Red Eye - 02 by James Lovegrove Page B

Her name was Jeanette Berger, she had been a chief warrant officer in the Marine Corps, and she was as competent in the field as she was pretty—and she was exceptionally pretty. Even the bright scarlet of her eyes couldn’t detract from that.
    “I’d hate him if I cared about him, and I don’t,” said Jacobsen. “As long as his money’s good, I have no feelings about him whatsoever. He doesn’t annoy me in the least bit.”
    Berger tipped her head in amusement. “So you say.” She glanced in the rearview. The five other members of Team Red Eye were lost in their own thoughts, the usual post-successful-op reveries. Even Red Eye Seven’s usually ever-flapping yap was, for the time being, at rest.
    Berger slipped a surreptitious hand across to the passenger seat and Jacobsen’s thigh. She squeezed, fingertips brushing the bulge of his crotch.
    “Yes,” sighed Jacobsen, with the slightest of sly smiles. “You can try to ride Jim Jacobsen, you can try to get a rise out of him, but you won’t get anywhere. No, sir.”
    What Berger’s hand was feeling gave the lie to his words. Her touch could get a rise out of Colonel Jacobsen any time.
     
     
    L ATER, BACK AT base, Jacobsen came to her in her quarters.
    They didn’t speak much. There wasn’t a lot that needed to be said. He stripped her, fell on her, plundered her.
    “I have my period,” she told him breathlessly at one point, and Jacobsen grinned as if this was the best news ever, an invitation, not a prohibition, and shortly afterwards his head was between her legs, tongue lapping with gusto.
    Etiquette and discipline dictated that teammates did not sleep together.
    But Berger and Jacobsen paid no heed to that.
    Appetite.
    Appetite was all.
     
     
    M EANWHILE, THE MONEY man was on the phone again, another secure line, this one connecting him to a private mobile number that an extraordinarily small number of people had access to. In fact, there were perhaps only a dozen individuals in all of America who had the privilege of knowing it and being able to use it.
    The voice at the other end was measured and urbane, a voice that had seduced millions of voters, filled them with reassurance that their problems were shared, their complaints were listened to, their concerns were important and valid.
    “Ah, my Boston Brahmin,” the voice said. “I can spare you five minutes.”
    “Is that all? In that case, I don’t think I’m getting great value for my campaign contributions. Five million dollars a minute? Is that what your time’s really worth?”
    “I’d give you more,” said the other man unflappably, “but then I’d be late for my meeting with the Chinese premier, who’s somewhat slightly higher up the totem pole than you. Or maybe you can come and discuss trade quotas with him, and I’ll go catch a movie in the White House screening room instead. Believe me, the way my schedule is these days, a couple of hours to myself with a Blu-Ray of Citizen Kane would be a blessing.”
    “Could be that one day I will be in your shoes,” the Bostonian said.
    “Nah. That’d mean you’d have to learn to be nice to people, and I can’t see that happening. Besides, you couldn’t handle the pay cut.”
    “You have me there. Well, while I have this brief window, then, I’ll take the opportunity to give you a heads-up on the status of the Porphyrian Project.”
    “And where are we at with it right now?”
    “You’ve watched the helmet-cam footage I’ve been sending you?”
    “Of course.”
    “Then you know for yourself that it’s all going swimmingly. Our operatives have exceeded expectation. Their efficiency and prowess are remarkable. Next to them, vampires are like children, quite defenceless.”
    The President of the United States let out one of his warm, patrician chuckles. “That’s all very well, but you’re still in the field-testing phase, aren’t you? How long have your people been out there, doing what they do? Less than a month. You