Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo of the Office of Organizational Analysis instantly took his hands off Miss Sof'ya Berezovsky, which caused her to go under the water again, which frightened her, and caused her to struggle rather violently when she felt her aunt's hands on her.
Castillo climbed agilely out of the pool, then got to his feet and surveyed the pool.
Max, apparently having finally realized that he was not going to be able to get out of the pool at the deep end, now was swimming furiously to the shallow end of the pool, where he could walk out using the wide steps there.
Svetlana, without much success, was trying to calm Sof'ya, who was still concerned about Max eating one or both of the pups, which now yapped a chorus. Finally, Svetlana succeeded to the point where she could move Sof'ya close enough to poolside so that Castillo could bend over, or kneel, and give Sof'ya his hand and haul her out and safely onto the deck.
But when Castillo bent over to offer his hand, he became distracted--and nearly fell back into the pool.
There was, of course, a very good reason for his losing his balance. And it was a sight he would not soon forget:
Although Colonel Alekseeva at the moment was wholly unaware of her problem, the fact was that when she had been struggling with Sof'ya, the strap of the top to her two-piece swimsuit had snapped, and said strap had slipped from her neck, and the top itself had fallen from her breasts.
This caused the exposure to Castillo's instantly bedazzled eyes of the most perfect naked bosom--in every respect, including erect nipples--he had ever seen, and the number of those he had seen at one time or another over the course of his life was legion.
He was frozen for a moment, but somehow--miraculously--then reached down and coolly hauled Sof'ya from the pool. He turned her over to the housekeeper, who was hovering with concern nearby.
Then he returned his attention to the pool.
With a little bit of luck, she'll want me to give her a hand out of the pool.
Luck, alas, was no longer to be with him.
Colonel Alekseeva saw Colonel Castillo standing above her, saw where he was looking, looked herself, and in one swift motion, modestly clapped her hands over her bosom and slipped under the water, there to attempt reaffixing her garment.
Castillo heard footsteps approaching.
"You're going to have to teach me how to do that, Ace," Edgar Delchamps said behind him, a laugh in his tone. "Talk about absolutely destroying the self-confidence of the prisoner about to be interrogated!"
Castillo turned to glare at him but found Delchamps walking quickly to Sof'ya, who was sitting on the grass crying and clutching both of the soaking-wet pups to her.
"You know what that means, don't you, Sof'ya?" Delchamps asked her in a kind and gentle voice that Castillo had never heard from him.
She shook her head, not understanding the question.
"In the United States, we have a rule. When a puppy is in danger and someone rescues him, that person then owns him."
"Really?"
"Which of the pups did you rescue?" Delchamps asked.
With no hesitation at all, Sof'ya hoisted one.
"This little girl," she said. "I call her 'Marina.'"
"Well, Marina now belongs to you," Delchamps said. "That means, you understand, that you now will be responsible for seeing that she has enough to eat, things like that. You think you can do that?"
Sof'ya happily nodded.
On one hand, Castillo thought, Delchamps may have finally found the out he was looking for after running off at the mouth and announcing he wanted one of Madchen's pups. How the hell was he going to care for a puppy?
On the other hand, truth being stranger than fiction, a human heart may actually be beating under the old dinosaur's hide.
Delchamps gently took the other pup, the last one, from Sof'ya and walked to Castillo.
As if he had been reading Castillo's mind, he said, "In the trade, that's known as establishing the good-guy/bad-guy relationship. Guess who's the good guy, Ace? The guy who gave the kid a puppy, or the bastard who tore Auntie's bathing suit from her shoulders and then stared shamelessly at her boobs?"
He handed the pup to Castillo. Castillo took it, shook his head but didn't reply, and returned his attention to the pool.