Raider

by M. L. Buchman

  Terrain. Pull Up.

  They were so nose-high that his only view forward was by radar.

  A broad mountain peak was becoming more detailed by the second. It was also expanding rapidly.

  Terrain. Pull Up.

  They weren’t going to clear it.

  The ridge was broad enough that there wouldn’t be any rolling off to either side to get clear. Besides, he couldn’t afford the loss of lift inherent in a turn.

  Terrain. Pull Up.

  The crest of the peak was lining up with the top edge of radar screen. Too bad his flight path was dead center of the radar.

  Unless—

  Terrain. Pull Up.

  Praying that he wasn’t about to kill them all, Brad tipped the nose down.

  From very steep climb to steep climb.

  From steep climb to climb.

  Terrain. Pull Up.

  As he nosed over, the airspeed rose.

  The mountain came closer faster.

  The message changed.

  Too low—Terrain.

  Exactly what he’d been hoping.

  He’d done this in the simulator any number of times.

  It had even worked once.

  Once.

  Too low—Terrain.

  As the radar altimeter neared zero and the mountain’s outline neared the center of the radar screen, he nosed over.

  Too low—Terrain.

  For just a moment he focused on the mechanical altimeter that had been set to the airport’s barometric reading. It read over two thousand feet lower than the reading on the electronic GPS-driven altimeter.

  The GPS was wrong?

  No time now.

  Too low—Terrain.

  As he rolled the nose level, he was either trading a tail strike for a nose strike.

  Or…

  48

  Twenty-seven-year-old Eylül Acar and her dog had hiked up to watch the sunrise from atop the twenty-three-hundred-meter ridge of the Central Taurus Mountains. She loved the view looking down on the tiny village of Değnek, Turkey.

  She was daydreaming about whether or not she was going to sleep with her boss’ son, again. He was a glorious lover, so the answer was pretty easy, despite the risks to her career.

  The question was, should she cook him her grandmother’s Iskender Kebab—she claimed that grandfather had first made love to her right on the kitchen table after eating that—or a chicken Perde pilavi? The latter took more time, but Eylül could make it ahead of time, leaving more time for sex.

  Before she could decide, she was decapitated by the armature between the two tires of the front nose gear of a Boeing 757.

  The plane was no longer traveling on the verge of an imminent stall at a hundred and nine knots. It had accelerated to a hundred and thirty-two. Traveling the length of a football field every second and a half, she never saw what hit her, though her dog did.

  As the nose gear cleared the rocky peak without any damage, except blood splatter, it eased downward, lower than the rock.

  But the seesaw roll from nose-up to nose-down was not sufficient to clear the main gear over the ridge.

  Had the plane’s flight been even a meter higher, the four tires in each set of the main landing gear would have struck the rock. All eight tires would have exploded with the force of impact, but they would have rolled on their rims.

  Then the shock absorbers would have transmitted the force of that almost-landing upward with enough force to shatter the shock towers and severely distort the landing gear mounting points—the strongest point in the entire plane’s structure.

  The force would have driven the wings upward, warping the starboard one badly enough to severely compromise lift, and tipped the nose down past recovery. Even the steep nine-hundred-meter escarpment from the ridge down to Değnek in the valley far below wouldn’t have provided sufficient time to recover with the damaged wing.

  But the main gear was a meter lower when it struck the rocky ridge.

  Instead of rolling and overpitching the 757, the main gear—both wheel trucks and their shock towers—were simply sheared off the plane.

  The force of that impact was just sufficient to complete the desperate gamble begun by Colonel Brad Whitman.

  As the nose cleared the ridge, the lower surface of the tail scraped over the rock.

  But, crucially, the empennage and all of the tail’s control surfaces survived intact rather than breaking off.

  Other than having no main landing gear, the Boeing 757 survived the encounter intact.

  The encounter had smeared the remains of Eylül Acar and her dog past any recognition.

  49

  “Clarissa here.” She sprawled in the bed. Not having Clark home was such a luxury. No sex was a minor convenience—he was still an every-night sort of man. But no one’s ego to keep an eye on was a major one. And an old t-shirt instead of sexy nightwear was an even bigger one.

  She hadn’t even worked late. Instead she’d come home to the Vice President’s luxurious Queen Anne Victorian at One Observatory Circle. After an hour on the treadmill, she’d enjoyed a very pleasant bit of self-soothing in a bubble bath. While Clark was finally good enough in bed to no longer be disappointing, she enjoyed the perfection of the moment.

  The biggest bonus, though, she had the king-size bed all to herself.

  Straight up midnight. This call had better be bloody important.

  “I’m alive.” Clark. If this was a bootie call, she’d—

  “I didn’t think you were dead.” He never had a good sense of time zones when he traveled, which was the only annoying aspect of Roy Cole keeping his vice president on the move.

  “I just wanted you to hear it from me first.”

  “I’ll call CNN.”

  “No need. I’m sure they’re already covering it.”

  She dove for the remote. “Sorry, uh, not awake.” As good an excuse as any. She’d spent a lot of time and energy cultivating Clark Winston, even marrying him of all unexpected choices. That she was mostly enjoying the experience was even more of a surprise—not something she’d ever expected.

  No part of her personal path to the White House included Clark Winston turning up dead. A bad oversight that she’d have to rethink very soon. Bereaved Wife Runs for Office to Carry on Husband’s Legacy? Too saccharine for the American voter? No, the people had long since proven that nothing was.

  But first the bastard had to live long enough to create a legacy for her to carry on.

  The television screen over the dresser lit up…with some lame thriller movie Clark had been watching.

  The CNN shortcut button flipped her to an aerial view of a plane crash. A Boeing 757-200, painted in presidential blue-and-white, sat primly on the runway at the end of long scar.

  Even as she watched, they shuffled in a replay shot from some security cam.

  Coming down to land perfectly level instead of nose high.

  Kissing down ever so gently.

  Balancing like a kid’s toy on the small stick of the nose wheel.

  Then the tail settled onto the pavement.

  A massive rooster tail of sparks streaming out behind it, the plane glissading a long way before it finally stopped with its nose in the air. It was immediately buried in firefighting foam. Damn but those Air Force pilots were good.

  “Oh, my God, Clark.” She cut off whatever he’d been rambling about.

  “I know.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  As she let him tell her about the state of his nerves, CNN switched to a camera that showed a man standing in a cluster of Secret Service agents in sharp, black suits. He was on the phone.

  “I see you, Clark. On CNN.”

  “Oh, hi.” He waved in the wrong direction. Not even aware of what a strong moment this could be for any future campaign if he could just face the right way. VP Survives Plane Crash.

  “Turn around, Clark! Then wave again.”

  He did. Still missing the camera, but at
least he was close this time. The footage would play. The story would be even better if it proved to be a terrorist attack—or could even be implied that it was one.

  “Any idea what happened?”

  “Pilot said something about corrupted satellite feeds.”

  Clarissa felt a cold chill. She should have been hounding the Tweedle Twins to chase that lead they had. A detected intrusion, even through a Turkish satellite, just hadn’t been that interesting. That would teach her. She’d just lost nine hours on these people in a game where seconds could be crucial. Shit!

  She jumped off the bed.

  How to get rid of Clark fast?

  “Have you called the President yet?” She yanked off the CIA t-shirt that she wore on nights Clark wasn’t around.

  “No, I wanted to call you fir—”

  “Well, get off the phone now. I mean, yes,” Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! She didn’t have time for this. She yanked open her underwear drawer and almost dropped it on her toes when it jumped off the track. “Yes, thanks for calling me first. I’m so relieved. I’d have worried. Now call the President. He’ll want to know you’re okay.”

  “Okay. Love you.”

  “You, too.” Clarissa grimaced as she cut the call. Not the smoothest response, but hopefully it would do.

  She watched the man on the screen seven time zones away. He pulled the phone away from his ear, but didn’t appear to hesitate before he was dialing again.

  Good. The President would distract him.

  She dialed the T Twins, hit speaker, and tossed her phone on the bed as she slammed the drawer back into place and dressed.

  “Uh, yeah?” Harry sounded even less awake that she had two minutes ago.

  “Another attack. This time they tried to take out the VP at—” she looked at bottom scroll on the television screen “—Incirlik Air Base.”

  “Your husband? Is he okay? I mean—” he was wasting her time.

  “Incirlik as in Turkey?” Heidi, definitely the brains of their hacker operation, came on for the first time.

  Clarissa froze and looked at the CNN report again. “Yes, Incirlik, as in our military base in Turkey.”

  “Oh,” was all that Witchy Lady came up with.

  “Oh? Just oh?”

  “Oh as in, Oh shit. That’s really bad news. The systems that the 757s that Air Force Two uses are the same systems as Air Force One. They don’t get any more secure. If Turkey can crack those…”

  “Shit!” Clarissa dragged on a turtleneck and a sweater, then peeled them back off to put on her bra. “Get to the office now. Get me some answers. I’m en route.”

  She hung up and speed-dialed the head of the Presidential Protection Detail. She probably should have made this call first. And maybe not with her tits hanging out even if there was no video feed; she wouldn’t put it past Evanston to somehow know—the guy was spooky good. She managed to get the bra yanked into place before he answered.

  “This is CIA Director Clarissa Reese. We have a credible threat to VIP aviation. Cole’s grounded.”

  “Already done. VP Clark Winston as well. We don’t dare send in the Air Force Two backup bird to get him home. Not until we know what happened to them.”

  “Understood.”

  Clarissa hung up.

  “Way not to be the one to be first with the warning. Shit! Definitely should have called them first.”

  Then she took off her bra, turned it right side up, and put it on again.

  50

  One minute, Mike had been waiting with Holly for the second S-97 Raider to land back at the test hangar.

  Andi had more fallen than climbed out of the helo, but Holly somehow knew and was right there.

  Before he could edge over and see if he could help, Miranda’s phone had been ringing with a call from General Nason.

  “Air Force Two has been involved in a crash at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Your team is being escalated immediately. We’re arranging transport.”

  They’d had under thirty minutes to talk through the second S-97’s test flight before “transport” arrived.

  It turned out to be a Boeing 787 wide-body jet bought by an Israeli gambling software developer. It had already departed Seattle on its delivery flight to Tel Aviv when it was rerouted down to Groom Lake.

  The jet was beautiful. It’s brand-new paint job gleamed in the runway lights. It was red and black. Instead of an airline name, it sported a spread of four aces on the plane’s tall tail.

  The Groom Lake guard escort rushed the team aboard. They clearly didn’t want this plane on their runway a moment longer than necessary.

  “Never thought we’d be cleared to Groom Lake,” the crewman who welcomed them aboard paid far more attention to peering out the open door than looking at them.

  “Holy shit! If we get a ride in this when the Vice President crashes, what do we get if the President goes down?” Holly announced as she stepped into the cabin ahead of him.

  Mike was about to tell Holly to chill when he saw the setup for himself and lost his words. If he ever became a multibillionaire, he was definitely buying a plane just like this one.

  Instead of three hundred passengers, it was renovated to provide luxury seating for about forty. The twenty-five hundred square feet of passenger area now included a master suite complete with showers, three smaller guest suites, even luxurious sitting areas that could also serve as a large-screen movie theater.

  But the centerpiece had nothing to do with anything electronic despite the new owner’s source of wealth.

  A gorgeous octagonal poker table with rosewood trim dominated the middle of the main cabin. The black felt looked so darkly perfect that any card would appear to float on the surface. Safe bet that games played at this table would be seriously high stakes.

  The overhead was six grand of black, Poker pendant light by Zero.

  It wasn’t just a poker table, it was a piece of art.

  It made him remember how much he’d enjoyed convincing people that it was fun for them to give him their money. It had paid for his psych degree and launched his ad firm.

  “Well, I suppose I could get used to this.” Mike decided that he definitely could.

  “Go ahead, say the next line. You know you ruddy well want to.”

  Yes, messing up the sheets with Holly in one of the plane’s luxury bedrooms was a damn fine idea. They had achieved the Mile-High club using the little Mooney airplane’s autopilot. This would be a very different experience, but he couldn’t just give her the easy win.

  “Hell of a gaming table. Who here plays poker?”

  Holly’s grin said she totally understood that he was messing with her. She was also the only one to raise her hand.

  “I know how to play Hearts, Rummy, Go Fish…” Jeremy was the ultimate sad sack.

  “Can’t play a game that lame at a table as fine as this one.”

  One of the flight officers called over the PA. “If everyone could sit down and buckle up, we’re cleared for immediate departure. The kind where they might shoot us if we don’t get gone fast. We’re going to be ten hours en route. There are no attendants aboard as this was just a delivery flight, but Ms. Biram said ‘Welcome Aboard’ and to make free use of anything in the galley, which is well stocked.” He clicked off.

  Because it was there, they all sat around the gorgeous table. The leather chairs were awesomely comfortable, half airplane seat and half office chair.

  Mike went for the one that would place his back toward the direction of flight once they were aloft. It was a strategic choice at a poker table. Subconsciously, the other players would feel as if he was looming over them, about to fall and consume them as prey. He felt a deep kinship with the plane’s designer and owner.

  As soon as they were aloft, he reached into an under-table drawer and came up with a still sealed set of Bicycle cards. Not spendy KEM or even Copag plastics, but good old cardboard. He didn’t know if she was thirty or ninety, but he was definitely falling in l
ove with Ms. Biram.

  He’d dealt battered Bicycle cards in the orphanage’s girls’ bathroom late at night, so dog-eared that it was hard not to read them as a marked deck. St. Bernardine had also preached against gambling, but it really wasn’t with that deck. He’d dealt those cards to great advantage.

  Cracking the deck, he enjoyed the snap and slide of the cheap glued-double-paper cards. They might not even last a night in any serious game, but they were always a pleasure to manipulate. He’d never liked the plastic cards for that reason.

  After peeling the jokers and the instruction cards, he started with a simple overhand shuffle to break up the neatly prepackaged order. After the third or fourth riffle, they were loosening up well. He split the deck, made a pair of fans in either hand, then swung them together as neat as could be. Not a single card had doubled between another, a perfect interleave. He laced together a closed riffle, not sliding the cards together, then spread the deck along the table in a line. These too were stacked exactly every other one.

  He gathered them, slipped them together, then spread the deck face up in a wide arc, all of the cards were still, actually back in their original order.

  “Very pretty,” Holly nodded toward his card manipulation. “And remind me to never play poker with you, mate, unless I’m dealing.”

  “Been a while, but I appear to still have it.”

  This time he did a real shuffle, finishing with a quick wash across the table’s ebony felt, and the deck was ready.

  As he flicked out a fresh fan, Holly kicked him sharply in the shin.

  The cards flew from his hands and showered down on the table all higgledy-piggledy.

  He rubbed one shin against the other calf as he regathered the cards.

  “So, shall we play some Old Maid?” he challenged her.

  Holly snorted a laugh.

  “Why am I still here?” Andi spoke softly. It was the first thing she’d said since the helo flight out to the crash site.

  “Why wouldn’t you be?”

  “I’m a rotorcraft specialist. I’m not even half through Academy training.”

  Once he had the deck put back together, Mike dealt five cards face down, one in front of each person. “You don’t get it yet. Terence Graham sent you to Miranda Chase’s team. Until things don’t work out, you’re a part of Miranda’s team.”