Hail Warning
Page 43
The doctor was about to put a spoon of hot soup in his mouth when he heard the voice of a woman.
“This is Victor’s friend, Tonya,” the answering machine said.
It had been forever since the doctor had a beautiful woman call him, and he really liked Tonya. She might be the most beautiful woman he had seen. An impulse the doctor hadn’t had in many years seized him. Suddenly answering the phone became of utmost importance.
The doctor slid his TV tray from his lap, and he struggled to get out of his deep chair. Time was passing too quickly for his old body to accommodate. Halfway to his feet, his left foot hit the leg of the TV tray, causing the contents of the bowl of soup to splash on his left leg. The boiling soup on his skin sent intense jolts of pain, and he inadvertently reached down to swipe the liquid off his pants. He had not yet reached a full upright standing position, and his center of gravity sent him backpedaling across the living room. He frantically attempted to catch up with his increased momentum—but it was of no avail. The doctor came to an immediate stop once his skull smacked into the kitchen’s stone countertop.
The doctor’s scream ceased as if a plug had been pulled from a speaker. The old man folded in a heap on the floor. The back of his skull caved in, and he was dead before the message had finished recording.
“—and he needs your help to get out of one of them. If you don’t help him, he will most certainly die in the tunnel.”
SULU SEA—COURTNEY ISLAND
T he beach was littered with construction materials. Wood of all shapes and sizes was stacked in neat piles. Sheets of corrugated tin sat in a stack, baking in the hot afternoon sun. Boxes of hardware, screws, nuts, bolts and nails sat next to an assortment of hand tools.
Dozens of kids from all four of Hail’s full-size cargo ships were given R & R. They were running around Hail’s new island like busy little ants. After years without pets, the young adults had a dozen horses, three dogs, and two cats. The cats were busy chasing an endless supply of mice that needed to be eradicated from the island. Apparently, until the cats had arrived, they had no other predators, and the dogs had fun chasing the cats. The young crew was busy building a stable for the horses, in addition to many other small structures they would require on the island.
Some of them were working on building an endless treehouse within the mass of banyan trees that were interconnected to one another. Hail guessed it would be possible to build almost continuously throughout the trees, connecting each room to another using narrow hanging suspension bridges. His crew would be safe up in their treehouse complex unless there was a massive storm or a critical construction failure.
As each group of crew members arrived on Hail’s island, they each had exhibited a fit of excitement and amazement—running this way and that while being led around and shown the island by the young adults who had arrived earlier. After several hours of show and tell, the crew returned to the beach and got busy working, which was a kind of play. It was exactly what Hail had hoped the island would provide them.
The first task was to transfer the building materials inland to the areas where they were needed. Hail watched the teens build a gurney out of wood to be carried via a leather harness by one of the more mellow horses. With one rider on the back of the horse, the others would load wood on the gurney, and the rider would give the horse a nudge. The horse and the load placed on the gurney slowly moved hinterland to the location where it was needed.
Out at sea, Hail watched a large tender boat being loaded with more supplies being offloaded from the Hail Nucleus. The smaller boat delivered the load to the beach. His young crew loaded it on the sled being pulled by the horse, and off it would go.
Under an umbrella, sitting in a reclining beach chair, Hail smiled as he watched his crew work. It was the happiest work he had ever seen. He was certain his kids didn’t consider it work; they appeared to be having a great time. Hail had hoped they would enjoy the change of pace and time to just be young. It was exciting to see his crew work out ingenious ways of solving problems and work productively. Marshall didn’t plan to provide the island with electricity, gas, or engines. He wanted his crew to have the experience of building things with their own hands, like working the soil to grow vegetables and sitting around a campfire instead of an Xbox. Hail wanted them to read themselves to sleep. Or heck—if he dared to dream—they might even write.
And, in the future, if they really wanted electricity, they would have to figure out how to harness the waterfall to spin a generator that could charge batteries. But Hail knew they were a long way from that realization. Every civilization had to start with the basics: food, water, and shelter.
Renner and Nolan were inland, monitoring the construction of the zoo and the temporary barracks where the kids would stay during their three-week rotations on the island. After three weeks, a new rotation would take place, and yet another set of young people would get their fun in the sun.
Hail was very happy, but on the periphery clouding his pleasure, there was a dark spot.
Kara Ramey had disappeared, and it had affected Hail more than he had expected. He hadn’t known the CIA agent for long. Based on the time he knew Kara, it was disconcerting how much he found himself missing her. Even though he tried to tell himself he didn’t care, he was lying. There was an empty chair sitting next to Hail under the umbrella. His crew had put up the umbrella and put down two chairs for him. After all, why put down one chair if you can put down two? Every few minutes, Hail would glance over at the chair, imagining Kara sitting next to him. If she hadn’t left without warning, virtually disappearing without a text to let him know she was leaving, she would probably be sitting next to him right now.
Hail didn’t know whether to be angry, sad or concerned. For all he knew, Kara could be dead. When he hadn’t heard from her for a day, he had a drone flown back to Kornev’s house in Termez to watch the place. But they had seen no activity at all. No lights going on and off. No activity in front of the windows. No cars coming or going from the various garages that Kornev used when arriving or departing the compound. It was as if it had been abandoned, and that made Hail even more anxious.
As he sat in his chair, on this beautiful day, watching his crew have the most fun they had ever had, his mood became gloomier. He began to mull over what he should do. What should be his next step in locating Kara? To head down that road, he
had to accept he was going to locate Kara. He had already determined—in his mind—she needed finding. He had always found himself attracted to damsels-in-distress. He figured it had something to do with wanting to feel needed. The sublime solitude of the beach was assaulted by the harsh chime of Hail’s cellphone. Hoping it was Kara and, without checking the caller ID, Hail pulled the phone from his front pocket and placed it to his ear.
“This is Hail,” he said.
“Hail, this is Pepper,” the director of the CIA said. Without waiting for Hail to respond, Pepper asked, “Have you heard from Kara?”
Hail was surprised by the question. At the very least, he had assumed that Kara had checked in with her boss. If Pepper was being straight with him, and Kara had not contacted him, this new information was alarming. Kara was out there by herself with no means of tactical support—doing only God knows what.
“No, I haven’t,” Hail told Pepper. “I was hoping you had.”
“We haven’t heard anything from her for days,” Pepper said.
There was a long and lonely silence on the phone as both men thought, “Where do we go from here?”
Finally, Pepper asked, “When was the last time you heard from her?”
Hail thought the question over and said, “She called me from the tarmac at the Snake Island runway. She said that she was going to fly back to Termez with Kornev so she could work on him.”
“Yeah, she called and told me the same thing,” Pepper said.
Another long silence hung between them.
Hail finally said, “I have a drone watching Korne
v’s compound in Termez, and it showed Kornev’s Hummer leave his garage. I didn’t have the assets to track his vehicle, and the SUV has not returned. After I had a drone charged and ready to fly, we flew over to the airport and saw Kornev’s Hummer parked at his Air Cress service. So, we don’t know who left in a plane. It might have been both Kara and Kornev, or whether it was either Kara or Kornev alone. We just don’t know.”
Pepper appeared to be as mystified as Hail.
“All right,” Pepper said. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything, and I would appreciate if you would let me know if she contacts you.”
“Will do,” Hail said, and the connection was broken.
Hail dropped his phone in his lap and looked out across the vast ocean in front of him.
“Where are you Kara Ramey?” Hail said to himself.
His phone made a ding sound indicating he had received a text message.
Reluctantly, he picked up his phone and checked the message.
Hi, Marshall. This is Kara. I’m sorry to just disappear on u, but like I told u, I have my own agenda and need to make myself whole again. I am safe.
Hail read the message, and his heart did a little flip-flop.
He punched his big thumbs at the screen and wrote:
I know this sounds silly, but I was very worried about you. I miss—
Hail thought about it for a moment, and then pressed the backspace key several times. Starting at the end of the last complete sentence, he left a text.
If you need anything, please let me know.
He then pressed SEND and awaited a response.
A minute later, Kara sent another text.
Just an FYI, this is a burner phone. After I am done texting this, you won’t be able to get ahold of me again.
Marshall Hail sensed a finality about the text. It was like a message you might receive from a person intent on committing suicide. He surmised that he was probably reading more into the message than was there. But if Kara was going after the man who had shot her parents’ plane from the sky, then her goal was close to committing suicide.
Hail thumbed at the screen again.
You have my text number. Use it and I will be there. I can help.
Hail sent the message and waited.
He waited the entirety of that long and hot afternoon and the remainder of the night. Before he went to bed on a cot in the barracks—a building without a roof—he checked his messages and saw two words from Kara.
Don’t worry.
But it was way too late for that. Hail had already begun to worry.
THE WHITE HOUSE ROSE GARDEN—WASHINGTON, D.C.
I t was raining when president Joanna Weston stepped into the White House Rose Garden. In one hand, she clung to a paperback romance novel. In her other hand, she held a glass of tea. Weston looked up at the new opaque glass roof that had been constructed over the garden. This was the first time she was pleased to have the roof over her. In the past—if it had been raining—she was stuck indoors. Now she could enjoy being outdoors during any type of weather. It remained to be seen if she would still feel that way when the Washington snows arrived, but at least it was an option.
The glass table in the center of the garden had been cleared off, except the three roses in a tall vase. Weston pulled out a chair from the table and kicked off her heels. She propped her feet up on the chair. After taking a sip of her iced tea, she set the drink on the table and began reading.
Fat rain drops made plinking sounds on the glass above, and it was a relaxing sound to the president. She scrunched down a little more in her chair and let her body lean back into the fat seat cushions.
She didn’t hear the drone until it was literally two feet from her. From somewhere off to her left, the drone had flown in under the glass awning, and it made a beeline straight for her table.
The president flinched, and her heart skipped a beat when the small drone knocked over the vase, bouncing off the table, and shattering on the ground.
Three tripod legs began to sprout from beneath the drone as its flexible LCD video screen began to unroll.
Anger rose to a boil inside the president when she recognized it was the same drone Hail had landed on her table weeks earlier. But how? How was this possible? A new opaque glass dome fully covered the Rose Garden, and every electronic signal was jammed.
In one quick motion, the president pulled her feet off the chair and sat ramrod straight. She slapped her book down on the table and watched as Marshall Hail’s face appeared on the screen.
Hail began the conversation, “Good afternoon, Madam President, I mean, Joanna. I hope I’m not interrupting you, but we really need to talk.”
Hail thought the president appeared mad, and her first words proved his assumption correct.
“How in the hell did you land this—this—machine on my table? Do you have any idea what we have gone through to prevent this exact thing from happening?”
The president pointed up at the glass roof and continued, “We installed this glass over the top of the garden to prevent you—and anyone else—from using lasers to pilot drones onto the property.”
Hail thought, although the president had run out of words after her tirade, her anger had not diffused. She was still fuming.
Hail meekly replied, “Well, we have the exact coordinates of this landing spot from the last time we met at your table. All we did was return the drone to the same coordinates. It keeps track of its own X and Y, so it doesn’t need to communicate with anything to return to the same spot. Now, if you had moved the table, it would have probably—”
But the president wasn’t listening any longer. Weston put her arms in the air, expressing her exasperation and looking up at the glass dome. She began to shake her clenched fists and she yelled, “Mr. Hail, you are really trying my patience! Do you realize how much your visits to my table are costing the taxpayers?”
Hail shrugged and said, “If it makes your staff more security conscious and take the proper precautions, I have done my civic duty.”
The president made a face that Hail thought looked a little mad, a little frustrated and a whole lot overwhelmed.
In a tone that sounded like a woman trying to get rid of representatives of Hare Krishna, the president asked, “Why are you sitting on my table again, Marshall?”
Hail was pleased to finally get down to business.
“It’s really no big deal. I just need two things. First, I will need those names and the contact information for the Marines I got in trouble.”
“You mean got dishonorably discharged,” the president corrected him.
“It sounded better the way I said it,” Hail said.
The president huffed and asked, “And what’s the other thing you require?”
Hail looked sheepishly at the president and said, “Oh, and some weapons-grade anthrax.”
THE END
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
TEN YEARS AGO
Sambisa Forest, Nigeria
Sea of Japan
Two Years Ago
Lagos, Nigeria
Sea of Japan—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Two Years Ago
Lagos, Nigeria
Sea of Japan—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Q Street Apartment Complex—Washington, D.C.
Two Years Ago
Boat Ramp at Tarkwa Bay—Lagos, Nigeria
The White House Rose Garden—Washington, D.C.
East China Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Two Years Ago
Gulf of Guinea—Aboard the Nigerian Princess
The White House Oval Office—Washington, D.C.
East China Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Termez, Uzbekistan
Q Street Apartment Complex—Washington, D.C.
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—Aboard the Nigerian Princess
White House Situation Room—Washington, D.C.
&n
bsp; Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—Aboard the Nigerian Princess
Philippine Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—Aboard the Nigerian Princess
Philippine Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—On the Jetty Near Caracas, Venezuela
Philippine Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Termez, Uzbekistan
Philippine Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
The White House Oval Office—Washington, D.C.
Philippine Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—On the Jetty Near Caracas, Venezuela
Sulu Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Termez, Uzbekistan
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—On the Jetty Near Caracas, Venezuela
Sulu Sea—Aboard the Hail Nucleus
Hail Islands
Termez, Uzbekistan
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—On the Jetty Near Caracas, Venezuela
Termez, Uzbekistan
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—On the Jetty Near Caracas, Venezuela
Rond Point Port—Aboard the Hail Proton
Termez, Uzbekistan
Termez, Uzbekistan
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—Aboard the Nigerian Princess
Termez, Uzbekistan
Gulf of Guinea—Aboard the Hail Proton
Two Years Ago
Caribbean Sea—Porlamar, Venezuela
Gulf of Guinea—Aboard the Hail Proton