He made a couple of small nods and said, “Just in case.”
“Did he say anything?” I asked him, “What did he say?”
“Oh, not much,” he glanced out of the window and I felt it. Not much that I’d risk telling you.
A red light made me stop. The weight of the tension in the car made it hard to keep still and stay quiet. I felt like there was a bitter lurking, waiting for whatever I said next.
“Look, I made a call, okay.” That was what it was about, and it was going to be about that until we got it out in the open. I felt like I was in a corner and I hated it. “I made a call to my SAC. Just to check in.”
“What is that, S A C?”
“Special Agent in Charge,” my heart pounded.
“Oh,” his lips pursed, “That sounds very special. How special is that exactly? Out of ten.”
“That wasn’t what got us…” I hesitated.
“Busted?” he taunted me, “Was that what you were going to say? That wasn’t what got us busted?“
“No. I…”
“No, because you can’t be busted, can you. You’re one of the good guys.”
Okay, here it was. Me and you. Us and them. He wasn’t one of us. I was one of them.
“Fuck the fact that I’m on an FBI kill list and you brought them right to us. And the fact that Noah went out on a limb to help us out. Who cares that you burned his damned safe house, right? However much time and work he put into that and he opened it to us.” I looked over at him. His eyes were smoldering and his voice was cold like steel.
“To you, Vesper.” His voice lowered, “He welcomed you and gave you his sanctuary, even though you’re technically the other side.”
“Oh, wait up.” My blood rose, “The FBI are ‘the other side’ now? I know you contract for a group called The Mafia that I may have heard of, but Noah? He’s ex-Delta Force as far as I know. Since when were Delta Force and the FBI not on the same side?”
“Read your history.” He snarled. “No-one has ever known what side the FBI were on,” that made my hackles rise, “Other than their own.”
Taking a turn I swerved harder than necessary. Even from the corner of my eye I felt the gleaming edge of his stare. I jerked the Jeep into the curb and hit the brakes hard.
“All manner of shit goes on at the political level,” I said with my teeth clenching, “I know it’s easy to sneer at the Bureau. There are movies and TV shows and comics and everyone can make a buck taking a poke at the G-Men, but let me tell you,” he turned his shoulders to face me. His teeth shone and his grin stretched. I wanted to slap the smugness right off of his stupid face. “Let me tell you that every instructor, supervisor and agent that I’ve had the honor to serve with is honest, hardworking and dedicated to upholding the law and they risk their lives every day in the service of the public.”
He just looked at me. My blood vibrated in my veins and I was hot, in my throat and my chest. And in my pants. Damnit. I was almost shaking.
“Alright.” I said, furious now. “Alright. You don’t trust me. I get it.” His eyebrow arched upwards. The one over the eye with the pale strip in the long lashes. The bastard. “So. The crook that works for organized crime, the guy who just got out of jail.”
That straightened out his grin. When his lip curled back, I knew what he was going to say. Damn, it was worth it, though. “Out of a five year stretch for something I didn’t do.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. You were the criminal, guarding the criminals to help them while they did some criminal thing, got jail for the crime he didn’t commit.” His eyes narrowed as his head dipped. “Yeah. Oh, just out of curiosity, while you were in the big house, how many guys did you meet who weren’t innocent? Hm? How many people said, ‘Oh, yeah, well I did do it,’ and accepted their sentences? Hm?” I left him a moment to chew on that. “And what makes you so different, soldier?”
I let him fume. I knew I was out of line, way out of line. But I couldn’t help how good it felt to let it out, just for a few moments. So I said, “Alright, soldier. Maybe that was a little strong.” He looked back up, slow. My stomach plunged about forty stories.
I said, “So.” A little more softly. “You think you’ll recover?” He moved toward me so fast I hit the back of my head on the window of the Jeep getting out of the way. I held up both palms.
“Alright.” I said, “Let’s test this theory.”
TOOK THE WHEEL while she called her SAC, using her own phone. Not one of the burners I got for us. I kept us in thick traffic. She tipped the phone so I could listen in. She told him she was okay, she wanted to check in. She told him, no, she hadn’t been at the warehouse in Queens.
“Why? What happened?” She sounded good. Clear. I would have believed her.
And she told him, “I’m worried. There was a guy in my apartment. He definitely wasn’t there for any kind of a chat. He did all of his talking with a pair of Glocks on automatic fire.”
The voice on the other end was low. Firm and controlled. Didn’t give much away. “So, Vesper, you should come in. Let us protect you,” You hear a thin, controlled voice like that in a movie, you know that’s the bad guy. How did she ever trust him, even once? “Come to the Bureau, debrief. I’ll see that you’re safe.”
“Of course.” She sounded good. Strong. Level. “The thing is, I can’t understand how he got my address. I’ve been so careful about keeping my whereabouts clean.”
“Maybe a tracker? Or maybe you’d been followed? It’s probably connected with that Horse character. You realize that, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Her eyes flicked over at me and I had the strongest urge to protect her, whoever she was, whatever she may have done to me. “Listen,” she said, “I want to come in. But would you come and meet me? In a public place? I’d feel so much safer.”
“Of course. Come to the Time Warner Center. One hour from now.”
“That’s great. But I’d rather Washington Square Park, by the arch. At two fifteen.”
There was a pause. “Alright, Vesper. No problem. I’ll be there.”
“Alone. Only you, SAC Crane, right? Just you and me.”
“Of course, Vesper, I’ll come alone. You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”
She looked at me. Her eyes searched my face as she hung up.
We had to do a little shopping. Some clothes. Jackets with hoods. A couple of mops and some other domestic things we could get in a department store. And we didn’t have too long. I really wanted to find twenty minutes in a quiet, dark corner of an underground car park. Urgently. Just her and me. But I couldn’t see how there would be time.
New York has the reputation for being fast. Immediate. Get things done. Truth is, there’s a lot of negotiation and haggle time around almost every transaction. To get a sandwich at lunchtime, you spend way longer waiting in line, giving your order and waiting for it to be made up than you’re going to get do in quality time with your carefully prepared delicatessen specialty.
The poor saps who work at desks, racing the clock on their lunch breaks, I bet if they get a sandwich from anywhere half-decent and a good coffee on the next block, that’s the break. They’ll get to eat it back in their cubicle, hunched over a keyboard or even with a headset, timing bites in the time between calls.
Finding your way around a department store takes long enough, and then getting service, plus the waiting in line to pay. But locating the entrance to the car park, finding your way in and cruising for a spot, there’s nothing fast about that. And, no matter how short and simple your list was, it always needed at least two, maybe three stores to get all of it done.
The second store we had to visit, the parking was fast, we were near a door, we found all that we needed and we were out again, back to the car. I figured we had at least ten minutes spare.
We stashed the shopping and she was climbing into the passenger seat.
I told her, “Get in the back.”
She half turned with
a grin she couldn’t hide. “Horse.” Just the look in her eye was enough to make me hard. Never mind the thrust of her fabulous ass. “There isn’t time.”
Her eyes widened when I slapped the leather stretched over the irresistible orb of her ass cheek. She scrambled into the back. “Really, Horse,” she was saying, “We don’t have time.” But she was unbuckling her belt and sliding the leather pants down over her thighs as she said it. And her tongue was caught between her teeth.
Pulling the door shut behind me I clambered after her. She was wrenching off her boots and pulling her pants off over her feet as I opened the front of my jeans. When my cock heaved out in front of her she grabbed it with a sigh and plunged her lips onto it. The warm press of her tongue on the underside felt almost too good, but I grabbed her hair and pulled her off.
I told her, “There isn’t time,” and shoved her back in the corner of the seat. Her creamy white thighs trembled as I shoved them apart. With my thumb I pressed through her panties, below her clit, down the soaking silky fabric where it clung to her plump pussy lips.
Roughly I pulled her wet panties aside. I kissed her hard and deep and felt the swell of her breasts as her back arched pushing her chest against mine. My eager cock engaged at her opening and she let out a moan as I held it there, just pressing upward. As I pushed, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.
Her wet eyes searched mine. Then, when I pushed in, her mouth sank onto my neck and she bit down. Her hips jolted and she made a long, hard sigh into my shoulder as I plunged all the way into her. Gripping and pulling my hair she stretched her neck. Then her mouth fastened on mine. Her body rippled in waves as I rode deeper into her. The rock of her hips dragged her yielding wetness tight along the hard ridges of my throbbing cock.
When I squeezed her breast she clung to me and pulled me closer to her. The slap of my pelvis against the back of her thighs and ass made me harder, thicker, longer and more urgent. The way her walls pulled on me made it hard to hold back.
When I felt her rhythm begin to rise, I moved down to saw higher into her, drag more against the high spot at the front. She shuddered. I had found the spot. I held back as much as I could, scraping her, reaming her with my cock. I made her twitch and shake. I slid down lower to feel her ass cheeks graze my shaft as it ground in and out of her wet depths. My balls slapped against her ass and she moaned as she clawed at me.
Her thighs and buttocks clenched in rhythm and as I pulled back to watch her eyes, her face lunged to seal us in another kiss. My hands grabbed, stroked, held and squeezed her all over. I gripped her ass cheeks and kneaded her curves as I dragged her, pulling her so I could thrust longer, and deeper into her welcoming walls.
I fucked her hard like that and she swelled and panted under me. When she clenched harder and faster, I knew she was ready to go over and I hammered her deep. Without mercy. She gasped.
The feeling of her below me, wrapped around me, with me filling her, the spasm and the hard, sobbing cries she tried to hold back, I almost felt her orgasm vibrate in her walls. I let my hips and thighs, my back, my mouth, and my cock, all run together, like a dance, like a steam train, like a rocket.
My pelvis was soaked in her hot, gushing juices as I let go and came, blasting hot bolts of love deep inside her. She cried my name.
The best part was afterwards. Holding her, having her nuzzle and snuggle in my arms, soft like a baby animal. Now I was worried. The need, the yearning. I was starting to fall in love with the lovely Fed.
My feelings had never gotten mixed up with my fucking before. This was bad.
To make matters worse, I couldn’t trust her. That didn’t sound like the start of a happy ending.
We sat at a table in a fourth floor cafe, with a view across Washington Square, nearly across from the arch. We left the Jeep parked in a quiet side street. I could just see it from the table. We were in position way more than an hour ahead of the scheduled time.
The trees were almost bare and I could see the far side of the square, the tables of chess players. Behind the arch, people sat around the dry pond with their lunches, and on the circle around it.
Thirty minutes later, Vesper spotted the first two vehicles, a black van and an SUV with dark windows. They slid into positions on either side of the square.
Two guys in tracksuits showed up and began to run around the perimeter of the small park, but they stopped frequently to stretch. Then, when they’d stretched, they changed direction and ran back the way they’d come, making a slow, heavyweight ballet with no rhythm.
Fifteen minutes from the appointed time, a group of four men and two women in neat business suits dawdled, chatting, staying near to the arch. As the time arrived and passed, a surprising number of people in all parts of the park checked their phones and watches.
“Two twenty-two.” I looked across the table at her. She was tense. The corners of her mouth were tight. I could tell that she didn’t like the way this was all shaking out. But from the start, I knew it wasn’t going to end her way. For someone coming alone, her SAC sure had a lot of unexpected friends in the area.
He should have showed himself. That was protocol. It was her meeting, he should be visible to reassure her.
The SAC was probably calling her phone. We’d left it in the Jeep and switched on. The mops were propped up on the two front seats, covered with scarves. They held up the hoods of the jackets, with hangars in the shoulders. The jackets were stuffed with pillows.
The group in the business suits melted away and the joggers talked into their cuffs as they left. Two black vans cruised quickly off the square, down the side street and passed the Jeep. The van doors burst open and about a dozen men in unmarked SWAT gear, helmets, visors, the whole nine yards, jumped out. They surrounded the Jeep and opened fire straight into it.
It sagged as the tires blew out. It must have been a twenty-five, maybe thirty second burst of sustained gunfire, straight into the vehicle. Then the men all jumped back into the vans, pulling the door shut behind them and they were gone.
The Jeep was a smoking hulk. It sagged on its own in the street.
Vesper’s face was white.
ORSE LED ME. I was shaken. We took a back way out of the café and left the building through the basements, by the carpark and then out to a service entrance and loading bay. Before we left, Horse stopped and held up his hand. He took out a throwaway phone to call Noah and set up a meeting.
He peered into the street, ready to go. When he looked back to me, he stopped.
“You’re a little pale, Vesper.” His voice was like a cool shower. I trembled as he pulled me against him. I felt the words in his chest more than I heard them.
“You were ready to see that. And you knew it. But you didn’t want to know.”
And he held me. Close. His kindness, his tenderness and his understanding were almost more of a shock than what had just happened. In a good way. Still, a lump of breath almost shook a trickle from my eyes.
At the precise, perfect moment, right on my heartbeat, he took my face in his hands. Bent his face down to mine. His voice was smoky.
“You’ve got this, Vesper. You can do it.”
I felt a well of strength open inside me. “We can do it.” But I almost went over the edge when he said, ‘we.’
As he held my shoulders, I straightened up and rose, feeling like I actually grew taller.
He smiled. “We’ll have to get some more changes of clothes, and we should have gotten four hooded jackets instead of two. For right now, we’ll take a cab.” He pulled the battery from the phone.
I pulled a smile back. “Yeah. Carmine’s going to be pissed about his Jeep.”
Hunter: Perfect Revenge (Perfectly Book 3) Page 16