THE GRANDE BALLROOM.
Four bomb disposal experts in body-armor wheel a metal container out the doorway. Police mill about as ambulance attendants heft Rostislav's body onto a stretcher.
"See that your superiors file a detailed report on this incident," the tight-faced police detective says to Dominika.
"Yes-sir. Lieutenant General Yezhov will see to it first thing in the morning."
No sadness, remorse or queasiness sits beneath the slopes of Dominika's tight belly. She pushes feminine fondness and that wonderful orgasm aside. What unknown and powerful evil turned Dmitry into a rat-fucker? Viktor will unravel that mystery. She smiles. In one way, Dmitry was a prince. He's unwittingly promoted Dominika Patroph to Hard Man status. In the world of Russian espionage, a Hard Man is an operative who's worked a hostile environment and who has killed. She feels a soft tap on her shoulder and turns around.
"We'd better check in with Viktor," Sveta says.
TOKYO, THIRTY-SIX HOURS LATER.
Niguri strolls through a green garden filled with blooming flowers. Two young girls flank him. The taller girl wears a short blue cocktail dress, while the other is in a schoolgirl's pleated plaid skirt and white blouse.
"O-shiri kisu," Niguri snaps.
Both cover their mouths and giggle mischievously. One hikes up her cocktail dress revealing rising curves clad tantalizingly in blue lacy thong panties. The schoolgirl crouches down, slips her tongue under the thong's back string and puts her lips and tongue to work.
"Send these sluts away," Tomiko says as she approaches.
Niguri waves his hand and the two girls giggle and scurry off. When they're out of earshot, he turns to Tomiko. "Project Burning Boot was unsuccessful."
Invisible disappointment sinks from Tomiko's head to her toes. "That is disappointing news," she whispers.
Niguri grunts and drags his eyes away from the naked breast that's peaking from beneath Tomiko's snow-white silk kimono. "Security may have been breached, perhaps implicating me. What further damage to project Checkmate, is unknown."
"Was Wild Weasel caught and questioned?" she asks.
"Rostislav was a coward. He hesitated then was murdered by a Russian assassin of your gender."
Tomiko cocks her head. Her brow furrows. "What is known about this Russian assassin?"
Niguri shrugs. "Our agents in Moscow could provide little but a codename. She's a young sex-spy known to the GRU and KGB as Gypsy Danger."
"Gypsy Danger?" Tomiko takes a deep controlling breath. "How much does this assassin know of project Checkmate?"
"Unknown. Our agent said she is a hard woman."
Tomiko's large brown eyes look into his. "Niguri-san, there are no hard women -- only soft men."
He grunts. Tomiko's frustration is masked by a bantam smile as his gaze travels from her eyes to her neck, then lower. He reaches for her kimono and ever so slowly parts it in the center revealing her creamy breast-skin as it separates.
Niguri forces his eyes into hers'. "Is there an aggressive streak behind this magnificent bosom?"
"It shall be only you that decides that." She slips the silky kimono from her shoulders and lets it flutter to the ground. Tomiko's nudity meets his lusty stare. She guides his hand toward a hardened, yet quivering breast.
"This is not the time," Niguri snaps, jerking his hand away. "A new request has come from al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya by encrypted telex. Despite the Moscow setback, Phase 2 of project Checkmate shall proceed as planned. Due to the events in Moscow, I must travel to Afghanistan to arrange air shipment of the objects to America. Kasawara, you will journey there in my place. Work with our compatriots. Supervise all pre-strike details. I will join you in nine days and personally see that project Checkmate is carried out without flaw."
"But Niguri-san, I am but a comfort woman, the maker of your meals and receptor of your seed. A woman is unfit for a task of such great consequence."
"No," he says running a finger up and down the S curve of her smooth back and taunt bottom. "The fighters of al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya have hardened your body and disciplined your mind." His finger traces the jutting muscle line at the top of her leg. "Be honored Kasawara, that events give you a chance to make your mark within the movement."
"I am humbled by your trust," Tomiko whispers with a secret smile. Raising her leg, she strokes his cock with her knee. This is working out better than she'd planned.
THE GRU TRAINING FACILITY, NEAR KHODINKA AIRFIELD, MOSKVA.
"Who or what the hell is al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya?" Sveta says sliding bright green exercise thongs down her legs. She kicks them aside.
Dominika arcs twin chrome barbells from her thighs to above her head. "Viktor's trying to find out."
"Viktor couldn't find his own dick in his shorts." Sveta sheds her exercise bra leaving her as naked as Dominika. "Dammit I wish they'd fix that heater. It's either freeze or fry in here."
"Signs of a decaying superpower, darling." Dominika's biceps flex and her triceps tremble as sweat pours down her generous hills and valleys in shinny zigzagging rivulets.
"This whole caper stinks of Arabs to me. Hey Dom, you were fucking Rostislav. He wasn't the type to walk into a party, toast a bunch of VIPs, yell Al`lah-u-Akhbar then blow himself to Katmandu, was he?"
Dominika looks at her. "Gut feeling?"
"Yeah and right behind my bellybutton. Look, Rostislav didn't take a shit without a workable escape plan. I'm not brilliant, but I ain't no idiot. I think Rostislav was just a minnow in a tank of hungry sharks -- Arab sharks."
"Viktor has a whole staff of researchers trying to decipher what it all means."
Dominika raises the barbells, mildly enjoying the tickle of sweat beads that trickle down her breast slopes, gather and drip from her pinkish nipples. She'd liked Sveta from the first time they met at the Bl'adovat' Interdisciplinary Academy in Kiev. Bl'adovat' is a training school that takes beautiful young girls and turns them into glamorous intelligence gathering machines. The faculty consists of the finest five-star call girls from Europe, each handpicked to teach recruits the fine-points of glamour, sex and seduction. Staff physiologists grind away all female inhibitions, shyness and shame. In their place emerges a Swallow -- a specialist -- a professional -- a woman of physical perfection and skilled in the sciences of romance, lust and human intelligence extraction regardless of gender. Students also gain a certain degree of personal ruthlessness, along with a love of danger, and the raw courage to face personal peril, scorn, or ridicule.
Dominika rests the heavy barbells on her thighs and looks at Sveta. Busy Bikini is such a fitting codename for her. Dominika's eyes fall from Sveta's generous breasts to her curvaceous glutes that rival her own. Sveta brags to the other Swallows that Dominika has two of the nicest ass-cheeks any woman could ever hope to have.
Dominika swipes intermittent glances as Sveta bends over and picks up a large dumbbell. Beneath her silky skin, thigh-muscles tighten as she squats, legs straining under the 100-pound weight slung across her shoulders. Sveta's hairless pussy-lips tremble, quiver open, and then slowly shut as she rises. A small smile falls across Dominika's lips. They'd pleasure each other later on. That prospect makes her clit push gently against its hood. Dominika always admired Sveta's zest for physical perfection, beauty and her rough-around-the-edges grace. Sveta has piercing blue eyes that seem to look right through your clothes and have a wonderful way of pinning you to the wall. When it came to sexual seduction for intelligence purposes, Sveta learned her lessons and learned them well. When so ordered by the Directorate, she'd willingly execute any sexual task, no matter how lusty, deviant, disgusting or perverted. Put bluntly, Sveta gets the job done.
Sveta glances at the stunning nude beauty doing leg-lifts a few feet away. Dominika Patroph has such a complex persona. She's the ideal Swallow. Her face belongs on the cover of Vogue. She has the perfect ass, a dancer's legs and the most succulent up thrust boobs in the country, and actually takes pleasure in using the package as a tool. She romanticizes revolution and war, violence and sin, and approaches each duty assignment with intense desire and passion. Sex could be a throwaway or cherished depending on the target. Early in their relationship, Dominika had confided to Sveta that what makes her really drip is being part of the tricks, traps, deception, thievery and invasion of privacy, and now as a Hard Man -- assassination -- all in the name of the Russian Federation.
THE PATHWAY MOTEL, BARSTOW CALIFORNIA.
Smooth shoulder blades move under smoother skin as Tomiko fastens bra hooks behind her back and adjusts the garment to make her less than abundant cleavage more abundant. She slides a paper-thin pale blue chopped tank top over her head. Flipping her long hair from the neck, she looks into a mirror and frowns. "Fuck it," she whispers under her breath. The bra comes off and lands in an open suitcase. Hiking her coal-black scrap of a micro-skirt around her hips, she pulls off her panties. They land on top of the bra. Bending slightly she looks over her shoulder then throws a kiss at her reflection. "Ah America, the land of the free and the home of the brave."
An open briefcase lies on the rumpled motel bed. On top is a photograph of a beautiful blonde woman. Written on it in Japanese is GYPSY DANGER. Tomiko closes the case and snaps the latches shut.
Outside, the cold morning air kisses her breasts. Through the tank top's thin fabric, her dark nipples harden to solid points. She gasps as the cold air assaults her panty-free pussy. Shrugging, she walks toward the rented Ford Taurus.
Tomiko parks the car next to a low-slung cinder-block building with a flashing BUD sign on its roof. She goes inside. Purchasing the 9 mm Colt semiautomatic pistol from the less-than-honest gun show merchant is simple. Her very apparent lack of underwear isn't a liability either.
