“Come look,” he said to his comrade. “They’ve got our bird up.”
Bouchachi turned and glanced out the window. “Our ride to Paradise,” he muttered.
Thornton Ranch, Oklahoma
The Senate had adjourned just after noon on Friday so its members could rush home for a three-day Memorial Day weekend of mending fences and twisting arms. Jane had flown to the ranch in a private jet, looking forward to at least one day of rest out of the three-day “holiday.” Morgan’s campaign was rolling smoothly, but there was still so much more to be done.
She was in the sitting room of her master suite and had just poured herself a nightcap of straight golden tequila when Tómas, her majordomo—a bald, spare, elderly Mexican of great dignity—quietly announced that Dan Randolph had arrived and was waiting in the entryway.
Her first reaction was anger. How dare he come here, uninvited, unannounced? she demanded silently as she wrapped a floor-length robe around her nightgown. Yet by the time she had reached the ranch house’s entry her anger had largely melted away. And when she saw Dan standing there, in jeans and an open-necked sports shirt, smiling sheepishly like a boy who’d done something he knew wasn’t right but had done it anyway, she couldn’t keep herself from smiling back at him.
But she quickly stifled her smile and demanded sharply, “What are you doing here?”
Dan made a vague gesture with both his hands. “You wouldn’t come to see me, so I came to see you.”
Before she could ask the next obvious question, he explained, “Your office said you were spending Saturday at home and your next public appointment is at Astro Corporation headquarters on Sunday. I thought I could fly you down to Matagorda tomorrow.”
Making certain that her robe was tightly belted, Jane led Dan into the spacious living room.
“I flew in by myself,”Dan said. “Landed in the dark. Rented a car at the Marietta airport under a phony name. Nobody knows I’m here.”
“Except every servant in the house,”she snapped.
Dan replied ingenuously, “I thought they were all old family retainers, loyal unto death.”
Despite herself, Jane laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I try to be.”
“Well, as long as you’re here you might as well sit down.”
Dan went to the sofa, under the Vickrey painting of a little girl standing beneath an umbrella on a rain-slicked parking lot. He sat squarely in the middle of the plump cushions. Jane took the armchair at one end of the sofa, so Dan shifted over toward her.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked.
“Do you have any Armagnac?”
Jane called for Tómas and asked him to find the tequila she had left in her bedroom. “Do we have any…”She turned to Dan. “What was it?”
“Armagnac.”
Tómas’s gray brows rose a millimeter. “I will look in the bar, sir.”
Once he left the room, Jane asked, “What in the world made you fly up here in the dead of night like this?”
“I wanted to see you.”
She tried to frown at him. “Dan, what happened the last time—”
“Was wonderful.”
“I’m a married woman.”
“You don’t love him. You love me.”
“But I’m still married to him.”
His brow furrowed. “Yes. We’ll have to do something about that.”
Tómas returned carrying a colorful ceramic tray that bore Jane’s shot glass of tequila and a trio of bottles.
“There is no Armagnac, I’m sorry to say,” he reported. “Perhaps one of these will do?”
Dan scanned the labels and found a bottle of Presidente. “This will be fine,” he said.
Tómas poured him a snifter of the brandy and departed.
Dan sipped, then said, “I had hoped you’d pop down to Matagorda tomorrow instead of waiting until Sunday.”
“I have a full day tomorrow,” Jane lied. “Then your ceremony Sunday morning, and then I’ve got to fly to Los Angeles for Morgan’s big rally there Sunday night. Monday I’ve got to get back to Washington for the Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.”
“That’s a full weekend, all right,” Dan admitted. “The Memorial Day ceremony’ll be at the Tomb of the Unknowns?”
“Monday afternoon. The president’s going to be there, of course.”
“Of course. But do you have to be?”
Ignoring his question, she asked, “You said you had a surprise for me.”
“Yep.”
“What is it?”
“If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise.”
Jane studied his face for a moment. Then, “I’m not going down with you tomorrow, Dan. I’ll be there first thing Sunday morning, when Morgan and the other VIPs arrive.”
“Chaperons,” he muttered.
“You don’t need a chaperon,” she said fervently, “you need a keeper.”
Dan laughed. “Yeah, maybe.”
Very seriously, Jane said, “Dan, there’s nothing we can do. I can’t risk upsetting Morgan’s campaign. We’re planning to announce that we’re married just before the convention starts, for god’s sake.”
“Okay. After he’s elected and all safely ensconced in the White House you can announce that you’re divorcing him.”
“Be serious!”
“I am serious,” he said. “About you.”
She said nothing for a long moment. Dan got up from the couch and bent over and kissed her.
She pushed away. “You’re sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms tonight.”
“Sure,” he said. They both knew it wouldn’t work that way.
High over the Atlantic Ocean, al-Bashir stretched out in his bed. One of the advantages of leasing a private jet plane, he thought, is that you don’t have to sit up all night in one of those uncomfortable reclining chairs.
He had spent the day in the hilltop villa just outside Marseille, inspecting the makeshift control station that his aides had installed there. Much of the equipment was old, almost antique, but al-Bashir satisfied himself that it would work well enough. Not up to NASA standards, of course, but it would get the job done. Some of it was stolen. Most of it had been leased from the Russians. It had worked well enough for them over the years. The technicians would be able to disassemble it quickly and leave no trace of their work for the police or Western intelligence agencies to find.
Al-Bashir had barely caught a glimpse of the beautiful Mediterranean during his hurried last-minute inspection of the control station. He flew in, let the technicians demonstrate the equipment for him, and immediately took off for Texas again. He kept his clock on American Central Daylight Saving Time throughout the trip.
As he drifted to sleep, lulled by the steady thrum of the jet engines, he fantasized about having April in bed with him. She’ll be thrilled to fly a private jet to France, he thought. She’ll be happy to please me for that.
Langley, Virginia
The director of the Central Intelligence Agency was not happy about coming in to the office on the Saturday morning of the long weekend. “It’s a good thing the Orioles aren’t in town,” he muttered darkly to his aides as he took his chair at the head of the long, polished table.
Only three other people were in the conference room with him, two of them women. The long windows that swept across one entire wall were covered with thick drapes. The air conditioning was so frigid that the director felt slightly uncomfortable even with his vest and jacket on. The entire front wall was a smart screen that showed, at the moment, a map of the world.
One of the women, a top analyst from the Asia desk, took the chair at the director’s right and pecked at the laptop computer she had brought with her. A grainy telephoto image of a freighter tied to a dock appeared on the smart screen.