Page 30 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

Inessa managed to get Artemy to bed. She then showered and scrubbed but felt no cleaner.

He was now one of the elite. Enough so to have a mistress who was important in her own right rather than merely some whore or na?ve girl.

If it was the latter, she wouldn’t worry—she’d simply squash them like a bug.

But now he’d feel powerful enough to believe he could get away with anything. That was much harder to deal with.

How did the wives who were cast aside tolerate it?

Her first husband, she’d known what he was when she’d married him, and he’d been very useful—until he accidentally killed himself in Antarctica.

His tastes had run far more to the slut category.

She hadn’t minded being shut of him, but she’d thought Artemy was cut from a better cloth.

Apparently not.

Returning to her third-floor sanctuary, she didn’t sit.

The television now showed a view from above the crash site through a long telephoto lens.

A cluster of ships and small boats all circling an area where something washed in and out among the waves.

She didn’t have the background to make sense of the odd shape that appeared stuck there.

A graphic came on the silent screen of a plane nose down in the ocean bed with its tail sticking up through the water. That explained it.

Some ghoul had created a counter that tallied bodies as they were brought to the surface; thirty-two and counting.

She surveyed the room. The tasteful balance of gentle colors.

The subtle accent pieces in the white, blue, and red of the Russian flag.

A vase here, the trim of a curtain there, a cushion on a pale lavender couch.

Too subtle to connect unless one studied the space.

It had worked. Her social salon of women felt comfortable and safe enough here to share freely.

So many stories had happened in this place.

The warning of pending international sanctions from the commerce secretary’s wife had allowed her and others to reposition several key business assets, mostly cash, overseas—without enriching the Chinese after all other international banking routes were severed.

The authorization to launch military operations against Ukraine that General Sokolov’s mistress had shared in such an excited whisper.

It had allowed Inessa to send the crucial twelve hours’ warning to Kyiv of the coming invasion.

Her warning had stopped the immediate takeover and stymied the Russian President’s plans to expand his brutal dreams of empire.

Every decision had its consequences though.

She hadn’t expected that he would bleed his own country of its young men as no one since Hitler had—a quarter million dead and a million wounded, almost all men.

Not the twenty-four million of World War II… yet.

Worse, it wasn’t to stave off an invader, but rather to feed his own dreams of a perfect dictatorship. Would Russia again require that a man take multiple mates to repopulate the country as the Soviets had quietly mandated after Hitler’s demise?

Inessa ignored the irony that it was the same General Sokolov who a friend of the same mistress had spotted leading Artemy into Club Cloud 99 earlier this afternoon.

At least she’d been unsurprised by Artemy’s state on his return home, no matter how depressing it was.

Her attempt to hide from the consequences in her private space had been na?ve—not a mistake she’d repeat.

No longer a sanctuary for women, it had been violated far more by Artemy’s entrance than the sex he had demanded.

She could have defused that easily—in retrospect.

But some part of her had chosen not to think of how.

Perhaps it had been a final chance to believe that she could preserve her own small slice of the world if she held him close enough.

Such illusions were for dreamers, not realists. Definitely not for survivors.

There was only one solution, and her inner pragmatist knew it had to happen very soon. Artemy, or whoever had arranged for Sokolov to escort him to Cloud 99, would quietly arrange her removal.

Why had Sokolov taken Artemy there? It had certainly surprised his mistress.

He’s never been there, his young mistress had been desperately upset, but several friends confirmed it was him.

Sokolov’s mistress was of the proper age for that young-persons-of-power gathering place; he was not.

Artemy still was, though she was unsure why they’d let him in.

That was why Sokolov had gone, to take Artemy.

That meant—oh God! Inessa had to brace herself with both hands on the back of the couch. Her hands landed where Artemy had grabbed hold to dump the couch over but she couldn’t ease her grip.

Who wielded sufficient power to instruct three-star General Sokolov to take an underling like Artemy to Cloud 99? Who had been controlling his every move these last three years since the fiasco in Antarctica?

Murov! Four-star bloody General Murov. After decades as the Russian President’s right-hand man, Murov had lost control of him.

So he was grooming Artemy to replace him—with Murov’s fist tight about Artemy’s strings.

And Murov had to do it fast before the current regime drove all of Russia into the grave.

If allowed to continue, the President would fracture the country worse than any time since Rurik of the Rus peoples had first conquered and unified the Eastern Slavic states in 862.

Artemy hadn’t merely been taken to Club Cloud 99.

She’d wager that Murov had made it clear to the young women that he was the future of Russia—the banner they wanted to attach themselves to.

Murov would have made sure that only the women who were powerful enough to serve Artemy’s elevation would know that he was the Golden Child—the Chosen One.

He’d probably been mobbed by the most eligible and elite.

And, knowing Artemy, he’d never caught on to what was happening.

Fast. That was the key. Murov would make this happen as fast as politically possible.

His first step? Elevate Artemy sufficiently to be interesting to these young women of connection.

That explained Artemy’s abrupt promotion to a two-star general in the FSB.

No one of the necessary class would pay the least attention to a one-star.

But his rapid elevation to two-stars marked him as a favored son of the Federation.

Next was making sure it had worked. This afternoon proved that done as well.

He hadn’t screwed one of the President’s daughters, but with the death of Murov’s own daughter, he’d certainly nailed—or been nailed by—the third most powerful daughter of the current age.

In fact, a brilliant choice for the future, as she had all the political savvy and connections that she knew Artemy lacked.

His next step? Inessa Turgeneva needed to have an accident to open the way for the girl to Artemy’s side.

Very soon!

Her normal channels would take time—too much time.

Inessa focused on breathing as she clutched the back of the couch with all her strength. In. Out. In. That was all she could manage.

There must be a way, a path, a channel, an escape that she hadn’t set up previously because she’d been na?ve and stupid.

There should have been more time. There should have been a chance to turn her country’s future onto a survivable path.

Neither with the current dictator-in-all-but-title nor with Murov pulling the Artemy-puppet strings would the country recover.

She groaned as she rested her forehead between her hands. She felt the roughness of the cracked wood beneath the fabric where her weight had broken the antique as Artemy had flipped it over.

Inessa looked up and stared at the room that had been her sanctuary in a world that favored chaos. And at the television news of the crashed airplane. Crashed, that was the key.

She’d met a woman from Miranda Chase’s team who had made a promise two years ago. Then months later, there had been a phone call. An impossible call. An incredibly secure impossible call.

Would it work the other way? If it did, would it be secure?

If not, she would be removed the moment the FSB monitored it. Artemy’s path to becoming Murov’s puppet would be cleared just that much faster.

But if it did work and was secure, did the promise still hold?