“Man, you have to get this thing cutting fast,” He told Knox, who had already begun unhinging the long arm that held the cutting torch.
In order to pack the complicated arm into the drone, Rugmon had designed it to fold over on itself; much like a wrist, elbow and shoulder could move on a human. Unlike a human, all three of these joints could fold up to a very flat five-degree angle. Knox had to unfold each joint, each section of the arm one section at a time. The crew watched the arm come into view on Men at Work’s main camera. At first, only the brass looking torch could be seen. Then as the next section unfolded, the arm extended closer to the wall. And when Knox had fully extended the arm, he had to point the camera up at a higher angle in order to see the entire cutting arm in a single shot.
Knox wiggled the arm around and then pointed the torch down at the camera and waved it at the crew.
“Hello, down there,” he clowned.
“We see it can wave,” Hail commented. “The question is, can it cut?”
“Let’s find out.” Knox said.
“I’ll operate the gas and you do the cutting,” Renner told Knox.
“Wait a second,” Hail said. “Let’s check the inside of the warehouse before we get started.”
Hail took over BEP’s camera and zoomed in toward the office window. Behind the glass he saw the North Korean Minster of Defense sleeping and that was all. He assumed that there was probably a guard stationed outside the front door of the warehouse and at least one more at the front gate. But right now, no active guards were in sight. Hail didn’t find this level of security unreasonable, considering that the entire country was under guard. It wasn’t as if they had a huge immigration problem with all sorts of unknown people clamoring to get into North Korea. A few guards were more than enough to guard a place that the North Koreans would assume was safe to begin with.
“All is quiet,” Hail reported. “Start cutting,” he told Knox.
Knox twisted the torch back towards the sheet metal and told Renner, “Light it up.”
Renner turned on the gas nozzles and pressed and icon that was labeled IGNITOR.
Mounted under the tip of the torch, a small jagged wheel began to spin under a spring loaded flint. A flash of sparks caused the video image to grey out momentarily as a long orange flame grabbed on to the end of the touch. The video image now turned white as the camera tried to compensate its exposure going from moon dark to sun bright. Renner adjusted the gas mixture until he produced a long blue flame. Renner then messed around with different camera filters, until he found one that allowed enough light into the lens to see the metal, yet shielded enough light to prevent the video from blooming out.
“OK, you are good to cut,” Renner told Knox.
Using his control sticks to remotely operate the arm, Knox slowly pressed both controllers forward and the torch moved toward the sheet metal. This was not a new experience for Alex Knox. During the last few days he had used a test control station in the lab, as well as the same exact drone, to cut a two by two-foot hole in a similar piece of galvanized steel. The first hole he cut in the lab looked like a dinosaur had ripped into the metal with its teeth. And Knox had run out of gas before completing the ragged mess. But as Knox got more time at the controls, his next attempt looked like a lawnmower had gnawed on the steel. On his next try the hole looked like a large rock had been shot through the metal and the next try looked like a blob of searing plasma had melted the metal. And then finally on his fifth attempt, Knox had cut out a relatively square and precise opening. At least it was good enough to fly a drone through.
Knox manipulated the robotic arm and pressed the torch up against the metal. The flame flattened and hissed in protest. The torch began to cut. From his practice sessions, Knox knew that he had to move quickly. Rugmon had built the tanks to hold specific amount of gas; just enough to complete the hole with about one minute of burn time left in reserve. Just one minute of leeway in case Knox screwed up the cut. If indeed the cut was incomplete, then the only choice Hail’s team would have would be to shoot out the remaining bits of metal. And if it came down to that, they might as well just go through the front door with guns blazing.
Knox began the cut high and to the left, reaching up and out as far as the drone’s arm would extend. He then began cutting in a downward direction, slowly, watching the metal separate under the flame.
Through the lens of Guns N’ Roses, Hail monitored the sleeping guard. So far. So good. The North Korean had made no movements.
Renner watched the other side of the warehouse from the camera on Sex Pistols.
Both men also watched the screen above them that showed video from the inside of the warehouse. No activity. The Minster of Defense was still sleeping soundly in his chair. If there were any guards in the warehouse or outside of the office door, they could not be seen from BEP’s current camera angle.
Knox finished his first vertical cut, a gash in the steal about twenty-four inches long. Molten red metal dripped from the cuts and onto the ground in front of the drone.
“Eighty percent gas left,” Renner told Knox.
“Rugmon didn’t leave much to play around with,” Knox complained, concentrating on the new direction of the cut.
“Sorry, I know you wanted to sign your work when you were done, but we don’t have the gas or the time,” Hail quipped.
“The guard is waking up,” Kara warned Hail.
Hail checked the video feed and sure enough the guard had pulled himself off the wall and was standing up groggily and rubbing his eyes.
“Should I stop cutting?” Knox asked.
“No, not yet,” Hail told him. “We’ll keep an eye on the guard and see what he does.”
The horizontal cut that Knox was making was almost done and he prepared to start moving the torch upwards.
The guard looked to his right for a moment, and then to his left toward the back of the warehouse. Hail watched him closely from Guns N’ Roses camera. For a moment it looked as if the guard had made up his mind to walk toward the front of the building, but then, almost as an afterthought, the soldier made a slow turn toward the back of the property and began a slow plod in that direction.
“No,” Hail said. “Don’t do it.”
“Should I stop cutting?” Knox asked.
“Wait one,” Hail told him.
An icon on Hail’s screen read GUN CAM and Hail pressed it and the video was swapped out with a high-res image that had a gunsight painted in the middle. Hail reacquired the guard who was still walking toward the rear of the warehouse. Hail zoomed in and placed the M4’s virtual crosshairs on the man’s forehead.
“Don’t do it, dude,” Hail said, and he meant it.
It would be bad all the way around. Hail really didn’t want to kill this guy if he didn’t have to. The man was nothing more than a cog in the evil North Korean machine. The soldier was doing what he did so he could eat. Shooting the man this early in the mission was a problem as well. The drone’s gun was relatively quiet, but it wasn’t the whisper that movie-makers made it out to be. A silenced gun made noise, maybe enough noise to be heard by the guard up front or at the gate. And even if he had to put this guy down and no one heard the shot, the other guards might come looking for him. And when they found him, then all hell would break loose.
A hundred feet from the rear of the building and Hail told Knox, “Stop cutting and stay silent.”
Renner pressed an icon and extinguished the torch. The metal glowed red in the dark night. It was bright enough to where Hail thought it might be detectable from the guard glancing around the back of the building, but it was what it was.
The soldier stopped walking for a moment and shook a cigarette out of a pack he pulled from his pants pocket. He lit the cigarette and sucked in some smoke. The tip glowed red and illuminated the man’s face. His was young. Maybe early twenties. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept in days.