“I’ll come to you. How’s your timeline?” Emily was all business from her parents’ bathroom.
“Getting tight. I’m thinking I have three or at most four days before we need to, ah, go fishing.”
“Which probably means two. Okay. Mark can take Tessa for the day. I’ll be there in a couple hours. I’ll need to find a Hornet F.”
Claudia pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it. Then she put it back to her ear. “A Hornet?”
“An F/A-18F—” Emily began explaining.
“I know what one is.” It was a supersonic fighter jet that could make the Atlantic crossing in two hours, but it would need a midair refuel over the Azores. The “F” was a two-seater version. “How would you—”
Emily laughed at her. “You don’t get it yet. Did he give you a letter?”
“Yeah. He said it was a toned-down version of an ‘Emily letter,’ whatever that means.”
“After I hang up, read it again and think about it. I’ll be there by lunch. Do you need Mark as well?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I have Michael and—”
“Don’t tell me!” Emily cut her off again. “If you have Michael, you’re covered. See you soon.”
And the woman was gone. Again Claudia pulled away her phone to look at it, but all it said was “Call Ended” and then it turned back to showing the time before the screen blanked.
A Super Hornet F/A-18F? She stuffed the phone into a back pocket and blew on her fingertips to warm them because the sun still hadn’t reached over the high peak of Arthur’s Seat and down into the park where she stood. Then she pulled the crumpled letter out of her other pocket and read it again, even though she knew all of the words on the paper.
Please afford any and all assistance requested by Captain Claudia Casperson.
President Peter Matthews
Below it was White House Chief of Staff Daniel Darlington’s name and direct phone number. She hadn’t quite appreciated what that meant until Emily said she’d requisition a ride in a fifty-million-dollar fighter jet on no notice and arrange for a refueling tanker to meet her halfway across the Atlantic.
At full speed, she’d be here well before lunch, which meant Claudia had some real hustling to do. She headed back to the B and B. Michael was out of time for his beauty rest. And she wouldn’t even have time to wake him with a proper tumble beneath the covers.
Chapter 21
Based on his rapid responses the last two times they’d woken up together, Claudia knew that by the time Michael’s feet hit the floor, he’d be awake enough to take in instructions.
“Good morning. By end of today we’re going to need to find out exactly where the Triton-2M submarines are moored and if they still work. Can you do that?”
Michael rubbed a hand along his jaw as if testing his beard and eyed her warily.
“I should be able to. I have some buddies in the 22 SAS Regiment. We do exchange training with the British often enough that they’ll help me.”
“They can’t know why you’re asking. Then while they’re chasing that, I want to be headed for the Peleliu by dinner.” She wasn’t quite sure why she felt such an urgent need to hurry up all of a sudden, but she wasn’t going to ignore the instinct.
“Have Bill and Trisha arrange us the fastest possible route. Commandeer a jet if you have to.” He didn’t even blink at that, as if of course that’s what you’d do in a black-in-black operation. Well, she knew that now.
“Also make sure the Peleliu isn’t stuck behind traffic in the Suez or something stupid. If Ramis is anywhere near close enough, have him drive hard for the far east end of the Black Sea. I want to be there by sunset tomorrow. Got it all?”
He looked at her strangely, as if it hurt him to look at her. “Got it.” His answer was clear and sharp.
She’d apologize later for being so abrupt. But she now understood what was expected and felt as if she’d been lazy and gotten nothing done these last thirty-six hours. She had also figured out that the only way to keep this whole thing black-in-black was to have the mission completed before the rest of the crews were back from leave. That meant she had barely five days to defeat the Russian Navy and make it look like it wasn’t anyone’s fault.
* * *
Claudia took the rental car and drove across the Forth Bridge to pick up the M90 north to RAF Station Leuchars an hour away. Renting a helicopter would draw unwanted attention. Besides, she needed time to think.
However, she spent the first half of the trip thinking about how many wrong turns you could make in a country where they drove on the left side of the road. Once she was on the highway, she had to concentrate on moving left for the slow lane rather than right. Thank God the car was an automatic or she’d have been totally screwed up.
Around the middle of the trip, she got the hang of it. It was like flying a helicopter. A helicopter pilot usually flew from the right-hand seat so that she could take the less-critical left hand off the collective to reach any control panel settings and still keep her hand firmly on the cyclic. By the time she was passing Kirkcaldy, she considered the chances for success in asking President Matthews to change the laws about which side of the road Americans drove on. This made far more sense.
The last part of the trip was spent continuing the recalibration of her thinking. For two days she’d been locked into old thinking. Plan this, figure this out, find the right asset, get it in place. Then rehearse the whole thing until you had it right. She’d flown hundreds of missions of exactly that type in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clear objectives, clear targets, team fully briefed and engaged.
She’d only started adapting to Special Operations Forces thinking, despite two years of training. In the training environment, you know your mission. Tougher than anything a Marine flew, but still it was known and carefully planned.
SOF missions weren’t necessarily more dangerous, but they were flown much farther from help or backup. One of her SOAR “training” missions had included assisting in the planning and flying copilot for the takedown of four Colombian turboprops on four successive nights. They’d flown four different routes, but each plane was confirmed to be packed solid with drugs. None of the Colombian planes made it more than a mile into international waters before they went down forever, radios jammed so that their dispatchers never knew what happened.
Black-in-black was another layer again, but she still couldn’t get a handle on it. She knew it was different, but she didn’t quite know how to think about it.
After another series of wrong turns—maybe she’d stick with left-hand drive for cars—she reached the gate to the RAF Leuchars. She hadn’t thought this through. First, the guard didn’t look friendly at all. Second, Michael probably could have fixed this, but she’d decided to keep Emily in her own compartmented cell for some reason. President Matthews had said it was up to her how she chose to allocate her team, and some instinct had said to keep this part of it private. Third, the guard still didn’t look very friendly.
“I need to see your company commander. I’m meeting an inbound flight.” When planning wasn’t in place, go for bravado.
“This isn’t Gatwick, missy. Now turn around your little rental and move your civilian backside out of my sight.” On him, the Scottish burr that she usually enjoyed simply sounded nasty.
Claudia looked down at herself. SOAR didn’t wear uniforms much. She wasn’t even sure if Michael owned a uniform; Delta blended into civilian scenarios rather than parading into military ones. She wore tight jeans, a blue silk blouse—a gift from the First Lady to replace her lone T-shirt—and bright red sneakers—a gift from Alice the CIA analyst. A windbreaker that she’d picked up at a shop in Edinburgh lay across the passenger seat.
She dug out her wallet and handed her U.S. military ID to the guard, hoping that it worked somehow.
The guard read it carefully, then disappeared
inside his hut for a moment and placed a call. He hung up quickly and hustled back to the car, returning her ID smartly, then offering her one of those palm-out British salutes.
“You’re cleared directly to the field, ma’am. That’s your flight on short-final now. They’ll be deplaning at Hanger 14 on the left there, ma’am.”
She returned the salute and drove slowly down the access road wondering what had just happened.
Emily Beale is what had happened.
Claudia had so damn much to learn.
She pulled up beside Hanger 14, which was completely empty. Maybe they were having her on. A glance out the window proved otherwise. An F/A-18F Super Hornet hammered down right on the numbers painted at the end of the runway. With a roar of thrust reversers that echoed across the field, it slowed abruptly. So abruptly that it was able to turn at the first taxiway and pull straight into the hangar.
When Emily Beale climbed down from the rear cockpit, Claudia couldn’t think of anyone that she’d ever been happier to see. Emily’s strong handshake made her think that maybe, just maybe, this was all possible.
“God, thank you so much for coming.”
* * *
They settled in a back corner of the hangar. Just the two of them, a large mission-briefing table, and a pad of paper. Claudia had also brought the file that Daniel had given her aboard the backup Air Force One, but she left that in her case beside her chair. The pilot was hanging out at the front of the hangar with his airplane, waiting for a fuel truck. As good security as they needed.
“Your first one, Claudia?” Emily didn’t have to say that she was talking about a black-in-black mission.
All Claudia could do was nod.
“Michael’s in charge? Where is he?”
“He was going to be in charge, with me as the SOAR liaison. Then something changed the President’s mind and he assigned it to me.”
“What changed his mind?” Emily poured them both coffee and took an oatmeal scone off the plate someone had provided.
“Something about my record, field recommendations, that I outflew you on the SOAR training tests…” Claudia didn’t have a good enough feel for this woman yet and dropped that tidbit to test her reaction.
She hadn’t expected a laugh in response.
“So that’s what Peter was hinting around about. We’re having dinner tonight, and he’s bound to unload it then. You beat my test scores? Well done, you. Doesn’t actually prepare you for squat compared to the real thing, does it?”
Claudia shook her head. “Better than the Marines, but no, not even close.”
“I had the same thoughts coming in from the Screaming Eagles. Well, we’ll have to figure out a way to totally turn this one back on Peter. He loves it when he thinks he can trip me up.”
“Does he ever succeed?”
Emily smiled. “Not very often.”
“I’m sorry to make you miss dinner, and sorry I woke you.”
Emily glanced at her watch. “It’s only about five a.m. East Coast time. I should be back in plenty of time. Now, how much can you tell me and why am I here?”
The fuel truck rumbled up outside the hangar and began running grounding lines and hoses.
“Uh, I’m not sure how much I can say. I’ve already learned more about what I’m doing from your thirty-second phone call than I did in the two days of work prior.” Claudia rubbed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t had the second beer last night. SOAR had turned her into a total lightweight. In the Marines, when you were on leave, you were actually on leave, and a beer or two with dinner was pretty standard. Some of the guys really loaded up. A lot of them actually.
Emily waited for Claudia to organize her questions.
“Okay, let’s start with the process. I get that black-in-black is different. I just don’t quite understand how it’s supposed to feel.”
Emily’s smile was empathetic. “If it feels like you’re in hell, you’re on the right track.”
“Check on that one.”
“Black-in-black can’t be controlled. Don’t think it will go as planned—it won’t. Don’t think you can anticipate how it will turn out—you can’t. So don’t overplan. Instead prepare to be very flexible.”
“Like Delta.”
“Yes. I learned a lot about that just by working with Michael. Use that.”
“Okay, next question. How did you successfully run four of them?”
“Eight. But four were for a prior administration and Peter doesn’t know about them.” Emily sighed. “Nine if you count this one, but I don’t since there is no way I can fly with you, much as I’d enjoy it.”
“Enjoy it?” Claudia practically shouted it out. If this was Emily’s idea of fun…
“I miss the edge. I have a good job flying against wildfires, a great husband, and I know that I’ll most likely be alive to watch my daughter grow up. But I do miss the edge. The other reason I couldn’t fly with you, you already know. That edge takes constant practice. I fly a lot of hours, but they aren’t SOAR hours. Especially a mission like one of these.” Emily looked around the empty hangar as if looking for some way to explain.
Claudia waited.
“These are a whole different animal from normal operations. The real key to making a black-in-black work is pigheaded stubbornness. You simply decide that you and your team are going to survive no matter what. Then you do whatever it takes. That’s the only way to do it.”
Claudia sat with that for a moment. She was good at stubborn. And flexibility might not be her primary trait, but it certainly was at the core of each of her teammates. Even Trisha exuded that ability.
“How big is your team?” Emily was toying with her scone but hadn’t eaten any of it yet.
“Uh, four in DC and four in the field, so far. Michael, Tr—”
“No. I don’t want to know.” Emily stared up at the steel trusses holding up the roof. “I once did an op with two inside and two outside. I should have added a third, but he was both inside and outside, and I didn’t understand how to use him. I’ve apologized a dozen times since, and I still don’t think Frank has forgiven me.”
Emily was watching Claudia for a reaction on that. So, she must be referring to Frank Adams, the head of the presidential protection detail. Unsure what Emily was expecting, Claudia kept her conclusions and her reaction to herself.
“Good.” Emily surprised her. “That thing you just did is very good. Keep your own counsel. Listen to others, but do your own math. That’s another key element to surviving these things. But don’t shut out help. If my second outside person had been anyone less skilled than Mark, I’d be dead. Four is good—fire-team size. Don’t ever go over a squad of eight. You need to be able to hold every string yourself and make changes on the fly. What can you tell me about the mission?”
“We need to defeat the Russian Navy.”
Emily looked at her askance to see if she was joking.
She only wished she was.
“Uh.” Emily blinked. “Maybe you’ll need more than four.”
“I only have to defeat the Caspian Sea flotilla. So what do you think? Five should be able to do that, right?”
Emily looked at her wide-eyed and then burst out with a laugh that rang off the hangar’s metal walls and had the pilot glancing their direction from the front of the hanger where he was overseeing the refueling of his craft.
“Damn, Claudia. I can’t wait to go on that fishing trip for real. We’ll have a great time.”
* * *
They did settle on five. It took them two hours to hash it out. There were only two interruptions. One when Claudia called the White House Chief of Staff to get Kara Moretti, the UAV pilot, back to the Peleliu by tomorrow. Her copilot had stayed aboard to oversee the moving of the Gray Eagle from Somali airspace to Turkey.
The other interruption was the pil
ot bringing over a couple of “packed” lunches: sausage and onion sandwiches, a bag of crisps, and a small sealed container of cubed pineapple. The Coke was what finally cleared Claudia’s head. The sandwich she found a little strange, and the crisps turned out to be just potato chips by another name.
Emily hadn’t eaten breakfast and only picked at her lunch, complaining of a queasy stomach from the flight.
“Either that or you’re about to have another kid,” Claudia teased her.
Emily looked down at her perfectly flat stomach and then began swearing. “I’m going to kill Mark. I’m just going to kill him.”
“You don’t want another kid?” Claudia didn’t know whether to laugh or be shocked.
“The man is so insatiable, not that I’m complaining. We ran out of protection and figured one time without wasn’t going to…” She sighed and then rubbed her belly gently. “It’ll be alright,” she told her midriff. “You just won’t have a father.”
The goofy smile that bloomed on the woman’s face did something to Claudia.
Michael had said that he could imagine having children with her. Well, for the first time in her life, she could certainly see having children—as long as they were Michael’s. Actually, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t imagine not having his children. Her father had been a silent and closed-off man, but she knew that while Michael would never be chatty, his heart would be wide open to his offspring.
“Now you’re looking like I’m feeling, Claudia,” Emily kidded her.
Maybe she was. And maybe it was okay.
* * *
By fourteen hundred hours Greenwich Mean Time, Emily was aloft and headed back to DC in time for dinner. She’d left behind a warm hug and the feeling that they really would be friends.
She’d also identified a key fact that said they didn’t have five to six days. They needed to be in place on the Caspian Sea in under forty-eight hours. Emily had been right about that even before she knew the mission.
By fifteen thirty, Claudia had made only half as many wrong turns as the trip out and arrived back in Edinburgh. They were waiting for her in the room and had even packed her few items. Most of her belongings were supposedly still following from behind, left in a truck in the woods. Probably end up as lost luggage somewhere. The First Lady’s Secret Service agent had given her a small knapsack, so she had her change of clothes, toothbrush, and the bow and arrows stowed in her own bag.
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