Nigel Buss found out about the I.B.U. witness files from a Level 3 product manager he was sleeping with between divorces, both of theirs. He was quite fond of the woman, but since he was still new to Langley and feeling his way he pumped her for any information he could get. “Humping and pumping” among employees was the bane of the C.I.A.’s Internal Security Department, but in this instance the woman wasn’t being particularly indiscreet. At the time, Buss was Level 5, so the pillow talk, while officially frowned upon, was not particularly dangerous. Employees weren’t supposed to reveal secrets below their level of clearance, so Nigel never told her anything she wasn’t supposed to know. But she was less discreet, especially after bouts of vigorous sex. Once physically sated, she was a font of post-coital information.
After he got his hands on the lists, Buss went to his superiors and asked them if they would be interested in obtaining information that could not only prove valuable in fighting terrorism, but would also compromise many of the legislators who controlled the purse stings for the intelligence community. They said they would kill for such information. No, Buss said, I will do the killing. All I need is office space and some modest seed money to put together a team. They gave him a year to prove himself. That was five years ago.
Buss spent the first few months gathering his group. First, came the computer geeks. Their initial job was researching the people on the witness protection lists. Unlike the original C.I.A. analysts, Buss wanted to know why they were in hiding, and from whom. He still couldn’t believe how many people had been relocated. When family members were included, it was staggering. Then he and the computer nerds culled political figures from the lists: refugees from tyranny, scientists who had fled enemy regimes and the like. They also dropped “innocent bystanders,” ordinary citizens who had witnessed something they shouldn’t have. Next went non-violent criminals, such as mob accountants and other low-level mobsters that the prosecutors had forced into compromising positions with the threat of jail. What was left was a list that included mob assassins, rapists, child abusers and other societal dregs who had avoided their just punishment by testifying, or providing evidence, against others. It was still an impressively long list, made up of psychopathic thugs who deserved to die.
Buss had told Sudden that at first he thought about merely selling the names to aggrieved mob bosses in return for information and favors. But he wasn’t sure he could trust the mobsters to be subtle. Some of them might be so vindictive as to kill entire families. Moreover, the deaths had to appear natural, lest the U.S. Marshalls, the F.B.I. and state agencies become suspicious when their charges were machine gunned, garroted or blown up. So, his unit would do the dirty work. (Of course, he realized the hypocrisy involved in his program; some of the mob chieftains had countenanced or ordered murder and were sociopaths themselves. But Buss was a practical man. He couldn’t solve all the world’s problems, and was not inclined to try.)
He and his operatives would approach crime families and tell them that they could find and eliminate the traitors who had made their lives so difficult. The fees were high, even exorbitant. No mention of an information quid-pro-quo was made at the start. That would come later, when necessary, after the seemingly impossible was done. The “lone wolf” who first approached mobsters with the offer was later revealed to them as just the tip of a very lethal iceberg. A secret organization capable of finding people in witness protection and dispatching them without leaving a trail earned a great deal of respect – and fear – from mob clients. They were not likely to hold back when information was demanded from them. Even a Neanderthal like Fats Boudreau would probably come around. Buss had high hopes for Boudreau. New Orleans was a port full of secrets.
The information produced by the unit varied from the merely useful to the spectacular. Just the C.I.A.’s newfound leverage on Congressional appropriations through its knowledge of corrupt legislators was worth its weight in gold.
Since a certain number of people on various lists really did succumb to natural causes every year, the unit was careful not to skew the statistics by a noticeable factor. If 10 people in protective custody died annually across the nation, then a jump to 14 or 15 wouldn’t bother anyone. Most of the people in the programs were getting on in age, and were overweight, heavy smokers and hard drinkers. And, needless to say, they led stressful lives. What heart and liver disease didn’t accomplish, cancer usually did. As might be expected, there were also a few suicides and the occasional accident. But if 20 of them died, well, some bells might go off.
Ironically, the unit made some money every year on people it did not dispatch. Its technicians kept pretty close tabs on the lists and knew when someone kicked off naturally. Then, the secret was in selling the alleged hit before the word of the death got back to the vengeful customer.
Every operative has a favorite story. Sudden’s involved Buss, who occasionally took on a particularly delicate negotiation himself. A mob turncoat had been relocated to Alaska, where he went fishing for salmon and made the mistake of getting between a half-ton Kodiak bear and her cubs. Since he had presumably turned out to be tastier than a fish, all that was left of the man was a head, an arm and part of a ribcage. Because it took some time for the authorities to identify the chewed-over remains, Buss was able to sell the job to the Boston mafia almost a week after the snitch was consumed. He happened to be with the mob’s boss when they got word of the victim’s grisly death. The astounded don wanted to know how it was done.
“Trained bear,” the fast-thinking Buss ad-libbed. “You think all those people mauled on YouTube were just unlucky? I did a lot of dry runs with that bear.”
“Your bear? It’s the same fucking bear!”
“What? Do I run a damn zoo? You know how much one of those suckers eats every year?”
Everyone in the unit knew what their primary job was, even Rita. Not only had she been a C.I.A. employee for 30 years, but she had lost her daughter to a rapist-murderer who had never been apprehended. With advances in DNA, she was hoping the killer would eventually surface, and her “boys and girls” in the unit would do the right thing for her. She didn’t know that Sudden and the rest of the team had already vowed to settle that particular score on their own should the opportunity present itself. It was an assignment-in-waiting passed on to every new team member.
Rita had already left for the day when Sudden finished his debriefing. He had to drag Buss away from his paperwork to make their dinner reservation on time. But the meal was splendid and he still made it back to Southport just after midnight. He slept until 9 A.M., had a light breakfast and spent the rest of the day in his office writing, breaking only for lunch. At 5 P.M., he went for a two-mile run and then showered. He was due to pick up Sylvia Beech at 7 P.M. at the train station. They were going to have dinner at Oceana in downtown Southport. She was staying with him a few days. It wasn’t going to be all fun and games, although Sylvia’s resurgent libido insured that there would be plenty of that. But she was also going to copyedit some of Sudden’s fiction.
He wasn’t concerned that his new lover might see something in his house that would give an indication of his real profession. Even if she opened a wrong drawer, or got nosy, and found some weapons and spy craft, there was nothing that couldn’t be explained as the accumulations of a fanatic literary researcher.
CHAPTER 16 – SYLVIA BEECH
Sudden had known Sylvia Beech a long time. She ran a small Manhattan bookstore called Shakespeare and Friends that somehow managed to survive in Greenwich Village, probably because it was in the Village, where people still read books. She was a few years older than Sudden, divorced, and lived in a brownstone three blocks from her shop. He’d stopped into her store on Christopher Street and spotted a second-edition copy of A Moveable Feast by Hemingway. The e-version was on his Kindle, of course, but there are certain books one has to have in print, and that was one of them. It was obvious when Sudden bought the Hemingway that he’d passed some sort of muster with the lad
y of the shop. He and Sylvia chatted easily for a few minutes before another customer interrupted them.
She was a small, slight woman with lively eyes and Sudden made it a point to stop by whenever he was in the city. After a while, she even recommended books – including thrillers – to Sudden and shared a cup of coffee with him in her back room when business was slow, which was often. Without his asking, she stocked his own thrillers and gave them a prominent display. Sudden became familiar enough with her to tease her about her last name and the name of her shop, obviously a play on Shakespeare and Company, the famous Parisian bookstore.
“The other Sylvia’s last name was spelled ‘Beach’,” she told Sudden one day. “I just loved A Moveable Feast. She used to lend Hemingway money all the time. They were great friends. She knew he was the real deal even when he was broke and couldn’t afford a solid meal.”
Sudden’s Sylvia was an attractive woman. She even looked a little like Hemingway’s Sylvia in photos. In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway said she had great legs, which you could almost tell from one grainy photo of them standing outside her Paris shop. The rest of her body was hidden under those straight, formless dresses that were the fashion in the 1920’s. The current Sylvia also had great legs and a nice little figure but wore little makeup and dressed simply and a bit severely. Sudden, who did not usually date much above his age group was happy to have found a mature, literate woman as a friend. He had no intention to ruin the relationship by making a pass at her. He was actually quite pleased with himself about that. But, like most men, he found out that where women are concerned his wishes didn’t really matter
Late one afternoon after she locked up and they were having coffee she put her hand on his arm. He didn’t think anything of it. She often did that to make a literary point.
“Cole, can I ask you a very personal question?”
“Of course.”
“Are you involved with someone?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there someone special in your life. A wife. Or girlfriend?”
Sudden was a little surprised, but smiled.
“No. Not right now.”
Sylvia took a deep breath.
“Boyfriend?” She quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
He laughed at what had become known as the Seinfeld disclaimer.
“No. And I’m straight. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
She laughed nervously. Sudden noticed that her normally pallid face had colored.
“Then, will you do something for me?”
“Sure, Sylvia, name it.”
“Don’t be so quick to agree. It’s not your normal request.”
“Ok. Then, maybe I’ll do it. Is that better?”
Sudden suspected that she needed some money. The bookstore couldn’t be doing all that well. He decided he liked her enough to help her out. Sylvia took a deep breath and her breasts swelled against her blouse. It was the first time he’d really noticed them.
“Will you make love to me?”
Sudden stared at her. She hurried on.
“I don’t mean, love, of course. I mean sex. Will you have sexual intercourse with me? It’s been so long I’m afraid I’m going to shrivel up. I’ve been divorced almost 10 years. Naturally, I masturbate. I even have a vibrator, but I don’t like it much. It’s not the same. Did you know that women a hundred years ago were diagnosed with ‘hysteria’ and doctors invented mechanical vibrators to give them orgasms because manual stimulation was so tiring. I can show you the books. Their hands and arms cramped. There was even a Broadway show and a movie about it. Anyway, I want to feel a man inside me.” Her face was now fully flushed. “Am I shocking you? You look stunned. You don’t have to do it. I’ll understand. We can still be friends.”
Sudden realized that he must indeed have looked stunned. He couldn’t have been more surprised if Mother Teresa asked him to put down a trifecta bet at the Belmont Stakes. He said the first thing that popped into his head.
“But you’re so pretty. It can’t be that hard to get laid. It’s damn easy if you’re a woman.”
It’s usually never a good idea to say the first thing that pops in your head. But he got away with it, because she laughed.
“I don’t want to sleep with just anybody. It’s ridiculous for a woman of a certain age to hang around in bars and pick up men. I don’t want to get married, or live in the country with a white picket fence and a golden retriever. I did something like that once. I don’t even want an emotional commitment. I just want some sex.”
Then Sudden said the second thing that popped into his head.
“But I thought you might be a les … I mean, liked women.”
She sighed.
“This is harder than I thought it would be. I like everyone. But I only like sex with men, preferably intelligent men I can talk to before, during and after.”
“During?”
She put her hands in her face. Sudden gently pulled them away.
“Forget I said that,” he said. “Do you want to go to dinner, or something?”
“First?”
He nodded.
“With a woman as lovely as you, I think I’ll need all my energy.”
“You are such a gentleman,” she said. “Thank you for asking. But come over to my place. I’m a fabulous cook.”
***
Sylvia lived facing Washington Square Park. When they got to her apartment she handed Sudden a bottle of wine and a corkscrew and disappeared into the small kitchen. Soon, the smells emanating from the alcove almost made him forget about the looming sex. Almost. He opened the wine, filled a couple of glasses and brought them out to her. She was stirring beef bourguignon, which had obviously been simmering in a crock pot for hours.
“I like a woman who plans ahead.”
She colored again.
“It’s not what you think. I always make this, then freeze it most of it in small batches for later. I really didn’t think you would ….”
“Said the spider to the fly,” Sudden said, laughing gently. He gave her a glass of wine. “I’m only teasing you.”
She drank it all down.
Breathing heavily, she said, “False courage.”
Sudden took her glass from her hand and placed it with his on the counter. Then he kissed her, running his hands down her small, tight buttocks and pressing her against the sink. She put her hands around his neck and pressed into him. He knew she felt his arousal when she groaned. She pulled her mouth away and gasped.
“The bourguignon will keep,” she said hoarsely, taking his hand and virtually pulling him down a short hallway.
The bed had already been turned down. Sudden pressed her down on it.
“Please, hurry,” she said, as they undressed quickly.
The first time was awkward. They were still sexual strangers. The romantic desire that usually papers over the mechanicals was lacking, so there was some getting used to unfamiliar bodies. Not that Sudden minded getting used to hers. She had kept herself in shape. Knowing her nervousness, he went slowly. Every time a man sees and touches a naked woman for the first time, it’s a revelation. A fold here, a mound there, new tastes and smells, none unpleasant, a moan generated. Arousal and what followed was less of a problem for Sudden, of course, but after a very promising start, it was obvious to him that she didn’t climax.
“I didn’t think you wanted me to fake it,” she said, afterwards. “And it’s not your fault. I had plenty of time. Must be nerves.”
Sudden wasn’t ready for an immediate rematch but he knew what to do in other ways. Sylvia also helped out, with some breathless instructions.
“Not directly on its top. Rub along the sides. Like that. Oh, yes. Just like that. Faster. Faster. Oh, God.”
When she finally stopped quivering, she said thanks, and meant it. And after a while, he was ready again and the second time was better. It was always good to know what buttons to push.
When their breathing slowed, she said, “I didn’t fake that.”
“I sincerely hope not,” Sudden said, “or the stage is missing a great actress.”
“Let’s eat,” she said, laughing, jumping out of bed and running to a closet. He was relieved to see that she looked pretty good from the back. “I even got you a robe.” She caught herself. “I mean, I have an extra…. Oh, the hell with it. I just knew you’d agree.”
“I feel so used.”
She laughed and threw the robe at him.
“Come on, I’m starving.”
They ate and talked for about an hour, about anything and everything. Then she said, “Can we do it again. This time with me on my stomach. I like it that way.”
“Arf, arf.”
Sudden called the next day, of course. Not to would have been unchivalrous. He asked her, as delicately as possible, when he could see her again. She said she’d call him.
“I will, you know.”
She did, and they began an “affair” that was first centered on sex but soon evolved into something more satisfying. It got to the point that they could go to bed after eating her bourguignon. She’d tease Sudden that he was more interested in her cooking than the sex. But she kept the sex interesting, spiced with techniques from books in her store that she’d wanted to try out. And Sudden loved talking with her.
“The French used to call that kind of pepper mill a Rubirosa,” she said one evening as they enjoyed a post-coital snack. He was putting some fresh pepper onto his omelet from a foot-long wooden contraption traditionally wielded by hovering waiters in fine restaurants.
“This damn thing looks like a clarinet,” Sudden said, twisting the top of the mill over his omelet. “I feel like Benny Goodman.”
“You have to be the only man I know who knows who Benny Goodman was,” Sylvia laughed. “Anyway, Porfirio Rubirosa was a Dominican diplomat and playboy famous for his conquests, which included Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Joan Crawford, Kim Novak, Judy Garland and just about every celebrated woman in the 1940’s and 50’s. Eva Peron, too. So they say.”
TWO SUDDEN!: A Pair of Cole Sudden C.I.A. Thrillers Page 7