1.

Rudolph Mueller sat in the Almaty Tea House, stirring his rich Kazakh tea while pretending to look at his phone. In fact, he was watching for the asset that the Agency had arranged for him to meet. His real self, Jim Cochran, could wait all day. Rudolph, his cover identity for the last three months, was growing impatient. He had to get back to the office.

At last he spied a likely candidate. A woman walked down Gogol Street toward the cafe. At a distance, he could see her long, dark hair sway in countertime to her hips. As she got closer he could make out the full contours of her body, then the details of her provocative dress. "Rudolph" flipped the collar of his suit jacket, the agreed-upon signal.

The woman sat at the table next to him. Rudolph said, "The tea is best with cream," in Russian.

"I prefer milk," the woman answered in Kazakh.

Rudolph invited the woman to join him at his table.

"Dinara Petrina," she said, shaking Rudolph's hand. She was quite striking. She possessed the ethnically hard-to-place looks common to the region, but in a configuration unique to her.

Her large ebony eyes and full lips were framed by a model's bone structure. Dinara's body was as desirable as her face. Though, the fact that he could discern the contour of her breasts and the tone of her legs as she sat there in the short, tight dress, was a problem. Her blue eye shadow, heavy rouge, and dark red lipstick did not help, either.

As beautiful as Dinara clearly was, she looked, well, cheap. Her looks were fine for this encounter, where a Westerner meeting an escort fit Rudolph's profile, but it would not do for their actual mission. Rudolph hoped she would be able to make the transition to the aloof seductress his plan required.

They made small talk; avoiding any mention of the mission itself. Her English was better than his Kazakh, which wasn't saying much. Her Russian was that of a local, which meant pretty good. She spoke no German. When he and Dinara finished their tea, Rudolph invited her for a walk in Gogol Park.

Dinara was an asset, not an agent. From her dress and appearance, she might actually be an escort, for all Rudolph knew. The Agency — in this case MI6 as it was they who had referred her — likely used a combination of compromising information and a stipend of hard currency to make her reliable, though not entirely trustworthy. This meant Rudolph could only give Dinara specific instructions related to near-term tactics. He could not relate the entire strategy of the mission or all the particulars of their target. But she would need some context.

As they walked, Rudolph gave her the outline. Their target was a Kazakh banker who lived in the wealthy Almaty neighborhood just blocks away from where they were. She didn't need to know his name just yet. This man performed a function for some foreign men — very bad men. She was to get close to this banker.

"How close?" Dinara asked in Russian.

"Very close. Close enough, that when you call him he will stop whatever he is doing, alter his plans, and do what you ask," Rudolph explained.

Dinara stopped and looked up at Rudolph with her deep, dark eyes. "I am to be his lover," she stated, matter-of-factly.

"Yes. But, he won't fall for just any woman, that's been tried. The seduction will need to be his idea. And it will take time."

Dinara nodded and continued walking. "How then?"

"You will see," Rudolph said. He handed Dinara two phones. "This golden one is for you in your daily life, including communicating with our target. This black one is for communicating with me. Only me."

He handed her keys. "These are for your new apartment. It's not far from here. You will find an address in a text on your black phone. This badge will get you into your new job—"

"My new job?!" Dinara interrupted.

"Yes. Your new job. It's in the building next to my office. Those particulars will also be in your black phone," Rudolph said with some irritation. He didn't like being interrupted by a lowly asset.

He then handed her a roll of bills. "That's three million Tenge." Dinara accepted it with wide eyes. "If my math is right that's what, about six thousand Euros? It should be enough to get you started. I need you to be, um, less obvious. More elegant. Stylish, but reserved. Different hair, makeup, clothes, shoes."

"So…not sexy," Dinara offered.

"Oh, no. Still sexy. Just…different sexy," Rudolph said.

Dinara glanced down at her dress and gave Rudolph a look that in a moment toggled from anger to shame and back to anger.

"I'll be in touch, soon," Rudolph said, as he turned to exit the Park. He walked down Kazybek-Bi Street, glancing briefly to make sure Dinara was headed back toward Gogol. After a few blocks, Rudolph caught a taxi back to his office. As he climbed out of the cab, he saw a man watching him in the reflection of the glass of the building across the street. Rudolph pushed through the revolving door and immediately turned around. The man was now walking down the sidewalk. Rudolph recognized him as a man who had been at his tram station that morning. Tall, dark-haired, fit, forty-ish. Rudolph had picked up a tail, and not a very good one — unless this man wanted to be seen.

2.

Other than some initial pokes from the Kazakh State Police soon after his arrival, Rudolph had received no attention. That someone was circling now, and so obviously, was concerning. The timing was bad. Was it security for the target? That would be very bad. Was it Kazakh authorities checking on a German national four months into his work visa? That would not be a worry. Or, was it a third party? Another intelligence service? That could be dangerous.

Rudolph followed protocol. He limited contact with Dinara, confirming only that she had settled into her apartment, gone to the salon, and spent her millions of Trenge at Prada and Celine. He instructed her to start the new job but not to contact him.

Meanwhile, Rudolph pretended to work earnestly in his "engineering firm," carrying fake drawings home, sending a flurry of electronic documents back and forth to the "home office" (a CIA alias in Berlin), waiting to see if and when his tail tired of his boring subject. After a few weeks, the tail disappeared and he restarted the plan.

Rudolph's office was on the seventh floor of a modern office building that sat directly across the street from The Kazakh Credit and Investment Center. The target, Omar Karimov, was a Senior Vice President of Business Development for KCI. According to the Agency, his title should have been Chief Money Launderer. While moving a little money around to turn soft second-world currency into dollars was tolerated, even encouraged, by the U.S. government, cleaning money for drug lords, was not. Or, so he was told.

Rudolph's mission was to track Karimov, verify the Agency's assumptions, then compromise him and turn him into an asset. While this seemed more like work for the Drug Enforcement Agency than the CIA, Rudolph's superior assured him that there were more strategic factors in play, and that POTUS, himself, was taking an interest. There was an additional, very unusual, final line in Rudolph's orders. He was to be prepared "to eliminate the asset," should Karimov prove to be uncooperative.

Assassination authorizations were rare in this day and age. When they did exist, Special Forces, or special contractors ("wet-boys") were typically part of the team. It had been unusual for Agents to carry so much as a sidearm into the field since the seventies. But, on this mission, Rudolph was resourced with a 9mm carbon fiber 3D-printed pistol complete with a suppressor. Not a single wet-boy was in sight.

That Rudolph was given such a mission was a clear indicator of how far he had fallen in the eyes of Langley. Unlike 007 in Goldfinger, a "license to kill" meant you were far more expendable than indispensable. He had killed, before, in his early days during a chaotic mission in Colombia. But, then he had climbed the ladder. His skill with languages, his ability to work alone, his general resourcefulness, helped him rise. But, a drunken episode in Chile, followed not long after by a half-assed effort in Libya, had knocked him down. Once you were on the downward slide, it was hard to reverse that momentum. Shitty, low-priority missions didn't help you stand out.

Top agents surely didn't get wet-boy assignments. Kill someone in a foreign country and get caught, whether ordered to or otherwise, and the Agency would be ready with detailed proof that they had never heard of you. You'd finish your life in a prison cell with a tin can for a toilet.

3.

Rudolph sat in his office looking down at the sidewalk in front of KCI. Per plan, Dinara strode down the sidewalk, her pretty, long legs poking through the slit in her skirt, just as Karimov was being dropped off from his black car. She then jaywalked across the street to the Coach store as Karimov's eyes followed her every step of the way.

No man alive could have done otherwise. Over the last many weeks, and with a few million more Tenge, Dinara had transformed herself from high-end escort to cool vixen. Rudolph had kept their face-to-face meetings to a minimum, quick, and in dark corners. But, Rudolph found her more and more beautiful with each meeting. Her hair had been shortened to shoulder-length and styled in a way that highlighted her fine features. Her makeup was alluring but so subtle as to be undetectable. Her clothes, shoes, and accessories simultaneously conveyed both impeccable taste and dripping sexuality.

After these meetings, Rudolph found himself sipping whiskey in his lonely apartment wondering how he might get Dinara into bed before the mission was over. He had the flaw of most formerly handsome men on the downward side of forty — the delusion that, regardless of a receding hairline, or emerging gut, or the hint of jowls to come, he could still bag a supermodel.

Despite what the mirror told him in the morning; regardless of the obvious decline in his prospects; ignoring a string of personal and professional failures: give Rudolph (er, Jim) a glass or two of Scotch and he was still the ascendant, fair-haired Yale graduate with a limitless future and a full bed.

Yes, like so many men of a certain age, he thought a twenty-something beauty could, and in this case would, find him irresistible. There were just enough twenty-something foolish women in the world to make the myth remotely plausible. Rudolph did not have the self-awareness to realize that it applied to himself, but his plan hinged on that very conceit.

Karimov was a vehicle for evil, but he was also a proper family man. Rudolph had looked for evidence of infidelity or indecency in Karimov's life but found none. Unlike many of his colleagues, Karimov did not frequent the dubiously named underground "gentlemen's clubs." He did not have a mistress. His only vice appeared to be his affection for fine clothes and leather goods.

The locations of Dinara's work and her apartment were chosen to force Karimov to cross paths with her. A full frontal assault would not work. A decent man will deploy a wall of integrity that will withstand quick volleys of beauty and lust. But, flood that man's castle with a steady flow of opportunity, and it will eventually crumble in the rising waters of desire and hubris.

The presence of Dinara in the world slowly seeped into the cracks in Karimov's wall of propriety. He would pass her, beautiful but aloof, when he walked his dog in the park. He would see her at the tram stop in the morning as his Mercedes rounded the corner onto the boulevard. To his joyful surprise, she would appear behind the counter of one of his favorite stores, making eye contact and smiling at him for the first time. As time went on, she would acknowledge him with a nod at the lunch bistro near the Bank. With embarrassment, she once let him buy her a coffee at the neighborhood cafe on a rainy Sunday. They exchanged a few words and then she exited into the mist. The bait was set.

4.

It took a few trials for the timing to work out just right, but one morning, as Karimov lifted his eyes with hopes of seeing the beautiful shop girl at the tram stop, he instead saw her running in high heels as the electric bus pulled out. He watched the bar atop the bus issue sparks against the power lines as it sped away while Dinara slowed to a deflated walk.

"Pull over," Karimov said to his driver and bodyguard.

"But, sir. You know—"

"Pull over."

Karimov powered down the window. He peered at the winded Dinara. "May I?" he asked with a shrug.

Dinara looked down the street as if she was hoping for another bus, but then turned back toward Karimov with resignation.

"Please," she said with an embarrassed smile.

Thus began an every-morning routine that soon turned into an every-evening routine.

Rudolph had already established a backstory for Dinara: Bastard daughter of an oil executive and his secretary. Grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Astana. Went to university but had to leave to make money to send home. Met a Russian businessman. He was romantic. He bought her things. But, in the end, he had hurt her. She had moved to Almaty to start fresh.

"Be vague, Dinara, let Karimov fill in the details for you, but neither confirm nor deny anything too specific. Tell him you can't talk about it. Get his sympathy. When he presses you for details — cry."

Things played out exactly to plan. When Dinara cried, Karimov offered his embrace. Despite what may have been innocent, fatherly intentions, once Karimov felt Dinara's young, Grecian figure against him, he was a goner.

He offered his embrace a few evenings later without the prompt of Dinara's tears. When she looked up at him with her deep, dark eyes pulling on him like two massive planets, he couldn't help but lean down and kiss Dinara's pillowed lips. Karimov was surprised at himself and even more surprised when Dinara returned the kiss. Surprise turned to ecstatic shock when the young beauty invited him to her tiny apartment.

Rudolph's stomach sank and his cock stirred as he listened to Dinara make love to the fiftyish, chubby Karimov. She played it perfectly, though they had never discussed how this would go. Rudolph had assumed the seduction would take longer and had not yet broached the subject of sex. This was all her. She was shy and reticent at first, the recovered virgin that Karimov no doubt wished for. At the right moment, she issued a lustful moan, responding to the masterful ministrations of the experienced older man — playing him like a siren with a lyre. She then abandoned all inhibitions, as if her talented lover had inspired her to new heights of passion.

Rudolph found himself feeling a mixture of disappointment and admiration, anger and pride. Had he not expected his protege to perform? He poured a scotch and listened as he relieved his frustration with an idle hand, imagining himself with Dinara.

5.

Over the next few weeks, Rudolph and Dinara ensnared Karimov with a mountain of incriminating evidence. A half dozen sex tapes. Audio of him professing his love for her. Photos of them kissing in his car. Receipts for expensive gifts. A KCI check for her rent. Karimov's fate was sealed. It was just a matter of arranging a situation where Rudolph could drop the hammer.

During this period, Rudolph's behavior toward Dinara had cooled to a veneer of strict professionalism. Underneath, he simmered in a childish anger. It was silly. What was he expecting? She was obviously an escort. She came with a price tag — literally. It was what he had assumed from the moment he first saw her. And yet, he had allowed himself to have feelings for her, like a field agent fresh out of Langley.

He found himself jealous when Dinara wore a new designer frock or piece of jewelry gifted by Karimov and livid with envy when he had to listen to them fuck. Shake it off, he scolded himself more than once. Get this over with and get the hell out of Kazakhstan.

Rudolph stood in the shadows as he awaited Karimov's arrival. A tiny French place at the end of an alley in Almaty's Old Town had become Karimov and Dinara's favorite clandestine date spot. Karimov always arrived first so that he could call Dinara off if he saw anyone he knew. A broad-shouldered silhouette came down the alleyway, backlit by the street light. Rudolph took a deep breath as he rehearsed his opening line in his head —Mr. Karimov, I have a message from your wife. But, it was someone else who spoke first. "James Cochran, yes?" The man who had been tailing him months ago stepped into the light.

6.

"Rudolph" instinctively reached for the gun in his hip pocket — the gun he had sensibly left in his apartment dresser drawer. He was just going to talk to Karimov, not kill him. Any need for a gun would emerge later and hopefully not at all. A split-second delay was all it took for the stranger to issue a sharp jab to his Adam's apple followed by a blackjack to his head. He fell backwards onto his ass and looked up at the glint of a knife. All it would take would be a quick push through his eye and that would be it for the mission and his downwardly spiraling life.

"Let us try the steak frites, shall we? I would like to make deal with you Mr. Cochran," the man said in Russian-accented, choppy English.

Twenty minutes later they sat with a bottle of Bordeaux and a couple of hanger steaks between them. Rudolph/Jim didn't know if his head or his throat hurt more. He glanced at the door every few seconds.

"If you are worried about your Mr. Karimov walking in to share a meal with us. No need," the man mumbled through a mouth full of meat. "He got note from home. Actually, me. I assume your Miss Dinara Petrina was never joining."

"You may speak in Russian, if you like," Jim offered, hoping that might help him figure out who this guy was.

"Oh, yes. Mister James Cochran, Yale linguistics graduate. You speak many languages. English is better for now. Good practice for me," the man responded as he dragged a frite through aoli.

"Do I get to know your name?" Jim asked.

"Yes. My apology. You may call me Max."

"Do you have a last name?"

"No need. I would lie anyway. Eat, James. It is quite good."

Jim wasn't sure he could even swallow. And he certainly wasn't hungry.

"You going to tell me how you know so much about me? I haven't been Jim Cochran in a very long time."

"I am SVR. Though, I still prefer KGB. They never should have changed name. I have full dossier on you. Miss Petrina, not so much. Whore, it would appear. That's all I know. But you, easy. Very easy. Too easy. CIA did you no favors."

"You said something about a deal…?"

"Let's switch to Russian, now, yes? I do have a proposal. But let me start with a question. Do you know why Mr. Karimov is a target of your government? And, I should add, my government?"

"He is laundering drug money."

"Tsk-tsk," Max wagged a finger. "When have either of our governments given any concern to drug money? Drugs…sure. But money?! They do not care. The more money the better, regardless of its source."

Jim didn't say anything in response. His lack of protest was acquiescence to Max's argument.

"James. It is not that Mr. Karimov is laundering drug money that bothers our bosses. It is what he is doing with that money."

Jim shrugged.

"Until late last year, Mr. Karimov cashed out crypto accounts stuffed with opium, cocaine, or fentanyl credits, and put those funds into a series of accounts in smaller banks,” Max explained. “He collected fees for every transaction. He would then very quickly invest those funds through secondary crypto transfers — mostly in real estate. He would grossly overpay for commercial office buildings, extravagant half-empty hotels, empty warehouses, that kind of thing. Mr. Karimov was paid a commission for those sales. Those investments could then be sold in a year or two, for which Mr. Karimov also took a commission. Mr. Karimov's scheme left our drug kingpins with millions of pristine, unassailable dollars, the crypto houses drowning in steady fees, and our overjoyed real estate owners able to pay their bankers.” Max seemed pleased with himself after his detailed description.

"I understand how money laundering works," Jim said dismissively.

"Of course. I have insulted you. I have left out some important information. That is, the owners of that overvalued real estate. They were, they are, individuals at the very highest levels of my government. The very highest levels," Max added with an arched brow.

"Sooo, you're telling me that your boy, your main boy, is implicated?" Jim asked.

Max smiled. "Not just my boy. Your boy. All the boys."

"Let us say for the moment that this is true. What's the problem? Why am I here?" Jim asked with growing irritation.

"Why are we both here, Mr. Cochran? You are here to kill Mr. Karimov. You are here to kill Mr. Karimov because he is no longer investing in bad real estate deals. He is using that drug money to buy armaments for Ukraine. Mr. Karimov, like many in the world, is not a fan of my boy, or your boy. But, he is a fan of Ukraine. With this new arrangement, his drug friends still get clean money, and the benevolent Mr. Karimov still gets a commission. Less maybe, but Mr. Karimov will not starve for his values. Our boys, get nothing,” Max said as he poked around for any unfinished steak.

"I think that hit on the head you gave me scrambled something. If I'm here to kill Karimov, why are you here? Back-up if I fail?" Jim asked, barely hanging on to the thread of Max’s tale.

"I'm here to kill you, James. I'm here to kill you."

7.

Jim awoke in his apartment the next morning. He was very much alive, though, given the intensity of his headache, he might have preferred to be dead. As he searched in vain for aspirin, Jim reconstructed his evening with his Russian counterpart. When he could come up with no plausible reason why Max would reveal so much to him, other than that it might actually be the truth, Jim had leaned in to listen.

The two shared two bottles of Bordeaux followed by at least a bottle of vodka at a gentleman's club a few blocks away. Max laid out a plan that, after a couple of glasses of Absinthe, almost made sense.

In his new arrangement, Karimov could no longer carry out his transactions solely through sanitary electronic transfers. It turned out that arms dealers didn't trust crypto because it was "controlled by the bad guys."

"Wait," Jim had drunkenly asked, "the arms dealers think other people are the 'bad guys'? Who are the bad guys?"

Max looked at Jim as if he was a child. "Our boys, of course."

Because Karimov and his customers assumed that crypto transactions were traceable by exactly those who they wanted to cut out of the process, he and his partners resorted to old-school methods. After the first crypto transfer, Karimov would turn those funds into physical currency. A mix of Euros, Dollars, and gold was then distributed over dozens of old-fashioned bank accounts. Karimov couriered cash from bank to bank across Kazakhstan in a seemingly countless number of leather satchels. These accounts then wired money to dummy corporations in Ukraine, which then paid the arms dealers, who then paid his drug-money friends.

Jim's head was spinning but he tried to keep up. "That still seems pretty traceable," he managed, holding the pieces in his head like a ninth-grader doing his first algebra equation.

"It can be. But the key is Karimov's use of hard currency funnelled into all those small accounts. He breaks the chain," Max explained, searching for more absinthe. "Even if authorities see a pattern, they can't trace it back to its source."

Jim rolled his eyes in horror as Max refilled his liqueur glass with more of the green concoction. "Right. So before I black out, Max, what is your fucking plan?" Jim asked in English.

"At any given time," Max responded, "Karimov has the money basket equivalent of between five and twenty million Euros in his basement. In his fucking basement. Untraceable cash."

The ducks, while green and vibrating from the absinthe, finally lined up in Jim's head. "You want to steal that money."

"Yes, my new friend, exactly," Max answered, clapping Jim on the back.

"Why not just take it? Why do you need me? Honestly, why wouldn't you kill me and take it all for yourself?" Jim asked, his head tilted to see if any sense flowed to the last functional part of his brain.

"James, James. I thought we were friends! I do not like to kill, especially my own kind, unless I absolutely have to. Besides, while I was putting all my time into understanding the accounting and where all this cash was, you were developing Miss Petrina. I need — we need — your Dinara."

8.

On the Kazakh "Victory Holiday" weekend of May ninth, Karimov, his wife, and two children were supposed to be at his dacha on Balkhash Lake. Jim and Max knew this because Dinara knew it. At Jim's behest, Dinara flexed her power over Karimov. She begged him to make an excuse to stay in Almaty that weekend so that they could finally spend whole days and nights, together.

She laid it on thick: "Oh, Omarchik, you are always so quick with me. I need hours with you. There are things, things I want to try with you. Things I have never done with another man."

Whatever spine Karimov may have had melted like butter. He told his wife that he had a critical business meeting come up and that he would not be able to join them until Sunday. The stacks of guilt and shame thrown on the family side of the scale were no match for the piles of desire and lust placed on the Dinara side.

Karimov sent his bodyguard with the family and gave his house staff the weekend off. He planned to christen every room in the house with an orgasm from his beautiful young lover. Given that there were twenty-two rooms in his house, that may have been wishful thinking for a man of his age.

They had drinks in a penthouse bar that was a little too public. Dinara wore a dress that was a little too provocative. But Karimov was pleased. He wanted to show her off. He wanted to witness the envious looks of other men.

They cabbed to the alley behind his house. Karimov turned off the security cameras with his phone and they walked up the back drive to the service entrance. Max and Jim followed quickly behind and peered through a side window at the amorous couple. Dinara was down to her lingerie and jewelry within steps of entering. She ran down the hallway giggling, enticing Karimov's hot pursuit.

Max and Jim entered five minutes later. Max didn't even need the security code that his bribe of a charwoman had obtained. Karimov neglected to reset it in his haste. The pencil drawing of the first floor that the maid had provided did prove handy, however, as they found the door to the basement in seconds. Max jimmied the flimsy lock with his knife and they crept down the creaky wooden stairs.

Max and Jim dared not turn on a light. They fumbled about using the flashlights on their phones. At first there was just the infrastructure of the house: a massive, old-fashioned boiler, a circuit board suitable for a hotel, and a plumbing stack. There was a large cabinet which Max opened to reveal a hodgepodge of tools stacked with no apparent organization.

"Are you sure about this?" Jim whispered as he ran into a bookcase that had been placed, along with others, as a room divider. Despite all those rooms above, and his significant wealth, Karimov had clearly needed a man cave, nevertheless.

There was a leather sofa and a couple of lounge chairs arranged in front of a TV monitor. There were some hunting trophies on the wall that Mrs. Karimov had no doubt banned from the residence. A cigar humidor had obviously suffered a similar fate. A glass cabinet stored a few classic shotguns. A foosball table, a liquor cabinet, and a stack of classic girlie magazines completed the picture.

"Ah, the simple pleasures," Max said with a whispered laugh. He flipped through one of the magazines. "I miss bush," Max joked.

"So where's all this money?" Jim asked with a frustrated hiss. That Max did not answer was not reassuring.

They continued through the basement. A stack of cardboard boxes yielded children's toys, books, sports memorabilia, old family photos, and more girlie magazines. There were sleds, skis, and an old bicycle. There was a life-sized cut-out of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. But, not so much as a single Tenge coin.

"What are we doing, Max?!" Jim asked, his voice rising above a whisper.

Max raised a finger to his lips. "Steady."

They at last worked their way across the length of the basement to a paneled wall partition. A door stared back at them, invitingly. It was padlocked.

"Hmmm," Max uttered.

"What?" Jim asked.

"I was expecting the cypher lock. I have a code. I did not know about the padlock. But, it is fine. We just need bolt cutters."

"Well, I've got news for you, Max. We didn't bring bolt cutters," Jim said with exasperation.

"Not to worry, my friend. There was that old tool cabinet back there. And, failing that, we will beat the key out of Karimov," Max responded with a level of delusional confidence that Jim was beginning to find irritating.

Jim sat on the seat of an old tricycle as he waited for Max's return. It was cool in the basement but Jim found himself sweating. This plan felt like it was unraveling and he was trapped like a rat.

Other than the creak of the trike beneath him, and the sound of Max delicately moving tools around, it was quiet until he heard the moans of Karimov echoing down from the cold air return shaft in the corner.

"Aaah, oh yes, my naughty angel, suck me just like that."

9.

Jim sat there, unable to move, listening to Karimov and Dinara have sex. He had heard them together so often that it was easy for him to put images to the sounds.

"Is that how you like it, papik? Mmmph. Mmmph. Ack. Ack. Ack."

In his mind, Jim saw Dinara on her knees, servicing the older man's cock like a pornstar.

"I need you inside me, papik. Fuck me like a whore. Please, papik, take me like your toy."

Jim envisioned the beautiful Dinara spinning to all fours and saying these things over her shoulder as she looked back at Karimov. Jim wished it was he whom she was begging.

"Uh, ugh, uh, ugh, uh, ugh, uh, ugh!" Dinara groaned in apparent passion. Jim so wanted the young beauty to be groaning on his cock.

"Holy shit! That old dog is really giving it to her!" Max said as he appeared out of the dark. He carried a rusty pair of bolt cutters. "Let us see if these old, dull things will work."

Max gripped the shiny steel of the Master Lock with the brown pincers and squeezed. The lock’s hard steel didn’t seem to notice. He squeezed harder and let out an involuntary groan before stopping himself. He wrapped his thighs around his arms and looked in the general direction of the air vent.

"Oh god! Oh god! Oh gawwwd!!" Dinara's ecstatic moans built. All the while Jim watched in his mind's eye: her body rocking back and forth, her breasts swaying with the impact of Karimov's groin against her round ass, her mouth agape as she moaned on the edge of orgasm.

"Aaahhh!!"

The moment Dinara screamed, Max used all his strength to squeeze the arms of the cutter. The lock gave way with a loud pop. Max froze stock still, glancing from the vent to Jim and back again, waiting.

"Oh papik, that was so good! Take my ass now. Take my virgin ass as we talked about."

On cue, Max moved again, opening the door and shining his phone light inside. Jim added his light, though he spent most of his concentration on the noises coming from above. He had thought about taking Dinara's spectacular ass more than once. Now Karimov had it.

"Fuck," Max said out loud. "Look at that."

A couple dozen leather duffles were piled on top of each other. Max zipped open one bag, then another, and then another. With Jim shining his light, they found each bag densely filled with bills, notes, and gold assay cards.

"Fuck is right," Jim said as Dinara groaned somewhere above them.

10.

Jim and Max pulled out the heavy bags and arranged them in a line near the bottom of the stairs. Breathless from the strain, Jim wondered aloud, "Do we take them to the van, now, or take care of Karimov, first?"

"Karimov," Max said. "That Dinara of yours is thermonuclear. The old boy cannot possibly last much longer. Besides, the diplomatic waiver I have on the jet expires at midnight. We need to get these bags in the van and get out of here…or I need to arrive tomorrow with a couple of coffins and a new batch of paperwork.”

Max pulled his thin PSM pistol out of his waistband. He glanced at Jim, his reluctance showing through the light of his phone.

"I have to. We have to. The CIA and SVR will hunt us both, forever, if we leave him," Max said.

"I know. It will be our last kill," Jim said, pulling out his odd little gun.

"Yes. Let us get this over with. My God, the fun we will have with your whore when we get to Indonesia," Max said, his expression returning to the mischievous grin Jim was used to.

They crept up the stairs and made their way down the hallway toward the kitchen. From there they followed the sound of Dinara's moans. Jim and Max tip-toed through the dining room and salon, then up a curved staircase. Dinara's moans grew louder and clearer with every step. "Ah, ah, yes, yes, yes, papik!"

They came to a set of double doors which led to the master bedroom. Max turned the handle slowly and, in a crouch, eased his way into the room. There was faint light from an end table lamp. Max suddenly stood upright.

"You whore!" Max shouted.

Thwat! Smack! Thud. A sound, less like a gunshot and more like an angry nun's ruler coming down on a distracted student's desk, startled Jim, and then Max fell to the floor. Max's face was turned toward Jim. His eyes were open but blank. He had a hole in the center of his forehead. The carpet under him turned red.

"Rudolph. I mean, Jim. Come in here. I assure you that plastic two-shot gun of yours won't help you," a voice like Dinara's ordered, but in a crystal-clear Oxbridge English accent.

Jim peeked around the corner of the door. Karimov stood in the corner, still in his sharkskin-gray suit and tie, looking smug. Dinara was in her lingerie and heels, holding a Glock 42 with a three-inch suppressor, pointed right at Jim's head.

Jim was not in a firing position, but he did not drop his gun, either. His mind spun trying to explain what was going on.

"I am Rebecca Morova. MI6. May I finally formally introduce you to our asset, Mr. Omar Karimov. Omar has been a great friend to our ally… Ukraine."

Jim glanced at Karimov and then back to the woman he knew as Dinara.

Thwat!