The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

Grace took two steps back, unzipped her cocktail dress, and stepped out of it, the straps of the straining black-lace balconette bra loose on her shoulders, and her boy shorts smooth between her legs. She sat on the cushion in front of the gong, folded her legs in the classic yoga Padmasana, and placed her hands on her knees. “First comes Kapal Bhati, skull shining breath,” she whispered. She began slow, controlled breathing, with deep inhalations and explosive exhalations. After a dozen breaths, she nodded to Nate, okay, make the gong sing like she showed him, and the low Tibetan rumble started, and Nate could feel the buzz in his own spine, but he had to concentrate on a smooth circular motion with the hammer as the second sympathetic higher note started, and he looked at Grace who was sitting rocking her torso in a circular movement, chin up and eyes closed, gaining speed, and she began an indecipherable chant at the same musical note as the gong. Four minutes, five, six, shoulders in a circle forward and back, hands braced and eyes closed, and the sweat started pouring off her face and ran in rivulets between her glistening breasts, and down her stomach to soak the waistband of her panties. Nate’s arm was getting tired, but he was afraid that if he stopped with the gong she would breathe fire at him, and levitate off the balcony into the night sky. At about the ten-minute mark of unabated violent torso swinging, Grace leaned back, arched her spine off the wood, the back of her skull planted on the floor. Her sweat-transparent bra strained high, and she clasped her hands together in a Ksepana Mudra above her heart. She bent back even farther, her rib cage expanding like a bellows, her prayerful hands pressed between her breasts, and she started trembling, tsunami spasms rolling up her heaving belly, the long muscles of her legs pulsing, her feet twitching, and her quivering chin pointing at the ceiling. She suddenly tensed, her eyes rolled white, and her mouth opened as she expelled a huge breath and lay still, hands now slack on her chest.

Nate figured the telephone he’d use to call the ambulance was probably in the kitchen, but first he leaned over Grace who was now lying flat on the floor, eyes closed, legs unfolded and outstretched. Her rib cage was still expanding with her breathing. “Are you okay?” he asked, putting his hand on her shoulder. Her eyes slowly opened and focused on him. She smiled, put a hand behind his neck, and pulled his mouth down onto hers for a hint of a kiss, a single caress of her lips. Her sweet fragrance enveloped him, and his head swam. “What is that perfume?” he said. She pulled his mouth down on hers again.

“Ylang-ylang,” she whispered in his ear, pronouncing it ee-lang, ee-lang. “It is very old.”

“Are you all right?” said Nate. “What happened to you?” Grace rolled to her feet, unhurriedly unclasped her sopping bra without covering herself, and walked to one of the wicker baskets, pulled out a linen kimono, and slipped it on.

“What was that?” said Nate. Grace ran her fingers through her hair, then knotted the belt of the kimono, looking him in the eye without blinking, not at all embarrassed.

“Awakening Kundalini,” she said. “It’s when I lose myself.”

“Awakening what?” said Nate.

“Have you heard of the seven chakras in the body? Life-force centers? No? I will explain it another time. It is too late tonight.”

Another whisper of a kiss at the door, and Nate walked home along Bowen Road, mentally drafting tomorrow’s cable for COS Burns’s release on what appeared to be a notable start in the developmental to recruit Grace Gao, aka Zhen Gao. Nate’s case-officer antennas were vibrating a little, assessing factors: This was going faster than normal, maybe artificially faster? This Kundalini energy thing was unexpected; could it be exploited? She had sobered up fast enough. She was an enigma, but irresistible: erotic without being salacious; alluring without being wanton; at once sophisticated and naive. If he could swing it, he had a feeling this could be an exceptional recruitment. The foreign scholarship in the United Kingdom was still an unexplained anomaly, as was her apparent uninterest in his personal history. These were false notes, but he’d resolve them.