White Top

by M. L. Buchman

  “Okay.” Then Andi spoke so quickly that it was hard to understand her. “I’m sorry I asked. Don’t be upset. I just…had to. I had to know, you know, because—”

  “Now you’re sounding like Jeremy.”

  Andi slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “No. I’ve never thought about being with a woman before. I don’t know why; I just never did.”

  “For some people, it’s not a choice.”

  “Like you.”

  “Like me. But some people can choose,” Andi mumbled through her hand.

  “You are aware that an autistic’s difficulties in perceiving emotions includes difficulties perceiving emotional pressures to conform to societal norms. An autistic is many times more likely to explore a gender-diverse lifestyle because we don’t understand society’s need for conformance—we can’t even perceive it, we just know we don’t belong. Trust me, I often wish I could understand, so that I could fit in. But I don’t.”

  “And would you ever choose to be with a woman?” Andi lowered her hand slowly.

  “Why wouldn’t I? See? That’s the part I don’t understand.”

  Andi swallowed hard. “Would you ever choose to be with me?”

  “You’re the calm one.”

  “Because I make you calm.”

  Miranda nodded. “Because I think I’m better at being me when I’m with you. Is that important?”

  Andi offered one of those half laughs. “No, Miranda. That’s not just important. That’s everything that matters. It’s the same for me.”

  This time Miranda got the good part of the half joke. “So how do we begin? Is it different when it’s two women?”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes.”

  Andi just shook her head. “You’re amazing, Miranda. Okay. Here’s how it begins.” She held out her hand palm up.

  When Miranda placed her own on it, Andi interlaced their fingers. Her hand was warm, her fingers were strong. She liked the feeling of Andi’s fingers interlaced with hers.

  “Okay. This is good. What’s next?”

  “I don’t know. We have to make that up. Make it up together.”

  “I’m not very good at making things up.”

  Andi’s smile was soft. “Don’t worry, Miranda. We’ll figure it out as we go.”

  “Like in a crash investigation. I can do that.”

  Andi laughed outright and gave her a quick hug, which also felt good.

  Miranda hugged her back and liked the feeling of that as well.

  Andi stepped back and smiled at her as she squeezed her hand. “Was there anything more you wanted to do here at the wreck before we go?”

  “One thing,” Miranda nodded. “It’s why I asked for your help. I want to do it, but I don’t know if I can.”

  She pulled out her Kryptos notebook.

  “My father and I worked on cryptographic codes all the years we had together. I’ve kept doing it since he died on this plane, but…” She flapped the book, unsure of how to explain it.

  Andi took it one-handed and began flipping the pages. “There’s a lot of amazing work here, Miranda.” Then Andi looked her directly in the eyes and squeezed her hand even harder. “Let me guess. It doesn’t feel like it’s quite a part of you anymore.”

  “That’s it! How did you know?” Miranda gasped out a burst of held breath.

  “Parts of being a Night Stalker will always be with me. But Ken? Flying at that level? Combat? If they offered to let me back in tomorrow? I’m not sure I’d go. Somehow that isn’t me anymore. What do we do with it?” She held up the notebook and flipped it shut.

  Miranda pointed to the wreck.

  “Anywhere special?”

  Miranda couldn’t think of one. Her parents’ seats weren’t here. They had been in the long since destroyed nose cone that was irrelevant to the mid-frame explosion.

  “How about if I set it into the cargo hold? Then, it can go on the plane’s last flight.”

  “But this plane will never fly again. Look at it. No nose or tail. No wings or engines. It—”

  Andi kissed her quickly, which stopped her words. “Now you sound like Jeremy!”

  “Oh no!” Miranda half laughed.

  Then she yelped with excitement.

  “Wait! I get it now. Your laughs are because it’s only half a joke. It’s because it’s…it’s…”

  “So sad that it’s funny, too.”

  Miranda nodded fiercely. It was exactly like that. “Like comparing our learning about a relationship being like exploring a crash.”

  This time Andi laughed outright and they said in near unison, “Hope it won’t be a crash.”

  Which left them both laughing again.

  Then she spotted the book in Andi’s hand.

  Something had changed. She could put the book on the remains of TWA 800 herself now, but she knew she’d rather have Andi do it for her and waved her forward.

  Andi stepped away, over the rope line, and slipped it through a gash in the hull and set it out of sight inside.

  On her return, she took Miranda’s hand once more.

  “I won’t ask if you’re sure, because then you’d have to think about it all over again. So I’ll just ask if you’re ready to go?”

  Miranda answered with a hand squeeze.

  Andi leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Don’t look back.”

  And she didn’t as they walked hand in hand out of the NTSB warehouse.

  She didn’t need to.

  From now on, Miranda was only going to look forward.

  Miranda Chase #9 (excerpt)

  If you enjoyed that, here’s a taste of what’s coming in 2022

  Miranda Chase #9 (excerpt)

  23 Days After the end of White Top

  Washington, DC

  * * *

  “Pull to the curb here!”

  CIA Director Clarissa Reese’s driver obeyed and slid out of the thick Friday night traffic on Columbus Circle. He eased over a block shy of the George Hotel. The US Capitol Building glowed orange in the sunset; the sun still touched the bronze Statue of Freedom atop the dome so that it shone brighter than anything else in Washington, DC, despite the dark finish.

  It was just as well; she didn’t want to face…anything.

  “Pull yourself together, Clarissa.” Her self-instruction wasn’t helping. She’d been muttering some version of it over and over for the last month with minimal effect.

  Her driver studiously ignored her. She’d long since made it clear that the last thing she needed was to interact with a security agent who’d never be more than a driver.

  It was hard. In the last month she’d lost everything.

  With her husband’s death, her path to the White House had been blocked. Vice Presidents were supposed to be well protected. But not Clark. His Marine Two helicopter had gone down in flames, the bastard.

  Instead, the goddamn President had elevated his National Security Adviser to Vice President Sarah Feldman.

  That had put Clarissa on the street when the new VP had moved into One Observatory Circle. She never should have sold her goddamn condo, but Clark had been such an obvious shoo-in to the White House that she’d been assured of her future residence for years to come.

  Their new MERP—Middle East Realignment Plan—had captured the imagination of everyone from the unwashed masses to all but the most jaundiced Washington elite. Even marginal allies were flocking to the call. President Cole had made sure that the bulk of the credit had gone to the VP.

  If the woman didn’t screw up, she had the next election in the bag a year out.

  Of course, when Sarah ran, she would need a Vice President.

  Except the scandals—thankfully, all classified top secret but littered with her name—had guaranteed her shut-out of any future chance at the Oval Office. It was clear that “certain parties” would release everything if she tried to run.

  Bush’s route of CIA Director to Vice President was lost to her.


  Clarissa looked back at the George Hotel and did her best to discover some shred of composure. It had gotten harder and harder since Clark’s death as she discovered more pieces of herself that she’d lost besides her home and her best path to the White House, like the surprising revelation that she missed Clark himself. Immensely.

  Even in death he wouldn’t leave her alone.

  At the White House’s request, she’d drawn up a master list of every known terrorist action by any nation from Pakistan to Egypt against the US, and every CIA counterstroke.

  It was supposed to be a strictly internal document, but it had predictably leaked. She’d learned from the disastrous 1974 leak of the dreaded “Family Jewels” memos—that had chronicled hundreds of times that the CIA had overstepped their charter.

  This time, she’d made sure that all of the questionable activities were chronicled under Clark’s tenure as the CIA Director before her. Sometimes having a dead Vice President for a predecessor and a husband came in handy.

  It was always better that they blamed a dead man.

  Except, instead of the leak wreaking domestic havoc on release, it had become a key document in the President’s proposed MERP. It had justified massive realignments and the disavowal of several long-term Middle East allies with their fingers deep in terrorism.

  Rather than shaking the nation, it had inspired it.

  It had also elevated Clark’s posthumous popularity far past anything it deserved. It was impossible to take back the credit, even for her own operations, that she had so publicly given away.

  Clarissa sighed. She was late for her monthly dinner meeting with Hunter and Rose Ramson in The George’s penthouse suite.

  She didn’t need the influence of the Chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee. Hunter had lost much of his power in his efforts to block the President’s Middle East Realignment Plan because it had voided billions of dollars of foreign arms sales for his no-longer-so-friendly defense contractors.

  To say that the contractors and Saudi Arabia, among others, were livid about his inability to quash MERP was a significant understatement.

  No, she hadn’t needed anything from Hunter since his fall. There was even some question of his holding on to his seat for a fifth six-year term at the next election.

  Tonight she needed the sharp mind of Washington’s top socialite, Rose Ramson, “The First Lady of DC.” Clarissa had a new idea, and while it didn’t lead to the Oval Office, it would lead to great power.

  She had once promised Rose the future Vice Presidency but, as hard as it was to accept, that was gone. The question was, would Rose still support her if that was off the table? Clarissa would leave it up to Rose to name her price.

  Sadly, Clarissa suspected that she herself wasn’t going to get any more collected together than she was now.

  “Let’s get this done already.”

  A gap opened in front of the car, but the driver didn’t pull ahead. He wasn’t even watching the traffic. Instead, he stared at his side mirror—ducking low to look upward.

  He was so intent that Clarissa finally turned to look out the rear window. Instead of a big truck blocking the lane, she spotted a jet. It raced toward them—where no planes were ever supposed to be.

  Downtown DC was the most protected no-fly zone in the country.

  An idiot, hoping to be in tomorrow’s headlines for buzzing DC, had swooped between the Capitol and the Supreme Court Building, and was now carving a hard turn at Columbus Circle.

  A sleek C-21A Learjet painted US Air Force blah.

  “Damn, they’re low,” her driver spoke for the first time since Georgetown.

  They were. And fast.

  In fact, they were so low that—

  The plane raced into the narrow slot of E Street Northwest barely wider than its wingspan.

  Below the tops of the buildings.

  The roar of its jet engines reverberating along the brick-and-glass canyon shook the car, moments before the wind of its passage slammed into them.

  A block down, it veered to the right and flew into the side of a building.

  It looked just like a Hollywood film.

  The plane disappeared through the wall.

  For a moment…nothing.

  Just a dark hole where the outer windows and red brick no longer reflected the sunset sky.

  Then a fireball roiled out in a massive plume.

  A second later, most of the glass on that floor blew outward as the plane exploded.

  A cloud of debris rained down on the heavy traffic. Her car rattled as if it was caught in a massive hailstorm when debris peppered the body. A brick embedded itself into the hood, making both her and the driver jump.

  Screams of injured pedestrians added to the mayhem of car alarms and blasting horns of fender benders as drivers lost control.

  Fifteen seconds later—while the last of the debris still pattered down upon them—a pair of “alert” fighter jets raced low over the city. Not a sonic boom, but so loud that Clarissa ducked despite knowing they were far above her and in better control than the first jet had been. Too little, too late.

  When she looked up again, she finally recognized the building that had been struck.

  It was The George.

  The top floor.

  The southeast corner suite—

  Clarissa barely flinched as a car slammed into her passenger door. Numb with shock, she couldn’t move a single muscle.

  She was used to looking out that window, not locating it from the outside.

  The Learjet hadn’t been out of control.

  It had impacted the hotel precisely where, at this very moment, she was supposed to be having her monthly dinner with Senator Hunter Ramson and his wife Rose. They stayed there on the first Friday of every month to enjoy the penthouse’s luxury—after a fine dinner and secret meeting with Clarissa.

  Either the defense contractors or the Saudis had just gotten even with Senator Ramson for failing them.

  Or both.

  Were they after her as well?

  Jeremy hated moving days.

  He lay on the carpet in the middle of a sea of boxes and wondered who had invented the idea of moving. If he found out, maybe Taz could do something about never letting it happen again.

  She was, of course, being her usual whirlwind. The three-day cross-country drive in a U-Haul truck hadn’t fazed her in the slightest. She was one of those unpack-right-away sorts; he was more of an I’d-rather-die-first sort. It was the fifth move of his entire life: college, grad school, the NTSB Academy in Virginia (all three of which he’d lived in the dorm rooms), Miranda’s NTSB team in Washington State, and now the “other” Washington—DC.

  How had this happened to him?

  Four weeks ago, he’d been investigating the horrific crash of the Marine Two helicopter that had killed the Vice President and hundreds of Walmart shoppers. Happily a member of Miranda’s team. Never wanting more.

  Now he was head of a brand-new team.

  What had he been thinking?

  He now served two bosses. He was now a member of the National Transportation Safety Board’s headquarters lab team. And, with Taz re-enlisting into the Air Force, he had seconded to—

  His phone rang. Please let it be the cable guy. He needed to get online, for even an hour, just to clear his head.

  “Are you going to answer that?” Taz swept by, making something perfect along the way.

  Really, really done with her rootless life to date, she’d picked out the townhouse condo and was busy making it into a home…for them.

  Which was too weird for words.

  Jeremy had always assumed that he’d find someone someday. But he’d never thought about being a “them” until a four-foot-eleven Latina had slammed into his life. Someday had become very real and very now.

  “No,” he hoped he was referring to the phone call and not the future. Then answered it to prove that he was completely onboard, even if he could barely move from lying pro
strate on the floor. “Jeremy here.”

  “Good evening, Jeremy.”

  “Hi, General Macy.” He didn’t need a call from their new boss at this moment.

  “Did you make it to DC yet?”

  “We’re fully out of the truck and living in a cardboard forest. Maybe it’s a mountain range.”

  “I know that you aren’t technically starting until Monday, but are you available for a launch?”

  It might be only a temporary reprieve, but it would save him from drowning in a cardboard sea. “Where?”

  “E Street NW just off Columbus Circle.”

  Jeremy jolted upright. “In downtown?”

  Taz stopped in mid-zip through the living room, which was a relief to his guilt about not helping.

  “Yes. We even have the crash on camera from the Air Force alert fighters that were chasing the jet. It impacted the top story of a downtown hotel.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  “Good man.” When General Jack Macy said that in his “command” voice, it was very motivating.

  Jeremy pushed to his feet.

  “And Jeremy?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I don’t want to bias the investigation, but it looks like it was one of ours.”

  “Ours? Oh, the Air Force’s.” He’d only ever been a member of the unaligned NTSB. Now he worked for both the NTSB lab and the US Air Force Accident Investigation Board as a consultant. “Really?”

  “Really.” General Macy hung up without another word.

  “Holy afterburners, Batman.”

  “What’s up, Wonder Boy?”

  “We’ve got a launch. Here in DC.” He began pushing around the boxes, desperately scanning each label. How did they have so much stuff?

  “What are you looking for?”

  “My field pack!”

  Taking a single step, Taz tapped a finger on a big box that had bright red tape instead of the standard brown. It was the only one like that. He vaguely remembered that she’d said something about why it was red, but couldn’t recall what.

  She flipped out her fighting knife, slit the tape, then slid it back out of sight in that smooth move he’d never been able to follow. She folded back the flaps. Inside were their vests and crash-site investigation packs.