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Castillo opened his eyes, saw the dog, and reached out and scratched his ears.
Then he was suddenly wide awake.
He looked quickly to the other side of the bed. It was empty.
"Where the hell were you last night, Max? Getting an eyeful?"
Castillo sat up and swung his legs out of the bed.
Max gave him his paw.
"Okay, okay," Castillo said, and walked somewhat awkwardly to the door to the corridor, unlocked it, and stepped into the hall.
"Who's down there?" he called.
"It is I, the warden," Sandra Britton cheerfully called back. "Seven bells and all is well in the cell block!"
"Let Max out, will you, please?"
"Your wish is my command," she called. This was followed by a shrill and surprisingly loud whistle. "Come on, Max, baby!"
Max happily trotted down the corridor toward the stairway.
Castillo went back into his room, closed the door, and walked to the bed. Then he went back to the door and locked it, cleverly deciding that if someone walked in on him while he was concealing the traces of his nocturnal visitor, there would be a certain curiosity aroused.
He remembered that at some time during the night, she had gone and gotten her cigarettes and an ashtray. And when he had seen her coming back into the bedroom from the bath, starkers, he had decided on the spot that she had to be the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Yet there was absolutely no trace of Svetlana.
Nothing in the bed, nothing around the bed, nothing--surprisingly, remarkably--in the bathroom.
That may be, of course, because Lieutenant Colonel Alekseeva of the SVR, as a highly trained intelligence officer, knows how to remove all traces of a clandestine visit to someone's room.
He tried the interior door of the bathroom. It was locked.
Or it may be that it never happened at all, that it was an incredibly realistic wet dream--courtesy of my active imagination and that wine I chug-a-lugged.
That could very well be it: I haven't had one of those since West Point. The sight of those erect nipples really got to me, and I haven't had my ashes hauled in a long time.
You are pissing in the wind, Charley.
It happened.
The proof of that came immediately when he looked in the mirrored wall over the sink. There was an angry, curved, bluish bruise on the soft skin between his right shoulder and armpit.
He remembered when she had bit him.
"Why the hell did you bite me?" he had asked some minutes later.
"I didn't want everybody rushing in here to see who was screaming. I knew I couldn't scream if I had my mouth full of you."
He gently rubbed the teeth marks with his index finger.
I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do about that, except maybe swim wearing a T-shirt.
And I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do about Lieutenant Colonel Svetlana Alekseeva.
With whom, I think, as incredible as it sounds, and as fucking insane as I know it is, I think I'm in love.
