio signals are being jammed near the White House.”

  Nolan laughed.

  “I thought you were just messing with the president,” he said.

  “Nope. It’s the real deal and we will be running into increasing security of that type. I can foresee a day in the future where no one will be able to text or use their cellphones, because signals everywhere will be jammed—all in the name of National Security. I’ll probably be dead by that time, or at least wish I was.”

  “I’m with you on that,” Nolan said.

  “This landing is going to be tricky,” Oliver said. “I can’t hover this bird, so all I can really do is come in fast, flare to a stall at the last second, and let it fall where it falls. You want me to put it on the balcony as well, Captain?”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” Hail said. “Just make sure it’s on his balcony. I’d hate to lose that bird. It’s expensive as hell, and we only have one of them now that Eagles is gone.”

  “Eagles?” Nolan questioned.

  “It was our first birdlike drone, and we lost it during the last mission. A North Korean general shot it from the sky with a hunting rifle, can you believe that?”

  Foster Nolan shook his head and said, “So, the only two things that got shot down during that mission was your eagle and me. Hopefully, I fared better than your eagle.”

  “Unfortunately, it was a total loss. As will be this bird if Oli can’t nail the landing.”

  Almost on cue, Oliver stated, “Here we go. We are coming in hot.”

  By now, Alex Knox had left his controls and had rotated his chair so he could watch Oliver land the falcon. On the screen, from the perspective of the falcon’s camera eyes, it looked as though the bird was traveling insanely fast as it glided down the street. At the last second, Oliver yanked back hard on the joystick and pushed his feet all the way into the pedals. The bird’s eyes shot skyward, and for an instant, all anyone could see was the underside of the balcony ceiling. And then, the screen was filled with horizontal lines which pixelated as the bird dropped onto

  the balcony. A few seconds ticked by while the camera on Bad Company refocused. The white plastic leg of the table that Cheap Trick had landed on came into view, inches from the falcon’s beak.

  “It wasn’t pretty, but it’s on the balcony,” Oliver said, shaking out his cramping hands.

  “Damn, I don’t know much about flying drones, but that looked like one hell of a landing to me,” Nolan said.

  “More like a controlled crash,” Knox quipped, “but it’s really the best Oliver could do with a glider and a balcony. Not much of a landing strip there. And there is no power to compensate for a smooth landing. It’s all or nothing. The best you can really do is flare at the last second, spread the bird’s wings. It decelerated from about 80 miles per hour to 0 miles per hour in about a half-second. Good thing there was the ceiling on the balcony.”

  “It was either the ceiling, or I could have just run it into the wall; that was the only other option,” Oliver commented.

  “Before you put it to sleep, run diagnostics on it and see if it’s damaged,” Hail requested.

  “Will do,” Oliver said. He flipped through some screens on his monitor and pressed an icon that read DIAG CHECK.

  Nolan scrutinized the boy, Oliver, sitting at his flight station.

  “Aren’t you the pilot who picked me up in the ocean?” Nolan asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Oliver said, watching his screen as the diagnostic check continued spitting out data related to the falcon’s health.

  “How old are you, son?” Nolan asked him.

  “Sixteen,” the young man replied.

  He faced Alex Knox.

  “And how old are you?”

  “I’ll be twenty next month,” Alex told him in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “How old are you?” Alex asked Nolan.

  The lieutenant commander laughed and said, “Only my hairdresser knows for sure.”

  “What?” Alex asked.

  “Just a line from a very old commercial,” Nolan replied. “I’m sure you have never seen it. You would have to be old like me to know what I’m talking about.”

  Nolan thought about it for a moment. He tried to remember what he was doing when he was twenty. College parties and girls came to mind. But the boy, Knox, was flying drones on a cargo ship. Man, times had really changed.

  “Bad Company’s diagnostics came back clean,” Oliver reported.

  Oliver swung away his monitors and flight control set, swiveled his chair 90- degrees to the right and he stood with the others.

  Hail checked the large monitor mounted on the far wall that listed times in different parts of the world. The time in the United States showed 9:30 a.m. However, their time, in the Eastern China Sea off the coast of China, was 1:00 a.m.…. a day later.

  “Why don’t we all turn in for the night, and then maybe show the lieutenant commander some of our facilities tomorrow. It would be interesting to see who is the best F-35 pilot in the simulator.”

  Both of Hail’s young pilots smiled.

  Foster Nolan smiled even wider.

  TWO YEARS AGO

  GULF OF GUINEA—ABOARD THE NIGERIAN PRINCESS

  T he navigation system on the Nigerian Princess showed Afua Diambu and Isaac Obano they were on the outskirts of the Gulf of Guinea, entering the South Atlantic Ocean.

  Afua did not understand the navigational system, although Isaac had done his best to explain it to him. In a very short amount of time, Afua had a lot to learn. The jihadi’s cover was that of the first mate of the ship. It was imperative to learn what that position entailed. He was the direct relief for the captain when he was not at the helm. Even though it would take the yacht weeks to reach Caracas, Venezuela, he had to learn how to become a legitimate deckhand before they were stopped and boarded by some well-meaning contingent of uniformed men. That interdiction may take the form of a legitimate localized Coast Guard troop, or it may take the form of a gang of pirates. Luxury vessels, like the Nigerian Princess, were mouthwatering, easy pickings for indigenous pirates. Typically, luxury vessels were not well armed. And, if they were, the crew on most luxury yachts were not hardened warriors. They were usually former fishermen who had been offered the coveted job of captain. Instead of running a smelly fishing vessel, they were upgraded to pilot clean and sleek yachts owned by rich folks. In certain areas in the world, it was not uncommon for a pirate boat to simply pull along a ship and board them without one shot fired. But that would not be the case with the Nigerian Princess. The Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Mboso, told both Isaac and Afua, in no uncertain terms, that the Nigerian Princess, would not fall into the hands of pirates.

  Isaac looked up from the radar screen at a ship on the horizon that appeared to be closing on the Nigerian Princess. He motioned for Afua to follow him to the lower deck. The pair threaded their way down the narrow staircase, steadily descending one flight after another. When the stairs terminated, the only way to go deeper into the hull was via a hatch that led to a fixed ladder. Both men found themselves at the very bottom of the ship. Walking slowly with their heads ducked to avoid hitting them on the low ceiling, they made their way over to a large wooden trunk. Isaac lifted the lid and waited for Afua to see the cache of weapons within.

  Afua glanced inside and was not surprised to see a large assortment of weapons. There were some handguns that looked like Glock 9mm wrapped in


  lightly oiled rags—Afua counted six. Isaac reached in to retrieve two Glocks. He handed one to Afua and kept one for himself. Under the handguns were some matching 9-mm magazines already loaded. He handed Afua two magazines, keeping two for himself. Both men slid a magazine into a gun and racked the slides. They tucked the guns into their back waistbands.

  To the right of the handguns were several automatic AK-47s. Isaac removed two of the AK-47s, in addition to four magazines. Next to the assault rifles was a large metal ammo box of 7.62 x 39-millimeter, 124-grain rounds. Isaac set the butt ends of the assault rifles on the ground and left them leaning against the trunk. Isaac carefully moved the remainder of the AK-47s out of the way. Under the assault rifles was a Barrett M107, semi-automatic, long-range sniper rifle.

  As Afua lifted the massive rifle out of the trunk, Isaac asked him, “Do you know how to fire that?”

  “Yes,” Afua responded with a smile. “I have the Barrett M99. They are similar, but the M99 is a single-shot rifle. This is a semi-automatic.”

  “Are you any good with it?” Isaac asked.

  “Yes,” was Afua’s confident answer.

  “Let’s get this stuff up top and get the rest of the AK magazines loaded. There is a ship approaching us, and I don’t know what they want. But if they aren’t military, then they need to go away.”

  Afua simply nodded. He started collecting as many guns, magazines and boxes of ammo as he could carry. Still keeping his head low, he turned and quickly started heading up toward the top deck. It took them two trips to collect all the hardware they required, yet they still had adequate time to prepare. Before Isaac had left the helm, he turned the Nigerian Princess away from the approaching vessel. He also increased the yacht’s speed and set the autopilot. That would buy them at least an extra ten minutes.

  Five of those minutes were spent loading ammo into the magazines of the AK-47s. Isaac chastised himself for not doing this earlier, before the weapons were needed. But his wife was on board, and she needed attention as well. Excusing himself to go load a dozen magazines with tracer and armor-piercing rounds had been the last thing on his mind.

  Both men sat on the elevated sundeck of the ship, and they diligently stuffed cartridge after cartridge into the spring-loaded magazine. Isaac’s fingers were beginning to hurt, but Afua was a regular magazine-loading machine. He had been loading AK-47 magazines for as long as he could remember. When he had begun with the Boko Haram, one of his main chores had been loading AK magazines. He had built up calluses on his hands, located in the specific areas where the

  cartridge met skin. Over the years, his fingers had become very strong, like mechanical pliers.

  By the time Isaac had loaded two magazines, Afua had loaded six. There were thirty rounds per magazine providing them a total of 240 shots. If they required any more than that, they might as well have brought hand grenades with them because they would be at war.

  Isaac stood up and slung a fully loaded AK-47 over his shoulder. He checked that the gun in his back waistband was still in place and headed toward the ship’s wheelhouse.

  Afua set his six magazines down by his AK-47, making sure everything was within arm’s reach. He removed a Schmidt & Bender 3-12 x50-mm sniper scope out of the box and attached it to the top rail of the Barrett. He wished he would have had a chance to dial in the scope before firing the weapon, but he was confident he could make the adjustments on the fly. Once the scope had been screwed on tightly to the Barrett’s top rail, he popped the magazine out of the gun and began to stuff .50 caliber rounds into it. The rounds were much larger than the AK-47 rounds, and the big Barret didn’t take many to fill its magazine. Afua noticed that there was not a spare magazine for the Barrett, which could potentially pose a problem, but that was OK. He could work with what he had. He didn’t expect a problem. If he could engage the boat at a distance, each problem could be eliminated with each pull of the trigger. Afua slipped the huge magazine into the huge gun, chambered a round, and set it down in front of him.

  Confident that everything was good to go, Afua relocated a box of .50 caliber ammo closer to the Barrett, just in case he needed to quickly reload the magazine. Still sitting on the elevated sundeck of the Nigerian Princess, Afua popped open the bipod on the Barrett and set the back down on its stand in an upright position, pointing straight out over the bow of the ship. He then pulled the AK-47 in a little closer and touched each weapon, making sure he could transition from one gun to the other with little wasted motion. Satisfied with his setup, Afua positioned the spare AK ammo boxes even closer and made sure they were open and accessible.

  If the shooting started, it would not end until either Afua and Isaac were dead, or those who were attacking had been beaten back. There would be no time to get additional guns or retrieve extra ammo from down below. This exchange would be quick and violent – perhaps less than a minute of fighting. Afua had a lot of experience fighting in these small ocean skirmishes. For a short duration, he had been a pirate. He had attacked luxury vessels, taking the owner and everyone aboard as hostages. He took their valuables, and sometimes their lives. It was strange to Afua to be the defender in this altercation. The cold reality of the

  situation was if the Nigerian Princess was captured, his real mission would be over. He was pretty sure that would mean that his life would be terminated as well. His days of air-conditioned houses and bounties of food would swiftly come to an end. He would end up a man without a country, and that meant a man without the family he loved. Love’s a strong emotion, and Afua wondered if he understood what it meant. When his mother had been alive, she had always told him how much she loved him. But as Afua watched increasing numbers of Nigerians, tourists, businessmen, and children die for senseless reasons, parts of Afua’s heart had stopped working—at least the parts that allowed him to feel love.

  The Nigerian Princess started to lean to the right as Isaac began to turn the yacht back toward the ship that was now actively pursuing them. Afua laid on his belly and squared himself up behind the large Barrett, allowing the butt of the gun to rest on his right shoulder. He scooched around a little until he felt that the gun and his body had been joined together—one weapon biological and one mechanically fused. Neither piece was dangerous without the other, but together, they were magnificently fatal. Afua reached up and racked a round into the Barrett’s chamber. The gun felt hot against his cheek. It felt powerfully terminal.

  The Nigerian Princess completed its 160-degree turn, and the ship in the distance appeared inside the Barrett’s sniper scope. Afua adjusted the zoom on the scope and focused on the inbound vessel. He saw a large open fishing boat headed towards them. From the factory, it had not been built for speed; however, it had been altered. Afua saw two large black outboard engines on its stern. There were six men in the boat. One was driving the boat, using a large chrome steering wheel positioned in the middle of the vessel. The boat jumped across the wake left by the Nigerian Princess. Each man brandished some type of assault rifle, but Afua didn’t pay any attention to them.

  His main concern was focused on the man resting the backend of a missile launcher on his shoulder. He was located on the bow. Afua didn’t know what type of missile, rocket or grenade launcher it was, but he didn’t intend to find out. At this moment, no one in the pirate boat was attempting to open fire on the Nigerian Princess. The yacht was still out of their range. He was confident this vessel did not represent the Coast Guard of any nation. These men were dressed in wet ripped clothing, and they looked hungry. They looked desperate, and Afua knew the look. He had indoctrinated many men into the Boko Haram that wore just this type of look. Men such as these had very little to lose, but instead they had everything to gain. They were the perfect type of man to join any gang offering a better life than the one they currently were living.

  Afua adjusted his scope again, clicking the zoom up a little higher, trying to get a look at the faces of the men approaching them. All the pirates were black. It
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br />   was difficult to make out specific features, but Afua thought they looked to be from Sierra Leone or maybe Liberia. Their dress was familiar to him, but they were simply too far away to match their clothing with their country. However, they weren’t too far away to engage them with the Barrett.

  Using his right hand, Afua reached behind his back and signaled for Isaac to slow the Nigerian Princess. It was difficult shooting from a fast-moving ship bouncing off the waves. Contrarily, it was even harder shooting from a ship that was stopped and gently bobbing in the sea. From a ship’s deck, slow and steady was the best platform in which to shoot long distances. The sound of the engines faded, and Afua readjusted his scope. He refocused the crosshairs on the boat headed toward them at full speed. He wished the pirate boat would slow, because their boat was bouncing over the waves. The posture of the pirates had not changed significantly. As they closed within 700 meters, the barrels of their rifles began to lift into more threatening positions.

  The man holding the shoulder-fired missile had moved the weapon into a ready state and started lining up the Nigerian Princess within its sights. As Afua zeroed in on the man with the most significant weapon, he realized that it was not a missile launcher. Instead, it appeared to be an RPG, which Afua knew stood for a rocket propelled grenade launcher. This was good news for Afua. Even if it was a Russian-made RPG-7, it only had an effective firing range of 200 meters. Its maximum firing range was 920 meters, but that wasn’t realistic on a boat in turbulent waters. In contrast to the RPG, Afua felt confident the pirates were closing in on the effective firing range of his Barrett.

  The Nigerian Princess had slowed to four knots and was riding nicely on the sea. No more big bumps for Afua to contend with. He placed the crosshairs of the expensive scope on the man with the RPG one final time, adjusting the scope for windage and distance. He placed his finger on the trigger and gently squeezed off a round. The Barrett barked, and the gun slammed back into Afua’s shoulder. He had tried not to tense, and he thought he was prepared for the recoil. However, the Barrett kicked like a fat goat. The sound of water, waves and engine noise had been replaced with a high-piercing tone. Afua wished he would have thought to grab a pair of earplugs from the big trunk below. But, he had become accustomed to being temporarily deafened by gunfire. It was an occupational hazard.