Primed for Action

Chapter 16

At Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Emily had one hour to sleep, shower, and change into her dress blues. The tiny government Gulfstream VIP bizjet that flew her to DC came equipped with two pilots, a flight attendant way too good at her job to be a soldier, a well-supplied galley, and a relentless, three-man Secret Service briefing team. And brief they did, for five hours nonstop—from “Affairs of State” the moment she sat down through “Food Security,” not Food Safety, to threat-recognition protocols during the First Lady’s travel, with her recent trip to Zimbabwe as an example.

“The operation manual for my Black Hawk is smaller than your briefing manuals.”

The protest gained her seven seconds of blank stares from all three. Absolutely blank. The three men weren’t amused, didn’t care to comment, and certainly didn’t care about her emotional or mental state. She’d always heard that the Secret Service required that their agents had never had or ever considered having a sense of humor. But it was incredibly daunting in real life to experience that they’d checked their laugh track at the door. Permanently.

DC couldn’t come soon enough—until the moment the door flipped open, the stairs unfolded, and there stood Daddy on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base. The cold air sent a shiver up her spine. She didn’t remember DC being this cold in midwinter, never mind the third week of September. No way this had any chance of turning out well.

Somehow it was all her dad’s fault, though she didn’t know how yet. She definitely didn’t look forward to their fight over his part in grounding her. Maybe if she asked nicely, the three agents would take her back and brief her some more. That would certainly be less painful. But they were all bundling past her, their massive binders locked into even larger briefcases. One paused long enough to stamp her passport, but he too departed in moments.

All that remained were herself, her father, a black SUV, and the pair of agents in black who kept a twenty-four-hour eye on the Director of the FBI.

“Hi, Emily.”

“Hi, Daddy.” He looked good, as he always did. A little thinner, a little grayer—running the FBI could do that—but his back was straight and the daily hour at the gym still showed in how he filled out a suit jacket. The same blue eyes that stared out from her mirror every morning. She’d received her slender build and her height from her mother. From her father, the brilliant blue eyes that dragged men in and the raw determination that scared them all away.

Except Major Mark Henderson. But eight hours in transit had shed no more sense on the situation than when it had occurred. “It.” Nice way to think of a kiss that had set a new standard several flight levels above any operational ceiling she’d ever imagined, never mind experienced.

The impossible gentleness from a man so strong, the immense power she’d felt held so barely in check, had made a contrast that had set her pulse sizzling. And what she was supposed to do with that lay hidden somewhere beyond her horizon.

So, like any good pilot, she compartmentalized and shoved it aside. “Don’t waste mental energy on what you can’t solve, or what you were supposed to be paying attention to could jump up and kill you.” So, she shoved it aside… for about the hundredth time in the last hour alone.

She crossed the tarmac, cool as night despite the mid-morning sun. Her father’s hug was as firm as it was brief.

“I’m supposed to deliver you immediately. Tried to get you a day off at home…” He shrugged, indicating that had not been a battle worth fighting.

Her father waited for her to climb into the car and the two agents closed their doors.

Emily had hoped for an iced tea while lounging alongside the unmitigated luxury of clean water on a pool-sized scale, though it was far too cold to swim. Not to be. She dug around in the SUV’s cooler. Ice-cold bottled water. Heaven enough for her.

“I’ll bet Mom will be disappointed. Who was she going to invite?”

Her father grimaced. A lineup of overly eligible men in expensively custom business suits, no doubt.

“Well, I’m probably going through orientation today. Tell her I’ll try and be there tonight.” Emily regretted it the moment she said it, but familial peace had a price that sometimes had to be paid.

The SUV rolled out through the layers of security with minimal interference. Far too little, when compared to their hardened camp in the desert. Home soil. The US didn’t feel like a combat zone, despite the lessons of 9/11. The contrast creeped her out every time she took stateside leave. She knew she’d shake it off in a few days. But right now, coming from the confined world of a forward camp where you were always armed, surrounded by a “friendly” town you never entered in less than squad size, it made her twitchy. Slapping to check for her sidearm, and not finding it, didn’t help. The Beretta was shoved into the top of her duffel, which an agent had dropped in the trunk.

She had to relax. A tiny bit would be a start.

Her father shifted in his seat to turn toward her. His secret-agent face, as she’d always teased him, abruptly, fully in place.

Or perhaps she shouldn’t relax at all.

The FBI Director’s briefing lasted barely as long as the twenty-minute ride to the White House. And it added surprisingly little to the briefing Emily had suffered through on the plane, other than the fact that her father hadn’t originated the orders to get her grounded stateside. That saved them a fight and earned him a few points. First that he hadn’t and second when he adamantly insisted he’d never do such a thing. Third, that she actually believed him.

So, she’d go back to thinking he was an okay dad, in a totally committed to his work, rarely home kind of way. Though she understood that commitment now, it had been hard as a kid. It had made her rebellious, mostly against the only parent available, her mother.

How much of her flying had been her own idea, and how much because her mother hated it so vocally was a question she’d stopped asking a thousand missions ago. Every protest made by Helen Cartwright Magnuson Beale had driven her daughter deeper in.

Not flying! When it had been recreational.

Not flying! Not helicopters! When she’d discovered rotorcraft.

Not helicopters!Not the military! When she’d understood they flew the best machines.

Not the military!Not West Point! When it could have been Bard or Brown or Smith.

Not West Point! By the time she went SOAR, her mother no longer understood the distinctions, but it didn’t matter. By then Emily’s motivations had become completely her own. She loved what she did and why she did it in the present tense, despite the past tense being a bit murkier.

For a while, this understanding, at least on Emily’s part, had brought a truce into the relationship. Right until the moment her mother understood that Emily’s career decision included helicopters first and men a distant second. That blew the whole mess up again. A battle, Emily knew, far from having fought its final round.

The main consideration her father mentioned that the briefing team hadn’t touched on was a kind of freakish. Freakish beyond the limits she had become inured to by living on an overseas military base.

Emily was about to enter a security bubble the likes of which existed nowhere else on Earth. Inside the circle of the United States Secret Service constituted the most guarded and secure place in the world. Ironically, placing it atop the target list for every crazy on the entire planet.

Her father could shed no further light on why the First Lady wanted a combat pilot for her chef. That Emily would have to find out for herself.