He asked Afua, “Do you know where Tonya is?”
“She is down on the beach with my brother. We will be joining them after breakfast. Please eat up. I have many things to do this morning.”
Kornev put some toast in his mouth and began to chew. His stomach was too upset to swallow it.
Rond Point Port — Aboard the Hail Proton
“We’ve got some more activity on the stairs,” Jason Wilson announced. Both Seagulls’ and Turtles’ cameras zoomed in on the stairs. Four big men were descending the stairs. Two of the men were carrying the black cases. The two men in the lead appeared to be Diambu and Kornev. Hail and Hail Proton’s crew watched the men negotiate each flight as they twisted and turned their way down to the beach. After about thirty seconds, the group reached the bottom of the stairs and began to trudge through the path’s deep sand.
“Arm Turtles,” Captain Nichols ordered.
Hail allowed the C-4 charge to be armed, but he added, “I want to wait until we know what’s going on.”
Hail secretly desired to allow the group to pass just in front of Turtles and blow them up, including the missiles. But there were many reasons to wait this out, for the time being. First, if Hail disintegrated these men, he wasn’t sure if Kara would be hurt or killed in the blast. The wad of C-4 was encased between dozens of half-inch ball bearings. All it would take is one rogue projectile to make its way to the beach where she was sitting, and it would be lights out. There was no way to definitively determine the footprint of the blast. Second, he had promised the CIA he would not kill Kornev. Hail had told the Russian that he would be allowed to live if he became an informant. Going back on that deal right now would be counterproductive. Hail would erase all the political gains he had made with the CIA and the president.
“They are almost there,” Nichols told Hail.
“Scrub it. Secure the drone,” Hail told the crew.
For a second time, Sarah Starling removed her finger hovering over the top of the icon that would make a hole in the beach. Instead, she pressed the icon next to it labeled SAFETY ON.
Frustrated, Hail watched the men approach the drone.
Hail told Starling, “Sarah, I want you to freeze the video on my mark.”
The first two people who passed in front of the drone were Afua’s soldiers. Trailing behind those two men carrying the black cases was Afua Diambu and behind him, Kornev. At least, Hail thought it was Afua Diambu.
Hail ordered, “Freeze it,” and Starling touched the pause icon on the video feed. The gray sweat pants Diambu was wearing had ridden up high enough on his ankle to show the wide and jagged scar.
“That’s our guy,” Hail said, circling the scar on the monitor with his finger.
“And there goes our guy,” Nichols commented, watching the men pass in front of Turtles and continue further down to the beach. The monitor next to the frozen screen was being shot from Seagulls. It showed the men leaving the narrow path and walking onto the wide expanse of beach.
Captain Nichols asked, “Why are they taking the missiles down to the beach?’
Hail shook his head. “I have no idea. Maybe a boat is meeting there to transport the missiles. We should get Foreigner in a ready state so it can follow the boat.”
The pilot who was responsible for flying Foreigner began running pre-flight diagnostics on the drone.
The drone, Seagulls, watched the group make its way to the beach. The group of men stopped when they reached Kara, who was still sitting in the sand. The crew saw Kara look up and exchange words with Afua Diambu and then Victor Kornev.
The soldiers set the cases on the ground next to Kara. She got to her feet and stood behind Kornev.
Hail watched the video feed and saw Kara stand on her tiptoes, pressing her mouth up to Kornev’s ear.
Snake Island, Nigeria
The two soldiers each removed a part of the missile package. Out of the case, one guard removed the launcher, while the other guard removed the projectile. The other case remained closed.
Kara asked Kornev in a whisper, “What’s going on?”
Kornev turned his head toward her and responded in a whisper, “It looks like Diambu is going to test fire one of the missiles.”
“You mean he’s going to fire it?” Kara asked in a panicked voice.
Kornev turned his head slightly and whispered back, “No, he’s going to throw it. Of course, he’s going to fire it. That’s what test firing means.”
The launch tube was delivered into the waiting hands of Afua. He waited patiently for his other man to deliver the projectile. While waiting, Afua set down the launcher with its back end resting on his foot to prevent the weapon from sitting in the sand. The muzzle of the launch tube was pointing upward toward the sky. The soldier who had slowly liberated the projectile from its case walked over to Afua and gingerly threaded the base of the missile into the mouth of the launcher. The missile slid in smoothly, making a metallic clicking sound as it seated and locked itself into the tube.
Alarm bells in Kara’s mind went off. She looked out to the drone, Seagulls, still thirty yards out over the water. How in the hell was she going to signal that Diambu was going to fire the missile? And then she realized that none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was time. Or more to the point, timing.
“Remember when you taught me years ago how to load and fire this weapon? Afua asked Kornev. “I still remember everything.”
Kornev said, “Yes, I remember. But I don’t see why there is a need to test it now. You didn’t need to test it back then, and nothing between us has changed.”
“Yes, things have changed between us,” Afua glanced suspiciously at Kara standing safely behind Kornev. He added, “Things are not the same at all.”
Afua put the missile up onto his right shoulder and placed his eye into the viewfinder. “You better hope that this missile works correctly, my friend.”
“You need to have a target,” Kornev said. “It will seek a heat source.”
“I have already taken care of that,” Afua said.
Kornev looked out on the horizon to both his left and right. There was no target to be seen.
For a moment, Kara thought that maybe Afua had discovered that Seagulls was a drone and was going to shoot it down. But that didn’t happen.
Less than a minute later, the steady beat of a propeller airplane could be heard off in the distance. The sound of the engine was familiar to Kornev. And when he saw the plane, Afua’s new target, all his questions were answered.
“That’s my cargo plane,” Kornev yelled.
Afua watched and waited while the plane went into a steep turn; if the plane maintained its current arc, it would eventually complete a 180-degree turn. Its new course would have it flying parallel to the beach, passing directly in front of the group, less than a mile out over Badagry Creek.
“This morning, I had one of my men tell your pilots you were extending your stay with us. They were instructed to go home,” Afua said.
As the cargo plane completed its arc, Afua began tracking the aircraft in the weapon’s viewfinder. The plane eventually leveled off and began to pass right in front of the Diambu compound.
“That plane cost me a lot of money,” Kornev complained.
“I’ll pay you back,” Afua said, but the jihadi was barely listening to the Russian at this point. Diambu was transfixed on keeping the cargo plane centered in the viewfinder of the Verba surface-to-air missile. The launcher’s multispectral optical seeker came to life and beeped once, indicating the missile had locked onto a heat source.