“Before I retired,” she continued, “I was part of a classified unit. We stopped something from being sold: technology that could make aircraft disappear from radar completely. Not stealth the way people talk about it on television. Something beyond that. A guidance and masking system designed to bend detection around an aircraft for short windows of time.”
I could barely breathe.
“The project was called Ghostwing.
The phone rang.
Both of us froze.
Not her cell phone. The old wall phone in the kitchen, the one we almost never used anymore. Mom stood slowly, crossed the kitchen, and answered without saying hello.
A voice crackled faintly through the receiver. I could not hear the words, only the tone: controlled, urgent, afraid.
Mom’s face went white.
She hung up.
“Pack a bag,” she said.
“Why?”
She grabbed the metal box.
“Because Admiral Carter is missing.”
Fifteen minutes later, we were on the highway, the town disappearing behind us.
