The New Great Wall

Dexter Brozovich met his new "niece" as promised. In the two days since he had met with Ramos, Dexter had thought much about the ruse concocted by the Mexican dictator. Ramos seemed sure that Carlotta Brozovich would play along in the interest of giving Monty Rush and Ted Collins their comeuppance. The former Secretary of the Interior and sometimes philanderer was not so sure. Carlotta had forgiven Dexter his trysts when she had learned of them. However, she had informed him in no uncertain terms that his dalliances had better be over for good, or she would leave him to roam his Virginia mansion and its gardens alone. Even though his virility had not abated at the 60-plus mark and he still cast lustful glances at curvaceous young women, he knew she meant what she said. And he did love her deeply, after all. He solemnly promised that he would be crawling into no more beds with other women.

So far it had been fairly easy to keep the promise. Although Dexter saw other women at high-class social functions in and around Washington, he was almost never away from home without Carlotta. Now, Ramos wanted to plant a woman in the Brozovich household so that his home could become the base for a woman to plan and carry out the assassination of the President of the United States. A woman with the looks that Ramos had described? Would Carlotta agree? He wondered.

When Dexter finally worked up enough nerve to broach the subject with his wife, she said she was willing to do almost anything to see that Collins and Rush got what they deserved. She was a little less enthusiastic when he told her that, according to Ramos, this twenty-nine-year-old senorita was so good looking that she would make a giraffe get a hard-on. Carlotta told him that she didn’t care how many giraffes Conchita aroused but that Dexter, if he became aroused, had better take a cold shower or she would end his erection with a sword. Carlotta had been trained in fencing and had once been an excellent swords woman. Dexter must have conjured up a mental picture of his penis being severed and dropping to the floor with a thud. He promised her that Conchita would stay in one of the bedrooms in the other end of the mansion and that he would give her plenty of elbow room. The next question was: could the three of them convey family affection when in public? Could Dexter, Carlotta, and Conchita be convincing actors?

Dexter and Carlotta had talked of all these matters after his first meeting with Ramos at the Royal Madrid Hotel. Now he was ready to meet Conchita Rojas, the soon-to-be Conchita Diaz. The Mexican dictator had not exaggerated. If anything, he had understated the beauty of this woman. Conchita was about five feet eight inches tall, perfectly proportioned from head to toe. Everything about her was beautiful--her eyes, her hair, even her skin. Oh yes, Ted Collins--or any other heterosexual male for that matter--would be attracted to this diva. Somewhere there was some Moorish blood in Conchita’s veins, for her skin was darker than many Spaniards, but not quite as dusky as that of Ramos and only a little darker than Carlotta’s. The fact that so many in Washington remembered Carlotta in her younger days would help Conchita pass for her niece, since Carlotta had once been almost as beautiful as this young woman who was about to join the Brozovich family.

Dexter had many questions for Conchita. He wanted it understood from the start, he said, that her relationship with him and Carlotta was strictly professional. In public they would put on an act so that the conspiracy would succeed. At all other times, they were simply business partners. Conchita made it clear that she was a loner and that the arrangement was strictly business, to cover her. She neither expected nor needed any help from the Brozoviches, and she was certainly not interested in establishing any filial ties. When that was all settled, they worked out the arrangements for Conchita to join Dexter and Carlotta at the Brozovich estate in northern Virginia. She would leave it up to Dexter to arrange for her to be at some function attended by the President of the United States. She could handle the rest, she said. With some pride in her tone, she stated that she had not yet had any trouble enticing men to notice and desire her, and she doubted from what she had heard that it would be any different with President Collins.