Page 33 of Air Force One
“That’s a heck of a big area.”
“You may limit your search to the closest two hundred kilometers along a line from here back to the turn I had General Owen initiate at,” Miranda rattled off a latitude and longitude. “He didn’t mention losing the engine, so it is likely between here and that turn, since the final time I spoke to him.”
“That’s still a lot of ocean. Can’t you call the general again?”
“I could, but I doubt that he’d answer. His cockpit is approximately two hundred and fifty-seven feet below the surface right now.”
The commander looked a bit sick.
Holly leaned over to Andi, after covering her upper arm with her other hand—it still throbbed—and whispered. “How did you do that?”
“Automatic hug threshold,” Andi whispered back.
“Christ, Wu. You’re talking like she is now.”
“Really?” Her face lit up. “Neat.”
Just what she needed, another Miranda.
27
Glad of a mandate, Commander Randy Davidson leaned into the task. He was the senior skipper of the three cutters—by seven whole months. He’d also been lead ship out of the port and decided that was good enough to put him in operational command.
It was a make-or-break assignment. If he screwed up, it could well be the end of his career—which would sure as hell end his marriage. If he pulled it off, he just might be the golden boy in both worlds. Did it make him a shit for thinking that? Probably. Didn’t matter; he was in it now.
In minutes he had each ship deploy their RHIB to join the MLBs. The Zodiac rigid-hull-inflatable boats made a better diving platform. The motor life boats were designed to support rescue swimmers, not guys wearing deep-dive SCUBA gear.
He let Miranda brief their most technical guy, Petty Officer 2 Stanik. While she instructed him and they found a diving kit for the blonde Aussie—he’d caved on including a civilian when she showed him her qualifications—he pulled his chief diver aside while all that happened.
“Look, Eastman, we need to show the US Navy, and more importantly the new commander-in-chief, how essential the US Coast Guard is. It’s our first demonstration to power, maybe our biggest ever. I want bodies coming up to the surface fast. There’s a storm coming and I have no idea how we’re going to move that plane. Second priority is to assess the condition of the hull. A lot of secure equipment aboard, maybe we’ll have to demo it in place, so third task is do an assessment on what kind of charges would smithereen that thing. But first and foremost, I need a hundred percent personnel recovery before this storm kicks our ass. Go in through whatever emergency exit you can and get them moving to the surface. Start one team at the top, so we can show action fast.”
“Remember, Skipper, at these depths, the deepest dive has to be the first in a dive series.”
“Roger that. Lead a second team yourself as deep as you can get. Get those, uh, occupants of the foremost cabins,” Randy swallowed hard, “out of there personally. We don’t know the conditions at the nose, so be damned careful.”
“But get them,” Chief Petty Officer Eastman nodded. “Request permission to?—”
“Take everyone and anything you need from all three boats except for Stanik. Full gear. Full safety. If we need to send you goddamn hot meals while you decompress on the way up, we’ll find a way to do it. By the book, Chief, because nothing you’ve ever done will be so thoroughly raked over the coals afterward—but shave that dime as close as you dare.”
Eastman nodded and hurried off.
When Davidson finally worked his way down the list far enough to order an ROV into the water to assess the plane’s condition, that had sidetracked Miranda along with her Chinese and four-footed shadows—the Vietnamese kid followed tight on their heels. Heading to the nerd shack, where the science team ran their gear to watch the feed, got them out of his hair. Next, he cut an MLB loose, had it rigged with a magnetometer and a towed side-scan radar, and sent it off to go searching for that Number Four engine. That made his bridge much emptier.
“You’re making me feel pretty useless, Commander.” The quiet guy with dark hair and an easy smile who’d come off the helo with the others spoke for only the second time since boarding.
“Call me Randy. Why useless?” He eased down into his chair, watching the RHIBs converge on the tail of Air Force One with a full load of divers perched on the rubber gunwales. He hated this part of being a captain: order your people out, then sit on your ass and watch.
“Mike Munroe. Because my specialty is human operations and making sure things run smoothly for Miranda.”
“That woman is some strange piece of work.”
Rather than taking umbrage, Mike didn’t hesitate to nod. “More than you can possibly imagine. She’s also better at her job than probably anyone in the world. That’s not personal bias; that’s bankable.”
Randy knew he was good, but the best? What would that be like? Would he have to be as odd as her to achieve that?
“One suggestion, if I may?”
“Fire away.”
