D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

And she seemed to delight in his rapt attention. Smiling, she reached for her bra, unsnapped it from behind and tossed it aside, her generous breasts heaving. Thorley noticed the nipples and aureolas were a dark chocolate color against the unblemished café au lait of her skin. She caressed them, kneading them together, her eyes closed, her mouth pouting with pleasure. Aroused, she stepped up the pace of her striptease, her own eagerness overcoming her desire to titillate. She tore off her panties, then kicked off her high heels, revealing long, gracefully curved toenails polished a bright red to match her fingernails.

She climbed onto the bed and slid into his arms, encompassing him with her ripe body. He kissed her and again felt that swirling vertiginous feeling, as if the entire universe began and ended there. Pulling away from her mouth, he began to trail his lips down her body, feeling her back arch as he reached her pubic mound. Her hair was thick and dark, like wool and he filled his nostrils with her musk as he began to make love to her in earnest.

Sensing that her desire now matched his own, he rolled her onto her back and mounted her. Her groan as he entered her was deep and throaty. He began to thrust, slowly at first, marveling at her tightness, then increasing his speed as she began to respond. She moaned and writhed beneath him, beads of sweat breaking out on her dark skin. Her musk permeated the air and she began to buck against him. He could feel the tightness beginning in his scrotum and knew that would not last long. Scant moments later he ejaculated with a groan and fell onto her, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

After he’d caught his breath, he rolled onto his back, feeling the first onrush of guilt, his wife’s face once again before him. He wanted to shrivel up and blow away, melt through the mattress, anything to get the bloody hell out of there. His mind worked furiously, wondering how he would extricate himself from the situation gracefully. Then he realized that there was no need. All he had to do was get dressed and walk out, without another word or glance.

But as rotten as he felt for betraying Lillian—and himself—he couldn’t bring himself to be quite so callous.

Aziza spoke suddenly, as if reading his mind, her voice a husky whisper. “I am not quite so beautiful to you now, am I, British?”

Christ, what was it about women that they could sense when a man was thinking about another?

He turned to face her and was about to answer when the light snapped on in the room. Aziza scrambled to cover herself as Thorley whirled to face their intruder. It was Brady.

“Jesus bloody Christ, Corwin, what the hell are you doing here?”

The normally loquacious Irishman stared at him, a hard expression on his narrow face, then he raised his right arm. Clutched in his hand was a Walther PPK pistol with a silencer attached. He fired once, catching Aziza just over the right eye. She issued a strangled cry and flopped onto the mattress, blood spouting from the wound like a tiny geyser. Thorley was too stunned to move.

“My God, what are you doing? W—why did you shoot her?”

Brady kept the gun trained on him as he padded into the room. He went to the lace curtains, pulled them aside and looked out. Apparently satisfied, he returned his attention to Thorley, who watched him with saucer eyes.

Brady smiled without a trace of humor. “What are you talking about, Mikey? You shot her.”

“W—what?”

“You had a row after making love and you shot her, then, in a fit of remorse you took your own life.... I’m sorry, Mikey, you were a real friend.”

Brady raised the gun just as Thorley opened his mouth to scream, providing the perfect target. The gun coughed once more and the 7.65mm bullet caught Thorley squarely in the mouth, blowing out the back of his head. Without a sound, he fell across Aziza’s corpse, his body spasming in a grotesque parody of their lovemaking.

Working quickly, Brady unscrewed the silencer and wiped the gun down, then placed it firmly in Thorley’s right hand.

It was perfect.

The fact that he’d shot him in the mouth would make it hard to disprove suicide, except for the lack of powder burns. And he knew from experience that the incompetent Egyptian medical examiners would not bother looking for them, that is, if they even bothered to examine the bodies to begin with.

Standing back from the bed, Brady stared at Thorley a moment, a sadness creeping into his eyes, then he turned and left the apartment, taking the back stairs, careful not to let any of the early risers in the building see him leave.

Three hours later, he stood on the aft deck of a tramp steamer bound for Dublin, watching the shoreline as it pulled out of Alexandria harbor.

Another job well done.

Another job made neat and tidy for King and country.

This one, however, had left a bad taste in his mouth. He couldn’t wait to get back to the old sod and hide away in his farmhouse in Kerry for a month, or until those right old bastards in MI6 called him again. In any event, he’d had enough of sand, sun, and friendships to last a lifetime.

THE SON: 1984

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Dearest One... If you are reading this letter, it means that I have not survived the war, something I now fear is intended by those who wish to insure my silence. I want you to know that your father loves you with all of his heart. If you are a girl, I have asked your mother to name you after her. If you