White Top: a political technothriller (Miranda Chase Book 8)

by M. L. Buchman

  “Somebody shone a light on the starboard side. Do it again.”

  “There,” she cried out. “Go back a bit. Good. Hold it.”

  “Wow! How did I miss that?” Jeremy pushed to his feet to look at one of the passenger windows.

  “You have to remember to look up, Jeremy.” A good reminder to herself, as she hadn’t either. Andi had even said that was how to find things back on the Opera House stage.

  Above the sponson, there were several long holes that penetrated the hull. One of the bullet-proof windowpanes had a particularly large hole.

  Miranda rose and inspected the tilted window carefully. Because of the clear material, she could see the line of the hole that had entered the glass high on the inside, bored through the center, and emerged several inches lower down the pane. From there, it was directly over the largest hole in the sponson.

  She tapped it experimentally.

  Someone knocked back. Then Taz waved through the window.

  “Jeremy, do you have a silicon carbide tool handy?”

  “Saw or angle grinder?”

  “Grinder. I just need the wheel.” In moments he handed her a four-and-a-half-inch grinder wheel. She scraped it down the window. It left a very light mark.

  “Taz,” she yelled through the hole. “Try scraping it with your knife.”

  She did, but Miranda couldn’t see anything. By the way Taz rubbed at her side, she couldn’t either. She went to try again.

  “Don’t! You’ll just dull your knife.”

  Taz hesitated, put away her knife, and stepped out the nearby doorway that had finally been cleared enough to open.

  “Not much will dull my knife.”

  “Jeremy?” Taz’s presence reminded her that she was supposed to be training Jeremy. Or testing him or…something.

  “I’ve never had a chance to play with ALON before.” He practically pressed his nose against it.

  “ALON?” Taz didn’t know it.

  “Al—” Miranda bit on her tongue to stop it. This was so hard. Thankfully, Jeremy didn’t notice and began explaining.

  “Aluminum oxynitride. Transparent aluminum, like in Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, only now it’s real. Strong, lightweight, eighty-percent transparent (window glass is only high eighties, so not bad), radiation resistant, and super tough. This looks to be three-centimeters thickness, just over an inch. That could stop even serious armor-piercing rounds like the .50 BMG.”

  Miranda waited, but Jeremy didn’t make the next step.

  And that was the problem. Jeremy saw what was right in front of him, but he didn’t always think of the next question. It was the reason he would have trouble leading his own team. Unlike Jon who missed vital details, Jeremy didn’t see past them.

  Miranda tried to think of how to prompt him when Taz poked a finger at the hole.

  “What’s its melting point?”

  Miranda could only look at her in surprise. That was exactly the right question.

  Jeremy smacked his forehead as he often did after having the next step pointed out to him.

  “Centigrade it’s about twenty-one hundred degrees, thirty-nine hundred Fahrenheit. So what can melt a hole through that and pass through a tank of fuel without being extinguished by the liquid? The first thing that I can think of is thermite. Iron thermite burns at over five thousand degrees F. Where did the thermite come from?” Still talking to himself, he rushed into the helicopter, actually bouncing off the other workers like a pinball.

  Yes! Another metaphor. Miranda was sure of it and gave herself a pat on the back.

  Taz was gazing after Jeremy with a soft smile. “Gods! He’s so cute when he gets like that.”

  “How did you know to ask that question?”

  “Hello, not an idiot, Miranda. It’s obvious that Jeremy gets too hyper-focused. Worse than you in some ways because you’re aware of that aspect of your autism and always struggle against it. Jeremy? It’s just the way he is. I used to point things out for him. But if I hit him with a question instead, he unsticks himself and figures out the next steps on his own from there. That’s probably enough time. Let’s go see what he’s found.”

  Miranda stopped her. “You’re really good for him, Vicki.”

  “Hmm… You’re using my real name. Is that a good sign or a bad one?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be good?”

  “Never can tell. As long as I’m just Taz, people see the dangerous bitch with the Taser. If I’m Vicki, then I’m suddenly the girl who’s gone soft in her head for Jeremy. Personally, I wouldn’t trust the wench, younger man and all. I prefer being Taz with her nine-year-younger boy toy. I understand her.”

  “Yes, but Vicki is the woman Jeremy loves, isn’t it?”

  And Taz seemed to crumple. “It is. From the first time we met, when I was being even less nice than I am now, if you can imagine that. I just don’t understand him.”

  “Do you have to? He seems to understand you.”

  “Could you cut out the tough questions, Miranda?”

  “Okay. I just thought it all made sense. Sorry.”

  Taz sighed again. “It does all make sense, that’s the problem. Turn it around. If I think like Taz, I’m fine. If I think like Vicki, then I get all mushy. It’s just…weird. Like an alien possessing my body.” Taz shuddered, then ended the conversation by following Jeremy.

  Miranda considered if that’s what had always been her problem understanding Taz: she was two people inside.

  It was an oddly comforting thought. Maybe she was both Miranda Chase air-crash investigator, and a still easily spooked girl with ASD—at the same time.

  Yes. Both were true, without diminishing the other. She liked that.

  Miranda and “the girl” followed Taz inside the crashed VH-92A Superhawk helicopter.

  49

  “Thermite?” Colonel Blake McGrady reached out, but the short Latina slapped his hand aside hard enough to sting. “Hey!”

  “Unless you have a death wish, you don’t want to be touching that without gloves.”

  He jammed his hands in his pockets as a reminder to not touch, then leaned in to inspect it. It looked like any normal oxygen generator, a steel tank six inches square and sixteen inches long. Except the end had been burned off.

  “Thermite?” he repeated because he didn’t know what else to say.

  Jeremy was apparently all too happy to explain. “The ignition trigger for a standard oxygen generation system burns at five hundred degrees Fahrenheit once an airliner passenger pulls down sharply on the mask to trigger the chemical reaction, or in a cabin-sized unit like this one, the pilot ignites it. Thermite burns at ten times that, over five thousand degrees Fahrenheit.”

  “I know all that!” Blake cursed himself for snapping at the investigator. It was creepy as hell inside the VH-92A helo. The walls were all scorched black. The plastic elements of the aircraft had partially melted in the fire before cooling enough to congeal once more. It left the entire interior looking like one of those paintings of melting clocks and whatever.

  Harsh splotches of light poured in from the floodlights beyond the missing windows. Everything else was dim and shrouded in comparison. Because of the bright floods, the flashlights were of only small help in the murky shadows.

  He’d also been unnerved by leading the honor guard. He’d made sure that he, his pilots, and Sergeant Whalen had escorted the stretchers bearing the Vice President and each fallen Marine out through the rubble-bordered pathway they’d forged. He still held the scorched briefcase of the Vice President’s backup nuclear football that he’d actually had to pry from the dead Air Force colonel’s fingers. The Secret Service teams on the site were still overwhelmed with removing the other bodies and hadn’t thought of it yet. Until they did, he was keeping it close.

  “Sorry, go ahead.”

  “Well,” Jeremy jumped back in, but the Latina was scowling at him hard enough that he reminded himself to watch his tone. “We can’t pin this to the cause ye
t, but that someone changed the trigger material definitely makes the whole unit suspect. Maybe a chemical reaction that requires thousands of degrees to trigger rather than merely hundreds makes this a likely source of the poison mentioned by your pilot before the crash.”

  “What kind of reactions?”

  “There are so many possibilities. They could—”

  “Were their hands or feet blue?” Miranda Chase spoke up. “I’m sorry, Jeremy. I didn’t mean to interrupt. You go ahead.”

  “Blue?” He looked at his fellow investigator with deep puzzlement.

  The woman was biting both of her lips together hard.

  “Spit it out if you know something, woman.”

  “Blue?” Jeremy looked at the Latina, who only shrugged.

  “Would someone explain what’s going on?”

  The Miranda woman glanced toward the Latina.

  “It’s okay, Miranda. I wouldn’t have known to ask that question. Why did you? What does it mean?”

  Still she wrestled a bit longer before she finally gasped in a hard breath, then pointed at the Air Force colonel.

  Seated at the very rear of the helicopter, his was the last body aboard, lost in the shadows farthest from the floodlights shining through the missing windshield.

  The Secret Service team approached the body.

  “Hey, where’s his briefcase?”

  All of the agents jolted in surprise, only breathing a sigh of relief when Blake handed it over.

  “Thank you, Colonel McGrady.”

  “No problem. We need to inspect his hands and feet.”

  The Secret Service agent looked at him askance for a moment, then waved a hand as the med team lay him on a stretcher.

  Before he could find the nerve to move closer, the Chase woman had knelt beside the corpse. She flicked on a high-power flashlight and inspected his hands. They did have a bluish tinge. Then she slid off one of his boots and his sock. Distinctly blue.

  He knew he should kneel to inspect the foot more closely, but it was one of the scariest, most alien things he’d ever seen. It simply wasn’t…right.

  Blake’s career before HMX-1 had been entirely stateside and Pacific Rim. He’d seen injuries, but he’d never seen mass death before. The closest he’d ever come to a war zone was boot camp in Parris Island.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” she rose as composed as if she’d just been reading a supplies requisition.

  They all stood in silence as the team spread the sheet over him and carried this last victim out. There was a strange silence. The cranes had moved to clear other areas of the building.

  “What does it mean?” he whispered once there were only the investigators in the helicopter.

  “I can’t be sure until we get this unit into the lab,” the Chase woman sighed as if she was sad that they weren’t there already. “But I think I know what killed them. Roy isn’t going to be happy.”

  50

  “Hydrogen cyanide gas? How the hell did that get there, Miranda?” The President looked ill as he faced Miranda on the screen.

  Drake felt as if he himself was choking on the stuff. He wished she hadn’t started by describing how the people would have died in such detail.

  “I don’t like to conjecture. The other unfired oxygen canister remaining on this aircraft looks to be completely normal, though we’ll take that in for testing as well. It might not have been tampered with. Therefore, it is difficult to be certain. However, it would most likely be a form of an ammonia-methane compound, wrapped in a platinum catalyst. Add the high temperature of the thermite trigger and hydrogen cyanide gas would be produced in quantity. In fact…”

  She tipped her head sideways for a long moment.

  “Jeremy,” she looked to the side. “Could you look up the Degussa process?”

  He answered from out of view. “Let’s see, no oxygen required to react, high heat source and, for every HCN molecule, it would produce three pairs of bonded hydrogen atoms.”

  One of the National Security Council techs who manned the PEOC helpfully put a chemical equation on the side screen that Drake had no idea how to read except that it was labeled Degussa Process.

  Jeremy continued, “If the gas permeated the cabin to lethal levels, that would also imply a three-times-higher concentration of hydrogen. Does that fit the initial explosion? It wouldn’t take much of a spark to fire it off, and it would certainly have the force to blow out the forward windshields. I’d have to do a bit of computer modeling to figure out how much more, but it fits.”

  Miranda turned back to the screen. “That’s how it probably got there, Roy.”

  Sarah pointed at the chemical formula and whispered, “Do you understand that?”

  Drake just shook his head and Sarah offered a sigh of relief.

  “If it makes sense to her, it’s good enough for me.”

  “Is Colonel McGrady still with you?” The President asked.

  “Right here, Mr. President,” he stepped into the frame. “I was just about to call my team and the Air Force One commander. The Secret Service is already on to their technicians.”

  “Full security on this one.”

  “Yes sir. I already have my people watching each other in case it’s internal.”

  “Well done. And truly exceptional, Miranda. It’s midnight. Get some rest.”

  Clarissa hovered into view in the background as Miranda responded.

  “Okay, Roy. We’ll be at the NTSB lab here in DC tomorrow to confirm all of this. We’re going to recover the flight recorders now.” And again Miranda hung up just as Clarissa was opening her mouth.

  “Bet that pissed off Clarissa,” Drake would be amused if this wasn’t so grim.

  “Not my problem,” President Cole turned to Sarah. “What’s your best theory?”

  “I have about six.”

  “Run them down. I want the full analysis, not the normal executive summary.”

  “I’m going to leave the most-likely scenario to last,” she began.

  By the end of the next hour, Drake was glad that his body was still in another time zone because if it was in Eastern Daylight he’d be beyond exhausted. The threat matrices that Sarah Feldman had on tap in her head matched several of the worst-case scenarios that his team had modeled for him over the last year. His own observations had offered a disheartening backup.

  The three of them dissected each one, and determinedly discarded each possible explanation for this attack for one reason or another.

  “That’s five,” President Cole noted.

  “Good. So it only felt like fifty,” Drake refilled everyone’s coffee from the pot on the sideboard.

  “Right. Now give us the sixth one, Sarah.”

  “I’m afraid that we’re right back to where we started yesterday, Mr. President—Saudi Arabia.” And she spent most of thirty minutes breaking down the supporting information.

  Drake wished it was like Miranda’s report on the poison and he wouldn’t understand any of it. Regrettably, he understood every word.

  President Cole was quiet for a long time afterward. Finally, he asked a question so softly that Drake barely heard it.

  “Drake, did I get Clark killed? With my speech at the G-7?”

  “No sir,” Drake shook his head. “The logistics to get that equipment into place inside HMX-1 took months, possibly a year or more of work to infiltrate the personnel necessary. The fact that they succeeded is a different issue that I’m sure is keeping the entire Marine Corps awake tonight. Your talk at the G-7 was in the last thirty-six hours. The Marine Two bird was already in place at Camp David by then.”

  “Well, that’s a relief at least. Okay, Sarah. Next thoroughly egotistical question: were they aiming for me and botched the play?”

  “No sir. Nor was the Vice President merely a target of opportunity. His meeting at Camp David was intentionally very public. The party has already been working on his image for the next election.”

  “I have twenty more months
in office, I still can’t believe they’re already campaigning Clark.” Cole huffed out a hard sigh. “Okay, so his meeting was predictable—scheduled and announced publicly.”

  “As were his politics regarding Saudi Arabia. Remember,” Sarah continued, “this is all conjecture. If it was them, they’re probably shielded with near-bulletproof deniability—they learned a lot in managing to deny any involvement with 9/11. There’s probably a cut-out for them to not be pinned with this either.”

  “It sounds as if tracking that would have been a better use of Clarissa’s time,” President Cole scowled toward the now dark television screen.

  Drake held up his tablet. “I actually have several reports that she forwarded from her people. They’re still working the data, but they’re weighting it sixty-forty that it was actually sourced from Riyadh itself. They say they need a couple more days for the computers to chew on the codes before they can change those numbers.”

  “Make sure they get what they need.”

  “Clarissa already has.”

  Cole nodded for Sarah to continue.

  “But if I were the Saudis, I wouldn’t want Clark’s negative attitude toward their leadership in the region to become a debate platform in the next US election at all. So…” she made a scissors motion with her fingers, “…snip it off before it begins.”

  “Shit!”

  “What are we going to do about it, Mr. President?”

  “Stop thinking so much like a soldier, Drake. There’s a reason I’m in this seat and you aren’t.”

  “Thank God for that, Mr. President. Please tell me that we aren’t going to do nothing.”

  “No. Not nothing. This will take some thinking, which let’s you out, Drake.”

  Drake considered giving him the finger, but even soldier to soldier that was too much, so he rose to his feet, snapped to full attention, and saluted.

  When the President gave him the finger in return, he just laughed.

  “The PEOC has bunks. Get some shut-eye. Since Danziger still has us trapped in here, let’s use it. Next meeting starts at 0600 sharp.”