Turn Loose the Dragons

by George C. Chesbro

  The girl shook her head and clucked her tongue disapprovingly. “Mom, you’re going to catch pneumonia. You’d better get off the phone and out of those clothes. I’ll fill the tub with hot water.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll be right there.”

  “Alexandra?” Peters’ voice was slightly louder now, more insistent.

  Alexandra waited until she heard the sound of water running in the bathroom, then spoke in a low, harsh voice. “My God, Rick, how did you find me?”

  “Our former employer provided me with your address and phone number.”

  Alexandra felt a quivering in her thighs and a cold in her stomach that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. She gripped the receiver tightly, breathed; “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought I heard you talking to someone. Is there anyone around you who can hear us?”

  “If there were, I’d hang up. What do you want, Rick?”

  “I know this is a shock, but I couldn’t very well show up on your doorstep, could I? We have to talk. I can’t begin to tell you how important it is.”

  It seemed to Alexandra that time was collapsing in on itself, threatening to suck her away into a black hole of memory, an amoral universe of tricks where she had once almost been destroyed. She closed her eyes and fought to control the sea of conflicting emotions, powerful tides of terror and fascination, surging across her mindscape and squeezing her glands. However, her voice was steady when she finally spoke. “I’m listening.”

  “Not on the phone, Alexandra,” Peters said, a slightly reproving edge to his voice. “It’s much too sensitive. Some special people we know are looking for a valuable pair of matched dragons.”

  “God, Rick. Is this a joke? Are you—”

  “Listen to me: you know this isn’t a joke. All I need to do is speak to you in person, and then I’ll have done what I said I would. But it has to be soon. Give me a safe place where we can meet tomorrow.”

  “Just a minute,” Alexandra said, willing herself to maintain a steady tone. “Let me think.”

  She clapped her hand over the mouthpiece and squeezed hard, as if through sheer physical effort she could somehow erase the call and crush the agonizing memories, the terrible excitement, it had stirred. She tried to imagine herself maintaining her composure and containing her apprehension until the next day, and she knew her control would not last through the night; she had been too long out of training. She had three children and a husband to protect from her past. Whatever evil Rick Peters was trying to conjure back into her life would have to be exorcised at once.

  She removed her hand from the mouthpiece, said, “Now.”

  “Now?” For just a moment Peters’ voice had betrayed confusion, but it was gone when he continued speaking. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s damn near a blizzard outside.”

  “If we’re going to meet at all, it has to be right now. Where are you?”

  “Only a couple of miles away. At a Holiday Inn in Nanuet, near the entrance to the Thruway.”

  “I know where it is. I’ll come to you.”

  “No good,” Peters said quickly. “Too close to your home, too much chance of us being seen together.”

  “Do you have a car?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know if I—”

  “You can get to the Palisades Parkway off the Thruway. Ask at the desk for directions. Drive south on the parkway until you come to the Alpine Lookout parking area. That’s where I’ll meet you. I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

  “Hey, Alexandra, I don’t know if I can get out of the goddam parking lot.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to. If you don’t show up, don’t bother to call again.”

  Alexandra put the receiver down hard and pulled herself up very straight as she took measured breaths and tried to focus her wildly milling thoughts. The realization slowly came to her that she had stopped trembling. She no longer felt cold, although melting snow dripping from her socks and sneakers had puddled around her feet. What she did feel was an all too familiar aura of sick euphoria that she’d believed had died in her a long time before. That shimmering internal glow could not be ignored, she thought; it had to be guarded against carefully, forced as quickly as possible back into whatever dark place in her psyche from which it had leaked, and then sealed off.

  She had learned, almost too late, that demons rode the dragons.

  She strode quickly into her bedroom and changed into dry socks and boots. When she came out she took her mink coat, the warmest garment she owned, from the closet and slipped it over her shoulders.

  A moment later Alexandra’s daughter appeared at the door to the bathroom, just down the hall. Kara Finway stared in confusion at the sight of her mother wearing a mink coat over her running suit. “Mom, the bath’s ready. What are you doing with your coat on?”

  “I have to go out for a few minutes,” Alexandra said tensely. “Will you and Kristen give Michael a snack and some hot chocolate when he comes in? Dinner may be a little late.”

  Kara frowned. “I can start dinner, Mom, but it’s snowing like crazy out there. What should I tell Dad if he—”

  But Alexandra was already out the door, hurrying through the drifting snow to where her car was parked in the driveway. She brushed snow off the car’s windows, got in, started the engine, and pushed lightly on the accelerator until the treads of the snow tires caught and bit. The car slewed out of the driveway, exploding through a yard-high ridge of plowed snow into the street.

  The storm was gradually diminishing, making driving surprisingly easy on streets that had been recently cleared and were empty of traffic. Traffic coming from New York City was piling up in the northbound lanes of the Palisades Parkway, but Alexandra had the southbound lanes virtually to herself. Within twenty minutes she had made the necessary U-turn and was proceeding slowly and carefully into the unplowed parking lot at Alpine Lookout.

  A lone, snow-blanketed car, which Alexandra assumed belonged to Peters, was already in the lot. She stopped her car a few yards from the other car, turned off the engine. She hesitated a few seconds, then opened the door and stepped out. She did not approach the first car; instead, she walked forward to stand in front of a stone retaining wall erected at the edge of a cliff. She pulled up the collar of her coat and squinted against the snow, peering through the milky air at the barely perceptible, ice-clogged band of the Hudson River below her and the ghostly, shifting images of New York City rising from its far bank.

  She heard a car door open and close. Crunching footsteps approached and stopped just behind her. She rapidly inventoried her emotions in an effort to make her face appear reasonably composed, then forced herself to turn around.

  Alexandra was startled to find that Rick Peters looked almost the same as she remembered. They were the same age, yet Peters showed almost no signs of aging. His eyes were so light that, seen through the swirling snow, they appeared to lack irises, like bullet holes that passed through his head. He was hatless, and his straw-blond hair whipped lazily in the rising wind. He wore cowboy boots and a light, worn leather jacket that he had not bothered to close. Beneath the jacket he wore a brown-striped Oxford shirt and a brown cashmere sweater that Alexandra knew would be sleeveless. Despite his light clothing he seemed perfectly comfortable, like a feral brother to the storm.

  Alexandra was acutely conscious of the continued tightness in her thighs and the sudden, rapid beating of her heart.

  “Hello, baby,” Peters said evenly.

  “Hello, Rick.”

  Peters inclined his head slightly to one side and stared at Alexandra for a few moments. “I’d forgotten how nice your hair looks loose,” he said at last. “After the rape happened the first year, I don’t think I ever saw you without that big ivory barrette in your hair—not out of bed, at least.”

  Not trusting herself to speak, Alexandra remained silent.

  Peters lifted his face to the sky and slowly extended his arms out to his
sides, palms up. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he continued in the same easy, conversational tone. “People like you and me are the only ones who can appreciate just how ephemeral it all is. There are a lot of crazies around who’d really like nothing better than to blow the whole world away, despite all their idealistic political bullshit. You know, the shooters and the bombers are a lot more sophisticated now than they were when we worked together.”

  “Rick, I didn’t come out here to reminisce,” Alexandra repiled shortly, grateful that her voice didn’t crack. “Get to the point.”

  “The least you should have done was to say good-bye to me,” Peters said with surprising force and feeling as he dropped his arms to his sides. “I loved you, Alexandra.” He paused, smiled wryly. “I do believe I still love you.”

  “No you don’t,” Alexandra responded quickly, “and you didn’t.” She didn’t add that one of the reasons she had not told Rick Peters she was dropping out of his life was because of her fear that he would kill the man she loved.

  “Yes,” Peters insisted. “And you loved me. You fooled yourself into thinking you were in love with John because you were burning out. You were looking for an escape hatch, and John was it.”

  He was half right, Alexandra thought, but for reasons he could never understand. “Lust isn’t love, Rick. What you and I shared was a common sickness. John helped me get well.”

  “Did you ever tell him about the dragons?”

  “Of course not. Do you think I’d be standing out here in a snowstorm talking to you if John knew?”

  “Why haven’t you told him? It’s been fifteen years.”

  “For one thing, the existence of the dragons was classified information. I assume it still is.”

  Peters arched his eyebrows. “Is that the real reason?”

  “It’s a reason.”

  “But not the only one?”

  “It’s none of your business, Rick.”

  “True.” He paused, staring at her, then slowly smiled. “And so you will remain a woman of mystery to me as well as to your husband.”

  “No mystery, Rick,” Alexandra said sharply, anger rising in her at the man’s continued and casual familiarity. “It’s just that John might find it difficult to forgive and continue living with a wife who spied on him and his colleagues for close to a year, and spied on his ‘side’ for four years before that. You may vaguely recall that our side killed his sister.”

  “I killed his sister,” Peters replied emphatically, ignoring the sarcasm in Alexandra’s voice, “and I wouldn’t give a damn if you told him. Your husband’s sweet baby sister was merrily toiling away in a Weatherman bomb factory, blithely making plans to blow up people she didn’t know. All I did was rig the bombs to go off a little early. It’s too bad she happened to be in the building when they exploded, but she wasn’t any hotshot radical lawyer; she was a chickenshit terrorist who got exactly what she deserved.”

  The words, cold as the wind, hit her like a fist, almost driving her backwards. She knew there was truth in what Peters said, but she had not fully realized until this January moment, more than a decade and a half removed from the event, how much she had changed, how much John’s quiet but passionate words and ideas had reshaped her view of reality. She saw certain things now in different colors, heard words like “betrayal” and “patriotism” in a different key. It was not a feeling she wished to share with Rick Peters, and she waited until she was certain that her tone could reasonably match his.

  “John might take it a bit more personally,” Alexandra said without emotion. “Especially in view of the fact that I was your partner. Now: you may be cold-blooded, Rick, but I’m just cold. Does all this light chitchat about the past mean that you’re here to blackmail me?”

  “You’re still a mean one when you want to be, Alexandra,” Peters said softly. His thin smile did not touch his eyes, which were piercing and expressionless, taking in everything and giving back nothing in return. “If you were still wearing a barrette, I might have lost an eye, huh?”

  “That’s the second time you’ve brought up that subject. Do it again and I walk.”

  “Then I’d better say what I came to say,” Peters replied evenly. “Shall we sit in my car?”

  Alexandra brushed past Peters and waded through the snow toward his car. Peters caught up and opened the door for her, then trotted around to the other side and slid in behind the wheel. He started the engine and turned on the heater before opening the window an inch and lighting a cigarette.

  “Speaking of crazies,” Peters continued casually, blowing a thin stream of smoke out into the freezing air, “somebody’s thinking seriously of trying to assassinate Salva.”

  “So what?” Alexandra snapped. Her anxiety over meeting Rick Peters had been supplanted by a seething anger with herself for her nervous impatience and for leaving her children alone in the well of such a lonely, dark afternoon. “People have been trying to kill Salva since the day he was old enough to say nasty things about Sabrito. The CIA couldn’t even make his hair fall out. Salva will die of either old age or lung cancer.”

  “Don’t make book on it. This time it looks as if the assassin may damn well pull it off. And the citizens of this country will have an opportunity to see it all live in prime time, in glorious color, on their television sets. Do I have your attention?”

  Alexandra shifted in her seat so that she was facing Peters. Her fear of seeing him had been erased, but the unfocused, electric excitement generated by his presence remained, making her feel flushed and nervous. “You have my attention,” she said, still very conscious of her fast heartbeat.

  “You probably know there have been regularly scheduled tourist flights to San Sierra for a couple of years. The group leaving the nineteenth of this month has had something special added to its itinerary; anyone who wants them can get tickets to the San Sierra–USA boxing matches that are scheduled to take place the night of Friday, the twenty-fifth. The Sierrans are staging the bouts in Tamara Castle—that’s a little scenic touch owing to the fact that ABC has permission to televise the matches live, complete with the Goodyear blimp. It’s the sort of Commie sports spectacular that Salva loves to cook up and wouldn’t miss for a billion tons of sugar cane. He’s certain to be in Tamara Castle that night, and that’s where and when he’s going to be assassinated.”

  “By whom?”

  “Unknown. It’s probably an Alpha Nine man, but all the Company knows for certain—or all they’ve told me—is that at least one of the people leaving with that tour group on the nineteenth is an assassin. God knows who told them. Actually, it’s quite clever. With his macho personality, Salva has to be the most vulnerable head of state in the world. Hell, it’s a miracle he hasn’t been blasted off some pitcher’s mound before this. All the killer has to do on this gig is keep on truckin’ through the week, then knock off Salva at the boxing matches. The assassin will almost certainly be killed himself, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

  “A kamikaze.”

  “Yeah. It has to be, and it’s next to impossible to stop those bastards. Who else would plan to knock off Salva in front of so much company, right under the nose of DMI, on ‘Wide World of Sports’? One of the Top Ten hits in history play-by-played by Howard Cosell. Sounds like an outtake from Bananas, huh?”

  Alexandra nodded thoughtfully. She felt her face burning, but did not know whether the fire had been kindled from fever or fascination. “Any idea how it will be done?”

  Peters shook his head. “No. I think we can assume he won’t try to take a weapon through customs. There’d be a very high risk of being caught, and opportunities like this just don’t come around that often. Arrangements have probably been made for a weapon pickup in San Sierra.”

  “Rick, what does all of this have to do with me?”

  Peters’ eyebrows arched slightly. “Our old friends want us—you and me—to stop him.”

  Alexandra stared hard at Peters for a few moments. The air
in the car suddenly seemed crystalline, too thin; the effort of breathing made her chest ache. She had been so absorbed in what Peters was telling her that it took a few seconds for her to grasp the import of his last words. When she did, she felt something like cold moss touch her between the shoulder blades.

  “The Company wants us to stop him? I don’t understand, Rick; let’s back up a minute. Are you still working for the CIA?”

  “Are you kidding? I became an ex-dragon about two months after you took off. I have my own real estate agency in Florida. I got a call from a controller yesterday morning. It wasn’t our old C, but he had all the code words right.”

  “What happened to our old C?”

  “He died nine years ago; that much I was able to check. Each team of dragons had its own code; since you haven’t even mentioned the dragons to John, I’m satisfied this C is the genuine article. Besides, what he had to say is so off the wall that it has to be the truth. You know I’ve always had a good nose for bullshit.”

  “Why didn’t he call me?”

  “Oh, he was planning to. I figured he didn’t understand the situation with John, so I told him I’d deliver the message personally. Voilà.”

  Peters removed a slip of paper from the pocket of his jacket and handed it to Alexandra; it was a telephone number writtten in the private code only she and Peters had used and understood. Despite the passage of more than a decade, Alexandra instantly recognized all of the symbols.

  “That’s the number where you can reach the C,” Peters continued. “I assume you’ll want to confirm the tasking request. You have forty-eight hours to make your decision. I’ll wait at the motel in case you want me to pass it on, or you can tell the C yourself. I know you have a lot of things to weigh, not the least of which is coming up with a convincing excuse to disappear for a week.”

  “What happens if I decide not to go?”

  Peters shrugged. He flicked his cigarette out the window and immediately lit another. “Nothing—at least not as far as you’re concerned. I suppose I’d be willing to try a solo, but I imagine the Company would prefer to get me another partner, if they used me at all. You know how they like experienced teams.”