Once back in her room, Kara would connect her phone to the hotel’s WI-FI and securely transmit all the data to CIA headquarters. The CIA techs would create a virtual image of Kornev’s phone that would be mounted on the CIA’s computers. In essence, his phone now existed in the virtual world and could be accessed in a virtualized state on a CIA computer. No physical phone was required.
From that point on, anytime Kornev charged his phone or connected to a Wi-Fi signal, the virtual phone at CIA headquarters would be instantly updated with any new or modified information. As long as Kornev took his charger with him, his iPhone would continue to update its virtual counter-part. With that information, the CIA intelligence team could access and review all of his chats, texts, emails and photos.
And lastly, the little program that had installed itself on Kornev’s phone would also silently record every phone call he made. Each time Kornev plugged it in for a charge or the phone discovered an accessible Wi-Fi signal, all of those recorded calls would be transferred to the CIA as well.
Kara looked at Kornev for a moment, wondering how best to break his heart, or at least break his penis’s heart.
If she wanted to, she could hurt Kornev. Well, maybe hurt his feelings. And she really wanted to. She wanted to tell him that he sucked in bed, that he had bad breath and that his ding-ding didn’t make her sing-sing, but none of that was true.
Still, she wanted to repay Kornev with just a fraction of the hurt that he dished out to the rest of the world. His occupation was providing very dangerous weapons to those who wanted to use them to cause terror around the world. And Kornev couldn’t care less. It was all about money. It was all about compensation for devastation. What happened after that was none of his concern. Even if it meant providing surface-to-air missiles that could take down a commercial aircraft that had women and children on it.
Kara looked admiringly at the man with disgust in her heart. She hoped her smile looked convincing. She surmised that Kornev didn’t see the person behind the smile that was thinking how exposed his neck was at that moment.
Kara thought, where is a steak knife when you need one?
How long ago had Kornev asked her if she was hungry? And how long had she been simply staring at him with that dumb smile on her face, fantasizing about killing him?
“Not right now,” she said, her smile fading into a dainty frown.
“I’ve got a little bellyache” she added. “Maybe too many fruity drinks.”
She held her stomach to validate her words.
Kornev looked at her and she could see something other than hunger far back in his eyes. The look didn’t bother her much. She had seen it hundreds of times. It was the look of longing. The look of a man who had found a lovely golden watch, then just hours later, he had already lost it. But Kornev’s look was not of gold, or diamonds, or even money, it was the look of sex. He wanted to have sex with her again. No doubt about it.
But the bellyache excuse worked well in situations such as this. He would have to be an ogre to force sex on someone who was sick to their stomach. Kara sensed that Kornev was a lot of nasty things, but a sex ogre was not one of them. And if he was, then a swat from the heel of her shoe would shut him down pretty fast.
“Maybe you will feel better in the morning,” he said.
Kara replied, “I am sure I will.” But in actuality she was thinking, I will be out of Nizhny before you even wake up.
Kara stood up from the couch and held out her hand, allowing Kornev to take it in his and kiss the back of her knuckles. It was a European thing and took some getting used to.
He then tried to move in closer and kiss her on the mouth, but Kara was prepared with a little burp that stopped him in his tracks.
She put her hand up to her mouth and said, “Excuse me,” with a diminutive embarrassed smile.
Kara walked over to the door and waited.
Like a perfect gentleman, Kornev opened the door for her and she walked out into the hallway.
He said something to her in Korean.
Kara guessed it was a salutation of some sort and she smiled politely.
She took a chance and responded with the phrase, “Go fuck yourself,” in her best Mullukmulluk and turned and walked away.
Since she didn’t hear anything other than Kornev’s door closing, so she assumed that he didn’t know Mullukmulluk.
Celebes Sea ― on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus
There was no difference in time zones between that of North Korea and the current position of the Hail Nucleus. North Korea was in the forty-degree latitude range and the Nucleus was south at seven degrees, but their longitudes were roughly the same. The distance between the two points was four-thousand, one-hundred and fifteen kilometers, but the satellites that sent the signals from the Nucleus to the drones surrounding the Korean’s house didn’t care about all that. The Nucleus could have been floating in North Korea’s Taedong River or even Kim Yong Chang’s swimming pool, and it would have made no difference. A signal was a signal, no matter how far away. As long as it was five by five.
The Nucleus’s mission crew had reassembled in the mission center.
Gage Renner and Pierce Mercier were acting as the real-time data analysts for the mission. They were also convenient as a second set of hands, if needed. Both analysts could assist in switching displays, looking up flight data, verifying coordinates and other tasks that didn’t directly involve flying a drone. Both men were seated at the analyst stations on the second tier behind the pilots.
Shana Tran was manning the communications console. Her job was straightforward. Make sure the drones all received a clear signal from the Chinese satellite. Unlike the other pilots that looked wound up, Tran looked cool and almost a little bored. She would have liked to have redone her fingernails before the mission, but she had overslept.
While Tran was sleeping, Tanner Grant had flown Foghat back to the Hail Laser and the Laser’s crew had already begun the refueling process. For now, Grant was an observer, but he would soon be back online and responsible for returning Foghat to the theater in order to retrieve the drones.
Alex Knox was responsible for the actions of the micro-drone known as Aerosmith. The drone was currently sitting high up in the red pine tree that looked down on the Korean compound below. Alex understood that he had the toughest part of the mission, but he had practiced it, not only in the simulator, but also in a special room that was set up for just that purpose. A section of a pine tree had been hauled aboard the Nucleus and erected in the special room. Knox had then practiced flying in and out between its branches. He was comfortable with his part of the operation and confident he could pull it off.
Junior pilot Oliver Fox was manning the controls of the drone called Styx. Styx was the main eyes-on drone that was responsible for streaming the main camera angles to the mission center. Its vantage point on top of the power-pole, less than twenty meters from the compound, could not be improved upon. If Styx became inoperable, then Aerosmith could also be used as the spotter drone, but its camera angle could be compromised. Even now, when the wind blew, the video being sent from Aerosmith was periodically being blocked by tree branches and pine boughs as they fluttered in front of its camera lens.
Junior pilot, Paige Grayson was operating the drone known as Stones. Like its name, Stones was a stone. It sat on the ground near the man-made brook and did nothing. It saw nothing. Its sole purpose was a backup to Aerosmith in case that drone had a technical problem and could not complete its mission.