Dirty Deals: Olesia Anderson Thriller #1 Free Epub Edition Read online

  With his fingers on her clit and his cock teasing against her g-spot, she knew she couldn't hold out much longer. She reached out blind until she found Rostam's hand and wound her fingers through his. "I'm going to-"

  He squeezed her hand tight, not losing his rhythm. He growled in the back of his throat. "You are beautiful," he said.

  "Fuck, it's not time for flattery! I'm about to-"

  He pulled out of her until the tip of his cock was just resting against her pussy lips, and Olesia was about to cry "No fair!" when he bucked back into her. A jolt of heat rolled up her spine and exploded behind her eyes. She arched her back, wailing soundlessly as her orgasm took her. Her toes curled and her fingers bent back into claws. There was light and electricity boiling inside her, and she squeezed down on Rostam's girth, desperate not to let it go.

  Rostam was saying something but his words were all a blur. She reached up to paw at his chest. Her fingers were numb. "Good," she said, "good, good," as if she'd forgotten the rest of the English language. "So good."

  Rostam pulled out of her and let her legs unfold. She took a deep breath, and the haze lifted from her eyes. She said, "Did you finish?"

  Rostam didn't reply. He was rooting around at the foot of the bed, in one of his bags.

  Olesia stretched, raising her arms far over her head, feeling her spine pop. Everything from the waist down was tingling. "You really know how to fuck."

  Rostam looked up. His eyes were blank, and there was something in his hands. "I have practice."

  "You've got a Masters degree in dicking, that's what you've got." She rolled over on the bed, feeling the sheet cling to her sweaty skin. "You want to go again?"

  "No." Rostam stood suddenly. "I want you to answer my questions."

  The thing in his hands shone in the moonlight.

  Cuffs.

  Olesia rolled away, reaching for her handbag, but it was already too late. Even as her fingers brushed the leather he was pulling her back, his strong fingers squeezing her wrist so hard she screamed. The cuffs clicked around her right wrist, and then he dragged her across to the foot of the bed and slapped the other end of the cuffs around the iron railings.

  She tried to pull away but the cuffs were too tight. "You fucker!"

  There was no smile in Rostam's eyes. "Your name is not Anita King. You are Olesia Anderson, and you are a Blackrock contractor. Or am I wrong?"

  "Untie me," she hissed, "or I'll dig out your eyes and shit in the sockets."

  In reply, he took a second set of cuffs from his bag. Olesia kicked and wriggled but he managed to grab her left foot and close the cuffs around her ankle. That set of cuffs was latched around the other end of the bed, leaving her stretched out across the length of the mattress. She yanked as hard as she could but the cuffs didn't shift.

  Finally, she gave up. "Okay, you win. What do you want?"

  Rostam sat on the end of the bed, just out of reach of Olesia's teeth. He had her handbag, and he picked through it carefully, like he was defusing a ticking bomb. "Beretta PX4. I like this gun. Excellent balance. And this?" He held her lock-drill out at arm's length. "They do not issue us with these. But, Blackrock is not government, and you are not a proper spy, are you? Not like your parents."

  She froze. "Who told you?"

  "I know you are the daughter of CIA and KGB agents. Your father was Gregory Anderson. Your mother, her name is protected. They met in Chicago. They died when you were fifteen. Now you do as they did, but for a private enterprise. I know all about you, Miss Anderson, and if you want to leave here you must tell me all you know about Zero Error."

  Olesia scowled. "I don't know anything. Why do you think I fucked you, for the fun of it?"

  "I had hoped, yes." He turned away. "Young is dead, isn't he?"

  "Yeah. Shot."

  "I knew, when I saw you at the bar." He took the MicroSD out of his bag and held it close to his face. "He is dead, and you still bargain."

  "It's not my data. I don't care what you do with it. Now let... me... go!"

  Rostam sighed. "Zero Error... there is more to them than the boys they hire to shoot and steal. We thought maybe they were a branch of your CIA, but if you have never heard of them before..."

  He stood and vanished into the bathroom. Olesia called after him. "Hey! Hey, asshole! This hurts, you know. We can cut you a deal! You don't want to end up on the wrong side of-"

  He came out from the bathroom with something in his hand, and Olesia froze. A roll of black tape.

  "It was good to work with you, Miss Anderson. I wish it would happen again some day, but I think we live on different sides of a very wide line."

  He unrolled the tape, and Olesia began to scream.

  Chapter 6

  Rostam got dressed and left her there, stretched across the bed. Once the door was shut Olesia tried breaking the chains on the cuffs, but they were too strong, and she only ended up peeling the skin from her wrists. Then she attempted to shake the bed apart, but it was built solid, bolted to the ground. Even with her free hand she couldn't reach her handbag or phone, not without tearing her left arm from the socket.

  Bastard. At least he hadn't touched her after taping her mouth shut. Small mercies. All she could do now was wait, and she did.

  It seemed a very long time before there came a knock at the door. Olesia tried to shout through the tape but all that came out was a muffled groan. The knocking came again. Then a whisper: "On two-"

  The door burst open, swinging hard on its hinges and slamming into the wall. There were two shapes there, men hidden behind the glare of their flashlights. She saw, below the flashlights, the shimmer of black steel. Pistols, pointed at her.

  One man nodded to the other and they came through the door in perfect time, one covering the bathroom entrance and the other the far window. "Clear!"

  "Clear." The first man flicked the lights, and Olesia blinked in the sudden brightness. "Eight-Oh-Six is bound but not injured."

  He leaned over to tear away the tape, and Olesia spat to clear the taste from her mouth. "Not injured? I can't feel my fingers! Get this shit off or I'll show you not injured!"

  The Blackrock agent didn't smile as he took a lock drill from a pouch on his belt. The drill groaned and sputtered as it worked through the hard steel, but finally the cuffs fell open, and Olesia sat up, balling her hands into fists and wriggling her toes. Her fingernails were purple, and she massaged them until the colour returned. "Motherfucker. Where're my clothes?"

  But the two agents had already spread into the far corners of the hotel room, turning over cushions and snapping blacklight photos of the bedspread. Olesia staggered across the room to where her skirt and jacket lay in a crumpled pile. The carpet seemed a hundred miles away, and the hotel walls floated around her, expanding and contracting with every breath.

  "Fucker," she whispered. "Fucking asshole dogshit bastard." Her phone was buzzing. Sparks, as she'd guessed. "What?"

  "Olesia?" Sparks sounded hesitant. "Are you-"

  "I'm fine. Peachy. He took my gun, my wallet and my dignity. I'm going to skin him alive."

  "Calm down, it's not that-"

  "Calm down? Fuck you, Sparks! You're not here!"

  Sparks went quiet. There was only static on the line. Olesia ducked her head. "Sorry. It's just... not been the best day."

  "Yeah. Sure. And when you're done pitying yourself and pissing off your friends, you can chase him down. The tracker dot is working. I'm watching him swing west right now."

  Olesia straightened. "You're seriously tracking his butthole?"

  "I'm... what?"

  "Don't worry. I need my equipment. SP-01, vest and a fast car. Get Jean to bring them over."

  A pause. "Jean isn't answering, but the men you're with now have more than enough gear. Are you going to try something stupid again?"

  "How is it you always read my mind? Synergy, that's what it is." She clicked her fingers, summoning one of the agents to her side. "Got an iPad?" He nodded. "Gimme. S
parks, can you send that tracking data to-"

  "Way ahead of you. Google maps plugin, easy as pie."

  "Mwah mwah." She set the phone down and cracked her neck, her spine, her sternum. Something like a smile played across her lips. "Rostam, your ass is mine."

  * * *

  The two agents insisted on riding along - a call to headquarters confirmed that they weren't to let Olesia out of their sight. "For your own safety, Eight-Oh-Six. Your performance over the past days hasn't been perfect-"

  She'd hung up at that point, preferring to concentrate on the iPad propped up against the windshield. Rostam was leading them east, out of town, past the mud fields and the last of the gas stations, into the wild tundra of Maryland. Fifty years before this might have been cropland, but now it was industrial dirtscape, a shining plain of beercans and rotten tires, burned out VW beetles resting on rusted axles.

  She had a pistol in her lap with two spare magazines, and she loaded as she drove, steering with her knees. The blue pin on her map that was Rostam was accelerating. "Listen up. He's either going to keep on driving until he hits DC, or he's going to make a drop. The buyer is just as important as him, so you two, whatever your names are-"

  "Melton and Paul, Miss."

  "Melton, Paul, stay in the car and chase that fucker down. I'll take Rostam."

  "You sure, Miss?" Melton sniggered. "He seems pretty handy."

  "Want me to put this pistol down your throat?" She chambered a round and flicked the safety. The accelerator was cold under her toes; the men hadn't brought any spare pairs of shoes, and she didn't want to have to run in heels. Another glance at the iPad showed that Rostam's car had come to a stop ten miles ahead. She dialled Sparks. "Situation?"

  "Yeah, I see it. He's pulled over at what looks like an old airfield."

  A drop, then. "Change of plans. Melton, if there's a plane coming in, ground it."

  "How?"

  "Improvise! Drive the car into it, I don't care." Far ahead was a flash of blue: a signal flare, she guessed. Two blinking red lights were swooping in low. Some light aircraft, already preparing to land. She slammed the pedal down. "Get ready!"

  The flare was still flickering when they pulled off the road. The airfield was down a dirt track, and the car rattled as they bounced over potholes and divots. The pistol leaped about in Olesia's lap. Overhead was a burring noise, and then a shadow shot in low, less than twenty yards above the ground. A Cessna, cabin windows dark. "Melton, did you see the numbers on that thing?"

  "Didn't see shit!"

  She grit her teeth. The plane was already on the ground, and they still had half a mile of bad ground to cover. Over the tall grass she could just make out blinking tail lights, and Rostam's flare sputtering and dying.

  Then, in the mirror, she caught a flash of headlights. "Sparks, did you send backup?"

  "Not me, Eight-Oh-Six."

  "Did Jean get the message?"

  "Haven't been able to reach him."

  She flung the phone away. "New new plan. Melton, you keep that plane on the ground. Paul, you deal with whoever's following us."

  "Got it."

  "Got it!"

  The dirt track came to an end, and the car skidded across gravel as they crossed onto the airfield. It was less a proper landing strip than a section of the scrub burned flat and badly paved. At the far end the flare was spitting the last of its light. Rostam was a silhouette against the night sky. Beside him, the plane had already turned and was preparing to take off.

  Olesia hefted the pistol. "And... here we go!"

  She yanked the wheel, and the car swerved out to the left. Olesia was pressed against the window, and she groped out for the handbrake. Pulling it nearly broke her wrist, and the car shuddered to a stop. She was already out and on the ground, aiming at Rostam's chest. He turned, his eyes white and huge in the car headlights. "On the ground!"

  Rostam was smiling. He'd traded his torn suit for a puffy black jacket and gloves, and there was something in his hands that might have been a phone, or a gun. "Are you going to arrest me, Olesia?"

  "Are you going to give me any trouble? Because it's easier for me to shoot you and clean up the mess than drag you back to a police station." When she sighted on Rostam's gut her jacket pulled back from her wrists and she saw the livid marks left by the cuffs. Her aim was steady. She stroked the trigger. "Give me a reason."

  Behind her, Melton was revving the car, but the Cessna was already accelerating across the runway. Olesia wavered. The plane was a good hundred yards away, and it was dark, but if Melton couldn't catch them and knock the plane into the scrub before it got airborne...

  The plane shot past, Melton in pursuit. "Don't move!" Olesia shouted at Rostam, and snapped around. She fired three shots at the receding aircraft, but whether any hit she couldn't tell.

  By the time she turned back, Rostam was already running. "Stop, or I'll take you down!"

  Rostam didn't slow.

  The Cessna's single engine roared as it lifted off. Olesia didn't have time to turn around and watch it vanish into the night sky. Rostam was making for the tall grass on the side of the runway, and once he was deep into that scrub there'd be no hope of catching up. She went after him barefoot, the gravel nipping at her toes. Headlights shone behind her, although whether it was Melton coming back to assist or their pursuers catching up, she couldn't tell. "Rostam!"

  He ducked down into the grass and was gone. She could hear his laboured breath floating up on the chill night air, and she scanned the grass with her pistol held out before her. "Don't make me shoot you. You know I can, and you know I don't care either way-"

  "It's too late." His voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, echoing off the spiny trees growing by the side of the runway. "They have the plans. You do what you want with me. My job is done."

  Olesia swallowed hard, realising how big of a target she made against the night sky. She entered the tall grass and crouched until only the top of her head showed above the swaying reeds. "Was anything you told me true?"

  A long silence. Then, "Do you trust a spy?"

  Behind them, a car screeched to a stop. Shouting carried across the runway. She risked a glance back; four men in white hooded sweatshirts had tumbled out of a jeep. Melton and Paul were crouched behind their car, pistols drawn, yelling. There was a flash, and a crack like a boulder splitting down the middle, and one of the men in white fell on his back on the tarmac, kicking at the air.

  Rostam said, "They came for me, not you."

  The three men reached inside the pouches of their jumpers and drew out wicked black hunks of steel, what looked like Israeli sub-machine guns. There was a rattle of bullets, and Melton and Paul ducked down behind the car as the windshield exploded in a hail of glass.

  Olesia spun, sighted, and dropped one of the Zero Error thugs with a bullet between the shoulder-blades. The others turned, and she dropped flat in the grass as they opened up with their Uzis. The whine of bullets overhead made her scream into the dirt, and the ends of chopped grass floated down into her hair.

  She couldn't see more than a foot ahead. A pistol roared again, and one of the sub-machine guns stopped firing. Somewhere, someone was screaming. Then Melton called, "Got them! They're down! Eight-Oh-Six, are you hurt?"

  She stood slowly, brushing the dirt from her sleeves. Melton and Paul had the last of the Zero Error boys flat on the ground with his hands over his face. She waved, signalling that she was unhurt, and turned back to the field. "Rostam? Get out here. I don't want to drag you out in front of the boys."

  There was no reply. Olesia raised her pistol. "Rostam?" She advanced into the field, stepping lightly over pebbles and broken branches. "Rostam, are you okay?"

  Moonlight shone slick on black blood.

  Rostam lay on his back, one arm thrown up as if to shield his eyes from the moonlight, the other twisted beneath him. His eyes were open, and he coughed weakly as Olesia approached. She crouched beside him, trying to swallow the lump in
her throat. "Rostam?"

  There was no smile on his lips now. "Hurts," he whispered.

  "Where?"

  He didn't move, and she reached out gingerly to tug his shirt open. There were two gaping holes just above Rostam's hip, each the size of a can of coke. Entry through the back, exit through the front. His pants were soaked with blood.

  "Idiot." She pulled off her jacket and pressed it over the wounds. "Keep breathing, okay?" With her free hand she dug her phone out of her pocket, but it slipped, the screen covered in blood. "Keep breathing. Melton! Paul! Call Jean, get an ambulance here now!"

  She turned back to Rostam. His eyes had rolled back in his head and his breath came in fits. The dirt beneath him was soaked. She slapped him across the face. "Look at me!"

  Rostam's lips fluttered. His eyes fixed on her. "You didn't... get them."

  "Get them? Get what?"

  "There's more," he said. "Zero Error. You should be... careful."

  "If they paid me to be careful, I wouldn't be here. Don't die on me. I still have to kick the shit out of you. Hey!" She pressed down harder on the jacket but the blood still pumped slickly between her fingers.

  His eyes rolled back again. His breath rattled between his teeth.

  The ambulance arrived eventually, but by then Rostam had already fallen still.

  Chapter 7

  Olesia hung up her phone and set it on the couch beside her. Her ear was still tingling from headquarters shouting at her down the line, and she'd learned eight new synonyms for fucking idiot. She sighed. "Where did I go wrong, Jean?"

  Jean sat at the other end of the couch, hunched over a laptop. His broad, craggy features were lit in white by the glow of an excel spreadsheet. "Where does anything go wrong? You're a spy for hire. You're paid to eat shit, Olly."