I looked out the small oval window as the aircraft banked through thirty-five thousand feet over the snow-covered farmland of Indiana:
“Have United States Attorney Marcus Cooper on the tarmac at O’Hare by fourteen-thirty hours.”
“And Uncle David?”
“Yes, Chancellor?”
“Tell my brother Garrett to bring Barnaby.”
I bared my teeth in a razor-thin line of cold white bone:
“My husband told three hundred passengers that he was the luckiest man in the sky.”
“It is time we go audit his landing.”
“Acknowledged, Chancellor,” Admiral Mercer responded, every syllable dropping like an eighty-pound iron anvil:
*“The tactical stack is rolling.
Chicago airspace is locked under Title Fifty War Powers.
Conduit Ten… holds true.”*
CLICK.
I closed the satellite transponder, slipping the matte-black unit back into my bag.
I reached down to the floor, picked up Mason’s dropped drawing, and smoothed out the creases with my thumbs.
The green letters still read BEST PILOT EVER.
