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Chapter 4 - Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity." - Sun Tzu

It was dark already in Ottawa by the time Silver and Vikki finished their drinks and decided to take advantage of the restaurants recently re-opened for dining in. Halfway around the earth, however, it was already the next day and the sun had just risen on Hainan Island, China's southernmost province.

The sky was clear and the sea was calm out on Daly Bay, where a Cossack fox named Hu Lianmeng was idling along the coast slowly in a ten-metre fishing boat that was typical for the region. What was not typical was the amount, design and purpose of the electronics onboard.

Hu, affectionately known as 'Genghis' by his fellow agents, was the Head of Station for FOX's Asian office, which he ran out of Singapore. As Head of Station he was the equivalent of a Senior Agent. He had chosen Jade as his codename and hoped to keep it when he eventually returned to Ottawa for regular duty.

In case he was stopped for an inspection Hu was using a false identity, that of a real Chinese mariner from another province, and fake papers showing that the mariner had recently purchased a fishing boat and acquired a license to troll the waters around Hainan. The cables, lines and stays all served as antennae for collecting signals intelligence and communicating the data back to Canada. All the advanced electronics were hidden below the surface with their controls disguised as regular fishing radar and sonar controls. He also had a supply of unusually strong Baijiu liquor and a lot of cash to ensure that the inspectors did not look to closely.

Normally, as Head of Station, Hu would only come to China himself to recruit a high-level contact or to supervise a tricky operation. He was here in Daly Bay today though because such a contact had tipped him off about a very special delivery, and because Hu relished every opportunity he could get to take the spy trawler out. The weather was nice this time of year in the South China Sea.

His source in the Chinese Space program had indicated that a very special rocket was to be delivered to Wenchang today.

Wenchang was a rocket launch site, and at nineteen degrees North of the equator, the most southerly one that the Chinese had. That allowed for the increase in payload necessary to launch components of the Tiangong Space Station on the latest of their operational launch vehicles, the Long March 8. It would also be the launch site for the Chinese Mars Mission, using the Long March 9, which was still in development; or maybe not.

The two LM-8s needed to complete the space station were already on site. China had announced that a third rocket would be delivered as a backup in case one of the others did not check out completely okay. This was not considered unusual, as the LM-8 was a relatively new rocket and the Chinese abhorred failure and embarrassment above all else, so they would not launch a rocket that did not check out perfectly. Wenchang had two assembly buildings and three launch pads so while the first two were being checked out the third could be assembled but left unfueled just in case it was needed.

One thing that was unusual about Wenchang was that they took delivery of rocket components right on the beach just south of the launch pads.

Rocket components were sealed in weatherproof containers that were normally sent by train to their assembly and launch sites. But Hainan had no rail link to the mainland, so the containers would have to come by tractor-trailer on the largest ferry. Doing that would disrupt the flow of commerce that was vital to keeping the citizens faith in the government and expose the shipment to a number of security risks. So instead, the components were delivered directly to the launch facility by military landing craft. The only things missing would be the flight controls and the payload.

Normally when this happened the Chinese Navy closed down the waters of Dalu Bay, intercepting and inspecting every vessel anywhere near the restricted zone. But today they had not, and according to Hu's source, for a very good reason.

The delivery, and the announced closure, was announced for three days hence, when a LM-8 would actually be delivered, under the watchful satellite eyes of the Western nations. Today's unscheduled delivery, however, was so secret that all the normal security precautions had been waived, lest they tip off the intelligence collectors. The reason it was so secret, according to Hu's source, was that it was actually the first working prototype of the LM-9, the rocket that would eventually carry China's first manned mission to Mars.

Allied analysts claimed that the LM-9 was still eight to ten years away from its first test flight, but if Hu's source was correct the program could be far ahead of that schedule, and further along than the American Mars mission. Hu's source claimed that once on site the components would be taken directly to one of the recently vacated assembly buildings where it would be put together in secret. After the scheduled space station launches, they would move it to a launch building on a night when no satellites were overhead and launch it several days later, perhaps while manufacturing a crisis elsewhere to distract the satellites.

Today was another one of those blind spots when the allied satellites were not in a good position to watch the island of Hainan, and someone else's source in Beijing had leaked that the North Koreans were perhaps testing a new ballistic missile today, a much more accessible and provocative target. Hu knew which site he would be aiming the satellites at if he was the Mission Controller, and it would not be here in the sunny South China Sea.

But that was okay, because he was here to take imagery and measure electronic signatures for the analysts to pour over if his source was right. And if he was wrong, then he would have had a few relaxing days at sea and gotten some good fishing in. Something he planned on doing whether the rocket showed up or not.

High up on the mast, under white plastic dome that bore the markings of a popular Chinese antennae company, a miniaturized over-the horizon radar unit detected a vessel of considerable size approaching the Wenchang beach. Hu reeled in the one line that actually had a hook and bait and climbed up on the top of the main cabin with a pair of very powerful binoculars.

After a while he could make out the silhouette of a boxy ship coming straight for the beach. It was a Roll on - Roll off vessel. These Ro-Ro ships typically had a large ramp on the bow, allowing large trucks or military equipment likes tanks and self-propelled artillery to drive directly onto the beach. It was the same type that the Chinese usually used for rocket deliveries. So far so good, he told himself as he climbed down and entered the cabin.

From this level he could only see the sides of the Ro-Ro, but the camera mounted on top of the radar dome was higher than the gunwales of the incoming ship and from it he could see the rust-coloured containers that the Chinese used to ship rocket components in.

Hu had done his homework and knew that the LM-8 was shipped in seven containers: Three large ones holding the three main stages and four smaller ones for the booster rockets. Each container would be a specific length and diameter.

Right off he knew that this shipment was different. There were three large containers, true, but he counted six smaller ones instead of four. A quick measurement with the photogrammetry equipment built into the camera confirmed that the three large containers were larger than those known to used for the LM-8. Both the larger containers and the increased number of booster rockets fit what they knew about the LM-9.

Bingo, he told himself, although he never actually played the game.

Hu worked the shutter to capture some images of the containers with the measurements superimposed on them and sent them immediately up to a satellite that would download them into FOX's databanks. He already had enough intelligence to justify the trip, but he intended to keep collecting as long as he could. Once the components were unloaded on the beach and taken away he would shut down the collection equipment and go back to fishing as he slowly left the area, hopefully catching something nice for supper on the way.

After checking the monitors Hu determined that his boat was not attracting any undue attention. He was several kilometres away from the course of the Ro-Ro and drifting away from their route. There was nothing in the water around him bigger than a sea bass and the only mechanical sounds other than the Ro-Ro was a distant submarine far out to sea. Perhaps a Chinese ballistic missile sub returning from patrol, Hu speculated. There were also some small returns the size of large dolphins or minke whales closing in on the barge, but that was not unusual; the cetaceans often followed large ships to feed off the fish churned up by the large propellers.

The Ro-Ro was approaching the shallows. Hu swung his bingos to the beach to see what was going on there. Steel mesh mats were being unrolled so that the heavy tractor-trailers transporting the components could drive straight over the sand to the reinforced concrete roads that lead to the main site. Counter-Surveillance vans were deploying their equipment, so Hu shut off his active collectors, relying on the passive ones to warn him of unwanted guests.

While he was doing so he heard a dull 'boom' from the direction of the Ro-Ro. Whipping his binoculars to his face he saw that black smoke was rising on the near side of the ship. Before his eyes it developed a list to his side. Whatever had gone wrong had obviously opened a large hole in the hull below the water line.

Through the powerful binoculars he could see individuals on the tilted ship running about. They were ignoring the rocket components and focusing on the part of the ship where the smoke and steam continued to rise. Back on shore the beach component, being unable to help, was in full panic.

The tractor-trailers had been securely chained to the deck of the Ro-Ro, but the cannisters on them had only been lightly secured to the trailers, no more so than they would have been for a typical Chinese road move. While that was probably sufficient to hold them in place over potholes and bumps it was inadequate for the angle that the ship was at as the starboard side continued to take on water. When the first one snapped the crew realized the danger and the brave ones rushed to do something about it. When they were cut down by flailing chains the rest retreated and began to abandon ship.

Hu watched in horror as the cannisters began to tumble off their trailers and over the side. The loss of the first few did nothing to slow the sinking of the ship, and before long all nine cannisters had gone overboard.

He raced over to the controls and threw all the switches. no longer concerned about keeping a low profile he activated the sonar, one of the most advanced of its kind. It provided a 3-D view of what was going on under the water. He set the range and the direction to the sinking ship then adjusted it for a wide-angle view in an attempt to track the descent of the cannisters. Maybe if he could pinpoint the location of the cannisters on the seabed the Americans would be interested in sending a SEAL team in for a look-see.

He did indeed pick up the slowly descending cannisters, they appeared to be more buoyant than he had expected, but he was picking up something else besides, a swarm of small objects around the cannisters. The analytical unit in the sonar reported them as sea sledges based on the turbulence.

They seemed to be attaching cables to the cannisters. The operators on the sleds worked quickly and efficiently and soon all nine containers were suspended in the water halfway between the surface and the seabed.

Behind them Hu saw the Ro-Ro sinking rapidly nose-down, surrounded by debris and the occasional body. It hit the bottom hard and crumpled.

The sea sleds began to push the cannisters out to sea. Swivelling the scope in that direction revealed another contact, a big one. Looking in the monitor Hu saw a dark shadow twice as large as the ship that had caried the rocket approaching the sleds. It was a gigantic submarine, easily as big as the Russian Typhoon class ballistic missile carrier. The computer on the sonar identified it as such at first, but then switched to 'unknown' as the signal became clearer.

As far as Hu knew the Chinese had nothing that big in their inventory. It was all but impossible to build and launch a submarine that size without someone noticing, and he kept current on all the intelligence on China. The Russians had retired all but one of their Typhoons, as he recalled, with the last one being deployed to the northern fleet. Could this be some kind of American prototype no one had heard about coming in close to check out the commotion? Hu doubted it, no Captain would risk his boomer so close to hostile shores.

His theory was proven correct as the big sub approached the towed cannisters and its front end opened up like a clamshell. The cannisters went in, one by one, and after the last had disappeared inside the doors closed again.

He realized that what he had witnessed was all planned. Someone else with knowledge of the delivery had sabotaged the Chinese delivery and stollen the components of their most sophisticated rocket.

Hu wondered briefly who could be behind it, but then the big sub began to turn towards his boat.

Being rammed by the sub was unlikely, but Hu was not going to take his chances, so he turned the helm away from the track of the submarine and increased the speed.

Apart from the monstrous sub there was the Chinese Coast Guard to worry about. They had been holding back in order to preserve the illusion that it was just another ordinary day at Wenchang, but they would be heading in this direction at full speed from every point of the compass now that the delivery had become a recovery operation. Any vessel in the vicinity when they arrived was sure to be detained or sunk outright to eliminate any witnesses to this embarrassment.

He did not think that his little fishing vessel would be their first concern though. If they had sonar sensors around the site, which was likely, they would also have detected the sub when it came in close to retrieve the cannisters. Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft and frigates were sure to be deployed immediately, and Hu did not want to be anywhere near the sub when they arrived.

He reeled in his sensors and engaged the main engines as he turned away from the path of the big sub. But just before he did, he fired off a small slow moving underwater missile that was designed to move like a fish. Once it detected the target it would approach from below and slow down for a soft impact. The nose was sticky, because military subs generally have anti-magnetic coating. The tip would break off on impact and the body of the marine missile would sink to the bottom.

In the tip was a small transponder that was powered by the flow of water around it. It would emit an extremely low frequency, or ELF, signal on a different frequency than any of the known submarine communications systems, like the Russian ZEVS, or Zeus network. Those signals would go out at seven minutes after the hour to avoid routine military communications that usually occur on the hour, or the half hour, or even the quarter hour. The chances that the sub would have its own ELF antennae deployed at the same time at the same frequency were extremely small.

Once he was headed out to sea and after checking to be sure that the sub was going in a different direction, he opened the engines all the way. The boat was deceptively fast, faster than anything the Chinese had on the water, but aircraft were a different matter. He would monitor for approaching aircraft and surface vessels. If any were detected, he would slow down to trolling speed before they could see him and hope that they were more concerned with finding the sub than harassing a poor fishing boat.

If worse came to worse he could jettison all the special electronics and try to bluff his way out, but his first priority was to get what he had discovered back to FOX.

Hu composed his report as quickly as he could and sent it up to the satellite to join the data he had been streaming earlier. The last thing he did before he shut down any communications that could be intercepted and give him away was to add the caveat 'Urgent, Special Access' to the file.

* * * * * * * *

Silver and Vikki had a bottle of wine between them at supper and another from their cooler at home while making love in front of the fireplace. Silver drank most of it and could still feel its effects when he got up the next morning. Hangovers were not particularly new to him, but his tolerance for the drink had diminished since he became a father and begun to drink more responsibly. For the last ten years he had restricted his intake to no more than two drinks and usually only on a Friday night when he was home. On missions he only drank when necessary, and then sparingly. Even when he was away at conferences with allied intelligence agencies, where he used to party like he was twenty, he kept the number of drinks down to just below the hangover threshold.

But this was a special occasion. Leslie was away at school, they were celebrating their promotions and he was saying farewell to his career, so a couple of extra drinks couldn't hurt.

That theory proved to be incorrect, but a hot shower and an extra mug of coffee helped to drive the headache into the background during the ride to work. On arrival Vikki tried her ID card on the Executive entrance and was pleased to find that she now had direct access.

Miss CC arrived shortly after they did, looking fit and happy for someone who still mostly got around by wheelchair. She was using her crutches today and was moving her legs more than she did previously, taking more weight on them than before. Vikki noticed it more because she was not around the busty party poodle every day like Silver was. She complimented Miss CC on her progress.

"Merci, Chief. Now, I h'am going to begin your or-ee-an-ta-tion to your new responsibilities today." She informed Vikki, in a thicker accent than usual. Then she turned to Silver. "Bonjour, Monsieur Director. Zee papers for your h'attention air on your desk and zee h'e-mails 'ave been vetted. Do not forget that you 'ave an ap-point-ee-ment for your medical h'at nine sharp."

"Doctor Jones called with a reminder no doubt."

"Sans doute, monsieur, sans doute. Now, eef you weell excusez moi, I weell be een the Chief of Staff's h'office preparing zee or-ee-an-ta-tion."

The tall curvy poodle spun around gracefully on her crutches and swung herself out of the foyer.

"She must have gotten laid good yesterday." Silver observed as the door to the Chief of Staff's office closed behind the cropped white tail with the puff of fur on the end. "Her accent is only that heavy after a good yiffing."

"And you would know this how?" Vikki asked, half teasingly.

"Common knowledge in the executive suite." He grinned. "You go let her get you set up. You're her third Chief of Staff so you can trust her to know what you need to know to do the job. I'll be in the Direct- ... in my office, if anything comes up."

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and followed Miss CC. Silver smiled ruefully after she had left, thinking about how wonderful it was going to be working with her but regretting that it was only temporary. Then he sighed and went into the Director's office ... his office for now.

Much of the reading he had in his queue was the same as when he had been Chief of Staff, but he was not expected to spend as much time on the operational traffic as before. The trick, the original Director, known as "W", had once told him, was to trust those below him to do their jobs so the Director could concentrate on strategic matters. What the British walrus had failed to mention was that most of the strategy involved surviving the political tsunamis that seemed to come from every direction at once.

As usual, he dealt with the administrative matters first. It did not take very long because he was mostly just reviewing and approving drafts that he himself had submitted to Tanner recently. There were a few that had come down from the Minister's office that needed careful consideration though. Those that were routine and had no impact on operations he flagged for action by the appropriate section head, attention the Chief of Staff, or simply acknowledged and marked for return. A couple that would require financial commitments or the assignment of other resources he marked to be included in the agenda for the weekly staff meeting.

When he was done he looked at the other folders for priority mail. A notification in the Special Access folder had appeared while he was dealing with the administrative matters. The notification included the sender and little else; to read the actual email he would have to go to the Special Access Facility and log onto the computer connected to the separate network only accessible there. This one was from Agent Jade, the Head of Station for Asia. Hu was shadowing the developments of the Chinese space program, as he recalled. Maybe he found something interesting for the allied science and tech folk.

He was about to notify Molissa that he was on his way when he remembered two things. First, it was no longer his job to react to these messages. It was the Chief of Staff's, and unless the Chief of Staff was unavailable the Director did not need to rush off and read them. Miss CC would inform Vikki of her responsibility to read the email and inform him if it required his attention. Secondly, he had an appointment for his medical at the FOX medical facility in a few minutes, and if he missed it Doctor Jones was likely to show up here with three nurses, two lab technicians and an extra-large, pre-lubed colonoscopy probe, or whatever they called that thing they stuck up your ass.

Silver shuddered as repressed memories of his time in a Chinese prison tried to push their way to the surface. Maybe he would ask Doctor Jones to hold his hand to reassure him during the procedure, then they would see how many of the good surgeon's digits could be reattached by his assistant before the nerves died.

Best not to indulge in such fantasies, he thought, delightful as they are. He got up and put on his coat and boots after buzzing the other office to let Vikki and Miss CC know that he was on his way to the hospital.

There was a large group of doctors, nurses and administrators waiting for him at the hospital. For a second Silver was a bit confused as to why then he remembered that he was now the Director, the closest thing to a VIP they ever saw, and the controller of the purse strings. His brow furrowed in a manner that junior agents had come to dread.

"I would suggest that anyone who is not directly involved in my medical should get back to their real jobs," he informed the welcoming committee, "before I begin to wonder if we are not overstaffed."

The hospital lobby miraculously emptied save for two older nurses that looked as tough and as mean as Mrs. Brown, the retired agent that ran the Academy Day-Care Centre. One openly passed a twenty-dollar bill to the other, having lost a bet as to whether Silver would actually show up or not.

They made him surrender his gun, a policy instituted years ago when a crazed agent had threatened a new surgeon with one. Silver was, in fact, that agent, and Doctor Jones, new to the Academy at the time, was the surgeon in question, and the Glock 17 that Silver put in the lock box was the same gun he had threatened him with. Jones was a very good trauma surgeon and W had had to establish the rule to keep the albino wallaby at FOX. Silver did not mind, he still had three other weapons on his person that even an orifice exam would not find. And speaking of which ...

"Let's start you off on part one." The loser of the bet, a large white rabbit said. "Blood samples, urine samples, Stool samples ..."

"No one told me that I had to bring in a stool sample." Silver interrupted.

"Oh, we have ways of getting one." The nurse replied, pulling on a large latex glove with a 'snap'. "And we can check for polyps at the same time!"

After drawing out samples of his fluids and a couple of solids the Acting Director was subjected to a hearing test, an eye test and various motor skill and neurological tests.

"No psychological tests?" he asked.

"It's not a requirement for the position." The second nurse, a moose with a Newfoundland accent replied. "They's don't care if you'se crazy or not, so long's you'se healthy enough for the job."

The last sessions before taking a break involved lung capacity tests, an ECG at rest and under stress, ultrasounds of his organs and a chest X-ray.

"I don't remember all this being required." Silver complained.

"Doctor Jones ordered the full course for you along with the promotion medical because you were overdue for your annual exam and your senior's evaluation is due this year also." The rabbit nurse informed him as she filled in a very long form with the results of all the tests.

Silver's nostrils flared. "Senior's test? I'm not a senior yet!"

"You turned sixty-four last year, as I recall." The rabbit said. "This year you'll be sixty-five and that is when the senior's evaluation is due, in the same calendar year you turn sixty-five. It doesn't have to be on your birthday."

Silver grumbled. He had become all too familiar with all the regulations, directives and guidelines since becoming Chief of Staff and she had him there. He had indeed turned sixty-four the previous calendar year, a fact that no one on the Academy campus could have missed because someone had arranged for the Beatles' song 'When I'm Sixty-four' to be blaring from the loudspeakers throughout the Experimental Farm when he arrived for work and on every intercom inside FOX for the entire day. Joel the lemur was obviously behind it, possibly with the blessing of his mate, Tanner Williams; Williams always did have a warped sense of humour when it came to his friend and Chief of Staff.

Everyone had smiled and wished him a happy birthday, which made Silver even more upset. It was only the second time that he had considered shooting a colleague at work, the first being the incident involving Doctor Jones, but Joel was somewhat protected by his relationship to Tanner. Tanner was no longer the Director, though, Silver reminded himself, which lightened his mood a bit. He contemplated his revenge for a moment before also remembering that he likely would not be Director by his next birthday either, and that just put him in a worse mood.

They took a break to analyze all the data and let Silver have lunch, since he had to skip breakfast and his morning coffee for the tests. His Appointment with Doctor Jones was at one.

He was tempted to go back to the office where he had sandwiches in the fridge and a good coffee maker, but decided to eat in the hospital cafeteria instead, if only to watch all the medical staff stealing glances at him and whispering behind their paws as they wondered when the violence would start.

Silver appeared at Doctor Jones' office at one sharp. Jones was sitting behind his desk, framed by diplomas and citations from his time with the Australian Army. This was his home turf, where he had the advantage, and his casual pose reflected his confidence.

"Have a seat, Acting Director."

Silver sat, crossing one leg over the other and holding the raised ankle with his paw. It allowed him to lean back, maintaining his personal space, blocking off the Doctor's power move with his raised leg while still looking casual. He stared at Jones without speaking, his intimidating blue-grey eyes never blinking.

Jones waited a few beats before giving in. "I suppose you know what I'm going to say?"

"Probably."

"Let's dive right in then." The wallaby picked up a file and began to scan it as he spoke. "Your heart is a bit enlarged. Normally that would be a concern, but your resting pulse is fifty and rarely breaks a hundred and ten under stress and you have the blood pressure of a twenty-year old, so we can rule out heart disease. Your lungs show signs of chronic bronchitis, from smoking I suspect."

"I quit almost twenty years ago."

"Good for you, but some damage is permanent. However, your lung capacity is good and your O2 levels are fine. There's a lump on your liver, but it was there for your last full medical five years ago and hasn't grown so it's probably just a fatty lump." He glanced at Silver over the file. "You still a heavy drinker?"

"Not so much anymore, but I still imbibe."

"Ever more than fifteen drinks a week or more than five in a night."

Silver mentally counted up the drinks the night before. "No." He lied.

Jones smiled knowingly and went back to the file. "Blood work is fine, urinalysis and stool cultures are negative. Cholesterol is good, would be better if you cut back more on the drinking but within range for a fox your age. A little deafness in your left ear but still within our standards."

"So, I'm good to go."

"Not exactly." Jones matched Silvers blue-grey gaze with his slightly disturbing pink stare. He showed no signs of blinking either. "You've been having headaches, haven't you?"

Silver shrugged. "A few. Work has been stressful since the Russians invaded Ukraine."

"Bullshit. People like you live on adrenalin. Your prescription has changed but you were reluctant to get retested in case you slipped below the threshold for field duty."

Silver did not say anything but the feeling of being trapped that he had only rarely experienced began to creep in. His paw twitched twice before he remembered that his gun was locked up in the lobby. He forced himself to remain still and outwardly calm.

"I hear that laser eye surgery has come a long way."

"Not far enough to fix that astigmatism in your left eye."

"That's always been there. It was never a problem before."

"And it isn't now. New glasses will fix you right up, but there is another issue."

Jones held out a white paw and made 'gimme' motions with his digits. Silver knew what he wanted and reluctantly leaned forward and surrendered his right paw.

Doctor Jones examined it closely, flipping it back and forth, working the fingers while observing the movement of the tendons and feeling how the digits caught and released when pressed in hard.

"Stenosing tenosynovitis." He pronounced. "You know what the common term for this is?"

"Yes, trigger finger."

"Ironic in your case, don't you think? Have you researched it?"

"Yes."

"Not on WebDoc I hope?"

"The Mayo Clinic webpage."

"Better, but still stupid."

Silver's paw twitched again.

"Don't even think of going for those knives."

"You know about them?"

"After you threatened to blow my head off, I made it my business to learn about you, and what you're capable of."

"Know thine enemy."

"Not an enemy, just a variable."

"Ouch!"

Jones poked and prodded Silver's paw some more. "This is way past being able to treat with exercise or a splint and stretching, but I suspect it always was. It ever get swollen and sore?"

"Yes. Especially after a long day on the keyboard."

"Hmmm. Any signs in the left paw?"

"Occasionally."

"Well, I'm not a specialist in this, but I think surgery could relieve it, if only temporarily. The tests also noted a change in your general ease and range of movement. Anything else been bothering you?"

Silver shrugged. There was no point in lying now. "My right knee bothers me some days, as does my neck. Sometimes my back gets stiff if I sit too long."

Jones was writing it all down in the file. "The knee has a little fluid in it, and the neck shows signs of bony buildup from an old injury, something that's not in the files for some reason. Care to elaborate?"

"I broke a bone in my neck when I was forced off the road in a high-speed chase in East Germany. I was undercover so I had it treated locally. I reported it to my supervisor, Agent Green, when I got back out but it seemed fine afterwards, so I never followed up."

"For fear of it disqualifying you from field duty?"

"No, I really did think it was fine, otherwise I would not have told Green either."

"Hhmmph. I'll request the file so we can update your medical record to indicate that it is from a work-related injury. It may qualify you for a supplementary medical pension when you retire."

"Which will not be anytime soon, I hope."

Jones sat back in his chair and frowned. "You need to face the facts. Silver. You're suffering from a condition we call 'not being twenty anymore'. You've had it for forty-four years now, but you've been living like you didn't for at least forty of those years. Age is catching up with you. Sure, you're still strong and very deadly, but you're not at your peak, and never will be again."

Blood rose to Silver's face. "So that's it? No hope? Nothing you can do?"

"The bony buildup on your neck will get worse and the damage from it cutting into the nerve bundles will affect your movement more and more. Surgery to correct it is less than thirty percent successful, and most times it just makes it worse. Physio to slow the progress is your best bet. It can also help with the knee and back problems, but Physio won't do much for your paw. Surgery will help with the range of movement, but it won't bring the lost sensation back. At best, you may be able to qualify for the field again, after a year of treatment and surgery."

"I don't have a year."

"So, I've heard. I wish I could be more optimistic, but your old injuries are starting to catch up with you. I'm sorry."

"Are you? Sorry, that is?"

Jones looked hurt. "Yes, of course. I might hate your guts, Silver, but I'm under no illusions about what goes on here or your contribution to it. I know why you tried to hide your condition. I was in the Army too, you know. I know how a sense of duty can drive one into denial when it's time to admit you need a break. The world is littered with the broken shells of soldiers, and agents, that did not quit soon enough."

Silver knew that was true, some of his best friends were among them. He was also aware that Jones had served with the Aussie Special Air Service Regiment before emigrating to Canada; it was in his file, but like most former Special Forces members his record of service had been redacted by the Australian defence ministry. All it contained was the years of service and that Jones had been honourably discharged as a medical officer.

"Tell me about your service with the SASR."

Now it was Jones' turn to sit back and decide whether to answer or not. Legally he did not have to answer at all, but he sensed a moment of possible rapport with the Canadian spy.

"I joined as a medic." Jones answered. "Every unit needed medics but I wanted to work with the best, and the Special Air Service Regiment was going to Vietnam; sort of in Australia's backyard. I went in full of ideals and convictions, but ... you've probably heard how it was over there."

"I was too young to join the American Army and go over, but about twenty thousand other Canadians did." Silver replied. "A lot of them came back to join the Canadian Forces afterwards or get treated in our veterans' hospitals. Some of them trusted me enough to talk about it."

"Yeah, a lot of the blokes still won't talk about it to anyone that wasn't there. Anyway, after 'Nam the Army put me through medical school because the SASR needed doctors that could keep up with them too. In ninety-four we were assigned to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda. I was sent to the refugee camp in Kibeho, in charge of a number of SASR medics."

Silver's brow furrowed, but with concern, not anger. "We're you still there in April of ninety-five?"

Jones' eyes drifted up to the ceiling as he recalled the events he had experienced. He did not answer for a time, then he began speaking in a monotone, as if he was testifying in court.

"It was the twenty-second of April. There was a heavy rain. About ten in the morning the Rwandan Patriotic Army started to fire into crowd of Hutus around the hospital, causing a stampede. There was nowhere to go except through the razor wire barricades we set up for security. We tried to pull the wounded off the wire and treat them, but the RPA kept firing for the next two hours. Then we heard the 'whump' of mortars and the explosions of their impact."

"We struggled to treat the large numbers of wounded and evacuate those who could travel but the Zambian infantry units assigned to the UN mission kept bring in more. Some had bullet wounds, some were torn apart by shrapnel." His pink eyes blazed. "They were hunting the refugees down with rocket launchers and fifty-caliber machine guns. The poor bastards never stood a chance. We had to move the hospital inside the Zambian compound just to keep from being killed in the crossfire."

The shooting went on for two days, and there was nothing we could do to stop it. When we went out to collect the wounded the RPA would pause in their slaughter, but we could see that they were taking the bodies of the dead away. On the twenty-third I ordered the medics to start counting the dead, so that we could make a more accurate report to the UN High Commission."

"The RPA did not like that. We were up to forty-two hundred when they threatened to shoot us too if we did not cease and pull back. Looking into the dead eyes of those boys that had lost their souls through their atrocities I knew that they would do it, so I ordered the medics back. But our presence had brought an end too the shooting, and it did not start up again after we withdrew."

Jones swallowed hard and fought to keep his composure. "There were at least five hundred bodies removed before we started counting, and the final estimate was over five thousand killed in three days. I like to think that if we had not been there to witness the slaughter that they would have killed tens of thousands more, so maybe that counts for something."

There were a few long moments of silence before Jones began speaking again.

"You know, Silver, despite being threatened at gun point I always admired your efforts to save Scarlet ... but I have to tell you ... I saw the same deadness in your eyes that day."

"I was in a different place then. I've moved on since."

"Take care that you keep moving in the right direction, even if circumstances beyond your control force a major change on you."

"Maybe I'll take up watercolours."

Jones chuckled. "Not unless you learn to hold a brush in your left paw."

"Naw, I can't draw worth shit with my right either. Gardening is more my speed." Silver reflected briefly on how similar some of their experiences were. "Say Doc, how come I never see you at the Lounge? Gray Muzzle makes a mean martini."

"Alcohol and PTSD don't mix."

"Maybe, but telling your stories can be therapeutic, be they funny or sad, and a little vodka and vermouth, in moderate amounts, never hurt when you're looking to let go of a few bad memories."

"Drinking with the enemy?"

"Not an enemy, just a variable that is on the verge of elimination."

"I suppose a lager or two wouldn't hurt. It won't change my diagnosis though."

"I wouldn't expect it to." Then Silver sat back and sighed. "I knew this day would come eventually; I just didn't expect it to come so suddenly. I suppose I need to learn to let go too. I'll see you in the lounge at five, and that is not a request."

Jones smiled, something he rarely did in Silver's presence. "Yes, Sir."

"Call me 'Sir' again and I will bring out the knives."

* * * * * * * *

Silver went back to the office to put in another couple of hours work before meeting Doctor Jones at five. Vikki joined them later in the evening. After the orientation was finished, she had stayed in the office to clear up the backlog in the in basket. By the time she was done there was only the Special Access notice left to action, but she did not feel like bothering the mole so late in the day. If the report had concerned current operations or required immediate attention it would have been sent as such, so it could wait for the morning.

She drove the car home because Silver had had a few with the albino wallaby by the time they were ready to leave. They had a quick supper, watched the news and went to bed at eleven pm Ottawa time.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, it was seven am, and Dimitry Filipov was already in his office at SVR headquarters in Moscow, frowning intensely at a report that had just come in from Directorate X, the Science and Technology directorate.

Dimitry had come a long way since his days as a junior KGB agent. He was now the Deputy Director of the SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, and the senior intelligence professional in the Service. He would still be the Director except for the fact that Putin, a former KGB agent himself, had put one of his Saint Petersburg cronies with proven loyalty in that position after a shake-up back in twenty-sixteen. Dimitry had shrugged it off; as Deputy Director his duties, salary and benefits had remained unchanged, save for the fact that he no longer briefed the President directly.

Given the current situation, with the so-called 'liberation' of the Ukraine going so poorly, that was a bit of a blessing. Dimitry would rather be back her at SVR Headquarters pulling the strings in the background than sitting at the opposite end of a ridiculously long table being humiliated.

He chuckled to himself. The paranoid President of Russia believed that everyone was out to get him these days. He liked to promote his image as a stone-cold killer, but Dimity knew that the cowardly squirrel had never done so much as draw his gun when he was active duty. The former KGB agents who went over to the West after the Soviet Union broke up knew Putin's true nature also. They had been poisoned not because they had 'betrayed' the agency or a nation that no longer existed, but because they could tell embarrassing anecdotes about the psychotic squirrel.

Dimity counted himself lucky that he had never worked with Putin, so he did not have any such direct knowledge himself. He had also stayed in Russia after the break-up and had built a reputation of discretion that was second to none, still, Putin did not trust him fully, and Dimitry did not blame him for that. No secret agent ever really trusted another and Dimitry would have felt the same way if their roles were reversed, but they never would be, because Dimity had no political ambitions whatsoever.

_ _

Meanwhile, Dimitry still controlled the day-to-day operations of the SVR, the nation's well funded and highly successful intelligence service, including a large number of assassins. The power that his position gave him provided all that he needed: a limo and driver from the SVR car-pool, invitations to vacation on billionaire oligarchs' yachts, complimentary service at the best restaurants in Moscow, and regular visits to the institution where the SVR trained female seductresses, just to ensure quality control, of course.

Unfortunately, there were those in the SVR that envied his position and would quite happily pass any embarrassing information on to Putin through his political appointee. Dimitry did not blame them, he had done the same himself in the day, but they were the reason he was frowning at the report he held in his paws.

The report dealt with the recent theft of China's latest space rocket off the coast of Hainan. It had come to him by the usual route, from the experts in Directorate X through the analysts and editors in Directorate I, which produced the daily intelligence summaries for the President.

Virtually everyone at SVR headquarters was cleared to read these reports; it was the only way they could truly collaborate to produce the daily briefing. Therefore, everyone in the headquarters already knew about the rocket theft before Dimitry did.

Most would wave it off as a brilliant but unfortunate incident for the Chinese, one that did not pose any threat to the land-locked Baikonur Cosmodrome. A few old-timers, however, would recognize why this report was important. These were the same people that were most likely to go behind Dimitry's back and tattle to the new Director in hopes of taking Dimitri's place.

The real reason that the report was important was not because of the theft of the Chinese rocket, per say, but because of something that had happened back when the Soviet Union was still a force to be reckoned with. Back then a very ambitious and clever KGB agent had used the same plan to steal the latest American ICBM technology. It had involved a converted Typhoon-Class nuclear ballistic missile submarine. The agent had gotten the idea from a Hollywood spy movie.

In the final years of the failing Soviet Union the agent had managed to convince a desperate Politburo to convert Typhoon hull number 12, the Simbirsk, into a giant underwater cargo container to transport missiles taken in much the same manner as in the movie, just like the recent operation in China.

It was still unclear whether or not the Americans even knew that their missiles had been stolen, or by who. The official verdict was that the shipment had been lost at sea during transport, over a particularly deep and unexplored portion of the ocean. The details of that operation had been, and still were, classified as 'Of Special Importance' and further restricted by the 'Special Folder' caveat, the equivalent of the Western designation 'Special Access'. If the Americans had found out about the operation, they would surely have retaliated.

The submarine crew had been eliminated after delivering the missiles to Russia. The Simbirsk was put away and never used again. It was reported as being decommissioned and broken up almost twenty years ago because of a leak in her reactor, but like many contaminated ships it had actually been sold to a salvage company in India. The same 'salvage' company that had converted old NATO warships into operational vessels for the Indian navy. It seemed that they had done the same to the Simbirsk.

Dimitry made a mental note to have the SVR agents in India look into it. Perhaps the Indians were behind the theft, or maybe they had sold the sub to a third party. Whoever had it now, the question remained: how had they managed to duplicate a plan that had been so highly classified?

Once the Americans found out about this, they would put two-and two together and know that Russia's new class of post-Cold War ICBMs were based on American technology. They would, therefore, know the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian missile force, a bad situation since Putin was currently threatening to use them to keep NATO from interfering in the 'liberation' of the Ukraine.

And find out they would, Dimity told himself, because the SVR was not the only spy agency who knew about the theft.

A fake fishing boat believed to operated by FOX was in the region at the time and had left in a hurry while sending a burst transmission to one of the Canadian communication satellites overhead at the time. That meant that FOX knew and if they knew the Americans and the British would soon know also, and then the cat would be out of the bag. Or the cat-bat, in this case, he mused.

When Putin found out he would probably flip one of those ten-metre tables over onto the Director, who, after crawling out from under it, would run straight back to SVR Headquarters to demand a report on how much the Canadians knew.

It would not be an unusual or even an unreasonable request. Unbeknownst to the Canadians, the SVR had the ability to intercept their encoded transmissions, but unfortunately, they could not yet decipher them. In time he was sure that they would though, thanks to information his deep cover agent inside FOX was seeking and the operational codes from a local FOX agent he hoped to compromise soon.

The thought of her made him smile.

Normally the recruiting of defectors and double agents was handled by Directorate S, but as the former head of Directorate S Dimity had brought a couple of cases with him when he was promoted. One of them was a FOX agent, a seductress of the highest order, one Delores Johnson.

Of course, she went by a different name when she was in Russia, where her long curly blonde hair and the big firm breasts on her curvy red-fox frame rekindled many a waning flame in the groins of aging generals and oligarchs. The name she used though, Marya Ivanov, was very similar to her English name. Ivanov was equivalent of Johnson as it meant 'son of John', and Marya meant 'sea of sorrows', similar to the meaning of Delores in it's original Spanish.

Many of her victims had indeed ended up in a sea of sorrows, once the SVR was aware of their transgressions, and Dimitry had put them there.

The foxy femme fatale's success had intrigued him. She spoke Russian like a native and understood the culture better than most Russians did. She knew what the males wanted, and more importantly, what they needed. She could outthink, out drink and out fuck all of the counter-intelligence agents the rival Federal Security Service sent to trap her. Even when her cover was burned and all senior officials had been warned against her, she still managed to seduce just as many of them into revealing state secrets.

Normally the SVR would have marked such a successful enemy agent for assassination, but Dimitry had made it his mission to turn her to their side. This was partially because their source inside FOX, the second-generation sleeper agent, Gray Muzzle, had indicated that she was openly disdainful of her FOX superiors when she was back in Canada, but also because her tactics revealed a very mercenary attitude. The voluptuous vixen went for the quick, crude kill, so to speak, rather than playing the long game, and did not care what happened to those left in her dust.

In Dimitry's opinion, such agents were ripe for turning because they thought that they were better than their superiors and were not being recognized for their talents. The urge to prove that they were smarter than their superiors, along with greed, was the usual motive behind most Westerners that became double agents. It was the thrill of pulling the wool over their bosses' eyes while using the money to live a lifestyle no intelligence operator was meant to live.

These Westerners, he thought with a mental shake of his head, they want money so they can buy influence and power. Russians, on the other paw, understand that first you get power, then the rest will follow.

While still head of Directorate S Dimitry had begun a careful game of lures and incentives, trying to draw the vixen in while not revealing too much information. She was clever, in a naive Western kind of way, but she was impulsive while he was patient. When she took a cash payment to reveal the name of an Admiral she had fucked the North Sea Fleet's deployment status out off he knew he had her.

He was admittedly intrigued by her ability to use such a crude tool as sex so effectively. Only one spy since Mata Hari had been so good at the seduction game, and that had been another FOX agent known as Scarlet. His old boss in the KGB had thought that she was double agent for them, but she turned out to have been a triple agent, or perhaps even a quadruple agent. In any event she was deemed too dangerous to live and her punishment was to have her head taken off with the stainless steel 'A' string of a classic Balalaika wrapped around a couple of wooden pegs.

The assassination was thought to have been successful although there were rumours that the vixen with the heart-shaped patch of red fur on her belly had survived. One source even claimed that she had found religion and become a nun. In any event, she had disappeared, and the libidos of the Russian males had laid dormant until Delores Johnson had come along.

Dimity had never had the pleasure of meeting Agent Scarlet. He was too low on the KGB totem pole in those days to attract her attention. But now he was on the top of the heap, or close enough to it not to matter, and therefore a prime target for the blonde temptress. There was no more challenging opponent on the board, so he had allowed their paths to cross.

His smile deepened and his paw drifted unconsciously to his lap as he remembered those initial encounters.

The sex had been, quite frankly, amazing. He had heard the western expression 'she can suck a golf ball through a hundred feet of garden hose', but had never understood it, partially because he neither played golf nor had a garden. Although after she had sealed her soft but strong lips around the base of his cock and drawn out what must have been a litre of spooge from the deepest depths of his balls he could imagine a chess pawn being forcefully drawn though thirty metres of irrigation tubing.

It was more than her willingness to tease his normally disinterested cock into the form of a hardened spear and swallow great gobs of spooge without loosing a drop. It was the way she looked up at you with feigned innocence from where she knelt as your shaft disappeared inside her long, warm muzzle with her wavy blonde hair framing her face and her large firm tits swaying just below. Sometimes she would caress one of those pink-tipped globes while she waited for you to cum, as if she wished you were the one squeezing her breasts while cumming inside her.

He shifted in his seat as his cock was being pinched in a fold of his trousers as it stiffened. A quick pull freed it and also gave it some room to move around, which his digits did as he continued to reminisce.

His informant inside FOX had informed him that her nickname there was 'Babydoll'. This did not translate well into Russian so Dimitry just called her his little Matryoshka because she reminded him of the popular Russian stacking dolls. Every doll you opened revealed a new one inside, and Delores was like that. On the surface she was a competent agent, eliciting information in exchange for sex, but she could change from one encounter to the next.

One moment sweet and innocent, making you go slow, convincing you that your cock was the biggest one she ever saw. The next a wild and wanton, ripping off her clothes in her eagerness to be ravished in a sexual marathon that you were compelled to partake in. When he was feeling frustrated and angry from work, he would appear at their rendezvous and find her dressed like a schoolgirl, seeming surprised to find her 'Headmaster' in her bedroom. Other days, when he was tired from the life-draining bureaucracy that came with the job she be the considerate wife, ready with a drink and a massage that never failed to reinvigorate him.

Just last week, for example, when it became obvious that Putin was fixated on having his stupid and wasteful war, she had sensed his frustration and let him fuck her tight little tailhole while begging for mercy in a fair imitation of the President's voice. He had grabbed her thick tail at the base, imagining it to be Putin's bushy brown one, and pounded the puckered portal below it mercilessly while screaming obscenities about the President's mother.

At the end she dropped the imitation, moaning "Fuck me daddy, fill my ass with your hot bear brine!"

Dimitry had looked down to see that she had most of her paw buried in her cunt and was working it furiously as his cock slid in and out of her tailhole above. He had come so hard then that his balls actually hurt when he was done. He had to spend ten minutes in her bathroom with a cold pack on them afterwards.

The flirtation between her them had gone on for several years now. If Directorate S was running her he would have demanded results long before this, but he was enjoying the game, perhaps more than he should. He could, however, quit her any time he wanted, he assured himself. She just needed a little more time, a little more incentive, to turn completely, and then he would have the operational codes he needed to crack the FOX communications system. That would make the Director and Putin happy.

Unfortunately, however, it appeared that she had left Moscow, as many foreign agents had when the troops moved into the Ukraine, anticipating a crackdown. She would be back though, he was sure, because the game was not over yet, and she loved this game as much as Dimitry loved chess.

She was always trying to find a weakness. She tried to get him talking about work while relaxing after sex, but he was to smart to fall for that one. She tried to get him drunk, but he barely touched alcohol, especially when she was trying to tempt him. He of all people knew how easy it was to slip a drug into someone's drink, although the ones his people slipped in were more deadly than the truth serum she was likely to use. She also gave him gifts, a token of appreciation, she claimed, mainly tasteful and expensive jewelry, cuff links, tie clips, rings. He never wore any of them to his office tough, taking them to the experts at Directorate X instead, where most were found to contain electronic spying devices.

He admired her tenacity, but they would have done no good in any event. His suite in SVR headquarters was electronically isolated; no transmissions could get in or out. His office was the only place he could speak freely, which he did that only rarely, when it was absolutely necessary.

It was about to become necessary.

Somehow Dimitry's cock had come out of his trousers, and he was stroking it as he recalled how tight her tailhole had been, yet how easily his prick had slid in and out. She must have put some lubricant in there before he arrived that day, but how had she known that anal sex was what he needed before he had shown up? She always knew what he needed before he got there, he mused. Once he turned her, he would get her to tell him how she did it. Maybe Directorate S could work it into their seduction training.

He was leaning back in his chair, gasping for breath, near to climaxing as he relived the moment when he filled her ass with spooge, when an alarm went off on his desk.

He cursed and stuffed his cock back in his pants. The alarm was a special one. It meant that the Director or, worse, the President, was on their way up. Unfortunately, the act of forcing his cock back inside was quite similar to what Delores did to it when she was acting dominant, and that was all it needed to pass the point of no return. He cringed as a hot load of cum spread inside his underwear as he zipped up and cursed the fact that he had worn thin light coloured slacks that day.

He sat down hurriedly as the door to his office opened and the Director stormed in.

"What the hell is going on here, Filipov?" The kolonok demanded before the door had a chance to close. "The President demanded the intelligence briefing first thing this morning then almost crushed me with a table when he read it. He's demanding answers."

"Tell the President he will have them as soon as we do."

"That is not good enough. He senses a pattern in this when compared to other recent operations."

"Eh? What are you talking about?"

The director dropped into a chair and shook his head. "I wish I knew. Putin said that I did not have the clearance to know about them, but that a number of 'special folder' operations were being recreated. Not just ours, but Western operations also. He was very upset."

"I can imagine," Dimitry said as he struggled to regain his footing, despite the sticky goo spreading in his shorts, "but if he thought that we had anything to do with this he is ..."

"He said that I should become familiar with Operation Amalgam."

Dimitry swallowed as a few drops of urine joined the spooge. "Op- ... Operation Amalgam? I don't believe I'm familiar with ..."

"Stop it! There is no use denying. Putin knows all about it."

"Well, if he knows all about it why is he asking you to look into it?"

"Because he has one question."

"And that is ... ?"

"Where is the Asset?"

Dimitry's spirits sank. There truly was no sense in denying if the President knew that much. He sat back and shook his head sadly.

"Director, I wish I knew."

Kain Algorath © Marcus X Light

Ophelia Cassidy Sommer © Devil Kitty

Joel Grigori © Joel the Lemur

Geno © Coyotek

Dongo Fett © Dongo Fett

Zachary Ember © EmberWolf

Grey Muzzle © Grey Muzzle

Kyroo Echos © Kyroo Echos

Natasha Winters © EmberWolf

Violet © Gray Muzzle

Saira Rasielle © SilentRampancy

Carlos © Carlos the Penguin

Dante Draco © Dante Draco

The FOX Academy series:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

Book II.5 - The Love who Spied Me

Book III - The Curse of the Yellow Monkey

Book IV - Wait for No One

Book V - Dawn of Vengeance

Book VI - Unnatural Selection

Book VII - Rogue Sword

Book VIII - Firestorm

Book IX - Diamonds in the Rough

Book X - Agents Lounge

FOX Flashback Novels:

Scarlet Necklace

The Finland Express

Other FOX tales:

Accounts Payable

A gambler's Share

An Opus for a Penguin

Daffodils

Deep Thunder

Fear

Hard at Work

It's a Wonderful Furry Life

La Vie en Rose

Life of the Party

Not a Bed of Roses

Rest Stop

The Dead of Night

The Mark of Cain

The Volunteer

When Worlds Collide (a FOX/MLP crossover)