48
Taz’s phonerang the moment before she handed it over to the Situation Room security team. No cell phones were allowed past the outer security door.
She glanced behind her, but the West Wing lobby was a crush of people hurrying from task to task.
There wasn’t much of a corner to step to in the small security foyer, but she did so. Jeremy and Rose also stepped aside with her, offering some buffer before she answered—more carefully this time.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me, not a recording of me.”
“Hi yourself, Miranda. Are you okay?”
“I seem to be.”
“I’m so glad. Did Holly ‘kill the bitch’ like she promised?” There was a long silence that Taz had learned meant puzzlement. “There was some Navy puke of an officer that Holly was going to kill for me.”
“Oh.”
“Not literally.” They’d left the team less than a week ago and already she was forgetting the rules.
“Figuratively kill someone?”
Taz felt herself smiling, “Close enough.”
“Andi,” Miranda asked Andi as an aside, “what ‘Navy puke of an officer’ was Holly going to figuratively kill? Taz wants to know did she do it and keep her promise?”
Taz couldn’t hear Andi’s response.
“Oh, you mean Commander Susan Piazza. No, she’s here with us. But why would you kill her figuratively? And if you did, literally, I think it would greatly upset her dog.”
“Don’t worry about it, Miranda. I’ll talk to Holly when we’re done and straighten it out.” And she’d find out why the hell Holly hadn’t done as she’d promised.
“She’s not here.”
Taz listened to the sound in the background. Inside an airplane, military by how loud it was. And Holly hadn’t stuck by her side like glue? Now Taz had a new target, a tall blonde named Holly Harper was gonna get her ass kicked the next time they met.
She took a calming breath, it seemed to be the day for that. It helped the same amount all of the others hadn’t.
“What was your question, Miranda?”
“Which question?”
“The one you called me about?”
“Oh, that. Yes. What is the status of your DC crash investigation?”
Taz should have known. “It wasn’t an accident. It was an intentional crash. So the NTSB is done. We’ll stay involved, but it’s Homeland Security’s problem now. A kamikaze flight with an Air Force Gulfstream as the bomb.”
“Oh, that’s a relief. No, wait. I’m not supposed to say that, am I?”
Taz had no idea why not. “Whatever you say, Miranda.”
“Oh, okay. I guess I’ll ask Andi… Oh, she says itisokay to be relieved that it was murder and not an accident… Wait, maybe it wasn’t. Or…” Miranda collapsed into confusion.
Taz knew to pick up the pieces quickly. “The possible target appears to be a Senator Ramson, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I have his wife Rose with me.”
“And Jeremy?”
“And Jeremy is here too,” Taz confirmed.
“Tell him… Uh, tell him…I said…Hi.”And she was gone.
Taz stared at the silent phone, then looked up at Jeremy. “She says,Hi.”
Jeremy laughed aloud. “Well, it’s nice to know she’s back to normal.”
Taz thought about it and decided thatwasgood news.
Now she could return to worrying about what the hell was going on. Why was she walking into the Situation Room for the first time in nineteen years of service?