An international spy thriller, written for the First Ever
Crime & Punishment 2023 Story Event
Précis: Two Federal Agents search for Russian dark money, but can they find love?
Locations are mostly real, but all directly involved characters are fictional.
Thanks to Kenji Sato for editorial assistance.
Statuesque
~ Pentagon City Apartments, Washington DC, Tuesday, June 13, 2023 ~
As always, David is naked, ready for battle. His brow creased with a frown, a sling hangs over his left shoulder, and the rock he will use to fell Goliath, held in his right hand.
"What are you looking at?" Sienna asks, as she glances over at him. Then she takes his sculpted thighs into her hands, lifting the two-foot-high statue over the top of her laptop, to place it on her right. David's gaze is now glaring towards the kitchen, rather than at her.
Sienna's David isn't quite a two-foot-tall replica of Michelangelo's marble masterpiece. This copy features more generously proportioned genitalia than the original sculpture. An expensive commission piece she was happy to pay a premium for.
Sienna returns to looking at her computer screen, feeling deflated by another dead-end. On her desk, in front of David's plinth, is her badge, cell phone, and lanyard. The lanyard holds her photo identity cards and an electronic token; two-factor authentication that's required, when she's working from home.
Her work-issued weapon, a Glock 17M automatic pistol -- the type she trained on in the FBI -- is locked in her safe. It stays there most days, as it's a nuisance when visiting federal buildings, which her work frequently requires.
Sienna left the FBI three years ago, to join the Department of the Treasury. She is now an investigator, or, more specifically, a Treasury Enforcement Agent, with FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Her team investigates international financial crimes, like money laundering, or large-scale tax evasion. Not something that requires her to kick-in doors, with her weapon drawn. More typically, the crime had happened months ago and her team will sift through the records. Maybe write a memo, when they find something suspicious.
Russian bribery and manipulation is nothing new, for decades the Kremlin has been funding climate change denial, buying political influence, and paying for a soft-touch on 'bad press' stories, like the MH17 shoot-down, Navalny poisonings, Ryanair FR4978 interception, election meddling, or their extensive cyber-warfare operations. Anything to keep their oil flowing one way, and money, the other. Recently, since the war in Ukraine failed to go as planned, the Russian oligarchs have become far more desperate, careless, and ruthless. They were making more mistakes. Mistakes her team is tasked with finding.
~
Sienna puts on her wired headset, and places a call, through the encrypted Treasury network that her laptop is connected to. She is strictly adhering to her 'OpSec' training now. No more cell phones, or Bluetooth headsets, when discussing operational matters. The Russians are very capable signals-intelligence operators. She doesn't want to make it easy for them.
"Whatcha found?" answers Linda, who is working in the office today.
"Nothing definitive," Sienna admits. "Apart from the twenty-million Euros that went into cryptocurrency, a further fifty-mill went through the usual Russian laundromats -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. That'll be in the Cayman Islands by now. So, short of another Panama-Papers, it's opaque to us."
"Not if we can prove it's Russian," says Linda. "We'll have some anti-laundering options if we can show it bypassed sanctions. Russians are on the nose at the moment, even the tax-havens don't want to associate with them. Well, not visibly, at least."
"Is Sabor Banka going to help?" Sienna asks.
"Nope. Not without an Interpol warrant. But Eric's trying an alternative, through the U.N." Linda replies.
Sienna looks at the static picture of her team leader. They seldom use video calls when working from home, the extra bandwidth it requires messes with the audio quality. The directory photo, subtitled 'Petowski, Linda Mrs,' is of a woman in her mid-fifties, married, and old enough to be her mother. Sienna smiles, she likes working for Linda.
"Okay," says Sienna. "I'm going to log out now, I'm out of ideas. See-ya tomorrow."
"Yeah, have a sleep on it, we'll see what comes up," Linda says, then disconnects.
~
At 27 years old, Sienna Piccrillo looked like most men would imagine a woman of that name, especially if they were in the middle of a wet dream. Five-foot-ten, athletic figure, with a generous bosom, an abundance of dark, hazel hair, and olive skin. Overall, a classic Italian beauty that had admirers comparing her to Sophia Loren, or Monica Bellucci; although, she looked more like a dark-eyed sister of Joan Severance.
Sienna began the shut-down process on her laptop. The screen briefly flashes the current time, '17:38,' between logout and power-down. She doesn't notice that, she was looking at David's thighs and crotch, instead.
She presses the switch box under the monitor, cutting over to her 'home' computer, and re-watches a Japanese pornographic video of two human 'statues,' engaging in various sexual positions, in a park. Their bodies painted as if they were weathered bronze.
Sienna strips off her clothes and moves to her bed, placed just behind her chair, in her small studio apartment. Her left hand rubs the lines under her breasts, where her underwire has been pressing all day. Her right hand is free to roam over her belly. She considers employing one of the toys she keeps in her bedside-table drawer, but they seldom come out on a weeknight. So, she allows her bare hand to move lower, seeking out the warm folds between her legs.
Sienna is not yet aroused enough to continue. This masturbation session was not compelled by need, it was more a conscious decision to delineate her work day -- like a factory siren heralding the end of a shift; punching-out her timecard with an orgasm. Although, her mind still lingers on work. More specifically, she thinks of her new colleague, Eric Wood. Too early yet to call him a 'partner,' in the law enforcement sense. Eric still works for the FBI, not Treasury, but is temporarily on secondment to FinCEN, as part of a career-development rotation.
Eric is built like Michelangelo's David, Sienna thinks. She has seen him in the work gym on a few occasions now. His broad chest, and defined muscles, are somehow complemented by the slender side profile of a swimmer, his arms and torso always seeming to come to rest in graceful, artistic poses. She imagines Eric as a statue of marble; a six-foot-two Adonis with an erect penis. Warm and silky where she mounts him -- and where she kisses him -- but otherwise made of solid, white, crystalline rock. Beautiful, and eternal.
Sienna's labia flowers open at such thoughts, her areolas wrinkle and nipples protrude. There is lubrication for her fingers now -- three of them making a lazy ellipse around her clitoris.
She sighs with satisfaction as she imagines riding her Eric-statue, her torso working her hips to the tune of their imaginary intercourse. Her breathing deepens, with small whimpers as she exhales. Fingers pressing harder now, while her left hand moves between nipples, squeezing, twisting, and stretching them. Her climax approaches; hips thrusting upwards off the bed, her neglected vagina seeking the phallus it was promised.
Sienna's orgasm arrives with her in that pose. Her pubic mound held high, her body arched upwards from shoulder blades to feet. She holds that position as her pleasure peaks, frozen like a statue herself, as she has become accustomed to enjoying her climaxes. Only the slightest movements of her fingers accompany the contractions, now pulsing in her vagina, and anus.
As her orgasm plateaus, she opens her eyes to look up at the picture of Medusa, painted on the ceiling, above her bed. "Take me now," she says, to the snake-haired image; imagining she could be turned to stone, mid-orgasm.
Eric will surely come looking for me when I fail to show up at work,
she thinks.
He'll find me here, turned to stone, thighs open widely, fingers on clitoris, my face frozen in exquisite pleasure, forever. Maybe he'll take me home, use me as a coffee table to rest his feet upon, she fantasizes.
Sienna's big toe begins to cramp, so she collapses back onto the bed, as flesh and bone. Human. She continues to rub her vulva, slowly, spreading the secreted fluid around her skin, before it can form a dribble onto the bedspread. She stares up into Medusa's eyes, "Not today, huh?" she says, sardonically. Mocking herself, more than the artwork above.
