Hail Warning

Q Street Apartment Complex — Washington, D.C

Two large boxes were sitting in Trevor Rodgers’ living room. It had been a pain picking them up at his local UPS store and transporting them over to his apartment. Being the director of the FBI came with a slew of security entanglements.

After Rodgers had stood in line to sign for the UPS boxes, his security detail insisted on searching the boxes before they would allow them in the car. It had taken him a good three minutes of quarreling to convince them that the boxes had been sent from a close friend who would not send him a bomb or a big dose of anthrax.

Begrudgingly, his detail finally allowed him to place the boxes in his car. The insistence on searching the boxes was repeated after they had arrived at the director’s apartment. Past FBI directors had lived in a private residence, but Rodgers hated the drive and wanted to live closer to work That was a special concern because the entire apartment building is owned by the FBI, thus other FBI employees had apartments within the same building. If something in Rodgers’ special boxes went BOOM, he would be responsible for terminating not just his own life, but ending the lives of other FBI employees. Again, he went on the defensive, assuring them Marshall Hail would not send him a bomb. Unlike his normal cooperativeness with his detail, he requested they “chill out”. Then he requested they carry the boxes to his top-floor apartment. His security detail was not happy with the director’s shirking the safety precautions and lack of respect.

Now, as Rodgers sat on his couch staring at the boxes, he was a little unnerved at the thought of opening them. After all, his friend had recently demonstrated the capability of killing one of the top North Korean leaders using a drone smaller than what could fit in these two boxes. Hell, these boxes could hold hundreds of drones that size. But Trevor and Marshall had been lifelong friends, living next door to one another most of their young lives.

As the two boys were growing up, their fathers had been stationed in the same countries: Guam, Berlin, Japan, in so many places with languages neither boy had understood. But Marshall Hail and Trevor Rodgers had always been thankful that they had each other during that time. Their friendship was a lifeline that led them through a world of boys and girls that looked, acted, and spoke differently than they did. It made them feel as if they were abnormal. Each time their fathers received orders to be stationed in yet another country, Trevor’s first question had always been, “Is Marshall moving there, too?” Thankfully, each time the answer had been yes. It hadn’t occurred to Trevor that maybe their fathers had somehow coordinated their moves understanding that separating their sons and having them fend for themselves in a strange country could almost be construed as punitive. Marshall was the only constant Trevor remembered from his childhood.

Earlier that day, Marshall had e-mailed Trevor to ask him if he could pick up two boxes at the UPS store near him. But he had never expected the packages to be so large. One of the boxes was tall enough to hold an umbrella stand. The other was relatively flat and square — like a pizza-sized box about four pizzas thick. The e-mail Marshall had written instructed him to open the flat square box first, and then to sit back and wait. Wait for what? Hail hadn’t told him that part which was typical for his friend, Marshall. Creating drama was Marshall’s specialty.

Rodgers used a kitchen knife to cut the thick stranded packaging tape that sealed the middle flaps of the box. He then opened the loose flaps and bent them back so they were out of the way. He could already guess with a high degree of certainty what was in the box, so he sat back on the couch and waited for the box on his coffee table to do something.

It took maybe three full minutes before he heard the whirl of small propeller blades emanating from inside the box. Then he watched as a pizza-sized black and white drone lifted slowly out of the box. It was only when the small aircraft spoke to him that Rodgers became surprised.

“Move the box out of the way,” the drone said.

Trevor recognized Marshall Hail’s voice.

Rodgers extended his leg to kick the box off the table.

The small drone then landed softly on its belly in the middle of the table. It wobbled on the table as its propellers decelerated.

“Can you please turn over the drone and screw in the LCD pole?” the disembodied voice asked him.

Rodgers realized that the pole Hail was referring to was probably still in the other box. He got up to retrieve the box from the floor and looked inside. Sure enough, taped to the bottom of the box was a metal pole about 1.5 feet long by 0.5 inches wide. The FBI director ripped the pole from the box removing excess tape still stuck to it. The drone was lighter than Rodgers expected. He turned it over on the coffee table and found a hole in the middle of it. He checked the pole for the threaded end and screwed it in tightly.

Almost immediately, Rodgers heard the hum of a small electric stepper motor. In a very precise manner, the end of the pole separated into three small tripod legs. The motor sound died away, and the drone sat on its back, dead and completely silent.

“Cool,” the voice said. “Now, please turn the drone over and place it on its legs.”

Rodgers leaned forward and did as instructed, and then he returned to the couch.

There was another hum of an electric motor and the pole began to separate. One side of the pole pivoted on an axis nearer to the top until it created a metal cross. Then a flexible LED screen began to lower, unraveling slowly like a curtain being dropped from a tiny stage. When the screen had almost reached the drone’s tripod legs, it came to a halt and lit up.

Marshall Hail’s face appeared on the screen. Rodgers had seen his friend weeks before in Washington. Even so, Trevor was still shocked to see how much his friend had aged in the past two years.

“Oh, that feels better,” Hail said. “It was getting a little tight in there,” he joked.

“A little claustrophobic?” Rodgers replied with a laugh.

“You try being stuck in a box for a week being shipped from Indonesia.”

Rodgers smiled at the live stream of his friend on the screen.

“Question,” Rodgers asked, holding up his hand.

“Yes, the young man in the front row,” Hail said, pointing at Rodgers.

“How did you know I opened the box? I mean, you couldn’t have been waiting in front of your computer the entire time this was being shipped to me.”

“Good question,” Hail responded, nodding his head. “There is a sensor on the drone that detects light. As soon as the box was opened, the sensor fired off a salvo piece of code that sent a text to my phone indicating it had been opened. Once I got the text, I went down to our mission center and connected to the drone.”

“Very interesting,” Rodgers commented.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then Rodgers asked, “So how have you been, Marshall?”

“Pretty good. That last mission gave me a reason to keep getting up in the morning. I think that I can finally—” Hail’s words trailed off.

Rodgers thought his friend looked a little sad, as if his mind had been hijacked by memories.

Then Hail continued, “I can finally make a difference.”

“A difference to who?” Trevor asked his friend.

Hail looked confused for a moment. He looked down at something offscreen; or maybe nothing at all.

Then he said, “A difference in my life. I couldn’t go on the way I was going on, which was business as usual. Life without my family was not a life worth living. I had to make a change.”

“And you think killing everyone on the FBI’s Top Ten List is a change for the better?” Rodgers asked, cutting Hail to the quick.

“It’s your list, Trevor. I didn’t make it. And it exists for a reason. So why can’t I be that reason?”

Rodgers sensed that he was getting nowhere with his pig-headed friend. Over the years, he had shared many of the same types of conversations with Marshall that went one of two ways. It either went Marshall’s way, or it went in circles until Marshall got his way. He was just one of those people who refused to lose. If Hail had been a serial killer, then there would be a bunch of people who were going to be in a world of hurt. But he wasn’t. He had just made it his life’s mission to kill everyone on the FBI’s Top Ten Terrorists list. Then it occurred to Rodgers that there was very little difference between a serial killer and Hail’s new life’s mission. The main difference was he simply killed people who deserved killing.

Hail asked, “I’ll give you $50 if you can guess what’s in the other box.”

Rodgers replied, “I hope it’s a present for me for picking up these boxes. You have no idea how badly the FBI agents wanted to open and check them out.”

Hail smiled, “OK, then. It’s a present for you. Please open it and check it out.”

Rodgers mumbled to himself, “Yeah, right. You were always known for your enthusiasm in gifting.” He let the room absorb the sarcastic remark.

The FBI director picked up the knife from the table, stood, and slid the knife across the top of the narrow box.

Hail couldn’t see what was going on, and asked, “Are you opening the end that says OPEN THIS END?”

Rodgers double-checked and told Hail, “Yes, but I did have a 50/50 chance.”

Hail instructed, “You need to open the flaps all the way, and then pick up the entire box and turn it over on the end you just opened.”

Rodgers followed his friend’s instructions, carefully positioning the tall box on its opened end. He held onto it for a second to make sure the tall box didn’t fall over.

“OK, now gently remove the box,” Hail told him. “Slide it up slowly.”

Rodgers held the sides of the box and began to lift.

The first thing Rodgers saw was a pair of clawed feet which looked like they had been made by a craftsman with experience making suits of armor. Each claw was

one piece of metal overlaid by another, narrowing more at the tips. The dull metal tips of each claw looked very sharp.

As Rodgers lifted the box higher, just above the claws, overlapping rows of fine feathers came into view. The feathers nearest the bare claws were wispy. The fluff was affixed to thin steel legs also constructed from small metal plates that overlapped one another.

More of the box was removed, and more feathers appeared. The shape of Hail’s present got wider as the box continued to rise. The color of the feathers began to change. First, there were light gray feathers on the legs. And now, a dark gray tail with coarse feathers could be seen. Before Rodgers removed the entire box, it was apparent that Marshall Hail had sent him a stuffed bird of some type. Carefully removing the remainder of the box, Rodgers saw dark gray wings, and once he was finished opening the box, the entire three-foot bird was standing on his living room coffee table. The bird was as wide as a two-liter soda bottle.

Rodgers set the box on the floor and allowed it to fall on its side.

It was a falcon — at least that’s what Rodgers thought it looked like. The bird had intense eye openings that didn’t really look like eyes. They had the appearance of lenses from two different cameras. The downward hooked beak was wide open. It made the predatory bird appear angry, like a stuffed and mounted mountain lion that, prior to being shot, had been in the process of leaping toward a rabbit. The entire bird was dark gray, apart from its willowy dirty mustard colored breast feathers.

“Do you like it?” Hail asked his friend, still talking to Rodgers via the drone sitting at the other end of the coffee table.

Rodgers didn’t know what to say, but he decided on, “Yeah, it’s a nice big bird.”

After all, what was one to say when given a massive falcon?

“Go open your balcony doors, and I’ll show you something very cool,” Marshall said.

“Hmm,” Rodgers hummed in the back of his throat and asked, “What I think is cool is likely very different than what you determine is cool.”

Hail laughed, “Really; this will amaze you.”

Marshall’s voice was so upbeat that it reminded Trevor of when they were young boys, and Marshall had built some sort of contraption that compacted trash or walked the dog. Or when he built an electric skateboard, and when he rewired his room to a central control panel nearly burning down his home in Guam. Marshall thought those were cool too, but Trevor never really shared the same enthusiasm for his projects. Somehow, Trevor had always been sucked up into

Marshall’s excitement and had found himself hooking up the dog for walking or collecting trash that needed compacting. Trevor Rodgers stood and walked over to the sliding glass doors that led to his sixth-story balcony. He unlatched the door and slid it opened on its track.

With a hum of propellers, the drone that Hail was using to communicate with Rodgers came to life and lifted off the coffee table. Rodgers watched as the drone flew toward him. With the LED screen still unfurled, Rodgers could still see Hail’s face displayed on the front of the machine.

“Excuse me,” Hail said, and Rodgers stepped out of the way. Hail flew past him and out to the balcony.

The balcony was not very deep. It was just wide enough to hold a square white table that had been placed between two thick plastic chairs. The furniture was perfect for either a morning coffee for two or a couple of beers after work. There certainly wouldn’t be any parties being held on Rodger’s terrace. The view wasn’t all that spectacular. It was a well-kept neighborhood, continually upgraded over the years, but Rodgers’ balcony looked across the street at a plain brick condominium.

Hail landed his black drone on the plastic table, making sure the screen was facing out toward the street so he could see Rodgers and vice versa.

Rodgers was halfway through the balcony door when Hail asked him, “Can you grab the bird and bring it out here?”

Rodgers reversed course returning into his apartment. He gently grasped the falcon. His fingers were pressed into the drone’s wings. The thumb of his right hand touched some sort of protrusion poking out from the bird’s chest, and he cautiously moved his thumb up a little higher to avoid it. He was amazed how little the bird weighed. Rodgers guessed it weighed less than two pounds. He was certain a real falcon of this size would have weighed more than three pounds.

Holding the bird out in front of him like a Ming vase, Rodgers returned to his balcony.

Hail told him, “Set it on the railing, and hold it there for a moment.”

Rodgers looked down at the bird’s metal feet and lined them with the top of the black aluminum railing. He realized if he let the bird go, it would simply fall off the balcony. It would either land on the cement floor of the balcony or on the narrow strip of grass outside.

The falcon’s movement startled Rodgers. He felt the bird come to life, and he heard something like a small electric motor whirl inside the bird. He saw the bird’s feet ratchet open and the claws begin to extend. The thick back toes of the falcon

curled underneath the railing, while its front claws slid over the leading edge of the railing. Then both sets of toes pulled in tight.

“OK,” Hail said. “You can let go now. It’s got a good grip on the railing. Please stand back.”

Rodgers let go of the bird slowly as if he had just finished balancing a basketball on the end of a broom handle. He kept his hand extended in case the bird started to fall from the railing, but it made no such movement. Rodgers lowered his hands and stepped back until his back was against the glass doors.

“What now?” Rodgers asked Hail.

“This,” Hail said.

Rodgers saw a hot stream of fire shoot out from under the bird’s tail. The flare was followed by a loud hiss of a small rocket engine. Its metal feet let go of the railing, and the falcon shot up into the air at an 80-degree angle. It happened so fast Rodgers’ hands flew to his face to cover his eyes and the bird vanished into thin air.

The FBI director slowly lowered his hands from his face, and everything had returned to normal. There had been no rocket exhaust, loud noises and now there was no falcon. It had cleared the tallest of the buildings on Q Street and disappeared into the city landscape. It took Rodgers a moment to realize what had just happened.

Angrily, he asked Hail, “What in the hell was that all about? Why didn’t you warn me?”

“That was the surprise I told you about. I mean, would you have set the bird on the railing if you knew that it was powered by a rocket engine and was going to take off?”

“No, probably not.”

“I didn’t think so, but it was important to get that bird airborne. If not, I didn’t think I would have an opportunity to meet with the president this morning.”

“I really don’t understand anything you just said,” Rodgers told Hail. “What does launching a rocket-powered falcon have to do with meeting the president?”

“I tell you what,” Hail said. “I’m kind of in a crunch for time right now, but I will give you a full update when I return.”

“When do you get back?” Rodgers questioned. “Where are you going?”

“I told you; I have to meet with the president,” Hail said.

Rodgers watched helplessly as the video drone Hail was on began to hum, lifting from the table. The black drone hovered over the railing and turned back toward Rodgers.

Hail smiled at his friend.

“Thanks again, Trev. I owe you one,” Hail said sincerely.

The thin flexible video screen began rolling back onto the stick supporting it, and even before the stick began to rotate into its flight position, Hail was already flying toward the White House.

As Rodgers watched the drone disappear over the tops of the neighboring condominiums, no less than three FBI security men broke down his front door and burst into his living room with guns drawn, apparently having heard the commotion.