Raider

by M. L. Buchman

  During the game of Rummy, Jeremy had regaled them about it being one of the few planes that was used throughout the Second World War and beyond. It had gone through many modifications, but it was still one of the few planes to span the whole war without becoming obsolete. As had its adversary, the Me 109.

  Miranda finally headed for bed and Mike turned out the light, but found himself reluctant to leave the beautiful table.

  Instead, he sat there, slowly shuffling and reshuffling the card deck. Other than flashes of palest white, reflections of the emergency egress lights off the card faces, the darkness in the cabin was complete.

  Once Miranda had settled, the rest of the team were little more than soft shapes stretched out on the long couches.

  The 787’s windows were oval and larger than most other aircraft. No shades, the dimming was controlled by some electronic process he was sure Jeremy would be glad to explain.

  For now they were undimmed, letting flashes spill in from the anti-collision strobe atop the fuselage, blinked across the outer wings. They must be in some sort of thin cloud, as he could see the red and green of the outward-facing wingtip lights scattering off water droplets along with the pulse of the wingtip strobes. The plane’s heartbeat across the sky.

  There’s a metaphor for you, Miranda. Gods but she cracked him up sometimes.

  As his eyes adapted, he could make out the fronts of the cards, though it was all in the monotone of semidarkness.

  He dealt the cards of Miranda’s metaphor.

  Miranda the Queen of Spades—the big kahuna thirteen-pointer of a Hearts game. Flying high in her jets.

  Jeremy the Jack, following in his workhorse Chinook.

  Holly the King? No, the Ace of Clubs—the bludgeon of the A-10 but also a fine-honed weapon.

  Andi.

  He half wondered if he should fetch the Joker. The unknown, the wild card. He finally tossed her down as another Queen. Terence Graham had ridden his own ass hard all through the Academy, yet he’d sent Andi to Miranda filled with praise.

  No, Mike twisted the card sideways, like the second card in a tarot Celtic Cross—the junior queen. Still not right, but righter.

  For Jon, he tossed out an eight. Not low enough to be caught repainting roses during Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Those gardener cards had been named for their spots: Seven, Five, and the lowly Two.

  But like the Spitfire that Mike had suggested without thinking first, Jon was old-fashioned, even outdated. He didn’t quite make sense with Miranda the jet queen, not that Mike had any clue who could be better for her.

  Jon’s kindness ran deep. Mike switched out his eight for a nine.

  Unlike the two of diamonds for Arturo Campos. There was a useless piece of crap, trying to sabotage Miranda because she’d refused to sleep with him. Despite what he’d told Miranda, he’d bet that was the real reason Campos had dumped on them.

  Mike was half tempted to call Drake to find out what had been done about him. But he didn’t quite have the balls to call the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff except on Miranda’s behalf.

  For himself?

  He shuffled through the cards, considering Andi’s question.

  What am I doing here?

  He twisted his chair enough to prop his feet on the next one over.

  Yet Miranda kept him around. That was something.

  He tossed down Jack, Queen, King. Here to deal with all of the face cards, all the people she didn’t want to. He was useful for that anyway.

  He threw down a second Ace beside Holly’s, diamonds for Jeremy’s Chinook helicopterishness? No. He swept it back up and dropped the Ace of Hearts because he was just such a good kid.

  Side by side, Jeremy and Holly were definitely aces in Miranda’s tool vest.

  Mike re-drew the Ace of Helicopters, and hesitated before tossing it down with the other two. Would Andi turn into an ace, too, or would she disappear back into the NTSB system?

  He flicked the card with a fingernail a few times still not setting it down to float on the midnight table.

  Holly had said that the Night Stalkers were the best helo pilots in the world.

  And Colonel Stimson had assigned Andi to his most critical testing program. Which meant underneath whatever mess she was, she was insanely competent and driven.

  But would she fold?

  He wasn’t thinking about another PTSD attack—those didn’t magically stop.

  Rather, would Miranda start to depend on her, and then find that crutch had suddenly been kicked out?

  The day, a year-ago now, that he’d joined the team, before he even knew who Miranda was or that she was on the autism spectrum, he’d seen the devastation she’d suffered when losing her team.

  Her prior team had disappeared from under her in a single blow that she hadn’t seen coming. She’d been told about their leaving but still not absorbed it—no big surprise now that he knew her. A coincident retirement and maternity leave should have given her plenty of notice; she simply hadn’t heard it as being relevant until it happened.

  Still, that “desertion” had thrown her minimal judgment so far out of balance that she’d charged a one-star general despite his sidearm pointed at her face. He still wondered how she’d managed not be shot dead on the spot.

  He couldn’t imagine Holly or Jeremy ever walking away from Miranda.

  Captain Andrea Wu formerly of the 160th Night Stalkers though?

  He glanced over toward the couch she’d chosen but couldn’t see to read anything there.

  Holly had said the Night Stalkers unit motto was just four letters long, NSDQ—Night Stalkers Don’t Quit.

  If she was one of their top pilots, he’d wager it went beyond that. Not that she wouldn’t choose to quit, rather she probably didn’t know how. Not on others. Not on herself (though he suspected that concept might surprise her at the moment). After what she’d been through, losing her copilot in such a shocking fashion, she was still in the aircraft game. Had even flown the S-97 Raider in a test.

  Stimson had pulled him aside and warned him about her freak-out over the wreckage, especially when a wind gust had slithered through the canyon and bounced the helo hard.

  Yeah, the S-97 Raider was a good aircraft for Miranda’s metaphor list. When Captain Andi Wu was banging on all four cylinders, she was probably formidable. And stealthy, because it was the last thing even modern perceptions would expect from such a petite and pretty woman.

  He set the Ace of Helicopters on the table beside Jeremy’s and Holly’s cards.

  Andi was definitely pushing on Jeremy’s confidence about his role on Miranda’s team. The Raider Ace was perfect for her in more ways than one.

  Mike gathered up the other extraneous cards until there was only Miranda the Queen of Spades underlined by the three Aces of Holly, Jeremy, and Andi. He’d removed one too many, so he reselected the nine and tossed it down for Jon—Mr. Spitfire.

  Then he drew the last card.

  Ace of Spades.

  Mike knew he was…useful.

  He’d spent a lot of effort over the last year trying to find ways to be precisely that. Everything from flying around the team to giving Miranda a set of emoji stickers—that he’d purposely printed on a sticky label just the right size for her to paste into her notebook.

  His Mooney-ness was useful, but did she really need him?

  Mike was on the verge of burying his card back into the deck when it struck him that perhaps he was asking the question backward.

  Did they need Miranda?

  Jeremy aspired to be her. He was a better man for having that goal in front of him every day.

  Miranda gave Holly someone to protect with all of that heart she hid so carefully behind her brash Clubishness, even from—no, especially from herself.

  Not yet, but he’d bet that Andi would soon see Miranda as a sign of hope that she too could overcome her past.

  And him?

  He flipped the card behind his hand, then drew it
out of his opposite cuff.

  Still the same damn card.

  Without Miranda, he’d be a dismissed FBI stooge, searching for a con because it was clear being a decent human wasn’t paying off.

  He didn’t really know this kind, considerate guy who helped Miranda, encouraged Jeremy, and got to sleep with a seriously hot Australian blonde. Even walked a damaged pilot around the edges of a PTSD sinkhole to hell.

  But he could certainly get to like being the new him, or at least pretending he was like that. He had little doubt that it would all collapse soon enough, but it was a wave he definitely should ride—probably would until long after it no longer made sense. He’d never learned that last key step of when to just cut and run.

  He slapped the Ace of Spades down beside Holly’s club.

  Yeah, that was a stupid place to be. Holly had made it all too clear that this relationship had zero chance of going anywhere. Which actually was the only reason he wasn’t already long gone in search of other targets.

  Was it his old self who only felt safe with one foot out the exit door?

  What about his new self?

  He picked up the four aces, blind-shuffled them, then spread them back out.

  Andi and Jeremy, Holly and himself. Nope. Breaking it off right now just didn’t look to be in the cards.

  Once more just to test the fates.

  Andi, Holly, himself, and Jeremy.

  Fine. He lined them up neatly just below the Queen. Jon’s nine still floating off to the side.

  Leaving them set that way, he pushed to his feet.

  Holly had tossed a blanket down on the couch next to the one she’d chosen.

  Grateful, and careful not to wake her unexpectedly, he sat on the couch. The leather was cool, softer than a Ferrari seat, and smelled of its newness. Even the blanket smelled of its packaging rather than the detergent of its first wash.

  Now that he’d stopped, he couldn’t find the energy to shift from sitting to lying down. Though this couch couldn’t help but be more comfortable than the one in Jeremy’s room at Groom Lake… He was exhausted past any hope of sleep.

  Instead he stared down at the suggestion of the carpet’s Persian design in the plane’s dim lighting.

  The team might fit together—much to his surprise—but something else definitely was off-kilter.

  That poker player’s itch that said someone, or maybe something, was bluffing.

  The cards were right as he’d laid them on the table.

  Weren’t they?

  Even when the plane started catching up with the sunrise, and he got to watch the pilot remote dimming all of the windows, he still couldn’t see what he was missing.

  56

  She moved so silently, Mike never heard her coming.

  One moment he was staring at the Persian carpet and wondering at quite what it was doing on an Israeli’s poker plane. He assumed Jeremy would already have analyzed how it had been woven as a single piece to perfectly fit the entire plane from wall to wall.

  The next moment he was staring down at the dim outline of Holly’s socks. No big toe sticking out, though they still didn’t match. When he looked up, she was holding out a hand. Her gold-blonde hair caught enough light to see her tip her head toward the back of the plane.

  Toward the bedrooms.

  He tried to push to his feet, but not even her offer could get him moving. She reached down and took his hand, hauling him up.

  Still holding his hand, she guided them aft. When he shifted his hand to interlace their fingers, she didn’t pull away.

  The master suite wasn’t vast, but it was luxurious. Unlike the crisply modern poker room, the bedroom was a journey to the tropics. The sheets were wave-motif satin. The carpet, sandy beach. The walls, tropical island beneath a shining blue sky. The mahogany tiki mini bar with two stools had a curving eave above that just might have been real thatch.

  Too numb to help much, he mostly nuzzled Holly’s hair as she undressed them both.

  “I—”

  “Keep your kisser shut, mate.” No more than a whisper, but definitely a command.

  She pushed against the center of his chest and he tumbled back onto the satin waves.

  Their sex was typically a very active engagement.

  Tonight, this morning, whatever, perhaps realizing that he was barely functional, Holly took complete control.

  Her soft skin and smooth curves were the best anodyne possible for his doubts. It was impossible to focus on anything else when she was in his arms. All that remained was the brush of her hair across his chest, her strong hands as they dug into his shoulders, and the powerful heat of her when she straddled him.

  As she rocked them on the satin sea, he floated free of all sensation except the two of them.

  And when they rode over the top together, it wasn’t some steep plunge, but a long, smooth glide to the softest imaginable landing.

  If his complaisance surprised her as much as it surprised him, Holly gave no sign.

  They always slept apart. Not by much. She might have a leg draped over one of his. Sometimes he’d wake to discover her arm over one of his.

  Close but not too close worked for both of them.

  Tonight, he lay flat on his back in the satin ocean, so blissfully sated he couldn’t have moved for the entire world.

  Holly curled against him as she sometimes did before they began making love. Her head on his shoulder, an arm across his chest, and a leg over his hips. She never did that after sex.

  A line from a Passover Seder he’d once attended drifted through his thoughts: Why is this night different from all other nights?

  She’d been intimate. Kind. Loving?

  The last word was sufficiently startling that he roused his drifting thoughts enough to wonder if this was really the Holly Harper he knew. Just this morning, yesterday morning maybe, she’d made it clear that there was nothing between them but sex.

  So what had this just been?

  She traced a light finger over the line of prints where she’d nearly crushed his windpipe.

  Oh. This was makeup sex—the best kind of apology in the world. That he understood. That wasn’t quite the Holly he knew, but it made more sense than any of the other thoughts drifting through his head.

  “You okay, Mike?” Her whisper was so soft that her words seemed to drift in from far away.

  In answer, he wrapped an arm around her back and held her tighter.

  Yes, they were okay.

  He nuzzled his face into her lovely soft hair. If they woke up this way, that would be something very hard to reconcile with the Holly he thought he knew.

  Or the Mike.

  57

  “This ‘doesn’t feel like an attack’?” Clarissa sputtered and nearly choked on the slice of pepperoni pizza they’d offered her as breakfast.

  She’d have to go double on the treadmill today to just clear the grease out of her system, never mind the calories. Not willing to face a Red Bull, she had a can of Diet Coke they’d scrounged up at three in the morning.

  Some breakfast.

  “How does taking down the Vice President’s plane not feel like an attack?”

  Harry grabbed a pair of pizza slices, sprinkled them with red peppers from a shaker on Heidi’s desk shaped like some lumpy golden ball with filigree wings. Then he folded the two slices face-to-face and began eating them. Heidi tossed a couple of paper towels into his lap.

  “Well,” he managed to speak clearly despite the mouthful, “his first successful hack was ten days ago. Then there was a long gap.”

  “Oh,” Heidi had a single slice, no red peppers. “She found which slice of her code worked after months of trying. So she spent a week stripping away all the stuff that didn’t. Shouldn’t take nearly that long…”

  “Maybe if he then took the time to optimize it.”

  “Oh, right. So, she—”

  Clarissa stopped herself from reaching for another piece. “I swear to God, I’m going to ki
ll you both if you keep that up. It’s Turkey. What chances are there for a woman to get ahead there?”

  Heidi’s grimace was sufficient answer. “Okay, so he takes a week to isolate his code—which shouldn’t have taken more than a few hours. That means he wasn’t in a mad rush to use it again, probably spending the time optimizing it. That fits. Then he takes it out for a second run to prove he’s got it right.”

  “Then twenty-four hours later, whap!” Harry slammed his palm down on the corner of Heidi’s desk hard enough to make all of her junk jostle and rattle. The scarf slithered off the monitor but Heidi snagged it midfall and flipped it around her neck.

  “Exactly. The attack on the Vice President wasn’t premeditated. More a target of opportunity. A definitive test before the big play.”

  Clarissa had to admit that was a relief. They might have targeted Clark’s plane, but it wasn’t some premeditated attack on the Vice President. He should be safe while they set up whatever the real target was. Still, she’d definitely be accelerating her plans because he was vulnerable to other attacks.

  “That means that their end play is something much more drastic.”

  The twins looked very unhappy. Heidi even lost interest in her pizza. Neither one was arguing.

  “Where were the first two attacks?”

  “Well, an airplane has to be able to see at least four satellites at once for the system to work. More typically, they can see seven to eight, sometimes ten. The hacks appear to have hit clusters of six to seven, so it’s hard to pin down. All northern hemisphere. North Pacific somewhere for the first. Then Western US. Now the VP’s plane in Turkey.”

  Clarissa hadn’t heard of any recent aircraft losses other than Clark’s, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that normally came to her attention.

  Though she knew whose attention it would come to.

  Suddenly the pizza sat less comfortably.

  Screw it!

  If she was going to make this phone call, she’d need some fortification. She pulled another slice onto her paper plate and waved a hand for Harry to pass over the golden flying ball thing.

  Careful not to let any grease drip onto her blouse, she didn’t bother waiting until she was done chewing.