Operation Hail Storm

by Brett Arquette

  By now, Kornev would have inquired about her at the front desk to get her room number. The desk clerk would have looked her up on his computer and told Kornev that Ms. Merkalov had checked out and handed him the envelope that Kara had instructed to be given to Mr. Kornev.

  Psychologically, this worked out better than her simply disappearing in the middle of the night. People who checked in and checked out were responsible people with places to be. People who just left in the middle of the night were much more suspect. Kara understood that Kornev would still be suspicious about her, and she didn’t want to freak him out to the point where he possibly panicked, leaving his luggage, toiletries and, God help her, his new iPhone charger in his room. Hopefully, Kornev would read the note and assume she was what she appeared to be; a flighty and kooky, silly yet horny woman who had too much money and not enough brains. If the situation played out in her favor, he would e-mail her, and they might develop a relationship of sorts. This was a one-way street, however. Kornev had to contact and invite her to meet him. There was no way that she could run into him a second time by mere coincidence. That could get her killed.

  *_*_*

  Kara’s boarding flight was called and her stomach did a little flip-flop. She considered taking another pill but quickly dismissed the thought. There was a difference between mellow and comatose, and her mission was far from over.

  Kara casually checked her periphery and noted that the man was no longer at the café. No longer hovering where he could be seen. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still around. She knew he was. Hiding behind a pole, in the bathroom or watching her from a distance. She guessed he would probably be on her plane, having had plenty of time to purchase a ticket for the flight that was only three-fourths full.

  First class was announced and boarded, even before the handicapped people. Wasn’t Russia wonderful?

  Kara had already checked her bag that contained one million phone chargers. If the security officials would have asked what one million phone chargers were doing in her luggage, she had a business card that indicated she was a reseller for an electronics supply company that specialized in iPhone accessories. These wonderful units would function seamlessly in any country and on any electrical grid. The name of the company on her business card, if she recalled correctly, was something like One Million Phone Chargers. Of course, there weren’t a million of them in her bag, but who cared about the specifics.

  Other than her checked bag, she had nothing to carry on but her ticket, a small purse and her cellphone. Kara stood from her chair and without glancing around she went to the boarding gate and handed her ticket to the lady. Kara then got in line and walked down the cramped jetway.

  The Airbus A330 was a medium, long-range, wide-body jet. It could accommodate 335 passengers in a two-class layout. First class had several rows with single 27-inch-wide seats positioned by the windows. In the middle part of the plane, the first-class seats were separated by something that looked like two padded ice chests.

  Kara checked her ticket and confirmed her seat assignment. Second row in first class. She seated herself on the right side of the plane. Kara picked up whatever magazine was in the cubby under her armrest. She flipped to the middle of the magazine and pretended to be fascinated by the gadgets in Sky Mall. Glancing up to adjust her air nozzle, she watched and waited for the Mr. KGB to make an appearance. It took a long time. A lot of air conditioning adjustments. At one point she began to second-guess herself and think for a moment that he wasn’t going to make the flight. But then, just as the line of passengers was beginning to thin out, he rounded the bulkhead and stepped onto the plane.

  He wasn’t a bad looking guy. Mid-thirties. Had a long face. Maybe a little too long. He had a prominent snubbed nose, but not too snubbed. Not hooked, but it looked like a Russian or Slavic nose. He had good cheekbones and kind eyes. He was of average height and had a good build. The man was carrying nothing but his phone.

  “Traveling light,” Kara thought.

  Her new friend had a two-day’s growth of beard, or it was one of those trying to look cool things? Kara thought the new name for it was the thin facial hair style. It looked good on the man.

  His kind eyes met hers, and he immediately looked away.

  Kara was used to that look. Men would look at her and try to drink her in. She would then look at them, and they would shyly look away. Busted. But this man wasn’t doing the shy thing. He looked away for an entirely different reason.

  It should have been a surprise when he took the seat directly behind her. But it wasn’t. He had apparently done some social engineering with the ticket ladies and found out where she was sitting. The air hags had probably thought it was a sex thing, male and female attraction at its finest—the steamier side of biology. It was the entire animal kingdom courtship ritual unfolding right there in first class. With all their travelers safely on the plane, the ticket ladies were probably gossiping, telling tall tales of their matchmaking, wondering if the mile-high club was in the cards for the young couple.

  The engines began to spin up, and a flight attendant handed Kara a glass of champagne. Kara was surprised since she hadn’t ordered the drink. After a moment of observation, she realized that all the first-class passengers were being handed a glass of champagne. It must have been one of those unexpected novelties the airline offered to make you feel as though the thousands of dollars you paid for your seat were worth it.

  Kara tasted the fizzy drink. It wasn’t Cristal, that was for sure, but nonetheless she downed it in a few gulps. It could only help to further anesthetize her from her fear of flying.

  The jet was pushed back, and the massive machine began its long lumbering taxi toward the runway.

  Kara wanted to look behind her to see what the man was doing, but that would have been a bad idea. It was up to him to make the first move.

  The engines roared, and all of the passengers were all pressed back into their seats. The passengers in the rear of the plane were pressed into worn out 16”-wide seats. Kara and the lucky rich people in the front of the plane were pressed back into new wide seats with silk pillows. After more noise and more mysterious mechanical sounds that planes make, the engines calmed down and the plane leveled off. Kara began to breathe again.

  Emerging from the narrow space between the window and her seat, she was startled when a hand appeared. Her reflex action was to reach down, bend it backward and snap it at the wrist. But she didn’t. Instead, she watched the hand come to a rest on her armrest, with palm open and unmoving. She saw an iPhone resting in the hand.

  Kara looked around to see if anyone was watching her. Seeing no one, she removed the cellphone from the hand and replaced it with Kornev’s imaged iPhone. The hand closed around the cellphone and withdrew, disappearing back behind her.

  A disembodied voice whispered to her, “Great job, Kara.” After a pause, he asked, “Or should I say, Tonya?”

  She turned her head to the right and spoke softly out of the side of her mouth.

  “Call me whatever you want, Jack,” she whispered into the space between the window and her seat. “Just don’t call me late for dinner.”

  She added in a whisper, “I’m going to get some sleep. Watch our backs.”

  “You got it,” the voice said. “See you back at the office.”

  Kara said nothing. She reclined her big, wide comfortable seat back as far as it would go and did her best to relax. The drugs did their thing, and she fell asleep before the flight attendant could bring her a refill of the crappy champagne.

  Celebes Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus

  T

  he computer in Hail’s stateroom spun up his e-mail program. The screen was bright in the dark room, and it took a minute for Hail’s eyes to adjust. He sat in front of the PC and took a moment to compose his thoughts. It had been years since he had corresponded with his friend. Their last meeting had been sad and dispiriting.

  Hail placed his hands on the keyboard and began to type.


  To: TrevorRodgers@fbi.gov

  Hi Trev:

  I hope you have been doing well. I’m writing to inform you of the demise of the Minister of People’s Armed Forces of North Korea, Kim Yong Chang. Under my direction, his life was terminated as of about ten minutes ago. Attached is the footage of his final minutes on Earth. I’m sure that your sources, or your CIA counterpart sources, will be able to confirm this information. The FBI website has offered a reward of twenty-five million dollars for his termination. I’m officially requesting payment of this reward. You can make the check out to Hail Industries and send it to my main office. Please address the envelope to me.

  Unrelated, I can’t tell you how much it meant to me that you showed up at the funeral. I’m sorry I was such a mess. I would like to say that I’m doing better now, but I would be lying. I miss seeing you. I’m very proud of you and your new job as the director of the FBI. You deserve it, my friend. Your dad would be beaming proud as well.

  Take care,

  Marshall

  Hail hit the SEND icon and pushed away from his desk.

  He had about eleven hours until nightfall. and he wanted to be present for the extraction of the drones. He stood, went into his bedroom and got dressed in workout clothes. He removed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, grabbed a towel and headed for the ship’s gym. He had an abundance of nervous energy to burn off, not to mention a couple inches of flab that had mysteriously grown over his belly when he hadn’t been looking.

  The White House Oval Office—Washington, D.C.

  I

  t had taken Trevor Rodgers and his staff ninety minutes to assemble the digital dossier on Marshall Hail. Dozens of FBI analysts had used Google and the FBI’s powerful servers to download everything they could find about Marshall Hail. Compiled onto the tiny USB drive that was sticking out of Rodger’s computer was an extensive history of Hail’s company. The identity and backgrounds of all of Hail’s friends going back to childhood had been researched and itemized. Birth records, death records and a complete genealogy of Hail’s family and extended family were on the flash drive. An overview of Hail’s lifestyle had also been provided, which included his police record and current medications he was on, as well as any known extracurricular activities Hail was involved with. Every bit of the data that had been collected were zipped into an encrypted file and then had been spat out onto a flash drive.

  Confident his team had done all they could do in the short time frame, Rodgers reached down and removed the flash drive from his computer. He pulled on his dress coat and placed the plastic stick of information in his coat pocket. The director of the FBI then had his secretary call for his car so he could make his meeting with the president at the White House.

  Now, ninety minutes later, Rodgers removed the USB drive from his coat pocket and stuck it into the slot on the president’s big screen TV. It was showtime, and Rodgers hoped that he had all the answers to all the questions that would soon be asked.

  Rodgers had an advantage in this briefing because he and Marshall Hail had been childhood friends. Their fathers had both been in the military and had ended up being stationed at many of the same locations. Thus, the Hail and the Rodgers families were neighbors much of their time growing up during their formative years. Trevor recalled little Marshall coming to his birthday parties and vice versa. Guam, Berlin, Japan, so many places, and Rodgers had so few memories of each of those countries because they moved all the time. But Marshall Hail was the one constant in Trevor Rodgers’ life. Marshall was just about the only thing he remembered from his childhood.

  Trevor Rodgers cleared his throat and began to address the room of the most powerful people on the planet.

  “First, I would like thank you all for your support in my new position as director of the FBI. I will do my utmost to make you pleased with that decision. Thank you, Madam President for allowing me to update you and your staff with an issue that has recently come to my attention.”

  The newly elected president, Joanna Weston, responded politely, “Thank you, Mr. Rodgers for accepting this difficult assignment. We look forward to you bringing us all up to speed.”

  Rodgers glanced around the room at the other attendees. A few of the men he knew, a few he knew of, but he knew none of them very well.

  Sitting on the couch was a four-star general who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His name was Quentin Ford. He was a big and imposing guy. Ford was outfitted in full military dress. Rodgers felt that was appropriate, considering this general was the highest-ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, president excluded. Ford looked battle worn and hard as nails. He had a big face. His thick cheeks sagged like an old hound dog. General Quentin Ford was large and overbearing. Rodgers had heard a rumor that the president thought that General Ford was a big teddy bear. Rodgers knew better, but she would learn those things for herself in due time.

  Seated on the couch to the general’s left was the Director of National Intelligence, Eric Spearman. He had been sworn in four years earlier by the previous administration. Spearman was a short, bald, meek-looking man—the antithesis of the general sitting next to him. Rodgers suspected, in a fight, the general could beat the snot out of Spearman without ever getting off the couch. Spearman looked more like a banker than a bureaucrat. He had round glasses and a round gloomy face. He was dressed in a dark blue suit that was similar to the suit Rodgers was wearing. Rodgers certainly hoped he looked better in his. Spearman’s sad face was buried in his iPad.

  The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jarret Pepper, was sitting on the other side of the coffee table, across from Ford and Spearman. Pepper’s grey hair went this way and that. It wasn’t all that long, but each follicle seemed to have a mind of its own. Being new to the job, Rodgers hadn’t seen Jarret Pepper very often. But thinking back, he couldn’t recall ever seeing Pepper dressed in anything other than a grey suit. Maybe his tie was the same as well. Pepper also had an iPad down by his side, but he wasn’t currently using it.

  President Joanna Weston, who had only been on the job for four months, was sitting behind her big desk. She was wearing a black pantsuit and had a little golden American flag pinned to her breast pocket. Weston was from good political stock. She had strong features was strong willed with strong opinions, but she was equally strong in allegiances and was a good friend to have. She was in her late forties. She had a shock of grey hair that sprang directly from the middle of her forehead. The grey streak meandered backward and was eventually lost in her thick mass of brown hair. The streak thinned like a river’s tributary would if dispersed over a great distance.

  Rodgers had no idea why she didn’t dye that strange grey snake out of existence. It was disconcerting when you were looking at her or talking to her. But the woman had become the President of the United States, so the bolt of grey must have had some positive impact on the voters.

  Rodgers had requested this special meeting to inform the president of the international incident that needed to be discussed. None of the other attendees had any idea what he was about to share with them, and he liked that feeling. It felt like power.

  Pressing his finger on the tiny remote control, the first of many PowerPoint slides popped up on the screen. The introductory slide was a photo of a handsome looking man in his late thirties. The picture appeared to be a professional photo taken for publicity or possibly from a magazine cover.

  “His name is Marshall Hail,” Rodgers began, pointing the remote control toward the photograph of his friend on the big screen. His audience waited for the explanation.

  Rodgers pressed the button and another photo flashed onto the screen.

  “His name is Kim Yong Chang. He is—well, he was the Minister of People’s Armed Forces of North Korea. Marshall Hail e-mailed me less than two hours ago, and Hail is claiming responsibility for the assassination of Kim Yong Chang. Hail is also making a claim for the twenty-five-million-dollar bounty the FBI placed
on Kim.”

  The president looked stunned.

  “You have to be kidding me?” General Ford said. “Kim Yong Chang never steps a foot out of North Korea. And as we all know, no one ever steps a foot into North Korea.”

  Rodgers shrugged. “I would have thought the same thing,” Rodgers told the general. “But this snippet of video was included in the same e-mail.”

  Rodgers pressed the button on the remote control, and a video began playing on the screen. The quality was excellent.

  The video showed an Asian man and an Asian woman sitting at an outside table. It appeared to be someone’s backyard. The edge of a pool could be seen at the bottom of the frame. The woman was picking up a drink of what looked like orange juice. Without warning, the man leaned forward and rapped the woman on the hand with a piece of silverware.

  Rodgers pressed the PAUSE button on the remote and said, “Our analysts ran facial recognition software on the man in the video, and it came back as a ninety-five percent match for Kim Yong Chang. Either this is the real guy, or they have a great double for him.”

  Rodgers pressed PLAY on the remote and the video continued.

  There was a nasty exchange between the couple at the table, and the woman retreated into her chair and sulked. A servant came out, and the man who Rodgers had identified as Kim pointed at his orange juice and then pointed at the woman and said something in Korean.