Chapter 4 – Chapter 4

I hung around after Hugh had gone and tried my damndest to convince Penny Haskell that I could handle the surveillance myself—that we didn't need two men to do it. Everything was taped, and I could go through those quickly myself, I said. I tried so insistently that she gave me a hard look and asked, "Are you saying that you don't trust Hugh?"

"Let's just say that I think I can handle it better alone than with him," I answered, which was completely unfair for me to say, but I was panicked about what he might learn from eavesdropping on Amir el-Basir's conversations before I could get to the Arab to warn him he was being bugged.

Having the ambassador's son in the picture now was bollixing everything up. There were several reasons why I would be better off not having him here—and so would Amir.

Haskell overruled me, though, and ordered us to go straight to the surveillance apartment. "If it could be a one-man operation, I'd assign it just to Hugh. You're scheduled to go on TDY to the embassy in Cairo the week after next. I'm just hoping we can wrap this up here first."

That stopped me dead in the tracks. Worse than Hugh and me doing it together would be Hugh doing it by himself without me knowing what he was picking up.

I had no time to do anything or say anything to anybody before we were riding up the elevator with our duffle bags and a box of foodstuffs and bottles of cold beer on our way to the safe house surveillance apartment.

We had been in the apartment in the high rise across from the palace and were moving through checking on the bugs in various parts of where Amir el-Basir liked to hang out for several hours without honing in on anything of interest. I was off in the apartment's kitchen getting us each a beer, when Hugh called out, "Come on back, Chris. I think I've got something."

My heart leapt into my throat and the two glass beer bottles I was holding by the necks in one hand started clinking together as my hands started to tremble. I quickly and quietly pulled drawers out until I found what I wanted—what I didn't really want, but what I needed to have—and I slowly walked back into the room.

"You think you've got something?" I asked, trying to keep my voice calm. "This soon? It's about time for your break. Maybe you should turn the surveillance over to me before you get too tied up in what you're listening to. It's recording, isn't it? I can tell you if there's anything of interest on it—my Arabic is a lot better than yours. If you feel you need to, you can play it back later."

Hugh gave me a strange look. "It's what we've come for, I think. Right off the bat. It's Amir el-Basir and the ambassador's son. I hear them through the bug in the pool house. It sounds like they're about to have sex. El-Basir is saying he wants to spread-eagle bind the other guy on a bed, and the guy isn't objecting. Gonna get pretty kinky, it sounds like. And it's the ambassador's son. Come on and listen in."

"How can you tell it's the ambassador's son and El-Basir?" I asked, trying to make myself sound skeptical. I didn't doubt for a moment, though, that it was them.

"I talked to Sean Caldwell at Penny Haskell's reception," Hugh answered. "I can tell it's him from his voice. They're speaking English. And the ambassador's son is calling the other man Amir."

Shit.

"OK, OK, let me listen too," I said, as I crossed the room, handed him a beer, and put the other pair of headphones on my ears. It definitely was Amir doing the controlling. The other guy was grunting and groaning now, presumably the restraints having already been applied. My mind went to that frame I'd seen hanging above the lounge bed in the pool house. It didn't require any imagination for me to know what was happening there.

Amir was making the sounds he made after he managed to get his dick inside me. and the ambassador's son was panting and begging Amir to go slow with him. Yeah, right. I knew how little Amir paid attention to such requests. I went hard—which I hoped Hugh wasn't noticing—just from thinking about what stage of the fuck they were in and the feel of Amir's cock working inside the ambassador son's channel. I even envied the guy the restraints and use of the frame. I'd have to ask Amir to do me that way the next time I was there just so I'd know what it was like. I didn't know if it was the ambassador's son or not. But Hugh wasn't a dummy—unfortunately. He seemed sure it was Sean Caldwell.

What was Amir doing, I wondered. And how did the ambassador's son fit into this? And then my mind went back to the whole reason we were doing this surveillance—that the Agency thought that Sean Caldwell was collaborating with Mideast terrorists and, further, that Amir el-Basir was on the government's terrorist watch list.

Shit. This was all moving too fast for me. It was all happening too fast to me.

"Wait. There's a third voice," Hugh said, his own voice full of excitement. "And he's being invited to enter right in. A gay sex threesome. We've really stumbled onto something here. He's mumbling. Can't quite . . . no, now he's talking more distinctly. Telling Sean how to position himself—how to accommodate two men fucking him. God, I know that voice. Oh shit . . . it's . . ."

Tyler Haskell, the COS's husband and oil company representative, I thought. I knew the voice as well as Hugh would. And I wasn't surprised at hearing it, as Hugh had every reason to be. I was too panicked to say anything, though.

"It sounds like . . . yes, it's Ty Haskell," Hugh said. I could hear the disbelief in his voice. More disbelief than I was able to muster.

"They'll be at the sex for a while, Hugh," I said with a weak voice that didn't really even convince myself. "It will be some time before they can say anything that we want to hear. We'll have to decide what on the tapes to give to Penny. This is all so . . . going to shit so fast. It involves both the COS and the ambassador. We both could get so screwed if we don't handle this right. Go ahead and take your break now. I'll signal if and when they get into talking about anything that should be of government interest."

"The COS's husband double fucking the ambassador's son with a suspected Mideast terrorist?" Hugh asked in consternation. "Why wouldn't that be of government interest?"

"But the people involved, Hugh. This is a powder keg. There isn't anyone who is going to reward the messengers of stuff like this. Why don't you . . .?"

"Wild horses couldn't pull me away now," Hugh answered, stubbornly.

We sat there, Hugh licking his lips, a sloppy grin on his face, and me listening in dismay as I heard Amir going through his usual long, totally dominating, routine of taking the ambassador's son, accentuated in arousal and licentiousness now by the adding of Tyler Haskell. Sean Caldwell was being quite vocal on how totally he was being taken in a double penetration. It was all I could do to keep my hand off my cock in trying to share the experience with him. I was afraid I was letting out a moan or two of my own and worrying that Hugh would zero in on how this was affecting me. But Hugh seemed lost in listening to it—and he didn't seem as reluctant as I was to touch his cock through the material of his shorts.

I started to sweat—almost to hyperventilate—when they'd finished with the sex and began talking among themselves of other matters. That damned ambassador's son. His appearance had changed everything, might ruin everything. He was bringing everything to a head.

"Fuck," Hugh said. "Do you hear that, Chris? They're talking of an operation now. An al-Qaida operation. Two weeks. The embassy in Cairo. Fuck, Chris, did you hear that? They're planning an attack on the American embassy in Cairo. We've got to . . . Chris! What's that? What are you . . .?"

"As Allah is my witness, I'm sorry you heard that, Hugh. I tried to push you out of it, but . . ."

"Chris! Why? Don't!"

The strong beams of sunlight coming through the window of the apartment glinted off the surface of the sharp blade of the knife I'd taken from the kitchen drawer as it rose and fell.

I hated to do it. But it had to be done. And it was just the beginning anyway.