Part 31 (1/2)

'It appears that back in the 1950s Tatiana was captured by the Soviets. They locked her away in a Gulag, while her little son Aleksandr was put in an orphanage by his ”grandmother,” the never-aging Minnie Renselaas, and Tatiana's Greek husband and her other son Ladislaus escaped to America with some of the chess pieces. It was Galen who found out where Tatiana had been taken. He convinced Minnie that the KGB would never release her unless they'd been given an offer they couldn't refuse. Minnie swapped the drawing of the chessboard, which we now possess, for Tatiana's freedom. But now that some of the family had escaped with some pieces, it was clear that Tatiana would never be safe unless she went completely undercover. Galen gave her the Black Queen himself, the one you saw at Zagorsk. Then he hid Tatiana in a place where no one would ever think to look. Except for that brief foray to Zagorsk with the Queen, she's been holed up there for nigh on fifty years.'

Key paused and added, 'That's the place where we're headed tomorrow. Your dad is there.'

'But first you said Seattle and Alaska,' I protested, 'then something about the Ring of Fire. And what was all that Yellow Brick Road stuff?'

'No,' said Vartan suddenly, speaking for the first time in all this.

I glanced over at him. His face was set in granite.

'I'm afraid that it's a ”yes” for tomorrow morning,' said Key.

'Absolutely no,' said Vartan. 'The place you're speaking of is more than a thousand miles long, and the worst place on earth. Thick fog and snow all the summer, winds of one hundred twenty kilometers per hour, waves of thirteen meters high that's more than forty feet!'

'As they say,' Key said 'there's no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing.'

'Yes, all right, perhaps you may fly high above it,' Vartan told her. 'But not across it or through it, as you are proposing.'

'Where's it?' I asked.

'I've looked at everything, I a.s.sure you,' Key said in exasperation. 'It's the only way to get there without attracting the attention of the entire U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and alerting every Russian submarine under the Arctic Circle. But as I said, it's still not too late to bow out yourselves, if you're so inclined.'

'Where's there?' I repeated.

Vartan shot me a dark look.

'She proposes to fly a small private plane tomorrow, illegally into Kamchatka, Russia,' he said. 'And then somehow should we live that long ourselves, which is quite unlikely she proposes that we shall bring your father back.'

'You ain't just tootin' hay. We may need that,' said Key, when Vartan pulled out some cash, handed it to the waiter, tucked the whole bottle of our costly pear brandy beneath his arm, and headed out the door.

'We Ukrainians can't drink like the Russians,' Vartan informed her. 'Even so, I hope to get very drunk tonight.'

'Now there's a plan,' she agreed, following him. 'Too bad I can't join you. I have to catch a plane in the morning.'

Back at the condo, we quickly went through the closets and packed the duffels we'd brought with plenty of the lightweight thermal gear we found.

'Better to be safe than sorry,' said Key.

No kidding.

The condo was not only designed by a s.h.i.+pbuilder, it even looked like a s.h.i.+p inside: the long, skinny mirrored bathroom built like a galley with a large, step-in shower where the stove would be; the single bedroom like a small state-room; the high walls of the main room crosshatched with long strips of oak in a herringbone pattern, and with drop-down beds built into the wall.

Key said she hoped we didn't mind, but since she was the one who'd soon be doing all the work behind the stick, she would require a good, solid night of shut-eye. So she was relegating to herself the full-sized bed in the private bedroom, and letting Vartan and me camp out on the two bunk beds in the 's.h.i.+p's' main hold.

When she'd gone off to hit the sack and had closed the bedroom door behind her, Vartan smiled. 'Do you usually prefer to be on the top or on the bottom?' he asked, gesturing to the two bunk beds.

'Don't you think we ought to save that question until we know each other a bit better?' I asked, with a laugh.

'You know,' he said, more seriously, 'if we are in fact going where your friend Nokomis says we are going tomorrow, then I think I should mention that tonight may be the very last night you and I shall ever have to spend together or indeed, to spend anywhere on earth. This route she has chosen is the very worst on the planet. She's either the world's best pilot, or completely mad. And of course, we are both mad to go with her.'

'Do we have a choice?' I said.

Vartan shrugged and shook his head in resignation. 'Then, may a man who is certainly about to die quite soon hope to be granted one last wish?' he said, in a tone that seemed to contain not even a sliver of irony.

'A wish?' I said.

My heart was pounding. But what could he possibly wish for at least, that I had in mind when Key was asleep in just the next room, and he knew very well that we all had to be ready to hit the skies before dawn?

Vartan whipped out the bottle of Poire William, along with a small shot gla.s.s that looked suspiciously like one from the restaurant. Then, carrying these in one hand, he took me by the arm and headed for the bathroom. 'I find that I've suddenly been overcome,' he informed me, 'by a pa.s.sionate desire to discover more about the thermal properties of exactly how heat behaves under enormous pressure. If we let the shower run for a very long while just how hot do you think we can make it?'

He shut the bathroom door behind him and leaned against it. He poured a drink, took a sip, handed it to me, and set the bottle down. Then, never taking his eyes from me for a moment, he reached over and turned on the shower. I was almost speechless.

Almost but not quite.

'It could get pretty hot in here,' I agreed. 'Are you sure you want to learn that much about burning calories tonight? I mean, with this important mission in front of us, just ahead?'

'I believe we've both absorbed the rules of this Game pretty well by now,' said Vartan, bending toward me. 'It seems that there is nothing more important than understanding the true properties of fire. Perhaps we should learn more about precisely what those are.'

He touched his finger to the lip of the gla.s.s in my hand, then touched the liquid to my lips, where the brandy burned. Then he put his lips to mine, and I felt that current of heat moving through me again. The room was filling with steam.

Vartan looked at me, still not smiling. 'I believe we've achieved the right temperature to engage in any experiment we should care to undertake,' he suggested. 'But let's not forget, when it comes to alchemy, timing is everything.'

He drew me to him and we kissed again. I could feel the heat through my jumpsuit but not for long. Vartan unzipped the thin mylar and peeled it from me. Then he began removing my clothes. By the time he got to his own haberdashery, my heart was beating so hard that I thought I might black out from an oversupply of blood not all of it headed, I must confess, to my brain.

'I want to show you something really beautiful,' Vartan told me, as soon as he'd undressed.

Good G.o.d.

He took me to the long mirrored wall, wiped away a large circle of steam, stood behind me, and pointed at the mirror. As the steam began to enfold our images in fog once more, I looked into Vartan's eyes in the mirror.

G.o.d, I could think of nothing else but wanting him.

When I found my voice at last, I said, 'You're really beautiful.'

He laughed. 'I was speaking about you, Xie,' he told me. 'I wanted you to see yourself for a moment as I see you.'

We watched as our images vanished again back into the steam. Then he turned me to face him.

'But whatever we do right now, tonight,' he said, 'and even if we both get badly burned, I may a.s.sure you of one thing. We shall definitely be following the Original Instructions just as they were written.'

Shock and Awe.

But here we must at once draw a distinction between three things...the military power, the country, and the will of the enemy. The military power must be destroyed... The country must be conquered... But even when both of these things are done, still the War...cannot be considered at an end as long as the will of the enemy is not subdued also.

Carl von Clausewitz, On War, first published in 1832.

War against desert Nomads can never be pressed home: their answer to overwhelming force is wide dispersal and guerrilla tactics. An army cannot break them any more than a fist can a pillow.