My head snapped up and my brain spun through its cycles, checking every corner out. It was silent, much too silent. It always was quiet here in my beach house perched on the cliffs, but this was silence. Something was happening.
My brain came up blank. I sighed and looked at the blinking cursor on the screen. Another false lead in the search, but I was getting closer. Just a few more connections of one with the other, I was sure, and I would establish the link between the Eye of God in Sri Lanka and Al-Qaeda. I knew the connection was there and, somehow, my brain knew the establishment of the connection was close. Then the decision. Publish or contact Cleland?
I stood up and stretched. I'd been working on this for hours. Bates should be back by now. Maybe that was the source of my mind's concern—that Bates wasn't back. Or maybe it was just my mind telling me that I'd gotten too tense, too concentrated on the search.
I pulled my T-shirt over my head and spread it out over the back of the chair by the desk before I padded, just in my athletic shorts, out of my study and down the stairs, two flights, to the basement gym. A thirty-minute routine of weights and squats, pull-ups and sit-ups, later I slipped the shorts off and dropped them on the washer. A quick shower and then a towel rubdown as I padded back up the stairs. Bedroom first and dressing, even though the day was almost over. But I always dressed for dinner. Even though it was only me. Bates serving me in the dining room and then eating by himself in the kitchen—the divide somewhat silly, since he'd be fucking me in my bed later in the night.
Always at night. Slipping into my room in the dark, rolling me onto my back, and teasing my legs open as he stuffed a pillow under the small of my back. Me sighing as he entered me with a big, black cock. Moaning and groaning in pleasured surrender as he stretched and caressed my channel with the thick staff as I grabbed and dug my nails into his shoulder blades—only to have him melt away when we had both come. Always at night, in the dark. Never spoken of during the day. Both knowing that he's here because Cleland doesn't take chances. That Cleland always wants to be in control—that I can be controlled by a big, black cock.
Bedroom and then back to the study, I decided. So close, almost there on the connection between the Eye of God and Al-Qaeda. And then the most important question of all—publish or contact Cleland?
Something, some movement, caught the corner of my eye through the expanse of glass across the back of the house, out toward the sea, as I reached the first-floor landing. I moved silently over to the corner of the glass. Yes, two of them. Sent by Cleland? Did he sense that I was close to a discovery and was making my decision for me? Back to the front of the house, peeking out of the window in Bates' room. Two more. Two black SUVs out on the road—the road that went no farther along the top of the cliff than to this house, selected because of the privacy it provided. Two SUVs. More than was needed by four. Where were the others? Already in the house? Had I put the computer to sleep, or was what I had been working on there available for anyone to see?
I moved, as silently as I could, to the second floor. The bedroom to the right at the top of the stairs—where I should go to get dressed. Nakedness was vulnerability. The study door to the left. Should I transfer the file to the cloud and delete it from the computer first? Priorities. I turned left and stopped in the doorway to the study.
"Long time, Evan. You're looking good. Keeping in good shape. About got the Eye of God connection established, I see."
Jackson. Sitting at my computer, smiling—no, smirking—at me. I should have known. My mind was trying to tell me that. But something larger than just this, just Jackson finding me. I had to be wary. And I had to control myself. Jackson was Jackson. Always had been; always would be. Must control myself. Mustn't show his hold over me. Very difficult to do in the nude.
"What are you doing here, Jackson?"
"I've come to ask you to come back. We need you in the unit."
"I'm retired, Jackson."
"No one retires at twenty-eight, Evan."
"I do. I am. Cleland retired me." I had to be careful not to reveal that I had been retained as a consultant—not totally retired. Not left out in the cold. That it was just separation from the ops floor Cleland demanded. Not trusting me in the struggle between him and Jackson. But still needing me. Needing me in more ways than one. Being the only one who knew of this house, where I had gone—at least until now. The only one with his own side of the closet in my bedroom, his own choice of pillow on my bed.
"I don't think so. I've seen the files. The work had your touch written all over it. We need you back."
He'd found my links into the Special Terrorist Covert Affairs Team files. His power in the office was growing. No wonder my mind had been on edge, had screamed out in the eerie silence.
"What does Cleland think?"
"It doesn't matter what Cleland thinks."
There was only one reason why Jackson would say that.
"Where's Cleland? What have you done with Cleland?"
"Cleland apparently has taken a runner. Counterops is busy tracing him, determined to get to him before he reaches the dark side."
"I don't believe that. Cleland never would—"
"I'm temporarily in charge—temporary being short-lived, I'm sure. I can staff as I see fit. I need you to return as chief of analysis."
"I repeat, what have you done with Cleland?"
He just smiled and stood up from the desk, from behind the computer. He had unzipped himself, and his huge black cock—the reason Cleland had gotten me out of the office—half erect, had flopped out for me to see. As always, I sucked in my breath.
"I see it's time for us to adjourn to the bedroom," he said.
Shit. He knew the effect he had on me. Something I couldn't hide, standing in the doorway in the nude.
"No, Jackson. Never again." And then, a new, distressing thought. "Bates. You've done something with Bates. What have you done with Bates?"
