The Roman Gambit Pt. 02

But that was not the best feature. There was a piano about two thirds of the way down and the man playing it was an African American guy who looked and sounded like Duke Ellington himself. The music he was playing was both seductive and elegant. Mel and I grabbed an open table near the piano let the experience wash over us.

As we sat, I noticed an older guy, perhaps mid-40s, looking directly at me. I am used to being checked out, so I did not give it a second thought. But I had to admit that the man doing the eying was having a hypnotic effect on me.

He was incredibly attractive in a tall, slim and very fit looking fashion. But it was the hint of danger and strength that raised my interest. Kelley had the same knowledgeable, capable appearance but this one seemed tougher and bolder.

He had dark, exotic almost unique oriental looking features rather than being classically handsome, which made him even more mysterious. He had very thick dark hair cut short with a widow's peak. He was wearing grey slacks, a black turtleneck and a grey Harris Tweed coat. His hair was slightly silvery and cut into a short, military style haircut.

But it was his eyes that captivated me. It was the total confidence and depth of intelligence that just radiated out of them. It was intriguing. They were deep dark pools of gentle cynicism. He had seen it all and probably done it all and was totally amused by the human condition.

He was sipping a dark drink that I assumed was scotch or brandy, since it had no ice in it. He seemed to be appraising me. But when I gave him a signal that I was interested and that he should approach me he turned back to the magazine he was reading with an amused look. The magazine was written in Cyrillic. So, I assumed that he was Russian. I was disappointed but I was not going to approach him.

Mel had ordered a magnum of champagne for us and it arrived at that point. It provided an ideal distraction. It was perfectly iced with two fine crystal fluted glasses. I then proceeded to drink far too much of that wonderful substance. It was because the new man disturbed me.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have gotten rip-roaring drunk. It is just not my style. But for some reason the suggestive ambiance of the piano music, the joy of being on this wonderful train with my dear friend and the promise of success for our venture made me consume far too much champagne.

So, when I stood up, I realized that I was drunk. I started to lurch my way back to my cabin when the intriguing man rose from his couch and said courteously, "Can I assist you back to your cabin Mademoiselle?"

I would blow off an offer like that from one of my peers. But this was a handsome and elegant older man whose approach radiated every aspect of trustworthy and gallant. So, I said, "Please, by all means."

I allowed him to take my forearm and lead me toward the sleeping cars. He did it in a manner that communicated gracious accompaniment rather than, "Leading the poor drunk lady back to her room."

Walking next to him I felt the difference in our height. I am relatively tall for a woman at five foot seven. He was perhaps six foot three. I fit perfectly next to his shoulder and he provided a stable arm to lean on.

He had on some expensive kind of cologne that was raising my erotic interest and he walked through the swaying train car with the balance of a big cat. I felt protected and secure. I could feel the strength in that body as I bumped against it and frankly, he was really turning me on.

We didn't talk as we walked. He simply led me with perfect courtesy, as if he was taking care of me. I had the totally inappropriate thought that that was almost like my dad would have done in the same circumstance.

This man was perhaps 20 years older than I was, exactly the same difference as I have with my Daddy. He radiated the same kind of manly self-confidence as my father. Males need some seasoning in order to be truly grown up and self-reliant and this man had clearly reached that ideal state of experienced masculinity. He knew himself and he had no pretensions otherwise,

By the time we reached my suite I wanted him inside me in the worst way. I turned to face him when we got to the door.

He said, "Is this your suite Mademoiselle?"

I said, "It is indeed. Thank you for assisting me. Would you like to come in?"

He knew what I was asking. He looked amused, almost paternal, softly touched my cheek, which sent electric shock down to my lower stomach, and said, "Thank you, but I was more than happy to assist you; perhaps some other time?"

He didn't outright say that he didn't fuck drunk girls on trains. But that is what I got out of his words. I was terribly disappointed. I watched him proceed back down the corridor with the practiced grace of a superb athlete. I felt a serious pang of longing.

I turned ruefully and went into my room. The bed was made up and I hung up my things and crawled totally nude into bed. I expected a hangover in the morning.

*****

Hilley had gotten drunk. Mel was fascinated watching her normally self-contained friend mislay some of her inhibitions. Over the course of the evening Hilley had begun to laugh too loud and flirt with the piano player. She also flirted with any man near them, including the married ones.

Since that was usually Mel's job, she was totally amused by her beautiful friend's sudden fall off her normally lofty perch. As Hilley rose to go to the ladies room she lurched and caught herself using the edge of the table. She looked a little surprised and then said with astonishment in her voice, "Why I believe I'm drunk."

The hiccup that followed confirmed that diagnosis. Mel said, "Should I help you to our cabin?"

Hilley said, "No, I'll be fine" and swayed off down the aisle of the bar car.

An extremely attractive older man stood up and said something to her as she passed. She stopped and said something to him. He rose very gracefully and held out an arm. Hilley was steadying herself by holding onto it.

What he did was a masterpiece of covering up the fact that Hilley was clearly not functioning at peak physical and mental capacity. Mel did not miss the fact that Hilley was holding his arm in the deep valley of her cleavage. They turned together and he began to escort her as if they were on an evening stroll. It looked romantic although he was really just preventing her from stumbling over herself.

They disappeared out of the car. Mel smiled to herself. She expected to get back to the car and discover that her beautiful friend was having sex with one of the most attractive men Mel had ever seen. She sighed and ordered another bottle of champagne. Since she had no company, she thought she would sit back and enjoy the piano.

Mel did not want to go back immediately in case Hilley had gotten lucky. Mel knew that Hilley looked hungry enough. As she listened to the alluring piano music, swaying to it with her eyes closed, a man walked up to the table. Mel looked up to see what fortune had deposited at her doorstep. She was hoping he was interested in sex. Mel did a double take. It was the man that Hilley had left with a mere fifteen minutes ago.

He said courteously, "May I sit."

She tried to sound matter-of-fact even though her heart was hammering, "Certainly, how is my friend?"

The mystery man regarded her with some amusement and said, "She's fine, but she may have a headache in the morning."

Mel laughed. She said, "Better her than me. She usually nurses ME through MY bouts of bad judgment."

The man looked even more amused. Then he said with a very serious voice, "Sir Alex asked me to keep an eye on you two."

*****

Ivan was young for the Great Game. But he had learned his trade with the absolute best. He was born to a family that was well-connected with the Commissariat in Leningrad. But he did not take advantage of those connections. Instead he had worked his way up through the Red Army; from the enlisted ranks in the Guards to the Spetsnaz.

He served with those elite troops in Afghanistan in the mid-1980s, patrolling remote villages, encouraging the residents to "cooperate" with their Soviet conquerors. Those patrols were frequently suicide missions. They were dangerous small unit affairs in the mountains of that country, which took the maximum of strength, endurance and personal capability to survive.

That built a sense of honest acceptance of his strengths and his limitations as a man. That absolute, life-and death challenge also gave him a realistic vision of himself that few people who had NOT endured what he had suffered would possess.

He had been a willing KGB recruit after the Russian involvement in that godforsaken place wound down. Then after the fall of the Soviet Union he had transferred to the FSB. That was where he was worked for the rest of his short career in intelligence. The transition had not been difficult because the only change that actually occurred was when the old KGB sign on the front of the building was replaced by the new FSB one.

In the early 2000s he was assigned to the Bayswater Road Embassy next to Hyde Park. He had decided to stop at the Champion on Wellington Plaza. It was a cold night in London, and he wanted to sit next to the fireplace and nurse a pint. Ivan had picked up a lot of British habits in his three years at Oxford and his four years of service in London. The one that he enjoyed the most was the pub life.

As he looked at the fire lost in thought, a handsome older man sat down at his table. Ivan raised his glance to look at him. The guy opposite nodded affably and looked at him. The stranger had on the full regalia of the British upper class, including a vest, a Blues and Royals tie and a ruddy complexion underneath his shock of white hair. He looked to be about 60.

Ivan looked at his new acquaintance. He said in a perfect English university accent, "Miserable day." The acquaintance was looking back at him with the kind of eyes that had done it all and knew where the bodies were buried.

The man said, "I have something I would like to pose to you Mr. Kovalyov." Being called that was a little disconcerting since Ivan had been Mr. Smith a British-Russian trade specialist for the past four years.

Of course, his real name, Kovalyov was the Russian equivalent of Smith and that was the joke. Ivan's warning bells all went off. He had not been involved in anything that would make MI5 approach him. Still, he was not sure that THEY knew that.

He said in his best hail-fellow-well-met manner, "I beg your pardon old boy. But I don't know who this Kovalyov fellow is." The older man said, "That's odd because you were born with that name Ivan."

Ivan decided that it was time to find out what the guy sitting across from him wanted. So, he said in Russian, "I have no reason to talk with anybody from MI5." The Man answered in intellectual accented Russian, "That's good because I am MI6."

Ivan could not figure out what the British Secret Intelligence Service wanted with him. Their portfolio was external, and his work wasn't anything that counterintelligence needed to worry about.

The man sitting across from him said, "We have come into possession of intelligence regarding a planned terrorist attack on several Moscow elementary schools. The Chechens who are planning it are all known to you and I believe you should scoop them up before the day after tomorrow."

The stranger then handed Ivan a list of names and approximate locations. The stranger said, "We are, in effect, enemies no longer, and I don't like to see children hurt."

He then tipped his hat, stood and walked out of the pub. Ivan sat there feeling deep admiration for the older man. He vowed that if this intelligence was true it would mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship. That was because Ivan didn't like to see children hurt either.

Two days later, as soon as the emergency sweep of the local Chechnian community was complete, Ivan visited the Oxford-Cambridge club. He knew all about his benefactor at that point. Who in the intelligence community did NOT know Sir Alexander Haig?

Ivan was also a member there, having Oxford's highest degree himself. Ivan asked if the great man was available for a chat. Sir Alex greeted Ivan with considerable good cheer, once he was summoned from his quarters upstairs in the club. The first words out of his mouth were, "Did you get them?" The tone of voice was NOT that of a nice old man.

Ivan said, "We got them and now they are looking at a little vacation in a Siberian gulag; that is, if we still ran those horrible places." Sir Alex, who apparently could put on the character of anything he wanted to be, adopted a classic old English buffer persona and said, "Well than Old Fellow, let's have breakfast" and led the way into the Coffee Room.

That meeting was the beginning one of the few true friendships that Ivan had ever had. It was not an assignment as much as a special little hobby for both of them. It was like they both did fly fishing, or more appropriately pigeon hunting together. But the outcome was preserving hundreds of young lives.

And Sir Alex was like the father Ivan had never had. That was important since Ivan lacked an authority figure to model himself after. His own father had been far too caught up in Communist party politics to pay any attention to him or his family. Ivan was insightful enough to know that he could benefit from an older man's wisdom. They worked together for four more years. Then Sir Alex retired.

Ivan himself was given an offer that he simply couldn't refuse. That offer had led to unthinkable wealth. Ivan could have retired to the Black Sea at age 47 but he preferred France. Now he lived on a little estate outside Le Chesnay. He was enjoying the good life when Sir Alex called.

Sir Alex said that he had two female operatives, both of whom he loved like daughters. They were about to get mixed up with the Kuriakinov gang in Prague. Sir Alex told Ivan that they were perfectly capable of handling themselves. But they weren't capable of taking on an entire gang. So, would Ivan be so kind as to keep an eye on them for him? Ivan knew who Kuriakinov was. He said with grim resolution, "Where are they and how do I contact them?"

Ivan had seen the two women together and he knew what their strengths and weaknesses were. The tall beautiful one, and she was a superb beauty indeed, was a faultless physical specimen. But she tended to over-intellectualize and Sir Alex was afraid she would think rather than react when the time came.

The magnificent Indian girl was perfectly in tune with the moment. But she was small and not nearly as athletic as the tall one. She, on the other hand, had the eyes and instincts of a street fighter. Ivan couldn't be more captivated, especially when the beautiful one began to telegraph interest in him.

Ivan had had hundreds of women. But he had never been as attracted as he was to this new woman. She had a special air about her. Of course, he was aware that he was 20 years older than she was, and so his interest at this point was not so much romantic as it was protective. Still, he was drawn past her obvious beauty, to the exceptional soul that lay underneath. He found himself intensely interested in getting to know the fierce spirit that lived there.

The little Indian girl was a very hot item indeed. She radiated sexuality in every curve of her body and nuance in her walk. This girl was one of those ultra-erotic femme-fatale types. There was nothing in the bedroom arts that she hadn't mastered. The KGB had used women like her in their work. And like the Northwest Mounted Police, "They always got their man."

Amusingly, the beautiful one was apparently drunk. So, Ivan performed his first service. He walked her surreptitiously back to her cabin without betraying to anybody that she was having a problem standing up. Then, at the cabin door she made him an offer of sex that only his iron discipline, honed by years in the field, allowed him to resist.

He knew he could not get close to the people he was protecting. But this young woman stirred him deep down in ways that he had never experienced. Then he went back to where the little one was sitting. He sat opposite her. He could see that she was appraising him for sex. Her pull was completely different than her friend's.

The tall one was a once in a lifetime beauty. She was so perfect and controlled that Ivan couldn't imagine what it would be like to help her to lose that control. The little one was just simply hot. Her ability to totally abandon herself to a man was right there on the surface waiting to be exploited. Ivan was thinking to himself, "What have you gotten me into Sir Alex?"

Ivan said to the little one, "Sir Alex asked me to help you two. I will not be in the way in your efforts but here is a cell number. Call it any time you need me. I know the people you are investigating, and they are very dangerous."

Then he got up from the table and went back to his hastily booked cabin for the night. Mel sat there totally mystified and somewhat alarmed. She was concerned because Sir Alex had thought it necessary to send along a guardian angel. She was mystified because she did not know who this gorgeous man was. But she was planning on getting to know him intimately as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

*****

I woke up early. I had a slight headache. But I had gotten into bed soon enough that it was minor one. As I lay there, I was thinking of the older man. I didn't know what to make of my feelings. I have never been so drawn to somebody in my life. It was not my usual infatuation as much as it was a link between two perfectly connected souls at some subliminal level.

I didn't think that the connection was motivated by my hormones, or even typical man-woman attraction. I just had a sense that he was a person who I could bond with and trust; separate from all considerations of age, social status, or even physical appearance.

I assumed that my fascination might be a daddy issue, since he was near my dad's age. And I adore and worship my father in a totally appropriate, non-sexual way. I was trying to decide what to do about my feelings when there was a knock on the door and the steward placed my breakfast tea and a scone on the side-table. He exited with the grace of a practiced servant.

I was nude under the covers. So, I hopped out of bed and quickly put on a thong, t-shirt and jeans, no bra. I don't really need a bra. But the nipple factor is a little embarrassing. I was just going to hang around the cabin and so I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. I heard the same knock on Mel's door and so I opened the partition between our rooms.

She was lying in a tangle of her gorgeous black hair looking like an Indian temple goddess. The knock had wakened her, and she was still getting herself together.

For a woman who would be the all-time gold medal champion in the sport of sexual gymnastics, Mel is very shy about her body. She can walk around a beach in a thong and two little patches hiding her nipples and not think twice about it. But she normally does not like to be completely nude. So, she was sleeping in a full nightgown.

I had heard her come in an hour or so after I dozed off. I was pretty sure she hadn't hooked-up last night because she spent some time pleasuring herself before she went to sleep. The little kittenish yelps and gasps culminated in a satisfied moan ended in about fifteen minutes and then there was silence. As I dozed back off, I was thinking to myself that my dear little friend was one hot and horny girl.

Mel looked at me with those huge luminous eyes and said, "We have to talk."

I said, "Well - we have our tea, let's talk here."