No Rules, Ridge King [the snowy day read aloud TXT] 📗

“No, Matt.  I’ve seen congressmen and senators all my life—they don’t impress me any more. I think of them now as men and women who just happen to be in certain positions, some more powerful than others, that’s all.”  He frowned.  “But it’s your decision, you have to make it,” she said, her head turned on the pillow looking at him.

“It attracts me, I can’t lie to you,” he said, stretching an open palm over her breasts and caressing them gently with his fingers, then tracing the slope of her breasts up to her neck and back down under the sheet to her flat soft stomach where he let it stay, warm against her.  “If I can bypass all those years in the House, things would come to me so much quicker.”

“I didn’t come to you because of what you are or aren’t in Congress.”

“That’s different.”

“Think about it.”

* * *

As Patricia rolled over to be closer to Matt, Lord Ellsworth was just finishing a dinner with Kornilevski at the Russian Embassy.

“That was a very good cut of roast beef, Fyodor.”

“Thank you, Harold. I thought you might want something to remind you of home.”

“A glass or two of the fine port you served me last time would be a good way to finish the evening.”

“I thought you might like that, so I have it right here.”

Kornilevski nodded to a butler who brought a tray from the sideboard and placed it in front of Kornilevski, who poured out two glasses of the Graham’s ’91.

“Ah, thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” said Ellsworth as he took a dainty sip.

“My pleasure, Mr. Ambassador,” Kornilevski laughed. He nodded to the butler. “Leave us.”

The butler and two footmen left the room. When the door was closed behind them, Kornilevski leaned forward.

“We have to determine how we are going to rid ourselves of this pest, this Hawkins.”

“I know,” said Ellsworth.

“I think, Mr. Ambassador, that he is the only fool left in Washington,” said Kornilevski.

“Or the only honest man,” countered Ellsworth. “Watching him reminds me of something Shakespeare said: ‘Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.’ ”

The poetry was lost on Kornilevski.

“He’s the only man who could say such things and at the same time believe every word,” said the Russian.

“I tell you, sir, I am convinced from my brief interview with him, the substance of which I have told you, that he will never succumb to moral pressures of any kind. I am certain the President will not entice him with Mr. Perryman’s offer of a seat in the Senate. It goes too strongly against his moralistic nature. He’s too young to concede that he would be better off to accept such a proposal. The young, I am afraid, value their morals more than we value ours.”

“He is intransigent!” shouted Kornilevski, rising ominously from his chair.

“Quite so,” nodded Ellsworth quietly.

Kornilevski leaned over towards the Englishman with a dark look in his eyes.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking, Lord Ellsworth?”

“I cannot quite ascertain what you are thinking, sir, so I cannot really say,” replied Ellsworth slowly and steadily, not liking the tone of the Russian’s voice.

“I am thinking that we—you and I—must act to remove him—remove this Hawkins once and for all!”

“In what way, remove?” asked Ellsworth even more quietly.

“Eliminated at all costs,” said Kornilevski heatedly.

“Killed, you mean,” stated Ellsworth almost placidly, though his mind was a jumbled mixture of conflicting thoughts.

“Exactly that.”

Kornilevski paced up and down. Ellsworth thought of that day seemingly long before when German Ambassador Meitner had suggested the possibility of killing someone to get St. Clair elected.

“Lord Ellsworth,” said the Russian, “we are so close, so close to getting St. Clair approved: how can we afford to allow this Hawkins, this speck, to frustrate our efforts to contain China? We have come too far, expended too much energy and time, risked our positions here in Washington and our careers at home too often to allow him to casually thwart our intentions. We cannot do it!” shouted Kornilevski with passion.

Ellsworth sat apparently unmoved. His face betrayed not the slightest emotion either way. Kornilevski thought as he looked at the man that the British were more inscrutable than the Chinese, and that he might have been wrong to suggest Hawkins’s murder to the old ambassador. He wondered if it might not have been better for him to work out the details alone. Or to call in his own people. But his people would want to know things Kornilevski couldn’t tell them until he had Slanetti where he wanted him with regard to the Keystone File. He didn’t dare. And time was running short.

Ellsworth for his part was deep in thought. He’d met Hawkins twice. He didn’t really know the man. He liked him, had a good impression of him, saw the great potential in his career in the United States in his personality alone, and there were many other factors. He was young, true, but he was also forceful, determined, strong, convincing, convinced and eager. He had many, many fine qualities. The only thing Ellsworth didn’t like about Matt Hawkins was his position supporting Thurston. How different things might have been for Hawkins, thought Ellsworth, if he had been a Republican, or had been for St. Clair, or had been—he knew he could go on forever thinking such things.

He had to decide how to respond to Kornilevski’s suggestion; it was a serious one. All that the Russian said was true. They had come extremely far. And they had taken chances. If Whitehall ever found out about his covert activities favoring St. Clair, he’d certainly be recalled and sent to some minor post in Africa or South America, if he wasn’t drummed out of the Foreign Service altogether. It would humiliate him