“It’s as easy as that?” Hail asked, being an expert in nuclear physics but not so smart in the area of advanced networks.
“The hard part is the initial setup. We will need to identify the stream that is sending out the blip and write the program to extract it. But after that’s done, the script just runs itself.”
“How long will it take to set up?” Hail asked.
“It’s already done,” Renner replied. “If not, I wouldn’t have her phone sitting here sending out blips to the world and giving away our position. It would be back in the safe.”
Hail grunted his approval.
Renner asked, “What are you thinking?”
“I think that we need to play the CIA game,” Hail told his friend.
Hail started putting all the contents back into Kara’s purse.
“You’re going to give it all back to her, aren’t you?” Renner asked.
“I can’t think of a better way of knowing what our good friends at the CIA are up to, can you? We record every call that is made and then listen to it. We’ll hear Kara’s side of the call with the bonus of hearing Pepper’s responses and orders. It’s best we know what they’re planning before it becomes a problem.”
Renner thought for a moment, “Don’t you think she could pass on some information about us that might hurt us in some manner?”
Hail looked conflicted.
“If you run down all the intelligence that she could provide to Jarret it would break down in three different categories. First, the CIA would want to know about our ship. So far, Ramey has only seen a restaurant, the conference room and the mall. She will see more, but we don’t have anything on board that the military doesn’t already have. Well, except for our drones.”
“What about our railgun?” Renner reminded Hail.
Hail skipped over that issue and continued.
“I think it’s very important that she’s not permitted access to our designs or provided access to our lab or the production and modification areas. But all of those areas are already badge access only. So, one of us would have to take her into those areas, and that’s not going to happen.”
“Makes sense,” Renner said.
“Second, I’m not comfortable with Kara, and thus the CIA, knowing our crew’s headcount, especially the combined numbers on all of our ships. I also don’t want her people to know how many ships we have or how many Hellfire drones protect our ships and such. I would also exclude the number of manufacturing plants we have on dry land, as well as the numbers of countries we consider to be our clients.”
“Sounds prudent,” Renner agreed.
“And third, I don’t want the CIA to know about any of our long-term plans. The CIA has their own agenda. We can already tell by this new operation that was thrown at us that they would like nothing more than to make us their bitch. I don’t want to become part of their agenda. As always, we want to remain as self-sufficient as possible.”
“Then why is she here?” Renner asked, but he already knew the answer. He was just calling Hail out.
“’You don’t get something for nothing,’ my father always told me,” Hail replied. “Most of the time my father was an asshole, but much of the time that asshole was right about the basics. I’m sure that every time we want something from the CIA, we will get a bill. And we can’t pay that bill in money. They don’t want our money. They want an action of some type. And as long as it doesn’t take up too much of our time or our assets, that’s the price we’ll pay if we want to keep getting intelligence from them.”
Central Intelligence Headquarters—Langley, Virginia
T
he director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jarret Pepper, had called an impromptu meeting with his Director of Operations, Paul Moore, and the Director of Analysis, Karen Wesley.
Instead of the conference room, Pepper had instructed them to meet him in his office. The meeting was basically an operational update, and he didn’t think it would take long.
“So where did the plane land?” Pepper asked Paul Moore.
“It landed in Morocco.”
Pepper looked perplexed. “Where in Morocco?” he asked.
Moore spun a globe sitting on the edge of Pepper’s desk. He took a moment to orientate himself with the earth and then pointed at a long strip of tan.
“Right there,” he said. “The Dakhla Airport in the Western Sahara of Morocco.”
Pepper and Karen Wesley looked closely at the place where Moore’s finger had been.
“Why would they put down there?” Pepper asked. “It’s nothing but desert.”
“They put down for the same reason that we had to break off surveillance. They needed fuel. The AWACS that was tracking them had to refuel as well. With no tankers in that area, it had to leave the theater.”
“So where did they go after that?” Pepper asked.
“We don’t know,” Moore responded blamelessly. “We don’t have assets at all in that region of the world. The closest asset we have to Morocco is a DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft out of Spain, but that’s eight hundred miles away. Too little, too late.”
Pepper was frustrated.
“What about her phone?” Pepper asked Moore. “Did we get any blips off of it?”
Moore shook his head no, but said, “Yes, but we didn’t get enough of them to zero in on the location. At some point, the phone stopped sending blips.”
“How could it do that?” Pepper asked.
“Thrown into the water, destroyed, inside a metal room, buried…there are lots of reasons,” Moore explained.
“So, what you’re trying to tell me is that we have no idea where our CIA agent is?”
“The few blips we got were loosely traced to the southern part of Indonesia. Maybe Jakarta.”
Pepper huffed sarcastically and said, “That’s wonderful.” He placed his own finger on the globe and drew a box. “That means we’re talking about 6,000 square miles, right?”
Moore said nothing.
“Have you communicated with her?” Wesley asked Pepper. “I’m assuming you didn’t call us here just for that information.”
Pepper composed himself.
“Yes, I did,” he said as if he was the only person who did any work around the place. “Kara called me on Hail’s phone. So that might indicate that they had taken her phone from her, but I think it’s something else. Kara used the word shipshape in our conversation, which is a code word that means she is on a ship. She also pretended to mute the phone, and I overheard Hail’s crew talking about making a run for the South China Sea, so they are definitely on a ship.”
Moore said, “That would account for her phone not sending blips. If she is surrounded by iron, the signal can’t get out.”
“Correct,” Pepper agreed. “Also, as predicted, Hail’s people asked for the location of the Huan Yue.”
“Did you give it to them?” Wesley asked.
“Yes, I did. I put them on hold and made a call to your people, and they provided me the current coordinates of the trawler.”
“What other data did you share with them?” Wesley probed.
“Not much,” Pepper said. “It’s not like there is much to give. I sent them a photo of the fishing trawler and told them that I would call them if, or when, we detected the vessel might be changing course toward land.”
“Do you have Hail’s phone number?” Moore asked.
“It was stored on my phone when they called me,” Pepper said.
“Maybe we can triangulate Hail’s phone signal.”
“Why?” Pepper asked as if Moore didn’t understand the plan. “Does it really matter where they are? Kara is on board and she will do her magic, and before you know it, Hail will be her very best friend. As long as Hail gets the job done, and Kara gets us some good intel on Hail’s operation, then who the hell cares where they are?”
Wesley and Moore thought about it.
“Then why were you so concerned about her just a minute ago?” Moor
e asked.
“I was more concerned about why our high-tech gear doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do,” Pepper shot back.
Wesley said, “If Hail Storm works, then we’ll look good simply having a presence in the operation, regardless of how our equipment functions.”
“Hail Storm?” Pepper asked. “What’s with—Hail Storm?”
“That’s what I named this operation,” Wesley told Pepper.
Pepper looked unhappy.
“What? You don’t like the name?” Wesley asked.
“I just think it’s a little over-the-top,” Pepper said disdainfully.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Every name for every operation we have is over-the-top, as are the military’s operations: Desert Storm, Bayonet Lightning, Valiant Guardian, Urgent Fury, Eagle Claw, Spartan Scorpion, Operation Overlord, Rolling Thunder—”
“OK, OK,” Pepper cut her off.
But Wesley didn’t stop, “All the names of our operations have to be over-the-top, testosterone packed, overblown black ops doozies. If we ever get called to appear in front of a special congressional committee because an operation went south, then the last thing we want to explain is why Operation Fluffy Puppy went horribly wrong.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Pepper said.
Everyone was silent for a moment.
Wesley said in a more forgiving tone, “I just don’t think you like Marshall Hail very much.”
“How I feel about Hail has nothing to do with the name of this operation. I just—I don’t think that—” Pepper stopped talking and looked irritated.
Then he confessed, “You’re right. I don’t like Hail, but it’s not the man I don’t like. It’s what the man represents. He’s a vigilante. And you can dress that up any way you want, but he is still a rich, high-tech vigilante. He could simply turn over his assets to us, and we could get the job done in the same manner. But no, he wants to rub our noses in it. I think he actually enjoys making us look incompetent. And that’s why I don’t like him.”
Pepper stopped talking and tried to recall what they had been talking about before he began his speech. “The name is fine,” he reluctantly agreed; glad to put an end to that topic.
“Of course, it’s fine,” Wesley said defiantly. “Just like all the other fine names of operations I’ve come up with.” Now she looked irritated.
“That’s all,” Pepper announced, putting an end to the meeting.
Sea of Japan—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
H
ail knocked on the door of Kara Ramey’s stateroom around dinnertime. He had been purposely avoiding the CIA operative for a number of reasons. First, she was CIA, and she had an agenda. He knew it; she knew it. But Hail wondered if she knew that he knew it.
Second, Hail liked her. Sure, he liked her at the same base level that all men liked her. What’s not to like? But there was also a vulnerability in the woman that attracted him. And for some inexplicable reason, Hail had always been drawn to people who were damaged or in need.
As a young man, Hail had become a lifeguard at the local recreation centers in the many cities and countries where he had lived. The idea of saving people had appealed to him even at a young age. He was also the boy who would pick up the bird that had smacked into the clear plate-glass window and try to nurse it back to health. Hail had married his first wife after he had broken up with her, and she had then tried to commit suicide. It seemed as if Hail was always trying to rescue those in need. He was the champion for those who cared very little for their own lives. And Hail sensed that even though Kara Ramey wasn’t in that classification, she had certainly been traumatized and needed saving, whether she knew it or not. He fully recognized that his attraction to save Ramey was strong. And that scared him a little.
Kara answered the door, and Hail was once again stunned by her beauty. She was clean and fresh and young and shapely and flawless on the outside.
Kara gave him a ten-thousand-Watt smile, and Hail felt compelled to smile back. She was wearing black yoga pants and a tight red short-sleeve shirt that had a modest V-neck.
“I know that you like me wearing tight stuff,” she said.
Hail didn’t know how to respond. Was that a joke or was she serious?
Kara added, “You know, so you can tell I’m not carrying any hidden CIA cameras or microphones and such.” She cocked her head to the right and smiled at Hail.
He still didn’t know if she was joking and that made him uncomfortable. Then he suddenly realized that she was trying to make him uncomfortable. Well, two could play that game.
Hail said, “In your line of work, I’m sure you are accustomed to wearing very little.”
Kara must have expected a different response. Her smile quickly faded, and her right eye twitched.
There was a second of edgy silence between the two.
“Where are we going?” Kara asked, choosing to totally ignore the previous exchange. She was smiling again, but there was little sincerity behind it.
By habit, Kara started to look for her purse and then realized that she didn’t have it.
Hail realized what she was doing and said, “Oh, almost forgot. Here are your things. I’m sorry it took so long to get them back to you.”
Hail handed Kara a clear plastic bag that held her clothes and her purse.
Kara looked surprised and took the bag from Hail. She opened the bag and pulled out her purse and dropped the bag with clothes on the floor inside her room. She unsnapped her purse and looked inside.
Hail could tell she was running through an inventory in her head. Kara confirmed that her compact, her phone, her phone charger and other smaller objects were all accounted for.
“Thanks,” she said, snapping the purse closed. “Are there any rules as to the use of my cellphone on board?”
“Would it do any good?” Hail asked.
Kara didn’t know how to respond, so she didn’t.
With a graceful wave of his arm, Hail motioned for Kara to step out into the hall. She did, and Hail pointed to the right. Kara began walking in that direction. Hail closed her door and caught up with her.
“I was wondering what had happened to you.” Kara said, “I haven’t seen you since our lunch date.”
Hail was caught off guard by the use of the word date.
“That wasn’t a date,” he said, and then wished he could take it back.
Kara laughed and asked, “Well is this a date?” Without waiting for a response, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”
Hail looked uneasy and asked, “Where do you want to eat?”
“It is a date then,” Kara goaded him. “Let’s see. How about Asian tonight? During the last few days, I think I’ve eaten everywhere except for the Asian restaurant.”
Hail was already feeling manipulated, and they hadn’t even made it to the end of the hallway. Dealing with this woman was going to be tricky.
They reached the first staircase, and Kara asked, “With all the money you put into this ship, I would have thought you would have installed elevators.”
“Oh, we have elevators, but climbing stairs is the only exercise I get these days,” Hail told her.
“Well, we need to get you into that fancy gym I’ve been using. How about later tonight we do a little workout together?”
She said the word workout almost sexually, and Hail couldn’t help but connect the dots in his mind.
“We have some other business we need to take care of first. We’ll see how our time plays out,” Hail said, reaching the top of the stairs, pulling the door and holding it open for Kara.
Kara fluttered through the opening and said, “Thank you.”
They both took a break conversing and continued to walk through the circular hallway that connected all the restaurants.
The door to the Asian restaurant had black block lettering painted on the white steel door that read ASIAN. The unostentatious outside of the door was the opposite of the inside of the door.
/> Once Kara had entered the restaurant, she actually turned around and looked at the other side of the door. No metal, no block lettering, no strange bulkhead shape; but what she did see was dark teak wood that had been handcrafted. Dozens of animals had been carved into the surface of the expensive wood, and then the entire door had been covered with a thick clear layer of varnish. The walls of the restaurant were paneled with dark wood. Modern-looking box lanterns hanging from the ceiling led deeper into the room. The chairs at all the tables were dark, but the tabletops themselves were made of a lighter colored wood. The brighter surface reflected light from the lanterns and made each seating arrangement pop. There were no tablecloths on the maple wood tables, just pairs of chopsticks folded into white napkins. Other than that, the only items on each of the tables were a single yellow sunflower lying next to a thin Chinese vase.
Hail pulled out Kara’s chair, and she sat down, setting her purse on the unused chair tucked under the table to her right.
Hail seated himself opposite Kara. He reached over and picked up the sunflower and placed it into the neck of the vase.
Hail watched Kara as she scrutinized the restaurant. There were only two other tables that were occupied. One table seated a young man and woman she hadn’t seen before. At the other table were two young men she thought were pilots. The 3D windows in this establishment were showing a night scene. Four eighty-two-inch 3D windows displayed a crisp image of the street outside. Other than people with Asian features, the pedestrians looked just like any other group of people walking by a restaurant on a chilly evening. They wore modern clothing, mostly jackets and thick hoodies. Most of the people outside were younger and instead of cars, everyone seemed to be driving scooters. There were brightly lit signs, some neon, some colorful backlit plastic advertisements in all shapes and sizes, and all of the writing was in Chinese. Kara could read and understand most of them.
“Do you know where this video was taken?” Kara asked, pointing at the fake windows.
Operation Hail Storm Page 27
