Page 75 of Air Force One
“And you are?”
“That is a good question, Madam President. At the moment, I don’t have a name.”
“A woman of mystery?”
“A woman without a past. Holly Harper, who I understand is still trapped high atop a Russian mountain by a snowstorm, and Mike Munroe, below and nervously awaiting her recovery, went to some trouble to ensure my apparent death. I feel that I would gainsay their efforts if I were to use that name ever again, and it somehow leaked out that I survived.” Her voice was mesmerizing…perhaps soothing was a better word. Just enough of a Russian accent to sound dark and lush.
“If you have no past, why are you here?”
“Oh, I have a past. It is a present and a future that I currently am lacking.”
Clarissa found her voice. “She has been providing the CIA with extremely high-level intelligence for the last few years.”
“So this was an operation to bring you in from the cold.”
“Not precisely, Madam President. Though it was a rather chilly departure, even by my Muscovite standards. My circumstances changed rather abruptly for strictly domestic reasons. General Mikhail Murov, the head of the FSB, is grooming a new President for Russia.”
Though she didn’t move, Sarah felt as if she’d been thrown back in her chair by a hard punch to the chest. How was she supposed to assess such a wild statement?
“I know this,” the woman read her far too easily, “Because the man being groomed is my, ah, an interesting playing of the words, my widower. The man I widowed by dying before I could be executed.”
Sarah punched the intercom connection, isolating the room. “No one can hear us now. You’ll need to explain that last statement.”
“Of my dramatic death?” She waved a hand at the blank screen at the front of the room. “Search on any news channel that covers Russia and you will find it. My fame has risen dramatically in the last forty-eight hours, regrettably both enhancing my ex-husband’s image as the poor man left behind, and the sudden fortune from my fashion house that sadly will also benefit him. My former business will grow greatly for some time after the tragic news of my death, though I shall no longer benefit from it. You will want to be researching General Artemy Turgenev of the FSB. I had to die. I stood in his future’s way.”
Clarissa laughed. “Do you realize how little we know of FSB internal operations? It has been decades since we had anyone with insider knowledge there.”
Inessa merely smiled before raising a hand and tapping her own chest. “I have spent most of three decades getting to know them intimately.”
“It’s true. She worked with my parents.” Miranda spoke for the first time.
“Your parents?” Sarah could barely keep track of the many strange connections, from Wang Daiyu in China to this woman in Russia, that Miranda and her team could claim.
“Yes. They were CIA agents until they were murdered for aiding Boris Yeltsin. Some say it was by his enemies. Others say it was by Boris Yeltsin’s own order, because they knew too much about him. How can it be both? I don’t understand.”
“It’s one or the other,” Andi explained. “But we will probably never know. Right, Clarissa?”
Sarah glanced at Clarissa, who was nodding. “The answer is not in our files, though the manner of their deaths is accurate.”
So this wasn’t some Miranda fantasy. How was it that everything seemed to connect through her? Whether she understood how or not, it certainly confirmed Roy Cole’s advice to always listen to Miranda, even when it was hard.
Sarah focused on the Russian. “If you know so much, was Russia responsible for the murder of President Roy Cole and others?”
“I had little time to investigate, as my life fell into imminent danger that same evening. Artemy certainly did not know of it. And no rumors or hints reached me, though they absolutely should have for an action of such magnitude and importance. I am unable to make guarantees, but I would deem it to be exceedingly unlikely that your Air Force One was attacked by Russia.”
“If it wasn’t China or Russia, then who the hell attacked Air Force One?”
“It wasn’t attacked,” Miranda was shaking her head. “It was sabotaged.”
“What’s the distinction?”
“The former is a distinct action of aggression. The latter is a carefully planned and executed task to achieve a specific aim.”
“How do you know?”
“Each engine failure was caused by the burnout of a master control chip and both of its backups. I considered it as a possible manufacturing fault, though it seemed unlikely. This was confirmed by the black box information Jeremy analyzed. The control chips for each engine were burned up precisely thirty seconds apart. Engines Four, Three, Two, One. This precision implies human, not mechanical causes. Hence sabotage.”
Sarah felt sick to her stomach. “All to kill Roy?”
