“Barely,” Chavez said. “We’re going to have to put down.”
“There is an airfield two miles to the south,” Deddy said.
Chavez leaned forward, catching the pilot’s eye. “You were taking us there all along.”
Deddy nodded. “I thought my idiot brother-in-law would force us down. I did not know he would crash his plane into mine.”
Adara held up the chart for Ding, jabbing at it with her index finger. “There’s another strip closer, about five miles nearer to the ocean. The Hawker has surely called ahead. They’ll be waiting for us.”
Chavez took the chart and shoved it in front of Deddy’s face. “Take us down here.”
“I don’t know if we can make it,” Deddy said.
Chavez lowered his voice so it was just above a whisper, barely audible above the droning engines. “You know what, Deddy. My head is killing me, some guy kicked the shit out of my ribs, and I’m pretty sure I have a chipped tooth. My point here is that I’m about as pissed as a man can be. You take your hands off the yoke right now or I will personally blow your brains out the side window of this aircraft. Do I make myself clear?” He didn’t wait for an answer, turning instead to the copilot. “Chuckles. You have control of the airplane.”
The copilot hiccupped, but said nothing as he settled into his seat. He didn’t want to die. Chavez wasn’t so sure about Deddy.
“Step back here,” Chavez said. His head was beginning to bleed again. He could feel it.
Deddy’s head snapped up. “What? He is not capable of doing this by himself.”
Chavez cuffed the man hard in the side of the head. “I told you I was having a bad day. Don’t make me wait.”
Deddy rose from his seat and climbed gingerly over the small console between the two cockpit seats. Chavez pushed him facedown into the narrow aisle. Adara used a length of parachute cord to hogtie his hands and feet. A thrashing man could wreak a lot of havoc on a small airplane, even when restrained.
Reasonably certain Deddy was going to stay put, Chavez turned back to the copilot. “You got this,” he said. It was as much a question as it was a pep talk.
“I do,” the young pilot said. “But we must land. The tail is sluggish. I am afraid it may break further. Then I will have no control.”
“Okay,” Chavez said, pointing to the road below. “Take us down here.”
Chavez shot a worried glance at Adara. He could feel his stomach rising into his throat as they rapidly lost altitude. The ground was rapidly getting bigger. It was still too dark to see it very well.
“Justice, Cheyenne,” Chavez said.
“Go for Justice One.”
“Thanks for your help. Your radios are better than mine. Think you could see about getting us an exfil if we land intact?”
“Affirmative, Cheyenne,” the F-15 pilot said. “I’ll make the call now. Watch your G’s. Your elevator has some significant damage. Keep it steady so she doesn’t shear off.”
“Roger that,” Chavez said.
The copilot in front of him nodded that he understood — and hiccupped.
49
Special Agent Beth Lynch opened her credentials and pressed her Secret Service badge flat against the bullet-resistant glass of the reception window at the Ann Arbor Police Department.
“I’m here to see the chief,” she said. Her face was passive, but she smiled inside, thinking how her mission was going to add a little excitement to the midnight shift.
She’d been on the other side of the window — early in her law enforcement career with Amarillo PD in the Texas Panhandle, first as a dispatcher, then a patrol officer. She now took a certain perverse pleasure in dropping these last-minute-visit bombs on smaller departments. Rank-and-file officers loved the overtime, the secrecy, the excitement of doing something different to spice up a mid-shift. Patrol officers fed off surprises. Supervisors hated them. The brass who had to deal with all the logistics to make things happen for the Secret Service weren’t usually so stoked when an advance agent darkened their door.
The kid’s disembodied voice came across the speaker beside the thick glass. “Can I ask what this is in reference to?”
“Afraid not,” Agent Lynch said, smiling.
He hadn’t even picked up the phone, so he wasn’t asking for his boss. He was just curious. It was understandable, but she wouldn’t put up with it.
“Okay, well, ma’am,” the kid said, respectful, if he was the tiniest bit officious. “He’s gone home for the day. I’ll get you the supervisor on duty.”
“That’d be peachy,” Lynch said.
She stepped away from the reception window and waited in the lobby with a half-dozen other people, listening to their stories. One wanted to see if he had warrants, two were reporting thefts, and the others were trying to get an incident number for their insurance company: all things they could have done online, but that was the nature of the beast at virtually any PD she’d ever been associated with — doing things for people that they couldn’t quite figure out how to do for themselves.
Ten minutes later, a man with a blond crew cut and sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves of his dark blue uniform poked his head through the door behind the kid, probably getting a look at who was in the waiting room. He caught a glimpse of Lynch, said something she couldn’t hear, and then waved her to a side door.
“Sergeant Victors,” the officer said once she was in the back hallway. “What can we do for you?”
“Are you the shift supervisor?”
“Supposed to be Lieutenant Cassel,” Victors said, “but he’s away on leave. Afraid you’ll have to deal with me.” He held up his ceramic A2PD mug. “Want some coffee? What’s this about? Counterfeiting case? Don’t you guys do wire fraud now?”
“Yes,” Lynch said. “I’d love some coffee. No, I’m not here regarding a counterfeiting case. And yes, we do wire fraud investigations. But this is different. Can we go somewhere to talk?”
“You got here as swing shift is coming on,” he said, nodding down the long hall where a knot of patrol officers congregated in front of a bulletin board. “I’m about to lead fallout. I can sit down with you after that.”
“We should probably talk first—”
The door beyond the gathered officers opened and a man in a pair of faded jeans and a white dress shirt walked in. The officers stood aside with just enough deference to let Lynch know it was the chief.
“Are you the Secret Service agent?” he asked, striding up and extending his hand. He was polite, but not exactly glad to see a Fed standing in the inner sanctum of his building. “What’s this all about?”
“Could we go in your office?”
The sergeant raised his hand. “I should probably get to fallout.”
“Go ahead,” the chief said.
Lynch leaned in close so other officers walking by couldn’t hear. “FLOTUS is coming to town.”
The sergeant shrugged. “Flo—?”
“The First Lady of the United States.”
“Ah,” Victors said. “FLOTUS. I can see why it’s so sensitive. But that’s above my pay grade.”
“All right,” the chief said. “FLOTUS is coming to Ann Arbor and you need our assistance. When is she due to arrive?”
“Ten hours.”
The sergeant staggered a half-step backward, as if she’d slapped him. “You have got to be shitting me…”
“I’m afraid not,” Lynch said.
The chief folded his arms, giving Lynch a glimpse at the face he must have used on his troops when they’d displeased him. “And we’re just being told about this?”
Absent an office, Lynch stepped into an open breakroom and motioned the chief and sergeant inside. She pulled the door closed — risking the wrath of anyone who needed their coffee before fallout. “I’m authorized to tell you that this isn’t a pleasure trip. The details are extremely close-hold. This must be kept under the radar. No lights and sirens. No hint that she’s even been here. We’re protecting FLOTUS, but there’s a lot more than that at stake. We just don’t want to be obvious about it. I’ll reimburse for overtime, but I’d like you to pick four officers for special duty. I’ll put a Secret Service agent in each car.”