Chapter Fourteen

“I have a feeling about the South African,” Vladimir said.

“So?” Irina said.

She looked back over her shoulder at him, one foot on the desk as she smoothed her stocking. It amused her how he wouldn’t look at her.

“People will not talk about him,” Vladimir said. “It is hard to develop information about him.”

“It is because you are new,” Sergey said. “Use my name.”

“I have. The National Guard sergeant, he’s not the one. Too out of shape, I would have recognized him. His operation depends on his low profile -- he’s a paperwork man. Not this kind of man.”

“What about the South African?”

“Nothing specific. Only a feeling. It does not seem right that he would go in there and take only the SAWs. He could have taken much more.”

“Not on a smash and grab,” Sergey said.

“Why do it like that unless he was only after the SAWs? Are they so hard to obtain?”

“Yes,” Irina said. “Very hard to obtain here in America. Easier overseas, and that’s where we got those. They were stolen in Iraq and shipped back to us in returning diplomat household goods. Brand new, in the wrap.”

“Would he have a customer or customers that he would go through that length for?” Vladimir said. “Run the risk of angering us, for only two items? Why not just buy them?”

Sergey smoothed his tie, tugged at the lapel of his Hugo Boss jacket.

“The South African has a reputation,” he said. “He likes to take risks. He has a sense of humor. It might amuse him to steal from us if he thought he could get away with it. Just to have done it.”

“Is he that stupid?” Vladimir said. “He would not be in this business if he were that stupid.”

“It’s not stupidity,” Irina said. “It is being a man. The South Africans are like that.”

Sergey and Vladimir looked at her.

“I will go to him,” she said. “I will get the answer we need.”

“I don’t like that,” Sergey said.

“Business,” she said. “Or ‘bidness’…”

She smiled, and touched the tip of her pink tongue to her crooked incisors. “Remember our promises to each other.”

She and Sergey looked at each other as though they were alone in the room.

“To the death,” she said.

“Yes,” he murmured.

Vladimir looked away. She looked at him and laughed.

“Look, Sergey. We are embarrassing our Vladi. Vladi, have you had a woman yet? I don’t think so. Here.”

She went to the desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a gleaming Browning High Power, set it on the desk top, then pulled out a canvas cash bag. She took out a bundle of bills, all $100s, tossed it to Vladimir who snapped it out of the air, not bothering to hide his resentment.

“Buy yourself a woman, Vladi. But don’t break her. We don’t want the problems. Do you know where to go?”

“Yes,” he hissed. “I know where to go.”

“Then go,” Sergey said. “You’ll think better, after. Then we will discuss what to do if it is the South African. And we will do this soon. Irina?”

“I’ll go tonight,” she said. “He knows of me, though we have never met. I’ll ask him, and I’ll know the truth when I look in his eyes, when I see his face. No man can hide his truth from me.”

Vladimir stood there. His face burned.

“The security man, at the bar…” he said.

“Yes?” Irina said.

“Nothing,” he said. “He may be more than he seems.”

Irina curled her lip. “I do not worry about bouncers in bars.”

Vladimir shrugged. “Can I go now?”

Sergey flipped his hand in dismissal. He and Irina watched him leave the room.

“Is it necessary, the way you work him?” Sergey said, mildly.

“I enjoy it,” she said.

“Yes. I know this. I don’t.”

“He’s not as good as we were told.”

“He is preoccupied with sex. He has not had a woman since he came here.”

“If it affects his thinking and his performance this much, he is a problem.”

“When he is working, he is better than anyone we’ve had. He was very fast getting to the warehouse, and his thinking is good on this problem. He will not be completely useful until is familiar with the area and our network. More so than he is.”

“You could go with him.”

“No. His job is to insulate me from that. We need to remove ourselves, back out. We attract too much attention.”

She shrugged. “I’m telling you know, we will have to kill him. Sooner or later. He is a problem. He has a glaring weakness. We should send for someone else.”

“Listen to me!” he snapped. “We asked for the best and that is what they sent us. We’ll work with him till we see otherwise. Stop toying with him and let him work. We do not have the luxury of waiting around for someone else to come over. We need to protect our next operation more carefully than anything we have ever done before.”

She smiled. “I love it when you raise your voice, Sergey. You need to do that more often.”

He gathered himself, paused.

“Perhaps it’s been too long since you’ve had your woman,” she said. “Should we do something about that?”

She watched the play of micro-expressions on his face, leaned forward and cupped his growing erection beneath his suit pants.

“Only if you’re a good boy,” she whispered. “Will you be my good boy, Sergey?”

His voice was throaty, shook. “Yes. I’ll be your good boy.”

She squeezed his testicles, brought him up on his toes with a gasp. “Then get in the bedroom, boy. Get ready for me. Now!”

His face flamed red.

“Yes,” he said. “Now.”

She watched him hurry away into the back room, heard him unlocking the door that hid their little pleasure room, the one they kept here in their offices, a smaller version of the one at home. He’d be changing out of his clothes, laying out her leather, her whip.

Just like a good boy.

She smiled at the thought, looked at her shoes.

Men.

They were all just little boys.

 

 

Interlude

When I was working during the First Gulf War, I spent some time in Brussels, at the NATO European Headquarters. A friend of mine, a Major in Intelligence, took me to an exclusive bordello run by a Dutch woman, who catered only to the elite of the international community -- general rank officers, diplomats, spies.

After sampling some of the pleasures of her house, I had an opportunity, one morning, to sit and take coffee with her, to talk about things, but mostly to listen to what a woman had to say about the foibles of men. She was very discreet -- an essential part of her job description -- but her generalities were gold.

“Men in power,” she said. “They are not so impressed with power in the way that you think. Submission, submission is something they are used to. They get it everyday in their work, their business, whatever that might be. It is those who are without power who are excited by submission, the submission of others. The weak, who are excited by the spectacle, the appearance of weakness. The strong…it is something new, something different, for them not to be in control. To be submissive. That can be…exciting…if it is staged correctly. That is my job, to stage that correctly.”

She giggled, a delightful sound, especially from a beautiful mature woman in her fifties.

“You would not believe how readily the strongest man will submit to a dominant woman for pleasure…it is something that women know, but men will not believe, until they themselves experience it. A guilty pleasure, sometimes shameful, but that is part of the pleasure, is it not?”

I smiled over my coffee cup at her.

I relished my pleasures. Life is too short to feel guilty.