by Jay Brandon
He wished he were back in school, so he could talk to Stevie or Rachel. Jack smiled wryly in the darkness. Sharing his dilemma over another woman with Rachel would be a complicated business, but that was part of the fun.
He wondered what time it was in his home town, what his parents and brother and sisters were doing. His mother would be worried about him, and rightfully so, but her voice wouldn’t show it when he called her first thing the next morning.
The door of their compartment slid open. Arden stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness. She didn’t speak. There was only a very narrow space between the door and the bunks, perhaps two feet. Arden stepped out of her flat shoes, slipped them to the side. She wore a pleated skirt and a thin sweater with three-quarter sleeves. After a moment she slipped off the skirt, opened the very narrow closet door, and hung it inside. Then she lifted off the sweater, slowly, standing there for a long moment with the sweater around her head while she pulled her arms out. Then she pulled her head free, folded the sweater, and put it on a shelf. The closet door closed with a click that was loud in the silent room.
Arden wore a bra and panties, and Jack couldn’t tell anything about their material in the dimness, but they looked filmy. Some moonlight came through the uncurtained window, enough for him to see well, but then he’d been lying in the darkness for a while. Arden must not be able to see at all. Maybe she thought he was already asleep.
He could swear she was looking at him, though. He saw her eyes.
She reached behind her and the bra fell to the floor. She cupped her breasts, which were not large but well-shaped and gravity-resistant. She moved her thumbs along their undersides. When she moved her hands away her nipples were alert.
Jack was sure then that she knew he was watching. He didn’t know whether to move or cough or applaud. Very deliberately, Arden hooked her thumbs in the panties, bent at the waist, and pulled them down her legs. As she straightened up she ran her hands up her thighs.
Then she stood for a long moment, palms on her thighs, very pale in the moonlight. He couldn’t see any tan lines. Jack sat up slightly, resting his head on his hand, and just stared. She apparently wanted to be seen, and he wanted to see. God, it was going to be hard to sleep after this.
Very deliberately then, Arden hooked her thumbs in her panties and snapped the waistband. Then she looked toward him in the darkness and said, “How long are you going to pretend to be asleep?”
“I’m not. I’m lying here watching you.”
He could have sworn she hesitated then. As she did, he moved out of bed and stood in front of her, inches apart. He reached out to the left, the length of his arm, and opened the shades. Moonlight flooded the compartment, seeming very bright. She wouldn’t look up until he lifted her chin, then her eyes shone.
They interrupted each other with his saying, “May I—?” and Arden saying, “Would you like—?” Then Jack just nodded, kept looking into her eyes, stepped forward, and put his mouth on hers.
“Hmmph,” she said some time later. By then her arms were around his neck, his around her waist.
“Yes,” he said. “Arden? Do you really—?” She stopped him with her mouth on his. Also by pulling down his briefs. “My,” she said, reaching down.
The train made it perfect. There was that steady rhythm under them. They joined it, first standing then in the bunk. By then they could both see clearly by the shifting moonlight through the window. Jack looked down at her and she covered herself modestly for a moment. Was it mocking? He didn’t know. But when he pulled her arms down she didn’t resist.
She pushed him back on the bunk, or possibly he pulled her, but in any event he was on his back, she on top of him, looking into each other’s eyes. This time he didn’t speak, just widened his eyes. She nodded.
Entry was slow, then quick. She made an intake of breath that seemed very loud in the cabin, except it was matched by his. Then they locked eyes again. Then they began moving.
“Oh God,” she said, some time later. Jack stroked her hair and just nodded against her bare shoulder, her nipple indenting his chest. “Are you—?” he began, then they both fell instantly asleep, but that kind of sleep where each was aware of the other all the time, their hands stroking each other. Some time in the night they half-woke at the same time and tried again. It was better, or just as good, which was just as good. They ended up staring into each other’s eyes until they began blinking and nodded off again.
The miles rolled by.
The library clerk in the American embassy in Munich said to the ambassador’s secretary, “I’ve got to go home, Alice. I’ve got a headache.”
The thin, efficient, middle-aged lady looked up sympathetically and said, “One of your bad ones?”
The clerk nodded. He was a heavy man, which, with his shaved head, made his age hard to determine.
“Well, it’s pretty dead here. All the activity is shifting to Salzburg. You take care of yourself, Bruno.”
“Thank you, Alice.” He liked her, which was one reason why he was leaving this place.
Bruno walked out of the embassy for the last time, walking almost on tiptoe, like a man trying to minimize pain, and didn’t stop the act even when he was outside. He eased into his car, a Volkswagen Jetta that was almost too small for him. Then Bruno Benjamin drove away, but only a few blocks.
A few minutes later the ambassador’s private cell phone rang. “Yes?” he said impatiently, expecting his wife.
“This is the man who called before. Do you recognize my voice?”
“Yes. Sounds garbled, though. Where are you?” No answer. “Look, I don’t have time today. You must know there’s a lot going on. You said before this was a security issue. Well, thanks for caring, but we’ve got plenty of security. You’ve never seen so much—”
“I’m talking about your personal security, Mr. Ambassador. Do I need to say her name?”
During a long pause, the ambassador looked across his office to the mirror on the wall, checking his hair, which was perfect, slightly wavy with a little gray at the temples. He had always been handsome, and now he was tending toward distinguished. “If you think I’m going to pay you—” he began.
“I’m calling on her behalf. This is just about separation terms. We’re not talking about money. She has a position to protect too. She wants to make sure you’re not going to—damage each other.”
“Of course not. Look. I don’t know what we can—”
“This will only take a few minutes of your time, sir. On your way to lunch. Across from the restaurant, there is an alley.”
“So?”
“Meet me there. One meeting. She wants me to return a couple of things that are very recognizably yours. And you have something of hers as well, don’t you?”
The ambassador thought quickly. He’d feared blackmail, but no longer did. The man’s calling him “sir” subconsciously convinced him of the superiority of his position. As a matter of fact he did have Suzanne’s day book, which had dropped from her purse at their last tryst. At least he had found it when he was leaving. She would want that back. The meeting made sense. And it was thoughtfully arranged, too.
“All right. Twelve-twenty-five. I’ll only have a minute.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the ambassador went into the alley he saw a man walking quickly down it away from him—a burly man whose shape seemed recognizable. He walked with a heavy walking stick. “Hello?” the ambassador called, but the man just kept walking, looking back fearfully over his shoulder as if the ambassador might be a mugger. That was amusing.
About halfway down the narrow alley the man stopped. When the ambassador walked up he turned. The ambassador stopped, then laughed.
“Bruno. You’re kidding. What are you doing here?”
“I’m the one who called.” Bruno was thinking what a dolt this man was, not to have recognized the voice of a subordinate who had worked in his building for as long as he had.
“You
’re kidding,” the ambassador said again. “What a funny little guy. So you were calling for—her?”
“No, I was calling for myself—sir.”
He touched something, the end of the cane fell off, revealing a small, thin blade. Moving quickly, Bruno stabbed the ambassador in the kneecap, with enough force to break it. The ambassador screamed harshly, reaching down. Bruno slashed his hand.
Both wounds were painful but not life-threatening. The knee, especially, was agonizing. The ambassador remained bent over, staring up at his library clerk, the ambassador’s face twisted out of any semblance of handsomeness.
“What do you want?” he finally managed to gasp.
“This. To watch you in pain.” Bruno smiled. He had worked at the embassy for nearly two years. After so long an imposture as a subordinate, this felt wonderful. The ambassador, a smug rich man who’d gotten his position through campaign contributions, obviously didn’t understand at all. The man was a pig, who just happened to have been blessed with good looks and inherited money, which had turned him ugly. He treated everyone around him like a servant. Bruno hated him personally, but also for the way he treated his secretary, who was his superior in every way except wealth and status.
“Are you crazy?” The ambassador lifted his head to shout. Bruno stabbed him in the stomach, stopping his cry. The wound bled, too much, weakening him too fast. Bruno watched with interest. The ambassador tried to speak, beckoned with his right hand as if asking Bruno to lean over so he could whisper to him. But Bruno wasn’t interested in his last words. The ambassador doubled over in pain again, and Bruno pushed him with his foot so he fell over on his side, so he could see his face. The ambassador had a look of great curiosity, as if straining to understand not just this moment but his whole life.
“You’re too stupid to understand,” Bruno told him, staring down. Then he heard noises behind him, down near the mouth of the alley. He sighed. Couldn’t wait any longer. With the sword cane he slashed the ambassador’s throat. Blood gushed bright red, then darker, then slowed to a trickle. Bruno thought he could see the moment of the man’s death when the ambassador tried to shift his eyes toward him and they stopped, then glazed.
Bruno watched him for another few seconds. That hadn’t been as satisfying as he’d hoped. But that was okay, he had more satisfaction ahead. This had just been a last job that had to be done, his resignation from the embassy.
He didn’t expect anyone to notice his disappearance from the job. Soon there would be no more American embassies. Bruno smiled. He retrieved the concealing sheath of his cane, fixed it back in place, and walked out of the alley the other direction, strolling. He left the woman’s date book in the ambassador’s pocket. Bruno didn’t care for her either.
As Bruno strolled out his mind was already on his much more important plans. He didn’t give much thought to whether this murder would speed up or impede the American withdrawal from the world. It was just something he had promised himself he would do someday, since his first week on the job. It was what had kept him working in his imposture as an underling.
He chuckled as he walked out of the alley, smiling like a man who had read something amusing in the morning paper.
Now to Salzburg.
They overslept Salzburg, which turned out to be just as well. The station there was crawling with security. If Jack and Arden had done what they planned and exited there they almost surely would have been detained, American tourists in a place that didn’t draw many tourists, at an occasion that would have almost no public events. Everyone disembarking from the train in Salzburg had their ID’s examined and recorded. Jack would probably have been arrested.
As it was, the two of them slept peacefully through the stop in Salzburg, snuggling together. The train lurching out of the station woke them. Jack glanced out the window, saw a station, wondered idly where they were. Then Arden was awake too, moving kittenishly in his arms. She looked at him with clear eyes. His own eyes must have shown what he felt, guilt, because she reached over and touched his cheek and shook her head. “My idea, remember?”
She kissed him, slowly, starting with a mere brush of lips, but not doing anything else simultaneously. Putting some thought into it. Two minutes later she said, “Okay, you want me out of here. I know it.”
Over his denials she got up, pulled on her blouse and skirt, and went out the door into the tiny corridor, toward the bathroom. Jack sat on the bed, realized they’d missed their stop, and didn’t much care.
So they got off at the next station, thirty miles on, a sleepy little town that never drew tourists, and had drawn very little security attention this week, either. Jack and Arden, very lightly encumbered with luggage, hopped off the train and went quickly, and separately, to find places where they could use their cell phones.
At the end of the platform, Arden’s call was very brief. “We’re right on schedule. Goodbye.”
She walked back to find Jack just around the corner of the small station, his back to her. She stopped and listened, the corner separating them. From the tone of his voice she knew he was talking to his mother.
“No, she’s really nothing special. I’m trying to be nice. But she just is always coming up with something obnoxious. Like, well—no, I can’t tell you that one. Well, here’s one. She does this awful thing of always listening outside before she steps into a room or comes around a corner. I know, it’s irritating as hell. She has no concept of privacy. Probably because she was raised in a girls’ school. You know, girls—”
“You bastard.” She came around the corner and put her hands on her hips.
Barely glancing at her, Jack started laughing like a seventh-grade boy. Into the phone he said, “Listen, pretend we were talking about something else. Yeah, she is. No, she’s not mad. She’s a great sport about that kind of—ow! No, it’ll be okay. I think I still remember how to make a tourniquet. Does it work on a neck wound, though?”
She walked away, giving him a semblance of privacy. Arden put her arms around herself, feeling warmed by his voice, even warmer than she’d felt last night. The murmur of his voice was warm. She heard him click off. When she turned around he was looking at her funny, sort of smiling.
“Mom says she likes you.”
This was one of the most genuinely puzzling things anyone had ever said to her. “She hasn’t set eyes on me. Or heard my voice, for that matter.”
“She says she likes the way I sound when I’m with you.”
Jack looked embarrassed, fumbled putting away his phone, and pretended they had much more luggage to organize than the one small gym bag.
Arden just stood watching him, feeling something very strange, a hollowness at her center that was rapidly being filled by the churn of many emotions. She loved him. She was sure of it, even though she had never felt this before.
She only wished she could take back now the things she’d done, but there was no way to undo events that had been set in motion, or the fact that she had already betrayed him.
“Come on,” Jack said, regaining some of his gruffness. “I’ve got to find a PSP, and fast.”
Men are such boys. Arden followed him sadly.
Craig Mortenson strode along K Street into Georgetown. He liked striding in D.C. The city had an aura, as strong as any he’d ever known. D.C.’s aura was about power: having it, using it, the hunger for it. Craig breathed it in and it invigorated him like strong coffee.
He had spent several years here, as a bureaucrat then consultant, and frequent visitor as he’d worked to destroy the Soviet Union. Many people here were still loyal to him, or at least friendly, and some very few, mostly out of power now, knew what he’d accomplished.
He and Alicia had been fixtures on the dinner party circuit for a while, including giving their own. They were great places to pick up information, especially the kind that Alicia used best: who was interested in whom, who weren’t speaking, who felt slighted and was looking for revenge. Watching her quiet smile at such a party, he
could see the pieces breaking apart and re-forming in her head, in that intuitive way that would have made her a great matchmaker. Make sure the Polish ambassador overhears that waiter over by the kitchen door. Craig wouldn’t know what she was talking about—they had just met the Polish ambassador this evening, and he’d never noticed that waiter before—but she was never wrong. A lever would be pushed down in a Georgetown dining room and a boulder would rise from a river half a world away.
But Craig wasn’t trying to lift boulders today, nothing so complicated. He and Alicia had just decided, simultaneously back at headquarters, that the action of the world’s stage was about to shift to D.C., and they wanted to be there for it. Establish contacts. Thus today’s lunch with his old friend the Russian ambassador— who had been a dissident history professor in and out of Moscow prisons before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Craig knew the heart of the problem was this National Security Adviser, the one nobody had heard of. The Circle’s attempts to get near him had been disastrous so far. Craig loved such a challenge. He felt sure he could reach the man. Go around this way, out of the city, out into academia, back through a family connection…. Craig shook his head. This D.C. air was heady, all right. Made a man feel as if he could do anything. Bourbon, not coffee. But Craig had better sense than that. He wasn’t going anywhere near this NSA.
He strolled on to his appointment, walking thoughtfully. No longer striding.
“He is so frustrated,” Elena Valenciana said. “He says it is like living through ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers.’ At first everyone in the cabinet and most of the staff were arguing against the president’s withdrawal policy, but now one and then another becomes a pod person. ‘Their eyes literally lose their light.’ Then he’ll grip me and say, ‘Elena, promise me that if you see me with dead eyes you’ll do something about it. Put a stiletto through my heart if nothing else.’” Elena laughed. “He has this fantasy that I am an international woman of mystery. An assassin, perhaps.”