But she knew he had not heard her. John had already stepped off the bus and was walking at a furious pace toward the terminal building where Raul was waiting, impatiently tapping his foot.
HOTEL CARAZUL
Sunday, January 20; 6:20 A.M.
Peters
Peters had been awake, thinking, for more than two hours when the first ray of burnished tropical light pierced a crack in the Venetian blinds and fell across his face. He had been aware all the time of Alexandra standing silent and motionless by the window, but he had remained still, analyzing, unwilling to risk having stray emotions show on his face until he could be sure of how he was going to proceed and could then dismiss the problem from his mind.
One mystery that had caused him considerable anxiety had been cleared up. Peters had been very much concerned when he’d first learned of the last-minute addition to the flight’s passenger list and it had taken a good deal of concentration to maintain a calm facade, not only when he’d first learned of the addition, but also when he’d relayed the information to Alexandra. His initial suspicion and fear had been that one of the faceless Sierrans he’d met within the Miami movie theater had been arrested, or had been a CIA agent all along. That would have meant that someone on the tour was a CIA agent watching every move he and Alexandra made, biding his time, waiting for an opportunity to kill them both. However, after the initial shock and danger of the confrontation with John Finway had passed, Peters had experienced a feeling of immense relief at finding the lawyer with them. Finway had to be the extra man, and Peters was no longer worried about being tracked.
He was still riding lucky.
His plan involving Alexandra had never been foolproof, he thought; there had always been factors over which he had no control, and he’d accepted that risk. He had intentionally waited until only a short time before departure to approach Alexandra as a way of putting additional pressure on the woman and preventing her from analyzing his story too deeply; he considered the idea of Manuel Salva wanting to switch sides after more than twenty years of faithfully serving the Communist cause rather preposterous.
He had no control over what Alexandra told her husband, Peters thought, and her discussion with him had obviously included the fact that she was going to San Sierra. Finway, for whatever reason, had decided at the last moment to come along and “surprise” her. Peters assumed the other man had used his contacts with the political left to quickly obtain a visa. It explained the added name on the passenger list.
There was no CIA agent.
But there was still John Finway, and he was going to have to be killed. Moreover, Peters thought, the lawyer would have to be taken out in a manner that would appear unquestionably to be an accident. He knew that, in addition to the obvious danger of being caught, killing Finway carried subtler risks: her husband’s death could break Alexandra, the finely calibrated tool that was now essential to his plan. At the very least, Alexandra would be deeply shaken for the rest of the trip, and he could not tell whether or not that would be to his advantage. He did not like unknown factors.
Nevertheless, the fact was that every minute Finway remained alive in San Sierra represented a clear and unacceptable peril. If the lawyer didn’t simply change his mind about cooperating and betray them directly, he might do it indirectly, possibly raising suspicions by his behavior. Peters knew that if the Sierrans, for whatever reason, did a thorough check and found out that Finway was actually Alexandra’s husband, questions would be raised, to say the least. With the questions would come complications. His plan would almost certainly have to be abandoned.
He would kill Finway at the first opportunity.
Satisfied with his decision, Peters groaned and stirred as though just awakening. He sat up on the edge of the bed, stretched and yawned. “Good morning,” he said thickly to the woman standing by the window.
Alexandra’s response was to abruptly snap open the blinds, flooding the room with sunlight. She was dressed in a powder-blue robe and matching slippers, and Peters could tell by the firm uplift of her full breasts and the line around her hips that she was wearing only a bra and panties beneath the robe. He was naked but made no move to cover himself, even when he began to grow hard.
“Good morning,” Alexandra said coldly, turning back to the window.
“You don’t want to look at me?”
“I’ve seen you with a hard-on before, Rick. It doesn’t bother me one way or another. Frankly, I don’t feel like looking at it before breakfast.”
“What about after breakfast?” Peters felt himself beginning to throb, and he debated whether he should try hurting her. He was not sure how she would react after so many years, and he decided against it—at least for the time being.
Alexandra had definitely changed. She had softened, matured. Ripened. If anything, she was now more beautiful than he remembered, and he loved the gentler reincarnation even more than the rougher version. That made it even more essential that this business be finished, and the account closed.
When she did not respond, he added quietly, “It used to bother you a lot.”
“That was a long time ago, Rick,” Alexandra responded dully. “We lived in another world, in another galaxy.”
“Maybe our home planet isn’t as far away as you think it is,” Peters said, reaching over to the nightstand and turning on his large portable radio in order to mask their conversation. The sound of mellow rock from a Miami station drifted through the room. He pulled the sheet up across his lap and lit a cigarette. “That’s the lumpiest goddam pillow I’ve ever slept on. Do you suppose they stuff the things with marbles?”
Alexandra turned from the window and stared oddly at Peters for some time before she answered. “I hadn’t noticed,” she said at last. Her tone was not so much hostile now as it was distant and preoccupied.
“Have you slept?” Peters asked, knowing the answer. Alexandra’s bed, shoved against the opposite wall, was still crisply turned back, as it had been the night before.
“Don’t worry about it, Rick!” Alexandra snapped, her voice bristling with anger. “I don’t need a nursemaid! I haven’t forgotten why we’re here, and I know how to take care of myself. My marriage may have fallen apart, but I haven’t. You can still count on me, all right?”
“I never doubted it,” Peters said evenly. “I’m sorry about what happened with John.”
Alexandra tossed her head back in annoyance. “Why are you sorry? You didn’t invite him along.”
“I invited you along.”
“I came along.”
“Do you think John will hold up?”
“I know he’ll hold up. He’s just as tough-minded and strong-willed as we are.”
“Good,” Peters replied matter-of-factly. “Now, why don’t you come to bed with me?”
“My God, Rick,” Alexandra said, her eyes flashing and her voice rising with exasperation. “What the hell’s the matter with you? Don’t you listen?”
“There’s nothing the matter with me, Alexandra,” Peters said evenly, “but there is something the matter with you. I can fix it; you know I can. Together, we can make it better for both of us.”
Alexandra glared at him for a few seconds, then stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Peters rose, went to the door, and put his mouth close to the wood.
“You and I are very special people, Alexandra,” he continued in the same flat tone. “We have very special needs. You understood that once, and you used to have the guts to satisfy those needs. We both enjoyed the physical pain we shared because it pushed away all the worse pain and pressure. The pain heightened our pleasure; it helped us forget all the shit coming down on us. Right now, you and I are the only two people on the face of the earth who can save Salva’s life. That puts us apart from everyone else. The pressure of our work always kept us apart from other people. We knew how to provide each other with pleasure and relaxation, and we need that now.”
He almost fell into the sma
ll bathroom when the door suddenly opened. Alexandra was composed now, her tone once again distant and cold.
“What’s the matter, Rick?” Alexandra asked scornfully as she brushed past him. “Do you want to cut me again?”
“I never meant to hurt you like that,” Peters said in a clipped voice. “I just went out of my head. How many ways can I say I’m sorry?”
“You don’t have to say it at all,” Alexandra replied archly. “I went out of my head too. It’s what I meant when I said that all we ever shared was mental illness. In a way, the cutting helped me; it made me realize the price I was paying for the work I was doing. That was when I knew that if I didn’t get out I was going to change permanently into something I didn’t want to be.”
“Then marrying John was an escape.”
“No. If John had come into my life earlier, I wouldn’t have scars under my eyes.” She paused, sighed wearily. “So no more attempts to seduce me, painful or otherwise. Okay, Rick?”
“I don’t agree that we were sick, Alexandra,” Peters said in a low voice. “I loved you. But your message is received. Just let me know if you change your mind.”
He watched the enticing movement of Alexandra’s hips as she walked back to the window. She stood there for a long time, staring down at the narrow strip of lawn in front of the hotel, the highway, a large stand of barren sand pines, and the blue-green sea beyond. Peters frowned when she began to absently trace her finger up and down the pane of glass.
“Still worried about John?”
“Yes and no,” Alexandra replied. She paused, sighed. “There’s nothing more we can do about the situation with John, but he said something that struck me. You talk about this being an incredibly important task, which it certainly is. John called it a quarter-assed operation. Well, maybe it’s that, too; maybe it was quarter-assed for the Company to send us. A great deal is hanging on our success or failure, Rick, but we weren’t even vetted, politically or physically. How could the CIA know what we would be like after all these years?”
“They know,” Peters said carefully. “They had to have checked us out before they contacted us. They were satisfied. The CIA doesn’t think it’s a quarter-assed operation; they think our being here is their best option.”
“I know,” Alexandra said distantly. “Langley gave me a second confirmation.”
A bubble of shock and fear as hard and hot as a bullet instantaneously formed and burst in Peters’ belly like a grenade, exploding upward and squeezing his heart. There was a banging inside his chest and head, and he realized with alarm that his heart had begun to beat arhythmically. He managed to sit down on the edge of the bed just before he fell.
As Alexandra started to turn toward him, Peters desperately reached down into his mind, touched something solid and hid behind it. He stiffened his body, supporting himself by bracing his hands on either side of him. He searched frantically for something—anything—to say.
“Really?” His lips and the muscles in his face felt hard as concrete. “The C won’t like that. I’ll bet Langley didn’t like it.”
“I wasn’t worried about how the C or Langley felt. I—Rick, what’s the matter?”
“I don’t know … dizzy.”
Without giving himself any more time to think about it, Peters abruptly stood up. He experienced a few seconds of dizziness, but his legs supported him as he walked quickly into the bathroom. He leaned on the wash basin, opened the tap, and splashed cold water on his face. He heard Alexandra come up behind him and stop in the doorway.
“Hey, you okay?”
His pulse was still racing, Peters thought, but at least he was in control again. If only he hadn’t given himself away a few seconds before. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I don’t know what the hell happened. All of a sudden I just got dizzy.”
He waited, forcing himself to breathe regularly, closing his eyes and listening in the terrible silence for Alexandra’s next words, fearing suspicion, accusation—rejection. Without Alexandra’s continuing trust and cooperation, the operation could not be carried out.
“I couldn’t accept this task without a second confirmation from someone near the top of the agency itself.”
Peters opened his eyes, smiled. It was all right. He concentrated on speaking slowly, calmly. “You didn’t trust me or the C?”
“No offense, Rick, but I haven’t seen you in years. The C was always just a voice. The man at the other end of that telephone line could have said anything you told him to say. I had to make absolutely certain that things were the way you said they were.”
Peters splashed more cold water on his face, then turned off the tap and dried himself on the rough towel hanging on a brass rack next to the basin. He waited a few seconds to make sure that the muscles in his face felt right, then turned to face Alexandra.
“I understand perfectly,” he said, pleased that his voice sounded casual and steady. Five minutes before he had feared he was going to pass out. “I’d have demanded the same thing. That’s what makes us top professionals; it’s why we’re here.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you—procedures, you know—but I figure we’ve got enough problems without there being any tricks between us. It’s really not that important, anyway. Call my little confession a peace offering.”
Peters went back into the bedroom. He took shorts, socks and sneakers from his suitcase, sat down on a chair and began to put them on. Alexandra was still under his control, but a new and imminent danger had been introduced. His heart was pounding; his muscles were knotted, and the mainspring of his emotions was wound tight, locked. He was able to keep the physical reaction contained, insulated from his voice, eyes, and face, for the moment. He desperately needed to relax, to think. He needed mental and physical release quickly, and he’d learned that the best way for him to achieve that was through intense physical exercise.
“Accepted,” he said at last as he finished lacing up his sneakers. He turned his head in Alexandra’s direction and winked. “Confidentially, I did exactly the same thing. If I hadn’t received a second confirmation, I’d never have come to you.”
Alexandra laughed thinly. “Wheels within wheels. Hey, do you think it’s a good idea to run right after you almost fainted?”
“I need a sweat.” Peters stood and smiled at the woman. “I was hoping for some more stimulating form of exercise, but I guess I’ll have to settle for what I can get.”
Alexandra reached out and turned off the radio. “Have a good run,” she said absently.
“See you later,” Peters replied, stepping out into the corridor and closing the door behind him.
Trembling with tension and fury, Peters did not bother to loosen his muscles with stretching exercises, as he usually did before running. The room was on the fourth floor and he bounded down the stairway, taking the steps two and three at a time. He forced himself to walk through the lobby, but once again broke into an abandoned sprint the moment he was outside. With his lips pulled back from his teeth in a grimace of rage and frustration, he sprinted across the highway and through the stand of sand pines, angrily slapping the rough bark of the trees with his hands. He emerged from the trees, veered right, and ran hard along the deserted beach until the sheer weight of physical exhaustion had squeezed the fear and tension from his system.
With sweat running in glistening rivulets down his sleek, hard body, his mind began to shift into a state of relative calm. Panting, he geared his pace down to a slow, shuffling jog and began trying to analyze what he knew or could guess.
The Company had tasked Alexandra for an operation that didn’t exist; the woman had become a weapon turned against him.
It meant that the CIA knew what he was planning to do, and they were using an unsuspecting Alexandra, spending her to buy time. Now they were … what? Toying with him? No, he thought, that wasn’t it. The Company would undoubtedly be overjoyed if he killed Salva. But they couldn’t know why he wanted Alexandra, and that had made them nervous. They would h
ave guessed the thrust of his plan, but not the details. He reasoned that they would try to stop him, but first they’d want to determine if he had a backup man with him on the tour, and then they’d try to find out what organization had hired him.
Obviously, he reflected, Langley was in no hurry. As far as the Company was concerned, he was a walking dead man they could tip over any time they pleased. Someone in the tour group was an agent tasked to watch him. The man would eventually move to capture him, then apply torture to force him to supply information before he was killed.
Chilled by that thought, Peters abruptly stopped and looked around him. The sea was to his left. On his right the beach sloped sharply upward, the sand flowing around the gaping black maws of abandoned bunkers that had been erected the length of the beach at seventy-five-yard intervals in the immediate aftermath of the Beach of Fire invasion. Satisfied that he was alone, Peters resumed his slow jogging.
Who? Peters wondered. Unknown, and unknowable—at least for the moment. He would just have to accept the fact that he was going to be under constant surveillance and not allow himself to be unduly distracted by the knowledge.
Another thought, a bizarre possibility, occurred to him. He was sure that it was Finway’s name that had been added to the flight list at the last moment; it could mean that Finway was the agent.
Christ! he thought, smiling tensely in the face of the fear that had started to rise in him. What a neat trick it would be if Finway were, and always had been, a Company spook; what a neat trick that would be on a guilt-ridden Alexandra Finway, a dragon who’d informed on and then married one of her own anonymous dragonmasters without ever learning the truth. Wheels within wheels, all turning at different speeds in opposite directions.
He would not discount the possibility, but he doubted that Finway was the agent. There were a number of techniques for planting agents in an apparently closed group, even on very short notice. The CIA could have picked a real name from the passenger list available through various regulatory agencies and then taken the actual person off the tour; the pull could have been accomplished through persuasion, or by less gentlemanly means. The CIA would be baby-sitting the man while their agent took his place on the tour. It would mean a hastily doctored phony passport, Peters thought, which could be to his advantage. The agent’s false document represented a potential weakness, a source of anxiety to the man.
Turn Loose the Dragons Page 12
