“Watch for airframe corrosion, especially along this joint.”
“In the first two years’ models you can’t really see the control-cable routing bracket and you need to run your fingers along like this to check that it’s tight.”
“She’s a light craft, a little jumpier than you’d expect when hovering in a tailwind.”
When they started talking about how different engine modifications behaved over ten thousand feet altitude, the General broke them up. Too bad. Once they’d accepted her, they’d been a font of information. Manly handshakes all around replaced any wasted words. Told them she knew they were good. Their solid grips returned the compliment.
Powering up the Bell was preschool compared to her Hawk’s graduate course. Everything labeled in plain English. Switches large enough to toggle with two fingers. And three switches where she was used to having thirty. Such a simple toy, but at least it was a helicopter. Each stage of the startup sequence made her smile bigger until her cheeks were positively aching.
The momentary flash of the red warning lights when she turned the key. The thing had a key just like a car. So cute. The throttle slick and smooth beneath her hand. Then the whine and thrum. Almost sexual. The high turbine whine struggling to get the rotor through its first dozen rotations. Then, the turbine overshadowed by the beat of the blades finally slicing the air, a warm buzz transmitted through her hands and the seat of her pants as the bird came to life. The hiss in the headset as she powered-on the radios, then the abrupt click to silence as the squelch circuit kicked in.
The strangest feeling was freedom of motion. No heavy, flame-retardant flight suit. No thirty-pound survival harness and flak armor. No machine gun strapped across her chest with a half dozen ammo clips in her vest’s ammo rack. Flight suit and vest were still in the bag, now tucked in an actual baggage compartment. The only item she’d kept out was her helmet. Well worn from hard use sporting the sword-wielding Pegasus beneath the crescent moon. Silver on a field of sunset purple. And only two words; “Night Stalkers.” It was her single proudest possession.
She’d stroked it once for luck as she did before every flight. And caught General Arnson staring at her intently. Maybe he didn’t like the Night Stalkers. A lot of regular Army didn’t either, she was used to it. Well, she did, and that’s what mattered. Chef or bodyguard or whatever to the First Lady was not her. Night Stalker. That was her.
In moments they were off the wheels and hovering along at three feet as she slid out of the hangar. It wasn’t until she was clear that she spotted the soldier just inside the doors with a small tow cart. She glanced over at the General, but he didn’t make any sign that you weren’t supposed to lift off inside a hangar.
No little tow carts in Forward Ops scenarios. And you didn’t taxi out even if you had wheels because you wanted to be accelerating hard when you first became visible from your hidey-hole, usually a camo net strung between trees, or aluminum poles if you were above tree line.
She kept her three-foot hover and floated across the taxiway. Settled back to the tarmac for a quick run-up and control test before she called the tower for clearance to go. When it came, they went. No radio contact needed once clearance was issued. The tower just wanted to see your tail feathers moving out of their traffic pattern. Fast.
This machine weighed barely a third of her Black Hawk armed and manned for serious havoc, light on her rotors and remarkably responsive. The foot pedal control was practically delicate, more a ballet step than the rock ’n’ roll downbeat of the Huey or the badass hip-hop of the Hawk. They slid out over Chesapeake Bay and, receiving a nod from the General, Emily laid down the hammer.
She climbed, stalled, simulated turbine failures, clawed her across the sky, and even managed to coax the bird through a loop. You never got to fly a DAP Hawk for fun, whereas this machine had been made for nothing but fun.
Not offering a word, the general finally pointed her down the Chesapeake and out toward sea.
The sun glistened off the shining water as if it went on forever, not merely to the shores of Europe and Africa. If she had the fuel, she’d fly straight across and drop in on her unit. Fly some missions, if Major Jerk weren’t such a prick.
First she’d kick his butt around the field for putting her in such a damned awkward spot. Then once more for making her feel as if she were less of a pilot. Then once more for kissing her and screwing with her head.
“My nephew speaks well of you,” General Arnson’s first comment since they’d left the hangar.
After she’d kicked his butt good… An image of Mark Henderson lying back on the sand, looking up at her with those soft gray eyes. Waiting for… something. That smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Traveling up to his amazing eyes. Wanting… something.
“Your nephew, sir?” Emily shook her head for a moment to clear away thoughts of what her body apparently would like to do to Mark Henderson. She definitely didn’t want to talk about that.
And it was a checkout ride after all; she needed to control her chopper and her hormones. But how did he keep sneaking out of her mental footlocker?
“Major Mark Henderson says you are an exceptional pilot.”
The collective actually slipped from her nerveless fingers. The blade angles flattened, and the chopper plunged a couple hundred feet before she regained control.
“Major Henderson? Your nephew?” Was this whole disaster a setup by Henderson? No, that didn’t scan. He’d been furious about her orders.
“He said you were the first pilot, even over his wing commander, he would choose if he had to go in somewhere really nasty. My nephew doesn’t give compliments lightly.”
She opened her mouth. And closed it again. Nothing had come out. She wished she could restart her brain as easily as a turbine engine.
“Major Henderson? He doesn’t give compliments ever.” Her spine felt positively tingly. The major thought she was good? So careful not to compliment the female to avoid showing bias. It fit. Nothing underhanded about it. Emily decided that the compliment was intentional.
“Said you had a real habit of coming back with your bird and your crew intact from really messy places,” the General continued.
Most likely, that meant the kiss was equally intentional.
“I like that in a pilot.”
So did she.
Chapter 20
Henry turned out to be Henry Sullivan, now seated in the back of the Bell 430, airborne and bound for New York. A mild-mannered milquetoast of a man in charge of the First Lady’s image. And a very successful man he was. She’d been on the cover of Time, Vogue, and half a dozen others. Even a nearly nude one on Vanity Fair that had drawn almost as much other press as it had direct sales.
“More covers than the main man himself,” Daniel had informed Emily in his cheerfully conspiratorial whisper before closing them inside the helicopter and trotting back to the White House.
From the White House lawn, it was exactly one hour and seven minutes until Emily landed at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport on the New York City waterfront. Exactly one hour and seven minutes of absolute privacy as Katherine and Henry conferred in the back over the roar of the rotor blades. One hour and seven minutes interrupted by only five radio contacts with air traffic control, each lasting under fifteen seconds. They’d cleared the airspace ahead of her so she had little to do but watch the autopilot.
And think.
Major Mark Henderson had inducted her exactly as she would have initiated an unknown. First as his copilot, then on simple missions, then a series of escalating sorties culminating in more flights to more dangerous places than any other pilot in the squad. Until that last flight, he’d simply grunted and given her the next mission. That’s what made his compliment—“Nice flight, Captain”—stand out so completely.
Emily turned at Staten Island, out over the muddy swirl where the Hudson River met the dark blue of the Atlantic. Air control aimed her for Long Island before turning a dogleg toward Manh
attan.
But then Major Henderson had kissed her and changed her personal kiss-rating system completely. Imagine if any of 3rd Company ever heard that Mark had the softest, gentlest, and far away the finest kiss she’d ever enjoyed. Despite the raw steel and fire that lurked so close beneath. Perhaps because of it. It would ruin his reputation. Or maybe not, they were guys after all.
She chatted briefly with Heliport control and they plopped her out at the very end of the pier. Not the greatest amount of courtesy to show the First Lady, but the extra security was fine with Emily.
Two men in black materialized from nowhere to guard the helicopter. Two more escorted Katherine and Henry to a limo. Moments later they were gone to shop in New York’s finest boutiques and salons, and Emily was cooling her heels in one of the dullest air terminals on the planet.
The last thing she wanted to do was mix with a bunch of New York heli-tourists waiting for their fun, oh-isn’t-this-just-so-friggin’-cute helicopter ride to the airport when they could hop on the subway for two bucks instead. And she wasn’t about to mess with the pilot’s lounge where bored corporate geeks with two hundred flights to Hartford, Connecticut, and back thought they were God’s gift to the skies and women.
But there were no books or magazines in her chopper to distract her from Mark thoughts, and it only took her so long to memorize the emergency-procedures manual. This bird might be sleek, but it was far simpler than an Apache or a Black Hawk.
Worst of all, like its more aggressive siblings, the Bell boasted no bathroom.
She’d have to brave the terminal.
Emily was washing her hands when a military woman walked in. No mistaking the stance, despite the pantsuit. The black pantsuit. The woman sized her up in a moment and, after a quick squat to discover that the two stalls were empty, came to rest beside the next washstand over.
“Captain…” she offered after inspecting the lapel of Emily’s dress uniform, “Beale. Assigned to the First Lady’s detail.”
It wasn’t a question, though Emily nodded anyway. And spotted the radio earpiece beneath the woman’s hair.
“Do you have any ID?”
“The blue-and-white Bell 430 helicopter out front with the presidential seal on its nose isn’t sufficient for you?”
Not a hint of a smile. Blacksuits. Emily slipped her White House photo ID from a breast pocket and handed it over.
After a moment’s close inspection, it was returned. One more scan of the room, this time actually popping the stall doors in case someone was squatting on the toilet in her high heels totting an Uzi, and the woman was gone with as little fanfare as she’d arrived.
Emily followed her out into the terminal’s waiting room. It was too early for the First Lady to be back unless something had gone wrong.
Clusters of plastic chairs with minimal padding were bolted in neat groups of a dozen. Twice that number of blacksuits where circulating as she became aware of the noise.
Despite the double sets of doors and obvious sound insulation, nothing disguised the heavy, four-blade hammer beat of the Sikorsky Black Hawk. Moments later, through the glass doors, Emily watched the VH-60N White Hawk, painted the white and moldy-bread green of Marine One, land in the center of the pier. A half-dozen dress Marines materialized as if teleported and surrounded the aircraft. Maybe they’d sprung up directly from the tarmac where they’d been stored years before awaiting this very moment. One opened the passenger door and folded down the two stairs. President Matthews stepped onto the landing pier.
Even through the double doors he looked tall, powerful, in control. He cast a quick glance at the blue-and-white Bell copter.
His face remained unreadable through the glass doors, though he turned again to inspect the craft. Well, Emily guessed it was unreadable to anyone else, but she knew him far too well. President Peter Matthews was not happy to see his wife’s transport perched on the pier overlooking the East River.
Didn’t he like his wife coming to New York?
Maybe she herself was his problem. Was he unhappy about her dropping Frank Adams? Maybe he regretted asking her to come and wished her back in her far-away desert. Well, she couldn’t agree more. If she was quick, she could blend back into the women’s restroom with no one the wiser.
But she’d hesitated too long.
As soon as he entered the terminal, Marine One hammered back into the sky. Good pilot, she judged by the takeoff. Not SOAR, but good. Gone off to hide somewhere more secure until needed. A phalanx of blacksuits was keeping everyone back as Peter and Chief of Staff Ray Stevens moved through the center of the terminal.
“Emily?” He stopped right in front of her. His foul expression slid slowly toward a smile. A real one. So, at least she wasn’t the issue. But that meant that the First Lady was. Which made no sense at all.
“What are you doing in New York?”
“I, uh…” Breathe, Emily, just breathe. “Flew up on the First Lady. Flew up the First Lady on…” She blew out an exasperated breath. “I know how to fly, but you knew that. Just not how to talk.”
He laughed. An easy, friendly, old pal’s laugh that melted her insides several stages closer to normal.
“Ray, you go on and see the guys at IndieTech. Tell them that they have until Thursday if they want to be listened to. Make sure they get that loud and clear before you leave. 12:01 a.m. on Friday and they’re out and we’ll broker the Internet-2 without them. I’ll be at the U.N. for about three hours. If you’re back in time, you can join me. Otherwise you’re stuck on the commuter train.”
“I’ll be here.” The Chief of Staff waved and moved off. Just two agents followed him. The rest remained in a loose circle and watched the tourists who gawked and snapped photos.
“If the First Lady is shopping, she’ll be hours. Come with me.”
“With…” But he’d already moved off. “…you?”
When he realized she wasn’t with him, he turned and smiled back at her. “C’mon, Em. It’ll be fun.”
Last time he’d said that had been the night before he went off to Yale. And it had been. Though she doubted today’s expedition would include root-beer floats for two on the Mall while sitting on the grass across from the White House. He assuredly feeling the big brother and she the twelve-year old girl with the hopeless crush.
That night Peter had talked of dreams. Dreams of serving his country. Dreams of working in the White House. Little knowing he’d sit behind the Roosevelt desk rather than stand in front of it. Or maybe he did know.
That night was the first time that she’d thought of the larger world about her. It was the night she knew her crush was never going anywhere and that she was always going to be too young to do anything about it.
The next morning he’d gone with little ceremony, leaving her to stand by the Georgetown curbside and watch him go.
Now he stood on the sunlit sidewalk outside the front door waiting for her.
She put on a fast trot to catch up with him.
Chapter 21
“You really do look great. All grown up in dress blues. Can’t get over it. How did you get so beautiful?”
Emily didn’t show anything externally as they exited the air terminal. She’d been trained not to. But her insides had certainly dropped its collective jaw. Beautiful? Peter thought she was beautiful? Did Mark think so as well? Either way, it made her feel all smiley inside. A totally pointless and female reaction, but it was there nonetheless. She basked in the glow of it for a good five seconds before bashing it back into the corner with all the other pointless compliments guys had ever given her.
But a little voice poked its head back around the corner: Peter thinks I’m beautiful?
The President’s blacksuits guided them into the second of three identical black limos. The limo didn’t have any give as she climbed in. A huge mass of armor now wrapped around them and a mere mortal’s weight didn’t shift its heavy bulk in the slightest.
Once they were locked in, the blacksui
ts clambered into their own hurking big SUVs. Even a Black Hawk might have trouble against these tanks. And she’d bet there was some serious firepower lurking nearby. Then she spotted a couple of armoreds up ahead. A glance back revealed a Humvee, with the .50 cal turret gun manned, along with a flock of cars for aides and cop cars.
She went to sit in the seat across from him but he patted the place beside him.
“It’s much more comfortable to face forward.”
“When I flew as a gunner for training, I flew backward far more than forward, well actually mostly sitting sideways but looking back.” But she settled down on the sumptuous black leather.
“Always looking at where you’d been?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Peter.”
“Yes, sir.” She’d forgotten how easy it was to talk with him, but she was riding with the Commander-in-Chief and there were some places she couldn’t go, no matter how close they’d been as children. And if she didn’t think of something else soon—
“Also lagging fire, a gunman on the ground is often slow in reacting to a sudden overflight of helicopters. Ground fire usually comes from four o’clock low. Easier to spot and retaliate when you’re already facing it.”
“I’ve missed you, Em.”
“Me, Peter?” He’d surprised her into using his name.
“You.” His smile acknowledged the minor triumph.
She could remember every conversation since her six-year-old inquiry about letters doubling when you added “ing.” And why they only did it sometimes. That was the day the boy next door had decided she had a brain and might be interesting.
When had Mark decided that? Had he decided that? Or did he still just see a pretty blonde in a flight suit? She knew one thing; there was no possible chance he had felt the same visceral shock of recognition that had coursed through her body at their first meeting. She would have seen it. All she could do was shut her mouth, because who knew what idiocy would pour forth if she opened it, and hide behind her shades for the hour-long ride to the base. She wished for once she knew what he was thinking, just once.
Night Is Mine Page 11
