Page 7 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

Andi and Miranda stepped out of the Beast limo at Potomac Airfield.

Meg jumped down after them and sniffed the air.

Miranda did too. It smelled like…air. Actually, as illogical as she’d always found it, it smelled like coming rain.

Even though rain was water, which she knew had no smell—but it did.

The high clouds were already shifting to a heavy overcast, which didn’t bode well for their honeymoon trip down the coast, though the temperature remained near record warmth.

Potomac was a quiet little airport for private aircraft with only a few flights each hour on a weekday. It would be busier on the weekend. They were fetching their luggage from the trunk when Miranda’s phone rang.

“Hello. This is Miranda Chase. This is actually her and not a recording of her.” She answered precisely as she always had since the day she’d been accused of sounding like a recording.

“You need to come find us,” Drake said, getting straight to the point as he always did. Miranda appreciated that about him. Except this time she didn’t understand.

Andi leaned close. Miranda must remember to answer using the speaker in the future.

Not only was Andi her wife now, but she’d proven herself very useful when a call turned stressful.

Miranda couldn’t tolerate people yelling at her when they were upset; for reasons Miranda literally was incapable of understanding, Andi didn’t seem to mind.

“Is this like a game of Hide-and-go-seek, Drake?” Miranda asked.

“I haven’t played that in years, but I was intrigued by it as a child.

I enjoyed the counting and developing the most methodical and efficient search patterns.

Though because of my autism, I couldn’t bring myself to count out loud until I was five.

” Her first words ever had been a discussion with her live-in therapist, Tante Daniels, about the niceties of a well-played round of Hide-and-go-seek.

“No, Miranda. Not the game. I’m still on Air Force One. You have to find out who killed us. Promise.”

“I promise, Drake. But if you’re dead, how are you—”

“Thank you, Miranda. I know I can trust you. I must call Lizzy now. Take care of her for me.” And he was gone.

“Please tell me I heard that wrong.” Andi slid a hand around Miranda’s waist. Andi remembered to make it a firm gesture; she never forgot.

One of the many things Miranda had written on the list of what she appreciated about Andi when deciding her answer to Andi’s marriage proposal.

It was quite a long list, which had decided the matter.

The list of what she didn’t appreciate still remained empty.

“That was Drake. He said that someone killed him and Roy. Rose too, I suppose. He’s calling Lizzy now. That was a paraphrase, not an exact quote. I’ve been trying to get better at that.”

“Uh, you are. But that’s making even less sense than usual.”

“I’m sorry. He literally said, You have to find out who killed us. Promise. And when I did, he said—”

“Don’t worry,” Andi only cut her off when she was going down the wrong logical path, a very useful tool once Miranda had identified it. “The paraphrase worked fine. And you’re sure it was Drake?”

“It sounded like him. And he knew my name and phone number.”

“Should we call him back?”

Miranda tipped her head one way, then the other before answering. “He sounded…” she made a guess though she was generally very poor at judging emotions even when the person was present, “…a little busy. Or maybe stressed is the right emotion. Or… I’m sorry, I just don’t know.”

Andi looked to the east, so Miranda did as well.

Air Force One would be at least thirty minutes aloft by now.

That put them two hundred kilometers off the Delaware coast, probably at forty-five thousand feet.

Not knowing the type of emergency, it was difficult to determine the possibility of the plane returning successfully.

Based on Drake’s assessment, there was no chance—she’d learned to trust him.

The Secret Service agent helping them extract their packs from the trunk of the Beast—Miranda was disappointed not to see a vast array of auxiliary weaponry stowed there, only the backup communication and air supply systems—seemed to turn to them in slow motion.

“Excuse me, ma’am. What did you just say?”

“Drake just called and said that he and Roy had been killed.”

“General Drake Nason and President Roy Cole?”

“Yes.”

“Killed?”

“That’s what Drake said.”

“Don’t move an inch!” He strode away and raised his wrist microphone to his mouth.

“An inch is a very restrictive distance,” Miranda started to look down, then gasped and moved her head back to its former position.

“All he means is, stay here,” Andi told her.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. You can turn to look at me or even move a little. Just don’t go far.”

“How far?” She turned the least amount possible to look at Andi just in case she guessed wrong about how far too far might be.

“Stay here by me,” Andi pointed at the ground, “And we’ll be fine.”

Miranda moved to stand where Andi had pointed, even though it placed them so close together that they were at risk of knocking each other over. Andi hugged her. “If you stand that close to me, you get an automatic hug.”

“Thank you, that’s useful information. But how am I supposed to start investigating his death if I can’t move?”

“I’m thinking there must be some communication mix-up. We should know soon what is actually—”

The Secret Service agent blasted into them from behind and separated them by the simple expedient of grabbing both of their upper arms without breaking stride. “Apologies, I need you to come with me. We need to hurry.”

In three steps, they were at the side door of the car.

Without so much as asking, he shoved them into the back seat and closed the door.

Andi pushed the door open long enough for Meg to jump in with them, then closed it again.

The agent circled around to the passenger door at a full sprint, slamming the trunk loudly as he passed by.

“Where—” Andi started to ask.

“That means Drake is right. He is dead.” It was confusing to receive a phone call from a dead man. She’d never heard of such a thing.

Wait, she had. Some passengers on the hijacked airliners during the 9/11 attacks had phoned loved ones, knowing they were probably dead. So Drake’s syntax was not precise, they weren’t dead, but in his professional estimation they were going to be. That made much more sense.

Miranda thought about Air Force One’s typical flight level.

High enough to take a long time to descend even under disastrous circumstances.

Four minutes and thirty-six seconds if they didn’t exceed a parachutist’s terminal velocity, calculating the six seconds to reach terminal speed.

That was if she didn’t factor in the coefficient for the wind drag at forty-five thousand feet to reach terminal velocity.

However, at that altitude, they were above eighty-four percent of the atmosphere, so the additional drag was hardly worth calculating until they were lower in the atmosphere, especially as she didn’t know their precise cruising altitude, descent angle, or wing configuration.

Miranda stopped her brain, then exhaled slowly.

Rabbit hole. Rabbit hole. Rabbit hole. She whispered it three times to herself to shift her mind away from a pointless calculation or consideration. It always made her think of small rabbits snuggled all warm and cozy in their dens, which was a good thing.

So four and a half minutes minimum descent time—another deep breath—approximately. At a best-practices fifteen-to-one glide slope and a speed of three hundred knots, they’d be aloft for a maximum of thirty minutes with a most-likely first-order approximation of twenty-six.

Either a catastrophic descent or a controlled one would allow Drake time to call his wife to say goodbye. Miranda pulled out her personal notebook.

“What was that note?” Andi leaned over to look as the Beast squealed its tires in a sharp turn outside the airfield’s gate.

“If I’m ever in that situation, I want to make sure I remember to call you.” The car’s motion made it very difficult to write legibly.

Andi grabbed her hand and kissed it before holding it to her cheek, making it even harder to finish the note with her other hand—but she managed.

As the Beast cleared the airport, they picked up a police escort.

Before they reached the White House grounds, an armed helicopter flew low above them.

“What are we doing here? If Drake and Roy are crashing out to sea, that’s where I should be.”

Andi didn’t answer, instead holding her hand tighter.

Meg settled in for a nap across her toes in the footwell.