It took maybe three full minutes before he heard the whirl of small propeller blades emanating from inside the box. Then he watched as a pizza-sized black and white drone lifted slowly out of the box. It was only when the small aircraft spoke to him that Rodgers became surprised.
“Move the box out of the way,” the drone said.
Trevor recognized Marshall Hail’s voice.
Rodgers extended his leg to kick the box off the table.
The small drone then landed softly on its belly in the middle of the table. It wobbled on the table as its propellers decelerated.
“Can you please turn over the drone and screw in the LCD pole?” the disembodied voice asked him.
Rodgers realized that the pole Hail was referring to was probably still in the other box. He got up to retrieve the box from the floor and looked inside. Sure enough, taped to the bottom of the box was a metal pole about 1.5 feet long by 0.5 inches wide. The FBI director ripped the pole from the box removing excess tape still stuck to it. The drone was lighter than Rodgers expected. He turned it over on the coffee table and found a hole in the middle of it. He checked the pole for the threaded end and screwed it in tightly.
Almost immediately, Rodgers heard the hum of a small electric stepper motor. In a very precise manner, the end of the pole separated into three small tripod legs. The motor sound died away, and the drone sat on its back, dead and completely silent.
“Cool,” the voice said. “Now, please turn the drone over and place it on its legs.”
Rodgers leaned forward and did as instructed, and then he returned to the couch.
There was another hum of an electric motor and the pole began to separate. One side of the pole pivoted on an axis nearer to the top until it created a metal cross. Then a flexible LED screen began to lower, unraveling slowly like a curtain being dropped from a tiny stage. When the screen had almost reached the drone’s tripod legs, it came to a halt and lit up.
Marshall Hail’s face appeared on the screen. Rodgers had seen his friend weeks before in Washington. Even so, Trevor was still shocked to see how much his friend had aged in the past two years.
“Oh, that feels better,” Hail said. “It was getting a little tight in there,” he joked.
“A little claustrophobic?” Rodgers replied with a laugh.
“You try being stuck in a box for a week being shipped from Indonesia.”
Rodgers smiled at the live stream of his friend on the screen.
“Question,” Rodgers asked, holding up his hand.
“Yes, the young man in the front row,” Hail said, pointing at Rodgers.
“How did you know I opened the box? I mean, you couldn’t have been waiting in front of your computer the entire time this was being shipped to me.”
“Good question,” Hail responded, nodding his head. “There is a sensor on the drone that detects light. As soon as the box was opened, the sensor fired off a salvo piece of code that sent a text to my phone indicating it had been opened. Once I got the text, I went down to our mission center and connected to the drone.”
“Very interesting,” Rodgers commented.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Then Rodgers asked, “So how have you been, Marshall?”
“Pretty good. That last mission gave me a reason to keep getting up in the morning. I think that I can finally—” Hail’s words trailed off.
Rodgers thought his friend looked a little sad, as if his mind had been hijacked by memories.
Then Hail continued, “I can finally make a difference.”
“A difference to who?” Trevor asked his friend.
Hail looked confused for a moment. He looked down at something offscreen; or maybe nothing at all.
Then he said, “A difference in my life. I couldn’t go on the way I was going on, which was business as usual. Life without my family was not a life worth living. I had to make a change.”
“And you think killing everyone on the FBI’s Top Ten List is a change for the better?” Rodgers asked, cutting Hail to the quick.
“It’s your list, Trevor. I didn’t make it. And it exists for a reason. So why can’t I be that reason?”
Rodgers sensed that he was getting nowhere with his pig-headed friend. Over the years, he had shared many of the same types of conversations with Marshall that went one of two ways. It either went Marshall’s way, or it went in circles until Marshall got his way. He was just one of those people who refused to lose. If Hail had been a serial killer, then there would be a bunch of people who were going to be in a world of hurt. But he wasn’t. He had just made it his life’s mission to kill everyone on the FBI’s Top Ten Terrorists list. Then it occurred to Rodgers that there was very little difference between a serial killer and Hail’s new life’s mission. The main difference was he simply killed people who deserved killing.
Hail asked, “I’ll give you $50 if you can guess what’s in the other box.”
Rodgers replied, “I hope it’s a present for me for picking up these boxes. You have no idea how badly the FBI agents wanted to open and check them out.”
Hail smiled, “OK, then. It’s a present for you. Please open it and check it out.”
Rodgers mumbled to himself, “Yeah, right. You were always known for your enthusiasm in gifting.” He let the room absorb the sarcastic remark.
The FBI director picked up the knife from the table, stood, and slid the knife across the top of the narrow box.
Hail couldn’t see what was going on, and asked, “Are you opening the end that says OPEN THIS END?”
Rodgers double-checked and told Hail, “Yes, but I did have a 50/50 chance.”
Hail instructed, “You need to open the flaps all the way, and then pick up the entire box and turn it over on the end you just opened.”
Rodgers followed his friend’s instructions, carefully positioning the tall box on its opened end. He held onto it for a second to make sure the tall box didn’t fall over.
“OK, now gently remove the box,” Hail told him. “Slide it up slowly.”
Rodgers held the sides of the box and began to lift.
The first thing Rodgers saw was a pair of clawed feet which looked like they had been made by a craftsman with experience making suits of armor. Each claw was
one piece of metal overlaid by another, narrowing more at the tips. The dull metal tips of each claw looked very sharp.
As Rodgers lifted the box higher, just above the claws, overlapping rows of fine feathers came into view. The feathers nearest the bare claws were wispy. The fluff was affixed to thin steel legs also constructed from small metal plates that overlapped one another.
More of the box was removed, and more feathers appeared. The shape of Hail’s present got wider as the box continued to rise. The color of the feathers began to change. First, there were light gray feathers on the legs. And now, a dark gray tail with coarse feathers could be seen. Before Rodgers removed the entire box, it was apparent that Marshall Hail had sent him a stuffed bird of some type. Carefully removing the remainder of the box, Rodgers saw dark gray wings, and once he was finished opening the box, the entire three-foot bird was standing on his living room coffee table. The bird was as wide as a two-liter soda bottle.
Rodgers set the box on the floor and allowed it to fall on its side.
It was a falcon — at least that’s what Rodgers thought it looked like. The bird had intense eye openings that didn’t really look like eyes. They had the appearance of lenses from two different cameras. The downward hooked beak was wide open. It made the predatory bird appear angry, like a stuffed and mounted mountain lion that, prior to being shot, had been in the process of leaping toward a rabbit. The entire bird was dark gray, apart from its willowy dirty mustard colored breast feathers.