by Leon, Judith
He removed the prod from a drawer. Her gaze fastened onto it. “This is a cattle prod. I will use it to control you as I train you to do whatever I ask. Whenever you disobey, I’ll stun you with it. You’ll be paralyzed for a short period, and it will hurt terribly afterward. Do you understand?”
“Fuck you!”
He laughed. “Oh, not right away.”
Chapter 13
Augsburg, Germany
Their lookout walked through the door leading from the lobby of the Hotel Winterpalast into the bar, signaled by rubbing his thumb against his nose, and disappeared into the men’s room. Nova had dressed with casual but stunning in mind, in white slacks and matching white silk shell top.
Cardone wore a yellow shirt with rolled-up sleeves that looked great against his tanned skin, showed off his impressive biceps and cleverly reinforced his air of youth. He bellowed, impatient and loud, “Why can’t I get another drink?” He waved his hand toward the waiter.
Nearly five weeks had passed now, and Nova still had failed to make any noticeable headway with Jean Paul. She’d spent countless hours in his presence taking photos or lending a helping hand with campaign chores. Last week she’d accompanied him to a wedding to take publicity photos. Afterward, over punch and wedding cake, they’d traded confidences in a corner for nearly two hours. All apparently to no avail.
Jean Paul was like no case she’d ever worked. He was inspiring. He seemed without guile. She had to keep reminding herself that, if he was The Founder, the punishments he decreed involved the horrible deaths of innocents. Think con man, she reminded herself frequently to guard against his immense charm.
Then, the day before yesterday, in his office, something seemed to have changed. She had gone ostensibly to get his opinion on some photos. But the first thing he’d said was, “That color of green is beautiful on you. A perfect complement to your eyes.”
For a moment the air molecules between them had seemed to vibrate against her chest. She discovered she was holding her breath. She’d said, “I’m surprised you’d notice. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man more involved in his work and nothing else.”
A small pause—two beats of her heart—and he’d said, “You’re a woman quite impossible to overlook under any circumstances.”
She had thought he might ask her for another dinner, was certain the invitation was coming. But Peter Grund interrupted. She was certain he’d done it on purpose and she’d wanted to take an ax to the campaign manager.
To put the worst face on it, which Cupid had done later that evening, it was possible the change in König was because he may somehow have smelled the scent of bloodhound on her rather than perfume. But her feminine instincts were telling her that Jean Paul was slowly falling for her. And now the plan tonight was for her and Cardone to push the envelope.
Nova leaned toward Cardone and spoke in a soothing tone, loud enough for those nearby to hear. “I think we ought to call it a night.” All conversation for thirty feet on either side of them had crawled to a halt. The waiter, a look of disgust on his pinched face, stood flat-footed, eyes narrowed on her partner.
“I been waitin’ for ’nother drink ten minutes. The service sucks!”
Nova sent the waiter a silent plea for understanding. She looked back at Cardone. “Why don’t we try someplace else?”
“Great. Lezz do that. The waiter puzz his fingers in our drinks anyway.”
Joe shoved himself to his feet and swayed slightly, just enough to be convincing. He reached into his pocket and extracted a money clip. After riffling through the bills a moment, he shoved them into her hands. “You pay. Lezz get the hell outta here.”
He launched himself unsteadily toward the door leading from the bar into the hotel’s main lobby. She scanned the check and put down enough money to cover it and tip the waiter generously for the insults he’d endured for the past ten minutes.
In the lobby, her partner slumped into a brocade wing-backed chair in a conversation island in the center of the room, a strategically prominent location. Within seconds König, fresh from a campaign dinner and surrounded by several local businessmen and the new movie star rage, Gunter Heglund, entered the lobby from the hotel dining room.
She approached Cardone. He straightened and bellowed, “For the cos’ of the liquor here, should get damn good service.”
She feared he might overdo it: the marbled walls and floors of the lobby, though covered with tapestries and area rugs, bounced his voice into every corner. A couple passing by shrank away from them, anger in the man’s face and pity for Nova in the woman’s. Nova didn’t dare risk a look to see how König reacted.
Cardone struggled and stood. She put an arm under his elbow. He shook her off. “I’m all right. Don’t try and mother me all the time.”
“Good evening, Ms. Blair. Mr. Cardone.”
She turned to find Jean Paul, with his shadow, Wyczek. The other men were already halfway out the brass-and-glass front entry, the paparazzi for once dogging Heglund not Jean Paul. “Herr König,” she said, eyes wide with surprise.
“Well. Mr. König. A good, good evenin’.” Cardone extended his hand and swayed slightly.
König shook it, warmly she thought, then looked at her. “I gather you two have been enjoying Augsburg’s nightlife. Or are you staying here?” As he stood gazing into her eyes, no more than two feet away, stiffness crept over Jean Paul. His jaw muscles tightened. She had the odd feeling he wanted to touch her.
“No. Not here. And I’m afraid our evening has gotten a bit out of hand.”
Joe Cardone swayed like a redwood about to go down. “Shii—” he muttered softly, collapsing into the chair. His head hit the back and his eyes closed.
Jean Paul eyed Cardone. He smiled disapprovingly and looked back at her. She grinned and shook her head. “The kid’s overdone it a bit. Please don’t get the wrong impression.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I only know he received a letter and went into a nosedive. I suspect woman troubles.” She shook her head again.
“Can we help you manage him to your hotel?”
“I hate to be a bother. But I would be extremely grateful.”
König signaled to Wyczek. They hoisted her partner. As they helped him up, he muttered, “I’m okay. No problem.”
“Right,” König said in a lightly amused tone. “Don’t worry. We’re just helping you to your room.” To Nova he said, “Have the doorman fetch my limo.”
She barely registered that he’d hired a limo tonight, then hurried, looking back only once to see König and Wyczek with Cardone shuffling between them out a side door of the hotel.
König, Wyczek, and the driver tucked Joe into the center of the rear seat. She jumped in so that she and Jean Paul flanked Cardone. They traveled the short distance to her hotel in silence.
With Nova leading, the male trio struggled through the tiny lobby into the elevator and finally to the door of the agent’s room. She fetched the key from his pocket and let them all in, and from a wall switch flicked on the floor lamp. A cozy light flooded the space.
The room was small and unpretentious, done in a homey, Bavarian-country style. Thick white comforters lay on two twin beds. König and Wyczek removed Cardone’s jacket and shoes and stretched him out on one of the beds. Wyczek threw the down coverlet over the lower half of his body. “That should keep him until morning,” König said. “I imagine he’ll have a nasty hangover tomorrow.”
Probably not even if he really had been drinking, she thought. Cardone could handle his liquor from what she’d seen in their time together.
She captured Jean Paul’s gaze again. This was easy to do; his eyes seemed to be all over her. “I can’t thank you enough. If there is anything I can do for you…anything…”
Wyczek the Faithful had gone into the hall, just outside the door.
Jean Paul spoke almost in a whisper. “You are very beautiful.”
She let the silence wait fo
r a moment. “I think, Jean Paul, we’d better let him sleep.”
“I do want something.” He hesitated. A muscle at the corner of his lower jaw jumped. “I want to stay here. Tonight. With you.”
She bit her lip, then slowly turned her back to him. “I’m not sure what to say.”
With two steps he was behind her. The aftershave that evoked the image of high mountains and crisp air clung to his jacket and skin. Warm hands touched her arms. He turned her to face him. Beneath his touch, her bare arms raised into goose bumps. Odd, she thought, as if detached from her body.
“I’m obsessed with you, Nova. The way you talk. The way you move. Always pulling at me. You must know this. I want to spend the night with you.”
She shook herself loose, stepped sideways away from him and out of Wyczek’s view. She also suddenly wished Joe wasn’t hearing their every word. “Think what you’re saying, Jean Paul. You’re married. A prominent politician.” She chuckled cynically. “Think what Peter would say.”
“Peter Grund can go to hell. I’ve been miserable for weeks, and I no longer care what he thinks.” He shook his head. “Perhaps I’m doing this badly. Perhaps you don’t want to spend the night with me. I can understand. You need only say so.”
She laced her fingers together and then unlaced them. She would take her time so her words would have weight. Finally she faced him full-on again. “Just the opposite. I’ve lived the last weeks with the fantasy that you’d do what you’re doing now.”
He kissed her. At first she pushed against his arms. He mustn’t think her foolish enough to enter into such a relationship easily.
Jean Paul simply held her harder. And when his tongue sought to penetrate her lips she let her physical self go. His body seemed to quiver and his excitement telegraphed to her. She pressed against him and took his tongue eagerly. He wrapped a hand in her hair and the force of his kiss became painful. She felt as though a gate within him had been opened and a great flood of passion surged through him to her.
Wrenching away, she moved to the other side of the room, but still out of Wyczek’s view.
“I can’t do this, Jean Paul,” she said, words mentally rehearsed many times for just such a moment. “Spending the night with you will simply make everything worse. I care too much for you already. And besides, it’s dangerous for you.”
He followed, and when he stood next to her he said nothing. He touched her hair. He touched her lips. He brushed his hand over her cheek. “For the love of God, don’t say no to me. I can see to it that no one will know. Let’s go to your room. Now.” He took her hand. “Yes?” he asked. The cool blue eyes were begging.
She hesitated, contemplating the proposition that in moments she would be utterly alone with him for the first time. She ran her tongue over her lips. Then without unlocking her gaze from his eyes, she gave him her hand.
Coming up from the lobby, she had let Jean Paul know that her room was adjacent to Cardone’s. Jean Paul stopped at her door. He turned to Wyczek. “You may meet me below in this lobby at seven o’clock tomorrow morning.”
The hulking guard seemed to put down roots into the floor. Only after a very long moment did he nod his head in a stiff Germanic salute. He then strode off, his heavy body coaxing the inn’s pine floorboards to creak with every step.
She asked, “Can you trust him?”
“If Wyczek’s discretion wasn’t trustworthy, he’d be out of work in short order.”
She took her key from her shoulder bag and let them in. Like Cardone’s, her room was small and cozy. But unlike his, hers had a large double bed and a private bath.
They would have this night together. She must convince this man to let her into his life. To trust her so that she could spy on him. She would begin by letting him lead her, but when they made love again and yet again, she would find out his secret desires. He would find her at first almost shy, but finally abandoned—if that pleased him.
Jean Paul turned out to be as unskilled as a schoolboy. He undressed her awkwardly, and when she began to remove his clothes, it had to be in haste. He could scarcely wait.
Afterward he said, “I am sorry. I’ve disappointed you, haven’t I?”
She rushed to assure him. “Don’t be foolish. It was wonderful.”
But the truth was his performance could qualify as a disappointment in many respects. She was confident now that the CIA files were right about his restricted sex life—surprised but confident. She traced the vertical line beside his mouth, then ran her hand over his smooth chest.
He stroked her arm. “I’ve thought of you so often. I dream of you.”
“I can’t believe I’m here with you. It amazes me when you say you’ve dreamed of me. I had no idea you felt remotely the way I do.” This was a lie, yet not a lie. Her attraction to him, the affection she often felt toward him, was both powerful and real. Everything she said with Jean Paul, everything she did, seemed to be double-edged.
For a long while they lay in the bed, sharing warmth and caresses, their hands exploring. When she thought he was ready again, she rose on one elbow and let her hair spill over his chest. She started with a kiss on the lips, one hand caressing his face, but her kissing and touching and licking moved lower and lower.
Only when she began to move still lower did he resist. She heard him suck in his breath and then hold her head as if to prevent her. But she persisted, and almost immediately he surrendered. He moaned softly and the sounds of pleasure continued intermittently as she took him up and up into rapture and out of his own control.
Playing him, she eased off and he grabbed her head, “My God. My God. Please.” She began again. When his hands finally dug into the flesh of her shoulders, his strangled groan was followed by repeated shudders.
She waited a few moments then said, “Wait,” as she backed off the bed. From the bathroom she fetched a warm wet cloth.
“Feels wonderful,” he murmured. He was more in control of himself again. He pulled her down to a kiss and soon thrust his tongue into her mouth. When she finally pulled away she stretched herself along the length of his body, sliding one leg over his thighs.
He hugged her and wrapped his hand to cradle her head and nudge it back to look at her. “You will never know what you mean to me.”
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Try.”
“I can’t, Nova. Just know that this night—this night is for me very special.”
“And for me, Jean Paul.”
“What we are doing is totally irresponsible of me. I have done everything I could to keep you out of my thoughts, but nothing worked.” He laughed softly. “You know, Peter has warned me about you. A number of times.”
She trailed her fingers down his side. “Of course.”
“What you may not appreciate, but he does, is that I have never—never—done anything like this before. It will worry Peter no end when he finds out.”
She pushed away from him and sat up. “When Peter finds out? Surely you won’t tell him. And you said Wyczek was reliable.”
“Of course he is. But I will tell Peter. From this moment, Nova, I don’t intend to spend any more nights away from you than necessary. As long as you’ll stay with me. And we can’t manage that unless Peter knows. Peter may not like this, but he is absolutely trustworthy. It’s your partner I worry about.”
Her heart, still beating strongly, actually trip-hammered in her ears. This was sweet success indeed. She hugged him gently, then pretended reluctance. “We have to think this through very carefully. I know my partner. We’re close. We’ve shared confidences. He’d never betray us. But what you’re saying is scary.”
“Why should you be afraid?”
“My God! Aren’t you afraid? A night is one thing. But to be together often? What if other people find out? You’d be courting political disaster.”
She stretched alongside him again, her palm spread over his nipple; she felt the hard, tight bud in the center of her hand
. He rose on his elbow and when he kissed her, she felt from him the longing of a man afraid to lose contact with the first water he’s tasted after walking barefoot across a desert.
When he finally pulled away again he said, “For myself, I already made that decision. Before I asked you to let me stay. I don’t care about the risk. And Peter is clever. Other politicians do this all the time. Clever Peter should be able to help us.”
His blue eyes searched every feature of her face. He fingered and tousled her bangs. He touched and traced the lines of her ears. He studied her eyes and then her mouth. He seemed to eat her up. “I fear I may be in love with you, Nova.”
Deep in her chest she felt a pang of alarm. She squeezed his arm, soft compared to the rock-hard biceps she’d once, by accident, felt in Joe’s arm. “Don’t say that, Jean Paul. It’s too soon. You can’t mean it.”
She broke from his embrace and sat up on the side of the bed, shocked at the speed at which Jean Paul seemed to be moving. That he should be professing love this soon was extraordinary. Who was conning whom?
Still, she must let herself go, let her mind adjust quickly, let this character she played move from attraction to passion. “I don’t want you to say love, Jean Paul. You’ll make me believe it.”
“If what I feel isn’t love, maybe it’s obsession. Whatever it is, it won’t let me rest.”
She put fire in her eyes. “You’re married, Jean Paul. I’m doing something crazy here, too. I’m falling in love with a married man. I detest the very idea. It’s pointless. Crazy. Something only a stupid woman would let happen to her.”
“You love me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said you’re falling in love with a married man.” He smiled crookedly. “At least I may take hope from that, may I not?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to say I love you. Only that I feel myself…have been feeling myself…losing control around you.”
He took her by the arms and used his eyes to capture hers. “I pray to God that what you say you mean. I’m not going to tell you the old cliché that my wife doesn’t love me. But I will tell you this. There is not now and never has been any passion between my wife and me.” A slight flush of red blotted the skin of his neck. “She would never have done to me what you just did.”
