The lieutenant commander went over a final checklist and waited for the yellow-shirted catapult officer, the shooter as they called him, to give him a thumbs-up. His flight would only last about a half hour. Fifteen minutes to go in, a few minutes to neutralize the target, and then on full afterburners return home. That is, if he came home. If not, then his plane had probably been reduced to ash and tinsel that rained down and decorated the jungles of North Korea. Nolan often thought of dying. He fantasized about crashing his 337-million-dollar aircraft into the warehouse instead of just sending a few missiles into the building. That would make a bigger bang. But then all pilots thought about stuff like that. At least he thought they did.
The lieutenant commander checked his watch again. Time to go. He saw a flurry of activity around him as the guys on the ground did their best to make sure he was safe. SAFE. That was funny. It’s like giving a flu shot to a guy being executed in the electric chair. Fifteen minutes from now, he would be a bird in a shooting gallery. Or not. Down on the deck, he saw the shooter in the yellow shirt getting ready to do his thing, so Nolan spun up the Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan engines to max power.
Foster Nolan put his stick in all four corners and cycled the rudders to demonstrate to the deck crew that his controls were free. He then turned on his lights and held still. Ten seconds later, Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan saluted the man in yellow who was standing next to his plane. The man gave him a thumbs-up, dropped down on one knee and pointed toward the bow of the ship. Nolan pushed the throttle to full afterburner, the ship’s catapult cut loose and ripped the F-35 off the deck and threw it out into the darkness.
Sea of Japan—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
M
en at Work sat silently in the green wet field only thirty yards from the main gate of the warehouse. Knox was expecting absolutely nothing. Thus, he was very surprised to see the headlights of a large vehicle crawling up the dirt road toward the warehouse. He watched for a moment and then zoomed Men at Work’s camera in closer to get a better look at the truck. He looked away from his screen and told Hail, “Marshall, I believe the last piece of the missile is arriving right now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Hail said.
Knox pressed an icon and the video streaming from Men at Work popped up on large screen number four. Hail swiveled his chair a few degrees to center on the monitor. Sure enough, a large diesel rig with a lowboy trailer was stopped at the front gate of the warehouse. The unmistakable huge cylinder was resting in the middle of the trailer. The only difference Hail could tell between this rig and the one before it was the crane mounted on the end of the trailer instead of the back of the truck.
“What’s the status of the deployment?” Hail asked.
Renner, who was still manning Sex Pistols, responded, “Almost done. Thing 9 and Thing 10 are entering the warehouse now.”
Hail turned his attention to the video on the big screen that was being streamed by BEP. The interior of the warehouse was bright, in stark contrast to all the other videos that were being shot in low light from outside. Each time Hail switched between monitors, it took his eyes a few moments to adjust.
He saw two drones fly in through the hole in the back of the building. The contraptions looked alien, even to Hail. They looked even more out of place in the warehouse, weird shaped flying apparatuses contrasted by common crates and boxes. Both drones stopped and seemed to look around for a moment. Then, still in a hover, they went straight up toward the ceiling. Hail tracked them on the monitor as one Thing went left and the other right. A moment later, Hail watched each of the drones touch down on the top of a wide stack of tall wooden crates.
Renner reported, “Two more drones to go.”
Hail turned his attention back to the screen that showed the main gate. He saw a large man walking out toward the truck. Hail had to assume he had come from the office. However, all he saw in the office was the sleeping North Korean minister. The big man kicked a body that was lying next to the fence. Then Hail saw the awakened body get to his feet. He bowed over and over to the man who had just kicked him back to life. He opened the gate, and the truck rumbled in.
“Who is that?” Hail asked Kara. The big man had now jumped up on the running rail of the truck.
“I don’t know.” Kara told him. “It’s too dark to tell.”
The main gate wasn’t well lit, and the man was standing on the truck’s step on the opposite side of the camera, so it was hard to make out his features.
“If you don’t need me right now, I have to use the ladies’ room,” Kara said.
“Down the hall and to the right,” Hail told her.
But once Kara had exited the mission center, she did not go down the hall and to the right. Instead, she ran to the nearest set of stairs and began climbing as fast as she could. As she made her way up deck after deck, she fumbled to get her phone ready. The last flight of stairs terminated at a thick bulkhead door that led out onto the top deck. Kara twisted the steering wheel handle until the door’s stubby metal fingers let go of the wall, and she pushed it open. Once on the top deck, she wasted no time entering the digits she had committed to memory and hit the dial button.
“This is Victor,” the voice on the other end of the phone said.
Kara lowered her voice and began talking in a husky Mexican accent.
“This is a courtesy call to let you know that an airstrike will take place at your warehouse in less than 90 seconds.”
“Who is this?” Victor Kornev asked.
“This is a friend. You now have 75 seconds to clear the area. Hellfire missiles are inbound.”
Kara hung up the phone and hoped that Kornev had taken her warning seriously.
*_*_*
Hail took control of BEP’s camera and turned it toward the front of the warehouse. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A sweaty and disheveled Victor Kornev was helping a North Korean soldier open one of the warehouse doors. Hail looked to his right to confirm with Kara that it was indeed Kornev, and he then realized she wasn’t back from the bathroom.
Hail felt a burst of adrenaline. Kornev was still there. If everything went well, the Russian arms dealer, the guy who sold the weapon to the people who had killed his family, would be in the warehouse when it turned into a ball of fire. Hail was very pleased with that thought.
Hail noticed that the stubborn warehouse door had finally been pushed open, and Kornev stepped back to allow the truck to pull in. There was a look of annoyance on Victor’s face as he climbed back onto the truck’s step and said something to the driver. The driver nodded and began to pull the truck back out and away from the warehouse.
Hail watched Kornev stand by the doors for about thirty seconds. The Russian then made a face, shook his head and said something to the short North Korean general with the big hat. The little man looked as if he had agreed to something and then both men walked over to the office door and went inside.
“What’s the status of the drones?” Hail asked.
“Just waiting on the last two,” Renner told him.
“OK, the warehouse is clear. Now is our only chance,” Hail told him.
Renner instructed the young pilots of Thing 11 and Thing 12 to enter the building and find their landing zones.
Hail zoomed BEP’s camera in close on the window of the warehouse office. He saw the North Korean officer disappear from view, as if he had dropped something on the floor and gone down on all fours to pick it up. But that wasn’t the case. The North Korean never reappeared. Kornev was still looking down at the place where the minister had dropped from sight. Then Kornev looked up, reached into his pocket and placed his phone to his ear. He said something and waited. By his facial expression, Hail could tell Kornev wasn’t happy with whatever the caller was telling him. Then he responded angrily to the caller. The Russian waited again. This time, he didn’t look angry. Hail thought that he looked scared. And then, out of the blue, Kornev bolted out the front office door.
/>
Hail looked across all the big screens to see where Kornev was heading in such a hurry. Men at Work’s video stream showed him running toward a weird looking Jeep-type vehicle parked in the yard. A second later, Kornev had jumped into the Jeep and began driving toward the main gate in a hurry.
“He can’t get away,” Hail stated.
“Well there’s really nothing we can do to stop him,” Renner said, but Hail had already grabbed his flight controllers, and Guns N’ Roses was airborne before Renner had finished his sentence.
“What are you doing, Marshall?” Renner yelled.
“If you haven’t noticed, my wife is in the bathroom so I’m going to kill Kornev,” Hail said, sounding every bit as demented as his statement would indicate.
Renner thought that Hail sounded mad. Mad as in crazy.
“This is a bad idea,” Renner said, but he already knew it was a lost cause. Renner had never seen his friend change his mind once he had committed to something. It could be as big as closing a questionable corporate deal to parachuting. Once Hail had started moving forward, only an act of God could pull him out of the game.
Hail was concentrating on flying. His mouth was tight and his jaw was clinched as he tilted the front of the drone forward to generate more speed. His trigger finger was pressed so hard against the throttle controls that it made a small cracking sound as the plastic began to give way.
“Just get the rest of the Things in place and blow up the damn warehouse,” Hail ordered.
Up ahead, Hail could see that Kornev’s Jeep had already driven out the gate and had disappeared down the narrow dirt road. Guns N’ Roses was heavy with ammo and not designed for a chase, but so far it appeared to be doing a pretty good job. Hail watched the fence line clear just feet beneath his aircraft. Looking down on the dirt road, the moon was bright and Hail saw Kornev’s Jeep about a hundred yards ahead. Hail switched to the drone’s targeting camera and lined up the crosshairs on the middle of Kornev’s vehicle. Hail toggled the gun into auto mode. He then flipped off the gun’s safety and squeezed the trigger on his left joystick. A short burst of bullets spat from the gun. Hail saw sparks as the steel-jacketed rounds sheared off the latch securing the vehicle’s canvas top. The fabric peeled back and Hail saw a very surprised Victor Kornev glance back in his direction. Hail was certain that he could not see the drone. The drone didn’t have any navigation lights or any visual clues that would give it away. Kornev could not see his drone, but Hail was quite sure that he saw the next round of bullets that punched three big holes into his dashboard.
Kornev looked back at the road and jammed his foot on the accelerator. The Jeep gained speed and Hail compensated by tilting the nose of the drone down and feathering its propellers. Hail let another volley of lead fly from the M4 mini-gun and waited for the result. The bullets hit low and to the right, disappearing into the back seat of the vehicle. It was at that point that Hail realized that shooting a gun from a stationary drone and shooting the same gun from a drone doing 40 miles per hour wasn’t in the least bit comparable. The calibration of the M4’s gunsights was off, and Hail realized that he had to lead the target.
Hail began to gain on the Jeep and then some static began to dance across his screen. Nothing major, just a few lightning bolts of interference and then they were gone.
Tran said, “You are getting too far away, Marshall. We’re starting to lose communications with you.”
Hail gritted his teeth and said, “Just another minute is all I need.”
Hail placed the gun sight six feet in front of the top of Kornev’s blond head. He squeezed the trigger, and the screen became blocky and the video lagged for a second. A moment later the video image had recovered. Hail didn’t have a clue where the bullets had gone, but he knew that they didn’t hit Kornev because he was still driving. Driving and looking back over his shoulder at the invisible death machine that was following him.
“Marshall, you’re almost out of power,” Renner yelled. “And you know the rule. Leave nothing behind. You have to break this off.”
“No way,” Hail sneered, pulling the trigger again. This time he saw Kornev pull his hand off the steering wheel like he’d been bit by a viper. Hail knew that a bullet had struck Kornev’s hand. Hail had finally zeroed in on the range.
A blaring beeping sound went off indicating that Guns N’ Roses had less than 5% battery power remaining.
Shana Tran warned Hail, “Comms will fail very soon.”
The video on Hail’s screen was drifting in and out, as if a child was playing with the remote control. Picture, static, pixels, picture, static, big blocks, little colored blocks, fragments of a picture and then the image turned into black and white, but Hail could still see Kornev’s Jeep below.
“Just one more shot,” Hail said to himself. “Just one more.”
Renner walked over to Hail and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“It’s over, Marshall.”
Renner entered a four-digit number on Hail’s left control screen and pressed a button labeled SELF DESTRUCT.
Hail actually saw the fireball before the video had disappeared.
“No, damn it, no,” Hail cried. “I almost had him,” he told Renner. “Just another few seconds is all I needed.”
Renner looked at him and said, “In just a few more seconds Guns N’ Roses would be lying in the middle of the road just waiting to be discovered. You know the rule. Leave nothing behind.”
“I almost had him,” Hail repeated.
Renner just shook his head. He pat Hail on the back.
“We’ll get him another time. Now, don’t we have a warehouse to blow up?”
Wonsan, North Korea—Warehouse
V
ictor Kornev had three good reasons for running. Number one: Only a handful of people knew his phone number. Whoever had called him wasn’t a prank caller or had accidentally performed a butt dial. Number two: Less than a handful of people knew where he was at that exact moment. Number three: Only two people that he knew of, other than the truck driver and the guards, knew what was in the warehouse.
The union of those three facts meant that the caller was on the level. And as far as Victor was concerned, there was no downside to getting the hell out of there. He would put about a mile distance between himself and the warehouse, then turn around and watch and wait. After a few hours, if nothing went boom, then he would drive back, get paid and get the hell out of North Korea.
As Kornev ran out of the office, he first considered just running out the front gate. And then he recalled seeing the keys in that UAZ, or the GOAT as the Russians called it, out front. He was glad that the engine turned over and he didn’t have to go through some starting ritual to get the goat moving. He found what he thought was first gear, let out the clutch and pointed the car toward the main gate.
Kornev wasn’t aware as he drove that he kept periodically looking out his window and up into the sky to see if some sort of aircraft was bearing down on his position. But he was fully aware that he needed to put some distance between himself and the warehouse.
After he had blasted past the guard at the main gate and centered the car on the little dirt road ahead, he was starting to feel good about the situation. Someone somewhere, a friend he didn’t even know he had, was looking out for him. Good friends in his business were hard to find.
Kornev was thinking happy thoughts about his new friend when sparks fell into his lap and the canvas top on the goat cut loose and went sailing back over his head.
At first, Kornev thought an electronic component in the dashboard was shorting out and throwing sparks. Then he looked down and saw that the latch that had secured the fabric top to the goat was lying in his lap. That was weird. The goat wasn’t the best vehicle in the world, but a short circuit under the dashboard shouldn’t cause the ragtop’s handle to fall off.
He looked up into the sky for an inbound aircraft and three bullets ripped three holes into the goat’s dashboard. The a
ttack was so sudden and so unexpected, that Kornev didn’t react at all. One second, there were no holes in the goat’s dashboard, and then a second later, three perfect holes stitched through the top of the dash like they were part of the vehicle’s initial design. Maybe cooling holes of some type.
Victor compensated for his delayed reaction by stepping hard into the accelerator. He now understood that he was being targeted, but he didn’t know by what or who.
He craned his neck and looked back over his shoulder at the road behind him. Nothing. Then he looked backward and up into the night sky. Nothing, or at least nothing he could see.
Then, over the engine noise, Kornev heard something very familiar. It wasn’t a typical sound one heard when being attacked in a vehicle traveling on a North Korean road in the middle of nowhere. He heard the unmistakable sound of a silencer. PLAP-PLAP-PLAP. Three quick rounds. A short burst from an automatic silenced weapon of some type. Kornev recognized the sound because he had sold thousands of silencers of every type for just about every gun he could name. He had test-fired thousands of rounds through silencers to make sure they were indeed silent. Or at least as silent as one could be.
Victor looked behind him in the goat’s rear-view mirror. He saw nothing. He looked up again into the sky and saw nothing. And then a bullet went through his right hand. It felt like he had been stung by an extremely venomous creature. He snatched his hand off the steering wheel and tried to shake out the pain. Instead, he shook out blood that went sailing into his face and onto the goat’s still intact windshield.
That’s when Victor Kornev knew he was going to die. Something was on him and he couldn’t shake it. He couldn’t even see it. It was a new weapon of some sort and his last regret on this earth was he wouldn’t live long enough to sell it to any of his customers.
Operation Hail Storm Page 40
