Sidebars Book 1

Chapter 1I had never been considered warm or affectionate. As a child, I had been closer to my mother and grandfather than my father, who, for some reason, never seemed very fond of me. However, as long as I had Mama and Grandfather, I could live with that. When I was six, I was struck with two almost simultaneous blows: Mama was lost when the Valkyrie, the private schooner in which she’d been sailing, sank in a gale off the Canary Islands in 1934. Shortly afterward, Grandfather succumbed to pneumonia, and I lost the two people I loved most, who cared most for me. Father had lost his wife and his own father, and I imagined he was grieving in his own fashion. Perhaps that was why he sent me off to boarding school the following year, shortly after he and my stepmother married and she and her son came to live with us. Addison was always climbing on Father’s lap—something he never permitted me—or raising his fat little arms and shouting, “Daddy, Daddy, up!” begging for a hug. I would have enjoyed a hug also, but I would never beg. Instead, I was sent to Hubbard’s Preparatory, the pre-eminent school for boys in the southeast. Father might have no use for me, but he would never permit me to attend a school that was anything less than prestigious. I rarely returned home, even when the other boys attending the school did. I had no desire to visit the once-sprawling acreage in Arlington, so I remained within the ivied walls of Hubbard’s and studied, and as a result, was easily accepted into Harvard. After graduating college—an event Father chose not to attend, since Addison was graduating himself, from high school—I set off to see the world, most specifically the Korean peninsula. I joined the Navy, which sent me there, and when my commanding officer discovered my facility with languages, I quickly rose to the rank of captain. By the time the ceasefire was signed in 1953, my expertise was so valued I was recruited to the CIA. For the most part I worked alone, and that suited me very much; I accepted the fact I would always be unloved and alone. The reputation for being distant had followed me through my school years, through my time in the Navy, and on into my work for the CIA, my chill exterior resulting in me being referred to as Mr. Freeze throughout the Company. As a result, I could number the affairs of the heart in which I’d indulged on the fingers of one hand, with fingers to spare. Lovemaking was messy and unsatisfying, and during those long stretches when I did without, I never felt as if I were missing anything. * * * * The first time I saw Portia Sebring, she must have been about twenty. She was visiting her brother Bryan, who analyzed data for the CIA, where I supplied him with that data. I felt my c**k stir, which startled me. I was willing to grant the young lady was pretty, but I’d seen many women who were prettier, had even appeared with some of them on my arm, but none of them affected me in this manner. However, I couldn’t afford distractions to my work. I forced myself to fade back into my office, unseen by either her or her brother. Things heated up over the years on the international scene—that summit in Geneva in ‘55, the Hungarian Revolution in ‘56, the launch of Sputnik 1 in ‘57—and I seldom thought of her. Whenever I did, my body no longer reacted in the same way, so I assumed it was a fluke, and I went about my job. * * * * The firm rap on my office door caused me to glance up from the report I was updating. Anthony Sebring, Sr. stood in the doorway. “Mann.” “Yes.” What was he doing here in Langley? He was usually at State. “Please, come in.” I rose, about to cross my office to offer him my hand. “You wished to see me, sir?” He held up his hand. “Sit down, please.” He closed the door and took a seat on the other side of my desk. “What can I do for you, Mr. Sebring?” “You know who I am?” The man whose family had espionage bred into their bones, who was almost royalty in the intelligence community? I would have chuckled in wry amusement, but Mr. Freeze never permitted any emotion to cross his face. “Yes, sir.” “Good. I wish to speak with you.” “Of course. May I offer you a brandy?” I kept a bottle in the bottom drawer of my desk for those times when…for those times. “No, thank you.” He straightened the crease in his trousers, seeming fascinated by it. I remained silent, watching him. He was a tall, fair man with a hard, angular face. His offspring had no doubt inherited their good looks from their mother’s side of the family, although except for his middle son Jefferson, they were as fair as he. He caught my gaze and smiled, a tight twist of his lips. There was no humor in it. “No doubt you’re wondering why I’m here. Let me get right to the point. My son Bryan has spoken of you.” “He’s an excellent man for whom to work.” More than that, I trusted him not to get me into a situation that would result in my death. Of course, it could happen, but not because Bryan Sebring was sloppy or careless. Mr. Sebring crossed his legs and leaned back, his hands now motionless on his thighs. “You have quite a reputation.” “I, sir? Oh, my work—” “Your work is exemplary, and your file is filled with commendations. That wasn’t the reputation to which I was referring.” I couched my response to that carefully. “Then I don’t understand.” “A number of women here at Langley have shown an inclination to be attracted to you. I can understand that, you’re quite good looking from the female perspective.” “Er…thank you.” I struggled to keep the color from rising in my cheeks. “I still don’t understand your reference to my ‘reputation,’ however. I’ve stayed away from them.” “Exactly, treating them with unfailing civility, and yet rebuffing their…offers.” “I was raised not to…soil my own nest, so to speak.” “I must say that doesn’t surprise me. I’m acquainted with your father.” “Yes, sir. He’s spoken highly of you.” On those very rare occasions when we spoke. I concealed my confusion. I had no idea where this conversation was going. “You know my daughter, Portia.” “I know of her, sir. Of course.” Rumor had it she could freeze a man with a glance or a word. Not that I made a point of listening whenever her name was brought up. “I want your honest opinion of her.” How honest was honest? The intelligence community was littered with Sebrings, and while Anthony Sebring, Sr. worked at State, I knew that was simply his official cover, and it behooved me to tread warily. I could find myself stationed in Paramaribo, the worst, most tedious assignment in the Western Hemisphere. I cleared my throat and decided to play it safe. “She’s very attractive, sir.” If you were drawn to petite, blue-eyed blondes. All parents liked having their children complimented, didn’t they? Well, not my father perhaps, but then, the man sitting opposite me wasn’t my father. “I know how pretty my daughter is, Mann.” He harrumphed and frowned at me. “Let me be perfectly plain. Does she get your…how do you young people phrase it? Your motor revving?” I swallowed wrong and choked on my own saliva. He started to rise, but I waved him back, indicating I was all right, and swallowed again. “Honestly, sir?” He gave an impatient nod. “That’s what I told you I wanted, wasn’t it?” “Very well, then. Your daughter is a very cool, contained young lady.” I’d wondered, as I’d seen Portia Sebring from a distance, if that cool exterior hid any kind of warmth on the interior. I had a very similar exterior, although in my case, my interior was as cold as I was reputed to be. I rarely had s*x, and when I did, it was perfunctory at best, with women who knew there would be nothing in the future for us beyond that evening. I’d considered the possibility, when I’d been serving in Korea, that perhaps it was men who would “get my motor revving,” but a single experience while on leave in Japan had shown me otherwise. Not that it had been unpleasant. The young naval lieutenant had been enthusiastic and had a very clever, very talented mouth, but I’d found my mind wandering, even while that mouth engulfed my c**k and sucked me off. I would have offered to reciprocate and done my best, but he’d grinned, wiped his mouth, and sauntered off, and I was glad not to have to make the attempt. “Yes, yes, I’m quite aware of her reputation as an ice princess. There was a time…Well, that’s neither here nor there. Is she the sort of woman in whom you would be interested?” I raised an eyebrow. Now I really needed to watch how I stepped. “Are you asking me as a father, sir, or as Anthony Sebring of State and the CIA?” “Both.” “That puts me in a very difficult predicament. Whether I say yes or no, I stand the chance of pleasing the one and displeasing the other.” His expression became one of grudging respect. “Your father told me you were a cautious son of a bitch.” I didn’t let him see how that affected me, striving to appear merely politely curious. One could say if my father and I exchanged more than a handful of words in the course of a year that we had been exceptionally chatty. “You’ll go far in this business, Mann.” I nodded, still not saying anything. “Playing your cards close to the vest, eh?” “As you say, sir.” His thin lips twisted in what might be called a smile. “Very well, I’ll be candid with you. I would like you transferred to my son’s division of the NSA—temporarily, I assure you—where you’ll come into constant contact with my daughter. You were an excellent cryptologist during the Korean War, so having you on board to decipher Russian codes would be eminently logical. Once at Arlington Hall, Anthony will see to it that you meet Portia. You’ll wine her, dine her, sweep her off her feet.” “To what end?” “She needs to be married. An ice princess is one thing, but getting the reputation as a…” His eyes became hooded. “…a Sapphist is quite something else.” That startled me. I’d heard nothing of that. Still, I’d been out of the country for the past four months. “And you want me to marry her?” I moistened my lips, trying to buy myself some time to think. “If she likes you. I’m not Victorian, Mann. I want my daughter to be happy.” “Why the need to have me transferred to the NSA, then? Surely that’s taking matters to an extreme?” “If I’d realized this matter was going to crop up…” His tone was aggrieved, almost as if she’d done this to irritate him. “…I would have had her working for her brother Bryan from the start, and your meeting with her would have been perfectly plausible, but how could I have foreseen this? As it was, she was needed in Arlington Hall.” “All right, I’ll give you that, but why marriage? And why choose me?” “If people talk about her, become curious about her, they’ll look more closely into what she does. Once she’s married, the talk will die down. As for choosing you—you work for the government, you’ve a cool temperament, and you’re frequently out of the country, so the marriage will cause minor distractions to her work.” He tugged on his lower lip. “Right now, Portia’s cover story is that she’s dabbling at being a working woman, the pampered daughter of a well-to-do dilettante.” “Dilettante? You, sir?” I couldn’t prevent a laugh. “Sorry.” “My cover story has held for the last forty years, Mann. I have my wife to thank for that.” “Excuse me for asking, sir, but is Mrs. Sebring aware of what you do?” “Of course. Clever woman, my wife.” He said that grudgingly, almost as if he resented the fact. “Figured it out shortly after we married. Didn’t let on until sometime after I’d returned from Paris in late ‘28—” For the Kellogg-Briand Pact, I wondered? “—when we’d been married more than eight years. Even then, she only mentioned it in passing, continued to turn a blind eye. For a time I wondered…” His words trailed off, and he shook his head. “How do you think your daughter will respond to learning you’re planning her life in this manner?” I wouldn’t ask if he minded my asking the question. I might not have been from intelligence royalty, but I was a Mann. “I don’t want her to learn of it. However, if she does, that should prove immaterial. After all, she’s a sensible girl. She shouldn’t object. She’ll have a husband.” “And children?” “No, no. They would prove to be too distracting. That’s why you’re perfect for her. You have as little use for children as she does.” Who on earth had told him that? And then I realized—my father. If he thought it would ally our family with the Sebrings, who were the blue bloods of the intelligence community, he would have no problem prostituting his only son. I was certain even Addison, my step-brother, would have been put forward if not for the fact he was a light-weight amateur who preferred to dabble in wine and women. “Two people with cool, reserved personalities. And of course, if you decide you need a diversion, I trust completely to your discretion.” I felt sorry for Miss Sebring. Didn’t she deserve better than that? “I assume she’s to be permitted diversions also?” “Portia? No, not at all. That is to say, her interests don’t lie in that direction.” Was the man sitting across from me deluded, or was his daughter truly that way? I shivered at the thought of being married to such a cold woman. “What if she should meet someone after we’re married, if we marry? Fall in love with him?” “Also immaterial. My daughter is a sensible young woman. She will honor her vows.” “Even though she loved someone else?” I knew if she ever came to me and told me she loved another, I’d have no choice but to let her go, if only for my own self-esteem. “Even though she loved someone else. She’s a Sebring.” “But at that point, she would be a Mann.” Was I really considering his proposal? “Don’t be too clever, Mann.” “No, sir.” I paused a moment. “And if I tell you that I’m not interested?” “I understand Paramaribo is particularly unpleasant this time of year.” The air so heavy with humidity that moisture could be wrung from it. “Fair enough. What happens if she’s not interested in me? Will I still be given that assignment?” “Of course not. I’m not unreasonable. However, your father assures me that once you set your mind to something, you invariably succeed.” “My father is too kind,” I murmured dryly. He ran a hand over his face, not hearing or else ignoring my words. “My daughter is excellent at what she does—deciphering codes. One of the best we’ve got. She sees probabilities and possibilities where others don’t or can’t. A pity that she was born a woman…This situation never would have arisen.” He sighed heavily, then pinned me with a gimlet stare. “So tell me, Mann. Are you interested?” I assumed my most detached poker face. “She’s attractive enough, and I eventually need to marry myself.” And in spite of what Anthony Sebring might think, I did want children, at least one, if only to prove I could be a better father than my own. Still, it wouldn’t do for him to know this. “Yes, I believe I am.” “Splendid. Splendid. I’ll see about your temporary transfer to Arlington Hall, to my son Anthony’s department. Portia works with him. And I’ll trust you to keep me updated.” * * * * I never went into a mission blind, and although this was nothing like any mission I’d been sent on, I researched Portia Sebring. Scholastically, she’d outshone her brothers, which was saying something. All three had all done exceptionally well in college. She’d graduated summa c*m laude from Wellesley, with a degree in International Relations. Socially, she’d made her debut at the Washington Debutante Cotillion, had a Season in London—the appellation “Ice Princess” seemed to trace back to that time—and had been presented at court. Physically, she was slight, with a small bosom and slender hips, but she was an expert horsewoman who could control a thousand-pound brute and guide it over jumps that would make a man blanch. Emotionally, I couldn’t discover much beyond the usual boy-girl relationships of her teenage years. Perhaps having three older brothers had proved to be a hindrance. The more I learned of her, the more I looked forward to meeting her. I began to suspect…well, hope, that beneath her cool, blonde looks was all the passion a man could wish for. The problem was, would I have enough passion for her? I was seven years her senior, after all. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror as I ran a razor over my cheeks, at the brown hair that already had gray spiking at my temples, at hazel eyes that even streaked with shards of green still regarded the world coolly. When we finally met, would she see anything that attracted her? I washed the residue of shaving cream from my face, patted it dry, and splashed on aftershave. I’d already laid out a three-piece suit, and now I returned to my bedroom to dress. I was about to start work at Arlington Hall.