Page 53 of Air Force One
He passed on the command and wished he had a video camera with a long lens as he’d hung well clear. Damaging his boat twice in one day wouldn’t go over well. Who was he kidding? The news helos had all been grounded—because of all the drones aloft. For every ten they knocked into the sea with lasers, rifle fire, and signal jamming, twenty took their place. There’d be a thousand feeds of this on every social media channel any time he wanted to watch one.
As the two tugs, on opposite sides of the plane, tightened up their lines, the plane lazily spun on its long axis. As it rotated, one of the giant horizontal stabilizers on the tail rose from the water. When the fuselage had rolled onto its side, the tower of the vertical stabilizer surfaced and, after some initial resistance, it too swung aloft.
Finally, Air Force One rolled onto its belly. Unlike that plane that landed on the Hudson River, no panicked passenger had opened the rear passenger door to the sea, making the tail fill with water, partially sinking the plane. Because they’d pumped Air Force One dry, it rode high in the water as if nothing was more amiss than a damaged nose and missing wings.
“There. Now, if you’d be so kind as to tell them to tow it to Dry Dock 8 in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, I can finally start working on what happened. Did you find Engine Four yet?”
He’d forgotten about that and had to call in his question.
He could only laugh at the answer. Miranda didn’t laugh when he told her, but at least Andi Wu seemed to think it was funny.
The reason for the damage to Air Force One’s nose was that it had landed directly on Engine Four. It must have been ripped off the wing during the landing and raced the plane to the bottom. The engine had stopped the plane in place before ripping free. The broad nose of the 747 had landed on it like a pile driver.
46
Taz didn’t know President Feldman, but she knew General Elizabeth Gray-Nason. The catch was that Elizabeth also knew her. During her final year of working for General JJ Martinez, their relationship had been largely adversarial.
Jeremy was friends with her, but he was still in the NTSB lab going through every scrap of data in the Black Box recorders. Miranda never should have told him to go by the book, even if Taz knew why she’d said it. The command had unleashed Jeremy’s inner nerd. He wasn’t releasing any information until every single word had been crosschecked by a panel in the voice lab and every data point extracted, verified, charted, indexed, and who knew what all.
Mostly it meant that neither she nor the kids had seen him in the last twenty-six hours and might not for as long again.
That also meant that this was up to her.
Much to her surprise, a quick phone call had gotten her an appointment with Elizabeth. Conveniently, she’d been at the White House. Taz left the three Chinese drinking sodas at the Old Ebbitt Grill because it was directly across the street from the Treasury Building and went in alone.
Elizabeth met her in The Situation Room. This was Jeremy’s spot. He’d been in here a number of times advising President Cole. Miranda, Holly, and Mike had as well. She’d been in here once. Or was it twice? She couldn’t remember, and telling her Air Force colonel nerves to get their shit together wasn’t happening. Once, during which she’d done her best to speak as little as possible. Now she was?—
“Hello, Taz.” They traded salutes. “Take a seat. What is so important? Do you have news from Jeremy or Miranda yet?”
Instead of sitting, Taz snapped to attention. “Oh God, General. I seem to be here under false pretenses. I’m so sorry. I have no news regarding what happened to your husband or Air Force One.”
She could see the pain slash into Elizabeth.
“I’m here on another matter entirely. No wonder you agreed to see me. Again, my apologies. I’ll go now.” She saluted again but couldn’t force herself to leave. This was too important.
“Colonel Cortez. Come. Sit. Tell me why you’re here.”
Taz hesitated and Elizabeth waved her toward a seat. “I’m really sorry about that, ma’am.”
Elizabeth shrugged uncomfortably. “None of it has been easy. As you’re already here, what’s on your mind?”
Taz finally managed to sit, perched on the edge of the seat with her spine absolutely straight. “It’s about China, ma’am.”
Elizabeth waited without comment.
She swallowed hard and continued. “I have two Chinese-US citizens and a Chinese national of unofficial standing waiting at the Old Ebbitt Grill across the street. They wish to speak with the President.”
The general had the decency to only laugh at her a little.
“Chen Mei-Li, the former, uh, servant of General Zhang Ru. Chang Mui, the granddaughter of General Liú Zuocheng, co-chairman of the CMC. And Wang Daiyu. She asked to be remembered to you as the Chinese operative during the Antarctica disaster and as the personal operative of Liú Zuocheng.”
Elizabeth inspected her. “You make very interesting friends, Taz.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Do you know what they want to speak to the President about?”
Taz waved at the monitor. They were replaying something Taz had missed, the rolling over of Air Force One to sit upright in the water. Miranda, it had to be, because no one else would think that up.
