"I'm sorry, you must think I'm awfully rude," she said, getting control of herself at last. "I'm Kirsten Chu, and it happens that I work for Monolith Technologies, Singapore. The Corporate Communications Division. I'm here on holiday, visiting my sister and nieces."
Understanding spread across Blackburn's features.
"Ah-ha," he said. "So that explains why you're in conniptions."
"It does indeed," she said. "Our employers are very much archrivals, aren't they? For the past six months I've done nothing but huddle with our lobbyists and publicists about the encryption flap, brainstorming ways to counter Roger Gordian's opposition."
Though Blackburn would not realize it until several months later, that was the moment he had decided to use Kirsten. The exact moment. It had been a calculating, unemotional decision, entirely separate from the genuine attraction he felt toward her. And all the time they had spent together since, all the nights their bodies had been locked in passion, using her had been very much a part of it.
"Well, judging by how badly things are going for us, you're doing a helluva job." He'd flashed an engaging smile, letting a hint of flirtatiousness slip into his voice. Calibrating both for maximum effect. "But does being on opposite sides of a professional dispute mean we can't make friendly overtures?"
"Overtures," she repeated.
"Right. A personal truce."
Their eyes met.
"I suppose," she said, "it could be possible."
"Then let's seal it over dinner tonight."
"Well…"
"Please," he said, not giving her time to answer. "I guarantee a mutually agreeable resolution."
She looked at him a moment longer. Smiled.
"Yes," she said. "I'd love to have dinner with you."
And that was that. The beginning of an affair that had turned out to be enormously satisfying for him. Great sex, great inside information.
What more could a man desire?
Now Blackburn sat in the silence of his office, his face troubled, looking out his window at the sprawl of low, prefabricated buildings that constituted the Johor ground station, hating to think of the danger he'd put her in, refusing to let himself think about it, instead turning his mind back to the part that was real for both of them, imagining her body moving against him, joined to him, their cries of pleasure mingling in the darkness of her bedroom, going on and on into the night.
Yes, that part of it was real.
Real.
He reached for his phone, dialed her office number, waited for her secretary to connect them.
"Max?" she said, picking up a moment later. "Did you get my messages?"
"Yeah," he said. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you till now. They're adding components to the alarm system, and I had to oversee the whole thing. Took me most of the morning to get the glitches smoothed out."
Her voice became hushed. "Guess I got a little anxious. Something's turned up, and I think it could be important. Perhaps the very thing you've been looking for."
"You'd better not say any more right now."
"Agreed. Even if I wasn't at the office, it would be much too sensitive to discuss over the phone."
"Got you. We'll talk about it in person, then."
"Will you be coming this weekend?"
"Yes," he said.
"Such enthusiasm," she said.
He told himself to put away the guilt.
"Just tired," he said. "Barring any unforseen developments, I'll be taking a lorry over the causeway tomorrow morning."
"Bringing along your overnight bag?"
"It's been packed since yesterday," he said.
"Not too full, I hope. Clothes won't be necessary for the weekend agenda I've planned."
"Toothbrush and deodorant?"
"Now they're absolute requirements." She laughed. "I have to run, Max. Love you."
Blackburn's eyes moved from the window to the spot where he'd hung the puppet on the wall.
Atman and Brahman, he thought. Illusion and truth.
"I love you, too," he heard himself say.
Wondering if the words sounded as empty and mechanical over the phone as they did to his own ears.
Chapter Four
"Congratulations, Alex. I'll bet every political columnist in the country's writhing in the light of your greater glory."
Alex Nordstrum smiled a little uncomfortably as he walked into the conference room, hoping Gordian's comments, coupled with his late arrival, wouldn't give rise to certain impressions about him. That they might be accurate impressions was beside the point. Why be blatant? Conceit was a quality Nordstrum preferred to bear with discretion; he had an old Harvard classmate who'd been wearing his Phi Beta Kappa fraternity key on a gold fob for the past twenty years, and it was never a pretty sight.
"So you've heard about my upcoming submarine ride," he said, taking his place at the table. And how was that for understatement? Or had he struck a false note right there? Maybe it was a mistake trying to appear blase about being handpicked for the small group of reporters who would accompany the President and several other world leaders — all of whom were intent on milking a treaty-signing event for every bit of public attention it was worth — on a "ride" aboard a Seawolf nuclear sub.
Yes, maybe he ought to let the others in the room be freely awed.
"May I ask who gave you the news?" he said, knowing Gordian could have gotten it from any number of political and business contacts, including at least a couple of the individuals present at the meeting. Although the list of invited reporters had been released only hours earlier, this was a plugged-in bunch if there'd ever been one.
"My source insisted on anonymity," Gordian said. "Anyway, Alex, you'd better pour yourself some coffee. We've got a lot to talk about this morning, and you just might feel like you're already underwater before we're finished."
A workable segue to more relevant matters of discussion, Alex thought.
He looked around the room, nodding his acknowledgment to the parties who'd arrived ahead of him. Most of the faces he saw were very familiar, belonging to Gordian's core group of friends and advisors. There were two UpLink employees at the table besides Nordstrum himself, who, as Foreign Affairs Consultant, was technically a freelancer: Vice President of Special Projects Megan Breen, seated to Gordian's immediate right, and Risk Assessment Manager Vince Scull at his left. Directly across from Nordstrum was Dan Parker, the congressman from California's Fourteenth District and Gordian's closest confidant since the days when they'd flown bombing sorties with the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing in Vietnam. In a chair alongside Parker sat another government official, Robert Lang, chief of the FBI's Washington, D. C., bureau.
The man poring over a document at the far end of the table was Richard Sobel, founder and CEO of Secure Solutions, a young Massachusetts-based encryption tech outfit. He both rounded out the small group and, by mere virtue of his presence, symbolized all the reasons it had come together this morning. Nordstrum couldn't have said whether it was more significant that a competitor in the field of cryptographic technology was here to offer Gordian his support and alliance, or that Sobel was the only one of fifty leaders in the software business to accept Gord's invitation.
"Okay, let's get rolling," Gordian said now, the intense gravity of his manner hardly lifted by a cordial smile. 4 'First, I want to thank all of you for coming. Second, I want to be clear about how much I appreciate why you've come. It obviously would have been easy to remain silent and invisible. Our unified stance on the encryption issue has already caused most of us considerable problems, and it's a fair bet they're going to increase exponentially in the next couple of days." He paused and glanced over at Megan Breen. "The credit for putting together the statement I'll be reading at our press conference goes entirely to Ms. Breen. Assuming everyone received a copy by fax and has gotten a chance to review it, I believe you'll agree she's done a magnificent job of boiling our concerns down to media-friendly sound bites."