Missed Opportunites - Chapter Five
Sep. 5th, 2011 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sonora_conejaPairing: Face/Hannibal, Face/Lynch
Rating: R
Warnings: none
Summary: A year after the jailbreak, the three members of the A-Team are hired under the table by the DoD to take down the two men responsible for the as-yet unresolved theft of the Treasury plates - ex-CIA agent Vance “Lynch” Buress and former Spec-Ops officer Templeton “Faceman” Peck.
a/n: I've gone sooooo long without an update on this. I apologize. But I finally have some free time from meme fills and this story's been burning a hole in my brain all summer. I'm gonna try to update this as often as possible until we're done! Previous chapters here!
The door barely shut behind Singer, Hannibal, whoever the fuck he was, before Lynch was out of the slatted closet and on top of Face, slamming him back down on the bed.
“That little display, sweetheart, was almost worth this entire thing,” the former agent purred, and bit, hard, behind the ear where it wouldn’t show.
And Face let him. Like he always did.
He had to admit, even to himself, as his partner in crime was stripping him naked, that this guy, Hannibal, was pretty goddamn good. Almost as good as him with a con. if any of this was actually a con for the old guy.
If the mercenary hadn’t been expecting it, he might not have seen the way the older guy slipped that thumbdrive into the USB on the side of his laptop, tumbling them around even as he’d been dragged back to the bedroom.
And how easily Hannibal had gone down today compared to yesterday, head thrown back, all the fine muscles in that neck exposed, straining, begging to be bitten, how he’d seemed to welcome it.
Face supposed he could have missed the way Hannibal seemed to last, holding on to that thin tipping point, not falling into orgasm until some probably pre-determined length of time had passed.
And Face knew he definitely wouldn’t have noticed, not after coming that hard, that fast, collapsing on his back onto the hopeless rumpled covers, how Hannibal paused, bending, sore, to grab the damn thing on the way out of the room.
Not if he hadn’t been looking for it.
No, he reflected, detached, even now, with Lynch throwing him around and pushing in with one brutal, wonderful thrust that had him groaning, nothing but hotel hand lotion to ease the way, Hannibal was good. And not just with the deception.
The disgraced colonel hadn’t been faking the lust, the raw, barren need. The emptiness, longing to be filled. No. Not with that face, those eyes. The same expression the mercenary had seen in warzones, in back alleys and barfights, villages in Africa and the streets of downtown LA. That expression that spoke of too much seen, too little done, nothing felt.
The eyes of somebody who still clung to hope. Even when he knew there wasn’t any.
Face felt warm inside.
All the possibilities.
All the things they could do to the man.
How much fucking fun it could be.
And then he remembered the way Hannibal had reached out when they were done, reached back and helped him roll down onto the bed, when he’d come, so hard at the thought of fucking a colonel, fucking over one of the assholes who’d put himself in this goddamn position, this life, cast him out of the only place he’d ever wanted to be... and there Hannibal was, letting his hand linger just a little too long, his touch just a little too soft, a little too gentle.
Like there was something...
But it wasn’t that. No, wasn’t the thoughtless affection, wasn’t the curiosity over what a slow, sweet fuck might feel like, wasn’t even the tiny what-if, the little whisper of what if I’d had him instead of motherfucking Glines for a CO back then, the little spark that seemed to pass between them each time they touched, that was getting Face hard right now.
Nope.
No.
None of that.
He couldn’t allow himself anything like that.
So he canted his ass back and grabbed around for Lynch’s wildly thrusting hip.
“Come on, Vanny-boy,” Face sneered, “can’t you go harder than that?”
“Fuck... you...Peck,” the former agent ground out in between breaths.
And jammed in really, really hard.
Almost hard enough to keep those traitorous thoughts from Face’s mind, and he dropped his head into the crook of his elbow, and when he moaned, when Lynch came deep in, he tried to tell himself it wasn’t Hannibal he was somehow, suddenly, inexplicably thinking of.
No.
Never that.
+++++
Hannibal’s suite was empty when he got back, Murdock and BA and Sosa, his little team and unwanted chaperone, all gone. And he supposed he should have been worried about that, wondering if they were okay, if Lynch had made them or soemthing, but still. He couldn’t summon anything like that.
Barely past lunch time.
And he was exhausted.
He was sore, too, that squelching deep down in his gut reminding him, refusing to let him forget, exactly what he’d done today, but offering him no reason for why. Why he had done that. Why he had let the arrogant brat do that.
He didn’t bottom. He just...didn’t. Not normally. Not ever. Not since Russ, all those years ago...but that was a whole other can of worms he coulnd’t open right now. Couldn’t think about why he seemed to pick out the men who were going to hurt him. How similar that kid seemed to his now-dead lover, despite the differences in background, in lifestyle, in the cut of their suits, the way their skin smelled...
His cellphone buzzed in his pocket. A text.
Pilot wanted something to read boss. Took him to the library. We fine.
The former colonel laughed to himself. He could have died laughing right then.
Motherfucker.
He was actually relieved that his team wasn’t there with him, right then, to watch the shame just unfurl. And he considered, actually considered, not going through with any of this. Of calling Charisa to fuck off. Pulling the boys, going home, working those shit-for-pay jobs in the States and Canada and Central America until they all old and gray or dead, whichever came first...
But there was this job.
A job to do, a job he had to do, a job he had to see through for Harmon, he reminded himself, and stripped for a shower, wincing a little as he removed his briefs, remembering the way the kid’s smooth, soft hands had felt against his hips, and shuddered his way through the cold, quick spray. Just enough to get the scent of a foreign cologne off his skin, and the worst of the evidence cleaned away, and his skin prickled against the soft pile of the huge, huge towel as he dried himself as efficiently as he was able.
A fresh suit, a clean shirt, all of it pale and appropriate, Hannibal dressed quickly and left quickly, knowing he’d be wanted at the library where BA and Murdock would be, working on the bid.
He grabbed his cell phone and his key card, trying to wipe all thoughts of that accountant from his mind as he left the room and the hotel and passed the taxis, determining that a walk would clear his head.
Of those fucking stupid thoughts he couldn’t afford to be carrying right now.
Too much to do.
But the kid kept coming to him as he walked, down the long white bridges and bright, wide streets of the tropical city, passing the modern architectural travesties soaring high overhead, old, old temples sprawling low, reeking of hundreds of years of incense, the people milling through in everything from formal business wear to bright threadbare cottons, flip-flops sounding wetly against the impeccably maintained sidewalks and asphalt crossings, smells pouring outof covered arcades and the stands of street vendors, coolly conditioned air spilling from promenades fronting the shops of European lables he’d never heard of before.
Hannibal had eyes for none of it.
He couldn’t get the kid out of his mind.
That man, Templeton Peck.
Hands and skin and mouth hot against the back of his neck, gasped breaths and that reaching cock, the way it all just seemed to fall into place when he’d sunk in, like how despite the roughness, the kid was looking for something, wanting desperately to find it, the hard thrusts nothing more than that, no desire to hurt, a plea for something, something to fill up a vacant life, devoid of anything real...
But it was useless, all of it, wondering about any of it, and he found himself at the main library, climbing to the third floor where the terminals were, according to the English/Chinese directory on the open-air bottom floor, next to the wide atrium and its twisted jungle hardwoods, finding his boys, Murdock trying to play with BA’s hand while BA tried to play with the computer. The two of them happy together, in that strange sort of way of theirs, so peculiar to them, so old and familiar and so comfortable.
Hannibal’s heart jerked, just a bit, but that was no answer. So he just pulled up a chair beside them, and clapped his pilot on the shoulder.
“How are things going, Murdock?”
That dark head turned to him, and shoulder shrugged within the Hawaiian shirt. “Fine, sir. Bosco’s in...”
“Don’t look good, man,” the corporal said, one finger playing across the top of the mouse. He had one of those black coding boxes up, nothing fancy and extremely hard to read. “Three hundred wouldn’t’a done it, most gots theirs in around four, but you got this,” and he pointed at a glowing white line. “Some fool biddin’ almost eight hundred.”
789.
Million
Yeah, he could see that. Who paid that kind of money for forged engraving plates alone? Especially right now, as the dollar seemed poised to bottom completely out in the world markets entirely...
“Who?”
BA pulled the keyboard closer to himself. “Haf’ta look.”
Hannibal nodded, and fingered his cell in his pocket. “Where’s Charisa?”
“Shoppin’ on Sentosa,” Murdock replied immediately. “Said she thought it was good cover.”
He sighed. “That fucking woman,” the colonel grumbled to himself, and pulled the phone out. “Can you access that account of hers from here?”
It was BA’s turn to shrug. “Maybe, man.”
“Set an upper limit of nine. We’ll bid something up there. I’ll let the damn captain know,” he mused, noticing the little glance that passed between his men, and stood up, suddenly more irritated than he knew he had any right to be. “And I’ll get the bid in to Peck by the deadline.”
+++++
“Uri! How you doin’ this evening? Better than last night?” Face asked cheerfully, snapping on a pair of latex surgical gloves from the open door of a makeshift cell.
And he didn’t feel like he was smirking just to be a jackass, like in a James Bond movie or soemthing. It had been a productive day, was all.
The bids were all in by noon. With the exception of Hannibal’s, which had been delivered to his room by an very weary former colonel around 1500. $850 million. More than enough to beat the Chinese bid, which hadn’t been strange in and of itself, coming in at $789M. What had been strange about it was that Vance had declared the Chinese bid the winner from the start - and that made some sense, it was the first to come in and the highest out of all the rest, before Hannibal’s had shown up, by a margin of a hundred mil.
Face didn’t trust coincidences.
Lynch was playing a game with him, Face was beginning to think. Somehow, in some way, Lynch was playing a game. But what the reward could be
The Israeli looked up at him with a grim eyes and a matching smile.
“Just...just fine, Mr. Peck. How are you?”
He paused, taking a better look at the Moussad agent, still in the same place where they’d tossed him earlier, some empty storage room that Shanghai Chen converted, long ago, for this purpose.
The man didn’t look too bad. Yet. A few broken things, under the surface, a few more shallow cuts that had already started to close. A warning, really, and the mercenary knew they were all capable of so, so much worse. That Moussad had its own torture cells. “Fine as well,” he said, a little too slow. “You ready for another round?”
“Another round of what? Your pointless questions?”
“Hardly pointless,” Face replied, keeping that icy smirk in place, and yelled out in Cantonese to the guards behind him. “Need to know what your country’s interest in this little business exchange of my boss’ is.”
“Your boss?” the Israeli coughed, laughing, even as a matched set of guards grabbed him under the arms and started hauling him to his feet. One of which, Face knew, Terry had broken last night. “Your boss? So smart a man, your boss, to get himself out of CIA custody...”
The mercenary barked another command to the Chinese guards, who Shanghai Chen had assured him spoke not a word of English, who most certainly spoke it very, very well, and grabbed the back of Uri’s head, fisting up a handful of dark, lank hair as they stopped what they were doing. “CIA custody?” he asked, rusty Hebrew catching in his throat.
Uri laughed harder at that, spitting blood onto the front of Face’s undershirt. “Yes, you did not hear about that, Peck? They...” and the Hebrew went too fast for him to follow after that, the words Los Angeles and docks and news reports and release....
“They kept it out of the news reports?” he asked, scraping the words together out of the back of his brain, where they’d been sitting unused for the better part of the last five years. But, no, that wouldn’t have mattered. The Company lied about everything, crooked motherfuckers that they were. “The CIA...the CIA had him in custody?”
Uri looked at him pityingly. “You should do your research better, Peck, before you get into bed with a man.”
Lynch hadn’t mentioned this to him. Not once. Not a goddamn word of it. That he’d been picked up after the shit with the container ship, his stupid Black Forest partner blowing a hole in the hull. He’d tried to talk the agent into letting him come along, instead of Pike, but he’d been refused, been paid for Morrison, sent away...
Contacted a few months later, for this job.
His head spun with questions. How long had Lynch been in custody? When had he gotten out? How? Was he snuck out by anther traitor in the Company?
Or had he been let go?
And if so, if that, why?
And why was he so fucking eager, now, to do this deal with the Chinese?
What the fuck was going on?
The mercenary let his eyes narrow and kept his face slack, hoping the initial shock hadn’t registered for Uri’s viewing pleasure, and forced himself to laugh. “Who said Lynch was masterminding this, faggot?” he said, bullshitting all the way.
But that got the slightest tick of an eyebrow, and then the Israeli shook his head, unimpressed. “The things our countries will do to us, no?” And he spat, switching back to English. “What is your plan for today? Start chopping?”
Face grinned, and let go of his head. “Not yet.”
And he took the guards with him as he left the cell.
Time for plan B.
+++++
“Congratulations,” Peck was saying, beaming at Hannibal in the hallway of the hotel, leaning against the alcove wall on one arm like he owned the fucking place, one hand extended, a white envelop from the hotel stationary. He had light driving gloves on and his hair was artfully mussed, like he’d been out for a morning’s jaunt in his Zonda convertible. Smart, the colonel thought, and wondered how much experience this kid had with criminal activity. He tried very hard not to think about how fucking sexy it made Peck look. It was far too early to start thinking about sex, even if his sleep had been so troubled by it last night he’d only gotten to sleep a few hours back. What time was it, anyway? “Your bid was the winning bid. By a margin we just couldn’t ignore.”
Hannibal looked at the envelop, and then back up at that handsome, sneering face.
Except, in his mind, it wasn’t sneering. It had that same soft expression he’d seen there yesterday.
When he’d let the kid fuck him again, but only to buy time for the software to load. A soft, almost surprised expression after they’d stopped, after Peck came, after they came apart. When Hannibal inadvertently touched him, and left his hand a bit too long. So warm, that boy, so unlike the cold marble of the mask he wore, he’d thought at the time. And then that expression. Like the kid had forgotten what affection felt like.
Like he’s never known.
The former colonel bit the inside of his cheek. Dammit, John, goddammit, he told himself. Stop thinking with your eagles. This isn’t some green lieutenant, you can’t help him, you can’t show him, you’ve lost that right...
“I don’t think the plates are in there,” he said instead, trying to keep down the sudden, raging thought that he could kiss the boy breathless and give him some kind of real life in so doing. “Is that my receipt?”
Peck laughed, perfect white teeth flashing, bright as a tiger’s. “This is a train ticket, Mr. Singer. A round trip ticket to Bangkok on the Orient Express. Round-trip, first class ticket, may I add?”
Wait, what? “Come again?”
“It is,” and Lynch’s financier opened the edge of Hannibal’s suit jacket and tucked the envelop into the interior pocket, “a ticket to Bangkok, Thailand, where, in four days’ time, you will get your plates. And we will expect the money wired to the designated accounts.”
“Why do I have to go to Bangkok?” he asked, a hint of threat in his voice.
That just made Peck smile more broadly. “Because that’s where the plates are, of course.”
Fighting the urge to hit the kid - hit the kid or kiss him or just do something to wipe that fucking smug smirk off his face - Hannibal took a deep breath and told his temper to shut it. “Why are the plates in Bangkok, kid?”
“Because I took them there.”
He growled. “Peck...”
“I do like you when you growl, John,” the brat murmured, and took one step towards him, then another, shoving him back into the room, playing with his as-of-yet untied tie as he backed him into the nearest wall. Hannibal could feel his heart starting to race, loud in his ears, and thanked whatever god still might have the patience to deal with him that BA and Murdock hadn’t come over yet. He’d never told them, never told them he was...that he liked...
“But I don’t like you when you’re thinking,” Peck continued, silk sliding through his fingers. “You’re not thinking about me when you’re thinking, and I don’t like that at all.”
“Kid...” he warmed.
And then his head hit the wall, Peck’s hand on his cheek, thumb playing over the older man’s lips. “You have to go to Bangkok to pick up the plates because we’re not idiots, and we’re not going to stow that kind of merchandise anywhere near a deal like this. Not everybody’s as straight-laced as you are, Mark...”
Sensing an opportunity, Hannibal wrapped the kid’s hand in one of his own, big and rough around it, and sucked that thumb gently in, curling his tongue around the manicured nail, just enough suction to get the kid gasping, and then he released, pulling close. “Who said I’m straight-laced?”
“The only honest people in NGOs are the Americans and the idiots who don’t know how to work the system,” Peck murmured back, and Hannibal noticed the kid’s fingers, in that butter-soft leather, had woven up into the short hairs on the back of his neck. “I know you aren’t going to screw us. By my employers want proof. Our exchange, our way.”
“I have a private plane, you know,” Hannibal replied in kind, soft, letting his voice drop an octave. There was definitely something here. Something in this boy, begging for something...tender, maybe. Something, maybe, he could use. “I can be there in an hour.”
“Two,” Peck challenged, blue eyes flashing with forced humor. “And you can’t fly because you have to take the train. You have to suffer through a three-day train journey that’s considered one of the most luxurious in the world, through some of the most beautiful country in the world. So we can watch you. And your phone. And remove your access to the world wide web.” He tightened his grip in Hannibal’s hair, going from sensuous to painful in a heartsbeat. “So we can make sure you aren’t going to screw us.”
The former colonel nodded. Watched. Monitored. Observed. That made sense. Hannibal could appreciate the simple elegance of that plan. And he nodded. “I’m sure my bodyguard will appreciate...”
“Not your bodyguard,” Peck said, and his voice was cold. “You can have him, and your pilot, meet you at Madarin Oriental any time you please. I’ve got them a suite booked for the entire time. They could check in tonight, if they’d like. But they are not going with you. Watching you means,” and the younger man arched up, rubbing against him, to trail one gloved finger down Hannibal’s nose, “watching you.”
“Somebody’s going to be on the train with me,” he guessed, gritting his teeth as he could feel himself growing hard. “And somebody’s going to be watching my boys at the hotel.”
“Perceptive.” The financier pulled back again, flashing Hannibal that perfect smile once more, and looked around the room. “I do hope you’re packed, Mr. Singer. That train leaves from Woodland Railway at twelve-fifteen, but you have to check in at the front desk before ten.”
Hannibal looked at his watch. It wasn’t there, though, so he grabbed Peck’s wrist, staring down at the face of his Omega Seamaster. “It’s nine-thirty-two now.”
“Yes, aren’t you glad I came by?” He grinned, and patted Hannibal’s breast, right where he’d tucked the ticket in. “Don’t be late. Or do, and lose an eight hundred million bid.”
Hannibal smiled, despite himself, and shook his head. A very good plan. He wasn’t used to being outfoxed like this. “Well played, kid. Well played.”
Peck turned, back to the still-open door, letting Hannibal get a good view of his jean-clad ass, calling over his shoulder as he left, “I had to work hard to get you the good suite, Mark. Don’t fucking screw it up now!”
Hannibal sagged back against the wall after the kid left, torn between panicking over packing and getting downstairs in twenty-eight minutes, or feeling pissed that this was his first solo encounter with the kid that hadn’t ended in an orgasm. He took the envelop out with an unsteady hand, looking over the tickets inside.
Mark Singer
Presidential Cabin
There was also a note in there with reservation numbers and addresses for the hotel in question. Even a limo, to pick the boys up from the airport. Sosa would have to figure out her own transportation on this one. Not that he much cared, but...
He sighed, removed the hotel instructions, and tucked the tickets away again. A sleeper train. Wonderful. Exactly what he needed to make this damn mission even better.
Hannibal went for the door, just to see if Peck was still out there, mocking him, waiting for some kind of reaction, but all he saw was the kid’s retreating form.
And the approach bulk of BA and Murdock, the latter of whom was staring down the hall, like he was trying to figure something out, watching Peck.
“Who’s that?” he asked, pointed, head cocked.
“Templeton Peck, the little shit that’s running the money on this,” Hannibal said, and waved them both inside. “We need to talk, boys.”
They followed him in, but the colonel could feel the confusion in them. They weren’t going to like this. He already knew that.
BA kicking the door shut behind them, Hannibal went for his room and his suitcase and garment bag and toiletry kit and extra shoes. “We’re not going to argue about this, boys. It’s the way it has to be, it’s the way it has to be.”
He didn’t have to look to know they were exchanging that look again. That fucking insubordinate look that they’d been exchanging more and more lately. It irritated the piss out of him.
And Hannibal was not at all surprised when it was BA who spoke first.
“What up, boss?”
“Boys, I have to leave. The deal’s not going down here. It’s happening in Bangkok. I’ve been given instructions on how this is going to work.” He sighed, and went for the closet. “Murdock?”
“Yessir,” the pilot said. His usual expression with none of the typical fire. Odd.
“I’ve been given instructions on how the deal’s going down. I have to leave today. By train, and evidently, it’s a three day journey. Murdock, you ad BA are checking out today. Head to Paya Lebar, get the plane refueled, file a flight plan for Bangkok International, and follow these, “ he handed them the hand-written note, “to get to the Mandarin Oriental. You’ve got an all-expense paid stay for the next four nights. I’ve got your room number, I’ll call the second I get in. We’ll find a place to rendevous, get the plates, get back to the States and get our lives back. Sosa, if she comes, has to work out her own route there. Make sure she understands that’s coming from me.”
They looked at each other again. Hannibal felt another strong twinge of irritation.
“Anythin’ else, boss?” BA asked slowly.
Hannibal nodded, and tried to smile. “I would advise getting some R&R in and sticking close to the hotel. Bangkok’s a dangerous city.”
“Right, with the ladyboys and all!” Murdock offered, taking the note, but his eyes were troubled.
BA was more direct. “What the fuck, man? Why we doin’ this?”
And that, for some reason he couldn’t explain, even to himself, set something off deep inside the colonel.
“Dammit, corporal! Would you follow one of my fucking orders for a change without questioning the fucking thing!?! Get your head out of your insubordinate ass, clean the shit out of your ears and do what you’re fucking told! If this is how the deal’s going down, then this is what we’re doing!”
“Bossman, I think he just meant...”
“...why we goin’ along with this?”
“We are on a very compressed timetable here,” Hannibal said, weary all of the sudden, and shut the lid on his suitcase. That was everything. The room clock said 0946. He had to get going. “I don’t have time to sit here and explain every little detail. Please. I do not have time for a fight right now.” And with that, he grabbed his luggage and headed for the door.
BA got in front of him. “Hold on a sec, boss, what gotten into you lately? You been pissed off ever since we got here...”
Templeton Peck, that ugly little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but Hannibal knew exactly what it do to them both if they found out he’d let some strange man, the enemy, for all intents and purposes, fuck him in the ass. Twice. And that he couldn’t stop thinking about the kid. The irritating, smug, shallow, asinine, beautiful kid.
“It’s the heat,” he tossed back over his shoulder, and was gone.
+++++
Face settled back into the comfortable observation car in the rear of the train as the shining expanse of downown Singapore gave way to the interior jungle and slummy Malay and Indian neighborhoods. A liveried waiter brought him a perfectly mixed Singapore Sling in a Venetian handblow glass highball, and across from him, a pair of obviously divorced and obviously rich women were stealing glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. Ripe for the taking. Everything exactly as Old World opulent as it should be. Damn, but he loved places like this. Old world, all teak and velvet and silver and ivory, like something out of Golden Age Hollywood or 18th Century British Empire.
Lovely.
He sipped at his drink, and consulted his watch. 1225. Mark Singer, John Smith, Hannibal, whoever the fuck it was, should be in his cabin by now. Three days, two nights. Plenty of time for something to happen. To throw the old man off balance. To buy himself some time, and an ally, in dealing with Lynch.
Lynch hadn’t been exactly happy about this plan. But Face had promised to soften Hannibal up for a fantastic kill.
Face, baby, he’s no idiot...
Two nights, Van? After he’s already let me fuck him? I’ll turn him so far upside down that by the time he figures out which was is up, it’ll be far too late...
The blowjob he’d given Vance right before that hadn’t hurt anything.
He licked his lips happily, chasing a drop of that diving local cocktail, and those women giggled to themselves. Sure, he could have one of them. Rich, lonely women in their late thirties, starting to worry about their wrinkles, who took thousand-dollar spa days on a regular basis, terrified their husbands wouldn't keep them once he got an eyeful of the new secretary, longing to be shown they were still beautiful, were always an experience to be savored. Or, perhaps, the female attendant, gorgeous dark-skinned Thai girl, pliable and willing and experienced. Or those British newlyweds, honeymooning with new passports and daddy’s credit card, the girl so sweet, her young husband so innocent, always such a treat to seduce, fuck her in front of him, then him in front of her, blow their minds...
But he wasn’t dreaming about pussy right now. Or ass, if he was honest with himself. No, this was completely about cock. Hannibal’s. Gigantic. Wonderful. Cock.
Face smiled to himself, and traced a little spiral on the train window with a finger, wet from condensation off the glass he was holding. Bottoming was all a frame of mind. If he wanted net, reel in, capture the older man, gut him like a fish, then yes. Bottoming was actually a wonderful way of doing that, luring a man into thinking you trust him, only to twist the knife in at the end...
Yes. Wonderful.
Even if...
And Face felt a flutter of...well, not regret. But there was something about Hannibal, something noble, something...something of that old military spirit, the duty-honor-country, apple-pie-with-Kraft-singles-cheese, that had once appealed to the naive boy he'd been.
Something worth not destroying.
And maybe, maybe he wouldn’t have to. Face mulled that for a moment. Depending on what was going on with Lynch, if Terry was able to get anything further from Uri, if Lynch was setting him up for a double-cross or some such thing as that, maybe he wouldn’t have to crush the former colonel.
Maybe the rest of the plan, the part Lynch had insisted upon, wouldn’t have to go down.
But the former agent seemed to have some kind of grudge against not just Hannibal, but his whole team as well. Including that woman the surveillance team had photographed with them, Char-something-or-other.
And Face had a sudden flash of Cadet Murdock, yelling at him in Beast to walk his imaginary dog Billy, everybody laughing, including him, including the cadre, everybody but Murdock, Murdock so serious...He'd liked the man.
Lynch, well, Lynch didn't...
But thinking was getting him nowhere, Face knew, and he looked down at the pristine ticket on the table in front of him.
Templeton Peck
Presidential Cabin.
Hannibal really did have no idea what Face had had to do to get that particular cabin, on a train that was normally reserved half a year in advance.
He certainly didn’t get to have it all to himself.
Peck chuckled as he rose. Time to break to the old man he was going to have a roommate for the next two nights and collect his cell phone and seduce him properly.
Oh, this was going to be so much fun.
Rating: R
Warnings: none
Summary: A year after the jailbreak, the three members of the A-Team are hired under the table by the DoD to take down the two men responsible for the as-yet unresolved theft of the Treasury plates - ex-CIA agent Vance “Lynch” Buress and former Spec-Ops officer Templeton “Faceman” Peck.
a/n: I've gone sooooo long without an update on this. I apologize. But I finally have some free time from meme fills and this story's been burning a hole in my brain all summer. I'm gonna try to update this as often as possible until we're done! Previous chapters here!
The door barely shut behind Singer, Hannibal, whoever the fuck he was, before Lynch was out of the slatted closet and on top of Face, slamming him back down on the bed.
“That little display, sweetheart, was almost worth this entire thing,” the former agent purred, and bit, hard, behind the ear where it wouldn’t show.
And Face let him. Like he always did.
He had to admit, even to himself, as his partner in crime was stripping him naked, that this guy, Hannibal, was pretty goddamn good. Almost as good as him with a con. if any of this was actually a con for the old guy.
If the mercenary hadn’t been expecting it, he might not have seen the way the older guy slipped that thumbdrive into the USB on the side of his laptop, tumbling them around even as he’d been dragged back to the bedroom.
And how easily Hannibal had gone down today compared to yesterday, head thrown back, all the fine muscles in that neck exposed, straining, begging to be bitten, how he’d seemed to welcome it.
Face supposed he could have missed the way Hannibal seemed to last, holding on to that thin tipping point, not falling into orgasm until some probably pre-determined length of time had passed.
And Face knew he definitely wouldn’t have noticed, not after coming that hard, that fast, collapsing on his back onto the hopeless rumpled covers, how Hannibal paused, bending, sore, to grab the damn thing on the way out of the room.
Not if he hadn’t been looking for it.
No, he reflected, detached, even now, with Lynch throwing him around and pushing in with one brutal, wonderful thrust that had him groaning, nothing but hotel hand lotion to ease the way, Hannibal was good. And not just with the deception.
The disgraced colonel hadn’t been faking the lust, the raw, barren need. The emptiness, longing to be filled. No. Not with that face, those eyes. The same expression the mercenary had seen in warzones, in back alleys and barfights, villages in Africa and the streets of downtown LA. That expression that spoke of too much seen, too little done, nothing felt.
The eyes of somebody who still clung to hope. Even when he knew there wasn’t any.
Face felt warm inside.
All the possibilities.
All the things they could do to the man.
How much fucking fun it could be.
And then he remembered the way Hannibal had reached out when they were done, reached back and helped him roll down onto the bed, when he’d come, so hard at the thought of fucking a colonel, fucking over one of the assholes who’d put himself in this goddamn position, this life, cast him out of the only place he’d ever wanted to be... and there Hannibal was, letting his hand linger just a little too long, his touch just a little too soft, a little too gentle.
Like there was something...
But it wasn’t that. No, wasn’t the thoughtless affection, wasn’t the curiosity over what a slow, sweet fuck might feel like, wasn’t even the tiny what-if, the little whisper of what if I’d had him instead of motherfucking Glines for a CO back then, the little spark that seemed to pass between them each time they touched, that was getting Face hard right now.
Nope.
No.
None of that.
He couldn’t allow himself anything like that.
So he canted his ass back and grabbed around for Lynch’s wildly thrusting hip.
“Come on, Vanny-boy,” Face sneered, “can’t you go harder than that?”
“Fuck... you...Peck,” the former agent ground out in between breaths.
And jammed in really, really hard.
Almost hard enough to keep those traitorous thoughts from Face’s mind, and he dropped his head into the crook of his elbow, and when he moaned, when Lynch came deep in, he tried to tell himself it wasn’t Hannibal he was somehow, suddenly, inexplicably thinking of.
No.
Never that.
+++++
Hannibal’s suite was empty when he got back, Murdock and BA and Sosa, his little team and unwanted chaperone, all gone. And he supposed he should have been worried about that, wondering if they were okay, if Lynch had made them or soemthing, but still. He couldn’t summon anything like that.
Barely past lunch time.
And he was exhausted.
He was sore, too, that squelching deep down in his gut reminding him, refusing to let him forget, exactly what he’d done today, but offering him no reason for why. Why he had done that. Why he had let the arrogant brat do that.
He didn’t bottom. He just...didn’t. Not normally. Not ever. Not since Russ, all those years ago...but that was a whole other can of worms he coulnd’t open right now. Couldn’t think about why he seemed to pick out the men who were going to hurt him. How similar that kid seemed to his now-dead lover, despite the differences in background, in lifestyle, in the cut of their suits, the way their skin smelled...
His cellphone buzzed in his pocket. A text.
Pilot wanted something to read boss. Took him to the library. We fine.
The former colonel laughed to himself. He could have died laughing right then.
Motherfucker.
He was actually relieved that his team wasn’t there with him, right then, to watch the shame just unfurl. And he considered, actually considered, not going through with any of this. Of calling Charisa to fuck off. Pulling the boys, going home, working those shit-for-pay jobs in the States and Canada and Central America until they all old and gray or dead, whichever came first...
But there was this job.
A job to do, a job he had to do, a job he had to see through for Harmon, he reminded himself, and stripped for a shower, wincing a little as he removed his briefs, remembering the way the kid’s smooth, soft hands had felt against his hips, and shuddered his way through the cold, quick spray. Just enough to get the scent of a foreign cologne off his skin, and the worst of the evidence cleaned away, and his skin prickled against the soft pile of the huge, huge towel as he dried himself as efficiently as he was able.
A fresh suit, a clean shirt, all of it pale and appropriate, Hannibal dressed quickly and left quickly, knowing he’d be wanted at the library where BA and Murdock would be, working on the bid.
He grabbed his cell phone and his key card, trying to wipe all thoughts of that accountant from his mind as he left the room and the hotel and passed the taxis, determining that a walk would clear his head.
Of those fucking stupid thoughts he couldn’t afford to be carrying right now.
Too much to do.
But the kid kept coming to him as he walked, down the long white bridges and bright, wide streets of the tropical city, passing the modern architectural travesties soaring high overhead, old, old temples sprawling low, reeking of hundreds of years of incense, the people milling through in everything from formal business wear to bright threadbare cottons, flip-flops sounding wetly against the impeccably maintained sidewalks and asphalt crossings, smells pouring outof covered arcades and the stands of street vendors, coolly conditioned air spilling from promenades fronting the shops of European lables he’d never heard of before.
Hannibal had eyes for none of it.
He couldn’t get the kid out of his mind.
That man, Templeton Peck.
Hands and skin and mouth hot against the back of his neck, gasped breaths and that reaching cock, the way it all just seemed to fall into place when he’d sunk in, like how despite the roughness, the kid was looking for something, wanting desperately to find it, the hard thrusts nothing more than that, no desire to hurt, a plea for something, something to fill up a vacant life, devoid of anything real...
But it was useless, all of it, wondering about any of it, and he found himself at the main library, climbing to the third floor where the terminals were, according to the English/Chinese directory on the open-air bottom floor, next to the wide atrium and its twisted jungle hardwoods, finding his boys, Murdock trying to play with BA’s hand while BA tried to play with the computer. The two of them happy together, in that strange sort of way of theirs, so peculiar to them, so old and familiar and so comfortable.
Hannibal’s heart jerked, just a bit, but that was no answer. So he just pulled up a chair beside them, and clapped his pilot on the shoulder.
“How are things going, Murdock?”
That dark head turned to him, and shoulder shrugged within the Hawaiian shirt. “Fine, sir. Bosco’s in...”
“Don’t look good, man,” the corporal said, one finger playing across the top of the mouse. He had one of those black coding boxes up, nothing fancy and extremely hard to read. “Three hundred wouldn’t’a done it, most gots theirs in around four, but you got this,” and he pointed at a glowing white line. “Some fool biddin’ almost eight hundred.”
789.
Million
Yeah, he could see that. Who paid that kind of money for forged engraving plates alone? Especially right now, as the dollar seemed poised to bottom completely out in the world markets entirely...
“Who?”
BA pulled the keyboard closer to himself. “Haf’ta look.”
Hannibal nodded, and fingered his cell in his pocket. “Where’s Charisa?”
“Shoppin’ on Sentosa,” Murdock replied immediately. “Said she thought it was good cover.”
He sighed. “That fucking woman,” the colonel grumbled to himself, and pulled the phone out. “Can you access that account of hers from here?”
It was BA’s turn to shrug. “Maybe, man.”
“Set an upper limit of nine. We’ll bid something up there. I’ll let the damn captain know,” he mused, noticing the little glance that passed between his men, and stood up, suddenly more irritated than he knew he had any right to be. “And I’ll get the bid in to Peck by the deadline.”
+++++
“Uri! How you doin’ this evening? Better than last night?” Face asked cheerfully, snapping on a pair of latex surgical gloves from the open door of a makeshift cell.
And he didn’t feel like he was smirking just to be a jackass, like in a James Bond movie or soemthing. It had been a productive day, was all.
The bids were all in by noon. With the exception of Hannibal’s, which had been delivered to his room by an very weary former colonel around 1500. $850 million. More than enough to beat the Chinese bid, which hadn’t been strange in and of itself, coming in at $789M. What had been strange about it was that Vance had declared the Chinese bid the winner from the start - and that made some sense, it was the first to come in and the highest out of all the rest, before Hannibal’s had shown up, by a margin of a hundred mil.
Face didn’t trust coincidences.
Lynch was playing a game with him, Face was beginning to think. Somehow, in some way, Lynch was playing a game. But what the reward could be
The Israeli looked up at him with a grim eyes and a matching smile.
“Just...just fine, Mr. Peck. How are you?”
He paused, taking a better look at the Moussad agent, still in the same place where they’d tossed him earlier, some empty storage room that Shanghai Chen converted, long ago, for this purpose.
The man didn’t look too bad. Yet. A few broken things, under the surface, a few more shallow cuts that had already started to close. A warning, really, and the mercenary knew they were all capable of so, so much worse. That Moussad had its own torture cells. “Fine as well,” he said, a little too slow. “You ready for another round?”
“Another round of what? Your pointless questions?”
“Hardly pointless,” Face replied, keeping that icy smirk in place, and yelled out in Cantonese to the guards behind him. “Need to know what your country’s interest in this little business exchange of my boss’ is.”
“Your boss?” the Israeli coughed, laughing, even as a matched set of guards grabbed him under the arms and started hauling him to his feet. One of which, Face knew, Terry had broken last night. “Your boss? So smart a man, your boss, to get himself out of CIA custody...”
The mercenary barked another command to the Chinese guards, who Shanghai Chen had assured him spoke not a word of English, who most certainly spoke it very, very well, and grabbed the back of Uri’s head, fisting up a handful of dark, lank hair as they stopped what they were doing. “CIA custody?” he asked, rusty Hebrew catching in his throat.
Uri laughed harder at that, spitting blood onto the front of Face’s undershirt. “Yes, you did not hear about that, Peck? They...” and the Hebrew went too fast for him to follow after that, the words Los Angeles and docks and news reports and release....
“They kept it out of the news reports?” he asked, scraping the words together out of the back of his brain, where they’d been sitting unused for the better part of the last five years. But, no, that wouldn’t have mattered. The Company lied about everything, crooked motherfuckers that they were. “The CIA...the CIA had him in custody?”
Uri looked at him pityingly. “You should do your research better, Peck, before you get into bed with a man.”
Lynch hadn’t mentioned this to him. Not once. Not a goddamn word of it. That he’d been picked up after the shit with the container ship, his stupid Black Forest partner blowing a hole in the hull. He’d tried to talk the agent into letting him come along, instead of Pike, but he’d been refused, been paid for Morrison, sent away...
Contacted a few months later, for this job.
His head spun with questions. How long had Lynch been in custody? When had he gotten out? How? Was he snuck out by anther traitor in the Company?
Or had he been let go?
And if so, if that, why?
And why was he so fucking eager, now, to do this deal with the Chinese?
What the fuck was going on?
The mercenary let his eyes narrow and kept his face slack, hoping the initial shock hadn’t registered for Uri’s viewing pleasure, and forced himself to laugh. “Who said Lynch was masterminding this, faggot?” he said, bullshitting all the way.
But that got the slightest tick of an eyebrow, and then the Israeli shook his head, unimpressed. “The things our countries will do to us, no?” And he spat, switching back to English. “What is your plan for today? Start chopping?”
Face grinned, and let go of his head. “Not yet.”
And he took the guards with him as he left the cell.
Time for plan B.
+++++
“Congratulations,” Peck was saying, beaming at Hannibal in the hallway of the hotel, leaning against the alcove wall on one arm like he owned the fucking place, one hand extended, a white envelop from the hotel stationary. He had light driving gloves on and his hair was artfully mussed, like he’d been out for a morning’s jaunt in his Zonda convertible. Smart, the colonel thought, and wondered how much experience this kid had with criminal activity. He tried very hard not to think about how fucking sexy it made Peck look. It was far too early to start thinking about sex, even if his sleep had been so troubled by it last night he’d only gotten to sleep a few hours back. What time was it, anyway? “Your bid was the winning bid. By a margin we just couldn’t ignore.”
Hannibal looked at the envelop, and then back up at that handsome, sneering face.
Except, in his mind, it wasn’t sneering. It had that same soft expression he’d seen there yesterday.
When he’d let the kid fuck him again, but only to buy time for the software to load. A soft, almost surprised expression after they’d stopped, after Peck came, after they came apart. When Hannibal inadvertently touched him, and left his hand a bit too long. So warm, that boy, so unlike the cold marble of the mask he wore, he’d thought at the time. And then that expression. Like the kid had forgotten what affection felt like.
Like he’s never known.
The former colonel bit the inside of his cheek. Dammit, John, goddammit, he told himself. Stop thinking with your eagles. This isn’t some green lieutenant, you can’t help him, you can’t show him, you’ve lost that right...
“I don’t think the plates are in there,” he said instead, trying to keep down the sudden, raging thought that he could kiss the boy breathless and give him some kind of real life in so doing. “Is that my receipt?”
Peck laughed, perfect white teeth flashing, bright as a tiger’s. “This is a train ticket, Mr. Singer. A round trip ticket to Bangkok on the Orient Express. Round-trip, first class ticket, may I add?”
Wait, what? “Come again?”
“It is,” and Lynch’s financier opened the edge of Hannibal’s suit jacket and tucked the envelop into the interior pocket, “a ticket to Bangkok, Thailand, where, in four days’ time, you will get your plates. And we will expect the money wired to the designated accounts.”
“Why do I have to go to Bangkok?” he asked, a hint of threat in his voice.
That just made Peck smile more broadly. “Because that’s where the plates are, of course.”
Fighting the urge to hit the kid - hit the kid or kiss him or just do something to wipe that fucking smug smirk off his face - Hannibal took a deep breath and told his temper to shut it. “Why are the plates in Bangkok, kid?”
“Because I took them there.”
He growled. “Peck...”
“I do like you when you growl, John,” the brat murmured, and took one step towards him, then another, shoving him back into the room, playing with his as-of-yet untied tie as he backed him into the nearest wall. Hannibal could feel his heart starting to race, loud in his ears, and thanked whatever god still might have the patience to deal with him that BA and Murdock hadn’t come over yet. He’d never told them, never told them he was...that he liked...
“But I don’t like you when you’re thinking,” Peck continued, silk sliding through his fingers. “You’re not thinking about me when you’re thinking, and I don’t like that at all.”
“Kid...” he warmed.
And then his head hit the wall, Peck’s hand on his cheek, thumb playing over the older man’s lips. “You have to go to Bangkok to pick up the plates because we’re not idiots, and we’re not going to stow that kind of merchandise anywhere near a deal like this. Not everybody’s as straight-laced as you are, Mark...”
Sensing an opportunity, Hannibal wrapped the kid’s hand in one of his own, big and rough around it, and sucked that thumb gently in, curling his tongue around the manicured nail, just enough suction to get the kid gasping, and then he released, pulling close. “Who said I’m straight-laced?”
“The only honest people in NGOs are the Americans and the idiots who don’t know how to work the system,” Peck murmured back, and Hannibal noticed the kid’s fingers, in that butter-soft leather, had woven up into the short hairs on the back of his neck. “I know you aren’t going to screw us. By my employers want proof. Our exchange, our way.”
“I have a private plane, you know,” Hannibal replied in kind, soft, letting his voice drop an octave. There was definitely something here. Something in this boy, begging for something...tender, maybe. Something, maybe, he could use. “I can be there in an hour.”
“Two,” Peck challenged, blue eyes flashing with forced humor. “And you can’t fly because you have to take the train. You have to suffer through a three-day train journey that’s considered one of the most luxurious in the world, through some of the most beautiful country in the world. So we can watch you. And your phone. And remove your access to the world wide web.” He tightened his grip in Hannibal’s hair, going from sensuous to painful in a heartsbeat. “So we can make sure you aren’t going to screw us.”
The former colonel nodded. Watched. Monitored. Observed. That made sense. Hannibal could appreciate the simple elegance of that plan. And he nodded. “I’m sure my bodyguard will appreciate...”
“Not your bodyguard,” Peck said, and his voice was cold. “You can have him, and your pilot, meet you at Madarin Oriental any time you please. I’ve got them a suite booked for the entire time. They could check in tonight, if they’d like. But they are not going with you. Watching you means,” and the younger man arched up, rubbing against him, to trail one gloved finger down Hannibal’s nose, “watching you.”
“Somebody’s going to be on the train with me,” he guessed, gritting his teeth as he could feel himself growing hard. “And somebody’s going to be watching my boys at the hotel.”
“Perceptive.” The financier pulled back again, flashing Hannibal that perfect smile once more, and looked around the room. “I do hope you’re packed, Mr. Singer. That train leaves from Woodland Railway at twelve-fifteen, but you have to check in at the front desk before ten.”
Hannibal looked at his watch. It wasn’t there, though, so he grabbed Peck’s wrist, staring down at the face of his Omega Seamaster. “It’s nine-thirty-two now.”
“Yes, aren’t you glad I came by?” He grinned, and patted Hannibal’s breast, right where he’d tucked the ticket in. “Don’t be late. Or do, and lose an eight hundred million bid.”
Hannibal smiled, despite himself, and shook his head. A very good plan. He wasn’t used to being outfoxed like this. “Well played, kid. Well played.”
Peck turned, back to the still-open door, letting Hannibal get a good view of his jean-clad ass, calling over his shoulder as he left, “I had to work hard to get you the good suite, Mark. Don’t fucking screw it up now!”
Hannibal sagged back against the wall after the kid left, torn between panicking over packing and getting downstairs in twenty-eight minutes, or feeling pissed that this was his first solo encounter with the kid that hadn’t ended in an orgasm. He took the envelop out with an unsteady hand, looking over the tickets inside.
Mark Singer
Presidential Cabin
There was also a note in there with reservation numbers and addresses for the hotel in question. Even a limo, to pick the boys up from the airport. Sosa would have to figure out her own transportation on this one. Not that he much cared, but...
He sighed, removed the hotel instructions, and tucked the tickets away again. A sleeper train. Wonderful. Exactly what he needed to make this damn mission even better.
Hannibal went for the door, just to see if Peck was still out there, mocking him, waiting for some kind of reaction, but all he saw was the kid’s retreating form.
And the approach bulk of BA and Murdock, the latter of whom was staring down the hall, like he was trying to figure something out, watching Peck.
“Who’s that?” he asked, pointed, head cocked.
“Templeton Peck, the little shit that’s running the money on this,” Hannibal said, and waved them both inside. “We need to talk, boys.”
They followed him in, but the colonel could feel the confusion in them. They weren’t going to like this. He already knew that.
BA kicking the door shut behind them, Hannibal went for his room and his suitcase and garment bag and toiletry kit and extra shoes. “We’re not going to argue about this, boys. It’s the way it has to be, it’s the way it has to be.”
He didn’t have to look to know they were exchanging that look again. That fucking insubordinate look that they’d been exchanging more and more lately. It irritated the piss out of him.
And Hannibal was not at all surprised when it was BA who spoke first.
“What up, boss?”
“Boys, I have to leave. The deal’s not going down here. It’s happening in Bangkok. I’ve been given instructions on how this is going to work.” He sighed, and went for the closet. “Murdock?”
“Yessir,” the pilot said. His usual expression with none of the typical fire. Odd.
“I’ve been given instructions on how the deal’s going down. I have to leave today. By train, and evidently, it’s a three day journey. Murdock, you ad BA are checking out today. Head to Paya Lebar, get the plane refueled, file a flight plan for Bangkok International, and follow these, “ he handed them the hand-written note, “to get to the Mandarin Oriental. You’ve got an all-expense paid stay for the next four nights. I’ve got your room number, I’ll call the second I get in. We’ll find a place to rendevous, get the plates, get back to the States and get our lives back. Sosa, if she comes, has to work out her own route there. Make sure she understands that’s coming from me.”
They looked at each other again. Hannibal felt another strong twinge of irritation.
“Anythin’ else, boss?” BA asked slowly.
Hannibal nodded, and tried to smile. “I would advise getting some R&R in and sticking close to the hotel. Bangkok’s a dangerous city.”
“Right, with the ladyboys and all!” Murdock offered, taking the note, but his eyes were troubled.
BA was more direct. “What the fuck, man? Why we doin’ this?”
And that, for some reason he couldn’t explain, even to himself, set something off deep inside the colonel.
“Dammit, corporal! Would you follow one of my fucking orders for a change without questioning the fucking thing!?! Get your head out of your insubordinate ass, clean the shit out of your ears and do what you’re fucking told! If this is how the deal’s going down, then this is what we’re doing!”
“Bossman, I think he just meant...”
“...why we goin’ along with this?”
“We are on a very compressed timetable here,” Hannibal said, weary all of the sudden, and shut the lid on his suitcase. That was everything. The room clock said 0946. He had to get going. “I don’t have time to sit here and explain every little detail. Please. I do not have time for a fight right now.” And with that, he grabbed his luggage and headed for the door.
BA got in front of him. “Hold on a sec, boss, what gotten into you lately? You been pissed off ever since we got here...”
Templeton Peck, that ugly little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but Hannibal knew exactly what it do to them both if they found out he’d let some strange man, the enemy, for all intents and purposes, fuck him in the ass. Twice. And that he couldn’t stop thinking about the kid. The irritating, smug, shallow, asinine, beautiful kid.
“It’s the heat,” he tossed back over his shoulder, and was gone.
+++++
Face settled back into the comfortable observation car in the rear of the train as the shining expanse of downown Singapore gave way to the interior jungle and slummy Malay and Indian neighborhoods. A liveried waiter brought him a perfectly mixed Singapore Sling in a Venetian handblow glass highball, and across from him, a pair of obviously divorced and obviously rich women were stealing glances at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. Ripe for the taking. Everything exactly as Old World opulent as it should be. Damn, but he loved places like this. Old world, all teak and velvet and silver and ivory, like something out of Golden Age Hollywood or 18th Century British Empire.
Lovely.
He sipped at his drink, and consulted his watch. 1225. Mark Singer, John Smith, Hannibal, whoever the fuck it was, should be in his cabin by now. Three days, two nights. Plenty of time for something to happen. To throw the old man off balance. To buy himself some time, and an ally, in dealing with Lynch.
Lynch hadn’t been exactly happy about this plan. But Face had promised to soften Hannibal up for a fantastic kill.
Face, baby, he’s no idiot...
Two nights, Van? After he’s already let me fuck him? I’ll turn him so far upside down that by the time he figures out which was is up, it’ll be far too late...
The blowjob he’d given Vance right before that hadn’t hurt anything.
He licked his lips happily, chasing a drop of that diving local cocktail, and those women giggled to themselves. Sure, he could have one of them. Rich, lonely women in their late thirties, starting to worry about their wrinkles, who took thousand-dollar spa days on a regular basis, terrified their husbands wouldn't keep them once he got an eyeful of the new secretary, longing to be shown they were still beautiful, were always an experience to be savored. Or, perhaps, the female attendant, gorgeous dark-skinned Thai girl, pliable and willing and experienced. Or those British newlyweds, honeymooning with new passports and daddy’s credit card, the girl so sweet, her young husband so innocent, always such a treat to seduce, fuck her in front of him, then him in front of her, blow their minds...
But he wasn’t dreaming about pussy right now. Or ass, if he was honest with himself. No, this was completely about cock. Hannibal’s. Gigantic. Wonderful. Cock.
Face smiled to himself, and traced a little spiral on the train window with a finger, wet from condensation off the glass he was holding. Bottoming was all a frame of mind. If he wanted net, reel in, capture the older man, gut him like a fish, then yes. Bottoming was actually a wonderful way of doing that, luring a man into thinking you trust him, only to twist the knife in at the end...
Yes. Wonderful.
Even if...
And Face felt a flutter of...well, not regret. But there was something about Hannibal, something noble, something...something of that old military spirit, the duty-honor-country, apple-pie-with-Kraft-singles-cheese, that had once appealed to the naive boy he'd been.
Something worth not destroying.
And maybe, maybe he wouldn’t have to. Face mulled that for a moment. Depending on what was going on with Lynch, if Terry was able to get anything further from Uri, if Lynch was setting him up for a double-cross or some such thing as that, maybe he wouldn’t have to crush the former colonel.
Maybe the rest of the plan, the part Lynch had insisted upon, wouldn’t have to go down.
But the former agent seemed to have some kind of grudge against not just Hannibal, but his whole team as well. Including that woman the surveillance team had photographed with them, Char-something-or-other.
And Face had a sudden flash of Cadet Murdock, yelling at him in Beast to walk his imaginary dog Billy, everybody laughing, including him, including the cadre, everybody but Murdock, Murdock so serious...He'd liked the man.
Lynch, well, Lynch didn't...
But thinking was getting him nowhere, Face knew, and he looked down at the pristine ticket on the table in front of him.
Templeton Peck
Presidential Cabin.
Hannibal really did have no idea what Face had had to do to get that particular cabin, on a train that was normally reserved half a year in advance.
He certainly didn’t get to have it all to himself.
Peck chuckled as he rose. Time to break to the old man he was going to have a roommate for the next two nights and collect his cell phone and seduce him properly.
Oh, this was going to be so much fun.
