The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  “But yes, Mr. Earnshaw!” Willi exclaimed with excitement “I want you with me. We will only have the meeting if you are there to counsel us. It is the only way.”

  Earnshaw grinned. “Thank you, Willi.” He turned to Schlager. “Here’s what you’d better do. Call Marshal Chen, advise him about Dr. von Goerlitz, but tell him you’re going ahead with the meeting anyway. Don’t mention me. But get Chen to change the time of the meeting from ten in the morning until—let’s say—three in the afternoon. That’ll give you plenty of time to brief me, and give us time to map out our battle plan. As a matter of fact, I just had a notion—”

  The three of them were deep in strategy as Brennan moved away and finally gravitated toward Carol and Medora Hart, who were drowsily sitting on the leather sofa. Informing them that he was going back to Paris for some needed sleep, Brennan added that he would be delighted to drop both or either of them off at their hotels. Carol chose to remain. But Medora tiredly accepted his offer.

  After making their farewells, and receiving Willi’s deep thanks, Brennan and Medora left the American Hospital.

  They strolled in silence down the steep incline of the driveway that led from the hospital entrance to the stone arch that would bring them into the cobbled Boulevard Victor-Hugo.

  As they continued in the darkness, Medora sighed. “What a long peculiar night it’s been. I’m pleased it came off so successfully.”

  Brennan screwed up his face. “Not all of it came off so well, Medora. You win a little, you lose a little. I’m afraid this evening cost me my girl friend.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  Briefly, Brennan explained his relationship with Lisa Collins, and related details of the awful moment when Lisa had seen him going up to his rooms with Denise Averil.

  “But, Matt, surely Lisa trusts you. I mean, you only have to tell her what really happened.”

  “I’d tell her if she’d listen. But I doubt if she will. And if she did, it’s unlikely, she’ll believe me.”

  “But she will listen to me,” said Medora simply, “and she’ll believe me. She has to. I got you mixed up with Denise. Now it’s only proper I get you unmixed. I’ll get hold of your Lisa tomorrow.”

  “Will you?”

  “The very first thing. I owe it to you. That wretched Denise. Behaving the way she did.”

  They had arrived at the street at the bottom of the hospital driveway, and a taxi was parked at the nearby stand.

  Brennan had opened the rear door for Medora when suddenly, she turned to him. “I almost forgot how it all began. Did Denise at least give you the name of Joe Peet’s hotel?”

  Brennan took the metal disk with its attached key from his pocket and swung it victoriously. “Hotel Continental,” he said.

  “Are you going to see Peet?”

  “If he’ll see me.”

  “And if he won’t?”

  He flipped the key into the air and caught it. “Maybe I’ll see him anyway.”

  He followed Medora into the taxi, and as he pocketed the key, it occurred to him that it might unlock a door to something that would provide him with the necessary bribe to bring Nikolai Rostov, in haste, to him.

  In the upstairs bedroom of the apartment in the Rue de Téhéran, unlighted except for one small lamp, Hazel Smith threw aside her negligee, lifted the flimsy special-occasion nightgown over her head and discarded it, and quickly crawled into bed, pulling the blanket up to her shoulders.

  At this hour between midnight and dawn, when it was pitch-black outside the window, the stillness was eerie. It was a time when she usually fled from the loneliness of night into the canyon of sleep, which was populated only by unreal dreams. But now, lying beneath the covers, on her back, she was wide-awake.

  The sound of water splashing in the basin beyond the bathroom door unnerved her. Rostov was bringing life to his vodka-numbed face before undressing.

  Hazel shifted uneasily beneath the blanket, trying to find comfort in the bed. But she knew that there could be no comfort. Every muscle of her naked body was taut with dread. Yet, the quality of dread that all but paralyzed her in these suspenseful minutes before revelation was markedly different from the panic that she had felt before Nikolai Rostov’s arrival.

  Yesterday, at the Jardin, he had promised to come to her around nine o’clock for a relaxed evening and night of pleasure, one such as they had known in and about Moscow for so many years. She had done her hair, put on her most enticing dress, arranged the plate of his favorite caviar and crackers, filled the ice bucket, opened the vodka bottle, and waited. Twice he had telephoned, hurriedly, cryptically, the first time to say that he would be a little late, the second time to say that he was still tied up at the Russian Embassy but would definitely be with her before midnight.

  For Hazel, the delay had made the evening hours endless. She had wanted him here and wanted it over with, but when at last she had heard his approach, the unmistakable clump of his thick square shoes, she had wished that he had not been able to come at all. And she had agonized in her first cramp of dread.

  As she went to greet him, at twenty minutes to twelve, the fear she had felt was the unutterable fear of receiving a longtime friend who you’d secretly learned might be a long-sought murderer. This possibility, which had tortured her mind, was brought on by the knowledge that someone had tried to do violence to Matt Brennan, and that she alone had—unwittingly—given someone the motive for killing, and that the someone was Rostov. The potentiality of real danger was what had now frightened her. This first dread had been that of the sudden unknown.

  Yet, the moment that Nikolai Rostov had come into the apartment, secured the door, and taken her up in his arms, tenderly, lovingly, whispering his apologies and desires, most of her apprehensions had vanished. He was still her friend and lover, companion of a hundred trysts, and he was no different here and now than he had ever been in Moscow and the past.

  At first, Rostov had been keyed up and restless. Overworked, he had grumbled. Not only those constant conferences at the ministers’ meetings, not only those high-strung confrontations at the Summit, but the maddening stretches of after-hours discussions, wrangling, compromise-seeking at the Russian Embassy with Premier Talansky and Marshal Zabbin and dozens of other Soviet delegates. Tonight, the policy debates had frayed his nerves, and he had not been able to escape soon enough. And even then, he had not been sure that he was free. Marshal Zabbin had wanted to know if he could be reached, at any hour, at the Hotel Palais d’Orsay, and Rostov had said no, that he would be visiting an old friend. Marshal Zabbin, who had met Hazel several times in Moscow, had understood, and requested only the telephone number of the place where Rostov might be found. But, Rostov had added to Hazel, it was unlikely that the Marshal would bother him tonight, for he probably would want sleep for himself.

  Gradually, in the hours that had followed, Rostov had begun to unwind and unbend. One arm around Hazel, he had consumed spoonfuls of caviar on crackers, and he had gulped down straight vodka unceasingly. While Hazel had known his capacity for alcohol to be enormous, she had speculated to herself, after his sixth drink, on whether or not she might succeed in making him completely intoxicated. She had been able to see the advantages. She might be able to make him talk about the past in general, about Vienna specifically, in a natural way. She might be able to make him remember, and recall more fully, his confession to her of so long ago about the conspiracy against President Kennedy, and she might manage this without incurring his slightest suspicion.

  Handing him his seventh drink, she had tried to lead him backward, but his interest had been fixed only on what lay immediately ahead.

  Examining this glass of vodka, he had said, “Vodka is the enemy of love, after a point.” Then he had taken a swallow of it, adding cheerfully, “But I have not reached that point yet.”

  After the seventh drink, he had set down the empty glass unsteadily. He had brought her into both arms and begun to kiss her and caress her ardent
ly. He had spoken, under his breath, of their future. Listening, Hazel realized that the few drinks she had taken, one for each of his two or three, had not been enough to repress her guilts. He had been saying, “My milochka, we will have more nights like tonight, I promise you, more very soon, after we are back in Moscow. I will have my vacation, and you, milochka, will share it with me.”

  “But your wife, Niki—?”

  “Not this time. She does not return to Moscow with me. After the conference, she goes off to Bombay with Marshal Zabbin’s wife, three other delegates’ wives, and she will not return soon. Natasha will be at least three weeks in China.”

  “I thought you said Bombay.”

  His eyes had become glazed, and he had looked at her with momentary confusion. “Did I? Bombay? Ah yes, but only to deceive the inquisitive ones. Bombay to change planes for Peking. Three weeks we will have together, milochka.”

  “Where will it be?”

  “The Black Sea again. Odessa. Or Batumi. Or better, Yevpatoriya. The beach. Remember?”

  “I’d love that.”

  “Settled.” He had released her from his arms. “I cannot wait.”

  “I can’t either. But it’s only another week or two.”

  “I do not mean I cannot wait for the vacation—I mean I cannot wait now, to possess my little milochka. Let us go to bed.”

  She had stood up. “I’ll use the bathroom first.”

  “But not too long… Milochka, before you go, one more, one small drop of vodka.”

  Now, fifteen minutes later, she reclined between the sheets waiting for him. She listened for the bathroom faucet. It had been turned off. He was undressing. Her feeling of dread intensified.

  Yes, the quality of dread was very different from what she had suffered earlier. For upon his arrival tonight, it had been fright of the unknown. These minutes, it was fright of the known.

  The known was Rostov and herself, Doyle and herself, and the terrible secret all three held in common. The known was giving herself to Rostov, for the first time in years, without love. The known was embracing him for another, yet pretending to him it was for himself. The known was Vienna and the long-unmentioned conspiracy that would soon be mentioned again. This spelled danger. Rostov’s peasant façade hid a brain that was quick, perceptive, clever. Should he detect, in her false response to love or in her probings into his past, any sign of emotional espionage, her future would be dead, not necessarily her person but her future. There were only two men in her life, and since she did not yet have the one, she did not dare to let go of the other. But to win one, she must gamble with the other. This, she supposed, was her real dread—a mistake, and the inevitable sentence to eternal loneliness.

  There was a shaft of light from the bathroom. Then the bedroom was enclosed in semidarkness once more, and suddenly, his powerful, chunky, hairy naked frame materialized out of the shadows. The bed sank toward him, the blanket was torn off her body, and her trembling flesh and limbs were dragged into him and engulfed by him.

  She could smell his breath against her face, and feel the hardness of his limbs, and she tried not to recoil.

  “Milochka—milochka—my lyubov—my roza—”

  “Niki, mine.”

  She endured his rough caresses, then feared that he would suspect she was enduring, not participating, and so she touched him with her hands, remembering how he liked to be teased when entering into love.

  “How good, Niki,” she whispered. “You excite me. Do I excite you? How can I, after so many years? What do you see in me, Niki, with all those younger, more beautiful Tanyas at your beck and call?”

  His hand stroked her breasts, her belly, and his lips kissed her throat. “You see how I love you,” he said at last.

  “Yes, but why?”

  “You are you, milochka, and you are different from any other. You are my American spinster Puritan, and you challenge me. Your body is always closed up so tight, like your face and lips, and when I play like this, it is always a surprise and excitement to see you open and bloom.” He chuckled. “You have so little self-love, you are able to give everything to another. I am the lucky one.”

  The analytical part of her brain had heard him out, and now, clinging to him, she thought about it. She was, she guessed, always an experiment to him and, each time he shook her in an invisible tube and when she fizzed in response, he exulted in the renewed discovery of his male prowess and virility.

  Tonight, the knowledge of his prowess was somehow degrading, and she wished that she could remain tight beneath his advance, not open up, certain that this rejection was possible but knowing that tonight she did not dare it. She was used to his frankness, and knew he had meant no insult, not really, and she should not resent what he had said, but still, it would have been good to show him her own strength and independence. But what the hell…

  She had been offering him only her body, secretly keeping her mind chaste for Doyle, but the passion in his lips, his fingers, was unfairly digging into her mind, tearing it from Doyle, oh Jay, hold on, don’t let me be taken, Jay, help me, help me. But too late. Her mind, all senses, had defected from the one who was not here. Her mind had joined her treacherous naked body in surrendering.

  She groaned, she wriggled, she clung to him, her torso heaving, wanting her Niki, not wanting her Niki, loving him, hating herself, needing him. Blindly, she saw the primitive face above her own, and then she shut her eyes and opened herself to him.

  She wanted no finesse, no delicacy, and she received none. She was filled with him, and on fire, and she writhed with him in the consuming flames. The heat inside her womb, licking beneath her skin, was unbearable but sheer ecstasy, and her thighs shook and her arms flailed and she cried out to be freed. And when he would not let her escape, she screamed and cursed, and her curses turned him into a raging animal, and suddenly, she felt him surrendering to her and at once she gave up to him, and together they were released and free.

  He had fallen away from her, panting, trying to whisper endearments despite his complete exhaustion, but unable to do so for his lack of breath.

  She lay back on her pillow, dropping her weary arms at her sides, and her weak legs flat on the bed. She lay satiated and happy, but only half happy in the clarity that followed love. From the navel down, she knew pleasure. From the navel up, she knew shame. Yet, she resented the knowledge that Doyle would inevitably condemn her behavior, and she resented it doubly because after all she had sacrificed herself for him.

  She wanted to argue with Doyle. She hated all his sanctimonious guiltmaking. Who in the hell did he think he was anyway? She wanted to humiliate him for labeling her a whore. She wanted to tell him a woman needed real masculine love sometimes, real love, not just a lifetime of his flabby, soggy, pipsqueak passion. But she couldn’t humiliate him, she couldn’t, because she loved him so dearly, so maternally, poor lost baby, and she wanted to tell him his love was better in the end because it was so considerate, sweet, unhurting, and it was the best in the end because she loved him and wanted the security of him and of his name.

  Her inner dialogue reminded Hazel that she was carrying Doyle’s shrouded shield, and that it was for his cause, and their cause, that she had undergone the pain of an alien love. The time for risk had come at last.

  She felt confident. Rostov’s head was sufficiently befuddled by drink to make him unwary. Rostov’s body was satisfied by her loving and it was beholden to her. After alcohol and orgasm, he was always pliable. After love, before sleep, he always liked a brief interlude of pillow talk.

  She turned on her side. Rostov’s panting had abated. He was breathing almost regularly now. But his eyes were heavy-lidded, and he stifled a yawn. His head moved. He saluted her with a tired smile. “Very good, my milochka. If I sleep too soundly, do not forget the telephone.”

  She slid over and nestled against him. “Ummm.” She ran a finger along the line of his jaw. “You’re not going to leave me alone already?”

  “
It is your fault for making me feel so peaceful.”

  “Let’s talk a little.”

  “About what?”

  “Us. I like to talk about us.”

  She kissed his lips, and he returned her kiss. “All right,” he said, “but first make me one more drink.”

  “Gladly.”

  She left the bed for the dresser, where the tray of bottles, glasses, and ice now stood. She covered two cubes with vodka, and mimicked the mincing steps and servility of a Japanese geisha, as she brought him the drink. Laughing, he pushed himself up to a sitting position against the headboard and accepted the glass of vodka. She considered going into the bathroom to use the bidet, but was afraid that by the time she finished he would have fallen into a deep slumber. Instead, she returned to the bed, climbed over him feeling as fleshy as a Rubens nude, and snuggled against him, legs drawn up, head pillowed amid her loose red hair upon his chest.

  He had swallowed a considerable quantity of vodka, and she could hear the alcohol go down his gullet. “So, now we will talk about us,” he said, his voice slurred from drink and sleepiness. “Make it a lullaby.”

  “I remember it like a lullaby,” said Hazel. “Do you, Niki?”

  “Yes, everything.”

  “Do you remember so long ago when we met?” said Hazel. “That week is as alive to me as the present. I was thinking about it before, when I was waiting for you. I’ll never forget Vienna. Do you ever think about it, Niki?”

  He yawned. “Many times. How could I forget?”

  “We were so much younger then. The wonderful thing is that it doesn’t seem we’ve changed much. At least, I don’t think you have.”

  “You haven’t either, milochka. Maybe prettier now.”

  “See, you still are kind. That’s one of the things I found in you that attracted me in Vienna. I remember you when we were introduced in the Bristol bar. I was so impressed. A mysterious Soviet diplomat. I used to believe they wore horns.”