Chapter 16 Prey
"Hey, Paul, I could lose my job for this, you know," the paunchy
middle-aged retired NYPD detective said sotto voce to his former colleague
as he hesitantly pushed a plain white envelope across the Formica tabletop.
"I know, Mike, but this should make it right," Paul Riley, known on his
current job as Agent Nine, replied to his former partner as he passed a
paper bag containing a hundred hundred dollar bills under the table.
They were sitting in a diner in lower Manhattan, not far from where the
towers once stood. The nervous man was now employed in the corporate
security department of the most-popular cell phone carrier in the
metropolitan area (rhymes with "horizon"). The day before they had met at
a bar in midtown, and the agent had given his old buddy a cell number he
wanted traced, including the carrier frequency for that phone, and the
billing information. Once they had this data they could send out a few
vans with sensitive antennae and get a location for the target by
triangulating the signals they monitored.
The break had come a few days earlier; Agent One, the team's leader had
decided that they had exhausted their leads. The target had not been
spotted during long weeks of mind-numbingly boring surveillance-- neither
at the lawyer's office nor at Grand Central Terminal.
After consulting with his boss in London, Agent One and a team of three
other agents had broken into the law office again. They couldn't gain
access to the steel-doored room, and the attorney's office itself contained
nothing of use to them, but the secretary's desk yielded an important clue.
Her desk calendar, the calendar upon which she logged her boss's
appointments and calls, showed an appointment with Carl Sutherland (a name
which they knew to be a pseudonym) at the exact time they had first spotted
the target; more importantly there was a phone number next another, more
recent entry in the call log, 914 area code, indicating that this
Sutherland lived in one of the suburbs north of New York City, in
Westchester County, most probably, but perhaps Rockland or Orange counties,
or even one of the other more distant suburban regions.
Further investigation--there was no entry for the number in the reverse
directories, and Agent One had called the number itself the outgoing
voicemail announcement indicated it was a cell phone, and this complicated
things, making it harder to pin down their prey. This was why One had
dispatched Nine, the retired detective to meet and bribe his old friend
from the force, ten thousand up front, another ten when the info was
delivered.
* * *
"Hey," Soren greeted him as Alan returned to their room on a cloudy
Saturday morning in October. Alan could sense the dejection in his voice.
"What are you doing back?"
Soren had left Friday morning and taken a train home; he was from
Rockville, a suburb of Washington, DC, and his girlfriend was a freshman at
the University of Maryland, about halfway between the nation's capital and
Baltimore.
"My girlfriend wanted me to meet someone: her new boyfriend. His name
is Charlie, and he's a senior. Pre-med. Isn't that great?" he asked
facetiously, grimacing.
"Oh shit. Jeez man, that's terrible," Alan commiserated. "Come, I'm
taking you out for brunch." Soren demurred. "Seriously," Alan insisted,
"Come on, we're going to La Rosita."
La Rosita is a Cuban coffee shop on Broadway and 108th Street. It's
cheep and delicious, and Alan ate there at least once a week. After a
brief bit of haggling Soren agreed; it was one of his favorite eateries
too. The crisp autumn air made Alan wish he had worn a jacket, but since it
was a relatively short walk he decided not to run back into the dorm for
one. Soren, Alan could sense by scanning his roommate's mind, was on the
cusp of a serious depression. His now ex-girlfriend, Debra, had been his
first serious relationship, and he seemed devastated by the loss; they had
spoken on the telephone almost everyday since school had begun.
After their cafes con leche had
arrived Alan started the conversation, because his roommate had said
nothing for a long while.
"Look, don't blow a head gasket over this, dude. I can spout off all of
the clichés: long distance relationships almost never work out; she's your
high school girlfriend, and those relationships aren't meant to be
permanent; there are plenty of other fish in the sea; etc. But you don't
want to hear them, so I'll leave it at that and not try to chew off your
ear. What I do want to say to you is this: these are supposed to be the
most fun years of your life. Don't fall into a funk about some girl who
broke your heart. I know it sucks for you, and I know you loved her--"
Soren looked up at Alan and stared him in the face, a questioning look in
his eyes, "--Yeah, I heard you on the phone, I could tell by the way you
talked to her, and about her that you loved her, but you have to move on.
Now, I don't mean go out and marry the next girl who rocks your world.
Just go to parties, drink beer, flirt, you know? I'm not going to let you
stew in the room for the rest of the semester. Anytime I have someplace to
go, you're coming with, and I wont take no for an answer. OK?"
"m'kay," he answered morosely mumbling into his coffee.
Two middle-aged men with short haircuts and flesh-colored wires snaking
out of their jackets and into their ears came in an took a table near Alan
and Soren. They made an effort not to look directly at the two teens. One
of them sat facing them, not looking their way, while the other sat
opposite, observing them in a mirror on the wall in front of him. He put
his hand on his cheek and whispered into a microphone his sleeve. No one
in the coffee shop took any notice. A surveillance van was parked across
the street on Broadway.
Soren digested this little speech as he ate his eggs, rice, and beans.
He was still very quiet, trying to hold back the tears. On the way back to
the dorm they had stopped at a corner waiting for the light to change, and
Soren put his arm around his roommate, around Alan's shoulder. "Thanks,"
he croaked, a half of a smile forming on his lips.
Alan smiled inwardly as he gave his roommate a pat on the back. "Lock
up your daughters: Soren's on the loose!" he joked, and was rewarded with
Soren's hearty laughter.
* * *
"Yes, I understand, Your Lordship. Your instructions will be carried
out to the letter. We will take the boy on the first of December.
Surveillance teams have him covered twenty-four hours a day. It will not
be a hardship. I will call again if there are any, ah, unusual
developments." Agent One was consciously avoiding saying the word
"problem."
"You do understand, Tadeusz, the penalty for failure," the voice on the
other end of the phone said, the arctic coldness--intensified to a great
degree by the clipped tones of an upper-class British accent--of his voice
easily transmitted through the international circuits.
"Yes, Your Lordship, I understand."
"You are doing an adequate job. Continue down this path."
Tadeusz Karick hung up, shuddering slightly. He knew very well the
consequences, for he had executed the leader of the failed London team, the
team that had failed to capture Massimo. A bullet to the back of the head
would ruin your day, and he resolved not to be the next recipient of such a
treatment. He had done a great deal of "wet work during his dozen year's
service with the StB, the Czech equivalent to the KGB, and he had hoped his
now freelance status meant murder was a part of his past.
He gave another shudder, thinking of that terrible summer night just a
few months ago; he had coaxed the last "Agent One," a disgraced former
commander in the French Surete, his true name unknown to him even as he
rested the barrel of his pistol, silencer attached, against the back of his
head, pulled the trigger, and then shoved him into the Thames.
Two mornings later, sitting in a cafe and sipping coffee, his stomach
lurched violently as he spied the front-page photo in the morning's
paper, a picture of two bobbies standing near the riverbank holding two
long poles with hooks at the end, fishing out of the water the corpse he
himself had deposited in those waters. He didn't want to, but found
himself compelled to read the article anyway. Yves-Marc Didiere. "Shit! I
didn't want to know his name," he had thought at the time. "There but for
the grace of God go I."
Now Karick leaned back in his office chair, looking out the window and
zoning out while watching the cars crawl downtown in heavy Lexington Avenue
traffic, hoping that his second-in-command wouldn't be tasked with the job
of dumping him into the river--in this case, the Hudson.
Little did he know that his date with a nine millimeter headache was
forthcoming, no matter the outcome.
* * *
On the other side of the Atlantic the photographs and reports were being
closely examined by the man Karick referred to as "Your Lordship." The
former Czech intelligence operative had good reason to address him that
way, for the man who employed him was indeed a member of Britain's upper
house, a hereditary Lord whose mother's second husband just happened to be
Jean-Pierre Massimo's father's second wife. The London team had bollixed
the job, though the death of Massimo, his step-brother, was hardly
saddening for him.
"Alan Marshall," Lord Thornbow thought to himself. "I should have
known." All of this could have been avoided if Swindon-Smythe had contacted
him sooner. This Marshall, this boy, is a much fatter target than
Jean-Pierre ever was. Probably new to his powers, unsure of himself. A
satisfied grin crept across his leonine features. Soon, very soon, the
power would be his. He pressed a button on his desk, and his assistant,
Mr. Patel, entered through a side door.
"You have reviewed the files of all the New York team members?"
Patel nodded, he was a man of little talk.
"I have just spoken with Mr. Karick in New York. We will be taking
action on the first day of December, in the late evening. That is the last
day of a four day holiday weekend in America. Thanksgiving. You will
depart two days earlier. You know what you must do."
Mr. Patel bowed in the formal fashion and withdrew. The day before
they grabbed the boy all but three members of the New York team would be
dismissed, sent packing with extremely generous cash bonuses. Karick and
two others would take the boy to their secure location, a warehouse in the
Bronx. There, Mr. Patel knew, they would meet their end; he himself would
do the deed. After that he would transfer Alan Marshall to another van,
and set the warehouse afire as he left, then proceed to the second secure
location and rendezvous with Lord Thornbow.
He checked the files of all the men on the overall team, and picked the
two others to accompany Karick; about half the squad was made up of former
NYPD officers and detectives. None of them would die in this operation,
because their murders would be too conspicuous.
* * *
Kate was in her dorm room, studying for a French quiz, when her roommate
came in.
"Hey, Kate."
"Hey, Scarlet, s'up?" she answered back casually. Scarlet had been
acting sort of weird lately. When they first met in person at the
beginning of the semester, after spending the summer e-mailing and IM'ing
back and forth, they had really hit it off, hanging out together and going
to parties together, but about a week ago the amount of time they had been
spending in each other's company had been trickling off dramatically, and
it wasn't due to course load. Even when they alone together in their room
over the last seven days or so Scarlet seemed distant, Kate thought.
"Nuthin' much, you?" she said diffidently.
"Same old, same old."
Scarlet went over to her desk and started on her own coursework. The
radio played softly in the background, and neither spoke or moved from
their desks for the better part of an hour.
"Listen, Kate, there's something I have to tell you, but I've been
hesitant because I'm not sure if you'd take it well," her roommate said
nervously, breaking the awkward silence between them.
Kate put her book down slowly and swiveled her chair to face her. She
could see the tension written across Scarlet's face. "What is it?" she
asked guardedly, thinking she had offended her in some way.
"There's no easy way to tell you this, and I will totally understand if
you don't want to room with me anymore, but," she paused, sighing
portentously.
Kate looked at her, suddenly very worried, no longer that she had done
something wrong, but now simply worried about Scarlet. "You can tell me, I
promise. Are you in some kind of trouble? Can I help? What?"
"No, no trouble." She paused again, her throat suddenly becoming really
thick with anxiety. "I've decided to become a L.U.G."
Kate was puzzled, and worried. "Lug, what's a lug?"
"Not a 'lug.' An L.U.G., a Lesbian Until Graduation. See, the thing is,
I like boys and all, but I've recently found out that I'm bisexual, and
while I'm in college I'm only going to, uh, do it, with girls. That way I
can concentrate on classes, not guys."
"Whoa! What brought this on? And when exactly did you find out that
you were bi?"
"Are you upset? It sounds like you are. Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! I'm
really really sorry. If you're uncomfortable I could put in for a new
room," she exhaled rapidly, unable to look Kate in the eyes. This was
unfolding just as she had feared; she should have waited until later in the
semester.
Kate put up her hand to stop her. "No, no no, it's not that. It's just
a lot to take in all at once. I'm just curious as to when this all
happened, and no, I don't want another roommate, so just relax on that
score," Kate assured her.
Scarlet visibly relaxed. "Well, you could say to some extent I've
always had certain, um, feelings towards other women, but I never acted on
them before I came here. The place I come from is fairly conservative, and
I would never have acted on those, um, tendencies, there." Scarlet was from
small-town Ohio, not a place that looks too kindly on most sorts of sexual
experimentation.
"I see," Kate said, hoping that she would continue without further
prompting; trying to frame a question that Scarlet wouldn't think was
judgmental was taxing, to say the least, and Kate really, really, really
didn't want to come off that way.
Scarlet said nothing for about half a minute, gathering her thoughts.
"You know Jessica, that girl from my seminar? Jessica Starmer?"
Kate knew her. Tall and blonde with large breasts and a curvy behind, a
very pretty face. She nodded.
"We were talking, Jess 'n' me, and she just kind of brought it up. We
got lunch after seminar last Thursday. She has a very serious boyfriend
back in L.A. He's a senior at UCLA, and he's planning to go to law school
out there, so they'll be on opposite ends of the country for the next four
years. So I asked her, like, 'How can you stand it? Being so far apart
for such long periods of time.' And she said, 'Phone sex.' And I laughed,
and asked her if that was enough, you know, like as a joke. And there was
this twinkling in her eye, and then she explained what being an L.U.G.
meant, and I almost choked on my veggie burger! Then I asked her, 'What
does your boyfriend think of you having sex with other girls?' And she's
all, 'What do you think we talk about when we have phone sex?' And then we
both cracked up.
"So we talked some more, and I admitted to her that I had had sexual
feelings towards other women--OK, she wormed it out of me--but that I was
sure I wasn't completely lez," Scarlet said softly, almost whispering, a
dopey grin on her face. She stopped for a good thirty seconds before
mustering the courage to go on. "So I went back to her room--her roommate
was at a class--and we, um, did it." Her eyes were sealed shut in
embarrassment for the last part.
Kate and Scarlet talked for the next hour. She assured her roommate she
wasn't offended or anything,
and that she didn't mind continuing sharing space.
"I had a feeling, like, you'd be cool with it," Scarlet said near the
end of the conversation, a slight smirk across her face.
"Why is that?" Kate shot back teasingly.
"I can tell you're into some kinky shit."
Kate's face reddened. "Oh?" she said stiffly.
"You deny it?" Scarlet asked playfully.
"Why would you think that?" Scarlet could see the tension spread thought
Kate's whole body, especially her face.
"It's just something about a girl with pierced nipples and a shaved
vagina that set me to thinkin' I'm not dealing with a future nun here," she
joked, winking, and watched in satisfaction as the color of Kate's face
matched her own name.
"You've seen that?" Kate asked in half a state of shock; she thought she
had been extra careful in concealing this from her roommate. "Anyhow, I'm
not Catholic."
Scarlet giggled.
* * *
"So, it didn't freak you out?" Alan asked her later that same day, the
early afternoon sun shining through the window. The two of them were
laying in Alan's bed, his softening erection slowly slipping from her
depths as he held her, spooning her from behind. Even though he was
picking up the thread of conversation from before they had fucked, Kate
knew what he was talking about. She had told him about Scarlet right
before they had started up, but that conversation had been interrupted by
the commencing of the "festivities."
"Which part?" she asked. "The idea of lesbian sex? The idea of living
with one, sorta? Am I worried that she'll try to make move on me?" she
giggled, considering her situation. "Nah, it's just the surprise of it
all. Hey, my sex life is nothing to tell momma about, either." She
punctuated this with a laugh.
They spoke quietly for a few more minutes, and then disengaged. Kate
cleaned herself down below with some tissues she grabbed off of Alan's
desk, and began to dress. "I spoke to Pauline this morning. She's getting
kind of serious with Brian Lacy, but I think she didn't want me to tell
you."
"No, I know about them. He's a great guy."
"That sounds a little forced, Alan."
"Not at all," he assured her sincerely. "Pauline and I, as you surely
know, decided that we would each see other people. It's not as if we were
married or anything. We only dated five months, for God's sake. I love
her, but some of that is a brother/sister-type thing. She was always my
friend first, and my girlfriend second, even during senior year."
Kate chuckled, "Alright, alright. You convinced me. If you're lying,
you hide it very well."
"Well, not to change the subject or anything, BUT, what are you doing
for the rest of the day?"
"Library. Paper due on Thursday. Dinner in the dining hall. You?"
"Same. Which library?"
"Lehman. Paper's for Poli Sci."
"What a coincidence, mine too. Go get your stuff and I'll meet you
downstairs."
"Deal," she replied, a smile forming. Sex with Alan was great, OK,
better than great, but she also liked spending time with him. Kate
returned after a short while and they walked to the other end of campus,
out the Amsterdam Avenue gates and up a few blocks to Lehman Library. They
filled each other in as to the topics of their respective Poli Sci papers,
and then Alan told her about his conversation with Soren earlier that day.
"I might know some people," she said thoughtfully, her mind sorting out
a list of potential candidates for Alan's roommate's rebound relationship.
"Cool," he said back, oblivious to the van slowly following the pair of
them up Amsterdam.
They found a big table in a quiet corner of the library, set their stuff
down and headed off into the stacks, each in separate directions, reuniting
at their table after about a half an hour or so. They put in a good two
hours of work; Alan finished up first. Sitting back in his chair he
stretched his back, regarding Kate closely; she didn't look up from the
texts she was
concentrating on. A slightly wicked thought entered his mind, a very
small seed of a plan, though germinating rapidly into a full-bloomed course
of action. He entered her busy mind and made a few modifications, both to
her mind and to her body, among other things ramping up her latent (though
since Scarlet's revelation, much less latent) curiosity about girl-girl
sex.
She looked up, catching him staring at her face, and she blushed.
"What?" she asked playfully, twirling a finger coquettishly through her
raven-hued locks. She giggled.
"Oh, nothing really. I'm all done here. How much longer do you have?"
Kate told him not much longer, and Alan volunteered to photocopy the
articles she wanted to take back to the dorm for later consideration.
* * *
Later that night in bed Kate awoke with a start, shaken by the potency
of her wet dream. In the dream Kate was reliving her encounter with Alan
and Kim Hall in the latter's guidance office.
Alan had thrown one helluva good ass fucking at her that morning, but
her dream kept spinning her back to the interplay between herself and Mrs.
Hall. On that morning all those months ago she had stripped Mrs. Hall out
of her clothes and played with the older woman's nipples, then Alan had
sprayed their faces with his yummy come. In the past when her mind had
revisited that particular episode she glossed over the parts when she and
Kim Hall had touched each other, but now they were front and center,
rolling feverishly around all corners of her brain.
As quietly as she could Kate got out of bed and peeled off her sticky
panties, tossing them into the small hamper she kept by the door. As she
was pulling on a dry pair she realized the flow of juices secreting from
her burning hot pussy had not abated, so she crept back into bed bare
beneath her long cotton nightgown. It was just as well; she really needed
to frig herself off anyway, knowing somehow she would never be able to
sleep without first finding release. Thank God Scarlet had come home drunk
this Saturday night/Sunday morning; if she was lucky she would still be
able to make a little noise when she came.
Barely two minutes later Kate was astounded by the sheer brute force of
her climax, and even though she was doing her best to stifle her howls she
froze in terror when she saw Scarlet start to stir. Her nipples were so
hard, and seemed to her so scorchingly hot that she thought she could
actually feel the metal of the rings which pierced each one start to
soften. It was to her great relief that her slumbering roommate merely
rolled over and continued to snooze.
Kate was still gasping for breath a few minutes later, flat on her back.
"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, that felt good," she thought to herself. After
catching her breath she slowly reached under the blanket and ran a hand
over her still-drooling pussy. Maybe forgoing panties was a mistake; as
her orgasm hit Kate had felt an enormous spray ('A spray!' she marveled) of
come shoot out of her slit. Her nightgown was soaked with her warm girl
juice, practically from the waist to the hem, for the fabric of it had been
bunched up on her thighs just below her crotch.
In the end it took more than five minutes for her to even gather up the
stamina to sit up in bed, and more to make it across the room so she could
have her sopping nightgown join her drenched panties in the hamper. She
hadn't enough energy to strip off the moist sheets from the bed, so she
reluctantly slipped back in between them; immediately her fresh nightgown
began to become sodden from the residual dampness on her bedding.
She need not have bothered. Four more times before the sun came up she
was jolted out of similar dreams, each time to find herself soaked from
waist to toes with fresh gushing torrents of warm sticky girl come, each
time having to masturbate before falling back asleep, bringing forth yet
more streams of ejaculate, never once working up the strength of will to
get out of bed and change.
She woke early, making sure she was
up well before Scarlet. Her sheets and blanket were tacky from all her
semi-dried spendings. She hadn't planned on doing any laundry that day,
but nevertheless she stripped the bed, even flipped the mattress, bagged up
sheets and blanket with the contents of the hamper, and took it all to
wash. If she was lucky she would be back upstairs before Scarlet woke up to
her hangover. She considered taking something to read in the laundry room,
but didn't.
She had some serious thinking to do.
Waiting for the elevator she jerked with the realization that in one of
her dreams she was making love, no, fucking Scarlet, and in another she was
fucking someone named Mistress Randa, though she didn't have the slightest
clue as to who she was.
"Are you going to use that washer?" a girl she didn't know was asking
her impatiently.
Kate snapped out of her trance. A minute before she had opened her
laundry bag while standing in front of this machine, and was instantly
transfixed by the delicious odor emanating from within it. Who knew pussy
juice smelled so fantastic? Surely not Katie Van Devanter; at least not
until today.
She had some serious thinking to do.
After setting off the washer on its cycle she stepped out for some much
needed fresh air. Though it was chilly out Kate felt very warm on the
inside. She sat on a bench, her mind racing a million miles per hour. She
thought if she sat perfectly still she would be able to ignore the gooey
wetness in her panties, a wetness threatening to escape out and seep
straight through her blue jeans. Thirsty, so very very thirsty; that was
her next order of business.
She had some serious thinking to do.
* * *
"Patel?"
"I am here, Your Lordship."
"Report."
"It is ready, Your Lordship."
"You've done well, though I expected nothing less."
"You are far too kind, Your Lordship."
"I will see you in New York." Lord Thornbow replaced the secure
telephone unit's receiver to its base. He pressed a button, and a liveried
servant entered holding a silver tray with a crystal glass and a decanter
of brandy. The servant placed the tray before his employer on the desk,
bowed curtly and left. They did not exchange words.
Next Chapter: A Thanksgiving weekend to remember, or perhaps not.