Condor

by M. L. Buchman

  “Any plans to stop blaming yourself for all the things you can’t change?”

  It was a good question. A fair one.

  Yeah, she wouldn’t mind moving forward at all.

  She looked at Mike, smiled at him with her cracked lips and aching face.

  Then she rapped her knuckles on the Antonov’s fuselage. The thin sheet metal between two ribs konged back at her.

  She’d almost died on this plane trying to prove her past wasn’t her past.

  “I think Elayne did a pretty good job of finally beating that out of me.”

  87

  It was several days before enough rumors had trickled back to the Progress Space Rocket Centre in Samara to draw any conclusions.

  First, that the satellite had been lost.

  Then, a day later, that the transport plane had blown up in transit.

  Another thirty-six hours before Vesna heard that it had been shot down trying to defect to China.

  She had listened as Gregor had discussed whether or not to call his American “friend.”

  “Just to see what she might know about it.”

  But he’d dropped the idea when an odd rumor, only mentioned once, had reached him.

  “They say there was a Zaslon defector,” he had whispered to her when they’d gone to bed earlier.

  Vesna lay awake all through the night, long after Gregor had spent himself. Even in his sleep, he held her tightly.

  She remembered the scary threats of exposure from Gregor’s “American” friend.

  And the phone call she herself had placed at the “friend’s” instruction—only to have it answered by a Zaslon agent.

  Vesna had liked the woman who’d answered; she’d been kind and funny. She had also been livid when Vesna had mentioned Arfist, Harper.

  Harper was not a Russian name.

  Was it an American one? She didn’t know.

  But whoever the Zaslon agent had been, she hadn’t sounded like a traitor.

  Vesna asked herself, “What if she hadn’t been a defector?”

  Then had the plane really been shot down from the sky?

  She’d tried calling the number only once—careful to use a disposable phone.

  The phone call had gone to voicemail. Vesna hadn’t left a message.

  Should she report this?

  It was her duty. It was what she was paid for.

  But if she reported it, she’d have to expose how she’d heard everything, and that would expose Gregor and his American connection. And she knew exactly what would happen to Vesna herself after they were done interrogating her.

  The Zaslon agent’s last instruction had been to take good care of her man. Very good care.

  Yes, Vesna pressed back against Gregor.

  Yes. She would listen to the Zaslon agent, say nothing, and do her duty—to herself.

  88

  Elayne was surprised at her treatment.

  Holly and Mike had watched her like she was nothing. That wasn’t a surprise.

  At least they also hadn’t been dancing happily as she’d walked in chains across the hangar floor. Of the others, only the pilot Jon Swift had glanced her direction, quickly looking away as if to make sure the others didn’t turn.

  As her plane had left the Nevada hangar, Holly and Mike hadn’t moved. They’d watched her through the plane’s window as she was tied into a Learjet seat far more comfortable than the one on the damned Antonov.

  Maybe they weren’t so different. She tried to find her anger, but it had burned out somewhere. She’d pushed ever so slightly too far…and now she would pay the price.

  The surprise was that she paid the price in comfort, rather than screaming in some illegal rendition site. Instead, she’d been blindfolded and transported to a luxurious prison—that was the most unbreakable building she’d ever seen.

  Comfort.

  That’s what had spoiled the Americans.

  She was simply placed in a cell. A comfortable bed, television, books.

  Three meals a day and an exercise gym shared with a few other inmates who had pasts just as shadowy as hers. None of whom would ever see the light of day again except in a small courtyard whose high walls gave no indication of where they were.

  She had a phone. She was the only one who did.

  It was linked to only one number.

  Not even a keypad.

  She picked it up and it dialed.

  Each time it was answered by the same voice.

  After three months, far sooner than she planned, Elayne took a breath and didn’t hang up the moment it was answered.

  It was always Clarissa Reese, the woman from the flight out of Nevada on the other end of the line.

  They started slowly, but over time, their conversations grew.

  Sometimes they’d speak of men. Sometimes world events or politics. Eventually, they discussed past missions they’d each been on; ones that revealed nothing they didn’t both already know.

  They spoke as two women who worked in the lethal world of state secrets and deadly opponents.

  But they never spoke of the two Condors.

  89

  At her signal, Mike tipped up the small game timer.

  Miranda grasped her right elbow with her left hand, and kept her arm pointed out straight in front of her.

  Then she waved it about making Whoozzz Whoozz sounds and feeling utterly ridiculous.

  “Light sabre,” Jeremy shouted.

  Miranda nodded and thumped her chest.

  “Rey. Daisy Ridley.”

  She pointed at herself and shook her head, then at Mike and Jeremy.

  “Male,” Mike guessed.

  “Darth, Luke, Obi-wan.”

  She pointed at him.

  “Obi-wan Kenobi.”

  “Alec Guinness.”

  “Sir Alec Guinness.”

  Miranda was lost again. She didn’t know what Sir Alec Guinness had to do with Obi-wan Kenobi. She knew him only from Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago.

  The timer had only seconds left.

  Holly was laughing aloud, holding on to her ribs as she did so, but laughing. Her eye was better but still scary, now a sallow green against her pale skin. She planned to let her hair grown out naturally, so the black was still disconcerting.

  Finally, Miranda shrugged helplessly.

  “Younger Obi-wan,” Mike called out. She didn’t know if that was accurate, but Ewan McGregor was younger than Sir Alec Guinness, so she nodded.

  And just as the last grains dropped through the thin neck of the sand timer, Jeremy shouted out, “Ewan McGregor.”

  Miranda felt such a surge of relief that she forgot she was allowed to speak now and simply gave Jeremy an okay sign.

  For some reason, Holly found that immensely funny as well, and laughed—and groaned—even harder.

  Miranda sat back on the couch and whispered, “I’m glad that’s finally over.”

  Major Jon Swift slid a hand around her waist and kissed her on the temple. “Well done, you.”

  Miranda couldn’t wait to take him upstairs and find out just how well done something between them could be.

  If you enjoyed this, keep reading for an excerpt from a book you’re going to love.

  ..and a review is always welcome (it really helps)…

  Miranda Chase returns

  Ghostrider (excerpt)

  Mirada Chase #4

  Tacoma Narrows Airport, Tacoma, Washington

  (1900 hours Pacific Daylight Time)

  Miranda’s laptop barely fit on the end of the workbench in her airplane hangar. She was getting squeezed to the side, but she managed to hang on long enough to deliver her latest report.

  She selected Upload on the NTSB’s secure server. Her report “Airbus A320neo excursion from runway and collision with taxiing 737 at SFO” was complete and ready for final peer review.

  It had led to a large number of jokes about Boeing versus Airbus that had seemed irrelevant to the mechanical interact
ions of the two aircraft or the pilot error.

  She had to blink twice at the following screen because it didn’t make any sense.

  “It’s blank.”

  “What is?” Jeremy didn’t look up from where he’d taken over most of her workbench. He’d scavenged a full set of cockpit instruments from a mothballed military C-5A Galaxy jet transport on his last trip to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base’s boneyard. He was meticulously dissecting then restoring each one.

  She and her team, Team Chase, were sitting in her hangar at Tacoma Narrows Airport. It was a warm summer day and the main doors were slid back to let the sun in. Their “office” in the back corner was comfortable and smelled of a Pacific Northwest summer, all ocean, pine, and fresh mown grass. It was also far quieter than her official office at the National Transportation Safety Board just twenty miles away across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

  “Our queue.”

  Mike laughed from where he sat opposite Holly.

  The two of them were playing Backgammon across a spare parts crate that had once contained a new cylinder head for an old Douglas DC-3. Mike was playing as if he was reading a good book. Holly clearly felt that Backgammon was a blood sport. She didn’t roll her dice out of the cup and onto the board—she slammed it down with a crash that threatened to dislodge the wooden slats from the stout old crate they were using as a table.

  “Why is that an issue? I could do with a break.” Mike eased back on the old sofa to look at her.

  Holly appeared to be fuming at Mike’s studied casual style of play. Miranda considered pointing out that the more anxious Holly became, the more casual Mike became. She was still unclear if having an intimate relationship was somehow at the core of their interactions, or perhaps their lack of one. Her attempts at studying human emotions as interacting dynamic systems were still providing erratic results long after any merely mechanical systems would have been clearly delineated.

  She returned to the queue, which was far more comprehensible, however unlikely.

  “I’ve been investigating accidents for the NTSB for eighteen years. My queue of open cases has never been empty. There’s always been returning metallurgy, additional witness interviews, drafts in need of editing…” And now there was nothing.

  Holly seemed to shift modes between one heartbeat and the next; the cheery Australian appeared in a flash. “Well, goodonya, Miranda. It means we’re so awesome that we’ve gone and solved everything. Let’s declare a national holiday. Won’t last but a minute. Better do it fast. Call your pal Roy and have him declare it right now.”

  Miranda had actually picked up her phone before she spotted Mike’s amused smile. It was interesting that they always seemed to be ready to go three rounds in the boxing ring, yet Mike was Miranda’s best gauge of Holly’s intentions.

  “Ah, a joke.” Miranda set her phone back down without calling the President. Besides, it was early evening here in Tacoma, Washington. “I don’t want to disturb him as it’s almost bedtime in DC. I also note that it’s dinnertime and you haven’t yet mentioned food, Holly. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Would be if Mike played this game faster that a sloth on Xanax. Food, Jeremy.”

  “Oh, okay. You know, the 1983 version of the artificial horizon instrument was dependent on a gyro mount that should never have lasted as long as they did. The lack of wear is simply amazing considering the number of hours that were logged on that airframe.” He moved to a bench microscope.

  Mike turned back to the board, rattled his dice briefly and rolled a perfect three-five.

  “Yank, bastard,” Holly’s Australian drawl was thick, which usually indicated she was enjoying herself no matter what her expression and words said to the contrary.

  He sealed up the inboard, knocking one of Holly’s blots back to the bar. Another three rolls allowed him to get all of his pieces safe before she managed to free her lone piece.

  “Hope you roll snake eyes.”

  He rolled double fives and cleared the point.

  Holly managed to avoid being gammoned by getting off a single one of her pieces before Mike finished clearing the board.

  Holly glared at the half empty board, his half. “Are you sure there aren’t any crashes, Miranda? Maybe if I dropped a plane on Mike’s head we could investigate the death of an American weasel.”

  “Love you too, Harper.” Mike began stowing Holly’s pieces.

  “Not even a little, Munroe.” She helped him.

  “It wouldn’t work anyway.” He snapped the case shut and stowed it on top of the rolling tool case.

  “Why’s that?” She kicked the upside-down wastebasket she’d been using as a seat. She hit it just right so that it flipped with a loud clang of metal, then a ringing wobble before it settled upright.

  “Only planes here are both Miranda’s, I know you wouldn’t risk damaging one of hers.”

  “Not on your thick head,” Holly declared particularly emphatically.

  Miranda’s Mooney M20V Ultra was the fastest single-propeller piston-engine production airplane there was. And her 1958 F-86F Sabrejet fighter plane was one of the last dozen out of over ten thousand built that was still flying anywhere.

  She didn’t believe that either would be damaged by an impact with Mike’s head, especially since it was unlikely to be significantly thicker than the average human’s no matter what Holly said. But dropping one of her planes in such a way that it would impact Mike would imply that it would then hit the ground—and she’d rather not have that happen, notwithstanding the damage to his skull.

  During her moment of inattention, Jeremy’s reconstruction project had consumed the last of the workbench; a line of engine gauges (N1 and N2 stage RPMs, exhaust gas temperature, fuel flow, and oil pressure) now separated her from her laptop.

  She supposed that it was fortunate that there wasn’t an accident investigation going on at the moment as she’d have nowhere to work. Over the last eight months, her team had slowly shifted most of their work from the NTSB’s Seattle Region office, illogically named as it was placed in Federal Way, into her private hangar at Tacoma Narrows Airport.

  Miranda had initially insisted that they use the National Transportation Safety Board’s official office as it seemed both proper and convenient. But as her team had become more and more specialized, especially in highly classified military mishaps, the isolation of the hangar at TNA had become a better fit.

  “Food it is,” Holly stepped up behind Jeremy, and lifted him physically off his stool. He managed to drop his tools with a clatter before she began walking toward the hangar door with him dangling under her arm. Mike stepped up and grabbed his legs as Jeremy broke out laughing.

  Lucky for them that Jeremy was little bigger than Miranda herself. She was five-four and Jeremy was an equally slender five-seven. Holly still worked out hard. Perhaps not as hard as when she’d been a Special Operations warrior for the Australian SASR, but she did spend time every day at the weight set beside her and Jeremy’s workbench.

  Apparently, Jeremy was an easy load.

  Miranda picked up her phone and computer, without knocking aside any of Jeremy’s instruments, and followed behind them.

  Enroute between

  Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota

  and

  Groom Lake, Nevada Test and Training Range

  (0300 Mountain Daylight Time)

  “Denver Center, this is Shadow Six-four.”

  “Roger, Six-four. Go ahead.”

  “Declaring an emergency. Depressurization event. Current altitude three-niner-thousand. Request clearance emergency descent to one-five-thousand.”

  Missy Collins had only been on the Denver Center Air Traffic Control desk for six weeks, and she’d never handled an emergency before. She pulled up the checklist on a side screen.

  “Confirm. Shadow six-four is declaring an emergency? Please squawk seventy-seven hundred.” Seven-seven-zero-zero was the official transponder code for an emergency.

&nb
sp; “Confirm emergency.”

  And right on cue, a plane flashed brightly on her flight-tracking screen. The four-digit transponder squawk code immediately identified the plane’s position if not its type or other status.

  She checked the status of all other flights in the area.

  Nothing intersecting in the next five minutes.

  “Shadow Six-four. You are cleared to initiate immediate descent at your discretion. Number aboard?” Next question on the checklist.

  “Full crew. Thirteen.”

  Even as she watched, the altitude readout dropped to thirty-eight, then thirty-seven. Their rate of descent was dangerously fast, even in an emergency situation. In fact…

  Kenneth, the head of her section, had been both kind and relentless in training their team. ATC wasn’t a job that allowed breaks, yet he insisted on additional training at every opportunity. He’d also showed special interest in her, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  Now the training paid off. She slapped the supervisor-call switch, even as she pulled up the plane’s filed flight plan, and began studying the sector chart.

  Kenneth patched in his headset beside hers, “What are we looking at, Missy?” As always at work, his tone was completely professional. They’d had dinner together after last night’s shift. He’d been charmingly roundabout with how he’d propositioned her.

  She’d turned him down; he was her boss after all. She also had a boyfriend, technically. Vic was very unhappy that she’d left LA and they weren’t on speaking terms at the moment. It was becoming clear that he was more upset about having to pay all of the apartment’s rent than about her departure.

  “We have a depressurization emergency on military flight Shadow Six-four. Which is listed as…” she inspected the record, “…and AC-130J. Is that a variation of the C-130 Hercules?”

  Kenneth whistled softly. “A for attack, C-130 for Hercules airframe, and the J means that it’s the newest the Air Force has. The AC-130J gunship.” He couldn’t help himself but to include a moment of training. She’d heard him do that with everyone.