Thunderbolt

by M. L. Buchman

  At the moment, he wished he’d pretended he was innocent and gone to work there.

  “Faces in the sand!” Holly shouted.

  The explosion wasn’t as loud as a sonic boom. More of an angry roar of a jet engine at very close range.

  Then the heat blast washed over them.

  For an instant, Jeremy lay on the hot sand being flame-broiled like a July Fourth hamburger.

  But the heat wave moved on.

  Jeremy looked up when there was a massive thump in front of them. The heavy rear cargo ramp that he’d been sitting on less than a minute ago had been blown off by the force of the fuel explosion under the helo and landed beyond their small group.

  If he hadn’t “wasted” the three seconds of running time while he made a copy, the whole NTSB team would be under that slab of metal.

  He rolled over.

  The helicopter was surprisingly intact.

  Completely engulfed in flame, but mostly intact.

  The dumping fuel continued to feed the raging fire.

  “Maybe we should get farther away.”

  “This time,” Holly helped Miranda to her feet, “you’ll get no arguments from me.” She reached over to mess up his hair as if he was a kid brother. From her, he guessed he didn’t have any choice but to accept it.

  25

  Miranda inspected the hinge points of the cargo ramp door.

  The roughly eight-foot square ramp had survived the explosion and its subsequent flight over their heads mostly intact. The underside hadn’t been exposed to the heat for long enough to do more than scorch the paint. The hinges were designed to take a vertical downward load, not an explosive upward load.

  She pulled out her camera and photographed the catastrophic stress fractures, before carefully noting her observations in her notebook with sketches.

  A light touch on her arm caused her to jolt. No one except Holly typically touched her. And definitely not lightly.

  The colonel withdrew his hand. It was a good hand. Rough with hard work. Perhaps hard workouts—he was a colonel after all. She liked observing hands…as long as they didn’t touch her. The darker skin of his Latinate heritage was so differently toned than her own fair complexion that she wanted to photograph it to think about later. But it always seemed to bother people when she did things like that.

  “Why are you recording that? We know what happened to it.”

  Rather than looking up at his face to assess the intent behind the question, she looked back down and traced a finger along the smoothly warped surface behind the break line. “See how the metal turned ductile as it was stressed under extreme pressure, prior to fracture and failure? This tells me that the hinge experienced a four to eight kilo-newton force that—”

  “No. I’m asking why does it matter?”

  “Because it broke.”

  “But why?” His voice forced her to look up at him. He appeared…curious?

  How else was she supposed to answer him? It had broken. It was her job to understand that breakage. The correlation couldn’t be clearer.

  He waved a hand behind them. “There’s a helicopter burning in the desert right over there, one that almost killed us all. My A-10 lies in a heap of rubble another thousand meters away. My plane was sabotaged and went down right over there. And you’re inspecting a ramp’s hinge?” His mood had shifted. His voice growing steadily louder. He wasn’t yelling yet, but if his current trend continued, he would be in another four or five sentences.

  She didn’t like it when people yelled at her, so she attempted to preempt his escalation.

  “It is clear that there is no other data obtainable at this site. I am allowing others, including yourself, to get over their shock at the chain of events before asking for transport back to Davis-Monthan in your helicopter. The Huey UH-1 has the load capacity to carry both my team and the five members of the downed Chinook CH-47F. Until such time as that transport occurs, I am educating myself with the inspection of this hinge, stressed to catastrophic failure due to an extreme fuel-air explosive event. Is that clear enough for you?”

  She didn’t usually share her thought processes. Not since middle school when she had once attempted to explain to a teacher the irrationality of attempting to teach number theory when he clearly didn’t understand the complexities of code encryption that her father had taught her before grade school. Perhaps she shouldn’t have gone to the board and proven how much more she knew than the teacher. Mr. Bantam had not appreciated it.

  Colonel Arturo Campos had far better recovery time than her seventh-grade math teacher. He studied her for under thirty seconds—twenty-seven—then pulled out his radio.

  “Get a fire control team to Grid One-niner-two,” his voice thankfully returned to normal. “I’m returning to base.”

  Then he offered his arm to Miranda just like in some old movie. “Ms. Chase? I am yours to command.”

  Unsure what else to do, she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow though she didn’t squeeze tightly. She preferred firm contact when someone did touch her but had learned that most others did not. Or they thought it implied things that she never intended.

  “So, what are the next steps?”

  Crashes, once they happened, typically remained in the same place until she was done with them.

  She puzzled at it aloud as they retraced their path over the ground to the A-10’s original crash site and the Huey parked on its far side.

  “The timing with which the sequence of events had occurred could not have been anticipated. The sabotage and crash of your A-10 Thunderbolt II,” she indicated the divot he had made in the desert with his airplane. “The fact that the crash was not fully destructive, leading to the call for the Chinook helicopter’s recovery effort. The release of the hook and the subsequent destruction of the helicopter itself.”

  “Don’t forget the death of an ace mechanic. Moynihan was a good man for twenty years, whatever ultimately happened.”

  “Yes, I suppose that wouldn’t be a coincidence.”

  Colonel Campos almost walked into the side of his Huey. “Say what? How could you even question that?”

  “I don’t think about people much. That’s something Mike does for me.”

  Holly kept her safe, as well as being an ace on airframes and destructive forces. Holly had been the one who’d protected Miranda by getting her the farthest away from the helicopter and then lying down on top of her. It was only chance that had placed them in the greatest danger when the ramp had landed less than three paces farther away. Not Holly’s fault.

  Mike took care of people.

  Jeremy did… “Can you trace where the helicopter received those commands from?”

  “Me?” Colonel Campos asked in what sounded like surprise.

  “No. Jeremy.” Except, once again, Jeremy wasn’t here.

  He was well behind, close beside the female pilot of the helicopter, and talking very animatedly.

  26

  Senator Hunter Ramson shifted from fooling with his father’s V-C knife to flipping the triangular laser-engraved rosewood nameplate Rose had given him as a wedding gift—with “Senator Hunter Ramson” already carved in though he hadn’t even been in politics yet.

  “You’ll think of me every time you see it. Rose in rosewood.” He’d thought her charmingly pleasant and perhaps a little simple when he’d first bedded her during the Miss Utah pageant.

  “Not President?” he’d asked her when he’d opened the wedding present almost thirty years ago.

  “Do you want four to eight years of prestige or decades of legislative power?”

  He’d since learned that the former Miss Utah had never been simple. And she was always right.

  She’d certainly proved her point. And also predicted accurately; he was having trouble thinking of anything other than her while his hand flipped the wooden plaque.

  Blank.

  Clunk.

  Senator Hunter Ramson.

  Clunk.


  Keep asking! inscribed on the bottom where only he ever saw it.

  Yes. Rose Ramson had indeed proved her worth over the years. Even then she’d known that she was the smart one in their relationship—a harsh lesson for him back then was now a simple truth.

  When he was truly stuck on a problem, she would sometimes…

  He grabbed his cellphone and sent her a text: Missed lunch. Join me at the Kimpton? The best hotel within easy walking distance of the Capitol Building.

  Top floor?

  Only the best for you. They’d caught the premiere of Pretty Woman during their honeymoon and it had been part of their love play ever since. He’d never again questioned his wife’s tastes for going to “girl” movies—he’d seen a lot of them over the years.

  He buzzed his secretary Sharlene. “Clear the afternoon for me. I’m going to cop a squat.”

  She’d know that meant to set up the reservation for him and that the top floor, champagne, and strawberries were all required. For lunch she’d order whatever the chef had as a special; Pretty Woman hadn’t been a foodie movie.

  Yes, Rose would know what to do about Clarissa Reese.

  And when his phone rang this time, even though the number was blocked, he knew exactly how to deal with it. Rose wasn’t the only reason he’d held this office for four successive six-year terms.

  He double checked that the office door was closed, propped his feet up on the desk, and answered the phone without saying hello. The bastard on the other end of the call didn’t like the niceties any more than he did.

  “It’s the bitch’s fault. She isn’t delivering.”

  He thought about Rose’s fine breasts and one of his ties dangling between them—and nothing else on her lovely body—as the other man vented.

  “It won’t do any good to spew at me, but don’t worry, I can handle her. We’ll get results.”

  Imagining Rose pulling his face to nestle between those generous breasts was a welcome distraction while the ranting on the phone continued.

  When Mrs. Senator Ramson walked into an event in an evening gown, men were often struck speechless by her remarkable curves—nothing like the slender Julia Roberts. He’d long ago bought her the quarter-million-dollar ruby necklace Julia had worn, using a small percentage of a little oil investment he’d been tipped off to make.

  “You need to think more about your blood pressure, you know.” He kept his tone pleasant as he debated whether he’d fuck Rose’s amazing breasts or her incredible ass. He pictured Clarissa Reese stalking out of his office and decided on the latter—just for comparison’s sake.

  Actually, today was Friday—their normal evening for sex anyway. Maybe they’d keep the suite overnight and he’d get to do both.

  Rose’s hair was more shining gold than Reese’s viciously Scandinavian white. And Rose had never worn a ponytail.

  Maybe…

  No. It would be better not to suggest it.

  “Look. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen soon. So calm down and let me do my job.” Hunter hung up the phone without waiting for a final rant.

  He pulled on his jacket and strode out of the office. His secretary Sharlene was a stunning woman with tropical skin and a light Jamaican accent. Rose had chosen her because she knew that Hunter liked to look even if he never touched. She was also happily married and almost alarmingly efficient.

  He also suspected that she’d instantly report any missteps to his wife, so he was doubly careful at the office.

  “Everything is ready for your meeting, Senator.”

  “I’d be lost without you.” Which was true.

  He’d have to remember to buy her a particularly nice gift for Christmas. Rose would know what to get. Maybe a shopping spree at one of Rose’s favorite boutiques. Because Sharlene, like Rose, definitely believed in dressing to share her visual bounty. Pure class, but with just the right amount of enticing skin.

  There was no safe way to suggest that Rose grow her hair long—her perfect coifs were elegance incarnate.

  But it would be easy enough to suggest it to Sharlene, who already wore her thick nut-brown hair down to her shoulders.

  Yes. He liked that idea.

  27

  Harry Tallman, who hated being an inch shorter than Tom Cruise, was caught doodling by his boss.

  Shouldn’t have been.

  His subconscious had heard the sharp clack of her high heels on the polished concrete flooring in plenty of time to screen flip.

  So few people had clearance to enter the CIA’s CAD offices—not Computer-aided Design, but rather Cyber Attack Division. Which was kind of about redesigning the world, but…not.

  His boss definitely had clearance—she’d doubled the size of the already substantial team with a single swipe of a perfectly manicured but unpainted nail.

  Those sharp heels always announced her arrival with clear authority.

  And he’d totally missed it.

  He’d been goofing off, looking under the skirts of the CJ-100’s code—China’s newest hypersonic, long-range, aircraft-carrier killer missile.

  Not that she’d know he wasn’t working on her project.

  The Director of Special Projects didn’t know shit about computer code.

  “That’s not my project!” Clarissa Reese snapped out before he was even fully aware she was standing beside him. Out his open office door, he could see by the number of geeks peeking out of their cubicles that he was the only one being oblivious.

  Harry refocused on his screens, not sure what she’d picked up on.

  Over on his third monitor he had a video looping—the two deleted seconds of video “leaked,” then deleted from social media by the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force. The PLARF wasn’t given to making a lot of mistakes. If it was a mistake, someone had just gotten his ass executed.

  Okay, the looping vid of the CJ-100’s launch test was a bit of a giveaway to what he was working on.

  He’d been burrowing around for a copy of the missile’s operations code in the months since the video’s release and finally punched through yesterday.

  It was classic.

  For them.

  Every step so regimented that he doubted if there was a stray comment or dead-end loop in the entire stack. Chinese code wasn’t sexy. Not like Indian code, which had a sensuous flow and life all its own, but it was clean and damnably efficient.

  “No.” No point in trying to pretend now. “I just cracked the missile’s flight code yesterday. Couldn’t wait to see what was inside their newest hypersonic navigation routine.”

  He prepared for the blast.

  But instead, she leaned back against the edge of his desk. Her awesome ass was enhanced even more in profile by the desk’s pressure on her upper thighs. She was so close that he could smell the clean heat of her and see just how muscular her legs were beneath her silk slacks.

  Some women exuded sex appeal just by breathing.

  Some women also exuded danger signs bigger than billboards.

  “I’d like a report on that as soon as you’re done with it,” her tone all soft and reasonable. Major weirdness. Director Clarissa Reese was never mellow.

  “Uh, sure.”

  “But first—”

  “The next one is already in the queue,” he checked his watch.

  He didn’t know what it was and that ticked him off royally. All he knew was that there was a timer running and every six hours an event was injected into a system he’d never heard of.

  “Another three hours and twenty-five minutes.” It was out of his control, but he’d been told to open a very narrow window into the Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation’s computer to let the code stack in. Someone else’s code stack and he didn’t like that one bit. Already compiled and then encrypted. No real way to look at it.

  “I know that,” the acid slipped out for just an instant…annnnnd the ruthless bitch was back.

  Her nickname in the CAD unit, T-X—the female Terminator fro
m III: Rise of the Machines—fit her like…well…her clothes. He briefly imagined Reese as the naked T-X jumping back in time and walking the streets of LA with her long hair dancing over her naked shoulders. Yeah, never gonna happen, but it would be something to see. Kristanna Lokan had certainly rocked that role.

  “What I need is different.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Her smile was chilly.

  He shrugged and reached for the bag of Doritos, but it wasn’t there.

  Heidi had laid down the law. Down thirty pounds and exercise five times a week—and, no, sex didn’t count despite the positions-calorie-counter app he’d downloaded. She’d given him until Christmas, just over a month out. He’d already made it, and hated to admit that it felt great. She also hadn’t been kidding about the sex being better. But damn he still missed his junk food.

  “Senator Hunter Ramson of Utah.”

  He tapped a few keys on the keyboard in his lap.

  Old guy popped up on the screen, with total babe wife.

  He clicked through.

  Former Miss Utah and still built like a winner. Lucky fuck.

  Back in June, Heidi, his counterpart in Cyber Security, had said she couldn’t marry him unless he proved he had follow-through. The project to clean up his act had been her test.

  Maybe someday some punk would click on his picture with Heidi in old age and think, “Lucky fuck.” Not that it would matter to him—wasn’t a woman born more awesome than Heidi.

  “Okay, what about the senator?” Harry looked back up at Reese, skipping the chest and going for the eyes just like Heidi had taught him.

  “I need a handle on him.”

  “How fast?” Heidi had promised him a week off his new regimen between Christmas and New Years and then they were starting yoga. She’d promised it would do even more amazing things for their sex life and he was actually looking forward to it. She’d found a class for him called Yoga for Men Who Don’t Bend. Perfect.