Chapter 3

Sir Alex quickly answered my call. He was as chipper as ever. It was well after six o’clock in the morning in England, so he was probably having breakfast at his Club. He said, “It is a pleasure to hear from you my dear. Do you have anything useful to tell me?”

I said, “We’ve documented the bomb and I’m sending you the video as we speak.” Mel was sitting in the back seat uploading the file using the satellite uplink. I added as casually as I could, “But we have a little problem that I was hoping you could help us with.” He said jovially, “What is THAT my dear.”

I said, “We have four bodies in the back of our SUV. I’ll fill you in on the details later. But we can’t go back to the hotel with four dead people stuffed in the boot. It would upset the valets no end.”

Sir Alex chuckled at my little effort at macabre humor and said, “Leave that to me my dear. Expect a call in a few minutes.”

My phone rang as we made the turn south from I-70 onto I-270, toward Washington DC. It was a decidedly unpleasant surprise. Just as sir Alex had promised; he had fixed our problem. The annoyingly arrogant voice on the other end chuckled and said, “Fancy meeting you Larson. I hear you have a problem.” It was my old lover Jim Kelley!!

I said, “Of all the gin joints in America I have to run into you Kelley. What are you doing here?” He snickered and said, “Yesterday morning I was in Taipei but when I heard you were in town I just couldn’t resist dropping by. We can renew old acquaintance after I help you out with your little matter.” I was thinking “fat chance of that!”

Over the past couple of years, Kelley and I HAD indeed had a series of hot encounters in various parts of the world. And if John had never come into my life I could see where another one might be in the offing, since Jim Kelley was a stunningly attractive man. I said, “I assume Sir Alex talked to somebody.”

Kelley said, “He DID, and I want to meet you at the parking lot next to the baseball fields on Colonial Farm road.” He gave me the coordinates, which were off the Georgetown Pike. Of course, I could see on the Range Rover’s GPS system that he was actually directing me to the access road to the CIA’s main headquarters in Langley.

Kelley was his usual dashing self, standing jauntily in the parking lot in the middle of the night. He is tall and very well built, with the sort of dancing grey eyes and superb Irish good-looks that have produced so many of Hollywood’s leading men. Pru, who was sitting next to me, gasped. She said, “Who is that beautiful man?” I said, “He’s your counterpart with the American CIA. That’s why we are meeting him here. I assume he’s the cleaner”

We pulled into the parking lot next to where Kelley was standing. One minute he was a lone figure in the parking lot of a Northern Virginia softball field. And the next minute there was blinding illumination from a spotlight on a military Humvee that had pulled in behind us.

Three men got out of the Humvee, walked to the back of our Range Rover. They began to silently relieve us of our burdens. The entire transfer took perhaps thirty seconds. Kelley supervised the process. Not a word was exchanged. Then the Humvee drove off.

As the three men were finishing up, Kelley ducked into the back of our Range Rover. He said, “Drive us back to the Ritz-Carlton.”

I didn’t feel like I needed to ask him how he knew where we were staying, since he had probably tracked us from the time that we entered American airspace. Instead I said, “Are you the person we are supposed to brief?”

He said, “You can start with me and then we are going to talk to some other people tomorrow. I can lay the whole thing out when we get to the hotel.” I said, “Do I need to call Sir Alex back or are you talking to him?”

He said, “You should call him to. Since he’s coordinating this with the interested Agencies in England. I am just your friendly neighborhood representative from the American government.” Then he turned his attention to Pru. He said, “Are you the MI-5 representative who isn’t supposed to be in this Country?”

Pru had been hanging over the back of the passenger seat looking at Kelley like he was some kind of delectable dessert. She cannot lose her plummy upper-class accent. But it was back to being more Sandhurst than Belgravia.

She said, “I am indeed, and I assume you are from the Agency that isn’t supposed to be involved in domestic affairs.” Kelley laughed merrily and said, “I like this one. She’s almost as spunky as you are.”

Just to get my cards out on the table I said, “And she is available for romance by the likes of you, whereas I am spoken for now.”

Kelley laughed and said, “I heard about that.” Everybody knows everybody else in this business. He continued with, “I might add that John’s a very impressive man, at least back in the days when he was a Russian. Maybe you would like to comparison shop now that he’s English?”

I chuckled and said, “He is STILL very impressive; and in-your-dreams.” I had to admit that I really liked Kelley. But it was going to be a brother and sister relationship from now on, since I had promised myself to John.

However, neither Mel nor Pru had any restrictions on their affections, unless Mel was actually serious about William, which seemed highly unlikely in the long-term.

Kelley turned to Mel and said, “And WHO are you?” Before Mel could answer I said, “This is Melissa Brown and you KNOW who she is since she was my sidekick back when we first met in Singapore.”

I was aware of the fact that they had never actually been in the same room with each other, but I had talked about her a lot. Mel said in a voice that had tons of subtext in it, “Hilley told me all about you and you are even dreamier than she said you were. I’m glad to finally meet you.”

Kelley laughed out loud and said, “So this is your little mongoose. I have heard about your exploits Miss Brown and I have to say that I am impressed.” I knew what he was talking about. It was hard to miss Mel’s huge endowments, or her fatal proclivities.

We chatted amiably, as we drove the rest of the way out Dolly Madison. It was primarily centered on tradecraft, since we had a little catching up to do. I told him about how we had acquired the cargo; which he had just disappeared for us. He told us about who the players would be for the next day.

The U.S. government, specifically the White House, was eager to keep the existence of the bomb and the plot under wraps. That was understandable given the sheer horror of a fringe group of nut-cases plotting to nuke an entire city. Besides the obvious terror elements, the circumstances behind those people acquiring the bomb created a political nightmare for everybody. So, the President had opted not to involve the military at this point.

Kelley told us that the people we would be asked to talk with tomorrow were high up the food chain at the National Counter Terrorism Center, in McLean. The CIA was tasked with handling things. That was mainly because nobody who was involved in the management of the operation trusted the FBI. That Agency liked its publicity far too much.

It was getting close to three AM when we got back to the hotel and I still had to talk with Sir Alex. I also wanted a few hours of sleep. In furtherance of that end, I suggested that we part company.

Of course, Kelley being Kelley, offered to accompany me to MY room. I told him to get his own. After a day like I had just had I was exhausted. And even if I had not promised myself to John, I was not interested in trying it on with Kelley.

Then, Prudence said something to the effect that maybe the CIA and MI-5 should compare notes before the upcoming operation. I left them to whatever entertainment she had in mind, while I went upstairs to sleep the sleep of the righteous.

I called Sir Alex the minute I got in the suite. He was in a cheerful mood, which contrasted a lot with the way I was dragging myself around. Of course, I had been up for almost 21 straight hours at that point while he was clearly in the middle of a bright English morning. The minute he answered I said, “Thanks for sending the cleaner. But did it have to be Jim Kelley?

I could hear the indulgent smile in his voice as he said, “His bosses at the CIA thought that your personal connection might be helpful in convincing you to cooperate. They flew him all the way back from Taiwan the minute they were aware that you were in the Country. It must be flattering to have the American government so aware of your presence.”

I said, “I would have cooperated anyhow. But now I have him smirking around while I’m doing it. The suggestive comments and the leering are distracting me.” He laughed uproariously and said, “Well I’m sure you can handle him my dear. In the meantime, what have you learned?”

I said, “I’ve been close enough to touch the bomb and I have documented it with a video that you have probably seen already. It is going to be used for geo-political purposes by a fringe group in the U.S. We are going to neutralize the threat tomorrow.”

He said with pride and satisfaction in his voice. “Jolly good my dear! I knew that you were the right person for this assignment. The United States will be eternally in your debt, which must be very satisfying to you and your parents, given your origins.”

I said, trying to be self-effacing, “Well, the target IS Philadelphia and my mother’s entire family DOES live there so I guess my parents will be pleased that I headed off a nuclear holocaust in their back yard.”

Sir Alex chuckled good-naturedly and said, “I’ll be monitoring the situation all day so please keep me posted and stay safe my dear. You are like a granddaughter to me and a certain wine-maker in the South of France is following this with even more interest than I am.”

I said, “Tell John that I love him” and hung up. I realized that that was the first time I had ever used the “L” word with John. It felt good to finally admit what I knew in my heart was true. Sleep came quickly and I felt content.

Prudence Hobart knew who Jim Kelley was. She had been extensively briefed on all of the CIA agents who operated in the U.K. And since Kelley was one of the most senior, she had familiarized herself with his background.

He was a tricky and ruthless guy. But Prudence was just as tough. He was a dedicated patriot. And Prudence was too. He could kill a person in many creative ways. That was Prudence’s specialty. But most importantly, he was a hunk-a-hunk-a burning love and Prudence Hobart wanted him between her thighs as fast as she could get him there.

She looked at his stalwart height and those broad shoulders, those merry grey eyes and that cocky Irish smirk and she’d wanted him carnally from the first instant she saw him standing there boldly in that parking lot.

Pru knew that he and Hilley had a thing. And Pru knew that she could never compete with Hilley in any category except for her gorgeous legs. But Hilley was spoken for now. She had made THAT clear for some time. And Hilley had reinforced that message for Kelley on the ride over from Langley. Also, Prudence had killed two men in cold blood no more than two hours ago. And a woman just doesn’t walk away from an event like that, even if they have done it plenty of times in the past. That is, if they aren’t TOTAL psychopaths.

Prudence was definitely NOT a crazed killer. She was a committed defender of the British people, just as her ancestors had been since the time of the Plantagenets. Fighting was in her blood. And her responsibilities as a member of the warrior class were not defined or limited by the fact that she was a female.

After her graduation from Sandhurst, she had trained at the Sniper Training Establishment out on the Salisbury Plain. And she was one of the best shots in the British Army. But remote killing was different for a woman. So, Prudence wanted and needed something life affirming to counteract the spray of blood that she had seen though her night vision scope, as she had gunned down the two men who were about to blow their cover. She could never get used to that sight no matter how many times she had seen it.

Prudence could be anything that she wanted to be. But she liked to keep it real. So, she chose to join the infantry. Specifically, the most senior of the Foot Guard regiments. She was presently a Captain in the Grenadier Guards, which was a departure for her family. Her father had been a member of the Horse Guards. But Prudence was not the kind of girl who liked to ride around the countryside in Scimitar fighting vehicles. She wanted the immediate, up-close-and-personal challenge of boots on the ground.

She had studied at Sandhurst while doing the legal course at Southbank. The legal cover was part of building her legend for MI-5. Her service with MI-5 was pure happenstance. She had been in an unarmed combat course with a cadre of their people and they were struck by both her beauty and the confident way she handled anybody foolish enough to step into the circle with her. It might have been her perfect bloodlines or her natural sense of superiority that made her so dangerous. But Pru was a very forceful presence in any type of combat.

The request for her services went all the way up to Downing Street. Her commanding officer didn’t want to let her go. One thousand years of breeding underlay her naturally brave and inspirational leadership. At the ripe old age of 23 she was the regiment’s most effective small-team leader. But Prudence herself asked for the transfer.

If the infantry was a physical challenge, then the peril of counter-espionage was the kind of truly dangerous and exciting world that Pru wanted to live in. She was first and foremost a member of England’s nobility and real knights errant are happiest in no-mans-land.

She had enjoyed her work with MI-5 mainly because it was so difficult. Prudence lived to be challenged and it was an extreme test of her abilities to convincingly don the many separate guises she had worn. In her time with MI-5 she had been everything from a drawing room Countess to the cheap slut for an East End drug lord. That was all in service of her Country.

Of course, she didn’t mind the sex. Prudence Hobart loved everything about the act, from the extreme physicality to the heat and smells. Nonetheless, during the time that she spent having sex with unsavory people, she had always sat armored inside the protection of her fundamental self, with no psychic connection to the body that was undergoing all that exertion. And she knew that she had the body to make any man do whatever she wanted them to do. It was not voluptuous like Mel’s or as spectacularly perfect as Hilley’s but if you liked tall beautiful women Prudence Hobart was your girl.

She could see in the mirror that her face was as gorgeous as Hilley’s and even though she had small breasts they were perfectly shaped. Her figure was lithe and supple, not strong and athletic like Hilley’s was. But like all slim people she packed a lot of power in that sinewy body. And her legs were as fully muscled and smooth as Hilley’s. In fact, it was a proven fact that Pru’s legs alone could reduce any man to a puddle of yearning.

But the primary difference between Prudence Hobart, when she was truly being who she was, versus a character that she was putting on in order to achieve some other purpose, was that Pru was a genuine, blue-blooded aristocrat of the highest order. She was self-contained, graceful and above all elegant. That Prudence was indeed a person of culture and breeding. She didn’t get to act like that as frequently as she wished. That was one of the sacrifices that she made for Queen and Country. But she was a vision of refinement and style when she was just sitting around the mansion in Buckinghamshire being the Earl’s daughter.

Jim Kelley never seemed to need sleep and he was intoxicated by the beauty of this profoundly cultured creature, So, he jumped at the chance when Prudence proposed a “meeting” in her room. He looked at Hilley who was giving him a grin that could only be described as “shit eating” and Mel said with lechery in her voice, “Yes indeed Pru, you and Kelley should adjourn to your room. You two government service types will need several hours to work out the ‘intimate details’ of our collaboration.”

Hilley laughed and said, “We’ll meet you in the lobby at 07:00 then she and Mel turned toward the elevators giggling. Prudence looked at Kelley and said in her heaviest aristo accent, “Shall we go up then?”

Kelley gave her the look of a Labrador retriever that had just been told to “fetch.” He had never met a woman who lit his fire as quickly and thoroughly as this mysterious woman, even Hilley Larson.

When Kelley had first run into Hilley in the Long Bar at Raffles in Singapore, he had thought he had never met a woman as sexually alluring as she was. Hilley had it all, face, figure and intrepid spirit. Then he discovered that she was also capable of throwing an absolutely mind-blowing fuck. But the essential Hilley was what he saw, intelligent, straightforward, honest and genuine.

In the moments when he was being truly honest with himself, Kelley knew that he had never come close to creating any kind of attachment with another person. There was just nobody he had met with as many complex and disturbing undercurrents as he had. In that respect, Hilley’s relatively forthright personality did not make Kelley curious about her. So, she really wasn’t that interesting to him.

On the other hand, Prudence Hobart was layers of enigma, all wrapped in a gorgeous package of mystery. Her kaleidoscope of distinct personalities was intriguing to him. At various times that evening Kelley had seen heroic, slutty, arrogant, girly, dangerous, languid and powerful. Kelley wondered exactly which one of those things was the essential Pru.

While he had flown the almost 20 hours back from Taipei, he had backgrounded himself on all of them from the CIA’s files. He knew that Prudence Hobart was a genuine English aristocrat, Sandhurst graduate, and Officer in the Foot Guards. At the same time, she had the longest and most unsavory history imaginable, in the London Club scene. At various times she had been the mistress of everybody from drug lords to the clandestinely posh leader of an Islamist terror cell. Not coincidentally almost every one of those men had died in suspicious circumstances.

Kelley knew that those had been assignments with MI-5 Counterterrorism, not something that actually reflected Prudence’s tastes in men. Nonetheless, it was her ability to fulfill those assignments without hesitation, or the slightest hint that they were anything but character flaws, that fascinated Kelley.

Kelley himself was a professional liar and conman. It was probably his strict Catholic upbringing and his evangelical parents that had taught Jim Kelley how to hide who he really was. From early in his life, he had been emotionally abused by both parents for any infraction of what they considered to be “God’s Law.” And even though he was an outstanding athlete and always his school’s top scholar, Kelley was never “good enough” to satisfy them.

So, he played parts instead. Those parts were whatever he thought would please them. Now, Kelley could convincingly be anybody he wanted to be. He did that easily and to perfection. That was what made him an exceptional CIA operative. He had all of the West Point and military Special Operations pedigree before he joined the Company. And he had perfected his tradecraft over many years. More importantly, he had always been catnip to women, and he could always get any of them to do whatever he wanted.

But Prudence Hobart was different. Kelley had been a human chameleon for so long that he didn’t know who he was. Pru was equally complicated but she knew EXACTLY who she was. The effect of watching her was like being led you through a fun-house full of mirrors. Each mirror represented a different persona. While at the same time she was laughing at the fact that you bought into any of those phony images. Kelley couldn’t imagine the strength of character that it took to do something like that.

Kelley envied Prudence’s unwavering sense of self, which she kept hidden from everybody. And it was that odd combination of qualities that drew him to her in ways he found disturbing, since commitment was a problem for Kelley. Growing up he had been big and strong for his age. And since he first discovered women his exceptionally beautiful body and manly good-looks had been part of his basic repertoire. He loved everything about women, their round bodies, their passions and more importantly how differently they thought. And he believed that any woman was his if he wanted her, even the married ones, which he actually preferred since there was just sex, no commitments.

Prudence was as flawlessly beautiful as Hilley was. Her body was perfection and she had a special gracefulness about her that conveyed her singular sense of self. But it was the amazing strength in that slim supple body and the jungle animal passion that spoke volumes to Kelley. He could sense that there was some demon lying in the depths of Prudence Hobart’s soul that had to be satisfied in ways that were forceful, rather than romantic.

Kelley had the same unrestrained creature lurking in his depths, and it was his ability to tap it that made him such an exceptional lover. He could sense the allure of the thing that lurked within Prudence because he had the same desire to totally abandon himself to the animal within. It was sheer lust. That animal was not looking for idyllic love-making. It wanted to feed itself with the same ferocity that our earliest human ancestors had experienced.

As they approached her room, Kelley subliminally understood what Prudence wanted to have happen to her when she got there. She needed sheer savagery in their coupling. That fact was making him insane with lust. It was like the two fierce beasts within their souls were snarling at each other from within separate cages, each frantically attempting to get at the other.

Those beasts were unleashed the instant Prudence got the door closed. She was wearing a simple blouse and skirt that Kelley literally ripped off of her in one powerful motion as she turned toward him. It took considerable force to accomplish that feat and the energy of his ripping her clothes off propelled her backward. Her knees hit the bed and she sprawled on her back, landing flat and spreadeagled. Kelley was on her in an instant.

He had torn his own clothes off as he pounced like a big jungle cat. Rather than shrieking in fright Prudence gave a low satisfied groan and whipped her arms and legs around him in a single aggressive motion. There was no need to insert himself. The force of her enfolding him plunged him into her heated inner depths like a bayonet.

Prudence let out a scream of sheer visceral sensation and began to hump with a frenzy that was almost inhuman in the depth of its need. Kelley was strong but he was amazed by the ultimate power of the woman’s lithe body. Throughout the frantic humping she was making a low sustained growl in the back of her throat.

Kelley was hammering into her, holding nothing back. She was screaming for him to pound her harder, while she sank her fingers into his churning ass. The force of his fucking her was driving the breath out in loud grunts. Her inner depths were roiling like the Atlantic in a hurricane as she raked his back over and over with her claws screaming her satisfaction.

He was forcing them across the bed with his pounding. As he did, he was wondering if he was hurting her. But he was so caught up in the sensations of their coupling that he realized that he didn’t care. She kept urging him on groaning with lust and passionately whispering, “More-More-More-Harder!”

When she came, she came with a shriek that was so high-pitched only dogs could hear it. She convulsed into a bow that lifted all 260 of his pounds off the bed and bit him hard enough to draw blood. Then her hips went into a hyperdrive of bucking. The wetness, heat and smells made Kelley shoot into her in way that he had never experienced. It was like one continuous sneeze in his loins. It was so intense that he experienced a moment of dizziness. That odd sensation of loss of control caused him to throw himself out of her and onto the bed flat on his back. It was a panicked move caused by the sheer sensations he was feeling. Pru lay next to him still processing a monster orgasm.

She had shrieked as he pulled violently out of her. Now, her hips were bucking wildly, and she had both hands buried in her slit as she continued to loudly thrash and moan. Her eyes were wide open but rolled so far back in her head that only the whites showed. Her mouth was constricted in the widest “O” possible. That “O” stood for orgasm. It was an unearthly sight.

They finally calmed down enough that they both became aware of the scene around them. He was lying on his back hyperventilating, yet still almost completely hard. She was lying flat on her back, breathing like she was still choking to death. Her incredible legs were arrayed in the same position they had been in when he had suddenly left her, spread wide with the knees bent and almost touching the bed on the side. Her hands were no longer moving but they were still buried in her sex.

She was shivering now, like she had some kind of advanced fever. Her beautiful blond mane was soaked with sweat as was her incredible sleek body. Her small, beautifully shaped tits were shaking with the effort of her breathing. Her large pink nipples sat at the peak of her exquisite breasts looking like big gumdrops. Kelley knew that this was an experience he had never had before. In fact, he truly believed that the depth of animal passion that they had just explored had probably not been experienced by modern humans.

She finally looked at him and said, “You are the first man who has ever truly taken me in a way that made me feel like a woman. You must know that I cannot give you up now ever. I must have you and I will do anything that you ask me to ensure that.”

Kelley knew exactly what she was talking about. Silly romantic types would call her a “soul mate”; but Kelley knew what both of them really were. They were a pair of uniquely paired predators. There could never be a female who would so deeply connect with the person who he was, and always would be. And he knew in that instant that they would be joined by the ferocious link of their absolute need for each other.

Prudence Hobart felt truly fucked for the first time in her life. She sensed the connection with this man, and she was finally at peace with her life. She knew to the depths of her soul that the two of them would spend the rest of their lives together, stalking the brutal jungle of humanity. They would protect and nurture each other in that hunt and they would never lose the unrestrained need that they had for each other. They would save the world from nuclear destruction tomorrow. But tonight, she was going to revel in the arms of her newfound love.

We met in the lobby at 07:00. The 3 hours of sleep were not sufficient to refresh me entirely. But I felt like my mind was sharp. I was dressed for the interviews that I knew we were going to endure. I had on a pair of pale cashmere slacks, a white pure silk blouse and my gold necklace with the single perfect diamond that my mother gave me, when I turned 18. I was wearing my usual 4-inch patent leather pumps.

Mel was similarly attired. Although rather than a white motif she was in a shade of pale green that no woman in her right mind would wear, unless she had faultless café-au-lait skin. On Mel that color looked both elegant and Amazon jungle hot.

Pru was the last to appear. I knew that she had spent the hours I was sleeping romping with Kelley. But she looked coolly aristocratic rather than disheveled. She had on a pants suit that should have made her seem dowdy. But the way she wore it was more like she was strolling down a catwalk. The fine boned structure of her face was perfectly made up and her hair was immaculate. I wondered how anybody could be up for almost 30 straight hours, survive a no-doubt rigorous fucking, and then look like they just stepped off the cover of Cosmo.

Kelley was waiting with a limo. He DID look a little the worse for wear. But I have seen Pru in action and she can do that to a man. They actually kissed like lovers. I thought to myself, “This is interesting? Have the two most devious people in the universe found each other at last?”

I said, “Where are we going?” Kelley said, “Just up the road to the NCTC. There are a number of people who want to meet you. Did you bring your evidence?” That meant we were going to ride the three miles down to the U.S.’s Counter Terrorism Center in McLean. I said, “It’s all here on a memory stick.” Before I went to sleep, I had loaded all of the things I had gleaned from Diggs’s hard drive and last night’s jaunt onto portable media.