Thunderbolt Read online

  The flight of four F-35 Lightning IIs were currently in a fight for their lives in a dogfight high over the vast emptiness of the Syrian desert with two outmoded MiG-29 Fulcrum jets—and a pair of Su-57 Felons they’d never seen coming.

  Independently, the remote-piloted A-10PCAS—driven by a pilot thinking he was in a simulation—dove straight for the ground with an American AIM-9 Sidewinder missile chasing after it at Mach 2.5.

  The lead F-35 Lightning pilot hadn’t fired it—though his plane had.

  He didn’t know about the simulation being run ten thousand kilometers away at Eglin Air Force Base. He didn’t know about four F-35 Lightning IIs that were flying a completely different simulated scenario and wondering where the hell their A-10 pilot had gotten to.

  All the flight leader knew was that he’d started the flight with an A-10PCAS but had lost radio contact with its pilot shortly after take-off. It had tagged along, but he’d been unable to contact it.

  When his F-35 Lightning II fired the AIM-9 Sidewinder without his arming or releasing the weapon, he knew something was wrong. There were a lot of electronic systems in place to make sure that didn’t happen.

  His momentary distraction would shortly cause the first-ever loss of an F-35 Lightning II in combat—an event the Russians would bask in the glory of long after it had lost all meaning. It lost its meaning less than five minutes later with the downing of both of their brand-new Su-57 Felons deep in the heart of Syria.

  The A-10PCAS, diving at its top speed of Mach 0.56, stood little chance.

  The AIM-9’s operational limit of twenty-two miles and the thirty-four second travel time from the high-flying Lightning II to the racing A-10PCAS would place the Thunderbolt at the outer limits of its range—if the A-10 had headed directly away at maximum speed.

  Instead, it was diving toward the ground.

  The exhaust of its dual jet turbines created an easy and verifiable target for the Sidewinder’s autonomous targeting systems.

  The A-10PCAS reached the ground mere seconds ahead of the Sidewinder missile.

  The Warthog released a cloud of chaff to confuse the Sidewinder missile—but the Sidewinder had been specifically designed to ignore such distractions.

  As soon as it cleared the hot flares and chaff, it reacquired a hot target less than four hundred meters ahead.

  Behind the momentary chaff screen, the A-10PCAS had been carving a seven-point-three-g upward loop, right at its control limits.

  The Sidewinder punched through the chaff and into the clear—now facing the cold front view of the hard-turning A-10PCAS.

  But the inferno created by one of the downed Su-25 Frogfeet—reignited by the A-10PCAS dropping an AGM-65 Maverick air-to-surface missile on the rubbish pile—captured the Sidewinder’s full attention.

  It plowed into the wreckage at three thousand kilometers per hour and fired its warhead.

  Nothing survived bigger than a dinner plate except for a lone tire that rolled over a football field’s length away before flopping down to rest in the baking desert heat.

  The remote pilot of the A-10PCAS turned back for base and to hell with the simulated F-35 Lightning II’s scrap metal tumbling down from where it had died fifty thousand feet above.

  Hopefully it was Major Ass-face.

  Lieutenant William “Poet” Blake couldn’t have been more wrong.

  18

  The code on the Cray XC50 supercomputer in Subbasement 2 of the AFAMS building kept testing the variable R14A10SYR.

  It remained false.

  But the positional reading of the A-10PCAS in Syria was flying out of the designated kill zone. This set a true value to a different branch of the subroutine.

  The new routine proceeded through the next four steps:

  Generate a two-word message.

  Deliver the phrase to three separate secure cellphones.

  After all three phones provided a delivery confirmation, drop the external connection.

  Finally, the subroutine erased itself and the program that had called it.

  19

  Senator Hunter Ramson’s phone buzzed at the same moment as his guest’s, rattling hard on his desk’s cherrywood where he’d set it facedown.

  The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland flipped over his phone and glanced at the message.

  Syria negative.

  He slapped the phone back down. He’d been promised an A-10 Thunderbolt II mission failure in Syria.

  “Goddamn it! Can’t you people do anything right?”

  Before his guest could answer, his phone rang.

  No question who it was. He couldn’t afford to ignore it. But he didn’t want to deal with it either.

  Hunter snatched up his phone, accepted the call, and spoke before the caller had a chance to.

  “I’m late for a floor vote. We’ll discuss this later.”

  He hung up the call and slammed the phone facedown again.

  Then he steepled his fingers and considered the woman seated opposite him.

  “I—”

  He waved her to silence. She was definitely selling it, even if she wasn’t actually. Word was she didn’t trade sex, only exuded it.

  Five-ten of stacked-and-fit white-blonde in a pitch-black power suit and one of those filmy scarves in hooker red tied about her throat. Sharing more cleavage than his wife had revealed as Miss Utah in her alarmingly risqué French bikini thirty years ago. At least it had been risqué for him as a 24-year-old, newly minted, Salt Lake City lawyer who’d never been outside of Utah and was co-opted into being a judge when his boss had fallen ill.

  This was the goddamn nation’s Capitol Building. Didn’t she have any respect?

  “Senator—”

  “No goddamn excuses!” He flipped his phone over and back, over and back.

  He knew that his nervous habit probably spoke volumes to a trained spook like the CIA’s Director of Special Projects and he didn’t give a shit.

  “Did you fuck your way to the top?’ Word on the floor was that she was screwing the Director. He was widowed, but she was twenty years his junior—right on the border of damning, but not quite over it.

  “No,” she refused to be flustered like any other woman was when he used the tactic. “But we could start discussing how your father-in-law bought you your seat in the 23rd District as a wedding gift.”

  And the spooks wondered why everyone hated working with them.

  No one was supposed to know that except him and Marv—and his father-in-law had been gone a decade, since literally stroking out while screwing his latest nineteen-year-old fiancé. At least he’d kicked off before he’d married this one. It had saved a lot of money and hassle.

  Rose knew her father’s proclivities and had warned him on their wedding day, “Don’t screw around on me. Not even once. I can make you a powerful man or I can have your body dumped in an Arkansas prison where they’ll fuck your pretty little ass to death.” She hadn’t made Miss Utah by being naive or timid.

  He hadn’t doubted her threat for a second. He’d kept his wedding-day pledge and she’d delivered as promised.

  His voice was the one in control of acquisitions and force plans for all five branches of the military and the National Guard. Chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee was only a few terms away. Clint was a good man, but he was in his seventies—time for fresh blood.

  Hunter wondered if this young CIA bitch, for all her looks, could even come close to matching Rose. Thirty years on, Rose still had the awesome body that had made her final ten in Miss USA—or as close as the trainers and surgeons could come. She also made a point of so thoroughly fucking his brains out every Friday night that he’d never think to stray. No complaints from him.

  But young people these days…

  Of course, Pop had said the same thing. Being a small-time Vietnam War hero and married to three wives gave him a perspective Hunter had never understood either. He’d gotten out of Pop’s fundamentalist vers
ion of the church as fast as he could. The Mormons had excommunicated their family for its adherence to polygamy. And, with all the anger of a betrayed church elder, Pop had excommunicated his only son when Hunter disavowed them. Which was fine with him.

  He’d thought CIA Director Clark Winston was smart enough to keep his dick in his pants. He certainly wouldn’t have dipped it here himself—this woman was ninety-nine percent shark and maybe one percent female.

  “A training crash in Arizona and a miss in Syria? That’s all you people have given me so far. What the fuck use is that?”

  “Don’t forget the—”

  “Everyone assumes that the A-10 in Pakistan was a shoot-down no matter what your damned software reported.”

  Hunter leaned forward to force his hands to stop fooling with his phone. Instead, he started playing with his letter opener—a Viet Cong knife Pop had given him when he was still a kid.

  The nondescript blade showed its history. Battered with the forger’s hammer and years of hard service. The leather-wrapped handle had been sweat stained by a Victor-Charlie whom Pop had taken down during his time as a tunnel rat—going down into those dark holes as a hunter, not hunted. That’s where Hunter had gotten his name and he did his best to live up to it.

  “We need results, young lady. No more of your spook gibberish. Or should I have a chat with my old pal over at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the outdated methods and waste of funds that is the CIA?” Actually, John hated his guts and it was completely mutual—but he could still make threats.

  She opened her mouth and he cut her off, tapping the switch under his desk.

  “Now, get out of my office. And before you go fucking your boss some more—or anyone else—get me some goddamn results.” On cue, his secretary called and he picked up the landline, swiveling his chair enough to dismiss the woman, but keeping his eye on her.

  He started talking to his secretary about paragraph four subsection B of he didn’t care what bill.

  Clarissa Reese rose smoothly to her feet.

  Usually when he intentionally pissed someone off he could tell. Not so much as smoothing of her form-fitting power suit.

  “Senator,” she took her leave.

  He waved a dismissive hand somewhere in her direction.

  As she stalked out the door in her spiky red heels, he had to admire her long blonde ponytail and her very fine ass. He tried to think if Rose’s ass had been better back in her heyday. Close call, even for a beauty show judge—the one indulgence he’d kept up in all of the years since. Though he was careful to never dally with a contestant again, despite the temptations and offers, he could damn well look.

  After she was gone, he hung up the phone knowing that Sharlene would keep up a conversation about something innocuous on her end until after the guest was gone.

  He inspected the blade in his hands. How much blood had it seen? Pointless American blood wasted in the jungle of Southeast Asia?

  Well, not anymore.

  This woman with her hot body, her designer clothes, and her ruthless demeanor was the tool he needed for this job, but she had no appreciation of history.

  There was more than the present task at stake.

  Decades of lessons learned the hard way from military history were at risk.

  That and a hell of a lot of money.

  20

  CIA Director of Special Projects Clarissa Reese let nothing show as she strode out of the Capitol Building. Revealed nothing that the waiting driver would see during the long ride back to Langley.

  They rolled past the White House—her driver had long since learned that was her preferred route.

  She allowed herself one long look at the noble facade amidst the most secure compound in any city.

  CIA Director Clark Winston would be in there, meeting with the President.

  At her advice, Clark had recently offered a one-on-one weekly in-depth briefing to President Roy Cole.

  She wanted to be there as well, but it wasn’t her time yet. First she had to get Clark to think about the upcoming election and his role as the vice-presidential candidate.

  Her initial plan had included waiting for President Roy Cole to complete his second term—there was little doubt he’d have one.

  But one night, after Clark had predictably fallen asleep and she was showering, she’d realized there was no reason to wait the extra four years. If Clark became Cole’s second-term VP, then he’d be only one term from a real shot at the presidency. It would also give her the run of the CIA four years sooner.

  That thought had given her a far more satisfying orgasm than the one Clark had provided. He was learning but he had such a long way to go.

  Step One was getting President Cole to depend on Clark. She’d hear tonight how that was progressing.

  Step Two would be discrediting VP Mulroney, but not so badly that it reflected on Cole. Just enough to have the President seeking a new running mate.

  That would take some thinking.

  Clarissa would also make sure that she was Clark’s plus-one at the next White House dinner.

  The timing of when to become Mrs. Clark Winston was still going to be tricky. Clark would have to be confirmed as the candidate for VP and herself as Director of the CIA before that could be announced.

  So much to do.

  And sooner than any of that, Senator Hunter Ramson was going to receive an education in just how small a man he was. So dickless that he’d barely stared at her cleavage.

  The reports said he wasn’t gay—a pity as there were other methods she used to convince those people to cooperate. Nothing against them, they just had very predictable buttons. Lesbians she could treat just like she did the men and it always worked.

  It didn’t matter, sex was only the simplest of weapons. Though usually it was more than sufficient. Well, he was going to learn just how nasty it could be to attack her.

  The only question was which tactic to use on him next.

  There were very few men she truly didn’t understand, and Ramson was one of them. He communicated one way yet acted another.

  Time to be very, very careful, Senator.

  Actually, that time had passed him by.

  She pulled out her burner phone, keeping it out of sight of the driver as she did so. Clarissa texted a message to a disconnected number.

  Less than a block later, not even past the Lincoln Memorial, an answer pinged back.

  Only five more hours until the next event.

  Good.

  21

  “This is Colonel Arturo Campos. Report to base. Do not attempt to leave your helo.”

  He didn’t know if he’d ever been so mad in his life. It was all he could do to hold his radio without crushing it in his fist—even if it was military grade.

  “A Security Forces team will arrive to keep you confined. If you make any adjustments or changes to your aircraft other than shutting it down before I arrive, I’ll have you all in Leavenworth so fast that your heads will spin.”

  He let go of the transmit key on his radio before he said what he was really thinking.

  Arturo had risked his life to save that plane. He’d ridden her right down to the dirt before kicking free. Ejecting, his first time, at five thousand feet as a SAM missile had taken out his plane had given him a bad case of the shakes.

  Ejecting again at zero-zero with ground impact less than a second away…he hadn’t had a spare moment since to let the shakes set in.

  Yet.

  He changed frequencies to the Davis-Monthan security frequency. He needed his best mechanical team to inspect the cargo hook and release system and find out just who had not done their job.

  Before he could transmit, he realized that someone was standing very close in front of him.

  “Is that anger?” Miranda Chase was standing just two feet away and looking up to inspect his face as if he was a curious puzzle. Her dark eyes were wide as she studied him.

  Before he could answer, she
continued.

  “Or is it fear? I can never tell.”

  Like he’d know.

  “According to my studies, both are quite normal reactions to near-death experiences.”

  “I…” He what?

  “We need the helo to land here. Have them turn back.”

  “I want them at the base and in isolation until they say why they destroyed my plane.” Because cargo hooks didn’t just fail, which meant someone had dumped his A-10 from a thousand feet and he was damned well going to find out why.

  “They need to come here because my team will be able to inspect their systems before any evidence is corrupted.”

  “My teams at Davis-Monthan are—”

  “Better than mine?” No facial expression. No raised eyebrow of challenge. No smug or competitive tone. Just a simple question.

  He remembered what the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had said, “A strange woman, but the very best there is at what she does.”

  Before he could think of what to answer, she walked away.

  Once again her team was converging on whatever had been under the tail of his crashed airplane.

  Miranda Chase was one of the only three IICs—Investigators-in-Charge—with top secret clearance in the entire NTSB. And if General Drake Nason said she was the best, maybe she was his best option.

  He ordered the helo to return and land a hundred meters to the north. “And get a damned fire suppression team out here to extinguish my plane.” It still burned strongly in the distance.

  A small explosion scattered more pieces. Thankfully, all of the wing-mounted armament had been scraped off during his landing and already retrieved by the ordnance team. That only left the ammunition of the Avenger cannon mounted in the nose.

  Another round of exploding shells.

  Campos followed her over to the churned, then compacted, soil beneath where his plane had initially come to rest. He was going to goddamn strangle that flight crew.

  Jeremy was down on his knees with a paintbrush, sweeping aside the fine grit as if he was unearthing a dinosaur fossil.