Peter Sasgen - War Plan Red

He felt her warmth against him and felt the familiar sting of desire. He tried to concentrate on reality, not fantasy, but she had aroused feelings that he thought were buried for good after Tracy had left. He regretted his earlier clumsy attempt to discover how reachable Alex was. It wasn’t supposed to happen, she had said. But God, he had wanted it to.

He felt her gaze on him. “Alex, today when I—”

She put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say anything.”

Scott drew her head down and they kissed. Her mouth was soft and moist the way he remembered. He moved to her throat, the pit of her neck, her stomach under the open silk shirt, and ran his hands over warm, soft skin.

Alex moved to unzip her jeans. Instead, Scott took his mouth from one of her exquisitely shaped breasts and led her into the bedroom. His body ached while they stood caressing. They parted and Scott quickly shed his clothes. Alex wiggled out of her things and crawled onto the bed. They knelt naked, facing each other, exploring with their hands, enveloped by the heat of it. Slowly they sank into each other, Alex pulling Scott down to feel his mouth between her legs, his tongue in her blond triangle of pubic hair. She closed her eyes and moaned softly, then, gulping air, biting her lip, arched against his mouth and came so quickly, so explosively, that it caught Scott by surprise.

He didn’t stop until she cried, “Do it! Now!” Scott, on the verge of losing control, was barely able to pull away in time to enter her and, driving deeply, empty himself before she climaxed again.

They did it again, slower this time; then, exhausted and cooling down, they lay intertwined on the narrow bed. “I didn’t mean to complicate things,” Alex said.

“Complicate things how?” Scott said. Eyes closed, he let his hand drift lazily over the silky curve of Alex’s hip. He felt overwhelmingly contented and didn’t want the moment to end. There was no one waiting for him in the States, and at that moment Tracy had never existed.

“I had an affair with David,” Alex was saying, “but ended it before you arrived. He’s not handled it well and he’s made things uncomfortable for me.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“And you’re right, he’s jealous of you.”

“Tell him not to be. I won’t be around much longer.” Scott kissed her, then sat up and swung his legs out of bed.

Alex came up behind him. He felt her cheek against his back, her breath on his skin. “This was wonderful. Don’t be angry.”

“I’m not angry, I’m confused.”

“Over what?”

“Everything.”

“That’s understandable. There’s so much we don’t know.”

“Well, we know that Zakayev, Drummond, and Rad ford are connected somehow.”

“Are you disappointed that Frank was working for Radford?”

“Frank was just doing a job. He probably didn’t know what he was involved in. They never tell you.” “But why send Frank? Did he know Zakayev?”

“I’ve thought about that. It’s possible that it may go back a long way, when Frank was in Afghanistan.” “What do you mean?”

“A lot of it is rumor, but there may be some truth in it. There always is. Frank was damn good at planning and executing special sub ops. From there he moved on to planning special ops against the Taliban and al-Qaeda on the ground in Afghanistan. There were Chechen forces in Afghanistan, and apparently we arranged for them to feed us intelligence in return for our help in Chechnya against the Russians.”

“Good God, you mean we were helping the Chechens fight the Russians? Why would we do that?”

“To keep the Russians focused on the fight against terrorism, which would justify U.S. incursions into Iran and Syria. Look, it’s complicated and I only know what I told you. But it doesn’t take much imagination to figure that we may have had some SRO special-ops types around Grozny, coaching the rebels.”

“Would they have coached Zakayev?”

“It’s possible,” Scott said. “At this point in time anything is possible.”

“Do the Russians know this?”

“If they did, it would blow Radford—hell, maybe even the President—right out of Washington. Especially in light of Zakayev’s attack on Moscow last month.”

“In other words, Zakayev’s our creation.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“But we know that Radford sent Frank to Russia to find Zakayev. Maybe to head him off before he launched another terrorist attack.”

“Maybe. Anyway, it’s too late now for me to find out what Frank knew that got him killed. I’m out of here day after tomorrow.”

“Maybe I can help you,” Alex said, and kissed Scott’s neck.

He turned into her. “How?”

“Maybe I can uncover information that will complete the puzzle.”

“How can you do that?”

“I’m not sure exactly, but I have friends here who have access to other friends. It’s a long shot, I know, but still…”

“Too risky. And even if you found something, what would you do with it—send me a letter, call me at home?”

“I can do better than that: I can leave a voice memo in my secure memo file and give you the code to access it.”

“Secure memo file? What the hell’s that?”

“It’s part of the embassy voice mail system. We all have them. You call your telephone number, enter a COMSEC code, and after the prompt dial a six-digit, three-letter access code. This gets you into the memo file, then you leave a message.”

“And it’s totally secure?”

“Totally. It’s a place to park important messages. Later you can download them to the comm center onto a CD-ROM or print them out for file. I used my memo system all the time when we were in Olenya Bay. It saves time; you don’t have to sit down and type out a report or memo on a computer. If you don’t need the memo, you dump it or keep it and edit it. You can access the memo file from any phone in the world. We used our special cell phones because they’re compatible with the comm center’s scramblers.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“It didn’t seem important.”

Scott exhaled heavily. “Did Frank have a memo system?”

“He must have. We all have them.”

“Did he use it in Olenya Bay?”

“I don’t know, I suppose he did…. Oh my God, I see what you’re getting at: Frank may have left information on his memo file about the meeting with Radchenko.”

Scott saw that her skin had gone all goose bumpy. “Put something on. We’ve got work to do.”

Scott dialed the COMSEC code Alex said would activate the memo system.

“You have requested access to a secure communications system of the United States Embassy,” said the recorded female voice. “To access the system, please enter your six-digit access code, then wait for the prompt to enter your three-letter confirmation code.”

“Okay, we know Frank had a memo file,” Scott said. “Now what?”

“We could ask Jack Slaughter for the access code,” Alex said.

“Forget it: Stretzlof would find out and know what we’re up to. We’ll have to find the code ourselves. Maybe among Frank’s things.”

“If it is, it’d be on a plastic card,” Alex said. “One smaller than a credit card.”

Scott cut open one of the sealed boxes containing Drummond’s papers and started pawing through them while Alex cut open another box.

“I just thought of something,” she said. “Those cards are self-destructing. They fade after six weeks and you can’t read them.”

“Frank was here for, what, six months?” Scott said.

“Close to it. Damn.”

Scott knew Frank was never careless when it came to security and wouldn’t write the code on a piece of paper and carry it on him. He’d have committed the number to memory. But memory can be tricky, and important things are sometimes forgotten. So he’d have a backup in case he needed it. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t need a backup.