“Mr. President, where did it go down?”
“You said in a hotel,” Roy answered.
“I’m talking about the aircraft carrier.”
“It didn’t.”
She was going to kill Jeremy for making her sound like an idiot to the President.
“There was a very bad accident or crash on the deck. The USSTheodore Rooseveltcertainly won’t be fully effective without a major refit but she’s far from down. It happened during a shift turnover, so it caught most of the officers when the Island superstructure was destroyed. I understand that the fire is out but some areas are still too hot to enter. We’ve mobilized two carrier groups into the area—twenty-three and sixty hours out. If this was an attack on one of our four-and-a-half-billion-dollar carriers, this could escalate fast. We’ve sent Miranda Chase to find outwhathappened. We need you to find outwhoandwhy.Fast. Any resources you need. Tap anyone you have in place anywhere on this.”
“Yes sir.” And he was gone as someone called for his attention.
The phone rattled in her ear as someone picked up the handset. “No goddamn games on this one, Clarissa. Screw this up and you’re done. Understand?”
“You’re not my boss, Drake.” Why couldn’t the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have been the one in the hotel suite?
“Don’t test that theory, Clarissa.” And then he hung up the handset with a sharp bang.
She slipped the phone once more into her purse.
Clarissa glanced once more over the water.
Rose whispered to her, “Grant was a team builder. That’s how he won the Civil War. Build your team, Clarissa.”
She glanced at Taz and Jeremy leaning together to discuss the pages of notes they’d taken. Clarissa barely remembered answering any questions.
“You mean…them?”
Rose had been keeping her peace. She’d become the leading lady of DC’s social power politics by constantly listening and sifting information, and only then speaking.
Taz and Jeremy?
She, two decades at the Pentagon and he, Miranda’s right hand. Jeremy might babble away on the strangest topics, but when he was focused, he could be very useful.
Team of opportunity? Rose’s clear vote was that she could do far worse at this early stage.
Her armored SUV was not only in the midst of a record traffic jam, even by DC standards, it was also inside the police lockdown perimeter for the incident.
She pulled out her phone and dialed a number.
“This is D/CIA Clarissa Reese. I’m at the west end of Union Square. I need immediate air transport.” Because nothing on the ground was going to move again for a long time.
The underling started babbling about it being a no-fly zone.
Clarissa looked up at the sky. The alert fighters had returned to wherever they normally nested to reassess the ineffectiveness of tonight’s security tactics. But the police helos continued the busy-bee buzzing overhead.
“Call the White House Military Office for priority clearance, you idiot, but waste your own time doing that—afteryou get me a bird off the pad.”
“The no-fly order isfromthe WHMO, ma’am.” He hung up.