(1980) The Second Lady (32 page)

Parker hurriedly picked up his tape recorder, mumbled his good-byes, and departed from the suite.

He wanted to see Nora. He walked to her room, knocked and announced himself. Her muffled voice welcomed him. He entered. She was at a spindly French desk writing letters.

He gestured toward the tray of bottles. ‘Cocktails?’

‘I’m ready,’ she answered, putting down her pen. ‘It seems all we do is drink around here.’

‘Maybe with good reason,’ he said, setting his tape recorder on top of the television set.

She watched him prepare the drinks. ‘Anything today, Guy?’

‘Something,’ he said. He placed a glass before her, took a swallow from his own, put it down and went to the tape recorder. He pushed the reverse button, and waited a moment, pushed the stop button, pushed the play button and listened. He fiddled with the machine again briefly, until he had the tape in the right place. ‘I was working with Billie,’ he said, ‘when the President walked in on us just now. I had the tape on, and it kept right on going. Want to hear some enlightening dialogue? Listen.’

Parker pressed the play button once more and turned up the volume. The tape spun. The President’s voice: ‘Did you have a busy day? Been anywhere? Seen anything?’ The First Lady’s voice: ‘I’m sorry to sound dull, Andrew, but I’ve done nothing. I’ve been locked in all day. Haven’t put a foot out.’

Parker shut off the machine and faced Nora. ‘How do you like that?’

Nora was baffled by his question. ‘What’s wrong with it? She has been in all day. I didn’t have a thing on the schedule for her.’

‘You didn’t? Well, she had something scheduled for herself. I was down in the lobby early this afternoon, and I saw her sneak out.’

Nora sat up. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Alone or with the Secret Service?’

‘With no one. Just Billie by herself. And no limo. She grabbed a taxi.’

‘How strange. Do you know where she was going?’

‘I followed her. She went to Ladbury of London.’

‘The couturier? He’s her designer, but she’d have no reason to see him now. He came to Washington with her things for a final fitting last week. When we arrived in London, her clothes were ready and waiting here in the hotel. Why would she want to see him now?’

‘Why would she see him now secretly, you mean?’

‘I suppose so, yes. It makes no sense.’

‘It makes plenty of sense if she’s not the First Lady, and she’s got to get in touch with a Soviet contact.’

‘Are you saying that Ladbury could be a contact?’

‘Why not? They’ve used similar ones before. Nora, I’m going to find out about this Mr Ladbury.’

‘How?’

‘By getting the President’s help.’

Nora’s brow wrinkled. ‘You’re really going to tell him?’

‘I have to.’

‘I don’t know, Guy. But I do know what I’m curious about.’

‘What’s that?’

‘If our Lady is not the First Lady, what is she seeing one of her agents about? What’s her problem?’

‘That, my dear Nora, is the big question.’

It was early evening in Moscow, and Billie Bradford, pacing her bedroom, was still turning the matter over in her mind.

She had thought about it last night, every aspect of it, until sleep overtook her. She had thought about it this morning after awakening, and she had thought about it in the shower, at breakfast, throughout the afternoon. Having no stomach for a full dinner, she had continued to think about it during a light repast of tea and biscuits.

Of course, Alex Razin was the key person in her thoughts. A glimpse at the clock reminded her that he would be arriving in fifteen minutes or so. His obligatory visit, his assigned visit. But with a difference. This time he was calling on her not in the afternoon but at night. She was sure that had significance.

Originally, she had looked forward to his visits. She had believed he was befriending her, wanted to soothe her. But now she knew that he was strict KGB, an enemy agent, and his assignment had actually been to make her trust his friendship, to disarm her, to gain her confidence. His purpose had become clear to her. To use her - to help his Second Lady and to destroy her own Andrew.

Razin - God, how she hated him since learning the truth about him. She did not want to see the bastard again, the filthy betrayer, the rotten KGB agent. But if she had to see him at all, she was glad it was this evening instead of in the afternoon. She had needed the afternoon to decide upon her

stance, to determine how to deal with him. She had come closer to a decision, but had not fully arrived at one yet.

Ten minutes to make up her mind.

She strode into the living room, poured a stiff cognac and water, and for one last time revived her internal debate. She would examine every side of it - well, the two sides - and come to a final decision.

Perched on an arm of the sofa, sipping her cognac, she reflected on the central issue, for the KGB, for herself, the question that required an answer: since Andrew, her husband, would be going to bed with, making love to, the imposter tomorrow night for the first time, how was the imposter to act and perform without giving herself away?

Before Billie could consider an answer, she was diverted by an image in her head. The picture of her husband Andrew, naked tomorrow night, lying side by side with another woman, also naked, mounting the counterfeit of herself — she found the picture too disturbing to contemplate any further. With effort, she tried to erase it from her thoughts. After all, she told herself, Andrew did not know about the deception practised on him or realize what he was doing. It could all be dismissed as meaningless acrobatics. What was more important, these fleeting minutes, was her own role and her survival.

Obviously, the Soviets were desperate. They had to find out, and find out fast, how their imposter should behave with Andrew tomorrow. If the imposter performed by instinct, and performed as Andrew expected, she would win his gratitude and trust. She would most certainly learn the big secret she was after. Billie knew that Andrew, once sated by sex, once relaxed, had almost always discussed his presidential concerns with her. Feeling closer to his mate, he would unburden himself about his Summit worries. The following day, the imposter would relay this information to her Soviet superiors, and they, in turn, could score a triumph at the Summit.

On the other hand, by equal chance — the one possibility the Russians feared — the imposter might do everything

wrong in bed. Should that happen, Andrew would know at once that this Billie was not his own Billie. Andrew was a creature of habit, in bed and out of bed, and instantly aware of change. If something was out of place, if someone reacted unexpectedly, it always gave him cause to wonder and to probe. His wife performing sexually in an unfamiliar way would absolutely arouse his suspicions. This might lead to an exposure of the KGB plot.

So it was fifty-fifty for the Russians if their imposter played it by chance. Intuition told her that the Soviets, if they had come this far, would not gamble everything on a fifty-fifty risk. The imposter must be prepared. The Russians must have the odds 100 per cent in their favour.

Then where did she, the real Billie Bradford, fit into all this?

She alone, here, possessed the information that they needed. And what they needed, they had to have tonight, for use tomorrow. How would they try to extract the information from her? Instead of Razin, the KGB might send in some of their bullies tonight to torture the intimate truth out of her. But she doubted that. Or they might send in some stranger to rape her. She doubted that, too, because it could give them only a distorted picture of her behaviour. Or would they send in Razin, after all, to undertake what had been his ultimate assignment, to play on her fear and loneliness to seduce her, as he had almost succeeded in doing yesterday? This, probably was their most likely plan.

Supposing seduction was Razin’s assignment, how then should she react? Resist or succumb? Which was the better choice in her fight for survival? The dilemma remained evenly balanced in her mind and psyche, answered yet unanswered since last night. Now, with a few minutes left, a choice had to be made. No more equivocating.

To resist. If she refused to sleep with Razin, if she rejected him, the KGB would never know the truth. They would have to order Razin or someone else to rape her coldly or they would simply have to torture her. Either course would mean

suffering fright and enduring pain, yet the satisfaction was that they would still not know the truth.

To succumb. She would emerge unscathed, except in her psyche. It was the quick way to survival, but they would have an approximation of her conduct in bed, information for their imposter, and somehow a victory. Yet, it struck her, this outcome was not inevitably so. Her submission to them could also trick them into a terrible defeat.

Yes, it was possible to do as they wished, and still convert their victory into their loss, and heighten her chance for survival. In submission, she could see, there remained another option for her. If she did sleep with Razin, she would be volunteering the act and she would be in full control. She could control his findings by misleading him, by acting contrary to her normal behaviour in bed. She could mislead Razin, and he in turn would mislead the Second Lady, who would then invite Andrew’s suspicions.

There it was. So simple. An opportunity to help herself, as well as her husband. Yet, not so simple. One thing militated against it. Letting another man enter her, abuse her, cheapen her. Not once in her marriage to Andrew had she ever been unfaithful to him or even fantasized sex with another man. Only twice, before her marriage, had she had affairs with men, short immature affairs. Making calculated love to a barbaric stranger was not part of her nature. Worse, this man who would soon be here, an enemy on a destructive mission, was a person she despised. He was an enemy of her mind. He was an enemy of her body. He was an enemy of her husband, of her country, of every ideal she cherished. She was filled with revulsion at the thought of him inside her. Yet, as she had overcome her upset at the image of her husband in bed with another woman tomorrow, by realizing he was a victim of deception, and his act a mere exercise, she could now see that Razin’s violation of her body could be reduced to a mere physical exertion. Sexual intercourse without love violated neither body nor spirit. The important thing was that this act might give her a means to reach her husband. Razin was the only conduit, through use of the

imposter, to enable her to send a message to Andrew, an alert and a warning.

Which to do? Resist or submit?

Immersed in thought, she wandered to the bar, poured herself a second cognac and water, and drifted toward the bedroom, slowly sipping her drink. By the time she reached the foot of the bed, her mind was made up. She knew what she must do.

From that moment, she ceased thinking about her dilemma. She had come to her decision, and all that remained was to act upon it. With a glance at the clock, she began to strip off her clothes, article by article, until she was totally nude. Barefoot, she went into the bathroom, started the shower, adjusted it to warm, and stood under it letting the needles of water stimulate her skin. She soaped herself thoroughly, washed away the suds, turned off the shower and stepped out on -the soft rose rug. She observed herself in the mirror as she dried, the high breasts, flat abdomen, soft triangle of pubic hair, generous hips, full thighs. Not bad, not bad at all. Dry, she found perfume, dabbed it behind her ears, between her breasts, and in her pubic hair. Doing so, her mind went to protection, some contraceptive device. She worried about this, then remembered her bathroom travel kit, one she always kept filled, even between trips, so that she would not forget anything. When she and Andrew had tried for a baby, she had placed her diaphragm in the kit against some future need. Could it still be there? She sought the kit — and, to her astonishment, there, it was — her very kit, or one exactly like it. The KGB had overlooked nothing, had duplicated every possession she had brought to Moscow (presumably to make her return foolproof when she was exchanged, if she was exchanged).

She turned the kit upside down, dumping out its contents beside the wash basin. Apparently, everything in her original kit was also here. It was more than astonishing. It was frightening. She refused to speculate on how the Russians had done it. She put it out of her mind. A more immediate concern demanded priority. Sorting through the scattered

toilet articles beside the basin, she found it, the good old diaphragm (or good new diaphragm) along with a tube of spermicide. With relief she prepared the diaphragm and inserted it into her vagina.

In a drawer, she poked through her nightgowns and selected the sheer white one, the short one that would fall not quite to her knees, and she wriggled into it. She went to her closet for her flimsy lace negligee, which she had not worn since her bondage, and she pulled it on. At the wall, she turned off the overhead light, put out a standing lamp, and left on the two dim ones on either side of the bed.

The double bed.

She drew back the spread, folded it, put it aside. She considered the thin blanket, tugged it loose, and brought it back toward the bottom of the bed. She puffed up the pillow.

Satisfied with her handiwork, she retrieved her drink and finished it. About to go to the living room bar for one more refill, she saw Razin appear in the bedroom doorway. Tonight, somehow, he looked bigger, more muscular than she had remembered. He was wearing a brown sports jacket, a shirt open at the collar, beige slacks. Her eyes went from his flat black hair and bushy eyebrows to his bashed nose and thick lips. He had wide powerful shoulders and a narrow waist. She had not inspected him this closely before.

The reality of his person, overlaid on her recent decision, gave her a moment of panic. She wanted to retreat from her decision, but she knew that she must not. She needed support. One more drink.

‘Hi, Alex,’ she said. ‘I was hoping you’d come by.’

‘I wouldn’t miss the chance to enjoy your company,’ he said, removing his jacket and tossing it on an armchair behind him.