"What's that?" Kimberly asked, leaning closer. "You say you don't want to sit like a girl when you tinkle?"
Ambassador Turqi Abaatira changed the direction of his madly shaking head. Up and down instead of side to side. He poured a great deal of enthusiasm into it. He wanted no ambiguity. None at all.
"I might be persuaded to help you out," Kimberly offered.
The up-and-down shaking became even more manic. The entire bed shook.
Kimberly brought her pretty face up to Abaatira's sweatsoaked one. She smiled invitingly as she whispered, "You're in touch with Abominadad every day?"
Oh, no, Abaatira thought to himself. A spy. She is a CIA spy. I will be executed for allowing myself to fall into her brazen toils.
But since his overriding concern was to leave this room with all his body parts a healthy pink, he kept nodding yes.
"If you tell me everything I want to know," Kimberly said, rolling her shoulders against the digging weight of her bra straps, "I might be willing to untie that pretty silk scarf." She ran a yellow nail down his cheek. "You would like that, would you not?"
Abaatira hesitated. His English was impeccable-he was a Harvard man-but this was a critical point. His mind raced. Should he answer the "You would like that?" Or the "Would you not" part. Or were they the same thing? The wrong reply could have grave consequences.
Abaatira shook his head yes, and the treacherous, diabolical call girl leaned over to untie the encircling yellow ribbon. She then plucked the yellow wad of silk from his mouth.
Ambassador Abaatira tasted the dryness of his own mouth.
"Water?" he said thickly.
"Answers first."
"You promise?"
"Yes."
"You swear to Allah?"
"Sure, why not?"
"What do you wish to know?" he croaked, his eyes going from the fresh pink face hovering near him to the ugly greenish-black mushroom that he could barely recognize as a cherished part of his anatomy.
"The intentions of your government."
"President Hinsein will never relinquish Kuran. It is our long-lost sister state."
"Whose army you crushed and whose property you carried back to Irait, including the streetlights and cars, and even a giant roller coaster. Not to mention all the rapes."
"You are not a Kurani, by any chance?" Ambassador Abaatira asked with a sudden flare of fear deep in his naked belly.
"No. I serve She who loves blood."
"I love blood too," Abaatira pointed out. "I would love it to circulate more freely through my body. To every needy part."
Kimberly patted his damp hair. "In time, in time. Now, tell me about the plans your government has for war."
"What about them?"
"Everything. I wish to know everything about them. Under what circumstances you would go to war. The provocations necessary. The thoughts of your brave leader, who must love blood, for he spills so much of it. Tell me about his personal life. I want to know everything. About his family, his peccadilloes, his mistress. Everything."
Ambassador Turqi Abaatira closed his eyes. The words came tumbling out. He told everything. And when he ran out of secrets to reveal, he repeated himself.
Finally, dry of mouth and spent of spirit, he put his head back on the pillow and gasped for breath.
"That is everything you know?" asked Kimberly, the Mata Hari of barbaric Washington, where not even a diplomatic media star was safe from torturers.
Abaatira's gasp could only mean yes.
"Then it is time for me to fulfill my part of our little bargain," Kimberly said brightly.
This brought Abaatira's sweat-sheathed head back up. Eyes widening, he watched as those hateful tapered yellow fingers reached for the deadly yellow silk scarf that seemed so loosely tied, but which had brought him such terror.
He steeled himself, for he knew that the restored blood flow would bring with it horrible pain as the starved nerve endings came back to life.
The fingers tugged and plucked, and with tantalizing slowness they pulled the silk away. A trailing end caressed Abaatira's naked body as it retreated.
With a sudden wicked flick, it was gone.
Childish laughter, mad and mocking, seared his ears.
Ambassador Abaatira's eyes bulged stupidly. He threw his head back and screamed.
For he had seen half-buried in the greenish-black root of his manhood the slick gleam of copper wire-and knew that he had betrayed his country for nothing.
The yellow scarf went around his throat, and his scream became an explosion of choking that trailed off in a frenzy of gagging.
Chapter 8
Marvin Meskin, manager of Washington's Potomac Hotel, thought he was having union problems.
"Where the hell is that maid?" he roared, slamming down the front desk phone. "That was another guest on the tenth floor, wondering if we charge extra for changing the sheets and towels."
"Let me check," said the bellboy helpfully.
"Yeah, you do that," Meskin muttered, wondering if the entire hotel wasn't going to hell. For two days, maids had been disappearing in the middle of their shifts. They just walked off the job, leaving their service carts behind. The first one had quit on the ninth floor. Her replacement had quit two hours later. Her cart was found on the seventh floor.
But that was not the odd part. The odd part was that the carts were always found on floors that had been completely serviced.
Somehow, the maids never seemed to quite finish the tenth floor.
Meskin had complained to the Hotelworkers' Union, but they claimed it wasn't a job action. The union sent over another replacement, a Filipina named Esmerelda. She spoke even less English than the last one.
The desk phone rang. It was the bellboy.