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FOX Academy:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

The Werewolf of Odessa - Chapter 10 - Resolution

Silver woke fully alert. It was a talent from his reconnaissance days, where the difference between life and death was measured in how fast you could get up, grab a gun and start shooting. It had saved him several times in his current profession as well. He identified what had woken him, the engine pitch had changed, and they were descending.

Looking out the window, he saw a green river valley below them, endless expanses of barren rock to each side of it. Up ahead the river emptied into a fiord that disappeared over the horizon. They were in Labrador.

The airport, once a major training base for NATO's air forces, was bigger than the nearby town. Silver could see the port at Tarrington Basin only a couple of kilometres away from it. He hoped that the boat would be there and be ready to go.

He stood up and turned to rouse Marcel. Marcel woke with a jump when Silver's paw touched his shoulder, a knife already in his own paw. He relaxed when he saw who it was and put the knife away. Silver was pleased that the street had taught Marcel some survival skills. He looked around for Sommer but didn't see her in any of the seats.

Moving to the back of the plane he spotted her curled up on top of their gear, purring softly as she slept. Her tail swayed gently as he approached, seeming to notice him before she was awake. A hitch in her purr and a slight change in its rhythm told him that she awake but faking slumber. Silver stopped two meters away.

"We're landing. Better get back to your seat and strap in. No telling if this crate is going to hold together when the squirrel lands it." He turned and went back to his own seat.

Behind him, Ophelia sat up and watched his back as he moved up the aisle. It was going to be difficult to catch him off his guard, she thought. Blinking the last of the sleep from her purple eyes, she moved forward and strapped in. She hoped that the flying squirrel would put the plane down softly and spare her swollen bladder. What this airline lacked in sophistication it also lacked in facilities.

'Wings' Burnside proved to be a better pilot than the plane's appearance would have indicated, coming in smooth and even. Able to land on the shortest of runways, he used the extra-long field built for fighters and bombers to coast to taxing speed. He guided the aircraft to a hanger on the northeast side of the airfield, close to the gate giving access to the highway that lead straight to the port.

While the three agents unloaded the plane, the squirrel disappeared into the hanger. A moment later, the big doors began to open and an ancient van drove out, with 'Wings' at the wheel. He pulled up beside the pile of gear and sat in the driver's seat smoking while they transferred it into the back of the van. Once they were on board, he pitched the cigarette butt out the window and put the van in gear.

At the gate, he got out and started patting his pockets, looking for the key.

"Now where did I leave that bugger?" He looked worried, as he should; someone with enough influence to get the airfield's radar turned off during his approach, to get the airfield cleared of personnel, to get the air traffic controllers to all go on coffee break during his landing AND get the airport manager to personally deliver the key to a gate no one was allowed to use was someone he didn't want to piss off. Remembering, he reached under the sun visor and pulled out the key on its heavy brass tag. "Gotcha."

They had timed their arrival for when the ferry to the island of Newfoundland was away. There was only boat at the wharf when they arrived. Silver indicated that the squirrel should park beside it. Silver got out, walked to the bottom of the plank connecting the boat to land, and waited. Soon a curly head appeared over the rail and they talked. He returned to van and leaned inside.

"Let's go kids. This is our ride." Marcel and Ophelia jumped down and began unloading gear. This time Silver didn't pitch in to help. Instead, he stood at the base of the plank beside someone who had just descended from the boat. The newcomer looked foreign to Marcel. The two watched and traded the occasional word.

At first, Marcel was going to make a sarcastic comment, but held his tongue. Silver wasn't lazy or aloof normally. In fact, he liked nothing better than to outwork foxes half his age. Remembering his lectures on cultural differences, he guessed that this must be one of those 'establishing your importance' things that some groups took so much stock in. He took the opportunity to study the creature beside Silver.

It was a canine for sure, a dog from the look of him. It was dressed in rugged but colourful clothes of a design not found in Ottawa as far as Marcel could tell. Its shirt was open from collar to belt in a wide 'vee' despite the frigid air. Marcel could see that his fur was curly, like a poodle, but it was not cut in the French style. It wasn't all the same colour either; this dog was mostly black but had a white chest and forearms, with the occasional small black spot. His tail was trimmed short from where it exited his trousers to about two-thirds of the way, and the last third was left long. Held up behind him as it was, it looked like a little flag.

"Portuguese Water Dog." Marcel looked at Ophelia, who had just spoken. Ophelia nodded her head at the dog beside Silver. "Portuguese Water Dogs are hereditary fishers; you find them in all the waters of the Atlantic from the Caribbean to the Arctic. They're good with nets and lines, swim like otters, and don't shed. They're sea gypsies; they make their own rules, live by their own code." She remembered the ones that occasionally visited the port towns of coastal Virginia. "Slit your throat in an instant if you cross them."

Once the gear was piled neatly at the base of the plank the dog waved and three other Portuguese jumped over the rail and began hauling it aboard. Silver didn't look concerned so Marcel relaxed and let them have at it, glad for the break. Silver waved them over to join him.

"Tony, Simone," he said, using their cover names, "This is Captain Jose Luis Santos Tavares. This is his ship and he has graciously agreed to take us where we need to go.

"Like fuck gracious." The dog spat. "Williams he say he sink us next time we in Canadian waters unless we be your taxi." He followed this with a string of words that Marcel didn't understand but could guess the meaning of. "You three get on board. We got long way to go."

Marcel followed Silver up the plank. "What gives with the fifty-dollar name?" He whispered.

Silver dropped back from the Captain and answered in a low voice. "A typical Portuguese has two given names and two family names, one from each parent. The Captain's mother would have been a Santos and his father a Tavares. Married females also take the family names of their husband and add them on, so introductions at PTA meetings can take all night."

The boat smelled of fish but it was not as strong or as filthy as Marcel would have thought. Down below in the main cabin it was downright sparkling. The Captain introduced them to his crew.

"This is my first mate Osvaldo Eduardo Lima Campos, and his little brother Carlitos, that means 'little Carlos'. This big fellow over her is my nephew Rodolfo Eduardo del Silva dos Santana."

Ophelia heard a sound come from behind a curtain at one end of the cabin. "Who's back there?" She asked suspiciously. The Captain whistled and the curtain parted. Standing there was a female Portuguese, somewhere between seventeen and twenty-one perhaps; she was holding a dripping pot and a washcloth.

The Captain waved his paw dismissively. "That is my daughter; she cooks and cleans up. Teresinha, get back to work."

"Teresinha." Marcel said, with feeling, his yellow eyes locked on her dark brown ones.

"Teresinha means 'daughter Theresa'." The captain snapped. "It is for family only." He flung a few words of Portuguese at his daughter and she slipped back into the galley, but didn't break eye contact with Marcel until the curtain dropped between them.

"Come, I show you where you stay." He led them down a short set of stairs and into a large hold. The hold was lined with fold-down bunks and had one long table with a bench on each side running down its centre. "You stay in here. Osvaldo and the boys will bring down your gear. You have all day to rest; we won't approach the island until after dark. Too many 'accidents' near that island lately. I let you know when I start the final run is so you get your gear ready in time."

The captain stood in front of Marcel and leaned down until their snouts were almost touching. "Upper cabin is out of bounds. The foc'sle, the little cabin up front, she is out of bounds to." Marcel shrugged acknowledgement. With a final glare at the little fox, the dog disappeared up the stairs.

"Don't get upset at him Marcel." Silver had taken the exchange in. "They have a very family oriented society. If you were to slay his son in a bar fight he would forgive you, provided it was a fair fight, but insult his mother or his sister and he will be obliged to kill you. Don't mention his daughter, don't look at her and for God's sake don't touch her, even in passing." Silver pulled down one of the bunks and stretched out on it, it was a little too short for him.

"Silver," Ophelia cast a paw around the room, "I thought that this was a fishing boat. This looks more like a passenger compartment; third class."

"These aren't fishers, these 'friends' of Gold's are Sealers." Ophelia gasped at the word.

"Sealers?" Marcel asked, confused. "They like, repair leaks in other boats?"

Silver looked up at him in surprise, remembered that Marcel had limited exposure to the outside world, and explained patiently. "Sealers hunt seals. They run up and down the coast and throughout the islands visiting remote villages and small out ports, looking for naive young female seals and sea lions. They lure them aboard with promises of work and an exciting life in the southern cities and then they sell them to the brothels and sex trade. They are slavers, species traffickers. They only catch enough fish to feed them in transit."

Marcel was shocked, and then he was furious. He jumped up and turned for the stairs. Silver and Ophelia both leapt and grabbed his arms. After a short struggle, he was still.

"Get a grip on yourself Marcel. You are going to find that you are forced to associate with some nasty types if you stay in this job. These people are the only ones with the skill and the balls to get us close enough to the island to land our gear this time of year. We may also need them to get us off again. They know what you think of them and they don't care, so just build a wall around it and be polite, okay?"

Marcel nodded. They released his arms, watching him carefully. He swung himself up on a bunk and lay down facing the bulkhead. Silver and Ophelia relaxed and returned to their bunks.

Marcel lay with his eyes open, burning a hole in the wooden wall before him. One day, he thought to himself, one day.

* * * * * * * *

The climb was worse than Marcel had imagined it could be.

First, there was the ride to shore. With all lights and electronics doused, the boat was just a darker patch of black on the rough seas. Studying his charts and using mechanical instruments, the captain barked orders to the mate at the helm while the three agents strapped their gear into an inflatable dinghy. When he was as close as he dared get to the base of the cliff, he gave the signal and they pushed the boat down the stern ramp and jumped on board.

Clad in waterproof outerwear, they paddled desperately towards the island, guided only by the line of white of the crashing waves. As they approached Silver gave the word to hold where they were and he watched the waves crash, looking for a relatively safe spot. Seeing a shelf just above the line of foam, he directed them toward it, timing the final approach to ride the crest of a big wave onto the shelf. Marcel and Ophelia dug their paddles into the rock to keep from slipping back while Silver hammered in pitons and tied them off.

Second, when they were secure they had to find another spot higher up, out of the spray from the surf, to assemble their gear for the climb. Ophelia studied the rock, measured five meters of rope, tied a figure-eight loop and clipped it to one of the pitons. Crouching low, she bounced on her toes and leapt straight up. At the apex of her leap, she grabbed for the lip she hoped was there ... and caught it with her claws. Pressed flat against the face least the wind at sea level peel her off she felt for cracks and selected cams to wedge into them. Pulling herself up she immediately set to rigging a hoist for the gear.

Once they were safe on the second shelf Marcel had a chance to relax, and suddenly realized how cold it was. His dry suit was covered in a thin layer of ice that crackled when he moved. He couldn't feel his snout or his paws anymore and his eyes stung. He looked over at the others and saw that they had already taken off their suits and were pulling on masks and gloves. He did likewise, almost dropping his gloves into the sea, so stiff were his paws.

Last came the climb itself. Silver and Ophelia went first, working in tandem to place pitons, cams, nuts and other devices. Marcel's job was to control the belay rope, letting out just enough for them to move to the next position so they would only fall the minimum distance if they lost their grip; and fall they did. The wind gusted in from every direction, sometimes from directly below, strong enough to lift Silver and his twenty kilograms of gear off the face; but the helmet, the extra padding afforded by the arctic clothing and knowing how to fall properly prevented any serious injury.

Getting Marcel and the bulk of the gear up was pure grunt work. When they found a suitable resting area Marcel hooked the bags with the explosives and associated devices to the rope and the two experienced climbers hauled them up. Marcel tried to hold the bags away from the rock with a second line but the wind drove them into the face repeatedly. Finally, it was Marcel's turn. Hauling him up, even though he was the lightest of the three, would have tired the others out too much before the next leg, so he had to climb.

Frost formed around his exposed eyes. Ice coated his whiskers. Each time he had to pull off his gloves to untangle the line or search for a claw-hold his paws went numb. Even his lungs hurt from sucking in the frozen air. He fell frequently, but never far, remembering to signal for tension after each meter of progress. The first time he dropped, he thought that he was dead, then the rope stopped him and his face struck the wall hard, bringing stars to his eyes. Each time after that he prayed that the rope would hold again.

When he reached the others Silver pulled him up, clipped him to the rock out of the wind, and asked him how he was doing. "I'm fine." He answered. "Just need to catch my breath is all." Silver patted him on the back and set out on the next leg.

Three times the height of the practice cliff and steeper, with the wind and the ice to contend with, Marcel was sure that the last of his strength would go at any time. By the end of the second stage, he was moving automatically. By the third rest stop he had stopped responding to Silver, he just took up his belay position and waited for the next signal. When Silver and Ophelia signalled that they had reached the top and it was time to send up the first bag of explosives he realized that he was going to make it after all.

The first bag of explosives was less than half way up when it got snagged on an overhang. Worse, the wind had spun it about so that the rope was tangled in itself. Marcel would have to unhook and move farther back to shake it loose. Keeping a safety line he stood back on the ledge and jerked the rope; nothing. Stepping back until half his boots were off the edge he tried again; still stuck. He knotted his safety line and leaned back into space, held only by the tread on the toes and a single line. He got as much slack in the cargo rope as he could and lifted his arms to whip it up past the bag and ... and that's when the cargo rope came free and the bag came plummeting down.

Marcel dove back onto the shelf, the bag of explosives striking him a glancing blow in the back as it fell. Gripping one piton, he wound the belay rope around another and pulled as hard as he could. If it held the explosives would stop with a jerk and smash against the cliff, but they may be recoverable. If it didn't hold, the bag would continue into the sea, pulling Marcel along with it. He held his breath.

The rope stopped with an audible twang. The piton didn't even shift. Marcel tied the free end off and rolled over, drawing his legs onto the shelf and sat shaking as the adrenaline burnt itself up inside him. What was that? A light! Silver must be checking to see if I'm okay, Marcel thought. Still too shaky to stand, he pulled the slack end of the cargo rope up as the beam of light flailed to and fro, unable to pick him out because of the overhang. Once I have the rope, I'll tie myself off properly and lean out to signal that I'm okay, he decided.

He felt the end of the rope. Curious to see why it had broken he held it up so that the beam silhouetted it when it swept by again. His eyes widened. The rope had been cut! Before he could process the implications of that input, the beam disappeared. It was replaced with a new kind of light, the muzzle flash of an automatic weapon. Bullets zipped by just beyond the ledge he sat on and ricocheted off the rocks above and below. Twenty rounds, thirty? He couldn't tell.

After the firing stopped, Marcel sat in the dark for a very long time.

* * * * * * * *

Silver should have known that things were going too well. Not a sign of life from the island during their approach. No equipment lost on landing. Steady progress up the sheer wall. No cuts, concussions or broken bones to contend with. Even Marcel was keeping up, not bad for his first time on a real climb, and his first time in the arctic. Silver was sure that he would have to take over the cargo on the last stop but the young fox had more stamina than he had guessed. Now with the end in sight he would find even more vigour.

When the first bag got hung up Silver was prepared to go down and untangle it but decided to let Marcel try to work it loose first; partially for the ego boost the lad would get if he succeeded but also because Silver needed the rest. Experience and intensive training aside he was still the wrong side of his fiftieth birthday and old injuries can come back to haunt you in the cold. He and Ophelia stared down the cliff, watching to see f the bag would come free.

That's why the guards were able to take them by surprise.

The first indication that things had gone bad was the simultaneous 'clack' of a dozen assault rifles' bolts being drawn back and released. Why does that noise always sound so final, Silver wondered, and why do they always wait until they see you before they chamber a round? Bloody unprofessional. Twelve amateurs versus two professionals caught unawares were still poor odds however, and Silver blamed himself for not setting Sommer as a lookout.

As he stood and turned with his arms in the air, he pondered the situation. If a sentry had seen them emerge over the edge, then how did they get so many guards here in such a short time? One sentry to cover an area like this was common, two at the most, but here were a dozen guards, fully dressed and equipped and looking fresh. Even climbing down the slope from the ridge should have taken longer than Silver and Sommer had been in view. Did they have some sort of electronic surveillance on the cliff itself?

One guard spoke in a language Silver didn't understand, but it sounded Slavic. The intent was clear in any event, move forward and keep your paws up or become a cheese grater. Silver complied, as did Sommer after a moment's hesitation. Approaching the guards, he could now see that they were all wolves, Siberian Timber Wolves.

The guards spun them around and pulled their paws down behind their backs where they bound them with plastic straps. They were prepared for prisoners, thought Silver, so they knew that we were coming. He watched as two of the enemy moved cautiously to the edge of the cliff and looked down. Could they see Marcel? Not likely, but they saw something, the pack probably. One of them took a bayonet from a scabbard and cut the cargo line.

A blind man could have read the body language of the two guards at the edge. They held their paws to their ears, listening for a scream or a splash. After a long interval, they looked at each other and shrugged 'no splash'. One shone a powerful light down and they scanned the cliff for signs of life. Another pair of shrugs. One unslung his assault rifle and swept the area with lead. Another glance at his partner, a thumbs up sign, and they left the edge, satisfied that whatever or whoever had been there was there no more.

Surrounding their captives, they marched them up the hill. Near the top, Silver could make out a tower flanked by two round objects; the northern radar array he realized. At the base of the tower another guard stood inside an open door; too senior to have to go out the cold, Silver supposed. The guards held back to allow their prisoners to enter, covered inside only by the lone interior guard, another mistake on their part. If only Sommer was a fully trained agent, he lamented, they had drills for this scenario.

Inside, the guards surrounded them again. Their leader directed a thorough search, intimate even. After finding Silver's concealed handgun and a Sommer's switchblade, in a place even Silver hadn't suspected, they allowed them to dress and banded their wrists behind them again. Following their leader, they escorted Silver and Sommer through the tower, down a set of stairs and along the covered walkway that led to the main camp. Silver could see that it would have been the perfect approach, had they not been captured. Despite their predicament he started calculating how they might get off the island should they manage to get free in one piece. No sense wasting time worrying about things he couldn't change.

After a short walk outside, they entered a large square building with a brown roof. Its interior was one large open space with offices lining the walls. The open space was filled with machinery, computers and consoles from all generations; it looked like a museum. Sitting in front of some, running between others, were dozens of white-coated technicians. They chattered excitedly at once screen, frowned darkly at another. Data was transferred from printouts and punch cards to discs and DVDs. It was pandemonium, fitting since very one of the technicians was a panda, and they were all speaking Mandarin Chinese.

Silver, being functional in the language after a tour as a senior agent in Beijing, could make out some of what the closest were saying. The American test was four hours away, and they were ready for it. Silver had no love for their government, but he had to admire the way they could adapt the old Pine Tree Line equipment to suit their purpose. He looked around the room. One element was missing.

Silver saw the missing link through a window in one of the offices, where the head guard was reporting in. As if on cue, the Werewolf turned to stare directly at Silver. The Werewolf smiled and stood. He pushed the guard out of his way and strode out of the office and across the floor.

"We meet again Mr. Silver." He boomed from across the room, and the pandas fell into a stunned silence. "How, as you say, are they hanging? Still attached, eh?"

Silver waited nonchalantly, gazing about the room. "Nice place you have here Vasyl, much more modern than your last home. I hear that the going away party was a blast."

The large wolf stood before them. "I see that you brought your own date this time." He ran a paw along Sommer's neck and jaw. She tried to bite him but he pulled it away, too fast for her. "Where are the other three foxes Silver? Not at the bottom of my cliff I hope? Oh well, we'll go recover the bodies at dawn, right after the American missile test, or should I say, their failure."

"How did you know we were coming Timoshenko?" Silver used the old wolf's real name. "The pilot? A stool pigeon in Goose Bay? Did the Water Dogs rat on us?" Silver didn't really suspect a traitor; it would have been too easy to kill them before getting here if that were the case; but he suspected that the Werewolf liked to brag about his technical prowess, so he played ignorant.

"Ha-ha, nothing so mundane as that 'old chap'. This base was equipped with the latest and the best technology of the time, including underwater microphones to detect approaching minisubs should the Soviet Spetznaz attempt to approach in that manner. We just had to hook them back up and viola! The boat you arrived on was much noisier than a minisub. Even the splashing of your paddles was picked up. From where you landed, there was only one conceivable route, straight up. I must commend you for almost making up with your whole party, the guards told me about the tangle and how they unfortunately cut the wrong rope in an attempt to help.

"Yeah, a real pack of geniuses, they related to you?"

The insult failed to break the wolf's good mood. "Oh Silver, how I've missed your sweet voice. I have something special in mind for you and your pussy, but first, my men will show you to your room where you can relax and freshen up before the big event. Ivan?" the Werewolf waved a paw and the chief guard stepped up flanked by two others. They grabbed Silver and Sommer by the arms and led them to a steel door. They shoved the two prisoners inside and slammed it locked behind them.

The room was bare and clean, windowless and seamless. Looking around, Silver could see nothing bigger than a speck of dust, nothing to use to escape or fight.

"Silver," Sommer hissed from behind him, "What's the plan?"

"The Plan, I'm afraid, is to sit here until they take us out and kill us."

* * * * * * * *

Back at the Academy Vikki was getting tense. They should be at the top of the cliff by now. They should have been able to set up their satellite radio and report phase one complete. She glanced at the liaison officer from the signals intelligence unit and he shook his head in response; no traffic of any type from the island yet. She checked the weather over the island; Cloudy and cold with winds gusting to 60 kilometres per hour, but no rain, no storm activity, nothing to interfere with satellite communications. Maybe Silver was being extra cautious. She turned to the Chief of Staff, who was personally supervising the Ops Centre for this mission.

"What happens if they don't report in?" She asked.

"Nothing." Gold answered. "Legally we shouldn't be there. If they fall off the cliff there's nothing we can do. If the ride I arranged turned on them, then there's nothing we can do about that either, for now. Their radio may have been damaged or Silver may judge that the situation is too dangerous to use it. We're monitoring for alternate forms of communications and watching for explosions. There is nothing more that we can do."

Gold didn't mention that there was a Canadian Ranger patrol on standby thirty minutes away by air or that a very large American stealth airplane with a number of cruise missiles onboard was circling just outside radar range. The junior agent had no need to know. The Director, W, had strict guidelines for calling in those assets, and whatever the result, it would inevitably involve his resignation, so the fewer who knew the better.

While he was contemplating who may be named as the new Director, Gold's PDA went off. He read the text message and pushed back from the Duty Officers station.

"I have to go see Doc Jones over at the hospital. You are in charge Beausoleil. Page me if anything comes up." Vikki acknowledged that she was in control and rolled her chair over to the DO's position.

The Chief of Staff walked quickly over to the hospital. The Chief Surgeon, Dr. Jones, knew better than to call him over in the middle of operation, so it must be important, but he couldn't guess what it could be. The nurse at the reception desk directed him to the isolation room. Strange, he thought, that room is usually reserved for agents returning from exotic locations with possibly contagious diseases; but we've had nobody come back from anywhere for months.

The isolation room had three chambers. The innermost was for the patient, and was separately ventilated. If necessary, the doctors could examine the patient from a suit connected by a large tube to the second chamber. The third and outermost chamber was for observation. He found Dr. Jones in the observation chamber, looking at a large fox lying comatose in the inner chamber. Gold recognized Nelson Knight, the student that had reported in sick.

"What's up Jonesey?"

"Knight was found in his room delirious. He's dying, but I don't know what from, or at least, I can't be certain."

"Is he contagious?"

"No, we've determined that, but there's no sense moving him now. I have seen these kinds of symptoms before, but only in documentation. Certain toxins can cause these reactions, but the problem is that they concentrate in the brain tissues. By the time the patient is dead and we can take a sample they've broken down and been reabsorbed. If that is the case, we'll have no way of tracking down how he came to be contaminated, or prevent further contamination, not without a sample of the toxin."

Gold realized what he was being asked to authorize. "You want to take a brain tissue sample in a live autopsy. What are his chances?"

"None. The damage is too extensive. We can try to flush the toxins out but he'll be brain damaged and crippled, a vegetable on life support for a few years at best before he dies."

Gold reviewed the legal and moral ramifications against the threat to the Academy from future contamination. "You have my permission. I'll go inform W"

* * * * * * * *

Marcel sat in the dark for a very long time, wondering what to do. The one-piece suit was warm enough for now, but he couldn't stay here on the side of the cliff forever. He looked around and took inventory of what he had available.

Al the spare rope, although one was in two pieces now. A little climbing gear, Silver and Ophelia had gone up with the bulk of it. Two packs full of explosives and a third hanging from the cut cord; about seventy kilograms in all.

Marcel weighed his options. Go down: there was enough rope and he could use the explosives as a counterweight, they were as heavy as he was. The only thing to do at the bottom was put the dry suit back on and attempt to paddle the rubber boat back to the rendezvous alone. Stay here: he would freeze eventually, if he didn't starve first. Would they check the cliff tomorrow when it was light? Probably, scratch that option. Go up: the pitons and cams and such were already in place, the remaining climb was no worse than that night in the Gatineau hills, and he had use of both legs this time. If they had left a sentry at the top, he would have to deal with that, but how to get the explosives up? The mission was a failure if he didn't have the explosives.

Marcel remembered a technique that Rusty had briefly covered on the rock wall, a way of making an ascender from rope and carabineers. It required a partner of equal weight on the other end of the line, and the gear weighs as much as I do, he thought. After he had climbed a little, he could stop and raise the bags level with him and then continue on. If he slipped, the counterweight would prevent him from dropping. The only problem was the pitons, would they hold with all the extra weight? Only one-way to find out, he decided.

Marcel did fall, but he had remembered Rusty's lesson correctly and the climb was even easier than the practice sessions. When he reached the top, he slipped over as slowly and quietly as he could, and searched the area for sentries before retrieving the gear. He left the ropes where he could find them in the dark and turned left to circle around the south side of the base. No sense trying to sneak a peek in the main camp now, the reception had convinced him that they had found the Werewolf's lair; time to light up the old wolf's life.

Marcel removed the cumbersome suit as he struggled under his own weight in explosives, timers and remotes. He knew the time of the American test, and he set the devices he planted at strategic spots on the radar structures to go off five minutes before then, but he put a remote detonator on each just in case. If he was found, he may be able to detonate the ones he had set before he was caught, and if any of the timers were tampered with, it would set off all the rest.

Moving cautiously in the dark, avoiding buildings and navigating by memory, Marcel found the two large radars pointing northwest, they had to taken out, if nothing else. From there, he moved on to the radars under the weather covers that looked like giant golf balls. Remembering the lecture the electronics expert had given, he listened for the hum that would indicate that it was transmitting. Approaching when it was energized would mean instant barbecued Marcel. Hearing no sound, he slit the cover and peered inside. The globe was clear of personnel.

He wired the two large radars. The smaller one was on a lattice tower, so he set the explosives to topple the tower. Finally, he came full circle to the tower and two medium radars facing north, believed to be backups for the larger ones that he had already set explosives on. Marcel rigged them also. Checking the last pack, he found that he had several devices left. He checked his watch, and hour to go before the missile test. Fifty-five minutes to figure how to rescue Silver and get off this rock.

Seeing a silhouette in the dark a few hundred meters away, Marcel decided to investigate. It turned out to be a four-engine propeller plane. Marcel tried the door at the top of a short flight of stairs, it opened. Inside, he checked for occupants, but it was empty. The passenger compartment, outfitted with sling seats for sixty, was bare, but inside the cockpit, he found a bag of charts, two bottles of whiskey, a parachute and a sea-landing survival suit. Now those last two items had possibilities, he thought. He took them and left a bomb under the seat in exchange.

Moving to the main camp, he noticed a pair of large propane tanks and a line of vehicles. Quickly he distributed explosive devices amongst them. Coming to the tanks last, he struggled to jam a device between them, his sweat dripping on it unnoticed, freezing inside the mechanism. When it seemed solid, he left it and started checking the buildings.

There was only one likely candidate, the large square building with all the lights around it. None of the others look like they had been opened in years. The problem with the square building was that it was surrounded by guards, lots of guards. With less than thirty minutes before the timers were due to go off, Marcel stayed in the shadows and tried to think of what to do.

Fate intervened however, before he could even begin to plan. A wolf came out of the building and walked over to the line of vehicles. Opening the hood on a van, he began checking the engine fluid levels. He reappeared from behind the raised hood with a puzzled expression on his face, and an explosive device in his paw. He headed back for the building at a jog.

Silver had gone over the priorities and contingency plans in great detail. If Marcel found himself the only one free, he should act to destroy the radars and escape to report back. Reporting back had higher priority than killing the Werewolf or saving his team, and with the satellite radio captured with Silver, the only way to report back was to get back to the boat. Time to exit stage right, Marcel decided, Silver would have to take care of himself and Ophelia in the confusion, if they were still alive.

Marcel ran for the cliff they had ascended, where the updraughts would be strongest. Arriving at the top he pulled on the bright orange survival suit, sealing the cuffs and the neck with the tapes provided. Donning the parachute he prayed that he knew what he doing, the training session on parachutes had been awfully brief. With a determined scowl on his face, he ran the last few meters to the edge and launched himself into space. He pulled the ripcord with his right paw as he felt the world disappear beneath him, and with the left he pressed the red button on the last remote detonator.

The fireball behind him lit up the sky momentarily, enough to get his bearings. All secrecy aside now, he activated the signal that would call the Water Dog's boat to him. Leaving the rest up to fate, he grabbed the parachute's control handles and tried to sail as far as possible away from the island before thing the water.

* * * * * * * *

Ophelia and Silver waited in their prison. They had considered trying to cut Silver's bonds with her claws but abandoned the idea. There was no way to surprise the guard, the door opened outwards onto the main floor. While they waited, Silver briefed her on drills for various situations; he would try to stay on the right, and would roll or run in that direction. She should go the opposite way if they were outnumbered, to split the opposition, the same way if they weren't, to concentrate their force. They discussed which situations to attack in and which to wait out. They stood and practised grips and throws that a bound person could carry off as quietly as they could.

Ophelia estimated that three hours had passed when the guards came to get them. The test of the Missile Defence Shield should be starting soon, she thought. As expected the guard opened the door and stood back while they exited then surrounded them to escort them back to the main control area, where the Werewolf waited for them.

"Ah, Silver, welcome back. All rested I hope?" The Werewolf chuckled. "I wanted you to see this before you die. In a few minutes, the American's will launch a number of obsolete missiles at their homeland. The Anti-ballistic Missile Shield should acquire them almost immediately and launch the interceptor missiles. When they are well out of range of ground station control the satellite guidance network will take over, and that is where we come in."

The old wolf smiled evilly. "Not only will their interceptor missiles fail to strike the intended targets, several will turn and dive to strike civilian aircraft outside the closure area. The resulting publicity will destroy the credibility of the system, and they will be forced to dismantle the system. Meanwhile my clients," he swept his arm around to indicate the pandas, "will return to their country with all the data they need to build a missile shield of their own."

"Clever, Timoshenko." Silver talked to the Werewolf but Ophelia could see his eyes darting about the room, cataloguing locations and evaluating possibilities. "You get paid by the Russians for discrediting the Americans and by the Chinese for providing the latest technology. You must have some Iranians hidden about here somewhere too. Call them all out and let's have a party."

The old wolf was beyond criticism, however. "Look Silver." He pointed to a screen being monitored by several excited pandas. "The system has detected the incoming missiles and is launching the interceptors, it won't be long now. Remember the last time we met? I said then that when we see each other again only one of us will walk away whole. Are you interested in how I plan to fulfil that prophesy?"

"Not really."

"Oh, come now. You ruin an old fellow's fun. First of all, I'm going to chain you to the back of the van ..."

Ophelia tuned out the old wolf and concentrated on searching the floor for electrical junction boxes. Their 'last resort' scenario, developed in the room while they waited, involved electrocuting themselves in order to short out the Werewolf's command link. Unfortunately, wooden protectors covered them wherever the cables were spliced together, for safety. Maybe she could bite through one of the thicker ones?

She saw Silver's shoulders slump; he must have come to the conclusion that it was hopeless also. The screen indicated ten seconds until satellite control was implemented, and the senior panda's paw hovered over the button that would transmit their signals to the missiles, sending them after the hapless airliners.

Just then the main door opened and a young wolf rushed in, call to the Werewolf in Russian. He held a round black object up in his paw. Approaching Timoshenko, he handed the object over and mumbled an explanation. Ophelia recognized the explosive device, one of those they had thought lost on the cliff. The senior panda paused, unsure of what was happening. Ophelia saw Silver straighten and tense, something was about to happen.

"Go for cover when I do." Silver whispered.

"You idiot!" Screamed the Werewolf, thrusting the bomb back at the guard. "This has a remote detonator attached to it! Get it out of here!"

Silver dove behind the nearest computer console, a seventies era monstrosity the size of a small car. Ophelia followed. Most of her was behind it when the blast came, and the guard between her and the bomb helped to block the rest. From outside, the sound of multiple explosions was followed by the crash of twisted metal.

A high-pitched scream came from where the Werewolf had been standing. "My paws!" Rolling over, she caught a glimpse of Timoshenko rushing by, headed toward the exit, arms held up in front of him, ending in bloody stumps. I'll have to let Beausoleil know if we get out of here, she vowed.

Silver pulled his knees to his chest and slipped his bound paws under his feet to bring them in front. Jumping up amongst the flames and flying debris from the blast, he looped his arms over the head of a passing guard and twisted, hard. Ophelia head the snap and the wolf slumped beside her.

"Bayonet." Silver ordered, as he crouched, looking for other guards. Ophelia slipped her arms to the front also and found the knife, held it up for Silver to cut his bonds. He grabbed it and did the same for her. Searching the corpse he took its pistol and spare ammunition, he handed the assault rifle to Ophelia. She took the bayonet as well and shoved it in her belt.

"Let's go. Shoot anything that moves." Running low behind the computer equipment, he headed for the door. Ophelia covered him and followed when he stopped. In that manner, they made their way out and across the compound, moving toward the cliff.

Silver went to the right of the propane tanks, Ophelia went to the left. When he moved forward again she checked the flanks for signs of the guards; all was clear. She noticed something wedged in-between the tanks, one of the bombs, a dud. She pulled it out and examined it. The mechanism was stuck, frozen. She turned off the remote, zeroed the timer, engaged the safety and cranked the trigger to break the ice; it was good to go now. Looking down at the device in her paw, she got an idea. Putting it in one of the large pockets of her jacket she looked up just as Silver waved her forward. She ran to catch up.

They made it to the cliff without incident and found the ropes that Marcel had left at the summit. "Good boy." Silver said under his breath. He turned to Ophelia. "You first Sommer. I'll belay from here. Call out when you get to the first shelf."

Ophelia nodded understanding. "Hang on. Let me get rid of this bulky jacket first." Turning away from him, she pretended to be fighting a difficult zipper. She pulled out the explosives and set the timer for ten minutes, plenty of time to get below the edge and get secure. She put it back in jacket's pocket and took it off, rolled it up and put it down behind Silver.

"Ready?" He asked, taking up the belayer's stance. "Down you go."

Ophelia scrambled over the edge, hocking herself up and moving down quickly. This was going to be easy, a successful mission, ending in the unfortunate death of the senior agent, the victim of a hang-fire. Since there were no witnesses she wouldn't even have to kill Marcel or go on the run herself! She hurried down the rope, slipping the carabineer that held her to it when she came to a piton or cam, clearing her safety line automatically.

It was the safety line that was her downfall. In her haste, she didn't look to see if it was clear of the apparatus above before continuing down. Just below the overhang, where she had to trust in Silver's belaying to lower her to the next hold, the line tangled. She jerked impatiently, but it didn't budge.

She was unable to climb up to free it, hanging in mid air as she was. Silver saw her predicament and called down.

"I'm tying us off and coming down to fix it. It won't take a moment."

"No! Wait! I can free it." She pulled desperately.

"You are only making it worse." His voice was closer now. "You need to relax the line, give me some slack."

The explosion on the summit must have cut the line he had tied them off with, because the instant after the sound and the fire came down so did Silver, straight down, striking her full on. They both fell.

They came to a sudden stop a moment later and three meters lower. Dazed but awake, Ophelia looked at the old fox swinging on the end of the safety line, suspended in his chest harness, two meters away. Looking up, she could see the rope was still tangled somewhere above. All that was holding them up was the knot and the few pitons below it that she had already passed.

"What ... who?" Silver was shaking his head. "Sommer! We have to get out of here." His voice sounded forced, Ophelia realized that his harness had slipped up and was squeezing his chest, constraining his diaphragm, preventing him from drawing air into his lungs. If he hung there much longer, he would suffocate. Good. She stared back at him.

Silver looked puzzled. "Sommer! Move it! Somebody threw a grenade at us up there. They'll be coming down after us soon. We have to get going."

"It wasn't a grenade, Silver. It was one of our bombs. I set it to blow you off this cliff."

"What?" The puzzled look was gone, now he just looked pissed. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"Because you left my father behind."

"What the hell are you talking about? His last mission?" He lifted his arms to grab the rope, tried to pull himself up to relieve the pressure. There was an ominous 'ping' from above; whatever was holding them up was feeling the strain. "Who told you about that? It was classified."

"Oh, have my ways. I talked my way onto the base, found the members of his unit. Poured alcohol down the ones that looked like they would like a drink more than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, sucked off the ones that didn't. They told me how he went into the Balkans with a Silver Fox, but never came back. How the Silver Fox had sacrificed him to save his own skin, leaving him to die, leaving him behind." Ophelia remembered the pain in her mother's eyes when she was told that her husband's body would not be coming home. Remembered how she had promised her as she lay dying that one day they would lie together again.

"It took me a while to track you down," the ones with the information were less prone to alcohol abuse, and wanted more than a simple blow job to reveal state secrets, "but I finally found you and got close to you, and now," she pulled out the bayonet she had taken from the guard inside, "your time is up." Ophelia reached over to saw at the rope above Silver.

"Are you crazy? This is suicide! If you drop me, you'll never get down. Either the safety rope will come free and you'll drop too or you'll be stuck here and freeze to death!"

"I don't care." She said in a flat voice. Silver took a hard look into her eyes and saw that that was true.

Silver seemed to relax, but continued to hold the rope to aid his breathing. "You wanted to know how your father died, but you asked people who weren't there and no access to the mission files, is that right?" He could see from her expression that it was. "If your mind is made up then, cut away, or ... do you want the truth from someone who was there? Do you want to know how your father died and where his body is?"

Ophelia didn't answer, but she lowered the bayonet. Silver shifted his weight and continued.

"Your father was feline in a unit dominated by Seals and Sea lions and he had to try harder and be better than everyone else to prove that he deserved to be there. When he came out of the water he could fight like a ...well, like a wild cat, but a SEAL is rated by how well they operate at sea, not on the land. He took the most dangerous missions and the most difficult tasks in order to justify his presence."

"In 1996 another province of the former Yugoslavia was trying to break away. NATO wanted to send in a force to prevent the kind of ethnic cleansing that had occurred when Bosnia and Croatia separated and to block any attempts to retake the province. The problem was that the local military commander refused to withdraw his troops and vowed to destroy any NATO force attempting to enter and to slaughter the ethnic population if we attacked. He had the tactical advantage, but the analysts determined that the centre of gravity was the cult of personality built around him; if we could remove him the rest would leave without a fight."

"I was sent in ahead of the NATO force to do just that. The press reported that his officers mutinied and executed him, but it was I who pulled the trigger. It wasn't a clean operation. Some Air Force weenie jumped the gun and sent a mission in to destroy a bridge that I was planning on using and I was wounded in the blast. I ended up bleeding in a hole on the bank of a river with a brigade of soldiers out looking for me."

"The only way to extract me was by using the river. The only group with the skill to do that was the SEAL unit attached to the NATO force, but their planning staff determined that the operation was impossible, the route was too long. No one could carry enough oxygen to get to me and get us both back safely so they rejected the mission. Your father volunteered to go in anyway. He pulled every string and used up every bit of credit he had built up in the Navy to get authorization. He was convinced that he could do it."

"Your father was a stubborn son-of-a-bitch, as I'm sure you knew, and when the weather reports for the highlands that drained into the river system included a heavy rainfall warning he ignored them and went ahead with the mission. Getting in went smoothly, but fighting the current swollen by the rains on the way back used more oxygen than he had planned."

"The final leg, towed by an underwater tractor at slow speed to avoid detection, was already programmed in; all we needed to do was stay underwater for ninety minutes until we cleared the security zone. The problem, however, was that one of the tanks was only half full and we had used the backup oxygen already. We were short by ten to twenty minutes worth for one person. Of course he didn't bother to tell me that."

"He should have abandoned me then and there, or given me the short tank; those were the orders. FOX agents are non-attributable and expendable; it was a condition of employment that I had long come to terms with, but a SEAL found in enemy territory was an act of war. The political objective had precedence over my safety, but he gambled that the years of training would see him through, and he strapped on a tank that he knew would run dry at least ten minutes before the vehicle would surface."

Silver stopped talking, pausing to reflect despite the urgency of their situation. "It may have worked, if a tree hadn't of come down across the river in the storm. The tractor sailed right into it and got caught up. I was strapped on and couldn't free myself at first, couldn't understand why he wasn't trying to free us either. By the time I got loose and pulled him to shore he must have been without air for half an hour. He didn't stand a chance."

The piton above gave another ominous 'ping' and bent, lowering them two centimetres abruptly. Silver looked up then back to Ophelia, and continued rapidly.

"I buried your father on the riverbank in hostile territory. I couldn't let his body drift back for recovery because of the political implications and I couldn't bring him with me in the state I was in. The decision to keep the rescue a secret wasn't mine, but I always hoped that word would leak out to your mother that he died unselfishly, trying to save someone. I see now that his comrades did what military men always do in an information vacuum; they closed ranks to protect the reputation of the fallen. The dead aren't allowed to be less than perfect; it shakes our confidence in our own infallibility. Obviously only an act of malice and treachery could bring such an Achilles down. They blamed the survivor from an outside agency and carried on."

"So now you know the truth, if you believe me. Your father died because of his own miscalculation and bravado. Would I have done the same for him? Probably not, so you may still want to kill me anyway, but the only way that you are going to get down from here is if we cooperate so decide." Silver released the rope and held his paws out to her. "Which do you want more, me to die or you to live? Choose!"

Ophelia's thoughts whirled. What Silver had said rang true, it fit the cat that she remembered; hard and ambitious, driving her to be better than everyone else, but the first to defend her or help her when she was in trouble or pain. She had no doubt that he would have sacrificed himself rather than his charge, but to abandon the cause that she had lived for all these years! To save the Silver Fox after finally hunting him down!

The piton came out, dropping them two meters and smashing them against the cliff before the rope caught on the next one and stopped their fall. "Whatever you decide, could you speed it up?" Silver asked in a strangled voice as he fought for air in the ever-tightening harness. "If you'll forgive the pun, the suspense is killing me."

The sad attempt at humour brought her back to reality. It was the kind of line her father would have howled over. She reached out and grabbed Silver's harness, taking some of the weight off his chest and allowing him to breathe.

"Okay Silver," she snapped as he filled his lungs, "how do we get out of this mess?"

"Start swinging."

* * * * * * * *

The long-range sensors aimed at the island detected the explosions before they picked up the electronic racket generated by the dying radars. It was quickly followed by radio communications that were easily intercepted and decoded, someone wanted a ride home, theirs was destroyed.

That was enough for Gold; only a positive confirmation of the Werewolf's facility would result in such destruction. The Chief of Staff called off the American bombers, and then ordered the Rangers to go in and mop up; it was a military operation now.

On a secondary screen showing a feed from NORAD, the interceptor missiles moved true and steady toward their targets. One by one, they exploded in a burst of light and smoke. One by one, the target missiles disappeared from the radar display. A cheer went up from the duty staff as the last missile hit.

"Congratulations Chief." Beausoleil was shaking his paw. "Silver's done it!"

"Don't call me chief." Gold said absently, frowning at the big screen. Three lights shone in one corner. One was Green, indicating that an agent had activated his locator, that was Marcel's. The other two were yellow, for agents who were out of contact too long. Vikki followed his eyes and swallowed, but continued in the same tone.

"He'll be okay Chie ...ief of Staff. Silver is indestructible."

Williams hoped that she was correct. It would break his heart to say goodbye to Silver again. While he watched the board his PDA rang, and he answered without looking away. He grunted and replaced the device, and turning to Vikki, passed control of the Duty station to her again.

At the hospital, he stood beside Dr. Jones, who looked sad and tired. The surgeon was still in his greens, now stained with blood and bits of white material that Williams didn't want to know about.

"As I predicted," the old Wallaby said sadly," it was too far advanced. The intrusion only sped up the inevitable. We got the samples we were looking for, but I'm even more confused than ever."

"Why is that?"

"It's a fish toxin, from a very rare species. Unless this fox was cave diving in Peru recently there is no way he should have come in contact with it. The only places north of the equator you find this stuff is in toxicology labs and in the armouries of certain intelligence agencies." He looked pointed at the Chief of Staff, his pink eyes bright with suspicion. "We haven't left the medicine cupboard open when the children were home alone have we?"

Gold looked at the file that Jones had handed him earlier. "We never had anything this exotic. Too tricky, not our style anyway." He flipped a few pages, read some more. "Is this the statement they took when he first came in sick, about who had been in contact with?"

"Yes, it is. Other than the usual student interaction there is just the rather, uh, intimate description of his ... meeting ... with Miss Sommer last week."

It was Gold's business as Chief of Staff to know everything that was going on in FOX Academy, and the statements of Nelson's activities with Sommer didn't fit the pattern he had been seeing.

"Get me the chief coroner for the state of Virginia on the phone."

* * * * * * * *

The sea-rescue suit from the plane wasn't as watertight as Marcel had hoped. By the time the Portuguese's boat arrived to pull him from the frigid waters he was suffering from severe hypothermia.

"Into the Foc'sle with him." Captain Tavares commanded. "Get that piece of shit off him." They stripped him of the survival suit and all his wet clothes, leaving him naked. Osvaldo and his brother Carlos began to rub him with rough towels, drawing off the chilly water, forcing the warming blood to circulate.

"Ice ahead Cap'n." The mate Rodolfo called down. The Captain ordered the crew above decks, to watch and report.

"Teresinha," He said to his daughter as he turned to follow, "you bring him back eh? They pay more for him alive than dead."

The rough but timely treatment of the Campos brothers had already saved Marcel. No longer comatose he was shivering now, curled up in a ball to preserve his warmth. Theresa sat on the edge of the bunk and rubbed his arms and thighs with her paws. She ran her paws down the long muscles, trying to warm them and relax them at the same time, but the little fox continued to shiver uncontrollably.

Theresa lay down beside him and, taking his wrists, wrapped her arms around his chest. It didn't help. He seemed to cringe at the contact with her oilskins. She had to admit that while they were fine for repelling fish guts and rain, they weren't exactly cashmere. She remembered a lesson from the past, how to treat frozen paws by sticking them under your arms, where the heat of your body could transfer directly, through skin-to-skin contact. Maybe that would work better?

Theresa stood and peeled off her clothes. The heavy oilskin coveralls she dropped to the floor. The flannel shirt and corduroy pants she folded up and placed on the top bunk. The lace bra and silk thong that she had smuggled aboard without her father's knowledge, she hid under a cushion. Naked, she climbed back into the lower bunk and slid up against the shivering fox.

She pressed up against his back, brought her knees up behind his legs and wrapped her arms around him again. She held him tightly and cooed soft words he couldn't understand. She could feel the cold coming off him and hoped that he could feel the heat coming from her. His shivering began to subside.

Theresa began to stroke his arms and chest. She rubbed his thigh with hers. His muscles were still bunched and as hard as rock from the chill. She traced some of the larger ones; he was small, but very well built. She let her paw drift further south, down across the ridges of his abdomen, to his hips and groin.

As far as her father was concerned, she was still a virgin, and would stay that way until her wedding night, longer if possible. The crew was afraid to even look in her direction, not that she cared for any of those brutes, but back in their home village there had been a male she liked. She had let him do the things that her father forbid her to even think about. It had only happened once, after several fumbling attempts, and when they were done she had felt frustrated and unfulfilled. She wanted to arrange a longer rendezvous away from the spying eyes of the village but, suspicious of her evasiveness, her father had ordered her onto his boat soon after.

She felt the muscles on the little fox relax as she slowly kneaded them. This felt nice, cupped up against the mysterious little stranger, her chin on his shoulder, breasts pressed hard into his back. Theresa felt her nipples harden. Her paw followed the line at the top of hip to where his legs joined. She heard him gasp as she touched him there. She spread her paw and wrapped it around what she had found, felt it pulsating warmly as it filled with fresh hot blood.

She stroked his penis as it grew, slowly and firmly, squeezing her paw around the tip each time she came to it. She continued to rub his chest with the other paw, found his nipples through the fur and pinched them. One of her legs was between his now, up between his thighs, the claws of the other foot traced patterns in the fur of his calf. Unconsciously, she had started nuzzling his neck and nipping at his ears. She could feel the heat growing in him; she could feel it growing in her.

The fox shifted, began to roll over on his side. Theresa was forced to release his cock. He rolled until he was facing her, his eyes wide and questioning.

"Theresa?"

She put a digit to his lips, and then she put her lips to his. Marcel closed his eyes and kissed he back.

Their paws explored each other. He felt the firmness of her breasts, tested the hardness of her nipples. She combed the fur on his head with her claws, examined the bumps down his spine to his tail. One of his paws found a warm moist spot and cupped it; she forced one of hers between them and began stroking him again. Their tongues became a single creature.

Marcel had a digit inside her, sliding it in and out of the hot slick cavern. He drew it up along her clit before plunging it back deep, seeking the swelling spot inside. She gasped as her clitoris grew hard and her insides burned. This was much different than it had been back in the village; she wanted this to go on forever.

Marcel, on the other hand, knew that he wouldn't last much longer if she continued to fondle him the way she was doing. He got up on his knees and moved just far enough away that she couldn't reach his cock. Her paw searched the air for a moment before dropping back to the bunk. Now Marcel had his middle two digits inside her, rubbing the moist flesh that had swollen in response there. The first digit was outside, gliding up one side of her clit then the other, flicking at it when the tip came close. The last little digit slid between her buttocks with each stoke, spreading the moisture that oozed from her, teasing the tender flesh below her tail.

"Now, now." She said, gazing up at the fox that was bringing her to places she had only dreamt about. "Get inside me now." She brought one leg up and around him, swung it under his tail and tried to force him closer. Her hips straining to bring her sex to his.

Marcel didn't understand the words in Portuguese, but he got the hint. He withdrew his paw as she raised her knees on each side of him. He wrapped his arms around her thighs and pulled her back to where he knelt. Reaching down with one paw, he guided the tip of his cock into her. She sighed as went it and touched the sweet spot there. Marcel lifted her to his lap and bunched his hips; with a soft moan of his own, he drove his cock deep into her.

They rocked on the little bunk, oblivious to the sounds of the waves splashing against the bulkheads or the sea birds crying as the sun came up. Marcel's eyes rolled back as her humid sheath caressed his cock. Theresa panted as his stiff pole filled her with fire. Reaching under, she found his balls where they bounced against her ass and she caressed them. Marcel responded by circling her clit with his thumb.

The twin sensations from his thumb on her clit and his cock inside her were joining in harmonious waves that ripped through her. She wrapped her legs behind him and drove herself onto him faster as she rode the waves. She imagined herself on the beach near her village, in a storm surge, body surfing the biggest waves. Marcel's thumb pressed harder and his hips moved faster in shorter strokes. With a gasp, he stiffened, cock buried to the balls inside her, and she felt him explode in a liquid inferno. The wave inside her broke at the same instant, and she tumbled down in a watery ecstasy.

Marcel didn't move for a while, even shifting his weight sent sensations of pleasure so intense through him that they were almost unbearable. He released Theresa's legs and caressed her stomach and breasts, massaged her sides. When he felt that he could stand it, he pulled his still semi-hard cock out of her. She gripped it, stroked it tenderly as she gazed up into his eyes.

Marcel opened his mouth to say how wonderful he felt, how amazing she was.

"What's going on in there! Who locked this God-damned door?" The door shook as it was pounded from the other side.

The Captain! Oh No! Marcel remembered the warning Silver has given on the trip in, 'don't touch the daughter'. The look of panic in her face was enough to convince him that Silver had been right about the consequences. She jumped up off the bunk and began babbling in Portuguese. Marcel looked around for his clothes, and his knives, but they had been left in the other cabin.

There was a hatch in the ceiling, Marcel could see the light of dawn through it, but if he went outside naked he would only freeze again. Theresa was pulling on her oilskins over an open shirt and corduroy pants. Marcel found a lace bra and thong under a cushion and threw them aside. He grabbed a blanket and pulled it over him as the door crashed open.

The captain filled the doorway, his crew straining to see around him. Ears Up and eyes blazing he took in the scene. Theresa, looking afraid in her oilskins with her shirt unbuttoned, the little fox in the lower bunk with the blanket up under his chin. He spotted something colourful on the floor and reached down. He held up the silk thong, puzzled for an instant as to what it was, and then he glared at his daughter. She looked down at the deck, embarrassed.

The Captain sniffed the air. His expression became even darker. He stood aside and snapped a few words at his daughter, pointing at the door. She argued, but her cut her off, shouting the same words and stabbing his digit at the doorway. With tears in her eyes she ran out of the foc'sle, leaving her father alone with Marcel.

Marcel prepared to fight. The Captain may kill him, and if he didn't the crew surly would, but he would go down fighting. Tensing his muscles, he prepared to spring.

"What is your real name?" The captain asked.

Taken by surprise, he answered. "Marcel."

"Well Marcel, it seems that you have dishonoured my daughter, dishonoured my family. She may have been willing, but the outcome is the same. You know what we have to do now, don't you?"

"I have a good idea."

"Then let's not waste time." Captain Tavares opened the door and spoke to the crew waiting outside. They responded and hurried away. As the Captain turned back to face him Marcel felt the boat turn and heard the engines roar. Were they going to find a deep spot to dump him, he wondered? Maybe they would keel-haul him. Taking a deep breath, he prepared to leap.

"We should be there in three days. You have until then to prepare."

What happened to not wasting time? "Three days? Where are we going?" Marcel asked, confused.

"We are going home to Portugal of course, for the wedding."

* * * * * * * *

Silver and Ophelia were disappointed when the Water Dogs didn't come at the signal to pick them up, but they didn't have to wait long. Seeing their locator signal turn green back at the Academy, Vikki had alerted the search and rescue unit that was conveniently on exercise in Labrador at the time. They found the fox and the cloud leopard bobbing on the ocean several miles from the island, enjoying the morning sun.

Chilly, but otherwise unhurt, they stopped only for a short while in Goose Bay before climbing back aboard 'Wings' Burnside's ancient flying taxi. Back in Ottawa they separated, Ophelia was driven to the student's barracks, Silver had to go to the Chief of Staff's office to report, but he wanted to drop his gear off in his room first.

"Don't forget your promise." Ophelia called as she ducked into the staff car.

"I won't." He assured her as he opened the door on his ride. While they drifted on the open sea he had told her more about her father's last days, and where the body was buried. The territory had recently had a change of government and the former leaders were all in The Hague, awaiting trail in the World Court.

"It may be possible to bring his body back now." He had told her.

"There's a veteran's cemetery outside of Camp Perry." She had said. "He wanted to be interred there beside my mother, but I never buried her. Her ashes are in storage with our old furniture and effects in Newport News. Promise me that when this is over you'll help me get him back and bring them back together again." Silver had promised to reunite the remains of her family.

At the door of his suite, Silver's senses went on alert, there was a flickering light coming from underneath his door. Crouching down he sniffed ... candles and wine. As far as he knew there was no one else actively trying to kill him, but there were two other people with a key to his room. Both the key holders were likely to greet him with wine and candlelight. He opened the door, hoping that it wasn't Tanner.

Vikki stood in the middle of the salon, dressed in the same formal gown that she had worn to the casino in Odessa. Behind her, the dining table glowed with a dozen candles in a variety of holders. The neck of an open bottle of white wine protruded from a cooler on the table. Dishes and cutlery were already placed, a chafing dish stood on a nearby counter.

Silver licked his lips and put down his bag. He wished that he had taken the time to clean up before flying back. Then he remembered the Chief of Staff.

"Vikki, this is lovely, you are lovely. Will it hold for a few minutes? I have to see Gold and I'd like to clean up." Silver spread his paws in apology.

Vikki smiled. "The meal will keep, it's designed to be on hold indefinitely. Just get back before the candles burn out okay?" Vikki walked over to him and put a paw to his chest. "I'll be waiting. I'll always be waiting for you when you come back."

Silver put his own paw on top of hers and pressed it to his heart. "I will always come back to you, and when you are away, I'll be here waiting for you."

"With our son?"

Silvers eyes brightened. "When did you find out?"

"This afternoon. Dr Jones had some free time in his schedule and he said that it would help cheer him up."

Silver gave her a quick kiss and left. His good mood stayed with him through to the Chief of Staff's office, where the expression on his friend Tanner's face killed it.

"What is it Tanner? Marcel?" They hadn't heard from the Portuguese, and their boat had been reported leaving the area. Couldn't they find Marcel? Silver imagined the frozen body of the small black fox floating face down in the frigid arctic waters.

"Marcel? No, he's fine now. He climbed aboard a freighter heading into Halifax a couple of hours ago and asked to use their radio. The Captain of the vessel said that he looked like he was trying to swim back to Canada. He should be back here in a couple of days."

"Did Algorath have a relapse?"

"Algorath will live, but he won't be able to be a full field agent. If he wants to stay we have a place for him here, we can always use someone with his skills."

"Is it the Werewolf? Didn't we put him out of business for good this time?"

"Oh, his missile intercepting days are over. The Rangers found a number of his wolves hiding on the island, and quite a few pandas milling about, all claiming that they were part of an arctic vacation tour that went bad. We haven't identified the Werewolf amongst the bodies yet, but give it time. No, the mission was an unqualified success and that has saved the Academy's reputation. The political pressure is off, for now." He had perked up a bit, talking about the mission, but now he was frowning again. "No, there's another matter that we have to handle." Gold pulled two files from his desk and threw them on the leather surface opposite Silver.

Silver recognized the student files. One had the name Knight, Nelson Fredrick, stamped on it in block letters. A diagonal black line had been drawn across it. So Knight was dead, Silver thought. He lifted that file and saw that the second one was stamped Sommer, Ophelia Cassidy. A diagonal red line crossed its front. Silver had been afraid of something like this.

"How do you want to handle this?" He asked.

"Internally." Gold answered.

* * * * * * * *

The next day, Ophelia was waiting in the Academy classroom as requested. She had turned her desk around to face out the window, and she sat behind it, staring out on one of the last days of autumn. The leaves had all fallen from the maples and oaks now, and the ground keeping staff had taken the last of the orange and brown piles away to be mulched. A fine layer of frost covered the lawn where the rising sun had yet to touch. The bird feeders sat empty, to encourage the last of the migratory birds to leave on their journey south. Through the fine copper mesh embedded in the windows to suppress emissions it looked like a scene from a lifeless world.

She heard the door open and close behind her, but she didn't hear him approach. An envelope dropped to the desk in front of her. She opened it.

Inside were a dozen old photographs, some square ones printed on Kodak paper and some thick Polaroid self-developing prints. The photographers had not been professionals, the lighting was bad and the scenes were poorly composed, yet they seemed to hold more life than the view through the window.

Here was a shot of her father with a snorkel tank on his back, bending over to adjust his flippers, looking up and smiling. Here was one of him on some shooting range, wincing as he fired a muzzle-loader that produced a great cloud of black smoke. The third photo showed a young adult fox with black fur, already starting to go silver around the ears and muzzle, in a black t-shirt with 'Recce' in gold letters across the chest.

"You?" she asked.

"Yes."

She spread the rest out on the desk. A canoe full of beer bottles, her father catching a fish, Silver peeing on a campfire, the two of them sitting on a snow-covered mountaintop. The second-last photo was the same as the one she had locked away in her room, Silver and her father arm in arm fooling around at some campsite somewhere in the seventies, before she was born.

"You were friends?"

"For a while, best friends. We had a lot in common." Silver leaned over her shoulder. She compared the line of his snout with the younger version in the photo. The older version looked too serious, she preferred the younger, happier version.

"His unit came up here to Canada on an exchange with my unit. We were paired for the mountaineering training and we hung out together after that, terrorizing the bars, getting into shit. The year after, he talked his CO into inviting us down to Virginia. That was the summer he met your mother. We were drunk and crashed a church social dance. We were pretending to be French-Canadian twins, adopted twins, and were using fake accents on all the pretty ladies. He danced with your future mother; I danced with her friend, a Mink that giggled. I ended up in the back seat of a Mercury making promises I couldn't keep, he sat on the beach with your mother and they talked all night."

He reached past her and nudged the last photograph out of the envelope. There was Silver again, sitting on the ugly blue and green couch that her parents had moved from the living room to the basement recreation room when she was five. He was looking down at a kitten wrapped in a pink blanket that he held in his arms. The kitten was asleep, tiny paw gripping one of his fingers. He had a serene smile on his face.

"I was in D.C. for a few months. I came down to Newport News to baby-sit so your parents could get away for a weekend of camping; it was the first time that they were away from you since you were born. Her friend was supposed to sit for them but cancelled at the last minute so your dad called me and I came down. Your mother was afraid that I would teach you how to deal blackjack and drink beer." Silver smiled at the memory, and for an instant, the young fox reappeared.

Ophelia looked at her own tiny face, innocence captured in time 28 years before.

"What's happened to me Silver?" She asked sadly. "Everything seems to have gone wrong." She sighed and seemed to shrink in the chair. "You know about Nelson." It wasn't a question.

"Yes. He had a strong immune system, it kept him alive long enough for us to take samples, before the toxins dissipated."

"Will there be a trial, will I go to jail?"

"No. We don't do things that way here."

She reached into her desk and pulled out a picture of her own. Her and her father, wearing helmets and holding mountain bikes, both covered in mud, both smiling broadly at the camera. She wasn't as tall in the photo as she was now, or as fully developed. Silver guessed that she was fifteen at the time it was taken. She still had an air of innocence about her. She held it up and stared at her younger self.

"My father used to take care of me, but he went away."

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll take care of you." He said softly from behind her.

Silver reached inside his jacket, the silencer was already attached to his Glock when he pulled it out.

* * * * * * * *

Epilogue

25 Years Later

Vikki and her son, Leslie, arrived at the National Arts Centre just in time to check their coats and take their seats in the mezzanine. The orchestra and the guest conductor, a Russian wolfhound, were in fine form tonight and she was soon swept away by the music. During a lull in the performance, Leslie nudged her, and drew her attention to one of the lodges to their right.

"Do you know who that is?" He whispered.

Vikki looked over. There was an older Badger in a tuxedo, well her age anyways, and he was huge, taller than her and probably 150 kilograms. He did look familiar, she was sure that she had seen him on the news lately. Sitting beside him, wearing an elegant gown was a matronly ewe. Their proximity indicated that they were a couple. They were sitting at the back of the box. Arranged in front of them was an assortment of kits and cubs of various ages and species, some captivated by the performance, others obviously bored, but all still and quiet. Vikki asked her son who they were.

"That is the new Minister of Finance from the Ukraine, and rumoured to be next in line for Prime Minister." Leslie was a junior analyst in the Eastern European Division of Foreign Affairs. "The ewe is his wife, an American." As Vikki watched the ewe reached for the left paw of her partner and held it as the music swelled. The paw was smaller than the other, shrivelled and stiff. Memories started flooding back.

"The children around them are adopted. They have at least twenty although they don't travel with the oldest ones during the school year. The marriage was a detriment to his career, not so much because of the inter-species aspect, but rather some sort of scandal in her past." He added.

"She was an aspiring actress who had a lesbian relationship with an old screen diva called 'Darling' and sued her for breach of trust and manipulation of affections. She took the old cat for a bundle then disappeared." Vikki said, to his surprise.

"That's it! How did you know that Mother? You're not targeting him are you? Our Ministry wants to maintain friendly relations with the Ukraine."

"No, nothing like that. His name is Augustyn, isn't it?"

"Yes, Augustyn Eremenko. I wish I could find some excuse to talk to him during the intermission." He looked longingly at the Ukrainian badger. "It's too bad Father couldn't make it, he'd just walk right up and have that badger waist deep in conversation in no time." Leslie signed, and then looked at his mother. "Just where is Father anyway?"

"He was called away to Washington for a conference at the last minute."

* * * * * * *

A thousand kilometres to the south, Silver was standing in the dark, in the rain. The conference at CIA headquarters had wrapped up early, as they always tended to do on the last day, and his flight home to Ottawa wasn't scheduled until the next morning. Rather than attempt to get an earlier flight, he had decided to take care of some long neglected business elsewhere in Virginia.

After visiting a florist, he had steered the rental car through the heavy early evening traffic onto highway ninety-five south to Richmond, then he switched to sixty-four, the highway that led to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Newport News. Consulting the built-in GPS he had followed the recommended route to the Veteran's cemetery outside of Camp Perry.

Although he had never visited this cemetery before he remembered the map that the Cemetery Director had sent when he had selected the site. Entering the main gate, he had turned left and followed the perimeter road around until he came to the hill that had been shown on the map. He had parked the car, got out and headed up the hill.

The rain had started falling in a light drizzle almost immediately and he had not brought an umbrella, so Silver stood in the rain, looking down on three graves set away from the rest, under an old oak tree. The headstones were all of the same design, red marble polished on the front with the image of the deceased etched into it, and they all showed the same amount of wear. It was obvious that they had all been put up at the same time.

It was too dark to make out the images, or read the inscriptions, but he knew what they were. The one on the left would show the head and shoulders of a beautiful young female, gazing at the viewer with a Mona Lisa smile. It was a portion of a photo showing her when she was about eight months pregnant. The stone on the right would have the grinning head of a handsome male that Silver had cropped from a camping trip photo, cutting himself out of the picture before sending to the carver.

Silver had specified that the third stone should be placed between the first two. It showed a very young female, taken on a mountain bike trip when she was about fifteen years old. Silver had had Joel the Lemur remove the bike helmet from the original and replace it with her ears and fur from photos in the Academy records. The result was the image of a happy and innocent feline with somewhat mature hairstyle, like a debutante at her first adult party.

Silver stood for almost an hour as the fine mist soaked first through his clothes and then his fur, looking down on the graves, remembering. Then he knelt at their foot and placed a bundle of yellow roses on each. He stood, wiped his eyes, and walked back down the hill.

The rain stopped and the clouds began to break apart, allowing the moon to shine through. The faces of three cloud leopards smiled back at it.

"Maria Angelica Sommer. Loving Mother, Partner and Guide. 1962 - 2003".

"Raymond Carter Sommer. Devoted Husband, Father and Friend. 1960 - 1996".

"Ophelia Cassidy Sommer. Faithful Daughter, once lost, now safe in your arms again. 1980 - 2008".

The only sound was the soft crunch of gravel under the tires of the departing sedan.

The End

I'd like to thank Devil Kitty and Marcus X Light for the characters they submitted for the contest. The background details they provided influenced the course of the story greatly, especially the outcome. Ophelia Cassidy Sommer and Kain Algorath © to them, respectively.

Joel the Lemur is © to Joel the Lemur

The rest of the FOX Academy gang are © to Dikran_O