Drone: an NTSB / military technothriller (Miranda Chase Book 1)

by M. L. Buchman

  “Hell and damnation,” Cole whispered softly.

  “Sir, between the two problems—our two extra people and whatever the hell the CIA is up to—I’m going to depart within the hour for Groom Lake, both to confirm our information and to straighten this out.”

  “You mean confirm our worst goddamn fears.” President Roy Cole was Ex-Special Forces himself; he always preferred men of action.

  And as the Green Berets were as much about relationship building as fighting, the President appreciated men willing to do the task themselves—a way of thinking he and Drake shared despite Drake coming from those “Special Operations ass-kickers of the 75th Ranger Regiment” that the President was always teasing him about.

  “Take whoever you need. Get me some answers. Preferably today.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Cole was halfway to the door before he stopped and asked without turning. “Anything that I want to know about why a SWAT team was taken down by a combined 75th Rangers / Army 12th Aviation element less than two miles from this house?”

  “No sir. Not a thing.”

  “Good,” the President left the room. He was chuckling softly as he left.

  59

  Gray had asked to accompany him for his ride out to Andrews Air Force Base even though she wasn’t needed in Nevada.

  From the first second in the car, she’d asked him a whole series of questions about the NRO’s best-practice communications with both his office and the President’s that showed she’d been thinking hard since the very moment of her new appointment. Only a few minutes from the airport, her questions had finally run down and she looked as exhausted as he felt.

  No, she didn’t, at least not to his eye.

  “Tell me about your life, Elizabeth Gray.” He liked the way her name felt when he said it.

  “Or Lizzy. I was named for Elizabeth Bennett.” At his blank look, she thankfully explained. “She was sort of the first great romance heroine in novels. Mom loves Jane Austen books.”

  “You’re a romance heroine turned Air Force colonel?”

  “No,” she smiled over at him. “I’m a romance heroine turned Air Force general and Acting Director of the National Reconnaissance Office. And don’t think that I won’t hold it against you if I make a disaster of the whole situation.”

  “Yes sir, ma’am,” he saluted her. “Anything you say, ma’am, sir.”

  “Go to hell, General Nason.”

  “Probably.” Which wouldn’t surprise him. There were so many things that could go wrong in the next twenty-four hours that it made his head hurt. One reason he didn’t want General Gray along, so she’d be clear of this mess. “I bet you a hundred bucks that you’ll be great.”

  “I made general for my forty-ninth birthday,” she let out a startled breath.

  “When’s that?”

  “We’re celebrating it right now with a car ride to the airport. I was supposed to have it with Mom. I think. I’ve been awake so long that I don’t even know what day it is.”

  “Your birthday.”

  “Oh right.”

  Forty-nine? Just nine years his junior.

  “I’ll tell you what, General Elizabeth Gray,” he spoke as the car rolled to a stop close by a C-37B Gulfstream VIP business jet.

  Clark and Reese were already waiting for him. He might need Clarissa Reese—it was her project after all—but he also didn’t trust her. Clark would be his hammer, plenty ticked at being forced to fly out to Nevada with him.

  Drake climbed out of the car, then leaned down to look back in, “When I get back and have gotten some sleep, I’d like to take you out to dinner to celebrate.”

  She didn’t even hesitate before she hit him with one of those electric smiles of hers.

  “That would be lovely, Drake.”

  “That’s General Drake to you.” He closed the door before she could respond, slapped the roof of the car, and spoke to the driver, “Take the general to the NRO where she belongs.”

  60

  “No ma’am. I can’t divert this flight. You’ve seen our cargo.”

  Miranda considered handing the radio call from General Nason over to him anyway. But she didn’t. She pulled the headset that the copilot had handed her back on.

  “I’ll be there with my team as soon as I can, Drake.”

  “How soon is that? I’m just departing Andrews.”

  “I’ll be there with my team as soon as I can, Drake.” What else was she supposed to say?

  “Hurry,” and he was gone.

  The pilot was right, nothing should divert a Dignified Transfer flight.

  “May I place a call or text to my team?”

  “If you use the plane’s wi-fi, you can text all you want. If I patch you through our system, I can’t guarantee that the call will be private. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it won’t be if you’re cross-patching to a civilian line.”

  She descended the steep ladder back into the cargo bay of the massive C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet. It was almost twice the length and nearly four times the carrying capacity of a C-130 Hercules.

  Imagining the possibility of the mystery drone flashing by overhead and shattering the big plane was not a comforting thought. Though it was only early afternoon and she suspected the drone didn’t come out during daylight hours.

  She sat in one of the jump seats along the side of the aircraft.

  Two officers sat at the tail end of the cargo bay, watching the rows of flag-draped coffins. She’d asked and been answered politely, but the officers hadn’t looked up to continuing the discussion. Yet another Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter had fallen out of the sky. Twenty-seven Marines had gone down with the five-person crew, and the officers were keeping their people company for their final ride home. Of the thirty-two dead, twenty-four coffins were headed back to the Pacific Northwest.

  Need you at Groom Lake.

  Mike shouting with joy, Holly texted back. Don’t know why. Don’t care. When?

  How soon can you get there?

  With or without being shot down? Holly included a smiley-faced emoji, which Miranda appreciated as it told her the message was meant as a tease.

  Without = preferred, she sent back with her own smiley. Emotions were so much easier to understand when they were labeled.

  Mike asks if we can borrow the Mooney?

  That would place them there in about four hours. She glanced out a tiny inspection port in a personnel hatch—a C-17 didn’t bother with such trivia as passenger windows. She’d flown over this section of the Rockies so many times over the last twenty years that she knew they were just twenty minutes east of Missoula, Montana.

  Keys in the third drawer down, left-hand cupboard.

  You trust him with your plane?!?!?

  No wide-eyed emoji, but she’d assume it was pretend shock on Holly’s part.

  And you expect me to board an aircraft he’s piloting???!

  Okay, maybe not so pretend. How was she supposed to tell?

  I’ll be in JBLM in just under two hours.

  Should we wait for you? Rather have you as pilot. This time Holly sent another smiley, so the rest of it must have been a tease.

  No. Get moving. I’ll catch up in my jet. Clearance will be waiting for you.

  On the hoof. If we arrive dead, blame that dingo-head Mike.

  I promise.

  While she waited for the flight to arrive in Tacoma, she sat with the dead and wondered why General Nason had called them back in.

  61

  “You let the Fire Heads beat you?”

  Harvey kept Helen spooned lazily against him as he nuzzled her hair. “Didn’t let them do anything. They beat us fair and square.”

  “More like they kicked your asses,” she reached around to slap his ass to make her point. “Seventeen-three? Who loses a seven-inning softball game by fourteen runs?”

  “Ease up, woman. That stung.”

  “Awe. Poor little pilot who can’t play ball to s
ave his skin.”

  He decided to ignore that.

  “You know, we need to talk about The Rip. It—”

  “I can’t tell you how good it feels to be a pilot again. It’s like… like… I don’t know, but it’s just like that.”

  Her silence went deep.

  “What? I cut you off. What were you going to say?”

  She shook her head no.

  The Rip. Someone else had mentioned The Rip. Who? He couldn’t seem to grasp onto it. Maybe it wasn’t important.

  So, was her silence his cue to probe deeper or to let it go by? It was one of those women cues that never seemed to be the same twice.

  “Harvey…”

  “Uh huh.”

  She ducked and turned her face into where her head rested on his arm as if hiding her face. Again her silence stretched out and twice she started to turn to him but didn’t.

  “It’s Friday. Don’t you have to catch a flight soon?”

  “I…called home to say that I couldn’t get away this weekend.”

  “Really, why?”

  That earned him an elbow in the ribs. Helen had sharp elbows.

  “Oh.” For him? “Whoa!”

  “Don’t get all Whoa! on me. I’m not staying for a superior sexual experience, though I fully expect to have at least a couple of them.”

  “That’s a guarantee. Then you’re staying because…”

  She didn’t answer. Her silence was so deafening that her answer was definitely way out in major Whoa! territory and then some.

  “…because I have another flight coming up and you’re all worried about me?” Harvey covered.

  “Yeah. That’s it.” But she sounded awfully sad—like he’d really missed the mark. Not even a little hint of sarcasm in her words. Helen wasn’t the sort of woman who got sad.

  Pointing out that she had a husband and a life on the outside didn’t seem like the right move. Escorting her to the Janet Airlines plane to Vegas in an hour so that she would go home this weekend would be the right move, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

  Other than flying, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  He was a goddamn Air Force pilot, and he had the best lover of his life in his arms. A lover who’d just as much said what…? That she did love him?

  Really serious Whoa! territory!

  Harvey didn’t know if he’d ever have the right words for it, but he pulled her back tight against him until she gasped in surprise.

  “I feel about you,” he whispered in her ear, “the same way I feel about flying. If it was up to me, I’d never give up either one.”

  “Oh, Harvey.” She kept her hands wrapped tightly over where his rested on her breast as her hot tears spilled onto his arm. “I just can’t say it.”

  “It’s okay, babe. It’s all okay.” He didn’t want the L-word coming at him anyway, not even from Helen.

  She shook her head fiercely, but didn’t say another word.

  62

  “It makes me want to sing!”

  “Please don’t,” Holly and Jeremy called in unison.

  “Off we go into the wild blue yonder, Climbing high into the sun.”

  “Aaaaa! Kill me now!”

  He glanced into the back seat to see her pretend to stab a knife into her gut, slice it open hari-kari style, and then flop over dead. At least by being in the back, she didn’t die onto the Mooney’s flight controls.

  If it got this kind of response, he’d definitely have to learn more than the first two lines of the official Air Force song.

  But he still felt like singing.

  The Mooney passenger plane, once he’d worked his way through the checklist, was an absolute dream to fly. Fast, agile, and forgiving on the controls—which was good as he’d never flown such a powerful airplane before. Thank god for checklists, he’d had Holly carefully read out every one to make sure that he didn’t screw up Miranda’s plane.

  And that woman flew a Sabrejet? What was that like?

  At least he didn’t have to worry about its condition; Miranda kept both her aircraft absolutely immaculate. He supposed that shouldn’t be a surprise anymore. The woman had a precision that was unique in his experience. Even Jeremy didn’t see and observe the kind of details that she did.

  Her view of the big picture sucked, which he supposed was what Holly did for her. And Jeremy was just a Miranda in training—Mr. Super Geek.

  They were most of the way across Oregon, California, and Nevada while he wondered what the hell he could do.

  And came up with squat.

  A glance at Jeremy showed the guy was passed out against the passenger door. Mike switched him out of the headsets’ intercom circuit.

  “Hey, Holly?”

  “What? You’re not going to start singing again, are you?”

  “Maybe later. Special concert just for you. I do a good Elvis impersonation.” He put on his best John Wayne accent and tried a rendition of: “You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, pardner. Why in Sam Hill are you cryin’ anyway, son?”

  Holly made a death-gargle sound.

  “Have a question though.”

  “Keep your day job.”

  “Actually, that was kind of my question. What in the world is my day job?”

  “Straight up, mate?” It was one of the first times her tone was serious.

  “Straight up.”

  “Well, you’re good with people.”

  “Sure. Any time you ladies piss off a two-star general or want to distract a mercenary, I’m your guy.”

  “This one was technical. When we get into people—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Interview folks. I’m good at it, but where’s the home run in that?”

  “Seriously, Mike? You don’t see it?”

  “See what?”

  “And I thought I was the one who’d be from Back o’ Bourke in this American crowd.”

  “Goddamn it, Holly. I—”

  “Shit, Mike. Miranda needs someone who’s good with people so that she can function. She’s scared to death of everything. Her past, her present, her own ruddy shadow. She’s the best there is, just ask Jeremy. Me, I’d never have come up with the cause to that crash in a year and she did it in a single night. The solution? She uncovered some serious CIA shit and found it in another day. I can try to keep her safe, but you’re her buffer to all the scary shit of having a team and having people around her. If you’d step up to the goddamn plate, she could do her job without melting down like she did.”

  “She had a meltdown?”

  Even as Holly cursed him, he could see it. Her paralysis after she’d demoed the real flight profile after working on it all night. She’d never said why, but she’d clearly panicked—panicked by shutting down entirely. All the signs had been there, but only Holly had been paying attention.

  “Crap! I didn’t see it. How did I miss that?”

  “Well, open your bleeding eyes, mate! Now don’t get us all killed.”

  They were just coming up on southern Nevada. The electronic flight charts, displayed on a high-visibility screen at the center of the console, showed they would be intersecting the wide, comb-toothed blue line of restricted military operations area shortly. Specifically the airspace boundary of the Nevada Test and Training Range where he’d probably be shot for intruding before they bothered asking any questions. Inside that, Groom Lake itself was surrounded by a heavy-dashed blue line that simply meant “Prohibited.”

  There wasn’t anything obvious out the window to mark where they were. Looking ahead (or to either side for that matter), they were back in the land of lumpy brown landscape: desert, scrub, sharp hills, and plenty of beige sand.

  He hated beige.

  It was like the ad designer’s nemesis. Every client was comfortable with beige, and no other color, not even gray or white, carried so little emotional impact. Of course, he was no longer an ad designer but rather an NTSB human operations guy. Like he was doing such a bang-up job of that.
>
  Still, God or whoever had put down his paintbrush a little early when it came to the Nevada countryside.

  Maybe if he—

  A silver jet blasted by them.

  “Shit! I knew it. They’re going to shoot us down.” He grabbed for the radio, but Holly already had hit the switch on her headset.

  “Hi, Miranda. That’s a mighty shiny jet you have there.”

  “It is shiny.”

  Holly laughed as Miranda came looping back around and took up station just off his left wingtip.

  “I have the base control tower on another channel. They’re expecting us. Stay just above and to the right of me so that you don’t catch my wake turbulence.”

  The Mooney was fast, but it couldn’t fly even half the speed of sound. He glanced over and down at Miranda. She wore a full pilot’s helmet, and to match his speed must feel as if she was suddenly crawling. The four-hour flight in their plane would have been an hour and a half in hers.

  Mike did his best to ignore the sweat on his palms as the flight map showed him entering some of the most restricted-access flight space in the country. But he didn’t think that’s why he was sweating.

  What the hell was he doing here? Flying into the NTTR with an NTSB team?

  A team? He’d never managed a team in his life.

  That was enough to worry him out of the sky…

  Until the twin-tail F-18 Hornet fighter jet—with a full array of weapons hanging from its wings—showed up less than fifty meters away on his other side.

  63

  “General Nason,” Harrington’s salute was sharp as Drake deplaned at Groom Lake.

  Last time they’d met had been four years ago at a strategy conference. Then they’d shaken hands rather than saluting. But it had been a tense couple of days and he hadn’t been the CJCS at that point.

  And that meeting hadn’t been at the center of Groom Lake. He hadn’t been out here in years. It still had the long, salt bed runway that he recalled. There were more buildings, but not many. Two-story, concrete block structures and vast hangars. The place was like a faded watercolor painting titled “Boring.”