Page 36 of Air Force One (Miranda Chase #16)

“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?”

“Pretty much.” Holly hadn’t looked away from Andi. “I need to make everyone think she’s dead and get her out of Russia. Probably in the next twenty-four hours. You know I’m not the big thinker, Andi. Not at the level of Miranda. It’s got to be a hundred percent bulletproof—so to speak.”

Andi…shifted. Her stance was that of any landlubber standing on a pitching boat.

To Holly it might have been dead calm. His years as a downhill skier let him compensate for each wave’s passage with some modicum of stability.

Andi’s skills were the delicate control necessary to pilot a military helicopter.

She staggered a step one way and then two the other under the gross motion of the Coast Guard cutter. But no…she was more unstable than that.

Slow, Mike! When did he get so damn slow? Andi had followed them with the clear intent of inflicting serious harm on Holly. Then she’d become as cowed as Mike had seen her since the day he’d given her permission to try to heal the breach with Miranda. Now she looked thoughtful.

“You want to save this Inessa?” Mike asked.

“I promised.”

“Her husband—”

“Kidnapped Miranda, I know. Inessa set her free.”

“Inessa hurt her like hell!” Andi shouted, now shifting straight through furious and back into dangerous.

“How?” Mike asked before the two women could go at each other.

Holly didn’t answer, instead meeting Andi gaze for gaze.

He’d been shocked that Andi had gotten that earlier punch past Holly’s defenses.

And that was before the battering she’d taken aboard Air Force One.

For once, his bets might not be on Holly in a fight though she towered eight inches over Andi.

Andi finally answered. “Miranda’s parents treated her like shit her whole life. Like she was a failed component and a burden. If not for her therapist and governess, they’d probably have rammed her into an institution. But they treated Inessa like their beloved daughter.”

“That explains it,” Mike nodded.

“Explains what?”

“The message said that Inessa wanted to meet her Little Sister. I’m assuming that’s Miranda.”

Andi closed her eyes. And when the next wave caught the ship’s bow a little sideways, it almost tumbled her to the deck. She stumbled a few steps away before recovering. “Yeah…that’s Miranda. Inessa said that, the day I betrayed—”

Holly reached out and grabbed her shoulder.

Mike knew he’d screwed up. Her stagger had placed him three steps too far away to intervene in time.

But rather than attacking, Holly simply shook her.

“That’s done now, Wu. Yeah, we never had our talk and I’m guessing that now we don’t need to.

Miranda loves you with all her heart is capable of and she married you.

And, yes, you finally pounded it through my thick skull.

I want to spend the rest of my life with Mike, and I’ll figure out how to tell him sometime soon without freaking both of us out. ”

Mike wanted to respond, he really did. It wasn’t that he was freaking out.

No. The big surprise that had stolen his breath away?

That he was not already overboard and swimming for shore.

He looked at her and knew it was true; he wanted to spend every day he could with Holly.

But she wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she was watching Andi.

Andi in turn studied the deck intently. Did it until she finally managed a nod. Then she faced Holly as if nothing had happened. “Miranda can’t help you with this, what can I do?”