Primed for Action

Chapter 14

“Personal chef to who?” You’re going mad, Emily. There’s no other explanation. You aren’t here sitting in a cozy armchair in the Captain’s office aboard the nation’s newest aircraft carrier. You are locked in a rubber room in a cozy white jacket with very long sleeves.

You’re going mad, Emily. There’s no other explanation. You aren’t here sitting in a cozy armchair in the Captain’s office aboard the nation’s newest aircraft carrier. You are locked in a rubber room in a cozy white jacket with very long sleeves.“The First Lady saw that CNN clip yesterday,” Admiral James Parker explained. “Katherine Matthews was quite taken with you and insists that you are the only person she’ll have.”

“But I’m a combat pilot.” The words choked out of her no matter how she tried to keep her voice steady. Her awful croak dragged the Captain’s attention back from his pile of papers.

“Here now, James.” Captain Tully shoved his paperwork into a folder, sealed it, and tossed it into the carved oak outbox on his desk. “You never said anything about taking one of Henderson’s best and turning her into that…that woman’s nursemaid.”

Listen to the Captain. One of Henderson’s best? That gave her a bit of heart. Surprised her actually, but Emily restricted herself to a brief raising of eyebrows before regaining control. Major Henderson specialized in making her life a living hell. Never good enough. In two months and over forty sorties, he’d never acknowledged a job well done but the once. He’d merely assigned her a harder mission the next time. She’d have to be surprised later, after she’d passed out from sitting at attention in a flight suit with a firm chokehold on her trachea.

One of Henderson’s best?Admiral Parker cleared his throat and didn’t comment on Captain Tully’s opinion of the First Lady. The military liked the President well enough; he’d done spectacularly well in cleaning up the Myanmar mess, with few troops required and no lives lost. That earned him a lot of credit with the Armed Forces. Much nicer to go home alive and in one piece; not a man or woman in this Army that wouldn’t agree with that. Of course, the high mountains of Northern Afghanistan were causing him a severe headache as they had three presidents before him.

But while they might like him, they didn’t much trust such a young president, and especially not his equally young and showy wife. The latter sentiment Emily agreed with wholeheartedly, though for rather different reasons than your average soldier.

She’d never liked the First Lady, not before they’d met or after.

Model at fifteen, Vogue cover one year later. At twenty-one, a psychology and marketing double-major at the renowned Wharton School of business in Philadelphia.

VogueToo statuesque, too redheaded, and far too full of herself. Actually, the last point might make her a good combat pilot. She possessed the level of arrogance that only the best air jocks cultivated. The knowledge that all of her actions were absolutely correct because they had to be, every time.

Of course, if the First Lady screwed up, there’d be no more than an irritated diplomat, and her husband could call on the US Armed Forces to clear up any little misunderstandings. If Emily messed up, people wound up suddenly dead. Maybe she and the First Lady weren’t all that different. Well, except for the statuesque and redheaded bits. Slender and blonde didn’t play on the same field. Emily’s height was far too emphasized by her lean physique. The First Lady was all in proper proportion and Emily didn’t like her. Especially not married to the man she’d snared.

“The reason I didn’t laugh off this request is highly classified.” The Admiral dug into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive with “Top Secret. Eyes only.” emblazoned across it. As if that wasn’t a walking advertisement of the worst kind saying, “Steal me.”

“Captain, may I?”

It always amused her that she and Captain Tully held the same rank. But as they were in different branches of the service, she commanded a squad of four for the Army while he commanded a ship of four thousand for the Navy. Today she wished she were a newly minted second lieutenant and none of these people had ever heard of her.

At a wave of the Captain’s hand, the Admiral plugged the drive into the communication and conference gear that covered part of one wall and turned on the main screen.

The “Top Secret” thing was worrisome; she’d rather not see it. Her attempts to swallow nearly choked her against the too-tight zipper. She managed to ease it down a bit while the two men focused on the screen, but she still couldn’t breathe. She needed an oxygen bottle or perhaps a stiff drink to maintain mental operations at this altitude. Who knew that air five levels above a carrier deck had such a low oxygen content? The First Lady wanted her? To cook? It was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard in all her years of Army flying.

At the prompt, Admiral Parker typed in a ten-digit password and then, after a moment of searching, found the print authentication pad and laid his thumb on it.

Emily now knew for certain she didn’t want to see whatever this was.

Emily gasped aloud as the first image after the “Classified Documents” warning flashed up on the Captain’s screen, then clamped her jaw shut to silence herself. Of all the faces she could possibly see, the Wicked Witch of the West Wing was the last she wanted to. Ever.

But that wasn’t what had evoked her surprise.

The woman on the screen wasn’t the First Lady Katherine Matthews that the world knew all too well. Cameras loved Katherine. She showed up front and center on the news so often that editorial cartoons joked about President Katherine.

But the one woman on the planet who didn’t have to worry about how she looked on camera had been betrayed. The flowing red hair, intense Hollywood smile, and perfect complexion weren’t in evidence at all.

The smile was missing. The glistening green eyes were closed. The red hair a snarl instead of a flounce. And the complexion was marred by bloody abrasions and cuts against a pallor gone from ivory to alabaster.

The Admiral spoke, though Emily couldn’t turn to look at him. It was the first time the woman had ever looked less than perfect.

“The window of the First Lady’s limousine was shattered last week. We do not, I repeat, not have the attacker in custody. Apparently someone fired a spread of chipped porcelain. A shotgun blast would have done less damage, probably no more than scuff the paint job.”

The next shot was a lipstick-red limousine that looked to have the rear passenger window rolled down. The next, a close-up of the floodlit interior of the car, which glittered with a thousand glass fragments. A technician had drawn yellow arrows on the image to indicate flecks of shining white.

“High-grade porcelain, apparently from a smashed spark plug.” Sure enough, the brand, model, and plant of manufacture were listed below.

“Even at a fairly low rate of impact, even the speed of a hand toss, it will cause safety glass to perform its function and fragment. Because the windows of the First Lady’s personal limousine are not standard safety glass, the shattering dispersed the shards with surprising violence. The FBI theorizes that the very thing that injured the First Lady may have saved her life.”

“Not making much sense with that last one, James.” Captain Tully had focused his full attention on the matter at hand.

Still inspecting the image, Emily blurted out, “The first blast created such a response…” Emily caught herself and glanced for permission to continue after she’d already begun. Not one of her safer habits.

The Admiral nodded his assent.

“…that the attacker was too surprised and never fired the second shot.” Emily considered the weapon itself. “Air gun probably, so it was fairly quiet. Sound and visual somehow masked so that the Secret Service couldn’t locate the attacker. But an air gun with that kind of a load is only good at close range. Close enough that the explosive destruction of the window would have surprised him. Or her. The shooter stood down in the crowd, not a sniper up in a window. That takes guts or a suicidal intent.”

Admiral Parker nodded for her to continue.

But she had nothing else to say. They should have caught the assailant. An air gun with porcelain shards within ten or fifteen feet of the vehicle. Enough filming crews that at least one camera should have had the right angle.

“Unless the Secret Service either knows who did it…”

“They don’t. And counter-terrorism is also drawing a blank. Only the typical crazies, who claim they did everything that happens, called in—all missing many facts that they would have known if they’d been responsible.” The admiral sounded certain. “Or…”

“Or the assailant is above suspicion. Perhaps inside the Secret Service. Then he’d know exactly what the Service was and wasn’t monitoring.”

“You always were the smart one, Emily.”

She clammed up. If she was so damned smart, why was she stuck on the sofa of the Captain of an aircraft carrier? Smart points gathered so far this week? About minus eight.

A killer on the inside of the Secret Service? Why not shoot the First Lady point blank? They had access. It didn’t fly true.

“This was three days ago.”

The next image revealed a cracked window. The one after that, a pile of crumpled plastic next to a blooming pink rose.

“A model airplane?” Tully came out from behind his desk and moved closer to the big screen. “A MiG-21. Russian.”

“From a kit company in Kentucky. This model is a fast machine. Radio controlled. Flies at over a hundred miles an hour. Less than fifteen seconds from crossing the fence to impacting the White House.”

Emily lurched to her feet as the Captain stumbled forward.

“That window was the Oval Office?” The captain’s voice had lowered to a deep, feral growl, belying any softness implied by his comfortable office. She must remember never to make him angry at her.

“No,” Emily guessed. “The East Wing.”

“Girl’s on the money again. The First Lady’s office, as a matter of fact. In there alone. Scared the daylights out of her. Apparently she’d glanced up at the moment it hit the window. She was frantic, screaming and weeping when the agents broke in.”

“What were they hoping to achieve with a model airplane?”

“Captain?” The Admiral was looking at her. For what? How was she supposed to know?

Emily stared at the screen, and the spot between her shoulders began to itch.

“A dud.” She turned to the two men. “It was a dud. Explosive charge that failed to detonate. Let me guess: M80s.”

“An even dozen,” he clicked to a screen showing the parts all laid out on a white cloth.

“Equivalent to nearly two sticks of dynamite bought over the counter at an untraceable illegal fireworks stand.”

“Exactly. Machine-rolled like most mass-produced fireworks with no traceable fingerprints or other matter. Production lot stamped on the paper, but that tells us nothing. It was a large batch of several thousand. Enough force to blow the window and punch a fair-sized hole in the wall if they’d gone off as planned. The lab estimates a better than three-in-four chance of a kill, the First Lady’s desk chair sits less than three feet from that window. The plane itself has proven untraceable, probably bought for cash at a toy store.”

“Is there more?”

When the Admiral shook his head, she collapsed back into her chair and Captain Tully leaned his butt against his desk.

“Katherine wants a bodyguard. She wants someone low profile, that’s when she spotted you as a chef. That would provide you with ready access to her and the East Wing. I don’t need to tell you the number of women trained in counter-terrorism who could pull this off without alerting the Secret Service.”

None. No, not quite. There was one. It made sense. It made awful sense, and her head ached with every word of common sense he spoke.

She didn’t like Katherine Matthews, never had. She didn’t want to become a nursemaid. And most of all she didn’t want to face—

“That’s why they have the blasted Secret Service.” Captain Tully’s curse cut into the room.

“That’s not what she’s asking for. Because of the air-gun incident, she isn’t feeling safe in their hands. She’s asking for Captain Emily Beale of the 160th Air Regiment.”

“Request permission to refuse, sir?” Damn. That wasn’t supposed to have turned into a question.

Rear Admiral James Parker had the decency to look uncomfortable as he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. He handed her an envelope with her name on the front.

She didn’t need to see the single sheet of paper within, or the letterhead seal it bore, to identify the author.

She’d know the handwriting anywhere.

Since before she could walk, she’d had a crush on one man, the older boy next door. How mundane was that? Her family part of the Washington power-elite inner circle, his father the Senate Majority leader for fifteen years, his mother a Federal judge. Emily had spent how many hours watching Mr. Junior Letterman, Mr. High School Running Back, Mr. Most Likely to Succeed?

At six, she could imitate his walk. At eight, could predict thirty seconds ahead when he’d brush his dark hair back out of his eyes, it depended less on the hair and more on how intrigued he became. By nine, she could imitate his handwriting so well that Peter couldn’t tell it from his own. Once for Valentine’s Day she’d written love letters to thirty-two popular girls using his lumpy script, including the entire cheerleading squad. Months later he still hadn’t straightened out the mess. They’d been good letters.

But she’d been a precocious, flat-chested twelve when he left for college and a still flat-chested sixteen when he went to Oxford for his doctorate. She hadn’t graduated from flat to slender until eighteen, and he was long gone. She’d barely seen him since. Eight years younger than JFK when he took office, the youngest president in history, within five days of the youngest allowed by the Constitution. And by a landslide vote.

President Peter Matthews, her Commander in Chief, had asked her please, as a personal favor, to humor his wife’s request.

She’d been right the first time, no choice at all.