by Fiona Quinn
She started for the white sign with the blue woman’s symbol.
“Remi, I’m going to be honest with you,” Liu said. “The senator will make the papers with the feel-good underdog story about the girls and the robotics. That’s great. But this speech she’s giving in Lebanon? Not interesting to our audience. I’d say a good ninety percent of our viewers couldn’t find Lebanon on the map. Most people will only remember Lebanon for the 1983 attack on our embassy and the attack on the Marine barracks that same year.”
“That attack was the biggest attack and loss of U.S. military lives in a single event since World War II and Iwo Jima. People should remember it. And remember that those Marines were on a peace-keeping mission. But yes, the generation that would recall that incident with any kind of grief or interest is thin. I have another angle.” She pushed through the door and caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Not great.
“Two angles. No, three. One, Ackerman wasn’t convicted.”
“I heard. I’m sorry. You did outstanding journalism on that piece.”
“Thank you. But it didn’t accomplish much. So angle number one: Blankenship is working on a bipartisan bill to reform how sexual assault is dealt with in the military. I could work with her on that?”
“As a follow-up, that’s not a bad idea.” Liu fell silent.
Remi knew to give his wheels time to turn while he sifted through all the articles that other journalists were reporting out and making sure that this wasn’t a story that someone was already digging into.
Finally, he said, “You had a second angle?”
“Yeah, I just talked to Gretel from NTL München TV before the bird incident. She said that word in the diplomatic pockets is circulating new fears of Havana Syndrome. Gretel said that symptoms that were seen in Havana are now showing up in Vienna. Rounding numbers, about two dozen diplomats and CIA are reporting the same symptoms that the embassies in Russia and Havana had. They think there’s been another attack.”
“You’re nowhere near there, but I can check in with Keith. He’s in Bratislava writing about the Zoric family.”
“What’s going on with the Zorics?”
“A couple of their female family members, the ones who were transporting the girls into America for prostitution, are about to be released from prison, good behavior and diplomatic pressure is popping them free. They’ll be deported as soon as they walk out of the prison gates.”
“Yeah, Keith would be a good person to write about Havana Syndrome. He has a scientific background. But I was thinking about Lebanon. What about we hit it from the angle of that sound scientist—rogue DARPA scientists. One of them is still there. I’m not recalling the name. I can look it up.”
“The DARPA guy was arrested.”
“One of them. The one that was doing the memory experiments on PTSD. I’m talking about the guy who was DARPA adjacent. He worked for Montrim industries. If I’m not mistaken, he’s still in Lebanon since there’s no extradition treaty. As a matter of fact, I believe that George Mathews—yup, that’s his name—Mathews is still teaching at the American University where Senator Blankenship is scheduled to give her speech on women’s education and world contributions.”
“Take me on the ride. What are you thinking?”
“I’m wondering why the president was pressing Russia on Havana sickness. Why did the U.S. take it up with Russia and not China, since most of the intelligence community believed that Havana Syndrome was a Chinese plot? Why wasn’t Mathews arrested and brought back to the U.S.?”
“No extradition, you just said that.”
“Right, but we give Lebanon billions, you’d think… Well, I don’t know the ins and outs of international law. But Mathews is a U.S. citizen. They could revoke his visas and send him home.” Remi tilted her phone on top of the hand dryer so she could hear over the speaker. She pushed her sleeves up to her elbows.
“Anti-U.S. is my guess,” Liu said. “And it’s not a bad story to follow up on now that the topic is getting a little sunlight from the White House. The third idea?”
“A personal impact story, Senator Blankenship’s older brother, was a Marine killed in the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. It’s got to have something to do with her wanting to go to Lebanon. We’re approaching the fortieth anniversary of the strike and his death.”
“I like it.” Liu’s voice echoed against the ceramic tile. “Yeah. Okay. But one story at a time. Your plate is full. Maybe we can keep you over there, when the senator flies home, to work the other angles. You follow the senator, and you hand me a feel-good piece. You give our regards to Jean Baptiste and show him our support. And sorry about this, but, as we’ve been talking, I’ve been searching my list of field photojournalists, and I don’t have anyone to send you. You’re on your own with this story.”
After Liu severed the line, Remi washed her hands and arms with copious amounts of hot water and soap. Bird germs, she thought with a wrinkled nose. Splashing cold water on her face, then toweling off with the rough brown paper from the dispenser, Remi looked herself over in the mirror. Front. Back. She picked off the pin feathers and searched for any bird poop.
Outside there was a whistle and a pop.
To Remi, it sounded like the kind of dispersal explosives that cops used as a warning during protests. The police were most likely getting the birds to fly on.
What would the girls do for food?
No one had warned Remi to pack her lunch, but from experience, she learned to always carry at least two days of food and a full camel water pouch in her pack. And, of course, she had at least a day’s worth of calories in her supply belt under her tunic.
Pulling the elastic band from her stubble of a ponytail, Remi leaned back and gathered the strands into a sleek fistful, then wound the band around them. Finally, she arranged her scarf around her neck.
Remi had found a scarf to be one of the best tools around. Everything from protecting her head from incoming raptor attacks but also from any debris that would fall after an explosion. A first-aid tool—blood staunching or tying up a splint. It was also a weapon. More than once, she’d wrapped it around her knuckles as she punched her way through a situation—breaking a window or breaking a bad guy’s nose. She’d also wrapped it around a guy’s neck and choked him out, giving herself enough time to run. Her scarves allowed Remi to be culturally appropriate when needed and gave her the simple clothing choices—the tactical tights and tunic that she wore as a personal uniform—a bit of flare. Yup, Remi was a fan of the Middle Eastern-sized scarf. It was called a shemagh when worn by the men; hers measured slightly more than three-foot square.
Feeling human again, Remi went in search of the senator to see how she was handling the crisis.
As Remi walked by the door T-Rex had kicked in while rescuing the student, she stopped to look outside. The turkey buzzards were gone. There was the stench of sulfur in the air.
The girls were outside gathering their bags.
They were visibly shaken by the event. Remi wondered if the chaos of the last few minutes would trigger any of them. All of these girls were refugees from war-torn areas.
As Remi rounded into the open expanse of the hangar, she noted that Blankenship was thanking the last of the first responders, flashing a brazen, toothy smile.
Blankenship wore too much blue eyeshadow for today’s standards. Her high-dollar suits were made bourgeois by the cowboy hat and boots—if one could call a cowboy hat and boots bourgeois… Larger than life.
Remi went to stand with Diamond and the senator.
T-Rex and two men in the same black polo and khaki attire stood behind Blankenship.
One of them had a K9 with him.
Interesting.
Big men. All of them. That was kind of unusual. Remi had been in the world of destruction and combat since she’d earned her diploma. On the job, she’d brushed past more than her fair share of special operators. Typically they were little. Surprisingly small. H
er height—five-foot-ten—seemed to be about their norm. And wiry more than bulky. They were the kind of bodies one saw watching extreme sports on television.
But here were these guys, blowing the norms.
“Remi Taleb,” she said, looking at the dog handler.
“Ty, ma’am. My K9 Rory.” When he said the dog’s name, the K9 looked up to see what Ty wanted him to do. When no command followed, he lowered his chin and looked around the room, his tongue hanging long.
“Quite the excitement for Rory with the birds,” Remi ventured.
“Yes, ma’am. Just a heads up, Rory isn’t a pet. We don’t allow anyone to touch him or any of his things.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Remi had seen vultures in Africa rip dogs apart. She thought Ty’s choice to protect Rory on the plane had been a practical one. Military K9s had about a hundred grand in training under their collars. They were force multipliers, but only when correctly deployed. Turkey buzzard wakes wasn’t the place for a charging dog.
Remi turned to the other man.
“I’m Havoc.”
Remi gave the man a quick nod before focusing on the senator. “Are you okay?”
“I was just about to tell Diamond that back, oh a little over a decade ago, I had a friend, Bubba, who was flying his Cessna. It was a Citation 500 business jet, so it was considerably smaller than the jet we’re taking. Off he flew out of a little airport from a stopover in Oklahoma. All of a sudden, the damned jet went into a nosedive, straight into the ground.”
Remi’s gaze drifted to their jet as a wave of cold doused her system, sending a shiver through her frame.
She could feel T-Rex’s eyes on her, assessing.
“Yep, his wife Millie said there hadn’t been any warning at all. Weather was good. Plane checked out.” She used her hand to mime the plane’s actions. “The guy in the control tower, he had instructed Bubba to climb and turn, but no one answered. He kept trying to raise Bubba on the radio but got nothing. A moment later, some guy goes running into the control room, hollering that he’d just watched a plane fly into the ground and explode. The forensics guys said it was birds that brought it down.” She stuck her tongue up in the space between her lip and teeth, making her lips bulge out, then gave a little sucking noise.
She stared out at the jet. “You know, I think about that story every time I get on a plane.” She dragged her gaze away from where the girls were filing on board and let her focus land on Remi. “Here’s hoping the birds felt like they did enough damage for today and will let us get in the air without our becoming a fiery ball of hell.”
Chapter Eleven
Remi
Wednesday, Washington D.C.
Remi was waiting until the last possible second to board. She wasn’t great on planes or any small, confined areas that she couldn’t easily leave.
Since it was part and parcel to her job, she’d come up with some tips and tricks that helped her, this side of prescription anxiety meds. Over the counter Dramamine took the bite out of her anxiety by making her too tired to care. The package told her to put the patch behind her ear in advance of boarding to avoid travel sickness. Remi’s reticence wasn’t about travel sickness but rather a lifetime of incapacitating anxiety over being trapped.
Once she tapped the patch behind her ear, she’d become sleepy and incapable of functioning in work mode.
Remi wanted to get on the plane and get the vibe of what would come next. If the senator were to sleep or be otherwise busy, Remi would allow herself the relief.
If Blankenship were talkative, Remi needed to be ready. Her job, after all, was to collect stories like a child gathers fireflies in an open field during summer twilight, to look at them and share them with others before releasing them out.
One thing Remi had noticed over time was that boarding early was not a perk. Sitting low as a parade of humanity pressed past her, looming over her as they got stuck in the aisle waiting for their fellow fliers to lift their travel bags into the overhead bins, increased the claustrophobia and the sense that Remi was a sardine plastered into a can.
Getting on last or near last was the ticket.
Remi stood to the side and used the time to do a quick search for “Jess Landry, North Carolina, police” on her phone. A distraction. The articles populated her search filter. Grabbing one from her paper, Remi scanned the basic information.
Officer Jessica Landry had been killed responding to a domestic violence call. She shot the guy who shot her back. They both died at the scene.
Well, shit.
Four years ago…
Not married, widowed.
Four years was a significant amount of time.
T-Rex came into her line of view. He was sexy as all get out, in a physical way. Mentally? Remi wasn’t that into soldier-boy types.
She also wasn’t considering him for a relationship, Remi reminded herself.
But since he wasn’t the subject of her reporting, he wasn’t off-limits to her.
Yeah, she wouldn’t mind bending over for him as long as he didn’t turn out to be an egomaniacal pain in the— Remi stopped herself as that thought bubbled into her consciousness. Well, honestly, what red-blooded, straight woman could be around T-Rex and not have her libido kick into gear?
T-Rex turned to find her with that question in her eyes, cutting her off from that line of thought.
Remi saw his body react to whatever he read there. It was kind of a jerk and hold. Oddly, he asked, “Where did you come from?”
Was it a filler question? It seemed disingenuous of T-Rex. Surely, his team checked everyone’s background who would be in contact with the Senator on this trip. Maybe she startled him with whatever energy she was giving off, and that was the question that would help him to decipher what he read in her eyes. Which honestly was a hodgepodge of emotions—concern about her friends, anxiety about boarding, and the distraction of sexy thoughts.
He raised his brows and repeated himself, “Where did you come from, exactly?”
Still…might as well tease the man.
“Are you serious right now?” Remi lifted her brows to match his. “No one ever told you this? Okay, look.” She paused and drew in a breath. “When two people love each other very much, they get a special tickly feeling in their bathing suit area.”
T-Rex turned and strode away.
And a little smile played across Remi’s lips.
***
As soon as Remi boarded, she felt the jittery vibration glistening the air with sharp edges. The girls were still riled from the buzzard incident.
Remi’s whole body fought against her walking down the aisle.
She worked on a breathing pattern, trying to ignore the voice in her head screaming at her to jump off the plane and run for her life. Certainly, Senator Blankenship’s merry little “bird crashes plane” story wasn’t helping.
She could do this.
It was eight hours in the air, then this flight would be over, just like all the other flights she’d powered herself through. Flying was part and parcel to her job; Remi wouldn’t give in to her fears now.
She found that the only seat left on the plane was the window seat on the inside of where T-Rex was taking up space. Taking up lots and lots of space. His long legs didn’t fit behind the chair, so he stretched them out along the aisle, tucked to the side as much as possible.
Across from them, Blankenship sat on the aisle, and Diamond was next to the window.
As Remi lifted her two backpacks into the overhead bin, her hands visibly shook.
The air left her lungs.
Having a man as big as T-Rex blocking her into her seat…that was more than she thought she could handle. She couldn’t ask him to be at the window…his legs. Besides, he needed to be at Blankenship’s beck and call.
Remi wasn’t sure if the senator was astute enough to sense the problem or if this just turned out to her benefit, but Blankenship tapped Diamond’s arm. “You go sit at the other window. I’
m going to scootch over and have a chat with Remi.”
It took a little bit of doing for Diamond to displace to the spot that was supposed to be Remi’s.
Remi didn’t even try to hide her gratitude.
The aisle was much more doable, sanity-wise.
She sat, buckled, and leaned her head back, not watching out the window for birds. Why had the senator planted that vivid picture of a crash in her head?
The take-off was fine.
It was fine.
She was fine.
She was even more fine when the flight attendant came by with alcohol. Remi accepted a rum and coke.
Diamond and Blankenship both had whisky, neat. “I have a splitting headache. This is just what the doctor ordered,” Blankenship said as she closed her eyes and took a sip.
“Are you unwell?” T-Rex asked, accepting a bottle of water. He was working, though what security might be needed on the plane wasn’t readily apparent.
Blankenship kept her eyes shut as she took in a long breath and released it through her pursed lips. “Nah, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. I’ve had a bout with insomnia that I’m just about fed up with. I’m planning on a chat with my doc when I get back. See what she thinks might help.”
After a long stretch of silence, Remi turned to T-Rex, regretting a little her answer outside, and by way of being conciliatory, she said, “I heard the senator speak to you about your wife’s death. Please accept my condolences.”
He nodded.
“I read the reporting from my newsroom. Your wife was a brave woman. Those children will grow up knowing that someone cared. She saved them. Remarkable and admirable.”
T-Rex nodded.
Personal life is not allowed. Got it. Okay, well then… “Congratulations on your position with The Unit. Well-deserved by all accounts.” That last compliment was fishing. T-Rex hadn’t confirmed that they were from a Delta Force team.
T-Rex didn’t answer in any way, just lifted his plastic bottle and swallowed the contents down.
