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Message-ID: <30892asstr$992715003@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: John3365a@aol.com
Subject: {ASSM} {Jake Lucas series} NEW Coo Coo Ca-choo Mrs. Robinson (MFF adventure humor)
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 14:10:03 -0400
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
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<1st attachment, "COOCOO.TXT" begin>

This story is a work of fiction.  Any resemblance to real 
persons is unintentional and strictly coincidental.  If you are below 
the age of 18, or 21 depending on your locality, stop reading right 
now. If your government prohibits erotic literature, stop reading 
now and delete this. If you choose to continue, that is your decision 
-- and your responsibility -- not mine.

This is intended solely for adults, and any other rebroadcast, 
retransmission, and account of this game is strictly prohibited by the 
National Hockey League. Wait --The NHL doesn't care -- I care. Any 
unauthorized redistribution of this is in violation of copyright. I 
authorize the reader to make one copy for reading purposes only. I
expressly prohibit posting of this work on anyone's website, including 
but not limited to pay-sites, sites with advertising, and any type of 
site where a fee is charged. Any distribution without the author's 
permission is strictly prohibited.

DO NOT REPOST

"Coo Coo Ca-choo Mrs. Robinson" Copyright (C) 2001 by John3365A@aol.com (John A). 
All rights reserved.
--------------------

Author's note: This is the third installment in the Jake Lucas series.
The first two, "Acquisition" and "Berlin Diversion" can be found at my 
web site:    http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/JohnA/www/  

For those of you who don't want to go to my site (and why not, may I ask??)
I've reposted "Acquisition" and "Berlin Diversion" today as well as posting 
this.

If you haven't read the first two in the series, you might want to read those 
before reading this story, though this story can probably stand on its own. 
You'll just miss out on some valuable character background.

Enjoy. And remember...don't forget to tip your waitress....

It's good to be back

JA 6/15/01

------------


I'd love to know what you think. Positive or negative, 
I'll try to respond to everyone (except obnoxious flames).

My e-mail address is John3365a@aol.com.



                 Coo Coo Ca-choo, Mrs. Robinson
                           by John A
                        copyright (C) 2001



The early morning sun glistened as it reflected off of the dew-
covered grapes in the vineyard in which Lotte and I were walking.
We'd been in Florence, Italy for three days and this was our
first day out of the hotel room. It didn't take me very long to
learn that she was insatiable. Ok, truth be told, my balls ached
and I needed a break.

"What would you like to do today?" I asked, every step a ginger
one after three days and nights of almost nonstop sex with Lotte.

"I suppose we should do something," she looked up at me,
squinting, the bright morning sunlight gleaming off of her blonde
hair. "It would be a shame to spend all of this time in Italy and
stay indoors."

"Well, we can head across the Ponte Vecchio and go into town for
the day and do some sightseeing and then take it from there."

"How about the disco tonight?"

"Dancing?" I asked warily.

"Yes," she giggled. "Don't you dance?"

"Well, Lotte. If there's one thing I've learned in life is that
there are three types of men: those who can dance, which are very
few; those who think they can dance, but really just look like
uncoordinated apes on the floor; and the third type, those who
have admitted to themselves that they can't dance."

Lotte laughed. "I take it you are in the third category?"

"Absolutely. But if you want to go tonight, we can for a while."

She smiled and clutched onto my arm, leaning her head against my
shoulder as we headed back to the villa before heading into town
for the day.


We ate dinner at a little trattoria on the Piazza del Carmine
before heading down the street to one of those dance clubs that
views itself a little too self-importantly, reveling in the
trendy Eurotrash and American celebrities that litter the floor
until dawn.

But they could pour a good double scotch, so what the hell did I
care?

After about ten minutes of looking around at the fashionably
dressed, mostly young crowd bumping and grinding to some techno
pop beat, Lotte grabbed my arm and started walking backwards,
leading me onto the dance floor.

"You know, Lotte. This really isn't my speed," I argued. Hell, I
would have given a hundred grand to hear something from the White
Album.

She laughed. "Come on, Jake. It's fun. You don't need any rhythm,
just move against me."

I reluctantly followed her onto the floor, squeezing our way
through the leather-clad masses, where we bumped and grinded
against each other through what seemed like two songs, though I
couldn't be sure where any of this music ended or began.

We found our table and I ordered another round of drinks as we
looked around the room at all the scantily clad dancers. It was
certainly delicious eye candy, and my eyes couldn't help darting
around the room as I downed my scotch.

Lotte interrupted my leering with a giggle as she leaned close to
me. "I think that woman over there is looking at you."

"I actually thought she was looking at you," I countered and
Lotte grinned sheepishly.

The woman in question was a stunning brunette, her slightly dark
skin made even more so by a Mediterranean tan. She was short and
curvy, like so many Italian women, and the way she stood
accentuated her curves. Her large breasts pressed against the
white silk of her designer dress -- Versace or Cerruti, perhaps -- 
which did little to hide what was underneath, and what was
underneath was nothing. She was definitely hot, and more than
that, she knew she was hot. She noticed both Lotte and me looking
at her and smiled slyly before turning back to her companion.

I signaled for the waitress and I instructed her to bring a drink
to our new Italian friend. Lotte looked at me in shock, and I
suppose I didn't give much thought to her reaction to the offer
of a drink. Just as the waitress was about to leave the table, I
grabbed her arm.

"Is there something else, signore?" she asked in clipped English.

"Yes. Tell the woman that the drink is from my friend, Lotte,
here."

She walked away and Lotte playfully hit me on the arm. "Why did
you do that. She's going to think I'm interested in her . . .or
else be totally disgusted by the idea."

"Well, are you?" I asked.

"Am I what? Interested in her?"

I took another sip of my drink and nodded. Lotte blushed and
turned her head from me, taking a large sip of her wine.

"What kind of a question is that? I don't want to talk about this
subject." She turned and pouted.

Women. A day earlier while I fucked her ass she was pumping three
of her fingers into her pussy and screaming out for the entire
villa to hear, "Come on daddy, ream your baby's ass with your fat
cock," and now she couldn't answer whether or not she found
another woman attractive. I'll never understand them, but they
certainly make life more interesting.

Lotte was pretending to watch the dancers, ignoring me after my
impertinent question when the Italian woman I had bought the
drink for suddenly appeared at our table.

"Would you mind if I joined you," she asked in perfect English,
her accent made slight by what was probably years in the finest
English boarding schools. Upon closer inspection, my original
impression of her was accurate, if not a little conservative. She
was older than I initially thought, but the subtle lines didn't
deter from her beauty, rather they made her look more worldly, if
anything. Yes, she was pretty, but more than that she was exotic.
She had a faraway look behind her dark complexion that made her
more desirable than any of the scores of half naked twenty-somethings 
in the crowd.

"Please, sit down," I stood and pulled out a chair for her
between Lotte and me. Lotte smiled and the woman's warm gaze at
her melted her initial nervousness.

"Thank you for the drink. I'm Maria. Maria Modliano," she
extended her hands to each of us.  Her skin was smooth, pampered.
The way she repeated her name made me think that she was doing it
for effect. And the more I thought about it, the name Modliano
kept repeating itself in my head. Somewhere in the recesses of my
mind, the name was rattling around and it was going to bother me
until I could remember I how I'd heard of it.

I smiled and Lotte and Maria made some small talk as I drank my
scotch and wracked my brain for where I had heard the name. Then
it hit me. Roberto Modliano was an Italian with some sort of
title -- a count or baron or something -- who owned a handful of
heavy machinery factories that supplied small parts to Italy's
automobile industry. If this woman was related to him, then she
was definitely in the big leagues.

"Maria," I interrupted. "Your name? Modliano . . . that wouldn't
be related to Modliano Manufacturing, would it?"

She tossed her head back and laughed slightly. "Roberto is my
husband, but he's a dreadful bore. I need a little more
excitement in my life." She leaned over and hugged my arm
slightly, brushing her breast against it as she did. Lotte looked
around awkwardly, unsure of what was developing between the two
of us. To be honest, I didn't know what was developing either.
When we first noticed her looking at us, I could have sworn that
she was more interested in Lotte than me, but now I wasn't so
sure. Still, if a sexy woman wants to rub her big braless tit
against my arm, I'm not going to argue.

Maria smiled and leaned over to whisper something in Lotte's ear.
The young blonde giggled and blushed as the Italian placed her
hand under the table. Lotte giggled again and looked at me
questioningly with a hint of lust in her eyes. Whatever Maria
said to Lotte, certainly enflamed my Teutonic beauty's passions.

"Why don't we all go somewhere for a drink that's a little . . .
more intimate than this," Maria suggested over the din of the
heavy beat. The two women leaned against me as we walked up the
street toward my car. Lotte leaned over and nibbled at my earlobe
while Maria clutched onto my arm. God, sometimes life is great.

"Anyplace you have in mind, contessa?" I said after we got into
the car, looking at her for a reaction. She grinned and shook her
head, before turning to look out the window. I couldn't help but
notice how her already short dress had ridden up and exposed her
smooth thighs above the thigh-highs that she wore. Lotte, it
seemed, had also noticed this from the back seat, and was
transfixed on Maria's legs. Well, *that* question that I'd asked
Lotte was answered in the affirmative.

I drove to our hotel just outside of town, trying to gauge the
situation. I was pretty sure what the contessa wanted, I just
wasn't sure if she wanted it with me, Lotte, or both of us. 

"I thought we'd get a bottle of champagne from room service and
continue the party in our room," I suggested, alternating my
gazes between the two ladies as we entered the large ornate
lobby, adorned with Louis Quatorze furniture and finished in the
finest Algerian marble. It was a formal room, but despite it's
opulence, it was relaxing and inviting. Comfortable.

"I adore champagne, " Maria said superiorly as we walked toward
our suite.

I called the concierge and had two bottles of Dom Perignon sent
up to the room. When they arrived, I poured the drinks and turned
some soft music on the stereo. Maria took her glass and stood,
swaying her hips, dancing to the music in a tantalizing
seduction. She moved gracefully to Lotte, seductively stalking
her prey as she urged the young German to stand and join her in
her dance. 

The two slowly moved their bodies against each other,
occasionally looking over for my reaction and giggling to each
other. Maria turned Lotte in her arms and brushed her large
breasts against Lotte's smaller ones, their nipples poking
through the thin material of their dresses, causing the younger
woman to moan involuntarily. Before Lotte fully comprehended what
was happening, Maria lowered her mouth to the blonde's neck,
eliciting even more moans from her and serving to give me an
erection like I hadn't had in, well, maybe a day or so.

"You look lonely over there, Jake. Doesn't he look lonely over
there all by himself, Lotte?" she asked seductively, running her
hands over the younger woman's swaying ass.

"Mmmm," Lotte moaned, reveling in the feelings. "Come here Jake."

Let's see, two beautiful women were going at it and inviting me
to join them; this was not a difficult decision.

I joined the women in a three way kiss, flicking out tongues
together as we explored our each other's bodies with our hands. I
took the two woman by the hands and led them into the bedroom. We
shed our clothes rapidly and tore at each other, a tangle of arms
and legs. Maria took the lead and pushed me onto my back,
grinning lasciviously and lowering her mouth on my erection in
one swift motion. She sucked and bobbed until I thought I was
going to lose it -- less than a minute of her blowjob convinced
me that this contessa was one of the best cock suckers I'd ever
experienced. 

She looked up at me and smiled before removing her mouth and
beckoning Lotte over to join her. The two women took turns
licking and sucking on my cock, sharing it between them and
running their tongues all over the turgid shaft.

Lotte licked up my pool of precum and shared a deep kiss with
Maria, swirling their tongues in each other's mouth. Lotte broke
the kiss and tugged at my balls, looking up at me slyly. "He
likes this."

"Mmmm," I moaned, reveling in the pleasure the two mouths and one
hand were giving me. I looked down at the two women giving me
such pleasure. The way they contrasted each other was erotic in
and of itself. Where Lotte was tall, blonde and angular, Maria
was short and curvy with fine jet-black hair. Maria had large,
heavy breasts while Lotte's were small with tiny nipples. I
leaned back and smiled at my good fortune.

Five minutes later, the ladies stopped their oral ministrations
on my cock and crawled up the bed.

"I need you to fuck me Jake," Maria said matter-of-factly in her
boarding-school English. Lotte, too, knew what she wanted, and
crawled up to the head of the bed, placing her pussy just inches
from my face. With one swift motion, the contessa mounted my cock
and began to ride me like a jockey heading down the home stretch
at Churchill Downs.

I grunted into Lotte's bald pussy, as I flicked my tongue over
her clit. The two girls inched closer, fondling each other's
breasts before joining in a deep kiss that was just
overwhelmingly erotic in its imagery and sent my libido into
overdrive.

I met Maria's thrusts with my own and I insistently sucked hard
on Lotte's clit, roughly nibbling on the pink pearl and driving
her into the throes of orgasm.

When Lotte fell off my face, Maria grinned and leaned over me,
continuing her expert ride, and swayed her tits tantalizingly in
front of my face. I clamped onto one with my mouth and sucked
furiously at the distended nipple, biting and twisting it with my
teeth.

"Fotterlo. Attaccarlo nel mio figa. Fuck me," she screamed out
and came furiously, bobbing her cunt on my shaft and squeezing
her internal muscles until I felt the familiar tingle in my balls
and I shot my load deep within her pussy.



The two women were still sleeping when I awoke. I threw on my
robe before grabbing my cell phone and walked out on the terrace.
The summer heat at 8:30 was already strong and hit me when I
stepped out of the air-conditioned room. I looked out at the Arno
river lazily wending past the Villa's finely manicured grounds,
the rolling hills with their olive groves and sparse forest
dotting the landscape in the distance; a setting so peaceful, in
such stark contrast to my life I was mesmerized by the abject
serenity of it all. I punched in the number for the CIA's secure
call routing center in Frankfurt, Germany and after about a
minute of clicks and buzzes on the line to ensure call security,
Andrew Maxwell's secretary answered the phone. 

As she was transferring my call to Andy's office, I ran back into
the room to make sure the girls were still asleep and to grab the
sound scrambler that Maxwell had given me in Berlin, switching it
on as I did.

I closed the terrace door behind me and moved over to a chair by
the deserted pool and sat in the shade of an old elm as Maxwell's
scratchy voice came over the telephone. "Jacob, how's Italy?"

I glanced back toward my room where the two women were sprawled
naked on the king sized bed and smirked. "Not too bad Andy.
What's up with the deaths."

"Well, I got a couple of reports from my field people and
something smells fishy. There's nothing conclusive, by any means,
but there's some suspicious shit going on around two companies:
DLB Petrochemical in Mannheim, and Alsace Pharma in Strasbourg,
ever hear of them?" Andy asked.

"Vaguely," I answered, sitting back and resting my legs on the
other chair at the table. "I've heard of them to say that I
recognize the names, but that's the extent."

"That's ok, you'll get up to speed soon enough. I'm going to need
you to get up there and get inside. You know  . . . don't arouse
suspicion."

"Me? Arouse suspicion?" I joked.

"Yeah. Try to keep the artillery fire to a minimum."

I laughed. "So, what's the plan? I figure that my angle is that
I'm doing some fact finding on behalf of Tate-Reynolds for
possible take-overs."

"That's what I was thinking too," he agreed.

"Am I solo? And who's the control?"

There was generally a control person -- an overseer, if you will
-- involved with every mission. The control was someone who had
information that the field agents needed, and was a contact for
when things got dicey. At times the control and the agent worked
together, pursuing different ends of the same mission, but more
often than not, the control was someone to lend assistance when
needed. Now, controls were merely a source of background
information and tactical support, but during the days of the cold
war they had much more prevalent and necessary -- before the
opening of Eastern Europe -- running networks of spies behind the
Iron Curtain. Sometimes it was the agent's life that was held
sway by the control's ability to remove him from a hostile
country, often mere minutes ahead of the KGB or East German
secret police.

In one of my first missions after joining The Company, I was in
East Germany acting as a courier for a double agent that Maxwell
had succeeded in turning years ago. West German Deutchmarks were
quite an effective enticement for turning eastern agents,
especially ones who had gotten a taste of the west at some point.
The double -- a Johann Paltz -- was a general in the intelligence
branch of the East German army. Paltz had served as a deputy
consul -- the consulate or embassy in a hostile country was a
typical placement for a government to hide someone in the
intelligence field; both sides did it --  in Brussels for four
years in the late seventies and had gotten a healthy taste of
life in the west. He had always been a font of information -- for
which he was paid handsomely to a numbered account in Geneva --
and had somehow managed to get advanced plans for Soviet missile
redeployment in the Satellites. The Satellites were those
countries we referred to as the Soviet Bloc, nations such as
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Hungary, which
nominally were autonomous, but in actuality took their orders
from the Politburo and Soviet Central Command.

Paltz had known that his time was numbered; already he had felt
that he was being phased out of some decisions and meetings that
he was previously privy to. And in the Bloc, suspicion was only a
few connected links away from the firing squad -- or worse.
Taking the file -- more like a book -- of missile deployment was
going to be his last, and greatest, act of treason. I had gone
east to retrieve the book from him but with the book in hand he
wanted out and the retirement lifestyle that the west had
promised him.

Little did he realize how closely the secret police were watching
him. It turned out that he had been under surveillance for a
couple of months and anywhere that Paltz had gone he was shadowed
by a member of the Stazi. When we met at the pre-arranged spot at
Eisenach near the DDR southwest border, we knew something was
different. Sentry positions had been altered, giving a sense of
carelessness in the arrangement of border guards.

I was relatively new and unsure of what was happening. Paltz, on
the other hand, knew definitively that he was blown. The East
Germans were anything but lax, and if there were areas that were
unguarded, he knew that it only meant one thing: trap.

I wired my control with the portable radio I brought as we holed
up in an abandoned farmhouse for the next few days. The East
Germans either didn't know exactly where we were or were waiting
for us to make the move, so they could arrest Paltz in grand
fashion as a traitor attempting to flee with national secrets.
No, the East Germans and Russians never needed an excuse to
arrest anyone, but Paltz was somewhat of a big fish and we
supposed that they felt from a tactical standpoint in cold-war
relations it was better to catch him 'in the act.' A man like
Paltz had many allies in the Praesaedium, and it was necessary
for the Stazi to have actual proof when they arrested him. Plus,
the Soviets liked to show some legitimate arrests, it seemed, to
justify to everyone the righteousness of the communist way of
life -- or some such bullshit.

So we waited, subsisting on rainwater and grain from an abandoned
silo, for a cloudy night so my control could fly over and come
and pluck us free. After three days and three cold October
nights, my control radioed that there was a storm heading into
the area and if it was heavy enough, he'd fly his small four-seater 
plane just above the treetops to avoid the radar, land and
quickly turn around again, making the seven mile flight back to
the safety of the west. 

At two o'clock in the morning, my radio cackled slightly with the
faint one word call of "go" signaling to us that he was making
the attempt in the torrential downpour. The next several minutes
seemed to take hours as we waited for the hum of the small plane
to be heard above the roar of the tempest. 

Apparently the East Germans had spied the plane shortly after it
entered their airspace and were closing in on our position as we
took off for the west. A Russian Mig fighter had closed the
distance on us and fired a missile toward our little plane.
Whether it was the tremendous electrical storm, or just sheer
providence, the missile whizzed past our wing, missing it by a
few feet before exploding harmlessly in a field not too far from
the border. The miss was the break we needed as my control flew
down to tree level, flying in an obstacle course within the
sparse forest too low for the Mig to follow. Paltz clutched the
book of missile positions, as if holding on tightly to his ticket
to the west was going to help us through the predicament we were
in. For my part, I'd never been more scared in my entire life.
Another missile was fired, but intercepted by an old pine just as
we were entering West German airspace. There we were greeted by
three US Air Force F-16 fighter jets with their targets locked on
the Mig. The Soviet pilot took the wiser course of action and
veered off before leaving communist territory and the west was
given some of the most secret and valuable intelligence they'd
received in years. 

I never forgot the value of a good control after that night in
the former East Germany and I always trusted my controls with my
life because -- just as the time twelve years ago -- it sometimes
came down to that.

Andy cleared his throat and interrupted my memories. "You'll meet
your control, Dana Robinson, tomorrow at three pm at the south
side of the St. Mark's square in Venice, and get your
instructions there. You'll be working with Dana closely on this
mission, too," he informed me hesitatingly. There was something
odd about Andy now, I just couldn't put my finger on it.

"Why not just pick a more public place, like the middle of St.
Stephen's square in Prague. Or how about on the 50 yard line at
half time of the fucking Super Bowl?"

"Listen, you know as well as me that a busy, public place is
better for a meet than someplace secluded and private. Remember,
crowds can be an ally."

"They can also be a fucking pain in the ass too. Especially since
I have no idea what this guy
Robinson looks like."

"That's another thing Jake  . . . your control," he paused, more
out of trepidation, it seemed, than for effect. "Dana Robinson is
a woman."

"Fuck."

I hated working with women and Andy knew it. I had nothing
against them in any phase of intelligence work  . . . except
working in the field. There were several reasons I objected to
women working in the field, not the least of which was that I
always felt protective of them and if I was worrying about
someone else that meant that I wasn't concentrating fully on what
I had to do. And if I couldn't fully concentrate on what I needed
to do to complete the mission, there was a real possibility that
the mission wouldn't get accomplished -- or worse. 

"Andy, come on. There's got to be someone else," I pleaded.

"Sorry, Jacob. No can do. Dana's the most experienced agent we
have concerning this matter and I need her there as much as I
need you. You can run things the way you want, but she's going to
be there too. I'm not going to discuss it further, my decision is
final.

I didn't say another word. Andy was a fair man and allowed his
agents a great deal of leeway, but when he made up his mind, you
knew better than to challenge it. I sighed lightly and asked what
the contact code would be.

"She'll know what you look like. She'll come up to you and ask if
it's four o'clock. You'll reply, 'no, it's three, it's four in
Istanbul'."

"Got it." I shook my head. The contact codes were getting dopier
by the year. This one sounded like something from a bad spy
movie. "Anything else I should know?"

"No. Dana will debrief you thoroughly when you get to France. The
two of you will work out the details then  . . . . Good luck,
Jacob, and try to forget that Dana's a woman. She's an excellent
agent."

"Good bye, Andy." I terminated the phone call and reflected on
what he said about working with Dana Robinson. "Fuck."

A sparrow landed on a table nearby, searching for some scraps of
food before taking off, unsatisfied. It flew gracefully over the
river, disappearing in the trees beyond. I stared out blankly at
the green hills banking the Arno, lost in my thoughts about
having to work with this Dana Robinson. No matter which way I
looked at it, I was stuck. If he felt it was crucial, Andy was
not going to yield on my wishes. I wanted a control that I could
trust with my life, not one that I wanted to sleep with. As I
turned back toward the room, I felt an uneasy feeling in my
stomach, unsure of what this mission --and working with Dana
Robonson -- would bring.



The two women were still sleeping soundly as I packed my clothes
silently, trying not to wake them. Maria stirred just as I was
putting the last of my things into the suitcase.

"Where are you going, Jake" Maria asked, sleepily, squinting
against the morning light.

"Work, doll," I answered succinctly. "Can't be helped."

At this point Lotte blinked her eyes open and did one of her
Olympic diver stretches, proudly presenting her pert breasts for
us to admire. And we did.

"Are you going to come back or are you heading back to the
states?" she asked.

"I'm taking the train to Venice to meet with an associate, then
we're flying to France for a couple of business meetings," I said
as I headed into the ornate bathroom, with its high polished
brass and green Iranian marble, to take a shower. The hot water
streamed powerfully onto me, loosening muscles made stiff by my
romp with the two women last night.

No more than four minutes into my shower, as I was washing my
hair, two pairs of arms wrapped around my body. One of the hands
clutched my soft penis while another, smaller, hand cupped my
balls and someone's tongue was flicking at my earlobe. 

I was very grateful that my train wasn't leaving for two hours.

***

The train ride to Venice was uneventful. I spent most of the time
either sleeping or going over some financial reports. I brought
extra work with me to Europe because Reynolds had been getting on
my ass for all the time off I'd been taking. It's not as if he'd
do anything about his threats; with the amount of money I brought
into the firm last year, they needed to do anything they could to
keep me happy. Still, I felt responsible for getting *some* work
done.

Midway through the two-and-a-half hour journey from Florence to
Venice I looked over the business card that Maria handed to me as
I left. House of Fasiano, it read. Apparently aside from being a
countess and being filthy rich, she was also the president of one
of Italy's hottest new fashion houses. Look me up if you're ever
in Milan, she had told me. I tucked the card into my briefcase
and smiled slightly. Now there was a woman whose marriage vows
were important to her, I chuckled to myself, drifting back to
sleep as the train rambled past the green Italian countryside.


I looked at my watch when I got off the train. It was already two
o'clock, late enough to place a call to my secretary in New York.
Jeannie usually arrived at the office by seven o'clock, which was
1 pm, Venice time. I grabbed a couple of pieces of fruit for
lunch at a little counter in the train station before heading
into Venice to call Jeannie and wait for my contact.

Walking around Venice, I found a somewhat remote area a few
blocks from St. Marks square in an old residential neighborhood
where the only activities were of women hanging laundry on
clotheslines and a handful of young boys and girls playing soccer
in the street. I discreetly switched on the scrambler as I dialed
the number to my New York office on my cell phone. I needed to
get appointments to the two companies quickly and have hotel
arrangements -- through the offices of Tate-Reynolds, for
authenticity, in case anyone decided to check -- made for a few
days in the vicinity of Strasbourg, France and Mannheim, Germany.

Jeannie answered on the third ring and seemed pleased to hear my
voice. "Jake, how long are you going to stay in Europe? I've
missed you."

"I'll bet you say that to all the boys," I teased. "Another week,
probably. What I need is a favor."

"Sure . . . . You know, Jake, you're my boss. They're pretty much
not favors," she laughed genuinely. Jeannie had to be one of the
nicest people I'd ever met and I was truly lucky to have her as
an assistant.

"Well, I need you to make arrangements for me to have a meeting
with some top brass at DLB Petrochemical in Mannheim and Alsace
Pharma in Strasbourg. I'm going to need info emailed to me on
both of those companies, too . . . everything we have."

"Why?"

"It's a long story. I need to get some info for my *other* job."
Jeannie was the only one from my 'real' life, other than my ex-wives, 
who knew about my work with the CIA.

"Gotcha. What should I tell Mr. Reynolds?"

I thought for a few seconds. "Tell Alvin that I have a couple of
possibilities in the works, but nothing near definite."

"Ok. He's still so overjoyed that you salvaged the Berlin deal
that he won't mind anything else."

I told Jeannie to make hotel arrangements for two rooms at a
hotel in Strasbourg and to be sure that Tate-Reynolds
specifically was the billee. I didn't want to take any chances
that our cover could be blown by such an amateurish mistake. 

"Oh, any messages?" I thought to ask.

"Ernie Callas called about a race this weekend."

Ernie Callas trained my horses -- among others -- at the Belmont
and Aqueduct race tracks in New York. Horse racing was always a
love of mine, ever since my father used to take me to watch the
horses every Saturday as a kid. It was a weekly ritual that
started when I was about nine years old and something I always
looked forward to; a special time with just me and my dad,
without my mother or sisters around. Not that I didn't enjoy
spending time with them, but dad used to work such long hours and
most nights I was already in bed by the time he came home. I
treasured those Saturday afternoons and the memories of days at
the races with him.

I owned three horses that I ran regularly in New York. They were
nothing that would threaten to win a triple crown race or compete
in the Breeder's Cup, but were nice claimers that I had picked up
at decent prices. 

Gold Starlight was a big roan filly who raced in the $15,000-$20,000 
claiming division and was as playful as the day is long.
She was a bulldog of a horse, handling a mile-and-an-eighth
easily, never missing a start and giving her best in every race. 

My second horse was a four-year-old colt named Halo Colony, who
from the name indicated great breeding lines, but just never had
been able to put it together on the track. He was sold to an
Arabian syndicate for over $1,000,000 as a yearling and raced as
a highly touted two-year-old with no success. The owners kept
racing him, in hopes that he'd someday get his maiden win, at
least. Finally after being dropped in class several times Halo
got his first win in a low price maiden claiming race. A few
unsuccessful starts later they raced him in a $30,000 open
claiming race, and I had Ernie put in a claim for it. So for
$30,000, I bought myself a horse that had raced nine times and
had one win, one show, and a lot of also-rans in his statistics.
But Ernie had convinced me to race the horse on the turf instead
of dirt and he'd had a little better success. We'd made the
decision to have him gelded  -- the ultimate equipment change --
to see if it would help calm him down and focus him on the track.
Turning him into a gelding worked to some degree but he was still
a frustrating horse. There were times he'd show flashes of
brilliance and others when it seemed as if *I* could have beaten
him in a race.

Rounding out my modest little stable was my star, a beautiful
chestnut colt called Risen Affirmation, a three-year-old sprinter
whom I ran in small allowance races, who pretty much consistently
gave me the best chance of reaching the winner's circle of any of
my horses. Antsy and fractious in the stable, once he was on the
track he was all business.

They made enough money to pay their expenses -- generally -- but
it was the excitement of being in the owners box at the track and
being there when one of *my* horses hit the wire first that was
the thrill for me.

"What did he say?"

"He was wondering if you were going to be around this weekend.
Gold Starlight is running in race two at a mile-and-a-sixteenth
on Sunday at Belmont."

"Shit. I completely forgot about that. Well, not much I can do
about it now . . . . Hey, if you and Steve want to use my owner's
pass, feel free. If the horse wins, you can get your picture
taken in the winner's circle."

"Really? Thanks, we might just do that."

"Just call Ernie and he'll get you the passes . . . . Any other
calls?" I asked.

"Well," she hesitated. "Um . . . Diane called."

"What did *she* want now?" I asked disgustedly. Diane was my
second wife and only called for two reasons. The first was
whenever her Jaguar XKR convertible was in the shop and the
second was when she'd broken up with the latest of a string of
her boy-toys and needed a man's shoulders to rest her crying head
on. Lord, I hoped the Jag was in the shop.

"She didn't say. Just said something about needing to see you in
a desperate hurry." Jeannie couldn't hide her chuckle.

"Where did you tell her I was?"

"Osaka," she said, giggling slightly. One of the reasons that I
appreciated Jeannie so much was that I knew I could count on her
telling Diane that I was at least 10,000 miles from where I
actually was.

"You're beautiful, you know that?"

"Oh please, Jake," she snickered. "The last thing I need in this
world right now is for *you* to hit on me."

I laughed. Talking to Jeannie always lifted my spirits. She
really was as much of a friend as she was an assistant. "Any
other messages I should know about?"

"Well, a few work related ones. I transcribed them and forwarded
them to your mailbox; nothing urgent so you can see them there .
. . that is if you'll ever *check* your e-mail. Oh yeah, one
other message, from an April Connoly. She asked if you were back
from Europe and left her number in Chicago."

I smiled. For the brief time that we spent together, April was as
fun a girl as I'd been with in a long time. I was going to have
to get in touch with her when I got back in the states.

"Thanks Jeannie, I guess that'll be it. When you make those
arrangements take the rest of the day off."

"Thanks Jake, but without you here, it's not as if there's a heck
of a lot to do. Yesterday I chatted online with my daughter at
Providence College when she was between classes. Today I was
planning on ordering my groceries over the internet," she
chuckled.

"Well, if you'd like, you can take off any time you want. If
anyone says anything, just tell them I told you to leave."

"Thanks Jake. You're a sweetheart. Talk to you later."

For the next hour or so, as I waited for my three o'clock meeting
with Dana, I tried to act as much like a tourist as I could. I
took a gondola ride down the grand canal, examined the Gothic
architecture of the Doge's Palace, and got a gelate at a little
cart while watching the minutes tick away painfully slowly. The
waiting was easily the most difficult and monotonous aspect of
intelligence work. The life of a spy may have seemed glamorous in
movies and books, a dashing James Bond playing Baccarat in Monte
Carlo one minute then dashing off to a mountainside resort in
Gstaad or some such place the next. But intelligence work, for
the most part, was one of tedium. It was waiting hours in a
location for a specific time to meet a courier. Waiting for a
specific time to make a drop. Waiting for a specific time to meet
a contact. Waiting hours in surveillance of a military
installation or private guarded residence. Waiting. Always
waiting . . . until those precious minutes where the waiting is
over and the action begins. And the biggest key to success -- and
typically success in the intelligence field is read: staying
alive long enough to complete the mission -- is managing your
concentration level so you're not lulled to a false sense of
security by all the waiting and are alert enough to act -- or
react -- at a second's notice.

As I was waiting for my contact, my thoughts drifted to April and
the fact that she had called, looking for me. She was just
another girl I'd met along the way, but there was something
different about her. She was innocent and sexy, forceful and
funny all rolled into one, and she had that damn black hair.
Thick, dark hair was always a weakness of mine and April had it
and I was feeling weak. 

Both my ex-wives had thick, dark hair: Kristin's was soft and straight 
and went halfway down her back and I loved the way it would drape 
over my face whenever she was on top while we were making love. 
Diane's hair, on the other hand, was shoulder length, straight 
as a pin and never an millimeter out of place, complete with bangs that 
gave her a seductive innocence I still thought about -- despite how
miserable the two of us were together. She was too much in love
with herself to love anyone else. We made a pretty pair, me the
international financier and her the star of fashion runways and
magazine covers but it was a case of too little love and too much
ego -- on both our parts -- for the marriage to have had any
serious chance of surviving.

I couldn't identify what it was but there was something about a
woman with thick dark hair that made me lose my perspective.
April and I had gotten together only once and I my thoughts were
consumed with when I could see her again, yet I hadn't even given
a second through to Jessica, the blonde thoroughbred from that
same night, or Lotte for that matter. There was just something
about April that had gotten under my skin. This had all the
earmarks of me falling for another woman. Damn weakness in
character, I thought as I watched the pigeons land and take off
in what only could be described as organized chaos while I waited
for three o'clock to come.


Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman walking purposefully
toward me. Looking at my watch I saw that it was close to three.
The woman neared and I got a better look at her. She was slim --
fit, actually -- of an average height, moderately pretty in a
wholesome, librarian way, with sandy hair pulled back severely in
a bun which did nothing to flatter her. She was maybe in her late
twenties -- no older than thirty -- I estimated. Her eyes were
wide and expressive and they darted around the square looking
everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. She was walking
rapidly, as if every second wasted was one she'd never get back.
Dressed in khaki slacks and a bright white blouse, the only
jewelry that she allowed herself were a wedding band and diamond
solitaire on the ring finger of her left hand. She was the
proverbial sore thumb and just screamed "agent." This was not
going to be an enjoyable mission.

"Is it four o'clock?" she asked me formally. Her voice was a
monotone, professional in tone and pitch and seemingly without
humor.

Lord knows I was tempted to say something other than my
designated response, but I wasn't in the mood to play any head
games with someone who was going to be my partner for the next
several days. Besides, I wasn't sure if she'd try to shoot me to
teach me a lesson.

"No, it's three. It's four in Istanbul."

She looked me up and down suspiciously, as if I was a used car
she was considering purchasing, before perfunctorily extending
her hand. "Dana Robinson. Pleased to meet you Lucas," she said
militarily, almost brusquely.

I smiled warmly -- well as warmly as I could muster -- and shook
her hand as I stood. "Nice to meet you Dana, call me Jake."

"There's a car waiting to take us to the airport. Our flight
leaves in an hour." She didn't mince words. I was definitely
*not* looking forward to working with Dana Robinson.

The ride to the airport was in silence. On a couple of occasions
I tried to initiate conversation, but was met only with nods and
grunts. Nancy Drew here was definitely not one for small talk. On
the flight, Dana handed me a couple of files to look at about the
companies. At the airport I had logged into a data port at a pay
phone and downloaded all the information on Alsace Pharma and DLB
Petrochemical that Jeannie had emailed me from New York. The
information from Dana was mostly tactical, whereas what I got
from my office was financial. Put together, the two helped
connect a few pieces of the puzzle. Although, at this point, we
weren't even sure if either one of these companies was what we
were looking for, it was still a step forward.

I took the time on the flight to more carefully analyze Dana. It
was readily apparent that she was a perfectionist, her files and
notes were meticulously organized and color coded. In fact,
everything about her was meticulous. Her tan slacks were crisp,
the pleat razor sharp. Her blouse was pure white and finely
ironed. In fact, nothing about her was out of place, by design,
and I wondered if she ever allowed herself a mistake. A
perfectionist -- at least one as anal as Dana here appeared to be
-- was a dangerous person to have on a mission. Perfectionists
are great when everything is going according to plan, but let one
thing not work out and they don't seem to be able to handle it.
Fortunately for me, this was mission was relatively benign, in a
safety sense and the worst that it seemed Dana could do would be
to insult an executive and give Tate-Reynolds a black mark in the
couth department.

***

A late-model Mercedes limousine sat waiting for us at the airport
and I recognized the driver as someone who'd been assigned to
Andy's security detail for the last couple of years: Tony Salman,
or Salian, or something like that. I'd never worked with him
before, but Andy spoke highly of his ability. Apparently he'd
fought Golden Gloves when he was younger and was as strong as a
bull. He was plucked by The Company from the Army Rangers and
specialized in hand to hand combat. Not a bad guy to have around
when times got tough. 

Since the driver was CIA issue, I'd assumed the car was as well
and was probably equipped with armor plating and extensive
communication and surveillance equipment. Seemed like overkill
for this case -- at this stage, anyway.

We pulled onto the Place St. Pierre and arrived at the Sofitel
Hotel in downtown Strasbourg with Dana still holding the record
for fewest words said on a mission. Tony brought our luggage --
mostly empty, but without luggage, hotel guests arouse suspicion
-- to the waiting bellhop and gave us the number where he was
staying if we should need him.

Dana and I checked in and went to our respective rooms;
adjoining, as requested, but divided by a set of locked double
doors. We could work together, but also have our privacy.

After dinner, which we ate separately in our rooms -- actually I
was only guessing that she ate, for all I knew she was practicing
flag folding -- I heard on knock on the door connecting our
rooms.

"Good evening, Lucas," she said tersely in the monotone I'd come
to expect from her as I let her into my room. "I trust you're
ready for tomorrow, I just felt as if we should plan our
strategy."

"Sounds good. Care for a drink," I offered, producing a bottle of
Glenlivet and two glasses. I had made sure that I had Tony stop
at a liquor store so I could buy a bottle of scotch before
heading to the hotel.

Dana turned up her nose at the whisky. "Thank you, no. I make it
a point never to drink when I'm working on a case."

"I know what you mean. I don't like to drink hard stuff if I'm
working on a case either . . . oh, you don't mean a case of beer,
do you?" I grinned.

She sniffed, though I thought I detected the slightest hint of a
smile, the first sign of a chink in my partner's armor. If I
didn't find some rapport with her soon, no matter how benign of a
mission this was, it wasn't going to go smoothly. "Just some
water will be fine." Her tone at first blush seemed arrogant and
haughty, but upon further reflection it was one of nervousness
and apprehension, much like a student trying to impress a teacher
on the first day of class.

"Sit down then," I angled my head toward one of the two chairs
surrounding a large work table as dropped a few ice cubes in a
glass and filled it with scotch.

"I've read your file, Mr. Lucas," she said stiffly.

"I'm flattered . . . and it's Jake."

"Don't be, you haven't heard my evaluation yet"

"I didn't know I was being evaluated," I said smugly.

She ignored my rebuke. "I must say that for someone of your
stature, you're quite irresponsible. Married twice and divorced
twice -- reasons not crystal clear. You're a heavy drinker, even
a drunkard at times, as evidenced by this." She nodded her head
in the direction of my bottle of whisky. I chuckled slightly and
tried to hide it, but I don't think I was too successful. She
darted her eyes around nervously before returning them to the
file she was reading.

"You're also a lothario," she continued. "Do you realize in that
last year you've been intimately involved with over 38 different
women?"

"Thirty-eight?" I asked, feigning shock and downing the rest of
my drink in mock horror. "I must be slowing down . . . . Any
pictures in that file?"

She huffed and ignored me again. "I imagine that your
philandering ways is what got you divorced from your wives."

Only partly, I thought as she nailed her 95 theses against the
door of Jake Lucas. 

"In addition to your unwise and even immature personal choices,
your work in the field -- while at times brilliant and flawless -- 
has a certain air of recklessness about it. To put it bluntly,
Mr. Lucas . . . Jake, you're a loose cannon and I don't know if
I'm comfortable with working with you. I also know that you're
not comfortable working with women." 

"I'm not uncomfortable working with women," I corrected. "I'm
just old fashioned. I don't want them working in the field."

"Well, you're stuck with me . . . as I'm stuck with you for this
assignment. If it makes it any easier for you, try not to think
of me as a woman."

"That will be tough to do when you stand in profile," I retorted
and she shook her head at my cheekiness.

"Mr. Lucas, if . . . " she started to say something but I cut her
off.

"Look, why don't you get down off your high horse for a minute. I
was running networks of spies behind the Iron Curtain when you
were still trying to decide if you were going to let your
boyfriend come back to your dorm room after the homecoming dance
for a little slap and tickle, so don't come in here and give me a
lecture about *my* lifestyle, because when it comes down to the
mission, I get the job done. To put it *bluntly*, as you say, I'm
the best there is. Now, you're probably thinking that I'm
arrogant and self-serving and conceited, and you know what?
You're right, I *am*. But *I'm* also correct when I say I'm the
best, and if you put your mechanical pencils and index cards and
colored file tabs away for long enough to pay attention, you just
might learn something about fieldwork."

She stared blankly at me. It was a look that bordered on awe and
intimidation and I frankly didn't know if she was going to burst
into tears. She was clearly accustomed for her outright
efficiency and perfection to control matters. Unfortunately for
her, she never ran up against a field agent as unorthodox as me
and all she could do was look down at her file. But all of the
files in all the world couldn't tell her how to deal with someone
who had just drawn a line in the sand. She closed the file and
smiled slightly -- almost relieved -- as the veil of discomfort
seemed to lift from her face. She looked up, breathing deeply,
looking slightly more relaxed now that her prepared speech was
over and continued in a more relaxed, conversational tone. "Is
there anything you wish to question me about?"

"Only two things. The first is: can you take orders?"

"Orders? I'm your control on this mission," she said militarily,
trying to maintain the smallest semblance of authority, though
probably realizing that she was fighting a losing battle.

"No," I corrected flatly. "Technically yes, but you need to get
it straight that when we're out in the field, I'm calling the
shots. I'm going to get us into the plants, and I'll get the info
we need. You're here for support, and that's it. Andy made that
perfectly clear, and he knows that I won't operate any other
way."

Her look was one of resignation and she sighed in frustration.
Being a field agent for The Company wasn't a lucrative profession
-- though there were certain perks along the way. Nor was it the
most professionally rewarding; it wasn't as if public
testimonials could be made for toppling over a government, or
assassinating an arms merchant. It was largely a career spent in
anonymity, even for the best of agents. Brief words of praise
from a bureau chief or the DDCI -- Deputy Director of Central
Intelligence -- were the most any of us could hope for in terms
of accolades. But being a female field agent had to be much more
difficult than being a male. More often than not, the women field
agents were required to insinuate themselves into the upper
levels of organizations, using their bodies and sexual wiles in
the execution of their duties, subjecting themselves to
humiliation that male agents would never have to. It was damned
unfair, and one of the main reasons I objected to women being in
the field. Call me old fashioned.

"What's the second question?"

"What do you prefer to be called?"

"Huh?"

"What would you like to be called?" my tone softened, trying to
relax her. "Do you have a nickname or something . . . we're going
to be working closely."

She stared, taken aback at my question. As the conversation
progressed, I'm sure she had herself more and more convinced that
I was a complete asshole. Maybe she was hasty. Then again, maybe
she wasn't.

"You can call me Mrs. Robinson," she said hesitatingly.

"No, that's too formal." I shook my head. "What about calling you
'39'?" I chuckled and she furrowed her brow for about ten seconds
before the telltale flush of red blotted her face as she recalled
some of the more personal information she retrieved from my file.
She coughed and took a sip from her drink of water.

She recovered and smiled. "How about Dana?"

I grinned at her and we opened our files of the two companies.
Dana seemed a little more at ease than when she first entered the
room, but she still was formal and unwilling -- or unable -- to
relax very much.

"Ok, from what the preliminary investigation shows, DLB
Petrochemicals is something of a rogue corporation," Dana started
out, reading form her carefully crafted notes. "They've been
fined several times for environmental violations, the last of
which was eight months ago, when they were forced to pay
272,000,000 Marks in settlements for illegally dumping into the
Rhine."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. The financial reports we
received listed the amount closer to 22,000,000 Marks, quite a
disparity. Someone obviously did a nice job of obscuring the
court records.

"In addition to the disregard for environmental laws," she
continued, "DLB in the past year had a relatively high-profile
firing . . . "

"Hans Glickman, the CFO, right? That's not all that uncommon.
Especially in light of the large financial settlement they had to
pay out. It happens all the time in the corporate world. Someone
fucks up and someone else takes the fall.

Dana nodded. "Yes, but from what we've learned there are a few
more things about this Glickman than a simple case of someone
holding the bag. It seems that there were allegations of improper
lobbying tactics with the German government and the European
Commission. Our Mr. Glickman was accused of being behind
substantial bribes offered to officials in the German government
and the EC."

"Well, here in Europe, a bribe has always gone a long way for
securing contracts." I said.

"But some of these lobbyists who were working on behalf of
Glickman were on the CIA's watch list for Germany," she added.
Every CIA bureau had a list of people they kept tabs on from time
to time. These 'watch lists' ranged from powerful individuals who
had questionable personal dealings, to potentially subversive
people, either against the US or our allies to people who were
out and out known spies and terrorists.

"Wow, now it gets interesting."

"Exactly. And the people on the watch list who were associating
with Glickman also had affiliations with people from the middle
east."

"Terrorists?" I asked.

"One of Glickman's associates -- one of these 'lobbyists' -- a
Martin Franck, had taken five trips to Damascus and three to
Tripoli in the last year."

"People don't go on vacation to Tripoli," I deadpanned.

"Right. We know that this Franck is a small scale arms merchant,
most likely working the Italy-Libya corridor. There are a few
other names on the list here with ties to known terrorist
outlets."

"Franck . . . Franck. I know that name from somewhere," I said
scratching my head. "Is this guy about in his mid-fifties?"

Dana checked her records. "We don't have an exact age, but from
the reports, that would be a good guess. Why?"

I shook my head slightly. "If I'm right, and I'm not totally sure
that I am, Franck is an alias used by a Czech by the name of
Anton Burec. If it's the same guy -- and I've always found that
there are *few* coincidences in this line of work -- Burec is
vicious. He was trained in the late seventies at the Soviet
terrorist training center -- the Center for Socialist
Development, they called it. That was the same place those guys
involved with Lockerbie were trained. The Soviets used to pluck
some of the meanest, anti-social malcontents from all around the
globe and train them in the ways of terrorism and then set them
loose on the west." In fact, most of the major terrorist actions
taken in the last twenty-five years, with the exception of the
IRA activities, could all find their roots in the Center for
Socialist Development.

"Wow," she said simply. "We have nothing on this Franck-Burec
relationship. I'm impressed."

I shrugged. "Ever since the cold war ended, intelligence services
-- fieldwork specifically, where you get your best information --
have been cut way back and there just aren't enough human
resources to gather all the info that needs to be gathered. Let
me see the rest of the list."

Dana showed me the file. Of the seven listed known associates on
Glickman's lists, six had links to middle eastern terrorism.
Something like that just wasn't a coincidence. The question that
remained, however, was what relationship did DLB have with the
terrorist organizations, if any, and what relationship did
Glickman still have with DLB.

"Before you go on about Glickman, I have a few things that I
learned about DLB," I said. "They're received several fines from
the Frankfurt stock market and German securities authorities
about questionable accounting practices -- ranging from improper
crediting of sales to the current quarter to out-and-out fraud. I
know that they had an independent audit last year -- in
conjunction with their application to be listed on the New York
Stock Exchange -- that didn't go well. The auditor listed several
questionable methods of accounting and several discrepancies in
their books which they tried to brush off. The NYSE rejected
their application for a listing and Frankfort fined them heavily
and came close to suspending their ability to trade on their
exchange . . . . This is not a company that plays by the books."

"Everything seems to fit into a pattern with them." Dana took
another sip of her water and rubbed her forehead.

"Yep. Several years ago there was a big battle over a refinery
they had to the north, near Kiel, on the Baltic Sea. The company
had been fined several times for improper toxic waste handling.
There were increases in cancer and leukemia in the area in
question and the allegations were that whatever it was they were
dumping was what was causing it. This factory was pumping toxic
output that would have put cold-war Soviet factories to shame.
Eventually, after a lengthy court battle, DLB agreed to close
down the refinery and move all of their Baltic operations to a
refinery that was previously operated by a company they had
recently acquired. There have been no *outright* complaints about
that one, but rumors have it that it's not much better than the
first. I guess the officials in the area are much more receptive
to bribes than the ones near Kiel."

I stood and refilled my glass with the Glenlivet and walked over
to the window, looking as the sun was setting just below the
treetops past the Rhine and the picturesque area known as Petite
France.

"Jake," Dana piped in. "There's something else too . . . about
Glickman."

I turned and leaned against the wall as she continued.

"Do you happen to know what Glickman is doing for a living now?"

I stared at her and shook my head. I hadn't given it a thought.

"Hans Glickman is now in full time employ of a Syrian oil company
with strong -- and I mean *strong* -- ties to terrorism. In
addition, get this, guess which Western European company has some
prime contracts with the Syrian company."

My eyes shot wide open and I downed the rest of my scotch in one
swallow. "DLB Petrochemical?"

"Exactly."

"Shit," I spat. "Looks like we may have found a smoking gun."

"Seems like it, but Alsace Pharma has a few interesting tidbits,
too."

"We don't have a hell of a lot of information on Alsace, on my
end. It's a private company, so they really don't have to
disclose much. I'd imagine you'd have a lot more on this.
Basically, what I have is the info that was made public when
Glaxo was considering purchasing it a few years back. It's
essentially a biotech company; they work on discovering new cures
for diseases and typically partner with one of the major
pharmaceutical companies, who will then provide a lot of the
research capital. Then if a drug proves efficacious, the large
drug company will market it, paying royalties to the biotech . .
. . I know when Glaxo wanted to purchase it, there were a few
things that came up that made them rethink their position. I'm
not sure exactly what they were, but I know that Glaxo distanced
themselves from Alsace pretty quickly."

"I think I can fill in those holes. About six years ago, only a
couple of years after the company was formed, they had a cancer
drug that seemed like a real winner. They got it to the last
phase of testing, the trials that would determine whether or not
the various drug agencies -- like the FDA back home -- would
approve it. To make a long story short, there were about thirty-five 
deaths in the phase-three testing . . . "

"Deaths in drug testing isn't uncommon," I countered. "It doesn't
generally happen in large numbers like that, though."

"Right. But what made this so special is that Alsace tried to
hide the whole testing." Dana leaned forward to emphasize her
point. Her breasts hung low and a hint of cleavage showed through
the top of her shirt. I was momentarily distracted. I think she
noticed and she blushed slightly, though made no motion to cover
up. "They attributed the deaths to other testing and it was only
when a full scale investigation began did they finally admit what
happened."

I sighed. Apparently, DLB didn't hold patent on underhanded
behavior. "Anything else about Alsace we should know?"

"Yeah. Based on some of the last info that we've gotten, Alsace
is making some sort of a chemical that has a nerve deadening
effect."

"I'm guessing you don't think it's a painkiller of some sort."

"No," she shook her head. "From what the folks in Langley Medical
think, this is powerful stuff. Now here's the kicker, they
haven't applied for a patent or anything. They're keeping this as
under wraps as possible. I mean, this could be nothing more than
a new pain reliever, but it might also have some relation to the
deaths in the area . . . especially given their history of
obfuscating medical trials."

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. Before the night began, I had been
hoping that we could have eliminated one of the companies from
contention, but if anything there were now more questions than
answers.

As I poured myself another drink, Dana trotted off to her room,
holding up a finger as if to say, "wait a minute."

She returned about a minute later holding a black briefcase in
her right hand which she laid down on the table.

"What's that?" I asked.

Dana popped open the lid, revealing what looked like a miniature
satellite dish surrounded by other small electronic equipment.
She removed the dish and propped it on the table. It was about
eight inches in diameter and had a cable coming from it that
looked as if it would interface with a computer's USB port.

"Great," I said. "Can we hook this up to the TV and get ESPN?"

She smirked and rolled her eyes. It seemed as if she was
beginning to loosen up a little, anyway. "This is a data
receiver. And these," she held up a handful of what seemed to be
one-centimeter-square computer chips. But unlike regular computer
chips, these were flexible, almost jellylike. "These are our
'bugs', if you will. Not only do these receive sound, but they'll
also record temperature, light levels, chemical composition of
air, location -- through GPS -- and transmit it all to a range of
five miles to this receiver."

"Wow, I'm impressed," I said, looking over the equipment and
holding the bugs in my hand. They looked as if they'd blend in
much easier than other listening devices.

"I used these a few months ago and they were far and away
superior to any kind of listening and measuring device I've used
in the past. The great thing about them is that -- because
everything is digital -- we can separate each voice by it's
frequency and timbre and then record each distinctive voice on a
different channel."

"So, if a room full of people are talking, you can home in on one
voice in the background and just listen to that voice, right?" I
asked.

"Right. But more than that, you can listen to everyone's voice in
the room, to a limit of -- I think -- sixty-four distinct voices.
So, it's easy to record several different conversations in the
same room. The great thing about them is that they break down
inot sludge after about 96 hours of use so there's less of a
chance of them being discovered."

Dana went on, pointing out the various other features of her
system, highlighting things that she felt might be useful to us
and just glossing over things that we probably didn't need. I had
to hand it to her. She was thorough and knowledgeable. After
another ten minutes or so, she gathered all of the gadgets and
notes and headed back to her room, politely -- if not quite
warmly -- saying goodnight.

I sat back and finished my drink, contemplating the information
we'd gone over. As I had thought before, there were more
questions now than answers. And one of the big problems that
loomed before us was that there was the possibility that
*neither* one of these companies was involved. I exhaled deeply
as I placed my glass on the table, where I noticed a couple of
the small recording devices Dana had brought over. They blended
into the table so well, that I don't think I would have noticed
them had I not placed my glass within six inches from them.

I rapped on Dana's door, not wanting to lose any of the gadgets.
I had no idea how many she had or how many we'd need. The woman
who opened my door was hardly the one who had left my room ten
minutes earlier. Gone were the hair in the bun, formal blazer,
and crisply ironed slacks. Now her dark blond hair was down
around her shoulders and she was dressed in a short, low cut 
T-shirt and minuscule shorts. Her legs were tanned and her nipples
poked out from the tight gauzy material of her T-shirt. I suppose
I stared for a few seconds longer than I should have. Dana took
note and made a self-conscience attempt to tug at her shirt.

Red-faced and grinning almost despite herself, she tried to meet
my eyes and regain her professional bearing."What can I do for
you Jake?"

Perhaps it was the scotch taking an effect on me. I grinned
lasciviously. "Why Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?"

Her face turned even redder, if that was possible and she
swallowed hard, fighting the urge to smile, shaking her head at
me. "What do you want?"

I cleared my throat. I realized that I had made Dana -- my
partner, for crying out loud -- uncomfortable and I felt bad
about it. She was nervous as it was, the last thing she needed
was a 'lothario' as she described me, hitting on her. I regained
a look of seriousness as I out-stretched my hand.

"You left these bugs back in my room, they're so small I didn't
want them to get lost."

"Thanks." She took them from my hand and started to turn and
close the door.

"Um, Dana," I held my hand out, stopping the door from shutting,
causing her to turn in my direction. Her look was one of
uncertainty and even a little apprehension. "I know that
sometimes I come on a bit strong and I have a tendency to be a
bit overbearing. We're going to be working closely on this case
and I want our working relationship to be open. So if I start
being a little too much, just give me a swift kick in the ass,
ok?" I smiled warmly.

Dana grinned and her tension seemed to ease. "Thanks, Jake. I
appreciate that . . . . Really, I do. Good night."

As I lay back in bed, I thought of the mission ahead of us.
Relatively innocuous on the danger scale to be sure, but a vital
step in determining what, if anything, the potential was for more
widespread deaths. Then my thoughts drifted to Dana, the two
Danas, actually. The first was so professional and formal, while
the second was relaxed and comfortable; pretty and desirable. I
knew which one I liked better already and that was one of my big
problems with working with female agents.

"Fuck."


What happens next is a story for another day.


END

If you liked this story (or perhaps the whole Jake Lucas series), please
take a moment to nominate it for this years erotic writing awards, 
The Golden Clitorides. You can send an anonymous email to the nomination
address   clit_awards@yahoo.com  or the anonymous nomination form at the clittie
website  http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/Rui_Favorites/www/Clitorides/nominations2001.htm

There you can nominate the Jake Lucas series for best series, any of my other 
stories from this year (Fonda and Cat or Summer Awakenings) for best story, 
or even place a nomination for me, your humble author, for author of the year. 
Thanks, John A


------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 2001 John3365A@aol.com (John A). 
All rights reserved.



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