“I am strong,” she replied. “I had my sharpshooter skills. And I had prepared myself.” Fingers gripped the arms of her chair. “It was not my first time like that.”
Thunder racketed hi his skull. “I have … had adventures … of my own … in the past.”
A knock sounded. Hanno got up and admitted a bellboy, who brought a tray with urn, cups, sugar, cream, and kringler. While he oversaw its placement and tipped the man, he said, because lightness was necessary but stillness impossible, “You’ve had a peaceful time since, I gather.”
He felt the same need was driving her. “I got asylum in Denmark.” From what officials, and how? he wondered. Not that it mattered. If you knocked around in the world long enough, you learned the ways of it, and the byways. “I wanted that because of the Ukrainian connection, but I came to love this country. They are dear people, and the land is so mild. I worked on a farm, decided I would like to be a veterinarian, went to school, studied English and German also, to talk with foreigners who might bring me their pets. Now I have a practice out in Kongens Lyngby, a nice suburb.”
The bellman had left. Hanno walked back to stand above her. “But you are of retirement age, or nearly,” he said. “Your friends marvel at how you still appear young. They tease you about a fountain of youth. They begin to wonder, though, why you don’t retire. The government does too. Where will you go, Olga?”
She gazed steadily up at him. “Yes, they keep excellent records in Denmark. Where would you suggest that I go? And what is your real name?”
His pulse hammered. “All right,” he said, “no more pussyfooting. I didn’t want to scare you off. However, I believe I can come right out with the truth after all.” He resumed his chair, not to seem threatening or attempting of dominance. One like her would react fiercely to that, he judged. “What I am about to tell you will sound like insanity, or some wild confidence game, unless you are what I’m pretty sure you are. Do not take fright. Listen to me. Go open the door and stand by it if you wish.”
She shook her head. Her breasts rose and fell.
“As close as makes no difference,” Hanno said, “I am three thousand years old. Do you care to tell me— What?”
She had gone wholly white. For a moment she sagged back in her chair. He half rose to help and reassure. She straightened. “Cadoc,” she whispered.
“Huh?”
“Cadoc. You. It comes back to me. The trader in Kiev. Kiyiv, we called it then. When was that? Nearly one thousand years past, I think.”
Memory smote like a sudden look into the sun. “You … your name—”
“I was Svoboda then. In my heart I always am. But who are you really?”
Of course, he thought in his daze, neither would remember a briefly met mortal for very long, out of an uncountable myriad gone down into dust. But neither had ever quite forgotten, either. He carted to mind now the phantom that had stirred in him at moments strewn through the centuries.
“S-Svoboda, yes,” he stammered. “We rescued you.”
“And the night was golden. We could have had more!”
They left their chairs and stumbled into each other’s arms.
OUTSIDE, THE District of Columbia stewed in its summer. Air conditioning breathed coolness through Moriarty’s office. The heat that he felt was dry, a fire. He slapped the magazine down onto his desk. The noise cracked. “You bastard,” he mumbled. “You evil, malignant—”
The intercom chimed. “Mr. Stoddard to see you, Senator,” announced his receptionist’s voice.
Moriarty caught a breath and gusted it back as a laugh. “Perfect timing!” he exclaimed. “Send him right in.”
The man who entered was short, undistinguished-looking, and coldly competent. Sweat from outdoors glistened on his cheeks. He carried a briefcase. “How do you do, sir,” he greeted. His glance went from face to desk and back again. “You’ve been reading the latest, I see.”
“Of course,” Moriarty snapped. “Sit down. Have you seen it?”