Читать книгу Spies, Lies & Naked Thighs - Jina Bacarr - Страница 12

6

Present day

“She looks good enough to eat.”

No sooner did he speak the words did Caine regret them, knowing the Russian would take that as a challenge, using the girl as a receptacle, dispassionate and unfeeling.

He cursed under his breath. He was off his game, bursting in like this, tipping off the Russian. So far, he’d kept his surveillance on the down low, keeping the eyeball on the terrorist without him suspecting he was being tailed. Never once was the rabbit in the black—surveillance-free for more than a few seconds. The man wasn’t easily fooled, seeming to look at no one but keeping his eye out for any attention directed his way. Disguised as a punk with a spiked, black-crow haircut and patch over one eye, Caine had been closer to him than his shadow and he never knew. Until now. And why, why?

Her.

What the hell is she doing here? I thought I’d sent her ass packing. Now she’s lying half-naked across the bed, all melting flesh and big breasts, the smell of her desire driving me crazy.

She’d turned him on in that alley with her sassy attitude and curvaceous body, her breasts spilling out of that tight corset and nearly into his hands. He rubbed his fingers together, remembering jamming his knee between her legs and crushing her breasts against his chest. But that wasn’t what made him change his plans and follow her into the hotel. When she turned her head a certain way and raised up her buttocks, something clicked in his brain, as if he’d seen her somewhere. But his brain failed to connect the time or place when he rubbed up against her, smelled her, touched her.

He couldn’t believe it when she headed for the Russian’s room. He was certain she was walking head-on into a cover stop—a planned diversion by the Russian to cover up his real purpose. The ex-KGB agent would stop at nothing short of murder if she didn’t fit into his plans.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” said the Russian. Taking his time, running his hands over the curve of her buttocks, he snapped the tight red thong separating her cheeks. Her butt jiggled, pleasing Caine’s eye, but she didn’t wince. She didn’t feel the slap of the elastic band.

“Yeah. Primo ass.” Caine swallowed and nodded toward the strutting call girl lying unconscious on the bed as still and quiet as if she were bound and gagged. In spite of the situation, he grinned. Not a bad idea. He’d almost grabbed the hemp rope hanging from her belt earlier with a similar idea in mind. Now he wished he had. She’d be tied up in a rented room and out of danger and waiting for him. “What did you put in her drink? Or did you use a syringe?”

Did the Russian jab her in the thigh with a sleep-inducing drug? It was quick and done so discreetly she wouldn’t have seen it coming.

The Russian gave him a smirking look and he could tell he reveled in his application of tradecraft. “I sprayed a synthetic opioid in her ear.”

Caine tensed. “Fentanyl?”

“Yes. A favorite of mine,” drawled the Russian. “Much more potent than a Valium-type drug.”

Caine darted his eyes again on the gorgeous girl. He was no doctor, but he’d seen army medics administer the drug on the battlefield. It was a powerful anesthetic used in small, controlled doses to manage pain. Its effects were similar to nerve gas or heroin and hundreds of times more potent.

He said, “An overdose is usually fatal.”

“Not always.” The Russian patted his jacket pocket. “I have the overdose kit right here. She’ll survive.”

“Unless you don’t intend to give it to her.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

Caine stared at him. Hard. Was he telling the truth? If not, he didn’t have much time. If the opioid was comparable to what the Mossad used in assassination attempts, she could suffer from respiratory collapse and be dead in a matter of hours. He had no doubt that was exactly what the Russian intended. Why? Something didn’t add up. Yet he didn’t have the time to react to the man’s accusation. He had a job to do, and damn this girl for getting in the way.

“I have no choice but to play along with your sexual diversions.” Caine kept his cool, though a chill ran through him. “What bothers me is the girl might be dead before I take my turn with her.”

The ex-KGB agent shook his head, then smiled with a toothy grin that unnerved Caine, something that rarely happened. “She’ll sleep until I awaken her.” A grunt, then a groan spewed from his mouth. “With my cock.”

His stomach turned and bile rose in his throat as Caine fought back a rising disgust for the terrorist. Instead he said, “Then you’re not going to share her?”

The Russian punched him in the ribs. Hard. “This one is mine. Get your own pussy.”

“Fuck you. I want her.” Caine shoved him back, careful not to push him too hard. He didn’t intend to be on the receiving end of a knuckle blow to the throat. If he allowed his dick to rule, he’d be putting his head in a trap. He was operating in a red zone—enemy territory—and he could expect no mercy if the Russian saw through his disguise. He wore the mask of an operative 24/7, revealing none of his inner thoughts, and, God help him, his feelings. Violence had always been his aphrodisiac, seducing him with its acrid smells and quick adrenaline rush. Now a different scent tempted him, a bouquet tipped with honey, and he liked it.

The Russian’s eyes blazed at him. “You’ve been tailing me. Why?”

“You didn’t know I was on your back until I burst in here five minutes ago.” Caine had only to see the hostile look on the Russian’s face to know he was right. “Admit it, your Cold War days of covering your tracks by dodging around the side streets in the snow or guzzling down vodka in bars are over.”

“I admit nothing,” insisted the Russian, finishing his drink. “You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here.”

Time to play his hole card.

“Sharif sent me,” he said in a conversational tone of voice, though inside he was seething with need. The girl was ruining months of work with her silly game. He had to get his business finished and not worry about her.

Arching an eyebrow, the Russian asked, “What does Sharif want?”

“Did you make contact with—” Caine rattled off the names of several men connected with a sleeper terrorist cell in northern Italy. The Russian was to hook up with these men of Indian and Ethiopian descent in Basel, where France, Switzerland and Germany met. A crossroads. Basel was very useful to anyone in the espionage business. Caine often used a small café near the train station for dead drops. An agent was there for a few hours then he disappeared. It was anyone’s guess where he’d gone, especially if someone was tailing him.

Unless that someone was Caine.

“Ooohhh…” A raspy sound came from the girl’s throat. His pulse raced. She was stirring, but her breathing was ragged. And were her lips turning blue? What if she started vomiting? He couldn’t take her to a hospital. Too many questions.

“Quiet, bitch,” yelled the Russian in his native dialect, then he held a pillow over her face, cutting off her air. Her legs kicked wildly, her hands flailing about, her black nails trying to scratch her assailant.

“You call that pillow talk?” Caine grabbed the pillow and tossed it onto the floor. The girl gasped for air, but she didn’t open her eyes. The effects of the drug kept her prisoner. He leaned over her, wiping the perspiration from her upper lip with his finger. Her closed eyelids shimmered silver and blue and gold like a metallic sunset, and her lips blazed red. He shuddered, imagining those lips giving him pleasure.

Raising his voice, the Russian yelled, “I don’t care if Sharif did send you. Get out!”

“I’m not going anywhere. I have my orders.” Alert and tense, Caine fought back the growing contempt he felt for the Russian. “Since you won’t share her, I’ll watch.”

“So you can report back to Sharif?” The Russian tossed him a smirk. “Or is watching the only way you get off?”

Caine tried a smile. “You’ll have a hard time proving that.”

The Russian ignored his remark and ripped off the girl’s red thong and lifted her pelvis up to his lips, plunging his tongue deep into her, sucking and lapping. Her pulse twitched in her throat, her face numb and without sensation. Caine watched with disgust the desperate attempts of the terrorist to show his sexual mastery. Did the girl feel his rough tonguing? Was she enjoying it?

“You Russians are so crude,” Caine insisted. He hated the way the man licked the girl, then, after wiping his mouth of the salty taste with the back of his hand, he inserted a finger to arouse her. She emitted a low groan and shifted her hips as he pushed his finger deeper inside her, circling her clitoris with rough strokes, gathering her juices on the tips of his fleshy pads. Distaste formed in his mouth as he watched the Russian spread the wetness over her thighs, letting it dribble down over her black and purple stockings, then bending over and sniffing her essence like a dog.

Caine’s right hand curled into a tight fist. The man had no finesse, no idea how to arouse a woman. Why should he expect anything else from the ex-KGB agent? He recalled the terrorist’s background specified that he engaged in bang-and-burn ops. Demolition and sabotage operations.

He had always prided himself on his sensual expertise to turn a woman on with his intellectual abilities to gain her confidence and create intimacy, then using that to his advantage.

“Watch carefully.” The Russian laughed. “You Germans don’t know how to fuck a woman.”

Caine smiled, ignoring his challenge. “Is that the only reason she’s here? Or is she a bargaining chip?”

His opponent’s eyes snapped open. “Mind your own business.”

So he was right. The Russian was a double agent, working for Sharif, but giving information to whoever paid him. He glanced at the U.S. currency stacked on the table. Didn’t the money prove that? Was the girl part of the deal? A little pussy to sweeten the pot? Then kill her?

What happened to the federal agent the Russian was supposed to meet? That had to be the reason for the quick trip to Zurich. Then why had he been so sloppy on this op? Behaving recklessly and leaving a clear trail? Speaking openly on his cell phone and renting a room using a credit card under the name of Ivan Ivanovich? Caine never used the same credit card twice, had access to numerous passports through his prober, an operative who was also a specialist in false documents, and always used cell phones with cloned or stolen numbers.

Before barging into the room, Caine had checked the area, looking for FBI suits hanging around the hotel. Nada. He had seen a blue van parked a block away. Three federal agents were probably inside, going crazy trying to figure out why the bug they planted wasn’t working. He grinned. Figuring the FBI was operating somewhere in the vicinity, he’d removed the receiver from the planter in the bar and dismantled it. Those FBI boys had no imagination. They’d been using the same old hiding place on every op since the Nixon days. He couldn’t take the chance on anyone taping him and burning him. Compromising him.

As he did with every disguise, Caine spent a lot of time perfecting his legend, creating a German street thug in need of cash and excitement. The Teutonic accent wasn’t difficult for him to master since he spoke fluent German. The clothes were flea market glitz. His weapons procured through old contacts. To complete his disguise, he’d changed his gait and added a black eye patch with a pinhole in the middle to see through so it wouldn’t alter his depth perception.

To prove himself, Sharif had been only too happy to let him demonstrate his capability with a Beretta 92 in the assassination of a Yemeni sheikh terrorist-turned-informant. Caine prided himself on his skill with weapons. When he was a teen, his father got a job as a security guard at a strip bar and legal brothel in the Nevada desert. His mother did the accounting. When he wasn’t peeking through the windows of the whorehouse watching the action going on, Caine spent his free time teaching himself marksmanship by shooting the heads off rattlesnakes. He could cock his weapon, fire and hit his target in under two seconds. This was vital to his survival since he worked moment to moment on pure instinct and adrenaline, barreling into ops headfirst, gun blazing.

Caine took out the mark discreetly and efficiently, though after the renegade sheikh had relieved the FBI of more than a hundred thousand dollars. The lost funds, he decided, were a small price for the U.S. government to pay for him to infiltrate the relatively unknown but dangerous terrorist network. He also enjoyed showing up the boys at the Bureau. They hated it when a CIA operative beat them at their own game.

Everything had gone according to plan. Until now. He had to find out why the Russian hadn’t returned to Paris as expected. The ex-KGB agent had orders to bring back details of a shipment of TATP to be delivered to Sharif. The highly volatile triacetone triperoxide was a vital component to the terrorist leader’s bomb-making operation. Caine hadn’t been able to find out his exact plans. Sharif kept that intel to himself, though the CIA operative had reason to believe the Chechen was preparing to increase his war chest by unloading a major antiquity with disputed provenance. Such a transfer into the wrong hands could not only deprive the art world of a centuries-old artifact but also cost innocent lives if Sharif used the money to fund terrorist activities. His job dictated he prevent that from happening, though at times Caine abhorred the tactics he must employ to get intel in the murky netherworld in which spy craft was often on a collision course with international politics.

Taking a deep breath, Caine played down the suspicions in his mind and pulled out a wad of cash. He shoved it into the Russian’s face. “How much do you want to let me fuck the girl first?”

The Russian, aware Caine was baiting him, waved his hand away. “I told you, she’s mine.”

Caine could see the intent in the man’s black eyes that appeared deep in his face because of the dark purple half-moons underneath them. Even though they were smiling at him, he sensed the danger that lurked within them. He was wound up so tightly, any wrong move could set him into offensive action.

Caine stood very still. What if he was wrong about the entire setup and there was no meeting with a federal agent? Could the microphone he found in the planter be old equipment left over from the Cold War? The blue van nothing more than a bunch of kids smoking weed?

His normal MO was to catch the mouse, not when he was in his hole, but when he poked his head out of it. Not this time. Like a fisherman with his line, he had to know where to cast it and what bait to use.

He leaned over the unconscious girl. The aroma of this expensive catch dripping with her own juices greeted his nostrils and made him more desperate to satisfy his own needs. This wasn’t supposed to happen to him. He was trained to forgo sex when necessary. The last time he’d allowed a woman to get close to him nearly cost him his life.

He squinted through the black eye patch to get a better look at the girl. She ignited something in him dormant for a long time. And he had to put out the fire. Fast.

The Russian’s voice was flat like cardboard when he spoke, though his eyes blazed at Caine. “Why did Sharif send you?”

“After you left, he received information that the facilitator of the Italian cell is a suspected al-Qaeda operative and is under surveillance by British MI6 agents.”

The hint of a sneer played around the corners of his mouth as if he figured he’d catch Caine in a lie. “Why didn’t you contact me sooner?”

“I had to be sure you weren’t being tailed,” Caine said, choosing his words carefully. Sharif suspected the Russian was double-crossing him and he’d ordered Caine to tail him. “I’m here to escort you safely back to Paris.”

“Sharif told me there would be a car waiting to pick me up when I return.” The Russian knocked the empty bottle of vodka on the hardwood floor, breaking it. Caine jumped sideways to avoid glass shards scattering everywhere like chunks of ice.

“The plans have changed,” Caine said, gazing around the room with the eye of a man well schooled in the art of escape. No way could he allow the Russian to believe he’d let his guard down. All the while, he was gauging how to take him down, assessing his escape route.

“You’re lying!” the Russian yelled, then he swung at him, catching him on the jaw and sending him staggering backward. The man ripped off his eye patch as his knees sagged, but Caine didn’t lose his balance. Instead, he slammed a balled fist into the bridge of the man’s nose. Blood gushed, the Russian’s eyes shot upward, but he recovered and landed a punch on his shoulder.

Caine put his hand up to his face. His patch was gone. He became aware of a new threat. He couldn’t afford to have the Russian discover his identity.

He ignored the pain and used the heel of his hand to deliver a quick blow to the Russian just below the ear. Without so much as a grunt, he fell hard, hitting the polished wooden floor with a loud echo. While he was down, Caine calculated his next move. Instinct warned him to keep on the offensive, knowing the Russian was armed. He wasn’t worried about being disturbed by an angry hotel guest. The room was soundproof, a modern touch to combat the noise from the traffic and trams outside.

The Russian got up, holding his bleeding nose. “No German street thug has moves like that. You’re MI6 or American CIA. You bastard.” The Russian drew a heavy revolver out of his jacket pocket and aimed it at Caine’s chest.

Before he could fire, Caine kicked the gun out of his hand. The Russian attempted to grab him, but Caine executed an evasive side step then chopped down onto his forearm with the edge of his hand. Next, he delivered a blow to his throat. Before the Russian could recover, he shot a sharp low side kick to his knee, followed by a swivel punch to the heart. Finally he attacked the back of his neck with a chop on his spine with a hammer-fist blow.

The Russian slumped to the floor, his eyes dull with pain. Caine leaned down and slammed the man’s head and spine against the hardwood floor, then let him go. He didn’t move. Satisfied he was dead, he slipped his eye patch back on, then went through the man’s pockets. He was surprised to find a second gun, a Glock, along with a phony passport. Cash. Lots of it. Cell phone. And a plastic bag with—he looked closer—a microchip? More than likely, the Russian had intended to use it as a trade. Nausea made him recoil, then take a breath. So Ivan had extracted the federal agent and gotten the cash. He took another breath, a cleansing breath. He felt no remorse.

The asshole got what he deserved.

He searched his other pocket and his fingers wrapped around something small and smooth. He pulled it out and examined it. A tiny vial marked Narcan. The brand name for naloxone. The antidote. Also, a syringe.

He also found a train ticket to Paris, leaving tonight. And a train schedule with stops checked off with red ink. Scrawled across the top was a date. Two weeks from now. He grinned. This was it, the timetable for the delivery of the explosives.

He’d be on that train and surprise whoever was meeting the Russian in Paris with the news of the untimely demise of the ex-KGB agent. An MI6 agent dusted him, he’d tell Sharif, blaming it on the Brits. Only one thing didn’t add up: The girl.

If he left her here and the local Politzei found her, she’d be charged with the Russian’s murder, a perfect solution to avoid blowing his cover. But if she wasn’t dead when they found her, she could also identify him.

So, what am I going to do with her?

He inserted the needle in the rubber top of the vial and drew up the naloxone to the 1 cc mark, all the while thinking, Should I give it to her? Is that what he wanted? Think.

He sucked in air, forcing his agency training to take command of his senses. Something about the way her lips parted in a sigh, how she wrinkled her forehead as if in her dreamlike state she found no peace, made him insert the syringe into her upper butt and push down the plunger. Then he removed her tight choker, rings, bracelet and leather cuff on her forearm, along with her wig. He wasn’t surprised to see she was a blonde, having already enjoyed the sight of her pubic hair.

He put his hand under her neck, tipped her chin up, pinched off her nose, then sealed his mouth over hers and breathed into her. Long, deep breaths to rescue her from the damning void imprisoning her brain. The drug depressed her ability to breathe on her own so he had to breathe for her or she would die. Yet he couldn’t deny he enjoyed the honey-salt taste of her lips. Soft, full and so sweet. How he wished he could guide her fingers down to his groin and she could feel how hard he was.

But her hands were cold, her head thrown back, neck arched forward, breasts pointed and shoulders shaking. Pushing air into her lungs, Caine pressed his body against hers, his huge erection straining against the coarse fabric and round navy buttons binding it in his jeans. An urgency was building in him as little tremors ran up and down her body, and she started to vibrate like a windup doll with a new battery. He was breathing heavier now, holding back, though yearning to move his tongue in and out of her in a parallel rhythm with his penis, though it remained hard and unbending in his tight jeans.

“Oohh…” she moaned once, then twice.

Abruptly, he released his mouth from hers. He continued leaning over her, smelling the lemony-mint fragrance of her breath. She was breathing easier. No more heavy, short gasps. Her lips were stained a pleasing pink, not blue, her eyelids fluttering. She was going to make it.

He held her in his arms, not wanting to let her go. His breathing quickened and he groaned louder as his hands glided over her bare back, touching—

What was it?

Rough edges pricked his fingertips. Without hesitation, he turned her over onto her stomach. Shock, then a different emotion gripped him. Anger. Her back was covered with faint jagged lines. Scars. Surgically applied skin grafts had helped heal her ripped flesh, but they couldn’t completely erase what had been deep grooves in her back, leaving faint impressions of crisscrossing welts.

Caine fought back the revulsion for whoever did this to her, threatening to overpower the analytical section of his brain. The girl had been whipped, not by a kinky lover but by someone filled with hate.

Who? Why?

He had the feeling that although she affected a couldn’t-care-less attitude, she used that to protect herself. Not uncommon of women in her profession. He’d slid down the panties of many shapely femme fatales in dimly lit hotel rooms, whispering what they wanted to hear while their eyes darted to the cash left on the nightstand. He made them cry out in ecstasy, thrusting his cock into them, but never, never would he lay a hand upon a woman except to pleasure her.

He picked her up in his arms and her head fell against his bare chest, igniting a warm heat in him that traveled down to his groin, making him hard. Again. He pushed his own need out of his mind. That was an indulgence he could not afford.

But the smell of her stirred something in him he hadn’t experienced in so long the ache to conquer her made his blood hot. His need unrelenting. He wouldn’t admit his ego was bruised, if only slightly, when the girl in the beaded black wig had slipped away from him. Though he was certain she was of a venal nature, that didn’t deter him from wanting her.

Because she’d made him hard in the alley, rubbing her body against his bare chest? Teasing him with her nipples pointing through her black bra?

She was recalcitrant in her refusal to back down to him and that attracted him, even if his credo was that a smart man didn’t chase after women for the simple reason he had no time to bother with the hunt. He kept telling himself his main job was to obtain intelligence, not satisfy his carnal needs. He hungered for secrets in the same way other men needed sex. Besides, didn’t his training demand he clean the scene and eliminate the witness?

With the beautiful girl in his arms, he kicked open the door with his boot, then checked the hallway. Deserted. He made a quick exit down the backstairs.

Training, my ass.

He wanted to get laid.