Hail Warning

The White House Rose Garden — Washington, D.C

It was a beautiful summer morning in the capital city. The president of the United States, Joanna Weston, decided that she would hold all her meetings outside in the Rose Garden today, including her luncheon with the newly elected president of the Maldives, Mohamed Yameen.

She had just finished up a short meeting about Operation Hail Storm with General Ford, Jarret Pepper, Eric Spearman and Trevor Rodgers.

The meeting was more of a disaster diversion session than anything else.

The United States had lost a pilot and a very expensive jet fighter in the sortie flown over North Korea. The president was informed by her advisors the pilot had bailed out. He was rescued by Marshall Hail. Currently, the Lt. Commander was aboard the Hail Nucleus.

Marshall Hail had been discussed many times over the last week. Before that time, there had never been any mention of the man. Now, a week later, it appears every conversation she had with the FBI, CIA and NIA was about him.

On one hand, the president was intrigued with Marshall Hail and the offensive drones he had built. But, on the other hand, she was somewhat scared of his drones’ effectiveness. A gun was only as dangerous as the person pointing it, and the same could be said for Hail and his throng of robotic soldiers.

A rose garden has a natural attraction to insects and even birds. During this time of year, hearing a hummingbird flutter around the garden was a common occurrence. Occasionally, two hummingbirds could be seen darting in and out of the colorful blooms. But Joanna Weston had never heard a swarm of hummingbirds like those that appeared to be closing in from behind her. The sound of wind over wings was so loud that she looked up at the birds.

Instead of a bird, contrasted against the organic shapes of flowers, leaves, stems and bushes, she saw an alien-looking contraption. Before she could move, get up or call out for assistance, a flying saucer that had a stick hanging under it flew up onto her table. The president gasped as three appendages, which looked like tiny legs, popped out from under the stick. The glasses got bumped, turned on their sides and rolled across the table. They fell onto the bricks with a crash.

The president pushed back in her chair as the aircraft landed on its thin tripod legs. The stick attached to the legs began to separate vertically. One half of the

stick formed a 90-degree angle and made a cross with the other half. It gave the appearance of an easel or the mast of a ship. The two halves snapped into place with a click. The president began to get up, preparing to run when a familiar voice instructed her to wait. There was a commanding tone coming out of the alien thing-a-ma-bob, and for some reason, the voice calmed her. Instead of running, the president paused for a second and watched a thin sheet of paper unroll from the mast-looking thing. Before it even reached its full length, she recognized the face of Marshall Hail on the flexible LED screen.

A million thoughts went through her head. Had she pissed off Marshall Hail to the extent that he had come to kill her? She thought not, but stranger things had happened in this new and strange computerized world.

She recalled the words she had just spoken to the men at the table. “I am ‘anyone’.”

It was very clear to Weston that Marshall Hail could indeed get to anyone, anytime, anywhere — so why run?

Joanna Weston remained in her chair, tense and unmoving.

She must have looked a sight to Marshall Hail, because he smiled a disarming and no harm, no foul smile before he spoke.

“I’m sorry, Madam President. I didn’t mean to startle you, but we need to talk.”

The president tried to compose herself; instead, she found herself yelling at the flying contraption.

“Mr. Hail, this is highly irregular. You have some nerve, barging in on my day without any notice whatsoever.”

“Well, you did tell me to contact you at my convenience, and this is, well, you know, convenient for me.”

“Too bad I can’t say the same,” the president shot back.

Hail said contritely, “As I already mentioned, I apologize for meeting with you at such short notice, but we have some items we need to discuss.”

The president scooched her chair in closer to the table and began to breathe normally. She looked at the image of Marshall Hail streamed to the screen in front of her. Then something occurred to her.

She questioned, “How were you able to fly in like this and land on my table? From what I understand, White House security has all signals jammed within the confines of the White House property, except for those used by the Secret Service.”

On the screen, Marshall Hail smiled and said, “Yes, you do. But you don’t have light jammed.”

“Light?” the president responded, shaking her head, doing her best to understand Marshall Hail. “What are you talking about?”

“Lasers,” Hail responded. His hand came into view on the screen and he pointed his index finger upwards. “Up there. Do you see the falcon flying above us?”

The president looked up and shielded her eyes, trying her best to focus on the sky. “I see a very large bird flying above us. I don’t know what kind of bird it is.”

“It’s a falcon,” Hail told her. “But it’s not really a falcon. It’s a drone shaped like a falcon.”

“I’m not following,” the president said with a touch of irritation in her tone.

“Well, you are right about jamming all the radio signals on the property, but the falcon above us is communicating with this drone I’m on right now using lasers. My video is being transmitted via a laser that is shooting down from the falcon and being received by this drone in front of you. The drones are virtually locked together with a laser. The falcon above us is — well — out of the range of your signal jammers, and unless you cover the entire Rose Garden with a tarp, you can’t block light, which means that you can’t block my laser.”

The president looked back up into the sky with renewed interest. She watched the falcon — the drone — fly lazy circles above them. She didn’t see any lasers zinging between the two drones, but she understood that lasers could operate at frequencies and hues invisible to the human eye. The president was being bombarded by several conflicting emotions, and she appeared in no hurry to express any of them to Marshall Hail. The paramount emotion she was experiencing was anger. She was mad that Hail had barged in on her privacy in the Rose Garden, unannounced, and had done so piloting a drone. Compounding that indiscretion, Hail had purposely circumvented the White House’s tight security protocols with his pair of interconnected drones. She felt Hail was purposefully flaunting the advanced skillsets of those he employed.

But another emotion that competed and somewhat tempered her anger was that of amazement. After all, Hail had completely circumvented the White House’s advanced jamming system, flying a drone right up to her and landing it on the table. She was both amazed and alarmed. All her senses told her she was not safe. It didn’t take a military expert to point out if Hail could pull this off, anyone with deep pockets and skewed agendas could not only fly a drone on the White House grounds, but also could easily attach a weapon to the contraption. The president thought about that for a moment. Did the future include placing the entire White House and surrounding grounds under a massive bulletproof glass dome? She wondered how much that would cost the taxpayers. It was possible that she might be the last president able to enjoy the Rose Garden. After Jack Kennedy had been assassinated, that put an end to presidents being transported in open convertible limousines. She could see a future when presidents were no longer allowed to walk outside at all, and what a sad time that would be for the nation.

The president viewed the screen in front of her. Hail was waiting patiently for her to absorb all the information.

The president flashed a fake smile, and ignoring the technology flying above their heads, she asked, “What is so important, Mr. Hail, that you felt the need to put all this together?” She waved her hands up in the air and then folded her hands in front of her, setting them on the table.

“Didn’t your director of the FBI tell you I thought we should talk?”

“Yes, I believe Trevor Rodgers mentioned something about it.”

“Don’t you think we should talk, Joanna, considering everything that went down during this last mission?” Hail asked.

The president appeared perplexed and said, “I don’t think I’m the right person to speak to about the mission.”

“Oh,” Hail said, sounding dejected. “But, I thought you were the commander-in-chief.”

The president allowed Hail’s jab to resonate for a moment before responding, “I would like our conversations to be held in the company of the CIA, NSA, FBI and General Ford. I’m sure you understand that unannounced and undocumented meetings with you are not good for my career. After all, Mr. Hail, you are far off the range when it comes to your operations. I need a defined amount of space from you, and I need deniability. And that means you and I cannot have private conversations such as this.”

The president looked nervously around the Rose Garden.

“What are you looking for?” asked Hail. “I mean, it’s not like there are reporters hiding in the bushes.”

Joanna Weston didn’t even realize what she had been doing, and Hail bringing attention to her foolishness made her resent his presence even more.

“Well, Mr. Hail, if you are sitting on my table, it makes me wonder what other drones are hidden in the rose bushes. I’m sure you can understand my curiosity, right?”

“I thought we agreed, during our first meeting, that you would call me Marshall, and I would call you Joanna. Remember, you told me that ‘Madam President’ made you feel old?”

“Today I am feeling more agitated than old, Marshall.” She pronounced his name with a degree of condescension.

Hail tried to sound upbeat and said, “I’d like to start over, if we could.”

“I’d like you to get off my table and go fly away,” the president responded flatly.

“We have your pilot,” Hail told her.

The change in the direction of their back-and-forth exchange caught Weston off-guard. Giving it little thought, she responded, “What do you mean? Are you telling me that you are holding him captive?”

“No, of course not. But the lieutenant commander indicated he would like to stay with us.”

“With you?” the president repeated. “And where would that be, Marshall?”

Hail hesitated, trying to decide how much he wanted to share with the United States’ top official, which would be the same as sharing it will all the United States’ agencies.

The president let him off the hook by saying, “We already know that Kara Ramey is aboard your cargo ship, the Hail Nucleus. So, I’m assuming our lieutenant commander is on that ship as well.”

Hail decided there was no sense in hiding something that was already known, so he responded, “Yes, he’s on my ship. He has, however, indicated that he wants to stay aboard.”

“And why would that be?” the president asked.

“I think we all understand the lieutenant commander has nothing to go back to if he returns to duty. Well, maybe three hot meals and a cot in the brig, but that really is not living. I think you would agree.”

The president didn’t respond.

A flock of birds flew over the White House. The president watched the birds. She had observed the clear signal being transmitted from the falcon to the drone on the table had pixelated as the birds intermittently blocked the laser signal. The signal stabilized, and Marshall Hail spoke again.

“I’d like to know if it’s OK for Nolan to stay aboard with us?” Hail asked. “All he is to you and your general is a problem. But to me, he’s a solution. He has a lot

of avionic and tactical skills that neither I, nor my staff, has. I’ll be sure to slap him around a little if it would make your general happy.”

Joanna Weston smiled at Hail’s contempt for her military.

“I’m sure our general would appreciate that, but I don’t believe it’s necessary. I think the pilot living around you is punishment enough.”

The president smiled graciously at Hail on the screen in front of her.

Hail absorbed her zing with a smile.

“Well, with that piece of business out of the way, I would like to talk about our next target.”

“Our next target?” the president asked, pronouncing the word OUR with an exaggerated punch.

“Sure,” Hail responded. “All of the cockroaches on your terrorist list are OUR enemies. I mean, it was your agencies that put them on the list to begin with. I’m not sure why this comes as a shock to you. We agreed, when we first met, that I would assist in removing every one of these parasites from the list.”

The president shook her head and looked very serious.

“No, that is not what we agreed upon. We agreed that we would work together to remove these parasites from our list. That’s why you currently have Kara Ramey, a CIA operative, on your ship. And now you have one of our top pilots as well. Oh my, your list of my people ending up on your ship is larger than the number of terrorists you have removed from the list.”

Hail looked frustrated. Joanna Weston had the impression she was getting on his nerves. Well, now he could see what it felt like.

Marshall Hail deeply inhaled and slowly exhaled. After he had composed himself, he said, “Joanna, it really doesn’t matter how we get there. I just want to get moving. I need another name. I need another location. I need information so I can find another person who can be removed from your list before they can do more harm to innocent people. Do you think we can at least agree on that?”

The president took a sip of water from a clear glass. She then set it back down on the table. She purposefully waved her hand over the top of the drone sitting on the table. For a split-second, the laser’s connection was broken, and Hail disappeared. An instant later, he was back again.

“What are you doing?” Hail asked.

“I was just seeing if I waved my hand over your drone, if you would disappear. And you did.”

The president repeated the motion.

“Stop doing that,” Hail told her.

“I’m the president of the United States, Marshall. I can do any damn thing I please.” And, to prove her point, she waved her hand over the top of the drone again and watched the screen go black for a beat.

Joanna Weston laughed. When Hail reappeared, he looked mad.

“Oh, that is so much fun. Now I see you; now I don’t.” She played with the laser a little bit more, this time allowing her hand to block the signal for a few seconds before removing it and allowing the drones to reconnect.

“OK, OK, stop, stop,” Hail pleaded.

The president leaned back in her chair. Her smiled faded, and she fell back into a serious mood.

Weston asked, “Do you know how big of a problem you caused us when you made my marine pilots land their helicopter next to the Memorial of The Five?”

Hail looked confused for a moment before saying, “If I recall correctly, I funded the building of that memorial, yet I had never seen it.”

The president shook her head and said, “That’s not the point, Marshall. You had my pilots land their helicopter in the middle of the Washington Mall which is illegal. Your little stunt was caught on video on a tourist’s cellphone. It made the news, and my administration had to scramble to come up with a plausible explanation for a presidential helicopter landing in the middle of a populated space.”

The president waited for Hail to respond. Hail asked, “And what did you tell them?”

“Since the video ended before you exited the aircraft, we told the press that the helicopter was having a technical problem and needed to set down to sort it out.”

Hail thought that they had provided a great explanation to the public.

Then the president added, “Just so you know, the officers flying the helicopter have been relieved of duty and were dishonorably discharged from the Marines.”

The president’s words hit Hail like a physical punch to his gut.

“That’s not right,” Hail blurted out. “I told them to land the chopper. I pressured them into it.”

“But you see, Marshall. That’s what happens. You push and push and others pay for your actions. You are insulated from all the consequences of your actions. You live on your ships and have safe havens in the poor countries that adore your cheap traveling wave reactors. So, others end up paying for your actions.”

Hail did his best to compose himself, remembering that he was talking to the president of the United States.

He then asked in a calm voice, “Can I please have the names and contact information of those officers?”

Weston was surprised by the question and asked, “Why?”

“Well, if the corps is done with them, then I would like to offer them jobs.”

“And what could military men do for you, Marshall? They fly jets, not drones.”

Hail considered how much he should share with the president, but figured if he didn’t tell her something, he wouldn’t get their names. And those names were important to him because he did pressure those officers to land the chopper in the middle of the Mall so he could see the Memorial of The Five. He could have just allowed them to pick him up at Andrews Air Force base, which for no apparent reason had been renamed Joint Base Andrews. He could have requested the Marine pilots to shuttle him to the White House for his meeting with the president and her staff. Instead, he had selfishly made the officers drop him off next to the new memorial. And that action had apparently cost them their careers and livelihoods; Hail couldn’t accept that. He viewed himself as one of the good guys. He was someone who made people’s lives better. He certainly failed these men, and he fully intended to make it up to them, in whatever capacity he could.

Hail said, “I don’t have many people on my ships who have military backgrounds or experience. At this point, I need their knowledge.” He purposely didn’t disclose why he needed their skillsets, but he hoped his explanation would satisfy the president.

The president ignored Hail’s request and said, “This is what we’ll do, Marshall. I will meet with the CIA, NSA, FBI and General Ford, and we’ll put together another mission for you. Does that sound good?”

Hail smiled and nodded his head. “Yes, that sounds like it would work.”

The president smiled back at Marshall Hail and waited.

Hail volleyed, “What about those officers’ names and contact information?”

The president thought he wore a forced smile. The president just stared at Hail, a wisp of a smile still on her face, but it was fading quickly.

The uncomfortable silence lasted several seconds, until the president said, “OK, have a nice day. Shoo! You can fly away now.”

Hail considered requesting the names again, but it appeared this request was something the president would need to consider. Hail understood that he was not going to get an answer today.

Hail suggested, “Would it be OK if I just flew over there by the door and set down on the ground? I mean, if we’re going to meet soon, then I can just shut the drone down, and when you’re ready to meet, you could just text me.”

“What?” the president asked, not really understanding what Hail was asking.

Hail explained, “I thought it would save me time if I could just park the drone over there, so I didn’t have to fly it out of here and then back again for the meeting.”

“No, Marshall. You can’t just park your drone on White House property.”

“I could just fly it up on the roof if that would work for you? That way, it would be out of the way.”

“That will not work,” the president stated emphatically. “Someone on my staff will e-mail you when the meeting will take place, and then we will conduct our meeting via our encrypted video conference infrastructure. I’m assuming you have the technology aboard your ship to facilitate a video meeting. Thus, there will not be a need to have your drone flying back and forth.”

Hail looked disappointed.

“Are we good with that, Mr. Hail?”

“Marshall,” Hail corrected.

“Are we good with that, Marshall?” the president repeated.

“Well, what type of time frame are we talking about? Later today is good for me,” Hail suggested.

“We will get back to you…when we get back to you,” the president said sternly.

“How about tomorrow? Either that, or I can fly back so we can discuss a time?”

“OK, tomorrow,” the president reluctantly agreed. “Now fly away. Shoo, I have a schedule to keep.”

Hail looked down at something offscreen.

The president assumed Hail was looking down at his flight controls, but nothing happened.

Hail looked upset. He looked back up at Joanna Weston and asked, “You didn’t hit anything with your hand when you were blocking the drone’s signal, did you?”

Hail looked back down and appeared to be pressing buttons and moving controls.

The president looked irritated at the accusation, but she was upset Hail and his drone were still on her table.

“No, I didn’t touch anything on your drone,” she responded derisively.

Hail looked serious, as he diligently tried to get the drone fired up and off the table. “I just don’t know what happened,” he said.

Then a few seconds later, he laughed and said, “Gotcha.”

Even before the words finished leaving his mouth, the drone’s propellers spun up, and the aircraft began to lift off the table.

The president felt like telling Mr. Hail to go to Hell, but twenty seconds later, both the video drone and the falcon flying high above had disappeared.