Operation Hail Storm

Washington, D.C. ― The White House Situation Room

The President was beginning to get antsy. For the last hour they had all been staring at a black screen that had four white dots arranged in a box pattern. Four dots of light she was told were the four lights that were mounted on the corners of the warehouse in North Korea. But from the satellite image, little else could be seen. If she stared long enough, she supposed she could make out a color difference between the dots, a little lighter shade of black that would have been the roof of the warehouse. But she knew that it really didn’t matter what was on the screen as long as it was indeed the warehouse that housed the missile parts. Other than that, they were all waiting for the four white dots to turn into a single massive white and red and blue blob that would indicate that Marshall Hail had done what he said he would do.

“Three fifty in the morning, North Korean time,” General Ford announced to the room. “Our jet fighter is in the air and should be on time, if there are no unexpected complications.”

“Like he gets shot out of the air before he gets there?” Trevor Rogers from the FBI suggested.

“No, like Hail blows the place up in the next ten minutes,” The General replied.

“If he is going to blow up the place, then he is certainly cutting it close,” the CIA man, Jarret Pepper said.

“Why would he cut it so close?” the President asked.

No one answered.

The President looked at all the men’s faces in the room. Some looked away. Some pretended to be looking at the four white dots on the screen, and the few others looked down at the table.

“None of you told him about the backup plan. Did you?” The President asked.

Silence.

“Why not?” the President asked, her tone dry and accusatory.

Both the General and Pepper began to answer at the same time.

The General stopped talking first, which left Pepper to answer the question.

Pepper started over.

“I gave permission to Kara to tell Hail if she thought it was necessary. After all, Hail doesn’t have any live bodies near the warehouse. Kara reported to me that the entire mission is being executed using drones. Most of them are probably disposable drones. She also told me that Hail’s time table was 3:00AM, which means that he is either running late or he has failed.”

“I still like the notion of plausible deniability,” the President warned her staff. “I wanted the use of our military as a last resort, not as the first resort if Hail was running a little late.”

She looked at the men with unabashed distain.

“Don’t you think it would have made more sense to coordinate our backup plan with Hail?” she asked.

The General answered, “But we just don’t know Hail well enough to know how he would react to that suggestion. Once we told him about it, if he disagreed and we still went forward with the plan, it could get ugly.”

“Ugly how?” The President asked.

“If we wanted to use Hail in the future, then that might tarnish the relationship. And if we really made him mad, then…” The General let his sentence go, deciding that getting into deep waters at this point was counterproductive.

The President composed herself. She smiled. Her smile was just for show and everyone in the room knew it.

“I count on all of you to make the correct decisions in matters such as these. I am neither a military person nor a warrior, but I do have common sense. And my common sense tells me that we are making a mistake by not coordinating our efforts with Marshall Hail concerning our backup plan. But I will defer to all of your years of experience and expertise in the area of warfare.”

Just as the President completed her speech, the dark screen in the dim room turned white and blue and yellow. There was no sound, just the vivid colors as they danced across the clean shiny surface of the conference room table, the burst of light temporarily blinding those who had been staring directly at the dark screen.