Operation Hail Storm

Washington, D.C. ― The White House Oval Office

“So, what are your thoughts?” the President asked the men.

General Quentin Ford spoke first.

“Well, I don’t know about all of you, but I think that Marshall Hail is a God send. By knocking off Chang, he has already proven that he is operationally proficient and if he is able to pull off this new mission for us, then, hell, we could use him for all sorts of covert tasks.”

The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jarret Pepper said, “I’m not as warm and fuzzy on Hail as is the General.”

Pepper looked at the General to gauge his reaction.

The General looked at Pepper like he didn’t know what he was talking about.

Pepper continued.

“Getting Ramey into Hail’s operation was about the best we could hope for. Given enough time, Ramey will gather enough intelligence on Hail so we can make an informed opinion about him, not simply rely on an impression that may be correct or horribly wrong.”

The Director of the FBI, Trevor Rogers said, “As you all know, Hail is a personal friend of mine, so my opinion is biased in that respect. However, I can tell you that Hail is one of the most respectable people I have ever met; for what it’s worth.”

Pepper laughed. “Yeah, a respectable billionaire. That would appear to be a conflict in terms. Men like Hail didn’t make all that money being respectable. I mean what do any of us even know about this man and his operations. What kind of subterfuge was that he was feeding us that his operations are located in Madagascar. Does anyone here believe that?”

The Director of National Intelligence, Eric Spearman responded, “I wish we would have had more time to talk to him. I understand that time is a critical factor if we want to have a chance at intercepting this missile shipment. But realistically, how much time did we have, like ten minutes with him? I don’t think that’s enough time to hire an office temp let alone make a deal with an assassin.”

“Two things,” the General began. “I don’t think it would matter if we had ten minutes or ten days with Hail. He wasn’t going to tell us squat about his operations. And if I was in his shoes, neither would I. Also, no ― I do not think that his operation is being run from Madagascar. It was pure subterfuge.”

“I don’t either,” said Pepper, “but we’ll know where Kara is going because her cell phone is being tracked as we speak. No matter where she ends up, we will get a blip on a map and that will pinpoint her position.”

“What if Hail takes her cell phone away?” Rogers asked.

“It doesn’t matter. They can even turn it off and take out the battery. The phone has a hidden battery and it will still send out its blip,” Pepper told the group.

The President, who had been listening to the conversation and absorbing the content said, “My interest is accountability. Yes, I understand that we want to collect as much information about Hail and his assets as possible, but my real interest is accountability. If Hail goes after the missiles and completely screws up, I need to know if it will point back to this office.”

The President looked at each of the men.

“Do we have any insight on that end of things?” the President asked them.

None of the men looked like they wanted to field that question, but the General, who was never shy to speak up, said, “If Hail is not using people and instead using some sort of advanced drone technology or mechanical soldiers or whatever, then I don’t see how that could lead back to us. A failure would constitute no more than a pile of parts left at the scene. And what could that tell anyone?”

“I agree,” Spearman said. “Really the worst case scenario I can see is that Hail can’t complete the mission and the missiles get built.”

The President asked, “Do we have any concern about Kara Ramey’s safety. After all, we just let her fly out of here to God knows where with a man we know very little about?”

The General said, “His father was the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So how bad can the guy be? No, he didn’t ask for her help and I’m sure that he would be happy to cut her loose if we gave him the intelligence he wants.”

“So far, everything is working out the way we all wanted it to go,” Pepper assured the group. “Ramey has infiltrated Hail’s organization and Hail is more or less working for us right now. How much better can it get?”

“How much worse can it get, would be my concern,” the President commented.