The next morning Berkley called a meeting on the Jefferson with her flight team, glad to see them all together again, especially her flight partner, Harvey “Junior” Whittle. They’d had the rest of the day off after the attack on the Capitol, but she wanted to start planning for their upcoming operation. After their meeting the previous afternoon, she and Aidan knew the president was pissed, and once they had a hard target, they’d get a green light to take it down.
“Junior, you ready to get back to work?” she asked as Whittle gave her a bear hug. He’d ended up with a slight limp after their experience in North Korea, but he’d never considered retiring. Harvey had been hit by part of their plane when Berkley had ejected them, and the impact had badly broken his leg. Berkley had carried him out, and he’d worked hard to return to duty.
“Thanks for all those calls and visits,” Harvey said as she slapped him on the back. “You can even kick my ass long distance, Cletus.”
“You don’t need me to kick your ass, and I’m glad you decided to stay. If I’d had to train someone new, I would’ve had to rethink the ass-kicking option.”
Lake “Killer” Goram and Sonny “Vader” Forche stood right behind Harvey and gave her the same greeting. They’d known each other for years, and Berkley trusted them on her wing. The only missing original team member was David Morris, but he’d been sitting in custody not talking and had tried to kill himself twice.
“We ready to go?” Lake asked.
“I wanted to add one more team member before we leave, but I doubt we’ll be doing anything like last time,” she said as they headed to the conference room next to her quarters.
“Wouldn’t hurt, and we can always train someone on our luxury cruise,” Sonny said. “It might not be like last time, but with all this shit going on, we’ll need all the backup we can bring with us. I’d rather be overloaded than a plane short.”
“Any ideas?” she asked.
“Another year’s gone by, so how about we pick someone who impressed Captain Jepson,” Sonny said of the Top Gun program director. It was where Berkley had spent the last few years of her life before Aidan had come back to her. “This time, let’s screen a little better before whoever it is screws us without buying us flowers and dinner first.”
“I vote for that,” Harvey said, and they laughed as the alarm sounded.
“All available pilots to the deck—all available pilots, report for duty,” someone said excitedly over the ship-wide intercom.
“What the hell?” she asked, but all of them started running.
One of the crew handed her a radio as she sprinted to the deck. She could hear the Jefferson’s engines firing up, and they were moving. “Captain Levine,” someone on the radio said. “We have black fighter jets spotted en route to the capital. They’re about thirty minutes out from entering restricted airspace and have evaded ground defenses, so we need you in the air.”
“Command is also scrambling planes from Andrews. We’ll inform them you’re coming,” someone else said.
“Are we clear?” Berkley asked as she and Harvey ran for their plane.
“Two minutes and you’re a go.”
The planes were on deck, with more coming up, and she and Harvey buckled in as she opened communications with the rest of her pilots. “Two spear formations once we’re airborne. One follows me, one behind Killer.”
A slew of yes ma’am came over the line, and she got ready to be the first off the deck. “Cletus.” She heard Aidan’s voice.
“Captain, keep the lights on, and give us some room to land later.” This time they hadn’t had a chance to talk before she had to go, but she had to believe Aidan knew in her heart all she needed to know about her feelings for her.
“Will do, and don’t be late.”
“A quick trip to take out the trash, and I promise we won’t sightsee afterward.”
* * *
“Are you in place?” Dick Chandler asked Franklin Porche. It was early in the morning in DC and perfect timing for what he had in mind.
“We have enough men for two teams, and we’re ready to go, sir.”
“Good,” Dick said, staring at Robyn. “Keep this line clear, and we’ll call when we’re ready to move.”
“Yes, sir,” Franklin said, and his enthusiasm made Dick smile.
“You’re clear to go,” Dick said to the next caller after Robyn handed him another phone.
“Are you sure you want everyone, sir?” the man asked, and from his tone, Dick could hear he didn’t totally agree with his plan. “We’ve already lost a large number off the West Coast and haven’t been able to replace them.”
“Everyone, Captain. If we lose anyone else, we have the resources to replace inventory. I need all those planes in the air in ten minutes.”
“It’s not so much the inventory, sir, but the pilots to fly them,” the man said, then paused as if realizing he didn’t intend to change his mind. “Yes, sir. We’ll be airborne soon.”
“Have them hit the targets we talked about, and add one more.” Dick read off the coordinates of the building across the street from the prison facility. “Have two planes break off and take this target out, and only this target.”
“I’ll put two of our best men on that, sir.”
“Good. Have them all underway by seven.” He hung up and stood, needing to move. “Are you ready?” He took one last call.
“Are you that anxious for me to die?” Rachel asked.
“Get back here with your brother, and we’ll talk about your role going forward. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you, and you deserve a spot with me.”
“Don’t blow smoke, Dad,” she said and laughed. “It’s so not your talent.”
“There’s never a reason for disrespect, Rachel. You never have learned that.”
“What I’ve never learned is to be a willing sacrificial lamb, and believe me, there’s a difference. Since you don’t care a shit about me, all you need to know is who’s in place and ready to go. Eventually you’ll realize we’re not pieces on the board of some game you’re playing. I’ll call you when we’re done. If you don’t hear from me, tell Mom she was right.”
Rachel disconnected the call first, for once, and handed the phone to Marva. She lowered the window of the truck they were driving and glanced at the time on her phone. It was five to seven, and the sky was a beautiful shade of blue without a cloud in sight. The five minutes she had before hell rained down on them was clicking by faster than the phone showed, and she wanted to do something normal with the few moments she had left. She leaned over and pressed her lips to Marva’s.
“Ma’am?” Marva asked, obviously confused, but she didn’t move away.
“For once I wanted something that has nothing to do with this war I was drafted into.”
Marva gazed at her and moved closer. “I understand, and being with you is making me less scared.” Marva placed her hands on Rachel’s face and kissed her again.
Rachel’s watch beeped three times, and she reluctantly ended the only intimacy she’d experienced in months. “Time to go.” The sky was still clear, but she heard the jet engines, so they were close by. Only a few seconds later an explosion rocked the car with an impressive fireball that rose over the pile of rubble a few hundred yards away.
“Go, go, go,” she said into her radio, and gunfire followed the order. “Stay behind me,” she said to Marva as they exited the truck.
Grenades cut the fence down, and she waited for Franklin’s guys to go through first, since they had the most firepower. They hit the front doors with grenade launchers, and she was about to cross the street when the firefight really began. The speed with which their men were being shot down made Rachel realize they’d walked into a trap.
“Get back in,” she said to Marva. “They were waiting for us. Abort,” she said into the radio, but no one answered. She wasn’t close enough to see the front of the building through the thick smoke, but they needed to get a look before retreating. She drove to an elevated parking lot a few blocks away and made her way to the top. “Damn.”
Plenty of still bodies with visible wounds littered the ground around the parked cars, but a few men still alive were on their knees waiting to be cuffed. One of them was Franklin Porche, and he knew too much to be good for them. “Ma’am, what do we do?” Marva asked.
“Clear out. It’s all we can do for now, and with any luck, we can eventually fight back.” She got back on the radio and took a deep breath for what she had to accomplish next. “Eagle One, we need another flyby with machine guns. Clear the area.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Completely clear.”
* * *
“Okay, Junior, you know what to do,” Berkley said as they dropped altitude and flew into the heart of the district.
“Head on a swivel, ma’am,” Harvey said, and his voice in her ear made her think her life was getting back to where she was the most comfortable. She just couldn’t believe it was over the capital.
“Good. Now tell me what you see.”
“Radar shows thirty targets that have broken off into four smaller groups. One seems headed to the Pentagon, two squadrons are on course for the two big targets on the National Mall, and a much-smaller group is somewhere I can’t identify. Reports are the last small group has already dropped some stingers and is swinging back in for another run.”
“Vader,” she said and waited. They had to cut these assholes off before they reached the Capitol, the White House, or the Pentagon. They were the same targets the terrorists had targeted on nine eleven in Washington, DC, and that Chandler had chosen the same list made her ill.
“Go ahead, Cletus.”
“Take three with you, and sweep the area that’s already been bombed. Try to lead them back over water, but no matter what, don’t let them drop another thing.”
“Aye, Captain,” Vader said.
“Cletus,” Killer said, his voice shrill. “The Pentagon’s been hit.”
“Let’s take these bastards out,” she said, pissed. “Keep your eyes open for the teams scrambled from Andrews. It’s about to get crowded up here, and I’m not in the mood to go parachuting today.” She heard a slew of agreements, then swung toward the White House. Ten planes were flying close together about ten miles ahead of her, painted the same black color as the first ones she’d faced as they neared the West Coast after their mission in North Korea. “If it’s the same as before, they won’t be taken alive.”
“Fuck,” Harvey said, and she knew why. Nothing but houses stretched below them. It wouldn’t matter if they were able to stop an attack on the White House. Taking these guys down here would kill people on the ground when the debris field rained down on them.
“Killer, we need to get these guys off one scent and onto another. If we down them here, the most causalities will be on the ground.”
“Got you, Cletus. A good game of chase should do it.”
She opened up her guns and started firing as she inverted the plane. She sliced through the wing but not enough to make it inoperable. The pilot of that plane came about and fired back, which made her team repeat the move with their guns. They all turned at once, and the objective now was to not get hit. The miles they were covering at least brought them over open land.
“Cletus,” Harvey said, sounding excited. “The lead plane is smoking but trying to lock.”
“Keep an eye on the guy to his right.” She banked to the left and climbed enough to dive and turn around. With the all-clear, she fired and took out the plane’s fuselage. It went down over land, which at least meant this time they would get some answers.
“Cletus, we need to move.”
The first plane had been fixated on bringing them down, and this was a lesson she’d always preached about when she was an instructor at Top Gun. When you were willing to sacrifice someone for the glory of the kill, you lost sight of everything but the target. But if your enemy was a cohesive team, then your nearsightedness got you killed. One of her crew shot the guy down, and she had a clear aim at the plane trying to lock on her savior.
“Clear these out so we can go back to hold the last team off,” she said to the guy on her wing.
“Captain Levine,” a man said over the radio. “Do you copy?”
“Go ahead,” she answered as she rejoined the old-fashioned dogfight.
“This is Poncho out of Andrews, ma’am. Our team has neutralized the remaining force. Your man Vader was shot down, but we have reports that he and his partner ejected successfully. Do you need backup?”
“Negative, but we need to set up a perimeter around the city in case they have more fighters hidden away somewhere.” She shot down one more, and her team took out the remainder. “Contact Andrews and tell them we need a recovery team out here to go through the wreckage. I don’t see any ejectors, but we need to identify the pilots and where the planes came from.”
“Yes, ma’am, and our backup should be here shortly, loaded for bear,” Commander Bruce “Poncho” Thompson said. “We’ll take it from here.”
“Contact me once you’re on the ground. I have a new assignment for you if you’re interested.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Lead us home, Junior.”
“You got it.”
“This is Cletus,” she said, calling the Jefferson. “Come in, Jefferson.”
“Go ahead, Cletus,” the radio operator said.
“Have Captain Sullivan check on Vader. If he and his backseat are okay, he’s going to need a ride back on board.”
“We’ll take care of it, Cletus. Just get back here before they start sending us a bill for all this hardware you guys keep destroying,” Aidan said.
“Yes, ma’am.” They headed back, but she set a course to where Vader had been shot down. The area that had been bombed was out of the way of the high-level targets, but there had to be a reason they’d used resources on it. “What was the other target today?”
“We’ll update you when you get back,” Aidan said.
“We’re coming about, ma’am. See you in a few minutes.”
* * *
“The attack today, in our professional team’s opinion, was a diversionary tactic,” Director Jonas Chapman said as the emergency Security Council meeting got underway. “The Capitol incident yesterday put us on high alert, and their fighter jets were meant to ramp up the fear and panic already in the streets.”
“Chandler sacrificed a squadron of fighters to free Jeffery?” Marcus Newton asked in a way that made him sound skeptical.
“We’ll have to find him to ask him, but we believe so. If that’s indeed accurate, it gives us insight into Chandler’s mindset.”
“Can he be delusional enough to believe he can actually pull off a coup?” George Butler asked. “I mean, Dick could be a real asshole, but I never thought he was freaking crazy.”
“Mr. President, he’s laid the groundwork,” Marcus said. “How he was able to recruit what seem like dedicated and able-bodied soldiers is a mystery, but he’s done that in spades.”
“The dead men identified at both the Capitol and in the perimeter of the detention facility were active members of both the army and the marines. These guys were in no way mercenaries,” Jonas said. “The preliminary reports on the downed planes and pilots are that the hardware is Russian and Iranian, but the pilots are all homegrown ex and active members of the armed forces.”
“Has Jeffery Chandler said anything else?” Olivia asked, still upset that these idiots had desecrated Peter’s body. It was bad enough that they’d killed him, but what had happened yesterday had added insult to that already sad fact. “Chandler is a threat that must be contained. We need to focus on how in the world he’s getting all these guys to commit these acts of terror. No service people, active or retired, should ever think of firing on the capital of the United States for any reason.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jonas said, and Marcus nodded. “This has been a joint task force between the FBI and CIA, and not only have we gotten what we think is reliable information, but a way to bring Chandler in.”
“You say that, Jonas, but you’ve cut us out of the loop when it comes to Jeffery Chandler. Remember that Walby Edwards works for me.”
“Mr. Edwards, I believe, works for the US government,” Drew said. “Worry about doing your job and not about what everyone else is doing. Right now, the CIA needs to find any chatter about Chandler, no matter where it’s coming from.”
“I am doing my job,” Marcus said with what seemed like extreme agitation. “Madam President, we have to proceed cautiously. We can all argue that Chandler’s the head of the snake, but he’s fortified the body with fanatics,” Marcus said, speaking directly to Olivia. “When we move, it has to be when we can ensure we capture the information we need to weed out the rest of his followers, no matter how many there are, and not before.”
“I agree, but we have five dead senators, twenty-one dead congressional staff members, five Secret Service members, and twelve MPs. That’s something neither I nor the American people will forget anytime soon, since it played out on national television.” Olivia placed her hands flat on the table, her voice calm and soft. “The time for action is now, gentlemen. If anyone doubts my resolve for absolute justice, he will be sadly mistaken.”
“I’m a hundred percent for that,” George said and saluted Olivia.
“Thank you,” she said. “I also want heavy security for Peter’s funeral. Eva and the girls deserve to lay him to rest with the upmost decorum.”
There was a chorus of “yes ma’ams” before they stood to go. The funeral was that morning, and they were all attending. The United States did not negotiate with terrorists, and her leaders did not hide in fear at times of uncertainty. Olivia was steadfast in her decision-making.
“George, I’d like you and Victoria to join Gabriel and me. If anything, it’ll make it easier on the security detail,” she said.
“We’d love to, and you have a good team here, Madam President. I’ll be forever in your debt for letting me sort out my legacy by allowing me to help however I can. Peter and I had some long talks as we went through the transition, but we both agreed on you as his choice for vice president. You’ve done him and the rest of us proud in the last few days.”
“Thank you, and my mom always said you sometimes don’t recognize crazy until it hits you in the face with a pie. You couldn’t have known Dick was this kind of nut before you chose him, so no thanks necessary.”
“I appreciate you all the same. Let’s go pay our respects to our friend.”
“Gone way too soon.”