Page 19 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

CIA Director Clarissa Reese had silenced the Important News from the White House national alert message. Leave it to Roy Cole to have to go out in a flurry. Wasn’t he supposed to be gone on his happy little Final Farewell Tour already?

She almost deleted the next message from an unknown number. She hesitated only because so few even knew this number.

Find out who! SF

Who what? San Francisco?

She turned on her office television just as the Breaking News banner hit the screen.

Powerless to do anything during the thirty-second countdown, she rattled her short-cut nails against her glass desk.

All she could do was contemplate how glad she was to be almost done with Roy and Drake, and how she’d give her left arm for it to be her taking over the Presidency in two weeks.

The fact that she’d avoided losing her life by seconds when it was snatched away didn’t comfort her in the least.

Then Sarah Feldman—SF!—showed up on the screen. Yet it hadn’t been from Sarah’s private number. The President-elect had farmed the task of dealing with the D/CIA to some lackey?

Clarissa pounded the side of her fist against the desk. For eight weeks since the election she’d sucked up to the woman, briefing her on current threats and specialized operations, and pitching the power of the CIA if used to its full potential. Roy and Drake only ever came to her as a last resort.

She’d thought she’d built a rapport with Feldman but now some lackey was her handler? Ms. Jewish Princess-elect was about to find out that the CIA could be as horrific an enemy as it could be a major asset.

Then Sarah started to speak. As she delivered the news about Air Force One, Clarissa had to give the woman points. She had immense poise and delivered an unscripted speech without a single pause or stammer.

Considering the nine-minute timeline from crash to broadcast, maybe Feldman had only farmed out sending the message. The podium didn’t fool Clarissa; Feldman wasn’t in the Press Briefing room. She was locked in the deep underground vault of the PEOC, which meant her morning was busy indeed.

Then the camera cut to the left to show…

Clarissa’s hands dropped limply into her lap.

Miranda Chase. How was that autistic nobody always at the center of things?

Rose!

Feldman had listed Rose as one of the passengers killed.

Clarissa clawed for breath, jerking open the high buttons of her blouse to no relief.

Rose had been her one friend, her one trusted advisor.

Rose had dragged her back from the brink after Clark’s death had cost her the Oval Office.

Even after Rose had married the President, they’d remained close.

She’d been the only one Clarissa had invited to the memorial service when Kurt had gone down in the line of duty in North Korea.

Rose alone knew that the head of CIA’s Special Operations Group had been her lover.

Gone.

On her own again.

Well, she was the widow of a US Vice President and the youngest director in the CIA’s history.

Or had been when she’d grabbed power five years ago.

She might be two years on the wrong side of forty now, but she could do this.

She glanced at the phone message again as Miranda did a thoroughly predictable job of mangling the swearing-in ceremony.

Find out who! SF

If she assumed that exclamation point was specified by Feldman, perhaps the woman did see the real potential of the CIA. Now was her chance to prove it to the President. It was time for the CIA to regain its rightful power.

The instant the speech was done—nice threat, Clarissa wholly approved—she punched the intercom to her assistant.

“Set up an all-Directors’ meeting in my office. It starts in five minutes and attendance is not optional.”