Claire works her computer once more, rotates it, and a photo is in the center of the screen. With a jolt, I recognize Mel, another young lady, and a plumper Claire Boone, her hair black instead of red, and they’re sitting on Mel’s bed in her room in the family quarters at the White House. Her voice soft, Claire says, “I was friends with Mel, back when we were at Sidwell Friends. Ha. Nice name, not as friendly as they claim. I was in twelfth grade, she was in ninth, and I don’t know why, but she warmed up to me. Maybe because I was getting bullied and teased all the time. I was fat, and as you can probably tell, I’m on the spectrum. Talk too fast, more used to numbers than people. But Mel stopped the bullying. When I heard we were being sent here to help in the initial search, I made sure I was on the deployment. And then I stuck around.”
She rotates the laptop. “After Sidwell, I joined the Army, mainly to freak out my parents. Became one hell of an infantry scout. Took some additional tests, the NSA liked what they saw, and I joined their clandestine service, became a field operative. Good work, but hung out in too many Internet cafés in Berlin and Paris with lots of cigarette smoke, tracking down hackers and cybercriminals. Is that enough? Do you need to hear more? Or can you make a phone call or two, and get us on that refueling aircraft before it’s too late? I mean, I’m raiding some restricted systems I shouldn’t be in. Aren’t you going to do your part?”
I say, “Us? You’re coming along?”
She smiles. “Like it or not, you need me, Mr. President. Do you want to debate that or make that damn phone call?”
“I will,” I say. “If you look up a phone number for me.”
The smile gets wider. “Gosh, I think I’ve got the resources to do that.”
Chapter
84
The Pentagon
Arlington, Virginia
Kimberly Bouchard, secretary of the Air Force, is sitting at her desk at the Pentagon, an uneaten corned beef sandwich at her elbow. She’s working through a sheaf of papers explaining the procurement problem for one subset of one ongoing maintenance issue with the aging B-2 stealth bomber fleet when her office phone rings, blessedly giving her a respite.
“Madam Secretary?” her office assistant, Martin Hernandez, says.
“Yes?”
“Ma’am…there’s a male caller on the line. Says he’s Matt Keating. The—”
“President Keating?” She rubs at her eyes, the thought of numbers and part qualifications quickly leaving her mind. “Are you sure?”
“He said you’d recognize the phrase ‘I might be concerned if it was some damn church bingo game.’ Ma’am?”
My God, she thinks.
“Put him through,” she says, and she remembers.
More than three years ago, sitting alone with President Matt Keating in the Oval Office, each taking a separate couch in the center of the room, him in black slacks and a blue oxford shirt, unknotted red tie dangling down the front. A minute earlier she was ushered in by Chief of Staff Jack Lyon, who gave her a look of disdain, for Kimberly had violated the first rule of Washington: Never, ever embarrass your boss.
Keating says, “Something to drink? Water? Coke? Something stronger?”
Kimberly shakes her head. She wants this humiliating and embarrassing moment in her life to be over as quickly as possible.
“Mr. President, I’m still very sorry that this information came out,” she says. “I thought the vetting process was going to be confidential, but the news of my addiction…”
She sighs, removes a folded sheet of paper from her suit jacket’s inner pocket. “When we’re through here, I’ll go out and make a statement, announcing that I’m withdrawing my name from nomination for secretary of the Air Force.”
Keating leans back into the sofa, hands behind his head. “Remind me, Kimberly: the vetting process also noted that you grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, went to the University of Pittsburgh on an Air Force ROTC scholarship, then worked your way up the career ladder, became an expert in maintenance and parts procurement, and then, apparently bored, you also went to pilot training school at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas. Correct so far?”
She nods, unsure of where this is going. The president says, “Eventually, you became a pilot of Lockheed EC-130 electronic countermeasures aircraft. Flew in some dangerous and dark parts of the world. Left the Air Force, worked at some think tanks and as a consultant at Lockheed. Along the way you developed a gambling problem, right? Your husband left you because of that, correct?”
She nods, lips pursed with shame. He goes on. “Eventually you joined Gamblers Anonymous. Paid back every dime that you owed to banks and people that you borrowed money from, including interest. You’ve been clean for at least four years. True?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“You’ve made amends. You’ve paid everything back. You’ve been clean.”
He smiles at her, and she feels utterly at ease. “Now, I might be concerned if it was some damn church bingo game you’ve been caught at or something, but that hasn’t happened, has it? What did happen was some grudge-settling jerk up on the Hill decided to hurt me by releasing that confidential FBI background check, hoping it would force me to dump you. A minor skirmish and victory for whatever senator or staff member is seeking it, and if you got destroyed in the process, well, that’s how the game is played here in DC. Let me see that little speech of yours.”
Kimberly passes over the folded piece of paper, and without even looking at it, the president tears it in half, then into quarters, and then drops the torn paper on the coffee table.
He gets up, starts to retie his necktie. “Tell you what. If you’re not busy, future Madam Secretary, let’s go out to the Rose Garden and tell the press that I’m sticking with you, one hundred percent.”
She doesn’t know what to say. Keating adds, “And that’s how I play the game, Kimberly. My people, my rules. Come along. We want to make sure we make the top of the hour for the cable networks.”
Kimberly follows him out of the Oval Office, still unable to say anything, just feeling her eyes moisten as a smile starts to form on her relieved face.
On the phone, the ex-president says, “Kimberly, glad I got through.”
“Mr. President, I’m so sorry—”
“Please, Kimberly, I hate to interrupt, but I need something. I need your help. And I don’t have much time.”
“What is it, Mr. President?”
The tone of his voice is nothing she’s ever heard in him before: tight, hard, controlled.
He says, “There’s a KC-135 departing the Air National Guard base at Pease in New Hampshire in under two hours. Call sign Granite Four. It’s heading to Naval Station Rota. Kimberly, I need to be on that aircraft, with four others. And before it goes to Rota, it needs to make a stop in Tunisia. At their military airfield at Sfax-Thyna. Arrangements will be made on that end to allow Granite Four to land.”
A few tense seconds. “Kimberly, I need to get there, with my folks. I’m putting you in a terrible bind, I know it, but—”
She interrupts him. “That’s enough, Mr. President. I’m on it. You can count on me.”
“Kimberly, I—”
She can sense the relief in his voice. “You’re in a hurry. I think I know why, but I won’t ask. Go with God, Mr. President, and do what has to be done.”
She hangs up the phone, picks it up, connects with her admin assistant. “Martin.”
“Ma’am?” he says.
“Get me on the horn, now, with the wing commander or the senior officer at the Air National Guard up at Pease, in New Hampshire.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Martin says. “I’ll put you on hold for a moment, until I make the connection.”
While she’s waiting, she looks down at the dull paperwork about parts, procurement, and maintenance. She picks up the pages with one hand and tosses them in the air behind her.
Good to be doing something important for a change, she thinks.
Chapter
85
Contoocook, New Hampshire
I put away my burner phone and look at my four comrades—now a band of brothers and one sister—and I say, “It’s on. Let’s get packing.”
David says, “Well done, sir.”
I think for a moment, pull out the burner phone, and head to this room’s small and smelly bathroom. “Need to make one more phone call before we head out. Private, you understand.”
“Of course,” David says, and I call out, “And Alejandro and Nick, put that bed frame and bed back together. That’s not how I roll.”
I duck into the filthy bathroom, try not to breathe through my nose, and close the door.
Take out the burner phone, punch in the numbers, and it rings.
Rings.
Rings.
Where is she?
Then a breathless Sam answers: “Yes, who’s this?”
“Sam, it’s Matt,” I say. “I just wanted to give you an update. I’ve arranged transportation. Refueling jet at Pease. We’ll be leaving in under two hours. David Stahl is with me, along with two Navy SEALs and an NSA field operative.”
“Matt…is that enough?”
“It’s going to have to be, Sam,” I say. “We need to be small, we need to move fast.”
Then I realize what I’ve just done: for the first time in my life, I’ve told my wife what I’m about to do. Usually my deployments back in the day were announced with a quiet, “Hey, I’m going to be away for a few months, training,” or, “I need to be away at work for a while. I’ll email when I can.”
But not now.
Sam knows everything: that I’m going overseas to get our daughter and kill anyone who gets in the way.
“You do it, Matt. You do it,” she says, her voice strained yet fierce, and I hear noises in the background and say, “Sam, you okay? What’s the noise?”
A light laugh. “We’re both going on last-minute trips. I’ve been asked to present an award at the Society for American Archaeology’s annual meeting at Georgetown. The original presenter got the flu, so here I am. So safe travels for the both of us, right? I’m at Dulles, waiting to get picked up.”
“I love you, Sam,” I say. “And I’m not coming back without her, safe and sound. I’ll keep you advised, every step that I can.”
“I love you, too, Matt,” she says. “And I know you’ll do it. Shit, my Uber’s here. Bye, Matt.”
“Bye, Sam,” I say, and I switch off the call, take a breath, and hear sounds in the outer room as our duffel bags stuffed with gear get hauled out to the two rental cars.
I look at my burner phone.
One more call, I think.
One more call to settle accounts.
Chapter
86
Aboard Granite Four
Pease Air National Guard base, New Hampshire
Captain Ray Josephs of the 157th Air Refueling Wing of the New Hampshire Air National Guard is sitting in the cramped left-side pilot’s seat of this old KC-135 refueling tanker, preparing for this late afternoon’s flight across the Atlantic, one that should have taken place yesterday.
But a pump in the left-side hydraulic system on the aircraft failed and needed to be replaced, causing the delay, even though it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. This refueling aircraft and a few hundred others still flying first came into service in 1957—based on the Boeing 707 design of the 1950s—and the last one was delivered to the Air Force in 1965.
Ray knows a couple of tales about current KC-135 pilots flying the same airframe their grandfathers flew while in the Air Force, and he can believe it. This cockpit is still crammed tight with knobs, dials, and switches, with nary a computer touchscreen in sight. At Ray’s right, less than a yard away, his copilot, Lieutenant Ginny Zimmerman, is reviewing the stack of mission documents for their flight to Rota. Like Ray, she’s wearing the standard green zippered jumpsuit and sage-green boots, a thick earphone and mic system over her short blond hair.
“Ginny,” he says, “what’s this I hear about you guys at Delta doing a slowdown?”
She shakes her head, starts flipping through pages. “Something’s gotta bend, and it’s not gonna be us.”
He laughs, goes through his own binder. He’s a pilot for United, Ginny is a pilot for Delta, and serving with this wing is part of their duties as New Hampshire Air National Guard members.
On the back cover of his checklist binder is an old cracked decal showing a flying Pegasus circled with the acronym NKAWTG, which means Nobody kicks ass without tanker gas!
Funny thing he learned way back when is that when it comes to military operations, amateurs discuss tactics, and professionals discuss logistics. And when it comes to warfare in the air, nothing gets done without the logistics of these old flying gas stations, which refuel everything from fighter jets to bombers, all around the world.
And the job of passing along the necessary fuel belongs to the third crew member, Technical Sergeant Frank Palmer, who operates the refueling boom at the stern of the aircraft. Right now he’s at the aircraft’s small galley, storing the meals for their half day’s flight across the Atlantic.
Ray is about to ask his copilot if she’s ready to start going through the preflight checklist when a voice suddenly comes to him via his earphones.
“Pease control to Granite Four,” a woman’s voice says.
He toggles the Reply switch. “Granite Four, go,” he says.
“Hold on,” the controller says.
Ginny looks at Ray and he raises his eyebrows, shrugs.
Then an unexpected voice comes through.
“Captain Josephs, this is Colonel Tighe.” Ray momentarily freezes.
The wing commander? Right now?
“Yes, sir,” he says.
Colonel Tighe says, “There’s a party of five that will be boarding your aircraft within the next few minutes. Allow them every possible courtesy you can, within reason.”
“Sir…” Ray is thinking furiously. “Are these Space A passengers?”
Under Air Force regulations, if there is availability on Air Force aircraft, certain personnel—active-duty or retired military personnel, dependent families, and even Medal of Honor recipients—can fly for free under what is known as Space A availability. But having such personnel come aboard so soon before takeoff is highly irregular.
“In a manner of speaking,” Colonel Tighe replies, voice clipped. “They’re traveling at the request of the secretary of the Air Force. I know it’s last-minute and highly irregular, but I trust you’ll make it work, Captain.”
“And their manifest?”
“I’ll take care of their manifest,” Tighe says. “I vouch for their luggage and their identification. And this is last-minute, again, I know, but their destination is going to be the Tunisian Air Force base at Sfax-Thyna. The necessary arrangements have been made at that end to allow you to land and service. Any questions?”
Ray has about a hundred or so questions to ask but knows enough to salute smartly—in a manner of speaking—and keep his mouth shut. “No, Colonel,” he says. “We’ve got this.”
“Good,” the colonel says. “Tighe out.”
With the radio transmission ended, Ginny, who also heard the broadcast, is staring at Ray with wide eyes. “What the hell was that?”
He takes the headset and mic off his head, gets up from his seat. “I don’t know, but I’m about to find out. In the meantime, calculate how much more fuel we’ll need to get to Tunisia.”
Ray scrambles out of the tight cockpit and goes aft, where there’s nothing but a flat metal deck with built-in rings to hold down pallets and red webbed seating against each side of the fuselage. At the far end is the refueling compartment manned by their technical sergeant, or boomer, who’s responsible for controlling the air-to-air refueling boom. Underneath the deck is where more than 202,000 pounds of JP-8 jet fuel is stored. Ray turns right, to the open port cargo door. With the lights from the near buildings and
runway, he can spot the dark blue pickup truck with adjustable stairs on the rear, called the airstairs. Five passengers are trailing the airstairs, each carrying two duffel bags. Ray stands there, waiting, feeling a bit nervous and tingly, wondering how and why this typical and usual transatlantic flight has turned into something spooky and different.
Technical Sergeant Palmer comes up to him, black hair cut in an old-fashioned crew cut, his potbelly straining against his green jumpsuit. “What’s going on, Captain?”
“Last-minute passengers, Frank,” Ray says. “Mind marshaling in the airstairs?”
The movable stairway rises up to the open door, and his boomer fastens it in place.
The first three passengers come up the stairs, into the aircraft, and just nod at Ray and go aft. They lower the red webbed seating and fasten their duffel bags, as if they’ve done this before. While he’s had no real experience with members of the Special Forces, Ray senses that these three are operators—or at least military—from the way they move smoothly and quickly, without any wasted motion.
The fourth passenger is a bit of a surprise: a tall redheaded woman wearing black-rimmed glasses. She nods and says, “No in-flight movie, am I right?”
Ray is about to reply when the fifth passenger gets on deck, and the pilot freezes, instantly recognizing the man.
President Matt Keating.
Holy crap on a cracker, Ray thinks. What the hell is going on here?
Keating says softly, “Sorry to be a disturbance, Captain, but I appreciate this more than you’ll ever know.”
Ray finds his voice. “Glad to help, sir.”
The ex-president makes his way over to the other four passengers. The boomer, Palmer, catches Ray’s eye, shakes his head, and quietly says, “Nearly fifteen years in this man’s Air Force, and now I can say I’ve seen everything.”
Ray returns to the cockpit, still stunned at who he just saw, and he puts his headphones and mic set back on as he squeezes himself into the pilot’s seat.
The President's Daughter Page 30
