Black And White Ops: A BWWM BBW Military Romance (3 page)

She turned and looked
at the office building next to her while she walked home. There was a
light burning brightly on the third floor. She found it a little odd
since no one ever worked late at the place. Monique had learned early
on there were some topics best not discussed. Such as why an office
had plenty of people going in and out of it, although the name plate
might read “Linguistic Research” in Russian. St.
Petersburg was the Russian capital for a long time and still had
plenty of government connections. If something seemed odd about a
building or office, there was probably a state connection you
shouldn’t be asking about. No reason to have a Sluzhba Vneshney
Razvedki man pay you a friendly visit in the middle of the work week
to remind you that your residency status could be revoked at the drop
of a fur hat. So whatever was going on in that building wasn’t
her concern. If someone had to work late to get a job done, well they
did that all the time back home in Philadelphia too.

So when the explosion
went off on the third floor, it was a total surprise to her.

Monique was heading
down the street when a loud “whump” sent her flying
across the sidewalk into the street. She felt the shock wave of the
blast before she saw the glass fly down from its level and shower
her. Fortunately, none of the pieces were large enough to do any
damage, other than cutting her hands. The gloves she wore prevented
the sharpest pieces from doing any real damage.

She began coughing
from the smoke and turned over to see the building behind her on
fire. Flames were crackling out of the window where she had noticed
the light, but she didn’t hear anyone screaming. Monique
managed to right herself off the ground and tried in vain to gather
up all the classroom papers scattered across the road. Lights were
coming on in some of the stores across the road and people were
starting to come out and look at the fire. She was wobbling on her
heels while trying to stand up. Then she heard the sirens wail from
miles away. The fire brigade was on its way; at least someone had
pulled the alarm.

She brushed the glass
off her and looked at the alley between the buildings. There was
someone in it staring at her. Through the smoke and haze, she saw the
face of the man she’d talked to in the coffee shop days
earlier. What the hell was he doing in the middle of the explosion?
Did he have something to do with it? She saw the man who called
himself “Rick” staring back at her through the cloud of
smoke, but she had to get clear of the building. Monique tried to
grab more of her scattered papers and staggered forward on the
pavement. She was reeking of smoke and some chemical. The fire was
burning nicely now, giving her plenty of heat on the ground. But she
had to get away before it became worse or the building started
collapsing. It was an older building that was only four floors high,
but any building could fall apart when it started burning. She’d
seen it happen in Philadelphia.

Monique began to feel
her way to the building next to her. She had to get home before
anyone identified her. She was a foreigner who had been in the
vicinity of some kind of explosion. It wasn’t that long ago
that Moscow had been rocked by terrorist attacks. If anyone was going
to get blamed for it, it would be a foreigner of color who happened
to be in the wrong place when the bomb went off. She looked around
her and didn’t see anyone else she recognized. The man she had
met the other day, Rick, was gone. Was this some kind of “hit”
being carried out by the Russian mob? She had to get home before the
police showed up and she disappeared into the bowels of the Russian
penal system. She began walking down the street rapidly as more
people came out to watch the fire. Maybe it was an accidental
explosion and someone was working with flammable chemicals on that
floor. It didn’t make any difference to her, she had to get
home.

Most of her savings
went into a Swiss account, so Monique wasn’t concerned about
losing all the money she saved while teaching in Russia. She had a
local bank account, but the cash from it was for her living expenses.
She did have a special saving in her apartment that no one else knew
about. With it was an airline ticket which she updated every six
months. If relations between the United States and Russian Federation
became real bad, which they might at any moment, she could catch a
flight out and not have to worry. Her passport was stashed in the
wall of her apartment too.

The apartment walls
had been used as a safe before. When she found the access to it
behind her bedroom closet, Monique discovered thousands of Rubles in
1940’s money. She’d left them there since trying to cash
them in might arouse the wrong kind of suspicion. Besides, the person
who had left them there all those years ago might come back and get
them.

Her apartment was
close, so it wasn’t all that much trouble to find her way
through the alleys to it. She used the back approach to her apartment
several times when she didn’t like the attention some drunk had
given her. Russian men had a hard time understanding the word “Nyet”
from a foreign woman, whom they all assumed were sluts. She found her
street in the darkness quickly enough and walked to her building,
making sure all the glass was off her just in case she ran into any
of her neighbors. Monique almost yelled as a rat shot across her foot
in the alley, but it had better things to do. She stayed quiet and
pulled out her pass card when she approached the door. No one was
waiting for her, thank God. She ran it through reader, the light
flashed green and the building door unlocked. Brushing the last of
the glass fragments off her coat, she went inside.

The vestibule was
empty. It was a weeknight and the bars weren’t open all that
late. A rowdy crowd might show up later, but for now she could be
left alone. Monique made her way up the stairs; the elevator was out
of service again, to her apartment. She pulled out her key and
unlocked the door to it, staggering inside. So far no one had seen or
heard her. She might just pull out of this thing alright, but
experience had taught her to be cautious. Monique dropped the file of
papers down on her dining table, next to the little nesting dolls she
collected and sat down. She thought about it for a bit longer and
went to the refrigerator to pull out a bottle of wine which was saved
for emergencies. What she had just been through constituted an
emergency. She poured herself a glass of wine and drank it down
slowly.

Once the alcohol had
soothed her nerves, Monique went to the television and turned it on.
There were no reports of the explosion yet, but it didn’t
surprise her. The official news tended to drag a little bit, but
there would be an official statement in a few hours from the city
government.

Since there was
nothing on TV, she booted up her computer and found some local blogs
and websites. In spite of the government making threats against
bloggers, or because of it, she could find out all kinds of
unofficial news the moment it happened. It took her two minutes to
find a Russian blogger who was talking about a blast in an office
building. She saw the photographs of the fire brigade working to put
it out. The blogger claimed the firemen had it under control and it
shouldn’t spread to any other parts of the building. No one was
hurt as the office where the blast had taken place was closed for the
evening, which didn’t square with the light Monique had noticed
before the explosion. At least she didn’t read any reports of a
dark-skinned woman fleeing the scene of the explosion. She let out a
sigh of relief and shut-down the computer.

Monique was going to
take a shower, but then she had another thought: what about the money
she had stashed in the wall? She got up from the kitchen table and
made her way back to the closet. Monique pushed aside the clothes she
had hanging in there and found the small icon she’d purchase to
cover the opening she’d discovered when doing some painting a
few years ago. The plaster had collapsed while she was scratching off
the loose paint to reveal the hidden cavity with the Rubles in it.
There was enough room in the cavity after she closed it up to put her
emergency money and passport into it with the updatable airline
ticket.

She turned on the
light and pulled back the icon. There was the cavity and it was
empty.

“You really
should have converted those rubles, you know,” a voice said
behind her.

Monique whipped
around to face the man she had met a few days ago in the coffee shop,
the man who called himself “Rick Wilson”. He was standing
there holding her money, passport and the Rubles which had been
placed inside the cavity almost seventy years ago. Now he was wearing
a black nondescript jacket and jeans to match. She was terrified at
having him in her apartment, but at the same time a little tingle
went through the space between her legs. He was slightly dusty from
having been near the scene of the explosion.

“How did you
get in here?” Monique demanded. “What are you doing with
my money and passport? Give it back to me!”

“I’ll be
glad to give you the recent money and passport back,” he said,
handing them out to her. “The old Rubles we might want to talk
about. I’m sure the St. Petersburg police would be very
interested to know you were taking good care of them. Do you know
what you can get for harboring stolen goods in this town?”

“Who said they
were stolen?” Monique asked him. “I found the money years
ago and just left it there.”

“I might
believe you,” Rick said to her, holding up the Rubles with his
other hand. “But there are quite a few of these. About forty
million in today’s currency. They left some big denominations.
Looks like somebody was on the run after World War Two. If they are
even legitimate. Might be counterfeit and I’m sure the
government would really find all the bogus money stashed in your
apartment wall amusing.”

“Why are you
here?” she demanded. “Aren’t you the man I met two
days ago? I saw you outside the building where the explosion
happened. You had something to do with it!”

There was a knock at
the door. Monique felt very scared and looked at Rick. What the hell
had she got herself into? How was she going to explain this one? Rick
grabbed the money off the floor and shoved it with the passport back
into the cavity, swirling the icon back over it.

“Saint
Seraphim,” he noted. “Forgive us.” He turned to
Monique. “Tell whoever it is you’re not decent.”

“Give me just a
minute,” she called out in Russian to the door. “I’m
just getting out of the shower.”

“Now get your
clothes off and get in the shower,” he told her. “Don’t
worry about me.” Rick vanished into her bedroom.

Monique ran to the
shower and stripped off her clothes. She was in the shower just long
enough to wash the smell of the explosion off her, dry herself and
get into a robe. She returned to the door where the knocks were
becoming more frantic.

Monique opened the
door to reveal two St. Petersburg uniformed officers and a man
wearing a plain coat. They stepped inside the apartment and began to
look around.

“Who are you
and what do you want?” she yelled at them, also in Russian.

“As to whom we
are,” the man in the plain coat said, “it should be
obvious. As to what we want, perhaps you can tell us.”

“I don’t
know what you’re talking about,” she told them.

“Perhaps you
don’t,” he returned to her, “but there was an
explosion at an office building several blocks from here and a
witness told me he saw the black American lady who teaches at the
gymnasium walking away after it happened. He said you must have been
right next to it because you were wobbling as you walked. And we have
found broken glass all over the front of your apartment.”

“Pardon me,
mitsyia,” a voice called out from behind her. She turned around
to see Rick wearing one of her floral robes. In any other situation,
it might have been funny.

“The lady has
been with me all evening,” he told them in Russian. “We
have been preoccupied, although the blast did interrupt things, if
you understand what I am talking about.”

“Nice
wardrobe,” the man in the coat said to him. “I assume
from your accent you too are from America?”

“Yes I am”
Rick agreed. “I am Rick Wilson, here on business. I can get you
my card, but I’ll have to fish it out of my pants pocket. It
may be a little messy as they were close to the bed.”

“That won’t
be necessary,” the man said to him. “I will make a note
of your being here.” He turned to Monique. “You have an
alibi for now, but I’m going to talk to you later. Don’t
leave for any trips in the next week.” He turned back to Rick.
“I’m going to go, but I advise you not to do the same,
pending the investigation.”

He opened the door
and let the uniform men leave. Before he exited himself he turned
back and looked at Rick. “How many times and did she moan?”
he asked.

Monique made a
“daddy’s little girl” look on her face and cuddled
with Rick. He turned back to the police detective.

“Four times,”
he replied. “Two over the couch and two on the bed. She made
noises each time but didn’t yell until the last time while I
had her penned down. I’m going to make her say my name the next
time. You can’t please this woman. She’s insatiable.”

“Then I will
let you get back to your work,” the detective said, shutting
the door behind him.

“You are
disgusting,” Monique said to Rick, still cuddling him, but more
out of fear than any other reason. She yelped when he bit her ear.

“That’s
in case they are listening at the door,” he whispered in her
ear. “Let’s go back into the bedroom.” He pulled
her into her own bed and waited a few minutes.