Call to Treason Read Free

on the balcony and looked out at the White House. They did not say much. She seemed content just to be there, and he was delighted to have her. As a distant church bell sounded midnight, they went quickly from the balcony to the authentic Hepplewhite mahogany settee to the bedroom.
        The woman blew out the candles on the dresser, set her purse on the night table, and pushed him back on the king-size bed. She was as assertive as she was beautiful. Wilson understood that, and he went along with it. To succeed in her business, at her age, took confidence. She was showing that now.
        "What can I do for you?" he asked.
        "Just lie there," she replied as she settled on top of him.
        He looked up at her and smiled. She moved her fingers down his arms and pushed them to his side. She placed her knees in his open palms and dragged her long nails across his chest, along the side of his neck, his scalp. Her toned body moved in excited spasms, like a whip.
        Shining through the window, the lights of Lafayette Park showed Wilson occasional flashes of cheekbone and shoulder.
        Lady lightning, Wilson thought. With thunder rolling from deep inside her.
        Champagne always brought out the Byron in him. Wilson was about to share his little metaphor aloud when his companion suddenly leaned across his chest and pulled a large, full pillow from behind him. She dragged it across his face and then leaned into it, hard.
        "Hey!" Wilson shouted. He repeated the cry but lacked the breath to say more. He shut his eyes and closed his mouth and tried to push up with his head. His neck cramped painfully, and he stopped.
        Wilson's hands were pinned by the woman's knees. He struggled unsuccessfully to raise them while he wriggled helplessly from side to side. He screamed into the pillow, hoping his bodyguards would hear him. If they did, he did not hear them. He heard nothing but bedsprings laughing beneath his head, his heart punching up against his throat, and his own thick wheezing as he fought to draw breath. His hands throbbed and the flesh of his belly and thighs burned where it rubbed hers. The pillow was wet with perspiration and saliva.
        This is a game, Wilson thought hopefully as rusty circles filled the insides of his eyelids. This is what turns her on.
        If it was, he did not approve. But he did not dwell on that. His thoughts were not his own. Wilson's head filled with visual doggerel, images that came from other times and places.
        And then, suddenly, the slide show stopped. His face cooled, his mouth opened wide, and his lungs filled with sweet air. He opened his eyes and saw the woman. She was still perched above him, a slightly darker silhouette than the ceiling above. His eyes were misty with sweat.
        They smeared the woman as she bent close. The park lights sparked off something else, something in her hands. He tried to raise his arms to push her back, but they were still pinned. He couldn't speak or scream, because he was still desperately sucking air through his wide-open mouth.
        She moved closer and put the palm of her left hand against the bottom of his nose. She pushed up.
        "What?" was all he could say as his head arched back. He cried out weakly, but he sounded like a pig calling for dinner.
        Or a man having sex, he thought. Christ. The bodyguards would not come, even if they heard him.
        A moment after that, Wilson felt a cool sting in his mouth. He felt the weight of the woman leave him. He saw her get up. But that did not help. Within moments a cold, tingling numbness moved down from his ears along the sides of his neck. It filled his shoulders and arms and poured across his chest like an overturned bucket of ice. It tickled his navel and rolled down his legs.
        This time there were no mental images, no struggle. The lights, and his lungs, simply snapped off.

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    THREE
        
        Washington,