Happpy Birthday Baby

I stared out the window of my corner office. It was a dismal day, typical of February in DC, with the weather forecast calling for icy rain. I made a rude sound and wondered if I could get myself assigned to Majorca. Surely someone would be vacationing there who needed assassinating?

Maybe it was an age thing, I thought morosely. I glanced at the calendar on my desk and sighed. It hadn't miraculously changed in thetime I had been looking out the window; it was *still* February 25th.

By rights, I should have been retired from the field five years ago but ... What was on file with the WBIS was what I wanted them to have on file. According to my records, last July 4th I had turned thirty-six. And I was actually the big 4-0 today.

Yeah, it was my birthday.

Before I could continue mulling over all the reasons why I hated birthdays, my phone buzzed, and I picked it up. "Yes, Ms. Parker?"

"Mr. Vincent, I have Quinton Mann on line two for you."

I licked my lips and looked at the phone contemplatively. Quinton Mann, Deputy Director, Operational Targeting, of the CIA. Why had he called?

The CIA got the jobs the FBI wouldn't dirty their lily-white fingers on.

And the WBIS got the jobs the CIA wouldn't handle.

There wasn't any love lost between any of us. And that was the way it was.

Until that shit, Bonfiglio, who played both sides against the middle, shot Mann in that damned warehouse. Bonfiglio paid for it, of course. No one fucks with my operations.

I'd always had a dossier on Mann; I had a dossier on all the agents, officers, and operatives who were likely to cross my path, and even those who weren't likely, but things had changed after that. I started keeping a private dossier on Mann, one that no one else knew about. I told myself it was strictly to keep track of the opposing team, so to speak. The more you knew about the way an agent, officer, or operative thought, the more likely you were to outthink him.

Then I found I couldn't get him out of my mind. I needed to know ... everything, and not just what I'd been able to get from hacking into his files. What was his favorite pony's name? Who were his favorite authors? Why he got that B+ in English lit his last year in college instead
of his usual A.

And did he prefer blondes or brunets?

I even went so far as to disguise myself as an old school friend and interviewed his mother, and wouldn't the shit hit the fan if he ever found out about that. Not that he would. I was too good at what I did.

I wanted Mann, not as in 'dead or alive', but as in 'in my bed,' and that wasn't acceptable. Oh, not because he was a man. The WBIS had instituted a policy when The Boss took over fifteen years before, and as a result, an active agent's sexuality was taken out of the equation, as that pompous asshole James Adams liked to say, and the agent was able to function at the peak of his ability.

No, the problem wasn't that Mann was a man. The problem was he was CIA.

I took a deep breath, then punched two on my phone. "Vincent."

"Vincent, this is Quinton Mann."

"So my secretary informed me. My, my," I said in my snidest tone. I was not about to let a Deputy Director of the CIA know I was caught short by his call. "The CIA's golden boy is calling the WBIS? To what do I owe this honor?"

I could have been referring to the state of the weather. "I need to see you. Are you available for dinner?"

The sound of his voice alone had my cock hardening, and the unruly thought flashed through my mind, 'I'd *love* to have you for dinner!' The image of him bent over a dinner table and me pounding into him made my cock even harder.

Shit! That had never happened to me before. I controlled my cock, not the other way around.

I pushed those thoughts and images out of my mind and concentrated on the matter at hand. He wanted to meet for dinner.

My mouth was dry. This would be an ideal opportunity to learn more about him. And by extension, the CIA of course. I cleared my throat, and made a show of loudly turning the pages on my daily planner, knowing the sound would be picked up over the phone line. I was a busy man, after all, and I wanted that to be plain to him.

"Hmmm. I have a 5 PM meeting ... " Someone who saw that the necessary funding for the WBIS was unobtrusively filtered into our coffers and who was becoming recalcitrant. As senior special agent in charge of this matter, it would be my job to show him the error of his ways. "... but after that it looks like I'll be free." I couldn't resist adding, "And don't bother asking who I'll be meeting, or why."

"Of course not, Mark. I know you wouldn't tell me, anyway." There was a smile in his voice, and I stared at my phone in shock. He called me by my first name! "Would you meet me at Raphael's?"

"Certainly, Mann." I wasn't ready to relax my guard. He was still CIA. "What time?"

"Seven. Will that give you enough time?"

I considered the man I would be seeing at five o'clock. It would be more than enough time, but Mann didn't need to know that. "Better make it
eight." After all, I didn't want to appear too eager.

"Fine." His tone was almost caressing. What the fuck was going on here? "I'll see you at Raphael's at eight, Mark." The line went dead.

He hadn't told me where Raphael's was, and I wasn't familiar with it, but before I left for my last meeting, I would know everything about the restaurant, down to how much the owner had left on the mortgage and if he'd had to grease someone's palm to get his liquor license.

But the thought that went round and round in my mind was that he called me Mark. Fuck. I was Vincent, or Mr. Vincent. Or even 'that sociopathic son of a bitch,' according to certain members of the intelligence community. No one called me by my first name, not even me!

I wondered why Quinton Mann, of all people, wanted to see a simple WBIS agent like myself for dinner.

I pushed the unexpected invitation from my mind - I had work to do, after all - and pulled up the Senator's file.