Dean Koontz - Dragonfly

She rolled off the bed and ran from the room.

Leaning back against the pillows, he tossed off the rest of his brandy and managed to hold back his own tears. Damn these Americans! What fools! What maniacs!

Ten minutes later she returned and climbed into bed with him. Her eyes were clear. She had refreshed the light coat of makeup that she wore. “I am a failure,” she said.

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes,” he said with mock severity. “You are such a failure, a terrible failure. Oh yes!”

Her smile was weak; her lips trembled.

He put one hand on her firm breasts.

She said, “Must you return today?”

“Within the hour. I should never have left Peking in the middle of such a crisis. But I had to see you once more and be sure that you were provided for. If I get back tonight, I will not have been too derelict in my duties.”

Without another word she slid down in the bed until her face was in his lap. She began to kiss him there. A few minutes later she said, “Do you desire me again?”

“Would you have me say no when the proof of the lie is in your hand?” he asked.

“Indisputable proof,” she said, squeezing his erect member.

“Come to me.”

Soon after they had finished, he got out of bed and began to dress. When she started to get up too, he said, “No. Lie down. I want to look at you while I dress. I want to take away with me the picture of you naked on my bed.”

She smiled for him.

“At the end of a year,” he said, “consider yourself free. Wait twelve months, but no longer.”

She said nothing.

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she said all but inaudibly.

“I will most likely return in a month.”

She nodded.

He hugged her to him once more before he left. Outside, as he walked away along the pine-shrouded alley toward the lower slopes of Seoul, he felt as if some creature with razored talons had torn him open and scooped out the contents of his chest.

In the house, in the bedroom, Yin-hsi felt even more miserable than her Tai-Pan. She sat on the edge of her bed, her slender brown shoulders hunched, her face in her hands. She wept and shuddered and cursed herself. She knew that she would never see him again. She wished that she had told him what awful things she had done, and she could almost hear the conversation that might have been:

— Tai-Pan, you do know that no other woman could love you as well and deeply as I love you?

— You're a good woman, Yin-hsi.

— Try not to hate me.

— Why should I hate you?

— I am a wretch. I have betrayed you to your enemies.

— What game is this?

— It is true.

— What enemies?

— They came here to see me.

— When?

— Months ago. In the winter.

— Who were they?

— A South Korean and an American. They wanted me to help them destroy you… somehow. I don't know how. I never learned how it was to be done. I refused. They said they would kill my mother and my father. They said they would rape and kill my sister, murder and mutilate my brothers. At first I didn't believe them. But they convinced me that they were the kind of men who would do anything. They raped me and hurt me badly in other ways. Very badly. They frightened me, Tai-Pan. And in the end, awful wretch that 1 am, I cooperated with them. I betrayed you.

But it was pointless to imagine a confession that had not been made. She had not spoken to him about these things, not even when she suspected that, somehow, this crisis in Peking was connected with the men who had first come to see her last winter. It was in this current crisis that Shen-yang was to be destroyed. Somehow. Some way. She was certain of it, yet she had kept her silence. Fear was stronger than affection. Terror drove out love. After he had given her so much pleasure, while his warm semen was still oozing from her, she had let him walk out the door to his fate without giving him one word of warning.

She loathed herself.

She wished that she had the courage to commit suicide. But she knew that she was too much of a coward to even prick her skin. She would collapse at the sight of blood.

She sat on the edge of the bed, her feet on the cool brick floor, and she wept.

And she prayed that however her master was to be destroyed, he would go quickly, with dignity, and without pain.

In the book-lined first-floor study of his elegant town-house in the Georgetown section of the capital city, Robert McAlister poured himself a third bourbon on the rocks and returned with it to his desk. He sat down and had time for one sip before the telephone rang. It was the call that he had been waiting for since ten o'clock. He said, “Hello, Mr. President.”

“I'm sorry to be late, Bob.”

“That's all right, sir.”

“It's this flare-up in the Mideast.”

“Certainly.”

“Ever since they discovered those new Israeli oil deposits, it's been a nightmare.”

“Yes, sir.”

The President sighed and clicked his tongue. “Any progress on your end of the Dragonfly mess?”

“Not much,” McAlister said. “It's been a bad day right from the start — thanks in part to your Mr. Rice.”

The President clicked his tongue against his teeth again. “Andy? What did Andy do?”

McAlister closed his eyes and held the glass of bourbon against his forehead. “I'm sorry, sir. It's a small thing. Inconsequential, really. I shouldn't even have mentioned it. But I'm so tensed up—”

“I want to know.” He clicked his tongue.

“Well, he was supposed to round up a dozen federal marshals—”

“He didn't?”

“He did. But he didn't call them until around ten o'clock last night. Now, some of them weren't scheduled for duty, and they'd made plans for an extra-long weekend. They went home yesterday and packed suitcases and loaded up campers… and then had to unload and unpack when Rice called them late last night. They weren't happy this morning, and the apologies were mine to make.” He lowered the glass of bourbon to the desk. “Oh, what the hell, it's really nothing. I'm just frustrated by all of this, and I'm trying to find a convenient punching bag.”

“No, you're right, Bob. There was no reason he couldn't have called the marshals before five yesterday. I'm going to mention this to Andy in the morning.” Click! went his tongue.

“Well, it really is petty of me. After everything that has happened today, the murder and all—”

“Murder?” the President asked.

“You don't know about that?”

“I've been tied up on this Mideast thing.”

McAlister swallowed some bourbon. “The best investigative lawyer I have is a man named Bernie Kirk-wood.”

“I've met him. He's done a great job for you these last six months,” the President said. He didn't click his tongue.

What was he doing instead? McAlister wondered. Boring at his ears? Drumming his fingers on the desk? Or perhaps he was picking his nose—

“Bob? Are you there?”

“Sorry, sir. Wool gathering.”

“Bernie Kirkwood.”

“Yes, sir. Early this afternoon Bernie came up with what we thought was a damned good lead. He was working on a list of names — scientists with experience in biological-weapons research. And he discovered that a man named Potter Cofield had once worked for Dr. Olin Wilson. Furthermore, Cofield had received a promotion at the Pentagon almost entirely on the recommendation of Wilson.”

“Ah,” the President said.

“Next, Bernie learned that Dr. Cofield had retired from his job at the Pentagon two years ago.”