Motorcycle gangs who wanted to give oral to earn their wings: black wings for doing a black chick, yellow for an Asian’s pussy, blue for going down on a female cop. That was romance.

  Or it happened rough and dangerous in the high school locker room when she’d been foolish enough to be caught alone. After finding their top running back on the fifty-yard line choked to death on his own dick, there’d been much less trouble for the school’s girls.

  Pushing out through the door, she stumbled to a halt on the wide porch.

  The silence was like a wall. And the emptiness. The house was surrounded by a big city block of grass mowed as neatly as the National Mall, but with no people. In every direction beyond that were broad fields of chest-high grass and rolling hills.

  Was this place safe or a terrible isolation danger that she had no training to recognize?

  She’d always run. On the streets, she’d learned how to make sure she was always the fastest. During track and field in high school, she’d held every long-distance record for the girls and most of the boys too. The Lackland trainers had tried to run the little Latina into the ground but she’d showed up their asses. Now, every morning before work, she ran 10k: Pentagon to the Capitol Building and back.

  Here you could run in a straight line and never stop. Barren wasteland like Stephen King’s The Stand? Or calling to her? Could she run to…what. Freedom?

  The screen door creaked behind her and Colonel Karen handed her a glass of iced tea before sitting in one of the wooden chairs. It’s something Mama would have done.

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  9

  Elizabeth Karen studied Vicki Cortez’s stiff spine as she stood with her toes hanging off the very edge of the porch as if she was a scared rabbit ready to leap away at the first chance.

  “I wanted you to see that there was more to the world than the halls of the Pentagon. This,” she waved her own iced tea though Vicki wouldn’t see the gesture, “is my sanctuary.”

  “Why?” Vicki turned to face her.

  “It has my books, my husband, and our dog. I raised my children here. It’s filled with good memories and is my home. I feel safe here.”

  “Safe.” Vicki finally came to sit in the other chair, though perched as if still ready to bolt.

  “I’ve never met someone who could put so much meaning into a single word. Not even General Martinez.”

  “I’ve never been somewhere I felt ‘safe.’ And home? Lost that shit years ago.”

  Elizabeth knew better than to question Vicki’s “never.” The girl was so like the general, every word was precise.

  “How did the school application go?”

  “I’m in. Signed up for classes this morning.”

  Elizabeth managed not to sigh. She’d thought that Vicki would have mentioned that on the drive out, but the girl rarely spoke without prompting.

  “Which classes?”

  “Calculus 101. Physics. Some chemistry. There’s a lot of metallurgy in planes. I asked if I could just read the books and take the final, but I think that makes their little brains hurt.”

  “Did you sign up for any humanities?”

  “What like psych or English lit?”

  “Yes.”

  For perhaps the first time, Airman First Class Vicki Cortez smiled at her. Really smiled.

  Then she waved her iced tea toward the house behind them.

  “Why should I, when I have you?”

  10

  A month later Vicki barely recognized herself as she leaned into her morning run on this blue September morning. The route was the only thing that was familiar.

  Her morning 10k run was down to Long Bridge Park, then cross over the Potomac alongside the familiar roar of the early traffic. Swinging wide around the Tidal Basin, she’d throw a salute to President Jefferson, then up the length of the National Mall, around the Capitol Building Reflecting Pool, and past Ulysses S. Grant’s monument—who she didn’t salute because of his role in the Mexican-American War. It hadn’t been enough for the US to steal Texas from Mexico; Grant had helped them grab everything all of the way over to California as well.

  Everything, absolutely everything else about her was different.

  She’d made Senior Airman yesterday, with General Martinez himself requesting the honor—the freaking honor—of pinning on her new three-stripe insignia.

  The Community College of the Air Force courses weren’t like high school, they actually made her work for it, which was new too. It had taken a while for her to find the nerve to ask, but Colonel Karen had been a big help getting her started in physics. It was a beast. That was the one subject she needed most after aerodynamics to keep the general happy. If she kept him happy, it looked as if she’d be…safe. She still wasn’t sure about that word.

  And, in addition to continuing to feed her books, Colonel Karen had dragged her to enough restaurants that she could now tell an authentic one in a dozen cultures just by smelling the spices wafting out their exhaust fans as she ran by. The dives were usually the best and most real. Though she still didn’t get why a Luxembourger from Chicago was so nuts about Greek food.

  Three times over the last month General Martinez had sent her to meetings, once without him at all. Resisting the temptation to use her Taser on both majors and the captain in that meeting, for not believing that she knew more about airborne lasers than they did or ever would, was a challenge.

  She had finally slammed the weapon down on the table to get their attention, and then kept them there straight through lunch while she’d lectured for three hours to get them up to speed. By the end she estimated that they’d accepted her expertise—and hated her guts. She was down with that.

  That evening as she left, the general had smiled at her. Actually smiled.

  It was all she needed. She was officially his Taser and now she felt it. She belonged.

  Today the kilometers had ripped by. She’d run back over the Potomac and was almost to the Pentagon’s south entrance. Today she would begin—

  A high whine filled the air. Looking up she didn’t see anything. Then a motion caught her attention. To her left…and low!

  A jet. A Boeing 757 passenger jet was trying to land on the west parking—

  But its engines were definitely accelerating not slowing.

  No more than a couple hundred meters away, it skimmed over the highway and slammed into the ground floor, disappearing into the building like it wasn’t there.

  An attack!

  Navy and Defense Intelligence Agency were history, some part of her cataloged. Like the bullet to Mama’s heart.

  Knowing she was too late again, Vicki was halfway to the entry point, already streaming smoke and fire, when the geometry problem that was the Pentagon sunk in.

  The plane had hit at the ground floor between corridors four and five. But when she traced the line back to where it had passed over the highway, it hadn’t gone in straight. It was angled toward—

  Vicki knew about rats and sinking ships, or at least about gangs scattering away from a heavy load of “Jeeps Riding”—SUV-mounted law enforcement. It could be bad, people trapped and caught.

  Trapped!

  She followed the line of smoke roaring up into the September sky.

  Vicki spun and raced away from the wreckage. Choosing an obscure security checkpoint that led into the basement, she pounded down the ramp.

  Underground, she sprinted down corridor B2, counting rings as she headed for the building’s core K, J, I, H…

  At B2D, she didn’t slow, instead she caromed off a wall and two visual technicians who looked at her like she was an alien about to eat them alive.

  Hitting the next ramps, wide enough for twenty to walk abreast, Vicki drove upward, her feet slapping echoes from the hard walls.

  Out of breath. Didn’t matter.

  Her legs burned from this extended sprint after a long run. Push harder.

  The pain in her side. An old friend.

  Basement, Mezzanine, 1, 2, 3…

  She burst out into 4A8, digging deep into a hard kick until she reached the general’s office.

  No alarms in this part of the building—yet.

  Colonel Karen? Not at her desk.

  She shoved open the door to the general’s office.

  “Where is she?” Vicki was not going to lose her.

  The general glanced up at her. “You’re out of uniform, Airman.”

  She slapped for her Taser, except it wasn’t there. She was wearing an Air Force t-shirt and gym shorts. Weaponless, she slammed both fists so hard on his desk that his wife’s picture jumped and fell over.

  “Where is Colonel Elizabeth Karen?”

  “She is running an errand for me.”

  “Answer me or you’ll be KOS!”

  “KOS?” the general asked in that fucked-up ultra-chill way of his.

  “Gang speak. Kill on Sight. It means you’re goddamn dead if you don’t tell me where she is. Now!”

  “What is the urgency?”

  “Hello! Did you miss that a passenger airliner just flew into the other side of the building?”

  He rose slowly to his feet. “Where?” At least he didn’t doubt her word like every other dead-brain here.

  “1E4 or 5, but angled this way.”

  “I sent her to 5E5.” Fifth floor, outermost ring, corridor 5. Directly above the crash.

  Vicki turned and bolted out the door before the general had time to circle his desk at a run.

  11

  The smoke grew heavy by Corridor 6 and was making it hard to see. Stragglers were coming out of the haze in groups. Everything was screwed up because of a major renovation project, but Vicki found her way through.

  A voice was calling somewhere behind her…

  A voice calling people to safety. That was for others—not her.

  She ignored it, ducked low, and plunged in. Being small let her dodge between people, fallen light fixtures, and scattered slabs of ceiling acoustic tile.

  Her throat hurt and she dug her bandana out of her shorts pocket. The paisley blue was the last remnant she had of the Sureños—the southern California Mexican Mafia. She kept it to wipe the sweat away when she ran, and to remind her of the only place she’d ever come close to belonging.

  At a water fountain she stopped and dug out her bandana to soak it

  Close behind her, someone soaked a white handkerchief in the same water.

  She startled to realize that the general had been following her since she’d dashed out of his office.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Helping you find Colonel Karen.” The general stated it as if it was a simple fact.

  No one ever helped her. Except he had. Many times since Captain Wilson’s office, even if she hadn’t recognized it. She wrapped her bandana around her mouth. Just like the old days, only her eyes showing.

  “Not very regulation, Airman,” he said as he tied on his own white one.

  She brushed a hand over the gang colors. It was strictly forbidden by military code. “Just flying my colors, General.”

  “Go!” He nodded down the corridor past her shoulder.

  She turned and quickly led the way.

  12

  Colonel Elizabeth Karen wondered if she was going to die here.

  She hadn’t seen the impact, she’d been facing the wrong way, but Major Markum had.

  Instead, her chair had straddled across one of the building’s expansion joints between two separate pours of concrete. One side had dropped vertically by a foot, throwing her into the table. Her left arm wasn’t functioning. Dislocated or broken, she was too shaken up to tell.

  It was simply…wrong that something as substantial as the Pentagon could move like that.

  Markum was kicking at his office door, to little effect—the floor’s shift had jammed it hard.

  He’d shed his jacket and pressed it against the gap along the floor, but it only slowed the smoke now coming in.

  “A plane.” She felt like Vicki, stating so much in so few words. A plane hitting the Pentagon was going to be the way she died. Odd. As if she was in a thriller novel.

  “I can’t believe it. But that’s what I saw.” Markum spoke between grunts as he raised a heavy metal chair and repeatedly beat it against the door. “It seems crazy. But it hit. Somewhere below us. Terrorist attack? Must be.” Each punctation mark was another slam with the chair. But the wood was stout and the door was designed to open inward.

  “The wall.”

  “What?”

  She’d said something just now. But she couldn’t recall what it was. Two words. Elizabeth was dizzy with smoke or maybe she’d hit her head. Or maybe…

  “The wall.” That was it.

  A pounding sounded to left. From the next office.

  Almost the same rhythm as Markum’s pounding. The same as her pulse throbbing against her temple.

  She went to her knees as she turned to the wall and stared at it.

  The pictures on the wall bounced and shuddered.

  “The building,” Markum cried out. “It’s collapsing.”

  “No.” The pictures jumped again.

  A boot punched through the drywall sheathing.

  Again! This time blasting a larger hole.

  A moment later, a face mostly blocked by a dark blue bandana looked through the hole. Then, good Lord, Vicki herself forced herself through the narrow gap and rushed over to her.

  She didn’t waste time asking how she was. Elizabeth doubted she could have answered.

  Vicki pulled her to her feet and dragged her toward the gap in the wall as more kicks widened the hole.

  Markum followed close behind her, on the side of her bad arm, he couldn’t help as she slithered through.

  With her general leading the way and her good arm around Vicki, she staggered through the smoke and wreckage. It was only when she breathed the fresh air outside that she allowed herself to collapse.

  13

  “Are you sure?” Vicki whispered almost inaudibly under the choir singing “God Bless America.”

  Colonel Elizabeth Karen could tell how upset Vicki was simply by the fact that she was repeating herself. For the tenth time, she reassured the girl she was.

  They stood in the ranks of thousands before the Pentagon’s river entrance. October 11th, one month after the plane crashed into the building, they’d gathered to hear the President’s speech at the mass Remembrance Service. It marked the end of a month of mourning. Tomorrow, the repairs would begin.

  It had seemed fitting to her that today was also her own last day in the Air Force.

  “I have things I want to do, Vicki. I set out twenty-five years ago to help the hearing impaired. To help them live better lives. The attack made me realize that it’s time I started doing that before my time runs out. I want to volunteer at a zoo again. We have a little family resort in Wisconsin that I haven’t seen in far too long. I miss being around my fellow Luxembourgers.”

  She looked away from the spectacle and down at Vicki.

  “I’m giving my job to you.”

  “Which job?”

  “It’s up to you now to protect General Martinez.”

  “Protect him? The man kicked down a wall to get to you.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “And who gave him the idea?”

  Vicki grinned back. “Well, it was from the structural engineering book you’ve been helping me with. They gave the example that drywall sheathing had immense lateral strength but low perpendicular shear strength. That meant—”

  Elizabeth laughed.

  “What?”

  “Airman Cortez. I’m going to give you one last command.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You’ve been flying below the radar your whole life. Just like that foul airplane that flew into this building. Illegally crossing out of Mexico and changing your name. Graduating high school and entering the Air Force when you were really only fifteen. And now you’re convinced that you’re faking your way through your job. How you haven’t destroyed yourself already, I don’t know.”

  “Me either, ma’am,” Vicki’s rare smile flashed for a moment before disappearing once more.

  Elizabeth faced her directly. “You’re too good at what you do to make the same kind of ugly waste of life that they did. You’re better than…that!” she waved her arm cast toward the destroyed section of the Pentagon. “You saved my life. I’m sure that at some future date you will save the general’s. I just know it. All I’m asking is that you be there to do that. If you are, I can retire without worry. We women are the ones who keep him safe.”

  Vicki was silent through the rest of the song, the breakup of the crowd, and their return to the general’s outer office so that she could finish cleaning out her desk.

  It wasn’t until she got home that night that she received her answer from Vicki.

  Tucked deep in the box of her personal belongings from the Pentagon was a brand-new blue gang bandana that exactly matched Vicki’s.

  There was a simple note tucked inside:

  Cadre of two.

  It was signed Amor y Respeto—gang-slang Spanish meaning “Love and Respect.”

  No longer in the Air Force, Colonel Elizabeth Karen (retired) knotted the bandana around her neck to fly her own colors, called for Freddie, and headed out to the garden to join her husband.

  Acknowledgments

  For “Elizabeth Karen,” a 35-year educator of the hearing impaired and people with cognitive disabilities, and a huge reader. Thank you for sharing of yourself to help me create this story.

  Elizabeth has been a long-time supporter of, and volunteer for www.bestbuddies.org. As she prefers to remain anonymous, if you wish to add your support to hers and want her to know, send me a message at www.mlbuchman.com/contact and I’ll be glad to pass it along.