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FOX Academy - The New Breed

Chapter 4 - Nicosia Nights

Silver headed down the hall to see the Chief of Staff, Tancred 'Tanner' Williams, also known as Gold. His name, Tancred, meant 'thoughtful adviser' in the original Teutonic, and so he had been W's thoughtful adviser at the Foreign Operations eXecutive for almost 30 years now.

The Chief of Staff preferred that senior staff and friends call him by his nickname. 'Tanner' was convenient not only as a familiar form of Tancred, but also because of his love of sunbathing, which rivalled George Hamilton's in its devotion. A Red Fox with a naturally yellowish coat, Tanner claimed that a minimum of an hour's exposure to the sun every day had bleached it down to a golden hue, hence W's selection of Gold for his codename. Others maintained that the colour had originated in a bottle.

Tanner was Silver's last remaining friend in the service; he was also the Academy's only known homosexual agent.

Silver nodded to Tanner's secretary and she indicated that he should go straight in. Closing the door behind him, Silver sat in the leather chair in front of the Chief of Staff's desk and waited politely for him to finish typing at his keyboard.

"Morning Silver." Tanner gave him a smile. "Have a rough night?"

"Oh, nothing that thirty or forty years of substance abuse couldn't wipe from my memory." Silver replied and picked at his trousers. "Actually it was kind of refreshing. We haven't had a student screw up so grandly so early on since we were recruited. I was beginning to forget why I hated the counter-intelligence boys in the first place."

"Now, now Silver; they're only doing their job. And speaking of jobs, did W tell you what he had in store for you?"

"Only that it was in the Med."

"Cyprus. Nicosia to be exact. We have a contact out of the Ukraine, a retired missile expert, with a relative who lives in Beirut. His granddaughter. He has sold us some information on the Russian nuclear stockpile, and how much of it has gone missing, but the information was encoded for security. The code is a numerical sequence that must be entered into the decoding algorithm. His granddaughter always carries the code on her. We cannot meet her in the Ukraine because the Russians are too powerful there. She won't meet us in Beirut for fear of one of the factions associating her with western interests. Cyprus is the waypoint for persons travelling back and forth between Europe and Lebanon. She is willing to meet someone there, and exchange the code in return for the final payment. There is one catch."

"What's that?"

"No police, no Brits or Americans. They want one of our agents. Now that White is gone that would leave you, but W doesn't want to risk his last experienced agent. We need someone new who will not be identified with the service. Is your kid good to go?" Tanner leaned forward on his elbows and raised his brows inquisitively.

"He will have to be, won't he? One thing is certain; no one will ever mistake him for a seasoned agent."

Tanner sat back. "When will you be ready to go?"

"Next week. I need to arrange a little good-will skateboarding tour of the Middle East. In order to avoid suspicion Cyprus will be the third stop on the tour, and there will have to be at least two more afterwards. I'll travel parallel to him but I'll skip Cyprus altogether and meet up with him on the next stop to pickup the code and bring it back here."

"Sounds like the beginnings of a plan." Tanner stood and stretched in the sunlight coming through the window by his desk. He was as large as a wolf and still well muscled at 54.

Turning to Silver he said, "Say, I'm alone at the cottage this weekend. Why don't you join me?"

"Sorry Tanner." Silver replied absently, still running scenarios through his head. "I'll be too busy prepping Marcel and getting the proper paperwork from Joel the Lemur. You'll only try to seduce me again anyway."

"True, true." Tanner sighed. "Keep me in the loop."

* * * * * * * *

Marcel sipped a lukewarm cola and regretted his life, specifically the last two weeks of it. The allure and glamour of the life of a secret agent had boiled down to sipping a warm soda in a dingy room of a crappy hotel in the city that air conditioning had forgot. It had also forgotten running water, heated water and ice. A theme was developing here.

Marcel had arrived in Nicosia the day before after stops in Tunisia and Egypt. After this would come the trill of Bulgaria and Albania ... whee. Marcel blamed Joel the Lemur for the crappy schedule. Joel claimed that the paperwork to get into the really nice countries was too sophisticated to fake in the time available. Who ever heard of skateboarding in Tunisia for Christ sake? People there looked at him while he was shredding like he'd grown another head. Didn't even clap, and that hurt, even if they were too busy running away at the time. Lousy timing to have the local terrorists attack a bus load of tourists a block away from where he was performing.

Egypt had been slightly better, but only because of the onerous security presence. Most of the audience had been westerners, but not exactly the X-games crowd; more like the Geritol generation. At least they applauded politely, even when he mobbed a trick. Today's performance at the Nicosia Conference Centre had been almost pleasant. Locals had crowded in for the novelty and a bunch of Brit kids from the two United Kingdom military bases on the island showed up. Although technical wasn't really Marcel's thing, the weeks of practice establishing his cover back in Ottawa had brought him to an acceptable level. The kids appreciated it anyways.

He glanced at his watch, another novelty for him, it was time to go. A plaque in the ancient elevator stated that the manufacturer was one D. Ouzounian. Same name as the street the hotel was on Marcel realized. Must have been one important dude he thought, see his name everywhere around here.

Leaving the hotel he checked a map of the old city. His destination was an open-air bar on Soutsou Street, near the Omeriyeh Mosque. It wasn't marked on the map, but Marcel had memorized the location and could find the short, curved street easily. Orienting himself and the map to the street he was on he double-checked his directions, as Silver had taught him to, and then he put the map away and headed off.

There was nothing that Silver could teach him about street attitude. Marcel proceeded with the casual air of someone in familiar territory, even though he had never been in this part of the world before. Looking nowhere, seeing everything, seeming oblivious but acutely aware of everything that was going on around him: old woman in a second story window, graffiti in the alley, yellow cat with a bottle behind a dumpster, police car facing the other way halfway down the block. After several blocks he determined that if anyone was following him, then they were very good.

It was after 10:00 pm and a Wednesday night so there was little traffic on the streets. Marcel's North American skater look was not out of place, thanks to satellite television and counterfeit name-branding, just another local teenager with no respect for tradition, whatcha gonna do?

As he neared his destination he noticed a change in the landscape. Gone were the small shops and restaurants of the entertainment district, likewise for the brightly lit hotel entrances with their signs depicting how many stars the local tourist board had awarded them. Now the street and the occasional hotel entrance were darker, the bars quieter. Turning the last corner to enter Soutsou Street the scene changed again, and Marcel halted in the shadows to take it all in.

Soutsou formed the arching top of a pie-shaped open area. In the middle of the pie was a single open-air bar restaurant/bar. On the outside edges were numerous dimly lit entrance ways that could have been more bars. Piled on the streets, in untidy heaps, were several hundred members of the Greek Cypriot Army.

Evidently it was payday earlier today. The bodies of those who had spent their monthly salary imbibing in Ouzo had fallen, been stacked or tossed on the sidewalks outside of the local establishments. Grunts, gentle snoring and the occasional loud retch came from the piles. Some of their more fortunate comrades sat, backs against the walls, heads lolling. A United Nations Military Police jeep cruised through the square, looking for errant blue-berets in this restricted area. After they left Marcel moved over to the bar.

He sat at one of the small tables on the edge of the patio that surrounded the bar and ordered an American coffee with one of the phrases that he had been able to memorize before leaving Canada. He checked that the envelope with the payment was still secure inside his sweatshirt and settled in to wait. His contact would be female, species and breed unknown, and he was to do whatever she said.

Sipping the hot weak brew, what passed for American coffee, as opposed to the tiny cups of strong unfiltered goo that was sold as Turkish coffee, after a few minutes Marcel saw a figure enter the square. She was tall, round and pink, a sow of substantial proportions. She wore a dress that throttled more than hugged her ample figure, cut low enough to show a cleavage that could qualify as a geological formation. She too paused on entering the square, looking around. When she spotted Marcel she ceased her survey and headed straight toward him.

She moved like the Titanic must have, but with less fear of icebergs. When one drunken solider stood and blocked her path she brushed him aside with enough force to send him bouncing off the nearest wall; all the while keeping her focus on Marcel. Approaching his table, before he could stand, she unceremoniously plunked her bulk down into one of the wrought iron chairs. The chair went 'ping' as one of the welds gave way beneath her weight.

"You wait for Tina." She said matter-of-factly. "You got something for Tina, Tina got something for you."

So that explained it Marcel thought. The contact sent her so's not to expose herself in case of a trap!

"Sure, I got something for Tina." He replied, unconsciously mimicking her pattern of speech.

"Good. You come see Tina now."

As they crossed the street the porcine go-between filled Marcel in as to what he was in for.

"Tina see you sitting there." She started. Okay, he mused, she did her own reconnaissance, very professional.

"She say you one cute Fox." Oh-oh. "Tina say she want to make you love long time." What the hell? "Tina say you get what you want, get what you need, and Tina get what she need, Tina love you good."

Marcel had heard about this sort of thing, even though Silver denied that it actually happened. Guy agent meets gal agent in some lonely armpit of the world, Gal agent falls for guy agent, erotica ensues. Wonder what she looks like? Marcel imagined a tall, dark-furred mysterious beauty, naked but for an open trench coat and fedora.

The pink lady crossed the sidewalk, kicking recumbent soldiers left and right to clear a path to a darkened doorway. "This Tina's place." She said "Love wait for you inside."

She opened the door and stood aside to allow Marcel to enter first. Using caution, he stepped inside and gave the foyer a quick once-over. Doors leading to apartments on the left and right, dust undisturbed in front of them indicating that they were unused. Stairs leading up, well worn and warped, no quiet approach for an assailant there. Single door at the far end with a worn carpet in front of it and light coming from underneath.

"Go inside" She indicated "Tina love you big."

Marcel opened the door and froze in shock. Inside the apartment's salon, centred on a square of carpet, sat a rocking chair. In the rocker was an ancient alligator. Wrinkled and old, with only two teeth in her upper jaw and a single lone tooth in the lower, she was knitting some sort of small sweater as she rocked madly back and forth. She peered through thick glasses at Marcel, cackled and grinned insanely. Worst of all, she appeared to be at least eight months pregnant.

Marcel tried to back up but the pig was blocking his escape.

"Where you go Fox? Tina want you now!"

"No, hell no!" was all Marcel could manage.

"What wrong? Granny Apple scares you?"

"Granny Apple? She's not Tina?" Marcel asked, confused.

"What! That Granny Apple. She guard Tina's house when Tina out. ME Tina! Silly Fox, think Tina want you love with Granny Apple? HA!"

Relieved beyond belief that he wouldn't be come a sexual sacrifice to the Gator God, Marcel turned and looked Tina over. Fat but firm, smooth rosy skin and clean, twice his size but with kind eyes, kind of beady actually. Marcel made up his mind. In comparison she was Venus.

"Let's do this."

Tina smiled and, engulfing his paw with her hand, led him around the mad granny gator into a bedroom.

She faced him with hands on hips and asked "You have something for Tina?" He pulled the envelope from under his shirt and handed it to her.

Glancing inside she shrugged, slipped the envelope into a dresser drawer. Crossing her arms she pulled her dress off over her head and tossed it on the dresser. A massive bra and the largest thong Marcel had ever seen quickly followed. She turned a full circle on her toes, holding her arms above her head.

"You like Tina?"

"Tina, you are more woman than I can handle." Marcel answered, honestly.

Tina smiled and blushed a tiny bit, and then she grabbed his cheeks and pulled him off the floor, level with her face.

"Oh you are such a sweet little fox. Come here!"

She fell backwards onto the bed, bringing Marcel down on top of her. Thank God, he thought. She pulled his clothes off, tossing them left and right. He was scrambling to maintain his position on top as she rolled around pulling at socks and shirt, his paws sinking in here sliding there, which only seemed to excite her more.

She rolled and Marcel slid, the sweat from their combined efforts and the heat of the room lubricating them both. Slipping off, he grabbed one gigantic breast with both arms and buried his face in a saucer-sized nipple. Breathing hard, his tongue came out and brushed her flesh. The nipple hardened immediately, almost costing him an eye. Scrambling to gain altitude, one foot slipped between her legs, finding the sweet spot by fate, making her moan with pleasure. She squeezed his foot between her thighs. His foot went numb. He tried to pull his leg back but it was caught between hers, and now she pressed his head between her breasts. Fighting for breath as well as circulation now he grabbed at her breasts, flailed his head back and forth and jerked his trapped leg franticly.

Tina only moaned louder and squeezed harder. Just as he was sure that the end was near, she released him and sat up. "You the best Tina has in a long time. You take me now!" Rolling over onto her knees she clutched the pillow and presented her rump to Marcel.

"Oh, take me now foxy!"

An observer, standing at the head of the bed and looking down along Tina's back and over the hemisphere of her rump, would have seen Marcel's ears appear first as he slowly rose to his knees. Soon his eyes would show, crossed in the effort to take in the expanse of her all at once, then his snout and his open maw and soon his head floated over her butt like a small black moon orbiting a pink planet; and the face of the man in this moon looked awestruck.

So big, he thought, where does it end? Only a pirate could love this much booty. Hey, they really do have little curly tails, go figure. Marcel looked down to his own crotch, at nothing ... no protruding love blade, no pulsing power pole, nothing, nada, rien. She moaned and writhed before him, fingering herself and mumbling to him. What to do? Would she renege on the deal if he couldn't satisfy her? Maybe if he made a fist?

Tina reached back between her legs and brushed her fingertips across his sack. He inched forward on his knees to shorten the reach and she took his balls in her hand. Surprisingly gentle now, she caressed one then the other, rubbed them against each other, tickled the sensitive spot behind them. Marcel felt a twinge from below. He watched in fascination as her backside swayed to and fro, like the hypnotic movements of a snake charmer's flute, albeit an exceptionally large one in this case. So pink, so smooth, no fur at all, but he found himself strangely attracted to it. Her sex was open, slick and inviting.

He reached out tentatively and inserted his thumb. Rotating his wrist down made the pad of his thumb slide out and across her clit, rotating it up reinserted it until the webbed base came to rest against her. The movement was uncomfortable, awkward. I wonder if this is where they got the expression 'Cocked wrists' thought Marcel. He found that by rotating his shoulder his arm would move like the driving bar on a steam locomotive and produce the same effect with less effort and more fluidity. That felt better. Tina's ass bobbed in agreement.

Marcel felt a shock as the tip of his penis brushed against the back of her thigh. Looking down he was surprised to see that he was ready. When had the little bugger come out to play? No matter. Tina's buttocks were flushed and her vagina was swollen. Her breath coming in short sharp gasps. Marcel pulled out his thumb, raised his hips, and took the plunge.

Aahhh ... hot and wet, gripping and releasing, pulling him in and letting him go. Muscles he never suspected existed inside her. They undulated and clenched to draw him deeper than he would have thought possible, then unfolded to allow him to draw back. But each time the tip of his rod was on the point of leaving the living sheath it would ripple and tease him back inside. His own ass lifted and swung with each thrust, sliding the underside of his cock against her swollen clit on the way in, dragging the tip along the back wall of her vagina on the way back. Her shoulders were down on the mattress, her head turned to one side, eyes closed. Her hand still played with his happy sack.

Marcel could sense that she was getting close. He increased the tempo of his thrusts, no longer doing this for Queen and the Academy; he wanted to make her cum for her sake, or perhaps his. Grabbing a double handful of butt he thrust as hard as he could. Her hand left his balls at that point. She drew one finger down along her dripping cunt, wetting it, and then she reached back again, past his balls, past the tender skin under then, and poked the tip into his ass.

The shock of her going where no one had gone before mixed with the unexpected pleasure drove him against her so hard he could feel her bones and he came like he had never cum before. Exploding, spurting, it felt like fireworks were going off inside the part of him that was inside her. Shooting again and again until his sack was drained and then shooting some more. He threw his head back and yipped for the first time in his life. It felt like his balls would be sucked up the tubes and shot out also. And with each shot his hips thrust him harder onto her, until she screamed too.

Exhausted and spent, he collapsed on top of her. She slowly slid to lay full length on the bed. For several minutes neither moved, as their rapid breathing slowed. Eventually she flexed one mighty buttock and flipped Marcel to the other side of the bed. Rolling over and pushing she sat up against the head of the bed.

"That was some good love foxy. Been long time since Tina been loved good like that." She played with the fur around his ears. "What that black dot on your leg for? You get tattoo in prison? Gang sign?"

"Had an accident with a sharp pencil." He replied, then remembering his mission, Marcel asked "And now Tina, do you have something for me?"

"You bad fox! Tina not enough for you? You want more you go see Granny Apple, but watch out! She Bite!"

"No, not that, I mean ... do you have something for me to take back with me? Something ... from your Grandfather maybe?"

Tina looked hard at him for a minute, as if weighing him up. Finally she made up her mind and stood up.

"Okay fox. You give Tina what she wants, you get something in return." Reaching over to the dresser she fumbled under the loose clothing and came up with, a snow globe. "There you go." She said tossing it to Marcel "Grandfather give that to me last time I see him. You take care of it."

Marcel examined the snow globe. It showed a log cabin in the woods, with bears that could circle it. But the battery compartment was empty so Marcel couldn't tell if it worked. It had some kind of strange writing on it, Cyrillic? Ukrainian perhaps? There was a serial number etched inside the battery compartment. Clever, he thought, who would think of looking for the control code there? Dressing slowly he put the snow globe in the pocket of his jacket and stood awkwardly, unsure of how to end this.

Tina seemed to know her way around this situation however. She smiled at him again and pulled him in for a last bear hug. She really was a sweet girl, and Marcel wondered how she got caught up in all this spy business. Giving him a last peck on the cheek she released him.

"Time for you to go now. Tina got things to do, places to be. Maybe we see each other again next time you in Nicosia, eh?" Pulling on a bathrobe she held the door open for him and escorted him through the salon. Granny Apple sat silently, not rocking or knitting now, just peering at them as they went by.

Back on the street Marcel knew that he should leave the area quickly, but his legs were still weak and he had developed a thirst for something more substantial than coffee. He saw that some of the soldiers had left or been hauled away while he and Tina were occupied. Heading to the bar in the square he sat down at the same table and waited for the waiter to come take his order. The only other customer was a female Wolf, as tall as Tina and probably as heavy but this one was all muscle, like a member of the Russian woman's weightlifting team.

As soon as Marcel sat down the wolf stood up and walked briskly over to his table and sat opposite him. She did not look like a happy wolf.

"Where the hell have you been?" she demanded

"Who the ... what the hell." Marcel stammered.

"You were supposed to be here an hour ago. I can't afford to be seen hanging around a dump like this. Certain people would be suspicious." She growled, "Now come with me."

Confused, and struck by the force of her anger, Marcel followed her across the square.

"When they told me that my contact was a skater boy I thought: 'What clever cover'. If I had suspected that they were going to send a real skater boy I'd never had come to this place; but there are no professionals left, are there?" She asked herself.

They left the square and headed toward the line that separated the Greek Cypriot and Turkish forces, the 'Green' line. Lined with Greek, Turkish and UN Observation posts the line of separation was kilometres wide in some areas, as narrow as a street in others.

She led him down a narrow street that ended at the green line itself. She entered a building that was halfway down the last block, just shy of the one occupied by a Cypriot observation post. Climbing the stairs she explained "No one wants to live here, too close to the lights of the green line and also in the path of the bullets that miss the soldiers next door, so it is both quiet and inexpensive." She entered a room on the second floor and pulled Marcel in behind her. God but she was strong.

The room's windows were covered with boards, the edges taped to prevent light from leaking out. Once inside she turned to face him.

"Take your clothes off."

Oh lord, not again, Marcel thought. "Now just wait a second here."

She drew a revolver out of her purse and pointed it at his belly.

"Now." Marcel complied.

After he had stripped she circled him, looking him over, making him lift his tail, show the undersides of his feet and his armpits.

"What's that black spot on your thigh? Some sort of ritual tattoo?"

"Pencil." He answered wearily.

"Should not keep those in your font pocket. What do they teach young agents these days, nothing? All right, sit on the bed." She sat at a desk against the opposite wall, turning the chair to face him. "You smell like of the prostitutes that work Soutsou Street. They are all pigs."

"P-pigs?" Marcel was starting to feel sick to his stomach.

"On this, the Greek side, yes. All Pigs. On the Turk side they won't touch pigs, religious restriction. Most of the prostitutes there are sheep from Scotland. Something about the Scottish accent excites the Turks. Oh well." She refocused on Marcel "So, Where is it?"

"Where's what?" he tried to ask innocently, but Marcel suspected that he knew what she wanted.

"My Grandfather's last payment you idiot! Where is it?"

Marcel tried to think fast "Well now, you see I don't have it on me at the moment. I left it somewhere safe in case someone tried to intercept the payment. I can go and get it though ... anytime." Marcel didn't relish the prospect of getting past Granny Apple, or getting the envelope back from Tina.

"No. Just sit there." She mumbled a few curse words in Ukrainian that Marcel recognized easily, courtesy of 'Uncle' Yurgi, Marcel's abusive Ukrainian stepfather. She picked up the phone that sat on the desk, an antique dial model, and rotated the dial a dozen times before listening to the receiver.

"International operator? Yes I need a number in Ukrainia, 380-48-225-34-34. Yes I'll wait." She hung up the phone.

"They will call back when the connection is made. I am Wilma Timoshenko. Granddaughter to Vasyl Timoshenko, the 'Werewolf of Odessa'. You have heard of him of course."

"Sorry, never heard of him, and I'd remember a name like 'Vasyl'."

"No? He is famous in the annals of espionage. He was called the Werewolf for his ferocity and his ability to change sides, to become the enemy. He was a nationalist before the communists arrived, a devout communist afterwards. He became a Jew in an attempt to escape to the Palestine when World War Two came our way but his ship was intercepted by the Germans and he was sent to a concentration camp. Look," She displayed one muscular forearm

"I have copied his registration tattoo in honour of him." On the inside of the arm, where the fur was thinnest, Marcel could just make out a few black scribbles.

"Later they discovered his work on the Soviet rockets and transferred him to their V-2 program, and he became a nationalist again. When the communists overran Berlin he rejoined them and brought the German's rocket secrets with him. Grandfather had a habit of hedging his bets. He sold information on the soviet missile program, both real and disinformation, until the break-up of the Soviet Union. Things have been slow since then. But now Mother Russia grows strong again and the Americans deploy missile defences again and there are secrets to peddle again! But that is not why we are here." She looked at him with pity. "We did not want them to send an amateur. We were expecting a senior agent. Too bad for you."

Marcel was beginning to understand. The meeting and payment were only bait to draw FOX out into the open. "You were hired to do this."

"Yes, they needed someone with some credibility as a double agent, someone who would have access to valuable information and who had sold such in the past. Grandfather collected a fair sum for selling the coded information, and would have collected even more if FOX had sent a real agent." The phone rang at that instant.

Not a real agent! Marcel's face burned in growing anger. Wilma had placed the revolver on her lap and was looking up at the ceiling as she held a conversation in Ukrainian with a person Marcel supposed was her Grandfather. He glanced down and located his shoes, one was right beside his foot. Slowly, keeping his eyes on Wilma, he eased his toes inside the opening of the sneaker and slid one paw behind his back. When she half-turned to replace the phone in its cradle he made his move.

Kicking hard he flung the shoe at her head. Instinctively she threw herself off the chair, sending the gun across the room. She leapt to her feet and froze, one arm reaching for the pistol that was still five feet away from her paw. She stared at Marcel, who had not left the bed to go after the gun. Marcel now reclined comfortably on the bed, leaning on his left elbow, left leg stretched out, right leg bents so that the knee stuck up, and with a small automatic in his right paw, pointed at Wilma's chest.

"Where did you get that gun?"

"Sorry. Trade secret."

"Have you ever shot anyone before?"

"Nope. This will be the first time."

Wilma relaxed at that news and straightened.

"So. You novice, you think that you can just pick up a gun and shot someone in cold blood? You know nothing about the art of killing, of the psychology of it. You are naked, and men are more uncomfortable naked then women are. You hide it well but your nerve must be near breaking. You are small and weak and in a submissive position, lying there below me." She stood with her head high and held back, pushed out her impressive chest and flexed her arms as she held one paw out to him.

"Give me the gun. Grandfather has told me to let you go. No sense attracting attention to us unnecessarily. You are not the one we were after."

Marcel did not move. "See, there you go making assumptions. That's one thing they taught me, not to do that. You assume that just because I look like a punk that I'm ignorant, couldn't possibly speak another language 'cause I don't even speak my own so good. But I do know how to say 'I'll take care of the little shit head' in Ukrainian; I had a damn good teacher."

Marcel sat up, keeping the gun aimed at her chest; he allowed his anger to grow. "And I've been naked before." He stood, not tall or strong like Wilma, but lean and lithe and confident.

Wilma shook her head in disbelief and strode toward him. "You don't have the guts."

It turned out that he did, while hers had a severe problem accommodating the two bullets he sent into them. Keeping out of her reach from where she knelt, paws to her chest, blood leaking out between them he raised his aim.

"And I said that I never shot anyone before. You never asked if I ever killed anyone before." Her head snapped back with the force of the third shot. Morocco.

Marcel listened for commotion from the street, but the service pistol was sub-sonic and semi-silenced, and it appeared that the sound had not escaped the building. He slid it back under the patch of faux fur that would fool a casual search. Some professional she was, he mused. Now, how to salvage this mess. He dressed as he looked around the room. He went through her purse, replaced her revolver in it when he was satisfied that it held no secrets. Likewise, he found nothing interesting in her clothes. How was he going to explain to Silver that he had given the payment to a Porcine Punta for a snow globe and shot the contact before getting the number sequence she kept on her? The number sequence ... that she kept on her ... hmmm.

* * * * * * * *

Silver sat in webbed chair on the deck of Tanner's cottage in the Gatineau Hills and idly played with the stem of his wine glass while he reminisced over a long career that was soon going to be over. The setting sun made pools of shadow in the valley below but still lit the peaks opposite. The mosquitoes were coming out and the bats were swooping to feed on them in the fading light.

"Coming inside Silver?" Tanner asked from inside the screen door. Grunting assent Silver stood and entered the cottage.

The cottage was large, with one main room that included the kitchen, dining area and salon. Two bedrooms and a fully equipped bathroom could be found up a short flight of stairs against the back wall. Every room had a view of the Gatineau River Valley, toward the rising sun, and from the porch one could see the rail line that was still used daily by the Hull-Wakefield steam train. Tanner had built the cottage himself, years before, from the recovered oak beams of an old homestead from up in the valley. It had been his retreat in a time when being homosexual in the government service was still illegal, and even though he was now protected by Canada's Human Rights Act, he still used the cottage for his short affairs, and for the occasional visit from his friend, Silver.

Silver ignored the chess board Tanner had set up on the coffee table and poured himself another glass of wine, an Italian Ruffino, white and dry enough to make one's teeth ache, just the way he liked it. He stood at the counter and sipped.

"What's wrong Silver?" Tanner enquired. "Anything bothering you?"

"Other than ending my career on a glorious note of failure that will probably mean the end of the Academy as well? No, everything - else - is - just - ducky." Silver said through clenched teeth.

"Oh, its not as bad as all that I'm sure." Tanner replied casually.

"You read my report. One very fortunate hooker, and the service is out $10,000. One dead contact and nothing to show for it. The Werewolf will never sell us anything again, and may even come after us for killing his granddaughter. Once he reads it W will have to shut the program down and fire me if he wants to attempt to salvage some of the Academy, but the minister will probably shut the whole works down herself rather than be embarrassed in front of the rest of the cabinet. I fail to see a bright side here."

"It was a set-up. He did good just to get out alive; and the kid did get a snow globe." Tanner chuckled.

Silver's sense of ha-ha, however, had left the vicinity. The standard operating procedure was that any artifact acquired during a mission was to be turned in and examined by the rats in the lab before being returned to the agents. Too many foreign intelligence services had tried to introduce listening devices, poison pens and exploding knick-knacks into the academy to take any object, no matter how innocent, for granted. When Silver had debriefed Marcel in Albania the day after the fiasco in Nicosia he had confiscated the hooker's snow globe and shipped in back for examination in a lead box, in the diplomatic bag. Silver made a disgusted noise and flopped down in an easy chair.

"The Lab report came in while you were outside mourning your career." Tanner added nonchalantly, "The head of Cryptology called me on the secure phone just now with the results."

Silvers ears perked up. "Cryptology? Did they find a code in the snow globe? Was the Pig part of the game the whole time?"

"What they found," Tanner explained, "rolled up in the battery compartment, was a six-inch strip of Wolf skin with a number tattooed on it. Cryptology was on standby and no one knew of the so-called failure so they assumed it was you who had put it there. They ran the numbers through the algorithm the Werewolf provided and the code came up. They're decoding the missile and warhead information now."

"Dammit, why didn't the kid tell me?"

"I think that he's trying to tell you something else ... like that its time to start treating him like an agent and not some novelty toy." Tanner stood up and moved to the kitchen. "I sat on the report. You can rewrite it on Monday."

Silver shook his head in wonder and drained his glass.

"This means that we're still in business. I'll need to expand Marcel's training, bring him in with the other students maybe, as soon as he gets back from the last leg of his tour in Bulgaria. We'll need at least one other recruit to make a field team." Tanner stood forgotten as Silver's mind shifted back into high gear.

Tanner knew that Silver would not sleep tonight, and he put another bottle of the dry white wine in the fridge for him.

"I'm going to bed Silver." he called from the master bedroom door. Care to join me?" he teased.

"You know Tanner, the instant that I cross over you'll be the first to know, but not tonight. Thanks. Really, thanks for the news."

"Goodnight Silver."

"Goodnight."

Several minutes later, Tanner heard the soft strains of 'The Nutcracker Suite' coming from the salon. He rolled over, smiled to himself and fell peacefully asleep.