In the Ring

by James Lear

  Vaughan had excellent relations with the press, who reported whatever he wanted them to report, and kept well away from his private life. How did he secure their support? By paying them off with other, juicier material. Perhaps he counted editors and publishers among his client base.

  If any of this seems far-fetched, just think about those irreproachable media personalities who played the publicity game for decades before it was discovered that they’d been sexually abusing children all along, paying the press and police off at every turn. Pushing vulnerable young men—adults, let us not forget, however immature—into pornography and prostitution might not seem quite such a grave offense in comparison. Dan Stagg would have disapproved. Greg Cooper was content to fuck as many of these young men as possible, protect them from further harm if he could, and to play Vaughan’s game in the interests of the mission objective. It was Vaughan’s business empire I was interested in—the details of how he got his money and, more importantly, the uses to which he put it. If it turned out that the CIA and MI6 were right, that he was funding extreme right-wing groups in America by exploiting the tight asses and hard cocks of these young athletes, then that, and that only, made it wrong enough for me to care.

  The addresses fitted the theory: big, expensive houses that boys like Oz and Kieran could have no possible connection to. They weren’t visiting parents or grandparents. Neither of them practiced a trade, other than the obvious one. I had no evidence of what went on behind these doors, but I had a working hypothesis. All I had to do now was find how payments were made, where they were hidden, and where the funds ended up.

  First-person testimony from the boys would answer half the question. MI6’s access to private financial records might fill in the gaps. But I was going to need to penetrate deeper into this operation for my evidence to be worth anything.

  I returned the car, and took the precaution of wiping my fingerprints off it. If one person can use tracking technology, so can another, and I was pretty sure that Vaughan had insider dealings with the local police. If he found out I’d been visiting these addresses, my cover would be blown.

  Back at home I switched on my laptop and worked through four website addresses provided by control in London in response to my request. Further confirmation of my theory. The first was innocuous enough, a fitness/fashion website featuring photos of young men in sportswear, sometimes topless, flexing muscles and furrowing brows, with information about their age, sport, ambitions, likes, and dislikes. Interested clients could hire these models through the website, which would charge a modest “agency fee.” It implied that the clients would be PR companies, events managers, fashion editors and the like, and that the website was a gateway for young men to break into the modelling business.

  The second site featured some of the models from the first, but this time all pretense of modelling sportswear had gone. Photo sets and videos were released twice a week, showing the boys stripping down, posing nude, and getting hard. Both Oz and Kieran featured on this one.

  The third site took things a stage further, with models masturbating and shooting for the camera, sometimes posing together, touching each other, a little light oral.

  The fourth and final site was hardcore.

  Each of the three porn websites had a “contact us” feature, which promised to pass messages on to the models, but was presumably used as the starting point for further business arrangements.

  None of the sites made any mention of Alan Vaughan.

  Bill Brett had been busy. The content went back four years; the most recent updates were from two days ago. An update, featuring Dakota and Joshua, must be imminent.

  There was no response to my request for information on Craig Lukas’s immigration status. Perhaps there was nothing to tell. I would try and find out.

  My appointment with Craig Lukas came under the heading of “training” in my calendar, but there was very little that I could teach the champ. He made it clear from the moment we met that he resented me, and believed himself to be a god. I instantly suspected cocaine use.

  I wasn’t going to get a tracking device in this guy, however much I might want to; Lukas was a big, hefty fellow with a meaty ass that needed pounding just as badly as his ego. But unless he surprised me, and bent over in the showers, I was going to have to use other methods.

  He warmed up with a skipping rope; he had all the fancy moves, crossing the rope over, doing double jumps, and so on, that men of his type take such pride in. God, I wanted to trip him. “So, what exactly is the point of this?” he said, after keeping me waiting for over five minutes.

  “We’re going to work on your flexibility.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my flexibility. Fuck that.”

  I said nothing. Lukas executed a few more flashy moves, but finally got his feet tangled up. He was furious.

  “Jesus fucking Christ. I’m not in the mood for this bullshit.” He moved towards the door.

  “You will stay put, and you will do as you’re told.”

  “Or what? Fucking jerk. . .”

  He didn’t get much further, because I hooked a leg out from underneath him with my foot, turned him as he fell, and caught him with my forearm against his windpipe.

  “Care to run that by me again?”

  Lukas’s struggles just increased the pressure until he could hardly breathe. I waited for the fighting to subside, then dropped him to the floor.

  “What the fuck? I should have you done for assault.” He started coughing.

  “Go right ahead.” I held out my phone. “What’s the emergency number here? 999, right?”

  He gasped the word “twat,” but didn’t attempt to retaliate.

  “On your feet, champ.”

  He pulled himself up, red-faced and sulky. “You’re a fucking psycho. You know that?”

  “Oh, yes, I know that all right. And so do all the people I killed in active service. I’m sure that was the last thought that went through their minds. Greg Cooper is a fucking psycho.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To work on your flexibility.”

  “Do you normally do that by choking people?”

  I was about to say that choking people was part of my repertoire, but the time was not yet right. I didn’t know whether Lukas was part of the underside of Vaughan’s operation, whether he’d worked through the ranks by peddling that meaty ass around the luxury homes of the greater Manchester area. For all I knew he could be nothing more than a legit boxer, unaware of Vaughan’s grassroots business activities. But he was Vaughan’s only visible weak spot, a thorn in his side who was making demands that the boss was not happy about. He was too valuable for Vaughan to lose—but how would they keep him on side? What power did they have over him? Had Craig Lukas made a name for himself on Vaughan’s websites before his boxing career took off? Was there other, more private material? Were they keeping him quiet with blackmail?

  I put him through a stretching routine, the kind of thing I warm up combat trainees with. If you’re using your arms and legs to kill people, you need to keep strength and flexibility in perfect equilibrium: too much of one, and you lose the other. Boxers, especially those at the heavier end of the spectrum, tend to lumber around like carthorses. I noticed it during the McAvoy fight; Lukas was as stiff as a block of wood, and if the relatively supple McAvoy had fought at the top of his abilities he might have won. I could, of course, testify to McAvoy’s flexibility in other areas, not to mention his excellent control of the gag reflex.

  When Lukas was forced to admit that he might actually learn something from me, his defenses dropped. He was still an arrogant little shit, but at least he was giving me information.

  I plied him with questions about the forthcoming Miami fight. He was excited, and indiscreet.

  “Yeah, you see I could make a real killing in America, right? I’ve had loads of agents and promoters from over there getting in touch, offering me all sorts, and not just boxing. I could get into TV, act
ing, there’s even someone talking about doing a reality show about me, you know, coming to America, winning fights against the odds, that sort of thing. It’s great.”

  “You’d do well out there. You’ve got the right kind of attitude. You believe in yourself.”

  “Yeah, well you got to, right?”

  I let him ramble on for a while, then when he paused to take a breath I asked, “And will Mr. Vaughan go with you? I understand he has ambitions in the US as well.”

  “Oh, that.” Lukas scowled. “Yeah, that’s what he says. But I’m not sure it’s right for either of us.” He lowered his voice. “Between you and me, I think I’ve kind of reached the end of the road with Vaughan. He’s holding me back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, nothing bad.” Lukas didn’t trust me yet. “He’s a brilliant manager and the best promoter in the UK. I just think that if I’m going to make it over there, I need someone who’s, like . . .”

  “Big time. And Vaughan is small time.”

  He thought that over for a while. I corrected his hamstring stretches, pushed him gently into position, enjoyed the feel of his tight leg muscles.

  “Do you really think that? That he’s small time?”

  “Of course he is. He makes a lot of noise over here, but in America they’d eat him alive. Besides, I wouldn’t be too sure that he’ll be allowed to work in the States.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I didn’t want to come straight out and say “he’s being investigated on a serious criminal matter.” “I understand there’s a lot of red tape that needs to be sorted out.”

  “Yeah. That’s why he’s in Miami now. It’s just permits and that.”

  “Yours, or his?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I need a work permit or something.”

  “You don’t have a criminal record, or anything that would prevent you from entering the US?”

  “Fuck no.”

  So much for Vaughan’s cover story: he was obviously taking care of other business over in America. Terrorist business, if the CIA was right.

  “And what about the money?”

  “What money?”

  “Does Vaughan pay you well?”

  “He keeps me on a retainer. A fucking small retainer. He says the prize money is being invested in my future.”

  “What does your contract say?”

  “You better ask my lawyer.”

  “I will.”

  “But you’re working for Vaughan, right? He’s got you to ask me all this stuff to find out what I really think of him.”

  “You have no reason to trust me.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And yet,” I said, “you do trust me. Or you want to.”

  Lukas scowled; his thick black eyebrows and a heavy beard growth made him look like a cartoon villain.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s leave it there and carry on with the stretches. Get into a high plank . . .”

  “Are you queer?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” His voice was low, but not hostile. He stared at his feet.

  “Yes, I’m queer. I like to fuck men. Why do you ask?”

  “You’re one of his lot, then.”

  “Meaning what?”

  He glanced up, presumably to make sure that I wasn’t about to get him in a chokehold again. “They’re all gay, all of Vaughan’s lot.”

  “And what about you, Craig?”

  “I’ve got a girlfriend.”

  “And Alan Vaughan’s married. You wouldn’t be the first famous sportsman to go out with a string of beautiful women because he’s gay.”

  “Yeah?” Maybe this was news to Lukas. “Well I’m not. I like women.” I said nothing. “I do! Jesus, what do I have to do to prove it?”

  “Stop trying, that would be my advice. And if you’re really straight, ask yourself why you’ve surrounded yourself with gay men. Like you say, everyone on Vaughan’s team, including me, is queer.”

  “But you were in the marines, right?”

  “Right. And you can imagine how many men I got to fuck. I was like a kid in a candy store.” I was in full Greg Cooper mode. “New recruits will let you fuck them just to get ahead. Senior ranks will let you fuck them because they’ve learned to love it. Yeah, Craig, it’s a man’s life in the Marine Corps.”

  “Christ,” he said, and swallowed hard.

  “I’m good at it too.” I let silence fall for a while. “Even better than I am at fighting.”

  “That so.”

  Lukas nervously rubbed his knees, then cleared his throat.

  “Look, mate, I’d better get moving. I’ve got a photo shoot in an hour. Got to get washed and shaved and all that.”

  “Photos? What sort of photos?”

  “Publicity stuff for posters and that.” It sounded innocent enough; perhaps Lukas really didn’t know about Vaughan-Porn.

  “Go on then. Make yourself beautiful. And we have more work to do, okay?”

  “Agreed. I’m as stiff as a fucking board.”

  Not, sadly, the kind of stiffness I’d have been interested in, but at least he’d signed up to the program.

  “And if you ever need to talk, Craig, if you need any advice—well, I’ll do my best to be an impartial listener.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I shrugged. “I know it’s a leap of faith.” He opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.

  “Thanks for the offer, mate.” Perhaps he was going to report me to Vaughan for insubordination or espionage or something. Who was spying on whom?

  I let him go to the showers without following, however much I wanted to see that thick-set, hairy body. Lukas, if he was to be of any use, had to be won over slowly.

  Besides, it was half past three. Half an hour before Jackson got off work. And my balls were nice and full again.

  09

  Getting inside Tom Jackson’s ass was not going to be easy. Jackson was not like the rest of the lost boys. Jackson was a well-balanced, intelligent young man with healthy self-esteem and no obvious signs of emotional distress. He was using Vaughan every bit as much as Vaughan was using him. He knew Vaughan’s secrets, and in return for absolute discretion he could pretty much name his price. One word from Jackson and the whole Vaughan empire would be blown to pieces. He must be one hell of a fuck. I intended to find out.

  I was in reception at four o’clock sharp. Jackson kept me waiting for twenty minutes, then came out of the office looking as crisp and clean as the moment he’d walked in. He was on the phone, acknowledging my presence with a nod of the head. You’d never have known this was a fuckmeet. I like these little games. I like the guys who pretend they don’t want it. It makes the conquest sweeter. I like to look into their eyes when the last bit of pretense melts away. And then, when all dignity has been fucked out of them, they show me the truth. Yes, Tom Jackson, in your tailored shirt and your ass-hugging slacks, I will break you down.

  I was hard. I stood up and let him see. He glanced down, then up, nodded as if he’d been reminded of a business appointment, and continued his conversation. It was dreary stuff about venues, insurance, security . . . I tuned out, and watched his ass as he leaned against the desk, sticking it out at me, reminding me of the prize. It worked. My mouth was watering as I thought of how good it would taste when I ate him out before sticking my dick in him . . .

  “Okay, Greg. Are you ready?”

  I must have looked more than usually stupid as I came out of my daydream. “Huh?”

  “Let’s get out of here.” He put on his jacket.

  It was dark in the street, the air full of dirty drizzle.

  “Where are you taking me?” he demanded.

  “What?”

  “Are we going for a drink? It’s too early for dinner.” He looked at his watch: stylish, steel, expensive. “Well?”

  “Where do you live?”

  Jackson ignored the question. “I suppose you don�
�t know Manchester very well yet. At least, not the kind of places I would like.” He looked me in the eye. “Unless you’ve been well briefed.”

  That gave me a shock. I acted dumb. “The only places I know are the Manchester Arena, City Fitness, and the pizza place near my flat.” What the fuck did he mean, briefed? Was he on to me? The idea flitted across my mind that he, too, was a mole in the Vaughan operation. Surely someone would have warned me. I raised my guard, while trying to look stupid and horny. “If you’re hungry, I’ll buy you a pizza after I fuck you.”

  “Oh, Greg, Greg,” he said, in a mocking voice, “if you think I’m going back to whatever dump you call home for a shag and a takeaway, you are very much mistaken.”

  “Then what?”

  “If you want easy meat, call Oz. He’s desperate for you to fuck him again.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Everyone knows about that. Oz can’t keep his mouth shut.”

  “So, I fucked him. Is that a problem?”

  “Not at all. That’s what he’s for.”

  “And what are you for?”

  Again, he ignored me. “A word of advice. If you’re going to work your way through the staff list, try to be discreet.”

  “Discreet? Me?” I squeezed my cock. “That’s not my strong suit.”

  “I just mean that if you do things that you might not want the rest of the world to find out about . . .” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “I don’t give a shit who knows. I gave up worrying about that a long time ago.”

  “What about your family?”

  I was about to say something dramatic like “my family is dead to me” but then I remembered I was Greg Cooper, not Dan Stagg, that I had a family not only back home in the States but also over here in the UK. Remember my English grandfather? My dossier contained all sorts of details that I had committed to memory—but Tom Jackson’s ass had pushed that information to the back of my mind. I’d have to watch myself. The mission comes first, however deep undercover I go, however much I let myself become Greg Cooper. There’s a divorced mother living over here, separated from my American father fifteen years ago. There’s a half-sister in college I’m supposed to be in touch with.