Hail Warning

Termez, Uzbekistan

The Air Cress Antonov An-26 cargo plane taxied in from the runway and came to a stop in front of Victor Kornev. It was a medium-sized cargo plane, large enough to lift tons of cargo. It was quite old, as far as planes go, but the Russian aircraft was still dependable. Of the 1043 An-26s manufactured, Kornev had snatched up ten of the relics that had made their debut in the Paris Air Show in 1969. This stop in Termez was a scheduled weekly delivery that dropped off everything from food, mail, bicycles, tools and about anything. If an item had been ordered from anywhere else in the world, one of Victor Kornev’s planes probably delivered it to these small Uzbekistan cities. Once the goods bound for Termez were offloaded, the Antonov would be reloaded with cargo that was outgoing, and the plane would continue to the Uzbekistan cities of Samarkand, Novoi, Uchduduk, and finally, Nukus. Kornev’s company did not make a great deal of money running this route, purposely undercutting the only other airline making landings in Uzbekistan. But these regular cargo drops allowed him to conceal anything he wanted to smuggle in and out of the country. Since he had direct access to his planes, it was easy for him to hide contraband amongst the other goods.

Kornev walked over to the plane and waited patiently for the rear cargo door to lower to the ground. The pilot and loadmaster were in position, determining what was slated to be offloaded. They paid little attention to Kornev as he walked up the ramp and began browsing through the cargo. It didn’t take him long to find the two large black cases, very similar to cases that held large telescopes, securely attached to the wall of the aircraft. Kornev released the straps and grabbed each case by their metal handles. Without a word to his employees, he made his way down the ramp, heading towards his Hummer parked twenty meters away.

Kornev clicked a button on his fob, and the back hatch popped open. The Russian placed the cases in the back and pressed the button again to close the hatch. He drove toward the airport’s main gate.

From the roof of the Air Cress building, two drones sat patiently perched on three-inch tripod legs. Their solar arrays were fully extended to absorb sunlight to recharge their batteries. Today, both drones were unarmed and were in surveillance mode. Tomorrow, each drone would have attached to it a mini-gun. Both aircraft were relatively flat to avoid attracting attention. If someone were to see them sitting atop the building, they would assume they were some new type of TV satellite dish.

As Kornev left the airport, before fully retracting its solar panels, one of the drones was already airborne.