In the Weeds

Chapter 1-2

Being a Marine doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid. It means that you don’t give a damn if you are.

Once she sat, he’d looked at her a long time in silence, but she’d waited him out until he’d finally acknowledged her with a nod of what actually looked like satisfaction.

“You’re gonna be one hell of an officer, Second Lieutenant Ivy Hanson. So let me tell you all the things you’re going to want to do wrong.” And they’d talked right through last call; she’d still been on her first beer after many of her classmates were facedown on the floor and being shoveled out the door.

Another of his laws was: You’re going to want your people to behave perfectly. They’re Marines, so they will when it matters. Don’t sweat the small stuff. They’ll respect you for letting them be human. But you draw the line and don’t let anyone cross it. Ever! Or they’ll run right over you.

Batting down golf balls with a twenty-million-dollar helicopter struck her as small stuff. But they already knew that General Arnson expected them to land inside a ten-second window every time—even on a training flight like this one—and that she’d expect no less. The Army’s Night Stalkers said plus or minus thirty seconds in any battlefield, and they delivered. But these were the fliers of Marine One and nobody kicked ass like the Corps.

Across the golf course and over the Potomac, they finally reached the mission profile’s altitude. There was nothing like the DC skyline from five hundred feet.

Colby glanced up at the snipers on the West Wing roof.

Two of them had their rifles aimed high and due south. With their spotter scopes, they were always the first to see the approaching helos. By their very steadiness, he knew the guys had picked them out. That placed the helos out over the Potomac and just turning north.

He wondered how the Marine Corps pilots felt, knowing they were in the sights of the snipers. Wouldn’t be his first choice, but they were Marines, so what did he care?

Four years—more importantly four DC springtimes—and he still wasn’t used to working here. The Presidential Park was stunning this time of year. The new-mown grass smelled rich with May sunshine. The trees were all leafed out, but still brilliantly green—the darker shades of summer were a month away yet. The morning breeze was out of the west, from over the vegetable garden. Nothing much to smell from that quarter yet, just lots of green shoots; though there was a hint of chlorine from the freshly refilled swimming pool. The Rose and Kennedy Gardens lay to the north of his current position so he couldn’t smell them even though they were already rich with lush flowers.

Perfect season to take a girl for a walk through them, except he didn’t have a girl since Elsie had given him the heave-ho. And escorting a congressional secretary around the White House grounds like it was good place to bring a date wasn’t exactly the best idea…no matter what Elsie had thought.

Just as well. Rex had never liked her much, which should have told him something a lot sooner than 20-20 hindsight. Rex was happy now because he’d gotten back his spot on the couch. And Colby was done with clubbing, never a big hit with him anyway, and was back to his ESPN and action flicks. He knew it was a stereotype, but anything was better than pounding sound systems among bodies so tightly packed together that they were indistinguishable—when the whole point of going in the first place was to “be seen.”

“Need to find us some girls, boy.” Not that Rex had the anatomy to care about those anymore.

Colby wasn’t sure how much he himself cared either.

Elsie had been fun, and watching her dance never failed to fire up his libido. Too bad that was all she’d fired up. They’d been good together in bed, but not much heat otherwise—either good or bad. They hadn’t fought often, but they hadn’t done the whole close-couple thing either.

He looked aloft and spotted the trio of helos as tiny black dots. That placed them even with the Pentagon.

Colby still felt the thrill every time. It didn’t matter if it was the President himself or an empty training run, there was something majestic about watching them approach that he’d never tire of.

This time they’d told him to there was a sole passenger for him to escort to security. Captain Baxter—the head of the Secret Service Uniformed Division for the White House—wasn’t big on extra words, like who the hell Colby was meeting. Just some officious official who’d finally earned enough rank to con a ride on the helo. He would be so totally full of himself after the HMX-1 ride that Colby suspected he’d want to unleash Rex on the pompous jerk by the time they had crossed half the lawn.

Colby backed off from the three landing disks and watched the helos come in.

Ivy couldn’t decide where to look. The crew chief was grinning at her, but it was impossible to be blasé about the ride or the amazing view.

There were a few days that particularly stood out in memory: her first ever solo in a Bell UH-1 Huey, four combat missions that she wished she didn’t remember quite so accurately in her nightmares, and a few others. She knew today would join those.

Once they were at altitude past the golf course, the flight had smoothed out as a serious focus took over. She checked the time mark on the dash when they crossed above the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge. Just five seconds early for this particular profile—her kind of flight.

The Pentagon dominated the view to the west. To the east, the Tidal Basin cherry trees bloomed like a bridal bouquet gone madly pink—past their peak but still radiant in early-May glory. Then the majestic turn that placed the Jefferson Memorial due east and the Washington Monument dead ahead.

Pilots flew it a hundred times in the simulator before they were allowed to even fly as copilot. She had “ridden” along on twenty of those simulations herself so that she could witness all of the primary emergency scenarios.

But to be able to fly the route itself, even as an observer, was like a miracle. Never expecting to command them, she’d been gunning for the post of Presidential pilot since boot camp, a fact she hadn’t even told Drill Sergeant McKinnon. Though proving that nothing ever got by him, just this morning she’d received a text from him, his first contact in years. He’d spared two whole words for her: Go Marine!

She’d been shocked that her heart hadn’t blown right out the chest of her dress blues. In an excess of pride, she’d sent back four words that, of course, he hadn’t replied to: For the Corps, Sergeant. In hindsight, she should have sent Semper Fi! Short for Semper Fidelis, always faithful. Two words for two words.

She’d broken McKinnon’s Law of: Never use extra words. They only serve to cloud the communication.

Tough! She was damn proud of what she’d done and she was a major so she’d use four whole words if she felt like it. If McKinnon had ever laughed, she could imagine him laughing at her. But it was impossible to imagine he ever had, so she was safe on that account.

They crossed the middle of the National Mall between the very top of the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial at the foot of the Reflecting Pool three seconds behind schedule. No one but a Marine would notice.

McKinnon had been right. Let the boys have a little fun when it didn’t matter and they’d perform all the better when it did. The pilots wanted this flight to be perfect as badly as she did.

Nothing had prepared her for the real view of the White House from the air—something so few ever saw. In the simulator it had looked amazing: interactive video simulated from high-resolution 3D imaging. But that was nothing compared to the real thing. Now she was looking down on the South Lawn from above as the pilots eased between the trees, doing the trademark quarter turn down between the treetops to turn the President’s helo door so that it faced the White House. There it was, the center of government—the home of the Commander-in-Chief himself.

And her new office.

She’d probably never get to take this ride again, so she’d promised herself to pay attention to every detail, every moment. Yet between one eyeblink and the next, they were settling down on the lawn, landing on the trio of six-foot aluminum disks rolled out to protect the lawn.

Of course, during the last few meters of the landing itself, the pilots were unable to see the disks themselves. But no Marine pilot would take that as an excuse to miss landing precisely on those hidden disks. No signalman stood by waving batons, just those two strips of canvas. Marine Corps pilots didn’t need anyone else’s help to nail a landing.

Contact two seconds early—dead zero as the shock absorbers fully took the weight of the seven tons of helicopter, fuel, and extra armor. She thumped a fist on Captain Walters’ shoulder and she heard his pleased chuckle.

They went through the full routine: cycling down the engines before the Marine crew chief opened the forward door and lowered the stairway. He then did a military march, three steps out, six steps to the rear, and three steps in to lower the rear door and stair. The front door of the helo was reserved for the use of the First Family and the crew chief. All others used the rear stairs.

So she placed her white, field officer cover squarely on her head and walked down the length of the cabin. At the rear stairs she made her own neat right angle turn and descended down onto the grass of the immaculately manicured White House lawn. Per protocol, the crew chief had returned to stand beside the forward stairs. There he stood at parade rest with his hands clasped behind his back, ready to aid or honor the President. As she stopped two steps in front of him, he saluted sharply.

She couldn’t resist looking down at the wheels first. The center of all three white crosses were hidden by the black rubber of the tires—hitting the marks within six inches in the blind on a six-foot disk. She returned the sergeant’s sharp salute, then shot a thumb’s up to Walters, who grinned in relief. Go Marines!

McKinnon’s Law: Let them know when they done good and you never have to tell them when they done bad. They’ll know. His corollary, which she’d also proven many times: Tell them about the second screwup. Third time ask yourself if they’re really Corps material.

“Thank you, Sergeant Mathieson.” She automatically checked the crew chief’s uniform. He was one squared-away Marine. Too bad about the officer-enlisted gap, because he was also damn fine looking in his dress blues. He had three bronze hashes on his sleeve, marking twelve years of service. He’d earned his right to stand there and look magnificent.

“A pleasure, Major.” His smile said that he might be thinking the same thing about her. Nothing would ever happen there, but it didn’t hurt her ego in the slightest.

She almost wished the Press Corps was around so that someone would get a photograph of her striding this one time across the South Lawn in her uniform.

When she turned to walk up the lawn, Ivy nearly tripped over one of the biggest German shepherds she’d ever seen. He was wearing a US Secret Service vest and a giant-sized doggie smile that revealed equally large teeth.

“Hey there, Saint Ives!”

Ivy sighed. Only one person had ever called her that.

Colby had taken his normal station on the back side of the helo’s landing area, between there and the distant fence. This was his station, keeping an eye out for any last-minute fence jumpers. Once the helo was down and stopped, he’d circled around the tail, arriving just in time to see the back of the officious official.

Except the officious official was a pint-sized Marine in full dress blues, a female one. As trim and perfect as a wind-up doll, complete with her hair wound into that donut-shaped bun that female Marines wore. They never had a single strand astray because that would be against regulations and even a Marine’s hair follicles followed regulations. She looked a hundred percent delectable and he no longer minded having to escort her to the White House. Maybe she’d like a personal tour of the White House.