Raider

by M. L. Buchman

  They had barely completed the first pass through the wreckage when all of the industry specialists had shown up at the crash site. In the name of assistance, they had already moved and displaced hundreds of fragments.

  The ultimate crime was when one inspector had used a rotor blade to roll over the remains of his engine, damaging the blade past inspection and destroying one of the infrared sensors lying beside, now under, the engine.

  Unable to proceed, the rest of her team had gathered around her. Holly’s efforts to stop them had been overrun by the very same security guards that had protected the site overnight.

  After safely extracting Holly before she took on two armed guards with her bare hands, Mike went and talked to them for a bit, then came back to report.

  “They said that orders had come down from on high to let these people in. Some contractor must have leveraged some high-ranking general to countermand Helen’s security order.”

  “How am I supposed to do my job?” Miranda felt as if she was in a bubble floating somewhere beside the wreckage but unable to reach it.

  Mike’s answer was to pluck her satellite phone from her vest, select a number, dial it, and hand it to her.

  “Hello?” A man answered on the second ring.

  “Who is this?”

  “I believe that’s my line. Miranda?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Who is this?” The voice was familiar. Maybe…

  “Drake,” they said in unison.

  “And you called me,” he continued.

  “Actually, Mike called you. I didn’t.”

  “Which means you need help.”

  Miranda considered and decided that was an accurate assessment.

  By the time she’d finished explaining the problem, Mike had brought over a man she didn’t know. He wore Army camouflage, had a colonel’s birds on his collar points, ‘Stimson’ above his shirt pocket, and an airborne patch on his arm.

  “Hand him the phone, Miranda,” Mike might trust him but his down-frown made her less certain.

  Unsure if he’d do to her phone what the people were doing to her site, she kept it in her hand and turned on the speaker.

  “There’s a Colonel Stimson here now. You’re on speaker.”

  “Hello, Colonel. Commander of the 160th SOAR, am I right?” Drake didn’t sound surprised.

  “Who the hell are you and who’s on the phone?” He was glaring at her. Severe down-frown. No red cheeks, so not angry, just…

  Rather than reaching for her reference notebook, Miranda kept her attention on his sidearm to ascertain that he wasn’t reaching for it.

  His hand was resting on it, but he’d had it there as he’d walked over as if that was just a comfortable position. She tried it herself, pulling a screwdriver out of her vest and tucking one end into a pants pocket so that the shaft simulated the butt of a handgun. No, it was not comfortable.

  Then she recalled that she should have made introductions, but Drake was already taking care of that.

  “This is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Drake Nason. Colonel, I would highly recommend that you take the next sixty seconds to get every one of the people off your site, excepting Miranda’s team. She’s NTSB’s on-site lead on a crash. That gives her absolute command. Are we clear?”

  “Uh,” the colonel hesitated.

  “What is it, colonel?”

  “I have a quite different set of instructions…from the Pentagon.”

  “Give me their names. I’ll rip off their stars and jam them up their asses. Jesus, I begin to understand why JJ had that colonel at his side.”

  “JJ? General JJ Martinez?” Colonel Stimson grimaced, “Jesus no, sir! Colonel Taser Cortez was a lethal bitch.”

  “Was not!” Jeremy, who’d been standing between her and Andi, knocked aside Miranda’s phone arm as he moved forward. Jeremy was suddenly toe-to-toe with the colonel, who towered half a foot over his five-seven.

  Miranda had never seen Jeremy angry. But now his fists were clenched, his face suffused with a bright red (that had been lacking from the colonel’s cheeks), and his eyes were narrowed. Miranda didn’t have to consult her emoji emotion chart to be sure of his fury. He looked ready to take on a battle-hardened colonel barehanded, despite his sidearm.

  Mike rested a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Jeremy. He didn’t know her the way we did.”

  “Your team knew her? Please tell me she’s dead.”

  31

  Andi had been frozen in place from the moment Colonel Stimson had walked up. She hadn’t seen him arrive at the site with all of the other invaders.

  She’d seen him often enough, he was a very involved commander for the Night Stalker regiment, but being a lowly captain she’d never actually spoken to him.

  He returned her automatic salute without recognition, which was fine with her. Coming to the attention of regimental commanders was almost universally a bad career move. Even if she no longer had a career, the desire to be invisible was far from gone.

  Her plan to lie low lasted until the moment Jeremy swung a fist at Colonel Stimson’s face.

  It was an untrained civilian punch. He broadcast it clearly, but Stimson was turning back toward the man on the phone.

  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was Miranda’s “go to” for help?

  No time to think about that, but—What the hell?

  Andi took a shuffle step forward and managed to snag Jeremy’s arm.

  But he was so strong with his fury that he dragged her forward. She’d slowed the punch, but probably not enough. The colonel might need some new teeth, and the way Jeremy’s fist was clenched wrong, it would put his hand in a cast for a month.

  Andi’s feet were dragging in the soft sand—when Holly abruptly body-checked the colonel, sending him tumbling to the dirt.

  With no impact, Jeremy’s haymaker punch twisted him half around until his fist nearly caught Miranda in the ear.

  She yelped in surprise.

  “What the hell’s going on?” The Chairman shouted as the phone flipped out of Miranda’s hand and spun away to land in the sand not far from where the colonel lay swearing.

  “Next time, mate,” Holly offered the colonel a hand to haul him back to his feet but was looking at Andi herself.

  Her Australian accent was thicker than it had been a moment before.

  “’Stead of a shuffle step, make it a hop step. Get yourself some extra good traction on your landing foot, but get the other foot up on his hip for leverage to knock him clear. Look.”

  The colonel was dusting off his clothes, his face was a red as livid as Jeremy’s had been a moment before.

  “You stand where Jeremy was and start feeding our friendly colonel a knuckle sandwich,” Holly pushed Jeremy aside and shoved her into his place.

  At a loss of what else to do, Andi followed Holly’s instruction and threw a very slow punch in exactly the form Jeremy had.

  Holly took a hop step, grabbed her arm just as Andi had grabbed Jeremy’s. But instead of planting both feet, she landed on one and planted the other firmly on the colonel’s hip—then shoved hard.

  The colonel tumbled back to the dirt.

  But at the same time, Andi was thrown backward and would have landed hard herself if Holly hadn’t kept her grip. Yes, she could have stopped Jeremy’s punch herself using that trick.

  “See?” Holly turned to help the colonel up again, but he scrambled clear as he rose, then turned to glare at her.

  “Consider yourself under arrest, lady,” he snarled out.

  “Don’t chuck a wobbly, cobber.” Holly grabbed his hand and shook it cheerily.

  Her accent was so thick it was on the verge of totally incomprehensible. Maybe kicking Andi’s former commander into the dirt, twice, was Holly’s idea of fun.

  “I’ll get you for—”

  “Buckley’s chance of that, but you’re welcome to try, mate. Staff Sergeant Holly Harper of the Australian SAS Regiment, retired of course, at your service
.”

  SAS! A female SAS operative? Jesus! That explained a thousand things and brought as many more into question.

  “Presently on long-term loan to the NTSB from our Aussie ATSB chaps. If you can unwind that chain of who can charge this girl with what, you’re a better man than I am. Of course, I’m a woman so I’m automatically better, right?”

  She gave Andi a friendly hip check that almost sent her into the dirt.

  “But who’s counting. Personally, I’d have let our little Jeremy take a poke at you, but I didn’t want him messing up his hand.” She turned to Jeremy and cuffed him soundly on the side of his head.

  “Ow! Hey!”

  “Seriously, young padawan, I need to give you some learning on how to throw a king-hit better than that.”

  Jeremy was still steaming. “He shouldn’t have said what he said about Taz. She was…amazing!”

  Well, it was clear what he thought of whoever Taz Cortez was.

  Was!

  Past tense.

  Oh shit! He too had lost someone that had ripped out his heart.

  Andi could only hope for his sake that it hadn’t also ripped away some chunk of his mind.

  32

  “You okay, Miranda?” Mike slipped an arm around her shoulder.

  When he tried to return the phone to her hand, her grip didn’t appear to be working very well, so he held it for her and whispered for her ears alone, “Just…breathe, okay?”

  She nodded but winced again when General Nason shouted from the phone.

  “What the hell is—”

  “Sorry for the delay, sir,” Mike cut him off. “There was a difference of opinion being expressed here.” There was a crash and a banging from the wreckage. “We really need to get these vendor people under control here. I thought they were supposed to assist the NTSB, not usurp it.”

  “Colonel?” Drake’s tone sounded ready to grind the colonel into the dust.

  “General Kavanaugh ordered us onto the site, General Nason. We were told to specifically displace the NTSB team.”

  “And do you still think that’s advisable?”

  The colonel glared at each of them in turn. “Damned if I know what to think, sir.”

  “Would that be Major General Arkin Kavanaugh?” Mike really hoped that it wasn’t.

  “Yes,” the colonel said it so carefully that each letter was a separate delivery.

  Mike sighed and held Miranda’s shoulder a little tighter before he continued. “General Nason. It’s personal. He recently promoted a Colonel Arturo Campos, formerly in command of Davis-Monthan Air Base, to Brigadier General as one of his key advisors. General Campos has a significant grudge against several of our team dating back to the two prior classified operations that involved his command.” Mike had felt it was a good idea to keep tabs on Campos. He just wished it hadn’t paid off.

  Miranda looked up at him in shock.

  “I actually think he’s angrier at Jeremy for taking over that boneyard C-5 Galaxy, than you refusing to date him.”

  Miranda didn’t look very reassured.

  But the colonel was doing exactly as Mike had hoped, hesitating.

  “General Nason?” Mike handed control of the conversation back to Washington, DC.

  “Colonel Stimson. You are the officer on site. But I will tell you that Ms. Chase and her team have the highest confidence of myself and both the President and Vice President. If you want to know what happened to your S-97, put her in charge and shoot anyone who gets in her way.”

  “Yes sir,” the colonel was remaining thoughtful.

  “And if you don’t, Colonel Stimson…”

  “Sir?”

  “You’re an idiot who shouldn’t be in charge of the 160th for another goddamn day. Are we clear now?”

  “Sir!” Stimson’s reply had a snap to it.

  “Is that okay, Miranda?” Drake asked in a much kinder voice.

  Mike could feel her hesitate, then take a deep breath before managing to answer. “Yes, thank you, Drake.”

  “Anytime, Miranda,” and he hung up.

  Mike returned the phone to her vest pocket. As he did, he leaned in close and whispered, “Good job, Miranda. You should congratulate yourself for that one.”

  He wasn’t fast enough.

  As she reached over her shoulder to pat herself on the back, just as he’d often suggested to her, the back of her hand smacked him hard on the nose.

  33

  “What the hell am I doing here?”

  Drake had though to have a friendly chat with two-star Major General Arkin Kavanaugh. But when he’d brought Campos along, despite Drake telling him to leave all of his sycophants and aides out of this meeting, he decided he was feeling far less friendly.

  As Drake himself had climbed to the highest levels of the Pentagon, he’d landed in those exact same chairs more and more often. Frankly, of the four, he preferred the one on the right that neither man had taken. It had let him face his predecessor more directly—General Thomas Tadman had always faced toward that seat.

  Drake looked down at his own feet and now realized why the former chairman had sat that way. He’d always propped his feet on the same drawer that Drake did. That was a comforting thought.

  There was a continuity, a legacy, to the Office of the Chairman that was sorely missing in most of the Pentagon.

  He stared at Campos. The man didn’t fuss, he’d give him that much credit.

  Had he himself been so self-assured on his first time across from the “Old Man”? Perhaps on the outside, definitely not on the inside. Now? There was a whole new breed in the military that had learned all of the wrong lessons. Instead of fear and respect, they now radiated arrogance. These younger officers, flag or not, always thought they knew so goddamn much. Humility had been completely lost.

  Vietnam had taught humility. Iraq and Afghanistan should have done the same, but for some reason they hadn’t.

  President Cole had convinced Drake to stay in the military and take on the chairman’s role by giving him permission to fix the problem.

  Sadly, he wasn’t having a lot of luck.

  Drake was going to start taking heads if he couldn’t slice through the petty infighting that ruled so much of the Pentagon, now more than ever before.

  “Well, Arkin. You’re in charge of US Air Force weapon systems acquisitions. I don’t see your name on the Army’s S-97 project. Why the sudden interest in it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”

  Drake had been waiting for Arkin’s gaze to flicker even momentarily toward Campos. He was too old a hand at playing power broker to reveal anything.

  Campos’ glance, however, did slide toward Arkin.

  Not surprise at his boss’ denial, but instead a cautious glance when Drake asked his question.

  Drake hated this game. Hated it even more than when he’d had to play it to fight for his own place.

  Enough!

  He dropped his feet to the floor, kicked the drawer shut and faced them both squarely.

  Thankfully, his own assistant had done his homework. Drake tapped a key to wake up his computer and he flashed the first document up onto his monitor wall.

  He didn’t look at it. Instead he watched the two of them.

  “Who’s this Miranda Chase?” Arkin glanced over at him.

  “Check out your signature, Arkin.”

  “What the hell? Did you do this, Drake? If so, why? I’m a CAS man. Close-air Support is all I ever cared about. Started in the A-1 Skyraider before jumping to the A-10 Thunderbolt. I still can’t believe Congress cut the future-CAS program. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the work SOCOM is taking on in this area. I want in on that project, even if it’s no longer USAF. The S-97, that’s one of the new vertical lift programs, right?”

  Drake turned to Campos. Arkin didn’t take long to catch on and stared at his new assistant in surprise.

  “Arturo? Are you issuing orders in my name? That’s a goddamn c
ourt-martial offense whether or not you’re dating my daughter.”

  Nepotism! Another dagger in Drake’s heart.

  Campos shook his head. “You need to talk to your boss, sir. I was ordered to issue that.”

  “To Barry? The head of US military weapons systems acquisition told one of my assistants to issue an order in my name?”

  Drake sighed and punched the intercom to his assistant. “Find General Barry Sizemore and get his ass to my office. Pronto. If he protests, tell him we’re about to be at war and I’m going to blame him.” Which Drake could well be in minutes.

  At war with his own Pentagon.

  34

  “What tipped you in Miranda’s favor, sir?” Andi couldn’t quite believe she was talking to the 160th’s regimental commander. But they’d landed side-by-side when lunch was delivered to the crash site. At midday, the crash site was deep in the canyon’s shadow, and they’d both sat on a soft patch of sand.

  “Other than General Nason threatening my career?” Stimson actually smiled.

  “Other than.”

  “You did, Captain Wu.” He handed her a roast beef sandwich from the cooler before taking one himself. Jeremy circulated, handing out sodas and extra water bottles.

  Andi had taken a bite of her sandwich, but couldn’t remember how to chew. She hadn’t even known that he knew her name.

  “When my best Little Bird pilot gets knocked off the FARA team, I might take some notice. The Future Assault Reconnaissance Aircraft program was at the top of my mandate when I took command of the regiment. I’m very sorry for what happened to Ken, but losing you both from the team was a harsh blow.”

  Andi cowered and choked when she tried to swallow her half-chewed bite.

  PTSD. The acronym hung there in the air between them, just waiting for a chance to crush her spirit even further, as if that was possible.

  “I was no longer…reliable, sir. I’m sorry.”

  “We still miss you from the program. Especially with this,” he waved his hand at the wreckage spread before the stone pillar.

  “All I ever cared about was flying, sir.”