“You didn’t tell them not to kill anyone,” Andrei said.
“We need to decide what to do with you,” Rhiannon said. “Execute you? Wipe your mind? Turn you over to Sergei Gorbachev? Or turn you over to your brother Viktor? There are so many tantalizing possibilities.” She turned to Andrei. “It’s too bad that she doesn’t have anything to offer us. I think it would be fascinating to hear her try to bargain for her life.”
Andrei moved to answer a knock on the door. Vladimir walked in with a small platter of sandwiches and finger foods. He looked Galina up and down with an undisguised leer on his face.
“She’s not bad looking. It would be too bad to waste her. I still say we should mind wipe her and implant a construct. We should be able to get pretty good money for her.” Vladimir put the tray on the bed.
Rhiannon felt the terror in Galina’s mind spike. None of the other options for punishment had inspired that much fear. Even the suggestions of a mind wipe hadn’t affected her as much. She had seen the disgust in Galina’s mind for the sex trade her Clan engaged in. But she hadn’t previously detected that the woman’s fear of such a fate was so strong. Her memories and insecurities burst to the surface.
From the time Galina was six until she reached puberty and came into her power, her brothers had systematically abused her, both sexually and physically, and used their mental powers to prevent her from telling anyone. As a forty-five year old adult, she had never had a sexual relationship. Indeed, she could barely stand to have a man touch her.
Rhiannon shrugged. “Vladimir will stay with you while you eat.” Turning to him, she added, “I don’t care what you do, but be careful not to damage the merchandise. Our superiors still haven’t decided what to do with her.” She motioned to Andrei and they left the room. Galina’s panic escalated.
In the hall, RB slumped against the wall.
“Are you all right?” Andrei asked.
“I feel dirty. Goddess, I hope my mother never finds out what we did in there.”
With a grim face, Andrei said, “My mother wouldn’t be proud of me either, nor would my wife. Torture is a nasty business.”
RB shuddered.
Vladimir, who had been with them mentally the whole time, sent, *She’s almost catatonic. She just stares at me and shakes. We can’t push her any farther. I don’t think she’s going to be able to eat with me in the room. RB, if you need a volunteer to kill her brothers, I’ll do it.*
*I don’t think she can do any damage with that metal tray,* Rhiannon sent. *Take the plates but leave the food.*
Vladimir emerged from the room a couple of minutes later carrying the dishes. “Holy Mother,” he breathed, “that was ugly.”
“I think I need to contact Lady O’Byrne,” Rhiannon said. “If we need that woman to be a useful ally, I think a Clan psychologist is more in order than the interrogation techniques we’re used to using.”
“Yeah,” Vladimir said. “We extracted her deepest, darkest secrets, but that isn’t going to make her cooperative. I think that you did some real damage. Up until you told me to do what I wanted with her, she was hopeful that a woman would protect her.”
“Water under the bridge. I wasn’t too worried about her psyche because I figured she was responsible for killing Ivan and Roman.”
“Yeah,” Andrei said. “I’m not sure that supposition was correct. She’s intelligent and in some ways tough as nails, but rather naïve. I don’t think she really understands the real culture Romanov has cultivated the last few decades.”
During the interrogation, Galina’s memory of ordering Irina’s kidnapping surfaced. She had given explicit orders that no one was to be harmed. “We don’t need Gorbachev coming after us looking for blood. I want this clean and smooth. No violence. We can afford to take some time.” But her men had disregarded her orders.
A spear thread from Brenna drew Rhiannon’s attention away from their conversation. *Are you in a place where you can visualize a landing spot?*
*Yes. Why are you coming here?*
*I’m not.*
Confused, Rhiannon sent the image of the empty hallway in front of her. Almost immediately, a woman appeared with a large roller suitcase. Andrei and Vladimir whirled around, staring at her.
“Hello, Jerome,” she said with a smile. “And you must be Rhiannon. I’m Jill.”
Jill McConaghy was Seamus’s youngest child. Slender and pretty with shining brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, she served as O’Donnell Group’s regional manager in Hong Kong, overseeing all of their Asian interests. In addition to Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese, she was also fluent in Russian.
They took her downstairs, and after calling the other team leaders and Irina, briefed her on the situation. Jill listened, asking few questions. When they got to the point of explaining the interrogation of Galina, Jill pursed her mouth and said, “I agree about bringing in a psychologist. Just a moment.”
Closing her eyes, she sat for several minutes in silence. Then she stood and walked to an empty space of floor in the corner of the room. “I’ll be right back. Please keep this area clear.” Then she disappeared.
“Holy Goddess,” Vladimir said. “So that’s what one of Seamus O’Donnell’s kids is like.”
“Jill’s the soft, cuddly one in the family,” Irina said. “She doesn’t have any weapons among her Gifts.”
Rhiannon had pulled up Brenna’s memories of her aunt. “Yeah, soft and cuddly. Also frighteningly intelligent and competent. She runs a seven billion dollar a year division in a hostile part of the world. When I presented our plans to the Clan Chiefs, they said if we’re going to launch a major world-changing initiative, we need a strategic thinker on board. I knew she was coming. I just didn’t expect her so soon.”
“What Gifts does she have?” Vladimir asked. “Teleportation and Distance Communication, obviously ...”
“Telekinesis, Aerokinesis, Kilpatrick and O’Byrne, and the base Gifts. Ten in all,” Rhiannon said.
“I’ve known Jill for over twenty years,” Andrei said. “She spent four years studying at the Moscow State University. My wife absolutely loves her. Hell, everyone does.”
“Except the Chinese,” Irina said. “She controls Hong Kong and Canton, most of Southeast Asia, and has pulled the Japanese Clan in as an ally. She’s almost like a Clan Chief in that part of the world.”
“She’s how old?” Vladimir asked.
“Forty-five,” Rhiannon answered. “About your age. Makes you feel kind of like you’ve been wasting your life when you really could have been accomplishing something, doesn’t it?”
Jill reappeared holding the arm of another woman carrying a suitcase. “Sorry it took so long. I had to give her a chance to pack. When something is this important, you don’t half-ass things. You bring in the best. This is Dr. Moira O’Reilly.”
Irina leaped up from the table and embraced Moira. She then poured her a cup of tea as Jill and Moira seated themselves at the table.
Rhiannon had met Dr. O’Reilly a couple of times, usually at the O’Byrne estate, and once in London. Those meetings had involved Rhiannon’s recovery of trafficked girls from prostitution rings she’d broken up. She was struck with how much the psychologist resembled Galina. A couple of inches shorter, her auburn hair was shoulder length, whereas Galina’s was waist length, and Moira was probably ten or fifteen pounds heavier with smaller breasts. But at a distance, it would be difficult to tell one from the other.
“I’ve given Moira the gist of what’s going on,” Jill said. “For some added background, I know Galina. We went to university together in Moscow, and we still keep in touch. I think for the time being, we’ll keep all men away from her. Moira, me, Irina and RB will be her only contacts.”
“I’m not sure she’s going to be comfortable with me,” Rhiannon said.
“We’ll repair that,” Moira said, taking a sip of her tea. “Once she knows your feelings toward sexual abuse and the role you’ve played in recovering girls from
the sex trade, she’ll understand that you would have never carried through on your threats.”
“Hell, none of the men here would do anything like that,” Vladimir said. “And if there are men like that working with us, they wouldn’t survive very long.”
Moira smiled. “I understand that. But you have to realize that in her experience, men like you don’t exist. Romanov is a major conduit for sending Russian women to the west. They make more than a billion dollars a year from the slave trade.”
She shifted in her seat, leaning forward and scanning the faces of those at the table. “You need to understand the ramifications of what you’re proposing to do. According to the intelligence that O’Donnell and RB have gathered, almost a third of Romanov’s total yearly revenue comes from trafficking women. Another third comes from other illegal businesses.”
“This isn’t just a matter of installing a new Clan Chief who will be sympathetic to us,” Jill said. “You’re talking about a complete culture shift. Thousands of Clan members will be out of a job. And given the chauvinistic nature of Russian society, and of the Clans, many of them won’t be happy or willing to make a change. This isn’t a quick operation. If we do this, we’re making a very long term commitment to supporting Galina.”
“We face the same challenges with Gorbachev,” Irina said. “Only there, we’re also looking at changing the direction of an entire nation. That’s why I asked Brenna to send Jill here. This thing has grown far beyond a simple assassination.”
Jill and Rhiannon both looked startled. “You’re the one who suggested Jill be assigned to this mission?” Rhiannon asked.
“Yes. Not just to this mission. If we’re successful, I want her to stay in Russia.” Irina looked at Jill. “If you’re willing, of course.”
~~~
Chapter 15
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius
Galina sat on the bed with a half-eaten sandwich lying on the tray beside her. Rhiannon could read the fear in her eyes. The four women filed into the room, and a look of amazement spread across Galina’s face. “Zhillian!”
“Hello, Galina,” Jill said, motioning toward the psychologist. “Moira doesn’t speak Russian. Do you mind if we switch to English?”
“No, that is fine.” Galina’s English was heavily accented. “I wasn’t aware that I was being held by O’Donnell.”
“O’Donnell and O’Neill,” Jill said. “Let me introduce you. This is Rhiannon Kendrick, heir to O’Neill, Moira O’Reilly of O’Donnell, and I believe you’ve met Irina Moore, who is also a member of O’Donnell. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but I only recently learned that we were holding you.”
Jill sat down on the bed and hugged Galina to her. Galina immediately started sobbing. In Russian, she said, “They wiped my mind. They took my Gifts. Oh, Goddess, Zhillian, they crippled me.”
Rhiannon felt as though she’d been slapped. It had never occurred to her to explain to Galina that they had merely blocked her Gifts. No wonder the woman was terrified. She thought they had permanently maimed her.
Although she didn’t speak Russian, Moira had access to Galina’s mind through the Rhiannon’s keyhole in her shields. She immediately began searching through Galina’s mind, finding the trauma from her childhood, beginning to blur the memories and laying a Comfort on her.
“No, they didn’t,” Jill said in English. “They only placed blocks on your Gifts and a compulsion on using your telepathy. Nothing they’ve done is permanent. They only wanted to make sure you didn’t escape, or contact anyone.”
“Or kill us all,” Rhiannon said softly. “Galina, I apologize for what we said earlier. I would never allow anyone to abuse a woman that way. None of our men would do that. We were trying to scare you, but we went too far. I’m sorry.”
The sobbing slowed and Galina studied her face, then turned to Jill. “The heir? I thought your niece was the heir at O’Neill.”
“Corwin is dead,” Jill said. “Brenna is now the Clan Chief. Rhiannon is Corwin’s granddaughter.”
“A woman Clan Chief. And a woman heir. I never thought I would see such a thing.”
“That surprises me,” Rhiannon said. “Isn’t that your ambition?”
“I never thought I would succeed,” Galina said. “My father is dying. And no matter Viktor or Alexander takes over, one of first things they do is kill me. So I don’t have anything to lose.”
*Her backup plan, in case everything else failed, was to go to Hong Kong and hope Jill would take her in,* Moira sent to the group.
Jill’s eyes filled with tears. *We were friends, but I didn’t consider us that close. Does she really feel that alone in the world?*
*Completely alone. You’re the only person she’s ever known that showed her kindness. The emotional scars are impossible to erase without changing who she is. But I think we can give her a life going forward,* Moira sent.
“Galina,” Rhiannon said. “Do you want to be Clan Chief, or do you want asylum? If you want out of Russia, we can take you to the British Isles or America, or even to Hong Kong.”
“You make it sound as if I have two options. Why would O’Neill and O’Donnell care who sits in the Romanov seat?”
“Because I plan to kill Sergei Gorbachev,” Irina said. “If we had an ally in Romanov, then we might also consider taking control of the Gorbachev Clan. But we can’t do that with Romanov as an enemy.”
“And because we’re trying to end the slave trade,” Rhiannon said. “We don’t want telepathic women trafficked anymore.”
“I don’t know if I could do that,” Galina said. “The business is so profitable.”
“Von Ebersberg got out of the business,” Rhiannon said. “At least the trafficking of telepaths. I wish I could have ended all of his trafficking, but that probably would have gotten Siegfried deposed by his sons.”
Galina’s eyes widened. “You! You’re the woman von Ebersberg’s sons were looking for. Rimma Gorbacheva!”
Rhiannon smiled. “I might have used that name once or twice.”
~~~
Over the following days, Moira and Jill worked with Galina. Sometimes Irina joined in. Using the intelligence they gleaned from her, much of it with her active cooperation, the Protectors began laying plans to assault Viktor and the younger Alexander on news of their father’s death.
Galina’s captured men were carefully vetted for loyalty to her and several manipulations to their motivations were implanted. Then they were used to gain access to her country estate and various business interests. Rhiannon led those efforts, ruthlessly searching for spies from the other Romanov factions or from Gorbachev.
Anyone who was found to be less than loyal disappeared. Vladimir’s team took them to the train station, put them to sleep, and put them on a train to Minsk, in Belarus, without their papers.
The joke was that Belarus was still a Soviet state at the time, and without a passport or visas, they were detained by the Belarussian KGB. At that point, they would be considered spies by the Kovalchuk Clan who controlled the KGB.
When Moira announced that it was safe to take the blocks off Galina’s Gifts, Rhiannon contacted the Irish Clan Chiefs. That evening, Galina was invited to the dining room. In addition to the four women she’d had the most contact with, Vladimir, Andrei and Mikhail also were there.
“Galina,” Rhiannon said, “our information is that your father has at most days to live. Do you want to visit him?”
Galina shook her head. “It’s too dangerous. Besides, he wouldn’t know me. He’s been almost comatose since his last stroke. But thank you for asking.”
“What do you want to do?” Jill asked. “We can get you out of the country.”
“You’ve spoken of backing me as Clan Chief. Was that just talk, or are you willing to take the chance I can do it?”
“It depends on what you plan to do if you take the seat,” Rhiannon said. “In exchange for our help, we want a number o
f assurances.”
“I understand that. If you want me to end the slave trade, I’ll need support for an extended length of time. And the war that will result won’t be quick or easy.”
“Yes, we know that. We would want the slave trade ended, yes. In return, we would offer trade and business opportunities to help fill the gap in your revenues. We would also want an alliance, an agreement of mutual assistance. The Irish Clans would support you against any aggression, but we would expect you to support us, also.”
“Yes. I’ve had a chance to think about this. I would agree to that.”
Rhiannon looked at Jill, who nodded. Almost immediately, Seamus, Fergus and Brenna appeared in the room.
“I’m not the one to work out an agreement with,” Rhiannon said. “That’s something Clan Chiefs do. But if you’re on our side, I’ll make sure you win that seat.”
~~~
The older Alexander was at the Romanov estate near Strelna, southwest of St. Petersburg. Viktor’s estate was nearby. The younger Alexander had an estate on the Neva River, southeast of the city. Both of the brothers’ estates were fortified and guarded in anticipation of a conflict. In contrast, Galina’s forces abandoned both her country dacha and her house in the city. As far as her brothers might know, she and her followers had disappeared.
In Russia, a dacha usually refers to a summer house outside the city. Usage of the term has changed somewhat over time, and currently it might be used for anything from a small shack to a huge mansion. The Romanovs’ dachas were definitely not shacks.
Jill had teleported to Ireland and brought Collin and Rebecca back to help with planning the operation. Andrei was the most experienced commander of the group in Russia, but none of them had ever been involved with a battle plan of the magnitude they were considering.
“I was talking with Antonia Federicci,” Rebecca said the morning after she arrived. “She was telling me that a true Storm Queen was able to do more than manipulate lightning. Everyone focuses on the ability to channel lightning because it’s flashy.” She paused, a crooked grin on her face, waiting for the pun to sink in. Amid the groans and a few chuckles, Collin threw a pencil at her, which she caught.
Succubus Ascendant: An Urban Fantasy (The Telepathic Clans Saga Book 4) Page 16