The Layered World Pt. 02

The Layered World - Part 2 - Fallout from Air Disaster

Chap 6 - Sam and Sybil

He asked to be driven to the central London office. As they fought the late afternoon traffic, he mused on the fact that Brit intelligence never disclosed, even among friends, more than was necessary. The Cold War double agent scandals had left permanent marks.

Sam's headquarters were convenient, but as innocuous as possible. In a row of upscale houses near Paddington, with commercial premises on the ground floor, the polished brass plaque said, 'Investment Management Services, Ltd.' An extremely narrow drive led straight down to a remotely operated door. This was Hugh's private area. Only he and a few chosen helpers had access. There were a dozen parking spaces, work facilities, and a comfortable lounge with napping and shower rooms.

"That's it for today, Hugh, but I might be taking the Jag out later."

Joshua was a graduate of Hugh's course in offensive and defensive driving, and had done well. Hugh's return glance was comfortable that the boss was making off with an immensely valuable and completely restored E type Jaguar from the Sixties.

A great deal of money had been quietly spent on renovation of the building, which had a brick core and had been built well in the mid-19th century. The ground floor was occupied by Sam's staffers with client contact responsibilities. The first floor was a suite of offices and a conference room for highly valued clients. There was a kitchen for food service and a small bath suite. Above that was an apartment for Sam, and a suite for Jay when he was in residence. Access between floors was by elevator and elegant stairways, all with provision for being locked down tightly in the evening and when otherwise necessary.

He had long ago learned that personal attention was the key to motivated employees and took the trouble to memorize names, faces and personal facts. A room full of smiles, almost all of them female, greeted him as he exited the elevator from the garage. Each got a kiss and a warm hello. Sam's personal secretary was securing the stairway doors to the floor above and descending with her purse as he swept her into his arms for a big hug and a fierce kiss.

"Jay! You are such an embarrassment in front of the staff!" He swung her around and laughed with the others. "Molly, without your divine presence, we would be lost!"

"Go on now, Samantha is waiting for you in the apartment." To the room, she announced, "The CEO is giving us an early closing because of the holiday on Monday. Enjoy yourselves."

Two bodies dropped on him as he attempted to leave the elevator on the second floor. Burdened by a duffel and briefcase, he went down hard. He felt a hand pound him on the back, to the left of his spine.

"There, you're dead."

He probably was, if there had been a sharp knife in the hand. His eyes were closed as he felt the two muscled bodies checking him for weapons, as they had been trained to do. The stilletto from his ankle was retrieved in a flash. It was constructed of very hard and specially sharpened plastic, and had evaded the security check earlier at the beginning of the trip.

He turned over and got tongue kisses from both of them. "Not bad. What if he already had a gun in his hand when he came out?"

"I was ready to break his wrist." Another kiss. "And he wouldn't have got to the elevator anyway. Even if he disabled the monitor and power, my alarm would have gone off."

They helped him up, with the aid of more kisses. The black cat suits, for use at night, did good things for their curves.

"What are both of you doing here?"

"You are not allowed to play favorites. I called her immediately after you hung up."

Sybil hissed in his ear, "Traitorous male, my knife should have been in your testicles."

Sam whispered as she led them to her sofa, "I suppose all bets are off now that we attacked you?"

He responded, "Bring us some wine and cheese, will you? I have to make up with this one."

He lowered the zipper on the cat suit to reveal naked breasts. His mouth lowered and went to work. Teeth and lips pulled at the stiffening nipples.

"You are truly a beast. Why did we ever hook up with you?"

Jay and the women never tired of sexual banter and innuendo. It covered a sense of wonder that strong bonds could possibly come from the crazy relationship they had. He kept telling them life was often cruel and not to count on loving him. But they did, anyway. Jay was such a force in their lives, sexually and otherwise, that when he joked about their finding other lovers, they became angry and took him down in a wrestling pile of crude oaths.

Sybil was about to come when Sam returned. "Every time I see your glorious tits, I get jealous. No wonder Jay goes after them."

She reached between the other woman's legs and pinched. Sybil screamed and shuddered, falling back on the cushion. Sam grabbed his hair. "That's enough making up. More than enough. What about me? I am very deprived."

She unzipped her own suit and thrust a fine pair at him. "Don't these count for anything?" Her laugh was almost a giggle.

He ran his tongue carefully over each of them, leaving a wet trail. "You will have to wait. We need to talk."

They sipped the chilled Pinot Grigio and gave him the bedroom eyes treatment. He could tell there would be no peace until loving had occurred. Rough loving was what they had in mind, he thought.

From his briefcase, he extracted the small package wrapped in very fine paper. His fingers dawdled over the tape until Sam took it away and swiftly opened it to discover the two small boxes. They looked at him and he handed one to each, hoping he had remembered the right contents for the right person.

He looked guiltily at them, "I apologize for my long absence. Perhaps these will help."

They were frowning as the lids were raised. Even in the dim light, the baubles flashed brilliantly. "Oh my." They leaned for a kiss and he joked, "Not the best adornment for your night suits."

They smothered him and hissed, "Trying to make up with jewelry are you? Very old trick."

"Is it working?"

"Of course, you idiot. Just when we are working up a good snit, you do something terribly thoughtful. Catches us offguard."

His hands reached out and pulled their lips to his for soft kisses. "Enough of your teasing. We need to disappear for several days. Perhaps you have some ideas."

They leaned back against him and relaxed. "Do we get to know why? What about the home cooked dinner you promised?"

"You remember Philip telling us it pays to be paranoid?" Philip was a retired Wall Street investment advisor who was an acquaintance of Jay's father, Jack. After first refusing a fee, he had become a consultant to the shadowy entities that comprised Jay's growing empire. Every few months, they gathered at his retirement home in the Adirondacks for a Philip seminar. His education, some sixty years ago, had been of the classical variety. He used the Socratic method on them and delighted Jay, who had filled himself with the Greeks years previously.

"We have an accumulation of signs. If we were at Delphi, what would the oracle say?"

They exchanged looks with each other and said to him, "We don't get to tease, but you do?"

"Answer me."

Sam began. "There are rumblings in the industry about some of our latest wins. Perhaps enough hostility to fuel revenge activity."

Sybil continued, "The jihadists may correctly suspect we are involved with the attacks on their banking connections. And sending us an indirect message to back off with the plane crash."

He added, "And it is possible that someone at MI6 or the CIA has leaked something out of unhappiness over our ability to keep our activities off their radar screens."

Sybil pushed back, "But Jay, going to ground sends a signal. Maybe we want to send a signal, maybe we don't."

He nodded and said, "I'm hungry, let's go to the other place and let me cook while we talk more." To Sam, he said, "Bring your overnight bag with a change of clothes in case we do decide to disappear."

He eased the Jag out of the garage and headed around Hyde Park to Sybil's flat. The women were very tightly clinched in the small passenger seat next to him. He popped the clutch and they giggled as the car thrust them back into the seat cushion.

Their free hands reached to tousle his hair. "Watch how you treat this car, boyfriend, or your driving privilege will be suspended." The Jag attracted attention wherever it went, and he was glad for darkness this particular night. All too soon for the women enjoying the ride, he was squeezing into a narrow, below ground garage door. They pulled his lips to theirs and congratulated him for no damage to the vehicle. "Hugh will be pleased to hear you are still able to care for his beauty." He tickled them and growled.

In her gorgeous modern kitchen, Sybil got out the Boodles and glanced at him, "We won't be driving after a martini, will we?"

He hesitated for a moment, and said, "Go ahead. Some gin will help our thinking." His smile betrayed him, and they all laughed.

Sybil's proper British martini, made in the Bond manner, did relax them. They helped assemble the dinner ingredients, and then sat on stools at the counter while he worked.

He said, "Let's give a holler to Natalie and Kelly, they probably don't appreciate all this bad news and being by themselves."

Sybil disappeared and returned wheeling a large screen with controls below. Shortly the two distant PA's were on the screen talking to them over an encrypted link. Conscious of NSA capabilities, nothing of consequence would be discussed.

Greetings were exchanged and Kelly said, "I was just thinking of you and feeling lonely. The Valley doesn't get very excited by Europe anymore. Everything here is pointed west."

He asked archly, "Which of you is going to open the office in Asia, and where is it going to be located?"

Sybil and Sam said, "We are staying here." Natalie said, "No one is transferring me."

Kelly pouted, "I like it here. There is a lot of excitement and a lot of business."

He looked at them and said, "What if the mysterious Mr. Manco went out there himself?"

Jay had been to Asia quite a number of times, but on paper, as far as the PA's knew, they did not have active business except through organizations with a US or UK presence. This wasn't correct, but everyone knew it was Jay's prerogative to keep parts of his work to himself.

He added, "Kelly is right, our attention needs to focus harder on Asia. A topic for the next retreat."

He tended to the pasta while the others chatted about business and the generally bad news from the Middle East.

He injected, "London needs to eat. It is nice to talk to you both and we will keep in close touch. Things are tense here, especially at high levels, so be on your guard."

He pulled out a trolley and they loaded dinner and wine on it for a trip to Sybil's generously large bed. The women still had their cat suits on and looked beautiful and sinister at the same time.

He said, "Back to Sybil's comment about sending a message. I think you have convinced me to stay put, but these are desperate people. A car bomb in front of any of our locations would take us out."

Sam reached for his hand and squeezed. "Remind me never to get you so mad that you stop cooking. This is incredible."

There was quiet as they worked on the prawn linguine and perfectly cooked fresh asparagus. Sybil continued, "Jay, these people don't want us, they want our money. Blowing us up almost guarantees a freeze of all your assets."

He wiped his lips and looked determined. "So, it's blackmail, intimidation, kidnapping, torture and so forth. They need leverage. Do we lay on additional security for the families?"

He cleared and they thought about that conundrum. Dessert appeared. Raspberries with liqueur.

Sybil pulled up the bed cover and they formed a warm lump. Sam ventured, "It would be nice if we could make an offensive move. Keep them off balance. Hard to do since they have managed to stay anonymous so far."

"What about a decoy?" He already had a candidate in mind.

"With what outcome?" Sybil asked.

"If there was a kidnapping attempt on our decoy, and it was foiled, with several of them in custody, the police, intelligence folks and we might learn a lot about our adversaries."

He debated with himself whether to pursue the discussion or enjoy their charms. What actually happened was that they turned to him after a silence to discover the boss was sound asleep.

In the shower, they soaped each other and laughed. "He doesn't know when to stop running, the poor man."

Sam said, "He wants to lie low. Why don't we kidnap him to the Wiltshire cottage for a long holiday weekend? Even the staff doesn't know about it, except Molly. And we can have Hugh and Emily bring the communications van and stay in the guest house. I'll bet Emily hasn't had Hugh to herself for a weekend in a long while. Jay will have all his best satellite gear, but not have to use it if he doesn't want to."

Sybil hugged her. "Yes. We can leave word we are headed to a conference in San Francisco, and Kelly will cover for us."

His jet lagged body clock had Jay awake at four. The women next to him were warm and peaceful. He liked to use this time of day for thinking, but the foregone sex was distracting. The thought made him hard.

Sam turned over in her sleep and an arm fell across him. He licked her finger and it curled around his cheek. Her leg raised itself over his and she pressed against him. Their lips met softly, and tongues dueled. They lay like that for a while, until Sybil turned and said sleepily, "I can feel your brain waves."

The women reached for him at the same time, and met around his erection.

"Jay, you fell asleep on your deprived women. There has to be punishment."

"I'm sorry to be such a bust of a lover."

"It's ok. We decided in the shower that you are right. We are taking you away for three days. You are required to meet all our sexual demands when we get there."

"What about right now?"

"No. Highly inappropriate. You must wait."

Sybil was doing the talking and his cock speared her firmly and fully. "Will you please shut up, woman." He worked vigorously, experiencing the effects of neglect as her tight cunt squeezed him hard. He kissed her and moved his attentions downward to take a good nip from her breast.

"Beast," she wailed quietly, as an orgasm rolled through her taut body.

Not waiting, his wet tool found the other cunt and filled it quickly. Sam didn't say anything, making her need known by bucking against him in quick grunts, reaching for the orgasm and swatting his ass. He rolled them and fountained straight upwards as she came, shaking and bouncing. He worked fingers and lips on her fine body, helping them come back languorously from the peak. Remembering Natalie's need for touching, he worked quietly, letting her feel him. She whispered in his ear, "I need more." Then sat up and said to Sybil, the room still in the dark, "The sooner we get to the cottage, the sooner we get more."

He put the coffee on as they walked to the shower. The bodies had an easy familiarity, rubbing on each other under the hot spray. He wondered how different this was from being married, but pushed the idea away. Do not monkey with success, he admonished himself. Cherish the good things life gives you, they may not last.

He toweled them off as they dried their hair. "Highly inappropriate? No more morning sex?"

He had lotion on his hands and was putting it in good places. They made little noises and tried to swat him. "There have to be standards. You've got us acting like coeds again."

He wanted to continue, but they did need to get moving. No point in giving up the early window before London traffic choked.

He fixed eggs as Sybil and Sam sent encrypted mail in various directions. On very rare occasions they used an anonymized mail with messages buried in messages. Today's mail would be broken easily by intelligence computers if they wished, but the services were used to breaking this level of communication about travel, and mostly knew where he was anyway. With petabytes of packets to track, there was safety in numbers and in being unremarkable.

Chapter 7 - The Green Sisters

It was the summer he was twenty, and he was sitting in Ruth's den, having just arrived for one of what they laughingly called his "therapy" appointments. Through a large window, there was a marvelous view of the Sound. The house was used for her client work and shared with her sister. She wore a simple navy blue dress that fitted well. He said, "We've been seeing each other for three years and if anything, you are getting younger. That dress looks perfect."

She was Helen's younger sister and a shrink. They had grown up in a Jewish family with an Anglicized last name. They lived in the Bronx and had Holocaust survivors in their generational background. It wasn't until the sisters were reluctantly allowed to enroll at CUNY that they realized how claustrophobic their deeply religious existence was. Medicine was an exit strategy. It pleased proud parents and their acceptances at distant medical schools were not disputed. Neither were their residencies at equally distant and highly ranked centers a problem. There was unresolved tension over the choice of practice locations, with aggressive suggestions made about opportunities in New York City.

She responded to his compliment by walking over and bending for a kiss. Playing with her tongue, he slipped the tight body into his lap. She allowed him to use a family heirloom rocking chair, mostly because he made sure she spent time in his lap, quietly going back and forth as they talked. Until, inevitably, his hands made her ache and cry for loving.

After she violated a cardinal principle of therapy by giving him sex, a year into their relationship, just after he turned eighteen, she tried to end it. He took her to a secret cabin in the upstate woods and drove her mad with his cock. It was much worse than her own therapy before she began practicing. He kept daring her with outrageous sexual overtures. She knew what was happening, but couldn't resist. She cried to him, "You are extracting every last bit of my adolescent repression." He hung her from a beam and tortured her, lightly, through several more shrieking orgasms.

On the third morning, she said, dramatically, "You've stripped me bare. I am ready to be reborn. What do you want?"

He packed a large lunch with plenty of water and a bottle of wine, and they set out for a hike. He pushed her to recall details of a comparative religion course. They went back and forth about mysticism, meditation, and whether it was possible to focus one's entire attention on living in the moment.

He pushed her against a tree and whispered, "If I have stripped you bare, then the real sexual Ruth is very close to the surface. Let her loose. Order yourself to say 'yes' when desire touches you."

Back at the cabin, he fixed dinner and said he had a plan for her and for Helen. A commodious house in Rye, adjacent to Jack and Martha's home, would house their medical practices. They would have a patient relationship with him that would be fulfilling, he assured her. Jack would talk to them about part time appointments at the Institute, which would stretch their minds and keep them looking to the future. He had other ideas to share with them later.

After dinner, when it was almost dark, there was a knock at the door. It was Helen, who had been summoned for an urgent meeting. She looked at them anxiously. They were smiling and relaxed.

"Come in, there is some dinner left. We weren't sure whether you would eat on the way."

"I'm famished. But what has happened? Why am I here?"