Skill Set

by Vernon Rush

  “So you break into my house?”

  She shrugs impishly, the fear melting away almost as soon as it had reared its head. “I didn’t know you were so paranoid about burglars,” she mumbled, watching with interest as Isaac’s sleek chest was gradually exposed.

  Roughly pulling the shirt over his head, he balled it up and tossed it across the room. “How did you get in here?” He massaged the taut muscles in the back of his neck.

  The woman’s eyes moves leisurely, drinking in the hard pecs and chiseled abdomen, before making the upward journey via the defined muscles in his forearms, his bulging biceps and broad shoulders. “Does it really matter?”

  “Yes,” he insists.

  Giggling, she shook her head. “No, it doesn’t,” she mumbled, her right hand grasping at the waistband of his jeans.

  Lightning fast, Isaac’s strong hand wrapped around her wrist.

  “Hey,” she muttered, trying to pull her arm free.“How did you get in?” he demanded, squeezing just a little tighter. It wasn’t enough to really hurt her, but he knew it would be enough to scare her.

  “Okay, okay,” she gasped, fighting more vehemently to drag her hand away from his grasp. “I stole the key from your housekeeper,” she whispered, her cheeks reddening.

  Releasing her as abruptly as he’d grabbed her, Isaac shakes his head. “You’re crazy, you know that?” he grumbled. “I told you it was only going to be that one time. You knew I wasn’t offering any more than that.”

  The blonde looked forlornly down at her wrist, gently cradling it in the other hand.

  “Now, get dressed and get out,” he barked, his arm stretched out as he gestured toward the door.

  Her eyes were now glassy, as she peered up at him. “You don’t mean that,” she mumbled, her voice shaky.

  Experience had taught Rose some women could not handle a casual affair; there were some women that would always want more. He prided himself on being able to spot those tenacious women. However, this one had slipped under his radar, possibly because she was so devious she’d been able to mask her true self; possibly because he was a little drunk the night he’d taken her home. Or maybe, he reminded himself, it was that incredible body that had temporarily blinded him to everything else.

  She was beautiful, of that there was no question. Her fair skin was evenly and naturally tanned, her long slender legs were toned with defined curves. Her abdomen was flat and firm, her breasts larger than natural on a woman of her size, but they were indeed the real deal. Her lips were plump and inviting, her mouth warm, soft and willing.

  The directions of his thoughts began to stir something else in Isaac. He felt the heat swelling in his groin.

  She could see the change in him, and she intuited the loss of resolve in his eyes and jaw. Like a hunter, she knew her prey was now within reach. “Tell me you want me to stay,” she says, unshed tears blinked back as a smile spread across her bright red lips.

  “No,” he growled, his voice deeper and darker. “You have to leave,” he added. He knew he had to get this girl out of the house. If he slept with her again, he’d just be making the situation worse. “I want you to get out now.”

  She stood up slowly. “Just once more,” she whispered, her hand gripping the towel that clung to her chest. Slowly, she peeled it away from her body, letting it fall to the floor. “Once more and I promise I’ll leave you alone,” she added.

  Rose knew he couldn’t trust her, but her nakedness and the strong smell of arousal emanating from her were stealing his focus. Knowing he would have to change his locks anyway, he wondered how much more harm could really be done. Would giving her what she wanted make her any less crazy? No. But, would giving her what she wanted make her crazier? Unlikely.

  With nothing to gain, but nothing to lose, Isaac relented to the demands of his body. With a sudden flurry of movement, he stepped forward. Grasping her hips, he pushed her back onto the bed.

  She fell backward with a shriek of delighted surprise. Her legs instinctively parted and she enclosed his thick frame between her thighs. Against the coarse fabric of Isaac’s jeans she undulated, rubbing herself against the growing bulge in his pants. “Oh yeah,” she groans, as he drops his head to her mouth and then slowly moved down her straining throat and onto her breasts, the nipples a darkened pink. He kicked off his jeans and jockeys and his shoes as he twirled his tongue around her navel and nibbled her belly gently..

  Rose sucked her skin with knowledgeable purpose remembering where her most sensitive areas awaited his touch. This caused her to arch herself up to meet him, and a bolt of responding electricity shot through his body.

  Screeching joyfully, she writhed hungrily, as she violently scraped her body against his, enveloping him inside herself. “Yes, yes, yes,” she panted, her right hand grasping his head tight between her breasts and her long, manicured nails dug into his scalp.

  The musk of her arousal drifted up between their bodies and with a deep inhalation, Isaac breathed her in. Without hesitation, he plunged his thick tongue between her parted lips. As it slid over hers, he tasted Scotch and guessed that she’d helped herself to the bottle he kept in the kitchen.

  She moaned into his mouth, a frustrated growl of need as the short-lived climax began to seep from her body.

  Isaac’s left hand is slipping up her torso and grasping her breast in his large hand. He massaged her with firm, authoritarian strokes. His right hand meanwhile pushed its way between their joined lower halves.

  She whimpered in reply, arching her back. Wrenching her mouth to the side, and drawing in hurried breaths, she wrapped both hands around his muscular back. “I want you again,” she gasped, her chest heaving rapidly against his. “I need you. Now!”

  Rose could no longer contain his own recharged desire. It was a long time until he was once again capable of rational thought.

  * * *

  The next morning, Isaac awoke to a very messy, empty bed. His lower half was covered by only one sheet, with the rest of the bed clothes pushed to the foot of the bed or hanging off the side.

  With a tired grunt, he rubbed the heel of his hand over one closed eye and raised his head off the pillow to double-check the mattress by his side. Then, he was still for several seconds. Alert, he tried to focus on any sounds from the bathroom, but he could hear nothing.

  “Damn,” he sighed, allowing himself to flop back listlessly. “That girl is something,” he whispered to the empty room, knowing even if spending another night with her turned out to be a huge mistake, it wouldn’t be something he’d regret. She was a wild cat, endlessly energetic and just the right side of kinky. In many ways, she’d be Isaac’s perfect woman.

  However, there could never be a ‘perfect woman’, not in his life. Even if his lifestyle allowed him the luxury of relationships, he was well aware of his own demons: his inability to trust, his unwillingness to make himself vulnerable. That’s why his relationships with women had always been short-lived, the shorter the better in Rose’s opinion. He did not forge emotional attachments to the women he slept with. Instead, he satisfied his primal desire for sex in as uncomplicated a fashion as possible. Little Miss. I-stole-your-keys being one of the exceptions to his goal of simplicity.

  With a toss of his head, Rose checked the clock and muttered something unintelligible as he slid his naked body from beneath the sheet and slowly made his way to the bathroom.

  He showered and brushed his teeth, then headed back to the bedroom to get dressed.

  Wearing a pair of black jeans and a gray T-shirt another Van Halen design, this time a spread eagle with blots of lightning shooting from its feet, he made his way down the stairs and straight out of the house. It was not until he was in the car and on his way to the office that he dialed the number of a locksmith.

  The Trackers’ HQ didn’t look like anything fancy from the outside. It had the appearance of any other corporate building and was surrounded by law firms and banks. A small
brass plaque claimed the proprietor of the business, a J.L. Frobisher, was a corporate accountant.

  The first time Isaac came here, he couldn’t believe they were operating right in the middle of a busy street. However, Foxhound reminded him of the importance of hiding in plain sight. And it certainly seemed to work.

  Rose passed the receptionist, who was actually an armed guard. To the rest of the world, she seemed like an ordinary twenty-year-old, a redhead with a slender frame and wearing a professional skirted suit. However, Isaac had seen her in training sessions, and he knew she could take down men twice her size and she was more than capable of breaking a neck with her bare hands. That sweet, innocent exterior was incredibly deceptive. “Morning,” she nods, flashing her perfect white teeth. “Busy night, I hear?”Pausing, Rose rests his hand on her desk. “Is there anything that goes on around here you don’t know about?” he asks, grinning broadly at her.

  “Not much,” she sighed. “He’s waiting for you,” she pointed at the elevator near the far side of the lobby.

  That girl was known to him as Jennifer; he knew that wasn’t her real name , just as Isaac wasn’t his. He suspected she too had undergone surgery, a faint silver line near her ear indicating that she’d had her face altered before entering the organization. In many ways, she was Foxhound’s right hand woman. Like him, she knew all of the members of the Trackers; something no one else knew. They weren’t even supposed to know each other. They were all known only by code names, Isaac’s being ‘Chaos’, which turned out to be rather apt given his working methods.

  There were five other Trackers; four men and a woman. Rose had only heard the disguised voices of three of those men, code named ‘Lamplight’, ‘Orion’ and ‘The Trojan’. Rose had come into contact with the other man during the course of one particularly problematic mission. He and ‘Deadeye’ had agreed never to speak of the fact they’d seen each other face to face, and continued to keep that information secret, even from Foxhound.

  The other female member of the organization is called ‘Persephone’. She and Rose have also met. When their two separate lines of investigation had intersected, Isaac had saved her life. This event Foxhound knew of, and although he was at first rattled by the fact two of his Trackers could identify each other. He quickly realized it could provide an additional strength to the team, sending Rose and Persephone undercover as a married couple on one occasion.That was a mission, Isaac had particularly enjoyed. He refrained entirely from mixing business with pleasure, but he was certainly tempted by that queen of the underworld. She, like himself, was of a mixed-race heritage; a white father and Jamaican mother. They didn’t speak about their backgrounds beyond that, both feeling the basic description did nothing to jeopardize their ‘old’ identities.

  Persephone had a lithe figure, but there was a little more meat on her than Jennifer, which makes her even stronger in hand-to hand combat. She had no problem completing a hundred push-ups and Rose sensed in a fair bare-handed fight between them, it would be anybody’s game.

  As well as physically fit, she was intelligent and uncommonly beautiful. Although Isaac had always had a thing for long hair, even he was forced to admit Persephone made the pixie cut work. In another lifetime, he would have wanted to get to know her better. And he’s not ashamed to admit, if he didn’t work with her, there is no question he would have invited her into his bed.

  As the elevator reached the top floor and the doors slid open, Isaac came face to face with the angry expression of Foxhound.

  The middle-aged man’s arms were folded sternly across his chest and he made a deliberate show of checking his watch. “You’re late,” he stated coldly.

  “Yeah,” Isaac admitted, stepping out of the elevator. “But only a little,” he added cheerfully.

  “I’m not in the mood, Rose,” he growled, spinning on his heel and marching down the hallway.

  Isaac moved swiftly, staying just two steps behind his boss, but keeping up with the pace. He opened his mouth to make another quip, but he sucked it back realizing wisely, he was already on thin ice with his superior. Instead, he remained respectfully quiet. The only sounds in the corridor were the purposeful steps of the two men. Foxhound’s stylish, highly polished shoes tapping lightly accompanied by the heavy clump of Isaac’s boots.

  When Foxhound reached his office, he pushed open the door and stepped to one side, fiddling with the cufflink at his left wrist as he waited for Rose to step inside.

  Isaac glanced with a wry smile at his fastidious employer. “Listen,” he sighs, preempting the lecture that was coming. “I know I should have got in touch, but if we’d waited, we could have lost him.”

  Foxhound sighed loudly as he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. “That can wait,” he muttered, as he passed Isaac and sat behind his mahogany desk. “There’s something much more pressing we need to discuss,” he added, his elbows coming up to the surface of the desk and steeping his fingers in front of his face. “I have a new job for you.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  Isaac remained on his feet, seemingly gazing at a blank wall to his right. There were no pictures hanging on it and it was covered in the same beige wallpaper that decorated the other three walls. He’s been in this office many times before, and he knows what lies behind the wall. And as he waits patiently, the thin façade slid upward, revealing a large television screen divided into three sections.

  It was blank as Foxhound began his briefing. “We have a significant national security risk on our hands,” he announces matter-of-factly, as he taps one of the keys on his computer keyboard.

  The screen Isaac is looking at illuminates, the largest of the three sections instantly filled with an enlarged email. Rose’ eyes quickly scanned the document, which he recognized was a communication between two members of the Cabinet.

  “This was infiltrated and sent to at least three individuals in Russia,” Foxhound sighed, leaning back in his chair and resting both hands at the back of his head.

  Isaac did not turn around. Instead, he was reading the content of the email, which focused on spy plane missions into the Middle East and the defense secretary’s concerns over a site that seemed to be used for weapons manufacturing.

  “We traced the hack to a computer in the Oval Office,” his superior added flatly.

  Peering over his shoulder, Rose raised an eyebrow. “If this was an inside job, why isn’t the CIA handling it? Can’t be that hard pinning down a suspect.”

  “Apparently harder than you’d think,” he responded wryly, pushing himself from his chair and approaching the TV screen. With his index finger, he touched the top right hand corner and another image appears. “This is the agent they sent in a week ago,” he explained pointing to the picture of a thirty-something-year-old man with a Harvard haircut and wearing a silk suit. “So far he’s come up with nothing.”

  “He’s the best they got, huh?” Isaac chuckled, shaking his head. Folding his arms across his broad chest, he continued to look at the agent. There was something about the man that seemed familiar, but Isaac couldn’t quite place it.“There are a number of professional hackers employed by the White House,” Foxhounds continued, ignoring Rose’s snide remark. “Some of them conduct counter espionage, others check the security of the government’s systems.”

  “It’s not likely to be one of them,” Rose announced dismissively. “Those guys are much too smart for that.”

  “Maybe,” his boss concedes, shrugging. “Or maybe they’re being offered a great deal and it’s blurring their ability to think clearly.”

  Rose wasn’t buying it and stared skeptically at his employer.

  “One thing is for sure, whoever our man is, he knows a hell of a lot about computer security. He can’t have acquired that kind of knowledge without leaving a trail.”

  “So why isn’t the CIA following that trail?” Isaac asked coldly.

  “They need a little help,” Foxhoun
d smiled. “And you’re it.”

  With a puff of air and a nod, Isaac’s arms flopped to his sides. “Where do I start?”

  “You’re looking at it,” Foxhound responded, gesturing to the email that remained displayed on the large screen. “The only tangible evidence we have.”

  * * *

  Rose had his own office in the building, it was smaller than Foxhound's, of course, but it was fitted out with all the gadgets he needed. Except he rarely needed any of them. His approach to the job had always been more hands-on. Foxhound had dubbed it the ‘bull in a China shop method’, but even he had to admit it got results. As Isaac walked into his office and approached the desk, he found it covered in a thick layer of dust. Given the sensitive nature of their work, The Trackers didn’t have a staff of office cleaners. That, coupled with Isaac’s long absence from the room, accounted for its very neglected condition.

  He swiped his fingers across the desk, then glanced at them. With a shake of his head, he rubbed his hand across his jeans before slipping into his seat. The room was sparse, with just the one desk, one chair and bare, cream-colored walls. There was a window to Isaac’s right and as he fired up his computer, his gaze drifted over to the glass window pane.

  He was on the fourth floor, able to see only the executive offices of the building directly across the street. Most of those windows were covered by blinds, but one was open. It revealed a large, open-plan office space with at least a dozen employees. Momentarily, Isaac’s focus remained on the window and the people, some scurrying eagerly, others sitting idly at their desks, all unaware of his observing.

  When he heard the familiar string of beeps, he turned to his brightly lit computer screen. His fingers, unused to the task, slowly typed his password. Then, he clicked a few more keys and the screen displayed the email he’d been shown in Foxhound’s office. He stared at it for several seconds, as if it could reveal its secrets to him. And after a minute, he tapped several more keys.