Hail turned to the man guarding the other couch. He was the opposite of his couch-guarding counterpart. This was a short man, no hair, bad bones and he was wearing a dark black suit. Unlike Jarret Pepper, director of the Central Intelligence Agency this man smiled cajolingly and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hail. My name is Eric Spearman, and I’m with the NSA.”
Hail turned to look at all the folks in the room and said, “NSA, FBI, CIA and the general represents the good old USA, so I think we have all the acronyms covered.”
Hail said it in the way of a joke to break the ice. Everyone laughed, except for the CIA director.
Instead of sitting behind her desk, the president walked to the other side of the room where two high-backed, peach-colored chairs were positioned. To Hail, the chairs looked like something his great grandmother would have owned. The two chairs, along with the two couches, created a somewhat intimate and informal seating arrangement. Joanna Weston motioned with her hand for Hail to take the peach chair next to hers. The men guarding their spots in front of the couches plopped down, and Hail’s friend and the general both sat down as well, each of them selecting the end of one of the two couches.
With everyone in place and all comfy, the president started off saying, “Mr. Hail and I just had a nice working lunch. He is aware that we all know that he and his crew, or staff, or how he would like to refer to them, were indeed responsible for the death of North Korea’s Kim Yong Chang. To get directly to the point, which is the way I like to do things, Mr. Hail has requested the assistance of our combined talents to help him locate the remaining persons on the FBI’s Top Ten list.”
Pepper was the first to speak up, “Why the FBI’s list? Why not also the CIA’s list?”
Hail looked at him for a moment, wondering if the question was rhetorical. When no one said anything, Hail responded, “As far as I know, you don’t post a Top Ten list. Heck, you don’t even post how many people you employ, even though your agency is supported by tax payer’s dollars.”
Trevor Rodgers smiled. The general smiled. The banker-looking guy had his nose in his iPad. The president just looked annoyed, like Oh—here we go.
But Pepper looked pissed. The director of the CIA checked his tone before speaking and leveled it.
“Much of what we do is secret, as you well know, Mr. Hail. Thus, divulging how many people we employ essentially provides our enemies with our troop count, so to speak.”
Pepper waited for a reaction. When none came he asked, “How many people work for you, Mr. Hail?”
“Thousands,” Hail said.
“No, I mean, how many people work with you on this new, ah—how should we call it—pastime that you have undertaken?”
“Thousands,” Hail repeated.
Pepper made a face, part annoyed, part irritated.
Hail stared at him blankly.
“Well, let me change the subject a little bit,” the general interjected. “How did you kill Kim? I think that’s the question on a lot of our minds.”
“Poison,” Hail said.
The general responded, “Well, son, we guessed it was poison with the video and all, but we were wondering specifically, what was the delivery device?”
“Orange juice,” Hail told them honestly.
“Well, son, we determined it was in the drink, but I guess what I’m driving at is how did you get the poison into the orange juice?”
“We had a spy working in Kim’s compound who put it in the orange juice,” Hail said.
“He’s lying,” Pepper blurted out. “There is no way he had anyone in that compound, and we all know it.”
The general looked at Hail like his father used to look at him, as if his son had just disappointed him—again.
“Well, he’s got a point, son,” the general said.
Hail was getting tired of being called son by the general, and he was tired of having to explain anything to Pepper.
“What difference does it make to any of you how it was done? Or even more to the point, what difference does it make to you how it will be done in the future? All you have to know is that it will be done in the future. The same way we got to Kim Yong Chang. You guys give me the location of the next person you want to have disappear, and we will make it happen.”
No one said anything.
“Isn’t that what you want?” Hail asked.
“We want to be part of the process,” Pepper said.
“That’s why I’m here,” Hail said. “So—”
“No, I mean we want to be part of the process. We want to have someone on your team. Someone on your end of the wire that works for us,” Pepper declared.
“No way,” Hail said immediately.
“Too bad,” the president said. “We really wanted to work with you on this… this…project,” she stated.
“But right now, Mr. Hail, we have more of a pieces problem than we have a people problem,” the general said.
“What do you mean?” Hail asked.
“It would be better if Pepper had one of his men brief you on it. Hopefully you can help. And if you can help us out of this jam, then hopefully we can help you,” the general said.
Pepper stood up and walked toward the waiting room, known as the outer office. Pepper opened the door and said something to someone on the other side. A minute later a woman walked in.
The first thing that went through Hail’s mind when he saw the woman was “This is the CIA’s secret weapon.”
She was so beautiful that everyone in the room looked downright ugly in comparison. Hail tried not to look at her, or more to the point leer at her, but it was a difficult task at best.
She reminded him of a movie star he had seen in an old movie. Nicole Kidman popped into his mind, but this lady was like the porn star version of Nicole Kidman. She was tall with curves that went on for miles, and she moved like a panther. She was wearing some sort of full black body stocking outfit. Over the stocking, she wore a short straight black skirt that hugged her frame. Over the upper part of the stocking, she wore a tight black vest that did little to obscure her ample breasts. The body stocking must have been put on by unzipping it from the front and then stepping into it, because a good four inches of the zipper remained unzipped showing off the woman’s cleavage. Her red hair and brilliant white skin looked amazing against all of the black. But Hail guessed she already knew that.
The woman walked up to Hail and hung out her hand. Hail took it and shook it gently.
She allowed it to be shaken.
“Are you Pepper’s man that the general said was going to update me,” he asked, playfully.
“Yes, I am,” the woman said confidently. “My name is Kara Ramey, and I catch bad guys.”
“My name is Marshall Hail, and I kill bad guys.”
Kara shook Hail’s hand harder and said, “It sounds like we’ll make a good team.”
Hail didn’t know what she meant by that. Hail already had a team, and he wasn’t looking for any new players.
She let go of his hand and smiled at him. Something was going through her mind. Her eyes were piercing. They were set a perfect distance apart, bright green—a vivid shade of green he couldn’t believe was real. He thought about accidently poking her in the eye to see if she was wearing contacts, but he couldn’t think of a way to nonchalantly pull that off.
Nothing about this woman added up. Not her timely introduction to the meeting, or her looks, or her implied notion of being on his team. This woman, this Vogue model was a setup of some type, and Hail knew he had to stay on his toes. It was so damn difficult to register this face, this body, this female package with a hardcore CIA agent. Hail half expected a cameraman to jump out from a closet and tell him he was being punked.
“Sit down everyone,” the president requested.
Kara made a little scooting gesture with her hand toward Pepper, who moved to the center of the couch. This allowed Kara to sit on the end of the couch, closest to Hail’s chair.
Kara w
as holding a rolled-up photograph in her right hand. She handed it to Hail.
Hail unrolled the paper and looked at it.
“This man’s name is Victor Kornev. Have you ever heard of him?” she asked.
Hail looked at the color 8 x 10 photograph. He shook his head and began to hand it back to the CIA woman.
“I didn’t think so,” she said. “What if I told you that he supplied the terrorist with the missile that killed your family?”
Hail pulled back the photograph, unrolled it and looked at it again, but this time much more intently.
“Are you sure about this?” Hail asked.
“We can’t be a 100% certain,” Kara said, “but is 95% close enough for you?”
“I would kill this guy at 51%,” Hail said in a dead serious tone. “How do you know?” he asked.
“How did you kill Kim?” Kara responded.
Hail remained silent. He continued to stare at the photograph as if he could kill the guy with pure mind control. He was starting to understand how this new game was going to be played. You don’t get something for nothing; his dad had always told him. Currently, this was the most profound advice his dad had ever given him, other than to change his underwear every day.
Realizing that this line of conversation wasn’t working out well, Hail decided to change tactics and take the high ground.
“The general mentioned that you had a problem with—what is it—pieces and parts? What’s that all about?”
Pepper jumped in before Kara could answer.
“It’s about working together as a team to prevent the United States from becoming nuclear target practice. That’s what it’s about.”
“Seems a little melodramatic,” Hail stated. Hail took out his phone and snapped a photo of the photograph before rolling it up and handing back to Kara.
“It may be a little on the melodramatic side of things,” the general said, “but there is some bite in that dog. The gist of it is that Kara created a communications link that allows us to see everything that goes across Kornev’s cellphone. Kornev had completed a deal with Kim Yong Chang, before you killed him, to deliver several ICBMs to North Korea,” the general paused for effect.
Hail remained passive and difficult to read.
The general continued, “Well, Marshall, those missiles are already on their way to North Korea. And short of carpet bombing the entire country, we only have one way to stop the North Koreans from obtaining the missiles.”
“And how is that, general?” Hail asked.
“You,” Kara answered.
Hail thought about it for a second and said, “I would rather kill Kornev.”
“You say that, Mr. Hail—I’m sorry, Marshall,” the president corrected herself. “But, you don’t believe that. We are talking about a radical country that already possesses nukes. Obtaining ICBMs provides them with the means to fire them at the United States. No matter what your convictions happen to be at this point in time, I can’t believe that your sensibilities are that skewed.”
Hail didn’t like any of this one little bit. This was exactly why he avoided alliances and strived to be completely self-sufficient. When you worked with the government, it was inevitable that you would get sucked into their mess. And Hail didn’t need their garbage. He had a big ole pile of his own trash he had to take care of.
Hail let out a soft groan and rolled his eyes.
“What’s the deal with these missile parts?” he asked, not really wanting to know. Maybe he could figure out a deal killer if they described the situation.
Kara answered, “Kornev was able to dig up retired replacement parts for the Russian R-29RMU Sineva. This is one of the ten longest range ICBMs in the world. Its range is 11,547 kilometers. The distance between North Korea and the United States is 10,337 kilometers. Right now, the North Koreans only have medium range ICBMs that can’t reach the United States. Are you starting to see a connection?”
Hail shook his head penitently, regretting he had ever made this trip to Washington.
Kara continued, “Kornev’s real expertise is not weapons, per se. His real talent is the delivery of weapons. From the intelligence we’ve gathered, Kornev is shipping hundreds of pieces of the missiles separately, using dozens of planes, boats, ships, fishing vessels, luxury vessels and submarines. It’s brilliant because there isn’t one shipment that is a deal killer. Even if we were to stop a dozen shipments, enough parts would still get through to build at least a few missiles.”
“OK, well, right there you said it,” Hail responded. “There is not really anything you can do, or I can do. I certainly can’t stop all the shipments.”
“You are missing the point,” Kara said. “We don’t need to stop all the parts from getting into North Korea. All we need to know is where the parts are going.”
Hail started to see the logic. “So, all the parts are going to end up in the same place,” Hail said, thinking aloud.
“Yep,” Kara said. “And that’s where they are going to be assembled or moved to an assembly area somewhere else.”
“Well, where is that area?” Hail asked.
“We don’t know,” Kara said. “That’s one of the reasons we need your help.”
“How am I supposed to help with that?” Hail asked.
“We need you to track the parts to the warehouse, or wherever they take them.”
“And how am I supposed to do that? You already told me that the parts are coming in from every direction. How are you or your agency going to track them all?”
“We don’t have to track them all,” Kara said. “All we have to do is track one of the parts.”
Hail thought about the situation for a moment. “You know where one of the parts is coming in, don’t you?” Hail probed.
“Yep,” Kara said. “One of the second stage sections of a missile is in the hull of a Chinese fishing trawler called the Huan Yue that is steaming through the Sea of Okhotsk right now.”
“Huan Yue,” Hail repeated. “Doesn’t that mean joyful or happy?”
“Why, yes it does, Mr. Hail. Are you good with languages?” Kara asked, thinking they had something in common.
“Not really, I just remembered eating at a place called Huan Yue and their food sucked. I was neither joyful nor happy.”
The president let out a little laugh.
Hail looked at Pepper. The man was sitting on the edge of the sofa. His face kept twitching. It was obvious that Pepper didn’t like his pretty female CIA agent doing all the talking, but it was going pretty well, so Pepper was keeping it zipped.
Hail looked at Kara. She was done talking now, at least for the moment. He liked the way she talked. Direct and to the point. She didn’t posture or make the situation any bigger or smaller than it actually was. She didn’t try to jam in details that would only obscure the focus of the point she was trying to make. Her voice was nice to listen to as well. It wasn’t husky, but it carried a certain amount of weight to it. Her tone was neither biting nor nasally, but it was crisp and distinct. Her S sounds were precise and controlled. Her diction was crystal clear. Hail detected a hint of someone who spoke more than one language. Maybe more than a dozen languages. When he looked at her and watched the way she spoke, he was certain she had a very talented mouth and tongue—the basics of speaking many dialects.
Everyone appeared to be waiting on Hail to say something, suggest something or agree to something. But at that exact moment there was nothing on the table. There had been a request made by the United States to help the CIA with their missile dilemma, and Hail had made a request for the CIA intelligence group to help him track down more people who needed to die.
Pepper decided to frame the deal and said, “So you need our help, and we need yours. Do you think that you can put together an operation that can track this missile section on the Huan Yue until it reaches its final destination inside North Korea?”
Hail mulled it over.
“How many days until the Huan Yue reaches Nor
th Korea?” he asked, trying to sound noncommittal.
“Four days,” Pepper said. “Maybe less.”
Hail shook his head. “That’s really tight, almost undoable.”
“We would like to offer Ms. Ramey’s services to help with the logistics,” the president told Hail.
“That’s a gracious offer, but if I decide to move forward with this operation, once we have the specifics on the where the Huan Yue is going to dock, then we can take it from there.”
The president looked frustrated, as though her point was clear, yet not understood.
“Marshall,” she said. “We want Ms. Ramey to be part of your team. Wherever it is you are going back to—Madagascar, wasn’t it? Well, we would like Ms. Ramey to go to Madagascar as well. We need someone working for us who is also working next to you. We need a measure of control in operations that we feel is extremely sensitive. If you require information or intelligence, we would like Ms. Ramey to vet the request and contact her office for that information.”
Hail looked irritated.
The president sensed his consternation and tried to smooth things over.
“It’s not that we don’t trust you. But we can’t allow a private citizen to simply request Top-Secret CIA information without any type of review or coordination. After all, some of the people you may be targeting might already be part of a current CIA operation.”
“But, I don’t understand why you need someone physically on my team.”
“Because that’s the deal,” Pepper said bluntly. “We either have someone on the inside monitoring your missions, your planning, your requests for intelligence, the execution of your missions, or we don’t want anything to do with it.”
Hail was very close to washing his hands of these people and catching a cab back to the airport, but he knew he needed them more than they needed him. They probably felt that he was more a problem to them than an asset.
Pepper said, “Now, if there is someone other than Ms. Ramey you prefer, we could work that out. But I want you to understand that she is the best we have. She knows most of the players that you are going to come in contact with. She is also an expert in many languages. We could give you someone else, but that would be second- or third-party information you would be getting from those agents. Kara has personally interacted with the principals, and she knows what she’s doing. We trust her and hope you will as well.”
Operation Hail Storm Page 19
