A shadow emerged. The moonlight, slanting off one wall, gave just enough light to show a tall lone male as he paused to light a cigarette. There was a minute’s silence as Conor continued watching, the smell of nicotine wafting up to where he was.
“I know you’re up there, son,” the man suddenly said, his voice calm and conversational. “I want to talk to you.”
Conor pressed his back hard against the wall as he quelled his quickening breathing. Shit. They’d found him.
“I’m not Seamus. I know you’re aware he and his IRA friends want you badly. I also know you’re pretty good at hiding because they haven’t been able to find you yet, but if I can find you, others will, son, sooner or later. Your luck will run out. You see, you stole something really important to several groups of people and they’re all eager to get it back. I’m here to help you before you get yourself killed.”
Conor listened, not saying a word, his heart thudding louder and louder. This man must think him an idiot. What, was he supposed to come forward and be grateful for the offer?
Still, if the man had wanted to scare him, he could have just rushed into this building with some henchmen. Now, that would be what Seamus would have done. So maybe this man was speaking some truth.
The silence stretched as the man waited for him to speak. Conor didn’t move or utter a word, watching the lit tip of the cigarette glow brighter and dimmer every time the stranger inhaled from it. Finally, the man tossed the cigarette on the ground and there was darkness again.
“Okay, think about this. How are you going to get rid of the stolen goods? Pawn them? No pawnshops are going to buy them from a young kid, especially when the IRA is looking for missing weapons. You can’t stay in this situation, playing adult games. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Conor spoke up before he changed his mind. “You still haven’t told me what you want.”
The shadow shifted, looking up, spending a few moments trying to locate him. Plastered against the wall, Conor stood very still.
“There are actually several things I want but I don’t know whether you’ll be able to carry out all of them. The main thing, of course, is the weapons. Do you still have them, son?”
“I thought you said I couldn’t pawn them off,” Conor reminded him. He was right, of course. He’d known that no one would touch weapons stolen from the IRA so soon. But something told him that it was more than mere stolen guns. “What is it that you really want, you and Seamus and all the other people looking for me? I’m thinking it can’t be just a bag of guns even though they’d cost you a lot of money to have them replaced. What’s with these particular guns?”
“An observant young fellow,” the man commented. “Or, a fool for bringing that up. Everything points to you being a reckless boy who doesn’t care for a future.”
Conor cocked his head. This man
was
strange. He’d never met anyone who talked like that, almost as if they were equals. Yet he knew they weren’t. Instinct told him that the stranger couldn’t be trusted, just that he was
very good
at sounding trustworthy.
“Does that mean you’re going to kill me?” he asked brashly. He was afraid but showing his fear was useless. If he were going to die now, he might as well do it without sniveling.
“It’d crossed my mind,” the man replied gravely. “At first, we thought you were somebody more dangerous, sent in to sabotage all the work we’ve put into our operation, but from what I can gather, you’re just very young. A petty thief. Fate, as usual, dealt an unexpected hand.”
Conor frowned. Adults talked in circles. He’d no idea what the stranger meant, with his talk about sabotage and operation, but he could sense that the man was dangerous and not to be trifled with. “So I’m free to go if I just give you what you want?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?” That didn’t sound very promising.
“Seamus is still after you, as well as several other groups. I know you don’t understand what you’ve done but believe me when I tell you that it’s made quite a number of people very angry with you.”
Conor shrugged. He didn’t care. What was intriguing was the fact that the man still hadn’t demanded the weapons, just asked whether he had them. That was very strange.
“Do you know what a show of faith is, son?”
Conor frowned. “Faith? Like faith in God?”
“Something like that. I’m going to walk up these steps toward your voice, with my hands in the air. The moonlight will let you see exactly that. I’m putting my faith in you that you won’t shoot or attack me. All right with you?”
“How would I know you won’t shoot or attack me?” Conor asked.
“That, son, would be faith on your part. Besides, if I’d wanted to, I’d have aimed my weapon at that wall you’re hiding by right now, and believe me, one of the bullets would have hit you.”
Conor believed him but that didn’t mean he would admit it. “No, sir, there’s a chance you might have gotten me with a bullet but you can’t know for sure.”
The man chuckled. “Are you saying you’re faster than bullets too?”
“No, but this is my hideout. I know my voice bounces off the three walls surrounding me, so you’d have one in three chances at choosing the correct one I’m standing against. If you had been wrong the first few shots, I’d be gone by the time you discover that. Is that also what is called faith?”
The chuckle came again. “Arrogant pup too. That’s either going to shorten your life or prolong it, depending on what you have between your ears. Now, I’m still going to be walking up these steps. I’m still going to show you good faith. And when I get up there, I want to talk to you man-to-man.”
Conor thought of the knives on him. He fought well with them and knew where to hurt someone quickly. He’d never killed anyone before, though. If he agreed to this man coming up and meeting him, there was more than a good chance one of them would end up dead, he was sure of this much.
The man didn’t give him time to answer, though, as he started to head slowly up the steps, his shoes making soft thuds as he climbed each one. The moonlight showed him to be a tall well-dressed man in a long jacket of some sort that was open loosely in the front. His hands, as he’d promised, were way up, free of weapons
Conor watched with narrowed eyes, the thudding in his chest getting excruciatingly loud. He took in a few deep breaths, like the way he’d seen wrestlers do when the bell signaled them to get back into the ring. That helped. A little. He gripped the knife in his hand tightly then deliberately relaxed his upper arm. He’d been in street fights before. One didn’t win by tensing one’s muscles, because it slowed reflexes; he’d learned that the hard way.
The man stopped on the top step and paused. “Are you going to come out from your hiding place?” he asked softly.
Conor arced his hand in one swift motion and released the knife. He heard the whoosh as it flew through the air. To see whether the man was planning to shoot, he’d deliberately aimed it at the opposite side from where the man stood. The diversion would give him time to get his other knife.
However, the tall stranger didn’t react by ducking or shooting. He just stood where he was, his hands still in the air. When he spoke again, his voice remained calm, although a little colder.
“Come on out here,” he said, the request this time coming out as an order.
Conor hesitated, then slid out of the shadows, carefully threading his way toward the man, who was studying Conor as closely as he did him. He finally came to a stop about five feet away. The moonlight played with the planes on the man’s face—clean-cut, stern mouth, watchful eyes. It was so bright that Conor could see the shiny leather shoes on his feet.
“That was a good diversion tactic but too obvious,” the man said. “Next time use the weapon to target the body, just enough to nick, just enough to tell your opponent you mean business. Create fear, don’t show it, son.”
“Next time dress in clothes that I could wear so there’s a reason for me to rob you, mister,” Conor retorted. “I’m here, man-to-man, now what?”
“Can I put down my hands?”
Conor frowned. Why was the man so damn polite? He was acting as if Conor had power over what he was doing. “Yeah.”
The man lowered his hands. “Nice to meet you. Got a name?”
“Depends. If you’re not with Seamus, then who are you?”
Conor thought he saw a gleam of teeth, as if his obstinacy amused the man.
“Ever heard of the CIA, son?”
Dublin, Ireland, Six months after blue moon
“You ready for tomorrow, lover?”
Conor turned from the window. “You shouldn’t be here, Kitty. Seamus will be having a tantrum again and I don’t want any trouble the night before something big.”
Kitty sauntered into the room anyway, picking up scattered items draped across the table and the back of the chair, and looking at them before flinging them down onto the bed. She sat down at the foot, crossing her legs as she leaned back to look at him.
“He won’t be home for a while,” she drawled, her dark eyes half-closed. “He told me he has to pick up something from out of town.”
Conor frowned. “Did he tell you what?”
Kitty shrugged. “No.”
The rules for their group were few but specific. No one being allowed to leave the building the day before a big event was one of them. Of course, Seamus thought the rules excluded him because he was, at times, given the responsibility of team leader.
They were going to blow up a bank and take somebody important hostage tomorrow. Everyone was to stay in their apartments so they would get last minute instructions if anything important cropped up. Seamus knew better than to sneak out at this juncture of the operation.
“He’s going to be in trouble if McGuy finds out,” Conor said. He’d better get on the phone and inform McGuy about this, but first he had to deal with Kitty in his room. “What if someone calls in for Seamus? What are you going to say?”
Kitty shrugged again. “I’m not his keeper. Maybe he went to visit another woman. I don’t particularly care.”
Walking away from the window, Conor approached the woman in his bed. She was beautiful, with long, straight black hair and big sultry dark eyes that made Asians so exotic-looking. He had never met a woman like her—bold, mysterious, independent.
Ever since McGuy had brought him in and firmly introduced him to this particular group of IRA men as his new help, Kitty had visited his small apartment beneath hers often, even climbing down from the fire ladder outside the window one night and breaking into his room. He’d never had a woman so determined to fuck him. And he’d never had such hot sex. The woman was wild in bed and his dick didn’t seem to think it needed sleep.
Of course, at the time, McGuy hadn’t known that Kitty was interested in Conor that way or he’d never have given him that particular place to stay. Seamus’s seething resentment was misread as anger at a thief being included into their mix.
Conor understood Seamus’ silence. Of course the man wasn’t going to tell his friends that a boy barely out of school had messed around with his girl. Was still messing with, in fact. He would be the butt of jokes among the guys.
Kitty was insatiable and kept things even more tense between Seamus and Conor. Seamus, she told Conor, wasn’t her boyfriend. She and he had an “understanding”.
Conor wasn’t sure what that meant but after staying there and learning his new life, he was aware that Kitty was very useful to the organization. She could handle a gun and make explosives. She was able to hack into bank computers. She did nifty things with timers and electronics. Conor was fascinated by her and her skills, and didn’t put up much resistance to spending time with her.
She had naughty hands that sometimes wandered under the table right in front of Seamus, or sitting with Conor in a car in the dark, with Seamus driving, and Conor had to learn to keep his face pretty much expressionless as a hand teased the front of his trousers. The danger of being caught excited him even more. One night, out of sheer frustration, he’d pushed her into a small closet during a break from planning, put a hand over her mouth and fucked her hard. He could hear the others wandering around the place, stretching, taking bathroom breaks. But Kitty had wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed her pelvis so tightly, he’d almost given them away when he grunted from sheer pleasure.
Seamus suspected, but couldn’t prove, what they were doing behind his back. He already resented Conor for the theft of the weapons, but McGuy had coolly calmed everyone down, saying that they needed a young man with Conor’s skills. Also, Conor’s face wasn’t on any official files, so no one would recognize a boy loitering around the bank as an IRA lookout.
Then there was the time McGuy had caught Kitty coming behind him, wrapping a hand around and groping him. McGuy had been giving Conor private CIA instructions one night and was standing in the shadows when Kitty came charging into his room. McGuy was supposed to be away at the time so she’d expected Conor to be alone. Conor had turned to stop her but she had caught his lips with hers and passionately kissed him.
“I’ve been looking at you all day. I’ve got to have you, man-child, now, quickly,” she said, pushing him so he sat on his bed.
When Conor had glanced over by the window, he couldn’t even see the man, but he was sure he was there.
“Kitty—”
But it was hard to fight off a woman who already somehow had his cock in her mouth. He sort of remembered cursing and trying to stand up. He’d looked up again and saw McGuy’s shadowy form coming closer.
Shit, had he thought he was in trouble then. But Kitty’s mouth was a force to be reckoned with. He had two choices. Stop Kitty and risk her feeling McGuy’s presence. Keep her distracted so McGuy could leave.
It was embarrassing to be in that position, but he couldn’t betray McGuy. Not after the man had taken care of him like he had the last few months. Besides, a part of him had registered that the older man was testing him or he wouldn’t be coming so much closer. Any moment now Kitty would be aware of someone else in the room.
So he went by instinct. He distracted Kitty by pushing his dick hard into her willing wet mouth. Her enthusiastic sucking automatically elicited an equally enthusiastic response from his body. He watched McGuy slipping casually out of his room as he blew his load into Kitty’s mouth. She never even knew. But Conor understood he’d passed some sort of test that night.