Unacceptable Risk

by David Dun

  "I will tell them and that is all there is to it. And I cannot take this money."

  "You need to calm yourself and think this through. Your money will be in a numbered account. You will have the number. In truth, if discovered, it will be part of what Baptiste expected to get. That will be the story. He'll get arrested for five million. The other five million will be missing. Yours. Leave it in the anonymous account if you don't want it. You can always turn it in to the French government. Say you tricked Gaudet and it would be a feather in your cap. I am putting it there in any case, and only you and I will know. The point is, you don't have to decide now. The key, remember, is making the deal for the French with Gaudet before telling the Americans about Cordyceps. Understand?"

  "Benoit, I have one simple question: why would you risk telling me all this?"

  "I want a pardon. Don't underestimate me, Admiral. I can do this. Not only that, I'm the only person who can do all of this. Without me, Chaperone will be lost to France for at least your lifetime, and you can take that to the bank. Without this deal another country or entity will get the functioning vector technology first."

  "Why do you wish to involve me?"

  "Because you can send me to the States. And because you are almost a minister. I need the promise of a pardon from the French government from someone who counts."

  She had shifted on the bed, revealing a firm thigh.

  "Would you like me to take off this blouse?"

  "You know I would." His heart was beating hard as she teased off the blouse to reveal a sheer bra and a firm, high set of breasts with dark rose nipples. His throat constricted and he became fully erect.

  "Where do you get such lingerie in prison?"

  "My cousin in le Senat staff. But your staff are not complete morons. They have to stretch the rules to let me wear it—I think that had something to do with the fact that I would be with you this afternoon."

  She leaned forward and pulled him toward her, running his hand across her upper leg.

  Larive swallowed. "You say this Raval is the only hope to understanding Chaperone?"

  "Yes."

  "And Bowden the only man to find the source of the Chaperone molecule."

  "Yes."

  "What does Bowden get?"

  "France will have to pay him a royalty. You and I will negotiate it."

  "Were you Raval's lover?"

  "No. But we enjoyed each other's company. We flirted, but it never went anywhere. I was in charge of coordinating with Malaysia from an administrative standpoint, but not the science. Boudreaux, the chief scientist, kept the Chaperone research very much compartmentalized. It was even at another facility a few miles from the main lab. Boudreaux kept a double set of books for the employees there and they were lumped in the budget under R and D Immunological Pathogens and Disease Processes. Those books are long gone, of course. But Raval knew everything. It was essentially his project."

  "Why would Gaudet tell you his secrets, and if he did, why would you then tell me?"

  "He may, he may not. We were lovers for years, as I told you. Also, I can make it part of the deal. After he launches Cordyceps, the technology no longer has much value to him. Making a deal with France first is his best choice. He'll want that two hundred million, have no doubt. And why tell you? Isn't it obvious? France is my whole life. I want to live here and be free. I supposed that if I obtained for France the secret of Chaperone, I could obtain a full pardon. To me, my darling, you are freedom."

  He looked at the young woman. Tactically, she was brilliant. And she might be right. She might pull it off. There would be no quick pardon, but she need not know that now. He might get her house arrest and rules, then a minimum security with work release in a couple of years.

  "You will have a pardon," he said, his hand still on her leg. "If you pull off the whole thing. All of it."

  "It is a deal, then? You will let me go to the U.S.?"

  "Baptiste must come to me. It must be his idea that he shoves at me. That he guarantees. It cannot be my idea that I assign him."

  "I understand."

  "And he, of course, will know nothing of our talks. If there is a reason I will do this, it is because your fantastic ideas have very little downside and are the stuff of which great triumphs are made."

  Even as he heard himself speak, he felt in a fog, all of his instincts warning him away, and yet when she rose and slipped off the bra and lay on the bed, it drew him like a mouse to the cheese. Playing with her thong, she teased him as he undressed, hurrying so fast he nearly fell over, fouled in his half-removed pants. When he was nude, she removed her thong and used her hands to pleasure him while putting a condom on. Then she sat astride him. The sight of her dried his throat. She grasped him and played with him, using her body and her hands until he thought that he had reached the outer limits of desire. Then she used her tongue. She made him feel young and, yes, powerful because she chose to have him. Even as he felt himself falling into Benoit Moreau, he knew he must be a chump. Wanting a young woman this badly was a classic flaw. In a fleeting second he wondered if this bizarre breach of ethics and good sense had undone all that was good in him. And then he was in her, and she was moving on him. The sensations of her moving against him, her butt on his thighs, her flesh engulfing his, sent him into a daze. He felt her touch his shoulder and he understood that she wanted him to roll. In a flash he was on top and she pulled her legs up and put them along his flanks and she reached and clenched his balls in her hand as he was thrusting, and he looked down in her eyes and they were gleaming and he felt as if he had conquered all.

  * * *

  Grady lay on the bed, procrastinating. It wasn't until her thoughts moved to Gaudet and his attack in Rio that she got up and changed her clothes and showered, ready to start the evening. Tonight was dinner with Michael's editor. The next day would be a larger lunch with the editor and various bigwigs from the publishing house.

  It struck her that Michael Bowden was getting dressed in the next room. As she thought about him, she tried to convince herself that she was being ridiculous, that if he knew about her past he wouldn't want her. A straight-up guy like this—with one of the few pairs of innocent blue eyes in North America—how would he ever comprehend stripping? How could she even explain it? She knew that if she explained it and saw his face, his eyes, the expression of bewilderment and maybe even pain, this fascination that seemed to grip her mind would depart and she could become normal again and forget about him.

  Even more significant, Michael would one day return to the Amazon and she doubted she could live in a place like that. She rose and stripped off her clothes. She headed to the shower when there was a knock on the door between her room and Michael's. Something clicked in her brain and she knew she should get dressed before she opened it. Instead, she wrapped herself in a towel, wearing only her thong panties beneath. When she got to the door, she thought about calling out to Michael and explaining that she needed a minute. Her hand rested on the knob for a full thirty seconds. Once again there was a quiet knock.

  "Michael?"

  "Yes?"

  "What do you need?"

  "You thought I should wear a tie, but I haven't ever tied one."

  She laughed and opened the door.

  "Pardon my towel, Michael. I was going to shower."

  "I could step out while you put on something."

  "Not necessary. Here, I'll show you how to tie a tie, for future reference."

  Then she began tying the tie. It felt exciting, standing so near him, as if she were enfolded in his energy. His new growth beard was slightly rough and she liked the look of it and she felt his imposing size, the heft of his shoulders and chest. She felt an urge to spread her hands over his shirt, to touch him. As she completed the double wrap on the tie and was sliding the end down through the loops, she stood on her toes and somehow the towel began to slip. She caught it at the same time he did. His big hands were fast. Slowly he wrapped it around her and, as he did so,
his fingers grazed her and she could never recall wanting a man's hands on her body as badly as she wanted the touch of Michael Bowden. Aware that he had seen something of her breasts, ex-stripper or not, she was embarrassed. His eyes now focused on hers and she could see the desire so strong in him that she thought it would come out in words. It was as if his whole body were full of sexual energy.

  Her throat felt tight. So she cleared it, but it did nothing to break the tension.

  "Michael, we shouldn't... because ..." She found herself stepping even closer to him and looking up, and she couldn't move as his lips came down toward hers a millimeter at a time. And when his hands took her towel, she did nothing but quiver, and then his lips were on hers and his large thumbs were on her nipples, coaxing them. Suddenly she was kissing him as hard as she could and she had his face in her hands. It felt good and very natural as they kissed—like it had happened before. A large hand slid down her belly and she opened her legs, wanting him. She felt her-

  self moisten under the ministrations of his fingers and she groaned when he pulled her panties to half-mast.

  Suddenly there was a loud knock on her door and the phone rang at the same time. It was as if she had been caught at something and it was terribly wrong. She looked in his eyes, pleading for understanding.

  "I've got to get that." She pushed him slowly back through the door, then closed it in a state of shock. There was a second knock on the front door. "Just a minute," she called out. Now she leaned against the inner door to talk with Michael, wanting him to understand. "God, Michael, I'm sorry. That was my fault. I am so sorry. Someone is supposed to have self-control and that's me and I apologize for leading you on. I'll be back."

  Then she hoisted her panties, ran to the closet and found her robe, took her laundry, ran to the door, and missed the phone call. As she guessed, the nice young man came for her laundry in reply to an earlier request. Once that was taken care of, she returned to the inner door to Michael's room. The phone rang. It was Michael.

  "No worries," he said. "The customs are different here. I know we are supposed to eat and have romantic talk first."

  "No," she said. "We don't have to eat first. You have to know some things about me first and I have to know some things about you. But it's okay. Everything is cool. I have a robe on now and I'll tie your tie."

  She figured this was like riding a horse—if you fell off, you had to get back on quick. The longer she waited, the more awkward it would become.

  When she opened the door, she was determined to act as if nothing were amiss, so she reached up to take his tie and began again. Standing close, she once again had the overpowering urge to mold herself to his body, but she managed to show none of it. Nearly breathing a sigh of relief when she had completed the job, she sent him to his room, showered, then went to her closet and found herself pondering which of the few outfits would impress a man from the Amazon. Then she reminded herself that her purpose was to help protect him, not to impress him. She stared at herself in the mirror, wondering what she was about. She knew herself well and realized that a good portion of her brain was currently given over to female plotting that even she didn't understand. Amazing, given that Gaudet probably had people in New York who would kill her to get to Michael.

  She had to get him out of New York. The only complicating factor was the journals and Michael could come back to Ithaca for those—if and when they arrived. Fortunately, Michael had revealed a goal similar to hers. Now it was time for her to seal the deal.

  She called Michael and said she might be up to twenty minutes late for dinner. Then she called her on-again, off-again boyfriend in LA, thinking she might break it off. But as they talked, she considered how abrupt this was; she was excited but uncertain; then she thought of Sam's self-control. After a newsy chat she followed her habit and said, "I love you" to a boyfriend whom she no longer loved, then hung up.

  It took Michael only a few minutes to put on a sport coat and tie. As he waited, he felt an acute sense of embarrassment and tried hard to get his composure so that he could pretend that what just happened never happened. Like men everywhere, he needed something to distract himself while he waited for the lady. Picking up one of his science journals, he read about a newly discovered painkiller that was one thousand times more effective than morphine and derived from one of the five hundred or so molecules that make up the deadly toxin of the cone snail. People with chronic-pain syndrome were being freed from their misery, and there were few things, other than Grady, that he could think of that were more exciting. The drug was called Ziconotide. At the moment he needed something like that, only effective in killing the sex drive, which at this point was becoming a form of pain.

  Grady had encouraged him to look the part with his editor, although for him that meant his jungle clothes. He suspected that the traditional business garb was because she wanted him to blend in with the street crowd, but he didn't argue. Eventually she emerged from her room looking like the models he had seen in American magazines. She wore a black knit dress with an eye-catching plunge at the neckline. It certainly did not hide her figure. Michael was aware that deep within their brain Homo sapiens had programmed certain body ratios that were associated with fertility. Males seemed to equate this hourglass configuration with mating behavior and, in fact, found it quite inspirational in that regard. Clearly, the dress fully retained his sense of inspiration.

  Just as he was about to walk out the door, the phone rang. It was Rebecca.

  "Looking forward to seeing you tonight and tomorrow," she said.

  "We are about ready to leave."

  "I wanted to mention, a man was here looking for you today. He left you a letter, said he was a fellow scientist and that it was urgent. He asked if there was any way I could get in touch with you. I think he thought you were probably still in the Amazon, although I'm not sure about that. I told him I thought I might have a rare opportunity to get you on the phone and said no more."

  "Good. My friend Grady is convincing me that we must not tell people that I am in New York. Bring the letter to dinner tonight if you have it. Did the man leave a name?"

  "Yes. He did. Although he wanted assurance that I would give his name to no one but you and I assured him of that. It's all quite mysterious."

  "Who is he?"

  "Georges Raval."

  Grady took charge of the taxis. With them in the taxi were Yodo and one other. Their entourage followed in second and third taxis.

  When they entered the taxi, she sat close and for a moment put her hand over his. The warmth of it traveled through his body.

  "Won't it be exciting when you can get started on your work?"

  "I want so bad to get back to it. And to spend some time in a new place."

  "Do you know where?"

  "The mountains of the Pacific Northwest, maybe. There's an almost unspoiled block of wilderness there. Well, more than one. This one's near the Salmon and Klamath rivers."

  "Maybe you can satisfy Sam's concerns and get started on your work all at once," she said, and looked at him squarely for the first time since entering the taxi. "Maybe ..."

  "Yes?"

  "Maybe it would be good to go there soon."

  "You want me to do what Sam wants."

  "I want you to do what you want. But not to die trying."

  Her body was next to his and her thigh was touching his for its full length and he could sense that they both wanted the same thing.

  Then his cell phone rang.

  "I have your journals," Dr. Lyman said.

  "Oh, thank goodness. Thanks for calling. You made my evening. I'll be right back to you. Will this number work for my return call?"

  "It'll work. Be here for half an hour."

  "Grady, I need to talk with you now, in private."

  "Sure. Driver, could you pull over for just a minute?"

  They got out onto the curb and Michael drew her away from a nervous-looking Yodo.

  "You have to make a choice. I
'm going to be honest with you and I expect you to be honest with me."

  "Okay."

  "My journals are at Ithaca. I'm going alone, unless you want to come. Nobody else."

  "That's crazy."

  "No, it's not. Two of us won't be noticed. This looks like a president's motorcade."

  "I see. We'll dress and act like nobodies and pull in driving an old Chevy. Sam will never go for it."

  "It's not up to him where I'm concerned. I guess you would be different."

  "Let me ask one thing. If I go with you and we get the journals, can we meet the bodyguards on the way back and then lock the journals up in a vault, except for what you need?"

  Michael thought about that for a moment. He sensed he needed to give her something or he would end up going alone.

  "Okay. We meet the guards halfway between New York and Ithaca."

  "I'll call Sam."

  Michael shook his head and chuckled. "Always Sam."

  A letter had come from Gaudet. After locking the door to his office, Baptiste removed it from the envelope. The moment he had found it in his residential mailbox, he had studied it, trying to determine its authenticity. He did not note this letter on any incoming-mail log nor did he make a copy for any file:

  France has its interests and I have mine. Time is running out for France if you don't want to lose the discovery of the century. Perhaps we should talk about our mutual interests.

  Maybe there were times when one made a deal with the Devil. It was shocking that Benoit had communicated so easily and that Gaudet obviously believed her. There seemed to be no end to this woman's intrigue.

  It was late in the afternoon, so he locked up early and left the building. With Benoit's instructions committed to memory he proceeded to a computer where he could not be traced. According to Benoit, he could send the e-mail on any day within five minutes of four o'clock in the afternoon. Walking down Boulevard Mortier and then turning onto Cros, he went for a few more blocks until he came to an Internet cafe. There were a series of work stations, at least twenty in all, and each one tied into the Internet. After paying the fee of ten Euros, he sat down and logged on to a free e-mail Web site. With little effort he opened an account under the name Sailorsea. Using that account, he drafted an e-mail to Jvaljean@wanadoo.fr.net.