“How’d you get all this stuff out of them?” Tate asked.
“Let’s say the Russians were encouraged to be forthcoming in our conversations,” Hawke said. “I didn’t hurt them, just scared them a bit. I might add that they didn’t take it very well.”
“What do you mean?” the secretary asked.
“I mean this little chap Bolkonski, a dead ringer for the mad monk, Rasputin, tried to kill me. Twice, actually.”
“Both unsuccessful attempts, obviously,” Tate said.
Alex looked at the man and held his eyes for a long moment before speaking. “This Telarana. Anyone you know personally, Conch?” Alex asked.
“Not personally, no,” the secretary replied. “It’s basically the mafia. The Cuban-version mafia at any rate. The personal narco-fiefdom of Cuba’s top generals. They’ve built a huge military installation on an island just off Manzanillo. Telarana is built on the site of one of the rebel general’s haciendas.”
“But of course you knew that,” Hawke said, smiling at Tate.
“All right, all right,” Conch said, quickly riding over the obvious animosity between Tate and Hawke. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I want immediate U-2 and Predator surveillance flights over the entire southwest coast of Cuba. I want a twenty-four-hour bird in the sky snapping pictures and gathering thermals of the Telarana complex.”
“No problem,” Weinberg said.
“How many guys do we have on the ground in Cuba, Jeremy?” she asked Tate.
“A ton in Havana,” Tate said. “Out in the sticks, nada.”
“Rectify that. Like, today. I want our people fucking crawling all over Oriente province.”
“Right. And I’ll get us on the president’s calendar immediately,” Tate said.
Conch looked at him until he literally squirmed.
“Unless, of course, you’d rather handle that one personally, Madame Secretary?” Tate said.
She ignored him. “Good job, Alex. The president will be delighted to get this off his ‘to do’ list.”
“This Borzoi, it’s that bad, huh?” Tate asked.
“Our worst nightmare. Borzoi is huge,” Weinberg said. “She carries forty warheads, twenty on each wing. All sharp angles and planes, so no round surfaces to bounce back radar or sonar. Coated stem to stern with a three- foot-thick coating of some new absorptive substances the Russians developed. Vastly superior to the old Anechoic rubbercoating.”
“What’s that do?” Tate asked.
“Well, it means she’s virtually invisible to sonar, radar, you name it. She’s also got what’s commonly called a ‘decoupling’ coating, which dramatically reduces the amount of sound she puts into the water. She was going to be the Soviets’ last-ditch effort in an Armageddon showdown with the U.S. Navy.”
“A desperate come-from-behind finish,” Tate said, rubbing his chin.
“And now this nightmare contraption is in the hands of some very unstable Cubans,” Conch said, getting to her feet and walking over to the window overlooking Lincoln’s memorial. “Sweet Jesus.”
Snow had become a hard sleeting rain beating against the windowpanes of Dr. Victoria Sweet’s two- hundred-year-old brick townhouse. In her ground-floor office, a crackling fire kept the chill outside at bay. It was late afternoon, and the gray light was fading rapidly from the skies of the nation’s capital, especially the snowy, tree-lined streets of Georgetown.
Still, the woman lowered the light from the red-shaded lamps by the couch where the man was lying, and said, “Enough light?”
“It’s fine, thank you.”
She pulled a chair closer to the couch and sat down, crossing her long legs. There was the faintest whisper of silk on silk as she did so.
“Comfy?” she asked.
“Quite.”
“Then let’s begin, shall we?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“What would you like to talk about today?”
“My addiction.”
“Addiction? I wasn’t aware that you had one.”
“Neither was I. Until quite recently, that is.”
“Are we talking about drugs? Food? Alcohol?”
“We are talking about sex.”
“Sex?”
“Yes. I’ve discovered I’m a sex addict.”
“I see. And how did you come by this amazing discovery?”
“I’m constantly overwhelmed with…thoughts. Day and night. I can’t sleep at night. I can’t function by daylight.”
“These thoughts. Can you describe them?”
“Some of them. Others—”
“All right. Let’s begin with the ones you’re comfortable describing.”
“Well, a recent one, then. I’m in your office, lying on the couch, and there’s a fire in the fireplace. It’s early evening. It’s sleeting outside, you can hear icy pellets beating against the windowpanes and—”
“Wait a minute. My office?”
“Yes.”
“And where am I? Am I in your dream?”
“Yes. You’ve turned the lights down, so most of the light comes from the fire. I can see its shadows flickering on the ceiling above my head.”
“And where am I?”
“You’ve pulled up a chair next to the couch. My eyes are closed but I hear you. You’ve crossed your legs. I hear a rustle of silk when you do it and open my eyes. I try to catch a glimpse of—”
“Yes?”
“You know. When you cross them, I try to see.”
“What I’m wearing, you mean. Underneath my skirt.”
“Yes.”
“And in the dream, do you see?”
“No. I see nothing.”
“But sometimes I do this. Is that part of your dream, too? What do you see then?”
“I see everything.”
“In these dreams. Do I ever unbutton my blouse like this?”
“Yes. Just like that.”
“Remove it? Drop it to the floor? Like this?”
“Yes.”
“And you can smell my perfume when I bend over you, can’t you.”
“Yes. I breathe it. Deep into my lungs.”
“Perhaps I kiss your mouth. Like this?”
“Yes.”
“And touch you…here.”
“Yes.”
“And how does it make you feel?”
“Like I’m drowning. Like falling.”
“I’ve missed you, Alex. So much.”
“Be here, Doc.”
“Yes. I’m here. I’m here now.”
