The XXX Files Season Two (Episodes 5-8) (16 page)

Spatz started crying. Through his tears he simpered, “What the fuck, Hammer? Just tell me what you want and I’ll help you.”
 

“Thaddeus came to you with a transmitter of some kind. Who did you tell about it? Lie to me again and I’ll empty my gun in your fucking face.”

“The transmitter? I didn’t know that was from you,” Spatz said. “Thaddeus never told me. He just gave me the transmitter and asked me to look into it. I promised I would, but I didn’t say anything to anyone. I swear.”
 

“Fuck, Spatz!” Brad yelled, rolling off from the bed. “Are you pissing yourself?”
 

“No,” he cried, as piss spread through the covers. Then, through heavier sobs he whimpered, “What do you expect, coming into my bedroom and putting a gun in my mouth? You’d probably piss yourself, too!”
 

“No,” Brad said. “I wouldn’t.” He holstered his gun, kneeled, curled his fingers tightly into Spatz’s hair, then pulled, yanking his head down until their eyes were inches apart. “One last time, Spatz, who did you fucking tell?”
 

“No one ... ” Spatz insisted, madly shaking his head, even though it had to hurt since Brad was giving resistance and pulling the root. “ ... I swear.”
 

“Thaddeus
 
would beg to fucking differ,” Brad said, then with the free hand that wasn’t yanking a handful of Spatz’s hair, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, made a few swipes with his thumb, then thrust a photo of Thaddeus lying in a bed full of blood into Spatz’s face.
 

Spatz sobbed louder. Brad was sure he would have added more piss to the bed if he hadn’t already emptied his bladder.

“Oh, my God; oh, my God; oh, my God,” Spatz repeated, as if three times might bring Thaddeus back. “He’s dead?!”
 

“Sure as shit,” Brad said. “And unless he tripped and fell on a bullet, that crap wasn’t an accident. I don’t have too many loose lips on my list, Spatz, except the pair that were swallowing my barrel a few minutes back. Unless you come up with a pretty good goddamn explanation in the next minute, I’m afraid I’m going to have to narrow that list to one. Any fucker who would turn Division secrets into cheap erotica deserves to be at the top of the list anyway, regardless of what happened with Thaddeus. It’s a miracle Division hasn’t thrown you some place cold and dark already.”
 

He loosed his grip on Spatz’s hair so the fucker could gather some breath. After a minute or so of steady breathing, Spatz said, “I was on the phone with Thad earlier, we were talking about the chip when all of a sudden he started getting all weirded out.”
 

“Weirded out how?”
 

“Saying he thought he heard clicking sounds on the phone or something.”

“Like someone listening?”
 

“Yeah, but that dude was always paranoid. Next thing I knew, he clammed up. Didn’t want to say another word about the transmitter, and didn’t want me to either. He said we had to meet up, right then. I waited for a few hours, but he never showed so I went to bed.”
 

“You went to fucking bed?” Brad roared, grabbing Spatz by the collar of his pajamas. “Your friend tells you he thinks he’s in danger, or being listened to, demands that you meet, then doesn’t show, and you hit the fucking hay?!”
 

“I didn’t do shit, man, OK? I figured Thad was smoking out or taking some meeting of the alien minds with another DMT trip. I sure as shit didn’t think anyone actually got to him. Thad was
always
acting like that. I had no reason to think this time was any different.”

“Fuck!” Brad screamed, then stood and started pacing the room.
 

Spatz said, “Did you check his cam feed?”

Brad turned back to Spatz. “What?”

“His cam feed. Thad ran a 24-hour cam feed to a private URL. I told you he was paranoid. I don’t know what he thought would happen to him, but I’m guessing whatever he was always expecting, finally did.”
 

Brad stared at Spatz, trying to process.
 

“I’m guessing from your face that you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Do you have the URL?”

“No, but I’ll have it within 48 hours of the last time Thaddeus checked in with his mailer program.”

The geek speak was making Brad want to pull his trigger until it went
click.
“What fucking mailer program?”

“Thaddeus set a system in place to e-mail me his information should he fail to check in after a 24-hour period.”

“You?” Brad asked, “You’re the only one?”
 

Brad was suddenly concerned that he would appear on Thaddeus’ video, going to his apartment a few days before, after he woke up with weird shit in his arm.

GODDAMMIT!

That was definitely intel Brad didn’t want in the open, preferring it stay between him and the recently deceased.
 

I hope that crazy fuck turned his camera off at least that long.

Spatz sighed, relief taking the place of his fear. “Yeah, I’m the only one, at least that I know of.”

“I want you to send me the info the second you get it,” Brad said. Then, “On second thought, I think you should come stay with me, just to make sure you’re not the next target. Get dressed and grab your laptop.”

Spatz looked up at Brad, seeming for a second like he might argue, then he said, “Can you turn around?”
 

“No, I won’t fucking turn around!” Brad said. “If you think I’m going to turn my back to an asshole I don’t 100 percent trust, you’re as crazy as your buddy, Thaddeus.”
 

“OK,” Spatz sighed, then threw the covers from his body and got out of bed, naked from the waist down.
 

“Wow,” Brad said, unable to help himself. “That’s a tiny dick.”
 

Spatz got bold. “It’s just enough for your mother,” he said.

Brad laughed. “Hurry up and get dressed, asshole. We have a long day in front of us.”
 

“Mind if I take notes, you know, for stories.”
 

“Fuck you,” Brad said.
 

XXX

CHAPTER 2 — Courtney Grayson

Courtney was awake when Brad walked through the door. “What the fuck, Hammer?” she said before it shut behind him.
 

“Sorry,” he said immediately, probably because her face was red and angry, and he wanted to diffuse her temper as quickly as possible. “You were dead asleep when I left, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
 

“You couldn’t leave a note?”
 

Of course I could have. Fuck!

“Sorry,” Brad stared at his toes. “I should have. I just had an emergency. I’ll fill you in.”
 

Courtney pointed at Spatz, standing behind Brad. “What’s Division’s only erotica author doing here?”
 

Brad turned around, grabbed Spatz by the arm, then yanked him to the front. “He’s going to be staying with us for a couple of days. I promise, I’ll fill you in in a second. I have to piss first.” He turned toward the bathroom, then back to Courtney. “You know he’s an erotica writer?”
 

“Sure,” Courtney shrugged. “His stuff’s decent, too.”
 

Brad looked puzzled as Courtney turned to Spatz. “Good shit,” she said.
 

“Thanks,” he half-smiled, clearly embarrassed. With his face turning redder as words left his mouth, Spatz said, “The character of Agent Monica Bleu is based on you.”
 

“I know,” Courtney smiled, further confounding Brad.

She could see the WTF on his lips, and all over his face, but he said nothing, just turned, went into the bathroom, and took one of the endless pisses he sometimes did after holding it for too long, which he did more often than he should.
 

“Can I get you anything?” she asked Spatz, hoping he would say no.

He shook his head, said, “That’s OK,” waited a second, then added, “Unless you have a bed. Or coffee. I was asleep when Agent Hammer came over.”
 

“What a coincidence,” Courtney laughed. “I was asleep when he left. The couch is a pullout,” she pointed to the sofa. “You’re welcome to make yourself comfortable there. I’ll go get you some blankets.”

By the time Courtney had Spatz all set up on the sofa she met Brad in the bedroom. He was out of the bathroom, not just eliminated but freshly showered and wearing only a towel.
 

“Thanks, asshole,” she said. “You couldn’t have waited for me?”
 

“Sorry,” he shrugged, “I didn’t even think about it. You never want to shower because you ‘want your space,’ unless I missed something.”
 

“Jesus Christ,” she shook her head. “You can be
so
dim. You bring Spatz the erotica writer here and tell me he’s going to be staying with us. That automatically means we’re not going to get many chances to fuck. Our place is too small, and he’s too creepy. He’d probably be at our door with his ear to the wood. No thanks. I
do
like my space, but I already have less of that. If he’s here for two days, well, that’s probably at least six times you’re gonna wanna fuck me, Hammer. Where do you think we should do that? Maybe in the shower, hiding under the sounds of running water?”
 

Brad laughed. “Sorry, baby, I didn’t even think of that. But I’m sure as shit glad that you are! Wanna hop back in now? I’m certain I can find a few spots I didn’t quite clean.”
 

“No,” she smiled. “You’re too late. The mood’s gone. Maybe later. Right now I just want to be filled in.”
 

“I’ll fill you in,” he grinned.

“Tell me what I need to know, Hammer.”
 

“You need to know that all the talk about showering has made me hard. Now
I
need to know what you’re going to do about it.”
 

“Nothing until I know why Spatz is here, and why you had to leave in the middle of the fucking night without leaving a note.”
 

“And what will you do after you know everything?” he asked, grinning wider.

“Well, I don’t think I can do anything too loud, and I know how you get all grunty when you’re inside me. So how about I just jack you off really quick?”
 

Brad was already tenting his towel.
 

“What about when I finish?” he asked. “Will you take it in the mouth?”
 

“Hmmm ... ” she whisper-moaned. “I’ll aim it like it’s target practice and slurp it like a smoothie.”
 

“What if we do that first?”

“Get on with it, Hammer. The quicker you spill, the quicker you spill.”
 

Brad laughed, said OK, then filled her in on everything.
 

“Wow,” she said. “And you don’t think Spatz knows anything more than he’s saying?”
 

“Nope, not at all. You should’ve seen him. He pissed the bed and everything. I think he would’ve told me he thinks of his brother while fucking his mother if he thought it would get me to put the gun away. The guy does
not
hold up well under pressure. If he knew something, he would’ve said.”
 

“So what do you think?”
 

“I think Thaddeus’ phone was bugged, and that whoever bugged it heard he knew too much and took care of business.”
 

“Well, obviously,” Courtney said. “But what about beyond that? What else do you think — what are you worried about? I can see it’s something, it’s all over your face.”
 

“Thaddeus had a 24-hour feed videoing his apartment. It’s auto-e-mailed to a private URL. Spatz gets that feed if Thaddeus doesn’t check in within his allotted 24-hour period — again, the dude was over-paranoid. Supposedly, Spatz is the only one with access to the URL, or who even knows about it, but I’m worried he’s not, and that if there’s someone else who knows about it, they might also know about me. That’s not good for any of us. Plus ... ” he swallowed, getting ready to tell her the truth. “ this all leads back to me. I found something in my arm — a transmitter — sophisticated shit beyond anything we’ve seen,
maybe
alien. I’m worried about the transmitter and what it means; why it was in my arm in the first place.”

“This will all be fine,” she reassured him, though she felt suddenly terrified. “So, what’s next now? Are we supposed to just wait for Spatz to get the URL and go from there?”
 

“Yup,” Brad said, “that’s exactly what it looks like. Now,” he dropped his towel to the floor and sat on the bed, “didn’t you have something you needed to take care of?”

Courtney smiled, slowly kneeled to a squat, then crawled on all fours over to Brad, stopping at his dick. “This is awfully hard after talking about Spatz,” she said. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
 

“I’ve secretly had a thing for Spatz for years. Really, I’m just using him to get to you.”