“W
e’ve got eyes on them,” Alex Knox reported. Renner was sitting in the big Captain Kirk’s chair in the mission control center. He looked at the video on the big monitor being streamed from the drone code-named Electric Light Orchestra, ELO, for short. Since there was only one drone being manned, that meant that the rest of the crew in the room could also turn their attention to the monitor.
The video was not high quality. The lack of light and the distances involved were difficult for the tiny camera on ELO to negotiate. Before they had released the drone to be flown into action, Eric Rugmon had warned Hail that the tiny lens only let in a minute amount of light. That meant that night operations would be a challenge. It was a good thing to know, but both men understood they really didn’t have much of a choice.
“So, we have a military looking guy and a mafia looking guy dressed all in black standing on the dock,” Renner said to the room. “And in the background, we have a big truck with a big crane and long and low trailer. Well, this looks like what we expected. The next thing they should do is pull the missile part out of the boat and set it on that trailer.”
A rumbling of agreement went around the room.
The crew on the Hail Nucleus watched the truck start backing up, bringing both the crane and the trailer closer to the boat.
“How is our power on ELO?” Hail asked Knox.
“Good. We’re around 91 percent.”
There was a loud clanging sound of steel against steel, and the door to the mission control room opened.
Marshall Hail walked in with Kara Ramey.
Renner looked somewhat disappointed. He had been fully in charge of the mission to drop ELO onto the top of the Huan Yue, and he was getting used to being in charge.
Renner slid out of the big chair and greeted Hail with a handshake and Kara with a smile.
Kara looked around the room.
“What do you think?” Renner asked.
“Why does this look so familiar?” she asked, making a slow 360-degree turn.
“Did you ever see the TV show Star Trek?” Hail asked.
“Yes, a long time ago. Is this the captain’s chair from Star Trek?” she asked, touching the armrest of the huge chair.
“Yes, it is,” Hail confirmed. “Well, an updated copy of it.”
“Why Star Trek?” Kara asked, turning to look at Hail and Renner.
“Why not?” Hail responded with a shrug. “It’s got to look like something, and I always loved watching Star Trek when I was growing up, so voilà, you have the Star Trek bridge.”
Kara looked both impressed and confused.
Hail explained, “Kara, we’re not the military. See, look at how everyone is dressed,” he said, swinging his finger in a wide arc around the room.
Kara looked at the Asian woman to her far right. She recognized her as Shana Tran, mission communication analyst she had met earlier in the meeting. She was dressed in a colorful skirt and high heels. She smiled at Kara, and Kara nodded her head in greeting.
Kara continued to scan the rest of the crew working at their control stations.
Seated next to the fashionable Shana, in her twenties, was a teenage boy with long and clean brown hair that glistened in the dim light. He was wearing shorts and a black hoody jacket. He was intently watching his screens and paying no attention to her.
Sitting behind the most outer circle of flight stations was an inner circle of computer stations. At two of the stations sat a distinguished-looking man and a dark-haired woman. She recognized the man as the French scholar she had met, Pierce Mercier. The woman was smiling and waving at her in a childlike fashion. Kara didn’t recognize her and knew nothing about her, but she seemed friendly enough. Kara returned the wave. Pierce Mercier stood up from his station and walked over.
“Good evening Ms. Ramey,” he said, collecting her hand in his and softly kissing her knuckles.
Kara said, “Bonne soirée à vous aussi, M. Mercier.” (Good evening to you too, Mr. Mercier)
Mercier asked, “Etes-vous ici pour le spectacle ou la nourriture?” (Are you here for the show or for the food?)
Kara laughed and said, “Les deux.” (Both)
Mercier smiled and released her hand.
Hail, Mercier and Renner watched Kara complete her visual tour of their mission center.
“Wow, this is crazy,” was her final assessment. She said it with no emotion. It was more a statement than an observation.
Kara looked up at the big screen above the control stations and said, “Oh my God. That’s Kornev,” she exclaimed, pointing her finger at the big blond-haired man standing next to the N. Korean who looked like an Asian toy soldier.
Hail looked up at the monitor and asked, “Are you sure?”
Kara nodded her head and said, “It’s not the best video quality, but that’s Kornev beyond a doubt.”
Hail studied the image closely. He watched the two men who were watching the big truck’s crane swing out over the deck of the ship.
“What’s our distance?” He asked Renner.
“No, no,” Renner told his friend. “I know what you are thinking, but we can’t do that. At least not right now.”
Kara didn’t initially understand what Renner was referring to, and all of a sudden, she got it.
“No way,” she said loudly. “We can’t take him out now. It will screw up the entire plan.”
Hail looked like a boy who had a toy taken away from him.
“I know,” Hail said innocently. “I was just wondering what our current distance was, that’s all.”
But he knew that they knew what he was thinking. Hail was hoping that the men at the dock were within range of the Hail Nucleus’ railgun. Probably not, but it never hurt to ask.
The big man in black and the little man in the grey uniform were talking.
“I wonder what they’re saying.” Hail said.
“Oh, I can tell you,” Kara replied.
She watched the Russian and North Korean intently for a moment.
“Kornev is saying that as soon as the parts have arrived, he is expecting to get paid. And the North Korean is saying that as soon as all the parts are assembled, North Korea is going to turn America into a nuclear waste dump.”
Hail looked impressed.
“Really?” He asked. “You can read lips?”
“Of course not,” Kara said bluntly. “It’s a Russian mobster and a North Korean terrorist. What else would they be talking about? They sure aren’t discussing the game between the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots.”
Hail felt foolish. Exactly how Kara wanted him to feel.
“All right, let’s get to work, folks,” Hail announced.
Renner and Mercier went back to their stations, and Hail climbed into his big chair. That left Kara standing next to Hail in the middle of the room, clutching her purse.
“I can get you a chair, do you want to sit?” Hail asked.
“No, I like standing. Sitting makes your ass flat,” Kara said.
Hail wondered if she was joking, but Kara’s expression gave nothing away.
“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want that,” Hail said.
Kara watched the video for a few minutes before turning toward Hail and saying, “I think I should call my boss and give him an update.”
“Sure,” Hail told her.
Kara took the phone out of her purse and dialed a number. A moment later, she told Hail, “I don’t have a signal.”
“Of course, you don’t,” Hail said. “You’re in a big metal box. How do you think a signal is going to get out of here?”
Hail reached into his pants pocket, took out his phone and handed it to her.
“Use mine,” he said. “It’s patched through the ship’s Wi-Fi to the satellite.”
Kara took the phone from him.
“Can I get that done to my phone?” she asked.
“You need to get permission from your boss,” Hail told her. “I’m sure
he wouldn’t want us messing around with your phone without his permission.” Although Hail knew they had already messed around with it.
“You can still use your phone without us messing with it. You just need to be on the deck so it can get a clear signal to our cell tower uplink,” Hail added.
Kara dialed a number, and it was answered in two rings.
“This is Pepper.”
“This is Kara,” she said.
“Are you on Hail’s phone again?” he asked.
“Affirmative,” she said.
“Am I on the speaker?” Pepper asked.
“No, but I am standing next to Mr. Hail. Thus, we are on the record, so to speak.”
“Understood,” Pepper responded.
Kara said, “I wanted to let you know that I’m watching a live video feed of the dock at Wonsan.”
“Really?” Pepper said, sounding impressed.
“I’m also looking at Victor Kornev, and it looks like the new Minister of State Security, Trang Won Dong.”
Hail listened for something of interest, but so far, he hadn’t heard anything.
Pepper asked, “How are you able to see the dock and the men?”
Kara looked at Hail and asked him, “He wants to know how we can see them.”
“Tell him that we dropped a drone down on top of the Huan Yue, and it is streaming the video to us.”
Kara repeated what Hail had told her.
“You have to be kidding me,” Pepper said. “How can a drone be sitting on top of the ship and not be seen?”
“The drone was designed to look like one of the navigation lights on the wheelhouse of the Huan Yue,” Kara told Pepper.
There was a pause and then Pepper asked, “Can you get a moment of privacy so we can talk?”
Kara turned to ask Hail, “Do you mind if I talk to my boss privately for a minute?”
“Make it quick,” Hail replied. “I’ve used up almost all of my long-distance minutes.”
Kara gave him a funny look and Hail said, “It’s a billionaire joke. It really goes over great in the Indonesian comedy clubs, trust me.”
Kara stepped away from Hail and began talking to Pepper.
“What’s the plan?” Hail asked Renner.
Renner reached out and grabbed his mouse. A cursor appeared on the big screen, superimposed over the video.
Renner explained, “What we want to do is release the magnets and fly the drone over to this truck and set down right here on top of the cab.”
Renner moved the mouse until the cursor was hovering atop the big truck’s roof.
Renner continued, “I think the best time would be when they start lifting the missile section out of the hold of the ship. That way, everyone’s attention will be on the cargo, and no one will be looking at either the front of the ship or the front of the truck.”
“That makes sense to me,” Hail said. “It looks like they’re almost ready to start the lift.”
The truck’s crane was fully extended and pointing down into the cargo hold of the Huan Yue. A bright light was mounted on the boom-arm of the crane pointing down at the ship’s deck, leaving the rest of the ship and surrounding area in relative darkness.
The video swayed to the left and then back to the right as the boat began to lean one way and then the other.
“They’re making the lift,” Renner announced.
“Retract the magnets,” Hail told Knox.
“Pulling up the magnets,” Knox confirmed. “We’re loose.”
Kara appeared to Hail’s right and handed him his phone.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” Hail said politely.
“Do we have a good line of sight to the truck?” Hail asked his crew. “Are there any wires, telephone poles or any other obstructions?”
“No. We’re clear,” Knox said.
“All right then,” Hail said. “No time like the present.”
“What are you doing?” Kara asked.
“You’ll see,” Hail said.
“Spinning up,” Knox reported, and then the video began to move.
Kara thought it appeared the Huan Yue was getting higher as if being raised by a massive wave. And then she realized that the camera was flying. The video tilted to the right, and Kara reached out and steadied herself by grabbing the armrest of Hail’s chair.
“Nice and smooth arc,” Hail told Knox. “Keep ELO in the dark as much as possible.”
“Will do,” Knox confirmed.
“What is ELO?” Kara asked.
“Electric Light Orchestra,” Renner answered. “We name each of the drones, so we can keep them straight when we are flying more than one at a time.”
“That’s kind of a long name,” Kara said.
“That’s why we call it ELO,” Hail told her.
“Coming in for a landing,” Knox said, making small corrections on his flight controls.
The top of the truck’s cab was an insignificant white rectangle in the middle of the video frame. But as the small drone approached, the landing zone became larger and larger until it filled the entire field of view. For a moment, all anyone could see was the dull white top of the truck. And then the camera jerked to the right and became still.
“We’re down,” Knox said. “Engaging the magnets.”
Knox made another adjustment and the camera tilted upwards toward the front of the truck. The monitor showed nothing but a dark and thick misty haze.
“Let’s turn the camera around 180 degrees,” Hail told Knox.
“Roger that,” Knox said, pressing a button on his pistol grip hand controller and twisting the handle to his right. The fuzzy dark image began to brighten as the camera rotated from the darkness and came to rest pointed at the lit Huan Yue. As the light flooded into the lens, the chip in the camera had something to work with and quickly sharpened the image. A clear image of the crane came into view. A massive cylinder wrapped in white plastic was hanging from the crane by several thick cables.
From this new perspective, Kornev and Kim Wong Dong’s backs were now facing the camera.
Hail watched the men for a moment and waited to see if there was any sign that they had spotted the drone. Five minutes later, Hail said, “And it would appear that we were successful again.”
Hail looked at Mercier.
“As for the dismal statistics of success that you mentioned during our planning mission—” Hail said to the Frenchman.
“We have not completed the ride to where they are storing the part yet,” Mercier protested in his thick French accent.
“That wasn’t part of your statistics. You said that we couldn’t get the drone on the boat. I even threw in getting the drone off the boat and onto the truck. Now you’re saying that your crappy statistics included getting the drone to the delivery point?”
“It always did,” Mercier said with a smile.
“Bull,” Hail told him.
Kara spoke up and said, “I think it’s amazing that you guys got this far, regardless of statistics.”
“Just good old American engineering,” Hail said.
Hail leaned forward in his big chair and rubbed the back of his neck. He then reached behind and rubbed his lower back, wincing at the pain.
“Are you ready for that workout now?” Kara asked, watching forty-year-old Hail act more like a sixty-year-old man.
“I’m ready,” Hail said. “Be gentle.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen,” Kara mocked.
Marshall Hail left the mission center and went up to his stateroom to change. He pulled on some workout clothes. He glanced at the mirror and thought to himself, “Man, you have really let yourself go.” He grabbed a few inches of belly fat and tried to puff out his chest to compensate for the bulge, but his effort made his stomach stick out another two inches. He sighed and left his cabin.
*_*_*
En route to the ship’s gym, Hail made a short detour and badged himself into the ship’s securit
y center. Dallas, Taylor and Lex were all on duty.
Taylor was flying Queen, the ship’s security drone in a twenty-mile radius above the Hail Nucleus.
Lex was monitoring the ship’s sonar and radar for perceived threats.
Dallas had on headphones and was listening intently to something, so lost in concentration that he didn’t even notice Hail walk into the room. Hail tapped him on the shoulder.
Dallas looked up, pressed the PAUSE button on his screen and swiveled his chair around so he could talk to his boss.
“What did she say while she was using my phone talking to her CIA boss?” Hail asked.
Dallas shook his head and made a confused face.
“It’s pure gibberish,” he said. “I don’t know what the hell they were saying.”
Before Hail could ask him what he meant, Dallas said, “Here you go. Give this a listen.”
Dallas pressed an icon to pipe the sound of the recording over the security center’s speakers. He then pressed the PLAY icon.
“Zipadub zubadap sub zub zipzapadub zipadadadub zubub.”
Dallas let the recording drone on with Kara saying the nonsensical words. When she had completed a phrase, the reply would be issued by a mechanical voice that was talking in the same crazy manner.
After a moment or two, Dallas paused the recording and said to Hail, “What do you think about that?”
“That’s crazy. What do you think is going on?”
Dallas shook his head.
“It’s a language of some sort. I think we should have Alba listen to it. After all, she is our analyst in charge of language communications. Maybe she would have a clue.”
“But what’s that weird voice responding to Kara? It doesn’t sound human.”
“I don’t think it is,” Dallas agreed. “I think it’s an application of some sort that instantly translates what she has said to Pepper.”
“So, you think that Kara knows this language, but whoever responds to her replies in English mechanically translates the reply back into the weird language that Kara understands?”
“That would be my best guess,” Dallas said.
“Very interesting,” Hail said. “Every time I think I’ve seen all the dimensions of Ms. Ramey, she shows me another facet.”
Operation Hail Storm Page 30
