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BOOK: path to conquest
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She stared at him, then broke into a giggle. “You must be kidding! Besides, it’s not that cold. I love it when it snows like this—no wind, just a dusting of little soapflake snow. I feel like 1 could stay outside forever. When I was little, my mom would threaten to get the National Guard to drag me in on nights like this.”

Neville grinned at her. “Oh, I’ll bet you were a terror. What would you do when she called you the first time?”

With a devilish glint of reminiscence in her eyes, Sari pirouetted away from him. “I’d waltz across the lawn,” she called, her voice musical. “Then I’d prance close to the porch to tease her. Then I’d do a Highland fling out to the sidewalk— pas de deux with the lightpole—-and then swing a little.” As she spoke, she did each dance, ending up literally gripping a street lamp and spinning around it. By now More couldn’t contain his laughter.

Abruptly, Sari lost her footing and fell flat on her back. He rushed over, concern wiping the laugh off his face. “Are you all right?” he said, cradling her head.

Sari’s eyelids fluttered, then she propped herself on her elbow. “And I always wound up on my ass. All these years later, nothing’s changed. Except one thing.”

He helped her to her feet. “What’s that?”

She tugged his collar, bringing their faces nose to nose.

“When you kiss me and make it better, it’s not quite the same as when Mom did it.”

With a half smile of gentle lust, Neville closed his arms around her and their lips touched and opened.

“My place or yours?” Sari said in a husky whisper.

“Peter’s.”

Taking pains to be slow and quiet, Sari turned the key in Peter Forsythe’s lock. The dead bolt slid with a maddening creak that she was sure would wake the whole building. She pushed the door and she and Neville crept into the foyer.
Good

it’s dark!
she thought gleefully. She closed and relocked the door, trying to hide her nervousness.
What's he gonna think of me if I say I want to sleep with him? What are Pete and Hannah gonna think when they see us coming out of the same bedroom tomorrow morning? What do I care what anybody thinks?
With silent resolve, she held More’s hand firmly in hers and pulled him along.

“Where are you going?” he whispered.

“To my room.”

“And where am / going?”

His expression was neutral. She couldn’t tell if he was being playful or charmingly obtuse. “My room.” She continued guiding him.

“And who’s going to
my
room?”

“Nobody.”

“Oh.”

He followed meekly as she hurried into the bedroom Pete had shown her earlier, and shut the door quickly and quietly. Sari prayed to herself:
Don’t chicken out, stupid!
She avoided looking at Neville’s face as she reflexively switched on the dresser lamp and shed her coat. Then she glanced up. As their eyes met her shoulders slumped.

“Oh, you don’t want to do this, I can tell. I’m such an insensitive idiot sometimes. I just assume that somebody else wants the same thing as I do, has the same feelings. I’m so at home in a lab where everything comes so naturally, but I’m such a klutz when it comes to bedrooms. I’m really sorry if I

pushed you into anything.” She found herself reaching for the door to open it and let him escape, then felt his hand turning her face up. He kissed her.

"What was that for?” she asked.

“To shut you up. What makes you think I don’t want to be here? If I may be so bold, do you
always
talk yourself out of tilings you want?”

“No.” An embarrassed smile curled one comer of her mouth. “Only when I’m overcome by extreme dumbness. Now, where were we?”

He struck a studious pose. “Ah, let me see. Well, I was about to take my coat off and turn off this lamp.” He did both.

I le drew Sari close to him and they drifted over to the queen-size bed. Cold, dim light came through the blinds, a shaft illuminating her face. “Then I was about to unbutton this lovely blouse.”

She felt the buttons being undone, then his touch feather-light on her stomach. His hands lifted the blouse in a smooth motion. The material slipped over her skin, and her shoulders were bare. She shivered slightly.

“Chilly?” he asked, not waiting for a reply. “We’ll soon lake care of that, I think.”

Sari shivered again, but this time because she felt the warmth of his breath on her neck as he bent to kiss her. Part of her felt like sitting back and enjoying whatever he fancied doing to her, but part wanted to return the favors. The second part won. She reached around to grasp the back of his ski sweater, then pulled it over his head and off. With one hand, she smoothed his hair; with the other, she scraped a fingernail through the curls of fur on his chest.

Keep your eyes open,
she told herself. She’d lost count of the times she’d forgotten that one sense while making love. The sounds and smells and feelings were committed to memory, but all too often the component of sight
—what he looks like
—had been sacrificed amid the other sensual pleasures.

This time she
made
herself look at Neville More. For two weeks she’d seen him with his clothing on. The man sure knew how to dress. He was tall and slim, and everything fit him perfectly. But the more she’d grown certain she wanted to wind up in bed with him, the more curious she’d become as to how he’d appear without attire worthy of
G.Q.

So she looked. He wasn’t a poster hunk-of-the-month. His shoulders weren’t broad enough for that, pectorals not that well defined. But there was feline sleekness in place of brawny bulges, muscles long and smooth. He leaned back a bit, enough to slip a hand between them. With two fingers, he deftly unhooked her bra clasp and slipped the straps down her arms. She shrugged to help him get it off, then held him tightly against her cool skin. His chest hair felt warm against her breasts, and she lay down on the flannel comforter, pulling him with her.

This is going to be fun,
she thought. Then, she let her eyes close. . . .

The phone rang at seven, but Pete was already up. He and Hannah Donnenfeld had gone to sleep reasonably early, and the gray light of morning had Pete’s eyes open by 6:55. The voice at the other end of the line identified itself as Chief of Staff Len Katowski. William Brent Morrow was convening an urgent meeting in his Hyatt White House suite, and he wanted Pete to be there.

“Can I bring someone along?”

“Who?” Katowski asked curtly.

“Dr. Hannah Donnenfeld.”

Katowski answered without hesitation. “Sure. Her input might help.”

An early riser by nature, Donnenfeld was also awake and had even showered and dressed by the time Pete tapped on her bedroom door. With a quick explanation, Pete proceeded to rush around the apartment getting ready. He scribbled a note to Sari and More, who hadn’t yet stirred, and threw open the kitchen cupboards to reveal the makings of any breakfast they might want later.

Then Pete and Hannah rushed downstairs to meet the four-wheel-drive wagon Katowski sent to pick them up. With better than a foot of unplowed powder on Manhattan’s streets, a four-by-four was the only vehicle that could get through.

The Secret Service driver parked the vehicle in the hotel’s garage and escorted his passengers up to the top floor. They were the first to arrive at the beige suite, and the President’s wife greeted them and took them to the dining room. The oval table was set for breakfast, with bagels, pastries, juice, and hot beverages.

“Just help yourself,” said Mrs. Morrow. “Bill should be in any minute, and the others are on their way up.” She was dressed in a gorgeously patterned silk kimono, and Hannah touched the sleeve.

“It’s lovely, Mrs. Morrow.”

“I wish I could wear it all the time. I picked it up when we were on a state visit to Japan.”

“She would’ve bought up the country’s entire kimono supply if I hadn’t stopped her,” boomed the President as he entered the room.

“He kept pulling the most wonderful things out of my hands, screaming about the balance-of-trade deficit,” Barbara Morrow lamented. “If
I
were President, I’d let
you
buy souvenirs.”

Morrow grinned at the teasing. “Next election I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned to Pete and Hannah. “Good morning, Doctors. Thanks for rollin’ outa bed and into all that snow. Didn’t get much of the white stuff where I grew up in Texas. Though when we did, the whole damn state’d close down,” he chuckled.

They heard the suite door open and the rest of those called to the conference filed in. Lauren Stewart, representing the United Nations, was obviously the only one who’d come from outside, with her nose sniffling and her scarf still draped around her neck. She and Pete exchanged meaningful smiles. Behind her, Secretary of State Nick Draper, Secretary of Defense Stuart Hart, and Len Katowski trooped in. Everyone sat around the table and reached for food right away. President Morrow prowled the room in plaid bathrobe and Indian moccasins, a bagel clutched in one hand “I don’t know about you all,” he said without preface, “but there’s no doubt in
my
mind the Visitors arc responsible for this. Diana as much as said so when 1 called her last week.

Now, I
don’:
know how she did this, but I
do
know we’re in a shitioad of trouble if we don’t do something to stop it, and come up with immediate ways to make sure we’ve got ample supplies of fuel. The floor’s open for anybody’s two cents.” Secretary of Defense Hart pursed his lips. “It appears we have very little choice. We’re going to need those Strategic Oil Reserves.”

Lauren sipped a glass of orange juice. “I’m just afraid we might be too late. If I recall, Gerry Livingston said—” “Where the hell
is
Livingston?” said Morrow, exasperation in his voice.

“Probably picking out just the right suit,” Katowski mumbled. “Wouldn’t want to be caught underdressed.”

Hart and Draper couldn’t help snickering. There was a rustling in the hallway and Livingston strode in, wearing, of course, just the right suit and murmuring apologies for tardiness. Morrow glared at him, then looked back to Lauren.

She took the cue and continued, “Anyway, Gerry said the Visitors hadn’t been devoting much energy to actively trying to cut our supply pipelines and rail transport. Well, it looks to me like Diana is suddenly inordinately interested in
everything
that has to do with oil supplies. If we do anything to reveal the existence of those underground reserves down in Texas and Louisiana, we may be playing right into her hands.” Morrow nodded. “So what you’re saying is, we could be drawing attention to supplies the lizards didn’t know we had.” Pete raised a finger. “Lauren’s got a point. Moving it’s risky. We move it, we could lose it.”

“Ah,” said Hannah, giving a piercing look at the others, “but if we
don’t
move it, and they find it before we can do something—or if they’re fooling us and already
know
about the reserve—we still lose it. I think inertia is even more risky.” “Inertia?” Morrow questioned.

Donnenfeld leaned forward on the table. “Not changing course, Mr. President.”

There were several more volleys of opinion, and the food platters were picked clean in the process. When it appeared further discussion would only cover familiar ground, Morrow cut it off. AH eyes turned his way. “We move the oil,” he said firmly. “That’s my decision. Anybody care to talk me out of it? This is your last chance. . . .”

He glanced mildly around the table, eyebrows arched inquisitively. There was no more debate.

“I’m taking this as a consensus then, for whatever that’s worth. It helps me to know you all gave this your best thinking and best arguing. I read over all the reports I got after last week’s meeting. Like Stu Hart said, there’s no getting away from the rock and the hard place. What we’ve decided here today could turn out to be the worst decision I could make. But I don’t think so. Not when I've got sharp folks like you all helping me see what I’ve
gotta
see.”

Barbara Morrow had sat in on the discussion. When her husband stopped for a breath, she spoke. “Now that you’ve got all these innocent people implicated in your decision, let’s hear the details, Bill.”

Her irreverence cracked the tension, allowing everyone to sit back and relax, at least a little. Morrow’s eyes twinkled at his wife. “No respect from the little woman.” He cleared his throat. “We’ll pump as much of the reserve oil as we can through as many different pipelines as possible. It’ll go to as many northern terminals, spread out as far as possible. From there, we’ll truck it to storage facilities in the areas where it’s most likely to be needed.”

“Sounds good to me, Mr. President,” Hannah said. “Simple—and our eggs get put in a whole lot of baskets. That’s a good analytical head on those cowboy shoulders. Ever thought of going into science when you’re all done here?”

The meeting broke up shortly after that, and Secret Service agents offered rides to anyone who had to go elsewhere in the city. On the way down to the garage, Lauren took Pete aside. “How about lunch, Dr. Forsythe?”

“Isn’t it a couple of hours early for lunch?”

“Well, I don’t have to get back to the UN until
after
lunch. Maybe if we put our heads together, we could think of some, uh, stimulating ways to spend those couple of hours.”

Pete sighed. “I would love to, Laur, but I can’t.”

“Aw, Peter,” she pouted. “We’ve hardly said two words to each other all week, much less ravished each other.”

“Well, why couldn’t you have given me advance warning?” She turned, hands on hips. “I didn’t know I’d need an appointment.” The elevator reached the lobby and the doors opened. She stepped out and backed away a few feet, then stopped. “I want to remember you just like this—with a very pained expression on your face.” With that, she spun on her heel and marched toward the hotel’s front doors.

Hannah, already down in the lobby, sidled up to Peter. “Lauren didn’t seem pleased.”

“You have a gift for understatement.”

BOOK: path to conquest
13.72Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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