For a moment Catherine couldn’t speak. When she finally found her voice, she asked, “Where are we headed?”
“Washington, DC,” came the reply.
“That’s lovely, Admiral, but I have my job to attend to back in the Kootenays. I need to get back to work.”
“I have spoken to your superiors about this, and specifically with your friend Indy. They all think it’s a fine idea for you to come to DC, young lady,” Big Jack boomed.
“But I need stuff,” Catherine stuttered. “I stink. I need a shower and a change of clothes.”
“Don’t worry, miss,” the Admiral replied. “All these things will be provided for you. This has been fully approved by the RCMP in Vancouver. We need both you and Indy at TTIC. Drug traffickers are involved in this plot. You two have already been tracking them, so you know more than anyone about it. Both of you can help us a lot. Technically, you have been seconded to TTIC for a few months. It’s all to the good, Corporal. The whirly is two minutes away. I suggest you say your goodbyes.”
Catherine hung up the phone slowly, shocked at the turn of events. “I guess that this is goodbye, Duane, Sandra. You have been truly wonderful, and I will never forget you.”
“Come and visit us sometime, missy,” said Sandra. “There’s always coffee here for the likes of you. You are a courageous young woman, and you’ve done amazing things today. You’ll be in our prayers, dear.” The older woman reached out to wrap Catherine in a maternal hug, worrying for a young person who’d gone through so much and was about to go through much more.
Duane, not prone to such emotional displays, contented himself with patting Catherine roughly on the shoulder. She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.
At that moment the distinct sound of a slowing army helicopter was heard from outside, and Catherine left the couple to jog lightly out to the central parking facility. The chopper came down in one corner of the lot, and Catherine ran, head down, toward the rear doors and climbed in. She was immediately given a set of headphones.
“Next stop, Washington, lady,” said the pilot. “Specifically TTIC. They apparently require your services over there.” He studied her for a moment. As a pilot at Nellis AFB, he had seen many strange sights, but this was a bit over the top. “You can clean yourself up a bit in the washroom when you get there,” he said dryly.
Catherine watched the mountains recede below her. Soon they were flying over the great flat lands that made up eastern Colorado. She’d never seen it from the sky, and thought that it was really too bad that she was too tired to appreciate the rugged beauty before her. She lay back, thinking that she should go over what had happened, to have her story clear and ready for the agents at TTIC. Within an instant, she was fast asleep.
Richard was in the air as well, stretched out on a medical pallet, and hooked up to an IV. He was being transported, via a military 747, to a military hospital in Kansas. He’d been taken to Ramstein Air Force base in Germany first, by a Gulfstream flight out of Islamabad. The pilot and crew of the Gulfstream had kept their radio on, listening avidly to the play-by-play report of the happenings in the Grand Canyon. Even in his seriously depleted state, Richard had been shocked and upset by the reports. He and Jennifer should have been able to stop it. True, they hadn’t known the way it was going to happen, but they’d known the general area of the attack. If they’d tried harder, gone faster, maybe they’d have been in time…
His train of thought had changed quickly from what might have happened to what had actually happened. The moment they’d arrived back at the Islamabad Embassy, Jennifer had kept her word and gone straight to Buckingham with a full report on Richard’s condition. He’d been undeniably heroic throughout their mission, she said, and she thought that he should receive commendation for his actions. It was, after all, his plan that had saved them. More importantly, she’d seen, first-hand, the addiction, stress, and depression with which he was living. Things that he had to wake up and deal with, alone, every day of his life. They’d formed a strong bond during their captivity and ensuing escape, and she’d come to care for the old Navy fighter. She wanted to see him taken care of. Buckingham had agreed wholeheartedly, and made a call directly to Big Jack to see it done.
After his arrival in Ramstein, and an hour on the ground, Richard had been loaded into the 747, to be taken to a top-notch government facility that looked after those who had walked the path that he’d found himself walking. The men transporting Richard had seen the mess he was and had their doubts, but these orders came directly from Admiral Leonard Jackson, the DDCI. Orders such as these were to be complied with promptly, and with alacrity. What they saw before them was a washed-up, bruised, broken mess of a human being. The guy didn’t look like he was worth saving. But if the Admiral saw some smidgen of hope in him, if he wanted to save this man, then they were not about to interfere. They had all been briefed on what Richard Lawrence had been through in the last 24 hours and had to admit, grudgingly, that it had been one hell of a situation. He and Jennifer Coe had been lucky to get out alive, and it sounded like a lot of the credit for their escape should go to Richard. So in Ramstein the crew watching after him had attended to their duties, placed Richard carefully on an Army 737, and sent him on his way to some destination in central Kansas, where the doctors would do whatever they could to fix him.
Before they allowed the plane to take off, they had recommended heavy tranquilizers for the man. During the hour he’d been on their base, he had been, like Catherine Gray in far off Arizona, rambling on about how the disaster was his fault, and how he should have been able to stop it. The medics at Ramstein agreed that it was unfair for someone in Richard’s condition to be awake and blaming himself for that sort of catastrophe. Richard began his journey to recovery, and what the men around him hoped would be a promising future, once again heavily medicated, in a deep sleep brought on by the military’s best tranquilizers.
Admiral Leonard Jackson strode purposefully into the TTIC control room, four hours after the destruction of the Glen Canyon Dam. He walked to the elevated desk that stood front and center of the Atlas Screen. Dan Alexander sat at that desk, watching with glazed eyes the footage of the Glen Canyon Dam falling apart. The Admiral was 67 years of age, but still stood straight and tall; he was in his military uniform and reached at least 6'. He came to an abrupt stop right in front of the TTIC director.
“Stand up, Danno,” commanded Jackson. “Now.”
“What are you doing?” growled Dan. “I’m trying to manage a crisis, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yeah, sure. We’ll give you the gold star,” muttered Big Jack. “Now get up and listen good.”
The Admiral looked at Liam Rhodes, who had just entered the control room. “Liam, for the moment, I’m promoting you to acting director of TTIC. Dan Alexander’s presence here is under review due to his lack of experience and inability to deal with pressing situations. As demonstrated in the last two weeks.”
Dan still hadn’t stood up. At Big Jack’s words, he looked up at the looming figure in amazement. “You can’t do that, Jackson. I was appointed by the Senate subcommittee. Only they can fire me. Same thing as with Turbee. I fired him, the subcommittee made me take him back.”
Jackson almost laughed. “The review is on my recommendation, numbskull, and it is my recommendation that you be removed from command. There will be an official meeting on this sometime within the next week. For now, just pack your shit and screw off. This little agency could have stopped this attack.” He pointed to the 101’s behind the desk, raising his eyebrows and daring Dan to say anything else. “You should have listened to Turbee and his crew, instead of following your own dumbass instincts. Now are you going to go on your own, or do I have call some MP’s to ball-hoof you out the door?”