White Top Read online

  As much as she needed to be away from them all, she still missed them.

  She made a note to think more about that.

  Finally, still unable to relax even enough to go to bed, she pulled out her favorite. The leather was worn and battered with use. It was the tenth in a long-running series. The first had been started at the age of seven when her father brought home the quarter-sized version of a brand-new sculpture erected in the CIA Headquarters courtyard.

  She could barely remember a time when the enigma of the bronze Kryptos hadn’t stood in their garden.

  Year after year, notebook after notebook had been filled with their shared attempts to crack the codes that the artist had embedded in the sculpture. Three of the four panels had been solved by NSA and CIA cryptanalysts, but the fourth remained a challenge.

  She rubbed her fingers over the gold-embossed leather she’d ordered, then began flipping through the pages, hoping for a new insight among the old notes—something she’d missed from the last hundred times she’d done this.

  Miranda had only reached page nine before she’d passed out.

  And now her phone was winding up with the escalating sound of a C-5 Galaxy’s massive turbine engine.

  It was at well over eighty-percent rpm by the time she woke enough to fumble the phone out of her pocket.

  “Miranda Chase. This is actually her, not a recording.”

  No laugh from Jill at NTSB headquarters. Miranda didn’t need to consult her personal notebook to know that was unwelcome news.

  “Jill?”

  “I’m sorry, Miranda. We have a really bad one. The…” Jill cleared her throat several times.

  “Are you okay, Jill? Do you have a cough? I suck on honey candy when I have that problem.” Yes, that seemed like a helpful suggestion for someone who was sick.

  “No. It’s not that.”

  Miranda sighed. She thought she’d gotten that rule figured out, apparently not. She reached out to adjust the vase of pink rhodies next to her office chair. She’d fallen asleep with her head on her desk. Perhaps it was just as well that Jill had woken her after only an hour or she would have become very sore, especially after all of the garden work.

  “The…” one more unexplained throat clearing, “…Vice President’s helicopter has crashed.”

  “Was he aboard it at the time?”

  “No, Miranda. He was on the fucking space shuttle at the time!”

  “That seems unlikely. The last space shuttle was retired in—”

  “Yes, of course he was aboard, Miranda. That’s why it’s called the Vice President’s helicopter.”

  “Semantically, that still leaves an open question of—”

  “Miranda!” Jill shouted. Jill never shouted. “The Vice President is dead. Along with several hundred civilians. He crashed into a Walmart store.”

  Miranda wanted to ask why he’d done that, but remembered in time that “why” was her job to solve, not Jill’s.

  “They’re calling in all of the top investigators. You’re needed in Frederick, Maryland, as fast as you can get here.”

  “Okay. Should I bring my team?”

  Jill sputtered for several seconds before answering. “It’s a crash investigation, Miranda.”

  “I understand that. But you only said that I needed to be there.”

  Jill took a deep breath, then let it out very slowly, which told Miranda nothing new.

  “Miranda,” Jill spoke very slowly and carefully, which Miranda always appreciated. “There has been a major crash. The Vice President of the United States died when his HMX-1 helicopter crashed into a Walmart in Frederick, Maryland. This is a team launch call.”

  “Team launch. Thank you, Jill. Thank you for being clear. We’ll be there as soon as possible.”

  “O-kay. Bye.” Jill called upon a divinity as she hung up. It was hard to be sure why.

  24

  Clarissa ignored the phone three times, but the same secure number kept calling back. She didn’t have time for whatever their problem was.

  She’d rushed from the George Hotel back to the CIA…for nothing.

  Almost nothing.

  Knowing that it involved Saudi Arabia hadn’t helped them unravel where the attack might be targeted. The fact that it might include Senator Hunter Ramson and his connections with foreign arms sales had added no illumination whatsoever.

  However, the cyber twins had picked apart one piece of the chatter.

  Burn the fields. A text between cell phones twenty minutes ago allowed them to pin down a possible location a mere forty miles northwest of DC.

  She’d wanted to dismiss it, as there was nothing on the ground there but the outermost edge of DC bedroom communities. But it had the earmarks of the chatter they’d been chasing all night and into the morning.

  Maybe someone was going to fire off a nuke there.

  But forty miles northwest of the city? No military bases, no intelligence groups, just suburbia.

  Camp David was over sixty—

  She grabbed the phone.

  “Clarissa Reese here. What happened?”

  “Ms. Reese,” she didn’t recognize the voice, “This is General William Hampton at the White House Military Office. I regret to inform you that there’s been an accident.”

  “Where and how bad?”

  Her ears started buzzing after his next two words…

  “Vice President Clark Winston’s helicopter went down at…”

  After that, she only picked up a word here and there. In fact, she was staring at the disconnected phone and realized that the only other words she’d heard were, No survivors.

  “Frederick, Maryland,” she told the cyber twins. Apparently she had heard more. “Helicopter down.”

  There was a harsh rapid-fire blast of computer keys that made her twitch. Then they both froze, turning slowly to face her.

  She could see Breaking News flashing on the screen behind Harry: Maryland WalMrat Bombed. First she saw the typo, then she felt the gut-blast of the words.

  Over Heidi’s shoulder, a shaky smartphone video was cycling—of a White Top helicopter falling out of the sky, then a massive fireball.

  Harry looked grim.

  Heidi looked surprisingly sympathetic, not her usual mode at all.

  “Maybe he wasn’t…?” Harry didn’t finish the question.

  Heidi looked down at the phone clenched in Clarissa’s fingers, then back at her face. “He was,” she said it softly.

  He was.

  Such simple words.

  But they didn’t make any sense.

  “He can’t be…” Clarissa whispered to herself.

  “I’m so sorry, Clarissa,” Heidi was solicitousness herself. As if she and the cyber twins didn’t get along only because they had to—they both had career-ending information stashed away about each other.

  “He can’t be!” Clarissa shoved to her feet.

  “Maybe there’s been a mistake?” Harry turned back to his keyboard just as his screen changed from Maryland WalMrat Bombed! to Presidential helicopter crashes at Wal-Rat. She watched it for ten long seconds before the last was corrected to Wal-tart, then Walt-art, and finally Walmart.

  Then they changed Presidential to Vice Presidential.

  Why did their titler have all the panic when all she felt was numb?

  It was still wrong.

  President Cole was at the G-7 meeting in Victoria, BC. If he was the dead one, she’d be a shoo-in, helping Clark swear in this very morning. But Cole was still probably all hale and hearty in his cozy luxury hotel meetings.

  Clark couldn’t be dead.

  She wanted to rage at the cyber twins for not solving the threat before it happened.

  Wanted to tear them apart limb from limb.

  Or Ramson. She could string him up by the balls if he’d had part of cutting off her shot at the—

  But what if Clark hadn’t died in vain?

  Was this disaster…or opportunity?

 
“Find him for me.”

  “Your husband? But we already know—” Harry waved at the screen behind him.

  “Not him. Get me—” then she became aware again of the phone in her hand. As Director of the CIA, she had the President’s direct number.

  She dialed and then listened to the ring.

  The President who needed a new Vice President.

  It kept ringing.

  25

  “I don’t have time for this.” The President handed over his ringing phone.

  Drake glanced at the screen, grimaced, then answered.

  “Hello, Clarissa. Drake Nason here. I’m so sorry to hear about Clark.” He kept his voice low enough that the boat driver wouldn’t be able to hear.

  “Is the President safe?”

  “Yes, President Cole is fine and currently en route to a secure location.”

  “Good. Good. We, uh, had chatter about a threat. Regrettably, neither the NSA nor my people were able to decrypt it in time. Moments before the crash, there was a transmission about ‘burning the fields’ but that’s all we have so far. Please let me know if the President needs anything.”

  “Will do. Again, my condolences.”

  “Uh, thanks.”

  He hung up the phone and handed it back to the President. “Christ, that is one cold woman.”

  The President tucked away his phone. “Too bad she’s so damn good at her job. Not to speak ill of a dead man, but she’s significantly better as director than Clark ever was. So, Drake, what’s this secure location?”

  “Well, this is pretty secure,” he waved out at Victoria Harbor.

  “Pretty, yes. Secure?”

  “Last place they’d be looking for you, sir.”

  “I’ll grant you that.”

  Their pickle boat was bobbing its way clockwise around the harbor at no better than a jog. The driver wore a headset with a microphone and was describing the sights over small speakers mounted in the overhead. They weren’t too loud, just making him easy to hear—which was very un-American but charmingly Canadian.

  “You folks are in for a real treat. Ex-American Air Force, you said. Then this will be like old home week. The Yanks’ President has his whirly birds parked just around the corner here. They’re quite the sight. I can get you close enough to shore for a photo, something you can’t do on land because of security. They’re right pretty, even if the colors you chaps picked are so drab.”

  President Cole grimaced.

  It was strange to see the HMX-1 helicopters sitting there so close and not daring to use them. They watched in silence as the boat chugged past them.

  “Selfie time, gentlemen and lady,” the boat driver dropped them to idle, twisting the boat so that the helos were in the background. The pilot was finding something terribly funny about it as he herded them together and took a snapshot with Drake’s phone.

  Drake wasn’t finding a lot to laugh about. But when the pilot handed back his phone, he had to admit it was a good shot despite the grim reason for them being here. The protection detail huddled close about the President and his “girlfriend”, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the colonel who refused to be separated from his shopping-bag-encased nuclear football.

  Beyond this point, the harbor opened out onto the rough Strait of Juan de Fuca, which opened onto the Pacific, so they circled once more toward the inner harbor.

  Exactly as Drake had hoped, the ballet had begun. Eight of the fleet of tiny water taxis and tour boats had gathered in a group and begun an intricate dance on the water. First, they circled in one direction with a boat in the center spinning in the other. Then they broke into two spinning hoops.

  This ballet of boats also attracted every eye around the harbor.

  He stood up next to the driver, “Could you swing wide of them and run us over to the Harbour Air dock?”

  “But we’ve only just started the tour,” the man eyed him carefully.

  “We need to catch a plane.”

  “It was just a three-minute stroll from the hotel to the dock,” but he was already turning the boat.

  “We prefer being unobtrusive.”

  Then the driver smiled and winked, “Thought you could pull one over on me, did you? Ex-Air Force not complaining when I called a Marine Corps helicopter one of your birds. Not likely. You chaps are up to something. No need to worry.” He rubbed a finger alongside his nose like a cliché secret agent signal, “Mum’s the word.”

  Drake squeezed his shoulder as they pulled up to the dock, and made sure to tip him well.

  Harbour Air flew seaplanes from a waterfront dock. They were constantly buzzing across the surface, picking a new water runway each time between the water taxis and sailboats.

  At the dock, Danziger did a lousy job of looking casual as he hurried to the flight-tour office.

  “This is actually very slick, Drake,” Sarah whispered to him as they waited on the floating pier.

  Drake considered a teasing reply, but couldn’t find the heart for it. He’d liked Clark. And until the President was secure, he’d rather be leading a squad of heavily armed Rangers than idly waiting on a Canadian dock. His ruse had worked so far, but for how much longer?

  Danziger returned with a pilot in tow.

  “I understand that we have a short tour. I have a flight in an hour,” the pilot sounded cautious as he inspected them.

  “A half hour should be plenty for what we want to see,” Drake assured him.

  “Are all you Yanks crazy? Sorry, shouldn’t have said that,” the pilot offered a smile of apology.

  “Certifiable,” Sarah assured him, earning her a half laugh.

  It wasn’t until they were aloft and Drake revealed where he wanted to land that the trouble began.

  “I can’t take you there. There’s no bloody customs inspector.”

  Drake sighed. He’d been traveling military for so long that he’d forgotten about that wrinkle. He certainly didn’t want to land at some customs dock and cool the President’s heels for an hour out in public.

  Thankfully Danziger knew how to handle that.

  He was on the phone for less than sixty seconds before their flight was cleared from Canada into the US.

  26

  Miranda nearly bobbled the climb out in her F-86 Sabrejet.

  She’d called the team to prepare the Cessna M2 jet that she’d left in the Tacoma office’s hangar. Then she’d been delayed by one of the island’s sheep that had decided this morning was the perfect time to have a birth directly in front of her island’s airplane hangar door. She’d managed to coax it to behind the hangar, but hadn’t been able to stay for the actual birth.

  As soon as she was aloft and about to light the afterburner, she spotted a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter seaplane idling up to her dock at the south end of the island.

  She circled as she climbed and called over the Unicom frequency that all planes used around uncontrolled airports. “Calling DHC-3 Otter at Spieden Island.”

  “Otter here.”

  “You are not cleared to dock at Spieden Island. This property is privately held. There are clear No Docking signs at the dock.”

  “I’m told—” there was a painfully loud rattle of someone grabbing a headset with a live microphone.

  “Just let me talk to her. Are you there, Miranda?”

  “I will need to define ‘there’ before I can determine if that’s where I am.”

  “You are there. Here. That’s good.”

  “I’m also unclear about ‘here’ as well. If you are inferring that I’m still on my private island, I’m not.” Below she saw the Otter continue up to her private dock.

  “If you’re not on your island, where are you?”

  She checked her instruments and gasped. Untended, her circling climb had crossed her over ten thousand feet. She was breaking FAA regulations to be flying above ten thousand feet without supplemental oxygen.

  Holding her breath, she dove the Sabrejet until she was once more below ten th
ousand.

  “Where are you, Miranda?”

  “Just crossing ten thousand feet.”

  “Good. I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m leaving, not arriving. I have a launch call.”

  “This is more important.”

  And that’s when she recognized the voice. She would have done so sooner, but she hadn’t expected General Drake Nason to be aboard an Otter seaplane. He’d certainly never been to the island before.

  Perhaps she should have asked who it was earlier. She kept forgetting about such niceties that others seemed to find so effortless in conversations. She’d have to remember to create a special ringtone for him.

  “I don’t know,” she radioed down to Drake. “It seemed that this call was quite important.”

  “Trust me.”

  Miranda did, so she circled back down to the long narrow strip of land at the western edge of the San Juan Islands.

  As she did, she could see people climb out of the plane and step onto her dock. Seven, eight people. While she was lining up to land on the grass runway, hoping that the mother and newborn lamb wouldn’t be overly disturbed by her return, the seaplane headed aloft.

  Her grass runway had been right at the limits of what her F-86 could manage for a safe takeoff. To land, she needed just two-thirds the length, but she didn’t land cleanly.

  Just as she began the final flare, she remembered that she had no vehicle on the island capable of transporting eight people from the dock to the house. The island’s golf cart could only manage six including herself.

  She actually bounced several feet back into the air before sticking the landing.

  27

  The problem was solved by the time she had returned her plane to her midfield hangar, checked on the ewe and lamb (both were fine), and raced the golf cart down toward the dock.