by Red Wolf
Prologue
1997
Jordan Wolf deliberately hung back from the assembly. She had a way of irritating people that would not be appreciated at such a solemn gathering. While it was true that she could behave quite respectably when required, in her current mood, that was highly unlikely to happen. Instead, she had decided to pretend to not be there.
She hated funerals in general. She particularly hated seeing friends die. Far too many of her friends had been laid to rest in her long life and she had long since reached the conclusion that it never got any easier. A shiver ran through her and she wrapped her coat even tighter about her body.
Still more black-clad dignitaries, ministers and minor royalty filed towards the grave site. None of them noticed the small red-headed woman in the battered, once-black coat. Their eyes slid through her as they passed.
Her ulterior motives for attendance should have been handled by her partner, Declá, alone — with her presence firmly in the background. But it was her anger at the loss of yet another friend that had prompted her to break with tradition and attend the funeral. It had been ten years since she'd faded from these mens' lives. It should have been a permanent break, but there was no way she was going to lose contact with even more friends, only to learn of their deaths years later. She would go through with this, consequences be damned.
Closing her eyes, she reached out to her partner at the front of the throng. Settling herself comfortably in the familiar embrace of Declán's essence, she contented herself to watch the proceedings through his eyes. She'd had a gutful of watching the people in the crowd who were here, not to see a fine man off, but to make a political point.
Dec chuckled in her mind, his warm presence calming her, as he wove images through their link. When she stated she'd a gutful of somebody, people naturally assumed she meant literally. A fond smile graced her lips as she allowed her partner to continue his surveillance without her mood interrupting him.
Declán's scanning eyes caught the two men she was here to find. The taller of the two was the source of a long-running argument between George Cowley and herself.
Chapter One
1992
"I can't believe you've even thought of suggesting this," the small sandy-haired Scotsman stormed about his office.
The object of his current tirade sat in her chair calmly watching George Cowley pace about his office, favouring his injured leg. She weathered this bout in the same way she always did, with an amused indifference that was bordered on detachment. The passing of the years had not served to diminish his looks, only added to them in her opinion. He carried absolute authority in that craggy, rugged face — and he used it to the hilt.
Despite his limp, Cowley prowled around the room like a dangerous animal. Quietly, deadly. He shook a finger in her direction, "I'm not that old that I need to be put out to pasture just yet."
Wolf had a fierce affection for Cowley and she hated seeing him suffer when his leg played up this badly, she could feel an echo of pain from the old bullet wound. Standing quietly, she walked lightly to the drinks cabinet, pouring a Scotch she returned and handed it to the still fuming man.
"Thanks," he gratefully sipped the drink. "I've still got a good few years left in me yet, you know."
"I know," she answered quietly before pausing thoughtfully. "This is just a precaution. You know how much some of the upper echelon of InterPol would love to see us either disbanded or in turmoil," Wolf smiled warmly up at the man who, for all intents and purposes, was her boss.
'Boss,' she smiled to herself at the thought. It had been a strange relationship from the start. Cowley had taken the mysteries she'd thrown at him in his stride and even managed to surprise her on occasion. His discovery of her true position — as a silent governor of sorts — within their department was unexpected to say the least. But when he managed to dig — against all logic — into the history of the department and established a connection between the founders and her and Declán she was astounded. Nobody had managed that before. But to his credit, he was far more than the administrator or politician that most of her previous employers had been.
"Aye," Cowley drawled softly. "You're right. The vultures would be circling, wouldn't they."
Wolf shrugged easily, belying the seriousness of the problem. "It would be inconvenient to say the least." The political infighting could cripple the them for years if Cowley were to leave without naming his successor.
Cowley finished his Scotch and took his seat once more. "I don't suppose I have any say in my future replacement, do I?"
"If it makes you feel any better, I already have his successor in mind," Wolf smiled and handed over the letter she had all ready drafted.
George Cowley offered the woman a gruff smile. "I guess being nigh on Immortal would give you good reason to plan ahead." He glanced down at the letter in his hand, his smile quickly fading in a new outburst. "Och no, not him. Are you completely out of your mind?"
"He's a good man. You have a lot in common. A military background —"
"He was a bloody mercenary, for god's sake."
"Yes, he was," she agreed, "amongst other things. But he's handled CI5 remarkably well since your departure."
Cowley had to admit that this was true. "Aye, well he's still got a blatant disregard for the rules when it suits him." Wolf raised a questioning eyebrow. "Yes, yes, I know. So do I. But he could never handle all of the diplomacy that's an unavoidable part of this job."
"You'd be surprised at how much political savvy he's picked up," she responded. "Face it, George, you taught him well. You taught them both well."
He recalled wondering if the young woman before him could handle herself with his pair of tearaways, in retrospect he should have considering whether or not they could handle her. He chuckled quietly to himself at Wolf's comment. "I guess I did at that." He signed the document and handed it back to her.
She thanked him and headed for the door, pausing as she reached it. "He's got something else in common with you," she said as she turned back.
Cowley raised his eyebrows in question.
"You're both utterly ruthless."
"OUT," he yelled. "NOW."
She smiled as she shut the door behind her.
Chapter Two
1997
The envelope containing that letter of succession was currently nestled deep in one of Wolf's pockets. With the simple service now over, the mourners started to slowly disperse, some flowing back to waiting cars, others clotting in small groups of polite conversation. She watched through Declán's eyes as the two lean, broad-shouldered men turned to leave and he worked his way over to intercept them.
"Excuse me. William Bodie, Raymond Doyle?" Declán questioned.
They hadn't been addressed together in a very long time. The two exchanged a glance that confirmed neither was familiar with this well-dressed young man. With a reflex borne of experience the man was catalogued and filed away for future consideration. He was tall and slender, with short neat grey hair and strangely familiar green eyes. There was an air of quiet authority and trustworthiness about him, that would compel men to follow him without question. Strangely enough, the man's bearing reminded them of Cowley.
Doyle, the shorter of the two nodded and answered gruffly, "Yeah. Who are you and what do you want?"
"My name's Nathan Blade, I worked with George Cowley," he explained quietly. "I have a friend who would like a word with you both."
"Can't this wait until tomorrow?" Bodie said in a very polite manner, his eyes however, made it perfectly clear that this was not a question. "This is neither the time nor the place for business."
Declán shook his head. "Unfortunately it can't wait, time is of the essence. Do you know the 'Green Man'?" Both men nodded. "We'll meet you there in an hour. I've been requested to inform you that my friend will be buying the drinks," he finished with a slight flicker of his lips that signalled his amusement. Before they could reply, he nodded to both men and left, fading into the departing crowd like a wraith.
"So Ray, what do you make of that?" Bodie asked his old partner.
"Don't know," Doyle shrugged. "But I swear there's something familiar about him."
"You noticed it too," Bodie nodded in agreement. "I don't think there's anything untoward about the meeting though. I know his name from somewhere, and the only thing I can say for sure is that he isn't a villain."
"Got any other plans for the afternoon?"
"I was planning on finding a good bottle of single malt and drinking to the old man. But if somebody else is buying the drinks..." Bodie trailed off, a glint in his eye.
"Let's go look up the 'Green Man'," Doyle finished. "It's got to be over ten years since we've been there."
Ray Doyle and Bodie stepped into the pub and looked around for their contact. Through the crowded room Bodie's eyes caught a glimpse of someone he never thought he'd see again.
"Sweet Jesus, Ray. Is that who I think it is, with our friend from the cemetery?"
Ray followed Bodie's line of sight and gasped. "I don't believe it. It couldn't be."
Carefully making their way through the crowded pub, they came to the table and stopped, their mouths gaping open in shock. There before them was Jordan Wolf. A woman they had worked with in CI5 and hadn't seen since she had left the department just over ten years ago. And she didn't look to have aged since the day they had first met.
Chapter Three
1976
Bodie and Doyle entered the CI5 gym and headed over to watch the training session that was in progress. It was one of the basic self-defence courses offered to office personnel.
"So what was it you wanted to show me, Ray?"
Doyle nodded to the small group of people clustered around the mats. "Anyone there take your fancy, mate?"
Bodie smiled lasciviously at the handful of women who had joined the session. "The blonde's nice and the brunette too."
Doyle nodded to one of the other women. "What about her?"
Bodie saw the short red-headed woman wearing grey track pants and a tee-shirt who was watching the instructor intently, he hadn't noticed her at first. "Not bad. She's cute enough I guess. Why?"
"Keep an eye on her. I caught her in another training session recently. She blew my mind."
They looked on as the theory was concluded and volunteers were called upon for a practical demonstration. Before anybody else could step forward, the redhead was standing before the instructor. She blocked a few simple, if overly-aggressive, moves before being thrown heavily to the mat. Without saying a word she returned to her previous position and squatted down unmoving, seeming to fold in on herself. At a casual glance she looked to be bored with the class, but her eyes followed every move that was made with an interest that belied her relaxed pose.
"Not too bad for a first time effort," Bodie offered, genuinely impressed. CI5 instructors, while not known for going easy on their students, did take some care with their non-operative students, but the kid gloves had certainly come off for this woman.
"It gets better," Doyle nudged him. "Watch."
They continued their observation as each of the students were put through their paces. Through it all the small woman watched every move that was made, occasionally nodding to herself as something of note caught her eye.
As the session finished up, the woman stood and asked for another shot at the exercise. Her teacher readily agreed and started off with the same moves he'd used earlier, which she blocked effortlessly this time. He frowned and began to increase the difficulty of the exercise. This too, she brushed aside with little obvious effort. Finally, having had enough of her showmanship, he hit her with an attack that would have given Bodie and Doyle pause. The woman countered him again and, as if sensing that this was all he had to offer for the moment, dropped him to the mat, knelt on his chest and held her fist against his throat.
"Wow," Bodie whistled low in appreciation. "I am impressed. I have to meet this woman."
The pair wandered over to the woman as the more her amazed instructor was making his way out of the gym, the rest of his students in tow.
"Looks like you've put Macklin's nose out of joint," Bodie smiled his lady-killer smile. "How long have you been doing Jujitsu?"
The small woman looked up at the two men as she performed stretches. Both men held themselves at the ready, constantly on the alert for trouble even in these familiar surroundings. It was something she had noticed about all of the CI5 operatives — they all had an unconscious grace to their movements. One man was a few inches taller than she was, with a mop of curly brown hair and widely spaced green eyes in a round handsome face. A slight bulge under his eye attested to a broken cheekbone at some time in his past. The man who'd spoken was taller, with dark close-cropped hair and a decidedly dangerous look to his dark blue eyes. 'The charmer of the pair,' she guessed. Tilting her head to the side, she considered the question. "Is that what it was? I've taken a few of the other self-defence classes recently, but this is my first Jujitsu class."
"What?" Doyle burst out. "No way."
The woman's eyes brightened at the challenge. "Care to try me?" she asked with a feral smile that revealed a glimpse of unnaturally long canines.
Doyle held up his hands and stepped back. "No thanks, I'll pass on that offer." He recognised the look in her eyes, he'd seen it enough times in Bodie's to know it meant trouble.
Bodie, however, hadn't and, never being one to pass up the opportunity of grappling with a pretty young woman, volunteered. He offered her one of his famous smiles as he removed his jacket and holster, handing them to his partner. "I'm game." Taking his shoes off, he stepped onto the mat and assumed a stance facing the small woman.
Bodie attacked the woman and suddenly found himself facing an opponent who was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked. Before he had a chance to change tactics he found himself flat on his back and staring, stunned, up into the bright green eyes of the grinning redhead. She was straddling his body, effectively pinning his arms to his sides. If that wasn't enough she was also encircling his throat in a very tight grip and resting a knee lightly against his groin. He surrendered gracefully.
"You underestimated me. That could get you killed, love," she said with a bright grin as she climbed off Bodie and helped him to his feet.
This time he didn't miss the darkness in her eyes, he knew she would have absolutely no qualms about killing if she had to. This was an extremely dangerous woman to get on the wrong side of, an exceedingly nasty piece of work. Bodie had never met a girl like this and found himself intrigued with the prospect of finding out more about her.
"You'd do well to pay attention to Miss Wolf, Bodie." Cowley had entered the gym quietly, hoping to see if his two top field operatives could stand up to Wolf. The result was much as he had expected, with Bodie quickly being put in his place, but he was surprised that she had bested Brian Macklin with such ease — he'd even gone to the lengths of notifying Macklin of her skills beforehand. And unlike Bodie and Doyle, who only had eyes for the young woman, Cowley hadn't missed the look of approval that Brian had given her before leaving, she had passed his final test and was now a member of CI5.
He would have hoped that CI5 training could handle any situation, but apparently it wasn't equipped to deal with an opponent who had freakishly fast reflexes and an ability that enabled almost instantaneous adaptability to any given situation. Cowley was more than impressed with the added bonus of close combat skills that the young woman had brought with her.
Wolf had been called in from another department to help sort out some problems with the CI5 computer. Cowley had spotted her prowling through the CI5 corridors one day and noticed the way she walked — fluidly, aggression and power barely contained — she loped along like a jungle beast — but nobody seem to notice her. Curious, he kept a close eye on her for a few days. She kept to herself and didn't interact with anyone more than she had to, and when questioned, the other staff barely noticed that she had been present at all. He suggested she take advantage of CI5's training sessions and was surprised at her mastery of everything she had so far tried. In his observation, he'd come to the conclusion that she was far more than a simple computer technician. She was a professional, but a professional what was something he was still to work out. Whatever she was, she had an edge, and it was something that Cowley planned to take full advantage of for CI5's benefit.
Cowley's background check on Wolf had been remarkable for its lack of information — to all intents and purposes the woman had no past. There was no recorded history, no birth, schooling, military service, nothing. The only thing that turned up was an address — a London property in the name of Mac Conchúir, naming her and a Nathan Blade as caretakers — and her current employer, an obscure department of InterPol — a department not unlike CI5, but run on a global scale. And she was not the technician he had expected to find, but one of the departments top operatives. He decided that a call to her superior was in order.
"George," a cheerful gravely voice sounded through the phone. "It's been far to long. What can I do for you?"
"I'm curious, Freddy," Cowley smiled at the inappropriate nickname, but Alfred Pennington refused to answer to anything else. His lack of formality and slightly bumbling manner hid a frighteningly sharp intellect that had brought many an unsuspecting opponent to their knees. "What can you tell me about Jordan Wolf?"
Freddy let out a sigh. "What has she done, George?" he asked with long suffering patience.
"Nothing," Cowley paused to wonder about the response, then shook his head deciding that she reminded him far too much of some of his current operatives for the question to be much of a surprise. "She's got the computer running like a dream. In fact, if anything, I think she's even managed get it running better than before."
"So what's the problem?" asked Pennington, genuinely surprised that he wasn't getting a call to rescue CI5 from his wandering agent.
"I've checked into her files," Cowley flipped through the slim folder as he spoke. "What the hell is one of your top agents doing working as a technician?"
"Long story, George," Pennington chuckled at Cowley's frustration. "We're running an exchange program with a few like-minded agencies at the moment. Wolf and her partner just got back from West Germany after a year long stint with the BND and her partner is currently involved in another such exchange of personnel. Unfortunately she didn't take to her partner's extra-agency counterpart and nearly put the man through a wall."
Cowley couldn't believe his ears. "Why do you keep her on then man?" Insubordination of that sort was punishable by dismissal and possible charges.
"In all truth, the man had it coming. And if you're intrigued enough to call about her I think you'll understand that we'd do anything to keep her."
"And you can't pair her off with anyone else?"
"'fraid not old man. She terrifies the life out of most of them. Wolf's something of an enigma, absolute whiz with electronics, we were just going to let her indulge her hobby until we can get her partner back. Saves us an absolute fortune in maintenance and keeps her happy too."
Cowley was having a trouble taking in the fact that Pennington gave one of his agents almost complete autonomy so readily. "I seem to be missing some of her details. Would it possible to get a copy from your records, Freddy?" he asked in the slim hope of finding another source of information on the woman.
"There is none, George," he answered with a smile in his voice. "For all I've been able to discover she may as well have fallen from the sky. I inherited her from John Pleecy when he retired. Seems she refused to work with John's successor and a bit of a heated exchange occurred over the man's integrity."
Knowing Pennington's gift for understatement, Cowley could well picture the clash of wills. "Good judge of character in retrospect," he murmured remembering the scandal that had soon surrounded the man in question.
Pennington's lively chuckle joined Cowley's snort of derision. "Thought you'd like that, George. Pleecy arranged her transfer to me with the highest possible recommendation." Pennington paused in thought for a moment. "You know something, George. Between you and me, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that she's managed to erase her own records."
Cowley doubted it was possible to be thorough enough to remove all traces of your own existence and told Pennington so in no uncertain terms.
"I would have thought so too if I hadn't tried to access to her previous records and found no written evidence of her ever having worked for Pleecy. If it wasn't for my friendship with the man and his assurance of her loyalty I would have started to think she was a plant."
"How can you be sure she isn't?"
"Instinct, George, instinct," Pennington answered cryptically. "I take it you're interested in taking advantage of her temporary hiatus from active duty?"
"I was considering it, yes," Cowley replied in a low burr, his grasp of the Wolf situation was shifting planes almost faster than he could follow. "But this throws another light on the matter."
"Trust me on this George, talk to the woman and if she agrees to work with you, do not pass up the opportunity. She's unlike anything I've ever seen, she can find out anything about anyone, the woman is the best god damned intelligence operative I've ever had the privilege to work with."
High praise indeed, and the man hadn't even touched on her physical skills. A bit of sniffing around on his part turned up some interesting anecdotal evidence of the woman in question possibly having been involved in various international espionage agencies since WWII. An impossibility — and nothing concrete — but he would keep it mind in any case.
When he'd asked if she would consider transferring to CI5, Wolf had agreed on the proviso that she be allowed to return to InterPol when her partner's assignment was completed. Cowley found the arrangement acceptable and arranged for Wolf to be inducted into CI5.
Considering her poor history of keeping partners — and her CI5 trainers insistence that while she was an exceptionally skilled individual she just didn't work or play well with others — Cowley decided to make use of her skills as the occasion arose. Instead of being partnered off, as was usual, she was to be put to work on information gathering and training.
Shaking himself from his ruminations, Cowley introduced the young woman, "Bodie, Doyle, this is Jordan Wolf. I've seconded her from InterPol. You'll be working together for the moment — in an informal arrangement — to see if you can pick up any of her rather impressive martial skills. I'll leave you to get acquainted." He turned on his heel and left them alone.
Bodie and Doyle blinked in bemusement at Cowley's unusual suggestion. CI5 just didn't work that way, but if that's what Cowley wanted, who were they to argue. Bodie recovered from the strange pronouncement first. "Those moves were incredible. How did you learn to do that so fast?"
"I don't know," Wolf shrugged. "I've never thought about it before. Survival instinct I guess." 'Survival instinct pummelled into me at an early age by a bloody great faery,' she grimaced at the memory of her childhood training under her cousin's expert tutelage.
"How'd you like to think about it a little further over drinks," Doyle offered as he tossed Bodie's gear back to him.
"Deal, but you boys are buying."
Chapter Four
1997
Fate and the fickle nature of international espionage had conspired to draw Wolf's brief secondment to CI5 into a ten year stay. Something she hadn't planned on at all. Extended periods of using the one name tended to get noticed in her line of work. And friendships were something she tried to avoid as the passage of years made her relatively youthful appearance increasingly more difficult to explain. Her tenure with CI5 had thrown a spanner into her carefully laid plans. Not only had she stayed far longer than was safe, but she had made friendships she was loathe to abandon.
Dec squeezed her shoulder in an attempt to calm his partner. His recollections of the depth of her involvement with CI5 was gained second-hand through their constant link. Today was the first time he'd physically had any connect with anybody — apart from Cowley — from that part of Wolf's life. His own curiosity was dampened by the turmoil that resonated from the small woman beside him. She was still torn between a time-honoured tradition of cut-and-run and the ties that she'd developed over the years. He still wasn't sure whether she was prepared to stay and face her past — and the questions that would undoubtedly ensue — or vanish, leaving him to make her apologies and deal with the situation as they'd originally planned.
Wolf looked up from her ruminations as her two old friends approached. Doyle's mop of curls had been replaced by a spiky crew-cut, while Bodie had gained a goatee. Apart from a few grey hairs, they didn't look too different to the young men she remembered first meeting two decades earlier. They both still looked fit enough to handle themselves in the thick of things, she noted with a lingering gaze. Doyle, she noticed, still managed to make even a suit look casual beside Bodie's usual immaculate form of attire.
Doyle was the first to recover. "Is it really you, Wolf?"
She smiled as she stood to wrap her arms around his neck. Her ribs flexed as he fiercely returned her embrace. Wolf pulled back slightly to look into his surprised jade green eyes. "It's really me, Ray," she said before kissing him with a passion. Reluctantly parting from his lips, Wolf turned to face his old partner.
"Miss me, Bodie?" she asked.
"Come here and I'll show you how much," he answered with a grin that had the power to make women swoon. Bodie pulled Wolf into his arms and kissed her with a gentle intensity that made her melt against his body.
Declán cleared his throat loudly. "If I'm not interrupting anything. I prefer not to be in the firing line when the other patrons hose the three of you off."
Bodie chuckled and released Wolf from his embrace. "I've been around Wolf long enough to know that isn't likely to happen." Bodie had long ago realised that Wolf could become a 'blind spot', for want of a better term, whenever she felt the need. He eyed the almost familiar young man in curiosity, "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."
Declán smiled. "I guess I have the advantage then, because I've heard all about both of you. I'm Nathan Blade, Wolf's partner in InterPol. But, please, call me Declán. We also happen to be related."
"Ah..." Things started clicking into place for Doyle. "So you're the elusive brother we never quite crossed paths with." During Wolf's years with CI5, Declán had been seconded to several other agencies, including a stint with Mossad and InterPol's Hong Kong office. This had somewhat curtailed his social life — well his social life in London at any rate.
Declán nodded, pouring them a drink from the bottle of Glenmorangie on the table. "That would be me."
Bodie raised his glass. "To George Cowley. One of the last great men. May he raise hell wherever he goes."
"Aye, that he will," Wolf said as they all drank. "He'll be sorely missed."
Bodie looked up from his drink in appreciation. "An exceptionally fine single malt. The Old Man would be impressed."
"Yeah. And the 'Old Man' would have had your bollocks on a plate if he ever heard you calling him that," Doyle chuckled.
Declán placed his drained glass on the table. "It's been a pleasure meeting you both at last, and I hate to drink and run, but I really have to go. Enjoy yourselves."
"We will," Wolf smiled wickedly at her cousin. "I'll see you later, Dec."
"Slán," he said, as he left the old friends to catch up.
"What happened to your face?" Doyle asked with his characteristic bluntness as he eyed the collection of facial piercings she's was currently sporting.
Wolf returned Doyle's good-natured grin with one of her own. "I was undercover for a while and had to blend in with the natives. The Cow went spare when I kept it all; even when I tried to explain that it was just an 18th century affectation."
Bodie snorted in surprise. "I'd loved to have been a fly of the wall for that conversation."
Doyle chuckled at the thought as he observed her mostly unchanged appearance. Her hair was shorter, but apart from that, she was exactly the same. The same pale elfin face and startling green eyes — the same eyes, he noticed, as her brother. And, apparently, the same genetic predilection towards an unnaturally youthful appearance.
He remembered the first time that he noticed her, it was like spotting someone who'd been hiding in plain view. Even then he hadn't even noticed her until she had been pointed out to him. "I see you still dress the same," he nodded to her battered old coat.
"Yep. Still hate clothes," she chuckled. The long woollen coat was her favoured form of attire when she was working. It allowed her freedom of movement and the ability to easily change — and it had the bonus of being able to conceal a vast array of interesting items. She had been worried about the funeral from the start and gone prepared for trouble.
"And shoes?" he asked.
"Or lack thereof." She ran a bare foot up his leg, smiling at the slight shiver it induced in her friend.
"I still don't understand how you get away with it," Doyle said, shaking his head. She did actually wear more conventional clothes off-duty, but he'd only ever seen her wear footwear when she was riding one of her many motorcycles.
"Because people —"
"— only see what they want to see," he finished. "Yeah, I remember."
Bodie ran a finger down the side of Wolf's face and searched her eyes for an indication of why they were here. He found nothing, but then he never could read her when she didn't want to be read. "As happy as I am to see you again, Wolf, I have a feeling that there's another reason, besides reminiscing, that you arranged this little gathering."
"There is, Bodie," she nodded. "And it concerns you."
"Then why am I here?" Doyle interrupted.
"Because I missed you, love," she smiled and stroked his cheek fondly. "I'm sorry its been so long since we last got together."
He smiled and placed his hand over hers. "Me too, Wolf." When she left CI5, he'd gotten the feeling that he'd never see her again, it was still something of a shock that she was sitting beside him.
"This —" Wolf withdrew the envelope from her coat and handed it to Bodie. "— is why I arranged to see you."
He opened the envelope and read the contents of the letter. "Cowley wanted me to succeed him at InterPol?" Bodie said incredulously.
"You're kidding me," Doyle burst out.
"Nope. Look for yourself," Bodie passed the letter across the table.
"I don't believe this. Why you?" Doyle asked as he finished reading.
"Because, unlike you Ray, Bodie has no conscience. Something that will benefit him in this position," Wolf answered as she playfully ruffled Doyle's short hair.
"True enough," he conceded with a lopsided grin.
"Hey," Bodie said a little indignantly. "I do have a conscience. I just choose not to let it interfere with my work."
"Or your women," Doyle and Wolf added in unison, laughing at their old joke. Bodie was legendary for the fast turnaround of his seemingly endless list of women. Wolf doubted much had changed in the intervening years.
Ignoring them Bodie asked, "Who's in charge at the moment?"
"Dec's Acting-Chief until you take over."
Bodie nodded in approval of the choice. Declán looked a little young for the position — being related to Wolf, he was more than likely a lot older than he looked — but he had a quality about him that would serve him well. "I haven't agreed to accept the position yet," he argued.
"Yes you have," Wolf said, gazing into the blue depths of his eyes.
"How do you know, Wolf?" he asked, staring back unfaltering. "I've only just read the offer."
"Because I know you, Bodie," she offered him a lopsided smile. "I always have and I always will."
"You're right. On both counts," Bodie sighed in resignation. "It'll be good to work with you again, love."
"Same here, Bodie," she agreed. "Same here."
Chapter Five
1978
Wolf's working arrangement with Bodie and Doyle, and a few of the other CI5 operatives, mostly entailed training exercises. Or, more to the point, explaining how she thought while she was watching a new form of combat for the first time. While not as fast as Wolf at developing new skills, they had managed to adapt to her way of learning quite well.
Cowley had found plenty of ways to make use of her other skills, most of which had her either working as a solo agent or tied up at headquarters. But occasionally she found herself accompanying Cowley's alleged ace operatives when they needed an extra body on the ground or help with surveillance. She got along well with the men — something that surprised Cowley, considering her lack of interaction with most of CI5 — and they trusted her to watch their backs without question. That was how she found herself to be seconded to an obbo in a crowded London market.
"That's just plain weird, you know," Bodie pulled the yawning Wolf close to his side.
She snuggled against his shoulder, her arm tight around his waist, playing up to her part in their role as a young couple for the duration of the assignment. "Wha'?" she asked in confusion.
They walked slowly through the crowded market, keeping a casual eye on their target. Nobody paid any attention to the young couple as they wandered along, occasionally stopping for a closer inspection of an interesting item.
"You're in the car for 30 seconds and you're dead to the world."
"Oh. That. I always do that, force of habit. I grab sleep where I can. After being stuck with me for the past three days in that fleapit I'm surprised you notice any more," she said with a grin.
Bodie regarded this thoughtfully, he'd picked up the same habit in the jungle, he just never expected Wolf to share it. You never knew when you would have the chance to sleep again, so you took it where you could. 'She must have one hell of an interesting background to pick up habits like that,' he thought with interest.
Three people stuck on rotation in a bed-sitter was not a going to be a happy environment for long. The situation brought about due to lack of personnel had necessitated in them all being stuck together until replacements could take over.
Wolf slept when not on duty or playing referee to the two increasingly bored and frustrated lads. And she was certain that Bodie and Doyle would come to blows soon if they didn't get out. This was the first time their target had chosen to leave the tiny room he'd holed up in and any change in the routine of the round the clock surveillance was more than welcome. For being the runner for a major arms dealer he led an amazingly boring life.
"Won't we be a little conspicuous," he indicated her manner of dress, as they casually wandered after their quarry. She had changed from the jeans and tee-shirt of the past few days to the battered old trench coat she always wore when working. She was still wandering around sans-shoes though.
"Trust me, Bodie. People only see what they want to see. Nobody will notice," she grinned up at him. "Nobody has so far."
"True," he agreed. "But still..."
"We'll be okay, Bodie. Besides, Doyle is up ahead of him." Wolf suddenly regarded Bodie with suspiciously narrowed eyes. "Out of curiosity, how did I get paired with you?"
"I'm hurt," he pulled a long face and splayed the fingers of his free hand across his chest. "You don't want to be with me."
Wolf chuckled and poked him playfully in the ribs. "You know what I mean, love."
Bodie's expression suddenly got very sheepish. "We flipped a coin. I won." He shrugged. "And besides, me and Doyle wouldn't have blended in nearly as well as a couple. That and I'm about to throttle him for that incessant bloody humming."
"You know something, Bodie," she looked up at her tall companion. "That's what I love about you guys, you always know how to make a girl feel wanted."
"Any time, pet," he smiled his charming best and dropped a fond kiss onto her hair.
"Arsehole," she teased fondly. "So do we finally get to make a move on this bloke today?"
"See what happens when you fall asleep in the car," Bodie admonished with a dramatic sigh and a waggled finger. "The Cow said to wait 'til he made contact with his boss and see where he goes from there. One down and one to go." Jordan looked at him questioningly. "He stopped by Harry Robertson's place on the way here. You really are going to have to try this observation stint awake for a change."
Wolf ignored Bodie, after more than 24 hours without sleep, she was more than happy to let someone else keep an eye on things for a while. She had noticed that the nervous little man they were following kept glancing all around him without apparent reason though. He definitely hadn't spotted them as a tail, but something was on his mind. "He's a bit high-strung, isn't he?"
"You would be too if you were involved in half of what Cowley suspects he's got himself caught up in. The old man was dead on the money with Robertson being our man."
"Fair enough." She caught a sidelong glance of the man staring in her direction. 'Shite. He's spotted us. I need to distract him from thinking that we're a tail.' As fast as the thought ran through her mind, she was already in action. She stopped Bodie in his tracks, grabbed his face in both hands and brought his lips to hers.
Bodie had caught the same movement and guessed Wolf's plan. He mentally shrugged and went with the flow, running his hands slowly down her back, enjoying her wild musky scent. Their kiss deepened and he felt her tongue enter his mouth. She tasted unlike anything he'd ever experienced before, images of dark primeval forests and sun-dappled glens floated to the surface of his sub-conscious. The overwhelming sensual assault abruptly changed Bodie's perception of Wolf, he didn't want the kiss to end and tightened his arms around her body, drawing her even closer.
Wolf's attention was divided between keeping a feeler on their target and a more primal urge towards Bogie that, if followed through, would probably result in them both being in serious trouble with Cowley. She reluctantly drew herself from his embrace. Losing their quarry — for any reason — was not something she wanted to explain to the CI5 Chief. Getting arrested for public lewdness probably wouldn't go down that well either.
"Come on, mate. Let's go," she gently urged.
Bodie just grinned happily at her.
"Shite," she muttered, reaching for her radio. She thumbed the switch, "Doyle."
"Yeah, Wolf," the radio responded.
"Still see our man?"
"Yep. What's up?"
"Got a small problem here."
Doyle paused. "Serious."
"Kind of. I needed a distraction. It worked, but I managed to distract Bodie as well," she looked up into Bodie's glassy blue eyes.
"What's he doing?" Doyle asked in confusion. Bodie was not an easily distracted man.
"Umm... Staring at me with big soft eyes and a kind of dopey expression." Her senses detected nothing untoward in Bodie's manner, he had just vagued out. But she could feel something odd, something reminiscent of an audio feedback loop. She couldn't pin it down.
"What did you do?"
"I kissed him."
"That's all. You can kiss me sometime then, gorgeous," Doyle laughed. "Bodie!"
"Mmm..." Bodie responded slowly.
"Do you want me to come over there and stick my tongue down your throat?"
Bodie considered the question. "If you can kiss like Wolf, Doyle, I'm all yours." He crossed his eyes and grinned at his worried partner.
"Bastard," she muttered under her breath at Bodie's games. "Sorry Doyle. False alarm."
Doyle could hear the muttered profanities and creative threats being casually thrown between the pair. "Well, if you two clowns have finished playing silly buggers, perhaps we all could get back to work," he sighed in exasperation as he interrupted their repartee, mentally reminding himself to ask her what a 'Sasanach' was when he got the chance. "If it's not too much trouble of course."
Bodie grabbed Wolf's radio. "On our way, mate. Out," he finished.
"Very childish." She glared up at her friend in not-quite mock fury. "You should have been an actor, Bodie. You're good."
"I do have my moments," he nodded in smug acknowledgment, before becoming more serious. "We'd better move though, I can't see our target any more."
"He's heading towards Doyle, near the river. I can find him again." She grabbed his hand and headed off in the direction of the river.
Bodie followed her lead without a second thought, he'd seen her tracking skills at work more than once. "Lead on MacDuff."
Wolf deftly threaded Bodie through the crowd with a minimum of fuss. She could smell the man easily, even through the multitude of other competing odours in the crowded marketplace. They had just spotted the man as the crowd was starting to thin, when their radios sounded.
Bodie thumbed the switch on his and answered.
Doyle's voice came through. "I'm on the river now, but there's no cover here. He's going to spot me any second now."
"We'll be there. Out." Wolf watched in fascination as Bodie's face changed. Gone was the charming joker and in his place was a very hard man indeed. It did not pay to cross Bodie when he looked like that. Wolf never realised that she also underwent a similar transformation.
Wolf pulled Bodie faster through the crowd. They flowed around her, unconsciously moving out of her way in response to a force that faintly registered somewhere in their primeval subconscious.
The target vanished in a small knot of people at the same time they spotted Doyle. He had his back to them and was watching the river, trying to diminish his chance of being seen, while keeping their target in his peripheral vision. The group of tourists passed close to Doyle and — before either Wolf or Bodie could react — the small nervous man darted from their midst. He hit Doyle with what looked like a blackjack and took off through the parkland. The blow was enough to stun Doyle and knock him off balance into the river.
"DOYLE!" Bodie yelled.
Wolf dropped a knife into her hand and flicked her wrist in the direction of the fleeing man. The movement was unconscious and so fast that Bodie wasn't sure whether he really saw it or not. "I've got Doyle, Bodie. Get that bastard."
She hadn't needed to say it, Bodie was all ready running into the parkland after the wounded man.
Wolf was still in motion from her knife toss. She undid her coat and unclipped her harness, dropping them to the ground and throwing her discarded tee-shirt behind her as she dove into the river after Doyle. She unerringly reached for the stunned man in the murk, her other senses guiding her where eyes were useless. Wolf grabbed Doyle and kicked to the surface. Her legs were powerful enough to get her far enough out of the water to deposit Doyle on the bank before she dropped back under to gain enough momentum to shoot herself from the water.
As she dropped on the bank beside the soaked man, Wolf was relieved to find him sitting up and coughing the brackish water out of his lungs. The dunking had been enough to bring him around and he wasn't under long enough to have breathed in much water. "You okay, Ray?" she asked in concern. Satisfied with his nod, she started running her fingers gently through his hair to examine his head wound. "The skin isn't broken, but you'll have a nasty bruise for a few days," she announced.
"Is there any particular reason you're naked, Wolf?" Doyle asked, still coughing. He ran his gaze appreciatively over the small redhead's body. She was paler even than Bodie, but her skin was completely unblemished — no birthmarks, moles, freckles and, for chosen her profession, unusually free from scars.
Wolf was oblivious to the attention. "I didn't want to get dragged down by my coat. It weighs a ton when it's wet." She continued her methodical search for further injury.
"So you don't wear anything under it?" he asked. This had been the source of a heated debate between Bodie and himself for quite some time now.
"Nope. Don't like clothes. They get in the way when I have to work," she replied distractedly. Satisfied that there was no further damage to her friend, she got to her feet, gave Doyle a hand up and started wringing as much water as she could from her dripping pony-tail.
"How is he?" Bodie interrupted. Doyle was impressed that he didn't react to Wolf's current state of undress — or the sight of his soaked and rather forlorn-looking partner for that matter.
"He'll be fine. Thankfully. Where's our man?" she asked. Wolf was not in the least concerned with the fact that she was standing naked in clear view of a crowded market place. She had a knack for appearing invisible when she wanted to and was more than comfortable in her own skin. A knack that also extended to keeping Doyle's impromptu swim from attracting any attention.
Bodie grinned evilly. "I handcuffed him to a tree. I thought you might be needing these. You know, this isn't exactly the way I envisaged finding your scattered clothing," he announced with a perfectly straight face as he passed her tee-shirt and harness back, holding her coat while she rearranged the knife-studded leather straps over the soft cotton. "And you," he directed to Doyle, "owe me a fiver."
Doyle had the good sense to keep quiet about their bet — Bodie had bet him that Wolf didn't wear anything under her coat and had just been proven right. He was more than fascinated with the harness she was clipping into place. It bore a passing resemblance to a shoulder holster, but there the similarity ended. Its straps wrapped around the woman's torso snugly with a single clipping point over her breast bone — presumably for fast removal. The whole harness was studded with knives of all shapes and sizes, but most appeared to be stored in the thick belt around her waist that bore the main cache of throwing knives like a bandolier.
Wolf patted the harness down, unconsciously checking the contents. She nodded to herself in satisfaction, before slipping back into the warm embrace of the coat that Bodie held out for her and repeated the checking procedure. "Did you happen pull a knife out of that git?" she asked him.
He took the small throwing knife from his pocket and handed it to her. "I picked it up on the way back here, I saw him pull it out of his thigh as he ran. I figured it couldn't be anybody else's but yours once I saw that rig, but I wasn't sure if I saw you throw it or not. You're fast."
Wolf shrugged as she slid the knife back into its home in the sleeve of her coat. "I practice a lot."
"You want to tell me about the rest of your arsenal, including the sword, that you're carting around in your coat then?"
"Sword?" Doyle stammered. "What the hell are you doing walking around with a sword?"
"Don't like guns," she shrugged again. "If you can't face your opponent up close and personal, you shouldn't be in this business." Both men had seen her strip and reassemble an unfamiliar weapon with a speed that suggested the exercise was automatic, but she steadfastly refused to fire one, calling them 'weapons without honour'.
"But swords?" Doyle prompted. He looked at her coat dubiously, there was no way she could hide a sword in that coat. The guards on the foils and rapiers they fenced with would leave a recognisable bulge. And Cowley had banned Wolf from fencing after she snapped one too many rapiers in her highly enthusiastic, but non-regulation swordplay — well that and the fact that nobody was game enough to oppose her more than once.
Bodie following Doyle's observation of Wolf's coat caught his line of thought. "It's a bloody great broadsword, Ray." Doyle paled visibly as Bodie continued with obvious awe. "A two inch wide blade and the damn thing is nearly bigger than she is."
"Not quite, mate," she clarified, her eyes glowing oddly. "I love swords. Very good for close combat. Nobody messes with a sword-wielding maniac."
"The maniac part is right," Bodie teased. "We'd better go release the catch of the day from the tree."
"How about getting me back to the car first?" Doyle suggested. "It's starting to get a bit nippy."
Wolf wrapped an arm around Doyle's waist and murmured a heartfelt apology as she felt just how cold he was through her coat.
"You know, Ray, you really can be a big girl at times." Bodie slung his arm around Doyle's shivering shoulders as they headed back to the car. "You let a complete stranger drop you in the drink, you expect us to rescue you and then you have the nerve to ask us to keep you warm too. I don't know Wolf, I think we should just chuck him back in the river and tell Cowley we misplaced him somewhere," he cheerfully needled his partner.
While he had to admit that being in Bodie and Wolf's warm embrace was a hell of a lot better than freezing his bollocks off, he could do without Bodie casting aspersions on his competency. Doyle was about to respond with a selection of choice insults when he noticed their car up ahead where it had no business being. "How did that get there?" he spluttered.
"I moved it on the way back," Bodie offered them a smug grin.
Wolf's eyes narrowed as she regarded Bodie. "Shouldn't you have left the prisoner with the car then?"
Looking as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, Bodie asked, "But where's the fun in that?" He unlocked the boot and tossed a bag of fatigues to Doyle. "Here Ray. It's not the most fashionable of clothing, but at least it's dry." He turned to Wolf who was leaning casually against the car regarding Doyle with open curiosity. "Let's go collect our prisoner, Red."
She shook her head. "Uh uh. I'm staying. I've always wondered how Ray got in and out of those jeans."
Doyle looked up in surprise at Wolf's comment and shot Bodie a beseeching look. Bodie allowed a small smile to curl the corner of his mouth as he grabbed the unsuspecting woman by the collar and dragged her with him back into the park. Doyle chuckled to himself as her complaining cry of, "Bodie! What did I say?" drifted back to him.
Cowley was not impressed, to say the least, with the state of the prisoner. He held the doctor's report in his hand and perused its lengthy contents with glasses perched on the end of his nose. Looking over the rim of his glasses, he fixed his three operatives with a withering stare.
"A knife wound in the upper thigh. Fortunately missing the major blood vessels or I'd be reading a coroner's report instead," he announced dryly. "Which one of you was responsible for that?"
"I was, Sir," Wolf spoke up.
"Would you care to explain to me why you felt it necessary to stab a man in the leg. A man, I might add, with no previous history of violence," Cowley's voice dripped with sarcasm.
"He has a record now, Sir," Doyle interrupted. Cowley glared at him and he thought better of adding any more.
"Doyle's right," Wolf agreed, seemingly unaware of the seriousness of Cowley's mood. "When he unexpectedly attacked Doyle, me and Bodie had to split up, so I threw a knife at the man to slow him down."
"You threw a knife? Did it occur to you at any time that you could have killed the man?" Cowley's voice was quiet and low, a tone that always signalled trouble to the men who worked for him.
"No, Sir. I meant to slow him down," Wolf answered, seemingly oblivious to the storm on the horizon. "If I'd wanted to kill him, he'd be dead," she stated simply.
Cowley paused, he detected no boasting or covering in her voice, she was stating a fact. "You're telling me that you're good enough to hit a moving target with that amount of accuracy."
"Yes, Sir."
"And you could do it again with the same accuracy?" Cowley asked with a hint of scepticism.
Wolf nodded and fished three squash balls from her pocket. Holding them in one hand she tossed them lightly towards the office door behind her. Before Cowley had the chance to question her actions, each ball had been snatched from the air and pinned to the door with a small knife. None of the men had seen her move. Wolf walked to the still quivering knives and pried them from the door, removing the damaged squash balls and dropping them in Cowley's bin.
"I'll arrange to see you on the range tomorrow, Wolf," Cowley covered his surprise well with the brusque order and dismissed his three operatives to the interrogation room. It was a full five minutes before he realised he'd forgotten to ask Bodie about the squirrel bites or to reprimand Wolf for damaging his door.
Bodie, Doyle and Wolf watched the video display of Cowley interrogating a very nervous John Smith. Despite his evident fear of Cowley, he feared his two employers even more.
"Why do you have a pocketful of squash balls?" Doyle asked, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.
Wolf's eyes never left the screen, she was still amazed that John Smith's claimed name was apparently real. "Ever been hit with the ball while playing squash?"
"Yeah..."
"Hurts, doesn't it?" her lips flicked in a brief smile at Bodie's snort of amusement.
"Oh," Doyle finished lamely, somewhat surprised at the simplicity of her logic. If she threw squash balls like she threw knives... he'd much rather lose to Bodie at squash, it was bound to be far less painful. Looking back at the monitor he saw Cowley leave the interrogation room and a moment later step through the door and join them. "Tough one, Sir?"
"Aye," Cowley paused. "I doubt I can get past whatever Mr Smith has been threatened with. A prison sentence would undoubtedly be a walk in the park compared with the prospect of informing on the likes of Robertson." He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he tried to think of a way to break through Smith's fear. They were only after information on Robertson's contacts, not on Robertson himself. It would have been far quicker to speak directly to the man himself, but MI5 was after him on a different matter and didn't want to risk CI5's questioning tipping him off to MI5's interest.
"Mind if I give it a go?" Wolf asked, still watching Smith on the monitor. Doyle looked at Bodie's amused expression in surprise, then transferred his amazed gaze to Wolf. "Five minutes?"
"Aye. Time enough. He's all yours," Cowley waved his hand at the screen that showed a man huddled behind a small table. Doyle switched his surprised look to Cowley, to his credit he didn't say a word, but he was too stunned by Cowley's agreement to think of anything to say. Wolf nodded and left the observation room.
The three men watched as she entered the interrogation room. Smith didn't look up as the door opened, in fact he didn't seem to register that he was no longer alone. Wolf folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the wall by the door, all the while staring at the prisoner.
"What's she doing?" Doyle asked.
Cowley allowed a faint smile to play about his lips. "Putting the fear of Wolf into him would be as close as I could describe it. I have no idea what she does or how she does it, but it works." He shook his head as the woman on-screen started padding softly about the prisoner. The only sounds being picked up by the mike were the fidgets and shuffles of Smith, as far as audio was concerned Wolf was not in the room.
"I don't get it, Sir," Doyle wondered aloud. "She's just walking around in there."
"Truth be told, I don't understand it either, lad," Cowley sighed deeply. He didn't like not knowing, but he had the choice of accepting a vouchsafed employee with undeniably desirable abilities or pushing her for answers and losing her. He'd put in so much time on the phone to her superior in InterPol since her secondment to CI5 that he was almost considering having a dedicated line installed, but the answer always came back the same — while her abilities were not understood, her trustworthiness was beyond question.
A smug Bodie-like smile spread across her face and she ceased her pacing, leaned over the prisoner's shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"What's she saying?" Bodie asked, broken from a trance that centred around watching Wolf's bare legs flicker into view below her coat as she moved. He'd seen Wolf's interrogation technique at work before, but had never managed to catch what she said to her subject. Audio still wasn't picking her up. If it wasn't for Smith's twitching at the whispered words and low moans, Bodie would have swore they'd lost the mike.
Cowley shook his head. "It's never yet registered. Wolf's told me she plays good cop/bad cop with their conscience."
Doyle opened his mouth to question Cowley when Wolf turned to the camera with a broad grin, gave the all clear and a thumbs up. Cowley was out the door before Doyle could form the words. A still grinning Wolf took his place as Cowley entered the interrogation room again.
The sudden sound of Smith breaking down startled the two men slightly, they swung back to the monitor to witness Smith telling Cowley everything. "How'd you do that?" Doyle's mouth was still open in disbelief.
"I appealed to his better nature," she offered.
"Bullshit," Doyle spat. "He doesn't have a better nature."
Wolf shrugged with disinterest. "Does it matter?" There were some aspects to her less than normal behaviour that she refused to — couldn't — share. Besides, explaining that she used a combination of sub-vocals, sensory input, pheromones and well-honed observational skills was only going to be greeted with the same amount of disbelief. "I'll show you how it works some time," she offered with malicious glee.
Bodie intervened before Doyle could say something he would later regret. "All that matters, Ray, is that Wolf just got us all off for the rest of the day." He made sure that his partner got the drift this time. "I say we all piss off before Uncle George remembers the squirrel." Doyle couldn't argue with that line of reasoning. The three of them trooped out into the CI5 hallway as Cowley led the prisoner out of the interrogation room.
At their expectant looks, Cowley relented. "All right, you've all got tomorrow off. But I want the lot of you in my office first thing when you get back."
They thanked Cowley and scarpered before he could change his mind. Neither man failed to notice Smith's behaviour during the brief exchange. Even though he showed no recognition of Wolf, he cowered away from her, trying to hide behind Cowley and get as far from the woman as possible.
After successfully escaping from CI5 for the rest of the day, the three friends headed for the pub for a well-earned break.
Bodie settled back into darkness of the pub and drank his beer. "I still can't believe the look on Cowley's face when you pinned those squash balls to his door," he laughed.
"I notice you didn't bring up the subject of your sword or the rest of your collection of sharp implements to Cowley," Doyle mentioned in curiosity.
Wolf shrugged. "He didn't ask."
Doyle didn't push her further. This was the sort of response that he had come to expect from Wolf — she didn't volunteer any information. And when questioned, she revealed the bare minimum. He knew that he had no chance of getting any kind of straight answer from her about her past. Hopefully plying her with alcohol would loosen her tongue. He knew it was a low act, but the curiosity was killing him and his own background in the force had instilled in him a need to know. He got up and wandered off to the bar for another round.
Several hours later, Bodie and Doyle had succeeded in neither getting Wolf drunk nor in prying any solid background information out of her. They, however, were in no condition to even attempt to find their respective ways home.
Having hit a wall with Wolf, Doyle had begun an animated argument with Bodie. Bodie had more interest in sports than Wolf did, but she had been sucked into the vortex of the argument none the less.
Pleading ignorance, Wolf had dropped out of the debate and settled back to watch. Neither of them seemed to be making too much sense.
Contrary to how it seemed, alcohol affected Wolf the same as it did everyone else — although, after the stuff she'd been raised on, she did have a remarkably high tolerance. Her sobriety was the result of her body being able to forcefully clean it out of her system with an accelerated healing ability.
Wolf had no delusions about what their intentions had been, but she figured they might learn from the experience. She grinned evilly to herself as she wondered what to do with them. Leaving them in the pub, in their present condition, was probably not a good idea. As drunk as they were, they were more than capable of handling themselves if they got into any trouble. She was more concerned about Bodie's current potential for finding said trouble. 'No doubt about it, the boy is gifted when it comes to getting into trouble,' she thought as she ran her fingers fondly through his hair. She figured that abandoning the pair in the pub would more than likely result in an occurrence that got them all barred.
Having reached a suitable conclusion to her musings, Wolf rose and helped her two friends to their feet.
Bodie lost his balance and threw an arm around Wolf's neck to keep his feet — not a entirely accidental movement Wolf thought in amusement. "Where are we going?" Bodie whispered in her ear in an amazingly steady voice.
Wolf's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but one look into his slightly glassy eyes proved that his voice was the only steady thing about him for the moment. She sighed to herself, "I'm getting the two of you out of here while you can still walk." Catching Doyle around the waist, she escorted them from the pub.
The fresh night air was a welcome relief to Wolf's assaulted senses. She shook her head, trying to clear the last of the cigarette smoke and the sensory overload from her head.
Wolf's pause had given Doyle a chance to escape. She ground her teeth as she watched him heading off towards his car. She propped Bodie against a wall and with a hand pressed against his chest and the threat of physical violence in her eyes, growled out a stern, "Stay."
Bodie, not at all put off by her behaviour, caught her hand as she turned and pulled her into a close embrace. "Kiss me again," he whispered.
Wolf didn't know if Bodie sobered up really fast, but he certainly didn't look or sound the same as he had a moment before. She closed her eyes before she lost herself in his dark gaze. "I have to get Doyle," she replied, her voice husky is response to Bodie's proximity. "Later," she promised.
Reluctantly releasing the small redhead, Bodie watched in amusement as she bounded across the carpark and crash-tackled Doyle against his car. He chuckled as she dropped his partner's keys into a pocket of her coat and dragged the protesting man back to where Bodie waited.
"I am not too drunk to drive," Doyle complained.
"Your driving while sober is enough to terrify most of the inhabitants of Greater London," Wolf rebuffed. "You are not getting your keys back. End of argument."
Doyle was sulking quietly as Bodie fell into step beside the pair, wrapping a proprietary arm around Wolf's shoulders. He smirked smugly at Doyle over the top of her head.
"Where are we going then?" Doyle asked.
"Home," Wolf answered simply.
"Whose home?" Bodie asked this time.
"Mine," she finished with a sigh. "It's closer."
Bodie groaned. Reality had just come unexpectedly crashing back in on him — and it was painful. Daylight streamed into the room and he didn't want to open his eyes to face it just yet. He idly wondered how much he'd drunk the night before to produce this level of hangover and swore never to do it again.
"It's your own fault, you know," Wolf's quiet voice intruded into his self pity.
There was something not quite right here. Bodie tried to assemble his thoughts into something that could satisfactorily explain his current situation. The only solid details he could go on were; drinking with Wolf and Doyle last night, waking naked in what felt like a bed, daylight assaulting his still tightly shut eyes and Wolf's voice. There had to be a good association there somewhere. He decided to risk opening his eyes.
He spotted Wolf leaning nonchalantly against the doorjamb, holding what looked like two mugs of coffee. She was wearing a long tee-shirt that came down to mid-thigh and he doubted she wore anything under it. The bedroom wasn't his. A major jump in logic filled in the gaps. It was morning, he was in Wolf's bed and she was bringing him tea. 'This is good,' he thought cheerfully. The idea was starting to break the hold of his hangover. 'This is very good. Why can't I remember more?' He propped himself up on his elbows and smiled winningly at her.
All of Bodie's hangover-induced illusions were shattered when he heard a pained groan from the other side of the bed. Doyle was making an equally reluctant return to the world of the living.
Wolf laughed as she handed Bodie one of the mugs. She nudged him over and sat on the bed beside him. "That look on your face is the funniest thing I've seen for a long while," she chuckled, handing a confused-looking Doyle the other mug of coffee. "You are really going to have to stop trying to get me drunk though."
Doyle felt the coffee nudge his thought processes into something that was a reasonable facsimile of action. "How did we end up here?"
"My place was closer, I brought you home," Wolf explained simply.
"No," Doyle shook his head slowly and with great care. "Here. In this bed," he clarified.
Wolf smiled, showing sharper that usual teeth, as she continued teasing her friends. "I put you there last night. It's big enough and much more comfortable than the lounge."
"So where did you sleep?" Bodie asked, raising an eyebrow.
Wolf smiled even more widely. "In the middle," she answered innocently, nodding to the centre of the large bed.
Bodie managed to produce another impressively stunned expression, and this time Doyle was alert enough to mirror it.
"So we've just spent the night sharing your bed and managed to sleep through it," Doyle was still trying to think clearly through his headache.
"That's about the size of it," Wolf summed up cheerfully.
Bodie placed his empty cup on the bedside table and dropped back onto the bed in defeat. "I've just spent the night in bed with a beautiful woman and didn't do anything but sleep. Doyle, shoot me now. Please."
Doyle and Wolf laughed at his dramatics or more correctly, Wolf laughed and Doyle winced at the sound of his own voice echoing though his head. "Neither of you were in a state to do anything but sleep."
Bodie sat up with, "I'm feeling much better now."
At the same time as Doyle managed, "I'm fine, really."
Wolf laughed as she allowed herself to be pulled back into bed by her two friends. She had to admit to herself they were much more fun in bed when awake.
Chapter Six
1978
Doyle practically lived in Wolf's garage. He had known that she shared his passion for bikes, but his discovery of the workshop-cum-garage beneath her old Gothic styled house had been a real eye-opener.
It was as large as feasibly possible for the block of land. With no direct street access, she had installed a ramp that led out into the enclosed backyard. It was only just wide enough to manoeuvre a bike.
Wolf's Ducati was parked near the base of the ramp. Her ex-racing MV Augusta was mounted on a stand at the back of the garage beside the Moto Guzzi that Doyle was currently working on. The bikes took up far less room that cars would have — not that you could have gotten a car into the garage — and this had allowed her the room to install a forge and a great deal of metalworking equipment.
Doyle's mind still boggled the expense of the renovation and the equipment — not taking into account what the bikes must have cost — he still remembered his excitement when she'd bought the silver and blue 900SS a couple of years back. He known that Wolf must had inherited a windfall long before he'd met her, but it was still amazing to see what she'd done with the money. She didn't flaunt her wealth, and in fact seemed to do just the opposite. It was easy to forget that she owned the London house she shared with her brother.
He'd often wondered why she worked for someone like CI5. She had money, family — albeit mostly estranged — and more than enough connections, dubious or otherwise, to live a very comfortable life far from the often life-threatening line of work she'd chosen.
Doyle shook his head at the thoughts and watched Wolf as he worked on the engine of his bike. She had spent most of the morning forging and shaping a sword-guard and was still clad in a long leather apron. Now she was sitting up on a workbench with the metal braced against her bent knee as she engraved it.
The simple act of working together in companionable silence reminded Doyle of similar times in his childhood working on bikes. The memory brought a smile to his face.
"Penny for your thoughts, Ray," Wolf asked as she turned the metal in her hands.
"Hmm..." Doyle shook himself out of his reverie. "Sorry. This just reminds me of when I was a kid. Mucking around with cars and bikes." He looked up and caught Wolf's eye. "You ever do this when you were little?" he waved his hand at the carefully spread out bike innards.
Wolf snorted in amusement. "Kind of... at this though," she held up the partially engraved metal bar. "I was working as a smith from the time I was old enough to pump the bellows."
"Isn't that illegal?" Doyle wondered aloud.
"Not where I come from, love," she answered shaking her head at his expression. "I was raised at my father's forge. We travelled with a small group of tradesmen from town to town. They were good times."
"What did the rest of your family think of that?" Doyle prompted, thoroughly engaged at the unexpected glimpse into his friend's childhood.
Wolf shook her head. "There were none to speak of. My parents were among the last that followed the old ways. My Da knew that the over zealous Christian ideals held by his family would not tolerate my presence for long." Doyle shot her a questioning look, she smiled and held her hair away from an ear revealing the slightly pointed tips. "Stoning offence where I come from," she joked. Something in her voice made Doyle think that she wasn't being as light-hearted as her quip made out.
"Da contrived a story that I died alone with my mother in childbirth," Wolf continued. "He hid me among his belongings and fled to the safety and anonymity of a group of travelling smiths. They took me in as one of their own and supported me when I took over from my Da when he died." To spite his family, he had named me his daughter Mactíre for the wolf they feared her to be — and in truth was — going so far as to name her as a son to protect her from their discovery.
"How old were you then?" Doyle asked gently, all pretence to working on his bike forgotten.
"Twelve."
"You're kidding?" he exclaimed, shocked at the thought of a small child working a forge with a band of gypsies. "And you ran the business from that age without the authorities stepping in?"
"I was protected by my adopted family." Wolf smiled, she could see Ray struggling to understand her story in his modern day terms. When she had been a child, the world had been a very different place. Her entire world had been the tight-knit society of the smiths, interspersed with the customers they'd meet in their travels. It was as alien a concept in Doyle's experience, as it was in his time.
Doyle knew she was telling him the truth, but everything had a strangely archaic feel — as if it was out of sync with the world he knew. She didn't seem to have had time for a formal education, but she was an educated woman. And her childhood spent working as an adult was something she seemed to cherish.
"When did you move into our line of work?" he wondered aloud.
"I met a distant relative," she smiled as she remembered the first time she'd seen the beautiful young man who would claim her as kin and spirit her away to a world she had never dreamt of. "He channelled my energies into new and interesting directions."
"So it's a family connection then?"
"Of a sort," she conceded. "Successfully dealing with the majority of my extended family needs tact, politics or subterfuge — preferably all three. There was never a better training ground."
Doyle leaned against a workbench absently twirling an old sparkplug through his fingers. "You don't get on with them then?"
Wolf shook her head. "Not as such, most I wouldn't spit on if they were on fire." With few exceptions most of her family were arrogant self-centred pricks and if they ever deigned to notice her it was with the regard given for a freak or clever animal. Her royal lineage, as sullied as it may have been in their eyes, was all that had kept some of the more radical elements from tearing her apart on sight. Her Sire was a just man, who believed in honouring his responsibilities — hence her summons from her childhood trade — but he had little time for a young throwback when he was struggling to keep his clan from each others — and rival clans — throats. Her only real family were two of her cousins; Seaghán — the man who'd first introduced her to her remarkable kin — and Declán — the younger cousin who was born of her direct bloodline that she claimed as her brother. Her face lit up as she thought of the two men who were closer to her than brothers. "But there are a couple..."
Doyle smiled at the warm look in her eyes. "Pretty special, huh?"
"And then some," she finished absently, lost in her own thoughts again.
Wolf's tuneless whistling told Doyle that he'd have Buckley's of getting anything further out of his friend. Starting back on his bike, he wondered at the strange life she'd led. It was like something out of the Dark Ages. He shook he head, 'Weird. Definitely weird.'
Looking up as the whistling ceased, Doyle saw the slow smile that spread across her face. 'Bodie,' he thought with conviction. She could tell when either of the lads were near and Doyle had long since learned to recognise her reaction to Bodie's imminent presence.
Sure enough Bodie soon sauntered down the ramp and, after nodding a greeting in Doyle's general direction, continued over to greet Wolf.
Doyle snorted in amusement at his partner's dismissal. He'd long ago resigned himself to the fact that the pair of them were as thick as thieves. Bodie easily slipped inside Wolf's fiercely guarded defences — something that few people managed — even her dates seemed to be held at arms-length. He playfully knocked Wolf's leg out from under her, stepping between her now-dangling knees to examine her handiwork in detail.
He couldn't tell what they were discussing but their closeness gave them the appearance of long-familiar lovers rather than workmates. Not an unreasonable decision to reach given their easy camaraderie. He had always been of the opinion that they were kindred spirits and drawn to each other by a common bond — but then he also said that they were both cold-blooded killers and certifiably insane too.
They both shared shady pasts and were close-mouthed about the actual details of their lives prior to CI5. The similarities of which had been highlighted earlier in the week as they sorted through the list of Robertson's clients provided by John Smith. While not knowing any of the actual business dealings between the parties, Smith's list had provided CI5 with a sizeable number of villains to try and match to Cowley's rumours of possible domestic trouble.
Wolf's unexpectedly vast knowledge of European and Middle Eastern interests neatly dovetailed with Bodie's African contacts. Between them they had made short work of eliminating everyone whose purchase would go to foreign shores. This left a handful of names for Cowley to concentrate his valuable resources on.
Whatever their respective backgrounds, it had given them wandering accents. Wolf picked up on the accents around her and unconsciously mimicked them — something that annoyed Cowley no end — but Bodie's tended to vary with his mood. As much as they were alike, they were different. In appearance they were like order and chaos and their tastes also tended to run in opposite directions, but they thought along the same lines. In ways that sometimes unnerved Doyle.
He remembered a recent search for an absent Bodie.
Cowley had called the partners off stand-by and wanted them back at headquarters as soon as possible. Not finding Bodie at home, he figured Wolf's place was a pretty safe bet.
Pulling up to Wolf's house with a screech, Doyle hopped out of his car and went to thump on the door. His hand froze before he could knock as an extremely nasty thought came to mind. "Bugger, Bodie," he muttered, a wide smile gracing his cheeky face. "If we're getting in shit with Cowley for turning up late, I at least want some entertainment value out of this."
Hoping to stir things up a bit, he decided on a more subtle approach and quietly slipped inside. Unconsciously avoiding the stairs that creaked, he came to a stop at Wolf's slightly ajar bedroom door and flung it open with a yell.
A highly armed human knot was not what he had expected to find. Wolf was crouched protectively over Bodie, knives at the ready, with Bodie curled about her body in a similar attempt to shield her, his Browning in hand — both had their weapons trained unwaveringly on Doyle with deadly intent in their eyes.
They immediately relaxed as they recognised him, but from Doyle's point of view, the brief moment of fear seemed a hell of lot longer.
Wolf climbed off Bodie and handed him her knives. She flashed Doyle a dark knowing look, that made him wonder if she'd known it was him coming through the door all along. Wolf brushed her lips across Doyle's in a far from chaste kiss, drawled a low, "Mornin', Ray," in his ear in a husky voice and padded bare-arsed into the bathroom.
"Perhaps you should knock next time, Sunshine," Bodie offered his partner a sly smile before shooing him out to hunt up breakfast.
Bodie followed Wolf into the bathroom with his partner's dirty chuckle echoing in his ears.
Doyle fondly watched his friends from across the garage. The familiar teasing and banter washed over him as he resumed his work.
Bodie, who only ever answered to Bodie, and Wolf, who would answer to anything. He'd heard her addressed by so many different names in the few years he'd known her, that he had given up keeping track.
There was a closeness between them that Doyle had never noticed with any of their respective dates. Something that went beyond any of their other relationships, but that neither were prepared to take any further.
Doyle sometimes wondered why they never formed a tighter relationship. They were well suited to each other. 'Hurt once too often,' he mused. They both favoured brief meaningless associations with the opposite sex, seeming to purposely seek out people where there was no possibility of further commitment. Always turning to each other for comfort rather than need, content to take what was offered. They loved each other intensely, but were not 'in love'. Doyle had never managed to figure it out.
Bodie and Wolf had never dated as such, but quite often went out together with their current significant others in tow. Leaving their dates beds in the middle of the night and seeking out each other was not uncommon. Doyle would shake his head and laugh when he'd find them together in the morning, after last seeing them leave with other people the night before, and inform them that there was probably something deeply Freudian about their behaviour. Bodie and Wolf never thought twice about it, but it occasionally resulted in some messy encounters with irate girlfriends and boyfriends.
While she would happily crash at either of the lads places, Wolf would never stay the night with her boyfriends. Preferring her own bed, she would vanish in the middle of the night to find her own way home. Leaving some very confused men — and some highly compromised security systems — in her wake.
Wolf suspected that Bodie reacted to her sensory broadcasts — some people did — and they fed off each others emotions. While she had an deep link with Doyle that enabled her to sense strong emotional changes, her bond with Bodie was different. It was almost as strong as her bond with Declán, and there were times she believed that he could read her just as well.
He had always be able to tell when she was home alone. She'd woken many times to find Bodie's long lean body wrapped around hers and no recollection of him getting into bed. Her senses reacted to the danger of a situation whether she was asleep or awake. An intruder in the house — or even on the grounds of her property — and she was instantly awake and alert, but Bodie wandering in at god-knows-what hour and crawling into her bed, she slept through.
Bodie found that he slept better with Wolf, no nightmares, no pressures, no expectations, just deep peaceful sleep. Something that Doyle would never believe, considering that nearly every time he found them together they were, in fact, far from asleep. He felt safe in her presence, that was as close as he could come to describing the feeling. He didn't have to explain his job to her and he didn't have to worry about her being hurt because of him. Wolf carried with her an air of invincibility that seemed to encompass all those around her. Even her forays with Macklin and the accompanying bruises that she displayed as badges of honour didn't detract from this indomitable image.
It was a comfortable relationship for both of them. Uncomplicated sex with no strings attached and free to date whomever they pleased. They both knew the dangers of the job and were unfazed by the less than orthodox work schedule that it sometimes demanded.
Chapter Seven
1978
Wolf had been working in Glasgow when Bodie had run across Marikka Schumann again. By the time she had gotten back to London it was too late for her to do anything but pick up the pieces. She often wondered if she could have done anything to prevent Marikka's death. Probably not, the woman was tied up in political machinations she knew nothing about and was considered expendable. While she'd had no personal contact with the woman and didn't care about her one way or the other, Marikka had meant a great deal to Bodie — and Bodie was someone she did care about.
Doyle finally caught Wolf when she stopped for petrol and could hear the R/T over the engine of her bike — even her ears had difficulty picking it up through the helmet and background noise. That and preoccupation with getting back home as soon as possible.
"Where the hell are you, Wolf? I've been trying to get hold of you for hours," his voice sounded tinny over the radio.
She sighed in frustration. "I'm trying to break the record for the Glasgow to London run. I've outrun three pandas so far, but I'm expecting to hit a road block sooner or later."
Doyle ignored with her sarky tone. "You've heard then?" He realised that she must know about Bodie to be so wound up.
"Sort of." She could feel Bodie's anguish as a physical pain at the moment, but she didn't have details. The sooner she got back to London the better. "What happened?"
"Bodie's girlfriend was shot, she's dead. It's a messy situation. She was East German."
Wolf could guess at the rest from her connection to Bodie. She had the feeling that this woman had meant more to Bodie than Doyle was aware of. "Why aren't you with him?"
"Cowley had me follow him, Bodie spotted me and thinks I betrayed him. I don't think he'd respond too well to me at the moment."
Wolf could hear Doyle's distress for his friend in his voice. "I'll take care of him, Ray. I can make London in an hour if you can get me a clear run."
"Not a problem," relief coloured his voice. "What are you on?"
"The 900SS." Wolf could almost hear Ray's Pavlovian reaction at the mention of her bike.
"They should be able to hear you coming on that," Doyle laughed, but Wolf could still feel the strain that her friend was fighting to hold in check. "How will you find Bodie? I haven't been able to get hold of him anywhere," the worry was back in his voice again.
Wolf allowed herself a small smile. "He's at my place, probably well on his way to eliminating my alcohol supply and definitely not in the mood to answer the phone." Ray no longer questioned her ability to pinpoint his partner, it had saved their hides on more than one occasion for him to dispute it now. "Tell you what Ray, I'll drop the bike off at your place first so you can fill me in on the details."
"Great. I'll see you soon. Thanks, Wolf."
"Any time, Doyle. Out."
Wolf changed out of her leathers when she got to Doyle's place, leaving her bike with him on the instructions that; "As long as it comes back in one piece and working, I don't care what you do with it." She knew that Doyle knew he was being bribed to stay out of the way, but she also knew that Bodie wasn't in any condition to be civil to him either. And she had no intention of seeing them at each others throats.
Doyle, for his part, suspected Wolf's cheerful front was for his benefit alone. In all the time he'd known her, he'd never seen her eyes anything but green. Now they were a flat dull grey and filled with pain.
The run from Doyle's place had felt good. She had managed to avoid startling anybody along the way by sticking to the lanes and back-alleys, but still it was not too bad for a daylight romp in wolf-form, even if she did tweak her appearance towards that of a husky. It had been a long time since such a potentially risky action had been necessary, but the feel of the sun on her back and the wind in her fur had made it a very tempting future proposition.
Clearing the back wall in one leap, she flowed back to human, pulled her coat from the pack she wore and set about quietly letting herself in.
Bodie didn't even look up as he heard her padding softly into the room. He offered Wolf a half-hearted smile and went back to staring morosely at the flames in the hearth.
Wolf dropped her pack by the door and quietly walked over to Bodie. He was sitting on the sofa with his legs stretched out along its length, a half empty bottle of Scotch on the floor beside him. Basically he looked like shit. The maelstrom of his emotions flowed through their connection and buffeted her mind with their intensity. She ran her fingers slowly through his dark hair before heading up the stairs to her bedroom.
She tossed her weapon-laden coat over the industrial strength hook on the back of the door and grabbed a jumper from a drawer. Returning to Bodie, Wolf dropped to her knees beside the sofa and resumed stroking her friend's hair. Bodie reached for her hand and held it against his face. He turned and looked at Wolf with red-rimmed eyes.
It was a look that broke her heart, his pain was that tangible.
Bodie dropped his now empty glass on the floor and wrapped his arms around her.
With his face pressed into her neck, Wolf felt Bodie's sobs wrack through her body. She held him tightly as he cried out his loss, hot tears running unnoticed down her own cheeks.
As his tears slowly abated, Wolf was able to loosen his death-grip on her body and slip behind him on the sofa. With one leg behind him and the other slung across his lap, she wrapped her arms tightly around his body and nestled her head against his shoulder.
Bodie relaxed against her body, grateful for the support. As hurt as he was, he always felt safe with Wolf. She always knew how he felt and he, in turn, could usually pick her moods. "She's dead."
"I know, love," Wolf breathed softly into his ear.
"I could have saved her," he said in a voice still tight with emotion.
"No," she whispered firmly. "It was political. They would have gotten her sooner and later. And more than likely taken you out as well. No loose ends."
"I guess," Bodie answered, not even questioning Wolf's knowledge of the situation. "But I still should have been able to do something."
"Don't, love," Wolf hugged him tighter. "If you could have prevented her death, I know you would have. 'What ifs' only hurt more."
"But it's not fair," Bodie complained.
"It never is."
"I loved her."
"I know," Wolf answered.
Sighing Bodie said, "Why do I always lose the women I love?"
Wolf shrugged. "I guess we're just unlucky in love."
"You too?" he questioned hesitantly. She was quiet for so long that Bodie thought she wasn't going to answer him.
"Once," she managed eventually, a shadow of pain passing across her face. "A long time ago."
"What happened?"
"I fell in love. The real thing, the full monty, head-over-heels, all the bells and whistles. He was the best thing that ever happened to me, my other half." Wolf paused, smiling slightly at her friend's surprised look. The silence stretched out before she finally continued, "When he died it was like a piece of my soul had been ripped out."
The pain was something Bodie could not imagine, even as hurt as he was now. He knew his friend well, she was a passionate creature and when she fell in love he knew she'd go all the way. "How did you cope?"
"I didn't," Wolf sighed. "A couple of friends dragged me kicking and screaming out of a suicidal depression. Dec refused to let me out of his sight for a long time afterwards."
Bodie shuddered at the thought of Wolf being out of control. "It doesn't get any easier to go through this, does it?"
"No. Not at first. Not unless you stop caring about people."
"It might be better if I did," Bodie said bluntly, a hard edge creeping into his voice.
"The alternative isn't pleasant, Bodie. Believe me, I've been there." Squeezing him tightly, Wolf lifted her head and kissed him softly on the temple. "You only end up hurting those who love you. Me, Doyle... even Cowley in his own way. Not that we'd let you, you understand."
Bodie's lips quirked in a brief smile despite himself. "I guess," he quietly agreed. "Got any alternative suggestions?"
"Just one," she offered with a shrug.
"Don't fall in love," they finished together.
Bodie smiled slightly despite himself. "How do you cope?" he asked.
"Not too differently from you," Wolf hugged him tightly against her chest. "I live in a continual state of lust instead." This brought another fleeting smile to her friend's face. "Trust me Bodie, it will get better over time. You know that, you've been there before. And if it gets too tough, I'm always here for you and Doyle is worried sick about you too."
"I know he is," Bodie whispered against her jumper. "I just needed to get away from everything CI5 at the moment." Wolf raised an eyebrow at his comment. "All right," he clarified, "Everything related to the case. I'll call Doyle in the morning."
Wolf ran her hands slowly up and down Bodie's back, her touch and presence comforting the grieving man. Personally she doubted that Doyle would be patient enough to wait for a call, he cared too much for his partner to be left on the sidelines for long.
They both sat in companionable silence, watching the leap and crackle of the open fire. Eventually Bodie dropped off into an exhausted sleep in Wolf's arms.
Returning her bike the following morning, Doyle found them there on the sofa, still wrapped tightly around each other.
Chapter Eight
1979
Cowley's extensive surveillance of the individuals selected from Smith's confession finally whittled the list down to one man. A security adviser working out of one of the small Middle Eastern embassies with extensive connections to the IRA. He called in his best men.
Doyle screeched his Capri to a halt outside CI5 headquarters, the sudden silence allowed him to hear Wolf's Ducati long before it roared into view. Wolf pulled into the garage and brought the bike to a halt. Bodie leapt from the back of the machine almost before it stopped and yanking his helmet off, tossed it back to her. He offered his scowling partner a huge smile and went tearing inside, with a yell over his shoulder to see them outside Cowley's office in five minutes.
Wandering over to Wolf as she hung the helmets over the handlebars of the bike, he recognised the look on her face for what it was. Doyle's scowl deepened as he silently cursed Cowley's miserable timing, even while openly admiring Wolf's leather-clad form.
"Blue balls?" Wolf asked pleasantly, falling into step beside the fuming young man.
"I was this close," Doyle held his fingers up for Wolf's benefit. "Then Mr-George-bloody-Cowley calls me back to HQ. At 2:00 in the fucking morning. And what are you so bleeding happy about?" he asked at Wolf's evident amusement with his situation.
"What makes you think Cowley's timing was any better for us?"
"Well, what's with you and Prince Charming and a pair of bloody grins that would put the Osmond family to shame?" he growled in misery, thinking of the lovely Judith's temper tantrum at his sudden departure. 'That's another one I'll never see again,' he thought with regret.
"Ever put much thought to the possibilities of the vibrations of an SS, a hard cock rubbing up against your arse and young Master Bodie's wandering hands?" she asked Doyle in a highly conversational tone of voice. Truth be told it was a wonder the pair of them weren't a greasy smear on the road right now. "I think our Bodie's developing something of a leather fetish."
Doyle screwed his face up in a combination of disgust and admiration. "That was more information than I needed, ta." He really didn't need the confirmation of his friends having a more productive evening than he had.
"Ah," Bodie's voice sounded from behind them. "Mrs Peel," he said in deference to her form-fitting garb.
"Steed," Wolf acknowledged, joining in the game.
He offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
Taking the offer arm Wolf finished, "Let's."
"Dickheads," Doyle muttered at their behaviour. He did notice that Bodie had changed out of his jeans and suspected it wasn't just due to a preference for tailored trousers. He shook his head to try and clear the thoughts of lost opportunities from his mind.
A hour later they were all piled into the silver Capri, with Doyle at the wheel. Bodie and Doyle were on their way to stake out Cowley's latest pigeon and Wolf was on information retrieval. She was currently stretched across the back seat reading through what little useful information Cowley had so far managed to dredge up on one Brian Morrison.
"Born locally and a few unsubstantiated rumours of dealings with the Irish," she shuffled the flimsies back into an ordered pile and handed the file over to Bodie.
"IRA?" Doyle offered.
Bodie made a noise of disgust at the few details provided them. "He could be Jesus Christ reborn for all the evidence here. There's nothing concrete on him." He tossed the file back to Wolf who shot it under Doyle's seat. "Oi!" Bodie pointed out the window with far more enthusiasm than the case has so far managed to produce in any of them. "Pull over here," he pointed to an all-night chippie. "I'm starved. Want anything?"
"Fish and chips," Wolf answered with equal excitement at the prospect of food.
Doyle reluctantly seconded Wolf's choice of fish and chips. And watched with amusement as his partner bounded into the shop with childlike glee.
Wolf leaned around Doyle's seat and settled her chin on his shoulder. "Still upset about the lovely Judith?"
Doyle closed his eyes and sighed loudly. "Course I am. She was great fun and..." he trailed off shifting uncomfortably in pants that were suddenly too tight.
"Up for a bet, love?"
Doyle suddenly got an uneasy feeling at the innocent tone in Wolf's voice. "Maybe," he answered cautiously.
"Remember how you wanted to know how I convinced Smith to cooperate?"
"Yeah, but what's that got to do with anything?"
"You'll see." Wolf dropped her voice to a low growl, "Bet you a fiver I can get you off before Bodie's back with no physical contact."
"Bullshit!" Common sense should have told Doyle to tell Wolf where to get off, but the sheer ridiculousness of what she suggested overruled his better nature. "No way." Nose to nose with the woman he found her eyes dancing with mischief, but that could mean just about anything. If nothing else it would serve as a distraction from his thoughts at the moment.
Wolf stuck her arms around either side of the seat. "C'mon, give me your hands." He looked at her strangely at the sudden change in direction of the conversation. "No cheating from you either," she explained.
Doyle surrendered with a shrug and grasped her proffered hands.
"Now close your eyes and relax," Wolf's voice was a low murmur in his ear.
Almost against his will Doyle found himself drop into the realm between sleep and awareness, his only contact with the outside world was a soft humming. Warmth flowed down from his hands and suffused his body. The humming increased and the warmth settled in his groin.
Whether it was due to his frustration over Judith or Wolf's talents, Doyle found himself aroused faster than he would have believed possible. He was no longer aware of his friend's presence, just the low humming buzz that surrounded his body. The hum dropped, leaving him feeling bereft of its gentle embrace, before rising sharply. The tonal change shot through his body and he came explosively, his yell muffled by clenched teeth.
Doyle happily floated in his dreamlike state before a soft kiss on his cheek brought him back to the waking world. He slid out of Wolf's grip and stretched his arms as far above his head as the enclosed car interior would allow.
Bodie dropped back into the car in a cloud of vinegar and handed a newspaper wrapped bundle to Wolf.
"Oi!" Doyle cried indignantly, as Bodie tore into his breakfast. "Where's mine?"
"Can't eat and drive at the same time, can you?" he pronounced around a mouthful of chips. "You can have yours when we get to Morrison's."
"Bastard," Doyle muttered without any conviction as he filched a handful of Bodie's chips and started the car.
"Hey! It won't kill you to wait." He cupped an arm protectively around his food, eliciting a laugh from his partner. "You're a hell of lot more chipper. What got into you?"
Doyle was suddenly tight-lipped, but Wolf snorted her amusement from the back of the car.
It didn't take too long for Bodie to put two and two together. Doyle was inexplicably mellow and Wolf was smug as all get out and still in the mood for inflicting her unusual sense of humour on others. He turned in his seat and eyed the small redhead who was making short work of her meal. "Let me guess..." Wolf met his eyes and flashed him a grin that made most sensible members of CI5 shiver in their boots. "This has something to do with that little interrogation session on Smith?"
Wolf nodded. "Gave him a practical demonstration, didn't I?" she winked at Bodie who sighed and turned back to Doyle.
"And I bet she's scored money out of you, you silly sod?" Doyle didn't grant him a reply, but paid the road far more attention than it deserved given the early hour of the morning. "You ought to know not to take her bets. Anyone else you've been messing with you want to tell me about?" he directed over his shoulder.
"No one you don't all ready know about," Wolf answered enigmatically.
Doyle finally entered into the conversation, "What's that supposed to mean?"
It was Bodie's turn to look smug. "You remember when we spent that week undercover and Murph kept calling us Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys."
"Yeah. How could I forget it," he sneered in disgust. It had taken weeks for Murphy to lose interest in his new pet names for the three agents.
"Well me and Wolf thought it time he lived up to his nickname." He took a photograph out of his jacket pocket and handed it to a curious Doyle.
Doyle exploded in laughter. The photo showed a naked, comatose Murphy — a blue, naked, comatose Murphy. "He looks like a giant Smurf. What did you do? Paint him?" he chuckled.
"What? And have him wash it off before everyone else could enjoy the effect." Wolf leaned forward and pointed at the photo Doyle handed back to Bodie. "That's woad, mate. It'll wear off... in a week or so."
Doyle broke up again. "Cowley's going to kill the pair of you, you know."
"It was worth it," Bodie and Wolf answered in unison.
"And besides," Bodie added very pleased with himself. "Once it does wear off we get to leave copies of the photos around the office."
Doyle glanced across at his partner, "You know he won't let you get away with it."
"He's got to prove it was us first," Bodie responded.
"Do I really want to know this?" Doyle said mostly to himself. "You drugged him didn't you?" he directed to the two chuckling occupants of the car that he had the misfortune to call friends.
"Kind of," Wolf admitted sheepishly.
"That's it," Doyle declared. "I don't want to know any more. You can hang on your own for this one."
"Isn't that Morrison's car?" Wolf pointed ahead of them. An ostentatious silver gull-wing Mercedes was parked at the front of a large townhouse.
"It's got to be," Doyle slowed the car down to get a better look. "There can't be too many of those in London. I'll pull in up here."
Wolf was out the door almost before the car stopped. "I want to have a sniff around the area. I'll be back in 15 minutes." She vanished into the darkness before either of the men could say a word.
"What was that about?" Doyle questioned his partner.
Bodie shrugged eloquently. "How the hell should I know? Just shut up and eat your chips before they get cold."
Doyle finished his chips in silence, screwed the empty wrapper into a ball and bounced it off his partner's head. "What was that for?" Bodie started indignantly.
"Just getting your attention," Doyle grinned cheekily and nodded to the figure slowly approaching the car. "There's something you don't see every day."
Wolf was wandering back to the car, head down, hands thrust in pockets and lost in thought. Bodie frowned at the sight. It wasn't like their erstwhile partner to miss the opportunity to launch a sneak attack on them, even after she'd come close to being shot on several occasions.
She climbed back into the car without comment, to be greeted by Bodie's quiet, "Well...?"
"Huh?" she looked around, almost surprised to find herself back in the car.
"What did you see?" Bodie prompted again.
"Oh," Wolf settled back in the seat, almost disappearing in the shadows. "Nothing exciting. Very quiet. Clear access all around the house. Latches on side gates, no locks. Windows at ground level for a cellar, looks to be in regular use, workshop, something of the sort. Two bodyguards inside, both armed, regular patrol of the grounds once or twice a night," she recited in a monotone before lapsing back into silence.
Both lads tried to break her out of her self-imposed solitude to no avail and eventually left her to her own thoughts and bantered between themselves to break to monotony of the obbo.
Wolf's worry was not so much at the recon she'd done, which turned up pretty much what they'd expected, but more at the weird feeling she got from being in close proximity to the house. Or more accurately Brian Morrison.
Her superior senses allowed her a far clearer picture of her environment than most humans, so she could easily detect the two security men in the house, but Morrison was a different story. He was a grey area at best.
A pair of familiar presences reached out in reaction to her anxiety. Dec's comforting touch filled her mind, while Seaghán was far more assertive in his concern. "What's up mo mhactíre beag?" Seaghán's Irish endearment brought a smile to her face. "It has got to take something interesting to get you this wound up."
"Tell me about it," Dec added with a wince. "Whatever got up your nose just spiked a headache beyond belief."
"Sorry." With a gentle touch of her mind Wolf soothed the pain she'd inadvertently caused. She'd always connected with Dec on this level. Their thoughts and feeling were intimately entwined to a far greater degree than either of their bonds with Seaghán, but his greater telepathic ability easily compensated for the difference. "I think I've got a problem here. My assignment is fading in and out of my sensory perception."
She opened her senses up to her family, trying to lock onto Morrison from the car. The man was still fading in and out of existence, but not quite managing to completely hide his presence from the distant watchers.
"Weird," Dec announced with a low whistle. "Never seen anything like that before."
"I have," Seaghán stated simply. "He's a throwback, a little Daoine Sí blood in combination with a natural empathic talent. His shielding is surprisingly strong for his lack of training. I'll see if I can track down his clan." He vanished from their minds, the smell of eternal Spring fading with his abrupt departure.
"Wonderful," Wolf snorted with contempt. "Just what I need. An over-excited Laoch Sí and a fledgling Talent. Can life get any better than this?"
Dec saw through her bitching. "You going to be okay with Morrison, love?"
"Yeah. I may not have you at my back, but the lads are good. I'll be fine," she assured her cousin. "Stop worrying."
"Can't help it," Dec shrugged. "It's not like I have too much in the way of family to worry about." Wolf felt a fond chuckle run through her as he left with a parting, "Take care."
Bodie reached into the back seat and nudged Wolf none too gently. "Up and at 'em, sleepyhead. We've got movement."
"Took him long enough to get up, didn't it?" Doyle complained. Their quarry had finally exited his residence at almost 9:00 am.
"Not a bad life is it? I must be in the wrong business," Bodie mused to himself as Doyle pulled into the light traffic and started tailing the Merc.
Bodie glanced at Wolf as she hung between the car seats watching Morrison's car. She had been strangely quiet ever since she had returned from her earlier expedition. She'd reported seeing nothing unusual, but still looked disturbed by something. Having worked with the usually unflappable young woman for so long, Bodie wasn't sure he really wanted to know what could throw her off balance.
The Mercedes pulled into the underground carpark of a Whitehall building. Doyle drove past the entrance and parked nearby.
"I'll see what he's up to," Bodie volunteered.
Wolf followed him out of the car. "I want a closer look," she stated with a determined air.
Doyle peeled away from the kerb as they vanished into the building's garage.
Bodie and Wolf had no problems slipping into the unguarded entrance of the garage. The lighting was bright enough to make them conspicuous, but Wolf was shielding them both from notice. It wasn't something she normally did in situations like this but there was something about Morrison that unnerved her. The Mercedes was quickly spotted, as was Morrison as he exited the vehicle and headed towards to the lifts.
The well-dressed businessman pressed the call button and waited for a lift car patiently as the two agents circled around for a closer look. A ding announced the arriving lift, but instead of stepping in he spun around and surveyed the garage. He gaze lingered on a car — that moments before a jumpy Wolf had dragged Bodie behind — before continuing a cool appraisal of the area. Satisfied with what he'd seen, Morrison entered the lift and rose into the corporate world above.
"What the hell was that for?" Bodie hissed in her ear.
Wolf shook her head in confusion. "I don't know," she whispered in confusion. "I don't like him."
"You don't have to like him..." Bodie stopped as he caught her uncertain expression. He grasped her shoulders and forced her to meet his gaze. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, "Yeah, I'll be fine."
"What was that all about?" her partner pressed.
"Nothing," she brushed him off. "Look, I'm going to go see what I can dig up on this suit. I'll catch you later." She vanished before Bodie could argue.
"What happened to Wolf?" Doyle queried as Bodie got back into the car.
"Pissed off to dig up some dirt on Morrison for the Cow." Bodie settled himself in his seat and closed his eyes in thought. Wolf's odd behaviour was enough to set off his alarm bells. If she was this nervy about the bloke then there was a damn good reason for it.
Doyle caught the look of concern of Bodie's face. "What happened in there?"
Bodie shook his head. "Nothing. Wolf just got a little weird on me. I've never seen her do that before."
"Hmph," Doyle ran a hand through his curls. "Anything to worry about?"
"Nah," Bodie nodded towards the Mercedes that was emerging from the garage. "Just keep a bit more distance between us, huh?"
Cowley eyed the young woman seated before him. If he didn't know better he'd think she was nervous. He mentally thrust that thought aside, it couldn't be possible, could it?
"So what have you got for me?"
Wolf closed her eyes before answering. Taking a deep breath she fixed Cowley with a steady gaze. "I'm afraid some of this is going to sound a little odd, sir. I'm not sure where to start."
Cowley's eyebrows twitched in surprised. This was a first. "Start with what you've found out about Morrison, lass," he pushed her gently.
"Okay." She handed over a sheaf of handwritten notes. "All of the guns purchased from Robertson have been accounted for." She watched as the small Scotsman flicked through the papers.
"They all went to embassy security men. Interesting, looks like he may not be our man after all."
"I think he might be, but I don't have any hard evidence." Cowley waved her concerns away and prompted her to continue. "I tried his Irish connections but they're all legit. It was when I looked into his political background that things got interesting. I think he's aiming to take over Sir Archibald Marwell's seat of office."
"Impossible," Cowley burst out. "He's in a safe conservative seat and there's been no party rumblings."
"That's what caught my eye. He's managed to quietly line himself up as Marwell's only logical successor. You ought to see what I managed to dig out of the archives." She handed over a folder filled with clippings. "It makes for interesting reading."
"Are you certain this is Morrison," Cowley indicated the accumulation of press clippings and arrest reports for a Warren Davies. They covered a range of topics but the predominate one was that of a young Neo-Nazi sympathiser. "If this is the same man we could have a serious problem on our hands."
"I'm positive, sir. And I don't think you're going to like the rest of it," she ran a hand through her unruly hair. "He plans to take over when Sir Marwell dies of a convenient heart attack."
"An assassination?" Cowley muttered to himself. "Difficult to pull off without suspicion being aroused, but equally difficult to cover all bases without taking Sir Marwell into protective custody." Something he would use as a last resort. Marwell wouldn't readily agree to it and it would tip their hand to Morrison.
Wolf took a deep breath before telling Cowley her last piece of information, the thing she had been dreading. "Morrison has contracted me to perform the assassination," she stated in a monotone.
Cowley exploded as she'd expected and she was treated to a display of inventive Scottish cursing. Once he recovered from the unexpected admission, Cowley fixed Wolf with a glare that made grown men cringe. "I think you should start explaining yourself."
"It's an old InterPol front that we've kept alive, as it still catches a few people a year. I've been running it in recent years and it's quite a neat scam. I get a request for a job, we meet, discuss the matter, I get paid half up front to do the job. Usually we can pick up the person then and there, but sometimes it's necessary to go through with the charade to catch the bigger fish."
Cowley took in the scheme without blinking, he had the feeling that Wolf still had something nasty to drop in his lap. "And what is the arrangement with Morrison?"
"A meet like any other," she answered. "But I can't guarantee it will be enough to hook Morrison."
Cowley raised an eyebrow in query.
"There's something odd about Morrison, sir."
"Odd? How?" This was not the response he'd come to expect from the compact ex-InterPol operative.
"He nearly caught me and Bodie tailing him this morning in the garage."
"That's possible?" Cowley started in surprise. He had first hand experience with Wolf's methods of hunter and hunted. She had never failed in any of the tests that he or Macklin had set for her.
The small woman had drawn her legs up onto the seat and was hugging them against her chest. She looked lost in thought as she continued, "I scouted around his house this morning and got a really odd feeling then, like I was being watched. It was similar to the feeling I got before he almost caught us later."
"What do you make of it?"
"Not sure," she shook her head. "But I think he's a little like me. But without the conscious control." Wolf didn't notice as Cowley paled slightly. "I don't think he even knows what he's doing. But it's served him well enough to escape his past so cleanly — and to keep his current image smelling of roses despite some less than legal dealings."
"Bodie should be able to handle the meet and arrest then —"
"No!" her response was quiet but firm — and final. "He'll spot Bodie straight away for a plant, Doyle too. Neither are assassins."
'But you are,' Cowley couldn't help but finish the thought even though he had no evidence to prove it. "You think he will accept you as his contact?"
"I'm about the only one who can pull it off. He senses things in people. Anyone else would be noticed before they even got close enough to shake his hand."
Cowley flicked through the Morrison reports again before deciding. "All right. Go ahead, but be careful. If we miss our chance this time I doubt we'll get another one."
'Great fucking plan, Wolf,' she thought to herself in disgust as she tried to ease the ache in her arms. Morrison had her handcuffed to an overhead pipe in the cellar of his house. 'This wanker has a less than savoury history that's he's managed to keep hidden for years, is a purchaser of small arms that we only recently stumbled over and has a spotless public record. And you think you can just waltz in and have him drop himself in it. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.'
Wolf had gone to the meet as arranged with Bodie and Doyle as backup. One of Morrison's lackeys had ushered her to his boss' car where she'd finally met the man face to face.
If she hadn't reigned her senses in she would have thrown up in the backseat of his limo. The sheer strength of the man's presence was overwhelming, he was a natural empath with absolutely no control. Wolf doubted that he even knew he had the ability. He projected himself to anyone within his range of influence, but he was also able to read those around him.
It had taken all of Wolf's concentration to both not react to the man and to hide her true purpose from him. Unfortunately, as she felt his impressive mental shields surround the car, she realised that he hadn't bought her cover — and he'd just cut off any chance of her backup finding her.
Morrison was as paranoid as she herself was, but she was the one who'd made the mistake of underestimating him.
Blood from the cut just below her hairline dripped into her eye. She swore softly and blinked it away. Morrison had left her alone for the moment and she needed to think while she had the chance. The cuts and bruises she could damp down to a dull throb and anything internal was easily healed. Wolf eased her tortured shoulder muscles once more, but the strain was getting beyond her means for surreptitious healing and the pain was fast reaching unbearable. And with the amount of damage that had already been inflicted to the rest of her body, she couldn't support herself any other way.
Morrison's beating wouldn't have been a problem in the normal run of things, but she couldn't overtly heal herself in his presence and she couldn't call in the cavalry without giving herself away.
And on top of all that she had another small problem. She kept getting queries from an increasingly ansty Dec and Seaghán. Trying to cover her situation and project the image that she was stuck on a boring obbo was becoming harder and harder to pull off. The moment her concentration slipped Morrison would find himself facing Seaghán in all his Celtic fury — and she didn't think Cowley would appreciate having his operation brought to a conclusion with a mysteriously dismembered corpse as the centrepiece. That happy thought brought a small smile to her battered face.
"Did I miss the joke?"
'Damn,' she hadn't even heard the man enter the room. The smirk was quickly replaced by a dull glazed expression that required no acting on her part.
Brian Morrison paced across her field of view, hands folded behind his back, he looked like he was about to address a board meeting. His immaculate cream linen suit was spotless. Quite a feat considering the amount of blood he'd managed to extract from his prisoner.
Morrison ceased his pacing as he appeared to come to a decision and stepped over to a bench laid out with various knives, tools and more exotic implements of torture. "I suggest you tell me who you're working for, young lady." He picked up a machete, tested the edge with his thumb and replaced it. "I can be very imaginative you know." A claw hammer caught his attention this time.
'Oh gods,' Wolf's eyes widened slightly as Morrison fondled the tool. 'That's going to be a bitch to live with.' With cuts she could heal them almost completely, allowing a surface cut for appearances sake to remain, but shattered kneecaps were not something she could explain away when a miracle cure suddenly occurred.
Fortunately for her, Morrison did not notice her reaction and happily continued his perusal of the tools. "I'm waiting."
Wolf tried to speak but couldn't get any words out. Coughing up a gob of phlegm and blood she spat on the floor. Morrison eyed the spittle with distaste. "I've all ready told you... I work alone," she forced out through gritted teeth. "Got your message. Came to meet you. Got tied up... beat for my trouble. Fuck off."
Morrison clicked his tongue against his teeth is disapproval. "I still don't believe you." He turned to face his captive, leaning casually against the tool bench. "I'm an exceptionally fine judge of people. But I just can't seem to reach a decision about you. Intriguing," he muttered the last comment to himself. She was the first person he'd ever encountered who he couldn't read like a book. This young woman was proving a most challenging puzzle. He smiled to himself and returned his interest to his selection of implements.
"Where the fuck could it have gone?" Doyle growled in frustration. The question was directed to no one in particular. One moment Morrison's car was in front of them, the next it was gone. A good half hour's search of the area failed to turn up any sign of the missing vehicle.
Bodie was equally clueless. "It was just there in front of us. Couldn't miss it."
"This isn't good."
"No shit. Cowley'll kill us."
Doyle glanced at his partner. "If Wolf doesn't beat him to it."
Bodie grunted in agreement. She would not be a happy woman to be stranded with no backup. "This is like the disappearing act that Wolf does," he mused.
"Great lot of good that does us when our expert is the one missing," Doyle shot back. "Sorry. You think so?"
"Yeah. I think so. I've been getting a real uneasy feeling since the car vanished." Bodie shifted in his seat, his eyes still glued to the road in the futile hope of spotting the limousine. "We have to find her. Now."
"How? I'm open to suggestions, mate."
Bodie's brow furrowed in thought as he rapidly went through Morrison's usual haunts and just as quickly discarded them. "He'll take her back to his place."
"You sure?"
Bodie shrugged. "Has to. His other places are too public. Wolf said his house has a cellar, there's no common walls and in any case none of his neighbours should be home yet."
Doyle agreed. On the little information they had to go on, it was the best fit. "Okay. But you can call it in."
"Ta," Bodie grabbed his radio with little enthusiasm.
Doyle caught his arm before he called in. "I hope to god you're right."
Bodie closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "So do I, mate. So do I."
"Perfect," Morrison announced with child-like glee. He held up his final selection for Wolf to see and seemed a trifle disappointed that she didn't share his excitement. But then the sight of a pneumatic nail gun that was intended for use on her body was not high on her list of things she wanted to see in the hands of madman.
"Now where were we?" Morrison connected the hose into the cellar's compressor and hefted the gun with great familiarity. "Oh yes. You were going to tell me who you are working for," he prompted.
Wolf's eyes flicked from the nail gun to Morrison's eyes and held them. "I. Told. You," she paused, chest heaving in pain. "I work alone."
BANG. A nail thudded into the brickwork an inch from her left ear.
"Try again."
"What the hell was that?" Doyle froze against the side of Morrison's house.
"It wasn't a gun," Bodie whispered back as he pressed into the shadows beside his partner.
Doyle's eyes widened in recognition. "Oh shit! I know what that was. We're going in now."
Bodie followed hot on the heels of a shaken Doyle. Doyle hit the door first, splintering the door jamb with a well placed kick. Spotting movement from within they sprang back on either side of the door.
Doyle held up two fingers and indicated the positions of Morrison's men. Bodie nodded agreement and signalled a silent count. At his sign, both men were in motion. Doyle high and Bodie low.
The two suited gunmen were neatly taken down before they had the chance to return fire.
Following the sound of more pneumatic bangs, Bodie took the lead and headed for the kitchen looking for the cellar door.
He tried the handle and the door swung open on well oiled hinges. Both men crept down the stairs, their eyes widening in shock at the sight of their battered and bloody friend dangling from the pipework.
"DON'T MOVE!" Doyle screamed. "DROP IT!"
Morrison swung towards the unexpected intrusion, nail gun in hand, a dumbfounded expression on his face. His lips moved in a silent "No," as he took in the two armed and obviously dangerous men standing on the staircase.
Doyle fired as he saw the weapon swing in his direction. The bullet took Morrison in the right shoulder, throwing him backwards and causing the nail gun to fly from his grip. It crashed amid the carefully laid out tools on the bench, scattering them everywhere.
Bodie was down the stairs, supporting an exhausted Wolf the moment Doyle fired. He snapped a request for keys to Doyle who grabbed them from the bench and tossed them over, before checking on Morrison.
Satisfied that Morrison was disabled, but still alive and not about to die any time soon, Doyle turned his attention to the woman in Bodie's arms. "How is she?" his voice was filled with concern.
"I'll live," Wolf grunted against Bodie's chest. Once Bodie had released her, she had slumped against his chest and found that her arms weren't working for the moment.
"Morrison still alive?" Bodie asked. He adjusted his hold on Wolf to support all of her weight and protectively pulled her close to his body.
"Yeah," Doyle contemplated the still form on the ground. "He'll live."
Wolf made a grunt of acknowledgment that neither man could interpret as either good or bad feelings over the outcome. She looked up into the concerned face of a very worried Bodie. "Sorry. Bleeding all over you," she offered with a half smile.
Bodie kissed her forehead tenderly. "What's a bit of blood between friends, love. We'd better get you to a hospital though."
"No," her quiet command halted Doyle in the midst of his call in. "Get me to headquarters. I'll be fine."
"You bloody well will not —"
Wolf interrupted Bodie's outburst. "It looks worse than it is. I'll get the doc to have a look at me, okay. He can look at Morrison while he's at it."
Doyle opened his mouth to argue, but stopped at the look he got from Bodie. They would do as she said for now, but any change in her condition and she would be in a hospital so fast her head would spin. Doyle nodded his agreement to Bodie's look and called Cowley.
Wolf was propped up on her elbows on the examination table in the doctor's office, arguing over suture colour as the resident medical practitioner stitched the cuts on her legs.
She was looking in remarkable spirits for her ordeal, but the pair of scowling agents hovering over her didn't believe the act for a second.
After an extremely heated debate, Wolf had argued off being drugged into sleep and chased her rescue party out of the doctor's office with the promise that she would get some rest before they took her home later.
The moment the door closed she grimaced in pain and collapsed back on the couch. A quick once over in the car had healed her more serious injuries, but she was stuck with the more obvious surface damage until it could heal naturally. The stress of keeping both her body from healing and her well-being hidden from her family were too much and she finally succumbed to her exhaustion.
Cowley regarded his two best agents as they stood in the hall outside the doctor's office. Given half the chance they would have beaten Morrison to a bloody pulp regardless of the consequences or his condition. He knew that it had only been a quick thinking promise on Wolf's behalf that had stayed their hand.
"I wish this could have come off as planned, but," he emphasised the 'but' to both men, "it did work. Morrison's plans for a political career are at an end and he will be safely behind bars for quite some time."
"She could have been killed," Bodie's voice was ice cold. He could see Doyle repeatedly clenching and unclenching his fists in a desire to inflict harm and knew the man didn't trust himself to speak civilly to Cowley at the moment.
"But she wasn't. And Morrison is now being charged with attempted murder, not to mention a host of lesser charges including kidnapping." Cowley could feel for his men, he held Morrison with the same contempt they did, but Wolf's actions had served to bring him to justice before he could gain the political cover that would shield him from almost anything.
"It didn't have to happen this way," Bodie laid a restraining hand on Doyle's shoulder.
"And how could you have done anything differently?" Cowley's voice raised to a level that made several people in the corridor cringe in sympathy before they scurried safely out of harm's way. "By your own admission you lost Morrison's vehicle and only found him on a hunch."
Bodie's reply was cut off by a stream of cursing from the small office behind them. All three men burst into the room and came to a sudden and surprised stop. A tall slender stranger, shouting in an unfamiliar language, stood over a chasten and wincing Wolf. At their entry the strange man whirled to face the newcomers, a sword appearing in his hand from nowhere.
Bodie and Doyle drew their weapons and trained them on the intruder.
"Come on, son," Cowley addressed the young man carefully. "Put the sword down and we'll sort this out."
The clearly agitated man responded to Cowley's plea with another stream of unintelligible invective.
"Put your guns away," Wolf interrupted quietly from the couch. "It's all right."
"Like hell it is," Doyle growled, his eyes never leaving the swordsman.
"Doyle," Wolf answered tiredly, the fatigue evident in her voice. "It's okay. The silly bastard's family. Seaghán Mac Conmara, George Cowley, Ray Doyle and Bodie." She introduced the still wary occupants of the room. "For your father's sake," she thumped her cousin none too gently in the thigh. "Put the bloody sword away."
Seaghán reluctantly sheathed his weapon and sat down on the couch protectively shielding Wolf from the other three men. "What," he managed finally in a tightly controlled voice. "Have you done to Mactíre?"
"Seaghán," Wolf tried to get the man's attention. It took a few seconds before her voice sunk in. Turning back to his cousin he ran a fond hand through her hair and gazed into her pain filled eyes.
The three CI5 men watched as a mix of emotions flickered across the faces of Wolf and Seaghán in rapid succession without a word being uttered between them. It gave them an opportunity to have a good look at Wolf's mysterious cousin. He shared Wolf's red hair and vivid green eyes. They even looked alike, but his features made Wolf's look like a poor copy in comparison. His voice was pleasantly musical and vaguely Irish in accent, even the loud curses they'd heard before sounded like poetry.
Apparently satisfied with what he'd seen, Seaghán rose to address Bodie and Doyle formally. "You have my gratitude for the prompt action that saved my cousin's life." He bowed in a strangely archaic manner and turned to face a bewildered George Cowley. "And you, Sir, while I dislike that Mactíre's life was so needlessly risked, I do recognise that your foe was an unexpected element. Trust that I will take care to personally remedy the situation. Good day, Sirs." With that he turned and left the room.
Cowley and his men stood open-mouthed at the abrupt change in demeanour. They only hesitated an instant before following him out into the hall to further question him.
"Where is he?" Doyle looked both ways up the empty corridor.
Bodie mirrored his partner's confusion. "There's no way he could have disappeared that fast."
The phone in the doctor's office rang and Cowley left his agents to their fruitless search of the corridor.
"What?" Cowley's bellow drew his two agents back with its intensity. "I'll be right there."
"Sir?" Bodie questioned, already having a suspicion of what Cowley was going to say.
"He's gone," the small Scotsman fumed. "Just vanished they said. And," he fixed Wolf with a stern gaze. "Sir Alfred has been leaving messages wanting to know what I've been doing to his agent. Your InterPol partner called from Hong Kong telling him you were injured and he's been on the phone ever since."
Wolf didn't have to feign her exhaustion when she chose to ignore the last comment. Cowley had far more important things to worry about with tracking down the missing Morrison. Not that he'd ever find him, she mused to herself before dropping off to sleep, Seaghán had removed the man to a place far beyond even CI5's abilities to locate.
Cowley shook his head at the sleeping agent. There was a piece of the puzzle that was only just out of his grasp and he had the distinct feeling that Jordan Wolf was the key to unlocking it. He reigned his emotions in as he noted his agents reactions to their sleeping partner. "Take her home, lads. I'll take care of this. But I expect you all in my office at eight tomorrow morning."
Chapter Nine
1997
The three old friends worked their way through the Scotch and a decent amount of beer as they caught up with each other and shared old memories. When the call for last drinks came, they were surprised to see that the bar had nearly emptied and the staff were starting to clear up. Reluctantly, they decided to leave before they were kicked out.
"Don't leave it so long next time," Doyle admonished Wolf as they waited for his cab. He had cried off continuing their reunion for the time being, citing that some people actually had to work the next day.
Wolf wrapped her arms around him. "I won't," she whispered fiercely. "You'll be seeing more of me from now on."
"I'm trying to decide whether that's a good or a bad thing," Doyle chuckled, stepping back as Wolf playfully punched him in the chest.
"Git away home wit ye, Gawldilocks," she laughed, her native Irish lilt creeping into her voice despite herself. Out of habit, she kept it hidden when she worked on the British mainland, people in her line of work still took a dim view of an Irish accent.
Doyle quickly kissed her good-bye as his cab pulled up. "Take care of yourself, love."
"See you later, Ray," she farewelled.
Bodie put his arm around her shoulders as they walked off into the night. "Where to now, pet?"
"Home," she replied.
"Still got the same place?"
"Aye," she sighed. "It's a bit of a hike, but I'm in the mood for some air." Bodie nodded in agreement.
Still several blocks from home, Wolf had found herself easily dropping back into the old habits she had developed with her friend. They laughed and teased each other much as they always had.
Wolf stiffened suddenly as the wind changed and brought a scent to her sensitive nose.
"What is it?" Bodie asked in a low voice, recognising her reaction from long familiarity.
Wolf cocked her head and reached out with her senses. "Company," she answered slowly. "Young. Pissed. Looking for trouble," she filled in as she picked out more detail from the small group still hidden by the darkness behind them. "Five bodies. All male."
"How do you want to play it?" Bodie asked, accepting her appraisal of the situation without question. He was intimately aware of the intensity of Wolf's senses.
The small woman shrugged. "Either we avoid them or we confront them." Wolf smiled darkly up at her old friend. "Still handle yourself in a fight, love?"
Bodie's eyes glittered as he caught the mischief that danced in her pale face. "I think I can hold my own."
"Wonderful," she drawled. "Somewhere nice and dark I think." Taking Bodie's hand she drew him into the darkness of the unlit side-street. She leaned back against the wall, pulling his lean body into her embrace and started trailing hot moist kisses along his neck.
"Mmm... Not that I mind, but what are you doing?" he murmured, running strong hands over her familiar curves in response. The location of each of her hidden weapons still strongly imprinted in his mind from so long ago. His hands knew where to find Wolf and where to find steel.
Wolf nibbled her way up to his ear and whispered, "Stirring things up a bit." She continued caressing his muscled back.
"Oh," Bodie murmured, before running his tongue along her left ear lobe, causing the row of small colourfully-beaded silver rings to clink together musically. He slowly kissed his way across her features, investigating each of her new metallic additions with his mouth. Wolf growled with pleasure as his soft beard tickled deliciously against her face and wrapped a leg around his body, pulling Bodie tight against her. The length of his body pressed her hard against the wall. He traced his way wetly to her lips, her eager tongue entering his mouth as her fingers wove through his hair.
A noise from the main street brought them back to their current surroundings. Looking up they saw five skinheads aged somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 25 blocking their escape. "No guns," Wolf breathed in Bodie's ear, she would have smelled them the way she could smell Bodie's now. "Any preference for damage limitation?"
"Let's play it by ear, shall we," he kissed her again and let a cruel smile curve his lips.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" a slightly slurred voice called loudly from the mouth of the alley.
Bodie slowly detached himself from Wolf and fixed the thin young man with a stare that could melt metal. "None of your concern, boy," his voice dripped malice. "Now fuck off."
The leader baulked slightly at Bodie's tone. He almost turned and walked away, reacting on a purely instinctive level to get as far away from that voice as possible. His limited scope of experience tried to process the couple he'd marked out as his gang's evening sport. The older man was definitely trouble, someone best not to be messed with. But what he couldn't understand was what such a well-dressed businessman was doing with a scruffy piece of street trash half his age. She didn't look to be on the game, but as she uncoiled herself from the shadows, he noticed something unusual about her. Pinpoints of light glittered off the metal she wore in her face, but her eyes reflected the light unnaturally — like an animal. She held herself gracefully on guard and the boy wondered briefly if she wasn't even more dangerous than her older companion. It was only the high pitched whinging of one of his flunkies that derailed this potentially life-saving train of thought.
"Who's he think he is telling you to fuck off, Bob?" the youngest of the group complained.
"Nobody," Bob muttered to himself. All of his target assessment skills vanished in a surge of testosterone, adrenalin and alcohol-induced stupor. He pulled a butterfly knife from his pocket and twirled it open into his hand, the blade flashing in the dim light. "Your girlfriend's a bit young for you isn't she, old man?" Bob sneered. "Maybe she'd like to play with us for a while."
Wolf watched Bob's words signal the rest of the boys to an attack position. 'Sloppy. No co-ordination,' she thought in disgust. 'Too used to working in a pack.' There was one other knife amongst the group, which she silently indicated to Bodie, but no other weapons. 'Stupid and overconfident.'
"30 seconds," she whispered to Bodie as she stepped into full view of the five men. "You couldn't handle me, boys," she drawled the last word out in an insult.
Bob didn't like rebuffs, especially when they came from women, and rushed to close the 15 metre gap, his comrades on his heels and an inarticulate scream on his lips.
Wolf flicked both wrists and disabled the two knife wielders. Her small throwing daggers blossomed through the forearms of each of the young men. Bob and an older skinhead dropped to the ground, howling in pain and clutching bloody limbs. 'Two down, three to go.' She side-stepped the largest of the group and let him barrel unexpectedly towards Bodie's tender mercies. A kick to the groin of the whinging youngster and a fist in the throat of the remaining man accompanied the thump of Bodie's playmate hitting the wall rather solidly. Wolf turned to see the man slide down the wall, leaving a glistening trail behind him.
"He was a little clumsy," Bodie shrugged and smiled lopsidedly. He dropped the boy who was still clutching his damaged testicles in agony, and stepping over to the still coherent Bob, hit him hard enough to put him out for the rest of the night. He pulled Wolf's knife from the man's arm and picked up the fallen butterfly knife. Standing up, he lightly tossed the weapons to Wolf. "What do you want to do with them?"
Recovering her weapon from the other man, Wolf effortlessly caught the knives. She cleaned her own weapons on the hapless man at her feet and replaced them in her coat. Bob's knife she turned over in her hands. "Nothing, it's garbage." She snapped the blade like a pencil and tossed it aside. It clinked to a rest beside a similarly damaged hobby knife.
"I meant the fine example of today's youth at our feet."
"Oh. Sorry," Wolf smiled slightly. "I think I can come up with something suitable. Help me get their clothes off."
Bodie had a very good idea of what she had in mind. "You're slowing down you know," he said conversationally. "That was 35 seconds."
"You think we could wake them up for another try?"
Bodie looked down at the unconscious man he was dragging over to join the pile in the centre of the alley. "I don't think that's going to be happening anywhere in the near future."
"Well then don't complain, we got the job done. It's been a while since we've worked together," she responded with a grin.
Ten minutes later and they were at Wolf's place, a refurbished house in the quiet street of a good neighbourhood — despite the night activities.
Bodie watched as she fumbled with her keys, before taking them off her and opening the door himself. It was as he was handing them back that he noticed the stain they left on his hand. Grabbing Wolf's right arm, he pulled the sleeve back and saw the snapped off hobby knife blade buried deep in the muscle of her forearm just above the wrist. Blood trickled down her fingers.
"What?" Wolf asked in confusion, before catching sight of her bloody arm. "Shite. I never even felt that." She prodded the piece of metal experimentally, causing the blood to flow faster down her arm. "Ow."
"You never felt that! Are you kidding me?" Bodie started at her reaction, paling as she toyed with the foreign object lodged in her flesh.
"Adrenalin I guess," Wolf shrugged still fiddling with her wound.
Bodie slapped her hand away from it. "Leave it alone, that's going to need stitches and a tetanus shot and..."
Wolf grabbed his hand as he reached for his mobile phone. "Don't. It'll be all right. I don't need a doctor."
"Of course you do!" he retorted as he punched a number into the phone.
Wolf took the phone from his hand and cancelled the call. "No. I don't." She dropped the phone in one of her pockets. "Now do me a favour and pull this out," she indicated the blade.
"That's only going to make it worse," he admonished.
She shook her head. "Trust me, Bodie."
"Okay," he grumbled beneath his breath, "But I'm lodging a formal declaration of protest."
"Noted." Wolf held the flesh at the base of the blade together with a thumb and forefinger. "Okay, pull it out now."
Bodie drew the blade from her arm in one smooth movement, wincing in sympathy with her as she sucked her breath in over her teeth. Blood pooled to the surface of the wound, but rather than pouring out, as he had expected, it started to coagulate. He watched in fascination as fine rings of fur rippled down Wolf's arm, closing the wound more with each pass. A minute later the wound was fully closed, leaving nothing but a livid red scar behind. "Now you know why I favour black clothing — the blood isn't as noticeable." Wolf flexed her hand experimentally, and happy with the result, proceeded to lick the trickle of blood from her hand. The gesture was partly from habit and partly from a love of baiting Bodie.
Bodie swallowed loudly. He was caught between disgust at the display of one of her more disturbing habits and desire at the memory of how skilled she was with her tongue. Choosing to ignore her, Bodie cocked an eyebrow at the scar and asked, "Want to try explaining that?"
She smiled crookedly. "I was planning on telling you when you officially started with InterPol, but now is as good a time as any. Let's go inside first, you'll need a drink."
Bodie held the door open and ushered her gently inside. "Uh uh. No delays, no side-tracking me. Now." He led her over to the sofa by her hand and sat her down. "Tell me," he said quietly.
"I guess you've made quite a few assumptions of your own." Bodie nodded for her to continue. "I'm a werewolf. My name is Mactíre Mac Conchúir an Treibh Mhac Conmara and I was born in Ireland 931 years ago. I'm a warrior by birth and by breeding. There are few humans with the skill, strength or endurance to best me in armed or unarmed combat." She looked up to meet Bodie's dark eyes.
"Okay," Bodie drawled slowly, taking in the unexpected information. "And you tell this to all your future employers?"
"No," Wolf smirked as she stood before Bodie. "Just you and Cowley."
"And how did he take it?" Bodie asked curiously.
"Not as calmly as you are," she answered, knowing full well that he was humouring her. "I'll see what I can to do change that." Wolf slowly undid her dark coat and dropped it to the floor, the weight of its arsenal making a resounding thump.
Bodie raised a crooked eyebrow at the impromptu strip show as Wolf stood before him in tee-shirt and knife rig. The leather and steel curving sensually around her breasts before meeting the heavy belt with its shiny cargo of death. There was something about the sight of Wolf in her knife rig that had always driven him wild.
Wolf released the clip between her breasts and let the harness thump to the floor atop her coat. Her eyes never left Bodie's face during this performance, his sapphire blue eyes darkening in lust, his impossibly long lashes dark against his pale skin. He was one of the few men who wasn't terrified by the sight of her wearing her knife holster. Something about the combination of Wolf and sharp objects tended to scare the hell out of most people. 'Most sane people,' she added to herself with a small twitch of her lips. Smiling slowly, she stripped off her shirt and stood naked for a moment before flowing to wolf form.
To his credit Bodie never blinked at the sudden change in his old friend's appearance. Stunned silence would probably be an appropriate description of his current state of being. A cold nose nudged his hand and he absently scratched behind pointy canine ears to the obvious delight of Wolf.
After giving Bodie enough time to recover from the shock of her sudden transformation, she hopped up onto the sofa beside him before flowing back to human. She curled up in a ball and rested her chin on a knee watching him.
"Does Ray know?" Bodie finally managed to collect himself.
Wolf shrugged and answered slowly. "I've never told him, but he gave me that when I finished up with CI5," she pointed to the painting over the fireplace. A large orange-red wolf seemed to almost leap out from the forest depths of the picture — it had her eyes. "Every time I look at it, I wonder."
The painting was one of a pair that Doyle had done. The other painting he had given to Bodie after Wolf's departure. Wolf had readily agreed to pose nude for Doyle when he first suggested his idea for the picture. She hadn't realised that he'd done a second painting until it had been delivered to her at InterPol several months later.
Bodie examined the image closely, this was the first time he'd seen it and the pictures, when compared, were strikingly similar. "Perhaps he does know." Bodie was surprised that he hadn't thought of the possibility before.
"Maybe. He used to find me at the zoo sometimes. I'd spend hours watching the wolves." She smiled to herself at the memory. "He said that they reminded him of me."
"Once a cop, always a cop," Bodie chuckled softly.
"You don't seem too surprised by all of this," Wolf raised an eyebrow in query.
"I guess I'm not," he sighed. "After some of the things me and Ray came up with, the reality is — not exactly a let-down — but nowhere near as bizarre as it could have been. I've seen a lot of odd things in my life and you're far from the weirdest."
"Yeah," Wolf nodded, she too had seen some pretty strange things. "But this time you actually have an explanation for the weirdness."
"It is nice to finally know the truth," he smiled, feeling all of the oddities and snippets of information he gleaned from working with the woman for so long finally come together and make sense. "I guess that explains your senses and reflexes, but what about your fighting skills?"
"I was trained by Seaghán from the ripe old age of eighteen." Bodie raised his eyebrows at the comment. "People were lucky to reach the age of 40 in those days," she explained, before continuing, "I train with him still. He employs some rather unique methods that encourage you to learn fast — real fast." She winced at the memory of some of the painful lessons of her youth.
Bodie suddenly got a glimpse of just how well trained Wolf actually was. "I know you don't have a military background, well not officially anyway, but I've always wondered where you picked up so much about jungle warfare."
He had long ago ceased to be surprised at the depth of her knowledge of a wide array of vastly different agency and military tactics. She had an equally intimate knowledge of both SAS and Mossad procedures. And he'd seen her jungle skills at work in some of the games of full-contact, high-speed tag that she used to pass off as training exercises on cold mornings in Highgate Cemetery.
Wolf allowed a slight smile to play across her face. "I have the inborn instincts of an animal and I guess I've always been a sneaky bugger." Bodie snorted in agreement as she continued. "I work best alone or with the handful of people that I trust implicitly. You know how well I handle authority." Everyone who knew Wolf, knew how much authority rankled her. Subjecting her to too much of it would eventually result in a situation akin to turning a loaded weapon on yourself. "I've found that my strengths lie in security, information and espionage, whatever its varied forms. That's why I'm still with InterPol. You knew that my department is autonomous from InterPol as a whole?" Bodie nodded. "That's because me and Dec never allowed them to merge completely, this way we can run it the way it should be run, not according to the political leanings of a panel of administrators."
It was surprising that the department had been allowed to stay intact for so long, but its rather long lived administrators had an personal stake in seeing it stayed that way. The whole idea made a lot of sense to him. "Why don't you take over the running of the department?" he wondered aloud.
"Too impatient to handle the diplomatics," Wolf shrugged indifferently. "And I prefer being on the sharp end."
"What about your brother? He is Acting-Chief at the moment."
A fond smile flitted across her face at the mention of her partner's name. "Dec is his own man, Bodie. There have been a few times over the years when he's taken over the reins, but he seems to prefer to be working in the field as well. Neither of us have to worry about financial security and career advancement has never been a big deal, so I guess we stay where we're happy and productive."
Bodie considered asking Wolf more about her background, he'd often had suspicions that she'd been an assassin at some stage of her life, but eventually he decided that there were some things about his friend that he really didn't want to know after all and changed the subject. "What about the way you always seem to know where people are?"
"I think it's more of an extension of my heightened senses than anything," she explained. "I get a sense for certain people in my mind and can 'feel' them. I need to have a either reasonably close relationship to the person in question or, if it's a stranger, to be in close proximity for it to be effective."
Bodie ran a gentle finger over the new scar on her arm. "And the healing?"
"That will fade completely in a few hours. Part of changing forms," she shrugged nonchalantly. "I have an intimate knowledge of my body and how it works, I can force it to heal faster or I can repair the damage by shifting between forms."
"I take it that's why you don't age normally," he guessed.
Wolf smiled slowly. "You catch on fast, love."
"That's right," he confirmed pulling Wolf against him. "I'm a fast learner." He lifted her face to his with a finger and kissed her gently. Slowly deepening the kiss in response to Wolf's delighted moans, he slid a hand down her body, drawing her closer.
Wolf swung herself over Bodie, straddling his lap to gain greater access to his clothing and busied herself with his shirt, as she continued a more intimate exploration of his mouth.
Smiling slowly as she finished with the shirt, she met his lips again, her hands beginning to get reacquainted with the hard planes of his now bared chest.
Bodie slowly slid his hands from her face down to her breasts. Discovering the new sensation of two small flesh-warmed metal balls that nestled on either side of her left nipple. "I think I would have remembered that," he muttered in distraction, his fingers gently rubbing her hardened nipples before continuing their investigation and slowly moving up the knobbed ridge of her spine. Running his fingers in feathery light patterns down her back caused her to arch against his chest and rub into his hardened groin. He groaned in response to the sudden warmth of the contact.
Wolf wiggled backward in Bodie's lap and went about freeing his straining member from its imprisoning layers of clothing. Working her hands into his pants she combed her fingers through dark curly fur before wrapping them around his velvety shaft.
Bodie gasped as Wolf released him from his pants, his fingers digging into her buttocks. He buried his face in her neck as she quickly manoeuvred herself into position and slid hot, wet and tight down his length. He thrust up hard into her body.
There would be plenty of time for niceties later, their current need for each other was all consuming. A primal passion that had been left simmering for far too long as it was. Mouths seeking contact, they kissed deeply as they rocked, held tight in each other arms, revelling in the long missed contact.
Wolf's inner muscles rippled around Bodie's shaft, triggering his own release. They exploded together, locked in a physical and mental embrace.
When Wolf finally opened her eyes, it was to look down at Bodie's dark gaze. His lips quirked up in a satisfied grin.
"I think we should try this again and give it the attention it deserves."
"Agreed," Wolf smiled back. "Bed," she ordered.
A buzzing sound roused Wolf from a deep sleep. It wasn't a normal morning sound. She propped herself up on her elbows and cocked her head, trying to pinpoint the source of the annoying electronic tone. A muffled, "Phone," sounded from the warm body wrapped around hers. That narrowed it down. Reluctantly Wolf dragged herself from her nice warm bed and fished Bodie's mobile phone from the pocket of her coat. Pressing the button she simply said, "Wolf."
"Why am I not surprised?" Doyle's answered already resigned to the inevitable. "Sleep well?" he asked with a suggestive leer in his voice.
"Well — yes, but there wasn't much sleep," Wolf responded in the same tone. "Do you want me to wake sleeping beauty?"
"No, leave him be. He'll need his rest after you've been at him," Doyle paused before continuing on with a curious tone in his voice. "What can you tell me about five young naked men — in various states of injury — found bound and gagged with their own clothing in an alley between the 'Green Man' and your place in the early hours of this morning?"
"Isn't this a little out of your jurisdiction?"
"Call it professional curiosity," Doyle answered. "I saw a report on the incident and thought of you."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with it?"
"I know you, Wolf. You've got this idea that skinheads exist for your own personal entertainment," Doyle hinted, before continuing. "Now what happened?"
Wolf sighed to herself. It looked like Doyle was yet another person who'd connected her to somewhat unorthodox hobby — apparently her reputation preceded her. "Do you really want to know?" Wolf asked with amusement as she returned to the warmth of her bed. Bodie reached out for her in his sleep. She smiled to herself at his reaction and stroked her fingers through his hair and down his face to his goatee.
Doyle sighed dramatically into the phone. "Humour me, love."
Wolf managed to get a shrug into her voice when she answered. "They were in the wrong neighbourhood looking for trouble. They found it. What do you plan to do about it?" she asked in mild curiosity.
"There's nothing I can do," Doyle sounded disgusted with the situation. "Nobody's been able to get a coherent description out any of the victims. There's no evidence to suggest anything other than a rival gang attack and even if they could identify you, I doubt they'd press charges. And anyway, once they recover, they're all facing charges themselves for other crimes."
"So there's a problem?" Wolf asked ingenuously. "I left them alive didn't I?"
Doyle had the nasty feeling that Wolf wasn't joking about the men's possible demise. He thought it best to ignore the comment. "Would you please refrain from leaving gift-wrapped presents anywhere near my area. The paperwork alone would kill me."
"I'll leave them on the other side of town then," Wolf chuckled quietly. Doyle's stammered retort was shut off with a quick good-bye and the press of a button.
Chapter Ten
InterPol
Two Months Later
Bodie settled himself comfortably behind the desk in his new office. It was not dissimilar to his old office at CI5; simple and functionary. To the casual observer, it looked slightly rundown, but Bodie knew that the department budget went into the department not into swank office suites.
Wolf handed a Scotch to Bodie and seated herself up on the edge of his desk. "So that's where you keep it," she nodded to a broadsword mounted on the wall behind his desk.
"Uh huh," Bodie didn't need turn around to confirm what she meant, he knew. "I have Ray's painting at home, so I keep that here." He looked up at Wolf curiously, his eyebrow quirked, "You know something... nobody has ever asked me about the sword before."
A polite tap at the door interrupted the conversation and Bodie's personal assistant, a ravishing brunette by the name of Veronica, walked in. She quietly laid a handful of documents in the in-tray and left without even batting an eyelid at the small scruffy redhead sitting on the Chief's desk.
"Pretty," Wolf commented.
"And bright too," Bodie added.
"You know," Wolf tilted her head in thought. "I've always had this sneaking suspicion that you and Cowley had some secret pool of gorgeous, intelligent female secretaries somewhere."
Bodie grinned widely. "Ask no questions, be told no lies." His expression became more serious as he continued. "Are you sure I can't change your mind?"
Wolf nodded briefly, both she and her brother had tendered their resignations weeks ago. They were taking a sabbatical from the family business, so to speak. "I've been in one place for too long." She put a finger to Bodie's lips as he started to interrupt her. "It's not the job — I love it — it's my name." Bodie looked at her quizzically. "I've been using Wolf for over twenty years. Even with my systematic destruction of all of my records, it'll be noticed sooner or later."
'Well that explains the discrepancies in CI5's records,' he thought in sudden understanding. "So what do you plan to do now?"
"Bum around, catch up with some old friends, get used to a new name — that sort of thing." Wolf sipped at her drink.
"I assume Declán will be with you." Wolf nodded. "Damn. That's two of my top men gone and I've hardly had a chance to get settled in."
"It is unfortunate timing," she agreed, placing her empty glass down and hopping off the desk. She stepped behind Bodie and started to massage his neck and shoulders. "You'll be fine, love. CI5 ran like clockwork, so will this. I have faith in you."
Bodie closed his eyes, relaxing under Wolf's skilled fingers. "I know." He reached up, catching one of her hands and drawing her into his lap. "It's just that I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you too, Bodie," she snuggled into his embrace. "I won't be too far away if you need me and I'll be gone less than a year. You'll just have to get used to knowing me by a new name."
"That's going to take some getting used to. Got any preferences?"
"I've chosen Riordan MacInnes," she smiled winningly. "But you can call me whatever the hell you like." Wolf checked her watch. "Shite. I've got to go. I've got a plane to catch and Americans to torture," she announced with an evil grin.
Bodie pitied whoever she planned to turn her attention to for the duration of her break. He settled for kissing her soundly. "I'll expect to see you in a couple of months when you're back this way," he admonished sternly.
Wolf reluctantly got to her feet. "With pleasure, boss." She left him with another mind-blowing kiss before vanishing from his office.
Bodie rose and lifted the Claymore from its mounting. It had been made for him by Wolf years ago and seemed to share her ability to hide in plain view. Nobody ever noticed the prominently displayed weapon. That wasn't the only thing it shared with the small redhead. Holding the sword in a two-handed grip he felt her presence flood through him, it was like holding a piece of her soul. He laid the weapon gently atop his desk, picked up his drink and started looking over the reports Veronica had brought in. 'It's going to be a long couple of months,' he thought with a longing glance at the closed door.
Epilogue
Jordan Wolf — or rather Riordan MacInnes according to her new documents — passed her partner's passport back to him with a snort. There had to be some kind of cosmic aberration at work that ensured her cousin always got a good ID photo, while she looked like she'd been smacked in the back of the head as the camera went off. "Why Michael Argent?" she continued pestering the now ex-Nathan Blade, who was still snickering at her photo. "You still have a thing for biblical names?" In recent years he'd developed the knack for selecting names that clashed with his smooth, cultured appearance and Wolf suspected that he was under the influence of way too many B-movies.
"It sounded good at the time, I guess," Declán shrugged gracefully as he pocketed the document with a smug smile. "You're a fine one to ask, picking a name like Riordan." He looked out the window of Concorde as it started to manoeuvre into position for take-off. "I'm glad we decided against Thomas and Jericho. I don't think I could handle being thought of as Tom and Jerry." They both winced at the thought. "Mike and Mac will be bad enough," he joked. "Still, Mac suits you. It's good to hear it again."
She smiled reflectively. "That it is." She idly glared at her fingertips and gently nudged the whorls back into their new alignment. It would take a few days until her body accepted the change in fingerprints as permanent.
"It's a shame to have to leave InterPol after so long," he sighed.
Wolf nudged her brother sharply. "That's why we need the break. Bodie will handle things well enough without our constant supervision," she playfully teased Declán, "and we won't be away for that long anyway." Their lack of close contacts within the organisation and Wolf's talents ensured that they could slip back into their old roles after a reasonably short absence with nobody being the wiser. The only person within the division who knew Wolf well enough to identify her was Bodie and he now also knew her brother on sight.
"I know. At least we'll be back soon to check things out," he brightened a little and turned to catch Wolf's eye. "You'll miss him, won't you?" he asked as he noticed a shadow pass over her face.
She nodded. "All I seem to do lately is run into old friends and then leave them again," Wolf combed her short hair back with her fingers in frustration.
Declán wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest. "It won't be for long," he threw her own words back at her lightly. "And you'll get the chance to see some more of those 'old friends' again while we're in the States." He kissed her forehead in affection.
"Thanks, love, you're right." The small redhead hugged her brother tightly. "It's been far too long since we've done this, we're getting too set in our ways."
"I doubt that, honey. You've always got something up your sleeve to surprise me."
They settled back with their own thoughts, watching the ground rush away from them as Concorde took to the skies, taking them into a new country with new names and identities.
The End
Afterword
BND: — Bundesnachrichtendienst — German Federal Intelligence Service, like CIA
Irish Translations
Mactíre Mac Conchúir an Treibh Mhac Conmara: Mac-tcheera MacConnor of the clan McNamara.
Seaghán Mac Conmara: Sean McNamara
Mo mhactíre beag: My little wolf
Sláinte: a toast (slawn-tcha)
Laoch Sí: Faery Warrior (Leek Shee)
Daoine Sí: Faery People (Dun Shee)
Thanks to Jeannie Howse for her fast and invaluable work as my beta reader. Thanks also go to Moonbeam for more beta reading and some none too gentle hints, prods and thumps in story direction.
Published Espresso For Three by Homosapien Press — 10.08.2000
For North American ordering details, please contact Kathy Resch and for all other ordering details, contact Julien Bozza
alfred pennington | bodie | brian morrison | cowley | declán | doyle | fan fiction | fiction | wolfPost a Comment