“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked, nodding toward the bar.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I could use a drink.” She stepped into the room in her bare feet. “Bourbon, please.”
“Would you like anything in that?”
“Ice.”
Stanton poured her drink and a Laphroaig, a single-malt Scotch, for himself. When he turned around, she was sitting on the sofa, her legs crossed, a satisfying amount of thigh showing. He took the drink over, sat down beside her, and handed her the drink.
“Tough day?” she asked.
“No tougher than yours.” They clinked glasses and drank. In two weeks of campaigning, it was the first private, informal moment they had spent together, and neither of them seemed able to think of anything to say.
Liz reached out, took hold of his wrist, and pressed two fingers against it for his pulse.
“A little rapid, isn’t it?” he asked. “How’s yours?”
She took his hand and placed it on her left breast, under the robe. “You tell me.”
“Very much like mine,” he said, leaving his hand on her breast and rubbing a finger over the nipple, which sprang immediately to attention.
“I didn’t think I could ever get you to do that,” she said.
“I didn’t think I could ever do it,” he responded.
“I’m glad you did,” she said, pulling the tie on the robe and allowing it to fall open.
He set both their drinks on the coffee table, then leaned over and kissed her, using his chilled drink hand to caress the other breast. He pulled her legs open and bent to kiss her delta and was surprised to find it completely bare. He explored with his tongue.
Liz raised herself and sat on the padded arm of the sofa, facing him and parting her legs. He buried his face in her flesh and parted the labia with his tongue. She took hold of his hair and held him in place, and in less than a minute, she came enthusiastically. He laid his cheek against her flat belly and panted.
“Does this suite come with a bed?” she asked, conversationally.
He got up, took her hand, and led her to the bedroom, where he allowed her to undress him, then they fell into the bed, locked in each other’s arms and began what would turn out to be a full-inventory exploration of each other’s body parts.
Stanton did not think of Barbara Ortega once.
Barbara Ortega walked into the little town house in Georgetown and followed the agent around the place, the eighth one she had looked at this afternoon.
“It belonged to a congresswoman who decided to retire,” the agent was saying. “It comes with everything you see.”
The place was fully furnished, except for a lot of missing pictures, but Barbara had those in storage in Sacramento. The little two-story house even had linens, towels, and kitchenware in place, and it was decorated in a manner that she might have chosen herself, if she were doing it from scratch. “How much is she asking?” Barbara asked.
The agent mentioned a figure. “But I’m inclined to think she would be reasonable.”
The figure seemed in line with other properties Barbara had seen or researched. She deducted twenty percent and spoke the resulting number. “Please phone your client now and tell her that this will be my only offer.”
“What about financing?” the agent asked.
Barbara had inherited money from both her parents and grandparents, and she had been frugal. “All cash,” she said.
“Excuse me for a moment.” The agent walked to the other side of the room and pressed a button on her cell phone. She spoke for a moment, then turned to Barbara. “When can you close?”
“Just as soon as she can furnish me with a successful title search.”
The agent spoke again, then closed her phone and turned to Barbara, smiling. “You have yourself a house.”
Barbara took out her checkbook. “I’ll give you ten percent earnest money right now, and I want to sleep here tonight.”
“I’m sure that will be fine, Ms. Ortega. When do you start at the Justice Department?”
“Monday morning,” Barbara replied, tearing off the check and handing it over.
“The utilities and phone are still connected,” the agent said. “As a courtesy, I’ll have everything changed to your name, if that’s all right.”
“That would be perfect,” Barbara said, holding out her hand. “Good night.”
The agent left, and Barbara kicked off her shoes and made another trip around the jewel of a house. Then she went to the bedroom, took off her clothes, and lay on the king-size bed. She got her secret cell phone from her purse and called Martin, her pulse racing with the anticipation of telling him. No answer.
She closed the phone and touched herself, thinking of him, then she stroked herself until she came with a barely suppressed scream and lay, panting, on the bed until she fell asleep.
44
Owen Masters finished reading through the files of his four resident agents. He had read them before, of course, but he was looking for something different this time, a kind of blind resolve. He thought he caught a glimpse of that in the report of a student’s unarmed combat instructor. “At times,” the man had said, “he seemed to want to kill his opponents.” Owen put down the file and buzzed the young man.
Todd Bacon was ordinary-looking, Owen thought, except for his apparent fitness level. His blond hair was already going thin on top, though he was only, according to his file, twenty-eight. He sat in the hard, armless chair he had been offered, seemingly comfortable and calm.
“Where did you go to college, Bacon?” Owen asked him.
“The University of Alabama,” the man replied with a soft southern accent.
Good, Owen thought, a state university man-something to prove to the Ivy League boys. “How long have you been with us?”
“Three and a half years,” Bacon replied
“Are you enjoying the work yet?”
Bacon paused before he spoke. “Sometimes.”
“Not getting into the field enough?”
“I could use more field time.”
“You think you could handle yourself in a tough situation? Physically, I mean?”
“Of course,” Bacon replied.
“You’d better give some thought to that,” Owen said. “In this business, you don’t get to square off with an opponent. It’s not like at the Farm.” The Farm was where agents underwent their first training. “Never let your guard down when you’re in the field,” Owen said. “You can be as easily killed by a small woman with a penknife as by a big guy with a gun.”
“Good point,” Bacon replied.
Owen noted that the man had never called him sir. “Do you think you might be just a tad overconfident?”
“I don’t believe so.” Bacon was looking a little less comfortable in his hard chair now.
“At your age and level of experience you don’t believe you’re mortal,” Owen said, “but you are. I’ve seen young officers brought home in pieces and in body bags. I know two who, at forty, are in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. Do you think you have the tradecraft and good sense to avoid that?”
