Hail Warning

by Brett Arquette

  Kara considered Hail’s interesting twist, but instead of answering, she asked, “Do you believe in God?”

  Hail gave her question some thought and responded, “I believe in the God moment.”

  Kara was about to ask him what he meant by that, but Hail immediately pointed at the matching pearl handle .38 handguns in front of them and said, “Believe it or not, these were my dad’s favorite handguns. They were custom- made for modern duels.”

  “You mean like take ten steps and turn around and shoot each other duels?” Kara asked.

  “Exactly,” Hail confirmed. “But these are very special guns because―”

  Hail’s phone began ringing. He took it out of his pocket and placed it to his ear.

  “OK,” was all he said. He pocketed his phone back and told Kara, “Sorry, I have to cut show and tell short today. I need to make an important video call.”

  Kara looked a little put out, and Hail added, “I will make it up to you. I promise. In a few days, I have something very special I want to show you.”

  Hail began walking back towards the door that led to the outer room.

  “Will I like it as much as I liked this?”

  Hail said in an upbeat tone, “I think you’ll like it even more than this.”

  “Wonderful,” Kara said mock enthusiasm. “I can hardly wait. What do you have, a room of intercontinental missiles your dad handed down to you?”

  TERMEZ, UZBEKISTAN

  V ictor Kornev eased himself out of bed, still a little sore from the debacle in North Korea. Total damage assessment included a bullet hole in his right hand, very sore ribs and a stiff back caused from being thrown from the vehicle he had been driving. Two eardrums may either have been blown out, or he had suffered temporary hearing loss from the explosion of the Dongmyong Hotel. Those were his major ailments from his business trip to North Korea, but there were also many minor scrapes and cuts which were a nuisance.

  Kornev was a big man and had always tried to stay in shape. Yet, after almost losing his life in North Korea, he came to the realization that it didn’t matter how old you were or what type of exercises you did. Death could come a-knocking at any time. Unless you were made from titanium, death didn’t care about the state of your physical fitness.

  His business trip was supposed to have been uncomplicated. He had flown into North Korea and was escorted by General Kim Won Dong to the warehouse where all the ICBM parts were being delivered. Kornev had orchestrated the deliveries so all the pieces would arrive approximately at the same time. Hundreds of pieces of all different sizes arrived via plane, boat and truck, some of which made the trip using a combination of all three transportation methods. Once they had arrived, there would be enough parts to build three long-range, Russian-made R-29RMU Sineva missiles. But, if any of the parts were captured, confiscated, lost or destroyed, enough parts would have survived to build at least one ICBM. And, that strategy was acceptable to the North Koreans. They just wanted that one finger of intimidation to allow them to reach out to figuratively touch any country in the world with horrendous consequences.

  Except for a single truck, which had been running late carrying the last huge section of a missile, the operation had run flawlessly. Kornev had to wait for an additional twelve hours at the warehouse for that one last damn truck. Just when the truck had finally arrived and unloaded, he received a phone call. The voice on the phone informed him there would be an airstrike on the warehouse in less than ninety seconds. Since no one knew he was there, he had taken the caller seriously. He had jumped into the nearest Jeep and taken off. Initially, he thought he had been clear of the facility, but that hadn’t been the case. Some type of flying machine had chased after him, shooting down on him as he drove. The last shot from the flying contraption had scored a hit on his right hand. But other than that, he had escaped serious injury because the pursuing aircraft had blown up behind him. Why? Who? What was it? None of those questions had been answered.

  The only place in North Korea he was familiar with had been the smelly Dongmyong Hotel. Kornev had driven until he was within one block of the hotel. Then, out of the blue, the entire hotel had exploded. The resulting shockwave forced his Jeep to veer into a ditch. The impact of metal against mud had thrown him out, over the Jeep, ending face-first into the ditch. Kornev expected that his rib injury resulted in his chest hitting the top of the frame of the windshield frame when he launched forward. His back injury was caused by the landing—doing what the younger generation called a “scorpion”. When doing the “scorpion” your legs arch backwards behind your back until your toes touch the back of your head.

  After Kornev found himself facedown within a ditch on the periphery of the incinerated Dongmyong Hotel he had some serious doubts if he would escape North Korea. Whoever had blown up the hotel did so to kill him, believing that he was staying there. The life of an international arms dealer was fraught with danger. Your friend today might be your enemy tomorrow. There were no warnings about when or why they had turned. Money, politics, and power culminated in a thick perilous soup that you could stir; however, you never knew who would boil to the top until you took a big bite. By that time, it was too late.

  Involuntarily, Kornev swallowed a wad of North Korean mud. It was crammed into his gaping, screaming mouth while momentarily blacked out from hitting the muck with a lot of velocity. When he awoke from his mini-coma, he found himself choking to death on the thick watery sludge that consisted of part mud and part whatever else North Korean peasants left in smelly ditches.

  It had not been a fun business trip.

  Now, as he stepped onto the balcony of his home in Termez, located in the country of Uzbekistan, he was beginning to feel better. The sun was hot, and it felt good against his skin. He stood on the balcony and stretched his back, trying to touch his toes. He then arched backwards, leaning from side-to-side. He noted the pain had subsided from the previous week; however, he experienced more pain in his ribs than in his back.

  Kornev observed a young woman pushing a wooden cart full of colorful clothing towards the open market in the town square. The street was narrow and made of nothing but dirt, but the woman was young and strong, and she didn’t seem to be having much of a problem with her load. Kornev looked down the street to the left, and then turned his head to the right, doing a threat assessment. He didn’t make a habit of staying in the same place for a couple of nights

  consecutively, let alone the week he had stayed here. But this place, in this lonely corner of the world, was as close to a home as he could remember. His home was two-stories tall with two-foot-high thick clay walls that ran from the ground to the top of his home. It was more of a fortress than a home. Providing Kornev with a greater sense of security was a wide twenty-foot clay wall encircling his entire property. Atop the clay wall was a trench filled with jagged broken glass. In this part of the world, a nervous homeowner used this technique. Barbed wire was ugly, expensive, and hard to source—thus the use of broken glass atop clay walls.

  Kornev’s home was owned by a shell company and could not be traced back to him. He rarely spent time here, unless it was necessary, like when he was hurt. The downside to his job was he got hurt a lot. He had been shot twice in separate and unrelated jobs. Well—now three times—after being shot by the flying contraption that left him with a new wound on his right hand. In all three incidences, he had made his way home to visit his doctor friend, convalesce and get his act together.

  In Termez, Uzbekistan he was not out of place. The area was gradually incorporated into the Russian Empire during the 19th century. In 1924, what is now Uzbekistan, became a bordered constituent republic of the Soviet Union. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan declared its independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on August 31, 1991. Although no longer part of the defunct Soviet Union, about five percent of the population was still Russian, and the Russian language was spoken in most parts of the country. Kornev wasn’t completely reliant on speak
ing Russian. He had a knack for languages and could speak dozens fluently, including the local Uzbekistan language, which was Turkic in nature.

  Along with the ability to blend in with other Russian inhabitants of the country, Kornev had picked this city because it was the most southern city in Uzbekistan. A quick 200-mile flight on one of his cargo planes could set him down in many countries in which he did business. Uzbekistan is bordered by five countries: Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Iran was very close, as well as arms clients in Pakistan, Syria and Iraq. By flying low, first passing over Turkmenistan and then over the Caspian Sea, Kornev could easily deliver tons of ordinances to the world’s most violent countries and do so completely undetected.

  It was his network of planes, boats, ships, and his process of moving contraband from point A to point B, that had saved him in North Korea. He was not going to rely solely on the North Korean general to get him out of North Korea. He always had a contingency for saving himself in case the sale turned into a cluster.

  After he had pulled himself out of the mud, and then clawed his way up the side of the ditch, it had taken him the better part of an hour to come to his senses. The distance from the center of Pongch’un-dong to the east coast of North Korea, was less than a mile. And there, sitting at the end of a long pier next to the Songdowon Hotel, was a sea plane. Each night, the pilot of the seaplane flew 100 miles from Goseong, South Korea to this dock. He then waited for eight hours on the off-chance that Kornev needed an escape route. This type of forward thinking was how Kornev had not been involuntarily retired. To date, he had been shot three times during his entire career. He was still alive and kicking due to his preventative planning ability.

  Kornev owned the home in which he was convalescing. His shell company also owned the homes on all four sides of his fortress. However, the inexpensive dwellings were empty. All had an underground tunnel that led from their garages that funneled into the two-story fortress Kornev called home. He had no guards, servants, girlfriends or prostitutes, but he did have a gardener. He had no friends except his former comrade-in-arms and his lifelong friend, Doctor Nikita Sokolov, who also lived in Termez. People were undependable, but a tunnel could be your best friend, and it would never either betray or abandon you.

  During the time he did spend at his Termez home, he always used the tunnels to come and go. The many garages were joined via his tunnel system and each garage had an assortment of cars and motorcycles fueled up and ready to drive. This gave Kornev the latitude of driving a different car, as well as entering and leaving, from any one of the four different streets. Someone intent on laying a trap for Kornev would have to spend a great deal of time and money covering all access points of his compound; therefore, the numbers of actors that would be required to surveil him increased. This would make spotting them all that much easier.

  Kornev watched the young woman with the cart turn the corner at the end of the street. He looked both left and right and saw no one, almost as if the little town had been abandoned. He suddenly felt lonely. Such was the life of a man who had made this career choice. He realized that he was too old to have a family, and really, what kind of life could he offer them? Hell, he couldn’t even have a steady girlfriend or a wife. Too many complications and risks involved with such entanglements. The only companionship that worked for him were short stints with women, such as the single night he had spent with Tonya Merkalov. Before he had made his trip to North Korea, he had met the stunning woman at the bar in the Volna Hotel, in the city of Nizhny Novgorod. She was a beautiful red-haired vixen. He smiled thinking about her.

  The wave of loneliness hit him again, and he thought of contacting the woman. Who knew—maybe she was on this side of the world and would want to meet up somewhere? Of

  course, he would have to be careful. But he was always careful, and he really didn’t think the woman was anything other than the pampered daughter of an international banker. She was a woman who had too much money—too much free time, and loved to party.

  Yeah, that could work for Kornev right about now. The companionship of a beautiful woman would make him feel better, and that’s what he needed. Because he was feeling low.

  Kornev took out his phone and found the woman’s e-mail address. He typed a text and waited for a response.

  Q STREET APARTMENT COMPLEX—WASHINGTON, D.C.

  T he FBI agent had just finished eating dinner and was watching a baseball game on TV when his phone chimed with a text message. Trevor Rodgers read the message.

  Can you please bring the drones inside – we left them on your balcony? Thx, Marshall.

  Rodgers hadn’t thought about the drones since he helped launch them earlier that day. He hadn’t considered Hail would fly them back to his apartment.

  Getting up from the couch, Rodgers set his dinner plate on the kitchen counter. He opened the sliding glass door. Sure enough, there were two drones sitting there. The one that had been in the flat box stood on its tripod legs on the plastic table. The other drone, the falcon named Bad Company, was lying on its side on the concrete floor. A few of its feathers were scattered where it lay.

  Trevor picked up the bird, curiously assessing it for further damage, but he was unable to determine the reason for the missing feathers. He walked inside and set the bird upright in an over-stuffed chair and set it on the coffee table.

  He watched the video drone that Marshall Hail had appeared on earlier. It just sat there, immobile, doing nothing.

  “Hello?” Rodgers said to it. He then looked at the bird to see if it was awake. Nothing.

  “Hello, are you there, Marshall?” he said, a little louder this time. He shook the video drone to wake it up from a hibernation mode, trigger a sensor or whatever it required to make a connection to its Master.

  Nothing.

  He picked up the video drone and turned it around, looking for a power switch of some sort. Finding none, he set it back on the table and resumed staring at it.

  When neither drone came to life, Trevor decided to text Marshall.

  He found the text his friend sent him earlier, and Trevor replied:

  The drones are back inside. I will be going to bed soon – Trevor

  He resumed his baseball game and waited patiently for Marshall to appear on the drone’s screen. His phone startled him when it chimed. Hail was requesting a video call. Rodgers pressed ACCEPT, and Hail’s face appeared.

  “Hi, Trevor,” Marshall greeted him.

  “Hi, Marshall. For some reason, I thought that you were going to appear on the drone thing in front of me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know?” Trevor said, a little confused. “I mean, you appeared on the drone this morning, so I thought that you would just roll down the screen again and talk to me that way.”

  “Why, is talking on the phone no longer good enough for you now? Did you want me to call you back and Skype you on the drone?”

  It was a logical question, but it made Trevor feel like Hail was messing with him—which was normal. For some reason, his friend Marshall always seemed to be one step ahead of him. Whether it was a ping-pong game, racquetball, poker or technology, Hail was just one short step away, and it always made Trevor feel inferior on some level. And he knew that Marshall had no intention of making him feel that way, but he just did.

  “Anyway,” Hail continued, “that drone is low on power. I was hoping you could do me a favor and plug your phone charger into the drones to charge them overnight?”

  “Are these my personal pets now?” Trevor asked. “Do I need to charge them and walk them in the morning? Maybe pick up little microchips they deposit in my neighbor’s yard?”

  Hail laughed and said, “Hell, they could walk you and keep you out of trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised, in the future, if you’re your FBI personnel had drones watching your back.”

  Trevor laughed, b
ut in the back of his mind he could visualize exactly what Hail was talking about. In the future, maybe the Secret Service would be flying armed drones instead of relying on the human factor. Drones don’t need to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom or any of those pesky things that people require. But, they do need to be charged periodically, so they were not without some pitfalls.

  Rodgers looked down at his phone and at the person halfway around the planet. Trevor reminisced on just how far technology had come since he and Marshall were kids. The Internet had been in its infancy. Their mothers had to walk into a bank to make withdrawals and deposit money. Trevor’s father had told him about a time when there had only been three channels on their rabbit ear TV set. During a family car trip, you either read, slept or looked out the window. In rare instances, there would be singing and/or talking as well. But now, as Rodgers stared at a high-def video of Marshall on his phone, he realized those times were gone forever. Was this change good or bad? It was hard to tell. All he knew was things were radically different, and it would only continue to move in that direction.

  “So, did the president call a meeting about my visit?” Hail asked.

  “Yeah,” Trevor said. He would not divulge further information.

  “And—” Hail coaxed.

  “And, you should know that those meetings are not only private but Top Secret as well.”

  “Come on, Trevor. Just tell me what went down so I can start gearing up for whatever lays ahead.”

  “I can’t do that, Marshall, and to tell you the truth, I don’t like you putting me in that position. If the situation was reversed, I wouldn’t put you and your job on the line.”

  Marshall was quiet for a moment and then said, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I just—I just need to—” and his words trailed off.

  Trevor tried to make nice saying, “What I can tell you is that the president has requested a meeting with you tomorrow at 10:00 a.m., Washington time, to discuss new opportunities that you might be interested in.”