Midnight Man (28 page)

Straddling his lap this way, her face was on a level with his. It was dark, but she knew his face well. He was suffering as much as she was. Midnight Man was gone; in his place was a man at the end of his emotional tether.

It was unbearably intimate this way, feeling him deeply buried inside her while watching his eyes. Her hand reached underneath his sweater to touch his chest, running her fingers over the thick mat of hair. She rested her hands over his massive pectorals and could feel his heart thundering under her right hand. His breath washed her face.

Suzanne rotated her hips around the smooth hard column.

She searched his eyes as she began a tentative rocking motion. “I’m sorry I’m on the Pill. I wish I weren’t. I’d give anything if I could become pregnant right now, this instant. At least I’d have your child with me for the rest of my life.”

His eyes flared and the penis within her lengthened, thickened. It was so amazing to see and feel at the same time his reaction to her words.

His big hands cupped her backside, sliding her even more closely on to him. “If you were pregnant,” he growled, “no way would I let anyone have you. I’d kidnap you if I had to.”

“John.” Her voice broke. She could barely get any sound out through the constriction in her chest. Her throat hurt with unshed tears. He began thrusting, slowly, and she was sure he could see the effects of his movements in her eyes. “I am going to miss you…so much.” She said the words against his mouth, rocking up and down against his lips with the force of his thrusts.

John lifted one hand to hold the back of her head. He kissed her, hard, biting her lips. “I want you to remember this,” he gasped, his penis working strong and hard and fast now. “I want you to remember the taste of my mouth on yours, how my cock feels in you. I want you to walk away with my come still inside you. I want you to remember…this.” He thrust upward so hard she gasped, and slid right over the edge. He kept moving inside her through her orgasm as she rocked and shook and cried. When she lay quiescent against him, wrung out, he held her tightly against him as he moved into his own orgasm. He muffled his shout against her hair, but it was still loud in the dark cab.

They sat quietly together for a long time, Suzanne’s legs still straddling his hips, sweat drying. Still connected.

He held her tightly and she rubbed her face against his neck. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she didn’t cry. She was all cried out and tears wouldn’t help now, anyway.

She was frantically trying to commit every second to memory. The feel of his penis—barely softened by the orgasm—inside her, his breath against her hair, his hand running up and down her back beneath her sweater.

Suzanne wanted to stay like this forever, but eventually John shifted and sighed. “We’d better be going.” He kissed her hair and lifted her away from him. She rummaged on the floor for her panties, found them, and then pulled on her slacks. It was easier for John. All he had to do was lift his hips to hitch his pants up, then zip up.

Suzanne knew how disheveled she looked. Knew her hair was uncombed, knew her face was covered in tear tracks, knew her lips were swollen from his biting kisses. She smelled of sex. She could feel his semen between her thighs. She knew all of that, knew she would be meeting federal agents who would take one look at her and know. She couldn’t find it in her to care.

John turned the ignition. “It’s time,” he said. His voice was low and steady. She looked at him, at his carefully expressionless face and wanted to weep.

Midnight Man was back.

* * * * *

They were waiting where they’d said they’d be—two unmarked cars, which screamed FBI and Bud’s PD-issue Crown Victoria. John had made sure that Bud would be around to ease Suzanne’s way, at least for the first few days. Suzanne was going to be scared and lonely, kept under lock and key. It was an obscenity, the idea of a woman as lovely, as vibrant as Suzanne locked in, her life essentially over. He needed to know Bud would be there for her, at least in the beginning.

The feebs emerged from their cars before he finished braking. There were four agents. John couldn’t see the faces very clearly, but then he didn’t have to. They were essentially the same man. They were dressed in the same clothes, were more or less the same height and had all read the same operation manual.

Bud got out of his car and came to stand beside the agents, towering over them. White plumes came from everyone’s mouth. The temperature had dropped below zero.

John propelled Suzanne forward and she moved within the cone of light cast by his headlights. He could see the eyes of the agents widen with surprise at the sight of her, and then shutter down. He trusted their professionalism, knew that, technically, Suzanne would not only be safe with them, but would be safe from them.

That didn’t mean they weren’t men. They’d have to be without a pulse not to react to her.

She wasn’t as polished-looking as when he’d first met her. Her clothes were rumpled and her makeup was gone. Her hair needed combing. But she was a heart-stopper, a potent mix of class and sex. A magnet for the male eye.

The instant they got a close look at her, they’d know. It wasn’t just the bee-stung lips or love-bite he’d just given her. It was the way she walked, moved. She was a well-loved woman who’d just had sex and it showed.

Bud came forward. He put his arm around her and bent down to talk to her. She nodded at his words.

John couldn’t hear what Bud was saying but it didn’t matter. It would be some bullshit meant to reassure her that everything would be all right.

It wouldn’t.

“Okay,” one of the feebs said, “let’s go.”

Suzanne turned back to him, eyes glistening. She was ready to break and run to him for a final embrace. John could read it in her body language. He stepped back. If he took her in his arms, he’d never let her go. Suzanne stared at him, then turned when an agent touched her elbow. One last lingering glance at him, and she slid into the back seat of the lead car. The agents got in and started the cars.

Bud was left standing, looking at him. They stared at each other and John could see that Bud understood.

A minute later, John watched the taillights of the cars as they topped a hill and disappeared.

John turned back to the SUV and took off in a hurry. He knew what he had to do and he had to do it fast.

The hunter stalks his prey. The prey is alert, but the hunter is stealthy and patient. The hunter is an expert and has done this before, has stalked and killed humans before. Humans leave spoor and have habits, just as animal prey do.

The hunter has been lying here for four days and four nights, sipping frugally from a canteen, eating nothing, eyes glued to the forty-power spotting scope with night vision.

The hunter has mud and greasepaint on his face, is buried belly-down in the root pocket of a giant oak and is wearing a ghillie suit designed to meld into a wintry Pacific Northwest landscape. He smells like an animal, which is good. The other animals in the forest give him a wide berth because they recognize him for what he is—a large and dangerous predator. He is in killing mode and the other animals sense that.

Below, in the valley, is a large limestone villa, surrounded by guards. The hunter finds the guards with their elaborate security watches and the thick surrounding walls topped with barbed wire ridiculous. From his vantage point, anyone who steps out of the villa steps right into his crosshairs.

The shot is already lined up, elevation has been calculated. When the prey is in the crosshairs, windage will be factored in. The hunter knows how to do this, supremely well.

The hunter’s comrades have given him intelligence. The prey is in the villa, secluded and alone, except for the guards. The comrades have given the hunter watch times, schedules, a list of enemy firepower and their promise to help him. But the hunter has chosen to act alone. This is his fight, his war. He stands alone. If he has to die, he will die alone.

He waits, day after day, night after night.

At midnight on the fourth night, a night so windless the hunter knows he could drive tacks into a target, the prey steps out to stand for a moment. He is tall, blond, handsome, with cold features clearly visible in the night scope. He pauses for a moment, looking around, feeling secure. Foolishly secure.

He is surrounded by walls and guards. He doesn’t know they are as nothing. He bends to light a cigarette and the green flare in the night vision goggles ruins the hunter’s vision for a moment. He waits.

He waits for the prey to pull on his cigarette, blow out a leisurely plume of smoke, which dissipates slowly in the cold still air. Waits for the prey to exchange pleasantries with the guards. Waits for him to pull in a breath of the pristine mountain air, secure in his safety and immunity.

And it is then, when the prey crushes the cigarette beneath his heel, having taken a last, secure glance at his rich and safe kingdom, starting to turn back inside, it is then that the hunter strikes.

Something was happening in the living room. Male voices were raised in excitement. The phone rang constantly. Suzanne debated briefly going in to see what was going on, but she didn’t really care. In the four days and four nights she’d been locked up in the safe house, she’d learned to turn her emotions off, otherwise she’d have gone mad.

There were no windows and she knew the time of day only because of her wristwatch and the small TV in her room.

She didn’t even know where she was. She’d been flown to a small airport, but they’d been met by a car out on the tarmac, in the General Aviation section and she couldn’t see the name of the airport. What did it matter? Wherever she was, she wasn’t free. Wherever she was, John wasn’t with her.

The time had seemed interminable. Bud had stayed with her the first three days but had had to leave yesterday.

Thank God the debriefing had finally ended. She had told her story over and over, to agent after agent. Finally, they had just left her alone. From the conversations of the agents looking after her, she understood that the grand jury arraignment would be soon. Then there would be another safe house. The trial. Then the new life would begin.

She leafed her magazine, not bothering to read the articles. Her eyes blurred with tiredness. She’d cried herself to sleep night after night, astounded that she had so many tears in her. Last night had been no exception. Now it was morning and she had another endless day to get through.

At some point in the future, the tears would stop. They must. Soon, she hoped.

The door to her bedroom opened and she looked up. Through the door into the living room, she could see at least ten FBI agents, instead of the usual four. The phone rang again, the fifth time in half an hour. What was going on?

She’d never seen the man who walked in before, but he was a clone of the others. They were all the same—medium height, dark cheap suit, utterly humorless. “Ms. Barron? May I have a word with you?”

Oh God, not another debriefing. She put her magazine down. “Yes?”

“Out here, please.” He held the door open, gesturing toward the living room.

Suppressing a sigh, Suzanne stood up and followed the man out the door. The conversations going on stopped when she walked into the room. All eyes turned to her. What was going on?

The man took her elbow and led her to a chair. He sat down next to her. “Ms. Barron, I’m Special Agent Alan Crowley and I’m in charge of the Carson case. There have been…developments. An unusual set of circumstances.” He stopped and looked at her as if expecting a response.

“Yes?” she said, finally.

“Ms. Barron, we’ve received word that several hours ago, Paul Carson was shot and killed.”

Suzanne stared at him, uncomprehending. “What?”

“An unknown assailant, a sniper, shot Paul Carson through the head. Which means there is no longer a federal case against him. Which means, Ms. Barron, that you are free to go.”

“I—“ Suzanne looked around, at the vast display of FBI power, the safe house, back to Special Agent Crowley. “I’m free to go? I’m…safe?”

He sighed. “Yes. You’re not a threat to the people Paul Carson was working for. You were a threat to him, personally. Now that he’s been…taken out, no one would come after you. They’d just be creating more problems for themselves. Our street informers have assured us of this. We wouldn’t be letting you go if we weren’t certain that you’re safe. So you’re free to go.”