Operation Hail Storm

Wonsan, North Korea ― Warehouse

The official name of the vehicle was the UAZ-469, but it was essentially an open-air jeep with a canvas top. Manufactured in Ulyanovsk, Russia, the North Korean’s used it as an off-road light utility military vehicle, but Victor Kornev was trying to use it as a bed. He was exhausted and needed some sleep. The cramped office in the warehouse didn’t have any place to lie down, but that didn’t seem to bother the Minister, Kim Won Dong. His highness had fallen asleep easily in his hard wooden chair; his head flopped over on his shoulder, massive snores escaping from his gaping drooling mouth.

Kornev had watched the ugly little man for a while, until he knew he couldn’t spend another minute in the same room or he would have to take out his well-oiled Glock and first put a hole through Dong’s head and then his own. But instead of that detrimental action, he had decided to leave the office that smelled of stale Snakehead fish stew and fermented cabbage and see if the vehicle he had arrived in could offer a place to recline in comfort.

Now that he was in the UAZ, he discovered that the front seats did not recline and the back seats were actually three poorly padded seats that were welded together to make one. As he lay there, he could feel each of the bars between the seats pushing up into his back. He sat up and glanced forward at the vehicle’s dash board. The ignition key was right there sticking out of the ignition. One turn of that key and only a twenty-minute drive and he could be lying in a hot and smelly bed at the Dongmyong Hotel. If he was lucky, it could be a good electricity day and he could take a hot shower.

Victor grunted as he tried to work his phone out of his shorts’ pocket. He put it up to his face, checked for a signal, saw three bars and tried to call the truck driver again. The call went to a voicemail. Kornev cursed and checked the time. One in the morning. The truck carrying the missile part was more than eighteen hours overdue. Victor wanted to reach through the phone and grab the truck driver and choke the shit out of him. He was up for choking the shit out of anyone right now.

Sweat dripped from the tip of Kornev’s nose and onto his phone, as he sat there in the back of the UAZ, miserable with no place to go. No place to sleep. No place to eat. Even the water was highly questionable. The unreasonable part of his brain told him that it wasn’t worth it. It told him that he already had enough money and that the bag of diamonds he would get for this gig was just a bag of rocks. But the other part of his mind, the part that had taken him from a common Russian thug and had moved him up the ladder to wealth and respect, that part of his brain told him that he would sit there no matter how long it took. That sensible part of his brain knew he would sit there in the heat, in the car, in the office, hell, he would sit in a pig pen of shit if it meant getting paid. Each contract for arms could be his last. He just hoped this one wasn’t. He would prefer to go out on a high note, if possible.

So with that decision made, he put his phone back in his pocket, laid down in the back seat, felt the bars dig into his ribs, cussed again and drifted off into a painful and unrewarding slumber.