James’ response was to smile back at him with that maddening half-grin. James, it seemed, had no intention of taking such advice.
A problem. The Connecticut Academy, in operation for only thirty years, had acquired a reputation for excellence in its graduates. Only the best left the Academy, and they left only for the best colleges and universities. The rest were sent back to wherever they came from, without any ties or records of their time at the Academy. The Academy had a reputation to uphold. How would this Kenneth Francis James fit in?
His grades were never in question — he had scored in the upper one percent of his Scholastic Aptitude Tests and had passed advanced placement exams in mathematics and biology, allowing him to take nine credits of college-level courses even before stepping onto a college campus. He had even taken several Law School Admissions Tests for practice and had scored high on all of them. He had requested only the best — Columbia, Harvard, Georgetown, Oxford. It was his intention to study under such as Kissinger, Kirkpatrick, Brezezinski — and pursue a career in the Foreign Service or in politics.
Mostly autonomy was what James craved, autonomy and control, but his extremism could destroy him and hurt the Academy. In the Foreign Service, in government, one had to be a team player. Which left out Kenneth James.
But the Academy tried not to discard its students who did not fit. Especially the highly intelligent ones. The problem now was to find James a niche for his particular talents and personality and at the same time channel usefully his considerable energy and intelligence.
Roberts began to stack the folders on his desk and buzzed his secretary. “You are dismissed, Mr. James.”
The sudden announcement took James by surprise, but he tried not to show it. He stood and headed for the door.
“Das svedanya, tovarishchniy Maraklov,” Roberts called out, glancing up at the retreating figure, waiting to catch his reaction.
There was none. James turned, hand casually on the doorknob. “I beg your pardon, sir?”
Roberts remained stone-faced but inwardly was pleased. Good, Mr. James, he said to himself. No sign of recognition — and more importantly, no sign of trying to hide any recognition. You have learned your lessons well. I think you may be ready for graduation …
“Dismissed, Mr. James.”
“My name is Janet.”
Ken James moved closer to the woman and stared into her bright green eyes. Janet Larson was thirty years old, five feet tall, with long, bouncy brown hair. She was wearing stone-washed jeans and a red flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up and the top three buttons unbuttoned against the warming late spring weather. Sitting in her apartment, Ken let his eyes travel from her shining eyes to her white throat and down her open neckline to the deepening crest between her breasts. When his eyes moved back to her face he found her looking directly at him.
“Eye contact,” he said, moving closer. “When strangers meet, eye contact is frequently broken. We’ve been taught here to look everyone in the eye, that eye contact is important. Actually a woman’s direct look makes many men uneasy.”
She nodded, then slowly stepped even closer until her breasts pushed against his cotton Rugby shirt. He let the Academy’s administrative secretary linger there for a moment, then reached out, grasped her shoulders and pushed her away a few inches.
“Remember the social bubble, too,” he said with a smile. “Americans need their space. Encroachment on a person’s bubble, even by a beautiful woman, turns even the most desirable woman into an intruder.”
“Do you find me desirable, Kenneth?”
He pretended to be exasperated. “Try it again,” he prompted.
She nodded, looked up, smiled and said, “Hi, my name is Janet.”
“Pretty good. But try contracting ‘name’ and ‘is.’ Americans love contractions. They slur everything together. ‘Hi, my name’s Janet.’”
She nodded, took a deep breath. “Hi, my name’s Janet,” and punctuated it by invading his bubble again.
“Perfect,” he said, and let his eyes deliberately roam her body once again. She raised her lips, and their little lesson was abruptly postponed.
She was very well trained. She started slowly, agonizingly so. Undressing was part of the foreplay. She was controlling him, moving slowly when she felt him hurry, speeding up when she felt him grow impatient. She knew when and where to touch him, what to say or do to build their sexual energy in perfect synchronization.
Soon it became too much to control and they released their pent-up energy. She climaxed first, the way she had been taught, giving him one last volt to heighten his own climax. She used her muscles to draw every drop from him, then released him moments later — she had been taught that most American men would not remain inside a woman after sex, sometimes refusing even to lie beside them. But this student, however well trained, was not that American … He stayed inside her for several minutes, then let her lie on top of him so he could nuzzle her neck and breasts and feel her warmth all around him. She gently rolled beside him, propped up her head so she could look into his eyes as he traced his fingers around her body.
She too had once been a student at the Connecticut Academy, but her training was in a far different field than his. She had readily accepted her courtesan training and had been selected for “graduation,” but instead opted to stay at the Academy as an administrator. Seducing the young students was her chief source of excitement now, her satisfaction coming less from the erotic than from pleasure in displaying her exceptional skills.
She especially enjoyed displaying her skills with this young student — control name “Ken James,” born Andrei Ivanschichin Maraklov of Leningrad, the son of a Party bureaucrat and a hospital administrator, the top student at the top-secret Connecticut Academy in the mountainside city of Novorossijsk on the Black Sea, where young Soviet men and women were trained to be KGB deep-cover agents.
The Connecticut Academy was a most unusual high school, and it attracted the USSR’s most unusual men and women. Most of the students were trained at a very early age for the intelligence field, learning foreign languages and customs of dozens of nations. Both male and female students, like “Janet Larson,” were trained as courtesans and used for sexual espionage activities. Others were trained in demolition or assassination or other forms of terrorism. And still others, like “Kenneth James,” born Maraklov, were part of a whole new area of espionage.
Selected individuals in various countries were targeted by the KGB because of their socio-economic status and opportunity for growth and importance. These individuals — sons and daughters of politicians, businessmen, corporate presidents — would be carefully studied at an early age, once identified as being groomed for a particular position or put into the pipeline for a given career or special responsibility. Their habits, social life and personality were examined. Were they responsible, stable individuals, or did they squander time and money on, say, drugs and partying? If they were especially promising individuals, apparently destined for greatness, phase two of the project was invoked.
A young Russian closely matching the target’s general physical and mental attributes would be trained in the same fields as the subject individual. Along with being taught the target’s native language, the student would also learn everything possible to help blend himself into the social fabric as well as the personality of the target. After years of study and training, the student would be a virtual clone of the target.
Next, at an opportune time, the clone would be inserted to replace the target. He would assume all of the target’s activities, history, future. Of course it was not possible precisely to duplicate the subject’s every mood or segment of his personality, so the clones were trained. to fit in, to adapt, to take control of their situations. If they did not perfectly match, they were to change the environment around themselves. The clone would, it was hoped, create the new norm and thereby achieve a more viable match-up.