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

 

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.

“It is 3:50 a.m. Pyongyang 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?” suggested the director of the FBI, Trevor Rodgers.

“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 back-up 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 timetable was 3:00 a.m., 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 disdain.

“Don’t you think it would have made more sense to coordinate our back-up 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’m neither a military person nor a warrior, but I do have common sense. And my common sense tells me that we’re making a mistake by not coordinating our efforts with Marshall Hail concerning our back-up 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.

 

*_*_*

 

Hail saw the door open and Kara walked back into the mission center.

She walked up to Hail and asked, “Did I miss anything?”

Hail considered telling her that he tried to kill Kornev, but since he had failed, he simply told her no.

“But I’m glad you are back in time to see the big boom,” Hail told her.

Hail looked at BEP’s video feed and was comforted to see that the missile section had been dropped off and the driver and truck were gone. The warehouse doors had been wheeled shut and the warehouse was quiet once again. The last Thing holding one of the nine shaped charges had been flown up onto the new missile section, and now all of the explosive drones were in place.

“Knox,” Hail said, “Turn Blondie’s microphone back on.”

Alex Knox reached over and unmuted the mic on Blondie, and the cricket noise jumped back into the room.

Hail then looked over in Renner’s direction and gave a nod.

Renner, who had been waiting for Hail to give the signal, called out to his Thing pilots, “Fingers over your DESTRUCT icons and wait for my countdown.”

If there was any part of the mission that Hail thought was low-tech, this was it. He would have preferred that all the DESTRUCT salvos to all the drones had been synchronized into one switch, but there were too many drones, too much programming, and too little time to put all that together. Therefore, the last step in the mission would rely on twelve fingers pressing twelve icons that looked like a pack of dynamite on twelve separate screens. A little too soon, and one premature detonation could knock the drones off the top of the missile parts, and the shape charges would have no effect. A little late and the exact same thing could happen.

“We will do this exactly as we trained. On zero, we will all press at the same time,” Renner instructed.

Renner looked at Hail, and Hail gave him another nod and smiled.

Renner began the countdown.

“Five, four, three, two, one, ZERO!”

Hail watched Black Eyed Peas’ video signal turn red and then disappear. BEP’s mother drone, Electric Light Orchestra, was vaporized at the same instant, and by default, all the communications were automatically routed over to Blondie. Along with his crew, Hail watched the destruction from both Blondie’s and Men at Work’s video cameras.

Minutes before the blast, Renner had flown Sex Pistols and landed it atop the roof of the warehouse. That drone had been destroyed along with the others. Hundreds of rounds of spare ammunition that had been attached to Sex Pistols had been thrown into the air and were falling like metal rain around the ruins.

It was breathtaking. The sound, even over the mission center’s small speakers, was immense. The crew could actually feel the power of the blast as a low rumble distorted the mid tones and the screeching highs fluctuated wildly throughout the room. The view from both surviving cameras was overwhelming. It looked more like a nuclear explosion than a conventional blast. The shaped charges directed their energy straight down. When the shockwave could no longer penetrate the earth, it rebounded and went straight up and out making a mushroom cloud.

Men at Work fell over on its side as the shockwave blew past it and continued on out into the North Korean countryside. Blondie’s camera shuttered, went white, went black and then came back online in time to see the aftermath, a roaring fire that was consuming anything that was left to burn. The building was no longer there. All that was left were dozens of fiery piles of parts and crates, office furniture and mangled pieces no longer recognizable. A moment later, a secondary explosion puffed fire out in all directions and another shockwave shook Blondie’s camera.

“Oh my God!” Kara said.

“Oh my God, indeed,” Hail agreed.

Renner had a huge smile on his face.

Hail looked around the room and everyone had the exact same smile. Hail realized that he was smiling as well.

“You did it,” Kara told him. “You really did it.”

“I can’t believe you had any doubts,” Hail responded with a degree of cockiness.

As the sound of the blast faded, a voice came over the mission room speakers. Hail recognized it as Dallas Stone, who was in the ship’s security office.

“Marshall, Prince’s radar has detected a fast-moving aircraft approaching our position.”

“Do we have an ID on it?” Hail asked.

“Checking now, but it is supersonic and flying low. That would constitute an attack profile.”

The crew’s joy dissipated quickly and the room quieted down so Hail could talk to Stone.

There was a moment of silence and then Stone came back on the speaker.

“It’s ICAO designator ping is showing as United States military—”

A beat and then Stone continued, “Designator F35. I’m cross checking that ICAO code now.”

A moment later, “Its ICAO ping says it is a United States F-35 Lightning Two. Range of seventy-five miles and heading straight for us.”

Hail looked at Kara for a moment, and she shrugged.

“Activate the railgun,” Hail told Dallas.

“Wait,” Kara said, placing her hand on Hail’s shoulder. “I need to tell you something.”

“And what would that be?” Hail asked her, even though he already knew her secret, and understood the intentions of the inbound jet.

Kara looked him directly in the eyes and said, “The United States has a back-up plan in case you were not successful in your mission.”

“And what would that be?” Hail asked in a calm and controlled tone.

“That jet is flying a single sortie to blow up the warehouse, if you had failed to do so. It’s not coming for you, so you can put your big gun away.”

Kara thought that Hail looked angry, but not as angry as she would have expected.

He said, “Do you realize how dangerous that is? It’s dangerous for everyone.”

“I understand,” Kara said, but Hail didn’t believe her.

“We could have shot this asshole out of the sky before he ever made a pass on the warehouse.”

“I understand,” Kara said. She averted her eyes away from Hail’s and back to the screen that showed the burning warehouse.

Hail asked her, “If this is a back-up plan, then why hasn’t this guy turned around and gone home?”

Kara looked back up at Hail and looked perplexed, as if she hadn’t thought of that fact. “I don’t know. Maybe he hasn’t gotten the word yet.”

“Then maybe you should get on the horn with your boss and make sure this guy gets called off before he wakes up every radar and anti-aircraft battery in North Korea. I don’t know if you realize it, but we’re pretty exposed right here in the middle of the Sea of Japan.”

Hail handed Kara his phone. “We don’t have time for you to go to the top deck. Use my phone,” Hail told her.