First Blood

He waited until his superior left the scene before heading back to

  headquarters himself to complete the necessary paperwork. He usually

  finished the various forms and reports quickly, but lately he was taking

  his time with them, especially the arrests that happened in the evenings.

  He was in no hurry to get home.

  A knock sounded on his office door, and Nikita looked up into

  the fresh young face of Maksimov, a junior officer.

  “I have the information you were looking for.”

  “Bring it here.”

  The younger man did, standing at ease and awaiting his dismissal.

  Nikita let him wait and turned his attention to the brown envelope and

  the papers within. He'd called in countless professional debts the past

  weeks and had come up empty-handed, which angered him to no end.

  Christopher Gibson existed. The man was no ghost, but he was all

  but untraceable through both normal and slightly irregular channels.

  The most he'd gotten to date were single sheets of paper, half sheets

  even, telling him things he already knew. But this, this would be

  something more, though he wasn't certain what just yet.

  It had better be productive. He'd called in his strongest marker for

  this final try. He paused, his fingertips grazing the tops of the pages. He

  looked up into the expectant face of the young officer. “Go now.”

  ”Yes, thank you.” Maksimov turned crisply on his heel.

  Nikita didn't yet know if he could trust him. This was hardly a

  prestigious unit, so he had to wonder why a kid with such good marks

  and clear intelligence had been posted here. Several other branches

  would have taken him in immediately.

  There was an all-pervading dislike for his little team in the

  Organized Crime Squad. He had high-level enemies in the Moscow

  Police and Interior Ministry, who saw him as an aberration because of

  the way he did his job. Not the brutality—even though Nikita preferred

  to think of it as “emphasis” rather than brutality—but the fact he took

  the metro to work rather than drive a big western car and rented a flat in

  the suburbs rather than owned a flat in central Moscow.

  Nikita pulled out the papers and a typed note attached with a

  paper clip: “You don't have this from me. I expect your immediate

  compliance in return.”

  Nikita smiled. As if he could risk using that nice piece of dirt he

  had on his contact. It might be good for one more favor, though, and he

  wasn't one to waste anything.

  He noticed the “confidential” marks all over the papers, which

  were, doubtlessly, quickly and somewhat haphazardly copied while

  nobody had been looking. Not even leaving an electronic trail.

  Somebody was very worried.

  It was a secret service dossier on an organization called

  GORGON. At first people had worked from the assumption that it was

  some kind of triad or gang, but the more the secret service dug, the

  larger it grew, and Nikita noted a tone of alarm in the dossier.

  A new player in international espionage, established in the fifties

  of the last century as a supranational secret body to, it was thought,

  represent a number of Western European states on the intelligence side

  of the Cold War. A body that kept taps both on CIA and KGB, funded

  from the same pockets that would later fund the formation of the

  European Union. Its HQ was in Switzerland, and it seemed to at least

  have access to the resources of Europol. European Commission stuff—

  reporting only to the highest level. Not even to the European

  Parliament.

  “Now, what is an American doing playing with the Europeans?”

  he murmured, leafing through a lot of alarmist conjecture.

  The next page had been handwritten. Information too shocking

  even to be typed out? Dammit. He moved the paper close, angled it to

  the light. Clearly these people didn't put enough stock in legible

  handwriting.

  Their recruiting methods are unusual. They have no pattern for

  proficiency or skills that we take for granted. They hand pick their

  people from various military, security and private organizations.

  Next was a sheet with a badly photocopied black and white photo.

  It showed a soldier, his face darkened by the bad reprographics, his

  cocky smirk unmistakable. Gibson, C.D. 75th Ranger Regiment.

  That was it. There was nothing further.

  Nikita ground his molars, suppressed a growl of displeasure. It

  was more than he'd had. At least it filled in missing pieces. The

  question was now, had Gibson gone rogue? Had he been ejected or quit?

  Or was he still working with them? Where was he now?

  He had nothing, no address, no phone number, not even an e-mail

  address. GORGON. Switzerland. It wasn't the largest country, but

  Nikita didn't know where even to begin looking.

  He duly burnt the stack of papers to cover his own ass and that of

  his contact. Then he finished his regular reports and filed them. Maybe

  I should have given him more credit—maybe he’d have trusted me then.

  Why would GORGON want Voronin dead? Nikita knew he was

  close to something, but he was clutching at straws now. Pulling shit

  from thin air. This wasn't police work, this was just fantasy. Even if he

  started going to every gay club in Switzerland, he doubted he'd strike it

  lucky. Needle in haystack didn't begin to cover it.

  He buried his face in his hands, feeling helpless again, and he

  loathed that feeling with a passion. This was why he did this job. To

  make things happen. Make a difference. There was always some

  scumbag that deserved punishment, some asshole that needed cutting

  down to size.

  It helped him keep a level head and out of the bottle. Ever since

  he'd discovered that he was no better than the men he locked up or

  killed, he fought a constant battle to keep sane and productive.

  Infiltrating a slaver ring had almost finished him off. Getting off on

  violence and humiliating people had brought him face-to-face with the

  darkest desires that he had.

  Recognizing the evil in those men and knowing exactly what they

  felt had stripped the moral indignation that kept other honest policemen

  going, not that there were many of them in Moscow.

  He'd learned the hard way that he was like those scumbags but on

  the right side of the law. It didn't matter, though, when a human being

  crumpled at his feet, at his mercy, simply broken. He preferred those

  people to be evil, but that was only a gradual difference.

  BDSM helped him vent those emotions; he was a “natural,”

  Katya had told him. “I can trust you completely, Master,” she'd said.

  And it was different. The chemistry changed when the other partner

  agreed to it. Trusted him. It was both liberating and tempering, required

  control and a tenderness that he couldn't admit to otherwise. Maybe he

  was just scared to be tender at all. He preferred not to think about it.

  He also preferred not to think of Chris Gibson, and yet the bastard

  had been infiltrating his thoughts when he least
expected it. It had been

  so exhilarating with him, so different than with Katya. Gibson had

  submitted, but he'd fought against it, made taking him a real challenge.

  He was unpredictable in the most entertaining of ways.

  Nikita thought of the intricate, carefully placed cuts on Katya's

  back and the impulsive characters he'd cut into the American's thigh.

  He wanted to posses the man, wanted to be the one to conquer that

  indefatigable bravado. He wanted to be the one to break down

  everything Chris Gibson prided in himself.

  But how could he break someone, hardly more than a stranger,

  who'd risked his own ass and went against who knew what protocols to

  save him from a hit gone wrong? The man was an unnerving mass of

  endless unanswerable questions and contradictions.

  He had to find him.

  Had to do… something to get this infatuation out of his system.

  Working harder chipped away at the piles of paper on his desk, but

  he'd never been a slacker, and there were only so many toes he wanted

  to step on per week. So far, the other police and security branches

  tolerated him, maybe as some kind of fig leaf, but if he did too much,

  even his protection from high above might run out. He'd been damned

  lucky to find as much protection as he'd had. He'd been lucky, all told,

  had found protection and help during his military service, had earned

  respect and repaid it with loyalty. His senior contact likely pulled

  strings far, far above him in the Kremlin and Interior Ministry to give

  him as much rope as he had. Even giving him a decent enough budget,

  few questions asked. He could take the fight to the enemy, every now

  and then, and be reasonably sure that he wouldn't run afoul of those

  law enforcement circles that found it more profitable to collaborate

  rather than prosecute.

  Maybe he should go back to London? He had wrapped this latest

  case up, he could take a week off. Try to work this out. But there were

  simply too many damned gay bars in Europe. He didn't stand a chance

  of finding Chris this time.

  To make matters worse, the situation in Berlin hadn't developed

  as planned. Shkadov must have struck a deal with Zaitsev's

  replacement rather than go to war with him. Damn those criminals for

  being reasonable and coming to some form of understanding. Granted,

  the fact that they could have worked out that a third party had killed

  Zaitsev might have something to do with it. The fact that they were

  criminal didn't make them stupid.

  The case was hung with German authorities, wrapped in red tape

  inside diplomatic issues and complicated by political dick-waving, but

  Nikita stood in the first front line if that case dislodged and they could

  operate again. It had been his case, he'd been on the slave ring shit for

  half his career, which, in the view of his colleagues, made him “a little

  strange” and kept him out of their hair while they took care of purely

  domestic crime and kept their palms well-greased.

  The most likely way this would go was that he'd “advise” the

  German police on the next raid. The higher-ups were wrangling over it.

  Like anything that went through official channels and didn't have the

  direct attention of the government, it would take a while. He wondered

  if GORGON had been founded to cut through all that type of crap and

  deliver results in a more timely manner.

  CHRIS drummed his hands on the glass conference table. “Hey, Steve-

  o, bet you're thrilled to have us on your team.”

  “Absolutely,” Stefan Wudarczek said with little emotion before

  removing his glasses and polishing them. “Hi, John, how are you?”

  “Great, Stefan. This is Andrei. He's new to GORGON. This will

  be his first official assignment.”

  “Wonderful,” Stefan said with even less enthusiasm than before.

  Andrei shook Stefan's hand and sat at the table. “I've gone

  through your notes. I think I can be an asset. I spent some weeks in

  Berlin, meeting with certain people connected to those involved in your

  case. I speak the language fluently.”

  Stefan sat straighter. “Since we pulled out, the language has been

  a bit of a weak link for us, actually. We had people on the ground, of

  course, but after the raid by the Germans that screwed things up for us,

  we had to get them out of there. The other in-house German speakers

  are tied up.”

  “I speak some German,” Chris reminded him.

  “Yes, but your fluency is dodgy.”

  “Dodgy? Christ, Steve, you were born in Chicago, stop talking

  like a damned Brit.” Chris went to peer out the conference room

  windows at the mountains on the horizon. He clenched his hands,

  unable to ignore the soft conversation behind him.

  “What's up with him?”

  “Stress or something,” was John's embarrassed reply.

  “Hmmm.”

  That did it.

  Chris spun to face the other men. “Look, Wudarczek. Don't give

  me that hmmm shit. You need a marksman handy, I'm your man. I

  know how to take care of business.”

  Stefan stood. “I know you do, Chris. I mean no offense, but this

  case has been one disaster after another. It's getting to me, I guess.

  Sorry.”

  Chris ran his hand through his hair. “No problem. Look, I know

  the basics of what's going down in Berlin. I'm gonna go grab lunch

  while you brief those two.” He turned toward the door, refusing to

  acknowledge the look John gave him from the “those two” comment.

  LIKE the good little GORGONites they were, the whole team set out

  for Berlin the following morning, and Chris began cursing the global

  economy and the cuts in their travel budget almost as soon as they

  touched down. GORGON didn't spring for a commercial flight into

  Tegel, which boasted about its passenger-friendly convenience. No,

  they had to book them on a charter flight and send them to Schönefeld,

  that bastion of inconvenience that had once been the East Berlin

  Airport.

  Goddamn Commie holdouts lost his luggage with his new suit in

  it. They probably did it on purpose just because he was American.

  John's and Andrei's bags came zipping off the carousel no problem,

  but his, his were mysteriously AWOL. Bastards. It was only a five-

  hundred mile flight; it wasn't as if they'd traveled half the globe with

  layovers and transfers, for chrissakes.

  Damn, he really liked that suit. He'd planned on wearing it to pay

  a call on that babe who'd fed him intel the last time. Elsa, Ilsa, Lisa—

  something with a “sa” in it. Whatever. He was sure “Babe” and

  “Honey” would work just as well after a few glasses of champagne and

  a bouquet of roses.

  Smiling to himself, he kept pacing back and forth in front of the

  luggage carousel as bag after bag—none of them his—slid past.

  New Dolce & Gabbana or no, it was clear ElsaIlsaLisa thought he

  looked good as-is, and once she saw him in the buff—

  A shove from behind interrupted him, and Chris
spun ready to

  slug the culprit, International Incident be damned.

  “What are you doing here?” he and Nikita said simultaneously.

  Well, he figured it was simultaneously, him speaking English and

  Nikita Russian.

  “Business,” Nikita said. “You?”

  “Same.”

  Nikita made his usual noncommittal grunt.

  God, that was hot. Almost as hot as that animalistic growl he

  made when he got off…. “How's the, you know,” Chris said, tapping

  his side.

  “Better.” The Russian stared, his gaze dipping down to hover

  below Chris's waist. “How's yours? Did it scar over?”

  “Only in your dreams.”

  “Where the hell is my bag?” Nikita asked roughly.

  Chris glanced back. His own had finally shown up. Damn. He

  grabbed it, gave the lock a quick check. At least it didn't look like the

  leftover Commies had ransacked it. “Well. See you around. Try not to

  get shot this time, okay, Nicky? I'll be too busy to save you again.”

  On the upside, this un-state-of-the-art airport had one thing going

  for it. None of the restrooms in this section leading to the main exit

  were operational today. Of course odds were Nikita didn't know that,

  as he'd probably just arrived. Chris ditched the out of order sign and

  the caution tape and waited just inside the door, peering out and

  counting the minutes.

  A slow grin spread across his face when he caught sight of Nikita

  headed his way. He flattened himself against the wall and waited. As

  soon as he caught a glimpse of Nikita's sleeve, he yanked the other

  man in, spun him, slammed him back into the tile wall, and kissed him

  like there was no tomorrow.

  Nikita didn't resist. Not at all, and Chris pressed in, shifted

  forward so they rubbed against each other, grinding, pushing. Why was

  kissing Nikita so goddamned hot, hotter than some people's whole bag

  of tricks? Didn't matter. The man was every bit as solid, strong,

  intimidating as he'd always been, no mistaking, no fuzzy glow of

  memory sexing things up.

  If anything, he was hotter and more imposing than Chris had

  imagined him at night, in the mornings, and in between. The kissing

  damn near turned into biting, Nikita's hand against his neck, powerful

  and intent.

  Chris pushed his hands down Nikita's front, rubbing the outline