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The needle length of the MQ-45 Casper, haloed by the rising sun, seemed to float effortlessly beside her. Miranda marveled at the contrast between her sixty-year-old F-86 and the most advanced aircraft in the world. There had been almost ten thousand of the former and there would never be more than this last one of the latter. Someday soon there would be a replacement—another new breakthrough—but the Casper’s days were done.
She knew who flew it.
She and the last MQ-45 pilot ever had sat together for over an hour. A tall, handsome man. His obvious love for his aircraft—he touched it the way she sometimes touched the model of Kryptos in her garden—had her feeling an instant bond with him.
They’d spoken only a few words; instead watching the video of his one flight against the narco-s
