Page 42 of Air Force One
“I didn’t mean to?—”
Andi didn’t strike out. She merely pointed at the ladder up to the deck.
Holly had just crashed Miranda’s brain through her own ineptitude. Bowing her head, as much as her stiff neck allowed, she went.
34
“Well that didn’t go so great.”
The fulminating look that Holly sent his way told Mike that his own skills weren’t holding up very well at the moment. Holly had only cried a few times in his experience, but she’d never wept like her heart had been ripped out. Instead of feeling strong for being able to offer her comfort, he’d felt utterly helpless in the face of her pain.
He tried again. “Look, I know it’s against your nature, but tell me what’s going on. Maybe between us we can figure it out. You need to kill someone without really killing them, right? Who?”
They’d come up out of the cutter’s depths to wind up on the bow. He’d thought they’d been going the other way, but the ship’s inner spaces seemed to twist and turn with a mind of their own. Large military ships weren’t big in his repertoire. Maybe he’d use that as the excuse for why he was missing so many cues.
Anchored directly downwind of Air Force One, the bow pointed at the wreck like a compass needle. The waves weren’t big enough to kick spray over the bow, though they soon would be. The RHIBs were having more and more trouble fighting the waves. Not that the twenty-four-foot boats weren’t built to take it, but holding their positions in the ten- to fifteen-foot waves was another matter.
Holly winced as she leaned slowly back against the white steel of the big deck-gun turret.
“Are you hurt?” He moved forward to inspect her for injuries.
She stopped him with a raised palm. “Nothing that some Vicodin and a week sleeping on my stomach wouldn’t fix. Too bad that’s not an option.” She closed her eyes and simply lay there for a minute or more.
Mike couldn’t stand it anymore. “Holly?—”
She shook her head. “Not what’s important. Do you remember?—”
“You stupid bitch!” Andi pushed between them. “Don’t you ever think first?”
“No, that’s your and Mike’s job. You know that about me. Is she okay?”
“You dare ask after throwing her parents’ deaths in her face with that stupid-ass question?”
“Do you remember Inessa Turgeneva?”
Mike didn’t recognize the name, but clearly Andi did. For some reason, that brought her rage to a screeching halt.
“If I don’t go save her now, she’s dead. You want that?”
Andi shook her head.
“Who?”
Holly glanced at Mike. “Remember Kaliningrad?” Then she turned to Andi, “I’m sure that your short ass definitely does.”
Mike had aged a hundred years during that mission. Holly had parachuted alone into the Russian exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania to rescue Miranda and Andi from kidnappers. He’d never gotten the whole story, but Holly had ejected Andi from the team immediately afterward without consulting anyone. For almost a year, Miranda had staggered along worse than a malfunctioning automaton without her. But he’d never heard of—“Inessa who?”
Holly sighed. “She, more than anyone else, stopped the US and Russia from going to war that day. Between them, she and Miranda had the keys to the downing of that Osprey over the North Sea off Scotland. Way back when, she was mentored by Miranda’s parents when they were undercover CIA. Inessa is also a very smart lady.”
“What was the line about the Taser?”
“I shot her husband with one while I was there. Only the two of them and this one,” she nodded toward Andi, “Know that. Proof of identity.”
“Oh.” Mike didn’t know whether to be amused or furious that Holly hadn’t shared this story with him. Of course, she’d been crap about doing that until it had almost broken their relationship and nearly destroyed Miranda. Neither of them had been willing to rehash anything from that hard year. “Does he play into this?”
“No. He’s just some two-star general in the FSB.”
He snorted out a laugh. “Oh, is that all? That’s their secret police, FBI, and CIA all rolled into one, right?”
