Cold & Fu

Grabbing the wheel in preparation to hauling himself back into the jeep, Carlos’ feet skid out from under him. The big Peruvian guide lands on his back with a splash in a puddle that did not exist moments before. He is quickly on his feet, laughing and shaking off the rain and mud and asking Amy:

“Could you reach into that box and hand me the triple-X size tee shirt. Its mine anyway.”

Amy finds the shirt and hands it to him. Carlos settles sideways in the driver’s seat to peel off his wet shirt.

Amy turns to Genius, and freezes. The color has drained from his face and his lips press together, tight and white. Before Amy can ask, he raises a quieting finger to his lips, and points to Carlos’ left shoulder.

Amy turns and looks. Her head feels suddenly light. Clearly visible up on the smooth, hairless shoulder of the big man there shone a detailed tattoo of a skull sitting atop a red orchid – the identifying symbol of a member of the Brotherhood of the Blood Orchid.

Moving cautiously, Genius brings his legs up and around, holding them up at Carlos’ back. As the big man bends forward to wiggle the tee shirt over his head, Genius pushes. Arms trapped and head covered, Carlos flies out into the rain, landing face down and skidding into the waist high foliage flanking the rutted road.

Genius grabs the wheel and hoists himself into the driver’s seat. Carlos has left the engine running. Genius slaps the jeep into gear and stomps on the gas. Amy slams deep into the back seat. She struggles to look over her shoulder. They are several yards away before Carlos stumbles back onto the rutted road. He looks about to start after them, then realizes the futility of pursuit and fires his shirt onto the ground.

“What’s he doing?” Genius asks.

“Probably using language a lady like me shouldn’t hear and won’t repeat.” She sticks her head between the driver and passenger seats. “What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know. I’m making this up as I go along.”

“This is no time to be quoting Indiana Jones.”

“According to my sister its never a bad time to quote Harrison Ford.” After a moment he says, “After we put a few miles between us and our ‘friend’ Carlos, we’ll abandon the jeep and head south.”

“Why abandon the jeep?”

Genius nods toward the On-Star system.

“Can’t you disable it?”

“I can. But if we abandon it somewhere and head in another direction, they’ll waste time recovering it.”

“You said head south. Why?”

“Chile. I’ll be more welcome there than in Bolivia or Argentina.”

“Why is that?”

“No comment.” After a moment he curses, “Every damn time.”

“What?”

“Every time I come down to South America I wind up having to walk out of the jungle.”

Satisfied that Genius seems to know what he is doing, Amy settles back.

After a couple of minutes Genius suggests, “Check those boxes. See if our friend was carrying any food.”

Amy finds mostly clothes and shoes for people of all ages, sizes and sexes. One box is stuffed with Ron Popeil gadgets.

“Bingo!” She lifts a heart-shaped package from another box. “Godiva chocolates. A twelve count carton,” she notes. “Either Carlos has a lot of lady friends, or he is stocking up for Valentine’s Day for the Mrs. until about 2020.”

“Not power bars,” Genius sighs. “But they’ll do.” After a minute he reports, “I think the rain is letting up. When it stops we’ll pull over and do a proper search of the jeep.”

“For what?”

“A prudent man like Carlos would have some kind of emergency kit in case he was stranded. Knife, fishing line, water purification tablets.” He slaps the steering wheel. “Something I should have brought along if I hadn’t been so damn trusting. That’s what happens when you leave the field and become an office wonk.”

Amy completes the inventory. “There are some jars and what looks like homemade sauce. Pack them in the photographers bag?”

“No jars. We’ll be traveling light.” Genius laughs. “With my luck they’d be bootleg marinara sauce.”

“There’s this,” Amy says, grinning while holding up something from the box of gadgets for Genius to check out in the rear view mirror. A small, battery operated egg beater. “Maybe Carlos has his own version of Louisa.”

“You’ve got a cruel streak, Goddess. You really do.”

—

A half hour later the rain abruptly ceases. By then they have left behind the open area and are again surround by menacing jungle. Finding a less claustrophobic spot, Genius halts the jeep and checks the glove compartment. He finds the emergency kit, with it’s large bladed knife . It’s hollow handle holds, among other things, fishing line and water purification tablets.

“We won’t lack for shelter, food, or water,” he announces. “No maps, but I wouldn’t expect Carlos would need one.”

Genius plucks his cell phone from his hip. “No problem, I’ll just – .”

His phone fails to beep. He shakes it, taps buttons, checks it’s weight.

“Problem?” Amy asks.

“BIG problem.” He pries open the battery lid. He shows Amy the empty battery section. “That was a neat trick Carlos pulled.”

“When he borrowed it just before we left the hotel,” Amy realizes. “And me without mine.”

“Yeah, its probably back in Mexico in the rubble with what’s left of Ramirez.” Genius resumes rummaging in the glove compartment. After a moment he straightens. “Would have preferred to have not found this.” He holds up a nine millimeter pistol.

“A firearm is not a good thing to have when you’re stranded in the jungle?”

Genius turns to reveal her the grip. “Ah,” Amy notes. “Biometric lock. Can you ‘adjust’ it.”

“Nope. And neither could Carlos, so I wonder why he kept it.”

“Its not his?”

“Standard C.I.A. issue. And I don’t think the agent it belonged to just handed it over to Carlos.” Genius studies the pistol a moment, then with an angry exclamation whirls and pegs it far into the jungle.

After a moment it lands with a distant ‘thwack’.

“Did you hear that?” Amy asks.

“Pegged that one pretty good, didn’t I,” Genius confesses with a rueful smile.

“No. I mean that other sound. I heard something else while I was listening for the gun to hit.”

They listen. After a moment Genius nods. “Yeah. I hear it. Sounds like ….”

“Running water. A river.”

“Right. Stay close, and stay on your toes.”

—

After fifteen minutes of slipping on and pushing around slick ground and tree roots, following the ever growing hiss of rushing water, the jungle opens up, revealing a swollen river of frothy, churning brown.

“A river at our backs would be nice,” Genius muses.

“But …?”

“I can’t swim.”

“What?”

“I can’t swim.” He looks at Amy. “And don’t make a big deal about it, okay?”

“I won’t. Its just that its kind of refreshing to find something you’re not an expert at.”

“The illusion of my perfection shattered. I’m sorry.”

“I never thought you were perfect.”

“With the situation we’re in, Goddess, you ought to be stroking my ego.”

“Just as long as it’s the only thing of your’s I have to stroke.”

Genius chuckles as he peers up and down the river’s edges. “When you finish patting yourself on the back on that first class bit of banter, take a look down there and tell me if that’s a bridge.”

Amy follows his gaze. “I believe that is a bridge, yes.”

Genius checks the jungle they have just trekked through. “And I believe that little road we were on will take us right to it.” In a passable Captain Kirk impersonation, he announces, “I have … a plan.”

—

The ruts lead them to the bridge, a half century old structure made entirely of wood and in need of paint. The timbers are of various shades of color and wear. Genius figures that means the bridge was routinely maintained; a good sign.

“Is the fact there are no safety rails a bad sign?”

“Don’t let it worry you. We’re not driving across. The jeep goes into the river.”

“The jeep goes into the river? Bulletin, Mr. ‘I can’t swim’. Maybe your lack of familiarity with the water is a factor here, but you can’t drive a jeep under water. Especially not in these deep rapids.”

“Thank you. Mrs. Jacques Cousteau. But we’re going to make the jeep as light as possible, button her up, and while the good Jeep Calypso is floating downstream, with the G.P.S. tracker, we’ll be heading upstream.”

“I see. You know, its really fascinating, how your mind works.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not sure I meant that as a compliment.”

Working quickly, they unload the jeep and transfer what they need in the multi-pocketed photographers carry-all. With Amy directing, Genius edges the jeep off the ruts and toward the bank. Reaching the point he wants, Genius climbs out. He secures the steering wheel with one of the TAZ tee shirts Carlos had purchased.

Amy wonders aloud, “Why do I get the feeling you’ve done this before?”

“No comment,” Genius grunts as he tightens the t-shirt. He loops a section of fishing line around the gear shift, then the rear view mirror. He rolls up the door window, leaving a minuscule opening for the fishing line. He steps away from the jeep, making certain the line is not caught up. “How are your knees, Goddess?”

“Well, they don’t get as many compliments as my legs, but I like them.”

Genius shakes his head and chuckles. “That’s what I get for asking an imprecise question that can be used as a straight line. I mean ….”

“I know what you mean,” Amy laughs. She looks for a place to set the photographers carry-all down, then readies herself at the jeep’s bumper. “Say when.”

“Watch your footing, and watch the mud that’ll kick up.” Genius loops the line around one hand, then holds it elevated as he grabs the jeep’s door handle with his other hand. “Okay … when!”

The jeep edges forward. Suddenly it lurches, the front dipping as it rolls off the edge of the bank.. Amy feels her balance shifting too fast, and just manages to land on her knees with a wet squish as the jeep picks up speed and rolls away. Genius barely has time to release his hold on the door handle. His pull on the fishing line is more from falling down and away then a planned tug. With a whine the jeeps gears grind, then catch.

Mud and exhaust splatter Amy’s face. She hears rather then sees the jeep crashing through brush. Then comes a heavy splash. Pawing at her face, she feels Genius rush past, then hears the quick thud of his boots on wood.

“There she goes!”

Amy, still wiping mud from her eyes and face, has to take his word for it. She hears the thud of boots again, then Genius is at her side, pushing his handkerchief into her hands. “I told you to be careful of the mud.”

As Genius guides her toward the bridge Amy’s eyes clear enough for her to see the camouflaged top of the jeep bounding downstream.

“Thanks,” she says, and hands Genius back his handkerchief.

He shoves it back in the pocket of his khakis and hoists the photographers bag over one shoulder. “You’re welcome Goddess. Now we’ll need to shake a leg. I want to put as much distance between us and that jeep as possible.”

Amy glances down river and sees the jeep bobbing in the rapids, about to disappear around the river bend. “I wonder,” she begins, still watching the jeep as she takes a step to follow Genius. Her musing is cut off as she bumps into him. “Stopping for a rest already?”

Genius raises a hand for silence, then points to the far end of the bridge. Amy peers around and follows his pointing finger.

Four tall, bronzed Indians, wearing only loin cloths, block the end of the bridge. They adopt identical poses, crouching slightly, one foot in front of the other, blowpipes ready at their lips.

A fifth man stands on the bridge, just in front and to one side of the others, his arm raised, ready to give the signal to fire. The angle of his body exposes a portion of the skull and blood orchid tattoo high on the back of his left shoulder.

TO BE CONTINUED

“We really should get out of this room,” Genius tells Amy Lindsay. He anxiously scans the office. “But there are guards at the door who will likely slow us up, and I don’t want to get caught out in the hallway, when that happens!”

“When what happens?”

“When the bomb detonates.”

“What bomb?”

“The bomb set to blow up the shipment of bird flu that Captain Valdez thought he’d bought in secret on the black market.” He checks the wall shared by the room
where Amy had been held captive. “I’d really like to have at least another wall between us and the bomb when it goes off. It’s in the next room. Two bombs, actually,” he amends. “One set to blow open the crates and expose the remaining vials, then another bomb set to destroy them. Going to make quite a mess.”

“Set to go off when?”

As a beeping erupts from his watch, Genius repeats, “Set to go off when? In less than sixty seconds.

With exasperation Amy asks, “Why didn’t you say so in the beginning?” She steps over Valdez, quickly finds a small niche in the wall that opens the secret spring loaded door leading to the adjoining room. “You want another wall? Will this one do?”

Genius grins. “You are a goddess.” He steps toward the door, then pauses to turn and spit on the unconscious body of Valdez. “No one’s that good an actress, huh? You son of a - ”
Amy shoves him down toward the trick door. “I keep forgetting fan is short for fanatic.”

“He’s going on The List,” Genius insists, referring to the list of critics and others who the Alcomist Club felt showed her insufficient homage. While never quite precise about what evil was to befall those on The List, the ‘bad luck’ suffered by those on it defied statistical probability.

Even before Amy clears the closet Genius is pushing at the room’s single window. “Nailed from the outside,” he announces, joining her beside the bed. He consults his still beeping watch.

“The bed!” Amy realizes. “Get under the bed.”

“Right,” Genius starts bending, then straightens and smiles wide.

“What?”

“Of all the commands I dreamed of you giving me concerning a bed, getting under one was never one of them.”

Eyes rolling, Amy grabs his arm and pushes him toward the floor. “I’m sure its not the first time a married woman has said this to you, but: Quick! Get under the bed!” As he complies, she grabs the mattress and wedges it under the bed. “Will this help protect us?”

“Couldn’t hurt,” Genius says, and they struggle to wrap it around themselves.

He chuckles and notes, “Good thing this is a Cheating Wife bed.”

“A Cheating Wife bed?”

“Lots of room for a lover to hide when hubby comes home early.”

“You sound like an expert.”

“No comment.”

Amy shakes her head as much as their cramped position allows. “There is no way Louisa was too weird for you. No way.”

The watch beeps and whines.

A distant ‘THARUMPH’ precedes a slight bit of shaking. As the explosions erupt, Amy stares with disappointed. “That wasn’t so -.”

“Wait for it.”

A protective arm around Amy’s neck draws her face close to Genius’ heaving chest.

The world bellows and crashes in on them.

—

A coughing sound scratches Amy’s ears. After a moment, she realizes these sounds are her coughs. She blinks against a swirl of smoke and dust and fans her
hands to shoo the dust and smoke from her face.

She realizes her hands should be hitting Genius. A rush of dust into her throat chokes off an attempt to call out his name.

She barely registers the sensation of movement. Through the dust, a hand has appeared to pull away the mattress. She recognizes the OBG watch on the wrist of Genius. Amy snakes after the mattress. Once clear of the bed, hands lift her and beat her back purple. Amy catches her breath and pushes away the well-meaning hands.

Amy squints through the settling dust and dissipating smoke. Two of the room’s walls stand intact, the north and south. But the east and west walls display massive holes. The blast has come through the office next door, and above through their hiding place. In the direction of the office, she sees straight through to four or five rooms, almost the entire length of building. The furthest wall remains intact, to a cafeteria it appears, as bodies and tables lay in jumbled heaps.

Captain Ramirez and Valdez are no where to be seen, but, as she turns, Amy sees the large oak office desk, having punched a massive hole in the wall, laying upside down in a large, open courtyard.

Genius catches her attention by gently grasping her chin and turning it to face him. “Are you okay?”

“What?”

“What?”

Genius holds up a hand to quiet her. In quick pantomime, he conveys that the blast has affected their hearing. Covering her ears Amy mouths: ‘For how long?’ Genius shrugs. With further pantomime he indicates she should walk with her hands behind her back, and he would act like a guard escorting her.

Stepping through the hole they see a large hacienda to the left. Their adobe building is part of a ‘U’ shaped complex that looks surrounded by desert.

With wrists held behind her and a guiding hand from Genius on her arm, they stroll out of the compound. A fifteen minute walk ends where Genius has stashed his copter.

—

Two hours later finds them in a hotel in Acapulco, fed, cleaned, and with Amy planting herself in front of Genius and demanding to know what was REALLY going on.

“Okay, Goddess,” he agrees. “Fair is fair. Give me a moment.” Closing the laptop he had been busily typing on at the coffee table since their arrival, Genius stands from the couch and walks over to the balcony to stare out the balcony’s glass door at the lights of Acapulco.

After a minute he returns and waves for Amy to take his place on the couch. He remains standing.

“The Hollywood Operational Team branch of the Bureau for Anti-Terrorism Bounty Enforcement is almost strictly a ‘courier’ operation. Very few are asked to become field agents, and even fewer become one.”

“I was beginning to suspect that.”

“It isn’t from a lack of talent or skill. We’re just not willing to risk the emotional damage to the country if some of their favorite entertainers start getting killed off.” He spreads his hands. “On the other hand, there is a war on terror going on, not just radicalized Muslims in the Middle East, but others all over the world. And, we can’t ignore the assets that actors with certain skills can bring to that fight.”

“Like me?” Amy asks, hoping to sound confident, not merely hopeful.

Genius sighs. “That’s what we’ve been trying to determine. So far -.”

“Okay, wait. Who’s ‘we’?”

“B.A.B.E. and the Alcomist Club.”

“So, the Alcomist Club is really not a fan club after all?”

“Oh, no. We definitely are a fan club. You are Our Blonde Goddess. In fact, you were that long before we hooked up with B.A.B.E. When we began to talk among ourselves at the forum, we discovered common interests, occupations, backgrounds.”

“Like backgrounds in intelligence work? You and Captain Ramirez seemed to have encountered one another before.”

“A couple of times, actually.” Genius recalls with a smile. “But I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“One of those many alphabet agencies in our government?”

“I repeat my previous answer.”

Amy relents. “Okay, I won’t push it.”

“Like I said, few have been chosen. For security reasons, I can’t tell you which ones actually made the cut.”

“Understood.”

“But I can tell you there is a ‘process’. It includes assignments both real and staged. It involves evaluations and reports and recommendations. You’re not supposed to know this. Not as its happening, and not that it ever took place if you eventually fail.”

“But you’re telling me now. Why?”

“Because we’ve come across an extraordinary bit of information that’s more than a bit puzzling. And, frankly, scares the hell out of me.”

“That a South American assassination cult called the Brotherhood of the Blood Orchid has been hired to kill me?”

“Your insights serve you well, young Jedi,” Genius confirms with a grim smile. “Where did you hear about the B.B.O.?”

“Captain Ramirez.”

Genius curses and rubs his forehead as if battling a sudden headache. “What did he tell you about them?”

“Nothing. Except, they didn’t want me dead any more.”

“How would he know that?”

“Someone named General Fu.”

With his head suddenly lulling back like his neck was made of rubber, Genius whispers just loud enough for her to hear: “Sweet, Jesus, what have we gotten you into?”

Genius retreats to stare out the balcony’s sliding glass door. His reflection shows him gnawing at a thumb nail, a position her holds for several minutes. Just as Amy is about to ask him to explain who General Fu is, Genius spins and strides resolutely to stand before her.

“The Department of Homeland Security gets all kinds of terrorism tips. They handle the most plausible ones, and hand off the rest to groups like the Alcomist Club - organizations with shared interests like celebrity fan clubs, T.V. and movie fans.”

“Like Trekkies?”

Genius smiles. “We’ll, they’re a little out there for our needs, but there are SF writer’s fan clubs that are invaluable. We have a nice little information network, kind of like the Baker Street Irregulars Sherlock Holmes had. So, when something O.B.P. passes across a desk at the DHS, a call goes out to us.”

“O.B.P.?”

“Odd But Plausible,” he translates. “That’s the designation the DHS gave an anonymous warning about a renegade Chinese general living in South America planning to infect Illegals crossing the US border with the Bird Flu as a way to start an epidemic in America.”

Again things click in Amy’s mind. The mention at the compound of vaccines. And coyotes. Not the animal. Rather, the men hired to guide Illegals across the border. She realizes, “Captain Ramirez sent off a bus load of coyotes!”

Genius raises a cautioning hand and nods toward his laptop. “I’ve been checking that out. The bus was stopped before it reached the border. They’re all in Quarantine. The last bit of information I needed, that confirmed that, came at almost the same instant of your kidnaping.”

“That’s how you were able to get to where I was so fast.”

“It was quite a shock, tracking the homer in your trick bra and finding you were taken to where we had an imminent mission planned.”

Amy unconsciously toys with the top button of her blouse. “Then there wasn’t some ‘additional information’ waiting for me to pick up at the airport and deliver to Area 51?”

“Nothing important. We just needed to make sure your were wearing one of those special bras so we could track you. Just in case.”

“I don’t think I like the idea of you being able to track me wherever I go.”

“Its just for missions, I swear. Anyway, because it was my contact who confirmed the plausibility of the General Fu scenario, and because I’d had dealings with ‘Ramirez’ before, I was able to exercise ‘executive privilege’ and take for myself an assignment first meant to be just a demolition mission, that suddenly became a rescue mission, too.”

“I’m just an office wonk. I don’t do field work,” Amy recalls.

Genius grins. “I make an occasional exception. When the situation warrants it.” His smile fades. “Ramirez has been taken out, his supply of flu - the ‘vaccine’ he was giving the coyotes and their clients under the guise of keeping them healthy for their trip across the border - has been destroyed, and his men are in Quarantine. Unfortunately, one ’situation’ remains.”

“And that is?” Amy asks, though already uneasy at the answer she senses will be coming.

“How all of this, and some renegade Chi-Com general, ties in with an order, later rescinded, for the Brotherhood of the Blood Orchid to assassinate you?”

“I really, really don’t know why.”

“Neither do I. That’s why I’m heading down to South America to meet personally with the contact who developed the information on General Fu. And, I’m making another ‘executive’ decision. You are not leaving my side until we find out what the hell is going on here.”

“Meaning …?”

“Congratulations, Goddess, you are now an official H.O.T.B.A.B.E. Field Agent.”

Amy smiles, but quickly dimming the triumph triggering that famous smile’s usual luster is and remembers that damned old axiom: Be careful what you wish, you just might get it.

TO BE CONTINUED

Shrieking shattering glass interrupts Vernon, the driver of the car provided Amy Lindsay by the Alcomist Club. His big hands fly up for protection from splinters of glass that cascades in through the driver’s side window. “What the …?”

The splat of flesh on flesh follows a hissing ‘phtt’ sound, as Vernon slaps his neck. His body falls across the front seat toward the passenger seat.

Amy thumbs the release latch on her seatbelt and lunges for Vernon. A second hissing ‘phtt’ barely registers in her mind before a stinging sensation spreads just below and behind her left ear. Olive-skinned arms yank open Vernon’s door, drag him from the car.

Falling, Amy hears her door squeak open. Darkness settles over her.

—

Awareness flows over Amy Lindsay in waves. First, distant, persistent clicking hums. Ceiling fan, something deep in her brain informs her. She feels the weight of clothes on her body, and the stiff scratch of a wool blanket through them against her back, and a thick, lumpy mattress beneath. She conducts a mental checklist of her physical condition. Nothing broken or bruised, an irritating itch below and behind her left ear, a slight headache. Slight, imperceptible shifts of her body signal: No bindings.

Eyes inching open, she confirms: a rickety ceiling fan. Dust covered blades wobble above an exposed light bulb: either burned out or turned off. Sunlight slashes across her legs through a single unwashed window. The angle and intensity of the light suggest the approach of sunset.

What day is this? A slight emptiness in her stomach suggests only a few hours without food. The thought of food awakens her sense of smell. From somewhere drifts in something of a definite Hispanic scent and flavor. Tinny, distant Tejano music, with horns providing the vocals, tickle her ears.

Mexico?

Moving eyes only, Amy checks the layout of the room. To her immediate left the bed abuts a wall covered with rugs and Mexican artifacts. To the right the small room opens up just enough to hold a small, ancient bureau with a cracked mirror, a wooden chair with its back rest missing and a door. Craning, Amy spies a second door sharing the same wall with the huge bed’s massive, wooden headboard.

With slow, deliberate movements she eases her legs off the side of the bed with a minimum of mattress squeaks. Her feet barely reach the bare wooden floor. Light shows under one door, but not the other. Amy checks the latter door first, confirming it leads to a tiny closet: empty, lacking even hangers on the rod. Listening at the other door she hears only the muted Tejano music. She tests the handle. Locked.

Noise draws her back to the closet. From the next room comes the closing of a nearby door, then the scrape of a chair on a floor. Then the squeak of someone settling in a wheeled desk chair. Amy eases into the closet and drops to a knee to listen.

Two male voices, both speaking Spanish, distinguish themselves apart. Between her rusty Spanish and the poor acoustics of the closet, most of the conversation eludes Amy, though she separates the tones of a Leader and an Underling. Leader complains about these last minute meetings; they always cause delays. The Underling offers obsequious and placating responses.

The fanfare ‘ta-da’ of a Windows OS starting up sings out. After a moment Amy hears the electronic beeps and buzzes of a dial-up modem handshake.

The Leader hopes there will be no more delays, and adds something about restless coyotes. The Underling mentions a vaccine, but the distracted tone his words makes them hard to follow.

A third voice speaks with the muted quality of coming from a computer speaker. A teleconference, Amy realizes. Amy strains to hear, but again is left to decipher tones. After a moment it becomes clearer to her: The voice from the computer is speaking Chinese. The Underling translates it into Spanish for the Leader, then the Leader’s Spanish into Chinese for the third member of the conference.

Amy catches one thing from the low snatches of Spanish. The Chinese companion is called ‘General Fu’ by the Underling. The deferential tones used by the Leader and the Underling tell her General Fu is leader to both.

The leader grows jubilant as the meeting ends. In Spanish he exclaims, “Finally! The ‘go’ signal. Order the coyotes onto the bus!”

The wheels of a desk chair squeal in tune with the legs of a regular chair scratching along the floor. The voices approach the section of the wall the other room shares directly beside Amy’s hiding place.

“Si, Captain! What about the girl?”

“Check on her. If she needs to be quieted, do so. But keep her safe.”

“Why did General Fu change the orders now to not kill her?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he has discovered an American actress is more valuable to us alive than dead.”

“Ransom, perhaps?”

“Perhaps. Just be sure -.”

The jingling of a telephone cuts the Leader off. “Get that.”

The Underling’s low tone grows too animated to follow. The received slams down. “We have captured a spy.”

“What?”

“The guards are bringing him to us. It is an American. You won’t believe who!”

“Who!”

As Amy leans forward to catch the spy’s name the wall suddenly gives way, swing open like a door. She tumbles tumbled into the next room, tumbling head first toward two men dressed in military style uniforms.

The taller of the two, a beefy but solidly built man, grabs the door as it starts to spring shut. Amy sprawls at his feet. His surprise is brief, giving way to a broad smile. He allows the trick door to swing shut.

“Ah, our lovely American guest,” he says in English with barely a hint of an accent. He waves back the Underling, who has drawn a .45. “Please, Javier. She is our honored guest. Save the hostility for the uninvited spy.” He extends a hand to help Amy stand. Javier hesitantly holsters his revolver and steps back.

The room resembles a typical office, large oak desk with plush desk chair, computer work station, two guest chairs fronting the desk. No windows, only one door.

Both men wear uniforms, cleaned and sharpened with military precision. The name above the lackey’s pocket reads: Valdez. The leader’s says: Ramirez. Fairly common Hispanic names, Amy notes, and wonders if they are fake.

“This is indeed a great honor, Miss Lindsay,” a broadly smiling Ramirez says. “I am a big fan. A pity my DVD collection is at home. I would have you sign them.”

“Well, let’s head out there. I’ve got no pressing engagements.”

The big man’s laugh fills the room. He nods for Amy to take a seat as he circles around to sit behind the desk. “I’m afraid my orders are to keep you here. For the time being.”

Amy settles into a chair. “I don’t have any pictures with me to autograph.” She notes how Valdez takes up a position directly behind her and gauges distances, runs escape scenarios through her mind. “Being kidnapped, you know.”

“Perhaps only a temporary inconvenience.”

“Until General Fu decides otherwise?” Amy wonders aloud in a tone questioning Ramirez’s authority.

His smile vanishes as if she has slapped him. Too far? Amy wonders.

“It is best, Miss Lindsay, if you do know something, you play ignorant. General Fu doesn’t have the control here he might think, and not irritating me may decide if you ’slip through our fingers’ and escape, or if you are shot attempting to escape.” He bends forward. “So be very nice to us. Your well being depends on that.”

Valdez says, “We’ve seen the nice things you can do for men.” Amy figures there is no need to turn, she can visualize the leer on the man’s face.

Oddly, this irritates Ramirez. “Javier, how many times have I told you? The sex is simulated. It is all acting.” He looks to Amy. “Tell him, its acting.”

Over her should Amy tells Javier: “Its acting.” She looks back at Ramirez. “I don’t think he believes me.”

Ramirez waves it off as of no consequence. “So tell me, pretty one, what have you done that has the Brotherhood of the Blood Orchid after you?”

“I really have no idea.”

“Come now, you can’t -.”

Marching boots filling the hallway cut him off. The marching ends. Three loud raps explode from the door. “Entrar!” Ramirez shouts.

A man stumbles into the room, just catching himself on the empty chair beside Amy. As he straightens, despite all her acting and H.O.T.B.A.B.E. training, Amy’s draw still drops.

“Hey, Goddess,” Genius says with a genial smile. “Fancy meeting you here.”

—

“How -?” Amy begins, but a quick shake of the head from Genius silences her.

Without waiting for an invitation, Genius jumps into the other chair and smooths out the ill-fitting uniform he wears, a duplicate of the others, bearing a name patch that read: Gomez.. He scans the desk, then settles back, puzzled. “No cigars, Captain …” he squints at Ramirez’s name patch, “… Ramirez, is it now? You gave up smoking when you adopted a new name?” He pretends to suddenly recall something. “Oh, I forgot. That little smuggling deal you had going with Castro kind of … blew up … a while back , didn’t it?”

Captain Ramirez chuckles and waggles a finger. “I always thought that had the feel of one of your little operations, Guillermo. Were you there?”

“Oh, no. I just planned it. I’m an office wonk now. I don’t do field work.”

“But you’re here now?”

“I make an occasional exception.” Genius glances at Amy, then back at Ramirez. “When the situation warrants it.”

“Ah, yes. Don Quixote, come to rescue the damsel. Where’s your white steed?”

Genius shrugs. “In that you’re going to let us just walk right out of here, I didn’t bring one.”

Captain Ramirez strokes his chin. “And why will I let you just walk right out of here?”

“Because, you little fish in a little pond, harm one hair on Miss Lindsay’s head, and you’ll have crashing down on you an organization who’s depth and power your feeble mind cannot possibly comprehend.”

The Captain’s face clouds up. “Be careful, My Old Friend. My benevolence can extend to Miss Lindsay, but not to you. You have been captured wearing the uniform of your enemy. You may meet the usual fate of a spy.”

From behind Valdez sneers, “We are not afraid of B.A.B.E. Everyone knows of the budget cuts. It has no fangs.”

“And, H.O.T.? That little collection of actors playing at spy. A joke. No offense, Miss Lindsay,” Captain Ramirez adds. “No, you’ll have to do better than that.”

“How about this? For our freedom, Miss Lindsay is prepared to perform a sex act on you.”

The Captain almost falls from his chair. “She is?”

Amy almost falls out of her chair. “I am?!?”

The Captain chuckles and eases back. “I’d almost forgotten that odd sense of humor you have.”

“I’m serious,” Genius continues. “Not only is she willing to perform with, or on, you the sex act of your choice, she is willing to have it filmed.”

“She is?”

“I’m what?!?”

Valdez laughs. “I knew it was real! No one’s that good an actress.”

“Your security here isn’t all that good,” Genius continues. “I wandered about for almost an hour before I let myself be caught. I saw those video cameras you’ve been using to film your coyotes during training.” He nods toward Valdez. “Get your little lackey here to get one and have him come back and film the whole thing. A little souvenir to show all your friends.” He lifts his brows at Amy. “You wouldn’t mind doing them both, would you?”

“Maybe you should do them both?” She raises her hand to slap Genius, then catches a slight twitch in his eyebrow that let’s her know he has a plan.

Even though she’s about to drop her hand, Genius grabs it. “Hey, sweetheart. You wanted to get into the espionage business. You knew you’d face a situation like this. You said you’d be able to handle it.”

“Don’t call me ’sweetheart’,” Amy replies through grit teeth. She yanks free her wrist and looks at Captain Ramirez. “You’ll let us go if I do this?”

“I told you. I have the power. You could ’slip through our fingers’.”

Genius jumps to his feet. “It’s settled then.”

Lost in trying to figure out just where this was all leading, Amy misses exactly what move Genius uses to send the lackey, Valdez, crumpling to the floor. Surprised for an instant, Captain Ramirez struggles to stand, the delay giving Amy time to jump up, grab her chair, and peg it across the desk. It catches Ramirez square on the forehead. He bounces back into his chair, then slides to the floor, still.

Genius sets down his own chair. “Well done, Goddess.” He checks his watch and curses. “We don’t have much time.”

As he reaches for her arm Amy pulls away. “What in the world is going on here? And where is here? And how did you get here?”

Genius chaffs at the delay. “Okay. Long story short. There’s a homer in your bra. Vernon had one in his blackberry. When your signals split apart before you reached the airport, we knew something was wrong. We found the car parked near the crossroads where they grabbed you, and Vernon nearby in the bushes. We already had a chopper on stand-by for a mission here, and here is
where I am.”

“Vernon!” Amy remembers. She touches the welt on her neck. “How is he?”

“Going to make it. Tough guy. More on that later. Didn’t have time to organize a more proper rescue, so they sent me.” He steps over Valdez on his way to the door. He cracks it, looks out, then closes it quickly. He checks his watch and curses again.

“You already had a mission planned here? Why?”

“Later,” comes his distracted reply as he looks around the office, and again checks his watch.

“Why do you keep checking your watch? And don’t say ‘Later.’.”

Instead of not saying ‘Later.’, Genius ignores the question. He steps back over Valdez and makes a slow three-sixty pirouette looking for … what?

Amy grabs his shoulders and gives a hard shake to capture his attention. “What is it?”

“We really should get out of this room. But there are guards at the door who will likely slow us up, and I don’t want to get caught out in the hallway when it happens.”

“When what happens?”

“When the bomb goes off.”

“What bomb?”

“The one I set to blow up the shipment of bird flu Captain Valdez thought he’d bought in secret on the black market.” He checks the wall shared by the room where Amy had been held captive. “I’d really like to have at least another wall between us and the bomb when it goes off. It’s in the next room. Two bombs, actually,” he amends. “One set to blow open the crates and expose the
remaining vials, then another bomb set to destroy them. Going to make quite a mess.”

“Set to go off when?”

As a beeping erupts from his watch, Genius repeats, “Set to go off when? In less than sixty seconds.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Genius, the short, stocky, bespeckled founder of the Alcomist Club, stands at the opposite end of the conference table from Amy Lindsay. A wide grin splits his bearded face.

Amy raises a quieting hand. “You don’t have to say a word. I know what this is going to cost me. I’ve come prepared.”

Tongue flicking across his lips, Genius leans forward in eager anticipation, as Amy gives in to the inevitable and reaches for the top button of her blouse.

After loosening the top button, Amy reaches inside and draws out the tiny sliver of microfilm secreted in that special courier compartment along the seam of her bra.

Genius hurries around the small conference table and accepts the sliver with reverent care, draws his cell phone from its hip holster, and slides the film into a small slot. After a moment’s fiddling and small pictures flashing on the screen, his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Timegate vidcaps. The dance hall girl outfit. One of my favorites.”

“I knew you’d like them,” Amy smiles. She quickly settles back into her grim demeanor. “Not to be pushy, and as much as H.O.T.B.A.B.E. appreciates your work on this project, Authority would like to know when we can do some field testing with your magic cell phone, there. With everyone and her mother able to track cell to cell messages, he’d like to get back to the old-fashioned method of couriered microdot messages.”

“Soon,” Genius distantly mumbles, drooling over the vid caps. “They seem undamaged by the journey.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate it,” she goes on, “But, why the insistence on using my movies for these tests? Authority wants to know how this will work on spying missions, when the video will be made in less than perfect conditions. You’ve seen every movie three dozen times.”

Genius deactivates his cell and returns it to the case on his hip. “Because a thing of beauty is a joy, forever.”

“Why do I get this chill up and down my spine, every time you quote Keats?”

“Could it be love?”

“Try stark raving terror. You only quote The Poets when its bad news.” She nods towards the folders stacked neatly at the end of the conference table. “What you got for me?”

“You mean beside a massive, raging – ”

“Don’t say it!”

“I was going to say ‘headache.’”

“Sure you were.”

Genius waves for her to sit. “Seriously,” he chirps, massaging his neck. “I’ve been up, all night, web surfing, picking the brains of some fellow insomniacs on your behalf.” He stops to take a sip of something dark and hot from his OBG mug. “And I’m not happy with what I found.”

“The dead guy in the little sports car? A former member of a Chinese gang, the Red Dragon Tail. His name was Tony Wen.”

“That’s a pretty quick ID, considering the condition he was in last time I saw him.”

“That’s because his particulars, including dental records, were in both the Gang Database, and the Terrorism Watch List.”

“You said ‘former’ gang member.”

“That was up until about six months ago. Since then he’s been linked with smugglers.”

“Drugs?”

“People and weapons. Across the Mexican border. That’s how he came to the attention of the Department of Homeland Security and the INS. Not to mention the DEA.”

Amy nods. That connection was brought up by Authority, back at HQ. “And why might he want Bobby Chung dead? And how did he kill him?”

“Why? Working on it. How? A very rare form of poison,” Genius replies. “I’m not going to embarrass myself – ”

“Why start now?” Amy asks with a grin.

” – by trying to pronounce its scientific name,” Genius plowed onward. “But its an extract from a flower found only in the jungles of South America, commonly, and incorrectly, referred to as the Blood Orchid.”

“So, we got an ex-member of a Chinese street gang killing an INS agent working jointly with Homeland Security investigating a Chinese connection to arms and people smuggling across the Mexican border, using a poison extracted from a rare South American plant?”

“More than rare, a plant thought extinct for over a hundred years.”

“It was pretty potent last night.”

“Which has got my friends at Area 51 a bit … interested.”

Amy wrinkles her nose. “I smell a road trip to Nevada that doesn’t include a side trip to Las Vegas.”

“What with the attempt on you this morning, we think a few days hiding away at Groom Lake might be advisable. We’ve got an odd chemical signature from Bobby Chang’s blood they need to look at. That poison was never known to be strong enough to kill humans, just stun small animals. There might be some kind of genetic modification involved here.”

“And you need a courier?”

“Its what you do best.”

“Shows what you know,” she replied with a sly grin. She gave an exaggerated sigh. “That’s all I am to you, isn’t it? A courier? Just a trick bra.”

“Other than to say what’s in the bra is a treat, not a trick, I’m not touching that.”

“Damn right, you’re not.” She flashes her trademarked heart-stopping smile, then sighs reluctantly while giving in to the inevitable. “Okay. I’m off to Nevada. Is there anything I can bring back for you?”

“Just a five-foot-eight, blonde, blue-eyed Goddess in excellent health.”

“You say the sweetest things some times.”

“And an eighteen year-old showgirl with a nymphomaniacal attraction to short, older, bearded, near-sighted men.”

“And then, you go and ruin it with a joke.”

“Who’s joking? I’m a lonely man.”

“What about that girl from my condo I set you up with last month?”

“Louisa? Nice. Pretty. Smart. Great sense of humor. One little flaw.”

“All that good stuff and you couldn’t overlook one little flaw?”

“I can’t when that flaw involves her breaking out an electric egg beater and a jar of Paul Newman marinara sauce three hours after dinner.”

“Was that the scream I heard a couple nights ago?”

“It was.”

“You’ve got a pretty good set of pipes.”

“Especially when a certain other ‘pipe’ is threatened.”

—

Amy returns to her condo to pack for the trip and brief stay at Groom Lake and recalls the excitement of her first visit, and the crushing disappointment at finding, not a base with exotic ET aircraft and alien corpses, but a rather run of the mill aviation and chemical warfare research base. Still, with the warm days, she could work on her tan, and during the chilly nights catch up on the endless pile of scripts being sent her way.

While others did the REAL work, she thinks with more than a bit of irritation. Sweet as Genius might put it, she really is nothing more than a pretty face and a trick bra (among other bits of lingerie) in the eyes of H.O.T.B.A.B.E. When are they going to let her prove herself with a serious assignment? They put her through extensive training in all those mysterious ‘vacations’ and ‘photo shoots’ that keep her, much to the annoyance of her fans, away from her fan forum,
so often. When are they going to let her do some real field work?

A voice in the back of Amy’s mind warns her: Be careful what you wish for….

She tells the voice where to go.

As she packs, her sense her sour mood, and weave in and out of her ankles, trilling and meowing their concern and commiseration.

She finishes packing when her cell sings out “She Blinded Me With Science”; the ring tone for Genius.

“Just a head’s up, Goddess,” the phone blares into Amy’s delicate ear. “They’ll be a package waiting for you when you arrive at the airport.”

“The usual locker at Hanger 13?” She tries to hide her disappointment. For a moment, she had hoped for a change of plans. Same old same old: Messenger girl.

“The usual,” he confirms. “So wear one of your trick bras.”

“Already done.”

“No need to prove it; I’ll take your word for that.”

“Dame right you will.”

“Oh. And in about five minutes a very large man named Vernon will be knocking at your door. He’ll be driving you to the airport. Compliments of the Alcomist Club.”

“That’s sweet of you guys, but it isn’t necessary.”

“Yes. It is,” Genius replies, his tone brooking no argument. “He’ll use the Chambermaid recognition code.”

Amy senses the tightness in Genius’ tone. “Is something wrong?”

“Could be,” Genius replies and leaves it there.

“Well?”

“Some new information on those goons that tried to grab you this morning.”

“What about them?”

“We got something off one of the corpses; the one who strangled himself rather then be taken alive. A tattoo, high in the middle of the left shoulder blade.”

“What kind of tattoo?”

“A skull above a blood red orchid. We’re still working on what it means, exactly,” Genius continues. “I’ll have to get back to you on that. But when there’s a skull and something red, its usually bad news. Bye”

And when there’s bad news, the pretty little actress gets tucked away where its nice and safe, Amy adds in bitter thought as she deactivates her cell.

A sharp knock on her door snapps Amy back to the moment, and she edges gingerly toward the door and stops several safe feet away.

“Who is it?”

“My name is Vernon. I’m here to pick up J.J.”

“J.J. is at her Aunt Felicity’s mansion.”

“I thought her Aunt Felicity was dead.”

“No, just away on her honeymoon.”

“Same thing,” the voice responds.

The contact ritual completes and, in order, Amy opens the door. Vernon turns out to be a hulking, expansive man who looks fit enough to play linebacker for the Longhorns. On the brisk walk down to his car, he carries only her largest bag, while keeping his other hand tucked into the pocket of his suit jacket. After a first quick glance at her, he does not look at Amy, instead his eyes swivel constantly at their surroundings, in the condo halls and outside in the parking lot, as they load the trunk of the Alcomist’s nondescript sedan.

Once the car is on its way, Vernon relaxes. A touch. “Don’t worry, Miss Lindsay. When I drive, my passengers get where they need to be.”

“I’m not worried,” she lies. “Did they tell you why I should be worried?”

“No, Ma’am. What they did tell me was that if I didn’t get you safely to the airport. Then, I’d better be able to walk on water because I’d have to start walking to Japan if I didn’t want them to find me.”

That makes Amy smile, which makes Vernon smile as he glances at her in the rear view mirror. “Are you a fan, Vernon?”

“I wasn’t,” he confesses. “But, now that I’ve seen that smile, I’ve got no choice, do I?”

The car eases to a stop at a traffic light. A grin flows across Vernon’s face. “Hey, if you don’t mind, I’d like to – .”

The shriek of shattering glass interrupts. Vernon throws up an arm to protect himself from splinters of glass spewing in from the driver’s side window. “What the…?!?”

A hissing ‘phtt’ sound immediately follows the slap of flesh on flesh, as Vernon’s hand flies to the side of his neck. His body twists and falls towards the steering wheel.

Amy thumbs the release on her seatbelt and reaches forward to grab Vernon. She hears a second hissing ‘phtt’, and feels a stinging sensation just below and behind her left ear.

Vernon’s door opens and a pair of olive-skinned arms yanks him out of the car.

From a thousand miles away, Amy’s door can be heard opening. Hands push her into the seat.

Darkness smothers Amy Lindsay and carries her off to oblivion.

TO BE CONTINUED!

The three leering kidnappers, evil intent on their minds, saunter toward Amy Lindsay.

Amy shifts in her Porsche, chaffing at the limited mobility of the handcuffs securing her to the steering wheel. Just a little more … Yes! She squeezes the door’s release latch, disengaging it, but not opening it. She sets her foot flat against the door, ready to kick it into the men, as they come into range. A long shot, and she has to move fast, but with a bit of luck she can incapacitate all three men, and perhaps grab – .

A gunshot rings out, startling her.

Even more startled is one of the approaching men; the middle of the trio. A puzzled expression wipes the leer from his face. He spits a trickle of blood, then, coughs up a red flood and topples like a felled tree, hitting the road and sending up spirals of dust. Beyond him, the first kidnapper shots in the middle of the argument, totters on his knees, a red stain growing on his chest and a smoking .38 clutched in his wavering hand.

The other two kidnappers straighten from their instinctive duck and spin to face the shooter. The man that did the original shooting claws at the pistol now shoved in his belt, struggling a moment before clearing it. That instant of delay gives the wounded kidnapper time to steady his aim and fire. Two shots explodes as one. Both men hit the dirt, still.

The remaining kidnapper freezes, stunned. But, only for a moment!  He dives for the pistol that has twirled off into the ditch and whirled to train it on Amy. Seeing her still handcuffed and in the car, he relaxes.  A bit!

In Spanish, he told Amy, “I would not have let them rape you, Amy Lindsay” with an earnestness that made her believe him, though he pronounced her name: Ah-ma Lin-say.

Keeping Amy covered, he edges away to check the bodies. From the leader, he forages through the pockets for the handcuff keys. He retrieves the .38 and tucks it into his belt, he stops ten feet from the Porsche, and tosses Amy the keys.

In Spanish, he orders her to release herself from the wheel, then, reattaches the cuffs to her wrists. When she pretends not to understand his pantomime, he pointed the gun at her to emphasize his point. Amy does as instructed, pretending to fumble with the keys and taking her time. She glances at the dashboard clock.

Rescue is at least seven minutes away.

She finishes locking her second wrist and tosses the keys to the kidnapper. He did not see the danger of letting her hands be cuffed in front of her body, as she hoped. He steps back and waves her to exit it the car. She stops out, staying slumped and huddled to give the impression of helplessness.

The trill of a cell phone fills the still air.

Amy recognizes her generic ring tone, coming from the dead leader. The startled kidnapper turns toward the sound. Though, he quickly realizes the mistake of taking his eyes off her, it’s the split second Amy needs. Her lithe body hampered only slightly by the cuffs, she delivers a perfectly timed spin kick that snaps the kidnapper’s wrist and sends the pistol flying.  The man yelps and falls to his knee as he grabs his wrist. Amy’s second kick leaves him face down in the ditch.

Amy finds the keys to the cuffs, frees herself, and places the cuffs on the unconscious kidnapper. Her phone stops trilling by the time she retrieves it. A costume shop voicemail message acknowledges receipt of her payment for the ‘unusual rips and tears’ suffers by the Catwoman outfit she rented for a New Year’s Eve party.

A Chinook helicopter thunders over the small rise to hover over her before can punch in a call to HQ. Repelling lines spill out of an open hatch. Amy flashes the requisite ‘all clear’ hand signal, and the lines snake back into the ‘copter, as it eases away to find a landing pad.

The thunder of the chopper faded choking sounds makes Amy spin.  And freeze!  The last kidnapper regains consciousness and works the cuffs from behind his back.  Exhibiting contortionist-like skill, he grasps his hands behind his head, so that the cuff’s chain tears into his neck, almost disappearing into him. Amy leaps forward to pry the hands apart. Before she could grasp the man’s wrists, he fell limp.

—

” … never regained consciousness, then?” Authority asks into his phone headset. From her seat across the sparse, uncluttered desk in the dimly-lit office, Amy can barely make out the shadowed profile of the mysterious man who runs H.O.T.B.A.B.E. “All right, keep me posted.” He tears off the headset and bounces it on the desktop.

“I take it we’re a long way from figuring this one out?” Amy asks.

“A very long way. We have their vehicles, and the weapons, but they’ve been sanitized. Tracing them will take time.”

“Which we don’t have?”

Authority sighes heavily. “I would really like to know as soon as possible who has the kind of influence over their people that one would find such an inventive and gruesome way to strangle himself, with a broken wrist, just to keep from being arrested and questioned.”

“So would I, seeing it was me they were trying to kill, or kidnap, or whatever.”

“We’re going over the cases you’ve worked. You’re still pretty deep undercover with us here at B.A.B.E.”

“Acting can be a cut throat business at times, but I don’t think I irritated anyone in the business enough to want me dead.”

Authority waves his hand dismissively and shakes his head. “Of course not. It may, or may not, be a question of someone coming after you personally.”

In the brief silence that follows, the implication hits Amy. Even if she were just a target of opportunity, this means a leak in the organization!

“And I don’t like this coming just hours after what happened to Bobby Chung,” Authority continues.

Amy recalls Bobby’s cryptic dying clue about the Mexican border; the kidnappers had spoken Spanish. “Could there be a connection? What was he working on?”

“He wasn’t one of our regulars,” Authority explains. “He was involved in a joint effort we were working on with the I.N.S.”

“An Immigration investigation working out of a Chinese restaurant?” Even before Authority answers the question, Amy understands. With the Chi-Coms getting cozy with every terrorist group in the Middle East, not to mention ‘legitimate’ anti-Western governments, a closer eye needs be kept on the Asian illegals coming across the Pacific.

“Chung’s clue about the Mexican border fits right in, especially since the Panama Canal is practically owned by the Chinese, and they run illegals up from there and through Mexico all the time. Not just Hispanics, but Chinese, and unfriendly Arabs.”

Amy snaps her fingers. “That’s it. That’s what’s been nagging at me. The Spanish accents of the kidnappers. Not Mexican. More Central, South American.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Authority’s expression sours at that revelation. “That’s fast work, if someone’s already after you because of this Chung business. Don’t like it.”

“Can’t say I’m too happy about it myself.” The image of Bobby Chung’s rigid face and bulging eyes fills her mind. “Have they found out what killed him?”

“It was too exotic for our little lab,” Authority replies. “Damn budget cuts. We farmed it out to your friends at the Alcomist Club.” In the darkness, he activates the small light in his watch. “You’ll be meeting Genius there in two hours. He’ll brief you.”

Amy smiles. “Sometimes I think the only reason you recruited me was because I’ve got the smartest fan club in the world.”

Even through the shadows Amy can make out Authority’s smile. “You brought a few positive … qualities … of your own.”

—

The damage to her Porsche is minimal, and HQ’s resident mechanical expert, Cue, can have it running smoothly enough for Amy to drive it to her meeting with Genius at the Alcomist Club.

The Alcomist Club is a ‘gentleman’s retreat’ formed by members of Amy’s fan club. Housed in a renovated Victorian mansion on Sunset Boulevard, it networks with similar clubs, the world over, linking it instantly with experts on every conceivable subject, and makes it a valued resource for H.O.T.B.A.B.E.

As usual, the moment Amy enters the lounge, someone cries out “OBG in the House!”, and the dozen or so members currently in attendance drops what they’re doing, stands, places their right hands over their hearts, and recites:

Amy Lindsay, Our Blonde Goddess

Of all Creation she is hottest

We love to see her at the beach

To watch her walk on water

But mess with her and incur our wrath

For to us she is like a daughter

(And we don’t mean in that weird Woody Allen kind of way)

Amen.

“You guys,” she laughs. “Where’s Genius?”

As the members settle back down to the business of reading, card playing, or just dozing, Artist tosses a thumb over his shoulder at a side door leading to a small conference room. “And from what I heard about the information he’s got, you’re going to have to pay. Big Time.”

“Oh great,” Amy murmurs as she heads for the door. Genius always demands very unique forms of payment.

Genius, the short, stocky, be-speckled founder of the Alcomist Club, stands from the other end of the conference table, as she enters. A wide grin splits his bearded face.

Amy raises a quieting hand. “You don’t have to say a word,” she says. “I know what this is going to cost me. I’ve come prepared.”

Tongue flicking across his lips, Genius leans forward in eager anticipation, as Amy gives in to the inevitable and reaches for the top button of her blouse.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Amy skids to a stop between two dumpsters. The car speeds towards her!

In the dimly lit interior, she sees a shaded Oriental face made grotesque and lopsided by a maniacal grin. Gagging exhaust and the stench of burning rubber wash through Amy, as the relentless car bears down on her.

Unable to move, Amy flexes her knees and jumps into the air. She twists her legs sideways, seeking maximum elevation, willing herself to hang in the air, as the low-slung sports car roars beneath her. She feels the hem of her jeans kiss the roof of the car. The radio antenna whines past her head. She drops, and seeming AFTER the last second, she sees her feet just clear the front bumper.

She lands awkwardly and falls to her knees and rolls forward, rising to her feet right in front of the car. Through the windshield, the driver’s face registers bewilderment. Even as he shifts gears, the driver engages the breaks. Clawing at the pavement, the tires scream and smoke.

Amy notes the license plate number, glances left, then right. The sudden shriek of a truck horn yanks her attention back to the sports car. Almost too fast for her brain to process, she sees the driver of the sports car look to his right. Terror fills his face. He throws his hands up in defense just as a massive city sanitation truck slams into the car dragging it out of Amy’s view. Someone screams. A second sickening crunch of metal from around the corner growls the announcement of further collision.

A fiery explosion lights up the street in front of her just as Amy reaches the end of the alley. A station wagon swerves towards the buxom bombshell, but stops in time for her to jump forward and slide on her hip across its hood. As her feet hit the street, a second explosion erupts from the wrecked sanitation truck. An exterior door handle whizzes past her head.

Amy starts towards the inferno for the driver. Before she can reach him, the passenger door of the truck flops open and the driver tumbles out. Blood streams from a gash above his left eye. Amy helps him stagger to the safety of the curb.

The driver of the station wagon, a man with a mechanic’s shirt that identifies himself as ‘Al’, joins her to help the man stretch out and takes a couple of steps towards the flames. “If the crash didn’t get him, the fire sure did,” he says as he reaches for the cell phone on his hip.

“I’ll call it in,” Amy tells him. “Help this guy out.” Without waiting for a response she turns and trots back into her building. Her instructions to ‘Al’ are simply an excuse to get back to Bobby Chung, at least three other witnesses already speaking frantically into their cell phone’s as she rushes into her building.

Bobby’s where she left him, eyes bulging, tongue protruding from between stiff, white lips. Checking for a pulse was a courtesy, he’s clearly dead. Amy retreats to her office and calls Headquarters for a Clean Up Crew.

The Watch Officer is Bert Clemens, recognizable by a southern accent thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. She gives him what she knows, including the car’s license plate number, and promises to be at Headquarters for a full briefing, first thing in the morning.

—

Amy sleeps fitfully, that night, flailing against a recurring nightmare in which a sombrero-wearing dragon named Foo chases her and tries to force feed her egg rolls and enchiladas.

The next morning, behind the wheel of her Porsche on her way to the hidden B.A.B.E. base in Malibu Creek State Park and reflecting upon the events of the previous night, sufficiently unaware of her surroundings.

A rusty pick-up truck with a battered wooden safety rail pulls up beside the Porsche and matched speeds. From the passenger seat, a Hispanic man studies her closely. Amy offers a neutral smile; it isn’t unusual for males to check her out on the highway, or every other place. The peering man says nothing, and after a moment, the truck roars ahead and eases into her lane. That it slows to maintain a position just in front of her, and didn’t continue on and out of sight on the highway, should set off a warning bell.

A moment later, a large sedan eases up behind her. The interior hidden by heavy tinting, the sedan begins to edge close to the back of the Porsche, triggering Amy’s first pang of unease. She glances around the pick-up and up the highway. The road’s clear, but there’s a hill to crest; not a place to attempt passing other vehicles.

The truck’s brake lights flash, forcing Amy to tap her breaks. The sedan behind backs off a bit, but not far enough to suit her. Amy glances left at a series of grassy, rolling hills. To the right, an area generally flat and empty quickly turns into clusters of trees. This winter is unusually dry, and the dark, gnarled trees make threatening gestures with sparse branches.

The sedan’s engine growls behind her, and the car darts alongside Amy’s Porsche. The tinted window on the passenger side is just faded enough for her to make out a single, shadowy form behind the wheel.

Glancing forward she sees the steady glare of the truck’s brake lights. She presses her brakes hard enough to cause a slight protest shriek from her tires and manages to keep from rear ending the truck. The pick-up cab’s back window slides open, and the barrel of a rifle pokes out. Out of the corner of her eye, Amy sees the sedan drift towards her. Its window whines down, and the driver, face still hidden in shadows, points a large .38 at her. The revolver wiggles, delivering the message: Pull over.

Amy checks the pick-up, then the sedan. Nicely done, she has to confess. They hem her in with vehicles large enough that she can not batter through them with the Porsche. Her speed reduces to the point where the success of a braking one-eighty spin is near impossible. If she brakes and simply reverses, the rifleman in the pick-up have plenty of time to fire any number of shots before she can pick up enough speed for a reverse one-eighty.

Very nicely done, indeed.

But with one small mistake on their part.

Amy bites her lower lip to keep from smiling. As secluded and tailor made for a kidnaping as this section of highway leading to HQ might look on a map, it’s riddled with side roads leading into the rapidly thickening wooded area on her right. Amy has the added benefit of numerous H.O.T.B.A.B.E. training exercises in the area, including Escape and Evasion. The area’s narrow, bumpy ‘roads’ are more suited for motorcycles and ATV’s, not for ancient pick-ups and heavy sedans.

Amy wrenches her steering wheel for a hard right onto one of the dirt entry roads leading into the woods. She hunches low, but hears no shot. Bouncing along the dirt road she chances a glance in her rear view mirror. Both the sedan and pick-up come to smoking, screeching stops, farther up the highway.

A map flashes in Amy’s mind. There is an immediate left turn just beyond the first line of trees, ending quickly in a dirt clearing. She can slash through, and be out of the Porsche and trotting down any of the several jogging trails, cell phone in hand, calling for back-up, which will take only minutes in the form of a rescue chopper from Headquarters.

No, she decides and stays on the main dirt road. Staying means almost a mile of straight road where she can put more distance between her and her pursuers. There she will encounter a fork in the road. With the cool, breezy morning, by the time her pursuers reach that intersection, her dust trail will have vanished. Then, she will make for one of the side roads and a circular route to HQ.

Amy’s smug satisfaction with her plan evaporates as she crests a small rise and sees the dirt intersection blocked by a pick-up truck very similar to the one that has her hemmed on the highway. Their plan has been perfect, after all. The kidnapers have timed their movements on the highway so that she will escape down this particular side road.

Amy jumps on her brakes and twists the wheel hard to left. The Porsche totters on two tires, threatening to tumble, but skids instead into the small ditch and settles down with a crunch. Amy feels the impact up her hips and into her shoulders. The air bag deploys, slamming into her face, stunning her.

She becomes aware of a cloud of dust surrounding her. Amy pushes back from the deflating air bag and instinctively reaches for her hands-free cell phone.

The barrel of a revolver appears through the dust from the passenger side and stares, with it’s one, large dark, deadly eye, at a spot between Amy’s eyes.

“No, Senorita Lindsay,” says a heavily accented Hispanic voice in a rather calm, almost friendly tone. “You best not do that.”

The dust begins to dissipate, revealing a face covered by a bandana over the mouth and nose, and dark glasses hiding the eyes. The man’s free hand disappears behind his back, then, reappears holding a pair of handcuffs. He extends them towards Amy. “Please. One to your wrist, the other to the steering wheel.”

As Amy plots to grab the cuffs and slash the man across the face with them, her captor drops them into the passenger seat and steps back out of reach. At that moment, the truck and sedan approach and stop. The man keeps his eyes, and the revolver, on Amy, and calls out in Spanish for the men to stay back.

With no alternative, Amy affixes the cuffs to her wrist, and then, to the steering wheel. The man grabs her wrist and gives it a hard yank. Satisfied that she can go nowhere, he takes her cell phone, tucks the revolver into the back of his jeans, and joins his comrades.

As they gather together, a cell phone, not Amy’s, trills. The ‘leader’ first tries to answer Amy’s, then realizes it is his own phone ringing. He takes it out and speaks in a tone too low for Amy to hear. At one point, his face registers shock, then puzzlement. On several occasions during the conversation, he looks over toward Amy, as do the other men. The leader signs off, and the men huddle.

Amy watches them converse among themselves. One or more kept look toward her, and it isn’t until the discussion begins to grow heated that she feels confident enough to adjust her position and reach under the dashboard with her free hand to press the button that activates a rescue alarm at Headquarters. She straightens up and glances at her dashboard clock. 8:32. If she can stall for ten minutes, fifteen at the most, help will arrive.

The ‘discussion’ between the men has grown into a full blown argument. Amy’s Spanish is not diplomat quality, but it’s good enough to catch the gist. One or more of the four wonder, since they aren’t going to kill her, anymore, can they still rape her? The man who has been waiting at the intersection speaks most adamantly against that option, and seems to hold the greatest authority.

Then, a shot rings out, and he crumples to the ground.

The man holding the smoking revolver, the driver of the sedan, Amy surmises from his build, grins wickedly at his remaining comrades and asks in Spanish if there are any more votes not to rape her. The other two men smile and throw up their hands in a ‘not me’ gesture.

The three leering men turn as one towards Amy!

TO BE CONTINUED!

William G. Jennings can neither confirm nor deny Miss Lindsay’s involvement in any ongoing government operations.

Do they know about the body in the trunk, Amy Lindsay wonders. Her heart suddenly thunders through her chest.

In the glare of sunlight that slants off the hood of her rented silver Cherokee, Amy squints at a shadowy figure suddenly trudging across the road that separates the U.S. border checkpoint from the Canadian one. Two indistinct shapes detach themselves from the Canadian hut, and the three gather as one.

The American does the talking. Over the purrs of the vehicles around her, Amy can almost hear the discussion, but the glare keeps her from reading lips or expressions.

At one point, the American points out her Cherokee, and the discussion resumes.

Less than a minute later, the three separate and one of the Canadians approaches Amy. He signals for her to roll down her window. As his face emerges out of the shadows, Amy recognizes the same young border guard who saw her through, yesterday afternoon. His name is Edmunds and he smells of Old Spice and tension.

“Hello, Miss Lindsay. Back so soon?”

“Got a call to do some re-shoots,” she replies, reaching toward the glove compartment for her passport.

“No need,” the young man says. “Go right on over to the American shed, there.”

Amy turns on the power of her dazzling, heart-melting smile. “Is there a problem?”

For a brief instant his expression betrays uncertainty, then he forces a smile. “Just trying to speed things up for our American friends. You know, the Conservatives are back in power, so we’re allowed to be nice to Americans, again.” He straightens and waves to “The Shed” a large and windowless aluminum building the size of a two-car garage.

Amy presses the button to roll up the window. Before easing out of line and toward the shed, she lowers the zipper of her snow jacket, arches her spine and forces her shoulders back (making sure to congratulate herself for having the foresight to pack a wonder bra.)

That indistinct shadowy American blob was in the process of pulling open the shed’s rolling door. Out of the harsh light from within the shed forms a second shape, a bit thinner. He signals Amy forward. As Amy approaches the young man she sees his nameplate: Westin. He bends forward, as Amy’s window whirs down, and smells of Brute and uncertainty.

“Park in Stall Two, Miss Lindsay.”

“Sure,” she says brightly with chest out, her heart pounding. Does he know about the body? How?

Portable partition walls seperate the two stalls. As she edges towards Number Two, Amy catches a glimpse of the area beyond. The far wall consists of a similar sliding door, closed at the moment, and probably reinforced to prevent a vehicle from ramming its way out. End of Plan A, if needed.

The young customs inspector walks alongside the Cherokee, as Amy parks. She becomes aware of the bulkier shape of another inspector joining him, escorting her into the inspection stall. She brings the Cherokee to a stop and turns off the ignition. She takes a deep breath, lowers the zipper of her jacket a bit more, and throws her shoulders back.

“You can put those away, Goddess,” says an instantly-recognizable voice. The bulkier inspector kneels by the car and nods towards her chest as he settles his chin on the door’s edge. “You won’t be needing those to get by us.”

“Coop!” Amy calls out feeling the tension drain from her body. “Just when did you become a Custom’s Inspector?”

“About three hours ago,” Cooper Malloy replies. “Someone at HQ started feeling a little antsy about Canadian border efficiency and decided to make things a little easier for you.” He nods towards the back. “Our friend give you any trouble?”

“Sleeping like the dead.”

Westin returns. “Hello, Miss Lindsay. I’m a big fan.”

“Westin’s on loan from the DEA,” Cooper explains. “We figured they deserved to have a hand in this, considering Saeed was smuggling heroin to fund his terrorist training camp in Canada.” He nods towards the steering wheel. “Keys, please.”

Amy hands him the keys. “Need any help?”

“Nope. But you might want to stretch those long, lovely legs. We’ll want to give the other car a nice head start before we have the Canadians over to ‘help’ us inspect the Cherokee.”

Amy takes the advice and steps out. Coop and Westin sparse military stretcher out of the Cherokee and bundle a limp, bound and gagged from out of the tire well. The form moans as he’s strapped to the stretcher.

Coop smiles at the dark eyes staring dully out of a heavily bandaged face. “Welcome to America, Saeed. But don’t get comfortable. You’ll be in Guantanamo before midnight.” He signals for the orderlies to remove him.

In less than a minute the stretcher is secured in a Custom’s Service station wagon, and the two orderlies and its driver roll out of the shed.

“Okay, Westin,” Coop said. “Get the Canadians over to ‘help’ us inspect this suspicious vehicle.” He winks at Amy. “I told them this was a ploy to get your autograph.”

“You could have told me that,” she complains. “I almost had a heart attack.”

“You were the one who wanted a little more excitement in your life,” he reminds her.

The Canadian inspector arrives, and after a shockingly superficial search of the Cherokee, she signs autographs and is on the road again in five minutes.

Westin lingers outside the shed, watching the Cherokee disappear around a tree-lined bend. He asks Cooper, “How does an actress become a member of the Bureau of Anti-terrorism Bounty Enforcement?”

“Oh, we’ve got a lot of actors working for B.A.B.E. Models, actors, writers. They’re frequent travelers, don’t arouse a lot of suspicion. Make great couriers. We use her a lot. She’s a part of H.O.T.”

“H.O.T.?”

“Hollywood Operational Team.”

“You mean …?”

Coop nods. “That’s right,” he begins, confirming the obvious with, “Amy Lindsay is one of our H.O.T.B.A.B.E.s.”

—

With Omar Saeed no longer occupying her spare tire space, Amy drives leisurely through Washington and soon finds a quaint hotel past the Oregon border at Cannon Beach.

In the morning, she calls Headquarters and to learn Saeed has arrived safe and unhappy in Cuba.

Within two hours, she’s checked in the rented Cherokee and on a commuter flight to Medford. A weather delay and a connecting flight later, she peers at the setting sun, her plane touching down at LAX.

Amy tosses her bags into the backseat and slips happily behind the wheel of her Porsche convertible headed for her West Hollywood office to write up a report.

Before she can click on the WORDPERFECT icon, the office phone buzzes. She activates the speaker. “Hello?”

A voice with just a trace of an Oriental accent says, “I have your order.” Before Amy can argue the caller rushes to add, “I have a message for …ah …Goddess? From Dragonfly.”

Amy’s body tightens. On full alert she says, “Where are you?”

“Across the street, corner phone,” whispers the hurried caller.

Amy jumps to her office window and peeks through the blinds. There were only about a dozen pedestrians. Under the street lamp, she sees a tall, thin form at the phone booth.

“Pretend to swat at a bug.”

The figure does, using the correct hand with the proper finger twirling that legitimate agents use in this situation, this time of day, for a month ending with the letter ‘y’.

“Okay,” she tells the man. “I’ll meet you at the door downstairs.”

During the elevator ride down, Amy mentally reviews Dragonfly procedure. Dragonfly was a low-level distress call from an active agent. It means the agent needs to place an important scrambled call to headquarters. Her task is to confirm the agent works for B.A.B.E. or one of her many sister alphabet organizations, then step out of earshot while the agents delivered his message to Headquarters, promptly forgeting anything ever happened.

Outside the building’s door waits a dark-haired Oriental in his mid to late twenties. He wears a plain, black leather jacket and a paper hat with Chinese characters. In one hand he clutches a paper sack with “Woo Fung’s Food Palace” printed in a circle of black letters on the side.

He waited to be buzzed through the glass door and his eyes narrow, then widen in recognition. “I have your order, Miss Lindsay,” he says as he comes through.

“Oh, I forgot my purse,” she replies. “Come on up to my office.”

At the elevator Amy lets the man enter and holds the door open. “How much did you say it would cost?” The man gives her an amount, and Amy makes the necessary mathematical adjustments to come up with the special number that further proves he was legitimate. Only then did she enter the elevator. She punches several numbers, then turns and introduces herself with an extended hand.

“I know,” the man replies while eagerly grabbing her hand. “I recognize you. I’m Bobby Chung.” He shakes his head and grins. “Man, if I had known it was you at this Safe Point I’d have tried to make my reports here more often.”

“Thanks. You an actor?”

“Naw. Screenwriter. But what I really want to do is direct.”

Amy smells something. “That’s an actual order, isn’t it?” Her stomach suddenly reminded her it had missed supper.

“Sweet and sour pork, rice, egg rolls.” He extends the bag toward her. “I’m undercover as a busboy at Woo Fung’s, but I offer to help with deliveries as a cover for my little visits to places like this. A little cold, I’m afraid,” he apologizes, hefting the bag. “I snuck in the order as a prop for a Safe Point; this is the fourth one I’ve tried to make contact with this evening. Seems I kept picking ones were everyone is out.”

“I was absent myself, until just a few minutes ago.”

Bobby grins widely. “Lucky for me.” He nervously clears his throat. “Look, after I check in, can I pitch a few ideas at you?”

“Sure. What kind of stuff do you write?”

“Action adventure. James Bond stuff. What else? Being in this line of work.” He shakes his head. “This has been quite a day. I’ve broken a big case, and then I meet you.” The elevator dings as it stops at Amy’s floor. “This is turning out to be one of the better days I’ve ever had,” he says, as the doors open and he starts to step out.

And then, collapses.

She hears Bobby grunt, and an almost simultaneous whack of flesh on flesh as he slaps his neck. He starts to say something, then his eyes roll in his head and he crumples between the elevator doors.

Amy instinctively drops to her knees and looked up the hallway. The fire door at the end of the hall hisses shut, followed by the muted sounds of squeaking sneakers fleeing. She begins to stand and pursue. Bobby’s hand grips her arm. His face awash in sweat and his eyes wide and glazed.

“Foo,” he gasps. “Foo-foo. Mexican border. Must stop.” With that, he falls limp and his fingers slip away from her arm.

Amy slaps and sprints for the fire door.

Amy hesitates a nanosecond to pinpoint the sound of the fleeing sneakers. She hurtles downward, taking several steps at a time, balancing herself against the rail. She knows her own sneaker’s squeaks reveal her pursuit, but there’s nothing she can do about that.

Her mind leaps ahead. These stairs lead into the alley. Would a car be waiting? Her own Porsche was in the underground parking lot, useless to her in this pursuit. She felt for the cell phone on the waist of her jeans. The make of the car and a quick glance at the license plate should be enough to get them cracking at headquarters.

Just before she reaches the alley door, she hears a car engine rev. She slams through the heavy metal door and stumbles out into the alley. Even as she fights to regain her balance, she was scans the alley. The tail lights of a low-slung sports car winks at her. She tries to focus through the gloom on the license plate, but gets distracted by the sudden glare of the car’s brake lights and the screech of tires gripping pavement.

A large furniture truck partially blocks the end of the alley. Got you! Amy thinks. She begins to trot toward the car, certain she can get close enough to read the plate as the car maneuvers around the delivery truck.

The car’s red brake lights wink off and flash white as it backs up. And continues! The engine guns and the sports car leaps at Amy.

The car isn’t going around the truck. It’s coming backward. Towards her! Planning to go through her.

Amy skids to a stop directly between a pair of dumpsters, leaving her hemmed in-between them … with no room to avoid the speeding car.

Inside the car hurtling towards her, she sees a shaded Oriental face, grotesque and lopsided from a maniacal grin. Gagging on exhaust and the stench of burning rubber, Amy freezes as the car bears down on her!

TO BE CONTINUED!

William G. Jennings can neither confirm nor deny Miss Lindsay’s involvement in any ongoing government operations.