Operation Hail Storm

by Brett Arquette

  “Sorry, I really don’t,” Hail said, checking his phone for any updates.

  Hail looked up, and Kara gave him a confused expression so Hail expanded on his response.

  “This really wasn’t my gig putting all this together. My friend that you met, Gage Renner, he contracted all the design elements, as well as the construction of the restaurants out to vendors who built the rooms. Part of that design was the electronics, the screens that look like outside windows, as well as the video that would be shot and played on the screens.”

  Kara didn’t say anything. She waited to see if Hail had more to tell her.

  “I cut the check,” Hail said, “and that was my major contribution to the restaurant buildout.”

  Hail flashed a smile and then let it go.

  “Who is Gage to you?” Kara asked. “Where did you meet him?”

  “Have you spent some time with Gage?” Hail asked.

  “Yes. I ran into him at the gym, and he was nice enough to show me around a little.”

  “What did you see?” Hail asked.

  “Gage showed me the school department of the ship, the classrooms and such. You have quite a large gaggle of teenagers in training, don’t you?”

  “Living every day is training you for something,” Hail replied noncommittally.

  Kara said, “Then Gage showed me your flight simulator area.”

  Her smile conveyed a sense that she had been shown an area that was off-limits.

  “Did you have fun there?” Hail asked, returning a smile that conveyed she would only be shown what they wanted her to see.

  “I crashed a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor straight into the ground twice and once into a mountain.”

  They both laughed.

  Hail said jokingly, “You will not be our pilot the next time we fly.”

  “You are right about that,” Kara said with a laugh.

  A waiter appeared at their table. To Kara, he looked as if he were just old enough to serve and drink alcohol. He had black hair and was tall, skinny and a few zits on his face. The first thing the young man did was reach over and remove the flower from the vase. He set it on the table.

  “Here are your menus,” the man said, handing a folded leather list to each of them. “Might I suggest a Banshu Ikkon Kaede no Shizuku sake for you tonight?”

  Hail had a blank expression on his face.

  Kara answered, “No, that’s a little dry. I would prefer Garyubia sake. Do you have it?”

  “Yes, we do. I’ll be right back with that.” The waiter left, and Hail looked admiringly at Kara.

  “Very impressive,” he said.

  Kara shrugged it off and said, “I’ve been in a lot of countries and spent more time in bars than I care to remember.”

  Hail asked, “Is that part of your job?”

  Kara looked more serious and asked, “Which part do you mean? Knowing everything there is to know about sake or sitting in bars a lot?”

  “Both,” Hail asked.

  “They both go along with one another,” Kara stated. “It’s like knowing everything there is to know about race cars because you spent a lot of time at the track.”

  Hail nodded, and there was a lull in the conversation.

  Kara looked around a little more before saying, “So, we were talking about Gage,” she offered. “He seems like a nice guy. What’s Gage to you, and how did he get stuck on this boat?”

  “Ship,” Hail corrected.

  “How did Gage get stuck on this ship?” Kara complied.

  “He was my roommate at MIT. We were on the same degree path and shared similar interests in nuclear power. After school, we kind of lost touch with one another. He was pursuing a failed marriage while I was doing the same.”

  Hail stopped telling his story for a moment and asked Kara, “Have you been married?”

  Then as an afterthought, he added, “Or are you married?”

  Kara smiled like she owned the world and said, “Are you kidding? Give all this just to one man?” She laughed at her own joke, but Hail sensed that Kara had some issues with intimacy. If so, then they were similar in that respect.

  Kara continued, “No, marriage is not for me. At least, not right now. I mean fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce.”

  “Right here,” Hail said, raising his hand. “Done that and bought the T-shirt.”

  “Right,” Kara said. “So, you know what I mean?”

  “True, but then every once in a while, you get lucky and the odds turn in your favor.”

  Hail’s expression oscillated from happy to sad so quickly that Kara thought he may have experienced a sudden physical pain of some type.

  Hail looked away from Kara and down at the table.

  Kara asked softly, “You are talking about your wife, Madalyn, aren’t you?”

  Hail didn’t look up. He just nodded his head.

  Kara continued, “I’ve never been married; therefore, I can only imagine what you have been through, losing your wife and both of your daughters.”

  Hail looked up at her.

  Kara thought that his face had changed dramatically in just those few seconds. The sorrowful lines in Hail’s face had become deeper, making him look callous and uncaring. His former kind-hearted eyes looked somewhat scary, dark and bottomless as if he had transformed into an irreverent purveyor of death.

  “Do you know what today is?” Hail asked in a voice almost as scary as his appearance.

  Kara looked at him straight on and with great composure, she said, “Yes, I do. You know I read your file, and they expect me to remember things like that.”

  “Then you know?”

  Kara decided it was best to get it out on the table.

  “Your family was killed this day two years ago.”

  Hail looked at her as if she were the enemy for just saying it aloud.

  Then he looked back down at his plate.

  The waiter arrived with a tray that had a bottle of sake and two empty glasses. He also had two glasses of ice water. He set everything on the table and asked, “So what will it be for you tonight?”

  The waiter’s indifference to the situation snapped Hail out of his self-pity. Hail motioned for Kara to order first.

  Kara, who hadn’t even opened her menu said, “I will have the avocado roll and the salmon sashimi.”

  The waiter jotted it down with a stylus on his tablet.

  “And for you, sir,” he asked Hail.

  Hail said solemnly, “I will have the usual.”

  “Very good,” the young man said and darted off.

  Hail looked down at his plate.

  “Hey,” Kara said. “Look up here.”

  Reluctantly, Hail looked up at the CIA agent.

  Kara was smiling in an attempt to pull Hail out of his funk.

  “What’s your usual?”

  “Chicken Lo Mein.”

  Kara laughed. “All of this great food and you order Chicken Lo Mein? Marshall, you need to get out more and live a little.”

  Hail flattened his lips and gave a little “it is what it is” expression.

  Hail took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as if he were expelling poison gas from his fatigued lungs.

  Kara redirected the conversation by saying, “So you met Gage at MIT and then both of you went through bad marriages. Then how did you two get back together?”

  Hail seemed more comfortable talking about this subject.

  He brightened a little and said, “The idea for the traveling wave reactor was first proposed in the 1950s. The theory has been studied all the way up to the first 600-Megawatt prototype that was built by TerraPower in 2020. But there were big problems with their design, as there are with most prototypes. Both Gage and I were newly divorced and very bored teaching at MIT. We were looking for something to sink our teeth into, something of importance. We became aware of the challenges that TerraPower was having with their new reactor and that technology intrigued us. So, Gage and I put our heads toge
ther and came up with a new reactor design, as well as a more sophisticated way to bundle the fuel. That collaboration and our new designs resulted in one of the first commercial traveling wave reactors.”

  Kara poured a glass of sake for each of them and asked, “How did you get the startup money?”

  Hail let out a single laugh and said, “That was the funny part of it. Bill Gates was a huge proponent of the traveling wave reactor and even sat on the board of TerraPower and funded its operations. Gage and I met with Gates and showed him our new designs. He had some people he trusted look over our designs, and within a few months Gates backed our startup, and we were in business.”

  “That’s pretty cool,” Kara said.

  “Yeah. The cool thing about Gates was that he just wanted the technology to move forward. He didn’t care who did it or who got credit for it. He just wanted the new technology to be successful. Gates understood that energy was the key to making a better world. A longer lasting world. He understood that free energy could help millions and millions of people who were living horrible lives.”

  Kara held up her glass.

  “Cheers to that,” she said.

  Hail picked up his own glass and toasted her offer with a little clink.

  They drank and drifted off into their own thoughts.

  Kara went back to looking out the fake windows, and Hail became lost in the memory of his family.

  A few minutes ticked by and Hail resurfaced. It was time to get down to business.

  “Well, enough about my life history,” he said, “There are some things we need to discuss—some business-related items.”

  Kara looked surprised at the sudden change of topic.

  Hail continued, “I would like to know more about the man called Kornev that you mentioned in Washington. I would like to kill him.”

  Kara smiled at Hail’s brashness.

  “Just like that, huh? Just kill him?” Kara asked.

  “No. I would actually like to know more about him and then kill him. I first want to make sure he is the right guy. You indicated he was the man who sold the surface-to-air missiles to The Five terrorists.”

  Kara set her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands and stated, “The CIA has pretty strict rules about their agents telling non-CIA private citizens about classified information. I’m sure you understand.”

  Hail knew there would be some form of bartering that would take place if he wanted the information, but his first tactic was to go dark on Kara Ramey and see how she reacted.

  “How about we place you in a lonely room at the bottom of the ship until you tell me what I want to know?” Hail asked, doing his best to sound menacing.

  Kara laughed, slapping both of her hands on the table so hard that the people at the other tables turned to look at them.

  “You are funnier than hell,” she said, all smiles and giggles. “You are the biggest teddy bear I have ever met. And trying that sinister man behind the curtain, man, that is a riot!” She continued to laugh.

  Hail felt foolish and went with what he initially intended to go with.

  “After dinner tonight, we’re going to complete a very important step of the operation. Right now, as we speak, the first step is taking place. It’s your choice. Do you want to tell me about Kornev, or do you want to spend all of this critical time in your comfortable stateroom instead of our mission center where the action is taking place?”

  Kara stopped laughing.

  “Now you have my attention,” she told Hail. “Can I take photos with my phone of your mission center?”

  “No,” Hail said, “but you will probably try anyway.”

  “Probably,” Kara agreed. “I will take that deal. So, what do you want to know about Kornev?” Kara asked.

  Hail thought for a moment.

  “What was your part of the mission concerning Kornev?”

  “What do you mean by my part of the mission?”

  Hail thought that Kara sounded more confrontational than cooperative. He took a moment to sip some sake and collect his thoughts. He wanted to know how she collected information so he could determine if the intelligence she collected was worth considering. After all, if she watched Kornev at a distance from a hill overlooking his hotel, then how important could that information be? However, if she was intimate (to choose a word) with Kornev and his operations, then maybe her information was worthwhile.

  Hail said, “I mean, when they send you in to collect information, how do you do it? Is it like electronic eavesdropping, video surveillance, what?”

  Kara gave Hail a look that questioned his sincerity.

  “Look at me for a second, Marshall,” she said.

  Kara stood up from the table and did a slow turn as if she were an expensive porcelain doll revolving on a turntable.

  With Hail watching her while still standing and still turning, she asked, “Do I look like someone they would send in to do video surveillance?”

  “I don’t know,” Hail responded sheepishly.

  Kara sat and placed her cloth napkin in her lap. She took another sip of sake and said, “I’m the CIA’s version of a courtesan, Mr. Hail. I’m the pretty thing they send in to get close to horny assholes. And then while I’m close, I steal their secrets. It normally takes a decade or more to become a field agent, but that was the old CIA. In the new CIA, if you look like I do and can speak more than five languages fluently, then one day you’re listening to recorded wire taps, and the next day you are fast-tracked into a country you never heard of.”

  Kara stopped talking and stared at Hail with steely unblinking green eyes.

  Hail wanted to look away, but he felt that shifting his eyes away from hers would be an insult of some type. So, he didn’t. He looked at Kara Ramey, looked at her beautiful face and said, “And how did you get into that line of work?”

  Kara took in the question and burst out laughing.

  Hail started laughing, happy that his levity could break up the awkwardness of the moment.

  But as Hail laughed, he realized something very important about this woman. Part of her job was to continually keep him off balance. Hail would try to center himself in a certain frame of mind so he could get a psychological advantage, and then, WHAM, she would completely blow him out of the water with a comment or a statement. When he had first knocked on her door, it was her comment about him liking her in tight fitting clothes. Then there was her mention of this being a date. And then there was something lurking in her interaction with his friend Gage. And then she had brought up his family’s death. And now, now that he was trying to figure out what she did and how she did it, again, she flattened him with this new salacious proclamation.

  After the laughter had subsided, Kara asked, “You know, Marshall, what does it really matter to you? I can tell you for sure that Kornev is a bad guy. We’ve been watching him closely for a year or more, and he sells nasty weapons to nasty people. I mean you are content with plucking people off the FBI’s Top Ten Terrorist list. So, what’s the fascination with this one guy?”

  Hail said, “I could ask you the same thing. You have a list of all these bad guys, yet you’re concentrating your efforts on this one guy. He has to be important. He has to be important enough for you to risk your life.”

  Kara didn’t respond. She pretended to look for the waiter.

  “Put the flower in the vase,” Hail told her.

  “That’s OK,” she said, dismissing his suggestion.

  Hail asked, “Why do you do it? How did you end up working with the CIA? You must have a lot of skin in the game, so to speak, if your role with the CIA is truly what you just told me.”

  “That’s not important,” Kara said. “And anyway, I’m not allowed to tell you anything about myself. As far as you are concerned, I’m a CIA robot. I don’t have a personal life. I’m owned by my country.”

  “God,” Hail said. “You got majorly damaged somehow. You’re almost as messed up as I am.”

  Kara
looked at Hail as if he had slapped her in the face. She flashed him an expression of pure disdain.

  “When did you become a psychiatrist, Mr. Hail? Did you get a degree in psychoanalysis at MIT along with your physics degree? Did you get another Nobel Prize in damaged people assessment?”

  “Score one for the Hail Team,” Hail thought. He had finally gotten to her. He had knocked her off her game and rattled her. Now was as good a time as any to see what made her tick.

  “Forget Kornev,” Hail said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll make you a different offer.”

  Kara still looked angry.

  Hail said, “If you tell me how you got the way you are, you know, the messed-up thing I was talking about, then I will let you into the mission center tonight.”

  “Go to hell,” Kara’s responded.

  “I already lived there for two years, and I’m not going back.”

  Kara didn’t say anything. She gave Hail a striking look of insolence.

  “OK,” Hail said like he couldn’t give a damn. “I just thought you and I could start developing some trust between us. You already know everything there is to know about me. You even know my wife, my kids their names and when they were killed. You probably even know when they were born. But I don’t know anything about you except for the fact that you have some skeletons in the closet that keep trying to escape. Your fear of flying. Your joining the CIA and being made to do things you hate doing. There is a pressure building up inside you Miss Ramey, and it takes every minute of your day to keep from exploding. I can’t trust a person like that with all I have built. At some point, you’ll have to level with me, or you need to get off my boat.”

  “Ship,” Kara corrected.

  “Ship,” Hail agreed.

  Kara finished her glass of sake and poured each of them another.

  The waiter arrived with dishes of food. Some hot and some not. He placed them in front of the silent couple.

  “If you need anything else, you know what to do,” the man said before heading back to the kitchen.

  Kara picked up some ivory-looking chopsticks from her place setting. She began lightly poking at the sushi on her plate.

  Hail watched her and waited. He knew she was trying to decide if she would give it up. It was a big decision. Either she had to level with him, or she would be asked to leave.