Black Ops (Presidential Agent 5)

" 'How do you know?' And then I would say, 'I was looking at your pictures on the wall.' "

"What is this leading up to?"

"Does it always shrink when it is cold?"

"Why don't you try putting a warm hand on it and see what happens?"

Svetlana vigorously rubbed her hands together, then did so.

After a moment, she declared, "Ah. Is much better."

"Yeah."

"When you were a little boy, did you ever think you would lie here one day with a beautiful woman putting her warmed hand on your you-know-what?"

"Every night from the time I was thirteen."

She squeezed. "When I was thirteen, I wanted to be a nun. I wanted to marry Christ."

"And then you turned fourteen, and that didn't seem like such a good idea?"

She made a soft grunt and after a long moment said, "Why is your farm in the middle of an oil field?"

"It's a ranch, not a farm. You raise cattle on ranch. And things like corn on a farm. Unless you have milk cows; then it's a dairy farm."

"And then they found oil on it?"

"Actually, my great-grandfather found the oil. It was there all the time, but he didn't know about it until he put down the first hole. They call it the Permian Basin. You really want to talk about this?"

&

nbsp; "You have some income from this oil?"

"Sure."

"Then it is your oil? Not the government's?"

"They call that the concept of private property. It goes hand in hand with capitalism. And speaking of hand in hand . . ."

"Stop that! What do you think you're doing?"

"At least I warmed my hands first."

"And what I heard about those newspapers in Europe--somebody said you own them?"

"Did they?"

"Oh, God, don't do that! They'll hear us all over the house."

"Let jealousy eat their hearts out."

"You're rich, my Carlos?"

"We say 'comfortable.' "

"Oh, I am glad!"

"And I'm pleased you're glad."