Page 37 of Air Force One
He glanced over at Clarissa, but it was too late. She’d already opened her eyes and turned to look at him.
He sighed and tried to delay by getting another slice of pizza. Heidi knew his ways and saw his plan die as he discovered the half still sitting on the plate by his station. “I, uh, set up this ultra-secure phone call a couple years back. Single use. At least I thought so. I never erased it. It, uh, just rang through, but in the other direction.”
“Who does it connect?”
“I don’t know who is calling.”
That had both Heidi and Clarissa sitting up, though Heidi managed to get the first word in. “How can you not know?”
“Hello, ultra-secure. My instructions were to make it so that even I couldn’t crack the call.”
“And you actually built that?”
“I did.”
Heidi smacked her forehead. Any decent hacker knew that information was power. Clarrisa had taught her that it was a weapon as well. Harry hadn’t learned that yet.
“Can you stop it?”
He shook his head. “A single text message by the duration. Already done and disconnected.”
“Who had you set it up?” Clarissa had now turned her full attention on Harry. A slice of pepperoni teetered on the tip of Clarissa’s pizza slice, but it refused to fall and blemish her clothing perfection. Heidi resisted the urge to reach out and give it a little nudge. If she did it just right, it might tumble down into Clarissa’s impressive cleavage. Not that she was one of those women who flashed it about, but the top of her blouse was open as if she’d yanked it wide. It was the only part of her that looked disheveled.
“Uh…” Harry did his best to disappear behind his screen. But his glance up at the news gave him away.
“Someone on the plane?”
Harry shook his head.
“Someone…” Then she remembered the swearing-in ceremony. “…Miranda?”
He shook his head.
“Stop with the damned twenty questions already. Who?” Clarissa’s sudden outburst and the slight jerk of her hand was enough to break the pepperoni’s adhesion to the tomato sauce. It plopped down—on her sleeve. It would leave a stain, but it was hardly worth a laugh.
Besides, Heidi knew. “Holly Harper.”
“No fucking way.” Clarissa turned on her like a rabid rottweiler. Okay, maybe a rabid poodle that had just missed out on being named Best in Show. But she still had kick-ass blonde hair to the middle of her back instead of Heidi’s curly brunette disaster—in other words, still plenty dangerous.
Relieved to be out from under the gun, Harry nodded from behind Clarissa.
Because she loved him, and he hadn’t given in to Jeremy’s pressure about wanting to have a kid right away, she took the hit for him and told Clarissa, “Way.”
30
Holly dragged herself up the USCG Bear’s swim ladder with every intention of collapsing prostrate on the deck. Except when she got there, every available spot was filled with a body bag. The way she felt, it was tempting to shove one aside and lie down beside them anyway. They could even bag her if they wanted. At this point she wouldn’t care—or probably notice.
Sea State 4 had become Sea State 5. Waves taller than the roof peak of the one-story shithole she’d lived in for her first sixteen years had pumped constantly over the tail. Working close below the water, the pressure built and died, built and died. She’d had to clear her ears so many times that it was a wonder she’d gotten to use her hands at all.
The bright-orange Black Box recorders had been perched in an utterly impossible place to access. She and Stanik had entered Air Force One through the flooded rear stairs, dodging the bodies going up the rope system. As they passed, each one insisted on pressing its face against hers as if trying to suck face or steal her air straight through the mask. Young, old, male, female. All in inner-DC-fine clothes—they’d been traveling with the President on Air Force One after all. Suits, dresses, uniforms with a lot of rank on them. Hair cropped short or hair streaming behind them as the rope conveyor hauled them up and out. Eyes open. Eyes shut.
They weren’t shot up by drug lords, then blown to shit before falling a dozen stories, the way her team had been in the gorge underneath that bridge she’d destroyed. But most heads of the Air Force One dead lolled at impossible angles from necks broken by the severity of the impact.
It was a wonder she and Stanik didn’t both barf in their respirators.
Once inside they’d climbed vertically upward into the rear tail cone, which held the final air bubble aboard the aircraft. With each pumping wave outside, the water sloshed and the air pressure jolted inside. She wanted to drill a hole and let the air out, but maybe it was the only thing keeping the plane upright.
The FDR and CVR—Flight Data and Cockpit Voice Recorders—were mounted in a handy cabinet. Handy if you were standing on the deck or even lying on the ceiling. Bobbing up and down in the wash of a cabin gone vertical, with too many sharp corners and nowhere to grab for leverage, made it a cast-iron bitch. Their floor, the aft bulkhead between the cabin and the rear service space, was too far down to stand and reach the rack.
