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In-house agent Donald Nelson was working at his desk when an agent came up to him and said, “Sir, we have a match on the picture our team sent from Azerbaijan, I just sent you the file.”
Nelson opened up the file and Adula Nassir’s face painted slowly across the screen. Next to the picture was the INTERPOL bio on Abdula that Nelson read aloud.
“Abdula Nassir, former arms dealer to the Islamic Jihad, hasn’t been seen in a few years. According to Israeli Intelligence, he came from a modest family in Beirut, his activities have been limited to arms smuggling. He recently moved his entire family from Lebanon to Syria, brothers and all. He stays completely out of the spotlight, meaning that he is in it strictly for the money. Let’s forward this to Jack Hoskins immediately,” Nelson said to the agent.
A few minutes later and half a world away in Ismailly, Azerbaijan, Jack Hoskins was in the CIA’s RV reading the file that he just received from Nelson.
“He’s in it for the money? Now there’s a new breed of terrorist for you.”
“That explains his ranting and raving,” Frank said, “They haven’t paid him yet. He robs the farmer, risks hauling the goods across two countries, and they haven’t paid him. Hell, I’d be mad too.”
“Why don’t the buyers just steal the cesium from these guys? They have them outnumbered and outgunned,” Brad said.
“It’s not that easy, they all know how deadly the cesium is, and this Abdula character is no fool, he probably told them that he has the truck wired with explosives and it may very well be,” Frank said.
“Well at least we know a little bit more about who we’re up against, and we might as well relax for the night,” Hoskins said as he scanned the RV’s refrigerator and cupboard.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a decent meal, did you happen to see any good restaurants in town?”
“I saw a few nice ones, they had decent crowds, so the food must be good, but we’d better hustle before it gets too late,” Frank said.
“Okay, do we have any volunteers to go and get some takeouts?” Hoskins asked.
“I’d go, but my feet are killing me after that last walk,” David said.
“Alright, I guess it’s my turn,” Brad said, “Just show me how to count those rubles or whatever the hell they use here.”
“Don’t worry about that, I’ll go with you,” Leslie said to Brad’s delight, “I speak the language and my eyes could use a break from the monitors.”
“Make sure you take a phone with you in case we get an alarm from the predator,” Hoskins said.
Leslie put on her coat and showed Hoskins what to look for on the console, “Okay, just watch this panel here, yellow alarms are okay, call me if you get any red alarms.”
Leslie put on a hat to disguise her long hair and pretty face and she and Brad exited the RV and took the twenty-minute walk into town.
When they got to the restaurant, Leslie checked the menu and selected a wide variety of ethnic Azerbaijani meat, rice, and vegetable dishes. The waitress smiled gratefully as Leslie gave her a generous tip for packing up the food for their long walk back to the RV.
“I’m glad you came along, I would have had a difficult time placing those food orders,” Brad said.
“The truth is, I’m really hungry and I didn’t want to take the chance that you might come back without anything,” Leslie said with a smile.
“Come on, I would’ve ordered something.”
“Yeah I know, that was my second concern.”
“Okay, you made your point,” Brad said, “Let’s change the subject, how long have you been with the CIA?”
“Almost eight years, I joined right out of college. I started out as a clerk before I became an in house agent in Langley, and finally a field agent. Time flies when you’re having fun, and how about you?”
“I’ve been in for almost five years, I’m an engineer and I like working with electronic equipment. If I could see it, feel it, put it together, I feel like I’m in control.”
“I know what you mean, that’s how I am with the predators.”
“Not quite, I never had to slap a hellfire missile on any of my equipment.”
“Hey, you get used to it,” Leslie said.
“How long have you be stationed in Azerbaijan?”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been here almost a year, I was in England for a year before that, and since I’ve been stationed overseas for over two years, I could now request to be sent back to Langley. I’m hoping to go back next month, that is if my replacement gets in here next week like I was promised.”
“That’s good, what’ll you be doing in Langley?”
“What else, I’ll be a predator training instructor. My degree is in education, and with my field experience, I saw an opening and I took it. I like the fieldwork, but after a while you get homesick.”
“Yeah, I understand its tough trying to avoid relationships and things like that in the field,” Brad said.
“It sure is, any friendship that you’re lucky enough to have, is based on lies to hide your identity.”
“I’ll bet that gets stressful after a while.”
“Yeah, and along with not being around your family and the people you grew up with, you just get lonely after a while. You have to get back to reality, the life that you knew, but who knows? After a year or two I’ll probably want to come back out here.”
“I’ve only been out here for one day, and I could see why, the excitement, the adrenaline, it’s addictive.”
“That’s for sure, it helps make the days go by faster and gives you something to look forward to the next day.”
“Maybe, we could get together when you get back to Virginia,” Brad said, “We could talk about old times, that is, of course, if we live to tell about it.”
“Don’t worry, you’re in really good hands,” Leslie said, “Jack and Frank are the best there is.”
“Yeah, tell me about Frank, he seems to be an interesting character.”
“Yeah, I’ve known Frank for some time now and believe it or not, he wasn’t always so quiet and laid back like that. Unfortunately, his entire life changed when some psycho terrorists went seeking revenge on his family.”
“Oh my God, now I’m sorry I asked,” Brad said.
“Yeah, Frank took it really hard, which anyone would.”
“How did this happen?”
“He was assigned to a case involving a terrorist who was car bombing the hell out of Italy, and Frank single-handedly traced the bomb elements back to the terrorist mastermind. Unfortunately, this lunatic was also onto Frank, and he dispatched one of his crazy followers to fly to the states and take out Frank’s family. The very night that Frank nailed the mastermind, he lost his wife and young daughter in a car bombing in Arlington, Virginia.”
“Wow, he must have been devastated.”
“We could only hope that it never happens to us, but everyone in the agency knows that it’s an occupational hazard.”
“Wow, I honestly never thought about that,” Brad said thinking that here he was out in the middle of nowhere, trying to start a possible relationship with an attractive professional woman, who herself is a prime target to get gunned down walking out of any given restaurant.
“I think I’d probably do what Frank did after something like that happened,” Leslie continued, “He took a week off to handle the arrangements, and came right back and kept himself busy by focusing on his job and literally losing himself in his work. They say that devoting your time and energy to make sure that it never happens to anyone else is the greatest objective that anyone could have.”
“I guess that’s one good thing about working with the agency, there’s plenty of overseas work to get your mind away from home,” Brad said.
“That’s right, and I really think it worked for Frank.”
“Yeah, he seems like a really sharp guy,” Brad said as they got back to the RV and were glad to get out of the cool night air.
Inside the RV, they enjoyed their meals and spent the rest of the evening watching the terrorist truck on the monitors and speculating on what the morning might bring.
“You know, as long as we have a homing device on the truck, let’s bring the predator down for the rest of the night and get it back up before daylight, its not really doing us much good at this time,” Hoskins said.
“Frank, let’s drive back out to that field and I’ll bring it down and fuel it up,” Leslie said,
When they got back out to the farm field, Leslie said, “With all of this help I have, I might as well make this easy on myself.”
“She checked the radar screen that showed that there was no air or ground traffic in the immediate area, and the wind gauge indicated that the wind was coming directly in, as expected, from the west.
“Let’s go boys,” Leslie said to Brad and David.
They walked outside the RV and Leslie flipped the ‘on’ switch on two small transponder boxes.
“We’re going to bring the predator in from the east, so I need you guys to take these boxes and put them on each end of the field,” Leslie said as she pointed to the locations where she wanted the boxes placed. “And put a good marker on the ground next to the transponders so that you won’t have trouble finding them later.”
“Should we stay out there or do you want us to come back in?” Brad asked.
“You’d better come back in,” Leslie said, “They say that getting hit by a thousand pound drone really smarts.”
You’re a million laughs,” Brad said as he turned on his flashlight and started walking out into the field, “David, next time you’re at the nightclub, see if they need a stand-up comedian.”
The transponder boxes formed an Instrument Landing System for the predator to execute a night landing. The predator’s computer homes in on the signals sent by the transponders and calculates the distance between the two units as the runway that it has to work with, and the optimum point of landing. Leslie typed in a command that told the predator to execute a first pass approach at 200 feet. On this first pass, the predator will use it’s on-board radar to scan the approach area to determine if there are any unseen obstructions that may impair its touching down safely at or near the first transponder box. The predator swooped in slowly then soared back up and around for it’s final approach. This time the predator came in low and touched down near the first box and rolled the full length of the field before it braked to a stop just in front of the second box.
Using the controls on the laptop, Leslie manually taxied the predator over to the RV for fuel, and she sent Brad and David back out into the field to retrieve the transponder boxes.
After the predator was refueled, Leslie had it taxi back out into the field to stay out of sight and shut down until morning.
The trio went back into the warm RV and took their turns at monitoring the console for any movement from the terrorist truck, and catching some sleep.
Leslie set the alarm on the console to remind her to get the predator airborne before sunrise at 5:45 A.M.
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