There were shops on the bottom floor and shops on the top floor.
“This is truly unbelievable,” she said, still smiling.
Hail smiled back. “I thought you would like it.”
The first store Kara saw was a Banana Republic. The store looked high class with large plate glass windows supported by thick black aluminum beams. Displayed in the windows were headless manikins wearing the latest colorful fashions. Through the windows, she could see inside the store and it appeared to be fully stocked.
To the right of the Banana Republic was a store called Denim & Soul. All of the manikins in the front window of this store were wearing denim pants and shirts and jackets, hence the name Denim & Soul Kara surmised. To the right of that store was a Ben and Jerrys Ice Cream store and continuing around the room Kara identified a 7 to 11, a Bebe fashion store, a high-end Coach New York store, a Sunglass Hut and that was just on one side of the mall on the bottom floor. Kara kept turning and reading the names of all the establishments.
Now she was really smiling.
“Who in their right mind would do something like this?” she asked Hail.
“I would change that question to who in their right mind wouldn’t do something like this, if they had the money.” Hail responded.
“There’s nobody here,” Kara noticed.
“Everyone is in school or teaching school or training for the new mission. Morning is not a popular time at the mall. But this place really gets jumping after school is out.”
“But why?” Kara asked. “Why go to all this trouble and expense?”
“I thought that we already went over this while we were in the restaurant,” Hail said.
“But this?” Kara said, swinging her arm around in a wide swipe. “Don’t you think this is over the top?”
“Not at all,” Hail told her. “In most cases, we make port at some of the poorest countries in the world. For safety reasons, I would prefer my crew to stay onboard. Many of these countries have internal strife, civil wars, power grabs and their people are suffering. We are not talking an overnight stay in the Cayman Islands. It’s more like coming to shore at the little island in Apocalypse Now. Most of the time, if we leave the ship for any reason we are forced to travel with an armed contingent and we are backed up by my drones that keep an eye on us. But even in the less turbulent countries, I wouldn’t allow my kids off the ship. Kidnappings, hostages, all that nasty stuff is present even in areas that you think are safe. So that’s why I created a good-ol’ American mall, where all the crew can go and have fun and be safe.”
Kara was speechless.
Hail added, “Hey, I get everything at wholesale, so it’s not as bad as you think.”
“Does your crew buy stuff? Do they have money? Who works at these stores? Who stocks them? Who…” and Kara went silent, realizing that she was rambling.
“Wow, that was a lot of questions,” Hail said. “Let’s see. Yes, my crew is paid in Hail dollars each week so the kids learn the meaning of money. If not and all of this was free, then they would simply fill their rooms with piles of stuff that they don’t need. So the answer to your first question is yes, they buy stuff, but if it starts getting out of hand then we cut them off. As for your question about who stocks the stores and works the registers, all the kids are required to work in the stores a certain number of hours per week. We think it teaches them responsibility and even though we live inside the ship in a fantasy world, I want them to understand how the real world works outside these metal walls.”
Hail waited for Kara to ask more questions. When she didn’t, he asked her, “Do you have any more questions?”
“Yeah,” she laughed, “Who is working here right now so I can buy some stuff. I don’t think my body sock defines my style.”
“I’ll tell you what. Since you don’t have any Hail dollars, why don’t you just walk around a little and steal some stuff. I promise I won’t send the Hail mall cops after you.”
Kara looked pleased.
“That will work,” she said. “And what are you going to do during those ten hours.”
Hail laughed. “I have business things I need to take care of, so how about I meet you back here in an hour or so and help you carry your bags to your room.”
“Two hours,” Kara said. Then she noticed something on the second floor. “A movie theater too?” she asked, pointing up at the marquee on the second floor.”
“Didn’t I tell you we had a movie theater?”
Kara thought for a moment and said, “I think you did. I just didn’t believe you.”
“Alrighty, then.” Hail replied. “Have fun and I will see you shortly.”
Hail left the mall, stepped back into the hallway, withdrew his phone and called Renner.
Renner answered on the first ring.
“Can you meet me in Security? I’m headed there now,” Hail asked.
“No problem,” Renner replied.
Hail clicked off, put his phone back in his pocket and set a course for the ship’s security center.
Four decks and three minutes later, Hail walked into the room and Renner was already there waiting for him.
Kara’s purse, her clothes, her phone charger and cable, her iPhone and her compact and some makeup was sitting on a table.
“So let’s run this down again, including the meeting,” Hail told Renner.
Renner said, “Like I told you before, the compact, phone and phone charger are all communications devices and have been modified. Her clothes and the purse are clean.”
“So how did she do at the meeting?” Hail asked.
“From our perspective she failed. I’m sure from her bosses’ perspective, she succeeded.”
Renner directed Hail’s attention toward a computer monitor. On the screen were two audio sign waves. The line on each of the channels danced up and down erratically, indicating an audio signal was present.
“When you asked her to mute the phone, she did, but for only four seconds. She then unmuted the phone. That’s what we see here on the second channel, which is the bidirectional send.” Renner pointed at a jagged line on the screen. “If she had muted the phone, then we would see nothing on this channel. It would look like a heart patient that had died. Flat line.”
Hail seemed upset.
Renner asked him, “Come on. The woman is CIA. She has no allegiance to us. Did you really expect her to pass that test and keep the phone muted?”
Hail sighed and said, “I hoped she would have. I wanted to start this partnership out with a basis of trust. Now, out of the five items she carried on board, three of them are CIA spy devices. I would have expected more trust, but then you know me. Mr. Gullible.”
“Yeah, being a good guy sucks, ” Renner joked, but there was a measure of sincerity in his words.
Both men were silent as Hail decided what he wanted to do.
“Do we have a method of recording all the data that leaves her phone?”
“Sure,” Renner said without hesitation. “Just like your phone, we have to install a TCP/IP stack and proxy that routes her calls over our ship’s VOIP network. That signal can then be routed to our cell phone transmitter/receiver on deck. As you correctly told the CIA woman, since we are in an iron tub, that’s the only way to communicate if you are making a call to the mainland from inside the ship. However, even if she were on deck, her phone is set up to connect to a CIA satellite, but we will intercept her call and then connect her to the world via our satellite. We have her phone number and her MAC ID and she is riding our network, so we simply rip the data stream as it goes by and store it on our servers.”