Night Is Mine

by M. L. Buchman

  That was all she needed to see to get her feet moving.

  They flew more than dove behind a heavy set of concrete stairs as the first tank went. Even self-sealing tanks could only take so much abuse. She landed on her shot-up arm and remembered the meaning of real pain in the moment before the world tunneled to black.

  Chapter 62

  “You are hands down the best goddamn pilot I ever flew with.”

  Emily came to kneeling in the flower bed behind the curving concrete stair at the front of the White House. Mark stripped back her jacket to expose her shoulder, unheedful of her brief unconsciousness or the searing pain of her arm. He flexed her arm once or twice before grunting.

  “Just a lousy meat shot. Barely bleeding anymore.”

  She glanced at the blood pouring from the wound and looked away.

  He pulled free the bandanna he wore around his neck as part of his “Mr. Tropical Playboy” disguise. With a careless twist that made her teeth ache, he staunched the flow.

  “That was amazing.” He looked at neither her nor what he was doing. Instead, he watched the burning machine over the lip of the stairs. “There is no book on the planet that says we should be alive after that flight. The way you kept the tail boom hanging on by slewing us sideways. It shouldn’t have worked.”

  Emily raised her visor and peered over the edge of the South Portico stairs. The outline of the helicopter glowed deep within the blazing fire that consumed it. She couldn’t see any sign of Katherine’s body in the heart of the flames. The First Lady had been granted her own personal funeral pyre.

  The late-evening light shrouded everything not lit by the roaring blaze. They were crouched behind the stairs leading up to the South Portico. A range of trees to either side were beginning to burn.

  Sirens were approaching. A lot of them, by the sound of it. A quick survey testified that the results to the general area were also less than subtle.

  Another first for the White House. An inferno reaching at least as high as the White House’s four exaggerated stories. A brilliant beacon drove out the dark of night. Most of the windows in the residence and the West Wing had been blown out. The only ones intact ringed the Oval Office. This face of the White House had some interesting scorch marks.

  Mark followed the direction of her gaze, then shouted above the roar of the fire, “It will be the Black and Brown and White House for a while. Very urban. Very PC. One should always strive for political correctness. Especially here, don’t you think?”

  She ducked back down as a series of sharp cracks sounded from the fire. She grabbed the back of Mark’s belt to haul him down. It must be his gun. Except for the round in the chamber, they’d just explode in place. But a stray round could fly, and she’d hate to be shot by their own armament.

  “Damn it!” Mark glared in the general direction of the chopper on the far side of the concrete. “I liked that gun.”

  “Not me. The woman shot me with it.” Emily raised her arm and its blood-soaked bandage as proof.

  Another explosion, probably the other fuel tank, showered them with shredded bushes, chunks of sod, and a thousand bits of metal. A piece stung the back of her hand.

  She and Mark both curled up with their hands under their arms and she kept her helmeted head down. Minimum target, no exposed flesh. Mark pulled his denim jacket over his head as well as he could while the metal rained down.

  When the pattering ceased, they checked each other for flaming fragments. Their jackets showed several scorch marks but no fires.

  The helicopter was silent now except for the crackle of flames. They stood to survey the remains of her crash.

  Fire trucks zoomed up from who knew where. Over the roar of the fire, dozens of sprinklers were shushing out water at an amazing rate. The British had burned down the White House once. She’d take all the help she could get to make sure that an officer of the United States Army Special Operations Aviation Regiment didn’t torch it to the ground a second time.

  “Goddamn it, Beale. When you take a bird down, you really take one down.”

  The adrenaline surge hadn’t worn off yet. She peeled off her helmet. A bullet crease scarred deeply along the side. The .32 caliber bullet itself was lodged in the helmet near the ear. She hadn’t been thrown into the door; she’d been shot in the head by Katherine Matthews and only this good armor had saved her brain. She was going to figure out who’d created Kevlar and send her a really nice thank-you note. Emily tossed the helmet aside, and it rattled on the concrete walkway.

  A real pity to destroy such a first-class craft as the Bell 430. It had brought them down safely before it gave up the ghost.

  Mark leaned in, “Black-in-black, indeed. I had no idea. You’re bad. You goddamn did it! And we survived! The President will live to thank you for his life.”

  She wasn’t sure Peter would be so terribly thankful to the woman who’d murdered his wife. But, it was starting to sink in that she’d walked away from another one. She cradled her arm for a moment. She’d have a scar. Another badge of survival.

  She had made it.

  Emily pumped a fist in the air, sending a sharp shot of pain into her shoulder, and laughed anyway. Once again she’d dodged the demon. She’d lost four choppers in a decade of flying, three while in the regular Army and now one with SOAR. And she’d managed to walk away from every one.

  Mark grabbed her around the waist and swung her into his arms. He planted a kiss on her that was pure animal survivor. Wild, filled with heat and power. She wrapped her good arm around the back of his head and pulled him in so hard she knew her lips would be bruised.

  They broke apart and stared back at the fire.

  He slapped her butt good and hard. Ended it with a caress that backed up the kiss with the memory of much more.

  She slapped his right back. It was a good, tight, hard butt. Just what you’d want in a hunky major. Or maybe a lover seeking to light a slow fuse. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal if she resigned. Maybe. It still didn’t feel right. The answer was still too hard. She was sick of hard answers.

  Adams jumped out of the Black Hawk almost before it landed on the South Lawn and started taking control of the situation.

  People were slowly forming a wide circle around the First Lady’s funeral pyre, their faces lit by the shimmering light. The biting odor of burning fuel predominated the night. Blacksuits were easy to pick out because they were looking everywhere except at the flames. At least half of them were facing outward, the others scanned the growing crowd carefully. Adams sent a group of four who formed up with her and Mark behind the South Portico stair. She took it as a good sign that their weapons remained holstered.

  There were upward of fifteen hundred people working at the White House during the day. At nine o’clock on a fall evening, the number might be as low as a couple hundred. Still enough to make a solid human wall marking the boundary of curiosity, fear, and heat. A line of the gawkers and the horror-stricken. The firefighters moved in and put out the worst of the burning trees.

  The adrenal slam of the last hour finally started slipping out through the soles of her boots and seeping into the ground. She sagged a little against Mark who kept his arm around her waist. Held her tight. Safe.

  He too had gone quiet. They gathered strength from each other and watched the flames.

  It was done.

  For better or worse, Emily had uncovered the murderous plot, ruining any number of the most powerful politicians in the nation’s Capitol, including the Vice President and the Chief of Staff.

  Not to mention the First Lady.

  Not many people would be shedding tears for her tonight. Emily knew she wouldn’t. Nor Mark. Not even Daniel.

  And definitely not—

  Or would he?

  There was a ripple over near the West Wing. She could just see it through the heat shimmer on the opposite side of the dying inferno. A phalanx of blacksuits cleared the crowd to either side and Peter Matthews stepped forward to view
the fire.

  He planted his feet solidly and stared toward the flames over crossed arms. His face unreadable.

  But, she knew. Perhaps she alone of the whole crowd knew. He wasn’t watching the fire.

  He was looking past the heat shimmer, directly at her.

  She’d have eased away from Mark, even tried to, but her lax muscles would not be stirred.

  Today was the closest she’d ever come to really dying. She would never want to tell this story. She already knew that. She’d never lost control before. Never lost her head or her way. Letting them fall into the Death Zone before she’d recovered. The panic and terror she’d experienced aloft had blinded her more effectively that the flashbang.

  Training had taught her how to deal with it, and she had, almost too late. She had let the fear ride through her but not take control, because she was too busy stretching her training to the very limits to survive. Fear was death. Fear led to inaction and mistakes, often fatal ones in her line of business. But maybe she could have gotten Katherine to the ground alive if she hadn’t panicked for those long moments. She’d never know.

  Now that she stood on solid ground, she could do little more than sag against a man of towering strength and return the inscrutable gaze of the man whose wife she’d just killed.

  She’d just killed the First Lady of the United States. With luck, she’d only be cooling her heels for a few decades in Leavenworth. Wouldn’t that be the perfect joke? After a decade of struggle to be the only woman to break into SOAR, if she’d ended up as the only woman in the maximum security prison of the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth.

  Chapter 63

  Instead of sending Emily to Leavenworth, they sewed up her arm and then the U.S. Secret Service spent two very long days performing exceptionally cordial interrogation on her. They set Emily up in a stunningly luxurious, though very tightly locked, suite at the Hay-Adams. She could look out the window at the White House. Even watch the large crews removing the helicopter wreckage, then replacing windows.

  By the end of the third day, all the landscaping was back in place, including the replacement of several trees she’d clear-cut with the rotor blades and scorched with fire. And the painters were about a third of the way down the facade.

  The debriefing had been terribly polite and incredibly intense. A panel of four officers went over every action or reaction since the CNN crew had shown up in her life two weeks ago. And not a friendly face among them. Not even Frank Adams, though he’d found her after the fire and shook her hand. His comment that she was welcome in his gym any time was one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to her.

  She, of course, knew how much to say, “Thanks.”

  And then she’d hugged him, leaving the gruff man with a very large smile.

  The panel had her reconstruct every day, every detail at least half a dozen times, searching for who knew what inconsistency. The only thing she never discussed was the black-in-black team. That her belief had been vindicated, though not in the fashion she’d imagined, was beside the point. She simply told the panel there were items she was not at liberty to discuss.

  They fought and pushed on this until late on the second day she clammed up and insisted that she had a letter to return to President Peter Matthews. After that, Emily sat in absolute silence ignoring their questions.

  She was allowed to call “Marky Herman” that evening. Probably the most heavily monitored phone call since Nixon.

  He’d suffered only one day of interrogation, somehow proving he was indeed a wealthy, drifting, ex-paramilitary playboy. Odd, he’d never struck her as having a single ounce of humor in his splendid bones, but apparently he’d decided to test the depths of the cover story on a lark. Her father’s people had done their work well. Mark’s story held, the black-in-black team still lay safely behind its shroud.

  She hadn’t dared risk saying anything else.

  “Be sure you get home safe, babe,” Mark had drawled in his fake Texas.

  Home. With her crew. He’d know that was her home. He’d meant that and tucked it into as few words as possible. But she couldn’t think about it now. Couldn’t because he would be there and she wouldn’t.

  Out of the op and stuck in the Hay-Adams, she was at loose ends. Every time she turned on the TV, she saw yet another analysis of Katherine Matthews’s evil, of the final flight, captured by the same photographer who’d filmed the flashbang, and the burning of the White House’s facade. Every newscaster trying to analyze the motivations and talents of the obscure and unavailable-for-comment pilot and chef, and getting nine-tenths of everything wrong.

  “Be sure you get home safe, babe.” Mark might as well have said, “Sorry I kissed you, babe. That was bad.” Actually, now that Emily thought about it, she understood that he had. He’d said, “You’re welcome back in the unit.” It was an apology. Yes, it had been against regulation, risking both of their careers. But it had been so good. Especially now that she knew how hard he had struggled to protect her reputation since they first met. How hard he would struggle again not to put her career at risk if she returned. No other man had made such a noble offer, such an immense one. They just wanted to bed you, damn the consequences. Those consequences always turned out worse for the women, and she’d always walked away before they started.

  Except from Mark, the most decent one of the lot. The chill warrior behind the mirrored shades might well reappear if she were ever allowed to return to the unit. But she’d know what was behind that shield. She’d know there was nothing cold about Mark’s lovemaking. Nothing cold about the man within. And there lay the potential for immense trouble for them both. Maybe if—

  A knock startled her, and she snapped off the TV she hadn’t been watching anyway.

  “I’d open the damn door if I could,” she shouted at it.

  Chapter 64

  The door opened and Peter walked through.

  Emily and the President shuffled their feet against the Spanish tile in the foyer of the Hay-Adams suite while a team of three agents once again swept the rooms. Their inspection happened surprisingly fast. The only part that bothered her, other than the awkward silence, was when the agents entered the bedroom. The massive cherry-wood, four-poster bed had been slept in by no one, including herself. She hadn’t been able to sleep during the past two days. Her adrenaline hadn’t yet let go of its throttlehold around her heart.

  When the agents were gone, she led Peter away from the Queen Anne furnishings of the elegant living room. Led him to the only room in the whole suite that had no outside windows, a lady’s boudoir between the bedroom and the bath.

  She shut both doors and pulled two chairs to face each other about three steps apart.

  Peter’s question was eloquent in what he didn’t ask or gesture. She could still read his every movement as if it were her own.

  “The other rooms all have glass windows. Even with the curtains shut, it would be very easy to record our conversation with a laser bounce. It’s the most secure space I can make without having Mark bring along a signal jammer.”

  “Mark, as in your ex-paramilitary boyfriend?” Peter’s face looked grim. And sad. Sadder than she’d ever seen.

  “Mark as in Major Mark Henderson, commanding officer of the 3rd Black Hawk Company of the 5th Battalion of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. My CO.”

  That rocked him back on his heels. Literally. For a moment she thought he’d tip over backwards as his balance shifted, then his mind kicked in. His face changed, and she could almost hear the gears grinding in his head.

  Commanding Officer. Part of the operation. Not at the White House by chance. But his cover had held up to intense scrutiny. Therefore, part of her secret team.

  “No one can know that, by the way. I only let you know because, well, you placed the orders.”

  Secret beyond secret. Methods and techniques carefully protected because who knew when they’d be needed again. The Special Forces’ most protecte
d operational secret was not how they infiltrated into a site for an operation. Rather how they exfiltrated. How they escaped after a mission was complete. So protected they wouldn’t even break cover when they were done. All of the “I’m retired so now I can tell stories” autobiographies still never gave away a single exfiltration technique. It just wasn’t done.

  Peter came out of his mental reverie much more smoothly than he’d entered it. There was one expression at the end that she hadn’t been able to read. Then the President was back.

  He nodded and bowed for her to take her seat before he did. He made it so natural and casual that she actually bowed back slightly before she caught herself.

  “Don’t try manipulating me. Your wife did more than enough of that.” She planted her feet firmly.

  “My late wife.”

  She flushed until her cheeks burned so hot she had to cover them with her hands, and she sank into the chair.

  “I’m sorry, Peter. I—just—sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Squirt.”

  Squirt. That’s about how she felt. Small and insignificant. She’d worn her full dress uniform for the President and had collapsed into a huddled mess in front of Sneaker Boy. She unbuttoned her breast pocket and pulled out the letter that the blacksuits’ ever-so-polite search had missed. It had been worn as soft as fabric, so the pocket must have felt empty.

  She sat up and held it out.

  Peter waited a moment before taking it.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. President. I know the results were not what you’d intended. For that I am eternally sorry. I am willing to bear the full consequences of my actions.” Stiff spine. Perfect posture. She was going to go down in exacting military style. Come what may.

  The President unfolded the letter. Inspected the tattered creases that chopped the sheet in six pieces. He reread the two lines he himself had penned there.

  Then he refolded it and slipped it into his own pocket.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry.”