Hiding the Moon

by Amy Lane

  “He would if I asked him,” Hamblin was saying, pulling Burton back to the conversation—and back to the com room, where everybody thought he was listening to Cramer and Rivers fucking some more. “But I won’t ask him.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Burton choked back a laugh, because Lacey should be sorry, the incompetent fuck, but watching him get all pissy around Hamblin was a lot of fun.

  “My. Men. Oscar could be a CIA plant—and that’s on me. But if he is, I’ll tell you this—he’s a CIA plant because you have done something to catch his attention, and that’s on you. All I asked for—all I asked for—was men. You’ve given me a few operatives that have proven very valuable, but you’ve also given me a few psychopaths who need a short leash.”

  “Like who?”

  “Leavins is unstable, bigoted, and a pain in my arse. He can be your pet from now on, but I don’t want him in my stable. Same with Adkins, same with Gleeson. And there’s also the twelve you sent into the field that didn’t return after you called them back. Twelve operatives out of twenty jobs. That’s not very good odds, you realize that, right?”

  “Those aren’t my only men,” Lacey said with dignity. “And I’ll be damned if you get your paws on any of the others before you pony up some funds.”

  “I gave you my cap,” Hamblin said, unperturbed. “You have about two million more before I stop paying out. Choose wisely, Lacey. Everybody needs to work inside a budget, even your bloated military.”

  “That’s insane! With the scope of our operations in Africa, South America—”

  “I can send Oscar out to take care of this target, and he’ll be back in two days, the target will be dead, and nobody will even know he was in town. Again, I recruit for intelligence, not skin tone.”

  “Well, lucky you—I’m sending out Leavins, Gleeson, and Adkins to make sure he does the job.”

  “Do so on your own dime. I’m not authorizing payment for three men to follow up on the one man who can do the job.”

  “Goddammit!”

  “Sure. We are all damned by God. I’ve made my peace with it, but you apparently need more cash.”

  And with that the conversation had ended, and Burton needed to scramble back to his original monitoring of Cramer and Jackson.

  And a short time to figure out how to fake Troy Gonzalez’s death, because that kid didn’t deserve to be shot any more than Ernie had.

  God.

  Burton confided in Ernie during his next midnight ride. And the next one, when Ernie had wanted to know if he’d make it to Christmas—even just for an hour, because Sonny and Ace had asked after him. He hadn’t asked because he expected Burton to be able to be there, but so Burton would know how important it was, the thing that kept him away.

  “I get it,” Ernie said patiently. “You’re so much more than just me.” He swallowed and gestured to the desert around them. They were huddled in the back of the truck, because even the desert got damned cold in December, but their skin was touching, and Burton could swear he’d never been more comfortable. “I… I mean, this feels like everything to me, but you… you’ve always had a bigger plan.”

  Burton closed his eyes and stuck his nose in the hollow of Ernie’s neck and shoulder. “The problem with pulling back too far,” he said, lost in the universe of Ernie’s smell, “is that the things you see close up can be way more wonderful.”

  Ernie hmmed and sighed. “You mean me.”

  Burton’s sex was growing heavy and full again, and his fingers started to pulse slightly against the skin of Ernie’s abdomen. “I used to be able to look at the whole sky,” he confessed breathlessly, frotting up against Ernie’s hip. “And that was all I needed.”

  “And now?” Ernie took Burton’s hand and put it blatantly on his own cock, which was already wet with arousal again.

  One want washed through Burton, and he couldn’t fight it. “I need to taste you,” he said thickly and disappeared under the cave of the sleeping bag to take Ernie’s hard organ to the back of his throat again. He’d just pulled it in, sighing happily at the bitterness from Ernie’s last climax when Burton had been buried inside him, when Ernie’s hot mouth took his own cock inside.

  Burton groaned and tried to think, tried to reason, but he couldn’t even see for the need.

  He needed Ernie’s come more than he needed to breathe, but it was hard to think, hard to breathe, hard to suck when Ernie was pleasuring him, fondling his testicles, skating nimble fingers to his backside.

  But he had to… he had to… he had to take care of….

  Oh my God!

  Ernie’s finger pushed inside to the first knuckle and worked around just enough to stretch. Burton broke off what he was doing to cry out, his head pillowed on Ernie’s thigh, his body shaking, nothing in his head but the supernova cascading through his nerve endings.

  “Ernie,” he sobbed. “Oh God… oh….”

  Ernie pulled him in deeper and added another finger, and Burton came apart.

  He didn’t just orgasm, he lost himself, an explosion of stars taking its place in the surrounding heavens, and when he came to he was shaking, whimpering, completely wordless and empty.

  Ernie had scooted around in the sleeping bag and unzipped the bottom so they were upside down on the bedroll, but Burton’s head was tucked against his chest, so that was all right.

  “Wow,” he said when he could find a word.

  “So,” Ernie asked, arching against him, still hard, “do you feel very small now or very big?”

  “Both,” Burton whispered. Ernie’s erection pressed deliciously against his abdomen. “Want to see?”

  “Mm-hmm….” And it was Burton’s turn to scoot down and take him into his mouth again, content and more than content, and then, after Ernie had cried out and spilled on his tongue, down his throat, he was replete.

  By the time he dropped Ernie, he thought he had a handle on the world.

  “Don’t worry about Christmas,” Ernie whispered against his neck. “It’s a construct. Think of me. I’ll feel it.”

  “I’ll think of you,” Burton whispered back. His stomach cramped. He wanted to say more. How could he not say more? But he was leaving—and like every other time he left, there was a possibility he might never come back.

  How could he not say more? How could he have let it get this far as it was?

  TWO DAYS before Christmas he was in Chicago, sighting through his rifle scope on a little apartment closer to the projects than the river, but in decent repair when all was said and done. Troy Gonzalez sat at his window, working on his laptop, apparently planning how to cash out all his cryptocurrency and buy a house in the suburbs to support his wife and unborn child.

  Burton felt bad for the guy—such a simple want, really. And he’d earned the money legally, fair and square, during his free time from his job as an IT guy at a local bank. Jason could get the kid and his family protective custody, and they could get them a small house somewhere besides Chicago where Troy could have a new name and a new job—but he couldn’t let Troy keep the money. As soon as the hit was faked, they were going to have to close down Freedom Tuba, the cryptocurrency company, anyway. All the money Troy had earned would be useless—but he’d still be alive.

  Burton scanned the area restlessly, not liking the feeling in his gut. He’d monitored Lacey and Hamblin again to make sure Lacey wasn’t sending another shadow after him like he’d first planned. But just like with Rivers and Cramer, there were lots of opportunities for the two of them to discuss relevant business when Burton wasn’t listening.

  The idea of one of Lacey’s bullies scoping out Troy Gonzalez and his pretty wife, Tisha, made Burton itchy.

  He checked on Troy again, trying not to smile as he watched him bob and weave to the music through his earbuds. At first Burton had assumed he was listening to R & B tracks, but after two nights of monitoring in between bouts of setting up the decoy plan, Burton had caught some strains of American musical theater through the
boy’s system.

  Hamilton today—but yesterday it had been Jesus Christ Superstar, and Burton was still humming it. The kid reminded him a little of his younger brother. The hair shaved on the sides and growing into spring curls on the top of his head was James’s style, and so was the narrow face and high cheekbones. But the build and the moves were all Ernie, liquid and boneless, like he was slinking through life. Troy’s wife adored him, and the day before he’d caught them dancing, the choreography pure AMT, which was where their jacket said they’d met.

  He liked to think that he wouldn’t have completed this contract even if he’d never met Ernie, but Ernie had pretty much clinched it. Burton could never take out another target on his handler’s say-so alone—he was about to become a royal pain in the ass.

  Burton scanned the area again, startling when he caught sight of a flash in a window two floors below him, to his left. What in the fu—

  Leavins—he saw the dark egg-shaped buzz cut first and the hands pumping a bullet into the chamber next. Oh fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck—

  A shot like this, at a shallow angle, should have taken him a week to prep. He had seconds. He swung his stock around, eyeballed Leavins’s rifle stock, for sweet fuck’s sake, and fired.

  Ten floors up, nobody heard the shot, but he watched in satisfaction as the gun disintegrated and Leavins leaped back, cradling his hand against his middle and looking around wildly.

  Burton swung the rifle around again and saw….

  Oh no.

  Oh no oh no oh no….

  Gonzalez was down.

  Burton scanned through the window, saw the boy’s face contorted in pain, saw his shoulder and arm soaked in blood. Oh no. Oh hell. Goddammit.

  Jason, we’re fucked. Lacey sent a shadow. Target is wounded but still breathing, and I tipped my hand to the shadow.

  Breathe.

  Burton breathed, hating himself for the panic. But dammit… this was a good kid. This kid hadn’t spent his life trafficking drugs or guns or hurting people. He was a theater major, for Christ’s sakes, and an IT guy and a husband and a father and….

  He breathed again.

  Breathing, sir.

  Ambulance is coming. We’ll pronounce him DOA and take him then. Do you have a cover story?

  Yes, sir.

  Well, he had one now.

  Then we’re solid. You deal with the bad guys, I’ll take care of the good one. Deal?

  Yes, sir. It’s easier when they’re bad guys.

  But not ever easy.

  No. Not ever easy. Burton could admit that now when his adrenaline was up and his heart was raging in his chest. He scowled through the scope at Leavins and made sure he had the weasel’s attention. Leavins had binocs now, covered in blood from his injured hand, and Burton extended his middle finger slowly and unmistakably.

  Yeah. Burton and Leavins were going to have unfinished business until Leavins was dead and Burton was standing on his throat. It was never easy—but bad guys needed to be taken care of.

  It was his fucking job.

  THE NEXT day he was in Lacey’s office, rolling his eyes so far back in his head he was afraid they were going to pop out.

  “What in the fuck do you mean by injuring your own goddamned operative when he was executing the duty that you plainly failed to—”

  “I don’t answer to you,” Burton said, crossing his arms and standing hipshot. Every fiber of his being screamed against the breach in protocol—but goddamn if he was going to let this… this cockroach lecture him on duty.

  Lacey turned purple, spitting in his rage, and Hamblin laughed softly.

  “No, you don’t, Oscar—you answer to me. And while this is more entertaining than Christmas dinner, perhaps you could explain yourself?”

  “The target wasn’t military—”

  “So?” Lacey snarled.

  Burton looked at Hamblin, head tilted, and waited.

  “So why would he get shot in his own apartment building, through a window, ten stories up,” Hamblin supplied, as though talking to a child. “Were you trying to skywrite ‘This is a hit!’ or did you think people wouldn’t care?”

  “It’s fucking Chicago—kids like that are getting gunned down on street corners—”

  “Not musical theater majors and not in this neighborhood,” Burton said evenly. “Or did you think brown people just walk around with their heads exploding like it’s a skin condition or something?”

  “Nice neighborhood?” Hamblin asked curiously.

  “Not quite upscale, but that’s where he was heading,” Burton told him. “Judging by his finances, he was looking to invest that cryptocurrency in a house in the burbs. And now that winky-fingers there took him out through his window from across the street, the cops are going to be looking into that too. Now I was going to take him out at the ‘L’ today, a bump, a trip, the third rail, too bad, so sad, such a nice lad.” Actually, a well-dressed corpse donated to medical science had been going to take the fall, and one of Jason’s people had been going to hustle Gonzalez out to meet his pretty young wife at an undisclosed safe location. As it was, they’d had to declare Gonzalez DOA and make the switch in the morgue, where he’d been revived and stitched up sans his left arm at the shoulder. Such a horrible fucking waste—but at least the kid was breathing. “See,” Burton continued, letting his fury show, “I could do that because I studied his jacket, knew his patterns, and knew when he was going to be there and how many people would be there and where to take care of it where nobody would see. But this asshole has to shoot him through a tenth-story window from across the street.”

  “How was I supposed to know!” Leavins snarled, cradling his bandaged hand. From what Collins had let slip, the asshole had almost lost his finger, and Burton was only sorry it was almost.

  “Never pays to shoot early, does it?” he taunted, gratified when Leavins swung at him—with his maimed right hand.

  Burton caught his fist and squeezed, smiling when sweat immediately popped out on Leavins’s brow. Leavins gave a whine and his knees buckled, and Burton kept up the pressure, right up until the guy looked like he was going to puke.

  “Do it on my shoes and I’ll kick you in the jaw so hard it snaps your neck,” he said pleasantly, letting the fury boil through him. “Don’t ever… don’t fucking ever fuck with my op again.”

  He let go of Leavins’s fist and leaped back just as the other man lost his cookies all over the chipped tile of Lacey’s floor.

  He met Lacey’s eyes steadily as Leavins finished heaving. “Are we done here?”

  Lacey looked at his pet bulldog, sniffling on the floor, and recoiled at the smell. “You may go,” he said, his own fury barely contained.

  Burton turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  He was halfway down the corridor, heading for the bathroom so he could wipe off his shoes, when Hamblin caught up with him, running a little.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “That’s one soldier I couldn’t take as ballast, I’m afraid. I don’t know why Lacey thought having him shadow you was a good idea.”

  Burton swallowed a retort and remembered that this man was supposed to be his boss.

  And that he wasn’t stupid.

  “The whole op was a bad idea,” he said, judgment dripping from his voice.

  “Well, yes, but then we can’t always choose our targets, can we?”

  Burton paused at the door to the bathroom and waited, saying nothing to the obvious rebuttal.

  Hamblin let out a sigh and dragged a hand through his oiled, combed-back hair—the first time Burton had seen him look less than put-together in his five weeks here at the base.

  “Look, Oscar? I know you’re pretty disgusted with Corduroy so far, and I have to say, taking Lacey up on his deal seems like a worse idea every day. I’m just hoping….” He grimaced. “Just, this thing is going to fall apart—or it’s not. And Lacey’s going to end up dead—or he’s not. But eith
er way, I will eventually take my men and go. I know you just got here, but would you consider coming with us?”

  Burton swallowed. “I have no loyalty to Lacey,” he said through a dry throat, because that was the truth right there.

  “Well, my loyalty runs out with his money and his troops. I’ll hold a space for you when this whole op goes tits-up.”

  Well, as far as assassins went, it was a fair offer. “Thank you, sir, that’s kind.”

  “Just keep using your brain—and don’t kill Lacey until the right time. No matter how much you’re tempted.”

  Burton let a smile slip through. “Roger that.”

  “Thank you, Oscar. I think we can do some great things together.”

  Burton nodded. “That remains to be seen.”

  “Well, thank you for letting me try.”

  Hamblin turned to go, and Burton opened the bathroom door, desperate to get the smell of vomit off his boots. Before he could achieve his objective, though, Hamblin bought his soul for a few short sentences.

  “Oh, and Oscar? Take the next three days off. Didn’t you say Rivers and Cramer were going somewhere for the holidays?”

  “A friend’s house in Crescent City,” Burton lied. It was actually closer, in the Sierra foothills near Tahoe, but they talked about the mountains and the water often enough and vaguely enough that he’d been able to carry the deception.

  “They’ll be there for three days?”

  “Yes, sir.” It was five, with a day near a shooting range, because Rivers had been promising to teach Cramer how to defend himself.

  “Good. You take three days off and come back a new man. I promise you, Commander Lacey and his pet gargoyles won’t seem nearly as killworthy when you return.”

  Burton had to smile. He wasn’t sure about them not being killworthy, but it was, in fact, a kind gesture.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll leave tonight.”

  “Where do you go when you head out, Oscar? Your trips are just long enough to be anywhere.” True—they were three hours from LA, San Diego, even five hours from Vegas. Burton wasn’t going to tell him he went less than an hour east toward Victoriana.