The Kremlin's Candidate: A Novel полностью

“Do you feel it?” whispered Grace. Nate nodded. “Samadhi is wonderful,” she said. “It can carry you, carry you over mountains, and across the oceans. What is over the ocean for you, Nate? What is in your heart?”

“A woman far away,” he said, his eyes still closed, marveling at the feeling in his brain, and at his answer, which just popped out of his mouth before he could think. Grace shifted closer to him, her arms around his neck.

“Breathe with me,” she said, inhaling deeply. She put her mouth on his and started inhaling and exhaling into his mouth, surrounding him in hot velvet and electricity. Her breath controlled his breath. She rocked slightly and leaned forward, so their expanding stomachs touched. Grace whispered into his lips.

“Who else is in your heart?” she said. Nate thought of Agnes in Palos Verdes, and Hannah killed, and white-haired General Korchnoi murdered, and Gable gone, and Benford, Forsyth, and Burns who were his colleagues and family, and the bucket-headed image of PLA General Tan, that profligate beetle whom Nate had just recruited, and he almost said his name out loud. Shit, what is this?

Nate, struggling, blinked three times, very quickly, and she knew she had lost him, at least for now. She moved back slowly, sliding off him.

Dominika sat in the armchair, legs crossed, squeezing her thighs together, sweating. She had forced herself to sit still as she watched the monitor and imagined the feel of Nate’s body pressed against Grace in Yab Yum, and her lips tingled imagining those kisses. Thank God she didn’t have to hide an orgasm, sitting a meter from the appalling Rainy Chonghuan, who was watching the screen with his mouth open. She had panicked when Grace had dabbed Nate’s neck with fragrant oil, but she realized this was not the assassination night.

That last kiss. She was astounded by Grace’s apparent skill in dragging Nate into a meditative state, something she knew she could never do. Strangely she was not mad at him—seeing him after all these months on a high-resolution screen was a shock, and she felt a million kilometers away. She knew he had not planned for this to happen, that he was working on the Chinese woman, and it was she who had initiated the contact. To be sure, Dominika would break a vase over his head when (if) she saw him next, but she realized she still loved him; he had said he loved a “woman far away,” which she knew meant her. She was the first person he thought about from his Yab Yum–addled subconscious. Oh, how this espionage got in the way of their lives.

But right now jealousy, pique, longing, and horniness were superfluous. Dominika didn’t know if Nate could resist the mind-warping blandishments of this gorgeous Chinese girl, but she knew that whether or not the MSS pried the name of Nate’s agent out of him, they would very soon reach the point where they would give Zhen the order to eliminate him. He was a beetle in a matchbox and they were going to step on him.

Rainy Chonghuan watched the screen as Grace said good night to Nate at the front door to the apartment. He ordered the technicians to shut down the surveillance monitors and microphones, and turned to Colonel Egorova.

“You can see Zhènniǎo is extensively trained and meticulously prepared,” he said. “She uses the mystical aspects of this yoga to manipulate her targets, to employ tao qu de zuo fa, elicitation methods. If she succeeds, it will happen next time. If at the conclusion of the next contact the American does not reveal the name of the mole, the order to eliminate him will be given.”

“You know your operation best,” said Dominika, casually, wondering if there was a wet spot on the back of her skirt. “But eliminating the American now seems premature. Your girl is making good progress. You could potentially learn additional secrets from this officer about CIA operations in China.”

Rainy shrugged. “Beijing insists,” he said. “She will invite him for another dinner in two days, and we shall see what happens. Zhènniǎo will stay in this apartment from tonight, in case the American becomes lonely and amorous, and decides to visit unannounced.”

“And how will you eliminate the target?” said Dominika.

Rainy Chonghuan showed a muddy riverbank smile. “Zhènniǎo is an expert with firearms, edged weapons, the rope, and a variety of classical weapons. She is also expert in hand-to-hand combat. Her knowledge of poisons and toxins is encyclopedic,” said Rainy. “The requirement, as in most cases such as this, is to mask the hand of the Service. She will choose the appropriate method.”

“It doesn’t sound like she will have any trouble,” answered Dominika, suddenly overwhelmed. The lingering terror waiting for her back in Moscow if she were exposed by the mole in Washington came back to her suddenly. Both she and Nate were teetering on the knife-edge of ruin.

KYI SAW’S BURMESE TOMATO SALAD