White Top: a political technothriller (Miranda Chase Book 8)

by M. L. Buchman

  Without the slightest hint of tears, she turned to the President.

  “I will not deign to speak that fucker’s name. Last year it came to my attention that your first VP had a real taste for underage girls during foreign travel. He was not gentle about it. He put several in the hospital. I—”

  She aborted some thought with a shake of her head.

  “You deserved better than that, Mr. President. Clark was perfect. He loved being your Vice President even more than being D/CIA. I may have set the final trap that hit the world’s headlines, but your first VP didn’t walk into it, he ran—with his pants around his ankles before he was through the door.”

  “You pushed Clark to give me weekly in-depth briefings for six months before that, making him a natural choice for me when you took out Mulroney.”

  “I sent Clark your direction because you were underutilizing your greatest asset, the CIA. That was long before I found out about that—” her voice strangled with fury. “He took himself out. I just helped him with a dose of press coverage.”

  Drake had never thought about how every major news service just happened to be in the right place or who had called the police with the tip off.

  “Which let Clark take you with him to the role of Second Lady, and eventually First,” Cole said softly.

  Clarissa shrugged, then nodded.

  Except Drake had long since learned how to read her. First Lady had never been Clarissa’s goal. “No, you as Vice President to Clark’s President. A first-ever family ticket.”

  Cole and Sarah looked at him in surprise.

  Clarissa started the shrug again, but gave it up halfway done. “It was a good plan—until some bastard murdered him. Trust me, Mr. President,” she tapped the lists still on the table in front of her, “I want to find out who killed him far more than you ever possibly could. I want to destroy him inch by inch—personally! Before I gut him!”

  She glared about the table defiantly.

  In her current state, she looked as if she’d do the same to anyone who got in her way. Probably while wearing her crazy-expensive designer suit.

  There was such a long silence that the room’s tension had time to bleed away. Enough so that Danziger even sat down in the chair beside Sarah.

  President Cole was tapping that damned finger of his.

  Drake knew not to ask him for his thoughts, but he did know that the President rarely considered something for so long.

  They all twitched when the phone rang.

  69

  “Hello, Drake. It’s 11:17.”

  Drake noticed Sarah’s smile. She was learning about Miranda.

  If the President was amused by Miranda’s punctuality, he didn’t show it, but he did stop tapping his finger.

  “Hello, Miranda. Do you have anything new for us?”

  “Yes. We were able to analyze the sound that Clarissa helped me identify.”

  Clarissa sat up straighter, with a definite I-told-you-so smile.

  “What did you find?” He knew that Miranda would wait forever without a prompt.

  “It occurred on the morning of the helicopter’s last full day at Camp David. After a standard morning runup test lasting precisely fifteen minutes, the Cockpit Voice Recorder ran for an additional ten minutes. At nine minutes and forty-nine seconds, the door to the Marine Two aircraft was reopened.”

  “Colonel McGrady here, Mr. President. That alone is very unusual based on our normal protocols.”

  “Continue, Ms. Chase.” The President was listening intently.

  “If I’m supposed to call you Roy, shouldn’t you be calling me Miranda? Or did you reverse your choice and I should be calling you something else? If so, what?”

  “Jesus, Miranda,” Clarissa muttered to herself.

  “Roy will be just fine, Miranda. Please continue.”

  “That’s good to know. The final recorded sound was a heavy object being dropped on the carpeted deck and the pop and release of a plastic piece. Some high-frequency vibrations were transmitted through the helicopter’s skin to the pickup microphone, indicating that the piece was most probably part of the helicopter’s trim work. Probably high and to the right, which would fit with the location of the emergency air supply system.”

  “What else?”

  “Nothing, sir. The recording stopped four seconds later. It is only designed to run for ten minutes after the most recent power shutdown. We’ve only just started on the fourth and final day, but the early morning runup test is proceeding precisely on schedule.”

  Danziger’s twitch drew Drake’s attention. For the first time in hours, he looked very wide awake.

  “Danziger here. Thank you, Ms. Chase. Everything that Drake and the President said about you is absolutely true.” He scrabbled for the intercom.

  “We’ll get back to you, Miranda. Thank you.” Drake hung up and turned to watch Danziger.

  “Get me everything you have on any late additions to the flight’s guest list,” Danziger ordered. Then offered to those at the table as an aside, “I’d still rather it wasn’t one of ours.” He continued to the intercom. “On our screens, right now, whatever you have so far. And then find me any surveillance video at the Camp David helipad from…”

  “Friday morning, 0715,” Clarissa offered with only a slight smugness.

  “Do it.”

  They all turned to the screens and waited.

  Four faces came on screen.

  Drake did his best to not do a racial profile, but one face stood out clearly. He was a top assistant to the Saudi Arabian ambassador. A member of the extensive royal family—by marriage.

  Cole looked grim as the other three profiles filled in.

  A professor who was a specialist in Southern US political history. An appropriate expert for Clark to have brought in to help recreate the Southern Governor’s Association.

  A political consultant recently hired by the party to help prepare Clark for his election campaign.

  And…

  “Oh no!” Clarissa groaned.

  “What?”

  She again covered her face for a long moment before looking back at the fourth image. A lovely Indian girl. Her bio said she was a new hire for White House Legal Counsel’s office.

  Nothing jumped out at Drake as he scanned her bio.

  “Sorry, it’s just…” Clarissa looked as if she was going to be sick.

  The viper actually did have feelings.

  “Avi, Clark’s executive assistant, told us he had a new girlfriend over in legal counsel. He was so excited about her.”

  “So he begged a favor from Clark to bring his girlfriend along to Camp David.”

  Clarissa nodded. “He must have. The days were busy and she kept a low profile. I was supposed to have breakfast with them the final morning, but I had to come back to DC.”

  “Why weren’t you on the return flight?” Cole dropped the question deadpan, which Drake knew was a bad sign. Apparently Clarissa missed that and simply answered.

  “My people called me. They were tracking a significant rise in encrypted chatter commensurate with a pending terrorist attack. We worked it all night. The NSA couldn’t crack it. My people had traced it to the DC area by…too late.” She waved a helpless hand toward the screen.

  “And the source?”

  Clarissa heaved out a sigh, then pointed at the assistant to the Saudi Arabian ambassador.

  70

  “I swear I didn’t know anything,” Hunter practically groveled the moment Rose walked back into the house.

  “You knew Clark’s policies,” Rose set down her handbag and shed her jacket into the front closet.

  “Yes. I did. But I swear to God that Ahmad said he simply wanted a chance to meet with Clark to persuade him to change his attitude toward the Saudis.” Hunter trailed after her as she headed into the front parlor.

  It was such a soothing room, decorated in pastels and soft florals. The bursts of color came from the tasteful vases of flowers made twice as
brilliant by the muted décor.

  This was her domain.

  Here is where she held her tea socials until they were the must-get invitation for any woman seeking power in DC. Congresswomen, senators, two Supreme Court justices, and many more had swirled through this room.

  She’d so looked forward to hosting the celebration tea for Clarissa’s ascendency in this room.

  But no matter what she’d said to Clarissa this morning to bolster her confidence, Hunter had effectively guaranteed that the Oval Office would never happen now.

  Rose closed her eyes for a moment. She could still see the quiet post-election night party when they were the two women of the White House. But the image, so clear before, was now tattered at the edges, faded with age as that potential future died a fast death.

  It wasn’t over yet—if anyone could manage it, Clarissa Reese was the woman—but something told her that dream was done.

  She forced her attention back to Hunter’s worried face.

  Without the White House for herself, she still needed Hunter. Without him, the second most powerful senator in the Congress after the majority leader, her own star would fade very rapidly—overnight. She knew better than anyone how fickle Washington society could be.

  “What’s done is done, Hunter. But in the future…”

  “Yes? Anything!”

  “Don’t do something without asking me first.”

  “Never again. Oh, Rose. You’re the best woman there ever was.” He wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace.

  She returned it.

  Besides, she too had known Ahmad for a long time and knew how influential he could be. She’d have suggested adding him to the trip if she’d thought of it herself.

  Not that she’d ever tell Hunter that.

  71

  “Who the hell is that?” Clarissa looked around the table, but no one reacted.

  Whoever it was had avoided the surveillance cameras, at least with their face. There were shots of a leg here, a back there, but never a clear view.

  She tried to make it be the Saudi Ahmad.

  Or not be.

  But couldn’t conclusively do either one.

  As much as she hated to suggest it, she knew what they had to do.

  “Send it to Miranda.”

  72

  “But we’re nearly to the crash.” Miranda hated to be interrupted at this point. Marine Two had a variety of systems that she’d never had the opportunity to study. The readout and sound characteristics were utterly fascinating. This was data at its purest about an aircraft she’d never seen in such detail.

  “Miranda.” Drake was always patient, which she appreciated. “We have partial videos of the person who created those sounds you identified, but we can’t see enough to identify him.”

  “But people come last, Drake.” They were the innermost sphere of all. Besides, people were Mike’s and Taz’s area of specialty, not hers.

  “Jesus, Miranda,” Clarissa snapped out.

  Andi leaned forward and tapped the mute button.

  Miranda could feel the pressure in the room drop by half.

  Everyone had gathered in the Listening Room.

  “Miranda,” Andi said softly, “think of it as video data. We’re still in the Flight Data sphere.”

  She never thought of people that way. Perhaps if she thought of people’s information as data first rather than people first, she wouldn’t feel the need to push it out as far as possible. “That’s incredibly good, Andi. I can work with that.”

  Andi unmuted the phone just as someone asked if they were still there.

  “Yes,” Miranda answered. “Please send the video data. We’ll review it now.”

  In seconds, the images had arrived and she put them up on the screen.

  It was a jumble of times and angles of view: two seconds at the back of the hangar, three more from a different angle at the front corner, and so on.

  This Miranda could do. It fit her autism well. This was the way that the world seemed to her all the time—images and events that were often a jarring jumble as too much detail came in too fast.

  She let it all play through once, less than sixty seconds total, including an equally careful departure by the reverse route.

  “The case he’s carrying is the right size for a cabin-sized emergency oxygen generator,” Colonel McGrady noted.

  “How much do they weigh fully charged?” Holly asked.

  “Between twelve and thirteen kilos,” Jeremy chimed in. “It’s actually twelve-point-five kilos plus-or-minus a half kilo on the manufacturer’s specification sheet. That of course doesn’t account for the different chemical compounds that were packed to create the hydrogen cyanide gas. I don’t know the exact composition of their chemical compound yet, so I can’t be sure. But that’s what a real one weighs. They—”

  “Hush, Jeremy,” Taz patted his arm.

  “Twenty-seven pounds, a couple of bowling balls. That matches his uneven stride,” Holly concluded.

  Miranda noted that down. It was something she’d expect a former SASR operator to know.

  “Stride is more off than that,” Mike leaned forward. “Replay that last sequence.”

  Miranda reran the view from behind as the person strode purposefully across the pavement to the helicopter, leaning strongly to one side.

  “Not a man. A woman.”

  “You would know,” Holly smirked. “But I think he’s right.”

  “Only one woman’s ass I care about now,” Mike kissed her on the temple.

  “Stop selling lollies to dingoes and I’ll buy in,” but she kissed him back.

  Miranda applied simple metrics to get the person’s height against the helicopter. A stride length measurement corroborated the estimate.

  If she had long hair, it was tucked up inside her hat.

  Her hat.

  Even now, their whole team wore their bright yellow Australian Matildas hats.

  The woman’s hat was medium brown.

  Miranda ran through the entire sequence, found the best view of the hat was at the moment the suspect paused to open the helo’s door, and zoomed in.

  There were no relevant markings on the back of the hat. Though there was a curl of dark hair that indicated her hair was indeed tucked up.

  “Go back two seconds,” Andi whispered to her.

  Miranda did, but didn’t see why.

  Andi rested a hand on her shoulder as she leaned in to tap a finger on a corner of the screen.

  Of course, Miranda zoomed in.

  There, reflected in the pilot’s side window, was the front of the hat.

  Disappointingly, it was blank.

  Then she panned down slightly to put the whole reflection on the screen.

  She was near the limits of enhancement she could apply to it when McGrady cursed.

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  He was rubbing his forehead.

  “Manufacturer’s rep for our air system. Our birds travel the world and downtime for service is sometimes hard to find. She’d have the clearance to enter the grounds and service the helo. It should never have happened without my crew present, but she’d certainly have the know-how. This visit never showed up on our schedule or in our logs. We’d have spotted that already.”

  Miranda dialed the phone.

  73

  After Miranda explained what she’d found, Danziger pulled up the visitor list.

  There it was.

  Sign in at 0652.

  Sign out at 0737.

  His people had done their job, they’d even noted the model and serial number of the units the rep had been delivering.

  But it hadn’t been enough. He’d have to think about that later.

  He picked up the phone, called the Oklahoma City office, and gave them their targets. A defense contractor was going down today—every one of its employees and executives would be in custody and questioning by nightfall.

  Sick to his stomach, he turned to the P
resident.

  “Mr. President, I can hereby clear you to leave the PEOC, and as soon as aircraft inspections are complete, you are recertified for travel.”

  “Thank God for small favors.” Cole didn’t push to his feet. “We’ll be in the Oval until we get to your final report on this.”

  Danziger knew when he was dismissed.

  As he hurried out of the room, he heard the President speak softly.

  “There’s one more thing before we shift upstairs. Drake, cut the monitor to the watch officers.”

  Like so often in his job, Danziger could only guess at what the rest of that conversation might be.

  74

  Clarissa watched as the President did more of that goddamn finger tapping routine. He finally stopped and stretched out all ten fingers as if they suddenly hurt. Then he looked her square in the eye with that famously frank soldier’s look of his.

  “I’m sorry, Clarissa, but I can’t suggest you to the party for the Vice Presidency.”

  And there it was.

  Clarissa felt the gut blow land. Her stomach roiled all the way back to the toxic-waste sludge coffee Rose had made her drink this morning. But she’d sooner burn in hell that show it to these people. She might not have the Vice Presidency but she had her pride.

  “Not because I think you would be good or bad at it. I’d consider recommending you just because I think you could shake up many of the ingrained disasters that exist in our global status quo.”

  “Damn straight I could! Then why not?”

  He began tapping his fucking finger again. If she took a hammer and smashed it, would it stop? Or would it keep beating like Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”?

  He noted the direction of her glance, half smiled, and stopped.

  “But the ultimate reason I can’t put your name forward is what you just told us. You have no idea—honestly, you can’t—of the hideous vetting process that is a modern Presidential election. Even when it’s a midterm replacement. That story would come out. How many people outside this room know of your involvement in Vice President Mulroney’s getting caught with that pair of preteen hookers? Or have sufficient pieces to figure it out as Danziger just did?”