Perhaps the most iffy part of the whole operation was getting a dancer and waiter position at Rudi's, a gay club on the Via Port Alba off the Piazza Bellini in Naples, Italy, before the
Wind of Fortune
sailed. I wasn't a pole dancer, but I had to convince the manager at the club that I was. I was a fit and young, blond American, posing as a Canadian to lessen scrutiny, which helped, and I was introduced as a dancer and male escort to the manager by one of the rent-boys at Rudi's who had been paid handsomely to vouch for me, which helped. But I had to sell myself on the pole and sell myself on my knees and in bed to the manager to be taken on staff. Fortuitously, I managed that, so I was in place, first on stage, and then waiting the table when the Italian billionaire of secret means, Luigi Castrano, brought the guests who were going to sail with him on the
Wind of Fortune to
the club a couple of nights before the boat sailed.
I did what I had to do to get Castrano to want me--and then to enjoy me.
At that point, it was Castrano's Naples factotum, Howard Brinkley, who was really one of ours, who got me set up. He was the one who got Castrano and his party to the club once I had been established there and was on duty. And it was Brinkley, seemingly noticing the man's reaction to my flirting, who cajoled Castrano to engage my services for the night and, subsequently, to offer me the job of waiter and escort on his sail around the Mediterranean on the
Wind of Fortune
, doing whatever he was suspected of engaging in that attracted the interest of the CIA.
It was Howard Brinkley who came to me as I was leaving the stage and arranged for me to wait on Castrano's table, which included other guests, three men of Castrano's age and a young, redheaded woman, who looked familiar to me and who was good-looking enough that I would have known she was the German movie actress, Gilda Gund, if I were into women, which I wasn't. On the way to the table, me wearing just a red sequined jock strap because I was just coming off the pole, Brinkley repeated that Castrano was an Italian billionaire with his hand in a whole bunch of companies and that there were two international bankers at the table, Lars Blumfeld of Austria and Cedrick Strang from the UK.
"Blumfeld is gay; as far as we can determine Strang isn't," Brinkley confided in a whisper.
The other man, obviously connected to the young movie actress, was Salvitore Boccelli, an Italian movie director. I'd been told before who these people were and they'd be yachting in the Mediterranean, but Brinkley repeated everything sotto voce as we approached their table.
He told them I was Conner Taylor and would be serving them--any way they liked, he said, giving me a pointed look.
I served them the drinks they wanted and when Castrano wanted me to sit in his lap while one of the gay male sex acts was going on on the stage, I served him in that capacity too, letting him fondle me, run his hands all over me, and eventually unzip himself, pull out his erection, and raise and lower me on his cock right there as we watched the sex performed on the stage. It was that kind of club--sex right at the tables while watching the stage shows.
Lars Blumfeld wanted me too at the table, and I rode his cock as well, facing him. The other two men cuddled with Gilda Gund. She wasn't penetrated by either of them, but it came close.
Eventually, it was Brinkley who determined that Castrano wanted to continue having me around and who negotiated for me to sign on to the crew of the
Wind of Fortune
as waiter and bed warmer for Castrano's coming Mediterranean cruise. I agreed, since that was the plan to achieve all along. And it was Brinkley who, after Castrano's party had left the club, stayed on to, as he said, "give instructions to the young man on coming on board the
Wind of Fortune
."
Castrano and company, though, had no idea what those instructions would entail. They'd have been shocked to have heard what happened between Brinkley and me when they left.
"Well, that went just as planned," Brinkley said as he escorted me to the hotel next door to the club and up to the room that had already been reserved. "It went more smoothly than I hoped it would," he added.
"Will you tell me now what the operation is and how I fit in?" I asked.
"When we get to the hotel room," he said. "You didn't need to know if inserting you in the ship's crew didn't work. We'd have had to go with the backup plan then, which would have been more difficult."
"A backup plan?" I asked.
"We already had someone on board."
"You, right?" I asked.
"No. I stay here. I run Mr. Castrano's life when he's in Naples. Not anywhere else. No, we have someone on board who will handle communications between you and the Candy Store."
"If you already have someone on the ship, why do you need me at all?"
"Here we are. You can clear that up with Sam."
And then we were at that hotel room, and there, sitting on the end of the bed, stripped down to briefs, was my boss--Sam Winterberry. Winterberry was the chief of the CIA's Candy Store Unit, an operations unit that combined the world's two oldest professions--spying and prostitution--to glean intelligence and cooperation from targeted foreigners who gave up the secrets of their countries in exchange for sex they couldn't do without. I was one of several agents providing the candy, some straight, some gay, and some, like me, bi, as necessary.
As always, I sucked in my breath and my sphincter muscle gripped when I saw Sam Winterberry. That wasn't because he repelled me. The sexual attraction of him was just the opposite for someone like me who had come to want it rough. He wasn't young. He probably was in his early fifties. But he was a magnificent, sexy specimen for his age--tall and wiry, perfectly proportioned, ruggedly handsome, and having the presence of a Marine general who kept himself in tip-top condition and was evermore in growling command. What took my breath away was that he controlled his agents through sex and he was a demanding, masterful, and cruel dominator.
I was very much aware of his command and intent when I took off the trench coat I'd worn from the club next door, knowing I would just be in a red-sequined jock strap.
"Hello, boys," he said as Brinkley and I entered the room. "How did it go? Yes, take the coat off, Cory. I'd like to check whether you've been keeping in the shape you need to be. Ah, yes, very nice. You should do well in this caper."
During this operation, I was going to be Conner Taylor. Around the Agency I was Cory Bradford. But even that wasn't my real name.
"It worked," Brinkley said. "Our boy here is signed on to the crew of the
Wind of Fortune
, which sails the day after tomorrow, ports as yet unknown."
"Very good," Sam said. Turning to me, he said, "I suppose you want to know what your assignment is."
"Yes, please," I said. "I was just told we already have someone on board. Why do you need me?"
"The 'we' who have someone on board is the Agency, not a Candy Store agent. I want my own agent there. What we highly suspect these
Wind of Fortune
cruises around the Mediterranean are engaged in is not only the personal pleasure and business interests of Luigi Castrano and people he wants to impress but that he's also transporting Arab terrorists from one place to another outside of usual commercial transportation controls. There has just been a terrorist operation in Hamburg. You may have heard of it. A bombing in a crowded holiday open-air market. Nearly thirty dead and a lot more wounded. We think this sailing of the
Wind of Fortune
is to pull one or more of those who planned and executed this out of mainland Europe and sail them back to somewhere safe for terrorists in the Middle East."