‘And what are the Russians doing all this time?’
‘I have no idea. They seem to have accepted our decision that you cannot be touched.’
‘Surely you realize that the Russians never accept anything they have not instigated in the first place.’
‘Agreed. But they know they can’t touch you without a just cause or without risking a diplomatic incident, and right now they are too dependent on our support to fight their war to chance that.’
‘You are terribly reassuring,’ Anna said with a touch of sarcasm. ‘It seems to me—’
‘That you just have to ignore them and get on with your business. And, Anna, I hope your business does not include bumping off anyone you suspect to be a Red who happens to get too close. That would be absolutely fatal.’
Anna smiled. ‘Yes, it would, wouldn’t it?’
‘Anna . . .’
She rested her hand on his. ‘Just joking. I’ll be good. Now I’d like to ask you the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.’
‘Which is?’
‘I have been in this country a month, as you well know. Yet you have only now approached me.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I explained—’
‘That you were also waiting to see if I would put a foot wrong? If I might have come here to assassinate someone? I presume you have also been having me shadowed, rather more subtly than the FBI. So what has brought you out of the woodwork now?’
‘You have every right to be angry. Perhaps . . . perhaps I knew that if we were to get together . . .’ He gazed into those ice-cold blue eyes, which could suddenly reveal so much warmth. He had seen the warmth when she had looked at Clive Bartley on that unforgettable day in Moscow, just as a few hours earlier he had seen the cold immediately before she had killed Commissar Chalyapov on her way out of the Lubianka. Now he felt he was looking at the warmth again. Or was he just being optimistic?
She had left her hand lying on his. Now her fingers gave his a gentle squeeze. ‘But I belong to you, Joe. Remember? I am yours to command.’
‘Ah, right. So maybe we could spend the afternoon together. Where would you like to go?’
‘I would like to look at your apartment,’ Anna said, getting up, and still holding his hand.
*
Joseph Andrews closed the lobby door, made sure the latch had clicked, waited for a moment to allow his heartbeat to even out. He was forty-four years old, and had had his share of women. He had even been married once, briefly. But that had been a long time ago, and since then he had regarded the opposite sex with a vague suspicion. Presumably he should regard this woman with more suspicion than most. Save that he felt he knew all of her secrets . . . and she knew that he did.
Besides, in his heart, even if he had known she had come here to kill him, he would still want to be here, with her. From the moment he had seen that naked figure in the Lubianka cell, she had dominated his thoughts. On that occasion she had very rapidly found some clothes to wear, but then, when Chalyapov had attempted to stop her leaving, she had gone into action with that speed and accuracy, that unhesitating decision, that he found breathtaking. Clive Bartley had told him about the real Anna, as opposed to the languorous beauty of the evening gowns and the dinner parties, and he had not entirely believed him. Now he was finding it difficult to believe that this moment was real, as he watched her walk across the lounge to the picture window overlooking Washington, slowly stripping off her gloves, her hair and her scent drifting behind her. He wondered just how many men, apart from Clive himself, had gazed at that view with such a mixture of apprehension and wild anticipation. And had they lived to remember it? But did that matter, when he was the man in possession, and with the knowledge that right now, at any rate, she needed him even more than he wanted her.
‘What a lovely view,’ she remarked. ‘And high enough not to be overlooked.’ She turned to face him, took off her dark glasses. ‘I am not very good at seduction,’ she said ingenuously. ‘When I am required to take off my clothes, well, things just happen. Would you like me to take off my clothes?’
‘Only if you would like something to happen.’
‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ She stepped out of her shoes.
He had to think of something to say, something that would not reveal him to be, as at that moment he felt, a gauche teenager on his first date. ‘I see you’re still wearing your jewellery.’ How gauche could you get?
‘I never thanked you for returning it to me.’ Anna lifted her dress over her head and laid it on a chair, shook out her hair.
Joe inhaled deeply. ‘It was not a problem. It wasn’t damaged, I hope?’
‘Not at all. Not even the watch.’ Anna took off the Junghans and laid it on the table, placed her ring and her earrings beside it, then slipped the straps of her cami-knickers from her shoulders. Her movements, so innocently casual, entirely lacking in coquetry, were almost as compelling as the flesh she was uncovering. As she had said, so innocently, when she started to take off her clothes, things just happened.
But he had to regain some measure of control. ‘Wait!’
She paused, eyebrows arched, breasts half exposed.
‘There is only so much that a guy can absorb all at once,’ he explained. ‘I have never even kissed you.’
‘I know that.’ She waited, still holding the bodice of the cami-knickers in place, but she released it to put her arms round him as he came up to her. Her tongue was soft, utterly yielding to his, as her body seemed to glue itself to his. ‘Is that better?’ she asked when at last he moved his head.
At least there were pink spots in her cheeks. He stood back and watched the cami-knickers slide down to her hips, and then down her legs to the floor. Those legs, he thought. He had only ever seen them once before, on that day in the Lubianka. He felt the suspender belt and stockings were an unnecessary excrescence, as she apparently understood.
‘Would you like me to take these off as well?’
‘Do some men wish you to keep them on?’
Anna made an enchanting moue. ‘Some men do not exist, at this moment.’
‘I would like you to be naked.’
Anna released the belt and rolled down the stockings, bending over to do so. Joe could resist no longer, rested his hands on her buttocks, then slid them round her thighs to hold her pubes. He half expected a violent reaction, but she merely said, as she discarded the second stocking, ‘I was wondering when you would do that. Tell me, do you like to be on top?’
‘Eh?’
‘It’s just that, if I am to be on top, this might damage your teeth.’ The crucifix moved gently to and fro in time to her breasts as she gave a little shimmy.
‘Ah . . . can’t we do it both ways?’
Anna lifted the crucifix over her head and again fluffed out her hair.
*
He lay on his side to look at her, as she lay on her side facing him. Her eyes were half shut, and her lips parted slightly. Her hair was scattered across her shoulders, some strands in front to lie on her gently heaving breasts, a few even wisping across her face, to be disturbed by her breathing. Somehow the destruction of her immaculate coiffure conveyed a sense of intimacy superior even to the feeling of lying between her legs, feeling the insides of her thighs moving against his hips.
He was absolutely sure she had climaxed, at least once, even if he knew that one could never be certain with a woman like Anna. But he was not going to be quite so gauche as to ask. Instead he said, ‘Did you find that utterly prosaic?’
Her eyes opened, and she blew hair away from her mouth. ‘Can making love ever be prosaic? But if you want something more . . . how soon will you be ready again?’
‘I would say not too long, if you’re going to stay there.’
‘I have nowhere to go, at the moment.’
‘And if you would like something different . . .?’
‘When I am in bed with a man,’ Anna said, ‘I like anything he likes.’
‘What I actuall
y would like,’ he said, ‘is to lie here looking at you, and maybe touch you from time to time.’
‘That sounds rather attractive,’ she agreed. ‘But . . .’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Nature will undoubtedly call.’
‘But when it does, if we just progress from where you happen to be touching at that moment, it might be very pleasant.’
He touched her breast, stroking across the nipple and then down into the valley, very deep as the breasts were crushed together by the angle at which she was lying. He had not actually touched her before, after they had got to bed. They had both been ready, and if there had been no sense of haste, there had also been no desire for any elaborate foreplay. Now he allowed his finger to stroke down to her stomach and across her ribcage, and then raised his head. ‘This mark . . .’
‘I know,’ Anna said. ‘It is very embarrassing. Every time I take off my clothes I am asked about that scar.’
He touched it. ‘It’s not exactly a scar. More like a sort of stain. Is it painful?’
‘Not at all, not now.’
‘Am I allowed to ask?’
‘I got in the way of a bullet’
‘Oh, good lord! Anna . . .’
‘My profession has its ups and downs, as you may have noticed. Don’t worry about it. The bullet smashed a couple of ribs and then exited. It was two years ago and I am perfectly healed. And the lady who fired it is now dead.’
‘You mean you shot her in turn?’
‘No. I broke her neck. Now, Joe, if we are going to progress, from what might be called a standing start, you will have to try lower down.’
‘Anna! I have fallen in love with you.’
Just for a moment a shadow passed over her face. ‘You don’t know me.’
‘I know just about everything about you that anyone knows. Clive Bartley told me.’ Now his eyes were watchful as he tried to read her expression.
But her own eyes had drooped shut again, and they did not open now. ‘He must have great confidence in you,’ she murmured.
‘Confidence,’ he said, and drew a deep breath. ‘A confidence I have betrayed.’
‘By having sex with me? You are too much of a gentleman, Joseph Andrews. Clive knows that no man can possess me – all of me all of the time – until this war is over. Not even him.’
‘But it is still possible to betray him. And you.’
Anna frowned as her eyes opened. ‘I do not understand. Are you saying . . .?’
Those eyes had not yet frozen. There were some things even Anna needed to consider before taking action. He wondered if she could kill him while lying naked beside him, or if it would be necessary for her to get off the bed. Whatever the answer to that, he had to hurry. ‘Not in the sense you are assuming. I have said that I love you. I have no intention of letting any harm befall you. But . . . you know that in order to enlist my help in getting you out of the Lubianka, Clive had to convince me that you were actually a British agent?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was slow, and thoughtful.
‘I swore I would never reveal that to anyone. But in order to save you from the FBI, and by projection, the Russians, I had in turn to convince my boss.’
‘The man Donovan.’
‘The man Donovan. But you can forget about him, Anna. He is beyond your reach. Not only is he entirely reliable, but I would no more dream of letting anything happen to him than I would dream of allowing anything to happen to you. He is operating the most secret government organization in this country. We keep our secrets.’
Anna swung her legs out of bed and went to the bathroom. Joe waited for her to return, but she did not get back in beside him, and instead stood above him.
‘Would your protection, and that of Donovan, continue if you discovered that I am actually here to commit some crime against your government?’
Joe caught her hand. ‘For God’s sake, Anna, tell me you’re not serious.’
‘At this moment, I have no assignment apart from discovering if there is any chance of America entering the war against Germany.’
‘Then I can give you a categorical answer. There is no chance whatsoever of America entering the war.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because not a year ago Roosevelt was re-elected on a pledge that he would never send American troops to fight in a war in Europe.’
‘No matter what might happen?’
‘No matter what. Within the bounds of reason. I mean, if in a maniacal fit your Fuehrer were to send a Luftwaffe squadron to drop a load on New York, well, our people would demand that we go to war. But I don’t think even he is that crazy. And in any event, there is no bomber in the world with the range to get across the Atlantic and back. So I think I can give you a guarantee that there will be no war. Does that make life easier for you?’
‘If you will answer a hypothetical question.’
‘If I can.’
‘Suppose, just suppose, there were a plane capable of bombing New York or Washington . . . You say your people would then clamour for war with the aggressor. Are they capable of fighting a war?’
‘You mean because we’re supposed to be interested only in making money and enjoying the luxuries that money can bring? You tell me first, is there such a plane in existence?’
‘No. I said the question was hypothetical.’
‘Will you swear to that?’
‘Certainly. I will swear to God that, so far as I know, there is no aircraft in existence, or even one planned, with that capability.’
‘And I will accept your assurance. As to how we would respond to such an attack, if it happened, I would have to say that our options would be limited, in the short term. We don’t have much of an army, by your standards, and we don’t have much of an air force either. Bringing those up to the required standard to fight a war with, say, a European power, would take time, months, maybe a year or so. But we do have the most powerful fleet in the world, and the ships would protect us while we mobilized. What any would-be aggressor needs to know is that this nation, while it likes money and its pleasures, has resources of men, money and raw materials unequalled by any other country. But more important than that, it has a passionate pride in itself and its inviolability. What your Nazi masters should always remember, Anna, is that if by some means they got involved in a war against us, they can forget any idea of gaining a few victories and then negotiating a profitable peace. If this country ever has to take up arms, it is not going to rest until the last vestige of Nazidom has been wiped off the face of the earth. I hope that is what you came here to find out.’
‘It just about completes my mission.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Just like that. But what about the Jews?’
‘They largely control the media, and thus a lot of public opinion. But they don’t control the Administration.’
‘You know they are being persecuted in Germany, in every part of Europe that is Nazi-controlled?’
‘I guess everybody knows that.’
‘Does everyone know that they are being systematically murdered?’
He frowned.
‘And that these murders are likely to become . . . well . . . wholesale?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Even I do not joke about things like that, Joe.’
He held her hand, drew her down to sit beside him. ‘Can you prove it?’
‘I have no documentary proof. But I move in high Nazi circles. That is my job for MI6: to listen and report.’
‘And what has been London’s reaction to that report?’
‘I don’t know. I left Germany for here almost immediately after sending it.’
‘So they’re sitting on it. Well . . .’
‘But they are already at war with Germany. I need to know if that knowledge, should it become known to your Administration, could lead to war with America.’
He stroked her flesh. This was the cold-blooded, working Anna. But still the most desirable woman in the world. ‘Somehow I
doubt it. There is enormous sympathy for the plight of European Jewry here in America. But there is even greater hostility to the idea of ever again getting involved in a European war. So, barring that actual attack I mentioned earlier, I would say the answer is no.’
‘Then I may as well hop on the next boat back to Europe.’
He squeezed her against him. ‘Don’t do that.’
‘Well, maybe I should have that opinion confirmed from other sources.’ She frowned. ‘You said something about two betrayals. Is the other as good?’
Joe sat up. ‘It’s the reason I stopped observing you from a distance, and moved in today. I reckoned it might be the only chance I was going to have.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re being sent back to Europe?’
‘It’s on the cards, but not immediately. No, Europe is coming to us. Actually it has already done so. Clive Bartley landed in New York yesterday.’
Chapter Five – NKVD
Anna did not move, and as Joe had pulled her forward so that her head was resting on his shoulder, he could not see her face. He inhaled the scent of her hair, which was clouding his nostrils. ‘I guess you’re fully entitled to kick me in the teeth and walk out of here,’ he whispered. ‘But I’ll still love you forever.’
Still she did not move. But she asked, in hardly more than a whisper, ‘Do you know why he is here?’
‘No. But I can make a pretty good guess. I assume you informed London of your visit?’
Now she did move, slowly pushing herself away from him. ‘You think he came all this way just to see me?’
‘Well, he sure travelled to Moscow earlier this year just to see you. New York and Washington are no further.’ He grinned. ‘Who knows, maybe he just wants to keep in touch.’
He wants to discuss the Final Solution, Anna thought. But also to keep in touch. Oh, yes.
‘So, all I can say is that I just knew that I had to get in first, or I wouldn’t ever make it,’ Joe admitted. ‘I’m a louse. You’re fully entitled to hate me.’
Angel of Vengeance_The thrilling sequel to Angel in Red Page 11