Hail Damage: Hail, #4

By Brett Arquette

Welcome back all you wonderful Hailraisers! Within these pages, you will be treated to not one, but two plot lines filled with explosions, drones, guns and heavy machinery sprinkled with a little tech magic. Marshall Hail and Kara Ramey have been given a new mission that will completely change their lives. Alliances are broken when Hail discovers that people in Washington have lied to him.  Twists and turns?  Check.  Edge of your seat thrills?  Check.  Will Hail and his crew take out more terrorists?  Checkmate.  Buckle up and get ready for another fun ride!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brett Arquette
• Release date: Dec 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386702214

Brett Arquette

Dubbed, "the father of the drone thriller," by his fans, the middle child of five, Brett Duncan Arquette was born in 1960 in Florida.  Brett was anointed with his mother’s pen name “Duncan”, given to him by Mystery Writer's of America Grand Master award winner, author Lois Duncan. During her career, his mother Lois has written over 32 best selling young adult books, some of which have been made into movies, including the movie “I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Hotel for Dogs".  Brett was raised in New Mexico and moved to Florida on his 30th birthday. Arquette spent most his career working as the Chief Technology Officer for one of the largest Circuit Court Systems in Florida. In 2002, Computerworld Magazine selected Arquette as one of the “Premier 100 IT Leaders” in the world, describing him as a “visionary” in reference to the cutting-edge technology. His books are peppered with technology acquired from his vast experience in advanced computers and audio/video systems. Arquette is also the Editor in Chief of the Court Technology Forum, Contributing Editor for eWeek Magazine, columnist for ComputerWorld and SmartComputing magazines, all of which has helped to create a loyal fan base and lots of traffic on his website. Writing on the weekends, Arquette’s first book, "Deadly Perversions", was published in 2002. His additional titles are "Seeing Red", "Tweaked", "The Pandemic Diary"  and "Soundman for a B-Band".  He is proofing his new adventure into Young Adult writing with a series of "HAIL" books with the first one called "Operation Hail Storm".  Mr. Arquette's primary aspirations are to quit the 9 to 5 grind and become a best-selling author, following in his famous mother’s footsteps. Mr. Arquette currently resides in the Sunshine State with his wife and three children.  

Book preview

Jerusalem – The Six-Day War – 1967

Moha Tamimi cursed the Israeli soldiers as he fired his weapon. Through his gun’s metal sights, he saw an Israeli crumble like a man made from a Graham cracker, yet he felt nothing. Not pleased with the kill, nor even somewhat relieved there was one less Israeli to fight.

Tensions and hostilities had been building for years as more and more Jews settled in and around Jerusalem. Everything in Moha’s being screamed that this was his land, the land of Palestine and the rightful homeland of Jordan. However, the Jews didn’t care. Up to this point, they had been occupying land just as fast as their new homes could be built, but this incursion would stop today.

Ammunition Hill was the name of the Jordanian military post, which sat on the western slope of Mount Scopus. The fort was built by the British in 1930. However, the Jordanian Arab Legion seized control of the hill during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Moha’s father had died in that war, and curiously enough, on the same hill where Moha now found himself.

Moha peeked over a neat line of sandbags and cut loose with his AK-47, taking down yet another enemy soldier. Heavy return fire erupted from below and forced Moha back down into his trench. The bullets sang a deadly tune as they whizzed overhead. Now and then, Moha would hear the grunt of one of his men who had taken one of those singing bullets. The Israeli Uzis had a very distinctive sound, firing much faster than his AK-47. Moha stuck his gun up and blindly fired at the attacking force. He was a smart man, had many years of schooling and was good with numbers. In the back of his mind, he considered the odds of surviving this battle. Ammunition Hill had a Jordanian force of 150 soldiers, but Moha felt that the Israelis had an unlimited number of men they could pump into the siege. Statistically, he was a dead man.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the sound of Israeli tanks making their way up the hill. Above him, a machine-gun nest spat bullets down on the advancing machines. The big fifty caliber bullets made many different sounds as they bounced off the tanks. Some sounded like a movie ricochets, while others had more of a bonking quality as the heavy skin of the tank crushed their bullets into coins.

The man to the left of him popped up to take a shot. Moha looked up and saw the man’s helmet leave his head and go sailing through the air. A second later, the man dropped his rifle and slumped over the lip of Moha’s trench. Before the man could be wholly disfigured, Moha dragged him down next to him.

As every man knows who goes into a war, there’s a chance of being killed. As the tank sound came closer, Moha took out a small photo of his wife and son. The boy, Adama, was very young. If Moha died today, then his son was probably too young even to remember him. Moha mustered the courage to go back on the offensive but was stopped in his tracks by a lucky shot from a mortar. The projectile came down inside his trench and exploded no more than ten feet from Moha.

The blast rearranged his surroundings. Everything that had been on one side of the trench was now scattered throughout the ditch. Moha could no longer hear the battle. His eardrums were blown out by the explosion.

Now on his back, laid out in the middle of the trench, Moha raised his arm and saw the black-and-white photo was still in his hand, albeit tattered by shrapnel. He brought the picture up to his lips and kissed it, the last good-bye to the people he loved in this world. As he lay dying, an unsettling question fluttered through his cloudy brain. Would his sacrifice and death make a difference in this conflict?

The battle for Ammunition Hill lasted one day, ending at 6:30 in the morning. Thirty-six Israeli soldiers and seventy-one Jordanians was killed in the fighting.

In 1975, the hill was made into a memorial and is visited by 200,000 people a year. As if to rub salt in the wound, Ammunition Hill currently operates as the main induction center for Israeli Defense Forces.

Port Autonome de Lomé, LOMÉ, Togo

on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus

Marshall Hail, Gage Renner and a few of their kids watched a massive container crane strained to lift the Russian Sinara GT1 locomotive from the hold of the Hail Nucleus cargo ship. Debuted in 2008, the Sinara was the world’s most powerful gasoline turbine locomotive in the world. Hail purchased the previously owned locomotive for a few reasons. In modern Russia, things were cheap and that included locomotives. A beleaguered economy, compounded by an internationally unpopular leadership, culminated in an economic atmosphere that had driven Russian prices down to what would be considered rock bottom. Whether it be a single bottle of vodka or a locomotive, there was certainly a deal to be had in the previous Soviet Union. The other reason why Hail had selected the Sinara was it was relatively easy to be converted to run on hydrogen. Before the delivery, the locomotive had undergone the conversion in Batman, Turkey. The tanks, which had previously held fuel, had been swapped out with high-pressure tanks that held hydrogen. In the future, Hail hoped to use the locomotive as a test bed for a small traveling wave reactor that created hydrogen on the fly. All one needed to do was add water and, via electrolysis, the reactor would split water into hydrogen and oxygen. For the time being, Hail would have to rely on his ample supply of hydrogen that sat dutifully on a section of the port gifted to Hail by the President of Togo himself.

Dang, that thing is big! Dallas Stone commented.

That’s what she said, Alex Knox shot back without taking his eyes from the offload.

Paige Grayson said, "Isn’t that ‘that’s what she said’ thing getting a little old? I mean how long has that tired joke been around?"

What works, works, Alex said. It’s a classic.

Having successfully lifted the locomotive from the ship, the crane had retracted its boom and was lowering the locomotive onto a set of shiny rails that led to the Hail Industries rail yard. Below, dock workers grabbed ropes that dangled from the massive machine. Little by little, they tugged the locomotive into the correct alignment. A moment later, the crane set Hail’s new locomotive down onto its new tracks.

Paige looked up at Hail and asked him, Can we drive it?

Define driving it, Hail said, because almost all the physical controls have been removed from the locomotive. Back in Batman, they were all replaced with equipment that allows us to drive it remotely.

Paige looked disappointed. It doesn’t seem like the same thrill as being in the locomotive. You know, sensing the power and weight.

And let’s not forget blasting the horn, Dallas added.

Hail shrugged and said, Well, there are no controls on the locomotive, but maybe we can rig up a horn inside the mission center. You know? Something that will blow your ears out.

The kids looked at their mentor, realizing that he was pulling their leg. However, Hail could tell the prospect of not getting to drive the locomotive was bumming them out.

Gage Renner said, Yeah, but instead of control surfaces, we added a bunch of cool defensive items.

The kids’ interest perked up.

Dallas was the first to ask, What kind of defensive items?

Hail said, That’s a conversation that should take place in the confines of the ship. You guys should know better than anyone that little ears can be everywhere.

Given that they had piloted some of the smallest drones in the world, Hail’s words rang true to them.

Paige pointed at the tinted glass of the locomotive, the area from which the train engineer would have piloted the train, and asked, Is there someone in there. I see a person standing there.

Let’s go take a look, Hail responded.

The kids ran up ahead, but the best Hail and Renner could do was a fast walk.

Remember what it was like to be young? Hail asked Renner.

Nope, was his friend's honest reply.

By the time Hail and Renner reached the locomotive, his young crew had already climbed up the ladder that led to the cab and had all disappeared inside. The door popped back open, and Paige called out, The guy in here isn’t real. It’s a dummy dressed up as a train engineer.

That’s strange, Hail said. Let me see. Hail climbed the ladder, and Renner followed him up into the cab. Once inside, Hail gazed at the figure that had been bolted to the steel floor of the locomotive.

Hail waved his hand in front of the dummy’s face and stated, You’re right. It’s not a real person.

Really? Paige said. Like you didn’t already know you had a fake engineer in here.

Well, now that we’re inside and can’t be heard, I can tell you that, yes, this guy was built by my techs, although there isn’t very much tech in this guy. It’s basically a store-bought manikin that’s screwed to the floor.

And this is because? Alex coaxed.

Hail continued, I want everything about this train to ring true. I don’t necessarily want outsiders to know that it’s a ghost train, operated by you guys from our ship’s mission center.

Hail stopped talking. When no one asked any more questions, he went on with, And it’s not like it was all that hard to convert this thing to being operated remotely. After all, it runs on a track, so you don’t need to steer it. It goes forward or backward, quickly or slowly. That’s it. It’s a wonder that all trains aren’t run remotely.

There was a moment of silence as the youngsters touched all the remaining shiny moving parts of the locomotive. Gone were the oversized levers and handles that the older trains used. All of those bulky controls had been replaced with a single large control panel, not much different from a control station on the Hail Nucleus’s mission center.

Dallas asked, You said there were some defensive weapons added to this beast?

Hail smiled, reaching up and unscrewing a knob from the ceiling of the cab. Once the screw had reached the end of its threads, Hail allowed a metal door to flop down. Hail didn’t say anything; instead, he merely pointed up into the opening and then moved to one side so his crew could get a good look.

Dallas commented, That should do the trick.

Renner said, It also has smart-motion and heat-tracking guidance.

Paige said, Let’s see. First, you replaced people with drones, and now the guns can locate and fire on a target by themselves. Pretty soon you won’t even need us.

Hail said, It’s a work in progress. We can’t simply allow the software to select the targets. It has no way of determining if it is shooting a small woman or a big kid. Don’t worry; at least for now; your jobs are all safe.

Is this the only deterrent onboard? Knox asked.

Hail responded, It’s the only deterrent on the locomotive. A few of the railcars have the same gun installed on them.

Dallas suggested, Seems like it would be a good idea to have some type of rocket mounted in one of the cars in case of an aerial attack.

Renner said, The only thing of value that we will transport is our wave reactor’s core bundle. Unless we are expecting an all-out terrorist attack on the train, then we have to assume that bombing the train from the air is unrealistic. What I worry about is someone stopping the train and stealing the core.

Hail added, And the Togo newspapers are treating the delivery of the core like it was the Statue of Liberty arriving in Kara, Togo. They are even having a ceremony when it arrives.

Paige asked, almost accusatorially, You guys told them when we were shipping the core?

Renner said, No, but maybe they had some inside information. Maybe the local labor working at the plant and installing the generators spilled the beans. Maybe they deduced that we hadn’t installed the core, and the Nucleus had just arrived in port.

Hail waved off the issue, dismissing their concerns with, It doesn’t matter that the public knows the day we ship the core. We have the guns, and it’s not as if you can drive up in a van and take the core. It weighs twenty tons. We have leased our own crane at the reactor site to set it down inside the reactor building. Then it’s just a matter of putting the top on the reactor, and we should be good to fire it up.

Paige said, I don’t pretend to be a fortune teller, but my crystal ball shows we’ll soon be in class learning everything we need to know about driving a train.

Hail said, There are no other trains on the line, so we don’t have to worry about traffic or schedules or any of that. All you have to do is learn the operating parameters of the hydrogen-powered engine and make sure you know how to read the hydrogen pressure gauge. That’s about it.

Hail checked his watch and told his crew, I need to get back to the Nucleus. Kara is doing a video meeting with her CIA boss and asked me if I could attend.

She’s still in the CIA? Knox asked. I thought after her last mission that her boss would rather have her drawn and quartered before taking her back.

How do you know what drawn and quartered means? Hail asked.

Knox said, Hey, some of us watch the History Channel. Of course, we do it while we’re playing a video game.

Hail laughed and said, I think that’s the most amazing thing I’ve heard all day.

Nabi Salih – Central West Bank, Palestine - 1988

When the Israeli soldiers broke down the front door of her home, nine-year-old Halati Tamimi was hiding under her bed. The men were there to take her father into custody. Her mother had refused to open their door to the enemy, so the Israelis had retrieved a massive ram from their Humvee, and moments later the door was no more.

The entire abduction took less than three minutes.

Halati had been playing a board game with her younger brother when the insistent pounding on the front door had begun. Their mother, Beela, had run into the front room and ordered her kids to hide. As was his custom, her husband, Adama, was sitting in a chair and reading the Ammon Newspaper. Adama read a lot. The family didn’t have a TV, so it was either read, play games, talk to one another or stare at the wall. His wife, however, was a busybody and could always find something to clean or sweep or cook. To Adama, Beela was in perpetual motion and hadn’t slowed down a single beat during their ten-year marriage. She was a nervous person. Movement and routine tasks were her method of dealing with her condition. If nervousness was considered a virus, then she was not alone. Most of the Palestinians who lived in Nabi Salih were nervous. If they weren’t, then they were either stupid, soon to be dead or already dead and, therefore, had nothing to fear.

Halati ran back to the bedroom she and her brother shared. The knocking on the front door turned into a hard pounding. She could hear the Israeli soldiers announcing themselves. To Halati, the men sounded angry. Angry and determined to get inside. Moments after Halati and her brother, Diyaa, had crawled under the bed; they heard the crash of the front door caving in. During the minutes that followed, they listened to some booming shouts of men giving orders to other men, and somewhere almost lost in the cacophony was the gentle voice of their father trying to reason with the invaders.

He was asking the same question that everyone asked why their door was being broken down, What is this all about? What have I done? You can’t break into my home. It’s illegal.

The soldiers didn’t respond to Adama’s protests. Instead, what the children didn’t see was their father being led away at gunpoint. By the time they emerged from their hiding place, they had found their mother on her knees in front of the shattered door, sobbing softly.

It was common for Palestinians to be questioned by Israeli soldiers. After all, Israeli soldiers controlled the city even though Nabi Salih was governed by the Palestinian Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate. That combination didn’t instill a considerable amount of confidence in the hundreds of Palestinian residents who had occupied the city after the Six-Day War in 1967. Since that time, due to the weekly Palestinian marches to protest the occupation, many clashes erupted between the Israeli occupiers and the previous Jordanian residents. Scores of Israeli soldiers suffered injuries during these organized marches; therefore, the Israelis were hell-bent on finding out who organized the demonstrations. All of their intelligence had brought them to the home of Adama Tamimi, and they hadn’t been wrong.

Even as a young boy, Adama was thrust into the Israeli conflict. Every day of his young life was spent either attacking the occupiers or defending their victims. In the past, it had all been physical, attacks on the Israelis using guns or even rocks. However, the marches that Adama had organized over the years appeared to be a more effective manner of getting the word out, even more effective than raw violence. The marches certainly agitated the Israelis, which in itself brought the Palestinians great joy. The local Jordanian news agencies sent reporters with video cameras to witness the demonstrations. The images captured by their cameras were seen around the world. In the midst of the marches, those same cameras caught violent exchanges between the religious sects. After countless rallies and dozens of video streams that had gone viral, the Israelis were determined to bring an end to the protests.

The best way to kill a snake is to cut off its head. Actually, a majority of the time that technique works well on most living creatures. The man who had organized the marches was Adama Tamimi, and his time had come because the Israelis had come for him.

Why did they take him? nine-year-old Halati asked her grieving mother. The young girl dropped down to her knees and hugged her mother. A moment later, her six-year-old brother was there as well. The trio sat in the front room of their modest home, cuddled with one another and cried.

Little did young Halati or her family know that this would be the last time they would ever see the father. After being whisked away by the Israelis, Adama was never seen again by anyone.

Port Autonome de Lomé, LOMÉ, Togo

on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus

Back aboard his ship, Hail checked his watch, pleased to see he wasn’t late for the meeting with the CIA.

Marshall found Kara sitting quietly in the ship’s conference room, apparently waiting for Hail’s tech to establish the video connection between Hail’s ship and CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Hail thought that Kara looked fresh. She was dressed in a simple yellow blouse and jeans. She was as tan as Hail had ever seen her typically white skin. Along with many of Hail’s crew, Kara had volunteered to help with the construction of the railroad that made a straight shot from the railhead in Lomé to the bustling town called Kara.

Naturally, when Kara Ramey the ex-CIA or potentially current CIA agent, heard the name of the city Hail’s reactor was being built in, she immediately thought that he had selected the city because of its name. Hail had allowed Kara to believe it was true, but in actuality, he had chosen the city long before he had ever met Kara. Huge rail projects take years of planning. Not only was the town Kara centrally located in Togo, but it was also one of the few cities associated with a river, making it the nexus of cargo routes.

The foundation of the Togo railroad was preexistent, built during the German colonial period in 1907. The abandoned rail line had seen better days, and even if Hail had opted to repair it, the narrow gauge of the original rail line would not accommodate his heavy locomotive. Railroads were new to Hail, and much of the process of rebuilding the line had been learned in the college of hard knocks. Initially, he, his crew and dozens of local laborers began building the line by hand. Rail by rail, tie-by-tie. Starting at the railhead located next to Hail’s staging area in Lomé, he and his crew slowly worked their way north. Hail had expected the slow pace, but after a month of arduous labor and toil, they had nothing to show for their sincere effort but a mile of steel rails laid down on refurbished ties. Hail knew he had to make a change, and, as was Hail’s style, change came in the form of the Plasser & Theurer SVM1000 Infranord tracklayer. The massive machine not only plowed the gravel into a flat bed for the track to sit on, but it also dropped each tie in place from a conveyor on its back. After the road was smooth and the ties were in place, the big machine then positioned the rails on the ties with centimeter accuracy. The process was continuous, not much different from Ford’s assembly line. The only difference was this conveyor line was still, while the machine itself crept slowly forward and would continue to move forward until all 236 miles of railroad were laid. Since the SVM1000 could lay three miles per day, in seventy-eight days, the entire job would be complete.

Initially, Hail’s young crew was disappointed by being replaced by the track laying machine. During the previous month, both the teenage boys and girls had put on muscle-mass due to working on the railroad. However, once the marvel of engineering was delivered; their techie and mechanical nature kicked in, and they became true believers. Still, a fully automated track laying machine requires a swarm of busy bees to keep it moving forward. Rail sections needed to be connected together with thick steel plates. There always had to be workers on both sides of the behemoth to make sure it didn’t spring a hydraulic leak and to make sure it was performing optimally. Directly behind the big machine was a crew running a smaller machine that dropped long ribbons of steel rails on top of the ties on the gravel bed. Many ancillary tasks were performed by other specialized machines that lifted twenty ties at a time from a railcar near the back of the train, moved them up to the front of the train, and set them on the SVM1000 conveyor. Lengths of continuous rail stretched out for miles, almost taking on a serpentine quality, created by a strip of shiny metal that was sucked into the front of the machine and aligned on the ties. Hail’s kids got to run all the strange, yet wonderful machines. Changing stations at noon, some did nothing more than bolt rails to the ties, while others ran large unique contraptions positioned well in front of the Plasser & Theurer. A few of these machines removed old rails and ties from the line and stacked them neatly on the shoulder of the road.

How’s Hail Railroad Company coming along? Kara asked. She was sitting in front of a banana-shaped stainless-steel conference table.

Hail said, We’re just finishing up the final touches. We should be good to ship the new core on time.

Yeah, I was just reading about it in the Togo newspaper.

Hail asked, You can read the local newspaper?

Kara said, A little. I’m learning their language called Ewé.

Why that language and not the other forty other languages are spoken in this country?

"Because Ewé is spoken in Lomé, and since Lomé seems to be the genesis of your operation, I felt it would be good to learn a little lomanise."

Couldn’t hurt, Hail agreed. I just don’t know how you can remember all those languages packed into your pretty little head.

The same way you remember all the physics stuff trapped in your big ‘ol ugly head, Kara joked.

Hail absorbed the jab with grace and sat down next to Kara.

A large monitor was sitting in front of them. Under the conference room table, a video tech was still messing with the codec for the video link to Langley.

As the tech finalized the connection, Hail asked Kara, Are you nervous about talking to Pepper after...after... all this time?

Kara said, somewhat defiantly, "You just avoided saying after you went off the reservation and killed a terrorist and haven’t even discussed it with my boss, and now it’s been, how long, four months?"

Yeah, that’s what I meant to say, Hail agreed.

I don’t know why, Kara said, shifting uncomfortably in her chair, but to tell you the truth I’m a little nervous.

Yeah, if I were in your shoes, I would feel the same way.

A flash of light dissolved into a steady video stream on the big monitor. It was a wide shot of Jarret Pepper in the middle, along with a director on either side of him.

Pepper smiled when he saw Hail and Kara, but to Kara, even his sincerest smile appeared to be tainted with animosity.

Pepper was the first to speak and started with, Hi Marshall and Kara. I’m sure you remember Paul Moore, my Director of Operations and Karen Wesley, my Director of Analysis.

Kara responded, Yes, of course. I hope you’ve all been well.

There were nods of acknowledgment from the other side and Pepper continued.

I guess we need to discuss the elephant in the room, and that’s Kara going on her own mission, albeit, a successful mission.

Hail started to say something, but Kara cut him off. Her voice had a little edge to it.

There’s only an elephant in the room if you, indeed, see an elephant. Personally, I see wolverine.

Hail thought Kara’s rebuttal was provocative, but then it was a good debating technique to knock the other party back on their heels right out of the gate. Hail wondered if, besides being great at languages, maybe she had been on the debate team in high school as well.

Pepper appeared to be surprised by the first words he had heard from his agent in more than three months, but he composed himself rather quickly and said, "I can live with wolverine, it being a powerful and versatile predator, as well as very dangerous and unpredictable when cornered."

Kara said, Then we’re in agreement.

An uncomfortable silence followed, given that Kara was offering as little as possible since her boss had requested this pow-wow.

Finally, Pepper decided on the question, Kara, what do you feel is your status with our agency?

Kara thought it was a logical question, but she didn’t have a logical answer.

She said, "What do you feel is my status with the CIA?"

Pepper huffed once but refrained from looking upset and said, As far as I’m concerned you are still an active agent and in good standing. Sure, you did take a leave of absence, but you’re welcome to come back whenever you want, hopefully, sooner than later.

Why’s that? Kara asked.

Pepper said, What I have to tell you is top secret, and I want assurances it won’t leave your room.

More curious than concerned, Hail said, You have our word on that.

OK, Pepper said. We’ve been working on putting together a mission to capture one of the top ten terrorists, a woman by the name of Halati Tamimi.

Tamimi has taken credit for the suicide bombing of a popular coffee shop in the Israeli occupied area of Jerusalem. Five kilograms of C-4 was used in the bomb that also contained nails, nuts, and bolts. The attack killed thirteen Israelis, one pregnant American and one Brazilian, all of them civilians.

Kara said, It doesn’t ring a bell.

Pepper said, That’s because most of the time we don’t give a damn about violence between Israel and Palestine. They have been killing one another since the Jews began migrating to Israel during World War II. As long as they both have issues with the mutual recognition of their borders, security, water rights and control of Jerusalem, the violence will continue.

Pepper collected his thoughts for a moment and then continued, Tamimi has an interesting backstory of which you should be aware of. The Israelis arrested her for her part in the bombing, and she was given sixteen life sentences. However, she was released in a prisoner exchange in 2011 and immediately moved back to Jordan. The first stop she made was in Cairo to meet with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal. Since being set free, she has become a mouthpiece for the Palestinian movement. Tamimi hosts a Jordanian talk show, Nasim Al-Ahrar or Breeze of the Free, on Hamas-affiliated Al-Quds TV. It deals with topics such as Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, but in reality, it is the propaganda wing of Hamas.

Pepper stopped talking, maybe to field questions, or perhaps to review his notes.

Kara took the opportunity to say, I’m not sure what all this has to do with us?

Pepper looked up from his tablet and said, I thought you and Hail were into tracking down terrorists and putting them to sleep or is that a different vigilante group I’m thinking of?

Hail looked irritated. Kara looked amused.

She said, Yeah, you pretty much nailed that on the head. So how does this involve us?

Pepper said, On July 15, 2013, the U.S. Justice Department filed sealed criminal charges in the District of Columbia against Tamimi for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death. The criminal complaint was unsealed on March 14, 2017. Jordanian courts ruled that Tamimi could not be extradited, since the Jordanian parliament has not ratified the extradition treaty with the United States. A ratification I don’t think is going to happen anytime soon.

Kara said, "I would think that the Israelis would have already taken her out. I mean those guys have the balls of an elephant.