35
Colonel Campos’ phone rang loudly in the quiet conference room at Davis-Monthan.
Everyone but Miranda jumped in surprise.
Miranda was never surprised by loud noises herself. With everything in the world seeming so loud and fractious and unpredictable all the time, what difference did one more sound make?
She and the others waited through a predictable series of “Uh-huh” and other sounds one makes when receiving bad news.
While she waited, she wondered why they were still here, two hours after they’d first sat down.
The helo pilots were able to offer no new information.
All her team had to inspect was a broken elevator trim motor that should never have been attached to an A-10 Thunderbolt II and a download from the Chinook helicopter’s flight recorder that Jeremy had salvaged.
It
