Wallbanger (6 page)

“Wrong answer,” he whispered. He pushed down
on her upper back, tipping her forward over the cheap, pressed wood
dresser. He pulled the sandy blonde wig from her head; fingered her
naturally dark hair until it was a mess around her shoulders. “Who
do you see, Gale?”

Without another word, he shoved his cock into
her wet center; the edge of the furniture dug into her thighs. He
paused, waiting for her response.

“Jack,” she said firmly, staring daggers at
his reflection in the mirror, mindful of the way he filled her so
perfectly.

He pulled back and surged forward again,
repeating the process and the question until his strokes came in a
merciless rhythm. The dresser banged against the wall, morphing
from a soft tap to a resounding crescendo.

“Who, Gale?” His hand smacked her flank.

She yelped. “Sssss…aaaahh,
damn
that’s
good, Jack. Just like that, baby.” Through hazy eyes she made out
the lust-crazed look on his face in the mirrored glass. The way he
bit his lip when they fucked always pushed her over the edge, and
she tightened around his cock.

He groaned and pumped harder, whether at her
use of his alias or at her moaned pleas, she didn’t know. Didn’t
care. She was so close to bursting her own mama could’ve walked
through the door and Gale would have kept right on humpin’ like a
jackrabbit. Bracing her arms on the wood, she pushed back, her ass
flush with his pelvis, riding his dick. “Oh, gawd, Jack!”

Her forehead touched the mirror as the first
wet wave gushed down her thigh. Hands on her ass, he lifted and
spread her cheeks, thrusting roughly into her hot cavern. Each time
their skin met it was with a sharp “bap”, and the wood knocked
harder against the wall. An angry hammering came from the other
side of the thin partition accompanied by a string of curses.

Jack fucked her more insistently in
response.

Minutes later, her insides soaked with
fluids, they were both slumped over the chest of drawers, breathing
hard and sweaty. He eased them to the floor and laid flat on his
back; she with her back on his stomach.

Neither spoke, Gale observing the faux marble
finish on the ceiling to keep from saying “Gaaaahhh damn, that was
fuckin’ amazin’!” around the sliver of cherry candy still in her
mouth. Jack wrapped his arms over her middle, nuzzled the spot
behind her ear.
And there he goes making things uncomfortable
again.
In a corner of her purse, a phone rang, interrupting the
affection.

“Let it go,” Jack murmured between nips of
her skin.

Gale wriggled out of his hold. “Ya’ know well
as I do I can’t do that.” Pushing off the floor, she made her way
to her bag and retrieved the device. She glanced at the display and
rolled her eyes. “Mama. Prob’ly wonderin’ why I ain’t there
yet.”

“Let me talk to her.”

She smiled warily, unsure why he’d made the
request. “No way I’m explainin’ you to my mama. Could never lie to
her. She’d hear in my voice I was just diddlin’ a Yank.” Gale
winked, stepped into the bathroom saying, “Hey, Mama,” as she shut
the door. She started the water in the sink. “Freeman.”

“
Mama
?” the voice on the other end
questioned.

“Things got dicey for a sec. What’s the
status?” She noticed her disheveled appearance in the mirror and
instantly recalled the look of satisfaction on Jack’s face while he
made her come. Her pussy clenched. She turned around.

“We’re hot. The mark’s former,
regimented—keeps to routine. Get there early. And lose the
drawl.”

“Workin’ on it,” she said sarcastically. It
wasn’t like she was
trying
to sound like a southerner, it
sort of happened because she
was
a southerner.

“Work harder. Check your inbox.”

She pulled the phone from her ear and opened
up the e-mail that had just arrived. A photo. She had to laugh.
“What’s with the picture?”

“A nice touch. You have the back-ups?”

“Yeah.” This wasn’t her first rodeo, or her
second for that matter. “Listen, ya’ can’t unscramble eggs. Ya’
sure you want wet?”

“Wetter.” The call disconnected.

Gale shut off the water and left the
bathroom, dropping her phone on her purse. She glanced up in time
to see Jack frantically tapping at the screen of his mobile.
Already in jeans and a sweater, his small rucksack had been packed
and was beside him on the bed. He stood and pocketed the
cellular.

“What’s the rush? Thought ya’ didn’t have to
go yet.”

“I’d hate to keep you from your mama.” He
scooped up her wig, situating unevenly it over her dark brown
curls. “I’ll see you later.”

“‘Laytuh’? When’s ‘laytuh’?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. But maybe by then
you’ll learn to trust me a little.” He brushed his lips over her
cheek and went to the door.

A hand on her hip she yelled at his back,
“What the hell d’ya want from me?” Getting serious was never an
option. She thought he knew that.

Jack turned back and frowned. “If you’re
still asking after all this time, Gale, I’m afraid you’ll never
know.”

* * * *

Jack Holloway exited the elevator on the
third floor of the Doubletree Hotel. Making a left down the
corridor, he walked the short distance to room 351. The plastic key
card went into the reader, and he waited for the light to go green
before turning the handle and pushing his way into the room he’d
been living in for the past few days.

Gale didn’t need to know that.

Unlike her, he actually had been in the area
visiting family. Well, they were a touch south in North Carolina,
but when he’d gotten the e-mail saying she’d be in Virginia, he
made the trip up.

Though it irritated him, Gale’s absence to
talk to her “Mama” allowed him the chance to check his own phone.
He’d heard the low vibration while they were on the floor, but she
didn’t seem to notice. He had a feeling that it was a new
assignment, and was correct in the assumption.

An easy one—just a skip trace. Probably a
personal favor. It had happened before. He didn’t have a name, but
with the cell number supplied in the text message he could easily
pin down the tower closest to where the phone was last located. A
simple matter of trilateration. Could do it in his sleep.

Freshly showered and a towel slung around his
hips, Jack sat in the chair at the desk and roused his laptop from
SLEEP mode. He didn’t have all the equipment with him that a true
trace would require, but being resident computer guru in The Crew,
he’d set up a method to remotely access anything he’d need while
anywhere in the world. Made last-minute travel a whole lot
easier.

A few strokes to the keyboard and he was in
the mainframe, going through a series of security checks to ensure
his system couldn’t be hacked. Pulling up the desired program, he
entered the ten-digit number and sent out a signal to check that
the phone was on—it wasn’t—sent another to give it juice via the
reserve battery power every mobile phone had that 911 used for
emergencies. Then he waited for the mechanical brain to work its
voodoo.

In the space between, he dressed and ordered
room service, the coffee and croissants arriving before the machine
spit out the results: Toronto, Canada. According to the screen, the
phone was last at Pearson International almost 8 hours ago.

That was the first red flag. Nowadays, as
soon as an inbound plane touched the runway, people had their
phones out to contact loved ones, let them know they’d arrived. If
the phone had gone dead, he had to assume the owner would have
charged the battery by now, and, had it been used to make a call,
it would have pinged off another tower already. Had it ever left
the plane?

Of course there was the other scenario to
consider—the phone was on an outbound International flight and had
been shut off just after the traveler called people on the other
end.

Jack opened another program on his computer,
running a piece of software he’d written for situations such as
this. Four minutes later, he had hacked the phone company’s
database only to learn the device he’d was tracking had never made
a single call. Just a text message. That made even less sense.

Leaning back in the chair, he drummed his
fingers on the wooden table. Technically, it was mission
accomplished. He’d located the phone and could leave it at that.
But something urged him to dig a little deeper. Should he?

Shoving his conscience aside, he traced the
incoming flights for Pearson, finding that three planes had landed
around the same time the phone had arrived in Canada—one from New
York, another from Vancouver, and a third from Columbia. Another
six had departed—headed toward New York, Chicago, Ohio, Florida,
Barcelona, and Brazil. Without more data, that didn’t tell him
much.

He made a call. “The info you wanted. Last
location is Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Canada.”

The voice on the other end hesitated. “Where
are you?”

“New York,” Jack said. The lie came
easily.

A heavy sigh preceded the caller’s next
words. “This stays between us, and I’m only asking because I trust
you. There’s a member who’s DNC.”

DNC
—do not contact. Not uncommon,
especially when an agent was in play. “Why is that a concern?”

“She’s ‘I. I.’ as of two weeks ago. Never
been dark while in-op. I need her.”

I. I
.—inoperable indefinitely.
Two
weeks ago?

Jack’s scalp tingled. This wasn’t just any
agent. In spite of his gut reaction, he asked the question anyway,
forcing some levity into his tone. “And she’s not on vacation?”

Silence.

Not a good sign.
He went for it,
unsure if the other man would answer. “Who am I tracking,
Bill?”

“Kizzie Baldwin.”

* * * *

Helsinki, Finland

Tourist was a role Phillip Marchande hadn’t
played in a while, but when it came to his job, he was flexible. He
exited the subway train and paid a nearby vendor for an overpriced
paper map and an
I Heart Helsinki
shot glass; shoved the
souvenir in a pocket. He stood there a moment, amidst the throng of
people coming and going, studying the map with great care. It was
unnecessary—Marchande always knew where he was going.
Even when
Xander doesn’t
, he mused.

They’d been friends for more years than he
could recall, friendship being a rare thing in their line of work,
and Xander had always managed to pull Phil out of the fires. Sure
most of those fires were ones Xander had set, but that was a minor
detail. Truth was, Phil wouldn’t have it any other way. An
introverted adrenaline junkie by nature, Xander’s many escapades
kept Phil’s heart pumping at a steady rate of “holy shit!”

Done with the ruse of consulting the map, he
hugged his thick coat around him and boarded the escalator to go
topside, wondering how this particular blaze would play out. Phil
knew this mission was personal. It had always been personal, but
Xander had convinced himself it was all part and parcel of the
game; likening it to moving a pawn on a chessboard, a way to ferret
out your opponent’s strategy. But Xander would never admit it was
much more like placing the black queen in firing range of the white
and hoping your opponent didn’t notice.

The queen
, he thought, noting how
Xander called Kizzie “Princess”. Perhaps the title was fitting
after all. Xander was staking more than a little bit in this gamble
with Sacha, and Kizzie was an unknown quantity. A beautiful
quantity, but an unknown one, nonetheless. Being Xander’s hired
muscle made Phil wary of people, yet Kizzie had slipped beneath his
defenses with ease. In the span of 24 hours she’d already promised
to kick his ass—something Marchande was sure she’d make good
on—
and
cost him twenty grand. She’d definitely make things
interesting.

But women also had a way of complicating
things. Especially for Xander.

The ride to the top brought him just a mile
east of his destination, a distance he covered in a leisurely half
hour stroll; a beanie on his head and sunglasses pulled over his
eyes both to protect them from the harsh white glare of the snow on
the ground and to allow him to discreetly scan his surroundings. He
paused to look at architecture he wasn’t interested in; snapped
photos of irrelevant statues with the camera of his cell phone. All
while working his way toward the chateau.

A huge, single-story structure on a
sprawling, tree-covered lot, it was enclosed by a high granite
wall. Sacha’s own little fortress a stone’s throw from metropolitan
Helsinki. Phil walked the length of the block the compound resided
on, counting the cameras as he went. Stationed in plain view so
everyone would know they were being watched. There were five in the
L-shape he’d traversed, which meant at least an additional five on
the remainder of the rectangular block, and he assumed they all
operated off the same feed. Easy work.

As he rounded the corner, a car pulled
through the compound’s sole entrance, which was guarded by an
automatic gate. The passenger looked familiar, but he’d only gotten
a glimpse as the vehicle made its way onto the private land. He had
to be sure.

Without breaking stride he crossed the street
at a diagonal, going straight for the church that sat opposite
Sacha’s chateau. Head skyward, he slowly climbed the risers as
though admiring the structure’s beautiful facade. What he really
appreciated was the high vantage point.

At the landing, he stopped to read the
schedule and then pulled open one of the heavy wooden doors. A
slight hesitation—it had been a while—and he crossed the threshold,
stomping the snow from his boots onto the rubber mat. The building
didn’t fall, so he continued inside, deliberately skipping the holy
water. No sense in pushing his luck.