Lieutenant Read online

  He didn’t. He turned to the airman and said, “Dismissed, Jobst.” Then he turned back to Ell and looked her up and down. She was astonishingly attractive but looked like a teenager. Ennis had never seen a woman look this good in uniform. Suddenly he realized what must be making up a significant part of her “look.” “What is the maximum regulation height for women’s heels for the Air Force uniform, Lieutenant?”

  Ell’s heart sank. Sounded like the Exec was a real ball buster. Oh well, she’d had a lot of experience with that type of attitude as a Cadet. Ell continued to focus on the wall over Ennis’ head. “Sir, the maximum height has been reduced to one and one half inches.”

  “How high are yours?”

  “Sir, one inch.”

  “Bullshit!” He stood, “Let me see.”

  Ell made a right face and lifted her left foot up behind her so that the low heel of the shoe would be evident.

  “Do you have lifts inside those shoes?” he asked dangerously.

  “No sir. I do have unusually long legs.”

  He grunted and sat back down. “At ease.”

  Ell assumed parade rest and looked Ennis’ in the face but didn’t say anything.

  “How old are you anyway?”

  Ell was a little surprised. Surely he would have her record readily available if she was being assigned to his squadron? “Sir, I am eighteen years old.”

  “My God! I assumed you just looked young! How the Hell did you get those gold bars?”

  “Sir, I graduated from the Academy at an unusually young age.”

  “What! The Air Force Academy?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “When did the Academy start turning out children?”

  “Sir, typically the youngest is aged twenty one. I am an unusual exception.” She decided against mentioning that she’d actually been seventeen when she got her diploma. She was torn between a sense of relief to be somewhere that her reputation had not preceded her and an irrational irritation that he didn’t know who she was. Inwardly she sighed. It seemed unlikely that the Air Force had made her assignment with an eye to using her to outfit the UAV fleet with PGR after all. Seemed more like the usual, “left hand not knowing what the right is doing” that happens so often in large organizations.

  Ennis threw his hands up, “What the Hell am I supposed to do with you?”

  Assuming the question was rhetorical, Ell said nothing.

  Ennis eyes went to her ribbons, seeing her Air Force service ribbon that everyone got and a Marksmanship ribbon. His eye’s narrowed again. “What’s the light blue ribbon?”

  “Um, Sir, that’s the Medal of Honor.”

  Ennis rocked back in his chair feeling like someone had punched him in the gut. “What?” He said weakly.

  “It’s the Medal of Honor, Sir.”

  “I heard you the first time Lieutenant.” His brow lowered. “Did you order that as a joke?” He said dangerously.

  “No Sir.” Ell said quietly. She was surprised, hers had been the first Air Force Medal of Honor in fifteen years. It had been quite the buzz in the Air Force Newsletter. She would have thought that he would at least have heard about it.

  Suddenly recognition spread across his face. “Oh! You’re that ‘Olympic Cadet’ that stopped the terror attack?”

  “Yes sir.” Ell again said quietly, not at all sure how he was going to take this.

  Conflicting emotions raced across Ennis’ face, then he rose to his feet, came to attention and saluted.

  With some surprise, because salutes are not normally rendered indoors nor while “uncovered,” Ell returned the salute. A salute is a gesture of respect, so she took it as such… she hoped?

  “Pleased to have you on our team, Lieutenant. Please be seated.” He gestured at one of the two chairs.

  Ell sat, using the posture of seated attention that she had learned at the Academy.

  Ennis looked up at the ceiling. Then he said, “Obviously I should have looked through your record prior to interviewing you Lieutenant. If I remember right, you’re some kind of math whiz too?”

  “I am pretty good at math Sir.”

  “And I suppose you must have pretty good reactions to be a gymnast?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Is your vision bad? Not that fighter pilots aren’t dinosaurs, but they still try to shoehorn the best physical specimens into that mold.”

  “Uh, No Sir. I have 20/20 vision. I suspect they didn’t want to expend the resources training me as a pilot because I only have a two and a half year commitment.”

  “I thought you went to the Academy?”

  “Yes Sir. But I only attended for two years, so I only accrued a two and a half year obligation.”

  “What? How did you wind up a Lieutenant if you didn’t graduate?”

  “Sir, I did graduate. I achieved advanced placement in most of my classes when I arrived and completed the remaining requirements for graduation in two years.”

  Ennis sighed and put his hand up to the side of his jaw as he looked at Ell with a bemused expression. “Somebody just tossed a grenade in my office.”

  Ell’s brow furrowed, “Sir?”

  “You. You’re a grenade. If I don’t figure out some way to ‘utilize your talents’ and keep you out of trouble, you’ll explode in my face and make a shambles of my career.” He sighed, “Well, in this Command, we fly UAVs. Most of the flying is now done by enlisted, supervised by officers in small groups. If I assign you to logistics or maintenance like I had planned, someone will accuse me of being ‘uninspired.’ So, let’s get you trained to fly UAVs yourself and plan to have you supervise such flights. Can’t supervise the enlisted who fly UAVs if you don’t know how to fly them yourself.”

  “No Sir.”

  Over the next few hours Ell shuttled back and forth across the base, picking up supplies, talking to base housing, being introduced to the UAV pilot training squadron and having hundreds of terabytes of UAV training materials transferred to Allan, her AI.

  At the end of the day she considered signing in at the Visiting Officer barracks but didn’t really want to. She summoned her car and had Allan contact Steve. “Steve, what’s the word on a place for me to stay?”

  “Ma’am, we’ve tentatively rented an apartment for you that meets most of our criteria for a safe location. We’ve placed a “change car” in a parking lot near base. Your AI has the location. You can stay at the apartment we picked out tonight and, if you don’t like it, we’ll look elsewhere tomorrow.”

  Ell had tried to get her security team to stop calling her Ma’am, but Steve refused. In his book “the boss” should always be addressed with respect. Calling her Ma’am was a necessary part of reinforcing that attitude. She said, “OK, I’m heading over to change cars now.” Her Ford had just pulled up and she got in, quickly looking around to see if anyone was taking a particular interest in which car was hers. She flipped the switch to manual and punched the accelerator, just to feel the surge of power from the modified power train Steve had had installed. With a sigh she flipped control back to the Ford’s AI and said, “Take me to the location Steve gave you.”

  Sedately, it did so, eventually pulling into a parking lot at a nearby shopping mall. The car took her out to a back corner of the lot where the cars were scattered around rather than packed in. Ell saw her small, seven year old Chevy Colorado pickup and directed the AI to pull in about seven spaces away. She’d watched for tails and when she’d felt sure she was clear, she’d applied some makeup and taken off her uniform jacket, tie tab, Air Force Belt and name tag which all went into the compartment Steve had had installed under the passenger’s seat. This left her dressed in a fairly unremarkable light blue blouse and dark blue pants. She pushed the seat back down over the compartment and shrugged into a black leather jacket. She picked up the brunette wig she’d taken out of the compartment before putting her clothes in and looked around to see if anyone was watching.

  A little girl was staring at Ell out of
the passenger window of the next car! Ell sighed and put her wig into her purse, then got out of the car. The girl sat in a minivan with its back end completely stuffed with boxes and clothes. Half of the back seat was full too but Ell could see a boy, somewhat older than the girl, sitting in the unfilled half of the back seat. The passenger window rolled down and the girl said, “Are you Ell Donsaii?” Internally, Ell cringed at the deceptively simple failure of all her effort to make an identity change to into someone who would go unrecognized. Outwardly she smiled at the girl and said, “I am, and who are you?”

  The girl quietly said, “I’m Janey Reston.” She put a finger in the corner of her mouth, staring at Ell.

  The boy in the backseat said something and Janey turned momentarily to him, “What’s an autograph?”

  Ell smiled at the two kids, then she took a pen and a card out of her purse. She wrote on the card, “To Janey Reston, from Ell Donsaii.” and held it out to her. “That’s an autograph.”

  The young girl took it, goggle eyed and then looked up at Ell, “Thank you!”

  Ell walked over to her truck and got in, telling the truck’s AI to take her to the apartment Steve had chosen. She put the brunette wig on as the truck was turning out of the lot, then her small nose prosthesis and some more makeup as it traveled to the apartment.

  When she walked into the apartment complex she saw Barrett in the quadrangle but carefully didn’t wave or say anything. Instead she let Allan, her AI, direct her up to the 2nd floor apartment Steve had chosen and unlock the door for her. She entered and found Steve and Mary sitting in the living room.

  They looked up and Steve said, “There was a little hold up in the parking lot?”

  “Yeah, cute kid recognized me and asked for my autograph.”

  Steve looked askance, “Even in your wig?”

  Ell shrugged, “I was just about to put it on when I saw her watching me.”

  He looked up at the ceiling, “May be better to put it on while the car is moving?”

  “No, I think the plan to do it in the fringes of a parking lot where there aren’t many observers is sound. It was just a freak accident that these kids were sitting in their car near where I parked.”

  Steve grimaced then shrugged, “OK, can we show you around this apartment?”

  “Sure.”

  It had three bedrooms, one for Ell, one for Ell’s “office” and one for storage. Because the complex was new Steve had been able to tentatively rent the five apartments adjoining hers for Ell’s security team, two to an apartment. If she agreed to the plan, he would have interconnecting doors installed so the teams could get into her apartment in an emergency and so they could have meetings and still keep up an external appearance that Ell and the team didn’t know each other. The complex had a pool and a workout room where they could keep in shape and there was a martial arts gym nearby where they could practice and get further training in “hand to hand combat.” The apartment was moderately close to Nellis but not so close that it was known as a “military” apartment complex. There were a number of parking lots between the base and the apartment where Ell could change vehicles from her Donsaii “military life” to her disguised Raquel Blandon “civilian” one. Steve had purchased another of the same model of Ford Focus that Ell drove onto base. It was in the shop having its powertrain upgraded. Same thing for a copy of her Chevy Colorado pickup.

  “Seems great to me Steve. Thanks for a job well done.”

  He shrugged, “I was worried that you’d want a more upscale apartment complex, but couldn’t find anything that met the security and proximity needs?”

  Ell laughed, “I’m not an ‘upscale’ kinda girl.” She looked around and laughed. “This is the nicest apartment I’ve ever had.”

  Steve turned to Mary, “Can you give us a minute?”

  Mary got up and went into the kitchen, saying “I’m thinking I’ll make some tacos, Ell?”

  “Thanks, that’d be great.” Ell turned to Steve and raised an eyebrow.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said, “you need a personal assistant. Someone who can cook your meals when you’re too busy and do your grocery shopping and otherwise hustle to do the little crap that’ll clog up your life. Someone who can deal with payroll for your employees.” He raised an eyebrow. “We, the security team, have been doing a lot of that stuff so far and we don’t mind, but it’s going to degrade our efficiency at doing what you really want—protecting you.”

  Ell sighed. “You’re right of course. The only problem is finding time to find someone to fill the role.”

  Steve said, “See, you need an assistant to find someone to assist you! But, if I’ve got your approval, I’ll place some ads tomorrow.”

  After Steve left, Ell called her Mom and Gram, ate tacos with Mary and then went into her “office.” She was pleased to see that the team had already taken time to set up her large screen display. She launched into her briefing materials on the UAV program, skimming rapidly through the astonishing amount of chaff to find the kernels of important stuff. Then she looked over the curriculum of the UAV classes she’d missed in the first three weeks and read the course materials for those lectures. Eventually she began running some flights on the included simulator and getting a feel for what some of the different UAVs could do.

  After Ell’s usual three hours sleep, she got up, grabbed a banana and a three breakfast bars and headed out. When she pulled out of the parking lot another car pulled out of an adjoining lot. She checked with Allan and was pleased to find that Randy and Dan were in the trailing car. She parked the truck at a little different location in the parking lot and looked over at the Focus. With surprise she recognized that the minivan full of boxes and clothes was still parked next to her car. She slowly pulled off the brunette wig and put it in her purse then ran fingers through her short reddish blond hair. As she walked slowly over to her Ford she wondered if, despite the kids, it could be some “set up” to trap her? Ell told Allan to have Randy and Dan drive on into the lot instead of staying outside like they had planned.

  Ell walked closer and, to her amazement saw Janey sound asleep in the reclined passenger seat. Her brother looked to be asleep in the back seat. No one was in the driver’s seat. These children couldn’t have spent the night here could they? Where were their parents?

  Just then a woman walked up to the driver’s side of the car. She was pretty, about Ell’s height though not as slender. She was a brunette like Ell’s “Raquel” identity. The woman set a bag with the McDonald’s logo down on top of the car and quietly said, “Are you really Ell Donsaii?”

  Ell nodded.

  “Thanks for signing that autograph for Janey last night. It really made her day.” The woman’s voice sounded a little choked and Ell saw a tear roll down her cheek.

  “Uh, sure. What are you guys doing here so early in the morning?” Ell had a feeling of dread, certain that she knew the answer to her own question.

  “We, uh, we… had a run of bad luck. We were evicted from our apartment on Saturday and we’re having to live in our car until I can get our finances straightened out.” Her shoulders sagged and a tear slipped down the other cheek.

  Ell looked around, no one else was nearby. She walked over to the woman and touched her on the shoulder, crouching a little to look up into the down turned eyes. “What happened?”

  “Ah, cripes, what didn’t happen? Mike and Janey’s dad, he… he’s a deadbeat, though I don’t want them to know that. Janey got sick and I missed a lot of work staying with her in the hospital. My job fired me, my health insurance expired, suddenly we’re in a lot of debt to the hospital, my credit cards are maxed… I took a job dealing blackjack at a casino but it hasn’t been catching me back up very much. Now I got three months behind on our rent…and my new boss is a jerk…” She stumbled to a stop with a sob. “Sorry.” She pulled a napkin out of the McDonald’s bag and wiped her cheek. “It’s not your problem.” She gave Ell a tremble lipped grin. “I’ve got to feed the
se kids and get them to school.” She opened the car door.

  Ell held the door open for her. “Hey, I might have a tip for a better job Ms. Reston. What are your skills?”

  She gave a bitter laugh, “I was an executive assistant for one of the casino managers. Thought I was indispensable. Turns out it was my job that was indispensable. My boss threw me over pronto when I couldn’t be there at his beck and call every instant. ‘Got to have someone I can count on Amy.’” She used a nasal twang for the last line.

  Ell looked up and saw Randy and Dan parked about four spaces down and across, Randy watching Ell with his eyebrows raised. Ell shook her head at him, then turned back to the woman who had slid into her driver’s seat. Ell lifted the McDonald’s bag off the roof and handed it down to her. “Ms. Reston, can you ‘port’ me your resume? I know someone who might have a job for you?

  Reston took the bag, shrugged and said “OK.”

  Allan spoke in Ell’s ear, confirming that he had received the resume from Reston’s AI. Ell quietly closed the car door and, as Reston shook Janey awake, she walked around to her Focus.

  In transit to the base Ell took off her leather jacket and put the components of her uniform on, except for the coat. During the ride, in her ear, Allan summarized the contents of Amy Reston’s resume. “Grew up in Las Vegas, college with a BA in history, worked as an administrative assistant, then an executive assistant… now as a blackjack dealer.”

  “Allan,” Ell said, “do a web search to confirm the material in her resume and find out about her erstwhile husband. If it all checks out, ask Steve to consider her for my ‘personal assistant’ job.”

  Ell made it to the UAV flight training center ten minutes early and sat down at one of the simulators to confirm that all the controls were as they had been laid out in her briefing displays. Other people filtered in, mostly enlisted but a few other officers, they stood in the middle of the room talking quietly amongst themselves. The door opened and someone barked, “Room, ten-hut!”

  Ell leapt to her feet and stood at attention with the rest of the trainees. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a Major stalk into the room. “At ease. We’re supposed to have a new El Tee being inserted sideways into our group three weeks late?” He looked around.