Take care.
Marshall
Hail hit the SEND icon and pushed back from his desk.
He had about eleven hours until nightfall and he wanted to be present for the extraction of the drones. He stood and went into his bedroom and got dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt. He removed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, grabbed a towel and headed for the ship’s gym. He had an abundance of nervous energy to burn off, not to mention a couple inches of flab that had mysteriously grown over his belly when he hadn’t been looking.
Washington, D.C. ― The White House Oval Office
It had taken Trevor Rogers and his staff all of ninety minutes to put together the digital dossier on Marshall Hail. Dozens of FBI analysts had used Google and the FBI’s powerful servers to download everything they could find about Marshall Hail. Compiled onto the tiny USB drive that was sticking out of Roger’s computer was an extensive history of Hail’s company. The identity and backgrounds of all of Hail’s friends going back to childhood had been researched and itemized. Birth records, death records and a complete genealogy of Hail’s family and extended family were on the flash drive. An overview of Hail’s lifestyle had also been provided, which included his police record and current medications he was on, as well as any known extra-curricular activities Hail was involved with. Every bit of the data that had been collected were zipped into an encrypted file and then had been spit out onto a flash drive.
Confident his team had done all they could do in the short time frame, Rogers reached down and removed the flash drive from his computer. He pulled on his dress coat and placed the plastic stick of information in his coat pocket. The FBI man then had his secretary call his car around so he could make his meeting with the President at the White House.
Now, ninety minutes later, Rogers removed the USB drive from his coat pocket and stuck it into the slot on the President’s big screen TV. It was show time and Rogers hoped that he had all the answers to all the questions that would soon be asked.
Rogers had an advantage in this briefing because he and Marshall Hail had been childhood friends. Their fathers had both been in the military and had ended up being stationed at many of the same locations. Therefore, the Hail family and the Rogers family were neighbors much of the time. Trevor recalled little Marshall coming to his birthday parties and vice versa. Guam, Berlin, Japan, so many places and Rogers had so few memories of each of those countries because they moved all the time. But Marshall Hail was the one constant in Trevor Rogers’ life. Marshall was just about the only thing he remembered from his childhood.
Trevor Rogers cleared his throat and began to address the room of the most powerful people on the planet.
“First, I would like thank you all for your support in my new position as Director of the FBI. I will do my utmost to make you pleased with that decision. Thank you, Madam President for allowing me to update you and your staff with an issue that has recently come to my attention.”
The newly elected president, Joanna Weston, responded politely, “Thank you, Mr. Rogers for accepting this difficult assignment. We look forward to you bringing us all up to speed.”
Rogers glanced around the room at the other attendees. A few of the men he knew, and a few he knew of, but he knew none of them very well.
Sitting on the couch was a four-star general who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His name was Quentin Ford. He was a big and imposing guy. Ford was outfitted in full military dress. Rogers felt that was appropriate, considering this General was the highest-ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, President excluded. Ford looked battle worn and hard as nails. He had a big face. His thick cheeks sagged like an old hound dog. General Quentin Ford was large and overbearing. Roger’s had heard a rumor that the new President thought that General Ford was a big teddy bear. Rogers knew better, but the new President would have to learn those things for herself in due time.
Seated on the couch to the left of the General was the Director of National Intelligence, Eric Spearman. He had been sworn in four years earlier by the previous administration. Spearman was a short, bald, meek looking man; the antithesis of the General sitting next to him. Rogers suspected that in a fight the General could beat the shit out of Spearman without ever getting off the couch. Spearman looked more like a banker than a bureaucrat. He had round glasses and a round gloomy face. He was dressed in a dark blue suit that was similar to the suit Rogers was wearing. Rogers certainly hoped he looked better in his. Spearman’s sad face was buried in his iPad.
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jarret Pepper, was sitting on the other side of the coffee table, across from Ford and Spearman. Pepper’s grey hair went this way and that. It wasn’t all that long, but each follicle seemed to have a mind of its own. Being new to the job, Rogers hadn’t seen Jarret Pepper very often. But thinking back, he couldn’t recall ever seeing Pepper dressed in anything other than a grey suit. Maybe his tie was the same as well. Pepper also had an iPad down by his side, but he wasn’t currently using it.
The President, Joanna Weston, who had only been on the job for four months, was sitting behind her big desk. She was wearing a black pantsuit outfit and had a little golden American flag pinned to her breast pocket. Weston was from good political stock. Strong features, strong willed, strong opinions, but she was equally strong in allegiances and was a good friend to have. She was in her late forties. She had a shock of grey hair that sprang directly from the middle of her forehead. The grey streak then meandered backwards and was eventually lost in her thick mass of brown hair, thinning as a river’s tributary would disperse over a great distance.
Rogers had no idea why she didn’t dye that strange grey snake out of existence. It was disconcerting when you were looking at her or talking to her. But the woman had become the President of the United States, so the bolt of grey must have had some positive impact on the voters.
Rogers had requested this special meeting to inform the President of the new international incident that needed to be discussed. None of the other attendees had any idea what he was about to share with them, and he liked that feeling. It felt like power.
Pressing his finger on the tiny remote control, the first of many PowerPoint slides popped up on the screen. The introductory slide was a photo of a handsome looking man in his late thirties. The picture appeared to be a professional photo taken for publicity or possibly a magazine cover.
“His name is Marshall Hail,” Rogers began, pointing the remote control toward the photograph of his friend on the big screen.
His audience waited for the explanation.
Rogers pressed the button and another photo flashed onto the screen.
“His name is Kim Yong Chang. He is ― well, was the Minister of the People’s Armed Forces of North Korea. Marshall Hail emailed me less than two hours ago and Hail is claiming responsibility for the assassination of Kim Yong Chang. Hail is also making a claim for the twenty-five-million-dollar bounty the FBI placed on Chang.”