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Twenty minutes had passed and Hail and Knox grew concerned because Kornev had not moved from the spot where he had suddenly stopped in Terminal 3.
“What do you think is going on?” Knox questioned.
“That is a very good question,” Hail said. “I guess he could be waiting to catch a connecting flight in the same terminal.”
Another ten minutes ticked slowly by and Knox asked, “How long do you think we should wait?”
Hail thought about it for a moment before responding, “That’s another good question, but really, what are our options?”
Knox suggested, “Do you want to check outbound flights? Maybe we can figure out where he might be headed.”
Hail pulled up the Dubai’s airport website and mumbled to himself, “That’s a long shot but what the hell else do I have to do?”
Hail looked down the long line of outbound flights and said, “Something is up. All the flights leaving Dubai show they have been cancelled.”
“That’s weird,” Knox said. “The only two things that can shut down an airport are a terrorist, which is in fact Kornev, or weather. Unless Kornev planted a bomb in the airport, which is impractical, I would guess it is a weather disturbance.”
Hail told Knox, “Keep an eye on the tracker while I check the weather.”
“Roger that,” Knox said. “But the guy still hasn’t moved.”
Touching a few icons on the map, Hail zoomed out from the airport, zooming back from the city and then back further until Dubai was just a dot on the map in the middle of a desert.
“Woah,” Hail said. “What is that weird thing they call a dust storm in the Middle East?”
Knox gave it a moment of thought before saying, “I can’t remember the first part, but I think the second part has the word boob in it. You know that’s the type of thing us young guys remember. I can also remember the name of Lake Titicaca if that helps you out at all.”
“Haboob,” Hail remembered. “That’s right. A big ol’ haboob is headed right for Dubai. Check it out.” Hail transferred the satellite image to one of Knox’s free monitors.
“Oh man, that is a big blow,” Alex agreed.
From outer space, the satellite was tracking a wall of sand just passing over the border of the United Arab Emirates.
Hail brought up a weather bulletin website for the region, and it confirmed that a slow-moving dust storm was moving toward Dubai, grounding all inbound and outbound aircraft until the threat was over.
Knox asked, “If the planes have been grounded, Kornev isn’t going anywhere today. He will have to stay overnight.”
“Yeah, that makes sense,” Hail said.
Dallas asked, “Then why is he still sitting in the terminal?”
“Good question,” Hail said. “Do you think we dare peek?”
“I don’t see any other option,” Knox said, taking the flight controllers.
Hail said, “Just a quick down and up. Record the video so we can look at it more closely after you’re done.”
Knox lifted the drone from atop the terminal building and brought it into a hover. He rotated the drone so the camera faced the building and eased up on the trigger throttle. The drone descended in front of the terminal’s windows, and the drone’s camera recorded all the passengers who remained inside. Just as quickly, Knox squeezed the throttle and the drone soared upward. He landed it on the roof and released the control sticks.
Hail suggested, “Before the weather hits, you should deploy the solar panels on the drone to get it charged.”
“Ten-four,” Knox said, pressing the appropriate icons.
Hail accessed the snippet of video that had just been shot by Milky Way and put it on big screen number four. Alex pushed away from his station and looked at the video.
The drone had descended right in front of a little boy who was watching the planes. The boy immediately laughed and pointed to the drone and said something to his father, who was busily talking to a ticket agent. The father said something to acknowledge his son, but didn’t look out the window. Neither did the ticket counter worker. Hail pressed the pause button and froze the frame on the screen. He and Alex examined what they were seeing.
Knox looked down at his screen and then back up at the video. “The tracker is somewhere right over here,” he said, using his finger on the touch screen to point out an area on the still image.
“There’s nobody there,” Hail said. “There is nobody even near that area. Most of the terminal is empty, which I would expect given all the cancellations.”
Knox asked, “Then why is the tracker there?”
Hail thought about it and said, “Because he threw it away. He doesn’t intend to return to Termez, so why would he keep the key to a car he will never see again?”
“That sucks,” Alex said, stating the obvious.
Hail’s mind began to race, thinking of alternative ways to use the only resource they had in Dubai—their drone Milky Way. Flying the drone throughout the airport searching for Kornev wasn’t feasible; the Russian might have already booked a hotel reservation and left. And tomorrow, with dozens of flights leaving every few hours, and thousands of people streaming into the airport from taxis and Ubers, trying to find Kornev entering the airport using a single drone would be virtually impossible.
“Ready for some math?” Hail asked his young pilot.
“I hate math,” Knox responded dryly.
“I love math,” Hail said. “I tell you what, you give me the numbers I need, and I will crunch them in my head. How far is it from our current location to Dubai?”
Knox searched Google. “It’s about 6,031 kilometers.”
Hail started murmuring under his breath, but loudly enough for Knox to hear.
“We know 6,031 kilometers converts to roughly 3,700 miles. The Gulfstream flies about 500 mph; therefore, it would take me about seven and a half hours to reach Dubai. I’m also assuming the haboob will be over by the time I arrive and before the main commercial runways at the airport reopen in the morning.”
“You’re going to Dubai?” Knox asked, somewhat surprised.
“I can’t think of another way to track Kornev. I’ll put on a disguise and watch for him entering Terminal 3.”
“What if he doesn’t enter Terminal 3? What if he flies out of Terminal 1 or Terminal 2?”
“Then Renner or Nolan will see him, because they will be watching those two terminals.”
“That doesn’t sound like a great idea,” Knox said, but Hail had already picked up the phone to ready his Gulfstream and inform Nolan and Renner of their pending trip.