Then her mind began to clear. Oxygen—pure, cold oxygen—was pouring in.
Slowly, at first, but then with sudden speed, the cobwebs began to vanish. A head rush followed, painful but welcome. She inhaled deeply as a shiver ran through her body and the surge of adrenaline hit like a runner’s high.
A second tube poked through and the flow doubled. She moved out of the way so the oxygen would reach the others.
When she had the strength, she stood up and put her face to the window in the door. The astronaut in orange reappeared, moving to the intercom on the far wall. Beside her, the speaker came alive with a scratchy tone. “Is everyone okay?”
“I think we’ll make it,” she said. “What happened to your head? You’re bleeding.”
“Low bridge,” Kurt said.
She remembered hearing gunshots. She’d
thought it was her imagination or even a delusion. “We heard shooting,” she said. “Did someone attack you?”
He grew more serious. “As a matter of fact, someone did.”
“What did he look like?” she asked. “Was he alone?”
Her rescuer shifted his weight and his posture stiffened slightly. “As far as I can tell,” he said, no longer sounding so flip and jocular. “Were you expecting trouble of some kind?”
She hesitated. She’d probably said too much already. And yet if there was more danger, this man in front of her was the only one who could possibly defend them until the Italian forces arrived.
“I just . . .” she began, then switched tactics. “This whole thing is so confusing.”
She could see him studying her through the cracked visor and the window in the door. There was enough distortion that she couldn’t truly read his expression, but she sensed him gauging her. As if he could look right through her.
“You’re right,” he finally replied. “Very confusing. All the way around.”
There was enough in his tone that she knew he was partially referring to her. There was little she could do now but stay silent and cover up. He’d saved her life, but she had no idea who he really was.
10
Reagan National Airport, Washington, D.C.
0530 hours
Vice President James Sandecker lit a cigar with a silver Zippo lighter he’d bought in Hawaii almost forty years prior. He had plenty of other lighters, some of them very expensive, but the well-traveled Zippo that was worn smooth in places from the touch of his fingers was his favorite. It reminded him that some things were built to last.
He took a puff on the cigar, enjoying the aroma and then exhaling a lopsided ring of smoke. A few furtive glances came his way. Smoking wasn’t allowed on Air Force Two, but no one was going to tell the Vice President that. Especially when they’d been sitting on the taxiway, going nowhere, when they were supposed to be winging their way to Rome for an economic summit.
Truthfully, they’d only been holding for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, but Air Force One and Air Force Two never waited on the ground unless there was a mechanical problem. And if that was the case, the Secret Service would have made the pilots taxi back and taken the Vice President off the plane until it was fixed.
Sandecker pulled the cigar from his mouth and looked over at Terry Carruthers, his aide. Terry was a Princeton man, incredibly sharp, never one to leave a job undone and outstanding at following orders. In fact, he was too good at following orders, Sandecker thought, since it seemed to mean taking the initiative was not a big part of his vocabulary.
“Terry,” Sandecker said.
“Yes, Mr. Vice President.”
“I haven’t sat on a runway this long since I flew commercial,” Sandecker explained. “And to give you some idea of how long ago that was, Braniff was the hottest thing going at the time.”
“That’s interesting,” Terry said.
“It is, isn’t it?” Sandecker said in a voice that suggested he was getting at something else. “Why do you think we’re delayed? Weather?”
“No,” Carruthers said. “The weather was perfect up and down the Eastern Seaboard when I last checked.”
“Pilots lose the keys?”