Page 26 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

Miranda discovered that it was nearly as hard to get out of a crashed White House as it had been to get in. Again, the Secret Service had to escort them, except this time the various guards didn’t want to open doors at all. It didn’t matter that the other side of each door reported all was quiet.

Andi had whispered that they were still in shock from the President’s death.

“Are you in shock? Am I supposed to be in shock? I don’t feel like I am.”

Andi paused, causing a ripple of upset in their escort.

They hurried along together. “I’m trained to deal with shock.

When my copilot Ken was killed in mid-flight, I finished the flight first before allowing myself to feel the horror.

That’s what I’m doing now, I suppose. It will catch up with me later.

There’s only so long that suppressing something like this works. ”

“What about me? Will it catch up with me?”

“Uh, when I was reading up on autistics… You know I did that, right?”

Miranda shook her head. “I didn’t, but it makes sense that you would if you’re dating one.”

“Married to one.” Andi held up her beringed hand.

“Oh, right.” Miranda held up her own hand and then nodded. “Why is it that the biggest changes are the hardest to remember?”

“Let’s take that question up later. My reading said that there’s no way to predict how you will handle loss. Grief or not. Gently when the time allows or a catastrophic blast to your psyche. No way to really know, though I’d like to place a strong vote against the latter option.”

Miranda nodded. She’d second that vote. “Actually, the way I dealt with my parents’ loss was to study airplanes.”

“Sure, the first time, when they died. But when you found out about who they really were and how they really died?” Andi made an explosion noise and moved her fingers up past her head like…like…the top of her head blowing off.

“Oh, I got that one!”

“Well done you!” They traded high-fives.

“You’re right. Let’s not do that one either.”

Finally, they escaped onto the South Lawn, and the world seemed normal again.

It was still unseasonably warm for January.

The weather driven north by the Georgia hurricane that had spread high cirrus horsetail clouds across the early morning sky, presaging a change, had delivered though it wasn’t even noon yet.

Now an overcast of high-level altostratus was moving in.

Rain was predicted, but nothing nasty. At least not by onshore standards.

But a sunken plane at sea—one that reached high enough to experience wave action—could quickly turn problematic. They must hurry.

Freed from the crashed White House, the grounds team was setting out the three two-meter aluminum disks to support the Marine Corps HMX-1 aircraft that President Feldman had authorized for Miranda’s use.

Holly, Mike, and Jeremy reached the South Lawn at about the same time she did.

Jeremy jumped right in. “That was crazy getting through security but we’re here.”

“Would have been sooner,” Holly shoved against Jeremy’s shoulder, “Except Padawan here brought his usual lock, stock, and kitchen sink.”

Miranda didn’t see a kitchen sink anywhere, and those were too big to hide, even a small one.

She had an NTSB field vest of tools useful during an air-crash investigation; Jeremy carried a field pack of them.

Still, it wasn’t big enough for a kitchen sink and she didn’t think Jeremy carried any locks in there.

Stock she was less sure about, so she didn’t ask.

“Taz isn’t here because our usual babysitter is at her kid brother’s school concert.

Once she shows up, Taz is going straight to the Pentagon in case we need help from there.

She’ll also go after any communications and work logs.

It works out okay because first she has to pump some milk for Davito anyway.

And then she—” He slapped a hand over his mouth and mumbled, “Sorry. TMI.”

“Seriously, Padawan.” Holly aimed a punch at Jeremy’s arm.

Miranda noted he’d become nimbler on his feet and managed to dodge behind Mike despite his heavy pack.

“So what’s the plan, Boss? Let’s start by getting out of this cold. Why are we meeting here?”

Miranda pulled a thermometer out of her crash-site investigation vest and took a reading.

“It’s sixty-seven right now. That’s unusually warm for this time of year.

While not record breaking, weather patterns suggest that temperature may well reach record levels today and tomorrow.

To your second question…” Andi was always encouraging her to stretch against her perceived boundaries.

Miranda decided to try completing a verbal statement with nonverbal communication and pointed at the dot of a helicopter that was approaching over the National Mall.

Holly looked up and shaded her eyes. “Goodonya!”

Her mixed-media communication had succeeded.

She would have to try that again sometime.

Perhaps next time she’d see if a text or other electronics might be substituted for the physical action—though opening a large red arrow on her phone to point it toward the sky didn’t strike her as terribly practical.

A Sikorsky VH-60N White Hawk helicopter, the Presidential lift version of a Black Hawk, slowed to hover over the three disks laid out by the grounds crew.

Despite the heavy down-blast of air blowing past her from the helo’s rotor as it settled onto the lawn, Miranda could feel the attention from all the reporters in the Press Room driving toward her.

Now, instead of having to fight through the White House security, she felt thankful for it.

All the windows in the Press area faced north.

There was a door to the south permitting access to the Rose Garden and the South Lawn, but it would remain shut due to the lockdown.

At least it would delay them hunting her down.

Still, despite her autism, she could guess that they were all speculating about the helicopter they could easily hear landing on the lawn, even if they couldn’t see it. Who was coming? Or who was leaving?

No one! She wanted to shout over the heavy beat of the big rotors. No one!

After the President’s broadcast, they had all watched the television news to gauge initial reactions.

And the first question every newscaster had asked wasn’t about the new President.

Nor about how had Air Force One crashed after such a long, flawless record.

Not even how had so many died. No, it had been about who had just sworn in the new President.

It had all been about her until she wanted to scream at them to stop.

Sarah had made several unkind remarks about the press, proving that she was indeed comfortable with expletives.

The rotors didn’t stop. There was no ceremonial Marine opening the door and saluting them. Instead of formal blues, the crew chief who swung open the door wore a battledress uniform, complete with helmet and an M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle. He waved them aboard.

“I’d take it back if I could,” she shouted to Andi as she ducked low to clear the rotors.

It wasn’t really necessary. The lowest point of a Black Hawk’s rotor blade sweep was directly ahead of the helo.

If the pilots were applying full downward force on the collective, which she could see they weren’t, the lowest tip point would be seven-foot-seven high.

That would be twenty-seven inches over her head and twenty-one inches above Holly’s tall five-ten.

Approaching as they were from the side, it would be ten-foot-six minimum clearance, over twice Andi’s height, yet she found herself to be instinctively ducking.

“Take what back?” Andi, who knew more about helicopters than anyone here, perhaps including the Marine Corps pilots, put her hand on the top of Miranda’s head and kept it down despite the high clearance as they scuttled unceremoniously aboard.

Miranda reconsidered her calculations of their clearance from the blades but found no errors.

But Andi would know best, so she ducked further until she felt as if she was playing a child’s game, Be an elephant, now be a monkey.

She felt as if she should be dragging her knuckles on the green grass.

At least it made it easier to scoop up Meg and hug the dog to her chest. “I’d take back being on television. I don’t like people looking at me.”

The ceiling inside the White Hawk was only four-foot-eight, so now they really did have to duck.

Perhaps that was what Andi had been preparing her for.

Holly and Mike sat on the forward bench seat, which faced back into the cabin.

Jeremy banged his head hard on the low ceiling and collapsed into one of the two side-facing armchairs on the opposite side of the reconfigured cargo bay.

When Miranda went to sit in the forward-facing armchair by the door, Andi grabbed her arm and pushed her into the back-facing one before sitting beside Jeremy.

Once the crew chief closed the door, she saw why. The forward-facing armchair bore the Presidential Seal woven into the seatback. She was very glad to not be sitting there. It wouldn’t make her feel the least bit Presidential. Only more obvious than she already was.

“But you did great!” Andi assured her.

“I don’t care!” With the door closed, enveloping them in Presidential-level sound insulation, her complaint turned into a unintentional shout.

“I’m fine,” she said before Andi could ask.

“See?” She pointed at Meg already settling in her lap with no signs of alarm about Miranda having an episode.

Next time she’d keep her thoughts to herself—and she’d run away if she saw a television camera.

As they lifted off the lawn and Andi turned to talk to Jeremy, Miranda pulled out her personal notebook.

She made the first-ever entry in the things-that-she-didn’t-appreciate-about-Andi column.

She felt bad about doing it, but it was true: Hiding behind A.

is an ineffective strategy for avoiding national TV.

The crew chief leaned close; Miranda would have backed away, but she was seat-belted into the armchair. “Where to, ma’am?”

She’d thought that was obvious. “US Coast Guard Cutter Bear.”

He squinted at her. “We’re supposed to know where the puddle navy is keeping their boats?”

“It’s where Air Force One crashed.”

At that his eyes shot wide, which she was pretty sure meant surprise. “Excuse me?”

“Where have you been, Sergeant?”

“We were on a training run when we were told to redirect to make an emergency civilian pickup at the South Lawn.”

“Oh. The President, Roy that is, is dead. Sarah’s just fine. The Bear is fifteen kilometers off the Delaware coast. We need to go there. Would you like the coordinates?”

She didn’t need her reference chart to understand his expression; Miranda had seen it too many times over the years.

“I’m not crazy. I’m autistic.”

The phrase was her only defense, though it rarely seemed to help. It was like…like being autistic was the same as being infected with a highly communicable plague. Pointing out she wasn’t infectious never helped either.

He leaned back in his seat and swung his microphone into place.

After a short back-and-forth, his mouth shifted—it became tight and formed a straight line.

For that she had to check her emoji page and was pretty sure it matched grim.

It might also be angry, but she couldn’t tolerate looking at his eyes to see if they’d narrowed.

Whatever his expression meant, the White Hawk tilted strongly nose down and they raced eastward.