Knox stepped on his control pedals, instinctively activating brakes that were not in fact brakes at all, but it made him feel better to do something. Once the aircraft had touched down, it took only a matter of four seconds before it came to a complete stop.
Quickly Hail ordered, “Microphone on, please. I want to see if we can hear anything.”
“Like boots running towards Blondie?” Kara asked.
“Yeah, just like that,” Hail said.
The microphone was opened and the room was flooded with the sound of a million popcorn kernels being shaken in a metal trash can.
“Turn it down,” Hail said. “What the hell is that?”
Pierce Mercier, who had been sitting very quietly at his station, fielded the question.
“Cicadas, or the more common term is summer crickets, known as “Maemi” in Korean. en mass, their call for a mate can reach in the neighborhood of 90 decibels or above.”
“Well, we’re not going to hear anything with that racket going on. Shut off the microphone and take the camera up and do a three sixty and let’s see what there is to see,” Hail told Knox.
Near the front of the drone, a small round hatch on Blondie’s back popped opened. A telescoping monopod slowly grew from the hole. On the tip of the pole was affixed a motorized 360-degree pan head. Mounted on the pan head was a small high-definition camera. The black drone sat on its long belly in the deep weeds and grass with only two feet of its profile exposed. The camera’s monopod extended Blondie’s horizontal elevation another three feet; high enough to clear even the tallest grass in the field.
Knox slowly rotated the camera as Hail had instructed.
The crew watched nothing but blackness for three-fourths of the camera’s rotation. In the last quarter turn, Knox stopped the camera when the warehouse centered into frame.
Hail took some time to look over the building.
The warehouse was galvanized grey in color. Hail estimated it was about forty feet high and the side they were looking at was about three hundred feet long. The aerial photos they had received from the CIA had already provided the team with overall dimensions of the warehouse, everything but its height. Even with all that information they had collected from outer space, there was nothing like looking at the warehouse from ground level to get an idea of the layout.
Hail detected some sort of movement in the right corner of the frame. A dark figure was crossing under one of the bright lights.
“Zoom in on that guy,” Hail told Knox.
Knox adjusted the camera to the right and tightened up the shot.
A soldier in a drab grey North Korean uniform was walking slowly down the side of the warehouse. He had a shiny black AK-47 slung over his shoulder. His strides were short and indifferent. He walked with his head down, looking at the ground.
“Is that guy awake?” Renner asked.
“Let’s hope not,” Hail said.
The camera tracked the soldier as he walked halfway down the side of the building and then stopped. The soldier then stood still, raising his head and looking off into the night. In fact, he was looking right at Blondie’s camera.
“Say cheese,” Knox quipped.
Of course the crew understood that there was no possible way the man could make out the black drone in the dark field a hundred yards away. He was simply killing time, waiting there instead of finishing his rounds. The guards body language said, “I’m tired and need a good night’s sleep.” Hail could only guess how long the guy had been trudging around or the last time he had slept.
They continued to watch the man stand on the side of the warehouse. Eventually he backed up and began leaning on the building.
“What are you waiting for?” Kara asked Hail.
We need to see what this guy does,” Hail told her. “Either he’s going to walk all the way to the back of building and check it out, or he is going to kill time on the side before walking back to the front. Either way, we need to know if there is some sort of guard schedule and if so, where do they go.”
“This guy looks like the only thing he is patrolling is the inside of his eyelids,” Kara responded.
“That works for me,” Hail said.
The soldier now looked as if he had literally fallen asleep. He continued to stand, leaning on the side of the warehouse, shoulders sloped, head down pointed towards the ground.
“Knox, wake up Black Eyed Peas and Electric Light Orchestra and run a full systems check on them. I need to know how much video time and communications time each drone has left.”
Knox began flipping through screens and pressing icons. It took him a few moments to collect the information.
“ELO has about two hours of power left to facilitate the communications between BEP and the satellite.”
He paused for a second and flipped to another screen.
“And BEP has a little over three hours of time left to stream video.”
Hail checked the time: 3:15AM
Kara checked the time on her phone as welclass="underline" 3:15AM. She knew that Hail would be cutting things close and wrestled with telling him her little secret. Best outcome would be that Hail would quickly complete the mission and the air strike would be called off. Worst outcome would be that he would run long and the jet would polish off the warehouse. She decided to wait a little longer and see how things progressed.
Hail’s phone went off and he answered it.
“Hello,” was all he said.
“Hey Marshall, this is Dallas. We played back the last phone call Ramey made to Pepper. The time set for the air strike is still set for four hundred hours, Korea Standard Time.”
Hail wanted to say damn or some other expletive, but with Kara standing next to him, all he said was, “I understand,” and he pressed the END icon on his phone.
He looked at Kara inquisitively for a moment, as if his gaze alone might prompt her to spill the beans.
Kara looked back at him innocently.
If he confronted her with the information, then she would know that they were still monitoring all of her communications. That was an advantage that Hail was unwilling to give up at this time. And this would not be the best time to get into a pissing match with the CIA woman. He needed to get the operation moving quickly considering that there was less than forty-five minutes left.
He looked away from Kara.
On screen one, was the close up of the guard still leaning on the building, which was being sent from the monopod camera on Blondie.
And on large screen number two, were fresh images from inside the warehouse. BEP was alive and streaming.
“Let’s get the show on the road,” Hail said.
He told Kara, “Excuse me.”
Kara stepped away from his chair. From under the armrests of his chair, Hail slid two flight hand-controllers into place. He locked them into an upright position on top of each armrest. He then reached down on the side of his chair and flipped a latch that released a platform that contained foot pedals that protracted under his feet. In less than ten seconds, Hail had converted his big chair into a flight control station.
Kara looked impressed, but she said nothing.
Hail adjusted each of his small monitors, as a motorcyclist would adjust rear view mirrors for a better view. He then skimmed his finger across the small screen to his right, again and again until he found the page he wanted.
“I’m going to take Guns N’ Roses out for a little look around,” he told the crew.
Renner started to say something and stopped and decided to let it ride. He knew that Hail was just as qualified to fly the drones as any of his other pilots, but this ‘look around’, as Hail referred to it, had not been planned. One of the other pilots was supposed to fly that combat drone.