Taz, page 2
“Yet somehow, I feel that you did.” I knew Slate like I knew myself.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “The intel was too perfect. She fucking played it off as some off-shoot of information she got when she and shit-for-brains Kyzer were dealing in Khat with their connections in Yemen. I fucking hired a P.I. on my own dime to track her once she was released. I mean, that’s how damn sure I was that she’d only said enough to save her own ass. I wanted to see if she’d try to contact Kyzer where he’s bunking now.”
“And?” I asked, as my mind worked overtime. There was more, much more. And my instincts told me the now dead rat-bastard, i.e., Lindsey’s douche bag dad, Jack Dennison, had somehow been involved. Slate was about to fill me in on that aspect.
“And,” he continued, “She couldn’t give a damn about Stanfield. It was never about him. Oh, don’t get me wrong, he served a purpose, that’s for sure. She needed the revenue that synthetic amphetamine was going to provide, no doubt. But not for the usual reasons we would figure. She wanted it for funding.”
“For what?”
“Listen,” he said, finishing off the rest of his beer. “That’s all I can tell you at the moment, because that’s all I know. I need you to get into that fucking inner circle and find out where the money goes. Follow the money trail, you know? I’ve got more information in printed format to share with you. This hasn’t been declassified information yet, so you get the sensitivity?”
I nodded, “But give me more than that, Slate. Jesus Christ.”
“Okay,” he sighed, and then lowered his voice, “She dumped Dennison like toxic waste once the gig was up with that formula. She thought he had it, he thought she had it, and the whole time that fucking chemist at Banion was withholding one major component. He was in it for the money. She was in it for much more than that, though she definitely needed Stanfield’s money when Dennison’s dried up for her own project.”
I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. “Smuggling is her gig. Narcotics, weapons, illegals—anything she can disperse quickly with a high return on investment. She’s the middleman, or woman, I should say, so she can lead us to the higher-ups in her organization and I’m betting it’s a much bigger collar than what she gave up to get out.”
“Okay. Maybe. But what makes you think someone isn’t looking to even the score for the information she gave up to the Feds?”
He shrugged. “She must be fairly confident that she has protection from her own cartel. My guess is that the thugs she gave up were in her way.”
“Competition?”
“Yeah. She goes with the high rollers—that’s my bet.”
I finished my beer and looked at him. He knew the obvious. “Why me? Why the fuck me?”
“Because I’m the one that busted Susan Reynard. She knows me; she’d blow my cover in two seconds. Ah hell, recruiting anyone else for this with the bureaucratic red tape could take months. You know how it works right now with the Bureau. We go after what we know, not what we sort of know or suspect. Not even what our instincts tell us because we’re understaffed and there is no honor among thieves—or trust amongst agents these days. Everyone has a fucking price. I got you cleared through the top; and only because a couple agents have already infiltrated and have been left hanging because of an organizational change. I still had to do a helluva lot of persuading. No one else knows. This is purely covert and not even within the tiers of the Agency. It’s us and the top.”
“The top?”
Surely he didn’t mean...?
“Yeah,” he said and shrugged. “As high as it goes. Meet me tomorrow for breakfast at the usual. And Taz? You don’t tell Lindsey shit, you hear? You don’t even fuckin’ talk in your sleep on this one, brother. I’ll bring what I have and connect the dots as much as I can on who Susan Reynard is keeping company with these days.”
“How long do you anticipate I’ll be under cover?”
He shrugged and gave me a wry smile. “You’re good at what you do undercover. I think with the debriefing I can provide no more than two months, three months tops.”
Fuck that.
“I say a month, six weeks top,” I replied, throwing down some bills on the bar. “See you in the morning.”
In my line of work, I can’t always be totally honest and upfront with my wife about what I’m working on or what I’m knee-deep in at the moment. At times, it was obviously a matter of national security and, at other times, it was simply because had she known the details of what we were dealing with out there on a daily basis, I swear to God, she’d never feel safe enough to close her eyes.
“How’s Slate?” she asked while I headed into the shower.
Here it comes.
“Oh, he’s doing alright. We only had one beer and then I headed off to be with you,” I replied, coming up behind her and rubbing my now hardening cock against her backside.
“I didn’t ask you how many beers you had,” she countered turning around to face me. “What did Slate need to discuss with you?”
Fuucck.
“Oh, just some bullshit going on with the Bureau. Budget cuts. He’s got to furlough some field agents and he wondered if I’d mind looking at their performance stats and interviewing each of the agents reporting to him to decide which three are the most expendable. I’ll be traveling for a few weeks, that’s all.”
“Traveling?”
“Well, yeah. He’s got agents under him at several field locations, as you know; I go there to assess them. It’s protocol.”
She quirked a brow at me while she finished folding the laundry on the bed. Jackson was already asleep under the covers.
Perfect time to change the subject.
“Lindsey,” I said, nodding toward my son. “I want him in his own bed, and then how about you join me in the shower?”
She sighed. “You know he’ll just wake up later crying for us,” she replied.
“We can cover our ears.”
“Trace,” she scolded, “We don’t want him to feel shut out, do we?”
“Uh...well, I can live with that,” I replied. “I don’t think it will permanently scar him sleeping in his own bed in his own room.”
She looked up at me and I gave her a wink. “I’ll be waiting on you, baby girl.”
I felt like a piece of shit lying to her like that, but I had no choice. To say other agents didn’t have to do the same thing with their families would be just another lie.
It happens.
It comes with the territory as they say.
Later in our bed, as I slid my cock in and out of my wife’s sweet, tight pussy, I was overwhelmed with the love I had for her. It’s always been Lindsey. It would never be anyone else.
“That’s it,” I crooned softly to her, as my lips and tongue feasted on the creamy softness of a breast. My teeth captured a nipple, drawing it into my mouth and sucking fiercely on it. I heard her hard intake of breath; the soft moans coming from her lips. “Keep squeezing my cock, baby,” I instructed, pushing myself in deeper and deeper.
Her pussy contracted around me. “Oh God,” she rasped, “Fuck me harder, Taz.”
I pulled out, and then slammed back into her. I could feel her toes digging into my ass, and I repeated the move again and again. Her fingernails were digging into my upper back, raking my skin as her pleasure mounted.
“You ready?” I asked. “Let’s do this together.” The words were no sooner out then her soft moans were turning to louder whimpers, her hands fisted my hair, her lips fused with mine and we both came together, our bodies in perfect rhythm with one another.
I groaned loudly as I emptied myself inside of her, “Take it all,” I rasped as her hips continued to flex and her pussy clamped around my dick, squeezing every last drop from me.
“Holy shit,” I growled, when finally we lay still, trying like hell to catch our breaths.
I rolled off of her and pulled her up against me. “I love you,” I whispered, kissing her face.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. We lay there for several minutes, and just as I was ready to doze off she hit me with it.
“Are you sure that’s all Slate wanted?”
Where in the hell did that come from?
“Yeah, baby. Everything’s good. Hey, I meant to ask how your meeting went this morning with that potential new client?”
She snuggled up against me and yawned. “I think we did well. I’d be surprised if we didn’t get the contract. Liam Avery seemed to be totally impressed with our design portfolio and suggestions.”
“Well, is he the decision maker in all of this?” I asked.
“Yep. We blew him away.”
“That’s good, babe. Steady business for you, right?”
“Oh yeah. It will take a year to get all of the locations remodeled. Mom and I will be busy if we get the contract.”
“Well don’t bite off more than you can chew, baby girl.”
“Right back at you, Taz.”
Slate and I went over the documents, photos, clippings, printed emails, and text messages—a whole shitload of stuff he’d gathered through covert measures.
“There’s the psycho bitch,” I commented, looking at a photo of Susan Reynard in the stack of stuff. She looked a bit older than when I had first seen a photograph of her prior to Slate arresting her in Georgia several years back. She had to be pushing forty by now. “And who is this with her?”
“All we got is a first name, Natalia. She’s with Susan all the time. Picked her up at the prison gate as a matter of fact. But that in itself is interesting because Reynard’s phone calls and mail was being monitored and nothing...nothing at all to connect the two while she was doing her time. There had to be some other means of communication.”
“Another inmate; a guard?”
He shrugged, “Probably a prison employee at some level, nothing that can be traced through phone records or mail. She and Natalia are inseparable now.”
I studied the picture. The young chick was hot.
“Not bad on the eyes, is she?”
I frowned at Slate, but studied several of the pictures showing Susan with this Natalia. She was definitely younger than Susan; probably around Lindsey’s age. She wore dark glasses in all of the photos except one. She had long, dark hair that she wore down. It was thick and super straight—like Asian chicks. I could tell in the one photo, where she wasn’t wearing her dark shades, that her eyes were light blue, green maybe. She had thick, sooty lashes and very delicate features, yet nothing about her came off as soft or weak. Her complexion was olive; she definitely had some Asian blood in her; that was evident, but only partially. The light eyes pointed to additional ethnic ancestry. She was tall—maybe 5’7” or 5’8” and slender, but not skinny. She always seemed a step behind Susan. I wondered if that was some sort of status thing with her.
“Where am I headed?” I asked looking back over at him.
“LaPorte, Texas,” he replied.
“When?”
“I’ve got a private flight scheduled to take you there day after tomorrow. So, get your shit packed, cook up a story for Lindsey, and I don’t know shit about it, got me?”
“Well...yeah, I kind of already gave her a cover story.”
“I’m listening, bro.”
I filled him in on the conversation. I could tell Slate wasn’t pleased but, under the circumstances, what the hell did he expect?
“Okay, okay,” he said finally. “It’s plausible; explains your absence. But Sammie doesn’t know shit about this so, if she asks me, I’m totally playing ignorant. Got it?”
“Yeah, whatever, man.”
“What about my credentials?” I asked.
“Right here,” he replied, handing me a manila envelope. “And if you need to communicate with me, you know the drill. Your authentication code is in that envelope. Memorize it and then destroy the paper.”
“Understood.” I pulled out my field phone that was part of the FBI’s basic surveillance kit. “By the way, I need to continue receiving the NSA data feeds on the digital phone conversations between the parties.”
“You’ve got access now with this,” Slate replied, handing me a microchip. “Switch out this chip with the one currently in your field phone and the conversations between Susan and Natalia will show up as a text file on your phone in code.”
“Which one?” I asked.
“Magnum your favorite,” he replied with a snicker.
“Okay, well, I’ll be in touch once I’ve established my position and made initial contact,” I said.
“Good deal. By the way, the other two operatives know you’re coming. Got one ATF Agent installed there. He’s been there over a year, and he goes by the name of Cecil Pratt. Then there’s an FBI Agent posing as ex-Mafia, goes by his real name, Marco Trevani. You’ve worked with him before, I understand.”
I nodded. “Briefly,” I replied, as I recalled the occasion when he and I had taken down a federal judge. “He’s good.”
“He’ll have your back as well. They’ll know your authentication code. That’s all I can tell you about them because I don’t know any more than that, Wyatt.”
“Say what?”
“Wyatt Greenlee. That’s who you are now. Start answering to it. You know how it works. You haven’t been away that long.”
“Yeah okay, smartass. Just make sure you keep an eye on Lindsey and my babies, you hear?”
“Absolutely.”
I had no sooner gotten through the front door, when I knew something was up. The living room was immaculate—no toys, no stuffed animals tossed on the furniture, and the kids weren’t in sight.
“Lindsey?” I hollered, hearing the faint sound of dishes rattling from the kitchen.
“In here,” she called out, and the aroma of roasted chicken invaded my senses as soon as I stepped into the dining room.
Fuck. We’re having company.
The table had been set for three.
Three?
“Who’s coming for dinner?” I asked, making my way into the kitchen where my wife was busily tossing a salad, and I noticed immediately she was dressed up...again. I closed in on her from behind, immediately getting a whiff of that expensive perfume she’d wanted for Christmas. She had her hair piled on top of her head, so I took full advantage of brushing my lips across the smooth, silky skin of her neck.
She shivered. “Taz,” she said, “You’re late. Hurry up and shower and change. Liam’s going to be here in a few. I invited him for dinner.”
“Who the fuck is Liam?” I asked, tossing a cherry tomato into my mouth.
She turned around and I didn’t bother to back up. I kind of liked having her tits pressed up against me, and my eyes didn’t waste any time in locking onto the cleavage she was rocking in that slip of a dress.
“I swear,” she said, giving me one of her ‘WTF’ looks, and then pushing into me so that she could move away. “Don’t you remember? Yesterday? Mom and I meeting with a potential new client?”
“Oh yeah—yeah, now I do. But I thought you had it pretty well locked in? Why the wine and dine?”
“Nothing’s official yet,” she replied, sprinkling the salad with toasted croutons. Mom’s keeping the kids so that I can seal the deal.”
Now it was my turn to wear a ‘what the fuck look.’
“So, whose idea was this?”
“Both of ours. A business dinner never hurts, you know?”
“Yeah,” I grumbled, “Why the hell didn’t Sammie host it then?”
Lindsey shot me a look. “Seriously, Taz? You know how Slate is about that shit.”
“Oh, I get it; I’m the one that’s housetrained, right?” I teased, pulling her scantily-clad body up against mine. “Tell me this, baby girl. You got a dress to go over this slip you’re wearing?”
That got a smile out of her. “Don’t go all alpha on me now,” she warned. “You loved this dress when I wore it for our anniversary date,” she reminded me.
“True dat,” I replied, as my lips grazed her forehead gently. “But Liam wasn’t on that date with us that I recall. I don’t want to have to take the old geezer outside for gaping at you this evening.”
She pulled away, and I noticed her cheeks were flushed a bit. “Uh, he’s not exactly an old geezer,” she murmured, as she turned away from me to check the oven.
“How old is he?”
“I didn’t ask him,” she replied with a smile. “I’d say early forties, at the most.”
“Hmm, interesting.”
“Taz,” she warned, “You need to get your ass ready, please?”
“Okay, okay,” I said with a chuckle. “Is my tux back from the cleaners, babe?”
All I heard was “smartass” as I left the kitchen and headed up to our bedroom to get ready.
Liam.
What a fucking pretentious sounding name.
It didn’t take long to see just how well Liam’s name fit his pretentious ass. The fucker didn’t take his eyes off my wife all throughout dinner and dessert. I swear to fuck, when Lindsey got up to clear the table, I damn well thought her tits were going to spill out of that tight-ass dress!
“Here,” I said, jumping to my feet, and grabbing the plates from her, “You cooked all day, babe. I’ll get this.”
She looked momentarily stunned, and then got a smug little grin on her face as I continued to clear. “Thanks, Trace.”
I returned with the coffee and noticed that Liam had scooted his chair closer to Lindsey. Both of them were hunched over a bunch of photos in one of Lindsey’s catalogs, ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over fabric samples that were attached on the back.
Jesus H. Christ.
“Coffee, Leon?” I asked, finally getting his attention off of my wife momentarily.
He looked up at me where I stood next to his chair, holding a full carafe of steaming hot coffee just over his head. I could feel his smirk more than I could see it. He had those rakish dark looks—kind of like Slate. Black hair, smoky gray eyes and a bit of haughtiness thrown in just to piss off dudes like me.
