AllFreeNovel
Share Us
20
Susan staredat herself in the mirror of the C-37B’s lavatory. No lump on her head, though one of her temples was distinctly sore where it had hit the airplane’s window.
No real pain in her gut. She knew how the latter had been done, though she’d never actually seen it—or experienced it. The gut punch had been abrupt rather than deep. Just enough for her stomach to decide something very bad was going on and it was time to abandon ship. The lingering soreness reminded her of aching stomach muscles after a case of food poisoning rather than of playing punching bag to an Australian Special Operations soldier.
She rearranged her clothes as well as she could with the aid of the tiny mirror before stepping once more into the cabin.
The rear cabin of the aircraft had two couches that could be converted into beds.
Holly sat on one, elbows on knees, fingers interlaced.
The privacy door to the rest of the plane was closed.
Susan didn’t need an invitation to know what happened next; she sat down across from Holly.
“Nice punch,” she rubbed her stomach.
“Thanks. I’m sorry, but I had to stop you on two accounts.”
“Care to explain before I have you arrested for assaulting an officer?”
Holly’s smile barely touch her lips. “Good luck with that: Australian forces, retired. Besides, you really want my help, trust me.”
“Okay, I’ll at least listen.”
That, oddly, earned her Holly’s nod of approval and she sat back in her seat.
“First, you were on the verge of throwing Andi Wu into a military mindset with your misguided target of her girlfriend.”
“It would be nice ifsomeonewas of a military mindset here.” At leastgirlfriendexplained some of the dynamic between Andi and Miranda, though not all of it.
Holly finally leaned back at ease, just as she had the instant before Susan had lost track of what happened and beenescortedout of the forward cabin.
Susan tried to mirror Holly’s casual posture but there was still a tightness in her gut. “So, educate me already.”
Holly stared at her so long that she became aware of every single noise in the plane. The well-insulated engines, the occasional creak of the interior fixtures, the minor sliding tone shifts from being airborne rather than parked on the ground. The windows showed the aching depth of stratosphere-blue above a hazy sea lost in the lower troposphere. If there were voices beyond the closed door, she couldn’t pick them out.
“How much of our files did you read?”
“All of them.”
“Including Captain Wu’s attacks of PTSD?”
No, she hadn’t seen anything about that, at least not in the crappy files provided by the AIB. Or quite why she’d left the 160th SOAR.
“That was the piece of her military mode I really didn’t want you triggering. Setting her off can deep-six Miranda badly and we need her to function right now.”
Susan was horrified. She’d seen men and women, damned fine ones, knocked out of the service with PTSD. Done enough volunteer work with such disabled vets when she was on leave that she knew some would never again be able to toe the line properly, not even in civilian life.
“No, that would never be my intent.” That Andi was out on an active team at all was a huge statement of strength.
“So, you read theAir Force’sfiles on us.” Holly didn’t ask.
The Navy’s files were very sparse regarding this team, so she’d asked for the AIB’s. The US Air Force’s Accident Investigation Board had been the most likely to have interactions with civilian air-crash investigators.
“I won’t ask how many of those were compiled by a waste of space named Major Jonathan Swift. Iwillsuggest that you never mention his name around this team. Just a friendly word of advice.”
That was certainly news. Major Swift was the one who had personally transmitted the files to her. Oh! This team obviously knew him, which meant hehadbeen a field investigator. Yet he was now the one flying a desk and this was the team sent to crash-site investigations, at least tacitly, by the President himself.
