“We had sex once, and we talked about it afterward and both decided it wasn’t right,” Boomer said. “We’ll be training together for another twelve months. I’m your instructor. Sleeping together is not a good idea.”
“If you say so,” Sondra said in a soft voice. Then, slowly and seductively, she pulled off the T-shirt, revealing her breathtaking body, firm breasts, and flat tummy. She held the T-shirt out, being careful not to let it block Boomer’s view of her exquisite body. “Do you want your T-shirt back, Dr. Noble?”
Boomer reached out and took the T-shirt from her . . . then flipped it over his shoulder. “Shit, I’m going to hell anyway,” he said, and he took Sondra in his arms and kissed her deeply.
FOURTEENTH BUILDING, THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
DAYS LATER
President Gennadiy Gryzlov’s primary official offices in the Kremlin government complex were in the Senate Building, also known as the First Building, but he much preferred the more isolated president’s reserve working office known as the Fourteenth Building. Recently he had completely renovated the building, making it a high-tech copy of his oil company’s offices in St. Petersburg, with several layers of security, sophisticated surveillance and countersurveillance systems, and ultrasecure communications, all of which rivaled and in many ways exceeded the best Russian technology; it also had an underground emergency escape railway that could whisk him to Chkalovsky Airport, eighteen miles northeast of Moscow, which was his cosmonaut training airfield serving Star City and now had a contingent of military transport planes that could get him safely away if necessary.
He was determined not to be trapped inside an underground command post during an air raid, the way his father had been: at the first warning of any danger, Gryzlov could be out of Fourteenth Building in less than a minute, out of the city in less than five, and stepping aboard a jet ready to take him anywhere in Europe in less than thirty.
Gryzlov rarely conducted meetings in Fourteenth Building, preferring that all official and high-level cabinet meetings be in his office in First Building, but he had summoned Foreign Minister Daria Titeneva to his office in Fourteenth Building early in the morning. She was escorted into the office by Chief of Staff Sergei Tarzarov, who then assumed his “out of sight, out of mind” position in the president’s office, but was dismissed with a glance from Gryzlov. “Privetstviye, Daria,” Gryzlov said from behind his immense desk. “Welcome. Tea? Coffee?”
“No, thank you, Mr. President,” Titeneva said. She took a moment to look around the office. Behind Gryzlov’s desk were picture windows with spectacular panoramic views of the Kremlin and Moscow, and on the walls before the desk were large-screen, high-definition monitors displaying a variety of information, from international news to feeds from government proceedings, to stock-market price and volume tickers from around the world. A conference table for twenty was to the president’s left, and a comfortable seating area for twelve, surrounding a coffee table, was on the right. “I have not seen your private office here since you finished remodeling it. Very businesslike. I like it, Mr. President.”
“I cannot get very much work done in the Senate Building with the staff running amok,” Gryzlov said. “I go to First Building to hear the hens cluck, then come back here and make decisions.”
“I hope I am not one of those hens you speak of, Mr. President,” Titeneva said.
“Of course not,” Gryzlov said, crossing around his desk, stepping up to Titeneva, and giving her a light kiss on the cheek, then receiving a polite one in return. “You are a trusted friend. You worked with my father for many years, ever since you served together in the air force.”
“Your father was a great man,” Titeneva said. “I was privileged to serve him.”
“He brought you along the whole way with him, did he not?” Gryzlov said. “You both rose through the ranks in the air force together, and then he led you through the ranks of government, yes?”
“Your father knew that it was important to have trusted individuals with him, both in and out of the military,” Titeneva said. “He was also careful to make sure I learned from the best experts in the Kremlin.”
“You were his chief of staff for a short while, before the traitor Nikolai Stepashin, if I recall correctly,” Gryzlov said. “I am curious: why did you leave him and join the Foreign Service? You could have been prime minister or even president by now.”
“We both thought that my talents could better be utilized in Washington and New York,” Titeneva said casually. “Back then, women did not take on most high-level positions in the Kremlin.”