Chapter Seven
“Carvanserai Kildar… No, I’m sorry, Colonel, the Kildar is unavailable… Colonel, sir, I recognize that, but he really is very very unavailable… For some times, sir… Sir, I absolutely cannot do that, the Kildar’s orders are very specific in this regard… Yes, sir, as a matter of fact that is the only person that he said could be put through… ”
#
“Caravanserai Kildar… Say again?… Yes!… Yes, sir… Immediately, sir. Yes, Colonel Pierson made that plain but… I must warn you, sir… Yes, sir… ”
Mike opened his eyes at the dawn light, looking at the girl, no the woman, by his side. She was lying with her beautiful blonde head on his shoulder an arm and a leg thrown over him posessively.
Both were naked, their clothes scattered across the entire suite. A pair of chaps dangled from the bar. The lovely dress, somewhat the worse for wear, lay on the floor by the door. A single stocking was across one of the sconces on the wall. A white shoe was at the head of the bed.
A quart container of chocolate mousse was on the floor of the kitchen in the middle of one hell of a mess. More marks of mousse led a winding trail, via the bar, the couch and the floor in several places to the bathroom.
Mike was, frankly, afraid to look in the bathroom.
He could move pretty easily which was odd. When he lay in one position for very long he tended to stiffen up, badly. Then he looked at the clock and realized he’d been asleep for maybe thirty minutes.
He licked his pinkie and wiped some chocolate mousse off her cheek, wondering if he should warn Kiril never to give this girl chocolate, then poked her in the side.
“Hey, you, wake up,” Mike said. “The dawn’s a breakin and birds a singin and all that.”
Gretchen’s eyes flew open, momentarily confused, then she looked up at him.
“Let’s do it again,” she said, rolling over on top of him and rubbing her breasts on his chest. “And again and again and again… ” she continued, leaning forward to rub them in his face.
“I… ” Mike said, only to have whatever he was going to say muffled by a nipple. Oh, hell, he didn’t have anything to do today…
The phone rang.
That should not have happened. The phone did not ring during the Rite of Cardane God damnit! The phone did not just…
It rang again.
“Shit!” Mike said, rolling over. If the phone did ring…
And it was the God damned secure phone! It went through the communications section. They knew better than to put anyone through to him unless it was an absolute emergency. For him.
“What?” he shouted as soon as he had the headphone on. Fuck checking the scrambler, he just didn’t care.
“Mike, it’s David,” President Cliff said. “I know that I’ve caught you at a bad time. I apologize. However, when they wouldn’t let Colonel Pierson through, I found it important enough to call direct.”
“Yes, sir,” Mike said, sitting up.
Fuck. Gretchen was already hunting for her clothes. By rights, the Rite should be over. He was just going to have to saddle up his horse and take her back and never ever…
FUCK!
“I need you to come to DC and see some people,” the President continued. “Colonel Pierson will call your staff and arrange the details. If there’s time, and opportunity, I’d love to have you over to the House.”
“I look forward to it,” Mike said.
“In fact, why don’t you just plan on staying here?” the President said. “Why get a hotel room when you’ve got friends in town? Pierson will arrange a cover.”
“Yes, sir,” Mike said, trying to clear his head. About thirty seconds before he’d had a gorgeous tit in his mouth. “I’ll make sure everything is arranged.”
“Great,” the president said. “And, again, I’m sorry for having to break in.”
“Not a problem, sir,” Mike said, watching the naked seventeen year old coming out of the bathroom with an armload of clothes. “No problem at all. Put it out of your mind.”
“I’m going to DC for a day or so,” Mike said as he polished off the last of his eggs.
Mike had passed around the word that he’d like most of the staff to be at breakfast for an “informal brief.” It wasn’t by any stretch the sort of staff the American military would recognize, fitting the conditions rather than making an American “staff” fit them.
Nielson now had the title of “colonel” back, although it was very unofficial. For that matter, Adams was a “Master Chief” and Vanner a “Sergeant.” The Georgian government did not officially recognize anyone’s military status except Mike’s, and even that was under a very old law that had been “put back on the books.” However, both of them had dealt with Georgian officers and NCOs in the last few months and even those carefully briefed on their equivocal status had treated them exactly as they’d have treated NCOs and officers of equivalent rank in the Georgian forces. Actually, with more respect. Over the summer, several Georgian National Guard units had trained with the Keldara and come away with their heads on a platter.
The Keldara had built a reputation as first-class mountain infantry and if their “command structure” was a little irregular the Georgian military — faced with an ongoing low-level insurgency in Ossetia and Chechen control of hundreds of miles of Georgian territory — was not going to look a gift horse too closely in the mouth. The Keldara had shut down the Chechens in their sector and held the back door. That was good enough.
Mike had waited until dinner to spring his surprise. It was the best time to get everyone together without putting too much emphasis on things.
“I’d wondered what the call was about,” Nielson said. He took a sip of coffee and pursed his lips. “A job?”
“Looks like,” Mike replied. “Something delicate and ‘right up my alley.’ ”
“Which means you’re gonna get your ass shot off,” Adams grunted.
“More or less exactly what I thought,” Mike replied with a grunted laugh. “Stasia, you up for a quick trip to DC? I don’t think I’ll be staying long but you can probably squeeze in some shopping.”
“I don’t have a visa,” Anastasia temporized.
“I’ll pull some strings.” Mike paused and considered her carefully for a moment. “If you don’t actually want to go you don’t have to. But I promised I’d take you traveling if it came up. This is traveling.”
“I would like to go, Kildar,” Anastasia said, swallowing nervously. “But I hope you are around most of the time.”
“Where we’ll be staying I’m sure we can find someone suitable to show you around,” Mike said, cryptically. “Trust me. You’ll enjoy yourself.”
“Thank you,” Anastasia said.
What was being cautiously ignored was what Anastasia, in her rare joking moments, referred to as “every harem girl’s friend”: agoraphobia. Anastasia had gone from her parent’s small farm to a harem. There, with the exception of occasional trips to nearby Samarkand she had spent over ten years immured in virtual purdah; the walls of the harem had become her world. When she was bartered away to Mike in return for future “favors” he had made clear that, from his point-of-view, she was a free agent. He had also promised to not only introduce her to visitors — she had been more like a mobile piece of furniture in the meeting he had attended at the sheik’s home — but to take her traveling. However, she had a very real fear of the chaos to be found outside of controlled surroundings. Intelligent, balanced, speaking seven languages, she could barely bring herself to go to Allerso, population fifty, within sight of the caravanerai, practically owned by Mike. Wandering around the District of Columbia on her own would be unlikely.