Hail Warning

by Brett Arquette

  “See this drone next to me?” Hail continued. “It runs on battery and only has a limited range before it runs out of power. If you are fast, you might be able to outrun it before it runs out of juice. But you have to run fast.”

  Kornev said nothing. He simply stared at the man and wished he had a gun in his hands so he could blow him away.

  As if the drone knew what Kornev was thinking, it hummed, buzzed and came to life. Sand was thrown up into the air as its powerful propellers whirled up mini-tornadoes beneath it. Kornev watched the drone’s thin legs retract into its body.

  “Run!” Hail yelled.

  But Kornev remained still.

  “Run!” Hail yelled a second time.

  But Kornev didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there, oscillating looks between Hail and the drone that was hovering next to him.

  Hail began to understand that Kornev was not going to run.

  “Go to Hell,” Kornev told Hail.

  “I probably will, but I think you’re going to have to give me directions since you’re going to get there first,” Hail yelled at him.

  Hail glanced at the drone hovering next to them, and yelled to it, “U2: Fire ten rounds at center mass!”

  The short barrel that was hanging under the drone jerked to life.

  Kornev saw the narrow muzzle pointing at him and guessed by the size of the opening that the drone was going to shoot a small-caliber bullet. Maybe it was a .22, just as lethal from this range as any other caliber bullet. At this distance, the bullet would probably poke a clean hole all the way through him.

  But, before Kornev could react, the gun began firing. The projectiles hit Kornev directly in his heart. From two yards away, ten rounds fired at more than 500 feet per second and were smacking into him hard.

  The pain was horrific. As the projectiles hit Kornev’s chest, it felt each one was a venomous snake taking bites from his heart. The cluster of gunshots was so close to one another it felt like one big bullet had put a hole through him. Kornev fell onto his knees and put his hands up to his heart. He looked down at the blood that would be pouring from his wound, but he was surprised at the absence of blood on his hands. Not one drop.

  “U2: Fire five rounds in his neck,” Hail ordered.

  The drone obeyed. The gun readjusted and five more projectiles left the barrel and hit Kornev directly in his Adam’s apple. Kornev began to scream, but nothing other than a bubble of saliva came out of his mouth. Kornev’s hands left his heart and flew up to his throat. He performed the same action as before, checking his hands for blood but there was no blood.

  The arms dealer stared at Hail, looking both confused and terrified, like he had invented a new type of weapon that could hurt, or maybe even kill, but wouldn’t leave a trace of blood behind as evidence.

  Kornev stayed on his knees, one hand holding a mysteriously benign wound on his chest, and his other hand was busy vigorously massaging his throat.

  “Are you starting to understand how this game will be played?”

  Hail told the Russian. “Right now, the gun on the drone is loaded with airsoft pellets. Just moments before you landed we swapped out both the gun and the real ammo, just to give you one last chance. This is your final warning. The next time you try to sell your big weapons to the bad guys, we will not be changing out the gun’s ammo. All those rounds will be steel-jacketed, and that will be the end—at least the end of you. Please send me that postcard from Hell to let me know what the weather’s like so I can dress accordingly.”

  Hail looked at Kornev indignantly, like the Russian were a horse on his way to the glue factory.

  Kara walked in front of Kornev and stood next to Hail.

  Kornev feebly pointed at Kara and croaked out, “Who are you? And, who is she?”

  Hail considered disregarding the question, but then thought about what Kara had told him. Kornev needs to respect the man behind the weapons. And the only way for Kornev to do that was to know a little about him.

  “I’m a freelancer,” Hail told him. “And she can tell you whatever she wants you to know about her.”

  Kara turned to Hail and said to him, “Wow, that’s mighty nice of you, Marshall. You give me up. Then you are gracious enough to let me tell this piece of trash who I really am?”

  Hail looked at her and remained quiet, believing anything he said would just anger her even more.

  Kara turned to address Kornev. “I can at least tell you this, Victor. The man standing beside me is Marshall Hail.”

  A look of distant recognition showed on Kornev’s face. He slowly got back to his feet and asked in a scratchy voice, “You mean the Physics Nobel Prize winner?”

  “The one and the same,” Kara said, turning and giving Hail a mocking smile.

  “That wasn’t fair to let this scumbag know who I am,” he told Kara. Now, Hail looked mad.

  “And it wasn’t fair for you to let this piece of garbage know who I am either!” Kara shot back.

  “Hello, I’m right here,” Kornev protested, raising his hand, but Kara and Hail continued quarreling.

  “I never told him who you were,” Hail said.

  “Oh, no,” Kara said sarcastically, “You just contacted him on my phone, and Kornev is way too stupid to put two and two together.”

  Kornev stood patiently, still rubbing his neck, getting increasingly pissed off at the insults.

  Understanding they were getting nowhere and had things to do, Hail said, “We can talk about this later. Right now, we need to get those missiles loaded onto my plane and get them to Batman. You can either go with Nolan and Renner in the Gulfstream back to Batman, or you can stay here with me and wait for them to return.”

  “I’m torn,” Kara fumed. “I’d like nothing more than to get away from you right now, but I also want to stay and tell you what’s on my mind.”

  Hail looked away from Kara and back to Kornev. Kornev gave him a little shrug, like Hail was screwed no matter what she did.

  Kara thought it over for a minute before announcing, “I’m staying.”

  Neither Hail nor Kornev responded.

  Hail noticed Kornev looking off to his left. He followed Kornev’s gaze to watch as Nolan walked back toward them with his huge sniper rifle pointing down toward the ground.

  “Let’s get the missiles loaded onto my Gulfstream,” he told Kara and Kornev.

  As a group, they turned and walked toward the back of Kornev’s plane.

  Gage Renner followed them closely, flying U2 alongside the group, ensuring Kornev didn’t try any funny stuff.

  TWO YEARS AGO

  ATLANTIC OCEAN—ABOARD THE NIGERIAN PRINCESS

  D ays turned into weeks as the Nigerian Princess slowly made its way across the Atlantic. As time passed, Obano became less preoccupied with the notion that Afua was going to kill them, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was less paranoid. Something was different with this crossing.

  During the trip from Nigeria to Venezuela, the jihadi had not been particularly talkative or congenial, but he had been semi-social. Afua had taken his meals with the Obanos in the main dining room, and he had made a minimal degree of small talk. But now, per Afua’s request, Mrs. Obano was instructed to deliver his meals to his stateroom. Hours later, Essie would see the empty tray sitting outside Afua’s door on the floor, normally only half-eaten. And as the days trickled by, the tall Nigerian became even more withdrawn and laconic.

  The lack of conversation, unto itself, wasn’t necessarily a telltale sign letting them know the nature of the man’s psyche. It wasn’t as if the Obanos had a great deal to discuss with a terrorist. There weren’t many topics for civilians to discuss with a person who had killed, raped and pillaged for a living. Individuals so pent up with rage and venom that were preoccupied with thoughts about killing other people usually didn’t spend their “free time” attending sports events, watch television, and most certainly didn’t go to movies. This limited conversational dialogue. Discussion with Afua, prior t
o completing the mission focused on mission elements that needed to be discussed. But now that the mission was over, brief discussions were unnecessary. Isaac had never told Essie why Afua was on the boat, but she had been with her husband long enough to understand that many of his business practices were shady, to say the least. She knew her best course of action was to look the other way and keep her nose out of Isaac’s business.

  As the yacht closed in on the coast of Nigeria, Isaac Obano noted that Afua had begun sitting on the bow of the Nigerian Princess cradling the huge Barrett sniper rifle. Isaac surmised Afua was waiting for a reappearance of the pirates they had encountered on the first crossing. He would sit there for hours, at times all day, with nothing but the rifle and a large bottle of water. He would stare off into the distance.

  So far, no pirates had attempted to take over the yacht. The trip across the Atlantic had gone off without a hitch. The weather had been divine and they experienced nothing but calm seas and warm sunshine. In stark contrast, dark and menacing cold fronts filled the interior of the yacht for the entirety of their return

  trip. Isaac Obano was still suffering nightmares and had trouble sleeping. His mood was noticeably gloomier than it had been on the initial voyage. He had to make a concerted effort to act upbeat when he talked with his wife. There was no sense in drawing her into his own little mental hell. Did she know they had been accomplices in the downing of the airplane? Obano didn’t believe so. If she knew, she pretended they had done nothing except enjoy a wonderful vacation aboard a luxury yacht. Her demeanor was still upbeat and vivacious.

  When the Nigerian Princess finally pulled into the harbor in Lagos, several of Afua’s men were at the dock waiting for him to arrive.

  Before his mission had begun, it had been determined that there would be no electronic communications between Afua and his Boko Haram sect because it was too easy for communications to be intercepted. That would have jeopardized the mission. But a day before arriving back in Lagos, Afua had called ahead for his men to pick him up.

  Other than that brief phone call—Afua’s first time he contacted his men—he remained silent and stoic. He looked at the men on the dock and showed no emotion. In the mass of the Nigerians, there was a white man also waiting. It was the big Russian, Kornev. Whereas Afua’s men wore jungle fatigues, Kornev wore a polo shirt and shorts. He couldn’t have stood out more if he had been wearing Alaskan clothing.

  Afua threw ropes down to his men, and Obano began operating the winch to lower the gangway. Once the ship had been tied off, its engines silenced and the stairs set in place, Afua disembarked he walked into the center of his men. They greeted him with celebratory pats on his back, shaking his hand. When the accolades died down, Afua greeted Kornev, who had been patiently waiting for him.

  They shook hands, and the Russian began talking. “Welcome home. I assume everything operated correctly, and there were no problems?”

  “No problems,” Afua said flatly.

  The jihadi looked around and asked, “Where is Iniabasi? I was sure he would be here to greet me.”

  Afua scanned his men, looking for his leader.

  “About that,” Kornev told him in a voice that was tainted with remorse. “Mohammad Mboso died while you were on your mission.”

  “What?” Afua asked.

  “He got sick while you were gone and was admitted to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do for him. While he was in the hospital, he died of a heart attack.”

  Kornev, who had spent very little time with Afua, thought he looked upset. But he was very hard to read.

  Afua’s men were still clustered around the pier. Kornev knew that most of the men understood some English. Therefore, those within earshot understood what he had just told Afua.

  Afua appeared to be stunned into silence.

  Kornev spoke again.

  “That would make you the senior Boko Haram soldier, making you next in line in terms of succession. Now you are their new leader.”

  His men began clapping, hooting and jumping around on the dock.

  Afua didn’t join them in the celebration. Instead, he inquired, “Where was Iniabasi buried?”

  HAIL LABORATORY COMPLEX—BATMAN, UZBEKISTAN

  T he electronics lab in Batman, Uzbekistan had everything Hail’s weapons engineers required. The nanoparticle filtered cleanroom had a multimeter, LCR meter, oscilloscope, soldering stations, precision mechanical tools, magnifying lenses and various power supplies. But this lab had some gear that would be considered expensive by lesser companies, including a function generator, signal generators, spectrum analyzer, signal analyzer, pattern generator, protocol analyzer, network analyzer, transistor tester and circuit board logic analyzer. Currently, Hail’s staff was using a wide wooden nonconductive table.

  Hail had called Jarret Pepper, who had forwarded the Verba missile’s electronics schematics in addition to the guidance programming code to Gage Renner.

  Setting the black cases on the wooden table, Renner and John Lang carefully opened them. Inside each case was a single missile launcher and projectile tucked into black foam. The foam had been cut to the exact dimensions of the launch tube and missile.

  Back on the Hail Nucleus, Hail’s programmers were studying the guidance code, trying to get an idea of what made the missile tick, or more to the point, what enabled the missile to locate, track and lock onto its target.

  Gage and Lang removed the two projectiles from their cases and laid them on the wooden tables. They opted to leave the launch tubes in their cases and set the cases on the floor. Right now, the only items of interest to them were the projectiles.

  The mechanical schematics for the missiles were straightforward. There was a small access door on each warhead held in place by unique screws. Flown in from their ships, John Lang and Gage Renner, came prepared to remove the one-off screw type.

  Gage stuck some rubber wedges around the missile to keep it from rolling around on the table. After the first missile was stable and positioned in a manner so the access door was on top, they could proceed. Lang opened a small jar containing a white gooey substance, and he poked his index finger into the jar, collecting a wad of the glue on his fingertip. The white glob was crammed into one of the special screw heads. He removed his finger, wiping it off on a clean white cloth, and Gage checked his phone so they would know when three minutes had elapsed. Lang verified the glue had hardened and removed the solidified white wad

  from the screw head. Wasting little time, Lang removed any extra material around the screw head’s cast. He put a drop of rubber cement on the backside of the plastic cast and waited for the glue to tack up. He then pressed the plastic-hardened tip on the end of a fat metal cylinder, after which Renner placed the cylinder into a slot in the middle of an indexed turntable.

  “Are you ready?” Renner asked.

  “Yeah, we should be good. Scan it.”

  Renner pressed the button on the machine, and the turntable began to rotate slowly. A bright red laser began scanning the newly cast tip. They let the turntable make several complete turns. An indicator light on the side of the scanner blinked from red to green. When the diode changed to a solid green light, Renner shut off the scanner’s laser, and the turntable wound to a stop. Inside a sealed compartment, in a machine next to the scanner, a steel rod had been locked into a vise. The image from the scanner had been automatically uploaded into the milling machine next to it, and a robotic arm came to life. It drilled away tiny sections of the steel rod. Very slowly, the robot jumped this way and that, touching its diamond-impregnated drill bit against the carbon steel, removing excess material until it resembled the scanned tip of the plastic cast.

  Renner wished the machine would go faster. But the steel was hard, and the design of the special screw slot was complex. For that reason, there was no rushing the process. After what seemed an eternity, the robot finally withdrew its arm from the material and it automatically shut down.

  Opening the doo
r and releasing the part from the vise, Renner stuck the new screwdriver bit into a plastic handle and gave it to Lang, who placed the new tip into the first of the eight screws that secured the missile access cover. He gave Renner a smile and told him, “It fits nice.”

  Renner gave him a positive nod of agreement.

  While Lang removed the missile access door, Renner began to review the weapon’s schematics.

  Once the cover was removed, they inspected the main circuit board. They found the narrow and long circuit board was covered with a mass of microchips, resistors and capacitors. Renner turned the schematics until he could orient the circuit board to match with the drawings in front of him.

  He told Lang, “It looks like the I/O port is right there.”

  Gage pointed the tip of a Phillips head screwdriver at a small set of ten pins sticking out of the circuit board.

  “Wow,” Lang said. “That’s a lot of pins. I was hoping that making the cable would be a little simpler. I mean, this thing isn’t a frickin’ HD TV. All you must do is upload code to it. Why would they need ten damn pins?”

  “Maybe it is an Apple missile.”

  Lang chuckled at Renner’s joke.

  “If it were an Apple missile, we would have to buy a new certified Apple cord for every missile they released.”

  Renner began laughing.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Gage said, still smiling. “We need to identify which pins are responsible for data transfers, and we need to make a cord that will fit. When the programmers back on the Hail Nucleus get the code mods completed, we need to be able to upload the updates to the firmware.”

  “At least we don’t have to make a cord for each of these missiles. We can upload the new code one missile at a time.”

  Gage suggested, “I tell you what, you start making the cord, and I will get the access door open on the other projectile.”

  “Sounds good,” Lang said, and he began to study the four W’s on the schematic, what wire went where.