"How does it feel, making love to the most powerful man on the planet?"

Jackie Kennedy giggled and turned onto her side, pulling the top sheet over her breasts as if embarrassed. Next to her, her husband propped himself up on his elbow and looked at the beautiful woman he'd just slept with.

"I'm serious," he whispered in her ear.

"John, you're being silly!" she hissed back.

"That bad, huh?" He feigned hurt.

She sighed loudly. "Now you're being even sillier."

President Kennedy smiled. Idly, he began to stroke the nape of her back. She started to breathe pleasurable sighs, squirming beneath the covers.

The presidential apartment at the White House was bedecked like the honeymoon suite of a grand hotel. The double bed was so large it could almost be called a triple bed; and four-poster, of course. All the sheets were satin, and all the furniture in the room was upholstered in leather. It was a room designed by and for a romantic, and John F. Kennedy was frequently one of those.

And not just with his wife. He always smiled when guests commented how the bed had been well slept in. But they meant his predecessors.

He was just about to suggest to Jackie that they go again when there was a cautious knock at the bedroom door. Desire was quick to evaporate.

Jackie curled up even more as he climbed out of bed and wrapped himself in a robe. He went to the door and opened a narrow crack.

"Jean, what is it?" he said, keeping his voice down.

As wont of the most powerful man on the planet, Kennedy had a secretarial staff of twelve, and he knew all of them by their first names.

"The Secretary of Defence wants an urgent word with you, Mr President," said Jean, blinking long lashes at him. She was young, fashionable.

Kennedy sighed. "Okay, give me a minute."

She nodded and turned on her almost-but-not-quite stiletto heel before he closed the door again. Her hemline was getting ever higher, he noticed.

"John, it's 7am," Jackie groaned behind him.

He began to dress into yesterday's evening casual wear. "It's all right," he said. "Bob's on the phone. This shouldn't take very long."

"Well, should I get dressed or should I wait?"

He kissed her on the forehead in passing. "I won't be more than five minutes, I promise," he told her in a whisper so close she'd feel it.

Then he left her both glowing and smiling.

He was still doing up his buttons when he walked through the door. He was expecting to go into the office, where Jean would be dutifully waiting with the phone in her hand. But Robert McNamara was standing right outside the room.

Kennedy stopped in surprise. "Bob?"

McNamara was dressed for business. It didn't look like he'd been disturbed early. Indeed, it looked like he'd been up half the night.

"I hope you weren't asleep, sir," he said.

"Not at all," Kennedy said. "They didn't say you were actually here." He saw the document wallet McNamara carried. "What's going on?"

"Can we go into your office?"

Kennedy gestured with his hand along the corridor and McNamara led the way. He didn't waste any time in unzipping the document wallet. As Kennedy slipped behind the desk, the Secretary of Defence took out a wad of files.

"Bob, sit down," Kennedy said with a smile. "You're making me nervous." He pointed to one of the chairs, but McNamara didn't sit.

"Mr President," he said, looking grave. "We may have a situation developing in the Pacific." Then he placed a sheet of paper on the desk.

Kennedy frowned. "What am I looking at?"

"About sixteen hours ago, one of our cruisers reported seeing an unidentified object crash into the Sea of Japan. That's the transmission."

"Unidentified object?" asked Kennedy, looking up suspiciously.

"As you can see, the transmission isn't clear on that point," McNamara pointed out. "But we think it could have been a missile test, sir."

Kennedy nodded sagely. "Russian?"

"Unknown."

Kennedy chewed his tongue. "Go on."

"Sir, that's just it. We haven't heard anything from the cruiser since," the Secretary of Defence said. "That's their last transmission."

Kennedy looked up, but said nothing.

"Up until an hour ago, all efforts were being made to restore contact with the vessel. Initially we had to suspect damaged radio equipment."

"But?" Kennedy sensed there was one coming.

Sure enough, McNamara flicked through the files from the wallet and took out a black and white print. "A couple of hours ago, we sent one of our spy planes on a reconnaissance flight over the cruiser's last co-ordinates."

Then he put the photograph down in front of the President. It showed an aerial view of the cruiser - and a submarine beside it.

"It's a Soviet submarine, sir."

"Oh, god," Kennedy uttered under his breath.

"This photo was taken ten miles outside Russian territorial waters," the other man explained. "That makes it an aggressive action, sir."

"Have we heard anything from the Kremlin?"

"Not a word, sir," McNamara replied. "Our agents inside the Soviet Republic don't report any activity, no mobilisation either."

Kennedy started to shake his head.

"What do you want to do, Mr President?"

Kennedy didn't respond immediately.

McNamara lowered his voice. "John, there were eighty-six Americans on that cruiser. They could end up being the first casualties of World War Three."

Kennedy glared at him. "Then let's send a communiqué to the Russians. They might just be testing the waters, seeing how far they can push us."

"Yes, sir."

"So send them a cautiously worded letter. Let them know we know what they're doing. Then see how they proceed."

"Yes, sir." He began to collect up his files.

Kennedy watched him until he was ready to go. "Bob, I want you to sit on this for now. This isn't a cause for concern. Yet."

"Of course, sir."

"No reason to alarm anybody."

"No, sir."

"Thanks for bringing this to my attention."

"I'll send the communiqué immediately, Mr President."

Kennedy nodded, watched him leave. But now for the hard part - explaining to Jackie why, for once, he was no longer in the mood.

The Russians tortured Jack Shelby for three hours.

He regained consciousness as two of them were hauling him aboard their musty-smelling submarine. They had blindfolded him by that point. Still dazed, he heard the hatch being shut; the sounds of the sea silenced in an instant, drowned out by the low buzz of the engines. Then the air began to taste stale.

They took him to a cabin, then handcuffed his wrists to a horizontal pipe above his head. The pipe was hot. It woke him up promptly.

The engines throbbed into full gear and didn't quieten down. Shelby realised they were on their way. On their way where, he didn't know.

Men came into the cabin and began interrogating him, but they didn't remove the blindfold. He couldn't tell how many of them there were, but one spoke to him in broken English and to somebody else in Russian. That somebody else was clearly the one giving the orders for him to be beaten with a metal bar.

Before each question they struck him with it. He didn't understand the incentive this was meant to give him. Soon they were asking questions so fast that they were striking him after each answer instead.

Later he realised it had no incentive. They weren't going to stop beating him with the bar. It was simply an attempt to break his will. Blindfolded, he had no way of preparing for the blows. They struck him in a different place each time. And they soon started asking the same questions over and over again.

After a while - and to Shelby it seemed like many hours - his interrogators finished their shift, bored and tired, and a new group came in. They were enthusiastic, and Shelby's main torturer dealt stronger blows.

Eventually, the door to the cabin opened and a new voice appeared above those of his interrogators. A voice he recognised. It was the officer again. As he spoke, the other men left. Shelby realised they were alone.

He heard a chair scrape across the floor behind him. A match was struck; then Shelby smelt a pungent, oily tobacco smoke.

"My men tell me you're being far from co-operative," the officer said quietly, but very close. He was untying Shelby's blindfold.

And then he did the handcuffs too.

"Sit," he told Shelby, gesturing the chair behind him.

Shelby collapsed into the chair, shaking all over. His eyesight was blurred, but he could see the officer perched on the desk, smoking.

"Tell me, what was your ship doing so close to Soviet waters?"

"It's not my ship," Shelby said, voice shaky too.

"So you keep saying." The officer sighed.

Shelby eyed the metal bar they'd been torturing him with for hours. The officer, who Shelby was starting to suspect was actually the captain, was eyeing it too. Then he glanced up and gave Shelby a meaningful look.

"If you'd checked the log book of the fishing boat, you would have found my name on it. And any proof you'd need to see I'm telling you the truth."

The captain embraced his cigarette, then chuckled. "You're being so persistent with this story, I'm almost tempted to start believing you."

"Then do," Shelby said sternly.

"See it from my perspective, please. You are an American, captured fleeing an American cruiser, yet claim to be a Japanese national."

"I've been a naturalised citizen of Japan for fifteen years."

The captain grinned smugly. "Why is that?"

"It's a long story."

"We have an hour before we dock." The captain exhaled a cloud of smoke in Shelby's direction. "Would you like a drink?"

Shelby shook his head vehemently, then nodded.

The captain went behind the desk, pulled a brown bottle out of the drawer and with it two glasses. He poured a small measure each.

Shelby downed it in one.

"Why did you leave America?" the captain continued. "Why did you renounce your American citizenship? Are you not loyal to your homeland?"

"No." Shelby set his jaw.

"That intrigues me. Are you a traitor to the United States? Why don't you feel any loyalty to your countrymen? Have you betrayed them?"

Shelby snorted. "If only."

"What do you mean by that? Are you a communist? What is it about Japan that made you move there? Are you, perhaps, a spy?"

Shelby would have laughed if he had had the energy. "No." He sighed. "I'm not a communist, a spy, a traitor - or an American patriot. Anymore."

The captain smiled pleasantly and went back to the desk. He poured himself another drink but didn't offer Shelby one. He took one long, final drag on the end of his cigarette and then went through the process of lighting another.

"What happened to the crew of the USS Roosevelt?"

Shelby rolled his eyes. "Oh, god."

"We found some of their bodies. We thought it was you at first. Did you kill them to distract us while you tried to escape?"

"They were dead before we found them."

"What happened to them?"

"They drowned."

The captain scratched his forehead with his cigarette hand. "What was the ship doing so close to Russian territorial waters?"

Shelby sighed. "Look, I don't know any of this. We found the ship drifting just like you. We checked the log book. It said something about going to investigate something they saw crash into the ocean. That's all I know."

"What crashed into the ocean?"

Shelby hesitated, remembering the craft. "I don't know."

"I think you're lying."

"I'm not."

The captain shrugged and poured himself a third drink. "I think it was a missile test. A prototype high altitude warhead designed to evade our radar. We know you're developing such things. I think it was launched from your ship, and I think the test was successful. This, naturally, concerns me a great deal."

Shelby just shook his head.

"But believe me, it will concern my superiors more."

Shelby frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

It had sounded like a threat.

The captain shifted position on the desk. "Think about it," he said between sips. "As I'm sure you appreciate, international relations are now merely nuclear politics. So look at this from the Kremlin's point of view."

"Which point of view is that?" Shelby snarled.

"Well, if you know your enemy has a weapon, and can attack you without you even knowing you're being attacked, what do you do?"

Shelby didn't respond.

"Why, you attack first, of course," said the captain, leering in.

Shelby snorted with derision and shook his head.

"You're just speculating, anyway," he said.

The captain stepped back and inhaled loudly. "You're not giving me much choice. There are too many suspicious holes in your story."

Shelby sighed. "There aren't any holes in it at all," he snapped. "You're just not accepting anything that I'm telling you."

"Then give me the right answers."

"First ask the right questions."

The captain laughed. "Are you sure you're not a spy? You're evasive like a spy. And you're cocky like a spy. No, cocky like an American."

All the humour was gone from the captain's face. He looked bored of taking the soft approach, and when he looked bored, he looked mean.

He picked up the metal bar.

"Okay, look," Shelby said with a sigh. "I did see something in the hold. I think it's what they saw crash into the sea. I think they picked it up."

The captain nodded. "Go on."

"That's it," said Shelby. "I don't know anything else. Really, I don't. I don't even know what it was. I've never seen anything like it. But I know it wasn't a missile. And I'm damn near certain it wasn't American, either."

The captain smiled. "Now we make progress."

"That's all I can tell you."

"Yes, but you've been saying that all along, and now it turns out you do have something to say after all." He began to pat the metal bar into his empty palm. "Don't worry, I appreciate you're going to make me work for it."

Then in one swift move he went behind Shelby and struck him hard between the neck and shoulder. Shelby slipped off the chair and crumpled to the floor, groaning in agony. The captain pulled the chair away.

"I don't want to need to do this," he explained apologetically as he walked around Shelby, sizing up his fallen target for a second blow. "Just tell me everything you know about this thing the USS Roosevelt has in its hold."

Shelby choked and held up a protective hand.

The captain sighed and lifted the bar.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

The captain called out angrily in Russian.

Shelby sat up as an anaemic-looking sailor came in nervously. He was probably no older than nineteen or twenty, Shelby thought.

He couldn't understand what the two Russians were saying to each other, but he could tell the captain was angry to be disturbed, and that the boy was trying to get him to go look at something. He kept pointing downwards.

Then the boy left, and the captain span round.

"Okay," he said, in a deathly quiet voice. "No more horseshit. If you don't give me a straight answer this time, I'll shoot you right now and tell the authorities whatever I want." He took the pistol out of his holster to prove it.

"How did he get on board?" he demanded.

Shelby frowned. "How did who get on board?"

"Don't push me!" the captain warned, grabbing Shelby by the collar, half pulling him to his feet and pushing the gun into his temple.

"I don't know who you're talking about!" Shelby cried.

"There's no point defending him now," the captain hissed. "He's dead! Your plan's failed! All I want to know is how he got aboard."

"Who?" Shelby growled back, getting increasingly desperate. "There's nobody else left. I was the last one you didn't kill."

The captain snorted. "I know that isn't true for a start," he said, his voice low and menacing. "The one who was smart enough to confess before we shot him said there were two of you still on board the USS Roosevelt."

"There were," Shelby managed to say. The captain was now poking the barrel of the gun up behind his chin, making it hard to speak.

"You almost fooled me. When we found you escaping alone I imagined the other one had drowned. I should have known better."

Shelby struggled in the captain's grip. "What are you talking about?" he croaked. "You know that he's dead. You killed him!"

The captain dropped Shelby, choking. He checked the gun was loaded, snapped off the safety and then aimed it at Shelby's head.

"You shot him in the chest," Shelby said hoarsely, nursing his throat. "Just before you caught me. I saw it all happen."

"You are mistaken."

"I saw you shoot him!" Shelby cried.

"No. You didn't."

Shelby just shook his head.

"I'm having your cohort brought up here," the captain said. "Perhaps after you've seen him you'll be in the mood for a final confession."

Shelby didn't understand. He backed away from the captain and the gun, breathing rapidly with fear, but not getting up off the floor.

When two filthy engine boys in sweaty brown singlets came in carrying a stretcher between them, Shelby saw it from beneath.

Saw the blood streaming through it.

When they put it down, he vomited instantly.

The corpse lying on the stretcher was wearing Li's boots, Li's kagoul and Li's tunic. The flesh was burnt and shrivelled where Li had been shot in the chest. The corpse even had Li's tattoo of a shark on its exposed forearm.

The only thing it didn't have was Li's head.

Ripped off clean at the neck. Shelby was almost sick again. He retched violently, but there was nothing left to bring up.

"How could you do this to him?" he cried. "Just to make me talk? What's wrong with you? You're animals, fucking animals!"

But the captain looked equally shocked himself. He stared at the corpse, then barked something at the two engine boys. They answered him.

"They say they found him like this," he translated. "He must have been hiding in the engine room all this while. They don't know what happened to him, how he lost his head. They haven't... they haven't found it yet."

Shelby shook his head in disbelief.

The captain got rid of the two engine boys.

"Spare me any more of this bullshit," Shelby said quietly. "Just tell me what you want me to say and I'll write you a fucking testimony."

"All I want to know is how he got on board."

Shelby sighed. "If you're telling me you didn't bring him on board, then I don't know how he got on board. How do dead people usually get on board Soviet submarines?" Then he looked up and smiled flippantly.

"Are you saying he was dead already?"

"Now you're finally listening to me. Wonderful."

The captain hesitated, then removed the barrel of the gun from Shelby's forehead. "Look, we didn't bring him on board either," he said.

Shelby looked up at him. He was serious.

"There's somebody else on board, isn't there?" said the captain.

It was then Shelby recalled that shimmer. The last time he had seen Li's body, the shimmer had been hovering over it, had been picking it up!

"I don't know," is what he told the captain.

But the Hitori had been right next to the submarine at the time.

For a moment they both remained silent.

"About the thing in the hold," Shelby said finally.

The captain nodded. "Yes?"

"I have a theory."

NOTES:
By turns both the easiest and trickiest chapter to write. The first 1000 words took under an hour. The next 2000 words took about two. And the last 300-odd took several days. Always the way. I rewrote it in several ways, mainly involving Li's body being brought to the cabin and THEN having them argue over it. But their arguing seemed facile after the shock, so I pushed its appearance back as late as possible. I'm still not entirely happy with the way it ends. It reads a little convoluted, a little engineered.

In fact, I have reservations about each of the three sections. I was always going to use JFK as a character, in true "24" fashion (and likewise his Russian counterpart, Khrushchev, for the sake of balance), but am not sure if he comes across as anything other than a parody of his lecherous love rat caricature. In this chapter, at least. As for the middle section, I was in two minds whether to cover the torture, seeing as the interrogation essentially just hammers home previous story beats. However, I did try to put emphasis on developing a little of Jack's backstory, generating questions about just why he left America.

Also, Robert S. McNamara, who appears in this chapter, really was Secretary of Defence (or Defense, I suppose) under the Kennedy administration, I just don't know if he was at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.