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Suffer the Children

A Tale from the Agent's Lounge

I don't want to give you the impression that Silver was the only one that ever told stories in the Agent's Lounge, or that his were the only interesting stories, but by the time I took over behind the bar most of the other Cold War agents were retired ... or dead. A few did make occasional appearances.

There was Scarlet, who died just recently. She retired from the agency to become a nun. Silver had a lot of stories about him and her, most of which he would only relate when his mate was not around. Black was another retired agent from that era that came in for the annual anniversary of the Academy's founding. He worked as a contractor for special jobs up until as late as eight years ago. He had something to do with Geno being recruited but he refuses to say what exactly his part in the matter was. He gets a pained expression and rubs his groin when anyone brings the subject up, but Geno has that effect on a lot of people. The Director, Tancred "Tanner" Williams, was around back then, but he rarely drank or discussed his work. He was never a field agent in any event.

The only other former agent I saw regularly was Brown, now known as Missus Brown, the lady that ran the Academy Day Care Centre. She would stop by for a drink on her way home about once a month, but she never drank more than one on those occasions. The Day Care was also the agency's emergency childcare centre so she was sort of on-call twenty-four seven and often slept in a small bedroom attached to the one for children whose parents were away on assignment. She did not socialize much during those one drink stopovers.

The only time that she indulged in more than one drink was on Family Day. Family Day was the one day of the year where agents and analysts and support staff could bring their non-employee mates and children onto the Academy grounds for a big barbeque and games. Of course all the signs and flyers for it said that was a celebration for an obscure portfolio agency of some boring branch of the government that did mundane research and record keeping. But it was the only day of the year when the Day Care was closed and the only day that Missus Brown felt free to have more than a single drink, several more as a matter of fact.

She was a formidable vixen who was as wide as she was tall and as solid as a brick wall. Her face, which beamed in the presence of kits and cubs, fell into a deep frown whenever she was addressing adults. She had her own version of the killer stare that was almost as portents as Silver's and she was not very talkative even after three or four shots of whiskey and a few beer chasers.

At last year's Family Day She was sitting in the lounge, as usual. Agent Ebony, A black fox who had grown up on the streets and whose real name was Marcel, came in for a drink while his mate Geno was feeding their adopted children. Missus Brown gave him a look that expressed exactly what she thought of fathers that sneak a drink while mothers are caring for the young ones. Marcel, who had suffered considerably under an alcoholic step-dad mumbled something that was likely a swear word and changed his order to a diet cola.

The Director, Tancred 'Tanner' Williams, was sitting nearby and he chuckled. Marcel sipped his cola under Brown's hard stare. I thought that I would break the mood by engaging her in conversation so I asked her why she had switched from being a field agent to running the daycare centre. Williams shot me a warning glance but it was too late, the question had been asked.

A strange look came across her face. It was almost as if she was about to cry; the last thing that anyone would have expected from the old battleaxe. But then she composed herself and simply said "Because I like children."

"Yeah, boiled or fried." Marcel muttered under his breath.

Missus Brown must have overheard him because her face became as hard as a rock and her fists clenched so tight that I could see the skin of her knuckles turning white through the fur. I think that she actually stopped breathing for a time but after a minute she drew a deep breath and relaxed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Williams had tensed up too but he eased back in his seat when Brown calmed down. She drained her glass, threw some bills on the bar, stood up and left without another glance at Marcel.

"What was that all about?" Marcel asked after she had lumbered through the door.

I shrugged, but Williams motioned Marcel and I over. I took a place at the bar opposite him and the young fox moved to a stool beside him.

"You came very close to hurting Missus Brown with your insensitive comment." Williams chided Marcel. "And if she had snapped I'm not sure if either of you would have survived the ensuing altercation."

Marcel, who always was a little hotheaded, seemed offended by the dressing down. "It was just an off-the-cuff comment, the kind we trade here in the lounge all the time." He complained. "Why should she be so offended by it? And if she has such a thin skin why does she come in here in the first place?"

Williams sat back and regarded the ceiling for a few moments before he answered. "You are looked on as a leader by the younger generation of agents, Marcel, so I'm going to tell you a story," he said, "even though I have no right to do so, given her right to privacy. But telling you will make it clear why she was so affected by your words and, hopefully, once you know why you and the other youngsters will cut her some slack."

Marcel's brow furrowed as Williams looked down at his drink. "It was back in nineteen eighty-two," he began, "in Beirut."

* * * * *

Agent Brown was the daughter of a Canadian professional wrestler and a German vixen who worked as a bouncer in a bordello outside the Canadian base at Lahr, in the Schwarzwald. He had met her during a goodwill tour of all the foreign bases and missions the Canadians had troops stationed at. For the two chunky, muscle-bound foxes it was love at first sight - proving that love is indeed blind their acquaintances said.

It was said that when the two made love it was like two bulldozers fighting. Those that said so were not far wrong, as their only child could attest too. Life in the wrestler's household was loud and violent, as was her parents' lovemaking. Life outside the home was not much better. She was bullied for her lumpish figure and drab beige coat until she outgrew her antagonists. As a teen she was teased males and females alike, but only when they knew retaliation would get her in more trouble than they would by heckling her. The only affection she found was at the paws of some of the males that called her names during the day but whispered endearments in her ear at night in hopes of an energetic yiffing in the dark, where they didn't have to look at her. The future agent grew up believing that displays of affection and violence were two sides of the same coin.

She had excelled in athletics as a youth. By the time she graduated high school she was a champion amateur wrestler and had set records for the female shot put and hammer throw. She was even considered for the Canadian Olympic team but her temper got he kicked off before the games came up.

Instead of university she enrolled in police studies at the local college and applied for the provincial police as soon as she was eligible. They took her on gladly since they had a quota of female officers to fill and the bulky vixen could also hold her own on the roughest patrols.

She soon had a reputation as being almost as hard on her fellow officers as she was on criminals. If their actions or abilities did not live up to her harsh standards then she would slap them around until they saw the light or asked for a transfer. If she liked them and they looked like they could lift a truck engine by themselves she would throw herself into a passionate affair with them, which resulted in even more requests for transfers, and a few that left the force altogether to enter the priesthood.

Because of her reputation for violence and abrasive nature she was assigned to an undercover unit that was infiltrating criminal bike gangs. She learned to ride and showed up at a strip joint frequented by one of gangs that was heavily involved in the drug trade. Between pitchers of beer she told them that she was looking for some action, the kind that made a lot of money. One of the larger males in their group laughingly suggested that she could be used as a drug mule because she was too ugly to be a stripper. After ripping his ears off and feeding them to him she asked if she could work for the gang's enforcer.

"You just ripped his ears off and feed them to him," a doberman that had been observing quietly from the corner told her, "so he might not look favourably on your application. But he's not in charge of hiring," the big canine said as he stood up and shambled over to stare down at the squat vixen, "I am."

She ended up replacing the chapter's enforcer and sleeping with the doberman, who was the leader of the local group. This arrangement provided her with valuable intelligence and the opportunity to slap a lot of criminals around with their boss's sanction. Her police supervisor gave her free reign, even when she began breaking the arms and legs of the minor pushers and drug runners that the gang employed. With fledglings and suppliers alike terrified of a visit from the 'Hulk', as they called her, their chapter was the most profitable one in the gang, drawing the attention of the national leadership.

They invited her to become their main enforcer, the one who would discipline chapter leaders and take care of rivals that encroached on their territory. She accepted, despite her supervisor's wishes that she remain in their home province. Very soon after transferring she was asked to take care of several members of another gang - permanently. This she did with few qualms, they were criminals after all, responsible for a number of drug overdoses and a number of violent killings themselves.

Their deaths were sudden, violent and messy, so much so that they made headlines around the world. Her police bosses were in a panic - undercover agents were not supposed to commit capitol crimes to gain intelligence or cement their position within a gang. But before they could decide whether to let her continue, pull her out or charge her with murder the game was made up for them. Unbeknownst to them the federal drug squad also had an undercover agent in the gang headquarters - a muskrat who was posing as a chemist that tested the quality of the drugs they purchased. While doing so he also took samples to be used as evidence later. They were ready to scoop up the whole gang when the hit on the rival bikers went down. A couple of the leaders talked about how good a job the Hulk had done in front of the RCMP agent and the name of the new enforcer was added to their warrants.

The raids were a success, but the arrest of the blocky vixen was a clusterfuck with federal officers and her both pointing guns and shouting that they were the police. Her chief intervened but the RCMP refused to give her up. She maintained that her actions were justified and stated that she was willing to tell the full story in court. Both police forces wanted to avoid the embarrassment, but they also needed someone to take the fall for the deaths, fearing that the gang leaders would get off when her status as an undercover officer came out.

No one really knew what to do with her until a tall, muscular, golden-furred fox came to speak with the Commissioners of both police forces. The following day the guards found her lifeless body on the cot in her cell. A tall, muscular, golden-furred fox showed up with credentials from the local coroner's office. He pronounced her dead by overdose and took the body away for an autopsy. At the subsequent trail the bike gang leaders were convicted on the muskrat's testimony that they had discussed sending the vixen to kill the rivals and the fact that bits of her fur were found at the scene of the murders on a subsequent search of the premises.

No inquiry into the death of the vixen was ever conducted. Her body was listed as having been cremated by the coroner's office.

As for her, she woke up in a small cement-walled room in an unfamiliar place to find a tall, muscular, golden-furred fox regarding her. Another fox, a black one about her age was standing in the opposite corner pointing a gun with a silencer at her.

"Where am I?" She asked.

"The gates of hell." The golden one replied. "The question is, do you want to enter as a client or as an employee?"

She took in his finely cut expensive suit and the effortless professional stance of the one with a gun. Whatever this bunch was up to, it looked better than what she was doing before.

"Sign me up, Satan." She said.

"Oh, that's not me." The golden fox said, rising from his stool. "You'll meet the Director after you're trained and vetted properly."

When she was made an agent she met the Director, a walrus that acted befuddled but she could see the sharp glint of intelligence in his eyes. He explained that he had brought her on because fit male foxes and slim sexy vixens did not fit in at many of the places they operated, they were too obvious. He needed someone who was not only ruthless but also did not look like the typical secret agent. She had the added attraction of already being officially dead, so if she caused any trouble no one would miss her.

She soon discovered why the golden fox, who turned out to be the Chief of Staff, referred to the Director as the devil - the walrus's Machiavellian schemes and plots to defeat the larger and better equipped Warsaw Pact agencies bordered on evil, which was fine with her. She specialized in up close and personal wet work and was responsible for taking out more enemy agents than the next four agents together.

She had her limits though. While she relished taking out foreign agents and delighted in removing communist government officials, both of which she considered enemies, she would not kill scientists or administrative staff that simply knew too much. She was not adverse; however, to kidnapping and smuggling them back across the Iron, Bamboo or whatever curtain to have their secrets sucked out of them by the F.O.X. psychologists.

She made senior agent quickly, taking the codename Brown to match her dull brown fur and muddy brown eyes.

The sixties were hectic and she was busy, travelling from one hot spot to another to head off the communist agents and eliminate them before they could complete whatever mission they were on. The seventies brought a new threat - terrorism. Traditional police techniques proved ineffective against them. Young, handsome males and seductive females could not penetrate their cells. But Brown, with her common looks and fanatical glare could infiltrate far enough to target the key players - the leaders, the bomb makers, the planners. Live became even more demanding for the brutal assassin.

One day in nineteen eighty-two a new Psychologist, a rat named Doctor Gordon, came to see the Chief of Staff. He was concerned about Brown's state of mental health. He was conscience and to the point. "She is ready to snap." He said.

"She seemed fine the last time I interviewed her." Williams commented.

"That's because she's acting a part and telling you what you want to hear." The rat insisted. "Meanwhile she is drinking more than ever before, losing her temper at the slightest provocation and is having problems concentrating. She is engaging in self-destructive behaviours like taking on more dangerous jobs in a downward spiral that only gets worse the more missions you send her on. She is suffering from something I call Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Everything she does, including hiding it from you, just serves to increase her stress levels. Without treatment a catastrophic event is inevitable."

Williams did not like to think what a catastrophic event involving the Academy's most brutal killer would be like. But he was not entirely convinced that Doctor Gordon's new theory was applicable, and he told the rat so.

"It is not a new theory, but an old one that had been refined." Gordon explained. "What passed for cowardice a hundred years ago began to be called Shell Shock in the First World War when it was recognized that constant danger could cause unbearable stress over time. In the Second World War they realized that the stress accumulates over time and started calling it Battle Fatigue. Post-Vietnam studies revealed that the stress remains even after one is withdrawn from battle, and most recently we have discovered that it is not just war that causes such stress, but any intense, life threatening situation. You don't even have to be the one whose life is being threatened. Paramedics suffer it after responding to major accidents like airline crashes. Coroners in high-crime areas accumulate it over years of service. Even jurors at grisly murder trials report having nightmares and personality disorders for months or years after the trial ended."

"I thought that we conditioned soldiers and agents against such things through realistic training."

"To a degree, yes, but some degree of stress still builds up and we have no protocol to deal with it after the fact. Interestingly the Veteran's clubs where they can talk to people with similar experience seems to have helped the veterans of the two world wars, but new veterans don't feel comfortable in clubs dominated by their father's generation. Our agent's lounge could serve a similar purpose but we ostracise and isolate agents that get too emotional there. I think that we need to change that attitude, but our more immediate problem is agent Brown."

As they were speaking the agent in question was in the Agent's Lounge, about to engage in one of the forms of aberrant behavior that Doctor Gordon had noted in his studies - a tendency to engage in sexual acts with random partners.

It was the first day that the resident students were allowed to drink in the Agent's Lounge and the eight remaining from a class that had twenty four at the start were knocking them back, trying to impress the few agents and analysts that had bothered to come in that day. The ones that had come were mostly there for free drinks from the students. Notably absent were the senior agents White, Yellow, Black and Scarlet - especially Scarlet. Everyone in the all-male class wanted a shot at the Academy's most famous seductress, but most of them were carefully avoiding eye contact with Brown.

Brown did not care; she was used to such treatment. Like attracted like and these foxes were all tall, fit and handsome, perfect for seducing secretaries into revealing their secrets but not much use otherwise, she decided. Still, any swinging dick with enough experience to scratch the itch he had between her legs would do for now. So, she thought, which one?

Most of them looked pretty average. The only one that wasn't avoiding looking at her was a muscular black fox with silver highlights in his fur. He could be an interesting distraction but his unblinking stare was a bit disturbing. She wouldn't mind wiping it off his face but she wasn't in the mood for a fight tonight, at least not that kind of fight.

There was a slimmer grey fox sitting beside the silver one. He was giving each of the females in the room seductive smouldering glances in turn. Brown knew the type - a one penis war on female virginity, the kind that left a female feeling lonely but grateful after a yiffing. Removing that smug look from his face would be much more satisfying.

Brown drained her glass, stood up and moved around the bar to where the two students were sitting with all the subtlety of a battleship. The silver one saw her coming but did not tense up, he just continued to sip his drink, but Brown saw that he was drinking with his left paw while his right was out of sight under the bar. Clever boy, she thought, probably has a knife or a sap under there. The grey one was too busy exchanging air kisses with a young skunk from the admin section to notice her, and that sealed his fate.

She did not even slow down as she passed behind him. Her paw shot out and she lifted him clean off his stool, dangling him by his collar as she headed for the exit. He clutched at his throat ineffectively and tried to kick her but he would have been better off going limp and getting his feet back under him.

"Have fun, Max!" The big silver one called with a chuckle as he slid over beside the skunkette that his friend had been softening up.

Brown kicked open the exit door but she only went halfway down the short hallway that connected the lounge to the dormitory. She turned left and threw open the door to the supply closet that was never locked because most agents could pick it to get in and a few like her would simply kick the door in to gain entry. Once inside she tossed the grey fox onto a tall stack of linen, knocking it back on a forty-five degree angle.

"Your name Max, is it?" He nodded as he massaged his throat. "Get your clothes off Max."

Max looked like he might try to make a run for it but then he straightened up and began to strip with a arrogant grin on his face. Good, she thought, he thinks that he can subdue me with his cock. If he's even close to being as good as he thought he was she would go away satisfied, and if he wasn't she would go away satisfied that she had broken that smug attitude for good.

She shrugged off her clothes while she watched the grey fox dress. As usual for student agents he was tall and fit and relatively free of scars. She was a little disappointed to see the size of his cock, it was okay, nothing worth writing home about, but even a derringer could be deadly in the right paws, she supposed.

To him she looked like one of these female athletes that the East Germans were fielding in the Olympics - broad but flat chested, think limbed and with a protruding belly that would give the uninitiated the impression that she was overweight, until they tried to hit her there and discovered a layer of abdominal muscle so hard and thick that it could be used as a construction material. To his credit he did not shy away from her. He had been pegged early in the training as an elicitator - one who used their charm and personality to get folk taking - and had been gradually introduced to the art of seduction, which included keeping a straight face no matter what you thought of the person you were seducing. But he did not jump in either. Frankly, with so much of her available he had no idea where to start.

She solved the problem for him by stepping forward and pushing him back against the inclined pile of sheets. That brought his head down to her level so she could clamp her muzzle over his and drive her tongue down his throat. At the same time she grouped him between the legs, rubbing his cock with her rough pads most insistently. She lifted one beefy leg rest her foot against the pile of sheets and he took the hint by roughly assaulting her twat with a paw somewhat smaller and softer than hers.

They continued like that for a while - heads rolling, chests thumping, paws rubbing life into soft tissues until she became moist and he grew hard. He expected her to mount him right there but instead she pushed down on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees.

"You tongue should be warmed up by now." She said with an evil grin. "Let's see if it's useful for anything besides bragging and bullshitting."

Max dutifully stuck his head up into the gap between thighs that could rival those of the Austrian body builder that was in the news lately. What he found was as soft and sweet and ready as the quim of any of the young ladies he had ever seduced, maybe even more so. He wondered if lack of use had preserved it's juiciness as he slid his tongue between warm wet labia and worked it up to her hard protruding clit.

She responded with grunts and grinds but also with a steady flow of nectar, the smell of which made him as hard as he ever had been. Forgetting that he was eating a female roughly the size and shape of a tractor he pressed harder and even began caressing her hard thighs and rock-like glutes. Her tail was up and the hole below it was exposed by her one-legged stance, so he dipped the tip of one digit into her gapping twat and then rubbed the puckered hole above it with his moist pad. She signaled consent by shifting around to give him better access.

Max continued to lick and tease her clit as he alternated dipping his digits into her cunt and prodding her anus until it started to spread. Resting his tired tongue he stuck his middle digit into her ass and his thumb up her twat and rubbed the tips together through the thin layer of flesh that separated the two channels. She loved it, and when he pumped both holes at once she even complimented him by calling him a "good little fuck". But she was not going to let him get away with pawing her off to a conclusion.

Just when he thought that he had her at the point of orgasm she pulled off of his fist, grabbed him by the ruff and stood him back on his feet. Then she spun around so that she had her back to the pile of sheets and he was in front of her. She leaned back, knocking the pile of linen a little farther off vertical, spread her legs and looked sternly up at the fox with the six-inch pole sticking out from his groin.

"Time to see if you know how to use that little thing, Max." She said in a gruff voice. "Make me cum with it and I'll let you leave intact."

Max was sure that she was bluffing ....mostly. The Academy would not condone senior agents mutilating the students, would they? Thinking back on the students that had failed the unarmed combat tests, the ones he had last seen leaving on stretchers, he was not so certain. But he did love a challenge, and her scent was very intoxicating even if the sight of her wasn't, so Max closed his eyes and let his other senses guide him in his task.

Max bent his knees and leaned over her. He used a paw to guide his cock to its objective. Once he had the first inch inside her he shuffled into position, placing his paws against the pile of sheets just under her arms. After he did so she lifted her feet off the floor, bending her knees and spreading her massive thighs to give him more room to work - fair was fair after all. Max grunted in appreciation, closed his eyes and began thrusting.

Brown knew that by now the students would have studied some of the techniques to prolong and intensify the sexual experience of the person they were seducing, but they would not have had much opportunity to practice. Max's performance would depend on how well he had studied those techniques and whether he could incorporate them on the fly.

For Max's part, he was desperately trying to remember those lessons while maintaining an erection. Fortunately for him Brown's insides were as smooth and tight as any of the young vixens of his acquaintance, reinforcing his belief that abstinence preserved the youthfulness of the female vagina. But a sweet tight twat worked against him too, in that he could lose track of the objective and come before her... and he did not want to think of what she might do to him if he left her unsatisfied.

He finally remembered a method of minimizing penile stimulation. He alternated deep slow thrusts with short shallow ones to give his cock a chance to cool down between workouts. He changed angle, not only to relive the pressure on his most sensitive parts but also to increase the friction on hers. Keeping his eyes firmly shut lest he lose the mood he imagined that she was the much prettier agent Scarlet and began exploring her face and breasts with his mouth.

He got the best reaction when he stuck his in tricky pink tongue into her ear. Although she initially pulled away she also gave an involuntary moan. When he persisted she leaned her head against his maw and allowed him to explore the depths of her ear canal. Soon she was groaning and snapping at the air in ecstasy while he continued his broken rhythm pounding down below.

The ear stimulation broke her concentration. She stopped resisting or trying to make him cum first began thrusting back with her hips. He did have a clever cock, she admitted, but it wasn't quite enough. She wrapped her powerful arms around his chest, swung her legs around his waist and crossed her ankles under his tail. Then she flexed every muscle she had so that he was driven in and against her with enough force to knock the air out of a weaker fox. She ground her clit against his bony pelvis for a few seconds and then relaxed, allowing him to pull out a ways before repeating the action.

Max had to concentrate on remaining conscious now. She had taken over as far as technique was concerned and the fear of suffocating had driven all thoughts of his orgasm into the background. He used what little spare strength he had to keep his tongue working on the sensitive pink flesh inside her ear while whispering a prayer under his breath.

Brown felt herself getting closer and she redoubled her pace and the intensity of her grip. Max managed to keep up, and keep it up, until she was right on the brink. She slammed him into her three more times in quick succession and then jerked her ear away from his mouth as her insides exploded.

Brown had always had long, intense orgasms, usually after a session that left her and her partner of the moment bruised and bleeding. Hot fluids squirted out of her as she clamped the young fox to her. Every muscle strained and she ground her teeth together in an effort to keep from screaming so loud that the students in the lounge would come running. Max felt like his spine was about to snap, and had he known that she had dispatched more than one target in this very position he might have started screaming himself to bring help.

Down below she continued to grind her clit against Max as her cunt spasmed and sucked at the prick inside it. Max had never felt anything like it - mostly because he had never tried auto-asphyxiation while masturbating. She was holding him so tight that he could not breathe. He head felt light and then all the sensation left his limbs. The only thing he could move or feel was his cock. It felt like her twat was trying to swallow it, and that felt good. The competition won he was free to enjoy that sensation to its fullest, and when he came it was with a mind-blowing eruption accompanied by a blast of sound and colourful images in his head that reminded him of the one and only time he had taken LSD in the seventies.

Brown reluctantly loosened her grip when she saw the tongue lolling out of his maw and his eyes roll back in his head. She didn't want another incident like that time in high school when she put the star linebacker into a coma. He slumped to the floor and she had to toe him out of the way to get her clothes. After a quick wipe with one of the tablecloths destined for the dining hall she dressed and then considered what to do with the stunned fox.

"Your silver buddy will probably be along soon looking for a place to yiff that pretty young skunk." She told Max, even though she was sure he was still too numb to hear her. "If he's a good friend he'll dump her to take care of you. If not ... tough shit." And with that she turned and left the supply closet.

Back in her the dorm she found a note just inside the door of the suite she rated as a senior agent. It seemed that the Chief of Staff wanted to see her first thing in the morning. Now that would be an interesting fuck, she thought as she imagined the muscle bound golden fox naked. The tight Speedo he wore at the Academy pool left nothing to the imagination and what it revealed put the prick she had just experienced to shame. But while he was always respectful to her he didn't seem to be interested in any of the females at the academy. She wondered if he might be gay; it would be just like the old bastard W to flout the rules by hiring a homosexual, she thought, but did he have to hire one that looked so good?

She found one paw wandering down to her groin while the other fumbled for a bottle of rye whiskey that she kept by the door for ease of access. Then she thought of Williams again and put both desires aside for now. It was probably a mission, and a mission needed a clear head. She headed off for a shower and then to bed.

The next morning Williams was pleased to see that agent Brown was clear eyed and appeared rested. What he did not know was that the big vixen was using the stress generated from having a new assignment to fuel the furnace that too many killings too close together had set alight inside her. Too little tension and she would start drinking and fighting and fucking again. Too much and she would snap like an old bow string in a way that was likely to wound whoever was holding the bow at the time - as well as anyone else nearby.

"We have a target in Beirut." Williams told her as he studied her face for the signs that Doctor Gordon had told him to watch out for. "An Abu Nidal planner who has already been responsible for several attacks against western civilians. The analysts believe that if we take him out it will disrupt the next attack, one which may involve hundreds of casualties."

"Hundreds?" She scoffed. "What is he going to do? Crash a blimp into a football stadium?" She was refereeing to a movie that had been popular several years earlier - one called 'Black Sunday'.

"No. It has something to do with passenger planes and office buildings. It's difficult to image how they could pull it off but your target has all the details in his head. He is the penultimate observer of operational security, never writes anything down and only reveals the details when they are ready to implement their attack. Kill him and the plot evaporates."

He slid the mission dossier across the table to her and watched her while she read it. Slight changes in her usually stoic expression revealed shock, worry, determination and resignation in turn. Williams wondered what that all meant, and wished that he had let Doctor Gordon observe the mission briefing. There was no time for second opinions now, however, as the serious of this mission had not been exaggerated - if they failed to stop this plot soon hundreds really would die, and maybe other terrorist groups would be inspired to launch copy-cat attacks.

She closed the file and slid it back to him.

"Think you can handle it?" He asked.

"Piece of cake, Chief." Brown blessed the tall antique desk between them that hid her white-knuckled grip on the arms of her chair.

"Good. Go see the forger for your papers. You fly into Beirut on the third of June."

She had only a few days to prepare so Brown threw herself into the task, working twenty hours a day memorizing the map of Beirut, learning where the various factions had their enclaves, and what words would get her through their checkpoints. It would not be easy penetrating the Abu Nidal group. Even their former masters, the Palestinian Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat, had disowned them. But they would not suspect a vixen, especially one that looked like the local females - stout, hairy and world weary. She didn't even need much in the way of makeup, just a shapeless black dress and head scarf. Christian, Druze or Muslim, all the females of a certain age dressed the same - it was safer that way.

Not that Brown was worried about her safety, or about being caught. She was not going to bring a gun, just a number of small innocuous items that could be used with deadly effect. Even if she was searched and everything confiscated she could still complete the mission if she could get her paws on the planner, who went by the name Al Saifan, the Sword of Allah. Doing so would result in her own death, of course, but Brown was beyond caring about little things like that. As long as she could hold it together long enough to complete this mission maybe, just maybe, the satisfaction of removing such a terrible threat would offset the sense of guilt and doom that had been creeping over her of late.

Brown landed at Beirut international late on the third of June. On her way to the taxi stand she grabbed an English paper and glanced at the headlines. Someone had tried to assassinate the Israeli Ambassador to England in London earlier in the day. The Ambassador was in a coma but was expected to recover, as was one of the attackers who had been shot in the head by the Ambassador's bodyguard. The other two had run off and the police were believed to be closing in on them. Amateurs, she told herself.

Brown was staying in a small hotel in the Christian sector. She was dressed all in black including a black head covering. By adding a beaded belt with a large wooden crucifix she took on the guise of a nun, one of many working the hospitals and orphanages in the divided city, and someone the Christian militias would not dare to hassle. The trip to the hotel passed without incident. She checked in, giving a fake blessing to the clerk, and settled into her room for what should an uneventful night. In the morning she would start her reconnaissance of the Abu Nidal stronghold.

She awoke on the morning of the forth to the sound of jets and distant explosions. Rushing to her window she saw aircraft with the blue Star of David flying low over the Muslim sector. They were dropping bombs before departing at high speed. Brown rushed to dress and headed to the lobby to find out what was going on.

"The news is reporting that the assassins in London have been caught." The day clerk informed her. "It is said that they were with Arafat's PLO or possibly Abu Nidal. The Israelis have retaliated by bombing the neighbourhoods they inhabit. But their aim is not always so good. Authorities warn everyone in the surrounding areas to stay under cover."

It proved to be too dangerous to approach the target area that day. Not only where the planes dropping bombs and strafing the streets but the sudden uproar had set the militias on edge. There had been an uneasy peace since the civil war in seventy-five and now anti-Israeli factions attacked those perceived to be pro-Israeli. Other groups attacked their neighbours seeking to gain territory in the confusion. The ruling Ba'ath party was powerless to stop any of it. Loose alliances crumbled in the ensuing panic.

The fifth was not much better, although dressed as a nun Brown was able to move freely in the areas held by the Christian Militia. She moved from outpost to outpost with a bag of first aid supplies she had liberated from the local hospital in the confusion, tending to the wounded as all agents are trained to do and gathering information. By dusk she had the outlines of a plan and a route that would take her from this sector to the target neighbourhood - provided it was still standing.

Brown set out to check her route on the sixth, only to discover a new complication. The Israelites had launched an invasion in the early hours. They were sweeping around the United Nations Observer Force put in place after the last war and pushing the unprepared Army of Lebanon back toward Beirut. Talk on the street was that they intended to isolate the Palestinian neighbourhoods and destroy the PLO and its splinter groups for good. Arafat was blaming the Abu Nidal faction and had issued a death warrant for their leader, hoping that his death would appease the Israelis. The inter-factional fighting would make things even more difficult for her.

Brown knew that she would have to move fast. Once the Israeli army arrived it would be all but impossible to infiltrate the Abu Nidal enclave. She spent the day confirming the positions of the rival militias and checking passageways between buildings on the borders of their territories. By dusk she was sure that she could get through, but not at night, at night sentries and patrols shot first and checked identification later, all under indiscriminate bombing from the Israeli Air Force.

She returned to her hotel to prepare herself and get some rest. Who knew how long it would be before she would sleep in a real bed again? Before lying down she set her mental alarm clock to rouse her an hour before dawn.

She headed out at first light on the seventh, still dressed as a nun, weaving her way through back streets and alleys. At one point she entered a building controlled by a Christian Militia that was built up against one in the Muslim sector. She went to the basement and kicked a hole in a poorly made brick wall that separated the boiler rooms of the two buildings. There she took off the rosary and hid it under a pile of debris before rearranging her head covering to resemble a hijab. With her snout and facial fur covered she could have been from almost any species. The little adjustments changed her appearance so that when she exited the second building on the Muslim side all the militia members there saw was a stout observant female that could have been any one of their mothers.

She had not ventured this far on her reconnaissance but there were several landmarks to navigate by, the chief being the bullet-ridden Holiday Inn building, which had changed paws several times during and since the Civil War seven years before. It was still the tallest structure in the city and was a desirable observation post and firing platform. She did not know who held it at the moment but it was not the Abu Nidal group, so she passed it by, hoping that there were no Christian snipers there that would delight in picking off a Muslim female.

The shelling started when she was two blocks past the abandoned hotel. From the sound of the shells it was long range artillery. Probably the Israelites softening up the city as they approached, she suspected. The thought ignited a flash of anger. How draw they shell indiscriminately? One of the reasons the terror groups lived in the city was to take advantage of the dense population of innocents - species shields the press called it. By dropping shells from outside their observation range they were just as likely to kill females, children and the elderly as they were terrorists, or an unannounced F.O.X. agent, for that matter.

She pulled her head covering in tighter as if that might help ward off shrapnel or falling bricks and continued with her mission.

At the end of the next block she came to a 'T' junction where she would have to turn left to get to the neighbourhood she wanted. No one was about so she used a mirror to peer carefully around the corner. Not at all unexpectedly there was a checkpoint halfway down the next block, and they were flying the flag of the Abu Nidal group.

Brown's Arabic was good, but she would have a hard time passing as a Palestinian. Her original plan was going to be to pretend to be bringing a message from Al Saifan's Saudi Arabian sister-in-law, but now the group would on the alert for Israeli spies and PLO assassins. They might not let anyone they did not recognize through their checkpoints.

She was debating whether to try anyways or look for an alternative route when she heard a cry come from a building nearby. The upper floor of that building had collapsed after one of the air strikes and it looked like the rest would soon follow. Certainly it would not take more than a single shell to complete the job. The whimpering was making it hard for her to concentrate but she thought that the building might have a back exit onto an alley that might get her around the checkpoint. Brown entered the building.

To her disappointment brown found that the back of the building had already collapsed down to the ground floor. She was going to try another when a shell landed less than a block away, shaking the building and raining plaster down on her head. After the noise abated and the dust cleared the sound of crying came again, but louder this time.

It seemed to be coming from a stairwell leading down to the basement. Brown went down on the hope that there would be a coal chute or something leading back up to the alley. What she found was a large room with small desks and examples of Arabic writing, numbers and simple math arranged on the walls. A classroom, she surmised.

The wailing was coming from the back of the room where a section of the concrete ceiling had collapsed. Brown moved in closer to discover a dozen kits, cubs and pups from several middle-eastern species gathered around the motionless body of an adult female. The pool of blood seeping out from around the female's hijab and the jagged chunk of concrete by her head told Brown she needed to know.

One of the children, a dessert fox kit no more than eight years old, looked up and saw Brown. "Something is wrong with teacher." The kit sobbed. "She does not move or speak, yet her eyes are open."

Brown brushed the kit out of her way and bent to examine the teacher. Her eyes were wide open but dull and lifeless. As she suspected, death had been sudden and swift. "Your teacher has gone to be with Allah." She told the kit as she reached down to close the female's eyes.

The wailing intensified. The sound made her chest ache for some reason. Brown wanted to block it out because she had a mission to get on with, but she was compelled to linger until she could comfort the children. She started by covering up the teacher's face and herding them to the opposite corner of the room.

"Now, quiet down." She demanded, with little effect. She decided to try something else. "Who is the oldest here?" She asked.

The kit who had spoken earlier held up her paw. "I am, Madam. My name is Jasmine."

"Well Jasmine, you are now in charge. I want you to take care of the rest until your parents come to get you. Keep them here in this corner, away from ...." she gestured to the body in the other corner.

"But what about the building, Madam? Each time a bomb goes off it shakes and more of the ceiling falls. It killed teacher and it will kill us! I do not want to stay here."

The other children clamoured their agreement. "Please, Madam. Please take us to our parents."

The kit was looking up at Brown with wide, hazel eyes. The other children had fallen quiet and were doing the same. Brown did not want to look at them but she was drawn in by those wide eyed stares and once she made eye contact she was locked into them.

She experienced something that she had never felt before, a truly strange sensation. First the pain in her chest faded and then a warm glow spread through her. The more she looked into those eyes the more it spread. It was like the effect the dopamine they had given her during resistance to interrogation training. The drug was supposed to make one happy and pliant, but whatever those eyes had unleashed made her want to reach out and gather them all to her chest, hold them tight and keep them safe.

Brown resisted, as she had been trained to do. She called up images of gore and death that were supposed to negate the good feelings and turn her mind against her interrogators. But it wasn't working this time. The bloody bodies in her mind had the faces of the children which only served to reinforce the need to protect them. Just then, as if to emphasize the danger they were in, another shell landed nearby shaking the building and covering them all with grey dust from the broken ceiling.

"Alright, alright, I'll take you; just stop looking at me like that."

The serious little faces transformed into smiles of hope and Brown found herself smiling back. She wiped it away and replaced it with a stern frown.

"I have other, uhm, children of my own to care for, but I will take you to your parents, or to one of your parents, whoever lives closest. Who would that be Jasmine?"

The kit beamed. "Oh, that is easy, Madam. We all live in the same building, north of here, on the market street. My father is there now and he can see to the safety of the rest."

"The market street two blocks north?" Brown asked in a voice calmer than she felt. "The one just past the checkpoint around the corner?"

"Yes, Madam, exactly!" The child cried excitedly.

"And they know you at that checkpoint?"

"Oh yes. We pass through it every day coming and going from school."

"Perfect, I mean, excellent. I would not want to be stopped for bringing a pack of strangers in. And please, do not call me Madam. Call me auntie instead."

That seemed to delight the kit, whose tan fur did resemble that of Brown's dust covered face. "Yes, Auntie."

Brown stood. "Alright children, hold each other's paws and follow me."

The children lined up dutifully, paw in paw, with jasmine in the lead. Before Brown could stop her the kit slipped her small paw into the vixen's large rough appendage. Brown looked down at it. It looked tiny, and felt soft and delicate. It also felt warm and good. Without thinking she gave it a squeeze. That made the little desert fox smile. Brown noticed an ache in her cheeks and realized that she was smiling back.

Brown led them up the stairs but paused in the lobby. She waited for the barrage to stop and then lead them out onto the deserted street. With Jasmine beside her she boldly turned the corner and strode right up to the checkpoint.

Guns came up as they approached, Soviet AK-47s, the preferred weapon of terrorists everywhere. Brown slowed to a stop but before she could open her mouth to speak Jasmine called out to one of the guards.

"Abdul! Brother! It is me, Jasmine!"

A desert fox somewhat larger than Jasmine but still smaller then Brown broke from the group and ran forward."Jasmine! What are you doing out during the shelling!" He turned to brown with an angry glare. "You should have kept them at the school."

Again, Jasmine answered before Brown could speak. "The ceiling collapsed, Abdul. Teacher was killed. We would have all died too if Auntie had not rescued us."

Abdul looked back and forth between the two in disbelief.

"It is true." Brown confirmed the kit's slightly exaggerated story in as few words as possible so not to show her foreign accent.

"Then Father will want to thank you. Jasmine, take the rest of the children to the bunker under the butcher shop and then take this venerated lady to Father. Quickly now, the hated Jews are getting closer and dropping shells on us more frequently."

Jasmine nodded eagerly and tugged at Brown's paw as the males moved the barricade aside to let them in. They trotted down the street, through the market and up a lane that ended in a butcher shop. There another guard who recognized the children let the rest inside where they had converted an old cold storage room into a bomb shelter while Jasmine entered a different building with Brown in tow.

Brown was plotting how she would get away from the kit and her sure to be effusively grateful father so she could continue her hunt for Al Saifan when she noticed how many armed males were hanging around the lobby of the building they had entered. It was obviously the group's headquarters. Along with a couple of dozen near the front door there was a pair at the elevators and another by the stairs. They straightened up as Jasmine approached, eyeing Brown suspiciously.

Jasmine repeated her story of death and rescue, adding, "Father wants to see Auntie to thank her personally."

The guard, a Syrian brown bear almost as broad as Brown and twice as ugly shrugged and stood aside to let them pass. As they did she felt a paw grope her considerable bottom.

"I thought I knew all the widows in Abu Nidal, but I don't know how I missed you." He whispered from behind her. "I'm off duty in a few minutes. When the planner is done with you ask for Hassan."

Brown would have broken the fellow's arm in three places but for two things. First, she had to play the submissive, pious Muslim female and laying a paw on a male would mean death. Second, he had referred to Abu Nidal group, and the Planner. Could it be that the kit she had saved was related to her target, Al Saifan?

There were more guards upstairs. Whoever they were going to see was very important to their organization, Brown thought. But Jasmine's presence acted like a free pass backstage at a Bruce Springsteen concert and she soon found herself face to face with Jasmine's father.

She was too stunned at first to do more than mumble in response to the older desert fox's expressions of gratitude. It was indeed Al Saifan; she recognized his face from the single blurry photo they had on file. As if to confirm it the office he was using was papered with calculations of blast strength and photos of prominent landmarks - Buckingham Palace, the US Capitol, the UN building in New York and the Eiffel Tower, along with a pair of tall skyscrapers that looked vaguely familiar. There was also a cutaway model of a Boeing 747 showing where the cries seats and cockpit was in relation to the passenger seating.

So it was true, she thought, they are planning on hijacking a plane and crashing it into an occupied building. The thought hardened her recently softened heart. She dropped Jasmines paw and reached under her robe for one of her devices.

"You will stay for diner, of course." Al Saifan said when he was finished thanking her. "And if there is anything that I can do for you or your family just name it and it will be done."

"There is one thing that you could help with." Brown said. "But it is a bit ... delicate. Jasmine, why do you not go join the other children while your father and I talk?"

"No need for that." The desert fox said, tossing the fur on the child's head. "Sadly, she has seen so much these last few years that I sure nothing you can say that will shock her. Jasmine, go play in the corner while Auntie and I talk."

The kit dutifully skittered off to the other side of the room, taking the model airplane to play with as she went.

"We will just keep our voices low." Al Saifan said as he gestured for Brown to sit in a comfortable chair beside him. "Now, what can I do for you?"

Brown was beside herself. It was the perfect opportunity to kill the terrorist but she found herself hesitating. How could she kill the father of the kit she had just saved in front of the little one? The child would be traumatized. She would scream and cry and ... and that meant that Brown would have to quiet her. But how could she calm the child when she had just killed her father? Jasmine would hate her! The thought brought a stab of real pain to Brown's heart.

Yes, she told herself, the kit would hate her and fight her and scream and wail and the guards would come and she would be killed ... unless she killed the kit also.

For the first time since her humiliations in grade school Brown found tears streaming from her eyes as she struggled to breathe.

Al Saifan mistook her silent frustration for embarrassment. "Come now, madam, do not be shy. What is it that is bothering you?"

"Hassan!" Brown blurted out. "He is an animal. He ... he ... he put his paws on me! Made lewd proposals. I am but a poor pious widow, sir. I could not face him again. Perhaps you could escort me out past the checkpoint; so that I may get home safe from ... from ... oh I cannot say in front of the child!" It was a risky play. Some Muslim males believed that the female victim of sexual assault was as guilty as the male. She prayed that Al Saifan was not one of those.

The compassion on the planner's face changed to an angry scowl that made his muzzle wrinkle and exposed sharp teeth. "Hassan. I have warned him repeatedly not to ..." he glanced at his daughter, "Not to ... you know. I shall have him brought here at once! Do you have any witnesses to these acts?" The Koran demanded four witnesses to a lewd act, otherwise the male would be deemed innocent.

"Yes sir, all the guards in the lobby witnessed it." She lied to buy time. "But I could not stand the shame of facing him and repeating these acts in public! Please, interview the witnesses after I am gone, when you get back from escorting me home."

"You are truly pious, but I must deal with him right away." Al Saifan jumped to his feet. "But do not fear, I shall have one of my more trustworthy guards escort you home so you do not have to face him." He called out and a voice answered. Al Saifan issued his orders as Brown stood to get closer to the fox. The escort would be there shortly.

She ran the pad of her thumb along the spring steel blade she had pulled from one of her undergarments. It was the moment of truth. She must act before the guard returned or abandon all hope of completing this mission and setting back their plans to cause mass destruction. A touch distracted her. Looking down she saw that Jasmine had moved in quietly and taken her other paw in both of her tiny little ones.

"Thank You, Auntie, from me and all the children. Will you come back to see us when it is safe?"

Several emotions crossed Brown's face before she forced it into a neutral expression. Then there was sound of feet running up the stairs, and the paw beneath her robes moved.

She slid the blade back into its hiding place and brought the paw out empty. "Of course I will, child." She said, trying to sound assuring as three jackals entered the room.

"Said, take two others and go get Hassan. Take him to the interrogation room and hold him there until I come to you. Assif, you will escort this lady home, soon. First I want you to help Rashid gather up these papers for me. We must get them out of Beirut before the Israelis surround the city. Once they are packed Rashid and I will be enough to carry them through the tunnels."

Said left and the other two set about tearing down plans and photos and rolling then before stuffing them in canvass tubes. Evidently Al Saifan had anticipated such an attack and prepared for it in advance. No wonder the desert fox was so good at his job, Brown mused, but this meant total failure for her. Even if she killed Al Saifan in a suicidal rush his work would be saved and many creatures would die. She should kill him, she thought, then try to overcome the others, burn the plans.

But she could not bring herself to do it, not with the little kit holding her paw and looking at her lovingly.

There was a shrill whistling sound that made the three males look up in fear. Then came the roar of the jet that had dropped the whistling bomb climbing out of anti-aircraft gun range. Then the world shock and wall of pain stuck Brown with a blinding fiery flash.

Both she and Al Saifan screamed out the name Jasmine before everything went black.

Brown did not know how long she was unconscious but when she came to the room was lit by an ethereal glow. It took her a while to figure out that it was because the outer wall of the building was gone and the sunlight was being filtered through the thick cloud of cement dust that its destruction had created.

Brown stood and looked around the room. Everything was broken and all the papers they had been collecting were burning. The three males, who had been closest to the wall, had borne most of the brunt of the explosion. None of them were complete enough to still be alive but there was no sign of their missing limbs and heads. She only knew that one of them was Al Saifan from the striped robe he had been wearing.

She looked around in a panic. She must get Jasmine out of there before she saw her father's corpse. Where had the child gotten to? She began throwing rubble out into the street below in a desperate search.

She found the kit under the desktop, which had come off its pedestal in one, big, solid piece. The child looked unharmed, peaceful even, but she was not breathing, and the blood dripping from her ears explained why. The shock wave had killed her before the desk top fell on her. She had just been too small and fragile to withstand it, unlike Brown whose skull had been toughened in a thousand fights.

She picked up the body as fresh tears flowed down her cheeks and dripped on the still, dusty face. She wanted to scream out her anger but her grief overwhelmed it. Wails of sadness were ripped from her as she crushed the tiny figure to her bosom.

Time seemed to have come to a stop but eventually Brown realized that she would have to get moving. Bombs such as the one that exploded outside were often guided to their targets by an operative on the ground; she knew, she had done it before. The surviving terrorists might suspect that the stranger in their midst might have something to do with it. She could hear shouts and crying from the street. It was time to go.

As gently as she could she placed the body of Jasmine on the floor in a relatively clear space. Then she stumbled to the ragged edge of the intact portion of the building and looked out on the street. It was a nightmare scene of blood and body parts, of wailing females and desperate males working their way to then through the rubble.

She saw that the Israelis had missed their target, presumably the building she was in, by a wide margin. Instead the bomb had come down on the butcher shop, leaving nothing but a smoking hole that was twenty feet deep. There would be nothing left of the shelter, or any of its inhabitants. All the children she saved, she realized, were dead.

Brown left in a daze, numbed by the level of destruction and the effect the deaths children were having on her. Had the bombs she called down on some of her targets in the past killed females and children, she wondered. She had always tried to minimise collateral damage but one never knew for sure. Her only solace was that the children would have died anyway in the basement school. And holding on to that she forced herself to move out of the office, down the stairs and out onto the street.

The checkpoint was abandoned and she was able to scramble over the barricade easily. Half a block later she turned left to retrace her route, back to the hole she had made and the catholic paraphernalia she had left there. But before she went ten steps she froze.

The building where the school was located was still standing. She entered in a trance and drifted down the stairs to the classroom. It had not changed a bit. The teacher was still dead in the back corner, but not an ounce more of concrete had fallen since she took the children out. If she had left them here, as she was inclined to at first, they would still be alive.

"My fault." She mumbled as she stumbled out. "All my fault." She was still repeating it the next day when the Red Crescent teams sent in to evacuate refugees found her wandering around the neighbourhood.

The F.O.X. Resident Agent from Damascus found her in one of the camps two weeks later. A strange, stocky vixen had been reported in Al Saifan's presence just before the attack and she had been presumed to have died in the attack. But the resident had spread the word that would pay well for news should her body ever be recovered, and that word had reached the smugglers and enablers that thrive in every refugee camp. One of them sent word that an addled vixen matching the description was in one of the camps. For a fee he would tell them which one. "But you should hurry, effendi," the messenger advised, "because her behaviour is exceedingly strange. She wanders about calling out for the children to run, to hide, and breaks into tears whenever she sees a young fox."

Williams arranged for her to be extracted and placed her under the care of their new psychologist, Doctor Gordon. It was several weeks before the rat could coax the full story out of the burly vixen, and longer before he was ready to recommend what to do about her.

"She is, essentially, broken." Gordon told Williams when he was called in to discuss his report. "She feels a deep seated guilt for the death of the children that will haunt her for years, if not for the rest of her life. At the same time she has developed grave doubts about the work we do here and her part in it. She is still loyal but she will never go to the field again. I doubt that she would even be able to work in the Academy as an instructor; demonstrating killing moves could trigger another fugue state and who knows what she could do. For the safety of the students I would advise against it."

"So you think that we should let her go?" Dismissing agents was always a tricky thing. Even though they were sworn to secrecy for life - with deadly consequences should they violate that rule - there was not much work available for them outside of war zones. It was not unknown to have a former agent become a target by working for the wrong side in a conflict.

"No, I'm not suggesting that at all." Gordon chided. "She is already socially isolated and once away from the Academy she would have no support system whatsoever. Even though it will take some time before she reintegrates herself with the agents that do the, uh, wet work she still needs to be around folk that understand her, that she can relate with, just not in a paws-on manner. Without that minimal interaction she will likely commit suicide inside six months, or do something worse."

Williams could imagine what 'worse' would mean, given Browns particular skill set.

Gordon continued. "She has improved a lot since we brought her back here but she has a long way to go. She is able to function now but she is mistrustful of adults and authority figures, blaming them for the actions that resulted in so many children's deaths. At the moment sitting in the park watching the children play is about all that she can handle, but keeping her here will make it easier to ensure she sticks to her treatment schedule and monitor her progress. Maybe you could find her something with the support staff? "

Williams thought about that. He had reviewed Brown's file and she had no verifiable or even discernible skills apart from rendering violence upon the state's enemies. She did not know anything about mechanics, hated yard work, sucked at typing and filing and did not drive very well. Perhaps she could be retrained in a trade that fitted her personality, which had been altered by the trauma in Beirut. As the doctor had alluded to she was still scoring high on the loyalty matrix but had developed an aversion to violence. The only other trait worthy of note was the one rating her sense of compassion and the need to protect the helpless - it had been low when she was tested as a student but was now at the top of the scale. But what kind of work did an espionage agency have that would fit that profile?

Just then they were interrupted by the squeal of youthful laughter as a pair of piglets crashed tough the office door and ran twice around the room before a very pregnant sow waddled in and corralled them.

"Sorry about that, Chief." The sow apologised as she hustled the two piggies out. "My sitter cancelled at the last minute and there was no one else to watch them. It won't happen again.

Williams was sure that it wouldn't, mostly because Annabelle was leaving on maternity leave again and had asked for a transfer to a position that was less demanding than being the executive secretary to the agency's Director and Chief of Staff. He was interviewing a promising party poodle for the position later in the week. But the intrusion had broken his concentration and the irritation showed in his face.

"Really Chief, I can't apologise enough." The sow said, afraid that Williams might give her a bad assignment when she returned after the birth of her third. "It's just ... well ... you know, if we had one of those new Day Care centres nearby that I could have enrolled them in ... but out here on the Experimental Farm where there's no one else around ... " she started sobbing. "Sorry ... sorry. Hormones speaking. I'll get their father to come get them. Sorry Chief."

Williams watched the door for a few moments after she had closed it before turning back to Doctor Gordon.

"I have a crazy idea that I would like your opinion on, Doctor."

* * * * *

"And that is how we ended up with both a Day Care centre and a second career for Agent Brown." Williams concluded. "We sent her to Algonquin College to study early childhood education and she worked her way up from assistant caregiver to the head of the facility. It is not only a very nurturing place but also most likely the safest place in the world to keep a pre-school cub or kit. Plus, she has established a top-notch program for those that require special attention. As for her recovery, it was years before she would set foot in here and longer before she could enjoy a beer and a chat with anyone involved in the, uh, wet end of our business."

Marcel, who was very protective of the helpless himself, looked devastated. "I should go find her and apologise." He said.

"You do that." Williams replied. "But keep it generic. Don't let on about what I told you because it would only bring back the shame she feels when she thinks about those days. Can you do that?"

"Sure." Marcel drained what was left of his soft drink and headed out to track down Missus Brown.

Then Williams turned to me. "Asking why she changed jobs may have seemed like an innocent enough question, but remember the kind of folk you are dealing with here and use as much discretion as possible, understand?"

I assured him I would be more careful in the future and he got up to leave, but before he did he added one more piece of advice.

"Whatever you do, don't ask 'Half-Cocked' Neilson how he got his nickname. Not unless you are holding a shield and a stun gun." And with that he was gone.