Under Siege by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

somewhere. Drinks aren the kitchen.” She spoke quickly, the words tumbling over each other.
    “Jack Yocke.” He stuck out his hand solemnly. “This is Tish Samuels.”
    The youngster shook hands with her eyes averted, blushing tilde slightly. “Pleased to meet you,” she murmured.
    They found their hostess in the kitchen talking with several other women. When she turned to them, Yocke said, “Mrs. Grafton, I’m Jack Yocke, one of your students. This is Tish Samuels.”
    “I remember you, Mr. Yocke. You had such a terrible time with your pronunciation.” She extended her hand to Tish. “Thanks for joining us. May I fix you a drink? Snacks are in the dining room.”
    “What a lovely apartment you have, Mrs. Grafton,” Tish said.
    “Call me Callie.”
    His duty done, Yocke left Tish to visit with the women and wandered into the dining area. He surveyed the crowd with a professional eye. His fellow students he knew, and their spouses and dates he quickly catalogued. But there were some other guests he didn’t know. He was greeting people and reminding them of his name when he saw the man he wanted to meet lounging against a wall, beer in hand, listening to a shorter man wearing a beard. Jack Yocke nodded and smiled his way through the crowd.
    The bearded man was monopolizing the conversation. Yocke caught snatches of it: “…The critical factor is that real communism has never been tried … commentators ignore … still viable as an ideal……
    The trapped listener nodded occasionally, perfunctorily. Steel-rimmed glasses rode comfortably on a prominent nose set in a rather square face. His thinning, short hair was combed straight back. Just visible on his left temple was a jagged scar that had obviously been there for years. As his gaze swung across Yocke, who grinned politely, the reporter
    got a glimpse of gray eyes. Just now the man’s features registered polite interest, although when his eyes scanned the crowd, the expression faded. The reporter broke in, his hand out. “Jack Yocke.” “Jake Grafton.”
    Grafton was a trim six feet tall, with just the slightest hint of tummy sag. He looked to be in his early forties. According to the people Yocke talked to, this man was destined for high command in the U.s. Navy, assuming, of course, that he didn’t stumble somewhere along the way. And Jack Yocke, future star journalist, needed access to those on their way to the high, windswept places.
    “Our host,” Yocke acknowledged, and turned to the other man. “Wilson Conroy.”
    “Ah yes, Professor Conroy, Georgetown University. You’re something of a celebrity.” The professor didn’t seem overjoyed at that comment. He grunted something and took a sip of his drink, something clear in a tall glass.
    “Political science, isn’t it?” Yocke knew that it was. Conroy was a card-carrying communist with tenure on the Georgetown faculty. A couple of years ago the paper had a reporter attend several of his classes, during which Conroy vigorously championed the Stalinist viewpoint in a onesided debate with his students, few of whom could defend themselves from the professor’s carefully selected facts and acid tongue. The resulting story in the Sunday edition of the Post had ignited yet another public drive to have the professor fired. The encrusted layers had been thoroughly blasted from the pillars of academic freedom with columns, editorials, and a flood of letters to the editor, all of which sold a lot of newspapers but accomplished nothing else whatever. A half dozen congressmen had gotten into the act for the edification of the folks back home, on the off chance there might be a couple of votes lying around loose in their districts.
    Conroy had relished the villain’s role, reveled in the
    right up until the fall of 1989, when communist in Eastern Europe had begun collapsing like of cards. Since then he had been keeping a low profile, refusing to grant interviews to the press.
    “Yes. Political