Black And White Ops: A BWWM BBW Military Romance (9 page)

“That about
sums it up,” Rick told her. “I don’t think I left
much out.”

“Well this is
just some kind of bullshit,” the chief swore. It was a little
strange to see such harsh words coming out of the mouth of a woman
dressed like a fashion model who didn’t look eighteen.

“So is there a
better way to get out of here than the Trans-Siberian Express?”
Rick asked her. “The SVR is going to be watching everything.”

“First of all,”
she told him, “do you have any idea what the office was doing
when you set-off the bomb?”

“I was told
they were hacking a pentagon database and I copied all the files I
was supposed to on the super drive,” Rick explained.

“At least we
have that,” the chief responded. “Because all hell is
breaking loose in Washington over this mess. I don’t have to
tell you what it’s going to do with any relationship we had
with Moscow.”

“Why?”
Rich asked. “It was their people hacking the database, wasn’t
it?”

“I wish,”
she said. “It would at least give us some closure. You might be
interested to know you just blew up a CIA operation.”

Rick stared at her
speechless. “But I thought the whole thing was approved by
Washington,” he finally spoke up. “Isn’t that why
they hired me? To take out the post these clowns were using.”

“Look, it’s
been screwed up from the beginning,” she explained. “Someone
approved a hack intrusion test to see if the big database could be
broken into from Russia. We know it can because they repeatedly did
it over and over. I hope the clowns in charge can use the information
to better protect the firewalls. The men who were running the
operation are all on their way back now. They managed to get them on
a plane an hour after the explosion. But it didn’t take the
local police long to figure out something wasn’t right about
the whole set-up in the office building. They called SVR who knew
what was going on. And let me tell you, they are not happy to find
out the agency was pulling this stunt under their noses. It’s
why they want you, to find out how the operation was pulled-off. You
might not know a thing about that end, but they do know two Americans
are on the loose in St. Petersburg with some information. So they
will find you both unless I can figure out what to do.”

“But why did
the agency hire me to plant the bomb?”

“It’s
what we’re trying to discover right now,” she explained.
“My best guess is that we’ll never know. Probably
somebody goofed somewhere and decided to play cowboy. They’ve
just caused the worse prairie fire imaginable.”

“Can you get us
out?” he asked her.

“I have to,”
she said. “I can’t leave you behind for the Russians to
find. Heads will be rolling all over the place if that happens. Do
you have the super drive?”

“Yes,”
Rick told her, “but I don’t have it on me.”

“Exactly what I
would say in the similar situation,” the chief commented. She
tried to look at the Buddha for a while and concentrated. “The
extraction will have to be local,” she told him. “I can’t
risk you taking the train to Archangel. Too many possibilities for
things to go wrong. Did you walk past the suit of Japanese armor by
the entrance?”

“Yes, I stopped
to look at it when we got here,” Rick said.

“Good,”
the chief continued. “Meet me in front of it in twenty-four
hours. It will take me that long to make the arrangements. Check this
phone number tomorrow by six.” She gave him a slip of paper.
I’ll leave any adjustments to the itinerary in there if
something should go wrong. You still have your earpiece?”

“I’ve got
it in now.”

“Good. Keep it
in; I don’t think the SVR know we can tap their channels right
now. They’ll find out soon enough, they always do. But in the
meantime we have a way of staying one step ahead of them. Have a good
day.”

Rick was going to say
good bye to her, but the station chief was vanishing down the hall as
soon as she finished.

“You heard,”
Rick said to Monique. “Change of plans. Looks like no train
ride.”

“I’m not
disappointed,” she replied. “I wasn’t looking
forward to playing Spies on the Oriental Express.”

“Now I have to
figure out something we can do till tomorrow,” he told her.

Monique put her head
on his chest while no one was looking. “You really can’t
think of anything we could be doing, lover? What about that amber
room? Can we go back there?”

“I’m
tempted, but there is another place we can use,” he said with a
smirk.

The girl looked to be
in her early twenties and was wearing a blue dress which the coat she
had on barely concealed. She had thick eyebrows and Rick wondered if
she was Armenian. All types of people were moving through Russia
these days. In the old days of the Soviet Union, movement was
strictly controlled, just as it had been with the Tsars in an
internal passport system. But now the system had broken down and a
new one had yet to be initiated. Like many other things, Russia was
still trying to get a handle on its place in the New World Order. The
girl was carrying around a large plastic garbage bag with her in the
coffee shop and the owner kept glaring at her. Whatever was in the
bag was something that didn’t belong in his shop and he wanted
her gone. He finally said a few words in Russian to her and the girl
got up and left the shop, taking the bag with her. The last Rick saw
of the girl was her carrying it down the street with a cell phone
propped to her ear. Somehow he didn’t think whatever she was
doing was legal in any country.

Monique and Rick had
decided to go hang-out in a coffee shop for a few hours while waiting
on another one of Rick’s connections. This one could find them
a place to stay for the night away from the prying eyes of the SVR.
Now they had to be worried about both the agency and the Russian
version snooping around looking for them. Once again, he’d
found himself trapped in a game someone else was playing. All he
needed was a square where he could move. No one was giving them
strange looks in the coffee shop, which was fine with him. It was a
place foreigners used all the time. He’d recognized five
European languages already and two more Asian ones. All manners of
deals were taking place around them with men in business suits
wearing ties. Someone once told him the best place to hide was in
plain sight. The coffee shop qualified with the local branch of the
SVR visible through the window.

Two women in blue sat
across from them. They were blond and had taken their coats off. Rick
sat quietly and observed them while Monique leaned against him with
her eyes closed. He kissed her on the ear to wake her a few times,
but let Monique sleep. She’d been very busy early in the day
inside the small amber room. Rick closed his eyes and felt his
erection return with the memory of it. He’d promised her a trip
to one of the fantasy rooms in a big King of Prussia hotel once they
returned to America. He meant to keep that one too. Just as he
intended to marry the curvy woman he was holding. Time to put his spy
game to rest and use the money he’d saved for the ranch in
Florida. He closed his eyes and imagined plowing his fields in the
day and going back inside to plow her in the evening. He once knew a
guy from the country who claimed to have twelve brothers and sisters
and whose mother would always pray her husband would get lost on the
way home when it rained.

The women in blue
were still playing with their hair. Rick kept his short so he
couldn’t understand all the fuss. He did like women with long
hair and had slept with a number of them who had waist-length manes.
It made sex a little confusing because they had to spend time pinning
it up. Quite the mood killer when you can’t see your lover on
top of you because the hair is blocking your vision.

Both of the women
were wearing open-toes heels on their feet, which must have turned
them blue after one or two blocks. He found it amusing the lengths
people went to just for fashion. He had a few suits at home, but
tended toward jeans and t-shirt between assignments. Simple engineer
boots worked for him most of the time, although he was wearing
running shoes right now. He noted that Monique had grabbed a pair of
leather boots with heels when they left her apartment. It was going
to make it difficult for her to run if they found themselves in a
tight spot. In this weather and terrain running barefoot was out of
the question. If he had to, Rick could carry her on his back, but
hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

A young man came by
with a broom and dustpan, sweeping the floor near them, but ignored
Rick when he asked him in Russian if they should move. Rick tried a
few other languages, but he still acted like he couldn’t hear
them. Rick decided the young man must be another undocumented worker
from one of the former Soviet Republics who had come north to find a
job. Like in America, he was probably underpaid and working for cash.
Monique was still sleeping soundly while leaning on him.

Could they be
sisters? he wondered about the two women in blue. He had thought as
much when they first walked into the coffee shop, but not now. One
was tiny and thin, very typical for a Russian woman in this part of
the country. It was why so many supermodels came from this part of
the world, although the tall ones tended to hail from Siberia. The
other was on the curvy side, which was becoming more common as the
typical Russian had a greater access to Western-style food. Both were
playing on their cell phones, another bad habit imported from the
west. It was nine in the evening and the big nightclubs would soon be
opening. Rick avoided those places if he could. The music was too
loud and the men rude.

Just as the women in
blue left the room they were replaced by two people entering in
motorcycle leathers. He couldn’t tell who they were as both
were wearing helmets and in the process of removing them when they
stepped into the coffee shop. These had to be foreigners. The man
looked to be in his forties and had a rough exterior with long hair
bundled up in a ponytail. The girl with him looked no more than
eighteen and was looking up to him with respect. He wondered if they
were father and daughter until she leaned up to him on her toes and
planted a long kiss on his lips. Then she turned to the girl at the
counter and made her order in flawless Russian with a Moscow accent.
The man looked a little confused until he saw the girl behind the
counter start to get the cappuccinos ready. Then he put one arm
around her and waited to get their order. He fumbled with his wallet
and pulled out a wad of cash. Nope, man is foreign and the girl is
someone he’s flown here to meet, Rick thought.

He wished the two of
them the best of luck internally. Several years ago he’d met a
Bulgarian woman outside an outlet mall near Philadelphia who had skin
the color of alabaster with eyes blacker than the heart of midnight.
Her American husband had a construction job and they were buying some
appliances for their new house. He’d overheard her talk in
Bulgarian to her mother on the cell phone and introduced himself to
them later. It always helped to practice a language when you didn’t
get to use it that much. The man had found her on some kind of
matrimonial website and flown out to meet her. They’d clicked
and now she was living the good life in the USA. He ran into them a
year later and she was pushing a stroller with the baby in it while
showing signs of baby number two.

So where was his
connection? This one he knew. It was a man named Yuri who exported
furs to the United States for the furriers. He’d taken some
flak from the animal rights people and didn’t care. One of them
had tossed paint on one of Yuri’s models at a fashion show. It
was funny until the young guy who’d tossed the paint was paid a
little visit from two of Yuri’s buddies one night. There was no
more paint tossed where Yuri was involved. Some people don’t
like to get lawyers involved to solve problems and Yuri was
definitely in that category.

At close to ten a man
entered the coffee shop in a long coat and made an order at the
counter. The owner saw who it was and decided to keep the shop open
later. An employee went to the door and let the other patrons leave,
but told everyone else they were fixing to close. This allowed Yuri a
chance to meet with Rick and Monique.

Rick nudged Monique
when he saw Yuri enter the shop. She woke slowly, rubbing her eyes,
trying to remember where she was. Monique saw the man sit down with
them and realized it was the connection Rick had mentioned.

“Good evening,
brother,” Yuri said to him in Russian, using the familiar term
gangsters called each other. “It seems you are in some trouble.
How can I help?”

“I need a place
for her and me tonight,” he told the man. “We are
supposed to meet with someone tomorrow who will get us out of here,
but tonight I need to hide us both.”

“Trouble with
the SVR?” he asked. “Don’t look so surprised, Rick,
word is spreading around about the bomb that went off yesterday. Did
you have anything to do with it? Ah, I see by your expression you
did. No bother, I had thought that operation looked strange. My
people told me about it. Crazy world, these intelligence types. Oh, I
took care of the problem with the men at the warehouse as well as I
figure you were involved with them as well. The SVR showed up, but
they didn’t tell them anything they could use. Really, how do
you expect to remain unseen with a black woman in this part of
Russia?”

“I was hoping
you could help me again with the last part,” Rick told him.

“I will this
time,” Yuri responded, “but only because of the help you
have given me in the past. I do not forget those who have helped me.”

He wrote down an
address on a piece of paper and handed it to Rick. “This is a
warehouse of mine. It doesn’t have a night watchman, so you
will not be disturbed. I’ve written down the pass code on the
bottom. You can stay there for the night and make your connection in
the morning. Don’t worry about the SVR; I’ll hold them
off for one day. Did you know they’ve been watching you in this
shop?”