His aunt always said that he was damned because he hadn’t been to church since his own baptism—usually accompanied with another of her braying laughs. But this time?
“I really am going to hell.”
The blonde passenger was close enough to overhear and grinned at him. “Not as fast as the poor bastards who were on that plane.” Her accent was smoothly Australian—which was almost as sexy as Rosa’s soft Spanish.
“Perfect. Just perfect. Means I get an express nonstop flight. I was last one off the damned bird.” Maybe that was the problem. Had he actually gone down with the plane and this really was hell?
The blonde studied him for a long moment, then turned to her small companion. “We got a live one, Miranda.”
Turning back, the blonde stuck out a hand. He shook it because he didn’t know what else to do.
“Holly Harper. National Transportation Safety Board. Pleased as two peas in a pod to meet’cha.”
32
“Hi, Lizzy.”
General Elizabeth Gray was Lizzy to very few people other than herself. Miranda Chase was one of them. She had been from the very first moment they’d stumbled into each other the same night she’d met Drake.
It hadn’t hurt, much, when Miranda had proven her ability to analyze crash images even better than she could herself.
And Miranda’s abilities as a pilot—no textbook written said she should have survived that emergency landing on the National Mall when her plane was sabotaged. Lizzy had studied the flight. Ten degrees more bank, five degrees less flare, even a half second of hesitation and she’d have been dead. But Miranda had done it perfectly. The former combat pilot in her couldn’t help but respect the woman.
But what she’d liked most was Miranda’s unflappable focus. She’d faced down Drake, the President, and even the CIA director in the time Lizzy had known her. Her friend’s self-confidence had helped Lizzy bolster her own in her new role as the NRO’s director. And she loved managing the National Reconnaissance Office; from satellite launches to global image analysis, every part of it was a joy and a challenge.
But the members of Miranda’s team calling her Lizzy? Barely maybe. And definitely not in her outer office in front of her chief aide, Captain Thorsen.
“Hello, Michael. Jeremy. Jonathon.” All three men had intensely bright hats dangling behind their shoulders from loose chin straps around their necks.
“Wow, that’s a hell of a sparkler, Lizzy,” Mike persisted in being cheery. “Matches your eyes.” He laughed at his own joke.
She didn’t. Her eyes were Eurasian dark and her engagement ring shone brilliant blue.
Thorsen twisted around to look at her hand, then looked up at her with surprise. Of course he hadn’t noticed; he was a male. But Mike had, and now announced it to the world. It would rip through the three thousand employees of the NRO in hours—their job was generating and handling vast amounts of information, after all. Gossip moved even faster than news of a new Russian jet.
She’d been trying to keep the Air Force-blue diamond turned toward the inside of her hand. Mostly because every time she looked at it, it freaked her out.
Last night, Drake had taken her back to the Metro 29 Diner where they’d had their first date. He’d done the whole bent-knee proposal thing in front of the crowd, waitresses, and everybody (thankfully no other military personnel). There’d been no press, of course. And it had been over the same “patriotic” banana split they’d shared the first time—strawberry, vanilla, and blueberry ice creams. It was all alarmingly romantic, especially coming from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt.
At fifty she was too old to have squealed with delight. Thankfully she had an excuse as her big five-o birthday was still four months away—she’d met him on her forty-ninth.
Married on her fiftieth? Wow! There was a startling thought.
But she didn’t need her private life rubbed in her staff’s face.
She herded the three men into her office and shut the door. Circling around her desk, she sat, then waved them to settle across from her.
“So, Old Drake finally popped the question.” Mike looked very pleased.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Drake Nason’s private business is none of yours, Mr. Munroe.”
Mike seemed to finally catch on—mostly. His smile barely abated as he bowed his acknowledgement before sitting in a chair.
“And that’s General Elizabeth Gray to you until I say otherwise. Are we clear?” She hadn’t really used that tone of voice since she’d been a combat flight leader.
He blanched white, “Yes ma’am.”
Maybe it had been overharsh, but she was past caring.
Just this morning, she’d managed to excise a real prick—brother of the CEO for a major defense contractor—that the former director had put in charge of space launch acquisition. The idiot shouldn’t be allowed to launch a rowboat off a car trailer. It was only the third time in her life she’d had to recommend an officer for a court-martial offense for failure to obey a direct order to stand down, and sexually abusive language. She’d stripped his security clearance and had him escorted out of the building under heavy guard less than an hour ago.
Her tolerance for more bullshit was at a low ebb at the moment. Let Mike spin for a bit.
“May I offer my congratulations, General?” Jon asked carefully.
“On my becoming your evil step-aunt?” She hadn’t yet had time to think about the fact of Drake’s extended family. His two sons and daughter—with a granddaughter, she was going to be a step-grandmother!—were enough for her to contemplate. “Yes, you may.”
“My congratulations, Aunt Gray.” Jon kept it that succinct, but offered a nice smile with it.
“Thank you, step-nephew-to-be.”
Jeremy squinted at her. “Is ‘step’ the correct term? Once you marry General Nason, then you will technically become Jon Swift’s aunt. There is no genetic lineage consideration as the connection is through Drake’s brother, not your genes. And that would imply—”
“Jeremy,” Jon stopped him before she had to. Though even in her present mood it was impossible to be angry at someone like Jeremy.
“Oh, right. Why we’re here—that’s what I need to focus on. Gotta remember that,” he mumbled to himself. Then he spoke succinctly, which wasn’t like him at all. “We need to find out everything we can about Lieutenant General Jorge Jesus Martinez.”
“Why aren’t you asking Drake…General Nason?” She’d never get used to this. Screw it! They were engaged and she could call him any damn thing she wanted. “Jorge is one of Drake’s oldest friends. Ahh, because Drake is one of his oldest friends. But what do you need to know about him?”
The three men all eyed each other, then Jon spoke up. “We need to know why we found his dog tags on an incinerated body-double at a crash of a decommissioned and stolen AC-130H Spectre gunship on a mountaintop in Aspen.”
Lizzy carefully showed nothing as she waited, but Jon didn’t continue. Somehow, impossibly, that was a complete thought. She hadn’t become the head of the NRO, or one of the rare female generals, by revealing her thoughts. But it didn’t stop her thinking them.