through his body as he imagined getting his hands on female flesh.
‘How far’s your hut?’ James asked excitably, reaching across and putting his hand on Cindi’s bum.
‘Not far at all,’ she smiled.
James noticed Bruce heading by to take a pee as Cindi grabbed his hand and started leading him off. Bruce didn’t utter a word, but his expression clearly said you jammy bastard.
‘You remind me of a guy I dated in high school,’ Cindi said. ‘Cute face and a nice ass. I did stuff to that guy that would make your eyes pop out!’
James had an ear-to-ear grin. His cold streak was over. He was still James Adams and there were at least three condoms in the back of his wallet. He could hardly believe his luck as he followed the attractive butt down a cobbled alleyway. Maybe her shoulders were a bit on the manly side, but you can’t have everything …
They ducked through a low door into a gloomy one-room hut.
‘Cosy,’ James smiled.
But Cindi didn’t smile back. A dark figure slammed the door shut as Cindi snatched James’ wrist and twisted it hard behind his back. He struggled but she’d taken him by surprise and pulled his arm into an excruciating lock.
‘You kick me and I’ll break it,’ Cindi screamed.
As the light came on, James’ legs were kicked away and his body slammed face down on to a laminate-topped dining table. He saw two women in army uniform. The oldest one moved in swiftly and locked a set of handcuffs behind his back.
Cindi smiled as she turned James on to his back. ‘I left something out,’ she smiled, suddenly neither horny nor drunk. ‘I’m Sergeant Cindi-Lou Jones, United States Army Intelligence Corps. These other two fine ladies are Corporal Land and Lieutenant Sahlin.’
James smiled and tried to sound cool. ‘So I suppose a shag’s now totally out of the question?’
Sahlin was the oldest and meanest looking of the three soldiers: olive skinned, with a hairy chin. She moved in and punched James in the kidneys. ‘A smart mouth can land a boy in a lot of trouble.’
‘We’ve got rules here!’ James shouted indignantly. ‘You can arrest and interrogate me, but you can’t use force.’
Jones tugged James’ trousers and boxers down with a single violent movement. ‘If you don’t cooperate, boy, we might just be spilling a nice hot cup of coffee down there on your intimate parts.’
‘You let the mask over your face slip and we identified you from the surveillance cams on base,’ Jones explained, as she pulled off her striped top, revealing a sweaty green combat vest underneath it. ‘General Shirley’s looking at a career nosedive if this operation doesn’t start going his way. He’s authorised us to bend the rules if we feel it necessary.’
‘You’d better start talking,’ Sahlin added. ‘Intel-ops officers like me are trained in about a million different ways to hurt little boys like you without leaving a mark.’
‘How come you’re not on the toilet with the rest of the Yanks?’ James asked.
‘The intelligence officers live and eat in a separate building on the far side of the base,’ Sahlin smiled. ‘Seems your Mr Kazakov missed a trick for once.’
Corporal Land was the smallest of the three women. She spoke with a sweet voice like a country and western singer. ‘Ya know what, girlfriends? How about we take James back to all them soldiers, release him in the middle of our base and tell our boys that he’s the one what made ‘em so sick.’
‘For god’s sake,’ James shouted. ‘This is a training exercise. You’re not allowed to do this!’
‘Yosyp Kazakov is making a lot of important people look real bad,’ Land smiled. ‘We don’t like that one little bit.’
James watched as Lieutenant Sahlin pulled a sinister-looking metal probe out of her shirt pocket.
‘Honey,’ Corporal Land said sweetly, moving in close and dabbing James’ sweating brow with a tissue. ‘You’d better start telling us some things we want to hear. ‘Cos when the lieutenant’s little probe heats up and gets shoved where the sun don’t shine, you’re gonna know all about it.’
31. PATRIOTS
Lauren, Jake, Kevin, Rat and Gabrielle all charged forward into the packed square as Kazakov drove through the crowd, standing in the back of a captured Hummer.
‘The enemy is weakened,’ Kazakov bellowed. ‘Soon the final attack will be upon us. Victory is in sight!’
The crowd didn’t know what to make of this burly man with a weird accent and two days’ worth of stubble.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Kazakov said.