of foreign military actions from there.
Mike’s smile was back, but he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.
“How the hell did that happen?”
“That’s why we’re here…General Lizzy.” Or not. Mike was incredibly convinced of his own cuteness. His charm and beautiful smile might work on others, but it wasn’t cutting him any slack in her office. She just ignored him. And she ignored his puzzled frown at the failure of his so-civilian tactics.
33
Lizzy led the way to the UH-1N Twin Huey helicopter that the USAF 1st Helicopter Squadron at Andrews had sent over. One of the nice benefits of being an agency director; her time was rated as too valuable to be wasted stuck in traffic.
It landed inside the loop of the NRO’s running track, close by the grass volleyball court.
Drake had a good eye. Her diamond exactly matched the Air Force-blue paint job and her gold band matched the helo’s gold side-stripe. There was no clear diamond to match the white tops of the Huey, but she preferred the simplicity of the ring with just the single stone and the smoothly twisted setting suggestive of the contrail of a jet barrel-rolling through the sky.
Now she finally knew how to explain to her mother why she’d waited so long to get married. Not like her three sisters hadn’t already provided multiple grandchildren, along with four divorces and six marriages. Lizzy had waited…for Drake.
They all clambered aboard and the helo lifted for the fifteen-minute ride to Andrews.
A text chirped on her phone.
“According to the NSA,” she read out, “Taz placed a called approximately five hours ago from—oh shit—Avalon Harbor.”
She’d already checked her satellite logs while they were still in her office. There’d been no surveillance over Aspen or Santa Catalina at the time of either crash. We aren’t in the habit of surveilling non-military civilian territory. Mike hadn’t been pleased, but Jon was military and had nodded in understanding.
“They found three call starts, none over twenty seconds. It was locked down with the full SCIP encryption, so we can’t trace them. All they know was that two of the calls were to the Pentagon.”
“Before or after the crash time?” Mike asked while the rest of them were still processing the information.
“Within five minutes after. Three minutes, fifteen seconds actually.”
“Three-fifteen.” Mike sat back and spoke as if to himself, “Did she bail out at the last second? Was she ashore, witnessed the crash, and needed to report it? Or was it because the crash was unplanned and she then had to act quickly? I’m guessing the last.”
“What about JJ?” Jon asked. They’d all taken to calling General Martinez by his nickname. It would have felt very disrespectful, but she was doing it herself despite barely knowing the man.
“Let’s see,” Mike looked out the window as they crossed over the Potomac, but she guessed he wasn’t sightseeing the National Mall. “She wasn’t on the crash. It was too destructive. If she bailed out at the last moment, she’d have been in the ocean and wouldn’t have had time to be placing a secure call that quickly.”
Lizzy found herself nodding. She’d never had to eject, but she’d practiced water landings by parachute. The first five minutes were all about dealing with the parachute and trying not to drown.
“If we theorize that she was there to witness the results, she could have been reporting to the general. But that three-minute delay… No. She must have conferred with the general before the first call. They saw the crash together. It was unplanned. And he issued new orders for her to carry out. That’s the best fit.”
Lizzy was still trying to get over Taz being undead from the initial crash, and on the site of a second major air crash.
How had Mike already…
Lizzy almost laughed. Once again, she’d underestimated Miranda’s team. They were the very best at what they did, even if she didn’t always understand how they achieved their results. It wasn’t all Miranda. Jeremy was a technical wizard. And Mike probably saw motivational interactions the same way she understood the tactical implications of orbital dynamics—as a single gestalt.
Mike looked at her. “Are JJ and Taz the sorts to just hang out at a place like Catalina Island?”
Lizzy had met Taz just the once that had led Lizzy to throwing the colonel out of her office. She’d never met JJ, but Drake had talked about him enough for her to feel that she knew him.
“They’re more likely to take a vacation at an active bombing