Sometimes, it colored him red.
He waited until his superior left the scene before heading back to
headquarters himself to complete the necessary paperwork. He usually
finished the various forms and reports quickly, but lately he was taking
his time with them, especially the arrests that happened in the evenings.
He was in no hurry to get home.
A knock sounded on his office door, and Nikita looked up into
the fresh young face of Maksimov, a junior officer.
“I have the information you were looking for.”
“Bring it here.”
The younger man did, standing at ease and awaiting his dismissal.
Nikita let him wait and turned his attention to the brown envelope and
the papers within. He'd called in countless professional debts the past
weeks and had come up empty-handed, which angered him to no end.
Christopher Gibson existed. The man was no ghost, but he was all
but untraceable through both normal and slightly irregular channels.
The most he'd gotten to date were single sheets of paper, half sheets
even, telling him things he already knew. But this, this would be
something more, though he wasn't certain what just yet.
It had better be productive. He'd called in his strongest marker for
this final try. He paused, his fingertips grazing the tops of the pages. He
looked up into the expectant face of the young officer. “Go now.”
”Yes, thank you.” Maksimov turned crisply on his heel.
Nikita didn't yet know if he could trust him. This was hardly a
prestigious unit, so he had to wonder why a kid with such good marks
and clear intelligence had been posted here. Several other branches
would have taken him in immediately.
There was an all-pervading dislike for his little team in the
Organized Crime Squad. He had high-level enemies in the Moscow
Police and Interior Ministry, who saw him as an aberration because of
the way he did his job. Not the brutality—even though Nikita preferred
to think of it as “emphasis” rather than brutality—but the fact he took
the metro to work rather than drive a big western car and rented a flat in
the suburbs rather than owned a flat in central Moscow.
Nikita pulled out the papers and a typed note attached with a
paper clip: “You don't have this from me. I expect your immediate
compliance in return.”
Nikita smiled. As if he could risk using that nice piece of dirt he
had on his contact. It might be good for one more favor, though, and he
wasn't one to waste anything.
He noticed the “confidential” marks all over the papers, which
were, doubtlessly, quickly and somewhat haphazardly copied while
nobody had been looking. Not even leaving an electronic trail.
Somebody was very worried.
It was a secret service dossier on an organization called
GORGON. At first people had worked from the assumption that it was
some kind of triad or gang, but the more the secret service dug, the
larger it grew, and Nikita noted a tone of alarm in the dossier.
A new player in international espionage, established in the fifties
of the last century as a supranational secret body to, it was thought,
represent a number of Western European states on the intelligence side
of the Cold War. A body that kept taps both on CIA and KGB, funded
from the same pockets that would later fund the formation of the
European Union. Its HQ was in Switzerland, and it seemed to at least
have access to the resources of Europol. European Commission stuff—
reporting only to the highest level. Not even to the European
Parliament.
“Now, what is an American doing playing with the Europeans?”
he murmured, leafing through a lot of alarmist conjecture.
The next page had been handwritten. Information too shocking
even to be typed out? Dammit. He moved the paper close, angled it to
the light. Clearly these people didn't put enough stock in legible
handwriting.
Their recruiting methods are unusual. They have no pattern for
proficiency or skills that we take for granted. They hand pick their
people from various military, security and private organizations.
Next was a sheet with a badly photocopied black and white photo.
It showed a soldier, his face darkened by the bad reprographics, his
cocky smirk unmistakable. Gibson, C.D. 75th Ranger Regiment.
That was it. There was nothing further.
Nikita ground his molars, suppressed a growl of displeasure. It
was more than he'd had. At least it filled in missing pieces. The
question was now, had Gibson gone rogue? Had he been ejected or quit?
Or was he still working with them? Where was he now?
He had nothing, no address, no phone number, not even an e-mail
address. GORGON. Switzerland. It wasn't the largest country, but
Nikita didn't know where even to begin looking.
He duly burnt the stack of papers to cover his own ass and that of
his contact. Then he finished his regular reports and filed them. Maybe
I should have given him more credit—maybe he’d have trusted me then.
Why would GORGON want Voronin dead? Nikita knew he was
close to something, but he was clutching at straws now. Pulling shit
from thin air. This wasn't police work, this was just fantasy. Even if he
started going to every gay club in Switzerland, he doubted he'd strike it
lucky. Needle in haystack didn't begin to cover it.
He buried his face in his hands, feeling helpless again, and he
loathed that feeling with a passion. This was why he did this job. To
make things happen. Make a difference. There was always some
scumbag that deserved punishment, some asshole that needed cutting
down to size.
It helped him keep a level head and out of the bottle. Ever since
he'd discovered that he was no better than the men he locked up or
killed, he fought a constant battle to keep sane and productive.
Infiltrating a slaver ring had almost finished him off. Getting off on
violence and humiliating people had brought him face-to-face with the
darkest desires that he had.
Recognizing the evil in those men and knowing exactly what they
felt had stripped the moral indignation that kept other honest policemen
going, not that there were many of them in Moscow.
He'd learned the hard way that he was like those scumbags but on
the right side of the law. It didn't matter, though, when a human being
crumpled at his feet, at his mercy, simply broken. He preferred those
people to be evil, but that was only a gradual difference.
BDSM helped him vent those emotions; he was a “natural,”
Katya had told him. “I can trust you completely, Master,” she'd said.
And it was different. The chemistry changed when the other partner
agreed to it. Trusted him. It was both liberating and tempering, required
control and a tenderness that he couldn't admit to otherwise. Maybe he
was just scared to be tender at all. He preferred not to think about it.
He also preferred not to think of Chris Gibson, and yet the bastard
had been infiltrating his thoughts when he least expected it. It had been
so exhilarating with him, so different than with Katya. Gibson had
submitted, but he'd fought against it, made taking him a real challenge.
He was unpredictable in the most entertaining of ways.
Nikita thought of the intricate, carefully placed cuts on Katya's
back and the impulsive characters he'd cut into the American's thigh.
He wanted to posses the man, wanted to be the one to conquer that
indefatigable bravado. He wanted to be the one to break down
everything Chris Gibson prided in himself.
But how could he break someone, hardly more than a stranger,
who'd risked his own ass and went against who knew what protocols to
save him from a hit gone wrong? The man was an unnerving mass of
endless unanswerable questions and contradictions.
He had to find him.
Had to do… something to get this infatuation out of his system.
Working harder chipped away at the piles of paper on his desk, but
he'd never been a slacker, and there were only so many toes he wanted
to step on per week. So far, the other police and security branches
tolerated him, maybe as some kind of fig leaf, but if he did too much,
even his protection from high above might run out. He'd been damned
lucky to find as much protection as he'd had. He'd been lucky, all told,
had found protection and help during his military service, had earned
strings far, far above him in the Kremlin and Interior Ministry to give
him as much rope as he had. Even giving him a decent enough budget,
few questions asked. He could take the fight to the enemy, every now
and then, and be reasonably sure that he wouldn't run afoul of those
law enforcement circles that found it more profitable to collaborate
rather than prosecute.
Maybe he should go back to London? He had wrapped this latest
case up, he could take a week off. Try to work this out. But there were
simply too many damned gay bars in Europe. He didn't stand a chance
of finding Chris this time.
To make matters worse, the situation in Berlin hadn't developed
as planned. Shkadov must have struck a deal with Zaitsev's
replacement rather than go to war with him. Damn those criminals for
being reasonable and coming to some form of understanding. Granted,
the fact that they could have worked out that a third party had killed
Zaitsev might have something to do with it. The fact that they were
criminal didn't make them stupid.
The case was hung with German authorities, wrapped in red tape
inside diplomatic issues and complicated by political dick-waving, but
Nikita stood in the first front line if that case dislodged and they could
operate again. It had been his case, he'd been on the slave ring shit for
half his career, which, in the view of his colleagues, made him “a little
strange” and kept him out of their hair while they took care of purely
domestic crime and kept their palms well-greased.
The most likely way this would go was that he'd “advise” the
German police on the next raid. The higher-ups were wrangling over it.
Like anything that went through official channels and didn't have the
direct attention of the government, it would take a while. He wondered
if GORGON had been founded to cut through all that type of crap and
deliver results in a more timely manner.
CHRIS drummed his hands on the glass conference table. “Hey, Steve-
o, bet you're thrilled to have us on your team.”
“Absolutely,” Stefan Wudarczek said with little emotion before
removing his glasses and polishing them. “Hi, John, how are you?”
“Great, Stefan. This is Andrei. He's new to GORGON. This will
be his first official assignment.”
“Wonderful,” Stefan said with even less enthusiasm than before.
Andrei shook Stefan's hand and sat at the table. “I've gone
through your notes. I think I can be an asset. I spent some weeks in
Berlin, meeting with certain people connected to those involved in your
case. I speak the language fluently.”
Stefan sat straighter. “Since we pulled out, the language has been
a bit of a weak link for us, actually. We had people on the ground, of
course, but after the raid by the Germans that screwed things up for us,
we had to get them out of there. The other in-house German speakers
are tied up.”
“I speak some German,” Chris reminded him.
“Yes, but your fluency is dodgy.”
“Dodgy? Christ, Steve, you were born in Chicago, stop talking
like a damned Brit.” Chris went to peer out the conference room
windows at the mountains on the horizon. He clenched his hands,
unable to ignore the soft conversation behind him.
“What's up with him?”
“Stress or something,” was John's embarrassed reply.
“Hmmm.”
That did it.
Chris spun to face the other men. “Look, Wudarczek. Don't give
me that hmmm shit. You need a marksman handy, I'm your man. I
know how to take care of business.”
Stefan stood. “I know you do, Chris. I mean no offense, but this
case has been one disaster after another. It's getting to me, I guess.
Sorry.”
Chris ran his hand through his hair. “No problem. Look, I know
the basics of what's going down in Berlin. I'm gonna go grab lunch
while you brief those two.” He turned toward the door, refusing to
LIKE the good little GORGONites they were, the whole team set out
for Berlin the following morning, and Chris began cursing the global
economy and the cuts in their travel budget almost as soon as they
touched down. GORGON didn't spring for a commercial flight into
Tegel, which boasted about its passenger-friendly convenience. No,
they had to book them on a charter flight and send them to Schönefeld,
that bastion of inconvenience that had once been the East Berlin
Airport.
Goddamn Commie holdouts lost his luggage with his new suit in
it. They probably did it on purpose just because he was American.
John's and Andrei's bags came zipping off the carousel no problem,
but his, his were mysteriously AWOL. Bastards. It was only a five-
hundred mile flight; it wasn't as if they'd traveled half the globe with
layovers and transfers, for chrissakes.
Damn, he really liked that suit. He'd planned on wearing it to pay
a call on that babe who'd fed him intel the last time. Elsa, Ilsa, Lisa—
something with a “sa” in it. Whatever. He was sure “Babe” and
“Honey” would work just as well after a few glasses of champagne and
a bouquet of roses.
Smiling to himself, he kept pacing back and forth in front of the
luggage carousel as bag after bag—none of them his—slid past.
New Dolce & Gabbana or no, it was clear ElsaIlsaLisa thought he
looked good as-is, and once she saw him in the buff—
&nbs
p; A shove from behind interrupted him, and Chris spun ready to
slug the culprit, International Incident be damned.
“What are you doing here?” he and Nikita said simultaneously.
Well, he figured it was simultaneously, him speaking English and
Nikita Russian.
“Business,” Nikita said. “You?”
“Same.”
Nikita made his usual noncommittal grunt.
God, that was hot. Almost as hot as that animalistic growl he
made when he got off…. “How's the, you know,” Chris said, tapping
his side.
“Better.” The Russian stared, his gaze dipping down to hover
below Chris's waist. “How's yours? Did it scar over?”
“Only in your dreams.”
“Where the hell is my bag?” Nikita asked roughly.
Chris glanced back. His own had finally shown up. Damn. He
grabbed it, gave the lock a quick check. At least it didn't look like the
leftover Commies had ransacked it. “Well. See you around. Try not to
get shot this time, okay, Nicky? I'll be too busy to save you again.”
On the upside, this un-state-of-the-art airport had one thing going
for it. None of the restrooms in this section leading to the main exit
were operational today. Of course odds were Nikita didn't know that,
as he'd probably just arrived. Chris ditched the out of order sign and
the caution tape and waited just inside the door, peering out and
counting the minutes.
A slow grin spread across his face when he caught sight of Nikita
headed his way. He flattened himself against the wall and waited. As
soon as he caught a glimpse of Nikita's sleeve, he yanked the other
man in, spun him, slammed him back into the tile wall, and kissed him
like there was no tomorrow.
Nikita didn't resist. Not at all, and Chris pressed in, shifted
forward so they rubbed against each other, grinding, pushing. Why was
kissing Nikita so goddamned hot, hotter than some people's whole bag
of tricks? Didn't matter. The man was every bit as solid, strong,
intimidating as he'd always been, no mistaking, no fuzzy glow of
memory sexing things up.
If anything, he was hotter and more imposing than Chris had
imagined him at night, in the mornings, and in between. The kissing
damn near turned into biting, Nikita's hand against his neck, powerful
and intent.