Take Over at Midnight (The Night Stalkers) (19 page)

Suddenly, what had been a tragic accident mourned round the world took on different shading. SOAR’s two best pilots had somehow both been on the helicopter that had killed the First Lady. With the slightest shake of her head, Emily warned her off the topic. Lola shoved it aside for future consideration as the President continued speaking.

“She pushed and shoved and drove. Wanted the power and prestige. That’s how it happened, but not why.” He toyed with his coffee a bit, shook in a tiny spoonful of brown sugar and stirred it idly.

“I—Hmm, not really inspiring confidence as the leader of the free world, am I? I can see it, but I’m finding trouble tracking down the words.”

“That was a cheat, anyway, Chief Warrant.” Major Henderson again aimed that smile at her. “The President asked first.”

“Right.” Peter sat up straight and turned quickly to face her directly. “I did. You answer. And if I like your answer, I’ll unravel this mess I call a coherent thought process and answer yours.”

Lola looked over at Tim, who nodded. Not as if she needed help, but as if he had absolute confidence in her answer. She turned back.

“Do you sleep well at night, sir?”

“Reasonably. Except when Daniel calls at the strangest hours with the next crisis, but yes, I sleep pretty well, considering.”

“Good. That’s why I fly.”

He frowned at her.

“My life changed on September 11th, 2001. Vastly for the better. I was headed right down that proverbial highway to hell, one step from falling off the damned edge. Probably that very day.” Lola briefly considered that the girl who’d skipped school to hang with a bunch of hookers, trying to get her nerve up before the first john showed up, was now sitting next to the President of the United States. Just more proof of what was possible.

“Except the world changed and I stepped up instead of down. I fly so that you can sleep. So that Americans can sleep. It makes me feel…” She looked around searching for the words. Looked at Tim as he squeezed her hand as if she were speaking for both of them. She returned the gesture, wondering at what moment he’d snagged her hand, and faced the President once more without letting go.

“It makes me feel strong. Powerful. Who knows? I may have already helped stop the next jet plane before it crashed into another building. I’ll never know, but it feels amazing that maybe I have that kind of power in my hands. I like that a lot. Guess it strokes my ego, but in a much healthier way than I’d been doing it up until that time.” She considered for a moment, but it was the best she’d ever been able to explain it to herself. Part of that was sharing stories with Tim through the morning and afternoon.

“I like flying the world’s most kick-ass helicopter and, well, kicking some ass with it. But I like what that results in even better. Tim’s got a nice family here. I like being a part of protecting that.” She spooned up some more of the custard and savored the sweet taste. Then she grinned at the President a little wickedly.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Your turn, President Peter,” she let the first name linger for a tantalizing moment before continuing, “Matthews, Commander-in-Chief, sir.”

The President scowled at Emily across the table as she burst out laughing at him.

Lola figured that scowl could stop most other world leaders, but it did no good on Major Emily Beale.

“She got you, Sneaker Boy. One for the home team, Chief Warrant. Now pony up, and make it even half as good or we’ll make you stand out on the Ellipse in your underwear and recite the poetry of Theodore Roethke, maybe the one about the biddly bear. And don’t think we can’t do it.”

“I’d have you court-martialed.”

“You can try, Peter, but the judge will be too busy laughing himself sick to put us away. Besides, it will be our word against yours as to why you’re doing it. We tried to stop you, honest.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him in a very un-Emily-like fashion. “Didn’t we, Frank?” she called to Agent Frank Adams where he stood behind the President.

The head of the Presidential Protection Detail didn’t even try to hide his smile while he spoke as if talking to a room of reporters. “The Secret Service does not comment on the actions of the President.”

“Crap.”

“It’s our job to keep you safe, sir.” Adams continued, clearly enjoying the moment. “Our job does not require that we keep you from making a fool of yourself by reciting poetry in your underwear, should you suddenly find it necessary to do so. The choice of underwear is completely up to you. Personally I’d recommend something with color. White doesn’t play as well on camera.”

The President glanced back at his senior agent, who shrugged.

“Man’s gotta have some fun, Mr. President.” Adams’s grin revealed exactly who would be enjoying himself.

“I get to take pictures,” Lola piped up.

Tim started giggling. “Does it have to be in English? Can you read Spanish, Mr. President? Bobbi,” he turned to the service line and called out to his sister. “Do you still have that collection of erotic poetry?”

“Under my pillow every night,” she chimed back before heading out into the dining room with a tray of desserts.

Daniel’s phone rang.

The President swore just loudly enough for Lola to hear while the others at the table still bandied back and forth suggestions of appropriate hats to be worn with underwear while reciting risqué Spanish poetry, and perhaps patriotic socks.

Daniel stood and stepped aside for a quick whispered conversation lost in the various sounds of the kitchen.

She could see the President keeping a weather eye on his Chief of Staff.

“Bad news, Mr. President?”

He faced her with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s never good when his phone rings. Damn, I was actually enjoying the evening.”

Daniel came over and tapped the President on the shoulder. He leaned forward to whisper in Peter’s ear, but Lola could hear.

“President Javad Madani would like to speak with you. In thirty minutes if that is convenient.”

Lola felt the shock ripple through her. The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran was the last person on the planet she’d wager the U.S. President wanted to hear from. Not mere days after SOAR and Delta had just run a clandestine operation deep into his country.

“Of course.” The President looked grim, then nodded to Daniel. “Yes, of course, it would be our pleasure to speak with him.”

Daniel moved off to finish the call and the President started to stand.

Major Henderson clamped a hand on his shoulder.

The President jolted, probably not used to being touched by anyone, certainly not restrained.

“Sorry, folks. I have to—”

“Answer the lady’s question,” Henderson finished for him.

Lola could see Frank Adams moving forward and the other agents rising to their toes.

The President held up a hand to wave them off.

“And then if there’s anything my team can do to help, we’ll go with you.”

The President considered for a moment, then nodded. He took a deep breath and turned to Lola.

“I have to be quick. And I wish I could say this better, but I can’t. And the reason that I can’t? You already said it for me. I am President so that my country can remain a unified country. Not fractured under a thousand vying demands by a hundred times that many special interests. I try to make small bits of peace where I can. I seek a balance between oil demand and ecologists, foreign trade and domestic production, and so on across more venues than you can imagine. That’s what lets me sleep at night, knowing that I tried my best to help. That I made our country run even a little better than it did the day before.”

Lola waited until he finished. His words slammed home. That’s why she flew. So that someone could try to do just that. Here was immediate proof of the rightness of her choice to fly with SOAR. The President was the ultimate search-and-rescue pilot, definitely in full combat, even if not down in the frontline skirmishes.

She leaned in and hugged him briefly and whispered in his ear, “Thank you. Thank you for doing what you do, Peter.”

Lola looked around the Situation Room and tried to figure out how in hell she’d ended up here. You’d expect to find the President and his Chief of Staff in the White House Sit Room. General Brett Rogers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made sense, even if there was no way Lola would be speaking in the man’s presence. Couldn’t if she wanted to.

Brett Rogers had started in Special Forces in Vietnam. Been instrumental in dozens of operations that had helped maintain peace through the Cold War years. Led Special Operations Command for almost a decade, right through Iraq and into Afghanistan, and now sat as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He was the senior-most soldier on the planet. It would be like a first-year acting student trying to have a nice sit-down chat with Meryl Streep.

That the Majors had been invited didn’t seem completely odd, especially considering the history between them and President Matthews and their knowledge of the operation. When Emily had insisted that her copilot be included, Lola had freaked. All of her protestations had been to no avail, not even the silent but desperate plea she’d aimed at Tim had saved her. Her protests had died when Major Beale rested a hand on her still flat belly. Right. Lola was backup coverage for a “what-if” scenario.

Tim had managed to toss her a light windbreaker which she’d slipped on over her dress before boarding the presidential motorcade. It looked utterly ridiculous, the flirty red skirt popping out below Tim’s worn, dark blue windbreaker. But it was better than sitting in a red cocktail dress in the Sit Room. Major Henderson had worn a jacket and had likewise wrapped it around his wife’s barely more modest dress.

Lola tried to concentrate on the images being flashed up on the screen. She recognized many of them but hadn’t seen the drone’s footage of their departure from the Iranian desert. Hadn’t known there was a drone overhead watching. Her move with the helicopter to build the dust cloud captured in perfect, night-vision detail.

Major Henderson whistled. “Slick move, honey. Damn slick.”

“That was all Lola.” Emily nodded in her direction, sounding at perfect ease in a room that was about to cave in and collapse on Lola’s head.

“Nicely done, Chief Warrant. A damn fine piece of flying.”

In any other circumstance, Lola might have brushed it off or sent back some dismissive riposte. Instead, she found herself inspecting the table’s surface and blushing. Not something she ever did.

A figure slipped in the door, unnoticed by those farther away, and sat beside Lola. She glanced up and recognized Colonel Michael Gibson of the D-boys. They shook hands in silence and exchanged simple nods. His handsome face was grim, the scar along his chin deepening as he frowned at the film, perhaps remembering his own narrow escape. This just kept getting uglier by the moment.

They ran the footage of some Iranian fast movers sweeping in low across the desert. She hadn’t known the jets were there. By the time stamp on the video, the choppers had cleared the horizon about twenty minutes before the Iranian Air Force showed up and blew the hell out of the site the D-boys had just robbed. The fire plumes were massive, they’d really set out to incinerate the place.

Satellite imagery had traced the Iranian jets back almost two hours to a little known military airbase outside Tabriz, on the opposite side of the country. They hadn’t used local forces available at the much nearer Shiraz or Zahedan bases.

That meant the D-boys, including Michael here beside her, had completed their theft between the time of the Iranian flight’s takeoff and its destruction of the site. A narrow window after three full days in-country. If either the Iranian jets or the SOAR helicopters had been on just a slightly different schedule, Michael wouldn’t be here now. And if either flight had traveled higher than a few hundred feet, they’d probably have seen each other going by with all of the nasty consequences that implied.

Lola could feel a cold sweat at just how close they’d come to dying in the desert.

The other picture, which was even stranger, was a drone image of a cleanup crew.

General Rogers spoke over this piece of film. “This has been identified as an element of the newly formed Quds Unit 400. They were first reported in March 2012 as the top-secret Iranian Special Forces. They were formed to operate strictly overseas to carry out terror on extraterritorial targets. But here we see them operating within Iran against one of their own military plants.”

The President glanced at the wall clock.

Six minutes until the phone call.

“So, let’s review what was found in the desert.”

General Rogers cleared his throat uncertainly, but Michael stepped forward.

“Perhaps I can speak to that, sir.”

“Yes. Hello, Colonel, I didn’t see you come in. Yes, please do.” The general leaned back and rubbed at his temples as the Delta Commander leaned in.

Lola cringed and wished desperately that she was with Tim. Or in Afghanistan. Anywhere but here.

“CIA analysts originally identified this structure just beyond the northwest corner of the city of Ravar. This is part of an ongoing satellite survey of Iranian electrical power infrastructure. Note the large scale of this power station and yet only a single set of electrical lines headed toward the city. Research through prior image mapping revealed the installation of a major power feed to this remote building another mile into the desert. It has since been disguised as an irrigation trench, but analysis shows that while the trench is frequently kept filled with water, it does not in fact flow to the fields beyond.”

He called for close-up images of the desert building. Some hidden technician placed them on the screens. A big, squared-off concrete block with no windows and heavily fortified steel doors.

“These photos were taken by cameras on the ground. Hidden machine-gun nests and razor wire fences are clearly visible.”

Lola had always felt that CSAR and SOAR were among the more dangerous occupations in the military. But now that she saw up-close images of where Michael had led his small troop, she felt as safe as if she were flying in the Pauley’s Island kitchen. And Michael’s team hadn’t merely gotten near the building, they’d entered and robbed it.

She looked at him again to see if he’d somehow changed, grown bigger than life, but he was still just Michael-sized.

“Far too large for a pump house,” Michael continued, “so we investigated further. The security was immense. No opportunity to infiltrate an agent. The single road is heavily guarded at three points as well as a desert perimeter. I went in with a team of five other operators to investigate. The building goes down for several more stories.” He counted on his fingers as he continued.

“Upper floor, guard barracks. The first level underground is, was living quarters, kitchens, etc. The next, offices, small research labs, etc. The bottom floor was a large production laboratory.” Then he stated, even more dryly if that was possible, “We managed to borrow a vehicle.”

The master of understatement.

Daniel pulled up a photograph of the captured truck. The door had an emblem of two leafed branches and crossed swords behind a central shield showing through the dust. An official vehicle of the Iranian Army.

“What this truck contains is all of the documents and computers we exfiltrated from the site. As our final action, we grabbed what we considered to be their primary computer server and reference files. As expected, the loss was noticed almost immediately, but we had a head start of over three minutes. Thankfully the Black Adder flight was prepared for immediate departure on our arrival. Our thanks.” He nodded to Lola and the Majors.

Lola remembered the five guys on weird, hopped-up bicycles, the racing truck, and the line of vehicles chasing them. They’d arrived within thirty seconds of plan, and she now understood that if they’d been even a full minute late, at least the man next to her would no longer be alive and probably none of his squadmates either.

“So far we have unraveled evidence of a fearful biocide—”

Lola hadn’t meant to cry out but couldn’t help herself. Everyone’s worst nightmare, a true weapon of mass destruction. The Majors paled and even the President looked quite ill, though he must have already been told that much.

The Delta operator continued with an impossible calm. “This biocide has a very high dispersion rate, very low dissipation rate, and unstoppable lethality. The vector can be either air or waterborne. It’s designed to go everywhere quickly, not run down in potency, and kill everything it touches. Introduced into a small town, it will kill every mammal within three days before it runs its course. Introduced into a sizable city…” He shrugged.

“We saw no evidence of the chemical itself at the plant. This means the research could still be purely theoretical. Or perhaps it’s manufactured off-site. But the nearby power station is primarily serving the bottom-story, large underground production lab at the Ravar site. We had very little time to investigate, less than six minutes, but there was simply no chemical there. Though the scientists were, presumably, still in residence when the site was destroyed by the Iranians. They certainly were twenty minutes earlier when we departed.”

The silence hammered down on them.

The image of the truck remained on the screen.

No one was meeting anyone’s eyes.

Lola finally managed to look up at Major Beale across the Situation Room table.

This is what they’d signed up for. To defend the nation against attacks like this. Just like this. They shared a nod. Come what may, they’d see it through.

They, and Colonel Gibson of Delta Force, were the only ones who didn’t jump when the phone rang.