“Of course. Let’s head back to my hotel and compare notes. But we need a bottle of vodka first.”
“Just a bottle?”
“Okay, maybe three bottles.”
She laughed.
Stone wanted the Venus vodka he found at Bryant’s office, but it turned out that was only bottled in Santa Cruz, and not distributed anywhere. Since he didn’t have time for the trip, he bought a couple of bottles of Russian Standard.
He twisted off the cap and filled two glasses. He gave Tatiana one glass.
“Here’s to crime.”
They clinked and drank and sat at the table. Stone left the bottle on the table between them and scooted his chair closer to her.
“So tell me,” he said, “what is one of Russia’s finest doing in the United States?”
“I couldn’t bear being apart from you any longer, sweet Devlin.” She laid it on thick, accent and all.
She didn’t look like the secret agent or the sharpshooter Stone knew her to be. She let her dark hair, as usual, cascade down her back, while wearing a simple top and skirt.
Not that it mattered. Stone had already seen everything she had to offer.
More than once.
Stone laughed. “Sure. I’ll buy that for a dime.”
Stone and Tatiana had crossed paths several times on various missions in assorted hot spots around the world, always representing their nations well but often times at opposite ends, though one such mission had provided an opportunity for an alliance in more ways than one.
She shrugged. “It’s actually a serious matter,” she said, all business now. “Simon Lassiter is here.”
“I know. He’s my target.”
“Care to explain why?”
“You first. What’s Moscow want with him?”
“We want him stopped,” she said. She topped off her glass. “He has created a computer virus, a super-worm, bigger than Stuxnet in the damage it can cause.”
Tatiana continued, “Lassiter has a client. He’s not working on his own.”
“Really?”
“A Russian oligarch named Kazantsev Ruslanovich. Big man in Russian oil. He’s having a hard time. Criminal probe, frozen assets, the whole nine yards, as you might say. He’s hired Lassiter to unleash the virus across networks all over the U.S., and Bryant’s company is helping.”
“Bryant’s software is used all over the country, both private and public,” Stone said. “He wants to attack every network available?”
Tatiana nodded. She drank some more vodka and refilled the glass. “Wall Street is the main target. He wants to engineer a total collapse, so our oligarch friend can buy companies cheap and rebuild his crumbling assets.”
“If his assets are frozen like you say, it won’t matter much.”
“He has accounts not frozen, under other names, and they need a transfusion of funds, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure.”
“My job is to stop Lassiter.”
“Why does Moscow care about what happens to the U.S. economy?”
“Nothing, really,” she said, letting out a laugh. “But an economic crash here will affect us back home, and if word leaks that there are any Russian connections, well, you know, that could be bad.”
Stone swallowed some vodka. Indeed it could.
“Now, you tell me your story.”
“A friend of mine is dead because of Lassiter.”
“Ah, revenge. I understand revenge.”
“I was at the Bryant offices to try and snag data from his hard drive, maybe find out what you just told me. But that was a terrific disaster.”
“You aren’t thinking straight because your friend died,” she said. “You must remain cold and detached.”
Stone tightened his grip on his glass. Was there no room for emotion in his line of work?
Then again, she wasn’t wrong, he had bungled the office break-in a thousand ways from Sunday.
“I keep hearing that,” he told her. He grinned. “Are you up for some collusion?”
“Yes!” she said. “We will team up to stop Lassiter and bring down Bryant, because what the hell.” She poured more vodka into her glass and forced a refill on Stone. “A toast. To victory and revenge.”
They clinked glasses once again.
Presently they drained the bottle and Stone left the chair. He moved behind her and started massaging her neck and shoulders.
“Ooooh, magic fingers,” she said.
“Tell me more about life in Moscow since we last saw each other.”
“It snows a lot. It’s very cold. Mmmmmm. . .that’s nice.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Haha, liar.” She jumped up and poked him in the chest. “I told, now you tell. Come on, tell.” She gave him a shove.
Stone grabbed her arms, spun her around and slammed her against the wall. She let out a little yelp. Stone kissed her, hard. She responded, pressing her warm lips against his. Stone ran his hands along her hips and rear, pulling her closer, running his hand up her skirt. He felt the soft and cool skin of her legs and stopped when his fingers touched the lacy edge of her panties. . .
“Nyet,” she snapped, giving him a shove in the chest with both hands. But Stone’s fingers were still probing, and when the force of her blow pushed him back, he pulled her with him, the panties tearing, her skirt riding up higher. He turned her around again and shoved her toward the bed, hiking the skirt higher and ripping her panties off. He forced her legs apart and put his face between her legs, his tongue probing, any resistance Tatiana had built up melting away in a squirm and low moan. He felt her body relax as he licked at her pink center, her moans increasing and mutterings in her native language passing through her lips.
He shifted quickly, getting up on his knees to lift her top over her head, revealing a red bra (of course!) and the nicely cupped breasts beneath. He had his zipper down, his pants off and his cock out. He and started to penetrate her, just the tip, when she shouted “Nyet!” again and this time swung up her left arm.
Stone fell off the bed and onto the carpet, hard on his back, breath leaving him as she landed on top of him, straddling his body, unzipping the skirt and tossing it aside. She unsnapped the front clasp of her bra and wrapped the back strap around his neck, pulling the ends tight. Stone started to laugh until he started to choke.
She leaned down until her nose touched his.
“If you want to put your imperialist American cock”--her accent made it sound like “cook”--"into my virtuous and delicate Russian pussy, you will do it my way.”
Stone tried to reply but the words came out a strangled bark.
Tatiana laughed. With one hand she kept the bra right around his neck and with the other grabbed his erection and inserted it between her pink curtains. Her face softened as he penetrated, her eyes closing halfway. She let out a satisfied breath. Stone struggled to breath, grabbing at her fingers, unable to break their hold. His vision started to fade.
“Mmmmmm, so good,” she said, rocking back and forth and up and down, his erection sliding in and out. He barely felt the normally pleasurable sensation, the soft grip of her muscles. He continued clawing at her fingers, trying to suck in whatever air he could. She laughed at him.
“This isn’t your thing? You’re starting to turn red, my darling Devlin.”
Stone made rasping noises.
“Okay, I let go now.”
Tatiana released her hold and pulled the bra away, Stone gasping for breath and struggling under Tatiana’s weight as she continued grinding into him.
Stone lay there and let her work, catching his breath and letting sensation return to his body. She kept her eyes on him, her concentration unmoving, her breasts jiggling a little with each of her thrusts. Stone finally began breathing normally and a little faster as he recovered, and when she paused, he took his opportunity.
He grabbed her slender neck and squeezed, her eyes widening. She let out a little squeak of delight which gave
him pause, but he forced her off of him, rolling her onto the carpet where he pulled her legs up, resting them against his shoulders, and he entered her again and shoved as hard as he could, the woman crying out yes, yes, you can’t do it hard enough you American sissy, and that made him mad so he started pumping her even harder, his knees digging into the carpet for traction. Her fleshy thighs jiggled and the points of her breasts tipped back and forth and she rolled her head around in a state of delight.
One more shove and his body shook as he blew his load inside her, and her delight turned to discontent.
“I’m not finished,” she said.
He laughed as he pulled out.
“I win,” he said, staggering away. He fell into one of the chairs.
“That is not fair,” she said, rising, coming at him like a naked wraith. “You will do me until I finish.”
“Finish yourself, you crazy bitch,” he said.
Tatiana put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side. Her tits jutted at him angrily, the pointy nipples still demanding attention. “I will lay on the bed and finish myself,” she said. “By the time I am done, you will want to do it again. And then we will do it until we are both satisfied. Ready?”
“You’re wrong,” Stone said.
She stretched out on the bed, propping her left arm behind her and reaching between her legs with the other. She moaned as she parted her labia and started massaging the hood around her clit.
Stone watched.
She was right.
Chapter Ten
“We had a break-in at the penthouse.”
Earl Bryant did not want to hear those words after his rousing opening ceremony speech where he told everybody in attendance that they were all rock stars bound to change the world with their advanced applications, tools, and development prowess because tech was the future and those in tech were the future and we should all be part of a future run by tech just like the rock stars we are and he ended with an enthusiastic, “You’re awesome sauce!” The crowd ate it up. Bryant ate up the attention. The spotlights lit him up perfectly, his teeth gleaming. Now, as he faced Zahra Tajik and his head of security, Louis Mueller, back stage, the high from the speech was quickly fading.
Bryant glared at both of them and left the back stage area for a narrow hallway as a rock band took over the stage and started playing an instrumental piece.
“What happened?” he said, his eyes on Mueller.
Mueller explained the unknown man’s penetration into the building, using his cell phone to show Bryant security video showing the man moving about in a janitor’s uniform.
“What was he doing?” Bryant said when the video ended.
“We found a USB drive in your office computer,” Mueller said. “It didn’t take long to figure out his goals. The drive has the ability to copy everything on a targeted hard drive. He was after information on your CPU.”
“He couldn’t have gotten past my security.”
“The USB files were programmed with software that could, Earl,” Mueller said. “That’s U.S. government tech.”
The silent Zahra looked at Bryant with wide eyes.
“Is this man F.B.I.?” she said.
Bryant shook his head. “I have no idea. Where’s Lassiter?”
“In the guest suite,” Mueller said. “The intruder did not make contact with him and didn’t appear to realize he was in the building.”
Bryant took an anxious breath and ran his hands through his hair. “Okay. Okay. I need to stay here for the rest of the opening, and then I’ll go back to the penthouse.”
“Lassiter has seen the video,” Mueller said.
“So what?”
“He knows the man.”
Bryant froze. “Make sure he’s available when I get back,” he finally said.
“Yes, sir.”
Mueller turned and walked away. Zahra followed. Bryant let out a breath.
There was only one reason Simon Lassiter would know the intruder.
He was indeed somebody from the government, perhaps F.B.I., perhaps from one of the other alphabet soup agencies, and that meant they were onto what Lassiter and Bryant were doing.
Bryant had been providing safe haven for Lassiter since his alleged “death”, and he knew about Lassiter’s Russian client, and if the Feds were moving in based on evidence they’d discovered, everything Bryant had built up, legitimate or otherwise, was about to come crashing down.
It almost paralyzed him with uncertainty. He always knew how to attack a problem, but this was the big one. He couldn’t buy his way out.
The rock band ended its number. The stage manager tapped him on the shoulder and said he was due to go back out again. Bryant pulled himself together and offered the stage manager a big smile.
All right. They had some problems. Bryant had never allowed problems to bury him before, and he wasn’t about to let this new one bury him now.
The band walked off the stage to thunderous applause.
The applause continued when Bryant returned and started his warm-up announcement to their first speaker of the day.
“Who is this intruder and was he looking for you?”
Bryant didn’t even bother with hello.
Lassiter stood in the small kitchen of the guest suite on the floor directly below the penthouse. He blew casually into a cup of coffee.
He examined the red flush present on Bryant’s face and figured the man had either been drinking or was really upset. Probably the latter. There hadn’t been enough time from when the news of the break-in happened to now for Bryant to hit the booze.
“He was probably looking for me,” Lassiter said. He placed his coffee on the counter and spooned in some sugar and a bit of cream. He stirred.
“This is serious, Simon.”
“The man is Devlin Stone,” Lassiter said. He picked up his mug and faced Bryant. The kitchen counter separated the two of them. Bryant looked like he might jump over the counter and come at Lassiter, but with his weight he’d more like crawl awkwardly over the counter and probably fall on his ass.
“How do you know him?”
“He’s a member of the Eagle Alliance, a private military corporation based in San Diego. His old partner, Monty Stuart, is the man who supposedly killed me. When I sent Stuart a note saying I was alive and well and about to unleash something awful on the United States, he jumped off the balcony of his apartment building.”
“I’m confused,” Bryant said.
“You’re not the first.” Lassiter sipped the coffee. Still hot, but creamy and sweet as well. He smiled and licked his lips.
“Why did you send a note to Stuart?”
“Felt like bragging.”
“Your bragging has brought us a problem we might not be able to get out of.”
“They can’t stop us, Earl. Even if they arrest us this minute, the virus will go out and wreak the havoc we have so carefully designed the software to produce.”
“I don’t want to go to prison.”
“You gave up that option the day you took me in.”
Bryant moved his lips but nothing came out.
Lassiter continued. “Stone was trying to rip your computer to find out what we’re doing. They don’t know, Earl. They have no clue. All they know is that I’m back, I’m up to something, and Stuart is dead. What Stone did was incredibly sloppy. He’s more concerned with killing me than anything else, and it’s clouding his judgement.”
“You think it’s funny that you’ve made a fool of him.”
Lassiter shrugged. “I was here the whole time and he never knew.”
“This isn’t smart.”
“You of all people should understand, Earl.”
“Tell me.”
“You built this huge building, tallest in the city, for what reason?”
Bryant blinked.
“Because your ego demands it of you. My ego demands that I let the people who wanted me dead, and thought that they had succeeded in killing
me, know that they not only failed, but that I’m going to send them the biggest fuck you in history. And get paid very well in the process.”
Bryant swallowed.
Lassiter said, “They have to prove it was us, Earl. Once the virus goes out and the roots of the program delete themselves, trust me, they may know we did it, but they’ll never be able to do anything about it.”
“I have a feeling,” Bryant said, “that this Stone is a quick learner, and he won’t make a second mistake.”
Lassiter sipped his coffee.
“And I don’t think he has arresting you in mind,” Bryant said.
“Do you have an idea?”
“I think I do,” Bryant said. “It’s an idea that will take care of another problem we have too, that I’ve been keeping quiet about.”
“Really?”
“It’s fine,” Bryant said. “We’ll handle it.”
“That’s why we have your delightful security crew, Earl. I mean the ones from the mafia, of course. Mueller and his boys.” Lassiter smiled. “If Stone thinks he’s going to have an easy time of it, he’s got another thing coming.”
Bryant shook his head. He excused himself and went out.
Lassiter leaned against the counter and looked across the room at the wide windows looking out on the city. The sun was setting. Lights were coming on. The city looked so pretty from where he stood.
Stone contacted HQ to get a replacement for his lost SIG-Sauer P-225A1, and a local contact arrived at Stone’s hotel room with a package a few hours later. The contact could not acquire another SIG 225 on short notice, so he brought Stone another nine-millimeter automatic, this one a Beretta 92FS Brigadier with checkered wood grips and six spare magazine. The Brigadier looked just like the standard Model 92FS, except for a thicker slide to handle hot Plus-P extra pressure cartridges.
Stone slipped the bullets from his SIG magazines and loaded them into the Beretta mags, using extra ammo brought in boxes to make sure all the magazines were filled to their 15-round capacity, and slipped the new gun into the provided holster. He was familiar with the weapon from his days in the military; there would be no need to extensive practice before taking it into combat.
Zero Hour Page 6