JJ dead. But not dead. He’d faked his death?
“Where is Taz? Colonel Vicki ‘Taser’ Cortez?” She’d had a run-in with Taz just a few weeks ago. The woman hadn’t been on the attack, exactly, more of an exploratory probe—a hard one. She’d been after a feed for a certain type of intel, without carrying orders from the general granting her access to that type of intel.
“She also had a dead body-double. We’re guessing that she’s still with the general?” Jon asked the last with a shrug. “We were hoping that you might know something.”
“Also without an official request,” Lizzy sighed.
A special assignment for General Martinez, had been all Taz would say. Lizzy hadn’t doubted that it was the general’s request, but it had sounded as if the general didn’t want a paper trail. Lizzy had refused to play along. She’d been busy, tried to push Taz aside—finally throwing her out of the office—almost bodily. In retrospect, there was little doubt that Taz had gone elsewhere and managed to get what she needed. She certainly hadn’t tried again.
And now she too was undead?
On the up-and-up or not, Lizzy didn’t like the way this was feeling.
“Actually,” Jon drew out the word, then smiled before she could think about ejecting him just as she had Taz. “As the Air Force major in charge of this investigation, I would be glad to make it an official request for assistance, as long as we can do it expeditiously. That’s why we came to you. Though any personal insights wouldn’t be amiss.”
“JJ’s a complete hard-ass. No matter what Drake says.” Lizzy knew it was judgmental but that didn’t make it any less true.
“So you should have gotten along just fine,” Jon’s smile made it a joke without it quite being one.
She turned away and stared at the walls for a moment. She’d left them bare, with no stamp of her own. The previous director had made such a thing about past glories that he could barely lay claim to. She didn’t want to mimic that but she’d had more of herself in her workspace when she was an image analyst. Maybe that’s what had made Mike, Taz, and many of the directors treat her so casually.
Fine. They needed a reminder of who she was, she’d give it to them.
Lizzy picked up her phone and punched Thorsen’s extension.
“I want two framed posters for my office. That F-16 poster with General LeMay’s quote about the love of freedom, except have them make it up with my old Viper as the image. Make the other one from the NRO’s latest sat launch for the KH-11 spy bird. That one on the Delta IV Heavy out of Vandenberg last January.” One that she’d overseen personally.
“May I also suggest a USAF flag beside the national one—it is your lineage—and a display case for your medals and patches. The 79th Fighter Squadron Tigers is a great patch. You need to put those in people’s faces—hard. Ma’am.”
“Remind me that you need a promotion soon, Thorsen. Thanks.” She hung up and turned back to face the others.
“So, if they aren’t dead, you need to know what they’re up to.” She pulled over a keyboard.
“Uh-huh,” Jeremy nodded eagerly. “And we also want a tour and orientation on the AC-130J Ghostrider that’s sitting over at Andrews.”
That stopped her and made her turn to face him. “Why is that?”
“I’m not sure, but Miranda seemed to think it was important. See, the plane that went down in Aspen was an AC-130H Spectre gunship. It’s a version of the C-130 Hercules that—”
“I know what a Spectre is, Jeremy.”
“Right, okay. Well, the one that’s currently burning in Avalon Harbor on Santa Catalina Island, unless they’ve put it out by now in which case it isn’t still burning, was an AC-130J Ghostrider based on the Super Hercules that—” He slowed just enough to take a breath and add a grimace. “—that you probably know all about, too. To properly investigate the crash, Miranda wants to know about the laser and any other upgrades. And I saw that there was a Block 30 here in DC at Andrews—oh, I already said that—so we thought we’d kill two birds with one stone and come see you and it. And that was a really horrible analogy, wasn’t it? Since two Hercules birds have gone down in the last fourteen hours. Curiously, both crashed on stone: the top of the Snowmass ski area is mostly rock, and the stone pier in Avalon harbor, and…shutting up now.”
“The second crash was a Block 30 that went down?” She hadn’t heard about either one, but her usual concerns were space and what she could see of foreign military actions from there.
Mike’s smile was back, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“How the hell did that happen?”
“That’s why we’re here…General Lizzy.” Or not. Mike was incredibly convinced of his own cuteness. His charm and beautiful smile might work on others, but it wasn’t cutting him any slack in her office. She just ignored him. And she ignored his puzzled frown at the failure of his so-civilian tactics.
33
Lizzy led the way to the UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter that the USAF 1st Helicopter Squadron at Andrews had sent over. One of the nice benefits of being an agency director; her time was rated as too valuable to be wasted stuck in traffic.
It landed inside the loop of the NRO’s running track, close by the grass volleyball court.
Drake had a good eye. Her diamond exactly matched the Air Force-blue paint job and her gold band matched the helo’s gold side-stripe. There was no clear diamond to match the white tops of the Huey, but she preferred the simplicity of the ring with just the single stone and the smoothly twisted setting suggestive of the contrail of a jet barrel-rolling through the sky.
Now she finally knew how to explain to her mother why she’d waited so long to get married. Not like her three sisters hadn’t already provided multiple grandchildren, along with four divorces and six marriages. Lizzy had waited…for Drake.
They all clambered aboard and the helo lifted for the fifteen-minute ride to Andrews.
A text chirped on her phone.
“According to the NSA,” she read out, “Taz placed a called approximately five hours ago from—oh shit—Avalon Harbor.”
She’d already checked her satellite logs while they were still in her office. There’d been no surveillance over Aspen or Santa Catalina at the time of either crash. We aren’t in the habit of surveilling non-military civilian territory. Mike hadn’t been pleased, but Jon was military and had nodded in understanding.
“They found three call starts, none over twenty seconds. It was locked down with the full SCIP encryption, so we can’t trace them. All they know was that two of the calls were to the Pentagon.”
“Before or after the crash time?” Mike asked while the rest of them were still processing the information.
“Within five minutes after. Three minutes, fifteen seconds actually.”
“Three-fifteen.” Mike sat back and spoke as if to himself, “Did she bail out at the last second? Was she ashore, witnessed the crash, and needed to report it? Or was it because the crash was unplanned and she then had to act quickly? I’m guessing the last.”