“Kornev would have found out sooner or later. And sooner seemed better than later.”
Kara wasn’t accepting any of Hail’s lame excuses. She spat back at Hail, “That wasn’t your decision to make. Do you realize that Kornev could have turned on me, right here, right now and I couldn’t have done anything to protect myself?”
“Where is Kornev now?” Hail asked.
“He’s sitting in his chair with his seat belt fastened.”
“And why is he there?” Hail asked, leading Kara along.
“Because I took his gun from him.”
“See,” Hail said, as if he was the world’s foremost fortune teller. “I knew you could take care of yourself.”
“That’s not why you did it. You did it so I wouldn’t have to sleep with him.”
“I did it because it was the only way I knew to contact Kornev without involving your boss in my business. I’m sure that you probably noticed that Kornev is in the process of delivering surface-to-air missiles to someone — somewhere. They are on your plane right now. We can’t let that happen, remember? That’s what this is all about.”
There was no response from Kara, which made Hail feel as if he had won this small battle and had made the correct decision.
A moment later, Hail said, “I texted some coordinates to this phone. The digits correspond with an abandoned airfield about sixty miles away. Give the coordinates to Kornev’s pilots, and I will see you on the ground in a few minutes.
“This is not over,” Kara seethed.
On the desert floor, Hail watched Kornev’s plane make a single flyby over the airstrip before circling to line up for the landing on the hardpan runway.
Hail was positioned at the end of the long runway, although very little of the abandoned airstrip could still be considered a runway. The natural desert air, blowing sand and endless drought had sustained this bleached piece of inert soil. It was relatively flat and a reasonably good place to touch down a fixed-wing aircraft. Behind Hail sat his shiny Gulfstream, its nose pointing toward him. Renner was sitting in the cockpit with his iPad. His iPad was connected to their drone, U2, which was resting on its tripod legs next to Hail.
Atop a hill of sand, about fifty yards away, was Foster Nolan. He was lying on his belly, prone, fiddling with his long sniper rifle, dialing in the distance on his scope. There was hardly a breath of wind, so adjusting for windage was not an issue. At this distance, Nolan could put a round through Kornev’s left eye while eating a sandwich.
Kornev’s big old heavy plane lumbered onto the runway, bouncing a few times on its fat and spongy tires before its tail touched down. The plane slowed and continued to roll forward, now only twenty yards in front of Hail. When the cargo plane finally came to a full stop, its dust cloud caught up with the plane and encompassed the group like a gray blanket.
Through the sand, Hail could see the two pilots, but he could not see Kornev. Hail suspected that Kara had not given the Russian permission to release himself from his seat belt. Hail smiled, as he imagined Kara on the plane’s intercom announcing, “All passengers should remain in their seats with their seat belts securely tightened until the plane has come to a full and complete stop.”
A moment later, Hail heard a mechanized door begin to open. He looked at both sides of the aircraft and saw nothing. Then, behind the back wheels of the cargo plane, he saw the tailgate of the aircraft lower to the ground. Thirty seconds later, Kornev and Kara emerged from the back of the plane. Kornev was walking in front of Kara. She was walking ten feet behind the arms dealer with a gun loosely trained on his back.
Hail looked on indifferently as the pair made their way over to him.
Kornev stopped in front of Hail and said nothing, which is what Hail would have done if he had been in Kornev’s shoes. There was really nothing for him to say. But there was something for Hail to say.
“I told you that if you tried to sell big arms to anyone without first notifying us that you would pay.”
Kornev responded indignantly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Hail shook his head, “If we open those black cases on your plane, are you telling me that we will not find what we think is in there?”
Kornev said nothing. He simply stared at the large man in front of him. He was not wearing a cowboy hat, but he was still wearing cowboy boots, adding dark sunglasses to his attire. Looking up towards the jet behind the cowboy, Kornev saw another man sitting in the cockpit of the sleek jet. Giving a slow turn of his
head, Kornev scanned the desert. He saw nothing but dry and lifeless sand. No one would be coming to his rescue. That was a given. And he was equally certain that his own pilots, who were still aboard his plane, would not fight on his behalf. They weren’t paid to take that type of risk. They were paid to smuggle contraband from point A to point B, and then fly to many other locations. There was a significant difference between a soldier and a smuggler.
Hail told Kornev, “It doesn’t seem fair to shoot you just standing there. So, I will make it a little more of a challenge. I will give you a head start,” Hail told him.
Kornev said nothing.
“See this drone next to me?” Hail continued. “It runs on battery and only has a limited range before it runs out of power. If you are fast, you might be able to outrun it before it runs out of juice. But you have to run fast.”
Kornev said nothing. He simply stared at the man and wished he had a gun in his hands so he could blow him away.
As if the drone knew what Kornev was thinking, it hummed, buzzed and came to life. Sand was thrown up into the air as its powerful propellers whirled up mini-tornadoes beneath it. Kornev watched the drone’s thin legs retract into its body.
“Run!” Hail yelled.
But Kornev remained still.
“Run!” Hail yelled a second time.
But Kornev didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there, oscillating looks between Hail and the drone that was hovering next to him.
Hail began to understand that Kornev was not going to run.
“Go to Hell,” Kornev told Hail.
“I probably will, but I think you’re going to have to give me directions since you’re going to get there first,” Hail yelled at him.
Hail glanced at the drone hovering next to them, and yelled to it, “U2: Fire ten rounds at center mass!”
The short barrel that was hanging under the drone jerked to life.
Kornev saw the narrow muzzle pointing at him and guessed by the size of the opening that the drone was going to shoot a small-caliber bullet. Maybe it was a .22, just as lethal from this range as any other caliber bullet. At this distance, the bullet would probably poke a clean hole all the way through him.
But, before Kornev could react, the gun began firing. The projectiles hit Kornev directly in his heart. From two yards away, ten rounds fired at more than 500 feet per second and were smacking into him hard.
The pain was horrific. As the projectiles hit Kornev’s chest, it felt each one was a venomous snake taking bites from his heart. The cluster of gunshots was so close to one another it felt like one big bullet had put a hole through him. Kornev fell onto his knees and put his hands up to his heart. He looked down at the blood that would be pouring from his wound, but he was surprised at the absence of blood on his hands. Not one drop.
“U2: Fire five rounds in his neck,” Hail ordered.
The drone obeyed. The gun readjusted and five more projectiles left the barrel and hit Kornev directly in his Adam’s apple. Kornev began to scream, but nothing other than a bubble of saliva came out of his mouth. Kornev’s hands left his heart and flew up to his throat. He performed the same action as before, checking his hands for blood but there was no blood.