Operation Hail Storm

Above the Atlantic Ocean ― aboard the Hail Gulfstream

“See, nice and smooth,” Hail consoled his terrified passenger.

If Kara’s hair was on fire, Hail wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference in her demeanor.

Only a few moments into the flight and Kara had started shaking uncontrollably, like she was having some sort of panic attack. And now, ten long minutes later, she still looked tweaked but was starting to calm down a little. Hail felt bad for ribbing her so badly by letting her know that no one was flying the plane. But he hadn’t anticipated that she would freak out so badly.

“See, no problems. Everything is under control,” Hail said in his most compassionate tone.

“Everything except that no one is flying the plane.” Kara shot back.

“No, someone is flying the plane. They just aren’t on the plane.”

“Oh, let me correct myself,” Kara snarled. “I mean that a boy that shouldn’t be driving a car, let alone flying an airplane, is flying us like a remote controlled toy.”

“That’s more correct,” Hail told her, “but our flight systems are much more advanced than toys.”

Kara looked at Hail as if she wanted to punch him in his face. Now she was more angry than scared.

“Why in the world would you not have a pilot on the plane? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does,” Hail responded. “He is not old enough to fly the plane; therefore, he can’t be on it while he is flying it. There are all sorts of Federal Aviation Administration rules about that. Heck, he couldn’t legally fly this jet over US soil.”

“But he is flying it!” Kara yelled incredulously.

“But there are no laws that govern remote pilots, only pilots that are actually on board. And ninety-nine percent of the time, most planes are flying on auto-pilot. It’s only the takeoffs and landings that may require a pilot. And many planes these days could do it all if they were trusted to do so.”

“But why?” Kara tried to reason with Hail. “Why not just have a regular old pilot that flies the plane?”

“Lots of reasons,” Hail said.

“Give me one of them.”

Hail thought for a moment and said, “It’s a long flight back to Balikpapan City, over fifteen hours. I don’t want my pilot to fly any longer than six hours. I don’t think it’s safe.”

“Where?” Kara asked. “What’s Balikpapan City?”

Hail ignored the question and continued, “So I have my pilots fly in six hour shifts. I want them fresh. If you think about it, having someone at the controls for fifteen hours is pretty crazy. Having a remote pilot fly this plane makes a lot more sense.”

Kara’s mind swam with questions and she didn’t know which to ask first. She decided on…

“Where are they flying this thing from again? You said it was a remote command center. Is that in Balikpapan City ― wherever the hell that is?” She sounded lost and scared.

Hail was quiet for a second and mulled over his response. She would soon see his ship and everything inside, so keeping its location a secret didn’t seem like such a big deal.

“The command center is in Balikpapan City, right now. Balikpapan is a seaport city on the east coast of the island of Borneo, in the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan. It’s a pretty big city for that area with a population of a half million.”

Hail knew it was important to start building some trust. He felt confident that his last statement was truthful.

He looked at Kara and she looked completely overwhelmed. All her tough CIA bravado had been stripped away and she was still freaking out. It was time to make nice.

“You don’t have to worry. I’ve done this trip dozens of times. Not to the United States, but all points around the globe. My pilots are good and we have backup feeds from mirrored satellites if the communication link were to go down.”

Hail realized that had been a mistake. He could see the question forming in Kara’s mind before she asked it.

“What feeds are you talking about? Are you talking about the connection to the controls on this plane from your remote pilots? Is that the feed and if so, what happens if both feeds go down?”

Hail smiled reassuringly. “Yes, that’s the feed, but like I said. The plane remains in auto-pilot for almost the entire trip. So if the feed went down, the plane would just continue on until the link was reestablished. No problem.”

Kara did not look convinced.

Hail looked serious and said, “Listen, I don’t want to die any more than you do,” which was a lie. Hail guessed that she was not as damaged as he was and therefore had more respect for her own life. “And if I thought that my technology was not rock solid, I wouldn’t fly around the globe like this. I have good people who work for me and we dazzle in this form of robotics. So you need to just chill and go with the flow. If it makes you feel any better, I am certified to fly this plane and could do so in a pinch.”

Kara understood at this point that she didn’t have much choice.

“Do you have anything to drink?” Kara asked, looking over her shoulder at the bar.

“Sure,” Hail said. “But I have to make a call to Balikpapan City to have them turn off the buckle-seatbelt sign.”

Kara looked around for the indicator Hail was talking about.

“I’m just kidding,” Hail chuckled. “This plane doesn’t have anything like that.”

The woman didn’t think that was funny.

Hail unbuckled his seat belt and stood. Kara did the same, taking a moment to arrange her black skirt and straighten her black vest.

Hail noticed again that she was wearing a one-piece full black body sock, under her skirt and vest.

That should come in useful, Hail thought.

He motioned for Kara to sit on the white leather couch. She did so and began looking around the cabin.

“Do you think you have enough monitors on the plane?” she asked sarcastically as she began counting each of them.

“These days everything is video. I don’t like to carry around a tablet, so I try to make sure that most of the places I spend a great amount of time have plenty of monitors.”

“What are you drinking?” Hail asked.

“Southern and seven,” Kara replied.

“An old fashion girl,” Hail commented.

“Not really. I don’t drink much but my roommate in college drank southern and sevens, so that kind of became my drink.”

Hail picked up a glass in one hand and a bottle of Southern Comfort in the other.

“And where did you go to college?” he asked.

“Middlebury College in Vermont.”

“Nice place. Vermont is beautiful in the summer, but damn cold in the winter. As I get older, I find that I don’t like the cold ― at all.”

Hail opened a small refrigerator and retrieved some ice cubes and divided them between two glasses. He then poured half a can of Seven Up and a shot of Southern into each glass and swirled the mixture with a swizzle stick.

“Cold doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes it’s nice, like around Christmas and such. Well, it used to be nice,” Kara corrected herself.

“Cold isn’t nice anymore?”

“No, Christmas isn’t nice anymore.”

“And why is that?” Hail asked.

He handed Kara her drink and sat down next to her.

“Because I lost my parents a few years ago. They loved Christmas and I was their only child. So now, with them being gone, Christmas is just kind of a sad time for me.”

Hail considered how much of his personal life he should share with this woman. There would be common things in his life that she had already looked up in their powerful CIA computers, therefore telling Kara stuff she already knew was no risk at all. Plus, it would give him an opportunity to find out a little more about her. After all, he was certain that if he Googled this woman, there would not be a single hit or photo or Facebook or anything about her on the entire Internet. She was CIA all the way.

“I can understand how you feel about Christmas,” Hail sympathized. “I lost my entire family a few years ago as well.”

Hail watched Kara for a reaction and was surprised to see very little.

Kara said, “As you may have guessed, I already know a lot about you. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your loss.”

Hail nodded his head once in place of a thank you, and took a sip of his drink.

Kara took her first sip of her own drink and made a face.

“Too strong?” Hail asked.

“A little,” Kara said. “I’m not used to drinking and it always catches me off guard.”

“I would assume that being a CIA agent would create a lot of missions where you would have to drink.”

“Yeah, but mostly champagne or wine. The hard stuff is… well… hard.” Kara gave a little giggle.

“So how did your parents pass on?” Hail asked, “If you don’t think that’s too personal?”

Kara hesitated and then said, “Yes, I do think that is too personal.”

Hail was surprised by her reaction but tried not to show it.

Hail said nothing.

Kara took another sip from her drink and didn’t make a face this time.

She asked, “So how exactly did you become a Gabillionaire?”

“You don’t have that information in your files?” Hail inquired.

“Sure, but I wanted to hear it from you. Get the real poop as they say.”

Hail considered giving her a little of her own medicine and saying he thought that was too personal, but instead said, “It’s pretty simple. I’m a garbage collector.”

“Are you now?” Kara responded suspiciously. “I’ve never met a garbage collector that had his own Gulfstream.”

“Well that just depends on what type of garbage you collect. I collect nuclear waste.” Hail confessed.

“And that pays well?” Kara asked, already knowing the answer, but still wanting confirmation.

“The collection part doesn’t pay well. Matter of fact, it’s downright expensive to do the collecting. You need big cargo ships to pick up the stuff and you need to haul it across many oceans. Then of course, you have to reprocess the nuclear waste.”

“Reprocess?” Kara inquired. “How does that work?”

“We reprocess the nuclear waste into what we call a fuel bundle. It’s probably our best kept secret and that’s how we make our money. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t readily give out blueprints of our wave reactors either, but the real heart of the technology comes from the science of packing the fuel bundle.”

“I thought that the fuel was just a bunch of nuclear waste, so why does it matter how it’s packed?”

“It’s real important. Pack it right and a wave reactor can run for ten years on a single fuel bundle. In some cases, it will put out enough energy to power half of a small state. Do it wrong and you don’t get the initial reaction that starts the burn process, or the reaction dies out somewhere inside the bundle. Either way, it’s no bueno.”

“So why is your reactor so special? I’m just not getting it,” Kara said.

Hail explained, “Consider that conventional reactors only use about one percent of their energy potential. My reactor design is fifty times more efficient, but it still requires a nuclear reaction to make it work. Conventional reactors require enrichment. My reactor doesn’t. It runs off of mostly depleted uranium, which is a byproduct of nuclear enrichment. With just my reactors and the world’s supply of depleted uranium, that would be enough fuel to power every country in the world for the next 100,000 years. But we also repurpose old fuel rods, liquid radioactive waste and such, and it all gets burnt in the reactor.

Hail looked at the woman to see if she was following along. She still looked interested so he continued.

“But the wave part of the wave reactor is the most important. To start the power flowing, a small piece of enriched uranium ignites the nuclear reaction which starts the burn on one side of the fuel bundle. After the reaction is started, it burns through the bundle as if it was a wave washing over the sand. That’s where the term traveling wave reactor comes from. The reaction starts on one end of the bundle and keeps burning depleted uranium and converting it into low level plutonium until it gets to the other end. It’s beautiful. Twenty years from now, every country will have one of my reactors and oil producing nations will have to figure out how to sell sand for a living.”

Hail realized he was talking a lot, probably more than he should. But his traveling wave reactor was his baby and he loved talking about it.

“So, how did you become a gabillionaire again?” Kara asked. She understood the technical stuff that Hail was explaining, but she was more interested in the man than his machine.

“In a nutshell, I get my nuclear waste for free and I resell it along with my reactors to countries who want cheap power.”

Kara was quiet and had apparently run out of questions. They both took another drink and stared off in no particular direction. The plane flew on.

Kara tried to drain even more drops out of her empty glass. Hail stuck out his hand and waited for Kara to place her glass into it. Instead, she placed it back into her lap. Hail lowered his hand.

Hail pulled at his tie and loosened it from around his neck. He then stood and began to take off his suit jacket.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to go change into something more comfortable. You hate to fly and I hate suits.”

Hail reached down and set his half empty glass on the coffee table. He retrieved a small remote control from a slot on the side of the table and handed it to Kara.

“We have a lot of movies and we even get a live satellite feed for network TV, if you’re interested.”

“Of course you do,” Kara said cynically. “This plane has everything except a pilot.”

The Gulfstream touched down on the Dakhla Airport in the Western Sahara of Morocco for refueling. Kara was shaken badly, knowing they were being landed via remote control by some kid in some city she could barely pronounce.

Once the airplane had made its way to the terminal, Kara asked Hail, “Why did you tell me that there was no pilot flying the plane? Especially after you knew how nervous I was about flying.”

Hail thought about it for a moment.

“There are probably a few reasons. One reason, and this should now be very apparent to you, I am a devious asshole and enjoy watching people squirm. I don’t know why. It’s not an admirable trait. But my father was the same way, the devious asshole thing. He liked watching me squirm, so maybe that has something to do with it. Secondly, I’m nervous flying as well. So knowing that you were much more nervous about flying than I was, made me feel better about my own failures. You know, like I’m not alone in this world.”

Kara looked at Hail like she wanted punch him.

“And third,” Hail continued, “at some point, if we are going to work together, we have to trust one another. Not mentioning to you that there was no pilot on the plane seemed like a lie of some sort. You know ― the opposite of telling your wife she looks great in something that looks terrible on her. But the real reason goes a little deeper than that. You not only have to trust me in the operation that is coming up, but you also have to trust my technology as well. Completely. Trust it with your life, because a lot of lives will depend on it. And I could think of no other way to show you how well our technology works other than proving it to you during a live fifteen-hour demonstration. It doesn’t matter if it is a Gulfstream or a HobbyZone Sport Cub. All the same aeronautic and communication rules apply.”

Kara looked out the window at the Dakhla airport and its surroundings. Nothing but sand and brick and boxy looking cement buildings and asphalt and more sand. She suspected that anything that was the color of green on the outside of the plane had been imported from regions that grew more stuff than just sand.

Hail had changed into a green polo shirt, a tan pair of khakis and he was wearing tan socks with no shoes.

Kara had kicked off her black high-heels when they had first sat on the couch.

Kara had insisted on buckling back up in the CEO flight chairs for the landing in at Dakhla. Hail thought it was a prudent decision, but had little confidence that the flight chairs would protect them in any way if the plane did a nose dive into the hot sand of Morocco. He didn’t see a need to mention that to his guest.

One of the video monitors came to life and the face of Gage Renner appeared on the screen.

“Hi Marshall,” Renner said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No, not at all,” Hail said. “I would like you to meet Kara Ramey. She is a superspy for the CIA.”

Kara looked at Hail like he was an idiot.

Hail continued on with his introduction.

“Kara, this is my friend and the guy running the show while I’m away, Gage Renner.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kara and Renner said at the same time. Both gave a wave in place of a handshake.

“Marshall, the reason I’m calling is because we have a security situation at reactor number two in Haiti,” Renner said.

Hail looked serious.

“What’s the issue? Hail asked.

“It doesn’t look too bad, but three men have scaled the perimeter fence of reactor number two and they’re making their way toward the control building.”

“Are they armed?” Hail asked.

“No, they look young, like between sixteen to eighteen years old. They look hungry, if you know what I mean.”

Hail thought for a moment and asked, “Can you put the feed on screen number three here in the jet?”

“Sure,” Renner said, looking down at a control panel. He pressed something.

Hail and Kara looked at the screen to their right. A second later, the video began streaming images from the camera on top of the control building in Haiti.

Kara was amazed at what she was seeing, but remained silent.

Hail analyzed the feed. Three rail-thin Haitians were about a hundred yards away and walking slowly toward the camera. One young man was tall and the other two were relatively short. The tall man was the only person wearing a shirt, but it wasn’t much of one. It was an old tee-shirt that was too dirty to make out the lettering on the front. At one time it had been blue. All three men were wearing old gym shorts and were barefoot.

“What quadrant are they in?” Hail asked.

Renner checked a screen and replied, “They are currently in quadrant 10C, but they’ll be passing into 10D in about thirty seconds.”

“Did you give them an audible warning of any type?”

“Yeah. Jack in our Reactor Security Center played them the canned blurb in Haitian that told them to leave the premises or they will be arrested.”

“That’s funny,” Hail said. “We should change that. Instead of the word arrested we should replace it with the phrase hurt or killed. The police in Haiti are a joke.”

“Sure, we’ll get right on that, but first we need to deal with these guys.”

Hail watched the boys as they passed a tall cylindrical poll that had the signage 10-D written on it in big red bold letters.

“What are your thoughts?” Hail asked Renner.

“Less than lethal is a good start,” Renner responded.

“Are you thinking of blowing the airsoft on 10D?”

“Yep,” Renner said.

“Is the charge prepped on 10D?”

Kara whispered to Hail. “What’s less than lethal at 10D?”

“In each quadrant we have those poles you see there.” Hail pointed them out to Kara on the video monitor. “Each pole has several different colored plastic rings that go up the pole. See the rings?” He pointed them out on the monitor as well. “Each ring is filled with a different projectile type. Inside each ring is also a few winds of primer cord, you know, an explosive that is made out of pentaerythritol tetranitrate.”

Kara nodded her head even though she knew little about primer cord, let alone the explosive it was made from. She had gone through a short course in explosives at The Farm at Camp Peary, but it had only covered the basics. And the only thing she remembered was; if an explosion is eminent, then run.

Hail was still talking.

“This white one,” Hail said, pointing toward the top ring on the pole, “is filled with airsoft BBs. The exact same kind that us kids played with when we were growing up.”

Kara nodded her head that she understood.

“This next ring down,” Hail explained, pointing at a blue ring under the white ring “is filled with regular steel BBs. And so on and so forth,” Hail said. “Each ring becomes more and more lethal. The next one down is filled with broken glass, the next one down from that is filled with jacks, like the kind that kids don’t play with anymore. Each ring is more deadly until we get down the bottom ring which is filled with ball-bearings. The amounts of primer cord we use is calculated carefully for each stage of lethality.”

Kara looked concerned.

Hail said, “Needless to say, if we blow the bottom ring, then we have gone from the less than lethal to the fully lethal option.”

Kara looked at the video of the men walking toward the reactor control building. Just within the current angle of that one camera, she counted five such poles.

“Alright,” Hail said, getting back to business. “Renner, tell Jack to blow ring one on 10D.”

Renner pushed a button and said, “Jack, blow ring one on 10D and wait for further instructions.”

A few seconds later, the white ring on top of the pole stenciled 10-D exploded. A ring of white blasted out into the open area as the shockwave left the pole. But it wasn’t a shock wave. 20,000 white Airsoft .20gram BBs spit out in every direction. The concussion of the blast caused the video stream to jitter for a few seconds and then it was clear again.

Kara thought it was strange watching the explosion without any sound.

All three juveniles had fallen to the ground and were gabbing at different parts of their bodies. They had been stunned by the blast, peppered by the BBs and now were just beginning to come around. One of the boys, the tall one got back to his feet and began looking around in all directions. Hail was certain that the Haitian didn’t know what had just happened or where the blast had come from.

“Don’t walk toward the control center,” Hail said to himself, as if pleading with the man who could not hear him.

“Do we have any Haitian speaking interpreters online right now?” Hail asked Renner.

Renner responded, “Nope. Sorry Marshall. Our only interpreter is in the rack right now. We can get her up and online, but it will take a few minutes.”

“I speak a little Haitian,” Kara told Hail.

“Do you?” Hail smiled at her.

“Renner, patch our mics through to the control building speakers in Haiti. Kara wants to talk to our friends.”

“Patching now,” Renner said making the changes on his console. “OK, you are good to go.”

Inside the jet, the sound from the jungle in Haiti came over the flat screen’s speakers. It was one of those iconic sounds where the birds were chirping and the insects we buzzing and it gave Kara the impression of only one thing. Hot. It was the sound of a hot, thick, jungle. The men’s dark skin glistened in the heat. They were all very thin and they looked desperate. Kara felt sorry for them.

“What should I say,” Kara whispered to Hail.

“Tell them to go home. Tell them there is nothing there that can help them. Tell them that they will get hurt or killed if they approach any of the buildings.”

“I told you I speak a little Haitian. Not all of that,” Kara said.

Kara sat up straight in her chair. She said something in Haitian, talking loudly so she could be clearly heard.

“Ale lakay ou. Si ou rete n' a blese.”

The boys inside the fenced area of the reactor compound heard the words and reacted with nervous stares and twitches. By now, the other two boys on the ground had recovered from the airsoft onslaught and were standing next to their tall friend. All their heads were on swivels, looking this way and that.

Kara spoke again.

“Ale konnye a, ni nou p'ap mouri.”

Her words seemed to convince the juveniles that there were easier places to rob. They all turned and began walking back toward the fence, trying to rub away the pain from the areas that had received airsoft hits.

“That seemed to do it.” Hail said. “We hate to hurt these people unless the reactor is at risk. They are just poor people who would strip the aluminum off the door jams, if they were allowed to get that close.”

“Disaster averted,” Renner said flippantly. “Have a good flight and we will see you when you get back on board.”

“See you soon,” Hail said.

“Nice to meet you,” Kara said, but the monitor had already gone black.

Kara went back to looking out her window again. A big truck was pumping jet fuel in under the right wing of the aircraft.

“So what’s up with that whole situation there?” Kara asked.

“What do you mean?” Hail responded, selecting a magazine from the center console. He flipped it open.

“I mean with the reactor security stuff. Why don’t the people at the reactors handle it?”

“Well, that would be because there are no people at the reactors. No security either.”

Kara looked surprised.

“You mean the reactors run themselves?”

“Pretty much,” Hail said, turning the page in his magazine.

“So people don’t need to monitor the reactors?”

“Yes and they do. All of our reactors are monitored remotely from the Hail Reactor Center.”

Kara looked disturbed.

“I can’t believe that a nuclear reactor site doesn’t need some sort of worker present to run the place.”

“They really don’t. The reactors themselves are very stable since they operate at atmospheric pressure. No chance of blowing the lid off the thing. They also burn their fuel bundle very slowly, so that eliminates the task of lowering or raising rods to regulate the reaction. The fuel bundle regulates the burn rate.”

“Well, that’s all well and good, but what about what we just saw? There is no one around to protect the reactors.”

“Which is why we have the Reactor Security Center,” Hail countered.

“It’s hard to believe that any government is going to allow you to plop down an unmanned and unsecured nuclear reactor in their country,” Kara questioned.

“On the contrary,” Hail responded defensively, “countries beg for us to install our reactors. For example, in Haiti the electricity sector owned by the government is called Haiti Electric. They were in a deep energy crisis with only twelve percent of their country with regular access to power. For all practical purposes, they were living in the dark ages with no chance of proliferation. We installed two reactors in Haiti; one in Gonaives and the other in Miragoane. Now Haiti has more power than they will ever need. Just like that. It’s wonderful.”

“And how much money did it cost those poor people?” Kara asked.

“Not one penny. That’s the beauty of providing power to underdeveloped nations. They don’t have any money, so they barter for the reactors. They write us a blank check when it comes to land. We can build industrial plants where we can make the reactors, put beta reactors online and see how they perform, and have a home base for my ships as well as shipyards to build my ships. These little countries virtually throw away all the red tape that we encounter with tight-asses like the United States; countries that at the mere mention of the word of nuclear, go running for the hills.”

“I heard that the United States has several Hail reactors that are in production,” Kara stated.

“Now they do, but they were very late adopters. They wanted to monitor these little countries for years and make sure our reactors didn’t explode or maybe even something worse ― a meltdown.” Hail made a scary face and made quote signs with his fingers.

“I thought you said that your reactors can’t meltdown.”

“They can’t. It is physically impossible and I am saying that as a physicist.”

Hail could tell that something else was on Kara’s mind.

“Aren’t you concerned that someday a big armed contingent of men will take over one of your reactor sites?”

“No, not at all. The sites are armed to the teeth and well protected. You saw the poles that have all the rings of explosives and projectiles?”

“Yes, I saw them.”

“Well, what you didn’t see was the 50 caliber machine gun that was under the camera that was taking the video. We have two of those. One gun is on top of the control building and the other gun is on top of the containment vessel. Both of those guns are laser guided. So let’s assume there was a force of three hundred men and they begin to break in through the wire. Our first line of defense is distance. We have more than one hundred yards of clear-cut all the way out to the fence line, three-hundred and sixty degrees with a clear line of site. A robotic lawn mower cuts it every day to keep it clear. So the three hundred men cut through the wire and the fifty-cals could start cutting down their army even before they made it through the wire. Our guns, by the way, are belt fed from ammunition stored in a huge box next to the gun. We are talking thousands of rounds per gun. But let’s say for the sake of argument that two-hundred men make it in through the wire. We have fifty of our explosive poles in the ground and arranged in quadrants. For nonlethal, we blow them after the trespassers walk by, so their backs are facing the poles. That way they don’t get BBs in their eyes or face. For fully lethal, for a full jail break, if we just lit up twenty-five of our ball bearing rings, anything in the area would be rendered Swiss cheese. So they would have to go get another three-hundred men and try again.”

Kara asked, “And why wouldn’t they do just that? It doesn’t appear that they place much value on life.”

“Because the end-game for them doesn’t make sense; the win for them would still be death.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The control buildings at our reactor sites are nothing more than thin cement towers. They are about as wide as a big closet. There are no offices or anything else inside them but electronics. They weren’t designed for people; they are essentially cement cell towers that house servers and sophisticated communications. So if the army of men somehow made it inside that control room, then they would be very disappointed. There would be some weird racks of computers that they wouldn’t know what to do with, and that’s about it. Now if they were to break into the reactor itself, they would be immediately exposed to massive amounts of radiation and die within minutes. So you see, there is no real win for them.”

“Do they know that?” Kara asked. “All the families in the villages who live next to your reactors?”

“Yes and no,” Hail replied. “They have been told pretty much what I just told you, but then the world is full of crazy people, if you haven’t noticed. And therefore, we have the guns and exploding poles to deal with those types.”

Hail purposely didn’t tell Kara about all the airborne deterrents that Hail Security deployed. She would have to earn the right to know about those things.

“And what if they destroyed the control building? What would happen to the reactor?” Kara asked.

“Like I said before, the reactor is a stable machine. It doesn’t need to be told what to do. It’s just like lighting a long campfire. You light one end and it just keeps burning until it gets to the other. You don’t have to monitor the campfire to keep it burning. It just burns until there is nothing left to burn. The equipment associated with the power plant that breaks down is the steam generator, but that equipment is on the other side of the fence and is Haiti Electric’s responsibility. I mean they have to play some sort of roll in the infrastructure. They are also responsible for building and maintaining the high-power lines that carry the electricity to its citizens.”

Outside on the tarmac, a dark skinned man reeled in the gas hose and drove his truck away from the jet. Kara heard the plane’s engines come to life and a few minutes later their aircraft was rolling.

Hail thought that she looked more comfortable than she had when they had taken off at Andrews, but her face was still twitching pretty good. He wanted to ask her some personal questions, like where did she live? Did she have a family? Did she believe in God? The normal stuff that a billionaire asked a beautiful CIA agent, but he knew there would be plenty of time for that later.

Kara said, “When your friend Renner was saying goodbye, he said I will see you when you are back on board.”

Kara looked at Hail.

“On board what?” Kara asked.

Hail looked at his watch.

“You will have that answer in about nine and a half hours.”

“I can hardly wait,” Kara said as she braced herself for takeoff.

The engines opened up and the G-forces kicked in and Kara yelled, “I hope that Chavez is not falling asleep at the wheel.”

Hail didn’t have the nerve to tell her that they had just changed pilots at Dakhla. The new pilot had never flown the Gulfstream before, but she had over twenty-five hours on the simulator for this exact model. On the simulator, she had only crashed the Gulfstream once in heavy weather.

“You have got to be kidding me?” Kara Ramey said as she stared at the massive AgustaWestland helicopter parked on the tarmac of the Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport.

“No, it’s just a short hop to our next location and I’m a great pilot. Look, no holes or burns or contusions on me at all,” Hail said, showing Kara his arms and legs.

“How much have you flown this thing?” Kara asked, still making no effort to approach the idle aircraft.

“Lots,” Hail lied.

“Nothing in your file indicated that you are a pilot of any type,” Kara said skeptically.

“Your files are old. I learned how to fly over the last couple of years. After my family…”

Hails words trailed off and he wished he wouldn’t have brought that up. Each time he did, it was like taking another bullet to the heart.

Kara softened a little. As if the air that surrounded them contained some sort of anti-anxiety powder, she sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes and mumbled something to herself. She let out an equally long breath and looked like a beaten soldier. Looking down at her purse that was clutched in her right hand, she threaded her arm through the thin strap, placed the strap on her shoulder and began walking toward the helicopter.

“Is this the last flying contraption I will see in long time?” she asked Hail.

“Until you leave us,” Hail confided in her. “And when you leave us, you can take a rowboat back to the States if it makes you happy.”

Hail’s sarcasm was not lost on the woman and she flashed him a screw you expression.

Hail’s mechanic held the door open for the CIA woman, but he did not offer her his greasy hand to help her on board.

Doing her best to cope with her four-inch high heels, Kara awkwardly boarded the chopper, found a plush seat and sat down.

Hail went in after her and stood quietly for a moment, unsure if he should ask the question.

What the hell, Hail thought and said, “Why don’t you come up front and sit with me in the cockpit. It will be fun.”

Kara looked at him as if he had escaped from a mental hospital.

“I’ll be fine here,” she said. “Let’s just do this thing so I can calm down.”

“Understood,” Hail said, opening the door to the cockpit.

“It will be a short flight, like five minutes,” he added before disappearing through the doorway.

Kara watched the door close and attempted to locate her seatbelt. The mechanic slammed the exterior door shut and everything became very quiet. Unlike most helicopters, the AgustaWestland was built for comfort and was one of the quietest helicopters in the world. At least quiet on the inside.

Kara clicked her buckle together and heard the three turbofan engines whine to life. A minute after that, the big blade over her head began twirling around. A minute after that, she felt the aircraft lift off from the ground and she held her breath. The chopper tilted forward and began to pick up speed. The trees, houses, cars and people got smaller and smaller as they gained altitude. Kara sighed and did her best to stay calm. So far, Hail hadn’t killed them. That was good.

The machine banked to the left and now all the trees and houses and cars were a blur as the aircraft poured on the speed.

Just when Kara was getting used to the feel of the aircraft, she felt the nose come up a little and sensed they were slowing. She could see ocean and sand and some sort of ship yard approaching from the east. Slower still, the helicopter finally came to a dead stop in midair. Kara looked down and saw a landing target drawn on the deck of a massive cargo ship below them. She was indifferent to where they landed, as long as they landed. The aircraft began to descend toward the painted target on the metal deck below. Kara’s heart raced and her face twitched. The blue sky was replaced with the sides of strange looking shipping containers. Each of them was white and had the bright yellow and black symbol for nuclear radiation affixed to them. Kara felt the feet of the helicopter touch down and would have thanked God if she truly believed that one was paying attention.

Before the propeller had stopped spinning, Hail opened the cockpit door and entered the passenger cabin.

“See, not so bad.” He said happily.

“Let me out of here,” Kara said. “Open the door.”

Instead of Hail opening the door, someone on the outside tugged the door open.

Kara clicked open her seatbelt, grabbed her purse from the seat next to her and stood up.

The salt air and sea breeze met her as she stepped off the chopper. Her red hair flew one way and then the other as the wind wound its way around obstacles on the deck of the Nucleus.

“What are all these things?” she asked Hail, pointing toward the white cargo containers.

“Those are the containment vessels that hold the nuclear waste we are currently transporting.”

Kara didn’t like the sound of that.

“Are they all full?” she asked, speaking loudly so she could be heard over the wind.

“Some are, some are empty,” Hail yelled back.

Hail’s helicopter mechanic asked, “Are you all going down?”

Hail nodded his head, yes, and the mechanic pressed a button on a remote control he had on his belt.

The deck of the ship dropped out from under them and the elevator began to descend to the deck below.

Kara didn’t know what was happening and Hail explained.

“It’s a hydraulic elevator like they have on aircraft carriers. That way we can store our helicopters below and out of the elements.”

Ten feet deep into the hull of the Nucleus, the sound of the wind died away and was replaced with the whine of the hydraulic pump that moaned in the cavernous space. The tenor inside the ship rendered every sound an echo that was sustained for a moment before turning into a lush reverberation.

The massive elevator came to a stop with a bump. Hail gestured in a general direction and Kara began walking.

“Where are we?” Kara asked.

They were now walking down a long row of helicopters. Each chopper was a different size and a different color.

“We are onboard the Hail Nucleus. Remember, that was the onboard question you asked about on the plane.”

“And the Hail Nucleus is one of your cargo ships that transports nuclear waste to where?” Kara asked.

“Anywhere it needs to go. Much of it comes here to Bilikpapan. I have a refinement plant that takes the waste and bundles it into the fuel cells I was telling you about. I also have a manufacturing plant that makes our nuclear reactors.”

“Makes them?” Kara asked. “I thought that nuclear reactors were built on site using tons and tons of poured concrete.”

Hail shook his head. “That’s the way the old conventional plants are made, but since the Hail wave reactor is not pressurized, we can get away with pre-casting all the sections of the reactor. And then we simply ship them where they need to go and assemble the pieces onsite.”

“Cool,” Kara said.

They were passing the last helicopter in line and Kara asked, “So you can fly all of these?”

“Yes I can. And if you were with us long enough, you could fly them too.”

Kara smiled.

Hail thought she looked much better smiling than freaking out.

The pair stepped through a large metal door opening.

“I will need you to take off all your clothes, if you don’t mind,” Hail told her.

“Excuse me,” Kara replied, both confused and wary.

“You can leave the body sock thing you have on, but the skirt, your vest, your shoes, they all have to come off.”

“You’re just like all the other men I meet, Mr. Hail. You can’t wait to get my clothes off.”

The comment caught Hail by surprise. He still didn’t have a grasp of the woman or her sense of humor.

Hail explained, “Every person that enters or leaves this ship has to pass through a contamination check point. What’s in front of you is a very sophisticated Geiger counter. It will measure any radioactivity that you may have been exposed to since you’ve been on this ship.”

“But I barely even…” Kara started to say, but Hail cut her off.

“It’s just one of those safety things that we do. It will only take a second.”

Kara looked skeptical, but she reluctantly unbuttoned her vest and handed it to Hail. She then unzipped her skirt and handed it to Hail as well. Standing in front of Kara were two alloy rails that were set on their ends. The contraption looked like a metal detector they used at airports. A faint hum was emanating from the columns.

“Shoes, please,” Hail requested.

Without reaching down, Kara kicked off her shoes and Hail bent down and picked them up.

“Purse,” Hail requested, and Kara handed her purse over to him.

“Are you going to go through the Geiger counter too?” she asked.

Hail walked over to the wall and opened some sort of metal drawer. He set Kara’s garments and purse into the drawer and closed it.

“Yes I am,” Hail said.

“Then why aren’t you taking off all of your clothes?”

“Because you have that full body sock on and I’m not even wearing underwear. But I will if you want me to. OK.”

Hail began reached for the button on his pants and Kara said, “That’s OK. No need to make this more awkward than it already is.”

She walked up to the rails and asked, “Is it OK if I walk through now?”

“Yes, you’re good to go,” Hail said.

Kara walked between the metal sticks, hoping that they didn’t make that weird scratchy, static sound that Geiger counters make when they encounter a radioactive CIA agent. Thankfully, nothing happened. No static sound, no sirens, Kara heard no sound at all but that constant hum.

A moment later, Hail stepped between the rails and the Geiger counter didn’t complain about him either.

“OK,” Kara said. “Where’s my stuff.”

Hail told her, “It’s being scanned in the room on the other side of this wall. It takes a while with objects that have metal in them. So we’ll pick them up later.”

Kara didn’t look happy with that answer, but then there really wasn’t much that she needed right now. If she was going to meet people, she would have preferred not looking like the cat woman, all dressed up in a black body suit. But Kara was confident in her appearance and it was preferable to meeting people while totally naked.

They stepped into an elevator that was made out of metal and metal and more metal. Hail pressed a button labeled DECK 4 and the elevator door closed and the metal box began to go down.

“Are you hungry?” Hail asked.

“Sure, I could eat something.”

“What type of food?”

“What do you mean what type?”

“I mean Mexican, Italian, French, American?”

“I wasn’t aware that American was a type of food,” Kara said.

“Sure it is. Hamburgers, fried chicken, hot dogs, apple pie; I don’t know any food more American than that.”

“Alright,” Kara said, wanting to put an end to the debate. “How about Italian?”

“Italian it is,” Hail agreed and the elevator came to a stop.

Hail took out his phone and made a quick call.

With the sound the elevator was making, Kara couldn’t discern what was said.

The door slid open and Hail walked out and turned left, expecting his guest to follow him.

Kara looked around, observing, documenting, cataloging in her mind anything that could help her mission. They were walking down a long white hallway. Kara knew one thing for sure. Hail could afford a lot of white paint. So far, everything she had seen had been painted white; containment vessels, hallways, bulkheads, ceilings, all shiny and bright white.

The pair reached some sort of junction and the hallway began to fork in two directions. One direction made a big arc to the right and the other made an equally big arc to the left.

Hail seemed to take a moment to get his bearings, before choosing the left hallway. Side by side, they began walking down the curving hallway. The first door they passed on their left was stenciled AMERICAN. Fifty feet further down the hallway they passed a door stenciled ASIAN. Another fifty feet and they arrived at a door that read ITALIAN.

Hail stopped and said, “Here we are.”

He unwound the wheel that was the door handle and opened the bulkhead door.

“After you,” Hail said.

Kara stepped into the room and was instantly blown away.

“Oh my God,” she stammered.

“Do you like it?” Hail asked.

“What’s not to like,” Kara said in a dream-like voice.

In front of her was a real Italian restaurant, like the ones she had visited when she had been on vacation in Italy. Aged brick walls and hand-laid brick arches were lit by soft amber light that came from fiery iron lamps that burned in wall sconces. On the ceiling, green and yellow vines clung to the rustic stone surface, giving the appearance of not just years, but hundreds of years. Thick dark wooden beams appeared to support the ceiling, but they also supported many types of flowering hanging plants. Garlic bunches hung from the red brick wall, and on the opposite wall was a pale wooden arch lattice that was stuffed with wine bottles. The restaurant had about twenty tables, twos and fours. Each table was draped with a blue checkered tablecloth and then laid over that was a smaller white tablecloth. A fine white porcelain plate sat in front of each chair and a linen napkin sat neatly folded on each plate. Every table in the cozy room had been set. Each place setting had one knife, two forks, two spoons; one large spoon that could be used to twirl a mass of spaghetti and the other to stir a drink. There was a tall clear bottle of oil, a bottle of vinegar, an ornate shaker of parmesan cheese and checkered bottles of salt and pepper that matched the table cloth.

Hail stopped at a table in the center of the empty restaurant and pulled out a chair for Kara.

Kara looked around and sat down.

“There’s no one here,” she noticed.

“It’s about nine o’clock in the morning, Indonesian time. Not a popular time for an Italian restaurant.”

Kara kept looking around.

“But through the windows it’s dark. Oh my God, this place has windows,” Kara exclaimed, noticing them for the first time.

“They are fake windows of course,” Hail explained. “All three of the windows are the new 3-D 82 inch flat screens. We recorded a full day and night footage from an actual restaurant in Italy. Each monitor has its own video player and all the players are synchronized. We typically set the video to coincide with our local time, so its day on the screens when it is day on the ship. However, I called ahead and had them play the night time video instead. It’s seems more cozy in here with the flame burning lamps. Nice ambience as they say in the elite circles.”

Kara stared at one of the windows and watched Italian cars drive by. She wondered if Hail made cozy requests for all the guests he had on board, or if this ― if she ― was someone different. An older lady strolled by walking a fluffy white dog. As she passed the first window, she disappeared behind a broad wooden beam that separated the windows. Then the next window (the next video screen as Hail explained it) picked her up. As she passed by that window, she vanished behind the window separation; just as she would have done in real life and then appeared in the third window. There was a street corner at the end of the third window. The woman began to round then corner and then was lost to site.

“This is just amazing,” Kara said both excited and confused. “What is an Italian restaurant doing in a cargo ship?”

Hail smiled warmly. “The same thing the Asian, Mexican, French and American restaurants are doing on this same ship. They make people happy.”

“Well I can see why,” Kara said, returning the smile.

“Many of my crew members never leave this ship,” Hail explained. “Some, because they have nowhere to go and nobody to go home to. Others, because they feel safe on the ship or they are minors and don’t have much of a choice. But that’s still kind of the same thing as nowhere to go and nobody to go home to.”

Kara nodded her head but still didn’t fully understand.

Hail reached down and picked up a fake rose off the table and inserted it into an empty vase in the middle of the table. Back in the kitchen, a light went on and a bell rang.

“A server only comes out here if the flower is put in the vase,” Hail explained. “It makes things much more efficient than the servers continually checking all the restaurants.”

“One server works in all the restaurants?” Kara asked.

“Well, a couple during the slow time. But it’s functional. You see there’s only one kitchen for all the restaurants. Each restaurant is set up in a circular pattern on this deck. Like each restaurant is a piece of pie and the kitchen is located directly in the center of the pie. You might have noticed the curved hallway outside. It forms a large circle. As you walk around the circle you would eventually see the entrance to all the restaurants.”

“That’s amazing,” Kara said. “But why again would you go to all this trouble?”

“Like I said, most of my crew rarely leaves the ship. Therefore, I wanted to build the ship with all the comforts of home, so they feel like they are still part of the world. We also have all sorts of sports facilities set up around the ship. We have a real movie theater with a lobby and candy and popcorn and everything you would expect to see at the theater. Every once in a while, we will have a live Broadway play video-streamed into the theater.”

“I can’t believe all the time and expense that must have gone into all of this,” Kara said.

“It’s not really all that expensive if you consider how much the ship itself costs. And it’s a really small price to pay if I can get talented crew members who are happy and like their jobs. Turnover is something that I try to avoid. This concept is nothing new. Check out the Google campus.”

A young black woman entered from a door at the back of the restaurant and walked up to the table. Her hair had been straightened and tied in back, creating a long ponytail. Kara thought she was pretty, but not the type of pretty that got you in trouble. The woman was dressed in black pants and a button up starched white shirt. Around her neck was a colorful bandana that was knotted, making it look like a fluffy tie. The server was holding a small electronic notepad of some sort.

“Good morning, Marshall and ― a new person I have never seen before,” the server said, taking a moment to look over the new arrival.

“Good morning to you Sarah,” Hail replied. “This is Kara Ramey. She will be with us for a while.”

Sarah said, “It is very nice to meet you, Kara,” but the server didn’t offer Kara her hand. Instead she handed each of them a leather menu and placed a stylus pen on her tablet, ready to write.

“So what will it be for you this morning?”

Hail and Kara opened their menus and looked them over.

Sensing that Kara needed more time, Hail said, “I would like the lasagna, a house salad and a glass of whatever wine you recommend. As you know, I don’t know much about wine.”

“That you don’t,” Sarah said smartly as she jotted down Hail’s order.

“And for you, Kara,” Sarah asked.

“I would like the pasta e fagioli, please. And if possible, can you put some extra ditalini in it?”

“Sure,” Sarah said, writing down the order. “To drink?” she asked.

“I’ll have of glass of what he’s having,” Kara said.

“So you don’t know anything about wine either?” Sarah joked.

“I do, but I don’t want Mr. Hail to feel insecure,” Kara smiled devilishly.

The server winked at Kara and left.

Then a moment later, she came back and placed some bread and butter on the table before disappearing again.

Both Hail and Kara were quiet, neither knowing what to talk about. Kara looked out the window at the Italian cars driving by and the people taking their evening stroll. A group of six young professionals walked by gesturing and laughing.

Hail considered talking about the upcoming mission and then discarded the idea. There would be plenty of time to talk about that after breakfast, or whatever meal they were eating now.

The kitchen door swung open and Sarah brought out two glasses of dark wine. She set them down carefully in front of Hail and his guest and said, “Bon appetit.” The woman went back into the kitchen and the room was silent again.

Hail took a sip of wine and didn’t know if it was good or not. He figured there should be some sort of scientific test that should yield such a result, but he figured that wine connoisseurs would sneer at such technology.

Kara broke the silence and asked, “So all of this ― the ship, the restaurants, the movie theater; is it here because of Hail Industries or is it here because of your new line of work? You know? The retribution thing?”

Hail thought for a moment and said, “It started out as strictly Hail Industries. I really loved the idea of solving the world’s power problems, but then after The Five a lot changed.”

Hail took another sip of wine and continued, “My first ships were mainstream cargo ships. At that time, we hauled a massive amount of nuclear material. But once the majority of the nuclear waste had been removed from the United States, I didn’t need the entire ship to be devoted to that task. That’s when I built my new ships, like the one we’re on now. These new ships were designed from the ground up to serve two tasks. We still haul nuclear waste and deliver precast nuclear reactors. But we also serve a second purpose, which you will soon see. That’s why I needed to hire a specialized crew. That’s why I needed a Google type of atmosphere.”

“You have more than just one of your ships outfitted like this?” Kara asked.

Hailed replied with a simple yes, but didn’t expand on how many such ships he had.

“So what’s the deal with you and nuclear power? Other than the profit, what’s the attraction?”

Hail like the question, because he liked talking about nuclear power.

“Power is power,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Power can change everything. Power can make weak countries powerful. Power can solve all of the world’s problems.”

“How so?” Kara asked cynically, reaching over and tugging loose a piece of bread.

“Diamonds are expensive, right?” Hail said as more of a statement than a question.

Kara nodded as she buttered her bread.

“If you have enough cheap power, you can make diamonds inexpensively. After all, making a diamond only requires two things, pressure and heat. If you put enough pressure and heat on a banana, it will turn into a diamond. However, it takes a massive amount of pressure and heat to make a diamond and that takes a lot of power. If the power costs more than the diamond, then it’s not practical to make them. But if the scales flip the other way, then a diamond will no longer be expensive, let alone a commodity because they would be inexpensive to make. That’s how power can turn the world on its ear.”

Kara chewed her bread and thought about Hail’s little speech.

She swallowed and asked, “Can someone make gold if they have enough power?”

Hail shook his head no. “That’s very tricky, because gold was made in a cataclysmic event known as a short gamma-ray burst, such as the collision of two neutron stars. Gold can be man-made but none of the processes are economical and most are comical.”

“How so?” Kara asked.

“For example, gold can be made in a nuclear reactor, but the gold that would be produced would be highly radioactive. Walking around with an ounce of gold in your pocket that that is burning a hole in your leg isn’t a good thing.”

Kara laughed.

“It’s also possible to make gold in a supercollider, one atom at a time. Even with virtually free energy, it would take a hundred years to create one ounce of gold in a supercollider, therefore that method is not practical either.”

“Well, at least gold is one commodity that will stand the test of time, or should I say stand the test of Hail Power Industries,” Kara said.

Hail shrugged off the comment and said, “But the real payoff is in solving other problems that are facing the world. For example, let’s take the global fresh water shortage. That’s not really a water problem, that’s an energy problem. We have an ocean full of saltwater and all it takes is energy to turn it into fresh drinkable water. So cheap power solves our water problems as well.”

Kara looked at Hail and commented, “Interesting.” She plucked another piece of bread from the loaf.

Not sure he had made his point, Hail added, “People only need a few things to live; food, water and air. Antibiotics extend life as do other medications, but the basics are food, water and air. So what do we do when we run out of oil? What are we going to use as fuel for the tractors to plant and harvest the massive amounts of food our world requires? What fuel are we going to burn in the trucks that bring the harvest to our inner-city stores?”

“I don’t know,” Kara said honestly. “Batteries?”

“No, but that is a good guess. Actually I think that hydrogen will be the new fuel that will replace petroleum based products. The only problem is that hydrogen takes an enormous amount of energy to produce. Currently, using older energy technology, hydrogen takes more energy to make than it produces. But if you have an abundance of cheap electrical power, then all of a sudden hydrogen becomes economical and all our cars and trucks and tractors can be switched over to burn hydrogen. And the beauty about hydrogen is the waste product that falls out your tailpipe is pure water. You can drink it.”

“That is wonderful,” Kara agreed. She picked up her glass and took a sip of wine. Hail did the same.

“So why wouldn’t all cars run on electricity; you know, batteries?” Kara asked.

“Well, first of all, batteries are very heavy and don’t hold much power. They also take a lot of energy to manufacture and are made from expensive materials. And batteries don’t last very long before they have to be replaced. And secondly the world has an infrastructure problem when it comes to electricity. For example, if tomorrow an electric car magically appeared in the garage of every American, and they all plugged them in at the same time, then the entire power grid in the United States would fail. See, the power companies just don’t have the infrastructure or capacity to facilitate that scenario. But hydrogen could be kept in pretty much the same type of gas stations where gasoline and diesel fuel are currently dispensed.”

“Interesting,” Kara said.

“So cheap and clean electrical power completes the circuit,” Hail said, summarizing his thoughts. “We burn our old nuclear waste in a reactor that turns that hideous stuff into low level waste that can be stored safely. With new cheap electricity, we can create hydrogen to power our machines and they output water, so we are now preserving our air. With cheap and clean power, we can desalinate water from our oceans. Food, water, air, the Hail reactor solves all of our problems.”

“Almost all of our problems,” Kara reminded Hail.

“Yep, there is still a people problem that needs to be solved,” Hail said, reading the CIA woman’s mind.

“More like a people removal problem,” Kara corrected.

Hail chewed on his bottom lip and nodded his head.

The door from the kitchen opened and Sarah appeared toting an armful of dishes. Once she had reached the table, she carefully set down each dish in front of its new owner. Sarah reached across the table and removed the rose from its vase and set it on the table.

“Is there anything else I can get for you?” Sarah asked.

“No, this looks great,” Kara said.

“Thank you, Sarah,” Hail told her.

Sarah looked pleased and turned and left the room.

Hail used his fork to cut the corner off his slab of lasagna. As he lifted the pasta to his mouth, his phone rang. Holding his fork in the air, he used his other hand to take his phone out of his pants pocket. He saw it was Renner calling. He set his fork back down on his plate and took the call.

“This is Marshall,” Hail said into the phone.

“You don’t have me on speaker, do you?” Renner asked.

“Nope,” Hail said flashing a I’m sorry look at his breakfast companion.

“Do you want the run down on the contents of your new buddy’s purse?”

“Yes, what do you have?”

“Well, the purse itself is clean. No bugs, no wires, no batteries sewn into it. Everything else is clean as well except for three items. Her phone is sending out a tracking beacon. Even if it is turned off, it is still sending out a beacon. We x-rayed her phone and it has two battery sources; one factory battery and the other is a custom job, straight out of the CIA handbook.”

“OK,” Hail said.

Renner continued. “Her compact is a communications device as well. It has a satellite receiver/transmitter and lots of different modes of sending messages. Video, audio, photo and so forth. The deal with her compact is that it has to have clear air to communicate with a satellite. So if she is inside, then it’s useless unless she hangs the compact out a porthole on the ship.”

“Understood,” Hail said, giving Kara a little I’ll be done in a second smile.

“And the weirdest thing is her phone charger. It’s a sophisticated little Linux computer that has the potential of downloading data from any phone that gets plugged into it. It also has Wi-Fi and Ethernet and can even transmit on blue tooth, if that channel is open.”

“Good work,” Hail said.

Renner said, “All her stuff is locked up in the security center in a lead lined safe. Which means that none of her communication devices are doing any communicating as long as they are sealed inside our safe.”

“OK,” Hail said and clicked off the connection.

“Sorry about that,” he told Kara.

Kara shrugged and said, “This is really good food. If I didn’t know better, I would say I was in Italy.”

“Well, then we did our job.” Hail smiled.

Kara paused for a moment, one of those gear shifting silences that indicated she was going to change the subject.

“You mentioned that you had minors on the ship. That’s kind of weird.”

Hail was prepared for a change of subject, but that particular question caught him off guard.

Hail said in a defensive tone, “Not really if you understand why.”

Kara looked at him, smiled innocently and asked, “Why?”

Hail had to decide how much to share with the CIA. If Kara was on the ship for any amount of time, she would eventually meet most of the people aboard, most of them minors. He could always try to segregate her from the crew as well as his advanced technology. But he realized that he needed the CIA’s intelligence. He needed their help long term. It would be impractical to keep Kara bottled up for that long, however long ‘that long’ happened to be. And really, what could she tell her bosses that would affect Hail or his operation? Yes, he had drones that delivered drones that delivered drones that killed people. But without designs and specifications and people who knew what they were doing, the United States government would still take a decade to get up to speed if they developed their own program. Realistically, he didn’t want to control Kara while she was on his ship. What he did want to control was her communication with anyone who was not on his ship. Jarret Pepper to be exact.

Hail said, “What you’re going to discover is that the majority of our crew or staff or employees, whatever you want to call them, lost someone in The Five.”

Kara looked surprised but remained silent.

Hail let it sink in for a moment and then he continued.

“Sarah, for example,” Hail said nodding toward the kitchen. “She lost a brother that she was very close to in The Five. She was a waitress at the time and the loss crushed her. She didn’t get along well with her mother or father, but she was very close to her brother. She couldn’t function after that and lost her job. When I found her, she was living in a homeless shelter.”

Kara asked, “What do you mean you found her?”

Hail responded, “I mean that I assembled a team of researchers that did their best to track down all the Sarah’s in the world. Or more to the point, all the family members who were damaged or orphaned from The Five.”

“Orphaned?” Kara said, feeling that the conversation was drifting into a strange place.

“Yes,” Hail said without any reservation. “Most of the minors on the ship I mentioned were orphaned after The Five. I volunteered to take care of them, protect them, make sure they received schooling and even employ them when they get older. In many cases, I’m their official guardian.”

“Papa Hail,” Kara said with a degree of pessimism. “I don’t see it. Why would a Judge give you custody?”

Hail laughed mockingly. “There weren’t any other billionaires at the time that were making the same offer. Why would I be any worse than anyone else that could take care of them?”

Kara murmured something to herself that Hail couldn’t make out as she looked out the fake window.

“I don’t know,” she said in a sad voice, not taking her eyes off the cars that passed by. She noticed that it had started raining outside; outside an Italian restaurant on the other side of the world when this footage had been recorded.

Hail could tell that she was thinking about her own life and challenges she had faced.

“It’s really nice for the kids here,” Hail told her in a kind voice, almost fatherly. “They are in school Monday through Friday and we have our own teachers. For the kids over eighteen, they are taking college via distance learning. These days almost every college course is offered via video. One teacher and a hundred students watching the lesson via remote video connections all around the globe. It makes so much sense that I wonder how long brick and mortar colleges will actually last.”

“As long as colleges have kegger parties, then they will be around,” Kara mused. “It’s hard to do that over the Internet.”

Hail paused to see if Kara had anything else she wanted to say. She was still watching the rain shine the streets of Italy, miles away from the conversation.

“You need rain noise effects,” she said softly, like she wasn’t even aware that she was talking.

Hail chuckled. “Yeah, sure, we’ll get right on that.”

“I’m sure that everything you do for the kids is all well and good, but it’s not like having a mother and father. It’s not like having a family,” Kara said, returning from wherever her thoughts had been.

“I agree with you. It’s not like having a mother and father, but it’s like having a family. The kids on board have other kids to do things with. They are growing very close relationships with one another. We are their family. We are each other’s family. In a way, the kids are mine, but in another way they belong to everyone on this ship. We all belong to each other. We all lost something in The Five, but I will be damned if we all didn’t gain something from it as well. And what we gained is the ability to love again. The ability to feel something again other than sorrow. Having all the kids and adults that were damaged from The Five on board is like a mass therapeutic session. You don’t have to go home to a foster mother and father that don’t have a clue how you feel and don’t understand what you’re going through, because each of us on this ship are going through the exact same thing. We don’t have to go to a grocery store and have the cashier ask how our day is going. And we don’t have to tell them it’s going like shit and not getting any better. We don’t have to listen to people telling us to have a nice day. We have nice days when we feel like it. We don’t even have to talk about how we feel on the Nucleus. We just know. When someone is feeling down ― we just know. We know how they feel and we know how to respond to it.”

Hail stopped talking, realizing that he was rambling. But he didn’t feel guilty about it. If Kara didn’t get it, then she didn’t get it.

There were a lot of emotions going through Kara and Hail could almost see each one of them play out on her expressive features. The prevailing emotion she was revealing was sorrow. But as Hail was talking, that emotion began to change into an expression that resembled hope. It was like sensing that beyond that one mountain was a greener pasture. War and death on one side, and peace and solace on the other side. Hail knew she got it. He just didn’t know if she knew that she got it.

“What…” Kara began to say and then stopped.

“This is all just…” and she shut down again.

“This is overwhelming,” she finally said. “Does anyone on the outside know that most of your crew consists of The Five family sufferers?”

“I don’t know,” Hail said. “And I don’t know if anyone on the outside really cares. All of these wonderful people are here for one of three reasons. One, they want to be part of the solution. Two, everyone they loved is dead. Three, there is no one left who cares about them. Well, I care about all of them. I don’t want The Five to dictate the way their lives will turn out. I want them to all go on and have a good life. If they want to learn a skill and work for me, then I’ll train them to do so.”

Kara pushed away her soup and set her elbows on the table. She looked directly into Hail’s blue eyes. He returned the stare.

Hail could tell that she had a thousand more questions. She had CIA questions. She had crew questions. She had numbers questions. She had more ship questions. She had technology questions. And all of those questions were swimming around in her head, each one competing in her brain to be asked.

Before she had a chance to ask any of them, Hail said, “If we are done eating, we really need to get over to our mission planning room and get the ball rolling. I’m not sure what we have in the form of interdiction equipment, and we don’t have much time to build it.”

Kara took all of her questions and quickly filed them all away; making a note to ask them when there was more time.

“I need to get cleaned up,” she said.

“No you don’t,” Hail said firmly. “You smell just fine.”

Kara was shocked and laughed.

Then Hail added, “And you look really good in that cat woman body sock thing as well. I think this should be your new look.”

Kara smiled demurely and replied. “I know I look good in it, but the reason you really like me in this skin tight get-up is because you can tell I don’t have any hidden wires or recorders or cameras or communication devices on me.”

Damn, Hail thought. She read my mind.

Hail said nothing. Instead, he stood and walked around the table and pulled Kara’s chair out for her.

“No desert?” Kara asked, facetiously.

“Later,” Hail said. “First work and then the cat gets a treat.”

“Where to?” Kara asked.

“One deck up. I’ve got everyone waiting for us in the conference room.”

“Lead the way,” Kara said, looking for her purse and then realizing she had absolutely nothing. It struck her for the first time that she was literally at the mercy of Marshall Hail. She didn’t like that feeling one bit. But in her line of work, she was constantly putting herself and her safety on the line. At least Hail and his clan were supposed to be the good guys. But that so called fact would still have to be verified.

The conference room was situated one deck up and almost directly above the grouping of restaurants, so Kara and Hail didn’t have to walk any great distance.

Kara walked into a stark conference room occupied by three men and two women. Instead of a conference table, there was a long stainless steel table, shaped like a banana that sat in the middle of the room. Lines of monitors and screens and keyboards and mice and speakers and styluses littered the polished metal surface. Kara could tell that this meeting was going to be very different than any other mission planning session she had experienced.

On three of the four walls that didn’t have a tinted porthole, were flat screen displays taking up the bulk of the horizontal revenue. The floor was made of well-worn metal that had been marred countless times by the wheels of dozens of light weight chairs that were scattered haphazardly around the room.

Hail grabbed two of the nearest chairs and slid them toward the group of people waiting for them around the table.

Hail pushed a chair under Kara and turned his chair around backwards and sat cowboy style.

“What’s first?” Hail asked.

“How about some introductions, Marshall?” Shana Tran suggested.

Marshall looked embarrassed.

“Of course, I’m sorry,” he responded. “Everyone, this is Kara Ramey from the CIA. She is going to be our liaison for any intelligence we obtain from her agency.”

Everyone said hello in one fashion or another.

“How about we just go around the room quickly and you all can introduce yourself and tell Kara what you do.”

Since Shana Tran had spoken up earlier, Hail gestured toward Shana to begin.

“Hi Kara. I’m Shana Tran, Mission Communication Analyst.”

“I love your outfit,” Kara said.

“Well thank you. I designed and made it myself.”

“You’re kidding me. I wish I could do stuff like that. A dress seems like it would be so hard to make.”

“Well, it’s not that hard. I mean it took me awhile to…”

“OK, OK,” Hail interrupted. “We’ll have time for the fashion segment of this meeting later. Let’s continue.”

The person to the right of Tran spoke up.

“My name is Gage Renner. I am a Mission Analyst and specialize in remote design and aeronautics. We already met on the plane. Well, we didn’t meet on the plane. You were on the plane and I was here, but we talked…”

“We understand,” Hail told his tongue tied buddy.

The next person said in a lyrical French accent, “Nice to meet you, Ms. Ramey. My name is Pierce Mercier. I am a scholar and have a background in oceanography, meteorology, plants, animals, basically boring stuff compared to what these guys know.”

“Oh, not at all,” Kara said. “I think all of those things are very interesting. I take it that you speak French?” Kara asked.

Mercier replied, “Oui. Parlez-vous Français ainsi.”

Kara responded with, “Je fais ainsi. Il est très agréable de vous rencontrer.”

Mercier smiled. “Vous aussi.”

Hail waited patiently until the exchange was over, hoping he didn’t have to cut that off as well.

The French eventually stopped and the next person in line introduced themselves.

“My name is Eric Rugmon. I manage the production and customization of mission devices and control systems.”

Kara noticed that Eric Rugmon appeared to be all business. To Kara, the man looked like a Minion from the Despicable Me movie. He didn’t smile or give a hint of wanting to be Kara’s buddy. That was OK. She never had a problem making friends, especially male friends. Rugmon wore a white lab coat, but he was not the only person in the room wearing a lab coat.

The next person to introduce herself was a woman and she was wearing a lab coat as well. She looked bookish and quiet and Kara thought for a moment that she and Mr. Rugmon might have a thing going on. They were both cut from the same cloth. At least their lab coats were.

“My name is Terry Garber. I am in charge of the laboratory, laboratory production, new product research and product adaptation.”

Kara wanted to ask her what all that meant, but with Terry Garber being the last person in line, Hail was already taking back control of the meeting.

“OK, with that out of the way, what is our first move?”

Renner said, “We need to know exactly what we are dealing with. What’s the scope of this mission?”

Hail looked at Kara as if to say, you’re up.

Kara scanned the faces that were looking at her.

She cleared her throat and said, “We are currently tracking a Chinese fishing trawler called the Huan Yue that is steaming through the Sea of Okhotsk and it’s headed toward North Korea.”

“Can we bring that map up on screen one?” Hail requested.

Renner did some computer magic and a large map of the North Pacific Ocean popped up on the screen.

“The Sea of Okhotsk is right here under Russia” Renner said, pointing to the spot with his cursor. “We are talking about a thousand miles from North Korea, depending on the current position of the trawler.”

“Do we have any sea assets near there?” Hail asked.

“We still have the Hail Laser located in the Bohai Sea, right here,” Renner said, putting the mouse pointer on the other side of North Korea. “Unless the trawler decides to loop around South Korea, then we are assuming it would dock on the east coast of North Korea. The Laser is on opposite side of North Korea, but we could reduce that distance by moving the Laser into the Yellow Sea.”

Renner dragged the cursor lower on the screen. “That move would take about twenty-four hours. If we better the Lasers’ position in the Yellow Sea, then we would still have to traverse the North Korean land mass by air, which is only about two hundred miles wide.”

“That’s do-able, right?” Hail asked.

“It really depends on what we are supposed to do with this trawler,” Renner said, looking confused.

Kara spoke up.

“The trawler is carrying a large ICBM section headed to North Korea. The mission at hand is to track the large missile part that is on the Huan Yue to its final destination on land. At that point, we would like to set up some sort of surveillance that will let us know when the majority of the parts have arrived. And then at that point, we want them all blown up.”

Renner actually started laughing.

“Is that all?” he asked. “Maybe we should just overthrow the country while we’re there?”

Kara ignored Renner and said, “I don’t think I have to explain to anyone in this room why North Korea would like an ICBM.”

Renner’s smile faded and Kara continued.

“If we all think that The Five was a disaster, then just wait until North Korea has the discretion of lobbing nuclear bombs at the other side of the planet. And to tell you the truth, my agency doesn’t believe that your… your… company,” Kara decided on, “has the means to interdict this shipment, especially in the narrow time frame we have. But short of an overt action on the part of the US, we don’t have much of a choice in the matter. It’s you guys or nothing and nothing is the worst choice.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Hail said, trying to lighten up the mood. “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Let’s get some ideas flowing on the initial contact with the Huan Yue.”

Mercier asked, “Do we know where the ship will dock in North Korea?”

“No we don’t,” Kara said. “But it will take a big crane to remove the section of the missile from the Huan Yue, so we would expect it to dock at one of the major ports in Rajin, Chongjin, Wonsan or Hamhung. We currently have AWACS tracking the vessel and when it turns toward land we will have a much better idea of where it’s going to dock.”

“What time frame are we looking at?” Hail asked.

“Like I said,” Renner replied, “That depends on exactly where the Huan Yue is right now.”

Hail looked at Kara.

“I think it’s time to make a call,” Hail told Kara.

“I agree,” Kara said. “Where’s my phone?”

Hail ignored the question and asked her, “Do you know the number?”

“Sure,” Kara replied. “Where’s my phone and I will make the call?”

Hail took his own phone out of his pocket and handed it to Kara.

“It doesn’t matter if you have your phone. We are surrounded by iron and steel. My phone is routed via Voice over Internet Protocol to the cell phone transmitter on deck that links to the satellite. Just use it for now,” Hail requested.

It was apparent that Kara didn’t want to use Hail’s phone, but she couldn’t think of an excuse to avoid the request.

She took Hail’s phone from his hand and pressed some numbers and waited for her boss, Jarret Pepper, to answer.

“Put it on the speaker,” Hail told Renner.

Renner intercepted the VOIP signal and routed it to the conference room’s ceiling speakers.

Kara was surprised when she heard Pepper’s voice fill the room.

“This is Pepper,” the man said.

Kara composed herself and started the conversation with, “Jarret, this is Kara. For reasons I can’t go into right now, I am speaking on an unsecured phone that belongs to Marshall Hail. You should also know that we are coming over the speakers in the conference room right now, and Mr. Hail has his mission planning staff in attendance.”

There was a long pause as the Director of the CIA considered the information.

Then he said, “OK, where are we? What do you need? How are things going?”

Kara got right to the point.

“Everything here is shipshape. But we need to know the current position of the Huan Yue.”

“Give me a minute,” Pepper said and his phone was muted.

Less than thirty seconds later he came back on the line and said, “The Huan Yue is in the Sakhalin Gulf.” Pepper then read off a long string of latitude and longitude numbers and directions. Renner typed the position into the computer.

Pepper added, “It’s currently moving at twelve knots and should enter the Nevelskoy Strait in about six and a half hours, if it maintains its current speed.”

Renner started plotting red graphical dots on the map on the big screen.

Kara asked, “Do we have any further information on where the ship might dock?”

“I’ll have to check on the latest intercepts and see if they give us any new insights,” Pepper said.

To Hail, the man’s voice sounded upbeat and positive. This was a very different man than the one Hail had met in Washington.

Renner got Hail’s attention and made a cutting signal under his neck.

Hail whispered into Kara’s ear. We need to mute the phone for a moment.

Kara said, “Sure. Jarret, we will be back in just a second,” she told her boss and Hail watched her mute the phone. Kara lowered the phone to her waist and then she pressed the mute button a second time, quietly unmuting the phone.

“We need to get steaming,” Renner said to the group, but his suggestion was directed at Hail.

Renner pointed at the dots on the big screen above them. “If the trawler stays at twelve knots, it would be possible to pour on some steam we could be in theater by the time the Huan Yue docks.”

“That’s if it docks in the southern part of North Korea,” Kara informed everyone.

“It doesn’t matter,” Renner said. “We don’t need to be on top of the action, but if we are within five hundred miles, then we can become more tactical than we are right now.”

Renner looked back up at the computer display. The crew watched as he ran the mouse up from Indonesia to just below South Korea, while making mental calculations.

“I think we can be somewhere here in the East China Sea by show time. If the Hail Laser has any issues, then being close is a great back up plan.” Renner said.

“I’d rather run the operation from the Nucleus,” Hail stated. “Let’s do it.”

Since Kara was using Hail’s phone and still had Pepper on hold, Hail walked over to a phone that was bolted into the iron wall and removed the receiver.

“This is Hail. Let’s leave port immediately and precede toward the East China Sea at best speed.”

Hail waited for a response and said, “Very good,” and hung up the phone.

Hail told Kara, “Alright, we are ready to get Pepper back on the call.”

Kara pretended to press the mute key again.

“Hi Jarret, are you there?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m back,” Pepper played along.

“Does anyone have any more questions for the CIA?”

“Yeah, what type of fishing trawler is the Huan Yue?” Renner asked.

“Checking,” Pepper said.

Ten seconds later he reported, “The Huan Yue is a double-rig beam trawler used primarily in the flatfish and shrimp fisheries. It is a medium-sized high-powered vessel. It can tow gear at speeds up to 8 knots with 2000 horsepower. Do you want me to send a photo of the trawler to this phone?” Pepper asked.

Hail nodded at Kara.

Kara said, “Affirmative.”

She then asked Hail’s team, “Is there anything else you need?”

Hail told her, “Have Pepper call us on this number if he gets any more information.”

She repeated the request into the phone and waited for a response.

Hail watched the CIA woman closely. He could tell that she knew she was being watched. She looked uncomfortable. Hail knew that Pepper wanted to have a private conversation with her, but since they were both on the speaker, that was not possible.

“OK, Jarret. We’re signing off now,” Kara told her boss.

“Good luck,” Pepper said over the speakers and the phone went quiet.

Renner had been busy and when Hail looked up at the big screen, he could see why. Using a yellow line, Renner had plotted the projected course for the Huan Yue as well as periodic time stamps based on its speed. He had also plotted the course of the Hail Nucleus using a red line.”

Renner began to lay out the time lines.

“We are looking at the Huan Yue reaching the heart of the Strait of Tartary in about sixteen hours. Another sixteen hours after that it will enter the Sea of Japan. Then depending on where it makes land in North Korea, we are talking about a distance of 700 to 900 hundred miles or about 75 hours. That means that we need to be in place and operational in roughly three days before the Huan Yue docks somewhere.”

Hail nodded his head.

“For us,” Renner continued, “the Hail can make thirty-three knots and that will put us in the East China Sea in about twenty-four hours. Heck, that would leave us a lot of time if we wanted to position ourselves east of North Korea in the Sea of Japan.”

“Very good,” Hail commented. “We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Kara was still holding onto Hail’s phone. She heard a chirp and noticed that Pepper had sent a photo of the Huan Yue to Hail’s phone.”

“The photo of the fishing trawler was just sent,” she told the group.

“Great,” Hail said, taking the phone out of Kara’s hand. He rolled his chair over to a docking station on the table and set his phone into the slot.

“Go ahead and bring up the photo on screen two,” he told Renner.

Renner accessed Hail’s phone and opened the photo that Pepper had just sent.

On the monitor next to the screen that showed the map, a blue ship appeared.

“Not as big as I thought it would be,” Hail commented.

“Me neither,” Renner agreed.

The white over blue fishing vessel was a mass of jutting beams and pulleys and cables that seemed to surround the ship like a spider protecting its territory with a steel web.

Hail looked closer at the ship.

“Where the hell are they storing this missile section? It doesn’t look like there would be enough room. Are you sure it’s on there?” Hail asked Kara.

“I mean nothing is certain in this business,” Kara responded, “but I would say we are ninety-five percent confident that our intel is good.”

Renner said, “I’m looking over the design of the ship and it has a lot of storage for fish. You could probably fit the missile section in the main holding tank, although it would be a tight fit and I don’t know how they would get it in there.”

Hail said, “Well, if we want to just cut to the quick, our choices, the way I see them, are we drop some eyes on this fishing boat while it’s out at sea, or we would have to do it when it docks. I mean once this thing docks and unloads, there is no way we are going to track a truck with eyes from the sky and not expose ourselves.”

“I agree,” said Renner.

“What do you think, Mercier?” Hail asked.

“I agree that we can’t track the truck from the dock to its final destination from the air. Even with stealth, spending that much time over a major city is asking for problems. I also think there are too many eyes at the dock, even if it’s night time. My vote would be to get eyes on the boat while it’s still out at sea.”

Hail looked at Renner.

“That’s what I would recommend as well,” Renner agreed.

“That makes sense,” Hail said.

Kara said, “I don’t understand a damn thing you’re talking about.”

Hail looked at her with an indulgent expression.

“Well, you will in next few minutes,” He assured her.

Hail asked Renner, “So what are the challenges with a sea interdiction.”

“Same as usual,” Renner said. “Darkness, precipitation, wind velocity, communications and of course besides all that, the drones have to function perfectly.”

This was the first time that Kara had heard the word drone mentioned and she perked up at the sound.

Hail pointed at the photo of the boat. “Can you zoom in closer on the top of the bridge?”

Renner zoomed in closer, centering the top of the ship’s wheelhouse in the frame.

“Can we get any closer?” Hail requested. “I want to see what all those lights on top look like.”

Renner messed around with the zoom and focus until he obtained the best look.

“Check out these amber lights on the top of the bridge. Do we think we could mimic this look on our micro-sized drone?” Hail asked.

Eric Rugmon spoke up.

Kara recalled that Rugmon stated that he managed the production and customization of mission devices and control systems.

“That’s not going to be too difficult,” Rugmon said. “It’s basically throwing an amber ring around the drone.”

“No, it’s going to be more than that,” Hail said. “We have to drop this thing from a mother drone and have it land on the ship,” he said pointing at the top of the ship. “I don’t know about you guys, but it doesn’t look like anyone would venture up on top of the wheelhouse unless there was an emergency, so I don’t think the drone will be noticed up on top.”

No one said anything, which to Hail meant that they agreed with him.

“So I think we need to attach a wings package to the micro drone,” Hail suggested.

“OK,” Rugmon said in an indifferent tone. “We have a few wing packages that will work with the mods you want on the micro drone.”

“So what amount of time are we looking at? When will you have the entire drop package ready to go?” Renner asked Rugmon.

The man in the lab coat thought about it before he answered. He looked up at the ceiling. Hail thought that was funny. Kara thought it was weird.

He finally looked back down and said, “Eighteen hours.”

“I will give you twenty-four hours, so don’t work your crew to death,” Hail told him.

Rugmon simply nodded his head. His face remained slack and impassive.

Kara thought someone should check to see if Rugmon was still breathing.

“No frills on the micro drone,” Hail told Rugmon. “Just a camera and a magnet and a pico drone. We need this thing as light as possible. Put as much battery as you can fit on it, because we won’t know how far it has to fly until it’s party time.”

Rugmon nodded again.

“When the Huan Yue gets to the dock, what are your thoughts?” Renner asked Hail.

“I’m expecting that a big truck with lots of lights on its roof is going pick up the part. So we need to fly the drone from the ship to the top of the truck and not be seen.”

Mercier commented. “Statistically, there is a lot that can go wrong with this plan. Statistically, there is a lot more that can go wrong with the plan, than can go right,” he corrected himself.

Hail said, “If I remember correctly, you said the exact same thing about the plan to kill Chang.”

“The statistics are even worse with this plan. We don’t know what the weather is going to be like, but we do know that the Huan Yue is moving at twelve knots. So we are looking at a minimum of a thirteen mile per hour winds while trying to set the drone down on top of the Huan Yue.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” Hail said. “That’s why our pilots train endlessly on this stuff. They’ve landed micro drones in heavier winds than that using the wing package.”

Mercier was still not convinced, but he knew that once Hail had made up his mind then it was a done deal.

“What do you think, Renner?” Hail asked.

“It is not outside of our operational limitations.”

Kara laughed and then said, “I’m sorry.”

Hail looked at her and said, “No please. What are your thoughts?”

Kara laughed again and said, “I think you guys are out of your fucking minds, if I can be so bold. Let me break down what I understand you want to do. OK, you want to drop a toy light tied to wings down to a ship doing twelve knots in the middle of the ocean at night. Doesn’t that sound like science fiction to you?”

“We do science here,” Renner said. “Not science fiction.”

“It still seems like a lot of rich kids playing with expensive children’s toys,” Kara stated, knowing the seriousness of the mission and not ashamed to state her feelings.

“Well, yes, it is pretty much exactly how you stated it,” Hail said. “But as Renner said, our aircraft might be smaller, but they essentially work exactly the way larger military versions work. You can fly anything as long as it’s aerodynamic and has control surfaces that can affectively be manipulated.”

Kara shook her head as if she had failed to make her point. She looked frustrated.

“You look upset,” Hail told her. “Do you have any other questions you would like to ask?”

“Sure,” Kara said without hesitation. “How do you plan to drop this tiny drone onto a ship in the middle of the night?”

“A mother drone,” Hail said confidently.

“Of course,” Kara cried out sarcastically. “What else would you use to drop a micro drone other than a mother drone?”

“We could have used a mini drone to release the micro drone,” Rugmon piped up. “But the mini drone doesn’t have enough flight time and it would be lost to the sea. I hate losing my drones.”

Kara looked at that man as if he had the word dumb ass tattooed on his forehead.

She looked at the group and shook her head in total disappointment.

“I don’t have anything else to ask,” she said harshly.

“OK, then,” Hail said, appearing not to have a care in the world. “Let’s proceed.”

“So if the Nucleus is in theater, then we can launch Queen from the Nucleus,” Hail stated.

He waited to see if there were any objections.

“We should have at least two, maybe even three backup micro drones in case we have problems. I think Kara has me spooked,” said Renner.

Hail asked Rugmon.

“Is that possible?”

The sedate man answered, “Making the first one is hard. Making copies is easy.”

“I take that as a yes, then,” Hail responded.

“Then what is the role of the Hail Laser?” asked Mercier.

Hail thought for a moment.

“I don’t think we need it. I didn’t realize we had as much time as I believe we have.”

Renner said, “It’s still a good idea to move the Laser closer in and get it on station.”

“Agreed,” Hail replied.

Hail looked around the room. He noticed Terry Garber looking bored. She hadn’t said anything or been asked anything the entire meeting.

“I’m sorry Terry,’ Hail said. “I promise you will get your hands wet during our next meeting. That’s when things are going to need to go boom.”

The woman shrugged and checked her watch.

Hail thought that was funny thing to do. Terry Garber might be the only person he knew that still wore a watch.

“Alright, then we will call this meeting adjourned until we can get more intelligence updates. Also, Renner, please update your pilots and let’s create a simulator exercise that will recreate what we discussed and get them all into the booth. I want our pilots to be able to land a toy light on a fishing trawler in a hurricane by the time we are ready to go.”

“Will do,” Renner said.

Hail looked at the CIA woman. She had been on an emotional rollercoaster since the beginning of the meeting. Initially, her attitude had been gracious and helpful. As the meeting progressed and she discovered what they did and how they did it, her mood turned skeptical and suspicious. Then as the specifics of the mission had played out, her mood took another sharp turn to that of confrontational and combative. And now, as Hail looked at Kara Ramey, she simply looked tired.

As everyone in the room got to their feet and started heading towards the door, Hail asked her, “How are you feeling?”

Kara looked up and him and sniffed once defiantly.

“Either all of you are geniuses or I am in a frickin nut house. That’s how I’m feeling.”

Hail smiled and nodded understandingly.

“I can see why you think that. It’s certainly a lot to absorb.”

He let some dead air stand between the two for a moment to see what Kara would say. When she said nothing, Hail suggested, “Why don’t we go find you some clothes and then I’ll show you to your stateroom. You can get some rest and then I’ll show you around the ship.”

Kara said nothing, but she appeared to be softening a little.

“Does that sound good?” Hail asked as if he was speaking to a spoiled child.

“OK,” Kara said, getting up slowly from her chair.

Hail stood and walked over to the heavy metal door that was still standing open. He gestured for Kara step through. Kara gestured back for Hail to step through first. Hail thought that actually made sense because she didn’t know where she was going, so Hail stepped through, turned right and began walking toward the nearest stairs. The door automatically closed behind them with a clang.

Kara noticed that they were going lower into the ship. The big bold numbers that were painted at the head of each staircase were going down. When they got to the number 9, Hail turned left and walked down a metal hallway that looked like all the other metal hallways on the ship. The hallway terminated at yet another metal door.

Hail opened the door part way, then turned to Kara and said, “I think you’ll like this.”

He motioned for her to step through.

Once on the other side, the first thing that Kara noticed was color. Before she had walked through that door, she had felt as if she had been walking through the bland Sahara Desert with its endless white sand covering white hills. Everything on the inside of the ship was white.

But as she stepped through the bulkhead doorway, she had entered a new dimension in color.

“You have got to be kidding me?” she beamed.

Kara had just entered the Hail Nucleus’s shopping mall.

Each time that Hail had the opportunity to show off the ship’s shopping mall, he felt a little like Willy Wonka showing off his chocolate factory. He had spent a great deal of money on this luxury. During the ships construction, this large two story space had been created by eliminating a large section of deck eight. In its place, a second level of stores and a balcony looked down on the stores on the bottom floor of deck nine.

Kara walked into the middle of the mall and the first thing she noticed was the creamy marble tiled floor. Up to that point, all the floors she had seen on the Hail had been dull metal. She kept walking toward the center of the mall. Every twenty yards, she passed a large planter that had an assortment of palm trees and bright colorful bushes and flowers. She noticed that none of the vegetation was real, but they served their purpose, the palms stretching toward the open second floor ceiling as if they were yearning for sunlight. Once Kara reached what she thought was the center of the space, she began to turn in a slow circle and inventory the mall. She was standing in the middle of a massive oblong mall. At least she considered it massive since it was located in the middle of a cargo ship.

There were shops on the bottom floor and shops on the top floor.

“This is truly unbelievable,” she said, still smiling.

Hail smiled back. “I thought you would like it.”

The first store Kara saw was a Banana Republic. The store looked high class with large plate glass windows supported by thick black aluminum beams. Displayed in the windows were headless manikins wearing the latest colorful fashions. Through the windows, she could see inside the store and it appeared to be fully stocked.

To the right of the Banana Republic was a store called Denim & Soul. All of the manikins in the front window of this store were wearing denim pants and shirts and jackets, hence the name Denim & Soul Kara surmised. To the right of that store was a Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream store and continuing around the room Kara identified a 7 to 11, a Bebe fashion store, a high-end Coach New York store, a Sunglass Hut and that was just on one side of the mall on the bottom floor. Kara kept turning and reading the names of all the establishments.

Now she was really smiling.

“Who in their right mind would do something like this?” she asked Hail.

“I would change that question to who in their right mind wouldn’t do something like this, if they had the money.” Hail responded.

“There’s nobody here,” Kara noticed.

“Everyone is in school or teaching school or training for the new mission. Morning is not a popular time at the mall. But this place really gets jumping after school is out.”

“But why?” Kara asked. “Why go to all this trouble and expense?”

“I thought that we already went over this while we were in the restaurant,” Hail said.

“But this?” Kara said, swinging her arm around in a wide swipe. “Don’t you think this is over the top?”

“Not at all,” Hail told her. “In most cases, we make port at some of the poorest countries in the world. For safety reasons, I would prefer my crew to stay onboard. Many of these countries have internal strife, civil wars, power grabs and their people are suffering. We are not talking an overnight stay in the Cayman Islands. It’s more like coming to shore at the little island in Apocalypse Now. Most of the time, if we leave the ship for any reason we are forced to travel with an armed contingent and we are backed up by my drones that keep an eye on us. But even in the less turbulent countries, I wouldn’t allow my kids off the ship. Kidnappings, hostages, all that nasty stuff is present even in areas that you think are safe. So that’s why I created a good-ol’ American mall, where all the crew can go and have fun and be safe.”

Kara was speechless.

Hail added, “Hey, I get everything at wholesale, so it’s not as bad as you think.”

“Does your crew buy stuff? Do they have money? Who works at these stores? Who stocks them? Who…” and Kara went silent, realizing that she was rambling.

“Wow, that was a lot of questions,” Hail said. “Let’s see. Yes, my crew is paid in Hail dollars each week so the kids learn the meaning of money. If not and all of this was free, then they would simply fill their rooms with piles of stuff that they don’t need. So the answer to your first question is yes, they buy stuff, but if it starts getting out of hand then we cut them off. As for your question about who stocks the stores and works the registers, all the kids are required to work in the stores a certain number of hours per week. We think it teaches them responsibility and even though we live inside the ship in a fantasy world, I want them to understand how the real world works outside these metal walls.”

Hail waited for Kara to ask more questions. When she didn’t, he asked her, “Do you have any more questions?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “Who is working here right now so I can buy some stuff. I don’t think my body sock defines my style.”

“I’ll tell you what. Since you don’t have any Hail dollars, why don’t you just walk around a little and steal some stuff. I promise I won’t send the Hail mall cops after you.”

Kara looked pleased.

“That will work,” she said. “And what are you going to do during those ten hours.”

Hail laughed. “I have business things I need to take care of, so how about I meet you back here in an hour or so and help you carry your bags to your room.”

“Two hours,” Kara said. Then she noticed something on the second floor. “A movie theater too?” she asked, pointing up at the marquee on the second floor.”

“Didn’t I tell you we had a movie theater?”

Kara thought for a moment and said, “I think you did. I just didn’t believe you.”

“Alrighty, then.” Hail replied. “Have fun and I will see you shortly.”

Hail left the mall, stepped back into the hallway, withdrew his phone and called Renner.

Renner answered on the first ring.

“Can you meet me in Security? I’m headed there now,” Hail asked.

“No problem,” Renner replied.

Hail clicked off, put his phone back in his pocket and set a course for the ship’s security center.

Four decks and three minutes later, Hail walked into the room and Renner was already there waiting for him.

Kara’s purse, her clothes, her phone charger and cable, her iPhone and her compact and some makeup was sitting on a table.

“So let’s run this down again, including the meeting,” Hail told Renner.

Renner said, “Like I told you before, the compact, phone and phone charger are all communications devices and have been modified. Her clothes and the purse are clean.”

“So how did she do at the meeting?” Hail asked.

“From our perspective she failed. I’m sure from her bosses’ perspective, she succeeded.”

Renner directed Hail’s attention toward a computer monitor. On the screen were two audio sign waves. The line on each of the channels danced up and down erratically, indicating an audio signal was present.

“When you asked her to mute the phone, she did, but for only four seconds. She then unmuted the phone. That’s what we see here on the second channel, which is the bidirectional send.” Renner pointed at a jagged line on the screen. “If she had muted the phone, then we would see nothing on this channel. It would look like a heart patient that had died. Flat line.”

Hail seemed upset.

Renner asked him, “Come on. The woman is CIA. She has no allegiance to us. Did you really expect her to pass that test and keep the phone muted?”

Hail sighed and said, “I hoped she would have. I wanted to start this partnership out with a basis of trust. Now, out of the five items she carried on board, three of them are CIA spy devices. I would have expected more trust, but then you know me. Mr. Gullible.”

“Yeah, being a good guy sucks, ” Renner joked, but there was a measure of sincerity in his words.

Both men were silent as Hail decided what he wanted to do.

“Do we have a method of recording all the data that leaves her phone?”

“Sure,” Renner said without hesitation. “Just like your phone, we have to install a TCP/IP stack and proxy that routes her calls over our ship’s VOIP network. That signal can then be routed to our cell phone transmitter/receiver on deck. As you correctly told the CIA woman, since we are in an iron tub, that’s the only way to communicate if you are making a call to the mainland from inside the ship. However, even if she were on deck, her phone is set up to connect to a CIA satellite, but we will intercept her call and then connect her to the world via our satellite. We have her phone number and her MAC ID and she is riding our network, so we simply rip the data stream as it goes by and store it on our servers.”

Renner finished and waited for Hail to respond.

“What about the ping that is being emitted from her phone and giving away our position?” Hail asked. “Is there any way to kill that?”

Renner nodded and said, “Sure. On land her voice traffic and Internet would go through cell towers. The CIA would know generally where she was by identifying the position of the cell tower. But out here in the middle of the ocean, all of her Internet traffic goes through our Wi-Fi, our switches, our routers and our firewall. The blip is a common stream of data. So all we have to do is packet sniff that stream and cut it out before it hits our Internet uplink.”

“It’s as easy as that?” Hail asked, being an expert in nuclear physics but a not so smart in the area of advanced networks.

“The hard part is the initial set up; identifying the stream that is sending out the blip and writing the routine to extract it. But after that’s set up, the script just runs by itself.”

“How long will it take to set up?” Hail asked.

“It’s already done,” Renner replied. “If not, I wouldn’t have her phone sitting here sending out blips to the world and giving away our position. It would be back in the safe.”

Hail grunted his approval.

Renner asked, “So what are you thinking?”

“I think that we need to play the CIA game,” Hail told his friend.

Hail started putting all the contents back into Kara’s purse.

“You’re going to give it all back to her. Aren’t you?” Renner asked.

“I can’t think of a better way of knowing what our good friends at the CIA are up to. Can you? We record every call that is made and then give it a listen. We’ll hear Kara’s side of the call and the bonus is we will hear what Pepper has to say. It’s best we know what they’re planning before it becomes a problem.”

Renner thought for a moment. “Don’t you think that she can pass on some information about us that can hurt us in some way?”

Hail looked conflicted.

“If you run down all the intelligence that she could pass on to her agency, then it would break down in three different categories. First, the CIA would want to know about our ship. So far, Ramey has only seen a restaurant, the conference room and the Mall. She will see more, but we don’t have anything on board that the military doesn’t already have. Well, except for our drones.”

“What about our railgun?” Renner reminded Hail.

Hail skipped over that issue and continued.

“I think it’s very important that she’s not permitted access to our designs or given access to our lab or our production and modification areas. But all of those areas are already badge access only. So one of us would have to take her into those areas, and that’s not going to happen.”

“Makes sense,” Renner said.

“Second, I’m not comfortable with her knowing our numbers. The CIA doesn’t need to know our crew’s headcount, especially the combined numbers on all of our ships. I also don’t want her people to know how many ships we have or how many Hellfire drones protect our ships and such. I would also exclude the number of manufacturing plants we have on dry land, as well as the numbers of countries we consider our clients.”

“Sounds prudent,” Renner agreed.

“And third, I don’t want the CIA to know about any of our long term plans. The CIA has their own agenda. And as we can already tell by this new operation that was thrown at us, they would like nothing more than to make us their bitch. I don’t want to become part of their agenda. As always, we want to remain as self-sufficient as possible.”

“Then why is she here?” Renner asked, but he already knew the answer. He was just calling Hail out on it.

“You don’t get something for nothing, my father always told me,” Hail replied. “Most of the time my father was an asshole, but much of the time that asshole was right about the basics. I’m sure that every time we want something from the CIA, we will get a bill. And we can’t pay that bill in money. They don’t want our money. They want an action of some type. And as long as it doesn’t take up too much of our time or our assets, then that’s the price we’ll pay if we want to keep getting intelligence from them.”