Page 6 of Air Force One
He made sure the door latched behind him so that they’d be left alone. Stepping past the shell-shocked secretary perched in a seat outside the President’s office, he saluted the colonel who carried the nuclear football. Sufficiently well-trained in end-of-world scenarios to advise the President and execute his orders in far worse conditions, the man returned the salute sharply and only then offered a grim soldier’s nod. Drake returned it and climbed the stairs to the command center on the 747’s upper deck. They both knew a soldier’s life came with few guarantees.
The senior comm officer was stepping out of the cockpit. He latched the door open and offered a sharp salute before waving a hand asking if Drake wanted to meet with the pilots.
He shook his head. Drake didn’t need to go to the cockpit to confirm their status. The five officers who could run a global war from the upper deck of Air Force One—staring at their displays in grim silence—answered that. There was nothing he could do in the cockpit except get in the pilots’ way.
The officer approached but didn’t appear able to speak at the moment.
“I need to place some phone calls. May I have a private line?”
The man indicated the empty seat normally reserved for the President. A girl, a woman—God, they were all so young—seated at the next station over handed him a headset and then tapped the screen to bring up a keypad display.
Drake dialed as she turned back to contemplate her own, now useless, screen.
5
Andi and Miranda stepped out of the Beast limo at Potomac Airfield. Meg jumped down after them and sniffed the air. Miranda did too. It smelled like…air. Actually, as illogical as she’d always found it, it smelled like coming rain. Even though rain was water, which she knew had no smell—but it did. The high clouds were already shifting to a heavy overcast, which didn’t bode well for their honeymoon trip down the coast, though the temperature remained near record warmth.
Potomac was a quiet little airport for private aircraft with only a few flights each hour on a weekday. It would be busier on the weekend. They were fetching their luggage from the trunk when Miranda’s phone rang.
“Hello. This is Miranda Chase. This is actually her and not a recording of her.” She answered precisely as she always had since the day she’d been accused of sounding like a recording.
“You need to come find us,” Drake said, getting straight to the point as he always did. Miranda appreciated that about him. Except this time she didn’t understand.
Andi leaned close. Miranda must remember to answer using the speaker in the future. Not only was Andi her wife now, but she’d proven herself very useful when a call turned stressful. Miranda couldn’t tolerate people yelling at her when they were upset; for reasons Miranda literally was incapable of understanding, Andi didn’t seem to mind.
“Is this like a game of Hide-and-go-seek, Drake?” Miranda asked. “I haven’t played that in years, but I was intrigued by it as a child. I enjoyed the counting and developing the most methodical and efficient search patterns. Though because of my autism, I couldn’t bring myself to count out loud until I was five.” Her first words ever had been a discussion with her live-in therapist, Tante Daniels, about the niceties of a well-played round of Hide-and-go-seek.
“No, Miranda. Not the game. I’m still on Air Force One. You have to find out who killed us. Promise.”
“I promise, Drake. But if you’re dead, how are you?—”
“Thank you, Miranda. I know I can trust you. I must call Lizzy now. Take care of her for me.” And he was gone.
“Please tell me I heard that wrong.” Andi slid a hand around Miranda’s waist. Andi remembered to make it a firm gesture; she never forgot. One of the many things Miranda had written on the list of what she appreciated about Andi when deciding her answer to Andi’s marriage proposal. It was quite a long list, which had decided the matter. The list of what she didn’t appreciate still remained empty.
“That was Drake. He said that someone killed him and Roy. Rose too, I suppose. He’s calling Lizzy now. That was a paraphrase, not an exact quote. I’ve been trying to get better at that.”
“Uh, you are. But that’s making even less sense than usual.”
“I’m sorry. He literally said, You have to find out who killed us. Promise. And when I did, he said?—”
“Don’t worry,” Andi only cut her off when she was going down the wrong logical path, a very useful tool once Miranda had identified it. “The paraphrase worked fine. And you’re sure it was Drake?”
“It sounded like him. And he knew my name and phone number.”
“Should we call him back?”
Miranda tipped her head one way, then the other before answering. “He sounded…” she made a guess though she was generally very poor at judging emotions even when the person was present, “…a little busy. Or maybe stressed is the right emotion. Or… I’m sorry, I just don’t know.”
Andi looked to the east, so Miranda did as well. Air Force One would be at least thirty minutes aloft by now. That put them two hundred kilometers off the Delaware coast, probably at forty-five thousand feet. Not knowing the type of emergency, it was difficult to determine the possibility of the plane returning successfully. Based on Drake’s assessment, there was no chance—she’d learned to trust him.
The Secret Service agent helping them extract their packs from the trunk of the Beast—Miranda was disappointed not to see a vast array of auxiliary weaponry stowed there, only the backup communication and air supply systems—seemed to turn to them in slow motion.
“Excuse me, ma’am. What did you just say?”
“Drake just called and said that he and Roy had been killed.”
“General Drake Nason and President Roy Cole?”
