Victor lifted his scotch and drained the last few drops from the glass.
He asked Tonya, “그래서 당신은 갈 준비가 되셨나요?”
Tonya laughed and asked in English, “What language is that?”
“I’m trying to learn Korean,” he said, retuning the playful smile.
“It sounds funny when spoken by a guy with a Russian accent.”
Victor shrugged and smirked.
Tonya picked up her small handbag off the table, removed her gold compact, opened it and made a funny little smile as she checked her lipstick.
“Sure, let’s go,” She said. “But remember. No funny stuff.”
Java Sea ― on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus
The conference room on the Nucleus could have been mistaken for any high-tech super-duper fortune five-hundred boardroom, if it wasn’t for the two distinct iron portholes welded into the shiny white wall. Those small openings in the hull had been tinted with a dark film so the outside light didn’t interfere with the room’s complex and sensitive display devices.
Gage Renner, the mission analyst, Shana Tran, the mission communication analyst, Pierce Mercier, their oceanographer and meteorologist and Marshall Hail were putting the final touches on the plan to kill the North Korean, Kim Yong Chang.
“We have a few choices to deliver the death blow,” Hail reminded his staff.
They had been over this a number of times, but Hail wanted to make sure that everyone was in agreement on the most effective way to carry out the mission. After all, none of them were military experts. They were technological wizards that built some very advanced weapon systems. Tactics and mission planning, however, all rested in the lap of Marshall Hail.
He had read all the military books that any person should read if they were interested in getting into this line of work. There was of course the old stuff such as Patton, a study of a master strategist, as well as the U.S. Army U.S. Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. And then there was the really old stuff, like Sun Tzu's The Art of War and the History of the Peloponnesian War, written four-hundred years before the birth of Christ. But there were also other methods of attack, which meant that Hail had his nose in the book The Command of the Air, which was perhaps the most often referenced work on air power and air strategy. And he couldn’t forget the sea, and that would dictate that he read the old book The Influence Of Sea Power Upon History 1660–1783 as well as the newer book Modern Sea Power and Tactics. And once on the ground and in the shit, as the Vietnam era military slang went, Hail found the book The Mission, The Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander, a great help. But there were no books, no classes, no instructional references, virtually no help at all when it came to the new type of war tactics Hail and his staff were about to unleash. It was the first assassination of its type and after it was over, the world would never be the same.
“My vote is we bring in the B-52s and drop the payload on the target,” Gage Renner said.
Hail thought it was the most logical decision, but he wanted to make sure that there we no dissenting opinions. He placed equal value on the recommendations of all of his analysts.
“Is there any issue with communications if we call in the B-52s?” he asked Shana Tran. Shana had changed her dress and her hair was up. She looked very fresh, considering they had been hammering away at it for six hours and were only minutes away from the formal launch of the ground mission.
“We have leased time on the Chinese Tianlian data-relay satellite and have tested the uplink and we are good to go. Once Led Zeppelin is in place, it will link up to the Tianlian and then use radio or Wi-Fi to communicate with the hubs. I don’t see any reason why we would have problems unless weather is an issue.”
Hail looked at Pierce Mercier and waited while he flipped, un-pinched and expanded screens on his iPad.
Mercier scratched his head and said, “Things are looking really good, but as you know the weather in North Korea can change in a matter of hours. No fronts are moving in. My projection is light cirrus cloud cover at ten-thousand feet with maybe five knot winds out of the east. At mission time, eight hundred hours, the temperature will be in the low eighties and I would estimate the relative humidity somewhere around eighty-two percent.”
Hail appeared satisfied with all the answers.
“OK, so all of our systems are go,” Hail said to no one in particular.
This was the last chance for Hail’s crew to tell him that he had missed something, but no one spoke up. Hail looked at each of his crew members, waited another moment and then stood and began walking toward the door. The others followed him.
After walking four-hundred feet down the white iron hallway, they all arrived at the door to the mission control center. Hail used his badge to gain access through the bulkhead door and the others followed him inside. Of the sixteen control stations, thirteen of them were occupied. Just enough empty stations left to accommodate those who had been in the meeting.
Renner, Tran and Mercier each took up their own control station and Hail sat in the big chair in the middle of the room. There were a number of fresh faces that Hail didn’t see very often. The missions they had run before had not required this many pilots and analysts, but this one would, hence more pilots on the sticks.
Alex Knox, Hail’s lead mission pilot greeted Hail with a, “Hey Chief, hunting will be good today. I can feel it.”
At that exact moment, today was two in the morning in North Korea. The entire first part of the mission would be done in the dark. No lights, no rocket burns, nothing that could be seen within the backdrop of Kangdong’s hills, trees and indigenous vegetation. The drones they would be flying were equipped with night vision cameras. So that meant that green would be the color of the evening’s viewing.
“Alright,” Hail began, adjusting the monitors on each side of his chair. “Let’s do this.”
Hail swiveled his chair toward Tanner Grant, his mission drone pilot who was flying Foghat.
“Where are we, Mr. Grant?” Hail asked.
Grant looked at a monitor that showed the real-time digital coordinates of Foghat. The numbers were changing quickly like a Vegas slot machine.
“Foghat is about three miles south-east of the target and currently circling some crop fields. We are waiting for further instructions.”
Hail checked his right monitor to verify the drone was in the correct position.
“Is Led Zeppelin operational and ready to be released?” Hail asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Grant said. He pulled up a screen that monitored the vitals of the drone called Led Zeppelin which was connected to the underbelly of the drone Foghat.
Grant continued, “Zeppelin was attached fifteen miles off the coast of North Korea in the Yellow Sea by the crew of the Hail Laser. Foghat was launched at twenty-two hundred hours and has been in flight for approximately four hours and is on station. As far as I can tell, we have not attracted any unfriendlies. Weather is good and all systems are nominal.”
The Hail Laser was a mechanical ship that supported the Hail cargo ships. But it was also the perfect ship to slip in and out of discreet areas; not large enough to attract attention. Therefore, during the mission planning, it had been decided that the Hail Laser would position itself in international waters, situated on the latitude line that separated North and South Korea. There were so many Hail support vessels in the fleet, and they operated in so many of the world’s waters, that it would hopefully not draw much attention. When the mission was over, Foghat would recover Zeppelin and return to the Laser. At least it would all work out that way if Hail and his crew lived in a perfect world. The recent loss of Eagles proved that the world was indeed, imperfect.