Adversaries,
a Pros story by Sue Castle. Rated NC17. Set in Dec 1984 -
early 1985. No copyright infringement intended.
She loved Christmas. The snow, in the few hours before it turned to slush, the lights in
the windows, the unexpected gentleness in faces seldom seen in such a light.
Her work was just as important, her manner just as brisk, but an occasional
smile peeked out, softening the stern lines of her expression, and she didn't
stay late in Chambers every night of the week. She actually went home on time
one, sometimes two nights each week in the month of December.
This was one of those
nights.
She didn't often cook,
having neither the time nor the inclination. But her parents were gone, her
older sister was in
For the
goose.
The take-out arrived on the
doorstep with David. She grinned at him, inviting him to share the joke. He
smiled back, but the usual sparkle was absent, and the
smile strained the thin skin around his eyes. She should have known then.
Of course, she didn't.
Berating herself after the fact was not her style. Neither was crying.
She would do both.
Later.
First, there was curry to
dub 'Goose', and one more night of memories to make.
Christmas day dawned bright
and clear, and for once no one tried to blow up
And they were as close as
it got.
A shadow of a smile ghosted
across his lips at just how close they were, in fact, before Betty rapped
discreetly at the door. The smile disappeared as he read the cryptic warning.
So much
for Peace on Earth. "Get me 4.5 and 3.7, Betty." Reaching for his secure line, he
dialed directly to Scotland Yard, and wondered what it would take to get
everyone to take a day off from causes once in a while.
So much
for Christmas dinner.
She placed the champagne
flute perfectly at an angle with the wine chilling in the bucket, and checked
her watch. It wasn't like her brother to be late, although David had seemed
preoccupied when they'd met for dinner the previous week. Perhaps
a problem at work? He wouldn't talk about that. Too
sensitive. But usually he was adept at talking around it enough that she
was able to understand the root of the problem, if not the specifics. He was not
the talkative type, her little brother, although he'd startled her a little
with an unexpectedly fierce hug and whispered, "Love you, sis" on the
step before heading home.
Nearly
two. That most
certainly was not like him.
As she was reaching for the
telephone to ring him up, the doorbell rang. She grinned to herself. Perfect timing, as always. Her mouth was already opening to
tease him about his absentmindedness when she realized there were two men, not
one, on her step.
Both were in uniforms.
Both were frowning.
"Miss Geraldine Mather?"
She nodded. Her hand
clenched around the knob, knowing without knowing why that she was about to be
dealt a body blow.
"We regret to inform
you, Miss Mather, that there has been an
accident."
Only it hadn't been. One
doesn't accidentally take a .38 Police Special in one's hand, nor put the
barrel in one's mouth by accident. One certainly doesn't pull the trigger and
destroy one's skull accidentally.
She stared down at her
brother's face, very like her own in shape and coloring, oddly lopsided now, in
spite of the attempts the morgue attendants had made to pillow the remains of
his head. His expression, what there was of it, was peaceful. It was a lie.
A voice somewhere outside
her confirmed that yes, that was David Mather. It was thin, reedy, not at all the usual deep
cadence she was used to hearing from her mouth, and she looked around vaguely,
wondering who was speaking for her. There was no one there but the policeman
and the morgue attendant. She turned and walked from the room.
The shivers hit her in the
cab going back to her flat.
There hadn't been very many
questions. It seemed a simple enough case. A note -- "I'm sorry." Nothing else. Seasonal depression, she had heard one say to
another with that pseudo-wise authority of those who see everything and know
nothing.
He'd been distracted.
Why was he sorry?
And why was he dead?
She stared at the congealed
mess that had been giblets and gravy, knowing she should clean up, when the vivid mental image assaulted her of precisely
what her brother had looked like. She was vomiting into the giblets before she
could stop herself.
The bowl hit the side of
the sink so hard it shattered, a stray shard slicing into the side of her hand.
She slammed the handle of the faucet and water began to pour into the mess,
porcelain bits, chunks of turkey liver, pieces of celery, strings
of vomit, washed in a pale spray of blood.
He'd been sorry. So sorry
he hadn't been able to tell her. So sorry he'd had to blow his own head off.
Staring through a hazy,
melting landscape, not feeling the tears streaking down across her cheeks and
blurring her vision, she wondered.
Why?
There were times when being
a well respected barrister, a physically imposing woman, and a grieving sister
who happened to have an excellent security clearance, came in very handy. She
stared around the dull beige walls of her brother's office, deep in the bowels
of the Foreign Office, and sat slowly behind his desk. All of the real secrets
had been cleared away already, but she knew David, or thought she had. He
wouldn't leave her with so little. 'I'm sorry' wasn't nearly enough.
Three hours later, she
stared at the pitifully small number of documents she'd managed to gather.
Whatever the trigger had been, it wasn't here. Her brother had been very good
at his job, and part of that job had been to make sure that no one else ever
figured out what he did, beyond the bland and misleading label 'civil servant.'
Patting the top sheet gently, she turned to leave, thinking perhaps there would
be more information at his flat.
Ensconced at his desk,
surrounded by his papers, the letters had leapt out at her from the innocuous
notes on his daily agenda for the previous month. 'TP. GY. Nic.'
She sank back into his chair and stared at the paper.
Running one index finger down the sheet, she backtracked. Nic
appeared in November, September, and August. The December sheet was missing
from the book. TP and GY appeared at odd intervals for over a year.
Staring off into space,
letting her mind click it over, she tapped the papers again. She couldn't take
them with her, of course, since the government claimed anything left behind by
its workers, especially those workers who had died both violently and at their
own hands. Luckily, she had an eidetic memory, and if that failed, a notepad.
She didn't remember the
drive to her brother's flat, nor letting herself in, but several hours later
she sat surrounded by a pile of pamphlets and scribbled notes, and wondered if
she had ever known David. True, she'd known that he was brilliant, an analyst of
some repute in his own little corner of the world, a caring, decent man with a
dry sense of humor and a knack for practical jokes when one least expected
them.
She hadn't known he was
homosexual.
She certainly hadn't known he was being blackmailed for being so.
'Why' struck her again,
hard, and she crumpled forward, holding his appointment book to her mouth,
clamping her jaw down tightly on the sob fighting to break free. He could have
told her. She would have listened. She would not have judged. He should have
known that.
Anger began to lick at her
mind, forcing back the numbing black grief weighting her limbs, raising her
head and drawing her lips back into a feral snarl. He had been sorry. He had
been ashamed.
He had been stupid.
So had she.
Someone was going to be
much, much sorrier than her brother had been.
She scrabbled through the
pamphlets until she found an old, well-worn one. It fit two of the sets of
initials in David's appointment book, GY and TP. At least, it was the closest
fit she had been able to make. One Thomas Pellin
of the Gay Youth Organization. Mr. Pellin
might be able to tell her who Nic was. And Nic would tell her why David had been so sorry that he'd
had to take his own life.
Then, then she would
know who had made him sorry. And she would make them pay.
"May I help you?"
He put all the friendly support he could in his voice. Whoever she was, she
looked like hell. Fine dark eyes were red rimmed, sunken, and deep lines
bracketed her strong features. She resembled someone, but for the life of him
he couldn't figure out whom she brought to mind.
"Mr. Pellin?"
She had a voice that in
other circumstances might be compelling. As it was, it simply sounded painful.
"Yes, I'm Thomas Pellin. What can I do for
you?" He stood and gestured to the single chair crammed in beside his
small desk. His office was tiny, but the money was needed elsewhere, and he
spent very little time behind that desk.
"My name is Geraldine Mather." She sank into the chair, her spine rigidly
upright. Ah, of course. He smiled warmly at her.
"David's sister! He
doesn't talk much about his family, but he has mentioned you. He was looking
forward to Christmas day with you." She was looking at him as if he was an
ax murderer. A shiver crawled up his spine. "I say, is there something
wrong with David?"
"You don't know."
From the ghastly blankness in her eyes, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"What happened?"
His voice lowered automatically into the tone he usually reserved for the
survivors of AIDS patients.
"That's what I'm here
to find out."
Thomas stared at her,
completely at sea. "I'm very sorry, but I don't have any idea what's going
on. Is David all right?"
"David committed
suicide on Christmas day."
Pellin gawked at her like a landed fish.
"David?"
She nodded. He found
himself shaking his head, no. Some of the ice melted from her eyes, in response
to his honest shock, and he gripped the edges of his tiny desk, trying to
regain his composure.
"He shot himself. In the head."
"Why, for god's
sake?" His voice sounded strangled. He'd known David Mather
relatively well for the last several months, and the sense of waste made him
shake.
"He was being
blackmailed." The ice was creeping back into her voice. She looked capable
of murder, herself.
"About
what?" She
raised one brow and glanced around the office. Gay pride posters, AIDS
awareness posters, safe sex pamphlets, lists of MPs to write or ring, a Rainbow
Coalition flag hanging limply on a thin pole in the corner of the bookcase.
"About being gay? That's ridiculous."
"How much do you know
about his life, Mr. Pellin? Professionally?"
He shook his head again.
"Not much. He was discreet, but then, we all are, to some extent. I knew
he worked for the government, but he didn't talk about work."
"What did he talk about?" The intensity in the question made him
shiver again.
"Everyday
things. Football. Plays, books, my kids, you, a
little. Current events."
"Did he ever mention a
man named Nic?"
"No," he answered
slowly, staring at her, realization dawning. "You're going after
him." It was a statement, not a question, and he read the answer in her
eyes. "You don't know what you're getting into." He leaned forward in
his chair, anxious in his need to reacquaint her with reality. "If he was
being blackmailed, the people who were doing this to him, they're dangerous
people. You could put yourself in danger, as well. David wouldn't want you to
get yourself hurt out of some need for revenge."
"If they did it to
him, Mr. Pellin, they're doing it to others. I'm not
going to sit back and allow that to happen."
He could see she wouldn't.
"Then at least let me call in some allies."
"This is not your
concern, Mr. Pellin. I came here for information, not
to draw you into the middle of this."
"Too
late, Miss Mather." He wasn't going to let it go that
way. "David was my friend. I have other friends, too, friends who know how
to handle people like blackmailers. Let them help us. Help you."
"David was an
intensely private man," she responded, resisting the idea of more outsiders.
"He wouldn't want his business known. He killed himself, for heaven's
sake, trying to protect that privacy." She stopped,
her throat working as she swallowed, before forcing the last words through
tight lips. "He didn't even tell me he was gay."
Pellin closed his eyes at the pain in her
voice. "David trusted me, as far as he trusted anyone. Will you trust me,
as well? To help you find, and stop, whoever did this to
him?" He opened his eyes and stared back at her, willing her to
listen. "I trust my life to these men. They're friends of mine. They know
how to keep a secret, and they know how to root out evil and put it to rest.
Will you let us help? Before another young man like David falls into these
people's hands and takes the wrong way out?"
She stared at him for long
minutes, before something she saw brought her to a decision. She nodded,
sharply, once. "Call your friends. I want whoever did this stopped." Dead, echoed unspoken, and he reached for the
telephone before she could change her mind.
The telephone was answered
before the first ring completed. Pellin nodded
reassuringly at Mather, and spoke into the phone.
"Hello, Ray."
"Thomas! What's
up?" Ray Doyle's warm voice immediately reassured him. Doyle and Bodie were tough, and Mr. Cowley was incredibly smart.
Between the three of them, they would be able to fix this. As
much as any of it could be fixed. Nothing was going to bring David back.
"Are you two free this
afternoon? I have something important I need to talk with you about, prefer to
do it in person, and as soon as possible."
"Are you in immediate
danger?" The cool, professional tone took a weight off Pellin's
shoulders he hadn't realized he was carrying.
"No, but something
awful has happened to a friend, and I think you are our best hope of keeping it
from happening to anyone else."
"We'll be there. Your office?"
He mumbled assent.
"Now
okay?"
"Please. And Ray --
thanks."
"Thank us when we fix
it, mate," Ray returned grimly, then rung off.
He cradled the handset and
glanced up at the clock. "They'll be here in a few minutes, Miss Mather. They'll help. It's going to be all right."
She shook her head, fingers
curling into fists, clenching and unclenching rhythmically. "It may be
many things, Mr. Pellin, but it is definitely not
going to be all right."
Unable to think of a thing
to say in response, he sat there and watched her brood until the knock came at
the front door. Nearly bounding from his chair in a combination of relief and
adrenaline, he opened the door to his friends. "Thank you, Ray, Bodie." He returned their nods and ushered them into
his office. As usual, their quiet air of deadly competence made him feel much
better. Shutting the door carefully behind him, he didn't see his first guest's
reaction to the new arrivals. The first indication he had that there was
anything wrong was Ray's startled, "Bloody hell!" and Bodie's growled "What's all this, then, Pellin?"
Thomas swung about and
stared at the tableau frozen in the center of his office. Ms. Mather was on her feet, staring at his friends as if he'd
suddenly let wild animals loose in the parlor. Ray was white about the lips,
staring at her, one strong arm thrown across Bodie's
midriff, in what looked like either a crutch to keep his balance or a restraint
to keep Bodie away from Ms. Mather.
Maybe both.
"Set a killer to catch
a killer, Mr. Pellin?" Her voice was cracked
ice.
Bodie twitched and lunged for her, an
instinctive move that Ray quelled only by shifting himself directly between
them and leaning back into his partner, hard. Bodie
grunted with the effort, and Ray barked sharply, "Bodie,
stop it!"
Bodie froze. The only thing moving was
his eyes, which were raking up and down Geraldine Mather
as if he'd like to carve her up in strips with a pocket knife and feet her to
the dogs. Thomas swallowed.
"Uhm,
Ray, what's going on?"
"That's what I'd like to know, mate. What's she doing here?" Ray's
voice was deadly calm, but dark beneath the surface. Thomas swallowed again and
gingerly moved between Ray and Ms. Mather.
"We need some
help."
"Ha! Sooner help the
fucking Russkies!"
"I do not need
any help from CI5!"
"Help? Are you kidding?"
Bodie's yelp, Mather's
declaration and Ray's disbelief overlapped. Thomas had enough. Raising both
hands like a referee at a boxing match, he pitched his voice enough to be heard
over the melee and gave it his best shot.
"A friend of mine,
working out of the Foreign Office, has been blackmailed and driven to suicide.
We need to find out who did this to him and stop them from doing it
again."
Serious green and cold blue eyes stared at him. "What's she got to do with
it?" Bodie asked him, cocking his head at Mather but not looking at her.
"He was my younger
brother," she said quietly. Ray's head swiveled between Thomas and Mather.
"Do you accept our
help in finding the man who was responsible for your brother's death?" Ray
asked her directly, just as quietly as she had spoken.
"Why wouldn't
she?" Thomas chimed in, confused by the undercurrents in the room.
"Ms. Mather led the inquisition into the circumstances
surrounding Paul Coogan's death a few years
back." Ray's voice was dispassionate, but the white line hadn't eased
around his mouth.
"Tried
to pin Doyle for murder, when it was Coogan's own
brother pounding on him that killed him!" Bodie
interjected.
"Why should I?"
she answered Doyle's question. "It hasn't been my experience that CI5 are
particularly concerned with the rights of individuals. Why should they care
about one more homosexual proving that he's a security risk?" She was
glaring at Bodie and Ray equally at this point. They
were glaring back, Bodie more viciously than Ray,
oddly enough, given that it'd been Ray who'd apparently been on trial.
Or maybe
not so oddly, under the circumstances. Taking a deep breath, Thomas edged a shoulder
between the combatants and concentrated on Mather.
"Mr. Cowley doesn't
think that way." She opened her mouth, undoubtedly to dispute his claim,
and he hurried on. "Seven years ago, I got into trouble in a small town
north of here. I was trying to set up an office for the GYO, and the local
police ran me out of town. The burnt the office, and
they beat me. I went to Mr. Cowley, because he has a reputation for being a
fair man. He listened to me, and he investigated. He sent Ray and Bodie up to the town, and they went undercover as
homosexuals making another try to set up a GYO office. The three of them
gathered enough evidence to stop the whole gang of corrupt police and send the
inspector behind it, and his gang of thugs, to prison. Mr. Cowley hates
prejudice of any kind, hates those who prey on the weak, and did everything he
could to help me."
She still didn't look
convinced, and he felt his temper slip. "Ray and Bodie
very nearly died helping me, Ms. Mather! They were
shot at and beaten up and came within an inch of being murdered, to help
me!" Deliberately unclenching his fists and taking a steadying breath, he
continued in a more moderate tone.
"Afterward, Ray and I
kept in touch, and we've become good friends. He and Bodie
are the best help we could possibly hope to get to find out who did this to
David." Studying her closed expression, he continued softly, "You
want to find out who did this. You want to stop them." He nodded at his
friends. "These men are the best chance you will ever have of doing that. For David."
Her composure cracked, the
tiniest bit, and Ray spoke over Thomas' shoulder. "We're going to find
him, Ms. Mather. You can either be in it with us, or
get out of our way."
Thomas glanced back at Ray
and swallowed at the fierce expression on his friend's face. Bodie looked just as determined.
"Why?" Mather's voice trembled. He swung around to look at her
again. She looked confused. Exhausted. Angry.
"This is what we do.
We stop the predators before they can hit again."
She took a deep breath,
still staring at Ray, then nodded. Once.
"Use your phone,
Tom?" Bodie asked, already reaching for the
handset. Thomas nodded pro forma agreement.
Five minutes later, George
Cowley was on his way over.
He looked the same as the
first time she'd seen him, an adversary in a stark, echoing basement room. In
the years since they'd had occasion to cross one another, usually in a court of
inquiry, always on opposite sides of the table. The ice blue eyes were as clear
of emotion as she'd ever seen, excepting the sparks they'd thrown in his
impassioned defense of CI5. To her intense surprise, they sparked again as
Thomas Pellin explained the situation.
She never would have
thought to see such anger in George Cowley on her behalf. Or
her brother's.
David was the only reason
she was still in the room. Every instinct shrieked at her that she couldn't
trust these men, that they were amoral killers who
trod roughshod over every principle she believed in and who'd not hesitate to
do the same to her. Every instinct, that is, but one.
The one small, insidious voice repeating, incessantly, that they were her one
chance at vengeance. Her one chance to make restitution, in
some small way, for her stupidity, her blindness. Her
loss.
She hadn't spoken a word,
merely nodded slightly at him as he came in the room. She was too conscious of
all of them : Cowley, eyes like an eagle, soaking up Pellin's
description of David; Bodie, staring broodingly at
her, holding her at bay with his eyes, body squared to hers as if expecting her
to attack at any moment; Ray Doyle, tense muscles beneath a deceptively casual
stance, eyes trained on his boss, subtly keeping himself between her and Bodie; and Pellin, shoulders
tight, hand motions held in, voice intense as he explained what he knew of the
situation. Eventually a silence fell, and Cowley turned to her. Staring at the
anger threading through his eyes, she felt the knot in her stomach loosen an
inch.
Her mouth opened and words
came out. She hadn't made the decision to trust them. But somehow she was. She
told him everything she knew, everything she'd seen in David's office and flat,
the mysterious 'Nic', the pitiful excuse for a
suicide note. Her voice was solid throughout the recitation, and she didn't
notice the nails cutting into the palms of her hands until Doyle, of all
people, stretched across and dropped a handkerchief into her lap.
That's when she realized
her hands were bleeding.
"We will do everything
in our power to apprehend the person or people responsible for your brother's
death, Miss Mather." Cowley's
voice was gentle, and she found she couldn't hold his stare. Her eyes dropped
to the small square of cloth draped over her thigh, and she absently plucked at
it, balling it up and pressing it against the half-moon cuts in her palm.
"Blackmailers are carrion, and aside from the very real threat to
security, they must be stopped for the sake of those they would make victims. A
man who makes his way on the misery of other men is an affront to decency. We
will discover him, Miss Mather. And we will stop
him."
She looked up, then, and found herself staring into Ray Doyle's grim face. For
a moment, she saw a skull painted over his features, then she blinked, and it
was gone.
Killers.
She was putting her quest
for justice in the hands of killers.
Before she could force her
mouth to form words, Cowley was gone, Doyle and Bodie
in his wake. Pellin followed them to the door, then returned to her. His hands stuck in his pockets, an
abstracted expression on his face, he hovered over
her.
"Why?" she
repeated. "Why should they help?"
"Mr. Cowley hates
injustice," he answered her simply. "As for Ray and Bodie, they're not too fond of people who target others
just because they're different, being a couple themselves."
Her normally incisive mind
was hazy, buried under grief and exhaustion, lagging a step behind the
conversation. "A couple of what?" she asked, confused. Pellin raised his brows at her.
"Well, you know, a ... couple." She gazed at him, lost. "A couple. You know. Lovers."
Vaguely aware that her jaw
was agape, she shook her head at him. "That I don't believe." She
stood up, making her way to the door, raising a hand to forestall any further
comment from him. "I've read their files." Pausing at the door, she
looked back over her shoulder at him. "Mr. Pellin."
He stared at her, lips clamped shut, a frustrated expression on his face. "Thank you ... for being there ... for David."
Before she lost what was left of her composure, she shut the door firmly and
headed down the steps for home.
It echoed when she closed
the door on her flat. Staring at the empty room, she wondered when solitude had
become loneliness.
George Cowley stared at the
telephone sitting innocuously on the corner of his desk as if he expected it to
turn on him and bite him. He'd just held a brief, uncomfortable conversation
with Geraldine Mather that had ended in his inviting
her to his office for a short meeting. In the six weeks since she had been
tripped into asking CI5's help, they, explicitly he,
had come up empty. None of his innumerable contacts in the upper echelons of
power were talking, but the silences themselves were more telling than the men
realized.
This had been going on much
too long. Too many of the wrong sort of people were
afraid in the wrong sort of way. He'd unearthed at least eight suicides or
suspicious deaths over the previous fourteen months, with another three that
set the hair at the nape of his neck tingling. The knowledge of the
blackmailer, hidden in deep shadow, feeding on the fear of his victims, itched
under Cowley's skin. The need to
root out the evil, eradicate it, grind it into dust, grew in him.
As one
avenue of investigation after another turned up nothing concrete, his mind
searched out more and more devious traps. The scheme he finally settled upon was risky, but it
was an acceptable risk.
It had to be.
He had to scratch that
itch. Had to shine a searchlight into the shadows, and put the evil to rest.
The only possible stumbling
blocks were an old enemy and the dearest person to his heart. He would have to
bring Geraldine Mather in, on an informational level,
before he set his plan in motion. She knew too much already, and might
inadvertently expose the investigation if she didn't know what to avoid seeing.
She also had access to the most recent victim's effects, and there might be a
clue they could use buried in David Mather's personal
papers.
The second barrier would
wait until after he had taken care of the first. A brisk knock at his office
door interrupted his train of thought.
Straightening an already
ramrod straight backbone, he stood as McCabe, duty
officer that day, ushered Ms. Mather into his office.
"Ah,
Miss Mather. Thank you for agreeing to this meeting." He
gestured to the straight-backed chair in front of his desk, and she perched on
the edge.
"Any information, Mr. Cowley?" she asked before he could continue.
"Not at this
point." He ignored her frustrated sigh and continued, pitching his voice
as soothingly as he could. "I do have a plan, however. It's one that will
require some delicate handling. While I am not asking your permission to go
forth, I am seeking your assurance that you'll allow CI5 to handle it
unfettered of outside interference."
She glared at him. He could
practically hear the debate in her head, her own need for justice screaming
against the bounds of her conscience, that so hated the unilateral brief of
CI5. "I take it this will be another case of using Mr. Doyle and Mr. Bodie as bait, as you did in Mr. Pellin's
case?"
"Hm. No," he glanced down at his desk, completely free of papers for
once in preparation for an interview with an uncleared
civilian, then squared his jaw and looked back at her. "Bodie and Doyle are too well known as being in a marital
relationship to make such a blackmail scheme plausible."
Mather stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "I
don't believe it." He raised a brow at her questioning his veracity, and
she reiterated, "I simply do not believe it. I have seen their files. I
have met the men. While I am forced to believe that they, or at least Mr.
Doyle, might cultivate a friendship of sorts with a man such as Mr. Pellin, known to consort with homosexuals, I find it
completely unbelievable that they are themselves involved in any sort of sexual
relationship."
He was impressed despite
himself at her vehemence mixed with her calm deliverance. He'd seldom been
called a liar so smoothly. "Nonetheless, it is true."
"You say you are
intent on stopping the man who caused my brother's death. Yet the only viable
tethered goat scenario, one you have used with success in the past, is one you
refuse to use. You're going to have to do better than that, Mr. Cowley."
Abruptly, he was angry.
Angry with Mather, yes, for her distrust and stubborn
disbelief, angry with himself for failing to find another way to accomplish his
goals, angry with the bloody blackmailer for catching them all by the goolies and twisting hard. Angry with wasting so much time
trying to convince this pig headed woman that he knew what he was doing. He
glanced down at his watch.
Remembering her reaction to
the visual evidence of the results of her insistence on naming names in a
public inquiry, in the form of one Henry Parker, beaten to a bloody pulp, he
stood. It was time to stop wasting time, and show her what she needed to see.
Then perhaps, as she had at the inquiry, she would stop beating her own drum
and listen to what he had to say. Seeing was believing,
after all, and Doyle should just be arriving back from his month long op in Ballymena.
"Come with me, Miss Mather." Not giving her time to respond, he swept her
along in front of him, out of his office, down the corridor, passing several
startled agents along the way, a sandy-haired tornado in a dark suit towing a
woman commonly known as The Enemy of the Squad along deep into the bowels of
CI5 headquarters. He didn't stop until they landed in the Communications
Security room, a cubbyhole with a desk stuffed into a cocoon of video screens.
"Sir!" Byrnes, the agent on duty, started
to rise, startled by the intrusion. Cowley waved him back to his seat.
"Sit down, man, and
keep your eyes on your screens." Mather opened
her mouth, and Cowley answered her before she had the chance to ask her
question. "This is our internal security system. Agents give up their
right to privacy when they join the Squad and become targets for all those poor
innocents you defend so well. Two years ago an assassin nearly killed Doyle in
his own front room. Shortly thereafter we installed security video cameras in
all A squad agents' flats. Had one been there when May
Li shot Doyle, we'd've gotten help to him much
sooner, and caught his killer before three more men were shot and a man killed."
He gestured at the screens,
views flickering every few seconds, a kaleidoscope of images. "All main
rooms in each flat, rotating every four seconds,
capability of freezing and maintaining any individual shot at the controller's
command." Still not giving her a chance to get a word in edgewise, he
turned to Byrnes. "Bring up cameras seven prime and front."
"But that's-"
Byrnes sounded strangled.
"Aye, I know that,
man." Cutting him off, firmly.
"But Doyle's been on
assignment and he'll just have-"
Cowley glared at him, and
the protest died in the man's throat. Nodding curtly to Ms. Mather,
he stated, "I'll be in my office. McCabe will bring you round when you're
finished here."
Byrnes tried one more time.
"Do you want to-"
"NO." Cowley turned on his heel and exited the room, closing
the door with a decisive snap. He may have to spy on his men for their own
security, and allow others to do so in order to further his plans, but he
refused to be a peeping tom when he knew precisely what he'd be peeping in on.
He stamped back to his office, shut the door behind him, and poured himself a
generous measure of scotch.
On reflection, he poured a
second, in another glass, and awaited Ms. Mather's
return. Staring out the window, possibilities ticking over in his mind, he
mentally confronted the second obstacle to his plans. He had the nasty
suspicion Mather had been a piece of cake compared to
what lie ahead.
The agent Cowley had
neglected to introduce to her was refusing to look at her. Instead, his hands
flew over the large electronic board in front of him, a maze of buttons and
levers that reminded her uncannily of the cockpit of a jet airplane. Finding
the silence somewhat unnerving, she asked, "How can you stand this? Snooping like this?"
He shot her a withering
look. "Better watched than dead. Here. Mr. Cowley
wanted you to see this. So here it is."
Geraldine noticed he wasn't
looking himself. "Are you not interested?" She was genuinely interested
in his response.
"I don't watch things
it ain't for me to see. I look for threats. This is
your business, I guess, 'cording to Mr. Cowley. Not mine." With that, he
resolutely turned his shoulder to her and ostentatiously studied the flickering
screens, ignoring the two screens near the lower right corner of the array that
were stationary. Shrugging, she turned her attention to the view.
An
entryway in a standard issue flat, and a shot of the front room, showing a man
moving from the settee toward the front door. He looked vaguely familiar, but his
back was toward the camera, and at that moment the front door opened. A figure
appeared in it, and she recognized Ray Doyle immediately. He hadn't changed
that much in the last few years, hair a little shorter, shot through at the
temples with gray. He looked tired. The figure, who she'd now identified from
his carriage as William Bodie, reached past the man
slumped against the door frame and flipped locks, pressing keys in a pad next
to the door in a sequence so fast his fingers were a blur.
Then things became strange.
She found herself staring, unblinking, as Bodie
wrapped his hands around Doyle's skull and kissed him so thoroughly he appeared
to be trying to eat the man's face.
Doyle just stood there.
After a minute that felt
like several hours, Doyle dropped the bag he'd been carrying onto the floor
beside them and, instead of hitting Bodie as she'd
expected, wrapped one hand around Bodie's waist to
pull him closer, and threaded the fingers of his other hand in Bodie's hair.
Now they were eating one
another.
Staged. It had to be staged.
She was vaguely aware that
the agent sitting beside her was humming, and that her jaw was beginning to
ache. She consciously shut her mouth, and leaned forward toward the screen,
squinting slightly. A muffled, "Oh, for christ's
sake," escaped the agent but she ignored him. She couldn't possibly be
seeing what she thought she was seeing. It had to be an act. Why, she wasn't
sure, but she didn't trust Cowley an inch. There had to be a reason--
Oh, my heaven, she thought
clearly. Bodie had stopped endeavoring to chew
Doyle's lips off and had slid down to his knees in front of the man. Somewhere
along the line Doyle's shirt had come undone, and one of Doyle's hands was
ranging lazily through the expanse of hair scattered across his bare chest.
The other hand was back in Bodie's hair.
On his
head.
Which was
currently attached to Doyle's groin.
From the way Doyle was
squirming against the door, Bodie was apparently
attempting to eat something else, now. Doyle had no objections.
The two men moved with a
curious grace, as if they were well choreographed or had enacted this scene a
thousand times. The implications of that hit her in the solar plexus, and she
gasped.
So did Doyle.
So did the agent beside
her.
She ripped her eyes away
from Doyle arching into Bodie's grasp long enough to
look down and see that the agent's right ear and what she could see of his neck
was bright red. He wasn't watching the screen. She swallowed, and looked back.
Merciful
heavens. Now
Doyle was draped face first on the floor, the rest of his clothing in complete
disarray around him, and yes, that was indeed Bodie,
confirmed now that he had his face to the camera. His own clothes were barely
disturbed, except, of course, for his trousers, which were now undone, as he
bent over Doyle's back and ... and ...
Oh, my. If they were
acting, she had never seen such enthusiasm and verve in a live
performance.
Doyle was screaming now.
There was no sound from the cameras, but she could see the cords straining in
his throat. It was Bodie's turn to arch, then
collapse, and Doyle made a complicated move proving he was either incredibly
flexible, or boneless, or both, and gathered Bodie up
into his arms as they lay in the entryway.
Then Doyle kissed Bodie.
This time, she couldn't get
enough moisture in her mouth to swallow.
Good god. Perhaps they
wouldn't be as hostile to finding her brother's blackmailer as she had thought.
She wasn't really aware of
leaving the room, too deep in thought, responding by instinct as a man appeared
at her elbow and steered her toward Cowley's office.
She vaguely recognized him as the man who'd first escorted her, but her mind
was too busy with questions to care. Once he ushered her back into Cowley's inner sanctum, she sank into the chair and stared
up at him.
He handed her a glass of
scotch without asking if she wanted one. She drank it without protest. If nothing
else, at least it moistened her throat again. She felt as if she'd been running
a race, and breathing through her mouth the whole time.
"Thank you," she
said absently. He winced, but she didn't take notice of it. There were pressing
questions on her mind. "How can you justify having men in a homosexual
relationship in CI5? Don't you consider them a security risk?"
He waved a dismissive hand
and gathered her glass up, returning it to the sideboard. "They're in an
acknowledged, committed, monogamous relationship, and CI5 regards such pairs as
having marital status regardless of the gender of the spouses. If it's not
hidden, it can't be used as a weapon."
"Publish and be damned," she murmured.
"Precisely," he
affirmed. "Now do you see why they could not be bait?"
"Then what is your
bait?" Determinedly putting the afterimages of the men's lovemaking out of
her mind, she returned to the task at hand with her usual formidable will.
"What is your plan?"
"You needn't be
involved in the-"
"I already am involved, Mr. Cowley," she broke in firmly. "I
became involved when my brother died. You wouldn't even know about this if I
wasn't. So don't try to keep me out. What is your plan?"
He stared at her for a
moment, then drank the last of his own scotch, placing
the glass carefully on his desk. She caught the impression of controlled force,
a tinge of frustration, but he held it in well.
"I won't interfere.
But I can help." She added the last quietly, but with iron determination.
He pursed his lips, then nodded, grudgingly.
"I must talk to Bodie before we go any further. Would you care to come
along?"
She stared at him in utter
disbelief. "But they're ..." There was absolutely no delicate way to
put it. Wrapped around one another like snakes on heat? Making a shambles of
the furniture? Making love like it was their last day on earth?
"Ach, aye," he
interrupted, to her relief. Catching up the radio transmitter, he pressed a
button.
"Alpha
to 3.7. Respond,
3.7."
Through the open channel
she could hear some electronic interference, a thump, several curses, and
something that sounded suspiciously like hysterical
laughter.
"3.7" came a low, snapped-off growl.
"We'll be over in
twenty minutes." There was a howl in the background, and Cowley rapped
out, "Alpha out" and cut the transmission before any actual protest
could be lodged. She shook her head.
It was certainly turning
out to be a day for surprises.
He was too fucking tired
for this. Ray Doyle scraped whiskers off his face, ignored the whisker burn
across his thighs and between his shoulder blades, and squinted into the
mirror. He looked like hell. Twenty seven days undercover in a
It was totally fucked, is
what it was.
He hadn't been aware he'd
been muttering out loud until a long finger curved along his newly shaved jaw,
swept up behind his ear, and turned his spine to putty. "Life isn't fair,
angelfish, and fucked is what we're not gonna get. So
let's listen, nod a lot, lock the door and go back to bed, eh?"
A wicked grin and sparkling
blue eyes met his in the mirror, and he nodded enthusiastically, or as
enthusiastically as a near-corpse could manage. Which, given the impetus a
randy Bodie provided, was pretty damned
enthusiastically. The enthusiasm translated into a kiss that had his arse in
the sink and his ankles locked around Bodie's waist
when the doorbell rang.
Unceasingly.
They finally unwrapped
themselves and Doyle staggered into the front room. Bodie
trailed along behind him, and he could actually feel those laser eyes
burning into his arse. He shivered. As soon as they got rid of Cowley they were
going to have a very nice reunion. He wouldn't be able to walk straight
for a month.
Peering through the
peephole, he went still. Bodie came to attention
behind him, and he could feel the air move as his partner snatched for the gun
next to the armchair. "Don't bother," he croaked. "He'll just
dock our pay to clean up the mess. She's not going to go away."
"She?" Bodie
hissed as Doyle opened the door and ushered their uninvited guests into the
room. Doyle shrugged one shoulder at him, set the locks, and turned to put his
back to the wall. For some reason, Mather always gave
him that instinctive reaction.
Oddly enough, the woman was
blushing, even as she was meeting Doyle's gaze. And she seemed to have a hard
time doing that, too. He surreptitiously checked his fly and his shirt front,
but he was zipped and buttoned properly. Wasn't anything he could do about the
hickey spreading over half his throat, but it shouldn't be too visible in the
dim light of the flat. Unable to figure the woman out,
he turned to his boss.
"Seat?" he asked,
waving them into the room, wending around a stone-like Bodie
who was glaring with equal dislike at Cowley and Mather.
Bodie was obviously feeling deprived. He'd have to do
something about that as soon as they were alone. He brushed his hand along the
curve of Bodie's bum and glanced sideways up at him
for an instant, a signal to calm down, bide his time. Bodie
got the message, and the tension eased fractionally in the solid frame.
"We've not had much
luck catching the blackmailer while you've been off west," Cowley started
with his usual understatement. "I'm changing my approach."
"You've got a plan,
then," Bodie asked absently, still staring at Mather. She seemed almost afraid to look at him. Doyle was
puzzled.
"Why is she here,
sir?" he nodded at Mather. She looked up at him,
and the red washed back along her cheekbones. But she didn't blink.
"I have information
that will assist in the investigation." He opened his mouth to ask why she
didn't just hand it over, then, when Cowley spoke up.
"She's here because I
want her here, 4.5. Now, we will be playing a game of tethered goats and
tigers."
Reminded that this wasn't a
social call by the use of his number, Doyle shrugged. "We won't make very
effective goats."
"Too many people in
the stable know what we are," Bodie finished for
him.
"You won't be the
goats."
They both looked askance at
him, and he glared at them. Doyle pursed his lips. He had a feeling he wasn't
going to like this.
"The target is
higher."
He was right. He didn't
like this. And from the look on Bodie's face as the
truth of the Old Man's plan dawned on him, neither did Bodie.
In the slightest. Before the explosion could occur in
front of uninvolved observers, he stepped over to Mather.
"Let's go make some
tea." It wasn't a suggestion.
She gave him a startled
look, over her shoulder as it turned out because he was herding her into the
kitchen. Behind them, Bodie's voice roared out,
countered by Cowley's equally bellicose bellow. They
were about an even match. Bodie'd gotten out one
"No bloody god-damned way!" before Doyle had gotten Mather to safety in the kitchen. Then Cowley barked,
"Control yourself, man!" and the voices
dropped to indecipherable and extremely pissy
rumbles. He sighed.
Walking on autopilot over
to the sink, he filled the kettle. "You hungry?" he asked. She was
standing by the bench, staring at him. She didn't look all there. He changed
his approach. "You all right?" She didn't
look all right. She looked spacey.
She jumped, a little, and
focused on him. Then she blushed. Again. He cocked his
head to the side and studied her. She was extremely uncomfortable.
"What's wrong? Look, I
know you don't like me, think I'm some sort of jack-booted thug who beats
people to death for the fun of it, but that's crap. You're perfectly safe with
me. You're not a drug runner. While I don't agree with the way you're
going about it, I understand where you're coming from. You don't like the way
we do things. We do them because we have to, not
'cause we like it that way. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to do the
things we do, but it isn't a perfect world. Until it is, we're here, and we're
doing what we have to do." He clicked the kettle off and handed her a cup.
"Milk? Sugar?"
She shook her head, turning
the cup in her hands. "You're in love with one another."
He just about dropped his own cup. "Eh?"
Her body seemed to firm up,
as if she'd shaken the lethargy out of all her muscles and stood up straight
without actually moving. "How long have you and Mr. Bodie
been lovers?"
He squinted at her.
"Why?" Not like it was any of her business.
"How committed are you
to taking down a criminal who blackmails homosexuals? After all, it's not like
you'll be targeted. You are known in your organization
and still allowed to continue working."
He could feel his mouth
pulling into a grimace, and forced himself to remain expressionless. "We'd
find the bastard even if we were both married to birds with crops of kids. 'S what we do. But if it puts your mind at rest, Bodie and I have been together for three years. Partnered for eight."
Mather nodded. Silence stretched in the
kitchen, as he stared at her, and she stared back. Abruptly, she took a deep
breath. "Thank you for helping me."
His eyes softened. "'S
what we do," he repeated gently. "Stop the ones who're hurting the
innocents."
Before she could respond, Cowley's voice rose from the front room. "Doyle! Miss Mather!"
Doyle gathered up two cups,
filled them, and headed out into the other room, trusting her to follow behind.
He handed the steaming tea first to his partner, pale as a ghost with a look
that could crumble cement on his face, then to his boss, a slightly more
refined version of the same expression on the craggy features.
"What's the
damage?" he asked calmly. Someone had to be calm. Bodie
and Cowley looked like they were about to blow several gaskets between them.
"The plan is going
forward," Cowley proclaimed. Bodie muttered
something unintelligible and undoubtedly obscene at him. Cowley ignored him.
"All well and
good," Mather chimed in. "What precisely is
the plan?"
"Bullshit,"
muttered Bodie, clearly if very softly. Cowley
continued to ignore him.
"The leak will not be
the fact of Bodie and Doyle's relationship existing,
but rather the family reaction to the relationship -"
Bodie snorted. Derisively.
Loudly. Doyle peered anxiously at him and moved a step
closer until their shoulders were brushing.
"-and the political
consequences of the world at large discovering the relationship between Bodie and myself, as well as the undoubted construction the
conservative press would put on Bodie's continued
employment with CI5 being my own favoritism toward my son. To
the point of allowing a homosexual relationship and security risk to go
unchecked."
Mather had gasped somewhere in the middle
of Cowley's little speech, but Doyle hadn't paid
attention, too busy trying to calm Bodie down without
actually pushing the man over and sitting on him. Not that that course of
action didn't have its own charm, but not now, and not with an audience. Especially this audience.
"It'll work," he
had to admit. Cowley nodded. Bodie growled. Mather didn't make a sound. She looked like she was in
shock. Great. The canny little bastard hadn't even
told her. Showed an unusual lack of certainty in his course -- he hadn't been
as sure of Bodie's cooperation as he'd like everyone
to believe. Tucking the thought back to be taken out and examined later, Doyle
returned to the matter at hand. "Where do we start to drip?"
"That is up to Miss Mather." Cowley turned to her. She did that odd little
straightening thing again, and focused on Cowley. Doyle wondered how many
shocks she'd had today. She didn't seem her normal Rottweiler
self.
"In what way?"
she asked, and Cowley told her.
"David's diaries had
yielded one clue. 'Nic'. There
had to be more. Places he'd been, where he could be seen-"
"He was extremely
discreet. Even I didn't know that he was gay." The words were forced out
as if they hurt her throat.
"Someone saw
something. Our task is two pronged. Bodie and Doyle
will frequent the places David did, and make certain that the blackmailer knows
about them, in much the same way he discovered about David. I will take care of
the rest."
"How?" she asked, and Doyle shook his head.
"Not going to show you
all his cards, did you think he would?" It was almost a teasing tone. She
managed a shadow of a smile at him. Bodie, tensed
beside him, growled.
"I'll drop a few
whispers in a few ears and see what turns up." With that, he gathered up
his coat and hat, and gestured Mather toward the
door. "Tomorrow morning, my office,
"He's been gone for
five bloody weeks, Cowley," Bodie spat.
"You just going to keep pushing him until he
falls over?"
Doyle started to intervene,
then shut his mouth as Cowley stopped and looked, hard, at his son. "I
know you don't like this, Bodie.
Neither do I. But the man has to be stopped. Soon. Nothing will happen to Doyle. You'll make sure of
that. He's not the target here, nor are you. I am. Let me deal with it,
lad."
The two men stared at one
another for a very long moment, and Doyle felt some of the tension drain from
his partner's body. Then Cowley nodded, once, and shut the door behind himself. Doyle took a deep, cleansing breath.
"Shit."
"Yeah."
In perfect agreement, they
turned and walked back into the bedroom. They had one night, at least, before
they put themselves under the microscope. They were damned well going to enjoy
it.
"Eight
bloody days."
"Seven
different clubs."
Green eyes met blue in
perfect comprehension. It wasn't tough duty. Nothing arduous
about going out to dinner with one's lover. The clubs were nice, if a
little lighter on women than their usual haunts.
Neither one of them was
used to hanging about in gay bars.
It didn't feel like they
were getting anywhere.
"Hold on," Doyle
breathed. Bodie looked alertly at him.
"Love to, but even
here we'd get nicked for that."
Doyle gave him a cursory
glare. Bodie grinned at him. "I know that
bloke."
"Which?" Bodie didn't twitch a muscle, didn't give a single sign
that he'd just switched from teasing lover to agent on duty. Doyle saw it in
his eyes.
"Medium height, bit on
the tubby side, light hair, dark eyes, medium complexion. Wearing
a dark blue suit with a brown tie."
Bodie frowned. "Ugly,
that."
"He's watchin' us." Singsong, barely more
than a whisper. "Seen him before. Last
night. And again, couple of days ago."
"Our bird has come to
roost."
"Let's give him a nice hot welcome, shall we?" Doyle grinned. Bodie grinned back.
"You're on,
sunshine."
Seemingly oblivious to the
world, Bodie leaned closer, staring into Doyle's
eyes. For an instant, Ray was caught up in the act, and swayed toward his
partner, before catching himself. Getting arrested for jumping his lover in a
public place would be coming just a little too far out of the shadows. They
wanted to be glimpsed, not dance naked under a spotlight. Spearing Bodie with a glance, shaking his head at the naughty grin
he got in return, he snaked his hand across the top of the table and lightly
clasped Bodie's hand.
Bodie, in turn, gave a good impression of
a man looking around to make sure no one was watching, when in fact he was
ensuring that a certain person most certainly was. Then he raised Doyle's hand
to his mouth, kissed the back, and ran his tongue across Doyle's knuckles.
The shiver Ray couldn't
suppress at the move wasn't faked. Neither was the sudden roundness of his
eyes, or the bulge at his crotch. Forcing his mind back to work and ignoring
the insistent demand of his body, he swept the room with a glance.
"Hook, line-" he
murmured.
"And sinker," Bodie finished for him. "Let's get out of here."
"My
pleasure."
"I certainly hope
so."
They barely remembered to
disengage hands before standing up and heading for the car.
Their audience followed.
Once on their way, Ray
picked up his R/T. "4.5 to base. Fish is hooked. On our
way back to the flat. Alert the eyes."
"Eyes alerted,"
crackled back. "Perimeter cameras engaged. Good luck, boys. Base
out."
He grinned over at Bodie, driving with less manic energy than usual since he
didn't want to lose their tail. "Oh, I dunno
that luck's got anythin' to do with it," he
drawled.
"Talent,
my son, pure talent," Bodie shot back.
"Dunno
about this performing for an audience bit, though," he went on, squirming
a little in the seat. Bodie unwrapped
one large paw from the steering wheel and rooted around Doyle's lap, tapping
and rubbing along the way. Doyle's head fell back against the seat. "Watch
the road," he managed to gasp.
"Don't think
performance is gonna be a problem," Bodie cracked. Doyle nodded. It was all he could manage.
Bodie was good with his hands.
Performance anxiety had
withered under the onslaught of pure arousal by the time they made it back to
their flat. The tail was there, three blocks behind them, and Doyle saw the
headlights on the car go out as he was setting the locks. "Showtime."
"Party time," Bodie corrected him. The curtains were slit open just
enough for a camera lens, and they left the lights on in the front room as they
stripped one another. Hands wandered, mouths followed, and by the time they
were both naked the tiny light blinking on the alarm panel confirmed that the
perimeter had been breached.
"Love you," Bodie muttered in his ear, for him alone, not for
intruders, or voyeurs, or blackmailers, or Mather, or
even Cowley. For him. Something cold and hard
unknotted in his belly, and Doyle nuzzled back, answering without words, the
way the two had always communicated best.
"Won't give him
that," he whispered into the side of Bodie's
neck. Bodie nodded.
"Just a bit of
humping, then, give 'em a show. Let me touch
you." A request, not a demand. Doyle melted a
little more.
"Never 'just' anything
when it's you touchin' me," he admitted, then they stopped talking. Bodie
half dragged, half led him to the couch, and they landed in a heap, Bodie draped over the top of him, angled artfully to
provide the best possible shot for the man at the window with the camera. Once
the positioning was in place, the thinking stopped, and the instincts took
over.
Doyle had to get closer to
all that heat, and he spread his legs, hooking one knee around Bodie's hip, urging him closer. Strong hands moved
restlessly along his back, up to cup his skull, down to squeeze his arse,
melding them together. Bodie's mouth opened over his,
and his eyes shut, the better to concentrate on the pure sensation of Bodie covering him, licking him, moving over him. His
muscles began to shake from strain even as they matched their rhythm, hips
grinding together, groins dancing against one another, never losing contact in
their kiss. They were panting into one another's mouths, hands clenched tightly
enough to leave marks, writhing together in perfect synchronization.
He wished it would last
forever. He wished the cameraman was in hell. He wished he and Bodie were on an island somewhere, only one with a bed so
they didn't have to do it in the sand. He wished for once his brain would shut
up and let him get on with it, but it wouldn't stop reminding him that this was
an op, and he was taking their lovemaking and turning it into a weapon.
Then climax caught Bodie, quickening his movement, grinding him against Doyle,
and Doyle was lost. Too good, too hard, too hot, too much.
Over too soon. Felt like someone boned him. Literally.
He had time to unlock his
fingers from Bodie's arse, cup his lover's face and
kiss him once more before he fell sound asleep.
Ignoring the photos that
had arrived at his doorstep that morning, Cowley examined the envelope. It had
been waiting for him when he awoke that morning, pushed through the slot in his
door. Whomever the blackmailer was, he knew too much. Knew locations. His own. His son's.
The bait had been dangled.
Now it was his turn.
An hour later, he stared
with equal concentration at the spread of surveillance photos taken outside
Doyle and Bodie's flat. The details were unclear, but
the resolution was good enough to give him an outline of the man. He stared
until he had it memorized, only breaking off when the
telephone rang.
"Cowley." Speak, the implicit command.
"Hello, George."
He smiled grimly at the sound of his Minister's voice.
"I take it you got a
present this morning as well?"
"Oh, yes,
George." He could hear the smile even over the line. "Quite
an artistic eye, your blackmailer. So, my club or
yours?"
"We'd better make it
yours, sir. One?"
"I look forward to it.
You're buying the scotch, George."
"Aye, I figured as
much." There was a soft chuckle, then a click, and he cradled the handset.
On to
phase two.
It took him several minutes
to spot the suspect, and when he did, it was more instinct than recognition.
Something about the way the man sat. It satisfied him, anyway, and he squelched
the grim smile threatening to escape. The tiger was about to be lured. Then it
would be merely a case of bagging him.
"Thank you for meeting
me for lunch, Minister," he greeted his boss as he sat. They ordered, and
Cowley nodded once over the wine selections before asking for the scotch. The
nod was the signal, and he could see by the suddenly grave look on his
Minister's face that the man had clearly understood him.
They carefully avoided the
subject until the dishes had been cleared. Then the minister took a plain
manila envelope from the briefcase at his side and slid it across the table.
With his peripheral vision, Cowley saw the suspect straighten and lean forward.
Amateurs. What havoc they could wreak.
Keeping their voices low,
they pretended to fight about the contents of the envelope. The Minister made
an abortive attempt to open the flap, and Cowley thumped it down on the table
with his fist, stopping the action. Pitching his voice just high enough for the
suspect to hear, he growled, "I don't give a bloody damn about those
pictures. He's my son, and I'll not be throwing him to the wolves!"
"I don't see that you
have any choice, George," the Minister replied, matching his tone to Cowley's. "It's true your son is usually discreet, but
someone has obviously gotten past your security. Never mind what it could do to
his career, what will it do to yours? If it becomes known that you're breaking
with tradition, flouting security, just to keep your son in his job? Such a security risk, kept only because he's your son.
Think, George! Think what the enemies of CI5 could do with such
information!"
Cowley raised his hand, not
wanting the Minister to overplay it. Putting on the most distressed face he
could muster, he sighed. "I'll not give in to blackmail, sir." It was
deliberately weak. The Minister didn't look convinced.
"Keep these, George. I
can give you a few days. Then I must have your answer." With that, he
patted the fist Cowley still had resting in the center of the envelope,
gathered his things, and headed for the door. Cowley sat there for a few
moments more, monitoring the situation with his audience without giving any
indication of doing so, then downed the last of his scotch and returned to his
office.
He wasn't followed.
The afternoon was long, and
full, as his days tended to be. Nothing major blew up, no crises claimed his
attention, and he was able to leave for home at the indecently early hour of
seven. Security beeped him on his car phone ten minutes into his journey.
"Base
to alpha.
Perimeter alert tripped at your flat, sir. Surveillance cameras confirm it's
the same suspect that was at 3.7's."
"Keep monitoring,
base. Is the suspect alone?"
"Confirmed,
sir. No obvious
sign of weapons and no back up."
"Understood. Keep the cameras rolling, lads.
Call in 4.5, 3.7, 2.6, 4.1 and second tier back up units to my flat. Take
positions and await my signal."
"Confirmed, first tier
partners and second tier back up at your location, awaiting your signal. On their way, sir."
"Alpha
out."
Half an hour later, his
teams were in place, the trap was due to be sprung, and he found a parking spot
directly in front of his flat. Things were going well.
He caught sight of the
suspect as he was setting his locks. Hanging his coat and hat neatly on the
stand, he palmed his revolver and settled into the armchair, waiting for the
knock. It didn't take long coming.
"Who is it?"
The voice coming over the
intercom was unfamiliar to him. "My name is Nicolas Polson, Mr. Cowley. I
need to speak with you on a private matter."
I'll say, Cowley thought,
but he didn't. Unlocking the door, pistol at hand in case the man was armed
after all, he opened his door and invited the tiger into the trap.
"Who are you and what
do you want?" Pro forma indignation. "Who
are you working for?" The meat of the matter.
"I've given you my
name, Mr. Cowley. As to what I want, merely a little
cooperation. The people for whom I work? Men such as yourself, with aims as high as your own -- to protect
and serve their people to the best of their ability. Including
encouraging assistance from such men as yourself."
Ah. KGB.
He's heard enough. Lifting one hand to his chest, he depressed the signal
button in his tie tack. Then he leveled his revolver at the intruder. "Don't
move, Mr. Polson. You'll be coming back with me to answer a few
questions."
"Is that really what
you want, Mr. Cowley? Your secrets published to the world?"
Cowley smiled thinly.
"I have no secrets, Mr. Polson. Your masters should have realized that a
long time ago. As has been said to such good effect in the past, publish and be
damned. You should be much more concerned about your own fate than mine. For
you will talk, Mr. Polson. And your masters are not kind to those who
talk." The man blanched, and Cowley felt his own smile grow feral.
"Were I you, Mr. Polson, or whatever your name is, I'd be thinking of
asking my help, not threatening me. You're going to need it."
The door flew open and
Murphy, Doyle, Bodie and Anderson shouldered into the
room. "Take him in, 2.6," he ordered, lowering his pistol as the big
agent clamped handcuffs on the blackmailer. "4.5, 3.7, take your delayed
leave now. Three days." They nodded, and Bodie
turned without another word and left the flat. Doyle lingered a moment.
"Dinner? Eight? Tomorrow?" The green eyes were shrewd. Cowley found
himself nodding agreement. Doyle left then, following his partner.
Replacing his weapon in the
drawer, he locked up and followed his prisoner back to CI5 headquarters. He had
enough on his plate right now. He'd deal with his son later.
Tomorrow.
Propped against his
partner, lager balanced on his stomach, eyes staring blankly at Errol Flynn
swashing his buckles on the afternoon movie, Bodie
had to ask to make sure he'd heard what he thought he'd heard.
"You
what?"
"I invited
the Old Man over for dinner tonight."
Tension radiated from the
deceptively relaxed Doyle-cushion he rested on. Ray wasn't nearly as sanguine
about this as he'd have Bodie believe.
"Why?" he asked mildly. Keep the little bugger off guard. Then
thump him.
"You two need to
talk."
"So you decided we
were gonna talk, tonight? First night we've had off
in two months?"
"Rather it fester until nobody in his right mind could live with either
of you?" Doyle's essential rattiness was coming
through. Usually Bodie found it exciting. This
afternoon, it irritated him.
"Who died and made you
god?"
"Get your head out of
your arse and listen, Bodie. He's your Da. He's as thick headed as you are,
only he hides it better. You don't talk now, you never will. Then were will you
be?"
"With my head up your arse? Didn't
notice any complainin' earlier."
"This isn't about us. It's about you and him. And
maybe about us." Doyle sounded truculent, as he usually did when he
was backing himself in a corner. All of a sudden, Bodie
didn't have the energy to fight. Too shagged out.
And, if
he could bring himself to admit it, in agreement with his golli. "Right."
"Don't fight me on
this one, Bodie, you have to air it out and get past
it." Hint of pushiness behind the truculence.
"Right," he
nodded, rubbing the back of his head into Doyle's crotch. Might be time for a
bit of distraction, and this was the best way he knew of distracting his
partner.
"Damnit, Bodie, don't try to distrac--
Right?" Sheer disbelief. Ray was running through
his entire repertoire of responses today. Bodie
grinned.
"Right."
"You agree with
me?"
"'S what I'm doing,
isn't it? Or saying, anyway." He rolled over,
careful of his balance on the narrow cushions, and wound up with his head in
Doyle's lap. He peered up at surprised green eyes staring down at him, then dug into the denim starting to swell under his chin.
"Doin' ... now that's a different matter."
Wrestling Doyle free of
tight cotton, he swallowed his prize in one gulp. The tail end of the argument
Doyle had been waging with himself degenerated into babbling groans, and he
grinned around his mouthful. This, now, this was right. The rest he'd
deal with when he had to.
Five hours and a great deal
of sweat and semen later, he'd been banished from the kitchen while Doyle did
something with rice, chicken and carrots. That gave him door duty, and he
steeled himself to answer the bell shortly before eight.
It wasn't his father.
He nearly closed the door
in her face before he realized, for once, Geraldine Mather
wasn't looking at him as if he had just crawled out from under a rock. Point of
fact, she looked ... embarrassed. He stepped back and waved her in.
"What can I do for
you?" He made it as charming as he could, old instincts coming to the
fore. She wasn't a bad looking bird, not counting the rod up her arse and the
fact that Doyle owned his.
"I just wanted ... is
Mr. Doyle here? I rather wanted to say this to both of you." She was
standing stock still, but he got the impression that she was fidgeting.
"Sure. Hang about a
minute. Ray?" He raised his voice, deliberately nonchalant, not wanting
his partner to come tearing out from the kitchen ready to defend and protect,
Browning in hand. "Company. Not Cowley."
Doyle came out slowly, eyes
scanning, drying his hands on a towel. His eyes widened when he saw Mather standing by the door.
"Is everything all
right?" The concern in his voice seemed to throw her. She shook her head,
as if to clear it, not in answer to his question.
"Yes, fine. I just
wanted ... needed to say something."
"Have a seat." Bodie pushed her gently
toward the sofa. She settled on the edge, looking like a breeze would set her
to flight.
"You know I have
ideological differences with your organization, and in the past have been very
critical of your operations, and you, personally." Bodie
started to bristle, and Doyle sent him a warning glance.
"Yeah. We noticed." Doyle's voice was
flat, but neutral. Interested in what she was trying to say, even though it was
obvious she was having a hard time spitting it out.
Before she could say
anything more, the doorbell rang again. Bodie leaned
on the intercom. "Yeah."
"Is that any way to
answer your door?" Cowley. Irritated. Status quo. Bodie didn't bother
answering, just buzzed him in.
There was a flurry of
locking and alarm setting, then Cowley turned to Mather.
Bodie stayed in the background, holding his own
irritation with his father in long enough for the woman to have her say and get
out of their flat.
"I apologize for
interrupting, Miss Mather."
She looked up at him, then shook her head. "No,
you should hear it as well. My differences with CI5 haven't changed, although
my opinion of you as individuals has improved considerably over the course of
the last several weeks. While I can't throw the principles of a lifetime away,
and I still think that the CI5 brief is an unacceptable infringement on the
legal rights of the citizens of this country, I can also appreciate that you do
work that no one else seems capable of doing."
She paused and took a deep
breath. "I'm trying to thank you. We are at opposite ends of the spectrum
in our beliefs on the means to our ends, but I have come to the conclusion that
we are in agreement with what those ends are. I appreciate your help and
assistance in making sure the man responsible for my brother's death will not
hurt anyone else."
"He's back with the
Soviets where he belongs," Cowley said gently. "They don't deal
kindly with failures."
She nodded and rose.
"I'll leave you to your dinner then. Thank you."
Mather turned to leave, and Bodie saw the stark loneliness in her face for a split
second before her normal composure caught up with her. Moved by an instinct he
didn't examine too closely, he impulsively offered, "Stay to dinner, why
don't you? Ray always makes enough for an army." She started to shake her
head no, and he soldiered on. "Besides. You
shouldn't be alone tonight." He laid a gentle hand on her wrist.
"We've been there. It's tough, end of an op, trying to get some closure. Burying your dead."
Her head snapped up and she
glared at him. He held her stare until it crumbled, and he saw the pain behind
her façade. He let his own mask slip, showed her the understanding in his own
eyes, and she shut hers. "Ray makes a great chicken curry. You like
chocolate cheesecake?"
Opening her eyes again, she
managed a smile. "I don't wish to intrude."
"You're not," Doyle asserted. "In fact, why don't you come with
me? I'll fetch you a cup of tea, set you up with some biscuits." Bodie was pinned to the wall by knowing green eyes.
"Give Bodie and Mr. Cowley a chance to talk
..."
Mather looked from one to the other to the
third, then smiled more naturally this time and followed Ray into the kitchen. Bodie knew from the look Doyle gave him that his partner'd be expecting an update later, and it had better
be a positive one. He sighed.
"I am sorry, laddie. It had to be done." His father's voice was
unexpectedly gentle. He felt his mouth twist into a pout and did his damnedest
to straighten it out again.
"No other way to do
it, eh? Had to let the whole world and all know the only reason I got into CI5
is because I'm your bastard."
"That's not the truth,
and you know it. As to your parentage, no one found out who didn't already
know. And anyone with a brain in his head knows the only reason you're on the
squad is because you're the best. Ach, lad, I risk you as much if not more than
any other agent I've got. D'you really think that could be termed favoritism?"
"KGB thinks so."
He was sulking, knew it, and couldn't seem to stop himself.
"KGB thinks it's a
sting. The Minister already knew it. It's no one else's business."
"Had to make love to Ray for one of your damned schemes.
Use it." Sully it, he thought, and it came through clearly.
"As
you may have to in the future." Bodie's head turned and he glared
at his father. "It's a war, Bodie. We use
whatever we can to win it. You knew that going in."
Bodie started to refute the obvious
truth, explain that some things should never be used as weapons, when he
realized it was fruitless. Nothing was too sacred to be used as a weapon in Cowley's war. And the Old Man was right. He had
known it. He'd just fallen into the trap of thinking that in this instance his
father would be a father, and not the controller of CI5. Sometimes, he could be
very stupid.
"Love is what it is,
son," Cowley continued, and Bodie forced himself
to listen. "Doesna matter what anyone else would
try to make of it. You know what it is. You make it what it is."
"Then what is it? A weapon? A convenience? Just another part of our lives that CI5 can pick over?"
"Sacrosanct. The only thing that will keep you from turning into me."
Bodie felt his glare soften with
confusion. "In what way?"
"I have CI5. You have
Doyle, and CI5. You've found the other half of your soul, lad, and nothing, no one, can make that anything other than what it is."
"Curry, anyone?"
came a soft voice from the kitchen doorway. Bodie
looked up to see Ray standing there, Mather in the
background, and suddenly realized that he was starved.
"Da?"
"With
pleasure."
The dinner passed
unexpectedly quickly, with his father and his lover's Nemesis finding all sorts
of common ground in a strange, adversarial sort of way. After awhile, he and
Ray sat back and let them have at it, content to share lazy glances filled with
promise over the remains of the supper table and speak their own silent
language underneath the verbal sparring that filled the room.
From the sparkle on all
their faces, each came away from the evening with something different, and each
felt a little lighter for the time spent. Bodie stood
at the door watching Cowley hand Geraldine Mather
into her car, and wondered.
"Five will get you ten
he asks her out to dinner some night soon," Doyle said conversationally,
staring past Bodie at the cars pulling away.
"Te