smiled back. “Do you like what you see?”
“Wouldn’t have been staring if I didn’t. Nothin’ in the world better than a curvy redhead, I always say.”
“Do you want to see more?”
The smile widened, showing perfect white teeth. “Not much left to see.”
“Oh, but it’s worth it. You have a room here?”
Within minutes, they were in the hallway outside his room, and he was fumbling in the fanny pack he’d brought with him to the pool containing money, ID, and his room key. Eventually, he liberated the plastic card and inserted it into the slot. The green light came on, and he pushed the door open.
The moment the door closed behind her, she grabbed the blond-haired man by the back of his head, turned him around and started kissing him.
He returned the kiss hungrily, his tongue sliding into her mouth.
Conveniently, they were both wearing very little, so it was the work of only a second or two for him to remove her bikini and her to remove his swimming trunks. Her straw hat, however, remained on her head, still secured by the bobby pins, as did the wig.
They remained kissing while standing upright, now both naked, and peering between his legs, she could see how pleased he was by this turn of events. Eventually, she maneuvered him to one of the room’s two double beds, throwing him playfully but forcefully onto his back.
She pleasured him for a minute or two, as she often did to make sure that the man she was with was fully aroused. That was often not much of a concern, but she knew that her partners enjoyed it. He also reached down and tried to fondle her breasts; she admired his enthusiasm.
Finally, she climbed onto the bed, her legs straddling his hips, and lowered herself onto him. They both moaned with the pleasure of the moment as she rocked her hips.
Within only a few seconds, though, she could feel his body tense as he started to climax.
Reaching up, she slid her hand under the brim of the straw hat and pulled out one of the Hibben throwing knives that she’d taken off the corpse of the late, unlamented Mr. Mauve.
Just as the blond man climaxed, moaning in pleasure, Ms. White plunged the point of the Hibben knife into his carotid artery.
Ms. White felt his death throes combined with his pleasure, and only then did she also climax, as blood gushed all over the hotel bed from the wound she’d created.
For several seconds, Ms. White sat there, feeling the pleasure crest over her.
Then she climbed off the corpse and yanked the knife from its neck. More blood poured out of the wound, though it no longer gushed, with the heart having stopped pumping.
Turning around and not giving the young man another thought, Ms. White went into the bathroom to wash off her right hand, which was the only place she’d gotten blood on herself. Over the years, she’d perfected this particular sequence of events to the point where she got no blood on her whatsoever—except on the hand that wielded the killing knife. She’d yet to figure out a way to entirely avoid that.
Leaving her hand wet rather than risk leaving any trace evidence on the hotel towel, Ms. White went back into the room, climbed into her bikini bottoms and tied the bikini top.
After she exited the hotel room, she headed to the crossover bridge to the other tower where her own room was, retrieving her key from the band in her hat. Once inside, she removed both hat and wig and tossed them into the bathtub. Pausing to remove the battery from the room’s smoke detector, Ms. White then grabbed a book of matches from the hotel restaurant that she’d tossed on the desk the night before. She struck one match, lighting it, and set the hat and the wig on fire.
As both items burned, Ms. White removed the bikini bottoms, then the female condom, wrapping it in a bit of toilet paper. She’d dispose of it later, somewhere off the hotel grounds. She put a T-shirt over the bikini top, then donned a pair of panties and khaki shorts. Reaching into the shorts pocket, she opened her cell phone and discovered a text message that simply read: Call.
She dialed the current number for the Black Cross headquarters, which was in a cabin in the Redwood forests of Humboldt County, California—this month. A voice on the other side said, “Ms. White, return to base ASAP.”
“I’ll be on the next plane,” she said. “I’m finished here anyhow.”
AFTER CHECKING OUT of the resort, using the credit card of one of her many false identities, Ms. White booked a flight to the Eureka/Arcata Airport in Northern California using a different ID. There was a delay in the connecting flight at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, but eventually she arrived safely.
As expected, the Black Hawk piloted by Mr. Silver was waiting to take her from Eureka/Arcata to Black Cross HQ. When the Black Hawk landed, she was met by the tall, dark-skinned, bald-headed Mr. Indigo. He stared at her with his wide, intense brown eyes, and said, “Welcome home.”
Unlike most other heterosexual men, Mr. Indigo didn’t stare at her chest, even though the flower-print sundress she had changed into showed considerable cleavage. For his part, Mr. Indigo was, as always, wearing an immaculate charcoal three-piece suit. Were it not so immaculate, Ms. White would have been convinced that he slept in it, since he never wore anything else in her presence.
As he accompanied her to the cabin that was a quarter mile from the airfield, Mr. Indigo said, “Our man Galloway found a potential new recruit. Given the way we’ve been hemorrhaging operatives lately…”
Ms. White nodded. Besides Misters Mauve and Green, another operative had been killed in the Redmond assassination, and three more had retired. They were down to only six, and she knew that Mr. Indigo preferred their fighting strength to be an even dozen.
“Who is this new man?”
They entered the cabin, and Mr. Indigo led her to a laptop, which had a generic screen saver running on the monitor. Mr. Indigo touched the button under the track pad, causing the screen to change to that of a U.S. Marine Corps dossier on a gunnery sergeant. His name was blacked out—a standard Black Cross security protocol.
“He’s a former jarhead,” Mr. Indigo explained, “and he’s been a merc since then. Sharpshooter. He’s had trouble finding work lately because he’s too brutal.”
“I wasn’t aware that you could be too brutal for the Marines.”
Giving her the tiniest of smiles—which was as emotional as he ever got—Mr. Indigo said, “There’s a first time for everything. He has a tendency to kill people regardless of whether they’re supposed to be killed, which irked his superiors in the Corps. After that, he became a merc, and that same tendency irked a few of his employers, too.”
“I can imagine,” Ms. White said. “We have no such compunctions, though.”
“Indeed not. Galloway has him set up for his interview tomorrow. I want you to pick the talent for it and supervise the process.”
Ms. White blinked. That was something usually left to operatives with more experience than her. “Why me?”
“I’d say you’ve earned the promotion.” Mr. Indigo
