Face of the Assassin

by Bill Brewer

  Fatima smiled as the blush returned, making her cheeks a slight tone of maroon. “I can’t imagine such attention eliciting no response.”

  Raising his eyebrows, Vince replied, “It happens.”

  Taking a long sip of water, Fatima said, “I’d like to use the ladies room. I believe the facilities are over there,” Flexing her wrist and extending her finger, she pointed in the direction of the bedroom.

  “You are correct, please be my guest.”

  Diegert gulped down his water, set his glass on the counter, and moved to sit on the big white leather couch in the living room. He didn’t know what would happen next, but he recalled how Fatima had seduced him in the defensive tactics room at Headquarters, where she kicked his ass, until he fell unconscious. What a conniving bitch. Now, as Vince, he was anticipating a different response from the erotically beautiful and supremely confident woman. He heard her bare feet padding across the carpeting of the immense bedroom. She emerged from the doorway dressed in only a black bra and matching panties.

  As their eyes met, Diegert’s gaze averted from her face, to inspect her body. She was so beautiful. Muscular, yet so feminine, strong, yet so supple. Confidence projected from her near nakedness, as if she would be even more confident once she was wearing nothing. Sauntering over towards him, she stood in profile, rotated her hips as she asked, “Do you like my ass?”

  Again Diegert had to find his Vince voice, “Wonderfully symmetrical, but its value also lies in the reactions it elicits.”

  Cocking her head she said, “You mean can you turn on a woman through her ass?”

  “No, this time I’m interested in the response your hips can elicit in a man.”

  “The motion of the ocean.”

  Chuckling, Vince said, “Yes, I suppose that expresses it quite succinctly.”

  “You like big words don’t you?”

  “I like the right words; they don’t have to be big. Big is not a big word.”

  She tucked one leg under the other as she sat down beside him. “Do you want to know what really turns on a woman?”

  “Now you are going to reveal a secret.”

  “It’s not a real secret, but most men just ignore it.”

  “Please enlighten me to all that my brethren have overlooked.”

  Snorting with disdain as she rolled her eyes saying, “Big words.”

  Vince smiled, casting a luminescence from the shining alabaster of his teeth.

  Fatima let the pause grow before saying, “Women are turned on by the kiss. A deep, passionate, encompassing kiss that draws all your sensations and emotions into an intense point of contact, allowing the whole world to slip away. The strong embrace, the entwining of two mouths, two tongues sharing the erotic feeling of closeness, togetherness, oneness that sparks the rest of the body to ache for the pleasure of the libido. Without the kiss, sex is just mechanics. With the kiss, it is a symphony of sensations drawn from the soul and manifest in the body. That’s what women want.”

  “There were a lot of big words in there.”

  “There was a lot of truth in there.”

  Sliding a little closer, Vince asked, “May I kiss you?”

  “Yes, but it better be good.”

  He slid his hand along the top of the couch cushion, moving it down so his arm embraced her shoulder. Vince felt Fatima’s gaze upon his face. She seemed to be seeking direct eye contact. Connecting with her dark penetrating gaze, he felt her seeking to enter his mind, reach out to touch his soul, creating an emotional embodiment within him. He hesitated, pulled back and smiled at her. Her expression remained unchanged. “Don’t be afraid,” she said as she moistened and parted her lips. The tantalizing pink of her mouth and the heat rising from her body carried an intoxicating scent, to which Vince succumbed with longing and lust. She turned her face to him as he leaned in and brought his lips to hers.

  She pushed into him with desire and urgent pressure. She opened her mouth and herself to him. He dove in, his hot tongue driving into her with unfettered abandon. Their heads rotated, allowing themselves to occupy a common place of oral pleasure and mutual exploration. Through touch alone, they each found in the other a place of immediate and seemingly unquenchable desire to hold and connect. The kiss’s intensity built into a near spasm of erotic pleasure. Fatima broke the connection, gasping for breath as Vince released her bra, caressed her breast and brought his lips to her hardened nipple. Fatima gasped again as Vince sucked on the dark brown nubbin. He could feel her pleasure intensify as his tongue flicked the end of her sensitive nipple. She moaned and pulled his head even closer to her ample breast. Gently grazing her nipple with his teeth, he elicited a moan from his lover as she shook with tremors of excitement. Ever so carefully, he continued to place gentle bites against the sensitive peak of her breast. The nipple bites elicited staccato gasps, during which Fatima clasped Vince’s head in her hands.

  Pulling Vince from her breast, Fatima grabbed the front of his shirt, ripping it apart, sending buttons ricocheting off the couch. Vince stepped off the couch to remove his torn shirt, Fatima pulled off her panties. Vince stripped out of his pants and underwear, standing naked before her. Fatima stopped for a moment. Vince stood before her, penis engorged and growing more erect by the second. Fatima scratched her head as she looked away. She looked back at his erection and looked away again. It seemed to Diegert that she was trying to recall something. He remembered that she’d seen his naked body on more than one occasion at Headquarters. Could she have such an astute visual memory to have recognized his cock? He supposed each cock was unique, but this struck him as strange. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes… yes I am. Just having a moment.” Fatima shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. She looked back at Vince, whose lean, muscular, masculine athletic body stood nude in front of her. “You’ve got a beautiful body,” she said.

  “Thank you, so do you,” said Vince as she rose from the couch, straddled his erection, threw her arms around him, and pulled him into a skin on skin embrace. Once again, they kissed with mutual desire and unbridled passion. As they broke the kiss, each was gasping from the building pleasure of their undulating hips. Vince spun Fatima around, pressed her forward as she bent at the waist. With her arms supporting her torso on the back of the couch, he entered her from behind. Like a champion stallion on a prize mare, he drove himself into her. Across the room, he saw their reflection in a full length mirror. He realized that the only reason this was happening was because he looked like Vince. If she knew who he was, David Diegert, this beautiful woman would never have given herself to him. He pumped into her harder and harder, his hips audibly smacking her ass. Fatima clutched the couch cushion but as Diegert’s thrusts grew more forceful, her knees buckled and she fell to the couch, with him on top, and still inserted. Against the stability of the couch, Diegert resumed his thrusting. He recalled her derisive statements and dismissive remarks. He remembered her belittling him and stabbing him with a fork in the cafeteria. Thoughts of love and mutual pleasure were dissipating, as he was overcome by a desire to exact revenge upon her for all the cruelty she had shown him in Romania and London. David Diegert was fucking Fatima Hussain and he was going to make sure she felt it.

  When he exploded inside her, he roared like a lion. He wanted people in the street to know that a primal triumph had just taken place in the Presidential Suite of the Imperial Hotel.

  Diegert extracted himself from Fatima and went to the bathroom to clean up. Upon return, he wore a bathrobe and brought with him Fatima’s dress and shoes. She sat on the couch hugging a large pillow over her body. Raising the dress in his hand, he said, “Do you want to put these on here or in the bedroom?”

  “That’s it?”

  “What?”

  “That’s it? You thrash me like that and then it’s over, no thought of reciprocation?”

  “Look I don’t know what you’re talking about. If that wasn’t good for you, that’s too bad.”

  Reac
hing out and snatching the dress, Fatima rose letting the pillow fall to the floor as she covered herself and stormed into the bedroom slamming the door behind her.

  Vince frowned, but Diegert smiled.

  When she emerged, she found that Vince had laid her shoes before a dining room chair and her overcoat was on a hanger on a wall hook in the foyer.

  With her stilettos buckled, she flung on her coat, looked at Vince, flipped him the bird and tried to slam the door, but the pressure hinge denied her expression of anger.

  CHAPTER 18

  Carolyn dreaded the meeting she was heading to with Richard Ramsey, but she had put in an official request to be returned stateside, and it was Ramsey, the British Station Chief, who reviewed the request.

  “Carolyn,” began the paunchy bureaucrat, “I’m afraid I’m going to deny your request.”

  “Why?” exclaimed Carolyn.

  “Your role here in London is mission critical.”

  “I want my child born in the United States.”

  A broad smile spread over Ramsey’s face in reaction to Carolyn acknowledging her pregnancy. “This case requires your presence and besides your child, born here in England, will still be a U.S. citizen.”

  “Do you intend to keep me here during my maternity leave?”

  “You’ll be able to spend both weeks off duty.”

  “Two weeks? No way, I get six minimum.”

  “Not while on foreign service.”

  Carolyn’s jaw went slack. How could he be so insensitive? Bad enough he wouldn’t let her go home for the birth, there was no way she was only having two weeks to bond with her new born child.

  “You can’t control where I am during my maternity.”

  “In fact, I can. It is also ill advised to fly a newborn over the ocean.”

  Ramsey turned the discussion away from maternity. “Now I’ve got some questions about the case.”

  Carolyn said nothing but the peevish look upon her face showed that she was not done thinking about maternity.

  “Do the police have any leads on the young woman who handed Diegert the bomb bag?”

  “I’m meeting with a…” Carolyn consulted her notes, “Detective Jackson tomorrow, hopefully he can provide an update.”

  “That’s all you’ve got?”

  “Richard, I understand we have to play nice with the local police, but this is an international case and I should be collecting evidence and conducting my own investigation.”

  “Diegert was acting on behalf of a foreign entity on foreign soil.”

  “So?”

  “So we can’t interfere with local law enforcement.”

  “I’m not going to interfere, I’m going to assist.”

  “You may look at it that way, but the London Police see us as a foreign power interfering with their work.”

  Carolyn thought to herself that Ramsey was the one who would interfere. He would probably act like an arrogant, overbearing power pusher who would piss off the local cops.

  “Detective Jackson was helpful, cooperative and forthcoming. I’m going to interpret our liaison protocol in a manner that allows me to work with him. Do you understand?”

  Ramsey’s indecision delayed his reply before he said, “All right I authorize you to liaison with Detective Jackson and report back to me with all the evidence you find.”

  It was just like this asshole to turn what she had just said into an order. Carolyn frowned upon her ineffectual leader as she leaned forward before standing to minimize the impact of her movements on her pregnant belly. Ramsey’s eyes went right to her abdomen. Turning as she left the office Carolyn said, “Great idea sir, I certainly will.”

  “You know I just have to say there is something about pregnant women that I find incredibly hot.”

  With a furrowed brow and narrowed eyelids Carolyn replied, “No sir, you just didn’t have to say that.” OMG what a creep, thought Carolyn as she made her way down the hall.

  CHAPTER 19

  Avery Forsythe leaned back in his chair making certain that his coffee cup was well away from his desk each time he took a sip. Not wanting to spill coffee on his computer, he dutifully drank only when his steaming cup was at least a foot from the keyboard. On the screen, Avery read an intelligence report concerning Jarod Masoni, a former member of Cerberus. Just the mention of him as “former” boiled Avery’s blood, who considered inclusion in Cerberus the penultimate honor for operators capable of infiltration, sabotage and assassination, once in, you were in for life. Masoni pissed on the idea and vacated the position leaving Avery flabbergasted and distraught. Avery was reading that Masoni was working in a sex trafficking ring for the benefit of Sebastor Sbrebetskov, the Romanian mobster who took over after Mijka Barovitz was eliminated. Running women from the Balkans, into Italy and distributing them into Europe, was a profitable venture for Sbrebetskov. Masoni was in charge of the logistics of receiving and transporting the women throughout Western Europe.

  When an expected knock resounded upon his office door, Avery spoke loudly. “Come in.”

  Wayne Henry, the Australian who helped Diegert escape China during the Wei family mission, strode in with his broad smile and charming sense of over-confidence. “How you doing mate?” he boomed.

  “I am well,” replied Avery. “It’s good to see you again. I trust you’ve been well since we last saw one another.”

  “I’m a guy who’s happy wherever I am, so I’m just fine. What is it I can do for you?”

  “There’s a guy in Italy, a former employee, Jarod Masoni, whose working in a sex trafficking ring, which is despicable, but I’m concerned he may be divulging information about Crepusculous and Cerberus.

  “Like what?” asked Wayne

  “If the information I was concerned about was such that I would just tell you, then it can’t be that important can it?”

  Shaking his head, Wayne said, “That’s quite a fucking insult.”

  “Sorry,” said Avery shrugging his shoulders as he turned up his palms. “Through his service with Cerberus, Masoni’s been privy to certain emerging technologies that are proprietary. It would be problematic if he were to divulge that information.”

  “Secrets are safe in a dead man’s head,” said Wayne dryly.

  Avery nodded, arcing his gaze over to the Australian, to look Wayne in the eyes.

  “I want you to eliminate Jarod Masoni. Can you do it?”

  “Are you asking, can I, or will I?”

  “Both.”

  “I sure had a spot of fun getting out of China, I still got it in me. But tell me again why you want this guy dead?”

  Avery’s gaze darkened, “I don’t want to explain myself any more than I have. I’m authorized to issue sanctions that involve Cerberus, and if you want the job, then say so.”

  “How much?”

  “One million,” said Avery, folding his arms across his chest. “It’ll be your last big payday, Wayne. You can retire after this one.”

  With a twinkle forming in his eye as a smile curled his lips, Wayne said, “When?”

  “I’ll give you two weeks to get it done.”

  “Deal,” said Wayne as he stuck his hand across the table.

  Avery shook it. “I’ll send all the necessary intel to your phone.”

  “Aye, aye Captain. I’ll reply with my Swiss account number. When the job’s done, I’ll send you video confirmation. “

  “Swiss? Honestly, with Digival it doesn’t matter.”

  “I know but I already had the account and the bank is handling Digival just like old dollars.”

  “All right, upon completion, you’ll have the full amount in your account.”

  Putting his coat on and zipping it up, Wayne said, “It’s a lot colder than I thought it would be at this time of year.”

  “Stay warm, Wayne.”

  As he heard the door close, Avery sent a text: He’s on his way, be ready to activate your phase of this mission.”

  Detective Constable Theod
ore Jackson agreed to meet with CIA Special Agent Carolyn Fuller for coffee at 10 am. He chose the Starbucks on Strand near the bend in the River Thames thinking the American coffee would make her feel at home. He stood outside conducting a casual surveillance hoping to spot her as she approached.

  Carolyn liked being early for appointments and she sipped her Mocha Latte’ as she waited for DC Jackson. Having Googled his police profile, she knew she was looking for a tall, good-looking guy of African descent. Sitting at the window bar she observed a tall man approaching the shop. She recognized him, took another sip and watched for him to enter the store. She was surprised when he didn’t come in. She leaned against the window glass to see DC Jackson standing out front of Starbucks.

  With her coffee in hand, Carolyn stepped outside. It was cool with a stiff breeze. Carolyn approached at an angle as she said, “Good morning Detective Jackson.” The tall man turned to see the person he was hoping to surveil, standing next to him with a steaming latte’.

  “Good morning Agent Fuller.” said the handsome man, whose light complexion made an attractive contrast with his dark eyes, brows and pencil thin mustache. Carolyn shivered in the breeze. Jackson said, “Please let’s go inside,” ushering her in with his left hand. Carolyn returned to her seat at the window bar as DC Jackson ordered his espresso with foamed milk.

  Joining her he asked, “Do you find it weird how quickly the world has switched to Digival?”

  Carolyn looked at him as she sipped her latte’.

  “I mean, not six months ago very few people even knew about Digival,” stated Jackson.

  “Now I can pay for just about everything with it, and they pay the taxes? It’s weird, how quickly this currency has been embraced.”

  Carolyn nodded. “They’ve made it so if you’re using anything else, you’re losing out.

  “Omnisphere is so big they can afford to create their own money, even Starbucks accepts it.”

  “Starbucks is part of Omnisphere,” stated Carolyn.

  “It is?”

  “Yeah, that way they get their coffee cheap and live under the big corporate umbrella.”