“Understood, General.” What else was she supposed to say.

  “You take good care of her, Andi,” Nason’s voice went soft.

  “I will, sir.” If she’ll let me.

  There was a sudden silence in the cockpit after Drake cut the call.

  “Does this mean we’re going to be okay?” Mother rested a hand on her arm from where she squatted between the pilot seats.

  Andi rested what she hoped was a reassuring hand over her mother’s. “Yes. The plane will take care of everything. You’d better go buckle in for landing. I’m sorry, but I think I should stay up here. It will be okay.”

  Her mother nodded carefully, then edged once more into the cabin.

  Out the windshield and on the flight instruments, Andi could see that they were lined up on a distant runway. Her hand was moving toward the center console when the landing gear extended with a soothing triple clunk and the flaps extended halfway.

  The voice calmly announced Two minutes to landing.

  And once they landed?

  No way was any of this going to be okay.

  20

  Clarissa hurried out of the hospital into the September morning sunshine with Kurt on her heels.

  The parking lot wasn’t far enough—not near far enough. She was only aware of striding across the two-lane road beyond when a car screeched to a halt. She ignored it. Over the road, her way blocked by a wall of trees climbing the face of a steep hill, she turned right along the sidewalk. A trail led up into the trees and she took it.

  “God! I hate hospitals!”

  Kurt nodded. “While it’s nice to not be the one in the bed, always seems harder when it’s one of yours lying there.” His quiet words reminded her of his years as a Delta Force operator before the CIA had scooped him up. And the time since hadn’t been all roses.

  “No. I was fifteen the last time I was in one. I—” She clamped her teeth shut until the muscle at the back of her jaw throbbed. Fifteen. In that hospital bed was the day she began plotting how to kill her father.

  She left the silence and Kurt didn’t question her.

  Dead, buried, and unmourned for twenty-five years, still she felt a desperate need for a shower to scrub her father’s slime-mold off her skin for even thinking of the bastard.

  The paths wandered in long, lazy switchbacks beneath thick shade trees poked by shafts of sunlight. Here and there, broad sets of weathered-wood stairs jumped upward, but she kept to the wide gravel. Volleying between tourists, late morning joggers swirled by, mostly mothers with big-wheeled baby strollers. The pre-work crowd were now ensconced in the offices and shops of Montreal, visible below through gaps in the trees. Benches along the trail were mostly occupied by old men talking in the slow way they did, a state she hoped never to decay to.

  A trail map placard said they’d wandered up into the Parc du Mont-Royal.

  “Famous cemetery here,” Kurt pointed at one of the labels, Cimetière du Mont-Royal.

  “Are you suggesting we bury Ernie Maxwell there?”

  In her peripheral vision, Clarissa could see him studying her profile for several paces, then shrugging.

  “Not until we know more.” She wanted to be clear on that.

  “Okay.”

  “Thoughts?” she asked.

  Kurt might lead the Special Operations Group but he’d never aspired to being more than a warrior. He was one of the few senior people at the CIA who wasn’t in a political position, offering potential avenues to unseat her from the directorship.

  They negotiated a switchback turn, busy with cyclists, baby joggers, and walkers cluttered together. He didn’t speak again until they were well on the way along the next straightaway.

  “Not a complex job to rig the plane. But it takes some financial heft and planning. Timing is the main issue. The right aircraft, setting the timers probably required an hour, less if it was a pro, less than that if it was a team. But a team is harder to hide and these smaller planes stay busy. Finding time alone in the cargo space is hard.” Not would be but rather is. The voice of experience.

  “You’ll find out the last time the plane stopped long enough or was in for service?”

  He nodded. “Ernie was a field agent far longer than you were. He’d know exactly what he was doing—maybe not the technical execution, but the planning. Except for the cascading trigger in the software.”

  “And the tampered seatbelt?”

  Kurt shook his head. “Different method. I’d have thought it was all his setup if it weren’t for the software trick and the belt. He was on one mission and someone else set him up for another. Someone who knew about the first one.”

  Clarissa nodded, their thinking synced up.

  A big gray squirrel raced across their path, making her catch a heel in the gravel. She wasn’t used to being outdoors. Clark had liked the country, or so he’d claimed, but she’d never lived outside the Beltway except for her field years on CIA Black Sites in the hell that was Afghanistan.

  The rodent carried a peanut in the husk, probably tossed by the old-guy cluster at the bench ahead. She kept her thoughts to herself until they were clear of the bench.

  “So, let’s focus on the first one. Why would he sabotage the plane he himself flew on?”

  Kurt kept his silence through the entire next switchback. She didn’t interrupt as she could see him shifting through every element of the puzzle.

  Her legs were aching. The exercise was so different from her usual 5K on the treadmill. The heels weren’t helping. How had she ended up climbing a mountain, even a citified one, in Louboutin ankle boots? There had better be a road and a taxi to get them back down.

  At the top stood a grand stone structure. Closer inspection showed it was no more than a lofty meeting room, probably for mountaintop wedding parties. She turned to survey the other direction and had to admit it had its points.

  A vast tiered patio of concrete paver blocks that could seat five hundred easily was backed by a sweeping view of Montreal.

  She and Kurt strolled among the grandparents with grandkids in tow, all of whom must have come up in a car—a good sign. The young included overly intent hipsters or whatever they were called in the digital age, hunkering over laptops and tablets, pretending they were working remote.

  The heavy stone balustrade at the far edge of the sprawling patio hung over a drop-off that told exactly why her calves were sore. Trees spilled in great cascades of lush green down to the city. The tops of the towers of downtown were ranged below them. The busy waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway curving across the background of yet more wooded hills.

  She and Kurt stopped by a large bronze book mounted atop the concrete railing. The metal was cast as if open to a middle page.

  Kurt pointed at the date.

  “October 2nd, 1535,” Clarissa read. “Jacques Cartier discovered Canada. Stood here and called it Mount Royal, which became Montreal. When was Jamestown? 1609?”

  “Before they mostly died and left. It’s only called the first settlement because they met the long-delayed supply ship just offshore and turned back.”

  “Christ but America is so young. I forget that sometimes.”

  “Especially when people like Ernie Maxwell make you feel old.”

  She sent a scathing look at Kurt but he ignored it. Instead, he leaned on the rail beside the metal book and stared out over the city.

  “What did he have to gain by such a stunt?” Kurt had finally sifted enough pieces to speak.

  “Assuming he survived?” Clarissa puzzled at it.

  She’d known Ernie for over twenty years, since the early days of the Afghanistan War.

  Ernie’s predecessor, the unfortunate scheming bastard Gavin Chalmers, had been trying to frame her for a massive multifold intelligence failure. Frame her so that he could take over the Directorship.

  “Was Ernie preparing to frame me for attacking his flight and him personally?”

  Kurt, who’d been moving in his normal calm-and-steady mode since she’d called him to meet her at the airport this morning, twisted to stare at her.

  Not wanting to see, she kept turned to face him anyway.

  His slow nod, visible peripherally, confirmed it—the pieces fit.

  At least Ernie’s part in it.

  But whoever set up Ernie to fail, with rigged software and the sliced seatbelt, remained hidden.

  21

  Taz jolted and cracked the top of her head against Jeremy’s chin when the phone in his breast pocket rang moments after Clarissa and Kurt left them alone. She’d been having more hormonal tears with her face pressed there—when it had gone off like a siren against her face. Jeremy always kept it turned up so loud.

  He began cursing, in his typically mild Jeremy way full of gosh darns and other such extreme expletives, as he cradled his jaw. His instinctive clutch had also gathered up a goodly hank of her hair, pinning her in place against his chest where she’d turned unaccountably mushy just moments before.

  The phone blasted her face again. It echoed in the small hospital room.

  A quick poke in his ticklish spot had him clasping his hands to protect his rib cage.

  Freed, she extracted his phone and punched Speaker to silence the thing.

  “Jeremy Trahn’s receptionist. How may he help you today?” No way was anyone else going to hear how mushy she’d become about the sweet man she’d found.

  “I have nineteen minutes, Taz. I need to know everything about the fatalities on the plane crash you’re investigating.”

  She and Jeremy looked at each other. General Drake Nason had never directly called either of them before.

  “The fatalities? There were two on an Embraer 175 flight from Boston to Montreal.”

  “Great, you’ve now covered what I know, except that their names were Gerald and Lewis. Tell me what I don’t know.”

  “We, uh,” Jeremy rubbed at his chin one more time and, being a cautious man, kept the other hand protectively over the ticklish spot on his lower ribs. “We haven’t investigated the fatalities.”

  “Then what the hell are you doing there?” It wasn’t like the general to get pissed.

  Taz reached for her normal response, meet anger with anger, but didn’t find it. Like she’d lost some key part of herself. Was this what pregnancy did to a woman? If so, she didn’t approve at all.

  Jeremy began to explain. “The flight went down because the Director of the CIA’s Middle East Desk sabotaged the plane. He was seriously injured as his seatbelt was intentionally damaged, presumed to be done by an unknown third party. He finished surgery less than thirty minutes ago.”

  “A senior CIA director sabotaged his own flight?”

  “Yes sir. Though perhaps not his seatbelt. We found evidence that his sabotage of the flight itself was, in turn, sabotaged by that unknown party I mentioned. We’ve turned that part of the investigation over to the CIA.”

  Though she understood Jeremy’s choice, Taz still wasn’t comfortable doing that. Her entire career had been about getting to the bottom of matters herself. Though there’d been little choice, to hand it off—to Clarissa Reese of all people—was galling.

  “The seatbelts of the two fatalities were also cut. We thought they were a byproduct of the secondary sabotage of Director Maxwell.”

  “Well, think again, Jeremy. Those were two critical US Air Force assets, traveling under deep cover, or at least what we thought was deep cover. You’re two of the top cause-and-effect investigators we’ve got. I lost two good men on that flight and I damn well want to know the how, why, and especially the who. And if you find out that they’re somehow tied to Maxwell…” He left the threat hanging.

  “We’re on it, sir.” Taz had always felt a certain connection to the general for their shared distrust of Clarissa. Being all tall, blonde, built, and beautiful didn’t cut shit in her book.

  Maybe she could tie the tampering of Ernie’s app and seatbelt back to Clarissa. Perhaps she’d flown up to Montreal to stop Taz from doing precisely that.

  22

  Miranda’s phone rang far louder than any of the equipment in the ambulance. No siren for a mere broken arm.

  Andi had never ridden in one and was surprised at how little room there was in the boxy truck, even for such small women as herself and her mother. Thick cabinets of supplies that Miranda didn’t require remained closed, for which Andi would gladly bow to the gods in thanks if she knew which ones were listening.

  Miranda lay on the stretcher, her eyes tightly closed and her arm in a temporary splint—one with a distinct bend in the middle of the forearm, which made Andi want to gag each time she saw it.

  The EMT sitting by her head had hooked up only the basics: heart monitor and blood pressure. So unworried that he was shooting the shit with the driver who annoyingly kept to the speed limit. For herself, Andi leaned more toward the whirling-lights blaring-sirens full-blown-panic side of the equation. Who knew that panic smelled of antiseptic and bleach?

  The big stretcher left her and Mother at Miranda’s feet on a bench seat meant for one American, which forced them hip-to-hip like Siamese twins. More contact than she’d had with Mother any time since…breastfeeding?

  She wanted to rest a comforting hand on Miranda’s calf, but didn’t know how Miranda would react. Some autistics, including Miranda, couldn’t tolerate a gentle touch at all but a firm one was usually okay. Upset like this, Andi had no idea how she’d react.

  Miranda had certainly been plummeting toward an…episode as fast as the jet had been diving toward the island. Yet she’d dragged herself out enough to save all of their lives with the kick to the rudder pedal. Andi had no idea what to think.

  The phone rang again.

  “Are you going to answer that?” Mother asked.

  Andi looked at her hand in surprise. She’d been clutching onto Miranda’s phone like a lifeline. She tapped Accept and held it up to her ear.

  “Miranda’s phone.”

  “Andi?” She recognized the cheery voice.

  “Hi, Jill. Yes, it’s me.”

  “Is Miranda there?”

  “Yes, but she can’t come to the phone at the moment.” Miranda still lay unmoving, unnaturally so as her body was held in place by the straps. She and Mother kept bumping against each other at each turn as the ambulance came off the highway and headed onto the surface streets.

  “That’s okay. Are either of you available for a launch? I’ve got a weird one.”

  “How weird?”

  “A small bizjet did one of those emergency autoland things which triggered the FAA calling me. Those are exceedingly rare outside of testing and the FAA wants full interviews and details. The manufacturer was on me seconds later. It’s in your neighborhood or I wouldn’t bother Miranda as there wasn’t really a crash.”

  Andi closed her eyes and felt she understood Miranda’s desire to shut out the world a little better. “Let me guess, Bellingham International Airport.”

  “Right! So, you’re already on it?”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “I can’t investigate myself.”

  “It was you? What’s going on? Is everyone okay?” Jill’s instant concern somehow made everything ten times worse. She’d busted Miranda’s arm.

  And one or the other of them would never fly as pilot again.

  If the truth of Miranda’s panic attack—that’s what Andi would call it, not autistic episode—came out, the FAA would yank her license anyway. It was an amazing testament to her skill that Miranda had been certified to fly at all given her mental challenges. In a single swipe, this would negate decades of hard work.

  The only other option was to claim the incredibly dangerous dive as her own action. I broke the pilot’s arm to take control, then dove the plane so dangerously that I almost killed both of us and the firefighting helo pilots before I came to my senses. How fast would her own license be yanked? Would it earn her jail time for air piracy?

  “We’re all…okay. Miranda has a broken arm and we’re on the way to the hospital.” They were all a complete mess.

  The phone announced another incoming call. She pulled it away to see who.

  Drake.

  She so wasn’t ready for this. “I have to go, Jill. I’ll call you later.”

  “’Kay. Bye. Tell Miranda to be more careful and heal fast.”

  Yeah, more careful in who she chooses as a girlfriend. But Andi kept that thought to herself.

  “Will do.” She switched lines. “Hello, General Nason. It’s still Andi Wu here.”

  “You’re all down safe?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “I’ll want the full story on this, at some other time. Right now, I need Miranda.”

  “I’m not sure she can help you at this point, sir.”

  Mother tapped her arm and pointed.

  Miranda’s eyes were open and looking at her.

  And now she understood some of an autistic’s problem of looking at someone’s face. Was Miranda’s mouth in a grim line, or merely at rest? Did condemnation burn in her eyes, or perhaps sadness at the loss of her home? It was all very confusing. Each emotion, perceived or real but not understood, whiplashed her own emotions about far harder than the out-of-control jet.

  “Can you talk to Drake?”

  Miranda nodded.

  Andi wished she could use the speakerphone but the EMT was right there, not paying them any attention—but there. Earlier General Nason had said it was a matter of national security. Instead, Andi tried to hand over the phone. But Miranda’s right arm was in the splint. With her left one she cradled the right one with no indication of being willing to let it go.

  Andi had to scoot forward, lean on the gurney with her elbow against Miranda’s hip, and hold the phone against her ear. Her hair softly brushed the back of Andi’s knuckles. She tried to hold the phone steady without touching Miranda but the swaying of the ambulance defeated her and she finally rested her fingertips, firmly, against the soft skin of Miranda’s cheek and jaw.

  And all she could do was cry and listen to Miranda’s occasional, “Uh-huh,” “Yes, Drake,” and her final articulate, “I’ll want to see all of the flight data on that.”