by Anne Fox
“Hit.”
“Target on top of the tallest building on the right, head only visible, black, same settings.”
“I have it.”
“Spotter ready.”
“Sending.”
Again, the target fell.
“Hit.”
Amigo continued to point out targets to her, and she continued to drop them with a single shot. Doing a final sweep of the MOUT, Amigo announced, “I think that’s it, Hank. I don’t see anything else out there.”
Hank peered through her scope. “Neither do I.” She slid back and sat on her haunches. “Fifteen shots, fifteen hits, no misses. Did we get them all, Sir?”
She turned and looked at the colonel. He was smiling.
“That was impressive, Hank. I’d like to buy you both a beer.”
“I appreciate the offer, Colonel, but the unit has a very strict ‘no alcohol’ policy. We cannot risk any level of impairment should we be called for a mission. Which can occur anytime, anywhere.” She stood. “Thank you for the opportunity to utilize the MOUT for live fire today, Sir. I appreciate it very much. It was a lot of fun.”
“You dress like a Marine, you train like a Marine, you act like a Marine, and I sure as hell wish you were a Marine,” the colonel said. “And now I get to go back to my actual Marines and ask them why they can’t shoot as well as you can.”
“In their defense, Sir, they have other duties aside from practicing their sniper skills. I am allowed much more time to practice mine, given my position with the unit is unit sniper.”
“Nevertheless,” the colonel said, “I’d like you to go back to the guy who does your uniforms and tell him to put gunnery sergeant rank on everything.”
Hank walked through the door and went straight to her bedroom, stripping off her cammies and throwing them in the laundry hamper and replacing them with clean sweats. She walked back into the living area and dropped herself next to Spud on the couch.
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Our local gunny wishes I was in the Corps,” she replied. “He also says he wants Mike to put gunnery sergeant rank on all my uniforms. Which leads me to ask, just how do we come up with the uniform ranks to begin with? Especially as the unit really doesn’t have ranks and leadership of a mission depends on what the mission entails.”
“Basically, just what time you’d have in service if you were a Marine, based on your age. The idea is that if you enlisted at the age of eighteen, and, for example, in my case at the age of forty-two had been serving for twenty-four years, that would make you an E-9, which is either a Master Gunnery Sergeant or a Sergeant Major.” He shrugged. “I opted for Sergeant Major when I turned forty. In your case, being twenty-nine, that would give you eleven years served, and you’d be a Staff Sergeant. Which is why you’re a Staff Sergeant. We’ve never had a gunny here ask for someone to be given higher rank. Not that it matters, as you’ve pointed out.”
“I don’t know whether I should ask Mike to put higher rank on the uniforms or not, then.” She shrugged as well. “I guess we can just leave things as they are.”
She took a glance at the monitor on the wall. “You have an obsession with the news lately.”
Spud rubbed her leg. “It’s all the crap with the President right now. The investigation into possible Article Two emolument clause violations doesn’t look like it’s going to go anywhere, in spite of the screaming by some of the opposition party’s members of the House of Representatives. The kind of ‘dirt’ that’s being exposed is no different than the same things that have been accepted on the part of past Presidents. So now there are new allegations that campaign funds from his last campaign were misappropriated. So now, the attempt at removal is for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ as the Constitution allows.”
“They couldn’t make a good case on that with that bit of ranting he did a while ago? Where he practically called on someone to shoot those in Congress calling for his removal?”
“He didn’t explicitly tell someone to assassinate a Representative,” Spud said. “It would be like you saying, ‘Spud, I’m so mad at you that I could just kill you.’ It’s not something you intend to do.”
She laughed. “You don’t think if I ever said that I wouldn’t mean it?”
“I would hope not. My love. My beautiful wife. My hot, little lover. Would you like some chocolate?”
“It’s good to know that you can recognize when you’re stepping into hot water.”
He gave her a kiss. “I’ve been thrown on my ass and hogtied once. That’s enough.” He got a thoughtful look. “Hal, turn off monitor FT7.” Getting up, he asked, “Should I make a pot of coffee?”
“Sure, what the hell. Dinner isn’t for another couple of hours, and neither you nor I have to cook.”
Spud went to the kitchen and set up the pot to brew. Leaning on the counter, he turned and said, “Everything about this President is whacky. One day, he’s just fine. Lucid, intelligent, reasoning and reasonable. The next day, he acts like he’s not quite there and losing ground fast. I can’t figure out what’s behind his behavior. Stress? Some kind of illness? I wonder if anyone has suggested he have a physical with the White House physician. And much as I truly enjoyed my Secret Service time safeguarding the President, I can’t imagine what the current detail thinks about safeguarding this President. How do you safeguard a man who doesn’t seem to be sane one hundred percent of the time? It’s not considered appropriate to put a hand on the President unless you’re pulling him out of the line of fire, so what do you do if he starts acting erratically?”
“The good news here,” Hank said as Spud came back to the couch and handed her a mug of coffee, “is that it’s really no longer your concern. Not your circus, not your monkeys, as the saying goes.”
“Have you totally dismissed everything you ever worked on for the FBI from your mind?”
Hank reflected. “You’ve got a point. When they talk about the FBI’s involvement in the investigations, it does pique my interest.”
“Then you understand why I imagine what’s it’s like being in those guys’ shoes right now. Although, we take the same oath everyone takes, and it’s to the Constitution, not the President. But the job of a Secret Service agent in the Presidential Protective Division is to protect the office of the Presidency. Protecting the President who holds the office is just a consequence of the duty to protect the office.”
He took a drink of his coffee. “The most interesting stuff I saw while working PPD happened in the residence. I can safely say that being President has to put some unusual strain on marital relationships. The two Presidents I safeguarded had different ways of dealing with things, and so did the First Ladies. The first four years on Presidential security saw a lot of stuff go flying in the residence. And I do mean, a lot. The First Lady was not always happy with things, and she let the President know it in no uncertain terms. The second four years weren’t characterized by things being thrown, but if the First Lady wasn’t happy, the President would sometimes make her even more unhappy by trying to smooth his personal waters with alcohol. And that often resulted in having the President out in the hall, where I was. And so, there I was: helping a tipsy President to another bedroom.” Spud sighed. “It was certainly interesting, and of course the sort of stuff you just can’t talk about. At least not while the guy is still in office. The President has to be able to trust you, otherwise he tries to sneak off on his own, with the result that he’s not protected at all. Frankly, it makes me feel a little guilty to have told you as much as I have.”
“It’s not like I can call a press conference,” Hank said, chuckling. “Heck, I can’t even write a book. Who would I say authored it? How would a publisher be able to get in touch with me?” She turned and put her face close to his. “But that also tells me that you should have been able to keep a straight face when I mentioned the relative comfort of seats in the Latitude. Were you trying to embarrass me?”
“I think I was just bra
gging.”
“You are incorrigible,” she said.
He pulled back from her a bit. “We just got done talking about how I had to stand with a straight face for eight years while serving in PPD. I need to make up for lost time.”
“You’re still incorrigible, and I’m going to just sit here and read my book.” She picked up her copy of Homegrown Violent Extremism.
“Still reading Southers’ book?” he asked.
“When I get the chance to read at all. He has some interesting commentary on group dynamic in extremist groups that would have been helpful to have known prior to Camp Chaos. The way the Camp members were isolated away from the rest of the world in the compound in Nebraska not only served to reinforce their beliefs that they were engaged in some kind of essential cleansing of the country, but also served to have the views of the respective groups that had been recruited reinforce each other. It was a group of six hundred outsiders that suddenly found themselves accepted, and even though Sesogo apparently never set foot in the compound, his monetary support of the group added to their sense of acceptance. If nothing else, we should make sure Hal has a complete catalog of current organized fringe groups and their ideologies. It might make cracking a future case a lot easier.”
He put an arm around her and drew her so she was nestled against him. Her book still open and propped on her knees, she admonished, “Don’t go trying to distract me.”
“I promise,” he said, rubbing her shoulder with his hand. “I’ll save up the distractions for tonight.”
10
“How would you like to get in a little flight time today, Hank?” Crow asked over breakfast.
“It’s kind-of snotty out there, don’t you think?”
“Which makes it perfect. You’re getting an instrument rating, so nothing like a little instrument weather to go play in.” Crow munched on his toast and continued, “I was thinking we could take off from Stafford, swing down to Norfolk and fly the VOR approach into runway 32, then head over to Charlottesville and fly the GPS approach into runway 3, then back to Stafford and fly the ILS into runway 33.”
Hank smiled. “Ok. I’m game.”
“Is this safe?” Spud asked.
Hank considered a glare, but decided against it. Spud responds better to subterfuge. “Of course, it’s safe. Every airline flies every flight in instrument conditions, Spud. And every time we go somewhere in the Latitudes, we do it in instrument conditions, too.”
Crow began to speak, but Hank whipped her head to face him and glared.
“Perfectly safe, just like Hank says,” Crow said after clearing his throat.
“Then why are you clearing your throat?” Spud asked.
Crow choked down a bite of toast. “The toast is a little dry.” He picked up his coffee mug and looked innocently at Spud while he took a sip from it.
Hank smiled at Crow and turned back to Spud. “See? I told you. Besides, I love this stuff, Spud. Flying by instruments is way more fun than flying by visual rules. You have air traffic controllers helping you every step of the way, and all you need to do is keep the course centered on the instruments and it’s a perfect flight every time.”
“Really?”
“Really. And when I get into the Seneca and the Latitude, there will be an autopilot as well that will just follow the route you give it automatically. Except for landing and taking off, the planes practically fly themselves.”
“That’s true,” Cloud said. The rest is kind-a sort-a true.
“If you’re done eating, we can get out and get this flight over and be back by lunchtime,” Crow said.
“Yeah, I’m done,” Hank said. She picked up her coffee mug and finished off what was left in it. “Let me grab my flight bag and I’ll be right with you.”
As she climbed into the SUV with Crow, she said, “Never, ever even hint to Spud that something might not be safe.”
Crow looked at her, his face showing surprise. “He doesn’t seem to have any problem with you going on missions.”
“I know. But for some reason, other things are different for him. Don’t ask me why.”
“One day, you’re going to have to sit down with him and explain that cross-training for different tasks in the unit is par for the course. Which he knows, but maybe needs reminding.”
“Maybe the solution is for you and Cloud to take him out for some flight training so he can see it’s really not rocket science.”
“Gee, thanks for the sterling acknowledgement of our skills,” Crow said, joking. “You’re not supposed to show people how easy it is. You’re supposed to let them continue to believe that pilots are geniuses with god-like skills and abilities, and thus deserving of special pay.”
“Do you and Cloud get special pay?” Hank asked.
“Not anymore. But I did when I was in the DEA. Cloud got additional pay in the Army as well.”
“Pilots,” Hank laughed. “More like bullshit artists.”
“And recognizing that you just called yourself a bullshit artist, I’ll let that remark slide.”
“If I wasn’t a bullshit artist, Spud would never let me go flying.”
“Yeah, like conveniently not telling him that, regardless of weather, if you’re flying above 18,000 mean sea level then you must file an instrument flight plan.”
“I told him the truth. Not the whole truth, but then, I wasn’t under oath.” She winked at him.
They arrived at the airport to find Frank pulling the Archer from its hangar.
“G’morning, Frank,” Hank said in greeting. “How’s avionics school going?”
“I have a greater appreciation for avionics techs than I did before,” Frank replied. “On the mechanical side of things, if something’s worn or broken, you can see it, or at least measure it. You can’t tell where those little electrons are going.”
“We’ll try not to let any avionics break until you’re done,” Crow said.
“’Preciate it. Eight zero Quebec is ready to go any time you guys are.”
Hank went about doing the preflight check of the airplane while Crow and Frank got caught up on Frank’s avionics training and various things to do with the other aircraft currently in use by the unit. Loading her flight bag into the Archer, she reflected that although she really did like instrument flying better than visual flying, it entailed a great deal more in the way of charts and other publications than did visual flight rules flying. Of course, I’ve got a big advantage. I can have Hal put any of this stuff I want on my tablet.
Taxiing out with Crow and taking off, she also reflected on the somberness of the weather.
“This is a whole different kind of flying,” she remarked.
“Just remember it’s a whole different kind of flying you’re doing on my ticket,” Crow said. “If you screw anything up, then I’m going to get called on the carpet for it. And in my case and yours as well, the carpet has to roll all the way on up to Oklahoma City before someone looks and says, ‘Wait a minute. Who is this?’ and it makes its way to Fred.”
“Oh, no pressure here,” Hank said.
“You’ll do fine. I’d suggest you get on the instruments at this point, Hank.”
“No hood?”
“You’re not going to need it.”
Just as he said that, she noticed the Archer beginning to be enveloped by mist. Transitioning to the flight instruments, she turned to a heading given by the air traffic controller presently handling the flight. Once established, she took another look out the windscreen.
“Shit. I can’t even see the end of the cowling.” She went back to scanning the instruments in front of her, figuring there was nothing to be seen outside, so why bother looking?
“Yup. It’s a stable layer, but it’s solid soup,” Crow agreed.
As the plane climbed, she began to notice the light level increasing. Taking another look outside, she noticed the clouds seem to flow away from the airplane.
“Oh, awesome!” They were suddenly above the clouds
, with the sun shining brightly on a thick layer of white below them.
“Don’t forget the instruments, Hank. Cloud decks can lie to you, and then you’ll find yourself disoriented.”
She divided her attention between the flight instruments and the wonder of being above the clouds in sunlight, knowing the ground below was shrouded in grey.
“You know, the unit has given me opportunities I would never have imagined I’d have,” she remarked to Cloud. “I keep hearing Spud say how he loved what he did in the Secret Service, and he loves what he does in the unit, and that it’s all been good. I can’t help but agree with him, although I can’t say I loved being tied to a computer writing case reports when I was a Special Agent. I loved being in the field, though. And the unit gives me a lot more opportunity to be in the field, even if it is just for training. Plus, I get to acquire skills that I can actually use in the work, rather than just taking them on because I want the challenge of doing so. Like this. Flying. I thought I’d like the challenge, and I do. But, unlike the FBI, when I’m done I’ll be using this skill.”
“You could have gone for FBI flight ops, though.”
“But I didn’t want it. I wanted drug cartel taskforce.”
“Because of your brother?”
“Partly, yes. But mostly just because I hate drugs. I think they erode the character of the country, and they promote a great deal of illegal activity. Everything from money laundering to murder.” She reflected. “Cartel taskforce would have been another jump into the dirty side of things. Just like what we do: risky, and tied to things you just might find personally repulsive.”
“Like shooting someone?” Crow asked.
She glanced at him and then went back to scanning the airplane’s instruments. “I didn’t get into law enforcement to be an executioner. I got into it to solve crime and stop crime. Having to shoot that guy just... rattled me. It’s hard not to be rattled when you see someone’s brains spray out across a rooftop and know that it was your bullet that did it. I’d have rather apprehended him and seen him go to trial. But Doc Andy set me straight on that. My choice was to let him murder an innocent, or take him out when he had the clear intent to murder. I can play ‘what if’ all I want, but in the end I can’t change the past. Couldn’t even change it when the moment arrived and the shot had to be taken. It will never leave a good taste in my mouth, but I guess it’s kind-of like being the guy whose job it is to clean up roadkill. It’s nasty, it stinks, but someone has to do it. That’s true of all criminal apprehensions, not just cases where deadly force is involved. I chose that when I applied to the academy, and I chose it when I decided to stop being Katheryn Hanko and start being Hank.”