Black And White Ops: A BWWM BBW Military Romance (8 page)

They moved into other
rooms, looking at the paintings and statuary which filled the
museums. The size of the museum complex was staggering. Monique
remembered visiting the Smithsonian as a young girl with her mother
in Washington, D.C., but this place made the one overseas look small.
It had been constructed to let the world know the tsar was not to be
ignored. His reign was absolute and his word was law. The rest of the
country needed to shut up and do as told.

“So how did you
end up in this line of work?” Monique asked Rick, taking his
arm with her hand. They were moving down a row of exhibits from
Japan. Few of the tourists were in this part of the museums,
preferring to look at the Titan paintings and other masters from
Italy.

“The usual,”
he told her. “Got out of the army, couldn’t find a job
which allowed me to jump out of a helicopter and shoot things. The
agency had some openings and needed someone with my background. Did
the round of interviews and got the job. It helps I speak a lot of
languages, so I can be dropped into just about any place.”

He felt her chin on
his back, rubbing him. Monique wrapped her arms around from behind.
“You were something else back there,” she whispered into
his ear. “Did you mean what you said when we were in the
shower?”

“Every bit of
it,” he told her. Rick turned around and embraced Monique. He
glanced around and planted his mouth to hers. They held the kiss for
a minute, and then he released her to make sure no one was watching.
“And it wasn’t for an alibi, either. I’m taking you
back with me, Monique.”

“But why me of
all people?” she asked, tossing her hair back. “I think
you could have a lot of women.” Rick brushed her hair back and
took her hand when he saw someone walk into their part of the
exhibit. He began to move with her down the hall, idly looking at the
exhibits around them again. He stopped at a suit of samurai armor
from the twelfth century and continued moving.

“I need to
settle down,” he told her, while walking slowly. “I’m
sick and tired of going into places like here to clean up someone
else’s mess. I’ve just about got enough money saved to
buy a little farm in Florida I’ve been looking at for the past
three months. What’s the point in buying a farm if you don’t
have someone to come home to after a day of working the cattle?”
He gave her hand a squeeze. “I had just enough time on those
thugs’ computer to check you out.”

She stopped and
dropped his hand. “I thought you were trying to find us a way
out of here?”

“I did that
too,” he informed her. “If you know what you’re
doing on the Internet, it doesn’t take you very long to find
things and contact people. I had two objectives when I saw their
connection: check you out and get us the hell out of here. It’s
why we just spent some quality time in the hidden amber room and why
I need to find my contact here at the museum.”

“What did you
find out about me?” Monique demanded. Her fists were clenched
at her side. One minute she was making love with this man, the other
she was finding out he’d checked her background.

“You have an
unpaid parking ticket in Philadelphia,” he told her. “Your
mother works at a hospital and you haven’t seen your father
since you were fifteen. Grades pretty decent in college and they
landed you this job. You’ve been stashing your money in a
stateside annuity account, which is pretty smart given the state of
the economy. And you push your lovers away when you climax because
you don’t think you’re supposed to enjoy it too much.”
Her eyes narrowed when he said the final statement. “The last
one I didn’t need the Internet to find out, you showed it to me
less than an hour ago.”

Monique turned her
back on him and started walking the other direction. Is this what she
could expect from him? One tumble beneath the sheets and he thought
she was his own sex toy? She would take her chances elsewhere if he
thought he could talk to her that way. And then she felt Rick’s
stiff fingers on her shoulder. She stopped.

“I want you to
enjoy it all the way next time, do you understand?” he
whispered in her ear. “I want to hear you call my name and beg
for my love.” Monique began to feel weak in the knees. Rick’s
hands slipped around her body from behind and she was pulled tightly
to him. Monique felt his hot breath on her neck and his teeth on her
ear. She wanted him to bend her over the display case next to them
and have his way with her.

“We’re
going to have a life together after his,” he told her. “I
want you Monique. I want you to wear my ring and have my children.
You are as perfect a woman as I will ever find.” He heard her
sob through his embrace and held her tightly. “We’ll buy
the farm, you can open your day care and everything will be alright.
Just hang on tight and see this through with me.” Monique
clutched his hands, not even asking about how he knew about her plans
to open a daycare center or how in the world she could do it while
living on a farm.

“Remember I
said you were an easy woman to fall in love with?” Rick told
her while he held her. “I have fallen in love with you. I tried
not to, but I can’t help it. There is a reason we ended up in
the same place in Russia at the same time. Don’t you believe it
was meant to be?”

“I want to
believe everything you are saying,” she responded, through the
tears. “But why did it have to happen this way? Why couldn’t
we have met somewhere where people aren’t all trying to kill
us?”

“We might as
well ask why the Neva river freezes up every year,” he laughed
in response. “Or why Russia lacks a warm water port to the sea.
It’s just the way of the world.”

They stood silently
holding each other for a long time. But the sound of footsteps
alerted Rick they needed to keep moving. Other tourists were entering
the section where they found themselves. They separated, but
continued to hold hands like a high school boy and girlfriend as they
walked among the aisles. Monique would occasionally stop and read the
title cards, while Rick continued to look for his contact. He was
being quiet about who he was searching for, but he seemed to think
his contact would be in this part of the Hermitage.

“How many times
have you been here?” he asked her.

“This is the
first time,” she told him. “I just never had the
opportunity. Not enough money or no one to go with.”

“You must have
been awful lonely these past three years,” Rick commented.
“What did you do to occupy your spare time?”

“I read a lot,”
she said. “Russians do like to read, so no lack of books or
novels. You can get tired of the same ones after a while.”

“But you never
read Crime and Punishment?” he told her. “One of the
greatest books of the nineteenth century.”

“I didn’t
read everything,” she explained. “I read a lot of
Tolstoy. I read Lost Souls. And a lot of the newer writers. They
still discuss Solzhenitsyn around here, did you know that?”

Monique slipped her
hand into his jacket to feel Rick’s firm chest. He leaned over
and gave her a light kiss on the lips before pulling back. She knew
he wanted to kiss more, but they had to be careful. She didn’t
care; Monique was spending time with a man who had just expressed his
love for her. She wanted to believe him, but couldn’t give her
heart away this early. Here they were, having known each other for a
little more than twenty-four hours and already discussing marriage.
Life was too strange.

“So what did
you like to read, Rick?” she asked him. “Action books? I
can see you reading all those military books I used to see at the
airport. The Executioner? The Destroyer? Maybe a Doc Savage fan?

“Westerns,
believe it or not,” he said, running his hand through her hair.
It felt so soft and he loved the way it curled on her. “Louis
L'Amour, Max Brandt, the classics. Pretty standard stuff.” Her
leaned over and put his lips to her ear. “My favorite was one
where a cowboy rides up to a house and finds a school teacher living
by herself. He stays around to help her on the farm, chops wood and
gets a fire going. She makes him dinner. Later that evening he takes
her upstairs and makes her count the beams on her bedroom ceiling.”

A chill went through
Monique again. What was he doing to her? Rick was making her wet
again. She needed to be worrying about their situation, not how
quickly she could find an alcove to take him. He had to be doing this
on purpose; she could find no other reason. Even if she was
increasingly becoming turned on by what he was doing.

“When are you
going to find your connection?” she said to Rick. “We
can’t stay here all day, as much as I’d like a whole
night in that amber room. Is it someone who works here?”

“It’s
someone I had to put out a call for when I was on the computer,”
he told her. “They’re the station chief for the agency in
St. Petersburg. I don’t trust this whole trip to Archangel plan
they gave me. I want to talk to someone and find a way out of here.
I’ve never met the station chief for this city before. You
don’t usually get that opportunity unless there is some kind of
emergency.”

“I thought the
master spies all worked out of the embassy?” she asked him.

“You watch too
many movies,” he told her. “They can be just about anyone
who has good connections with the city. They can work in some import
office or a trade delegation. You want people who can move around the
city without trouble. The SVR watched the embassy to see who comes in
and out. So it would be the last place you’d want a filed agent
stationed. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s someone who
works nearby.”

The other tourists
continued to move around the exhibits. Rick was keeping a close tab
on what time it was as he searched for something. Monique asked him
what we was looking for and he told her a panel made of Jade from
nineteenth century China. It was where he was supposed to meet the
contact, but only at a set time. Five minutes in either direction
would be useless.

“So we don’t
even know who we’re looking for,” Monique said to Rick
later on.

“No,” he
told her, “but the time is getting close. I figure he or she
will be early, but you can never be sure about these things.”

“How will you
know who they are?” she asked. “You don’t know what
your contact even looks like.”

“We have a
series of conversational signs and countersigns to use,” Rick
told her. “I know it sounds so corny, but it works when you
need to meet someone in public you don’t know. I have the first
part memorized, but the final sections I received when I was on the
computer.” He turned and looked at the big clock on the top of
the arch in the hall they were in. “It’s just about time,
so we need to find the exhibit I’m supposed to meet them at.”

They wandered around
until finding a bronze Buddha from the early fourteenth century from
Japan. Rick stopped, looked at it and turned his head sideways. “This
is it,” he said. “It fits in with the description I was
given years ago. Now all we have to do is wait.”

Ten minutes later a
small pretty brunette with dark Italian features appeared and began
looking at the Buddha as well. She was fashionable dressed in heels
and wearing a white leather jacket over her outfit. She had long
black hair tucked under her cap and turned to face them while they
were standing next to the statue. Rick frowned; she looked no more
than twenty years old. Couldn’t be the person they were waiting
to see. He turned away from her.

“Did you see
the moon last night?” she asked Rick.

Stunned, Rick turned
back and said. “I wasn’t outside last night. What did it
look like?”

“It was a dark
phase,” she told him, “so we didn’t get to see it.”

“I need to get
out more often,” Rick said to her, trying to figure out if she
was really the contact, “but it’s been a bad year.”

“It’s
been a lousy year for me as well,” she replied.

“Black bear,”
he said to her.

“Night hawk,”
she replied again.

“You’re
the station chief?” he asked her. “You seem so…”

“Young?”
she said in a voice which was very soft and feminine. “I’m
thirty-five, but thanks for the compliment. People say I look a lot
younger. Comes in handy at times. People don’t suspect a little
girl and will say just about anything around me.”

“I’m glad
you got here,” he told her. “I’m not so sure about
the agency’s plans for getting us out of here. Oh, this is
Monique, she’s coming with me.”

“How does she
fit into this mess?” the station chief asked him.

“She’s my
fiancée,” he told her and Monique gave him a big hug.

“Great,”
she commented. “Two to go. Now why don’t you tell me just
what happened to send the SVR scurrying all over St. Petersburg.”

Rick went over what
had happened, starting with him being contacted by the agency in
Washington DC and his planting the bomb in the office building near
where Monique had taught English. He went to great lengths to let the
station chief know about her innocence in the whole matter and how
she had nothing to do with the operation until he took it on himself
to break into her apartment and ask for help. He concluded by talking
about the last few hours and how he’d been forced to recover
the super drive and commandeer a computer at a warehouse.

“So let me get
this straight,” the chief said to him. “You set off a
bomb in an office which is supposed to have hacked into an American
database and use this lady, who you now call your fiancée
although you’ve only known her less than two days, to conceal
you and then you find out the super drive has been lifted from the
dead drop but you get it back and pull a gun in a warehouse to use
their computer before meeting me here? Did I cover everything?”