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settle that first.”
    He knew it was no good trying to go back to where they’d been long before; clocks didn’t run backward. But that wasn’t what she was asking for. It took a great effort of will for her to express contrition: it was the first time he’d known her to humble herself when it wasn’t contrived. She was an aristocrat, the daughter of a Count—they were a class of people who’d go to war before they’d apologize for anything important. He had a feeling she’d agonized over this; she’d rehearsed it. But that didn’t make it any less genuine—it only emphasized the vital importance it had for her.
    â€œIrina—”
    â€œYou don’t need to be gentle.” But she was watching him, ready to close everything down and bleed silently inside.
    He touched her nape and she half turned on the couch; her breast trembled against him. Her face came up and she curled obediently into his arms. Then suddenly she was gripping his back with desperate strength and the tears burst from her. “Oh my darling Alex.”

    Daylight curled around the drapes. Irina lay across the bed with sprawled abandon.
    He waited until the day brought her awake. Her eyes were puzzled for a brief instant and then they softened; it made the planes of her face blur in contentment.
    He kissed her and got to his feet. Her lips parted; she followed him with her eyes. She stretched opulently like a cat.
    â€œI’ve got to go to Washington.”
    â€œI know. You’ll be back tomorrow.”
    â€œYou could come down with me.”
    â€œI haven’t finished doing Fifth Avenue.” She smiled, watching him knot his tie.
    In the dining room, waiting to be led to their table, she wet her lips and contrived to touch his hand with elaborate casualness; at the table she devoured her first cup of coffee greedily and stared at him wide-eyed with her lips peeled back from her teeth: sultry and sensuous. She was the most sophisticated of women and the most primitive. Her appetites were atavistic and without inhibition and when she committed herself she held nothing back.
    Walking him out to the portico she drew and held the stares of every pair of eyes in the plush lobby. She’s Garbo and Dietrich in one, young Prince Felix had said in awe after he’d first met Irina.
    When the taxi took him away she was standing on the steps shading her eyes.

8.
    Colonel Glenn Buckner had an office in an overflow annex not far from the War Department. Alex tried to get his bearings; the lettering in the corridors was baffling. Officers carrying documents hurried through in creased poplin—there was a kind of muted urgency about them. Alex asked directions and reached Buckner’s office ten minutes ahead of his scheduled appointment.
    A half-bald sergeant sat at a small desk rattling a typewriter. He stopped long enough to look up.
    â€œColonel Danilov to see Colonel Buckner.”
    â€œI’m sorry sir, he’s over to the White House. He’ll be here sometime, that’s all I can tell you. You can get coffee in the canteen down the hall.”
    Finally at ten minutes before twelve a bulky brisk man in a blue flannel suit came along the hall. “Danilov? I’m Glenn Buckner.”
    Buckner was not more than thirty. His hair was cordovan brown and all his bones were big. He had a wide square face and quick blue eyes. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
    The sergeant said, “You had a call from Admiral King’s C of S, sir.”
    â€œLater.” Buckner’s handshake was firm but he wasn’t a knuckle-grinder. “Come on in. Don’t mind me being in mufti—people on the Hill get nervous if they see too many uniforms goose-stepping into the White House so a lot of us wear civvies. The President’s idea. Shut the door, will you? Take a seat. Be right with you.”
    It was a small room with a metal desk and two telephones;