Condor

Chapter 1

1

Spieden Island, Washington

10 p.m. Pacific Standard Time

Now

Miranda’s phone interrupted her attempt to make the others say, “Ewan McGregor.”

It was Charades, but she didn’t know who Ewan McGregor was.

When she’d asked Holly for help—it was guys versus girls—she’d whispered “Star Wars” as if that explained anything.

“Timer’s still running,” Mike called out as she stopped to answer the call.

Good. Maybe it would run out before she was done with the call. No, Mike was tipping the tiny hourglass onto its side to stop the running sand. It was only fair.

“Hello?”

“Where’s your team?”

Miranda had always appreciated that General Drake Nason didn’t waste his time on unnecessary niceties.

“Holly’s on the couch, Mike is in my mother’s armchair,”—Mike looked down at his seat as if that was somehow shocking—“and Jeremy’s sitting on the floor by the coffee table.”

Drake’s soft laugh made no sense. “Okay. Where are all of you?”

“At my house.”

“Where is that, Miranda?”

Oh. “I live on Spieden Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, United Sta—”

“Yes, I know that Washington State is in the US.”

“—States. Okay, well that’s where we are.”

“How fast can you get to Kentucky?”

She didn’t need to ask why. There was a major military airplane crash or he wouldn’t have called.

In fact, though they’d met many times, it was only the second time that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had called her. The first, the CIA had been using a SWAT team to try and capture her during a crash investigation. She hoped that it would be less traumatic this time.

“We’ve had wine. Except for Holly, who’s had beer. But she’s not a pilot anyway, so I suppose that isn’t of direct consequence. Neither Mike nor I can legally fly for another eight hours. So, we can be aloft at six a.m. My Sabrejet can make the crossing in three hours and the Mooney in twice that.”

“I assume there’s a runway on your island. I’ll get a C-21 headed in your direction.”

“It could land, but it couldn’t take off again. My runway is eleven hundred feet too short for a Learjet’s minimum takeoff roll.” Its required forty-seven hundred feet was almost half the length of her entire island from rocky cliff to rocky cliff.

There was a long pause before he came back. “What’s the side-to-side clearance?”

“Two hundred feet.”

“Good.” Another, briefer pause. “I’ll have a Hercules C-130 out of Joint Base Lewis McChord there in twenty minutes.”

“I wouldn’t advise tha—”

“Just get ready.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew that Miranda hated unfinished sentences.

“I wouldn’t advise that. No sane pilot would land a C-130 in the dark at a grass strip airport with only thirty-five feet of clearance off either wing.”

“We have the best combat pilots in the world, Miranda. Be ready.”

And he was gone.

“They’re going to send a C-130 Hercules to land on Spieden Island?” Mike was frowning. As the team’s other pilot, he would understand the implications.

“That’s so cool!” Jeremy sprang to his feet and rushed off to gather his gear.

Only as they were driving the golf cart through the chill drizzle from the house to the hangar did Miranda remember the problem.

“The deer!” The sharp pine smell of the Douglas fir trees made her think of them curled up cozily in the field grass, already growing lush despite the cold spring.

“The deer?”

“The island has a herd of deer. They’ve been sleeping on the northwest end of the runway lately.”

“No worries.” Holly dropped the three of them at the hangar to gather the rest of the gear. She always drove when they were together—which seemed to irritate Mike Munroe every time.

Perhaps that was why she insisted?

Miranda was never very sure on what made people do things.

Then Holly raced off into the night beeping the cart’s little horn as she went.

Good thinking.

Only as Holly was returning from the far end and the sound of four Allison T56 turboprop engines roared by close overhead did Miranda remember to turn on the runway lights.

Not quite such good thinking.