“This is an emergency domestic threat involving my minor daughter,” I explained through gritted teeth. “I have absolute command clearance to alter our route. You will file this immediately as a command necessity, and you will put this aircraft on the ground within the next twenty minutes.”
The pilot took one look at the dead, uncompromising expression in my eyes, swallowed hard, and stopped arguing altogether.
“Understood, sir,” the pilot said quietly before turning back toward his radio panel. “Filing emergency diversion route right now.”
I sat back down in my leather seat and prepared to make a single critical phone call.
I did not call emergency services first because I needed tactical boots on the ground immediately.
I dialed Jackson Lynch, who was my former special operations chief and trusted friend. Jackson was the brave man who had physically dragged my bleeding body out of a burning armored vehicle overseas eight years ago. In over a decade of knowing him, he had never once failed to answer my call before the third ring.