“And what if they destroyed the control building? What would happen to the reactor?” Kara asked.
“Like I said before, the reactor is a stable machine. It doesn’t need to be told what to do. It’s just like lighting a long campfire. You light one end and it just keeps burning until it gets to the other. You don’t have to monitor the campfire to keep it burning. It just burns until there is nothing left to burn. The equipment associated with the power plant that breaks down is the steam generator, but that equipment is on the other side of the fence and is Haiti Electric’s responsibility. I mean they have to play some sort of roll in the infrastructure. They are also responsible for building and maintaining the high-power lines that carry the electricity to its citizens.”
Outside on the tarmac, a dark skinned man reeled in the gas hose and drove his truck away from the jet. Kara heard the plane’s engines come to life and a few minutes later their aircraft was rolling.
Hail thought that she looked more comfortable than she had when they had taken off at Andrews, but her face was still twitching pretty good. He wanted to ask her some personal questions, like where did she live? Did she have a family? Did she believe in God? The normal stuff that a billionaire asked a beautiful CIA agent, but he knew there would be plenty of time for that later.
Kara said, “When your friend Renner was saying goodbye, he said I will see you when you are back on board.”
Kara looked at Hail.
“On board what?” Kara asked.
Hail looked at his watch.
“You will have that answer in about nine and a half hours.”
“I can hardly wait,” Kara said as she braced herself for takeoff.
The engines opened up and the G-forces kicked in and Kara yelled, “I hope that Chavez is not falling asleep at the wheel.”
Hail didn’t have the nerve to tell her that they had just changed pilots at Dakhla. The new pilot had never flown the Gulfstream before, but she had over twenty-five hours on the simulator for this exact model. On the simulator, she had only crashed the Gulfstream once in heavy weather.
“You have got to be kidding me?” Kara Ramey said as she stared at the massive AgustaWestland helicopter parked on the tarmac of the Sultan Aji Muhammad Sulaiman Sepinggan International Airport.
“No, it’s just a short hop to our next location and I’m a great pilot. Look, no holes or burns or contusions on me at all,” Hail said, showing Kara his arms and legs.
“How much have you flown this thing?” Kara asked, still making no effort to approach the idle aircraft.
“Lots,” Hail lied.
“Nothing in your file indicated that you are a pilot of any type,” Kara said skeptically.
“Your files are old. I learned how to fly over the last couple of years. After my family…”
Hails words trailed off and he wished he wouldn’t have brought that up. Each time he did, it was like taking another bullet to the heart.
Kara softened a little. As if the air that surrounded them contained some sort of anti-anxiety powder, she sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes and mumbled something to herself. She let out an equally long breath and looked like a beaten soldier. Looking down at her purse that was clutched in her right hand, she threaded her arm through the thin strap, placed the strap on her shoulder and began walking toward the helicopter.
“Is this the last flying contraption I will see in long time?” she asked Hail.
“Until you leave us,” Hail confided in her. “And when you leave us, you can take a rowboat back to the States if it makes you happy.”
Hail’s sarcasm was not lost on the woman and she flashed him a screw you expression.
Hail’s mechanic held the door open for the CIA woman, but he did not offer her his greasy hand to help her on board.
Doing her best to cope with her four-inch high heels, Kara awkwardly boarded the chopper, found a plush seat and sat down.
Hail went in after her and stood quietly for a moment, unsure if he should ask the question.
What the hell, Hail thought and said, “Why don’t you come up front and sit with me in the cockpit. It will be fun.”
Kara looked at him as if he had escaped from a mental hospital.
“I’ll be fine here,” she said. “Let’s just do this thing so I can calm down.”
“Understood,” Hail said, opening the door to the cockpit.
“It will be a short flight, like five minutes,” he added before disappearing through the doorway.
Kara watched the door close and attempted to locate her seatbelt. The mechanic slammed the exterior door shut and everything became very quiet. Unlike most helicopters, the AgustaWestland was built for comfort and was one of the quietest helicopters in the world. At least quiet on the inside.
Kara clicked her buckle together and heard the three turbofan engines whine to life. A minute after that, the big blade over her head began twirling around. A minute after that, she felt the aircraft lift off from the ground and she held her breath. The chopper tilted forward and began to pick up speed. The trees, houses, cars and people got smaller and smaller as they gained altitude. Kara sighed and did her best to stay calm. So far, Hail hadn’t killed them. That was good.
The machine banked to the left and now all the trees and houses and cars were a blur as the aircraft poured on the speed.
Just when Kara was getting used to the feel of the aircraft, she felt the nose come up a little and sensed they were slowing. She could see ocean and sand and some sort of ship yard approaching from the east. Slower still, the helicopter finally came to a dead stop in midair. Kara looked down and saw a landing target drawn on the deck of a massive cargo ship below them. She was indifferent to where they landed, as long as they landed. The aircraft began to descend toward the painted target on the metal deck below. Kara’s heart raced and her face twitched. The blue sky was replaced with the sides of strange looking shipping containers. Each of them was white and had the bright yellow and black symbol for nuclear radiation affixed to them. Kara felt the feet of the helicopter touch down and would have thanked God if she truly believed that one was paying attention.
Before the propeller had stopped spinning, Hail opened the cockpit door and entered the passenger cabin.
“See, not so bad.” He said happily.
“Let me out of here,” Kara said. “Open the door.”
Instead of Hail opening the door, someone on the outside tugged the door open.
Kara clicked open her seatbelt, grabbed her purse from the seat next to her and stood up.
The salt air and sea breeze met her as she stepped off the chopper. Her red hair flew one way and then the other as the wind wound its way around obstacles on the deck of the Nucleus.
“What are all these things?” she asked Hail, pointing toward the white cargo containers.
“Those are the containment vessels that hold the nuclear waste we are currently transporting.”
Kara didn’t like the sound of that.
“Are they all full?” she asked, speaking loudly so she could be heard over the wind.
“Some are, some are empty,” Hail yelled back.
Hail’s helicopter mechanic asked, “Are you all going down?”
Hail nodded his head, yes, and the mechanic pressed a button on a remote control he had on his belt.
The deck of the ship dropped out from under them and the elevator began to descend to the deck below.
Kara didn’t know what was happening and Hail explained.
“It’s a hydraulic elevator like they have on aircraft carriers. That way we can store our helicopters below and out of the elements.”
Ten feet deep into the hull of the Nucleus, the sound of the wind died away and was replaced with the whine of the hydraulic pump that moaned in the cavernous space. The tenor inside the ship rendered every sound an echo that was sustained for a moment before turning into a lush reverberation.