Drone

She laid her hand gently on the lid. It had been three months since she’d spoken to Ryan on the phone. Years since they’d had a real conversation. She hadn’t seen him since the inauguration earlier in the year, but even that reunion had been brief. At least it had been civil. God knows they knew how to push each other’s buttons. She had to hit the ground running on the first day. Hadn’t stopped running since.

Until now.

Myers’s mind replayed a dozen conversations she’d had with the mourners before the memorial service. A pretty young math teacher introduced herself as Ryan’s girlfriend. Her lovely green eyes were red with tears. Myers hadn’t known that Ryan had a girlfriend. But of course he did. That was normal, wasn’t it? Normal people have relationships, she reminded herself.

The girl’s name was Celia. Or was it Celina? Myers couldn’t remember. The girl was nice. Very pretty. No wonder Ryan fell for her. Myers felt sorry for her.

Myers’s hand stroked the brushed-aluminum casket, but she was so lost in thought she wasn’t even aware she was doing it.

The mother of one of the slain students handed her a slip of folded paper scrawled with a recipe for chile rellenos. “Señor Ryan asked me all the time for the recipe, but I never got around to it. He said it was his favorite. Lo siento mucho, señora.”

Myers thought Ryan didn’t like chile rellenos. Maybe he still didn’t like them. Maybe he was just being nice to this lady. Or maybe he really did like hers. Or maybe he did like chile rellenos. Maybe it was tamales he didn’t care for. She wasn’t sure now. They hadn’t had a sit-down meal together for quite a while now. Years, actually. Myers was never much of a cook. Never had the time. Too busy building a business, then too busy running a state. She accepted the recipe from the grieving mother. “Thank you,” Myers told her. “I’ll have to try it sometime myself.” But she knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t like Mexican food at all.

Myers sighed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, indeed. She would bury her son in the family plot outside of Denver next to his father, John Martinez, with no one to stand beside her.

* * *

The steward reappeared in the empty conference room with a tray carrying the club soda on ice and a brand-new bottle of aspirin. He set the tray down on a small table and began to leave, but something in him made him pause. He knew she had a terrible headache. And he knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was in the room with her only child. Myers hadn’t told him she wanted to be left alone. And she needed the aspirin. So he stepped over to the aft door.

Just before the steward knocked, he paused. He heard a sound. He leaned his ear as close to the door as he dared and listened.

Myers was weeping.

The steward stepped softly away from the door and headed back down to the galley.

4

Idaho Falls Airport, Idaho

The sun had just crept up over the horizon.

Pearce kept his hands thrust in his jeans against the chill as he stood near the tarmac. He watched the Pearce Systems HA-420 HondaJet touch down effortlessly, its wheels kissing the asphalt without a sound. Crisp sunlight glinted on the gray and white carbon fiber composite fuselage as the unusual over-the-wing pod-mounted engines began to cycle down. The sleek corporate jet taxiing toward Pearce reminded him of a completely different plane on a distant tarmac in a previous life he wished like hell he could forget.

Baghdad International Airport, Iraq

March 5, 2004

“What kind of name is Pentecost anyway?” Early asked. Like Pearce, he was dressed like a local and wore a three-day growth of beard on his chin beneath a bushy black mustache. He and Pearce leaned against a Humvee as they waited for the big C-130 to cut its engines in the predawn light.

“Beats me.”

“Sounds religious. Tongues of fire and all of that.”

“You should ask her,” Pearce said. “Maybe she’s a fanatic.”

“Don’t need any more of those around here,” Early grunted. “What else did Connor say about this hotshot?”

“Straight off the Farm but first in her class. A premium Core Collector by all accounts.” The air was cool. The slight breeze coming out of the south put a chill on him.

“Is that why she rates her own plane?”

“Connor said she was eager. Wanted to get deep in the shit fast.”

“She’s probably a Poindexter with a pocket protector.”

“Connor knows what he’s doing,” Pearce said.