Hail Warning

by Brett Arquette

  Essie Obano was now sitting up in her chair and watching the men search the yacht. She had wrapped a white towel around her chest and had pinned it in place using her underarms. She didn’t look upset. Rather, she looked grateful for the intrusion, as if the men were doing them a great favor, checking up on them to make sure they were safe.

  Isaac Obano was back at the portside of the ship standing next to the Coast Guard Cutter tied to the Nigerian Princess. He was talking to the officer with the clipboard. Afua noticed that the officer was holding two colorful cans of caviar under his left arm that he had not been holding earlier.

  Smiles and laughter were exchanged between them. There was some sort of salutation offered, and the soldiers began to exit the Nigerian Princess, climbing back over the rail and onto their own ship.

  Soon thereafter, the lines had been pulled in and the Coast Guard’s vessel was pulling away.

  “Is the anchor dropped?” Afua asked Isaac.

  “Yes,” Isaac told him.

  “We can’t move from here for twelve hours. That’s when the package will resurface.”

  “I understand,” said Isaac.

  Afua didn’t know exactly what Isaac had been told about the mission. He didn’t know if Isaac knew what was in the watertight container currently sitting on the ocean floor. He didn’t even know if he could trust his fellow Nigerian. He only knew that in twelve hours the container would automatically blow its ballast and float to the surface.

  “Turn on the locator,” Afua told Isaac. “When it comes to the surface, we need to get it back on board as soon as possible.”

  Isaac turned and began walking back toward the stairs that led to the wheelhouse.

  Afua watched the Coast Guard’s ship move further away, putting more distance between their ships. Afua kept a close eye on the cutter until it was out of sight. Only then did he begin to relax.

  WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM—WASHINGTON, D.C.

  C urrently, there was not a situation in play requiring the five most powerful people in the United States government to convene in this location. It was simply a convenient place because it had an assortment of video displays, was soundproof, bugproof and had the most secure Internet access possible with modern technology.

  The White House IT technician was working with the Hail Industries IT technician to connect two video screens with a high-definition video stream that was being sent from different sides of the planet. The president watched as the word “connecting” transformed into a video stream that showed two people she recognized.

  The left side of the screen displayed Marshall Hail, clean-shaven, and wearing a polo shirt with a coat. However, since he was sitting at a metal table of some type, she couldn’t see what he was wearing out of frame. The president wouldn’t put it past him to be wearing nothing but underwear. That was probably not the case, since the person to his right was their CIA agent. The beautiful Kara Ramey smiled pleasantly at the people in the Situation Room. Ramey was wearing a blue blazer with a plain white blouse buttoned up to her neck, accompanied by a colorful scarf that puffed out and hung down to her third button. Ramey’s red curly hair was vibrant and shiny. The president wondered how one person was blessed with a beautiful face, a killer body and beautiful hair. It would be as rare as winning the lottery. Indeed, Ramey had won the lottery when it came to looks which was one of the reasons she had become so effective as a CIA agent.

  Behind Marshall Hail and Kara Ramey, President Weston was looking at something you wouldn’t typically see in your average corporate boardroom. There was a large, round porthole fused into the white wall; therefore, the president surmised that Ramey and Hail were still aboard Hail’s ship, the Hail Nucleus, or possibly one of his other cargo vessels.

  The technician looked at the screen as if he was the proud father of a new baby. He then glanced back at the president with a look of, “See how good I am.”

  “Thank you, Jacob,” the president told the technician, his cue to leave the meeting. On his way out, Jacob closed the door securely behind him. It made a sucking sound, like the room were pressurized.

  “Mr. Hail and Ms. Ramey, can you see everyone?” the president asked.

  “Yes, we can. Please call me Marshall,” Hail told her with a cajoling smile.

  “Good to see you again, Madam President,” Kara said graciously.

  The president introduced the others in the Situation Room. “You remember General Ford, Mr. Pepper, Mr. Spearman and, of course, your friend, Mr. Rodgers.”

  Mr. Rodgers sounded funny to Hail, and he almost made a joke. Mr. Rodgers was the host of a syndicated kids’ TV show when he was growing up. He also knew that Jarret Pepper had his doctorate degree, and could be addressed as Dr. Pepper. If Hail was looking for a laugh at the expense of Jarret, Hail could address him as Dr. Pepper. Reigning in his inner child, he said, “Nice to see you gentlemen, again.”

  There was a moment of silence as the president shuffled through some papers. She selected one page and looked it over. She began the meeting by summarizing the reason they were convening today.

  “I am looking over a very brief agenda of what I would like to cover today, and the first item on my list is to discuss the disposition of Lt. Commander Foster Nolan.”

  The president set her agenda down and looked at her advisors. “I spoke with Mr. Hail—I mean, Marshall,” the president corrected herself, “about the possibility of the lieutenant commander staying with his team. I wanted to address any issues or reasons we might need this pilot to return to service at this particular time.”

  All eyes in the Situation Room looked to General Ford for his decision regarding Nolan’s future.

  General Ford, also the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff hesitated before answering, appearing as if he were giving this issue great thought. He made a face of contrition and said, “If the lieutenant commander is of value to Mr. Hail, we do not have a problem assigning him to the Hail Team.”

  This was the first time that Marshall Hail had ever heard the word team from Washington, and he liked the way it sounded. Hail felt he should say something, and said, “We appreciate having the lieutenant commander’s skillset, and I believe he will be an asset to our team.”

  The president picked up the agenda. She said, “OK, well, that was easy.”

  She read the next line on the page and said, “I believe Jarret has something he would like to discuss now.”

  Pepper had rehearsed his little speech in the mirror many times trying to anticipate all the complaints that would be issued from Hail. He had come up with quick and cutting responses to about anything Hail might say. In the recent past, he had done his best to cast Pepper in an imbecilic light, and he would be damned if he was going to allow Hail to patronize him in front of his peers again.

  Pepper began, “Yesterday, we received an e-mail from Victor Kornev. It was sent to Kara’s virtual cellphone that resides on the CIA servers.”

  Hail and Ramey looked surprised. Pepper continued.

  “Of course, he wasn’t sending the e-mail to Kara. He was sending it to Tonya Merkalov, the fictitious identity that Kara portrayed when she met Kornev in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. During that meeting, Kara replaced the phone charger that Kornev was using with a special one that was created by my CIA team. Even though Kornev has changed cellphones several times, he is still using the same phone charger, probably because it works on many different electrical grids and voltages. Each time he plugs his new phone into the CIA charger, the program inside the charger hacks his phone and sets up a virtual phone on our servers that traps all his videos, audio, texts and e-mails. It also records every call he makes. An added advantage to having his phone compromised we know his exact geographical location.”

  Pepper stopped talking for a moment, allowing anyone who didn’t understand what he had just explained to ask questions. No one did, so he continued.

  “The content of the e-mail we received this morning from Kornev was an invitation to mee
t with Tonya Merkalov, or Ms. Kara Ramey.”

  “Can you read it to us?” Kara requested.

  Pepper looked at a paper in front of him and read from it.

  “This is the exact message,” Pepper said.

  Dear Tonya: I can’t stop thinking about you and the time we spent at the Volna Hotel. I have some free time from work. When you left Nizhny, you left me a note saying that if I wasn’t working and wanted to have some fun, to drop you a line. Well, I’m not working and want to have some fun. Yours, Victor

  Over the sharp video connection, he looked at Kara and expected her to say something.

  “Where is he?” Kara asked.

  Pepper had anticipated the question and responded, “He is in the small town of Termez situated in the southern tip of Uzbekistan. We have tracked him to a specific house in that city, and we currently have it under surveillance.”

  Marshall Hail offered, “I don’t know about you guys, but I think this is a great opportunity to kill that son of a bitch, and I would like to offer my services.”

  There was a brief hesitation and Pepper said, “We have a different agenda, Mr. Hail. We would like you and Ms. Ramey to turn Victor Kornev for us.”

  “Turn?” Hail asked. “I could turn him into hamburger for you, if that’s what you are requesting. Or I could turn him into a groveling prisoner who is in a great deal of pain and begging for his life, if that works for you.”

  The president and general smiled. Pepper looked frustrated, the way he typically looked when he was going back-and-forth with Hail.

  “We want you to turn him into a spy for the United States.”

  Hail laughed, but Kara remained stone-faced.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me? How the hell do you expect us to do that?” Hail asked.

  Pepper smiled, as if he finally had the upper hand. “That’s why you have a highly trained CIA agent on your team,” he said.

  Hail acted as if Pepper was off his rocker.

  “There is no way that someone like Kornev just gives up his profession and decides to work as a spy,” Hail protested.

  “Sure, there is,” Pepper told him. “You just have to get creative. Ramey is creative. She can put a plan together.”

  Kara was just as shocked as Hail as to the mission her boss had suggested, but she was playing it cool.

  Kara said, “Well, it will take some discussion, but men like Kornev are not multifaceted. There are a few base emotions that drive them. And once those passions have been compromised, they have little enthusiasm for continuing with their current profession.”

  “And what is one of those passions you are referring to?” Hail asked, turning to address the woman sitting next to him.

  “Breathing is one that comes to mind,” Kara told him. “If you take away his breathing privileges, he won’t have the passions to continue on with arms dealing.”

  Hail looked serious, and Kara gave him a noncommittal shrug.

  “I just don’t get it,” Hail questioned. “You want to turn this scumbag into a spy, but still allow him to sell weapons to foreign governments and terrorist groups? How is that helping anyone?”

  Spearman, normally quiet and reserved, fielded the question.

  “It’s the big stuff, Mr. Hail, that we want to know about. Anyone can sell small arms to governments, and that is next to impossible for us to curtail. We need to know about the sales and purchases of weapons of mass destruction and those that can bring down commercial aircraft.”

  Hail still looked confused and tried to clarify what Spearman had told him. “So, you will still allow Kornev to sell these advanced weapons to terrorists, but he will simply be doing it as a United States’ spy?”

  General Ford answered, “Marshall, we will have to determine those parameters and our response to those situations on a case-by-case sale. But knowing what radical group wants to buy these weapons gives us a tremendous advantage in anticipating future attacks. Believe it or not, having Kornev alive and working for us, is far better than his death.”

  “Why?” Hail asked.

  The president fielded the question, “Because, Marshall, if he is dead then we don’t know who will take his place. It could take us years to discover who the next kingpin in arms sales is and, during that time, dozens of terrorist attacks could take place, and we would have very little warning about any of them. Even if Kornev consummates the sale of major weapons, and then in turn informs his customers, we’ll still have ample warning to stop the terrorists before they get to use those weapons. And Kornev still gets paid.”

  Hail looked at Kara as if he expected her to protest as well. Instead, she said, “We can figure something out. Kornev is not a complicated person.”

  Pepper appeared pleased with Kara’s response and thrilled that Hail hadn’t thrown a fit over the assignment.

  Then Hail spoke up, defiant and somewhat contentious.

  “That doesn’t get me any closer to my goals and objectives, and you all know what those are.”

  It wasn’t a secret that Hail was hellbent on killing every person on the FBI’s Top Ten Terrorists list, because at every opportunity, he reminded the Washington collective about his mission.

  Pepper said, “If you agree to turn Victor Kornev, we will provide you the name and location of someone who would not be missed by anyone in this hemisphere.”

  “Who and where?” Hail asked bluntly.

  Pepper picked up another piece of paper off the table.

  “Do we have an agreement then?” Pepper asked Hail.

  “Yes,” Hail said. But he said yes like it was a filthy word that was being tortured from him.

  Pepper looked at the paper he had picked up from the table. He spoke clearly, so he could be understood over the video stream.

  “Your target is the new leader of the Boko Haram in Nigeria—Afua Diambu.

  TWO YEARS AGO

  CARIBBEAN SEA—ABOARD THE NIGERIAN PRINCESS

  I t had all been planned down to the minute, or to be accurate, down to five minutes. Two days from now, between 10:00 and 10:05 a.m., Afua would fire the missile at any aircraft unfortunate enough to be departing from the Simón Bolívar International Airport, approximately 21 kilometers from downtown Caracas.

  Currently, the missile was resting on the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. It had been just over twelve hours since the Nigerian Princess had been boarded and searched. That meant that the automated program that was running on the tiny computer inside the hermetically sealed case, should be activating at that exact moment. It would release a valve that would blow the water ballast. Being lighter than the water surrounding it, the case would slowly rise to the surface. A tracker beacon would start silently sending out pulses that could be detected and displayed on a screen in the wheelhouse. The case that held the missile and launcher did not have lights or any other method of locating it in the darkness. Victor Kornev had told Afua that if the case surfaced, and there were other boats in the vicinity, they did not want to give away the case’s location with lights or sound. It could only be found with the tracking device that had been given to Afua, which was now plugged into a screen using a DC outlet located in the Nigerian Princess’ wheelhouse.

  Afua and Isaac watched the blank tracker screen. Isaac had made sure that the single green LED light in the upper corner of the unit was blinking, indicating the tracker was powered on and should be picking up anything it was designed to detect. A large green circle in the middle of the screen was the only other sign the tracker was operational.

  Afua checked the time on the ship’s digital clock and looked back down at the tracker screen. More than five minutes had transpired since the case should have surfaced. If the case didn’t surface or they could not locate it, his mission would be over. Afua did not want to return to Nigeria without completing it. He knew that Iniabasi would be disappointed, resulting in Afua’s position in the group being summarily diminished. Afua didn’t know by what degree he would be demoted, but he assumed that
he would never be afforded further opportunities within the organization. His family would suffer for his ineffectiveness. And, providing for his family had always been the only reason he was in the Boko Haram.

  Another five minutes expired, and Afua was becoming very concerned. Now, instead of watching the inactive tracking device, he was staring at the ocean, scanning it, slowly moving his head from left to right. He repeated the action, over and over, as if he had developed some supernatural ability to spot something invisible to the naked eye on this moonless night.

  A haze of light from the city of Caracas cast just enough ambient light to see the white tops of small waves as they quietly meandered across the endless ocean. There was a strong breeze coming in from the north and that worried Afua as well. Was it possible that the case had already surfaced and had been blown so far away from the Nigerian Princess that its tracker could no longer receive a signal? It was not hot in the wheelhouse, yet sweat was forming on Afua’s forehead. Isaac, on the other hand, was dry and calm. Afua understood that recovering the case, from Isaac’s perspective, was not nearly as important as it was to Afua. After all, success or no success, Isaac would simply return to Nigeria and assume his normal life—selling expensive homes to rich people and doing the Boko Haram’s bidding. It would not be Isaac’s fault if their mission failed. It would all be pinned on Afua.

  The water was infuriatingly black, and Afua was on the verge of panic when he heard a small beep come from the tracker. Afua looked down at the screen, and an arrow appeared in the middle of the green circle. It was pointing toward the stern of their ship.

  Isaac said, “It’s behind us.” He then read a digital display that had appeared in the right corner of the screen. He added, “It’s about sixty meters behind us.”