‘Sorry to break in,’ she said with a slow smile that seemed to imply she wasn’t sorry at all. ‘But it’s what I do.’
‘What? You’re like a cat burglar or something?’
‘Something,’ she said. ‘I work for the Central Intelligence Agency, Dave. Perhaps you’ve heard of us.’
She advanced on him slowly, placing her feet one in front of the other as carefully as any catwalk model. Perhaps she had been a model at some point. She had the looks for it. Her head was tilted slightly toward one shoulder and a few strands of long hair had come loose of her carefully arranged coif. Come loose on purpose, he thought, as she twirled them around one finger. He felt his dick stirring as she drew closer and he couldn’t help imagining doing to her just a little of what he’d done with Knoxy and Mulan last night.
Oh man, he thought. Think with your head, not your dick, just for once.
The CIA played a large part in sending his brother to Iraq.
The CIA was no friend of his.
No matter how much he might be inclined to tumble one of their representatives into bed and grudge-fuck her.
He did give it a moment’s thought. He was Dave, after all. But the memory of his mother falling to the kitchen floor when the death notice came to the door, splitting her head on the corner of the table as she fainted, was enough to shrivel his cock.
‘Sorry, Smack,’ he said, leaving her caught in the gel-like embrace of normal time while he warped through the suite, grabbing up his bag. He stayed in the fast-track as he dressed again. He had no idea how much energy he used doing this stuff, as opposed to, say, leaping tall buildings in a single bound. It occurred to him that maybe it might be an idea to sit down with the pointy heads and get some tests done to find his limits and how much fuel he needed to reach them and stay there.
But for now he was content to avoid any entanglement with the CIA and their sexy messenger, goosing her gently as he passed by. He slipped back outside and rejoined the others. He had to stifle a snort of amusement when he heard the spook cry out in surprise behind him.
Nobody else seemed to hear it.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, holding up the bag for Heath to see.
The door of the Chairman’s Suite opened and red-faced Agent McIntosh appeared.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Heath.
‘The hoagie delivery woman,’ said Dave. ‘She came about my foot-long.’
He stepped past Compton and Heath, heading for the elevator which would take him down to the main foyer to grab Lucille.
09
Their ride through the sky looked like every other commercial jet liner Dave had flown on, more than big enough for the two SEAL teams stomping up the stairs with all their carry-on gear.
‘Air Force was sending a C-40 but that had to get in from the 201st Airlift over in Washington,’ Heath said as they waited on the tarmac at Northtown. Smaller than the big international field at McCarran, it was also a handy three klicks from downtown. Dave could see the airfield was crowded because of the flight ban, but most of the craft were twin prop and lesser commercial jets. The fat boys were all over at LV’s main airport. Jumbos. 767s. Airbuses from all over the world. Piled up around the tarmac like cars at a weekend swap meet. When the last of the commandos was aboard Heath gestured for the civilians to climb the stairs into the plane.
‘So what, you guys leased this bird?’ Dave asked.
‘After New Orleans, OSTP received an emergency funding line,’ said Compton, who seemed to have accepted the presence of Boylan when he was made to understand he had no goddamned choice about it. And after Boylan had signed a stack of non-disclosure agreements in his own blood. ‘So yes, we leased it. And no, I won’t be covering your bar bills at Hooters. Now get in.’
Climbing up the stairs Dave muttered to himself, ‘They must have given you one of them plutonium Amex cards.’
He felt surprisingly comfortable in the luxurious surrounds of the airplane which, Boylan informed him, was a Boeing Business Jet 737–700. Unlike most jets, which felt like being jammed into a tin can, this bad boy was outfitted with a conference table, flat-screen televisions, a lounge area and a full service wet bar.
‘Fuck me,’ Igor breathed. ‘Bond never had it this good.’
‘Connery would definitely approve,’ Zach said.
‘Nah, this feels more like Craig,’ Igor replied.
‘Craig’s pretty badass.’
Igor nodded; it was a slow, measured movement which took in Dave’s entire frame.
‘Mr Hooper, we are very happy to have you onboard,’ a hostess said with a noticeable moistening of her lips. ‘Your seat is over here.’
Maybe it was the natty outfit Armando had dressed him in. Maybe it was the hostess telling him, yes, she could totally make him a martini as soon as they were in level flight. But most likely it was the enormous and obscenely comfortable leather chair he sank into as though returning home after a long absence. It all made him feel as though every path he had walked had led him right here. The plane even boasted a humidor. He had a smoking buddy from Georgia who would die to be with him right now.
‘Oh man, I was meant to live like this, not work for assholes who live like this,’ he said, as Igor and Zach Allen stowed their baggage up front.
‘And never forget that, Dave,’ said Boylan, who was about to take the seat opposite until shooed away by Emmeline.
‘Why don’t you
work your phone?’ she suggested. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be pimping out Jennifer Aniston?’
‘Oh you,’ Boylan mugged back at her.
He held up his briefcase for Dave to see. ‘We have a four or five hour flight in front of us,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get on top of this problem with your wife. Unless of course you want me pimping out Jennifer Aniston. In which case
. . .’
‘It’s okay,’ Dave said, throwing up his hands. ‘If you can get Annie off my back as a starter, that’d be awesome. I’ll go kick some monster butt. You deal with this Vietch asshole, and then we can go have some D-time in LA.’
‘D-time?’ Emmeline said. ‘Please don’t tell me that means Dave Time.’
‘Then I can tell you nothing.’ He grinned.
Emmeline muttered something under her breath, and he was pretty sure it was uncomplimentary to the concept of Dave Time, but unlike Compton there never seemed to be any personal malice in Emmeline. It must just be that she was British, he thought, or retarded with her autism and stuff.
Without hundreds of other passengers to board carrying tons of hand luggage to avoid excess baggage fees, the small group was seated and ready for takeoff within minutes. The Boeing had been fitted out with eight extra-large recliners staggered in sets of two through the first third of the compartment. The hostess made her way around to ensure everyone was strapped in, and Dave was certain she paid particular attention to his harness.
‘Thanks darlin’,’ he said. ‘How long until I can get that drink?’
‘Couple of minutes, hon.’ She smiled. ‘After wheels up. Stay frosty.’
‘Oh for the love of God,’ Ashbury muttered.
Dave felt the same stirring in his groin occasioned by Agent McIntosh back at the Bellagio, but a sharp kick to his shin by Professor Ashbury shut that shit right down.
‘Ouch!’
‘Oh don’t be a baby. You’re supposed to be indestructible.’
She returned to stowing her gear and ignoring him. There was none of the usual delay with taxiing and waiting for takeoff. Maybe because they had priority, but probably because there were no other flights coming into or out of the airfield.
‘What if we do meet
dar Drakon
? Sorry, dragon,’ Dave asked. ‘You ain’t figuring on me going out there on the wings to punch it in the snout are you?’
Heath spoke up from across the aisle and down a few feet, where he was deeply recessed in the buttery leather of a comfy Blofeld chair, facing Compton. ‘We have an escort out of Nellis. Four Air Force Warthogs and our own Super Hornets. They should be airborne now, providing combat air patrol. Tankers will meet them along the way to top them up. We’ll be fine, as long as your fire-breathing pterodactyl friends don’t travel in packs. And even then we’ll probably be fine. The Hornets can take on multiple hostiles at once while the Warthogs can mix it up close.’
‘Super Hornets are probably too fast,’ Igor said. ‘The dragons fly pretty slow I heard. The Red Baron could probably take one in a drag race.’
‘Okay,’ said Dave, having to raise his voice over the engine whine as the jet’s acceleration pressed him back into his seat. The same G forces, he noticed, pulled Emmeline a little way forward out of hers and he wondered whether there was any difference in safety between having a forward-facing or rear-facing seat. Probably none that made a difference in the end.
The high-pitched scream of the engines became a deeper roar as they poured on power. The nose of the jet lifted up, and soon they seemed to be climbing much more steeply than he’d ever done before. Dave waited for the usual in-flight announcements from the captain, but there were none. Presumably Compton, having chartered the flight, was across all that shit.
Only the briefest interlude passed between the plane levelling off and the hostess reappearing with Dave’s drink.
‘I hope you don’t mind, sir. I took the liberty of making you a dirty martini. I took you for a dirty boy.’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ said Emmeline.
‘You can take me anytime, sweetheart.’ Dave grinned. ‘And keep these bad boys comin’. I got me a powerful thirst these days and it needs a whole heap of tending to if I’m even gonna –’
‘Hooper,’ said Emmeline in a voice that could crack ice. ‘Do you think we could have a word.’
The look she fixed him with was significantly scarier than anything Urgon or Scaroth had ever managed.
‘Sorry, Prof. Am I hogging the waitress? Would you like a frosty beverage?’
She glowered at him.
‘No, I would like a word. Now.’
‘Maybe I’ll wait a few minutes on that second martini,’ he told the attendant, and she nodded in a way that acknowledged the sudden tension and somehow made her Dave’s accomplice in it.
When she was gone, Emmeline undid her seatbelt and leaned forward, beckoning Dave to do the same. He complied, not sure what was going on. But he really hoped she wasn’t about to give him a lecture on sexual harassment. He risked a quick glance back and across the aisle at Heath and Compton, but they seemed to be ignoring him with studied intensity, pouring over documents and maps as though they hadn’t heard any of the exchange that had just taken place.
‘You have to stop doing this,’ said Professor Ashbury.
‘Doing what?’
‘Trying to fuck every trolley dolly and chippy and Saudi Arabian princess you meet. It’s not fair to them and it’s going to get you into the sort of trouble that even Rumpole of the Bailey back there can’t get you out of.’
Dave took a long pull on his martini. It was excellent, one of the best he’d ever had, but he was drinking it as a prop. Just something to put in front of his face to protect him from the anger of this strangely intense Englishwoman. Hard to believe he’d been attracted to her during the brief quiet time they’d spent out on the Longreach, because he was feeling the opposite of attraction now. He was feeling a serious need to get the hell away from her.
‘What is your problem?’ he asked, genuinely confused. He hadn’t put the moves on her. In fact she’d told him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t interested in him, and he was enough of a grown-up for that to be the end of it.
The Boeing was remarkably quiet compared to all of the budget flights he’d endured over the years, but he didn’t think of that as an advantage at the moment. Would’ve been good, in fact, if there were some kids screaming nearby, and some idiot teen sitting next to him leaking thrash metal from a pair of poorly insulated Beats.
Might have helped ease the feeling that he was standing naked in a spotlight.
‘I don’t have a problem,’ said Emmeline in her clipped English tones. ‘You do. You have a problem with women and I don’t think you’re even aware of it.’
He laughed and leaned back, taking the opportunity to finish off his drink. He didn’t feel even the slightest buzz from it yet and part of him wondered how many he’d have to down before he got a decent drunk on.
‘Oh hell, people been telling me I got a problem with women all my life. My wife, my girlfriends, the sensitivity trainers at Baron’s.’
Emmeline squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head as if trying to fight through a migraine.
‘That’s not what I mean. Actually, that’s exactly what I mean, but it’s not all I mean. You have a problem, Dave. You’ve had it since New Orleans. Or rather, since the Longreach. And it’s not just a matter of you being a tosser. Although that’s a very large part of it.’
He made a conscious effort not to let Resentful Dave get in on this conversation. Resentful Dave was an old master at working his magic in these sorts of exchanges. But Resentful Dave, in the long, weary experience of Core Dave, rarely added anything useful.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said in as reasonable a voice as he could manage. ‘Well, I suppose I do. But it’s really none of your business, Emmeline. You’re not my wife. You’re not my boss. I’m not even sure what the hell you are to me other than some woman who’s
. . .’
Resentful Dave was about to say ‘busting my balls’. Luckily, he shut the fuck up before he could toss that turd on the table.
‘Okay. Look. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Yes, I know I can be an asshole, but
. . .’
Emmeline rubbed at her temples. She stared at her knees. It was like trying to have a conversation with an angry fortune teller.
‘That’s not what I’m talking about, Hooper.’
He noted the use of his last name, and even felt a little stung by it. But he kept his mouth shut and waited for her to go on. She seemed to be struggling to find whatever words she needed. And then she looked up at him.
‘I want to fuck you so much right now.’
A heartbeat. Two heartbeats.
‘What the
. . .
er
. . .’
He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly.
The English professor, the rather good-looking English lady professor with the dark hair and the peaches and cream complexion, and the bodacious ta-ta’s rolling around inside her shirt, she leaned forward and looked into his eyes with a cold detachment completely at odds with the words she’d just said to him. Or he thought she’d just said to him.
And then she confused him even further by repeating it, enunciating each word.
‘I want to fuck you so much right now.’
Dave had to suppress a laugh at the idea of the word ‘SPROING!’ suddenly appearing over his crotch in large cartoon letters and explosion lines. What she said next helped him with that.
‘But I’m not going to. I’m never going to do that. Because I don’t really like you very much. You are quite an awful man with very few redeeming qualities beyond an ability to bash monsters to death. You are crude, unsophisticated, a vulgarian of the worst sort. I would sooner pull barbed wire out of my arse than allow you to lay a hand on me.’
Dave hardly knew what to say, so he kept it simple. ‘Okay then.’ The moment seemed to require that he say something more but all he had were gobbling noises at the back of his throat. They eventually formed themselves into something like, ‘Jeez, Prof,’ before she started up and rolled over the top of him again.
‘And yet, I want to fuck you so much right now. Do you understand where this is going? Can you guess what I mean?’
He was blushing again. He’d done a lot of that lately, perhaps catching up on a lifetime’s worth of it he seemed to have missed. He was also certain that everybody in the jet was studiously avoiding looking in his direction or giving the impression they’d heard a word of what Emmeline had just said.
‘Well, I, er
. . .
I guess it’s like hate-fucking someone you don’t like. We’ve all done that.’
‘No. No, we haven’t. You may have extensive experience in the area, but normal people don’t, Dave.’
She leaned back in the chair and released a shuddering breath as though she had just performed some difficult physical task like lifting a heavy weight.
‘The women you had sex with at the hotel? The hostie you were just flirting with? The honey trap the CIA laid for you back at the hotel? Yes, Heath told me. Pretty much every woman who has brushed up against you since the Longreach? Then started rubbing up hard against you for no apparent reason? Other than you being awesome? Every single one of them was drugged.’
Anger flared inside Dave and he couldn’t help himself. ‘Bullshit,’ he snapped back. But before he could get rolling Emmeline cut him off again.