RED MIST FALLING

by Richard T Green

  So my next move was clear-cut. Drop Zana off, then get straight on the phone to Coop, tell him what had gone down and that a hill in East Dunwich with the best-ever view of London had something to do with what was soon to happen.

  Clear-cut? Like fuck it was.

  I groaned desperately yet again, fighting with something I'd never battled before.

  Myself.

  Forty-five minutes after we'd left Dawson's Hill, I pulled into Zana's drive. I killed the engine, still she didn't wake. Silently I gazed at the girl who seemed to have captivated my soul and made me do crazy off-the-wall things.

  She looked so peaceful, serene.

  I knew she was anything but.

  And as I gazed at her, unwilling to disturb her sleep and the moment I was relishing so much, the feeling of dread came back, stronger than ever. I had just had another first-time-ever experience, and my gut knew the consequences of it all too well.

  I listened to my heart.

  The one I never knew I had.

  I reached out, touched her shoulder gently. In a millisecond she was awake, startling me with the wide-eyed look of horror on her face.

  It lasted a moment, and then she softened. ‘Sorry, Madeline. We back already? I didn't mean to fall asleep.’

  I took her hand. ‘It's ok, I'm glad you did. You looked like you needed it.’

  She wrapped both her hands round mine, lowered her head. ‘I can't face being alone tonight. Will you stay with me?’

  I nodded. As we walked across the driveway with arms around each other I glanced across the gardens, knowing someone not so far away would be watching. And knowing that later that day I would get the call to attend HQ and have a barrage of difficult-to-answer questions fired at me.

  I didn't care; later on was a lifetime away.

  All that mattered was right now.

  Chapter 17

  My heart was doing its impression of an oversized jackhammer again as we walked through the door of the apartment I wasn't supposed to be familiar with. I tried to say nice things about the place, but Zana wasn't interested in small-talk.

  ‘You want a drink?’

  ‘Only if you do.’

  ‘Think I've had enough, I just need bed.’

  Five minutes after we'd arrived I found myself under Zana's duvet, lying on my back waiting for her to finish up in the bathroom. My mind was running through a thousand scenarios, each one scarier than the last. But I knew now there was no choice, I had to find out what she was doing here; what it was that was making her suffer so much.

  Not for the department, for myself.

  But tonight wasn't the time for questions.

  ‘Thank you for staying.’

  Her sudden words startled me, I hadn't realised she was back in the room. I watched as she walked slowly around the bed in the soft light of the table lamps.

  She was naked.

  She was perfect.

  The heart that was already beating faster than it should hit a new high as she pulled back the duvet, smiled and leaned across on her hands and knees to kiss me softly. ‘I'm so glad you're here.’ She stretched out next to me and pulled the duvet up to her chin, I felt her hand slip into mine. ‘Spoon me please?’

  It wasn't a question I could say no to, she turned on her side taking my hand with her and cupping it around her breast. I caught my breath; she was so firm, her nipple thrusting into my palm as she pressed my hand tight to her.

  I spooned into her, my head pounding. She murmured quietly, flexed her butt into my groin, making me tense with sheer pleasure.

  She noticed, of course. ‘Why Miss deWinter, I do believe you are pleased to see me.’

  I didn't answer, kissed her gently on her shoulder, felt the perfect silkiness of her skin against my lips.

  She murmured again, guided my hand to her waist. I could feel the tightness of her abs as she breathed heavily, and her hand slipping around her back to caress my butt.

  Her touch sparked something in me. As she gently moved her hand between my legs, I felt like I was about to burst, turned her onto her back and pressed my lips into hers. As our tongues intertwined I pulled her to face me, cupping my hand around her butt to get her as close into me as I could.

  I was high, already. The kiss lasted an eternity; her trembling hand slipped between our bodies and a delicate finger found my clit. I cried out, the instant intensity of her touch piercing into me. Her lips were eating mine, and as her finger slipped in and out of my wetness I was lost in a mist of a passion I'd never experienced before.

  Suddenly she pushed me onto my back, throwing herself across me. I cried out as warm full lips replaced the finger, her tongue sinking deeper and deeper into me until it could go no further. My hands reached out desperately for her, running frantically down her back, cupping her butt. Her whole body was trembling, her crotch inches from my face but not wanting to sink around me.

  She raised her head, the lips and the tongue gone from me. I cried out, so high, ‘No... don’t stop.’ I could feel her smile, saw her butt flex sexily. I tensed involuntarily as something touched my clit... the tip of her tongue, the only thing touching me. Back and forth, teasing it with tiny movements, forcing it to swell and harden, faster and faster, and yet so delicate.

  I had to taste her too. Both hands grasped her butt, pulled her closer to my face. She parted her legs wider, took her tongue away from me again. She was gasping for breath; she stiffened her body, arched up and wouldn't let my lips reach the place they desperately wanted to be.

  I let her take control, the anticipation teasing me to breaking point.

  Slowly she began to relax her muscles. Her perfect buttocks were coming ever-so-slowly towards my face. I cried out again as her lips and tongue made contact once more. And then her butt was in my face, and my tongue deep inside her wetness.

  She flexed herself around me, more than I believed a woman ever could. Her clit was like a pebble, she began to arch up and down, tiny movements forcing her more and more into my face. Her lips worked me so beautifully, her whole body flexing and convulsing as sheer passion took over. I couldn't take much more, our bodies seemed to be welded together, my arms wrapped tightly around her waist like I never wanted to let go. Her head was shaking as she brought me to the brink of ecstasy, crying out as she gulped in tiny, rapid breaths.

  I could feel her pulsing, tightening around my tongue deep inside her. Her long blonde hair caressed the top of my thighs, its silkiness teasing my skin as her head moved up and down. Every muscle was flexing, her clit swollen, as hard as rock.

  She cried out, lifted her butt away from me. ‘Let it happen, Zana,’ I whispered, feeling her wetness on my face once more as she allowed me to sink into her. I closed my eyes, knowing the moment I could wait for no longer was about to come...

  ‘No!’

  Shocked, I opened my eyes, felt teardrops on my stomach. She was crying, her body shaking, not with desire but with pain. For a moment I froze, in that moment she rolled off me and ran to the far side of the room, crumpled onto the floor against the closed drapes.

  ‘Zana…?’ I sat up, trying to take in what I couldn't believe had just happened.

  She wouldn't look at me, shaking hands covering her face as she sobbed. ‘Please go, Madeline.’

  ‘But I…’

  ‘Please just go!’ She was shouting now, anger and fear making her voice hoarse. ‘It can't happen.’

  I walked across the room to her, wary and unsure. ‘I don't want to leave you like this.’

  She took her hands away from her face, looked straight into my eyes and spoke slowly. ‘Just go. I don't want you here.’

  I raised my hands from my sides, thought about protesting, but I'd seen that look before and knew it was pointless. I dressed in silence, as quickly as I could. At the door I turned, spoke quietly.

  ‘You've got my number, Zana. When you're ready to tell me what the hell is going on, maybe you'll have the grace to give me a call.’

 
; She didn't answer. Still sitting naked on the floor, she rocked slowly back and forth with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head sunk onto her knees.

  I closed the door behind me.

  Chapter 18

  ‘Good morning Madeline.’ The sweet but no-nonsense tones of Duncan Scott's PA filled my ear as I reluctantly answered the phone, knowing what was coming. ‘Mr. Scott has requested the pleasure of your company… immediately please.’

  ‘I bet he has.’

  ‘I'm sorry?’

  ‘I'll be there,’ I said sharply and killed the call.

  I wasn't in the best of moods. Being snatched away from the brink of perfect ecstasy was bad enough, but as I'd driven away from Zana's apartment with the early morning sky growing lighter in the east, that was the least of my concerns.

  There had been no time to sleep, and that would have been an impossibility anyway. I'd been pacing the floor in my own apartment trying to make sense of my life for just over an hour when the call had jangled my shattered nerves, because for a moment I thought it might be Zana.

  I knew if it wasn't her there was only one other likely caller.

  I changed quickly, didn't bother making myself too presentable. My mood was growing more foul by the minute, I didn't intend looking like the perfect field agent.

  Duncan Scott was going to give me hell… but I was sure as hell going to give it back.

  As I drove to Albert Embankment my mind worked through all the awkward questions I knew would be asked by the man with the spooky voice; made a mental note of the answers I would give, the excuses I would find that might just sound plausible.

  The lies I would have to tell… and make believable.

  I groaned inwardly. Duncan Scott was no fool.

  There was only one way I was going to stand the vaguest chance of getting away with the deception. The DIAL boss wasn't going to be mincing his words.

  So neither would I.

  I strode into the office from hell with a deliberately grim expression. The little man behind the big desk looked up, his face no less grim. Ryland Cooper, sitting in his usual chair, threw me a quick smile but didn't exactly look full of the joys of spring either.

  ‘Well?’ The eerie voice uttered just the one word, and already I was mentally wincing, hoping it wouldn’t show.

  ‘Well what?’

  Duncan Scott sighed; even that sounded full of menace. ‘Well, what the hell is going on, deWinter?’

  ‘Don't know what you mean.’

  The sigh of thunder again. ‘Treat me like a fool at your peril. Where did you go to pick up Zana last night?’

  I gave myself a mental slap, something like the real slap a coach gives a boxer just before he goes into the ring. I leaned over with my hands on the silver desk, and fixed a stare into the round eyes of the man sitting there. Time for round one.

  ‘And how would you know what I get up to after midnight, Scott?’

  I spat the words out. For a moment the chief looked taken back, cast a quick glance to Ryland Cooper who didn't speak. He quickly recovered himself, leaned forward and looked at me over the top of the half-round gold spectacles. ‘This is an unprecedented situation. I have to take all possible precautions.’

  I held his stare, even though I desperately wanted to turn away before it broke me in two. ‘That's bollocks, Scott. Just who is the mark here… Zana or me?’

  The little man ignored the question. ‘Just after midnight last night, you left your apartment without taking the phone the department gave you. You then proceeded to intentionally lose your tail, and three hours later arrive at Zana's apartment with your mark for company.’ He stood up, all five foot four of him, leaning across the desk matching my stance. ‘Do you not think I deserve an update?’

  I didn't flinch, starting to wind myself up. ‘I'll ask again, Scott… just who is the mark?’

  He turned away, walked to the big glass windows. ‘Zana is the mark, as you are well aware.’

  ‘Am I?’ I followed the chief to the windows. ‘You issue me with a tagged phone, watch me twenty-four-seven, tail me wherever I go… you got a hidden camera in my toilet pan? Just who the fuck are you guys anyway?’

  ‘You're being ridiculous.’

  ‘Really?’ I was almost shouting now, my face close to his. ‘So DIAL's modus operandi is to watch every agent in case they mess up? So who tails the tails to check them out? Oh I get it… everyone in the whole fucking country works for the mysterious DIAL, because everyone's watching everyone else. Is that what I'm missing here?’

  ‘deWinter!’ Finally Ryland Cooper spoke. ‘Sit down and put your ego away. Sit!’

  I sat, a little gratefully because I was shaking so much now with self-induced rage my legs weren't so keen to hold me up.

  ‘Look, Maddie. The plain truth is that you ain't a DIAL agent. We take extra precautions with anyone on temporary assignment, especially where… unusual women are involved.’

  ‘So you don't trust me then.’

  Duncan Scott, back at his desk, spoke as he polished his glasses. ’Should we trust you, deWinter? You broke protocol last night, and still you haven't given me an explanation or furnished us with any hard facts.’

  ‘Ok, I'll give you the facts. Fact one; Zana called me last night because she wanted to come home and she was over the limit to drive. Fact two; she called me because she trusts me. Fact three; that’s what you wanted, me to gain her trust.

  ‘Fact four; it fucks me right off when people don't trust me. I've done MI6's dirty work for five years now, and not failed once. So tagged phones and monkeys hiding in the shadows piss the hell out of me, ok?

  ‘Fact five; Zana said she needed a few days away. I doubt that was the truth. I picked her up from a late bar in Richmond. She was tired, slept all the way home. If I'd pumped her then I would have got nothing out of her. But now I know for sure she trusts me I can get more out of her. Are those enough hard facts for you, Scott?’

  ‘No.’ The little man put the now sparkling glasses back over his tiny eyes. ‘There's one fact missing. The suitcases?’

  I froze. The suitcases.

  My quick mind kicked back in. ‘She was driving a laboratory pool car, a white Mondeo. It was parked outside the bar. I transferred the cases into the BMW.’

  ‘Weight?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Weight. How did they feel?’

  ‘Um… just normal. There was stuff in them.’

  Duncan Scott turned his attention to his PC monitor. ‘Get out of my sight, deWinter. Give Coop the precise details of what went down last night. And next time you walk through that door, show a little more respect.’

  Ryland Cooper left his chair and shepherded me down the stairs. ‘Bit too much angst in that performance, Maddie,’ he said as we crossed the floor of the operations room.

  ‘You're not making sense, Coop.’

  ‘You're hiding something, deWinter. You ain't the first person to kick off in anger to cover up the truth. Let's go grab a coffee; you can tell Uncle Ryland all about it.’

  My heart sank. I thought I'd given a good performance to cover the lies. Maybe I wasn't as good an actor as I used to be.

  But now there was something else occupying my thoughts.

  Zana's single suitcase was still in the trunk of the BMW.

  Chapter 19

  We grabbed coffees and sat at a small table in the MI6 canteen. My mind was racing… until Scott had mentioned the suitcases I'd completely forgotten the one case that did come back with Zana was still in the car.

  And last night with all the high emotion flying around, so had she.

  But I breathed a mental sigh of relief, so glad now I'd put the case in the trunk. The car was sitting in the company car park two floors below us; if I'd slung it on the rear seat instead of the trunk it would only have taken one of the guys who knew the situation to glance inside the car.

  Then my deception would have been blown sky high.

  ‘Ok deWinte
r, spill.’ Ryland Cooper spoke curtly as he loaded three spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee.

  ‘You like a little coffee with your sugar, Coop?’

  ‘Quit with trying to change the subject, Maddie.’

  ‘I'm not. There is nothing to spill.’

  ‘That's pig-shit and you know it. I ain't been in this job six years without getting to know when folks are holding out on me.’

  ‘What is your job anyway, Coop? Just what do you guys actually do?’

  ‘All you need to know is that we nullify threats to innocent people before they materialize. That's your favourite word isn't it? Nullify?’

  ‘You've done your research.’

  The big man threw a slightly-sarcastic smile to me. ‘Oh yeah, I know things about you that you don't even know yourself.’

  I couldn't help thinking he’d hit the nail on the head even harder than he thought, given that just lately I was behaving like someone I didn't know. I decided not to say that out loud.

  ‘Look Coop, maybe… maybe getting to know Zana has made me see things a bit differently, that's all.’

  ‘Now you's terrifying me.’

  I grinned. ‘Can't ever imagine you terrified somehow. There's no problem, she's just… just different to any woman I've met before.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  The words were said quietly, but I noticed the slightly-uncomfortable look that passed over his face. ‘Ok Coop… so who's holding out on who here?’

  ‘You got all the facts you need. Just be happy your part in all this is helping to stop terrorism, whatever form that might take.’

  ‘And what is “whatever form that might take” supposed to mean?’

  He leaned forward, spoke the words slowly. ‘Listen good, Maddie - if this woman is getting under your skin then you gotta grab yourself a knife and open yourself up so she gets out of you… while you still got the chance.’

  I smiled mirthlessly at the somewhat brutal analogy. ‘Don't think that will be necessary; last night she kicked me out, said she didn't want me around anymore.’