high-level meeting, on the sly if possible.”
Adler took the chair next to Ryan and caught the comment.
“Scott, feel like a hop to Moscow?”
“Can we do it quietly?” SecState asked.
“Probably.”
“Then, yes. Ed, did you field the NATO suggestion?”
“Not my turf to try that, Scott,” the Director of Central Intelligence replied.
“Fair enough. Think they’ll spring for it?”
“Three-to-one, yes.”
“I’ll agree with that,” Ryan concurred. “Golovko will like it, too.”
“Yeah, he will, once he gets over the shock,” Adler observed, with irony in his voice.
“Okay, Ed, tell Sergey that we are amenable to a covert meeting. SecState flying into Moscow for consultations. Let us know what develops.”
“Will do.”
“Okay, out.” Ryan set the handset down and turned to Adler. “Well?”
“Well, if they spring for it, China will have something to think about.” This statement was delivered with a dollop of hope.
The problem, Ryan thought once again as he stood, is that Klingons don’t think quite the same way we do.
The bugs had them all smirking. Suvorov/Koniev had picked up another expensive hooker that night, and her acting abilities had played out in the proper noises at the proper moments. Or maybe he was really that good in bed, Provalov wondered aloud, to the general skepticism of the others in the surveillance van. No, the others thought, this girl was too much of a professional to allow herself to get into it that much. They all thought that was rather sad, lovely as she was to look at. But they knew something their subject didn’t know. This girl had been a “dangle,” pre-briefed to meet Suvorov/Koniev.
Finally the noise subsided, and they heard the distinctive snap of an American Zippo lighter, and the usual post-sex silence of a sated man and a (simulatedly) satisfied woman.
“So, what sort of work do you do, Vanya?” the female voice asked, showing the expected professional interest of an expensive hooker in a wealthy man she might wish to entertain again.
“Business” was the answer.
“What sort?” Again, just the right amount of interest. The good news, Provalov thought, was that she didn’t need coaching. The Sparrow School must have been fairly easy to operate, he realized. Women did this sort of thing from instinct.
“I take care of special needs for special people,” the enemy spy answered. His revelation was followed by a feminine laugh.
“I do that, too, Vanya.”
“There are foreigners who need special services which I was trained to handle under the old regime.”
“You were KGB? Really?” Excitement in her voice. This girl was good.
“Yes, one of many. Nothing special about it.”
“To you, perhaps, but not to me. Was there really a school for women like me? Did KGB train women to ... to take care of the needs of men?”
A man’s laugh this time: “Oh, yes, my dear. There was such a school. You would have done well there.”
Now the laugh was coquettish. “As well as I do now?”
“No, not at what you charge.”
“But am I worth it?” she asked.
“Easily” was the satisfied answer.
“Would you like to see me again, Vanya?” Real hope, or beautifully simulated hope, in the question.
“Da, I would like that very much, Maria.”
“So, you take care of people with special needs. What needs are those?” She could get away with this because men so enjoyed to be found fascinating by beautiful women. It was part of their act of worship at this particular altar, and men always went for it.
“Not unlike what I was trained to do, Maria, but the details need not concern you.”
Disappointment: “Men always say that,” she grumped. “Why do the most interesting men have to be so mysterious?”
“In that is our fascination, woman,” he explained. “Would you prefer that I drove a truck?”
“Truck drivers don’t have your ... your manly abilities,” she replied, as if she’d learned the difference.
“A man could get hard just listening to this bitch,” one of the FSS officers observed.
“That’s the idea,” Provalov agreed. “Why do you think she can charge so much?”
“A real man need not pay for it.”
“Was I that good?” Suvorov/Koniev asked in their headphones.
“Any better and I would have to pay you, Vanya,” she replied, with joy in her voice. Probably a kiss went along with the proclamation.
“No more questions, Maria. Let it lie for now,” Oleg Gregoriyevich urged to the air. She must have heard him.
“You know how to make a man feel like a man,” the spy/assassin told her. “Where did you learn this skill?”
“It just comes naturally to a woman,” she cooed.
“To some women, perhaps.” Then the talking stopped, and in ten minutes,