Operation Hail Storm

Sea of Japan ― on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus

Hail knocked on the door of Kara Ramey’s stateroom around dinner time. He had been purposely avoiding the CIA operative the last few days for a number of reasons. First of all, she was CIA and she had an agenda. He knew it. She knew it. But Hail wondered if she knew that he knew it. Secondly, Hail liked her. Sure, he liked her at the same base level that all men liked her. What was not to like? But there was also vulnerability in the woman that attracted him. And for some strange reason, Hail had always been drawn to people who were damaged or in need.

As a young man, Hail had become a lifeguard at the local recreation centers in the many cities and countries where he had lived. The idea of saving people had appealed to him even at a young age. He was also the boy who would pick up the bird that had smacked into the clear plate glass window and try to nurse it back to health. Hail had married his first wife after he had broken up with her and she had then tried to commit suicide. It seemed as if Hail was always trying to save the unsaveable. He was the champion for those who cared very little for their own lives. And Hail sensed that even though Kara Ramey was not in the classification of the unsaveable, she had certainly been traumatized and needed saving, whether she knew it or not. He fully recognized that his attraction to save Ramey was strong. And that scared him a little.

Kara answered the door and Hail was once again stunned by her beauty. She was clean and fresh and young and shapely and flawless on the outside.

Kara let loose a ten-thousand-watt smile and Hail felt compelled to smile back at her. She was wearing black yoga pants and a tight red short-sleeve shirt that had a modest V-neck.

“I know that you like me wearing tight stuff,” she said.

Hail didn’t know how to respond. Was that a joke or was she serious?

Kara added, “You know, so you can tell I’m not carrying any hidden CIA cameras or microphones and such.”

She cocked her head to the right and smiled at Hail.

He still didn’t know if she was joking and that made him uncomfortable. Then he suddenly realized that she was trying to make him uncomfortable. Well, two could play that game.

Hail said, “In your line of work, I’m sure you are accustomed to wearing very little.”

Kara must have expected a different response. Her smile quickly faded and her right eye twitched.

There was a second of edgy silence between the two.

“Where are we going?” Kara asked, choosing to totally ignore the previous exchange. She was smiling again, but there was little sincerity behind it.

By habit, Kara started to look for her purse and then realized that she didn’t have a purse.

Hail realized what she was doing and said, “Oh, almost forgot. Here are your things. I’m sorry it took so long to get them back to you.”

Hail handed Kara a clear plastic bag that held her clothes and her purse.

Kara looked surprised and took the bag from Hail. She opened the bag and pulled out her purse and dropped the bag with clothes on the floor inside her door. She unsnapped her purse and looked inside.

Hail could tell she was running an inventory in her head.

Kara confirmed that her compact, her phone, her phone charger and other smaller objects were all accounted for.

“Thanks,” she said, snapping the purse closed. “Are there any rules as to the use of my cell phone onboard?”

“Would it do any good?” Hail asked.

Kara didn’t know how to respond, so she didn’t.

With a graceful wave of his arm, Hail motioned for Kara to step out into the hall. She did and Hail pointed to the right. Kara began walking in that direction. Hail closed her door and caught up with her.

“I was wondering what had happened to you?” Kara said. “I haven’t seen you since our lunch date.”

Hail was caught off guard by the use of the word date.

“That wasn’t a date,” he said, and then wished he could take it back.

Kara laughed and asked, “Well is this a date?” Then without waiting for a response she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

Hail looked uneasy and asked, “Where do you want to eat?”

“It is a date, then,” Kara goaded him. “Let’s see. How about Asian tonight? During the last few days I think I’ve eaten everywhere except for the Asian restaurant.”

Hail was already feeling manipulated and they hadn’t even made it to the end of the hallway. Dealing with this woman was going to be tricky.

They reached the first staircase and Kara asked, “With all the money you put into this ship, I would have thought you would have installed elevators.”

“Oh, we have elevators, but climbing stairs is the only exercise I get these days,” Hail told her.

“Well, we need to get you into that fancy gym I’ve been using. How about later tonight we do a little workout together?”

She said the word workout almost sexually and Hail couldn’t help but connect the dots in his mind.

“We have some other business we need to take care of first. We’ll see how our time plays out,” Hail said, reaching the top of the stairs, pulling the door and holding it open for Kara.

Kara fluttered through the opening and said, “Thank you.”

They both took a break on conversing and continued to walk through the circular hallway that connected all the restaurants.

The door to the Asian restaurant had black block lettering painted on the white steel door that read ASIAN. The unostentatious outside of the door was the opposite of the inside of the door.

Once Kara had entered the restaurant, she actually turned around and looked at the other side of the door. No metal, no block lettering, no strange bulkhead shape; but what she did see was dark teak wood that hand been handcrafted. Dozens of animals had been carved into the surface of the expensive wood and then the entire door had been covered with a thick clear layer of varnish. The walls of the restaurant were paneled with dark wood. Modern looking box lanterns hanging from the ceiling led deeper into the room. The chairs at all the tables were dark, but the table tops themselves were made of a lighter colored wood. The brighter surface reflected light from the lanterns and made each seating arrangement pop. There were no table cloths on the maple wood tables, just pairs of chop sticks folded into white napkins. Other than that, the only items on each of the tables were a single yellow sunflower lying next to a thin Chinese vase.

Hail pulled out Kara’s chair and she sat down, setting her purse on the unused chair tucked under the table to her right.

Hail seated himself opposite Kara. He reached over and picked up the sunflower and placed it into the neck of the vase.

Hail watched Kara as she scrutinized the place. There were only two other tables that were occupied. One table had a young man and woman sitting at it that she hadn’t seen before. The other table had two young men she thought were pilots. The 3D windows in this establishment were showing a night scene. Four eighty-two-inch 3D windows displayed a crisp image of the street outside. Other than people with Asian features, the pedestrians looked just like any other group of people walking by a restaurant on a chilly evening. They wore modern clothing, mostly jackets and thick hoodies. Most of the people outside were younger and instead of cars, everyone seemed to be driving scooters. There were brightly lit signs, some neon, some colorful backlit plastic advertisements in all shapes and sizes, but all of the writing was in Chinese. Kara could read and understand most of them.

“Do you know where this video was taken?” Kara asked, pointing at the fake windows.

“Sorry, I really don’t,” Hail said, checking his phone for any updates.

Hail looked up and Kara who gave him a confused expression so Hail expanded on his response.

“This really wasn’t my gig putting all this together. My friend that you met, Gage Renner, he contracted all the design elements, as well as the construction of the restaurants out to vendors who built the rooms. Part of that design was the electronics, the screens that look like outside windows, as well as the video that would be shot and played on the screens.”

Kara didn’t say anything. She waited to see if Hail had more to tell her.

“I cut the check,” Hail said, “and that was my major contribution to the restaurant buildout.”

Hail flashed a smile and then let it go.

“Who is Gage to you?” Kara asked. “Where did you meet him?”

“Have you spent some time with Gage?” Hail asked.

“Yes. I ran into him at the gym and he was nice enough to show me around a little.”

“What did you see?” Hail asked.

“Gage showed me the school department of the ship, the classrooms and such. You have quite a large gaggle of teenagers in training. Don’t you?”

“Living every day is training you for something,” Hail replied noncommittally.

Kara said, “Then Gage showed me your flight simulator area.”

Her smile conveyed a sense that she had been shown an area that was off-limits.

“Did you have fun there?” Hail asked, returning a smile that conveyed that she would only be shown what they wanted her to see.

“I crashed a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor straight into the ground twice and once into a mountain.”

They both laughed.

Hail said jokingly, “You will not be our pilot the next time we fly.”

“You are right about that,” Kara said with a laugh.

A waiter appeared at their table. To Kara, he looked as if he were just old enough to serve and drink alcohol. He had black hair and was tall and skinny and had a few zits on his face. The first thing the young man did was reach over and remove the flower from the vase. He set it on the table.

“Here are your menus,” the man said, handing a folded leather list to each of them. “Might I suggest a Banshu Ikkon Kaede no Shizuku sake for you tonight?”

Hail had a blank expression on his face.

Kara answered, “No, that’s a little dry. I would prefer Garyubia sake if you have it?”

“Yes, we do. I’ll be right back with that.” The waiter left and Hail looked admiringly at Kara.

“Very impressive,” he said.

Kara shrugged it off and said, “I’ve been in a lot of countries and spent more time in bars than I care to remember.”

Hail asked, “Is that part of your job?”

Kara looked more serious and asked, “Which part do you mean? Knowing everything there is to know about sake or sitting in bars a lot?”

“Both,” Hail asked.

“They both go along with one another,” Kara stated. “It’s like knowing everything there is to know about race cars because you spent a lot of time at the track.”

Hail nodded and there was a lull in the conversation.

Kara looked around a little more before saying, “So, we were talking about Gage,” she offered. “He seems like a nice guy. What is Gage to you and how did he get stuck on this boat.”

“Ship,” Hail corrected.

“How did Gage get stuck on this ship?” Kara complied.

“He was my roommate at MIT. We were on the same degree path and shared similar interests in nuclear power. After school, we kind of lost touch with one another. He was pursuing a failed marriage while I was doing the same.”

Hail stopped telling his story for a moment and asked Kara, “Have you been married?”

Then as an afterthought he added, “Or are you married?”

Kara smiled like she owned the world and said, “Are you kidding. Give all this just to one man?” She laughed at her own joke, but Hail sensed that Kara had some issues with intimacy. If so, then they were similar in that respect.

Kara continued, “No, marriage is not for me. At least not right now. I mean fifty percent of all marriages end in divorce.”

“Right here,” Hail said, raising his hand. “Done that and bought the tee-shirt.”

“Right,” Kara said. “So you know what I mean?”

“True, but then every once in a while you get lucky and the odds turn in your favor.”

Hail’s expression oscillated from happy to sad so quickly that Kara thought he may have experienced a sudden physical pain of some type.

Hail looked away from Kara and down at the table.

Kara asked softly, “You are talking about your wife Madalyn, aren’t you?”

Hail didn’t look up. He just nodded his head.

Kara continued, “I’ve never been married, therefore I can only imagine what you have been through, losing your wife and both of your daughters.”

Hail looked up at her.

Kara thought that his face had changed dramatically in just those few seconds. The sorrowful lines in Hail’s face had become deeper, making him look callous and uncaring. His former kind-hearted eyes looked somewhat scary, dark and bottomless, as if he had transformed into an irreverent purveyor of death.

“Do you know what today is?” Hail asked in a voice almost as scary as his look.

Kara looked at him straight on and with great composure she said, “Yes I do. You know I read your file and they expect me to remember things like that.”

“Then you know?”

Kara decided it was best to get it out on the table.

“Your family was killed on this day two years ago.”

Hail looked at her as if she were the enemy for just saying it.

Then he looked back down at his plate.

The waiter arrived with a tray that had a bottle of sake and two empty glasses. He also had two glasses of ice water. He set everything on the table and asked, “So what will it be for you tonight?”

The waiter’s indifference to the situation snapped Hail out of his self-pity. Hail motioned for Kara to order first.

Kara, who hadn’t even opened her menu said, “I will have the avocado roll and the salmon sashimi.”

The waiter jotted it down with a stylus on his tablet.

“And for you, Sir,” he asked Hail.

Hail said solemnly, “I will have the usual.”

“Very good,” the young man said and darted off.

Hail looked back down at his plate.

“Hey,” Kara said. “Look up here.”

Reluctantly, Hail looked up at the CIA woman.

Kara was smiling in an attempt to pull Hail out of his funk.

“What’s is your usual?”

“Chicken lo mein.”

Kara laughed. “All of this great food and you order chicken lo mein? Marshall, you need to get out more and live a little.”

Hail flattened his lips and gave a little it is what it is expression.

Hail took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if he were expelling poison gas from his fatigued lungs.

Kara redirected the conversation by saying, “So you met Gage at MIT and then both of you went through bad marriages and then how did you two get back together?”

Hail seemed more comfortable talking about his subject.

He brightened a little and said, “The idea for the traveling wave reactor was first proposed in the 1950s. The theory has been studied all the way up to the first 600 megawatt prototype that was built by TerraPower in 2020. But there were big problems with their design, as there are with most prototypes. Both Gage and I were newly divorced and very bored teaching at MIT. We were looking for something to sink our teeth into, something of importance. We became aware of the challenges that TerraPower was having with their new reactor and that technology intrigued us. So Gage and I put our heads together and came up with a new reactor design, as well as a more sophisticated way to bundle the fuel. That collaboration and our new designs resulted in one of the first commercial traveling wave reactors.”

Kara poured a glass of sake for each of them and asked, “How did you get the startup money?”

Hail let out a single laugh and said, “That was the funny part of it. Bill Gates was a huge proponent of the traveling wave reactor and even sat on the board of TerraPower and funded its operations. Gage and I met with Gates and showed him our new designs. He had some people he trusted look over our designs and within a few months Gates backed our startup and we were in business.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Kara said.

“Yeah. The cool thing about Gates was that he just wanted the technology to move forward. He didn’t care who did it or who got credit for it. He just wanted the new technology to be successful. Gates understood that energy was the key to making a better world. A longer lasting world. He understood that free energy could help millions and millions of people who were living horrible lives.”

Kara held up her glass.

“Cheers to that,” she said.

Hail picked up his own glass and toasted her offer with a little clink.

They drank and drifted off into their own thoughts.

Kara went back to looking out the fake windows and Hail became lost in the memory of his family.

A few minutes ticked by and Hail resurfaced. It was time to get down to business.

“Well, enough about my life history,” he said, “There are some things we need to discuss. Some business related items.”

Kara looked surprised at the sudden change of topics.

Hail continued.

“I would like to know more about the man called Kornev that you mentioned in Washington. I would like to kill him.”

Kara smiled at Hail’s brashness.

“Just like that, huh? Just kill him?” Kara asked.

“No. I would actually like to know more about him and then kill him. I first want to make sure he is the right guy. You indicated he was the man who sold the surface to air missiles to The Five terrorists.”

Kara set her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands and stated, “The CIA has pretty strict rules about their agents telling non-CIA private citizens about classified information. I’m sure you understand.”

Hail knew there would be some form of bartering that would take place if he wanted the information, but his first tactic was to go dark on Kara Ramey and see how she reacted.

“How about we place you in a lonely room at the bottom of the ship until you tell me what I want to know?” Hail said, doing his best to sound menacing.

Kara laughed, slapping both of her hands on the table so hard that the people at the other tables tuned to look at them.

“You are funnier than shit,” she said, all smiles and giggles. “You are the biggest teddy bear I have ever met. And trying that sinister man behind the curtain shit, man, that is a riot!” She continued to laugh.

Hail felt foolish and went with what he initially intended to go with.

“After dinner tonight, we are going to complete a very important step of the operation. Right now, as we speak, the first step is taking place. It’s your choice. Do you want to tell me about Kornev or do you want to spend all of this critical time in your comfortable stateroom instead of our mission center where the action is taking place?”

Kara stopped laughing.

“Now you have my attention,” she told Hail. “Can I take photos with my phone of your mission center?”

“No,” Hail said, “but you will probably try anyway.”

“Probably,” Kara agreed. “I will take that deal. So what do you want to know about Kornev?” Kara asked.

Hail thought for a moment.

“What was your part of the mission concerning Kornev?”

“What do you mean by my part of the mission?”

Hail thought that Kara sounded more confrontational than cooperative. He took a moment to sip some sake and collect his thoughts. He wanted to know how she collected information so he could determine if the intelligence she collected was worth considering. After all, if she watched Kornev at a distance from a hill overlooking his hotel, then how important could that information be. However, if she was intimate (to choose a word) with Kornev and his operations, then maybe her information was worthwhile.

Hail said, “I mean, when they send you in to collect information, how do you do it? Is it like electronic eavesdropping, video surveillance, what?”

Kara gave Hail a look that questioned his sincerity.

“Look at me for a second, Marshall,” she said.

Kara stood up from the table and did a slow turn as if she were an expensive porcelain doll revolving on a turntable.

With Hail watching her while still standing and still turning, she asked, “Do I look like someone they would send in to do video surveillance?”

“I don’t know,” Hail responded sheepishly.

Kara sat back down and placed her cloth napkin back in her lap. She took another sip of sake and said, “I’m the CIA’s version of a courtesan, Mr. Hail. I am the pretty thing they send in to get close to horny assholes. And then while I’m close, I steal their secrets.”

Kara stopped talking and stared at Hail with steely unblinking green eyes.

Hail wanted to look away, but he felt that shifting his eyes away from hers would be an insult of some type. So he didn’t. He looked at Kara Ramey, looked at her beautiful face and said, “And how did you get into that line of work?”

Kara took in the question and burst out laughing.

Hail started laughing, happy that his levity could break up the awkwardness of the moment.

But as Hail laughed, he realized something very important about this woman. Part of her job was to continually keep him off balance. Hail would try to center himself in a certain frame of mind so he could get a psychological advantage, and then, wham, she would completely blow him out of the water with a comment or a statement. When he had first knocked on her door, it was her comment about him liking her in tight fitting clothes. Then there was her mention of this being a date. And then there was something lurking in her interaction with his friend Gage. And then she had brought up his family’s death. And now, now that he was trying to figure out what she did and how she did it, again she flattened him with this new salacious proclamation.

After the laugher had subsided, Kara asked, “You know Marshall, what does it really matter to you? I can tell you for sure that Kornev is a bad guy. We’ve been watching him closely for a year or more and he sells nasty weapons to nasty people. I mean you’re content with plucking people off the FBIs top ten list. So what’s the fascination with this one guy?”

Hail said, “I could ask you the same thing. You have a list of all these bad guys, yet you’re concentrating your efforts on this one guy. He has to be important. He has to be important enough for you to risk your life.”

Kara didn’t respond. She pretended to look for the waiter.

“Put the flower in the vase,” Hail told her.

“That’s OK,” she said, dismissing his suggestion.

Hail asked, “Why do you do it? How did you end up working with the CIA? You must have a lot of skin in the game, so to speak, if your roll with the CIA is truly what you just told me.”

“That’s not important,” Kara said. “And anyway, I’m not allowed to tell you anything about myself. As far as you are concerned, I’m a CIA robot. I don’t have a personal life. I’m owned by my country.”

“God,” Hail said. “You got majorly damaged somehow. You’re almost as fucked up as I am.”

Kara looked at Hail as if he had slapped her in the face. She flashed him an expression of pure distain.

“When did you become a psychiatrist, Mr. Hail? Did you get a degree in psychoanalysis at MIT along with your physics degree? Did you get another Nobel Prize in damaged people assessment?”

Score one for the Hail team, Hail thought. He had finally gotten to her. He had knocked her off her game and rattled her. Now was as good a time as any to see what made her tick.

“Forget Kornev,” Hail said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll make you a different offer.”

Kara still looked angry.

Hail said, “If you tell me how you got the way you are, you know, the fucked up thing I was talking about, then I will let you into the mission center tonight.”

“Go to hell,” was Kara’s response.

“I already lived there for two years and I’m not going back.”

Kara didn’t say anything. She gave Hail a striking look of insolence.

“OK,” Hail said like he couldn’t give a shit. “I just thought you and I could start developing some trust between us. You already know everything there is to know about me. You even know my wife and my kids and all their names and when they were killed. You probably even know when they were born. But I don’t know anything about you except for the fact that you have some skeletons in the closet that keep trying to escape. Your fear of flying. Your joining the CIA and being made to do things you hate doing. There is a pressure building up inside you Miss Ramey and it takes every minute of your day to keep from exploding. I can’t trust a person like that with all I have built. At some point, you’ll have to level with me or you need to get off my boat.”

“Ship,” Kara corrected.

“Ship,” Hail agreed.

Kara finished her glass of sake and poured each of them another.

The waiter arrived with dishes of food. Some hot and some not. He placed them in front of the silent couple.

“If you need anything else, you know what to do,” the man said before heading back to the kitchen.

Kara picked up some ivory-looking chop sticks from her place setting. She began lightly poking at the sushi on her plate.

Hail watched her and waited. He knew she was trying to decide if she would give it up. It was a big decision. Either she had to level with him or she would be asked to leave.

“My parents were killed in The Five,” she told Hail almost in a whisper.

Hail was shaken by her confession. He’d expected something bad, like she was raped or molested as a youngster or maybe something even worse, if there was such a thing. But he didn’t expect what she had just told him. Every time, without fail, when someone told them they lost someone in The Five, it badly rattled him.

“And worse than that,” Kara continued solemnly, “they left me everything and nothing.”

Kara looked up at Hail and he saw tears forming in her eyes.

She looked lost, like a child who had gotten on the wrong bus and was heading out of town.

“I’m sorry,” Hail offered, but it felt as if he had said nothing. I’m sorry didn’t really mean shit. It was just something people said. Something that was expected to be said.

Kara ignored the sentiment and said, “I mean they were rich and now I’m rich, but only in money. In everything else that matters, I’m dirt poor. All my life I had someone taking care of me. I learned to do nothing on my own. Did you ever see the movie Arthur?”

“Yeah,” Hail said softly.

“Well, I feel just like that dumb fuck. The only difference was that Arthur was happy being a rich dumb fuck, and I’m not. I want to make a difference. Just like you. I want to find out who killed my parents. Not just what group killed them; I want to find the son of a bitch that pulled the trigger on the 9K333 Verba Russian made missile. And then once I find him, I want to shove the hardened tip of that 9K333 Verba right up his ass and pull the trigger. Does that sound harsh or demented or unstable to you Mr. Hail?”

Hail looked at her. Her eyes were still wet, but her rage was drying them out fast.

“That may be the sanest thing I’ve heard you say since you got on my ship,” Hail said.

Kara sniffed and dabbed the edge of her napkin under each eye. She then reached down and picked up her glass and drank another slug of sake.

“So that’s why you work for the CIA?” Hail asked.

“That’s why I became a CIA agent. I dropped out of school and joined the agency in hopes that I could find my parent’s killer and bring them to justice. Again, the same as you.”

“I didn’t drop out of school,” Hail said, trying to keep the subject light.

“Yeah, I know. You had already graduated. An MIT whiz-kid that became a Gabillionaire.”

Hail said nothing.

“Which plane were your parents killed on?” Hail asked after a minute or two.

“Mexico,” Kara said sadly.

Hail had no response.

Kara continued talking, as if she were talking to herself. “It was around the time when Mexico changed their laws and allowed foreigners to own property outright within the restricted zones.” Kara explained. “It was a boom for the lagging real estate business in America. My Mom, being a super real-estate queen, took advantage of the new law and was making a killing representing rich Americans who wanted to buy cheap Mexican land and houses. The money was just rolling in. She really didn’t need to work, but she loved it.”

Kara stopped talking and looked at Hail. He looked interested so she continued.

“My mom travelled all over Mexico during the time when my Dad’s medical practice was winding down. He was getting close to early retirement, so he spent a lot of time in Mexico with my mom.”

Kara tilted the little glass and drained the rest of the sake into her mouth.

“So did all their money go to you?” Hail asked. “Are you a gabillionaire as well?”

“Money, houses, cars, boats; lots of stuff that requires up-keep and payments and all the things that I don’t care about. I’m not sure how much we’re talking about. A gabillion sounds about right.”

“I understand,” Hail said.

Kara turned her head and looked out the window at China, or wherever it was that this video was taken.

She said softly, “It could have been any plane. I don’t know off the top of my head how many planes fly out of Mexico every day, but it has to be hundreds. My folks were unlucky enough to be on American Airlines 264 flying out of Mexico City on that day.”

Kara paused, turned back around and tried to drain even more drops out of her empty glass. She set it back on the table. She looked down at the wonderful food and realized she had lost her appetite. She reached for the bottle of sake and then changed her mind and drank a sip from her water glass instead.

She asked rhetorically, “What are the chances of that? You know. It was only five planes out of more than a hundred-thousand flights per-day worldwide, but they just happened to be on one of those five. Go figure.”

Kara looked at Hail. She thought he looked sadder than she felt at that moment.

“I’m sure you feel the same way,” she asked Hail in a sympathetic tone.

“Yeah, I do.” Hail said.

“Don’t worry about our date tonight,” she said. “I’ll pay for dinner. Can I borrow some Hail dollars from you?”

Hail laughed.