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“We’re getting very kinky, aren’t we dear?”

  “Getting?”

  Butler took off his suit jacket and threw it across the room. Then he peeled away his shirt, and she looked at his powerful chest covered with pectoral muscles nearly as big as pineapples.

  “Still going to the gym, I see.”

  “Whenever I can,” he replied, dropping his pants.

  The Colt .45 hit the floor with a thud.

  “Was that your gun?” she asked.

  “It wasn’t my cock.”

  “Would you put it under the pillow, just like in the old days?”

  “What, my cock?”

  “No, the gun.”

  He chuckled as he bent over naked and picked it up. “Sure.” He got onto the bed and tucked the Colt under the pillow. “Happy now?”

  “I can’t help it if guns turn me on. I suppose you think that’s sick.”

  “If you’re sick, then what am I?”

  “Sicker.”

  “Right.” He lay on top of her and gazed into her smoldering eyes. “Have you ever thought of me when you made love to other men?”

  “Many times.”

  “What did you think?”

  “I thought of what a good lay you were, Butler. You really were a very good lay. Too bad you had to spend so much time away from home.”

  “Too bad you’re such a little sex degenerate.” He brought his hand between her legs, and she shuddered. “Look how wet you are already.”

  “Do it to me, Butler, before I die,” she said huskily.

  He laughed sardonically. “What would you do if I walked out of here right now?”

  “I’d kill you, but you wouldn’t do that to me, would you, Butler?”

  “I couldn’t do it to myself,” he replied.

  He kissed her eyes, her lips, and her ears. He ran his tongue over her lips, then went between them to her tongue that tasted like wine. She undulated like an ocean underneath him, and he kissed her beauteous breasts, licked her belly button, and then went down to the center of her femininity, that fragile, delicate place surrounded with gold curls.

  She grabbed fistfuls of his hair, and thrashed about on the bed. He held her lissome legs tightly and slurped her up, and soon she was screaming and yelping, her eyes rolling up into her head.

  “Oh, Butler,” she sighed. “What you do to me is a crime.”

  He licked his way up her writhing body to her lips, and she spread her legs because she was hungry for the feel of him inside her. He slid right in, just like the old days, and her vagina held him tight as a fist.

  “I’ve always loved you,” she whispered, swaying her hips from side to side. “I’ve never forgotten you. You’ve always been the only man for me.”

  “Sssshhh,” he said, moving in and out of her, not wanting her to say things that she’d repudiate later, as she’d done so many times before.

  Chapter Eighteen

  It was one o’clock in the morning. They’d stopped making love a half hour ago, and now Butler was dozing off, thinking of all the ways he’d made love to her, and all ways she’d made love to him. It had been wonderful, just like the old days, but in the morning she was supposed to go horseback riding with her new fiancé, and he was supposed to go to the Institute for the meeting to decide what to do about the Doom Machine. Their paths had converged for a brief moment, but soon they’d be off on separate directions, perhaps never to meet again.

  A scraping sound came from the terrace. Butler raised his head so he could hear better. Then it sounded as though something was dropped out there. He reached under the pillow for the Colt .45, then pushed the covers away and got out of bed.

  “Where are you going?” she asked sleepily.

  “Ssssshhh. There’s someone on the terrace.”

  “What!”

  “Sssshhhh. Be still. I’ll see what’s going on.”

  Naked as a jaybird, Butler tiptoed across the rug to the terrace door. Pressing his back to the wall beside the door, he peeked through the curtains and saw shadowy figures out there. He’d have to act fast; this was no time to fool around. Bounding in front of the terrace door, he pulled it open abruptly and pointed his gun.

  “Don’t move!” he said.

  Three men in topcoats and slouch hats were on the terrace, gathering together electrical gear and cameras. Beside them was a rope ladder that led to the terrace of the apartment above. The three men were taken by surprise, and the one whose jaw hung open the widest was none other than F.J. Shankham, Director of Current Intelligence for the CIA.

  “Hello Butler,” Shankham said with an uncertain smile.

  “What the fuck are you doing out here, Shankham!”

  “Oh, just getting a bit of fresh air,” Shankham said nonchalantly. “By the way, let me introduce my two friends, Dudley Farnsworth and Timothy Pickering, of my office.

  “Hi there,” said Dudley, around twenty-six years old.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Timothy, extending his hand.

  Butler ignored the both of them and looked at Shankham. Stars sparkled in the sky and the sound of traffic could be heard below. A breeze covered Butler’s nude body with goose bumps, and made his pecker shrivel up.

  “What are you doing spying on me, Shankham!” Butler demanded.

  Shankham smiled and held out the palms of his hands. His coat collar was up and his slouch hat was low over his eyes. “Well, you know how it is, Butler. People get assignments and people go out on them.”

  “What do you want with me, you cruddy bastard!”

  “Oh, this and that.”

  “This and what?”

  “We just were wondering what you were up to, since you just got back from the Soviet Union and all.”

  “I was getting laid, and that was none of your business.”

  “But you know how it is, Butler. You never know what a person’s liable to say in a moment of passion. We’ve got a lot of very valuable intelligence that way, but of course, I don’t have to tell you that. You were one of our greatest master spies, for crying out loud. You wrote the book, for goodness sakes.”

  Butler was shivering wildly and thought he might catch pneumonia if he stayed on the terrace. “Get inside, you three. And bring your junk with you.”

  “What are you going to do with us, Butler. Surely you’re not going to do anything silly.”

  “I said, get inside!”

  The men picked up their equipment and carried it into the hotel room. Brenda turned on the light beside the bed and pulled the covers up over her boobs. Her hair was mussed and all her makeup was gone, but she still looked delectable.

  “Who are all these people!” she demanded.

  “Permit me to introduce myself,” said F.J. Shankham, tipping his hat. “My name is Shankham and I’m an old friend of your husband’s.”

  “Old friend, my ass,” Butler growled. “You’re no friend of mine, Shankham.”

  “Colleague, then.”

  Butler looked at Brenda. “They’re all in the CIA, and they’ve been taking pictures and making recordings of us.”

  Her eyes goggled. “What!”

  “That’s what they’ve been doing,” Butler said with resignation.

  “Oh, my goodness!” Brenda said, holding her palms to her cheeks. “I’m so embarrassed!”

  Dudley Farnsworth and Timothy Pickering looked at each other and grinned. Shankham shrugged.

  “What can I tell you?” he asked.

  Butler pointed his gun at him. “I ought to shoot the three of you for criminal trespass.”

  Shankham blanched. “Now Butler...”

  “I really should,” Butler continued. “I’d probably get away with it, too. You are, after all, trespassing criminally.”

  “Yes, they are,” Brenda agreed.

  Butler aimed the Colt at Shankham.

  “No!” screamed Shankham, holding out his hands.

  Butler lowered his gun. “I’m not going to shoot you, you worm. I couldn’t shoot a
man in cold blood.”

  “I’m so happy to hear that, Butler.”

  “You’re just going to turn all your film and all your tapes over to me.”

  “Now Butler...”

  “Come on!”

  “But you know that I have to account for all this material. What will I tell them when they ask what happened?”

  “Tell them the truth—that I caught you, you bastard.”

  “But that’ll ruin my career!”

  “You’ll bounce back. All you CIA hacks eventually do. Come on, hand it over before I start shooting, dammit!”

  Shankham looked at Farnsworth and Pickering. “Give them what they want.”

  Farnsworth opened the movie camera and took out the reel of film, while Pickering opened a satchel and took out more film plus some tape cartridges. They placed the stuff on the floor before Butler, then stepped back sheepishly. Butler told them to put their hands in the air and turn around, and then he searched each of them, removing pistols, knives, laser pens, and various other implements of the spy trade.

  “Okay,” Butler said. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

  “Listen, Butler,” Shankham said. “I really apologize for all this, but you know how it is.”

  “I know how it is. Just get out of here before I lose my temper.”

  Shankham tipped his hat to Brenda. “Good night, Madame. Awfully sorry about all this. By the way, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “No,” replied Brenda coldly.

  “I could swear that I’ve seen you in the company of Douglas Worthington, the new Ambassador to the Court of Saint James.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Well good night.”

  “Good night to you. And it’s very bad manners to spy on people while they’re being intimate with each other.”

  “What I do, I do for my country, Madame.”

  Butler pointed at the door with his gun. “Get out of here, you lying sack of shit.”

  Shankham scurried to the door, with Farnsworth and Pickering close behind him, carrying their cameras and tape recorders. They left the hotel room, and Butler locked the door behind them.

  “What a bunch of scumbags,” he said.

  Brenda let the covers fall from her alabaster breasts. “I’ve met that Shankham before at a reception someplace. What if he tells Douglas about us?”

  “He won’t because that’ll blow his cover. If you ever meet him again you’ll both pretend that you never met.” Butler kneeled beside the piles of film and tapes. “I’ll have to take this with me tomorrow and destroy it.”

  “Oh, let’s keep it, Butler. We can have it developed and see what we look like.”

  “That’s not a good idea, because it’s liable to fall into the wrong hands someday.”

  She frowned. “I suppose you’re right. Well, come to bed.”

  “Yes, I have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “Me too. I must go riding with Douglas at daybreak, and I’ll be so sore because I’ve been riding with you all night.”

  Butler turned off the light and crawled into bed with her.

  “Can I kiss it good night?” she asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  She pushed the covers away and kneeled over it. “It’s sleeping,” she said.

  “It’s tired.”

  “I’ll bet I could wake him up.”

  “I’ll bet you could too.”

  She lowered her head and gave it a big wet kiss, and sure enough it began to wake up.

  “Here we go again,” Butler sighed.

  “Well, it’s not as though we do it every day,” she replied, but Butler couldn’t understand her very well, because her mouth was full.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At nine o’clock in the morning, Butler reported to Mr. Sheffield’s office, carrying a shopping bag full of film and recording tape.

  “Good morning, Butler,” Mister Sheffield said in the dark room. “I trust you slept well?”

  “Not that well. I had a visitation from the CIA.”

  “Sit down and tell me about it.”

  Butler sat down, placing the shopping bag beside him. “There’s not much to tell, really. I happened to be in bed with a certain young lady, and I became aware of noise out on the terrace. I investigated and found three CIA agents with cameras and tape recorders. I confiscated the film and tape, and I’ll want someone here to destroy them, because they would be very damaging to the young lady’s reputation.”

  “I quite understand. When you’re finished here, you may take them down to the furnace.”

  “Good.”

  “Did the CIA people say why they were there?”

  “Not really, but it had something to do with my experiences in the Soviet Union.”

  “I see. Well then, if they’re watching you, you’ll have to go underground, won’t you?”

  “Why will I have to go underground?”

  “Because this evening you’re leaving on a mission of the utmost importance, and we wouldn’t want the CIA to know about that, would we?”

  “No, we wouldn’t. Where am I going?”

  “To Damascus, with another agent, an Egyptian named Farouk Moussa. He speaks Arabic fluently, it is his native language, and you will be in charge of the mission. You will have two objectives. The first will be to sabotage the part of the Abdul Faheem Munitions Works that is manufacturing the Doom Machines. The second is to obtain the plans for the Doom Machine somehow. This second objective will be your most difficult, but you must carry it out. We have no idea where the plans might be. You must find them somehow and bring them back so that we can disseminate them among the countries of the world that don’t have access to the Doom Machine themselves.”

  “The Doom Machine project is probably being directed by a team of Russian scientists. If we can get to one of them, perhaps we can get to the plans.”

  “Good thinking, Butler.”

  “The best way to get to someone is to do it through a beautiful woman. Even the most rational man will do silly things in the company of a beautiful woman.”

  “I take it you’re speaking from experience, Butler.”

  “Very bitter experience, sir. Do we have a skilled female agent who can come with us?”

  “Hmmm, let me think.” Sheffield shuffled some papers on his desk, and Butler noticed his thin white hands unadorned by rings or even a wrist watch. “I believe that Wilma B. Willoughby is here in Washington.”

  “Wilma B. Willoughby!” Butler explained.

  “Yes, surely you remember her.”

  “Of course I remember her. The Institute sent her to check me out when you were thinking of recruiting me.”

  “Yes, she’s a most competent agent, and she speaks numerous foreign languages, even Arabic, fluently. Moreover, she can speak, for example, Russian with a French accent, French with a German accent, and Russian with an Arabic accent. She’s a very clever agent. Would you like to take her with you?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?”

  “Well we’re sort of friendly.”

  “You mean you’ve had sexual relations with her too?”

  “No.”

  “Ah, I see,” Mister Sheffield said sagely. “The problem is that you haven’t had sexual relations with her. You attempted to seduce her, but it didn’t work. Am I right?”

  “You’re right.”

  “And therefore you feel somewhat insecure in her presence?”

  “Right again.”

  “I see. Well really, Butler, I think you have to put your personal feelings aside at a time like this. Why, the fate of the world hangs in the balance here. Wilma is the only female agent we have available at this particular moment. You’ve got to take her with you.”

  “Well, if I’ve got to take her with me, I guess I’ve got to take her with me,” Butler said.

  “Good thinking, Butler old man. Well, we don’t have a moment to lose. Mr. Jahrum of our Middl
e East department will brief you on the details of your mission, and tonight I suspect you’ll be leaving for Syria. Good luck, Butler. Give it the best you’ve got, because...”

  “I know,” Butler interrupted. “The fate of the world hangs in the balance here.”

  “Exactly,” said Sheffield.

  Chapter Twenty

  The long black submarine motored underneath the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Captain Sinclair looked through the periscope and saw shells bursting in the beleaguered city of Beirut. The Lebanese Civil War had erupted again, but it was decided to drop Butler and his cohorts in Lebanon and let them make their way east to Damascus, because that would be shorter than dropping them in northern Syria, which was much farther from Damascus than Beirut.

  “The shelling is still quite heavy,” said Captain Sinclair.

  “Good,” said Butler. “Everybody will be too busy fighting to notice us.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Farouk Moussa, the Egyptian with a long face and black curly hair. He was a few inches taller than Butler and was twenty-eight years old. Before joining the Institute he’d been a teacher of physical education at the University of North Carolina.

  “He’s probably wrong,” said Wilma B. Willoughy, a cute little bitch if ever there was one. She had straight black hair and the face of an angel, which she most assuredly was not.

  During their day of briefing and flight to Tel Aviv, where they boarded the submarine, Butler and Wilma had been studiously polite to each other, although Wilma had rejected his offer of sexual love some months ago, and he had stood her up on a date shortly thereafter. However, since boarding the submarine, hostility had been growing between them.

  “Why do you think I’m wrong?” Butler asked her.

  “My female intuition.”

  “You know what you can do with your female intuition.”

  “We’ll see who’s right and who’s wrong.”

  “We sure will.”

  “I wish you two would cut it out,” Farouk said.

  Butler pointed his finger at her. “Stop talking back to me. This is a very important mission, and I’m the boss. You heard Mr. Sheffield say that I’m the boss. So stop hassling me.

  She thumbed her nose at him.

  Captain Sinclair cleared his throat. “We’re about two hundred yards from the docks of Beirut. Are you ready to go ashore?”