She moved past the seated couple so that she and Michael could both greet them and then turned.
Ready for anything?
Claudia was absolutely not ready for this.
* * *
“Good morning, Mr. President, ma’am.” Michael saluted President Peter Matthews and First Lady Genevieve Matthews.
Unexpected, but not a total surprise when Frank Adams, the head of the President’s personal protection detail, had greeted them at the door. Besides, all of Delta’s training was about adapting quickly to changing situations.
The President saluted from his seat. “Pardon me for not getting up, Michael.” He waved at the First Daughter asleep in his lap.
“No problem, sir.”
The President indicated for them to sit across the table.
Michael moved to do so and found Claudia blocking his way. She’d dropped her salute but remained immobile in the aisle.
“I’m sorry I missed Emily,” the President continued, “but my detail wants to keep this excursion as low profile as possible.”
Michael nudged Claudia with his hip, and she as much collapsed as sat in the chair across from the President. Michael sat across from the First Lady and clipped Claudia’s seat belt and then his own as the plane began taxiing for takeoff.
“I’m assuming this isn’t a social call.” The First Family traveling at large without Air Force One and the normal phalanx of four to five hundred agents probably meant this was about to become the worst kind of operation there was.
“Afraid not, Michael,” the President acknowledged. “This one is strictly black-in-black.”
“Black-in-black.” Claudia was recovering from her initial shock very quickly. He knew Delta operators who didn’t recover this quickly. Yet more to admire about her.
“Is that what you call a black op in SOAR?”
Oh no.
Michael reached out to squeeze her hand for a moment in comfort. The poor woman had no idea what was about to happen to them.
* * *
“What am I missing, sir?” She shook off Michael’s hand, even if she appreciated it, and it was out of sight below the table that separated them from the First Family. The President appeared to have missed it, but his wife most certainly hadn’t.
President Peter Matthews was the youngest President in history, elected shortly after his thirty-fifth birthday. Tall, handsome, and photogenic. He wore his dark hair past his ears and was immensely popular despite having already served a full term. He was considered a shoo-in for the fall.
His wife was a French beauty from Vietnam who had shocked the world two years ago when the President married her. She was also a senior director at UNESCO and a major player at the World Heritage Centre.
“Captain Casperson”—the President offered her one of his million-watt television smiles—“a pleasure to meet you at last.” It was far more potent in person than on any screen; in person you could feel that the smile was completely genuine to the core.
“At last, sir?” How on earth had she gone in under an hour from being a simple SOAR pilot sleeping three hundred and thirty feet aloft in a redwood with the world’s number one soldier in her arms to sitting across from her Commander-in-Chief? No escape—the plane roared down the runway and rotated aloft even as the President answered.
“I have very good reports on you. I try to keep an eye on Emily’s old unit.”
“Emily?” Wow! She was so out of her depth here. She really needed something to hold on to. Anything. Like her original question.
“Black-in-black, sir?”
Michael sighed.
The President looked chagrined. “I take it you’ve never flown one.”
“Black ops, a couple. Most that fall to the Marine Corps are dealt with by MARSOC, but I flew a few.”
White ops were secret during planning but typically went public afterward. Grenada, Panama, the taking of bin Laden, and even their recent Somalia strike—though that was wholly attributed to the U.S. Rangers and “other Special Operations Forces assets,” with unconfirmed rumors of SEAL Team Six’s involvement, when it made international headlines.
Black ops never went public intentionally. Delta’s crossing into the Iraqi desert a week ahead of Desert Storm to find and kill dozens of Scud missile installations long before the invasion ever happened. Those attacks and false radar reports Delta had generated in Western Iraq before the start of the invasion had made Hussein think the allied forces were coming from the west rather than the south. It kept him from escaping into Syria.
“Black-in-black is different.” Michael again reached for her but apparently thought better of it when she scowled at him. “They’re very restricted and very tough.”
“What are the differences?”
“Have you ever lied to a commander?”
“Not about anything important.” That won her a quick smile from everyone at the table. She glanced at the President and wished that she’d simply said, “No, sir.” He was her commander, the in-chief one.
“If your commander is not inside a black-in-black operation, you can’t speak to them about it—ever. Not during an interview, not when drunk together, not when under oath during your court martial. No one outside the team. Ever. No black-in-black has ever been leaked.”
“Oh.” Claudia wanted to be back in Nell so badly she could taste it. “Okay.”
So not okay, but the look on her Commander-in-Chief’s face said that she didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter.
“I’ll bet the 5D gets most of them.”
The awkward silence around the table told her that was a bet she’d win.
* * *
“This will be your operation, Michael.”
Michael nodded and kept his own counsel, knowing the President would have his presentation of the facts neatly planned out.
“We think that this mission will be handled most appropriately by Little Bird assets rather than heavier helicopters, but that will be up to you. Based on that assumption, we are making Captain Casperson your SOAR liaison. We feel this is a safe choice based on her initial successes with SOAR, the reports of her Marine commanders, and the fact that she achieved the highest training scores in SOAR history. With—”
“Wait, I did what?” Claudia jerked upright in her chair, at least as far as her seat belt allowed.
Michael hadn’t known that about her, but he wasn’t surprised.
The President’s smile was radiant. “Yes. You even beat out Em’s old records; bet that would tick her off no end if she were still cleared to know. I just might have to tell her anyway.”
“Wouldn’t Chief Warrant Maloney be better qualified?”
“You and Michael may choose to add assets to your team that you deem necessary. But I’m guessing this mission will be less a matter of force and more one of finesse.”
She looked at Michael.
He could see it in her eyes. Yes, their Commander-in-Chief was guessing.
She blew out a breath and scrubbed at her face before running her fingers back through her hair.
Neither of them needing to speak, he nodded to answer her unspoken question: Yes, all black-in-black feels this way.
“And then it gets worse,” she said aloud.
“And then it gets worse,” he agreed.
* * *
Claudia needed a minute to gather her thoughts, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen.
The President nodded to his wife, who began.
“I was visiting in Tehran for a checkup on the Golestan Palace, which was recently added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.”
The First Lady, who was also a UNESCO senior director, had traveled to Iran. Claudia wondered what the Secret Service detail on that one had been like.
“It is such a beautiful interconnected series of
palaces. We only managed to place it on the list in 2013. I was very glad to finally see it for myself. I met there the President of Iran, Javad Madani, a very pleasant and forward-thinking man, and he asked for our discreet help.”
Claudia considered the geography of that. Iran reached from the Caspian Sea down to the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. The Peleliu had been less than a thousand miles from southern Iran before she’d started her race north to transit the Suez for a “possible” operation.
“The Peleliu,” she whispered it to Michael and saw his eyes widen briefly, then his confirming nod.
What was unique about the Peleliu that set it apart from other warships in the Mediterranean? There had to be some reason she was involved. Oh, the shadow assets of the 5D and Delta.
“So, you need us in the Caspian Sea as a favor to Iran.” Claudia hadn’t meant it to be a flat statement, but it fit the facts. “Not just SOAR, but Michael’s abilities as well. What’s the target?”
“How did you do that?” The President leaned forward, which woke his daughter. The First Lady extracted the girl from his lap. She didn’t want to settle, so the First Lady began walking up and down the aisle with her, but staying close enough to hear over the well-muted engine noise of the racing jet.
“It”—Claudia clamped down on her tongue—“it just seemed obvious, sir.”
Michael and the President exchanged a look. Michael’s nod confirmed something in guy speak. Normally she could follow guy speak—six years in the Marines did that to a girl—but not this time.
The President cleared his throat and continued, “Azerbaijan is an extremely gas- and oil-rich nation. They have numerous pipelines that run through Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey, providing access to the West. Turkmenistan wants to develop a pipeline under the Caspian Sea to facilitate exports of its own massive reserves along a similar route.”
Claudia closed her eyes for a moment to picture the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan to the west and Turkmenistan to the east. Iran to the south. To the north, Kazakhstan and Russia. With Russia controlling the only waterway, a northern route would mean a difficult passage through the thirteen locks of the Volga-Don Canal system.
“But why would Iran be upset by—” And then she saw it.
Even Michael didn’t follow her this time. Oddly, that made sense. He might be the most flexible soldier on the planet, but the man didn’t have a devious bone in his body. Of course what did that say about her?
“Russia.” She made it a flat statement.
“Russia,” the President confirmed. “Iran would prefer to have the pipeline loop south of the Caspian, but even more than that…” He left it dangling as a test.
But Claudia didn’t find it to be a trick question.
“Even more than wanting it themselves,” she answered, “they don’t want Russia having control. Which we would agree with.”
The President sighed. “As odd as it may sound, we are almost on better terms with Iran than Russia at this time.”
“So who is stopping the Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline?”
“The Russian Navy, specifically the Caspian flotilla. My Chief of Staff and his wife, she’s a CIA analyst, will have details for you when you arrive in Washington, DC. You’ll be dropping us off in Colorado Springs where we are supposedly in high-level meetings prior to a speech at the Air Force Academy.”
Michael was nodding as if it all somehow made sense.
Claudia was still missing a dozen pieces. She waited until the First Lady was once again walking past their seats and raised a hand to stop her. Mrs. Matthews arched one elegant eyebrow.
“Based on some past association, you, Mr. President, are inclined to believe the message President Madani sent to you through the First Lady.”
He nodded.
She waited, but that was all either of them offered.
Michael was also very quiet. In one of those states that was unnaturally quiet rather than his usual silent self.
“Therefore, your trust of President Madani of Iran is based on prior experience that all three of you are aware of but not discussing—meaning it is from a prior black-in-black operation.”
No one corrected her assumption.
The President nodded as if such convoluted processes were the norm. Maybe they were in his world. Not in hers.
“And so you, Mr. President, involved Dr. Darlington who called in his wife, a CIA analyst, to perform background and authentication research. You also are shifting the USS Peleliu ‘just in case’ by sending her on a high-speed run through the busiest seas on the planet.”
Again the pleasant nod from the President.
“And this is a well-contained, black-in-black operation by what definition?”
That sobered the expressions around the table.
Perhaps sarcasm hadn’t been the right approach. She tried again.
“I know I’m the new person here, but how much farther has this proliferated? How reliable are the Iranian security teams that might have overheard President Madani and the First Lady speaking? Has it spread through to CIA’s assistant researchers? Who in the 5D is cleared for this level of operation if we need an asset? Can we recruit Lieutenant Bill Bruce if we need another Delta asset? How big do these operations get, and how in the world do you keep them secret?”
She bit down on her tongue to stop herself. Here she was, questioning the integrity of the country’s leader, but she had to know.
“Crap!” President Matthews dropped back in his chair and his wife settled beside him cradling the once-again sleeping girl. “I wish Emily was here. She ran four of these things, and she knew how to make them work. When I assigned them to her, they never failed.”
Claudia smiled, feeling oddly relaxed for the first time since boarding. “Don’t you love it when there’s no pressure?”
That won her a look of chagrin from the President.
“She was an amazing strategist.” Michael’s tone held nothing but respect.
“And you and Mark were her tactical geniuses.”
Michael nodded his agreement to her assessment.
The President looked back and forth between them, then he shifted. That was the only way Claudia could think to describe it.
Up until this moment, he’d been casual and easygoing. So much at ease that Claudia found it difficult to believe that he was the President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief of the planet’s best military force.
No longer.
Now he looked at her with deeply assessing dark eyes, studying her in the same way he probably studied his adversaries across the table at a G8 summit meeting. For a full minute, the silence stretched and it was hard to meet his frank scrutiny. When he finally turned aside to look at Michael, the pressure on her didn’t ease.
Again that silent question she couldn’t read, not even after she saw Michael’s confirming nod in her peripheral vision. Then the Commander-in-Chief was facing her once more.
“You don’t know me or my people, Captain Casperson, but I do know them. We also know you very well, far better than we did forty-eight hours ago. I’m about to do something that you’re really going to hate.”
“Oh great!” She couldn’t stop it. It just came out. It earned her a smile that did nothing to soften the cabin’s unexpected pressure-cooker atmosphere.
“I can guarantee you that the inner circle of this operation is presently the four people around this table plus two in Washington. The head of my wife’s personal protection detail is the woman who originally recruited the man who has headed my detail since before my nomination. If my wife wanted a private moment with President Madani, then I can promise you that it would have been truly private; she’s very good at what she does.”
Claudia was used to the high stakes of military actions. But now she’d crossed into something “other.” She was now inside the Bubble, as the Presi
dent’s tight area of personal security was known. She’d wandered in unaware. But if there were truly only the six of them…
“Oh shit!” she said aloud and no one even blinked. She now understood the question that the President had just asked Michael, but could see no way to avoid the answer.
“Here’s the part you’re going to hate, Captain.”
She knew it!
Claudia tried to hold her breath, only to discover she already was. She had to blow it out and gasp back in to keep from passing out.
“From this moment forward”—the President tapped the table between them for emphasis—“no one will be authorized to expand the scope of this operation without your express permission. Not me, not Michael. I’m going to trust my instincts and pull this from Michael’s tactical hands and put it in your strategic ones. You are under no obligation to report who your team members are to any other person, not to the other members, not even myself. It will be up to you how you compartmentalize that information, both up- and down-channel. Are we clear?”
At first all she managed was a nod. Then, digging deep, she sat up as straight as the seat and the table allowed and offered him her best salute. He returned it as smartly.
Then he shifted back to being the man she’d first been introduced to. He did it so effortlessly that he left her stumbling along behind. “So, Claudia, where were you when I blew apart your and Michael’s vacation? Emily wouldn’t say over the radio when I had our pilot ask, something about erasing it from her memory.”
Chapter 17
They dropped the First Family at the U.S. Air Force Academy, unloading their passengers in the shadowed corner of a heavily guarded hangar.
They hadn’t returned to discussing the mission for the remaining two hours of the flight.
When the First Lady discovered that they hadn’t had breakfast, she’d gone to the galley herself to serve them: toaster waffles with blueberry syrup and steaming mugs of coffee. That was just fine with Claudia.
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