Raise the Red Flag

by Eric Del Carlo

  J.C. slipped his arms around his waist. Hamilton closed his over his narrow shoulders. He felt the taut vibrancy of the younger male, still possessed of an adolescent springiness. They pulled each other closer on the couch. The kiss deepened. Hamilton felt his whole being falling away into that agile mouth.

  But the need for a steady breath finally broke the contact. Hamilton was panting. His body seemed ablaze, far more aroused than from the sight of the debauchery elsewhere in the room. He held on to J.C., a wild part of him vowing to never let go. How beautiful he was, Hamilton could clearly see now. Already his image was burning itself into Hamilton’s mind. He knew he would never forget this face, never lose the memory of this sublime kiss.

  J.C. appeared to be having a similar reaction, gasping for breath with wide, surprised eyes, as if he hadn’t expected the kiss to be so intense.

  “That was… nice,” the blond youth murmured.

  A giggle—an actual giggle—escaped Hamilton. His dismay of earlier was forgotten. Somehow in this chaos of male-upon-male carnality he had met this glorious person, this lovely blond elf. Who was winsome. Who was considerate. Who came across as intelligent and witty. Hamilton could imagine more than just taking to a bed—or a couch—with this young man. His mind started to shamelessly fashion further scenarios. Dinners shared, trips to the theater, moonlit walks by the riverside. And later, back to their rooms, where they would undress at leisure and go hand in hand to the bedchamber, there to enjoy all the tender caresses and more frantic touching, which their union would allow and demand.

  It was all the rankest fantasy, and the more rational side of him knew this instantly. He also suspected, with clinical deduction, that some of this overblown reaction was simply due to pent-up frustration. Months of it. Providence, Rhode Island, felt far away and long ago, and he hadn’t known the touch of another man since that night with Percy. Also the stress of being on maneuvers so long must be contributing to his response.

  J.C. continued to gaze at him wonderingly.

  Hamilton said, hoarsely, “I want you.”

  “I want you too. Something awful I want you. But… would you like to go elsewhere? I’ve an apartment. Third story. A ceiling fan in a bedroom with a purple ceiling. Or maybe you’d rather stay here, as you forked out quite a fare to good ol’ Cameron and might want your full money’s worth.” His eyes gleamed in their sockets.

  Hamilton still had his arms around the younger shaggy-haired male. Their faces were inches apart. “Yes. Take me out of this lair. I wish to taste you and have you and know you in every way possible.” The poetical phrases tripped off his tongue. He imagined reading love poems to this man as they dozed together, naked and sated.

  A grin sprang to J.C.’s features, a grin pliant and fierce and perhaps a little strained. When he spoke, his voice had a strange edge to it, but the words thrilled Hamilton: “We’ll have all the time we could want. Come along, Archer!”

  IT WAS difficult to reset his bearings. It seemed almost a mechanical operation, as when his chief engineer needed to recalibrate some system or other to keep the Indomitable functioning at full steam.

  The streets of the French Quarter looked surreal now. He wanted to shout his joy to the people they passed. Tonight he would know carnal bliss with the blond J.C. Tonight he wasn’t an Airborne captain, bound by moldy moral strictures. He could be the man he was, the true man inside.

  His cock continued to pulse, but he had arranged himself inside his trousers so that the bulge wasn’t too flagrant. J.C. was at his side, directing their course along the sidewalk. He couldn’t remember if J.C. had said which street his apartment was on, only that it was somewhere within the Quarter. So they were just minutes away at most. No need to go back for the electricar he had requisitioned.

  They turned a corner onto an empty stretch. A hulking military truck was parked at the curb, no longer in official service by its dilapidated look. As they passed it, a door in its side clunked open. Hamilton, heart still beating a speedy tattoo, wanted to walk with his arm about J.C.’s shoulders or to take his hand, just like some of the “normal” couples they’d passed. But of course that couldn’t be. It was acceptable—on a certain illicit level—to stuff a backroom with half-naked homosexuals and let them sodomize to their hearts’ content. But it was something else, something totally unacceptable, to allow two men to express even the least physical affection for each other in public. What a silly world, Hamilton thought with a distant giddy amusement.

  Abruptly there came a flurry of activity immediately behind them; then, without warning, it was upon him. Strong hands seized his arms and wrenched them behind, putting painful strain on his shoulder sockets. At the same time a cloth gag was pulled brutally tight over his mouth, cutting off any sound he might make. His assailants began to immediately manhandle him backward, apparently toward the shabby military truck.

  Hamilton wasn’t a helpless individual. He’d had a great deal of physical training, as well as practical experience. But something thwarted any resistance to this assault he might have given. He saw, to his utter dismay, that J.C. had neatly stepped aside from this commotion and was merely watching with hands in his pockets, a melancholy look on his comely face. He made no move to help.

  So when Hamilton did make his attempts to twist and kick and punch his way out of trouble, it was too late. His wrists had been bound. A rope was thrown around his knees and firmly cinched, and he was bodily lifted into the truck through its side door. At least two men had grappled with him. There seemed a third within the enclosed back of the vehicle.

  But it was the sight of J.C. walking calmly toward the truck, stepping up into it, and pulling closed the door that undid Captain Hamilton Arkwright as nothing else could have. The fight went out of him all at once.

  The truck’s whining electric motor came to life, and the vehicle lurched away.

  THREE.

  JONNY CALLAHAN had foreseen several different outcomes for tonight’s caper. There was success, of course, where everything went according to plan. It was good to contemplate that scenario before any job. It gave one a blueprint. A canny criminal could work from that, calculating all the places where things might go awry, and then preparing contingencies.

  That led to the envisioning of the complete failure scenario, where everything fell to shit. It was wise to give that some thought too. It let one insulate against outright panic if things started to go dodgy.

  In one, the game ended in celebration. In the other, catastrophe. What Jonny hadn’t considered with this job for which Brixton had recruited him was the possibility of total success… followed by gut-churning regret.

  The truck whined along. He was in the back with Brixton and two of his bruisers, the big Mexican who’d grabbed Jonny earlier and an Irish-looking brute with a dull face and clever eyes. Someone else was driving. Jonny still didn’t know everybody on this crew, which had no connection whatever to Kane’s gang, Brixton had said, despite the fact that Brixton had been one of Kane’s lieutenants the last that Jonny knew. There had been no time for full introductions or explanations. Jonny had had to concentrate on his task at hand.

  Now that task was done, and Hamilton Arkwright—or Archer, as he’d presented himself—was captured. Jonny had used the moniker J.C., choosing it on the spot, though really it was something Kane had suggested he do the first night they’d played rompy-pompy in the warehouse. A good criminal needed a false name, Kane had said. J.C. would do nicely, Jonny thought.

  Squatted on the floor of the military surplus vehicle, he shook his head imperceptibly. Arkwright made a pitiful sight, bound and gagged, dumped there at Brixton’s feet. Jonny had been in the car outside the Algiers Airdock, crouched down in the back seat. Yet another member of Brixton’s crew had driven after Arkwright, over the bridge, and into the Quarter. After that, Jonny himself had pursued on foot. Brixton had seemed confident that the captain would enter a queer bar tonight, though Jonny had no idea how he was getting such sensitive i
nformation.

  But lo, Arkwright had gone right into the Rookery. It was almost too perfect. Jonny had waited a moment so as not to arouse suspicion, then had entered as well, and from there he’d played things with a light, masterful touch.

  It had been fine up until the kiss. That kiss.

  Arkwright’s eyes were wide in the dimness of the back of the truck. Jonny saw no surrender in that gaze. The military man’s auburn hair was in disarray, and the gag gave him a fearsome grimace. He didn’t writhe about, wasting energy. He had seen the two big men. He eyed Brixton. However, he spared no look for Jonny, surely having already made up his mind about him.

  That thought roiled Jonny’s already upset insides. He felt, on some crazy level, that he had let Hamilton Arkwright down, and that disappointment somehow seemed worse even than failure would have been.

  Brixton and the two big men all wore long coats, despite the summer heat that persisted into the nighttime. The three appeared to have on the same colored trousers as well. Jonny could hardly credit the fact that a few short hours ago he’d been sprawled beneath Malcolm’s ceiling fan, abusing his wicked stick with wanton images of Kane in his head. He supposed he would never see Malcolm again, not that it was so terrible a tragedy. The balding financier could find some other plaything in the Quarter. That was what the Quarter was for.

  It was too bad Hamilton Arkwright had gone looking for the same sort of fun there.

  No, Jonny reminded himself sharply. It was good that he had pulled off this job. Brixton had promised a handsome payment, more than enough for Jonny to get out of town on—for leaving seemed the sensible thing to do now, what with his involvement in the abduction of a Royal Fleet captain. Arkwright had done a stupid thing. He’d put himself in jeopardy. The Brit military didn’t condone faggoty behavior, so in a way he had gotten what was due him, and Jonny had simply been an instrument of that inevitable fate.

  But there was no kidding himself. He hated what he’d done to Arkwright. He wished they were still back there at the Rookery, sharing that amazing kiss. Something true and potent and very unexpected had sparked between them during that contact.

  It was something else Jonny wouldn’t have credited. He had kissed lots of men—lots. Until the act meant little more than an inhalation of breath. Until all the males he’d kissed over the course of his young life had blurred into an immaterial mass.

  Yet, incredibly, it had been different with Captain Hamilton Arkwright.

  Brixton, who was blandly watching the captain, now reached behind the crate he sat upon and brought out a canvas duffel. He then produced a pistol.

  “We retrieved your bag out of your vehicle. Your naval uniform is inside. You will be untied so you can put it on. If you don’t put it on yourself, it will be done for you. Nod if you agree to cooperate.”

  Brixton had spoken in a tone of soft reason. His two hulking operatives waited at the ready. Arkwright stared back at Brixton a moment. Then he nodded once, sharply.

  The Mexican untied and ungagged him. Irish watched. Brixton held the pistol on Arkwright while he changed. Jonny tried to keep his gaze as flat as the others, but his pulse quickened as he saw the captain in his skivvies. The regulation military underpants snugged his taut backside and teased Jonny with a brief, stark outline of the auburn-haired man’s genitalia.

  I should be sucking on that cock right now, Jonny thought bitterly. He could have been. If he and Arkwright really had been going back to a private room earlier. If Jonny hadn’t been deceiving him from the start. He could be slurping and feasting on that no-doubt delectable manhood right this minute. Dammit! Why couldn’t Hamilton Arkwright have been some loathsome Brit? A man with bad skin and bad teeth, who Jonny would have as soon spat on as kissed.

  Instead he’d had to be this lovely example of masculinity, with a firm physique and suave manners, intelligent and alluring. A prince of a jackyank—for that was what he had to be, lacking any trace of an English accent. Born on American soil, likely the son of an officer. Probably his whole ancestry was military, serving back to the time of King Hoarfrost III or whoever the hell.

  Yet he had been unfortunate enough to be in command of an airship—no doubt the Crimson Talon class that Jonny had seen above the Quarter earlier tonight—and unfortunate enough to be a pansy as well, a disadvantage that Brixton had figured out how to exploit. Poor Hamilton. Poor, poor Hamilton.

  Jonny tried to snap himself out of it as the captain finished donning his uniform, neatly keeping his balance as the truck continued to rumble along. Jonny reminded himself that this man served the oppressive British Empire, which had kept the Colonies hard under its thumb for a century and more. Though Jonny wasn’t any would-be radical advocating armed uprising, he had no love for the Brits. Still, Arkwright did look rather smart in that uniform.

  Suddenly he froze. He blinked. It hadn’t occurred to him until this very moment that Brixton and his confederates might themselves be part of the Colonial Underground. The thought simply hadn’t surfaced before, and Brixton had told him precious little beyond what was immediately required of him on tonight’s caper. If he’d given the greater picture any thought, he would have assumed they were taking the captain and his airship for a ransom.

  Brixton gestured to his associates, who started removing their long coats. To Arkwright he said, “Here is how it will happen. We will arrive at the Algiers Point Airdock in a moment. I will do most of the talking. When the duty officer asks you for confirmation, all you need say is ‘Those are the orders.’ Say that now.”

  Arkwright’s square-jawed face betrayed nothing, but Jonny sensed a quick mind in action behind those eyes. His gaze was drawn away from the captain as he saw, to his surprise, that the two big men were dressed in uniforms beneath the coats. Brixton, gun still trained on Arkwright, was undoing his own coat with his free hand. He too wore a Brit naval costume, that of an officer. Jonny saw that he outranked even the captain.

  “Say the phrase,” Brixton repeated.

  “Those are the orders,” Arkwright said clearly.

  By the changed sound of the truck’s tires, Jonny knew they were crossing the bridge. This caper was about to go into its next phase.

  It was also where Jonny’s part in the plan was to end. He’d done his bit. Brixton had said his payoff would come just outside the airfield. He would be on his own with his money after that, free to make his way. He hadn’t yet given any real thought as to his next destination. It was a big continent, with lots of places to run to.

  Brixton’s blue eyes flicked toward him. Kane’s former lieutenant offered the ghost of a smile. “Time for your compensation.”

  The words made Jonny cringe inwardly. They were the stark admission before Arkwright that he was indeed the betrayer, a true Judas. Pieces of silver paid for his treachery against his might-have-been lover. The regret gnawed at him, but his sizable payment would help him to put all this behind him. Eventually, surely, he would forget about Captain Hamilton Arkwright and the kiss they had shared. After all, Jonny wasn’t some lovesick boy. He wasn’t.

  The Mexican man moved suddenly. He handled Jonny with the same iron-hard hands as before. Jonny barely had the chance to struggle. His hands were bound behind him, and the same gag that had been in Arkwright’s mouth was abruptly in his. He made a muffled cry.

  “I told you you would have the chance to serve your native land tonight,” Brixton said. “I’m afraid we have to ask more of you, and this time I couldn’t trust you to say yes.” He consulted a pocket watch. “Everything is in motion.” His voice was heavy and distant.

  Arkwright chose that instant to make his move. It was a good choice, no doubt calculated with military precision. He lunged toward Brixton, jamming a forearm against the man’s throat and grabbing for the pistol. His fingers were inches away when the Irish man seized him handily, yanked him back, and held him with his arms clamped to his sides.

  Brixton didn’t appear especially surprised. He tidied his high-ranking uni
form and said, “If you do that at the field, Captain, I will quite simply shoot you dead. Now, everyone knows their parts to play.”

  They had come off the bridge. In a minute they would turn into the Algiers Airdock, where Arkwright’s ship had tethered. Jonny pulled at his bonds, but it was hopeless. The Mexican had tied him but good. He glared at Brixton, who ignored him. Jonny had had little interaction with the man prior to this. Kane kept a number of subordinates, delegating tasks, seeing that his criminal ring ran efficiently and profitably. Had Kane suspected Brixton’s revolutionary inclinations?

  The truck made the turn. Jonny trembled with fear. Too much had happened too quickly, and it was only going to get more turbulent, surely. For the first time since they’d all gotten into the back of the vehicle, Arkwright shot Jonny a look. Jonny met those eyes and tried to will the man a message of contrition. He was genuinely sorry about this, especially now that he too had been betrayed. So much for honor among thieves.

  The brakes engaged, and the whining electrical motor went silent. Jonny heard footsteps as the driver came around to the rear, opening the large hatch. Jonny, bound and gagged, came down with the four men in Royal Fleet uniforms. The Mexican kept a tight grip on Jonny’s biceps. The truck’s driver was the same man who’d driven the car earlier, with Jonny hunkered in the back seat. He too had donned naval raiment.

  Their group approached the gate in the fence around the airfield. Brixton had pocketed the pistol. Two sentries stood watch. One, looking with alarm at the party as it neared, called into the nearby guardhouse. An officer emerged just as the group of six reached the outside of the gate.

  “Open up, Lieutenant,” Brixton said in a tone of inflexible authority. “We need immediate access to the Indomitable. I’ve a prisoner requiring transportation.”