Angel and the Assassin (3 page)

Kael raised his muscular arm, bringing the belt down hard across the middle of the buttocks. Weirstein flinched but did not move more than a fraction of an inch.

The leathery skin on his buttocks attested to many previous floggings, and Kael knew he could go all out. “I see you like a cane. Your backside tells the story.”

“Yes, Sir, but I do not have one with me. Perhaps another time, Master.”

“Perhaps.” Kael raised his arm again and landed a volley of hard, fast blows.

The crack of leather against flesh and the
hiss
of the belt as it flew through the air were the only sounds in the silent room. Weirstein neither moved nor seemed to breathe. For a full five minutes, Kael belted the backside in front of him, his own cock growing harder with every blow. When the buttocks were scarlet and deeply welted, he began on the thighs, relentlessly working his way down to the knees and back up again. When his cock was ready to explode, he returned to the buttocks, thrashing so fast and so hard that sweat ran down his neck and chest.

The rise and fall of the belt, the steady rhythm of flogging a man was hypnotic.

When Kael flogged, his instrument became an extension of his arm, each blow reverberating through his body. He had to be very careful in a situation like this because he tended to lose track of time and to forget where he was once he got into the moment with a sub.

“Master, please, I beg you.”

For a split second he thought Weirstein was begging him to stop. But the man was a seasoned sub; he was begging for permission to climax. Kael had to admire the man‟s ability to hold back when he was so stimulated.

“Do it,” Kael said. “You have my permission.”

Weirstein grunted out a long, slow climax, his buttocks pumping the air, reaching out toward the belt. Before he had finished, Kael dropped the belt and pulled on the condom. He gripped the man‟s buttocks in both hands, prying them wide apart, and positioned his cock at the tight anus. He thrust hard and deep.

Almost instantly his orgasm began to rush through his thighs and belly. He took no more than four or five violent thrusts before his hot sperm shot out, filling the condom. It was all he could do not to scream out his pleasure.

Grasping the arms of the chair, he leaned forward over the man‟s back, still embedded deeply within him. His climax subsided; his breath slowed. For long minutes he rested, enjoying the tingling aftermath of a good fuck. “Don‟t move,” he whispered, “and don‟t speak.”

Like a good submissive, Weirstein remained immobile, still breathing heavily, bent over, vulnerable and trusting. He appeared utterly at peace.

Kael slid his limp cock free and walked over to his clothes. From the pocket of his trousers, he took the retractable scalpel he liked to use and came up behind the man again, his thumb in position on the release button. He moved back into position as though he intended to fuck Weirstein a second time, his groin pressed against the man‟s hot, welted buttocks, his chest folded intimately over his back.

“Thank you, Master,” Weirstein said, gratitude heavy in his voice. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You‟re welcome.” Kael pressed the safety button, and the razor-sharp scalpel shot deep into the man‟s external jugular vein.

Weirstein drew in a long breath and fell silent. A hissing sound followed as blood began to gush from the vein. Kael pressed all his weight down onto the man‟s back, making it impossible for him to rise. Weirstein struggled to get his hands to his neck in an automatic response to stanch the flow, but he was helpless, his blood and his strength rushing from his body.

1When the struggle was over, the target dead, Kael stood up and checked himself for blood spatter. There was nothing. He took the condom to the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet, then dressed without hurrying.

At the door he looked back. A thick pool of dark blood soaked the carpet beneath the man‟s neck. His eyes were half-open.

Nice-looking man.

In the corridor Kael walked quickly, but calmly, back the way he had come, pulling off his latex gloves and shoving them into his pocket. The passage leading to the alleyway was empty. Already Kael wanted to be home. A short first-class flight and he would be back in London at his expensive flat on the River Thames, settling into his own bed, sleeping for hours.

“
Scheiße
!” he said out loud, but in German. Shite.

The man he had left unconscious in the mop cupboard had come round and pushed the door open a crack, perhaps looking out to see where he might find clothes.

His wide, frightened eyes met Kael‟s, and even though he had not actually seen Kael earlier, it was obvious Kael was the man who had attacked him. For one thing, Kael was wearing his uniform. He slammed the door closed, shutting himself in.

Kael grabbed the doorknob, but the man had tight hold of it. Anger flooding him, Kael yanked hard. The door flew open, and he stepped inside, his hand already on the scalpel in his pocket. Naked and terrified, the man held his hands defensively in front of him. Without taking his eyes off the target, Kael saw stacks of cloths on a shelf to his right. He snatched a cloth and with lightning-quick speed brought the scalpel up and found the man‟s jugular, pressing the cloth over his hand to prevent blood spatter.

Collateral damage. Why did you have to open the door? Why did you have to see
me?

Gently he lowered the man to the floor. Taking a fresh cloth, he wiped the man‟s flesh where he had touched him and cleaned off the doorknob on both sides of the door, then closed it carefully. Outside in the cool night, he grabbed his bag of clothes and left without looking back.

If there was one thing he hated, it was collateral damage, but as they told them in training, there would always be some.

* * *

Naked, fresh from a hot shower, and hungry, Kael walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. A carton of cream for coffee and a carton of milk for tea stood side by side. The fridge was empty. He never cooked and rarely ate at home. Sometimes he threw a half-eaten jar of caviar in there, but today there was nothing. He could eat later.

He wandered into the extensive living room and crossed the bare hardwood floor to the picture windows that looked out onto the Thames. The sun was just beginning to rise over the water, casting it into a pure golden light.

Kael liked his flat spotlessly clean and perfectly neat. It was so perfect it look unlived in. There was not a photograph on the walls or a memento from his travels on the pristine glass-and-oak coffee table or sideboard, but there were several tasteful pieces of abstract expressionist art on the walls. He adored Rothko but doubted he would ever be rich enough to do anything but look at them at a gallery.

For a fleeting moment, his mind went back to Vienna. The sex had been excellent. God, he was tired.

In the bedroom stood the king-size bed where he always slept alone. The white sheets were crisp and perfect, the white duvet fluffed to perfection, the pillows just right. A charwoman came in twice a week, but only when he was home. Otherwise he changed the bed himself every day.

Kael slid his arm under the mattress and took out the book. He‟d be in deep shite with MI6 if anyone found it, but ever since last year when Misha had died, he had been planning to make a record of his life. He threw back the duvet and piled up the pillows, then sat back with his knees up. From the bedside table drawer, he took a pen and began to write.

I met Conran at school when I was twelve and he was sixteen. I was already
tall for my age and my shoulders were filling out. I matched him in strength and
height, but he was my superior, or so he thought, because he was older. As a prefect it
was his job to inspect our dormitory every night before bed, looking for illegal food
and dirty books.

He thought he was in the army.

We stood beside these narrow, hard little beds, that the parents—not mine—
were paying a fortune for us to sleep in, while a nasty teenager, who thought he was
Flashman from
Tom Brown‟s Schooldays,
marched up and down looking at us like
we were filth. Every night he would look at me and find something wrong. He would
say, “Your bedside table needs dusting, Saunders, but what can we expect from a
council estate charity case?”

Things like that.

The boys who had not yet got a beating from me would laugh. Those who had
would look at Conran with pity.

Conran thought the worst thing that had happened to the British school system,
and especially College Grange, was that caning had been officially banned in 1988.

He was the only one I was nervous of, but I never let him know that.

I was in my second year at College Grange, thirteen years old, when the parents
all came for Sports Day and my mum got on the train and came all that way to
1
watch me win all the races, as well as the high jump and long jump. She screamed
her head off during the races, cheering me on, while all the posh mums looked at her
with disgust. That night Conran sneered at her cheap clothes and Scouse accent, and
my apprehension turned into rage.

I waited until lights-out and got out of bed. The boys saw me go, but no one
dared say anything except Freddie. He said, “Saunders, get back into bed, you’ll get
into such trouble.”

I told him that Conran needed a lesson in manners.

I found Conran alone in the showers wanking himself off with a porn magazine
full of women with big breasts and shaved pussies. For a moment he was terrified at
getting caught, until he realized it was only me and then he got belligerent, telling
me to get back to bed or he would order me to have cold showers for a week. He had
the power to do that.

I threw my pyjamas on the floor and raped him. We were equal in strength, but
he had never in his life been as angry as I was most of the time, and after the way he
had sneered at my mum, he was lucky I didn’t rip his cock off.

He never told anyone what I did to him and he never spoke to me again until
the day I walked into his office in Vauxhall Cross at the age of twenty-two after ten
months of training with the Secret Intelligence Service. Most recruits spent a couple
of years in training, but I had a natural talent for the work. He’s been my handler
ever since.

Kael closed the book and returned it to its hiding place. He pressed a button on the console beside the bed and watched the blinds lower slowly, cutting out the bright morning sun. In the comforting darkness he stretched out and then curled up on his side like a child. He closed his eyes and slept solidly for twelve hours.

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Angel stripped off his clothes and dropped them on the floor, knowing he would never get around to washing them. He had to leave in the next couple of days, and he couldn‟t carry much, just the few things he really wanted.

His mother had left early that morning, gone to live with her new boyfriend in France without leaving a forwarding address, let alone inviting him to go with her.

Boyfriend
was a stupid word; the old creep was at least seventy. Angel‟s stepfather had been away on business for several days and had returned just that evening, so she had made her escape. That morning Angel had gone down to the kitchen, and Maria-Jesus had said, “
Mrs. Andresen gone
.” Then she had shrugged and hugged him.

He couldn‟t stay in the same house as his stepfather. The guy couldn‟t stand him, and it was entirely mutual. They had lived in the same house for five years, and Sven had never said a kind or civil word to him. Even if Angel did not plan to move out, Sven Andresen would throw him out as soon as he found out his wife had left him.

In the en-suite bathroom, Angel switched on the light and turned on the hot water in the shower. He loved his bedroom and bathroom at the Cape Cod house.

They were much bigger than at the Manhattan apartment. More than anything he loved hitching up the cape to Provincetown to look at gorgeous men on the beach.

But that day, after his mother had left, he had taken one of Sven‟s cars and managed to dent the driver‟s side door against a lamppost.

Deciding he wanted a Coke he grabbed his robe to head downstairs. “On second thought,” He tossed it on the floor with his clothes. Sven got furious when he left his room naked, but he no longer gave a damn what Sven thought. Sven could call him “queer little fucker” all he wanted; tomorrow he‟d be gone.

Leaving the shower running, Angel padded down the stairs into the wide entrance hall, his bare feet silent on the hardwood floors. The kitchen stood on the west side of the house, and he had to pass the lounge to reach it. One side of the double mahogany doors stood open, the light from inside illuminating a small area of the dark hall. A loud voice erupted from inside.

1Sven was on the phone screaming at Angel‟s mom. “Get your fucking ass home, bitch!” A pause. “Oh yes you are; you are coming home. Do you think you are going to get alimony out of me? You‟ll get nothing!”

His mother didn‟t care about alimony. She was still young, only thirty-four, and beautiful. She had found Gregoire St. Germaine several months before when she had taken Angel skiing in Whistler. She wanted the designer clothes and purses she had got used to being married to Sven, the expensive perfumes and trips to Europe. The new man would give her all that and more, and without the abuse Sven doled out.