Page 51 of Air Force One
The damage to Air Force One was surprisingly minor in comparison. The stout deck gun caught on the plane’s mangled forward radar assembly and ripped it free like a surgeon’s scalpel.
The plane came to rest in the waves on its back, with its three remaining engines sticking up above the waves. It floated nose-to-nose with the Bear. It floated high enough in the water that the damaged nose section remained clear of the waves. Perched on the remains of the cutter’s twisted bow, in addition to the shattered radar, were the contents of the President’s private suite. Colonel Vic Franklin and the President’s secretary Tabitha Ray were both now aboard the Bear.
No one, living or dead, remained aboard Air Force One.
Commander Randy Davidson managed his first breath since the fall of the plane began, but it was that NTSB woman, Miranda Chase, who managed the first words.
“Well, that didn’t go quite the way I anticipated.”
44
Neither of them had slept on the red-eye flight from Seattle to DC. Worse, there’d been a connection and a flight delay. It didn’t matter. Mui and Mei-Li had discussed the possible implications of the tickets throughout the flight. Knowing the who had offered no clues as to the why.
Logging onto the plane’s Wi-Fi, they’d been able to watch the curious entourage off the Delaware coast. Two deep-sea salvage tugs towing an upside-down Air Force One through the heavy waves. It was hard to know whether to laugh or scream at the hundreds of gawkers’ boats that had come out to meet the plane. The Coast Guard had to launch more and more assets into the storm to rescue them as they swamped, capsized, collided, and every other variation imaginable.
After them all, a lone cutter continued to drive backward. News reporters said that it was to keep pressure off the damaged bow. They were backing their way to Norfolk.
At first, she and Mui conjectured that they were going to meet the Air Force One plane when it reached land. At the slow towing speed, the 747 would have covered the eighty kilometers to Norfolk, Virginia, at about the same time they themselves would be landing in Dulles airport. It was ridiculous, yet their arrival must be related somehow. Knowing that their questions wouldn’t be answered until they landed didn’t help; they couldn’t stop discussing the possibilities.
And for the long hours in between, when all new ideas eluded them, they watched mesmerized by the slow towing of Air Force One back from its ocean grave. The commentary was all about how could the plane have crashed and who could they blame and how the entire Air Force should be fired for incompetence and… But other than various bits of archive footage, it was the action shot they had.
There were also hastily assembled obituaries tracing the life and times of Roy and Rose Cole and Drake Nason. Roy and Drake had signed the card welcoming her and Mui to US citizenship after expediting passports for them. They had offered her and Mui a citizen’s safety at a moment when they’d expected their lives were over. They’d given her hope.
Mei-Li had never killed anyone, though there were many she had wished she could. Curiously, almost every one of them was now dead—by others’ hands or events, but dead nonetheless. She still had the card signed by Drake, Roy, and Lizzy welcoming her and Mui to the US. It had been included in a simple mailer with two US passports—the best gift of her life excepting only finding Mui. If she found out who had killed Drake and Roy, she wouldn’t wait for anyone else to kill them. She’d find a way to do it herself and damn the consequences.
“No instructions,” Mui noted for the tenth time as they cleared through the security exit.
They’d traveled light, carry-on only. Mei-Li had considered checking a small bag so that she could bring some weapons with her, but that had never been her strength. And the person who’d bought their tickets and they were probably meeting was beyond expert. For lack of anything better to do, they headed to the baggage claim conveyor for their flight.
And there she was.
Mui stood close before Wang Daiyu and bowed in greeting.
Mei-Li remained far more cautious. Yes, she was the assistant of Mui’s grandfather, Liú Zuocheng. But he was the powerful head of the CMC, which she despised beyond breathing. If she could figure out how to reach them all together, she’d gladly have sacrificed herself just to remove them from the face of the Earth. Wang was also Zhang Ru’s wife—the man who had owned Mei-Li for years, giving her body as favors to the rich, the powerful, and the thoughtlessly cruel—until she managed her escape. She wished them both slow and painful deaths.
Daiyu’s careful bow showed that she read Mei-Li’s distrust.
“You bought us tickets, and we came. So why are we here?” No pleasantries. No gentle greeting. No inquiries about her and General Liú’s health—she threw the words in Daiyu’s face. And she refused to feel ashamed by her own rudeness.
“You have adopted many Western ways already.”
Daiyu might as well have slapped her. Shame’s heat rushed to her cheeks despite her orders not to.
“I have been in the air for eighteen hours.” Without another word Daiyu turned and led the way through the travel-battered people gathered at the various conveyor belts. Daiyu led them into the Café Americana at the end of baggage claim.
At Mui’s easy shrug, Mei-Li followed along, though she didn’t like it. But she did notice that Wang Daiyu’s pack was no bigger than either of theirs, little more than a daypack. She too carried no suitcase or luggage. Which meant no weapons—or at least no obvious ones.
Mei-Li ordered a Reuben sandwich—she’d grown a real weakness for them since coming to America. Daiyu and Mui split a Buffalo Chicken pizza that also smelled great. She and Mui invariably cooked Chinese food at home but, when eating out, it was always American fare.
“Why are we here?” she asked again after taking the time to savor the first bite.
“Two reasons. First, I must speak to the President.”
“He’s in China.”
“The American one.”
Mei-Li shrugged, “So speak to her. Call the embassy or whatever. I’m guessing she’s kind of busy today.”
