Aftermath (31 page)

"You read
all
his notes?"

"Everything in the notebooks."

"About the tests he did? About my sex life?"

"Yes, I read all that." She laughed harshly at Saul's expression. "Oh, come on, I found that reassuring. Most women would. We're not looking for sexual freaks. And you have regular nighttime erections."

"When I'm sleeping."

"Yes, but it shows that everything's in working order. The problems aren't physical, as Dr. Singer pointed out. He mentioned three women in his notes."

"They were a long time ago, over a year. I thought you were only using his notes for the period since the recording chips stopped working."

"I started there, then I went all the way back to the first days of your presidency. It wasn't just nosiness. I was
interested
in you, you must have known that." She arched her neck, leaning into his hand on her cheek. "Telling you what the problem is won't do it. I'll have to show you. Let's start with those women. The ones it didn't work with. Would they be Leona Culbertson, Ruth Marshak, and Helen Lohmann?"

Saul withdrew his hand and stepped back a pace. "Now don't pretend you found
that
in Forrest Singer's notebooks. Even when I thought the records were all confidential, I never mentioned their last names."

"No. I did my homework. I checked your appointments calendar. There were plenty of lunch and dinner parties to choose from, and a guest list for each. But there weren't many showing one unpaired and unmarried female of suitable age and status, with the right first name."

"It's one of the hazards of being single, especially in Washington. People are always trying to play matchmaker."

"Of course they are. The trouble is, when other people try to fix you up they don't know your needs and tastes. And you went along with it. You gave Leona and Ruth and Helen a good old presidential try. But it didn't work."

"No, it didn't."
So that's what three miserable nights of flaccid flesh add up to: a good old presidential try.

Yasmin moved into close contact again, her breasts against Saul's chest. "And you don't know why it didn't work. But I do."

"Then you're ahead of me."

"Because I have information you don't."

"About them?"

"About them and about you. Once I had their names I found out all I could about them. They were American thoroughbreds, every one, hostess guaranteed. We would never offer some half-caste mongrel like Yasmin to the President, would we? Our own reputation is on the line. We look for private schooling, family money, fifth- or sixth-generation American—not, God forbid,
Native
Americans, because they don't count. We can't actually go in and examine hymens and test for virginity, but these days a divorcee is quite acceptable. Youth and nice eyes and skin and figure are less important, but we do insist on one thing: for President Steinmetz, they must be
ladies.
How am I doing?"

"I don't think I want to hear any more."

"Of course you don't. Your mother tells you to meet 'nice girls'—I've heard her phone calls, the poor old dear. But she's your mother, she doesn't realize that it isn't the nice girls who excite you. I've watched you and I've listened to you for over a year. I know which women you respond to. The ones who turn you on aren't the ladies. They're the sluts, the tramps, the sexual daredevils, the women who will try anything—ones who'll give you as good as they get, and more. Did you tie up Leona and Ruth and Helen? Did they give you oral sex? Did you go down on them? When you left them, did you have teeth marks on your neck and claw marks down your back?"

"If you know them, then you know I didn't." But Saul was feeling a rising excitement, at odds with his calm words.

"So what did they do, lie back and think about the Pledge of Allegiance instead of the Washington Monument? No, you can't do that!" Saul had begun to rub her breast and erect nipple. She pushed his hand away, but their lower bodies remained in contact. "I said I'd have to show you, so I'm doing it. I was sure I knew what would get you going. I was right, wasn't I? You're not impotent, far from it. You pointed out that I never met Tricia. I didn't need to meet her. She fought her way up from nowhere, and all that experience showed up in bed. Her husbands had never known anything like it. Right? You must know."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You don't have to. You gave me my answer. Now I'll give you yours. Once you knew you were going to have dinner with Tricia, you arranged to come here and have dinner with me first. See, I probably look nothing like her, but I had the right feel to me. I was like your double-protection insurance policy. You know we could easily go for each other—we're already doing it. So if you can't perform with me, chances are you won't be able to make it with her, either. You'll be safe. But if it's a roaring success with me, the way you think it might be, then we'll fuck all night until you're so tired you couldn't get a hard-on tomorrow to save your life."

"That wouldn't work."

"Of course it wouldn't. I know men. Sexually, yesterday is like last year. But that's what you had in the back of your mind when you came here. And that's what's
really
making me mad, and it's the reason we're not going to do anything tonight."

"I could make love to you right now, right here."

"I know you could. Do you think I can't feel what's happening down there? But you're not going to. I'm not a trial run for a session with Tricia Goldsmith. My pussy isn't a magic charm that you can wear around your dick to protect you from her." Yasmin put a hand over her mouth. "Oh, my God, I shouldn't have said that. Now you'll
have
to fire me."

"You said you
hoped
we would make love."

Yasmin pushed him away. "I didn't say make love. I said fuck. Anyway, that was before I understood why you came here. If I left it to my feelings, we'd be rolling on the floor this minute. I'm not pretending I wouldn't enjoy it, either, or that I'm not attracted to you. And I love working with you at the White House, and for all the right reasons—nothing to do with sex. I have tons to learn, and you teach me so much."

"Learn about politics? I'm not sure I'd call that the right reasons."

"A better reason than most. I'm not saying we won't be lovers in the future, either. I think we will. But that has to be for the right reasons, too. And we should have privacy, and plenty of time. I bet there isn't even a lock on that door."

"I never looked. So what happens now?" Saul's excitement was waning as he accepted the idea that tonight Yasmin would not be persuaded. Again, there had been a subtle shift in the relationship. In this area, Yasmin was asserting her rights.

"We go to bed—separately," she said. "And tomorrow I head south to the syncope facility."

"Not alone, you don't." In another domain, his own authority came into play. "Something is happening downriver. You'll have a military escort."

"Fine. I have an escort. You do your inspection of this base. Then you return to Washington and have dinner with Tricia. If it helps when you're with her, think of what you'll be giving up with me if you fall into her clutches again. I don't mind being used in
that
way. And here's a taste of what you'd be missing."

She put one arm around his neck and gave him a long, searching kiss, while her other hand worked its way slowly down his belly. He reached around her upper thighs to pull her closer. She shuddered, took a step backward, and said, "Don't get me going again. I'm the one who has to say no, and that's not fair."

"Not fair? You started it." But Saul released her. "Do you want to leave here before I do?"

"You mean, to protect my good name?" Yasmin smoothed her dress and checked its fastenings. "I think it's too late for that. We've been alone for hours."

She opened the door and looked out into the hallway. "So much for reputations. Nobody. I suppose even a security man can tell when he's not wanted."

She walked a couple of steps ahead of Saul, then turned her head. Already she was looking more perky. "One thing you might want to fix, just in case you meet somebody on the way to the rooms."

"My hair?" Saul reached up to smooth his graying locks.

"Your zipper." Yasmin kept on walking. "You know, I don't think your mother would approve of me. I'm not a nice girl."

21

Pride goeth before a fall.
That, and a hundred other admonitions not to get too cocky.

Art lay on his back, shielded his eyes from the morning sun with his hands, and made another attempt to find a comfortable position.

The planks beneath him were of wet unseasoned timber, flat to the eye but not to the back. He had just spent six hours proving that. For the previous four hours he had been working a paddle, when any chance to lie down and rest seemed like a prospect of bliss.

Be careful what you wish for; you might get it.
You didn't often experience such immediate verification.

After they came out of the storm drain Art had thought that the biggest problem in reaching the syncope facility was solved—and he was not the only one. Seth, too confident too soon, had predicted that he would locate a boat with no trouble.

Four hours of floundering in deep snow by the riverside taught them otherwise. They traveled less than two miles. At last they found not a powerboat, able to carry them quickly and comfortably downstream; nor a sailboat, where the wind could help. Their big find was a battered and unwieldy scow, half-rotted in its timbers and with mildewed cushions on its single seat. A pair of cracked paddles floated in the three inches of scum that had to be tipped from its flat bottom.

Spend the night moving downstream, or remain huddled on the snowy riverbank? That choice was easy. You pursue progress, even if you suspect that it is an illusion.

Art had gladly taken his turn paddling in the freezing hours before midnight, when hard physical effort was the best way to stay warm. He had labored again in the predawn gloom, when a great rush of wind raised whitecaps on the shallow river and drove the boat fast downstream.

The weather front passed through in less than an hour. When it left, the temperature was fifty degrees higher. Extra clothes had to be discarded, left in a heap in the bottom of the boat for use as makeshift bedding.

Now it was Art's turn to take it easy, drifting in and out of uneasy half sleep while Dana and Seth paddled the hulk downstream. Even with the steady push from the current, the boat was achieving no more than a couple of miles an hour. At this rate it would take days to reach the Q-5 Syncope Facility. By the time they got there, Oliver Guest's body in its cubicle could be thawed and rotten.

Why bother? Why keep going?

For the same reason that Seaman Edgar Evans, who pulled a sled the day he died, had kept going: you paddled because if you wanted to live you had no choice.

The change in the weather was bizarre. Twelve hours earlier Art had been chilled through every layer of clothing. This morning he was down to pants and a short-sleeved shirt, and still he sweltered under blue skies and rising sun.

The quiet splash of wavelets against the side of the boat was broken by a roar of engines. He opened his eyes and lifted his head. Off to the right, silver in the sunlight, two aircraft were lifting across the Potomac River.

"From National Airport," Dana said. She had noticed Art's movement. "Pity we can't get our hands on one of those. We could be where we want in fifteen minutes."

Art nodded, following the aircraft as they headed southeast. They were propeller planes, of a style not seen for forty years.

"Cessnas." Seth was tracking them, too. "Good to know something's flying again. But they're too rich for our blood. No good even if we could steal one. We don't want people to notice where we're goin'."

"We sure need something new." Art gave up the attempt to rest and sat up. So much for yesterday's feelgood moments. The long day and sleepless night made every bone in his body ache. "We'll take days to get there in this tub—if it stays afloat that long."

"We'll get there. But that's more our style than the Cessnas." Seth pointed to the riverbank on their left. Art, squinting that way with tired eyes, heard a throb of engines and saw a dark hulk moving into view around a snow-covered spit of land.

He shielded his eyes against the bright glare of sun and snow. "It's a Chesapeake fishing boat. Coming round Hains Point from Maine Avenue, heading down the Potomac to the bay. Their electronic gear won't be working, but they never rely on that anyway unless there's bad weather. For them it's business as usual."

"Or better than usual." Seth nodded to Dana and they began to paddle toward the other ship. "They can name their own price for their catch and cargo. Though I'll bet my ass and hat they're not takin' credit cards. What do you think they'd ask to pick us up and drop us off at Maryland Point?"

"I don't know what they'd ask," Dana said. "But it's too much. Didn't you just say we don't want people to know where we're going?"

"No need to tell 'em that. We get dropped off somewhere else. What's the nearest town to the syncope facility?"

"Riverside. But then we'd lose this boat." Art realized that he had changed his mind. Five minutes ago he hadn't a good word for the wreck he was sitting in. "We may need it when we leave the facility."

"So we'll keep it." Seth stopped paddling and stood up. The fishing boat was less than a hundred yards away, but it was moving at a respectable speed. Very soon it would be past them and beyond contact. The scow rocked as Seth shouted and waved.

The other boat didn't seem to change course, but someone on board must have already been watching them. The engines could no longer be heard and the ship was slowing.

"You in trouble?" A woman in black trousers and a dark gray T-shirt came to the low rail and called across to them. Her hair was tied back with a bright red head scarf. The boat was about ten meters long, black hulled with a green trim. The awning that sheltered the bridge was a matching dark green. On bow and stem, in white stenciled letters, were the words
Cypress Queen.