Death is a Ruby Light Read online

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  Penelope St John-Orsini, NSA's crack double agent, is sent on a secret mission across the Russian steppes into the desolate wastes of Eastern Siberia. Her objective: to track and destroy a Red Chinese scientist who has invented a formidable laser death ray.

  Masquerading as Mongolians, Penelope and her team of professionals have to face hostile Tartar warriors, and the savagery of the Kinghan mountains before they reach the shores of the mighty River of the Black Dragon — the threshold to Red China, and the second round in the game of death.

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  Paul Kenyon1

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  Paul Kenyon

  Death is a Ruby Light

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  The Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini stood poised at the end of the diving board, her magnificent figure silhouetted against the deep-blue Tuscan sky. She wore a bikini and a pink band to tie back her richly dark hair. The muscles in her calves bunched, and then, without apparent effort, her long-limbed body seemed to levitate, high in the air, and tumble gracefully in a clean dive into the pool.

  "Brava, Penelope!" said the tall, loose-jointed man lounging with a drink at poolside. "You moved like a dream. What a pity I didn't have a camera!"

  He stood up and extended his arm as she swam, in a few powerful strokes, toward him. She gripped his wrist and pulled herself out of the pool in an easy, limber motion. She shook the water out of her hair and adjusted the wisp of bikini top.

  "Lars," she laughed. "Won't you ever stop trying? The answer's still no. You'll just have to shoot your picture without me. I'm not going to give up this marvelous Italian sunshine for your gloomy fiords."

  The Baroness was one of those breathtaking beauties you sometimes see on magazine covers. She had enormous jade-green eyes, exquisite cheekbones, a generous mouth that showed strong even teeth when she smiled. Her figure was spectacular — wide shoulders, voluptuous breasts, flared hips, long legs. Her skin was a smooth tawny-tan.

  "Change your mind. The next film will be my masterpiece."

  He stared broodingly into her eyes, his fingers still gripping her wrists. Lars Lindqvist was famous for his stubborn dedication to his art: the powerful but elusive movies whose dark-hued beauty had added a new dimension to filmmaking.

  "Sorry, darling," she said. "Don't be a bore. I opened my villa a month early just for you. Try to enjoy it, won't you?"

  Abruptly he let go of her wrist. He forced a smile. "You forgot to take off your watch," he said, changing the subject. "I hope it's waterproof."

  The Baroness looked at her watch, a sensational Movado with a carved ruby crystal. The price tag at Carrier's had been $10,000. It was still ticking reliably. Carrier's would have been surprised at the extra components that were now tucked away inside the platinum case. Among other additions, there was a pea-sized transducer that drew current from a tiny cesium battery. An antenna was strung through the bracelet. It could pick up signals from an orbiting satellite three hundred miles overhead.

  Only there hadn't been any signals. Not for more than two weeks.

  It was all rather peculiar. The watch never had gone this long without delivering the coded electric shocks that were her signal to contact her liaison with U.S. intelligence, the man the NSA had designated only as "Key."

  The Baroness shrugged. The bikini top slipped a dangerous inch, and she hoisted it back into place. The hell with the National Security Agency anyway! If they wanted to give her a vacation from spying for a while, she'd take advantage of it! She might even be tempted to change her mind about Lars's offer.

  "It's waterproof, darling. And so are you, believe it or not! Don't be so gloomy! I'll race you across the pool!"

  She got to her feet and stretched like a big cat, her long golden figure showing powerful muscles that rippled under the entirely feminine surface contours. A breast almost spilled out of the wispy top, and she tucked it unselfconsciously back into its cradle. She tossed her black mane away from her face and bounded to the pool's edge.

  Lars put down his drink and vaulted out of the canvas lounger, a boyish grin splitting his face. He pushed her into the water and jumped in after her.

  She let him have a ten-stroke lead, then buried her face in the water and thrashed after him. She overtook him halfway across and dove deep under his pale form, tugging on his trunks as she passed to let him know she was there.

  She surfaced at the far end and, holding on to the ladder for support, waited complacently for him to catch up.

  "Beat you!" she laughed, as he raised his head, spluttering.

  He looked embarrassed. "You swim like a fish, Baroness."

  She hoisted herself effortlessly out of the pool and patted the tiles beside her. "Let's talk about your film."

  "There's a problem," he said. His voice was sheepish.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You pulled a little too hard on my bathing suit. Can you find me a robe?"

  Penelope looked more closely. Lars was standing chest deep in the bright azure water. The white of his body, distorted by ripples, was unbroken all the way to the bottom.

  She laughed uproariously when she understood. "Never mind, darling. Come on up anyway. I thought you Scandinavians were supposed to be liberated."

  "That's the Swedes. We Norwegians are more straight-laced."

  "And after all the nudity in your films!"

  "It's all right for the actors. The director keeps his clothes on."

  It was a game now. "It's all right, Lars darling. There's a twelve-foot wall around the villa. And I've sent all the servants away for the day."

  He looked past the tile apron and formal garden toward the Baroness' eighteenth-century palazzo, a great frosted cake of a building, its walls baked golden by the sun. He put a foot on the aluminum ladder, then shook his head.

  "I can't."

  "Then I'll have to come in after you, darling." She reached behind her back and unhooked the bikini top. Her breasts came out of the cups with hardly a ripple. Lars's eyes widened. She untied the skimpy triangular bottom and let it fall to her feet. She did a smooth flip-flop into the heated water of the pool and kicked her way to the bottom.

  When she opened her eyes underwater, she could see the long torpedo shape of Lars's penis sticking straight out between his parted legs. Her lips curved in amusement. So that was why he'd been too embarrassed to come out!

  She wriggled like a fish between his legs and grasped the rigid member like a stanchion to haul herself through. She popped to the surface behind him, just as he was turning around to face her.

  "You needn't be embarrassed, darling," she said. "I take it as a compliment."

  His eyes were on her breasts, bobbing just below the surface. "Are you teasing me?" he said hoarsely. "Many American women seem very direct, but then…"

  "I am very direct, darling. Life's too short to be otherwise." She circled his neck with her arms and pressed herself against his chest. She could feel his swollen probe pressing against her belly. "You know perfectly well why you invited yourself here. And why I let you. We'd have been in the sack tonight anyway. There's no reason to wait until dark, is there, darling?"

  He put a big splayed hand on her bottom and pushed her harder against him. "We Norwegians are used to making love in the dark," he laughed. "The sun doesn't even rise at all for two months a year in my hometown, Tromso. Morke
tiden, we call it. The murky time."

  She nibbled at his earlobe. "We're in Italy now, darling. It's always soldag here. Sun time."

  Their lips fastened thirstily. She pushed with her toes and bounced a few inches off the pool floor. She drifted downward again, straddling his projecting stem. She clamped her thighs around it, feeling its length, comfortable and rubbery, pressed against her vaginal cleft. He was breathing hard now, and so was she. She forced his lips apart with her tongue and pushed inside. She explored the underside of his tongue, probing deep toward its root. At the same time, she reached behind with one hand to find his tumid post, sticking out between her buttocks. She took it by its shaft, carefully avoiding the fleshy knob at the end so as not to excite him too quickly, and waggled it back and forth, massaging her own swollen labia with it.

  His knees buckled with the sudden rush of pleasure, and he stumbled awkwardly toward deeper water. When they both recovered their balance, they were on tiptoes to keep their chins above water. Every once in a while their toes lost contact and they bobbed up a few inches before touching down again. Penelope found the floating sensation pleasant. It was like drifting through space. The water, heated to body temperature by the coils underneath, lapped voluptuously at all the crannies of her body.

  His stick throbbed frantically in her hand, and the cords of his neck were standing out with tension. He was making little involuntary in-and-out movements. Penelope shifted her grip to feel his balls; they were tight and hard as rocks. His hand groped wildly for his shaft, trying to jam it into her without preamble. She had to do something to slow him up. With a violent tug at his neck she pulled him underwater with her. Their heads broke surface together. He spluttered and coughed.

  "Quick thinking, Baroness!" he gasped, grinning widely. He thrust a knobby finger into her vagina and worked it in a circular motion. "We give old Peder a little rest, ya?"

  The fleshy ball of his thumb was against her clitoris, moving gently, expertly. She felt hot waves travel up the insides of her legs, radiate along the base of her spine. She purred her pleasure.

  "You're doing fine, darling," she said.

  His other hand worked its way between their bodies to find a breast. She held them together with a hand on his buttock, another around his neck. His body, hard and lean from skiing and the daily woodchopping he had to do at his Tromso hideaway, was like a tree trunk plastered against her own. The big hand grasped her breast with surprising tenderness and began to explore its surface. She separated herself from his upper body a couple of inches to give him more leeway. Her breasts, floating in the warm water, felt wonderfully weightless and free. Lars stroked the hardened nipple diligently, then sucked in a great lungful of air and lowered his head beneath the surface. A moment later she felt his lips surround the nipple, moving it in and out of his mouth in a slow rhythm. He kept it up at least a minute before he had to come up for air, then, taking a deep breath, he submerged again.

  Their weightlessness and the warm caress of the water were curiously dreamlike. Penelope had the odd sensation that the boundaries of her body were dissolving. There was a great, lazy, warm tide inside her, lapping away at the shape of her desire.

  Penelope grasped the long spear again, her thumb tracing the edge of the fleshy plum at the tip. There was no prepuce to peel away, thanks to Scandinavian hygienic standards for the newborn male. Lars shuddered with pleasure, but kept up his double massaging of nipple and clitoris. She manipulated his swollen glans between thumb and forefinger until his eyes glazed over, then gave a deft corrective squeeze to his scrotum. She held the bulky pouch a moment longer, enjoying the way it felt in her palm, then resumed her grip on his pulsing shank.

  The busy fingers between her own legs were summoning a growing urgency. Wave after exquisite wave of sweet torment washed through her, until it was impossible to bear.

  "Lars," she shivered, "how's your sense of balance?"

  "I'm an expert skier," he said, puzzled.

  "Give me your hands."

  Looking baffled, he took his hands from her body and stretched them toward her. She imprisoned them in a strong grip, then pushed with her feet against the pool bottom. Twisting like an acrobat, she brought her legs up and braced her feet against Lars's shoulders. Reflexively, he leaned back against the water's support until they were balanced, swaying gently in the water like some complicated marine plant.

  Penelope bent her knees and swung her bottom down toward Lars's pelvis. His cock slid into her on the first try, easily and smoothly, the rounded glans pushing past the engorged lips to thrust deep into her slippery scabbard. They held steady for a moment, grinning at one another, their chins below water.

  She pushed gently against his shoulders with her feet, and felt his long probe slide out like a piston. He pulled her back before she reached the end of the stroke. Her behind bumped gently against his upper thighs.

  "It works," she said.

  They began a slow underwater ballet, their movements made dreamlike by the water. It was an exquisite sensation, the long, teasing strokes as he thrust his rigid tool deep within her burning vagina, then drew her back again with the corded muscles of his arms. Every now and then he had to dance backward a step or two to keep his balance. The comforting water bathed her body as they worked. She was aware of every inch of her body: the tendons of her legs as she pushed against him, the muscles of her arms when they hauled toward one another, her breasts floating free.

  The urgency grew, and they were moving faster and faster. She could hear herself moaning and hear Lars's heavy breathing. The strokes were shorter now, frantic squirming motions that moved his harpoon in ragged circles around her distended labia. A gigantic orgasm raced toward her like an express train, across a vast pulsating landscape. She pushed back against it with her will, delaying it as long as she was able. And then it was on her with a roar. With a sob, she slid her feet down Lars's torso and clamped her legs around his waist, pushing him deep inside her, as far as she could. The universe shattered. An enormous spasm wracked her body. She let herself come, in a huge, heaving flood that left her weak and trembling.

  Lars made a long, hoarse cry an instant later, and his fingers squeezed her hands convulsively. She pulled herself up toward him and, her arms and legs wrapped around his body, she drained them both with a series of deft wriggles that touched off a little string of final pops.

  She nuzzled his face, and they nibbled at each other. Lars planted a grateful kiss on her lips.

  "You're very agile," he said at last.

  "And you have a superb sense of balance," she laughed.

  She unclamped her knees from around his waist and pulled herself off the still-rigid pole that impaled her. Water gushed into her vagina, feeling bubbly. The jellied evidence of Lars's passion bobbed to the surface and floated away like a miniature water lily.

  "Norwegians aren't so straightlaced after all," she told him, patting his cheek.

  He tried to slap her on the rump, but the water braked his hand. "You forgot to take off your watch again."

  "I never take it off."

  "Oh?" He seemed a little too interested. "Why is that?"

  "It's not a bikini, darling. It doesn't cover anything vital." The hell it doesn't, she thought.

  "But…"

  She was already up the ladder. "Come on, darling. I told the cook to leave us a cold lunch in the kitchen. Vitello tonnato and a bottle of Vinrosa di Torre de Passeri. You can get your strength back, and then see if you like my bed as well as my pool."

  * * *

  Lars was snoring. The long Nordic jaw hung unromantically open, and he lay like a log beside her.

  Penelope snuggled affectionately against his naked body and thought, Let him, he deserves it. They'd balled eight more times since the pool, and he hadn't disappointed her once. He was getting more imaginative as the night wore on.

  She reached under the sheets to feel for old Peder, as he called it. It dangled lankly over one thigh, a limp thong
. She squeezed it experimentally. He stirred in his sleep and gave a deep sigh. She couldn't be sure, but she thought she felt a hint of movement in her hand. She kneaded the long hose. He sighed again, but didn't wake up.

  She grinned in the darkness. Lars wasn't going to get his rest. Not yet.

  She threw a long leg across his thighs. That was as far as she got.

  They must have been very quiet, not to have alerted her trained ears. One moment she and Lars were alone in the room. The next, there were five men, bulky shapes in the moonlight that filtered dimly through the gauze curtains. They wore black hoods on their heads. There were guns in their fists.

  Instantly, the Baroness rolled over Lars's body and landed like a cat on the floor, her toes and fingers on the rug ready to thrust her at the nearest of them.

  "Don't," one of them said.

  The Baroness froze. It was the voice of a professional. She recognized the absolute authority in the tone: the certainty of the player with more pieces on the board.

  Lars struggled blearily to his elbows. "What is this?" he said.

  "Shut up," the hooded man said.

  The Baroness recognized the futility of her position. Against any one armed man who was foolish enough to come within ten feet of her, she had an eighty-percent chance of killing him with her bare hands before he could shoot. Against two armed men, if they were spaced just right, she had a fifty-fifty chance.

  Against five, she had no chance at all.

  "Can I get up?" she said.

  "No. I like you better where you are."

  The five intruders spaced themselves efficiently in a shallow arc that ensured that none of them could be caught in a crossfire. One of them put away his gun and took a small flat case out of his pocket. He snapped it open. Inside was a syringe and a small ampoule.

  "All right, Baroness," the leader said. "Lower yourself on your elbows. Very carefully."

  She got into the position he'd demanded, her buttocks sticking into the air, her breasts brushing the rug. She had no leverage now. Maybe that was what he intended. And she was conveniently positioned for a needle in the rump. Lars tensed in the bed. One of the hooded men said, "Don't try it, Lindqvist."