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FOX Academy:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

Book II.5 - The Love Who Spied Me

FOX Academy Flashback:

The Finland Express - Part 3 - The Empty Land

17 January, 1987

Menefer and her wolves met the KGB resident agent in an office in Ivalo, the first town of any size inside Finland on the highway. The town was at the junction where traffic turned north or south. They arrived in a sturdy 10-passenger van, courtesy of the local superintendent, who had traded it in exchange for certain papers Nenet had produced. He also supplied them with temporary visas, for the photos that went along with the papers. His deal was incumbent on them never entering his district again.

The resident agent was a Siberian snow weasel with beady black eyes and just a touch of red fur marring his otherwise all-white coat. He was tall, for a weasel, but too thin for Nenet's tastes. The dossier she had removed from the now forever-to-be-childless Border guard captain indicated that she wouldn't be to his tastes either. No matter, there were other ways to elicit cooperation and the bear had provided her with plenty of that.

After showing him a portion of the evidence against him, enough to make him grow even paler, she told him who they were after. Having received the notification of the attempted defection via KGB communications, sent to all residents the world over as a matter of routine, he recognized the group.

"What do you need from me?" He asked warily.

"We can give you a description of the car they are travelling in. You have your network watch for it and report any sighting. We will do the rest." She indicated the wolves behind her with a toss of her head.

"How far ahead of you are they?"

"About twelve hours."

"Do you know which direction they were heading in?"

Menefer frowned. "Not for certain. We thought that they might head north, to Norway. It was their original destination and it is the closest border."

"Forget north. Nothing is moving in that direction since this untimely thaw started. The bridge is out in Inari and the passes along the border are blocked. They would have been able to find this out by hanging around the cafés. They must have headed south." He pulled a detailed map out and unfolded it on his desk. "South to Sodankyla at least, from there one can continue south or head west toward Sweden."

"They can get to the sea by going southwest?"

"They could, but it won't do them much good this time of year. Hardly any boats are moving until the solar night ends. One would have to go down almost as far as Helsinki before you can find a busy enough port, and the chances of getting caught increase as the population density goes up. Still, it's an option. Sweden is possible. There are no checkpoints along the route through Kittilia and Muonio."

"How long before they could get there?" Nenet asked, worried now.

"A few more hours I would say." The weasel rubbed his chin as he thought. "I can have immediate surveillance on an intersection they must pass through. I can also ensure that nobody matching their description gets across at Muonio tonight. Let me make some calls." He picked up a phone and waved them into the other room.

Twenty minutes later, he called them back in. "It is arranged. There is no record of such a vehicle crossing the border yet so you may be in luck. I suggest that you head south to Sodankyla and call me from there. Maybe I'll know more by then."

Nenet had thanked the weasel and took her leave; reminding him that trying to become a hero by turning the fox and the two lemurs over to the KGB would not buy forgiveness for what she would reveal to them. Loading her horde in the van, she ordered the driver, an ex-Red Army staff-car driver, one well experienced with arctic driving conditions, to make all possible speed. She needed to catch up.

Two hours and several buckets of vomit later, the driver brought the van to a skidding halt outside a café on the outskirts of Sodankyla. He smoked and grinned as the rest of the wolves tried to wipe the interior of the van with snow. Meanwhile, Menefer strode over to the public phone, inserted several coins, and then dialled the number that the weasel had given her. She listened, asked a few short questions and hung up. She returned to the van just as the wolves were compiling what little Finnish currency they had to buy a round of coffee.

"Back in the van." She ordered, climbing into the passenger seat. "They were spotted in Muonio just moments ago and have headed north." She turned to the driver. "Get us there in less than four hours and I'll see that you are rewarded handsomely." She paused; a toothy grin filled her face. "Get us stuck and you'll scream like the bear."

* * * * * * * *

18 January, 1987

It was when he saw the river that Auvert realized that he was falling in love.

Thirty kilometres north of Muonio, he had spotted the turn off for the ice bridge, but after turning left to enter the approach their path had been blocked by a number of red and white striped portable barriers. They had all climbed out of the car and walked around the barriers to approach the river. The moon, three-quarters full now, illuminated the snow, making everything glow with a ghostly white, except for the open stretch of black water where the ice bridge should have been.

"It's the thaw." Nadya said forlornly. "The melting snow makes the river run faster and thins the ice."

"You are an idiot Paulis." Her husband, Grigori Mishin put in, using the cover name Auvert had given. "You should have anticipated this and gone south.

Auvert stood silently, gazing at the river. At the very least, the trip would be extended by several hours as they drove to the next permanent crossing. He should have been upset at the bad luck. He should have been pissed at himself for not anticipating a change in the weather. He should been angry at the cynical lemur and returned the insult, reminding Mishin that the road south was blocked with a line of cars backed up from the border crossing. Instead he felt thankful; grateful because the delay meant that he would be in Nadya's company a while longer.

"There's a bridge at Kaaresuvanto, a couple of hours up the road. Like the crossing in from Russia, the Finns don't occupy it at night, not enough traffic and nothing worth smuggling. We'll cross there and declare refugee status." He looked down at Nadya. "Don't worry. I'll take care of you."

Grigori didn't miss the point that he was not necessarily included in the statement, and he gripped his spouse possessively as he glared at Auvert. Auvert ignored him and walked back to the car, letting them follow in their own time. He didn't care what the lemur thought. He was in love with the wife of the scientist he was helping to defect.

Auvert had no intentions of doing anything about what he felt for Nadya. He would not try to get her alone and confess his feelings while they were still on the run. He would not attempt to woo her away or contact her after they were safely in the west. They would have a few more hours to talk about movies and books, but that was all. Maybe she would put a paw on his arm and laugh; at best, a chaste kiss when they parted.

You didn't screw with a buddy's mate, or with anyone you were responsible for. That included subordinates and civilians you were in charge of. So he would enjoy Nadya's company for the time he had it, and say goodbye when they were safely across the border. He would remember her eyes and her smile always, and late at night, after ten to twenty drinks and a roll with some slut he had met only hours before, he would think about Nadya and how it could have been, and he would have another drink. That's the way it had always been, that's the way it would always be for him, he supposed.

Auvert sat waiting behind the wheel. Through the windshield he could see them arguing. Grigori's arms were waving and the cords on his neck stood out. Nadya withstood the barrage, arms crossed above her swollen belly, looking calmly back at him. When his anger was exhausted, she simply turned and walked back to the Lada. After a moment, he followed meekly, but instead of taking her usual position in front with Auvert, Nadya slid in back with her husband.

"Are you okay to drive Martin? I'd like to get a little rest." She asked.

No more 'Marty', Auvert noted, at least she hadn't called him 'Mister Paulis'. "I'm fine." He lied. He was going onto his fourth day without sleep, but he could hold out for another couple of hours. He started the engine and put the car in gear, producing a hazy blue cloud of exhaust fumes. As he backed through the cloud he caught a whiff of the brunt-engine smell that he had noticed before. Not a good sign.

They drove north and west along the Torne River in silence. Nadya leaned against her husband and he kept a possessive arm around her shoulders. Auvert drove automatically along the level, gently curving road. Occasionally he glanced back in the rear-view mirror, as was his habit, to see if any other vehicle was overtaking them, but the road remained empty. Whenever he checked the rear, he could also see the two lemurs. Nadya was not sleeping, she was watching him in the mirror and their eyes met each time.

The only diversion before reaching Kaaresuvanto was a herd of feral reindeer blocking the road about two kilometres outside of town. Sounding the horn and flashing the lights did no good so Auvert slowly drove the car into the group, inching forward cautiously amongst the huge beasts. It was the noxious smell of the blue smoke, coming out of the exhaust constantly now, that convinced them to move on. The road looked level but they were going steadily uphill toward the spine of the Scandinavian Peninsula, and neither the climb nor the elevation was doing the little car any good.

As expected, the barrier was up on the Finnish side of the border, the customs house dark and quiet. Auvert shut off the engine as they turned onto the bridge and rolled past it silently. Halfway across the stone bridge, they could see the light reflecting off the brass inset that marked the border, and the Swedish barrier just beyond it. Their barrier was down.

Auvert applied the brakes, trusting that the brake lights wouldn't alert the Finns, and stopped the car as close to the barrier as he could. The Swedish guard post was lit up, unusual for this time of morning. Seeing no reaction to their vehicle's presence, and not wanting to use the horn least he wake the Finns, he opened the door and got out. Behind him, he heard the lemurs getting out of the car too.

There was no way around or under the barrier; it was solid and the controls to retract it were evidently inside the guard post. Auvert could have leapt it, and maybe Grigori could have also, but Nadya could not, and throwing her over in her condition was not an option. Auvert found a button below a sign in what was probably Swedish and Finnish and he pressed it. They heard a faint buzzing coming from inside the building. The three of them stood in front of the barrier and waited.

A head poked up in the guard post's window, an arctic fox. Seeing the three, the fox hastily threw on a uniform overcoat and hat and came outside. Auvert saw that he was still wearing fuzzy slippers. The guard stopped a few feet behind the barrier and addressed then in a language Auvert didn't understand. After trying several languages each, they discovered that both the guard and Nadya knew a little Italian.

"He won't let us in." She translated, after asking him to open the barrier. "They have been warned about us." She spoke to the guard and listened while he answered. "They had a phone call from their regional supervisor. Immigration has been tipped off that a pair of lemurs are trying to get into the country illegally." She paused while he continued. "The female is pregnant and they are planning to have the birth in Sweden so that they can claim citizenship and social benefits for the child, and by extension themselves. They may be accompanied by a silver fox posing as a foreign doctor and they have been warned not to be swayed by his claims of a medical emergency. The fox is supposed to be a species smuggler and they are authorized to shoot if he attempts entry." Her head and shoulders slumped when she was done.

"Pull your gun," Grigori demanded, "shoot him."

"Look at the building." Auvert told him out of the side of his mouth. Grigori looked. There was another fox standing in the window, a radio in his paw. At the door two more stood with rifles at the shoulder, aimed at them. Auvert turned slowly and stepped back to the car. "Get in."

The lemurs got in. Nadya was back in the front seat again. "What do we do now? Is there another crossing?"

"Maybe we can cross the river father up, where it's colder." Grigori put in. "Once we get in and claim refugee status they can't send us out, can they?"

"They could kill Martin on sight, you fool." Nadya shot back, showing anger for the first time since Auvert had met her.

"That's a risk he gets paid to take. Once we get across he can ...."

"Quiet." Auvert interrupted their argument. He had not spoken loudly but the tone carried the message. They fell silent and stared at him. He voice was weary as he continued; the exhaustion and disappointment were taking their toll.

"This is the last crossing into Sweden. The highway on the other side turns south here so even if we could cross the river farther up there is nothing to cross to. There is nothing but tundra from here to Norway. No towns, no crossroads, no rest stops. Just a few hunting lodges, reindeer herders' huts and alpine lakes." He backed the car away from the barrier, through the choking blue smoke, and reversed off the bridge. He pointed the car northwest, toward Norway.

"We can't go back." He said wearily. "The car will never make it to the coast. We can't stay here; it's obvious that someone knows we're in the area. It's only about a hundred more kilometres to Norway. Even though it's uphill we have no choice; we have to keep moving forward."

Nadya just nodded silently. Grigori could not help but add, "I predicted this. You have doomed us all."

Auvert didn't respond, he just put the Lada in gear and drove off. He was beginning to think that the gloomy lemur had a point.

* * * * * * * *

The driver had not been this nervous since he had been assigned to drive Yuri Andropov, a notoriously cranky leader who had sent more than one hapless chauffeur to the gulag. Nevertheless, he managed to reach Muonio in three hours and forty-five minutes, although he had had to run a family of snow leopards off the road to do it.

Menefer directed him to the gas station where the KGB's informant worked. She calmly strode into the station to question him while the wolves pilled out and fought to be first in line for the washroom. Some of those who lost stood dancing and holding their crotches, wondering why her bladder had not exploded yet.

The informant told her how he had seen the Lada heading north a little over four hours ago. "They were spotted again trying to cross at Kaaresuvanto. They didn't get out, they continued north towards Norway. That was less than an hour ago; they are not making very good progress. I saw that their car was fuming when they left here. If they have a cracked block they should be okay as long as the temperature stays up. If it is bad valves then they are fucked, they'll never make it that far. The road gets steeper the farther you go."

"What are their chances of walking out?"

"The snow is too deep for hiking; they will have to stay on the road, unless they have skis. The temperature is supposed to stay around freezing for another day, and then get colder until its back to a normal minus forty. They can't travel far when it gets that cold; the sweat freezes too quickly. Snow coming too, one day maybe two. No if their car breaks down they will either have to stay inside it to conserve warmth or hope that it breaks near one of the hunting lodges."

"Hunting lodges?"

"There's nothing between Kaaresuvanto and Norway. The herders call it 'the empty land'. The only thing that it is good for is herding and hunting. The big companies keep hunting lodges for the executives and investors."

"How long before they get to the border?" she asked.

"The speed they are going, three hours from when they left, so about two hours from now. If they do make it, they will likely get across. This time of year, the Finns don't occupy the customs house at the border, they check everybody in Kaaresuvanto. The Norwegians will let them in; our network has no influence over them."

Nenet calculated in her head. "I'll never catch up in the van. I need to get ahead of them somehow."

"I know a guy with a plane. He should be at the airstrip, he lives there."

Nenet indicated the phone. "Call him. I'll go freshen up."

Twenty minutes later, she was at the airstrip north of town. The airfield was distinguished by a pole with a windsock in the middle of a long flat stretch of hard ground, and a log building that served as both air charter headquarters and the owner-pilot's home. A wolverine came out to greet them as the van rolled up beside the building.

"Urho Virta." The wolverine introduced himself in passable Russian. "Seppo from the gas station said you needed a plane quick. Where do you want to go?"

Seppo had told Nenet that the wolverine normally flew surveys for the mining companies and forest fire watch for the forestry service, but was not averse to earning a little on the side by delivering untaxed goods from Sweden or smuggling VCRs into the Soviet Union. Nenet asked if he could get her and her wolves to the Norwegian border, fast.

"Not all of you, just one." Seeing her anger rising he explained. "My cargo plane is down in Rovaniemi being serviced, not many consignments this time of year. All I have is my survey plane, and with the equipment built into her, she only holds me and one passenger." As he talked, he led them around the building until the plane was in sight. It was indeed small, and Menefer could see that the space behind the two seats was crammed full of electronic equipment. "But she's small enough to land on the highway if we can find a straight stretch." He added.

Menefer made up her mind. "Alright. Take me." She turned to the lead wolf. "You follow with the rest as fast as you can in the van. Give me one of the radios." He passed one over. They were the latest models, with signal scanning and locating capability. "Listen on frequency two. If I can't talk, I'll set it to transmit a signal that you can home in on. Get going." They tumbled back into the van and roared away in a spray of gravel.

She turned back to the wolverine, who was admiring her figure. He appreciated a female with a strong personality as well. "When whatever it is that you are up to is all over, what do you say we go over to the café for a little dinner?"

Nenet smiled, exposing enough teeth to make even a wolverine nervous. "I'd love to share a bite with you."

* * * * * * * *

Auvert rediscovered prayer on the road to Norway. He prayed that the car would keep running. He prayed that if it didn't that they would be close enough to walk out. He prayed that whoever was looking for them wasn't close. Mostly though, he prayed that Nadya wouldn't go into labour from the stress of the prolonged journey, because even though she was trying to hide it, he could see her clenching her teeth and rubbing her belly at regular intervals.

The drive so far had been eerie. On their left was the rushing Torne River, getting narrower and faster as they neared its headwaters. On the right was nothing; nothing but empty tundra, going on forever, glowing pale green in the moonlight. Behind them, a steadily thickening cloud of blue smog.

They passed a sign. Auvert tried to decipher it. He recognized the word Kilpisjarvi, the name of lake that was the source of the Torne River. They must be getting close. Another word looked like it could be the Finnish word for Norway, and the '22 Km' beside it was surely the distance to the border. Auvert glanced at the speedometer, the best they could do at this altitude was barely twenty-five kilometres an hour; another forty to fifty minutes to the border, and then fifty kilometres downhill to the first civilization.

Sure enough, the lake came into view as they rounded the next curve. A building, some sort of hunting or vacation lodge, was silhouetted on its bank. Would be nice to find one occupied with a few snow mobiles warmed up and ready to go, he thought idly, and some hot rum drinks, a clean toilet, smoked meat sandwiches ...

His wanderings were interrupted by a cough and a hitch from the engine.

"Oh no you don't." He muttered. Looking around he saw that Nadya was looking at him with eyes wide. In the back, Grigori was holding his head in his paws and shaking it slowly. The engine coughed again and a great cloud of black smoke came out of the exhaust. Auvert could smell the burning oil.

"Come on baby." He coaxed the Lada. "Just another twenty kilometres, for me?" The black smoke cleared and the engine ran smooth again, for about five seconds. The next cloud of black smoke came from the engine compartment itself, just after the bang and crash that indicated something vital inside the motor was now outside the motor.

Auvert shifted into neutral before the engine could seize and possibly send them into a skid. He allowed the car to coast to a stop in the middle of the road. By the time it came to a halt the engine had died. He didn't bother lifting the hood to look at it; the smell was enough to tell him that the car would never run again.

"What now?" The tone of Grigori's voice carried enough insult that he didn't have to say anything more pointed than that.

"Now we walk. It's warm and we have plenty of water still. We leave everything else. Even if no one comes along we should be there before the end of day today." Auvert was mentally calculating the distance and the speed they could travel in the heavy winter clothing. Another part of his mind was reviewing his recent flirtation with religion, with the car dead and over twenty kilometres to go to the border, what else could go wrong.

"Martin."

"Yes Nadya."

"I think that my water just broke."

Instantly, Auvert became an atheist again, but he had always performed best under pressure and his mind went into high gear, sorting, examining and discarding options at the speed of light. Releasing the parking brake, he let the car start rolling backwards.

"What are you doing?" Grigori asked incredulously.

"Going back to that cabin we saw, unless you want your son born in the back seat of a broken Lada?" Auvert ignored the sputtering lemur and concentrated on steering in reverse. The lane to the cabin was marked with a line or red poles, but it had not been ploughed. Auvert swung the car in as close as he could and eased it to a halt.

"Bring everything." He ordered Mishin, as he scooped his wife up from the front seat and began struggling through the metre-deep snow to the building. Fortunately, it was only a few hundred metres off the road. Far behind, he could hear Grigori swearing as he tried to follow in his tracks.

The cabin was unlocked, as was typical in this remote region. Auvert pushed the door open and looked around. There was a large common room with a glass-fronted wood stove, couches, one big table and a small kitchen area. The kitchen sink had a hand pump mounted beside it. A short hallway on the far side looked like it led to bedrooms. Auvert crossed the room and entered it. Glancing in the rooms, he selected the largest because it had its own wood stove. He put Nadya down on the bed and went to examine the room.

Whoever owned this place had meticulous habits. The kindling was prepared in the stove, bedding was stored in plastic bags on the shelves and the other than a thin layer of dust the room was clean. Auvert lit the fire with matches he found nearby and went to check the rest of the cabin. It was in a similar condition, except for a pile of their equipment that Grigori had thrown haphazardly on the floor before returning to the Lada for another load. Auvert lit the fire in the main room also.

The pump was the type that needed to be primed with a couple of cups of water, but there was a sealed jar of water for that purpose right beside it. Auvert primed the pump and tried it. In seconds, a chilly stream of water emerged, proving that the well was deep enough to avoid freezing. Auvert filled a large pot with the cold water and set it on the stove before returning to the bedroom.

Nadya was still on the bed, holding her belly and gritting her teeth as her breath came in short sharp gasps. She had taken off her parka and snow pants. Auvert grabbed some bedding off the shelves and tore open the bags. As soon as the contraction ended, he glanced at his watch and eased her off the bed so he could put the sheets and blankets on it. Her parka made a clunking sound when he tossed it onto a shelf, and he remembered that the second Glock was still in her pocket. When he turned back to her, he saw that she had stripped off all of her clothes except for a long undershirt.

Standing by the stove, fur matted from sweating and face contorted from the pain and stress, she still looked lovelier than any creature he had ever seen. Soaked in sweat, the undershirt clung to her breasts and belly. She had one paw across her chest while she caressed her belly with the other. Her ringed tail was curled about one leg. Her azure eyes shone in the dim light as she gazed off in the distance, deep in thought, thinking about her unborn son perhaps. Despite her obvious fatigue, she still held her head up proudly.

Auvert felt his heart lurch. From the main room he heard the door slam and the sound of packages hitting the floor and that broke the spell. A short burst of swearing followed by another slam told him that her mate was still ferrying their goods in from the car. He helped her back to the bed and covered her with the blankets. From underneath them she removed the soaked undershirt and passed it out.

"Call me when you feel the next contraction start." He told her, and then he went to check the water and the fires.

Auvert spent the next half hour rushing between rooms, tending the stoves, boiling water, cutting blankets and sheets into strips, teaching Nadya the principles of Lamaze as well as he could remember them. When Grigori came back with the last load, he sent him into the bedroom to hold his mate's paw and help her to breathe. The contractions were coming faster and faster, only minutes apart now. Auvert asked her to raise her legs and he flipped up the blankets to see if the baby had started to crown yet.

Grigori slapped the blankets back down again. "Stop staring at my wife." He almost screamed.

He did scream when Nadya's paw shot out from under the blanket and grabbed him by the balls. "I'm giving birth you idiot!" she snarled. "He's helping, so even if he has to stick his paws up me to the elbows, you leave him alone!" She released him and Grigori backed away with his paws on his crotch and a bewildered look on his face.

The next half hour passed in a blur. The birth came fast, faster than it should have for a first timer, but Auvert suspected that the stress and fatigue had a lot to do with that. He assigned Grigori the task of reassuring her and she almost crushed his paw when the baby came. Auvert handled the child gently, newborns could be very slippery he had read, and thanked God, his atheism temporarily abandoned again, that there had been no complications. He cleared its mouth of mucus and rubbed its back; he was rewarded with a soft cry. He cleaned the baby off and handed it to Nadya, who lay with her arms outstretched sobbing in joy. She held the baby to her chest and cooed until it stopped crying. Even Grigori was smiling.

Auvert sat down hard against the wall, emotionally drained and with almost all of his strength gone now. Back by the bed, Nadya and Grigori were having an animated conversation, but not an argument. Auvert tried to tune them out so that he could think about what came next. The birth wasn't over yet.

"Marty." Nadya's voice interrupted his thoughts. He stood up and approached the bed. "Marty, what is your real name?"

"Sorry?" He asked puzzled. "My real name?"

"Yes, your real name. I know that it is not Martin Paulis. Grigori and I have agreed to name the baby after him, but it is traditional that he has a patronymic, after a male relative of some importance to his life, a godfather or a mentor. We," she glanced at Grigori and he nodded agreement, "have decided that you should have that honour. So what is your real name?"

Auvert was too weary to argue. He told her. At first, he thought that she didn't catch the implications of that name.

"That's Armenian, isn't it?"

"Yes, my mother was Armenian; my Father was French." He told her his real surname. She said it alone then together with his first name.

"Isn't that somewhat obscene in English? When said together like that?"

He smiled sadly, remembering the hazing he had taken in school because his parent's English had not been good enough to realize that the name they gave him was so similar to a childish term for the male sex organ. "You don't have to use it. Name him after that actor you like, Joel Grey."

Nadya tried it. "Joelovich, Joelivich, Joelevich. It sounds like a wobbly dessert. No we'll have to think of something else." Suddenly, she gasped. A red stain began to spread on the sheet down below.

"What's wrong? What's happening?" Grigori wailed.

Auvert flipped the sheet up and looked. "Don't worry, it's just the placenta being expelled. Its normal to have a little bleeding when that happens."

But the bleeding didn't stop. Auvert wracked his brain for what to do. From somewhere deep down he brought the information out of storage.

"Grigori, massage her abdomen like this." He demonstrated, recalling the diagram in the first aid manual. "Nadya, see if the baby will nurse, that will help contract the uterus." Auvert rushed out and returned with a towel soaked in cold water from the pump. He put it across her abdomen. Next, he took some of the blankets he had cut up and folded them into a thick pad. Taking the strips if material made from the sheets he constructed a bandage that he secured between her legs, tying it tightly around her hips to keep pressure on it. Finally, he grabbed two pieces of firewood that were roughly the same size and, lifting the massive wooden bed with one arm, slid them under the rear legs to elevate it, leaving her head and heart lower than the source of the bleeding.

Auvert changed the bandage when it was soaked through, and he changed it again before the bleeding stopped. Nadya had fallen asleep after feeding, and seemed to be resting comfortably, clutching the baby to her. Auvert built a dam of blankets so the baby would not roll out of bed. He stoked the fire and indicated that Grigori should follow him out of the room.

Back in the main room, he added wood to the fire and pulled the cushions from one of the couches up by the stove. He peeled of his own soaked clothes and grabbed some intact blankets. He handed his gun to Grigori.

"I have to sleep." he informed the lemur. It was an understatement; beyond spent after over a hundred hours of constant activity, he would collapse soon if he didn't recharge. "You keep watch on the lane. If anyone comes up it, wake me. Check Nadya every fifteen minutes or so and if she looks pale or starts to bleed again, wake me. In any event, wake me in ninety minutes." That's all the time that Auvert felt he could afford, and it would be just enough to keep him going for another day.

He lay down on the cushions, threw a blanket over himself and an arm over his eyes, and was instantly asleep.

* * * * * * * *

In the rush to stop the bleeding, Auvert had not noticed the faint sound of an aircraft passing by overhead. Now that aircraft was circling lower, twenty kilometres to the north, near the border.

Going as low as he dared, the wolverine Urho Virta swooped along the highway and banked when they came over the barrier so they could get a better look. After several passes he brought them back up to a safe altitude and set the controls to keep them circling at that height.

"I don't think that they have crossed." He shouted to the white saluki beside him. "There were no tracks on the road and there was a layer of snow from the last storm still on the barrier. If it had been opened that snow would have fallen off."

Nenet Menefer had to agree. This could be good news for a change, but if they had not crossed, where could they be? More importantly, how was she to find them? They had not seen the car on the highway, but the trees that grew close to the river obscured many stretches of the road. They had seen a few buildings. Could they have stopped to rest? She looked at the sky, not only was the moon gone but a heavy layer of clouds was moving in fast from the south. It looked like Vitra's prediction for snow was coming sooner than expected. The storm would make finding them that much harder.

While she thought she looked at the instrument panel. In addition to the usual dials and gauges, there were two large round green glass portals, like television screens. "What are those?" She asked the wolverine.

"Magnetic Abnormality Detector and infrared sensors." He pointed to the one on the right. "The MAD boom measures the magnetic fields and this screen shows a graph when it's turned on. The data goes to the mining companies to help them locate deposits of nickel and the like." He pointed to the left hand scope. "The IR sensor is for detecting hot spots in the fire season. Fires can burn underground for weeks after a lightning strike then pop up and destroy a million hectares of prime hardwood. I fly around looking at the scope for the warm areas and report the locations to the fire service. They come, dig them up, and soak them down."

The thought intrigued her. "How sensitive is it? Will it detect a person?"

"Detection depends on ambient temperature and resolution. Resolution, with this equipment, depends on altitude; the lower we fly the better it detects, but the coverage narrows. The background environment now is cold, so warm objects will show up well, but if I fly low enough to detect body heat we'll see them before we detect them. I could pick up their car a lot easier; the engine and the exhaust will be very hot."

"And if they have gone into one of the lodges?"

"Easiest of all. The roofs aren't insulated and the stove pipe will show up like a star on the scope if they have lit a fire." he grinned.

"Turn it on Urho darling," she placed a paw on his thigh promisingly, "and head back the way we came, slowly."

Within ten minutes, a bright spot had appeared on the scope. Nenet told the wolverine to keep as far away as possible so he climbed and banked, but he kept the bright spot on the scope.

"There it is," he pointed out the window. "That cabin by the lake. Look, you can see the sparks coming out of the chimney."

Menefer studied the layout. "Put me down on that straight stretch two kilometres south. After you drop me, head south and radio the wolves with the location. Then you can go." She reached inside her coat and retrieved a bundle of foreign notes. "We'll be coming back through your town when we are done. Maybe I'll stop for the night, if I can count on your hospitality?"

"Oh, yes."

"Good, and don't forget, you promised me a bite."

* * * * * * * *

Auvert was dreaming. In his dream, an angel visited him. The angel was all white, with glowing feathery fur, some sort of canine. The angel stood above him. Funny thing, the angel was holding a gun, but that's dreams for you. The angel also appeared to de taking its robes off, and its body was perfect. Auvert had thought that angels were sexless, androgynous things, but this one was definitely a female ...and friendly. The angel was kissing his chest and pulling on his penis.

Auvert went with it; you didn't try to make sense of dreams. Some seemed to have some meaning and others didn't. Some were surreal and others were mundane. This one seemed particularly realistic; when the angel took his cock in her mouth he could swear that he actually feel her lips on it. A warmth was spreading through him as his cock hardened. Well, that was not so unusual in his dreams.

She was humming, mumbling as her head went up and down on his member. He couldn't make out what she trying to say. One paw was between his legs, rolling his testicles against each other, the other was holding the gun against his kidney. She turned her head sideways and ran her tongue along the length of his shaft, and her face was lit by the glow from the stove; the angel looked familiar.

Slowly, Auvert came out of his stupor. He didn't know how long he had been asleep, but he had been in the deepest part of it and his body fought to stay there. He looked around; saw Grigori by the front door, paws tied in front of him, a gag across his mouth. Auvert moved his arms weakly, tried to sit up. The 'angel' pushed him back down with the business end of the gun.

Nenet stopped licking him and smiled. "Getting up are we?" She looked pointedly at the stiff penis below her chin. "You are up as far as I need you." She stuck her tongue out and lapped the sensitive skin below the head, inserted the tip in the slit at its end. "We have some unfinished business."

She released his balls and held his shaft, stroking it gently while she raised herself to her knees. Keeping the gun pointed at his chest, she swung one leg over him. She guided the tip of his cock as she eased herself lower, rubbing it along her already moist slit until the lips parted and let it in. With a sigh, she sat slowly sat down on it, engulfing it, until it was completely inside her. With her left paw on his chest, the right pressing the pistol up into the base of his chin, she raised her hips, stopping just as he was about to pop out of her. Then she slid back down.

Auvert should have been scared, he should have lost his erection once he was conscious and aware of the threat, but the situation was so erotic. Although she too was not in pristine condition, she had the advantage of at least one night's sleep more than he, and had showered more recently. The long fur on her head had been combed out so that each strand seemed to stand alone, shining in the firelight like the halo he had mistaken it for. Her breasts stood out from her chest, firm and round, the nipples poking out from the soft short fur. Auvert wanted to reach out and caress them. Her body was lean and the muscles along her abdomen tensed and relaxed as she raised and lowered herself. She was Aphrodite in action.

The saluki rode him with ease, rotating her hips forward to massage her clit as she come down, tilting them back to maximize the contact with the sweat spot inside her on the rise. She was sweating both from the heat of the stove and from the effort and the sweat running down her felt good, helped to lubricate her. She tightened the walls of her vagina as she pulled up, heard his gasp of pleasure. She could feel the heat growing in her too now as the flesh inside swelled and engulfed his cock, rubbing it harder with each stroke.

She leaned back. She switched the gun to her left hand and jammed the muzzle into his abdomen. She took his left paw in her right, and squeezed it as she rode faster, her hips slamming down on his, driving him deeper into her. The pressure in his balls must have been near the breaking point. His hips bucked as they released, and she felt the hot fluid splash inside her. Auvert's paw squeezed back.

His grip brought her back to that night in Cairo. The erotic sounds coming from the bed, the smell of pleasure, the sudden fear as her father leapt out at her, the pain as he squeezed her paws until the bones cracked.

With a sucking gasp that seemed to last for hours, she felt her insides liquefy. She paused at the top of her stroke for an instant, savoured the sensation, and then drove herself down on his shaft as if to be impaled. She screamed then with an ecstasy that she had never felt before, as the intense pleasure from the orgasm mixed with the thrill of imminent revenge. Her head darted forward and her jaws snapped shut ... on nothing.

Honed by years of shooting drills, Auvert's reflexes had been too quick for her. He had pulled the paw back an instant before her teeth clicked together, knocking the gun from her left paw at the same time. Distracted in her delight a moment before, she had loosened her grip on the gun. It skittered across the floor and came to rest near the bound lemur.

Auvert tried to throw her off and go for the gun, but she was too firmly planted on him and felt his muscles tighten a second before he could move. She threw herself forward instead, still gripping his left paw. The move caught him unawares. Nenet could smell the stove as her head came dangerously close to it, could feel the long hairs start to curl in the heat. She lifted her right arm and drove it forward, trapping his left paw against the stove.

Auvert screamed then. The room was filled first with the smell of burning fur, then burning flesh. He struggled to pull his paw off the stove but she was leaning down on it with all her weight. In an act of desperation he brought both feet up, around her neck, crossed his ankles, and pulled down as hard as he could. He felt flesh rip as his paw came away from the stove, and the smell of cooking meet continued to get worse.

Cradling his paw to his chest, he looked around. Menefer had rolled after hitting the floor and was up and striding toward Grigori, who was trying to pick up the gun with his tied paws. She kicked him in the face, sending him against the door of the cabin, and reached down for the pistol.

Auvert didn't move. Menefer walked back across the room and stood above him, the pistol pointed at his chest. The firelight continued to play on her naked body, but she looked nothing like an angel now. Tinged red by the dying flames, surrounded by a cloud of burnt fur and flesh, she looked like a daemon out of hell.

"You know that they call me Sweet Tooth behind my back don't you?" She demanded with an evil grin. He nodded. "Well, after I kill you I'm going to barbeque the rest of that paw and have it for supper. I'll let my wolves take care of the lemurs when they get here later." Her arm straightened as she prepared to fire. "Goodbye, Mister Paulis."

Auvert closed his eyes as her paw tensed on the trigger. He heard the pistol shot ring out, felt the blood splatter, even smelled the gunpowder, but he didn't feel the impact. He opened one eye. Above him, the face of the Saluki was half gone, just a gaping red hole where an eye and a cheek should be. Her pistol was limp in her paw and she was swaying with the effort to keep it aimed at his chest. After a few seconds, the gun dropped to bounce off his belly and Nenet Menefer fell over and crashed to the floor.

Behind her, revealed now that the saluki had fallen, Nadya Mishin lowered the Glock that Auvert had given her days ago, and collapsed as well.

Auvert was up in an instant, the pain in his burnt paw forgotten. He rushed over to Nadya and turned her over gently. A trail of blood led back from her to the bedroom door. Auvert was about to pick her up when he heard Grigori crying through his gag. He rushed over, grabbed a knife from beside the sink and cut the ropes that bound the lemur. Together they raced back to Nadya, and together they lifted her up and carried her back to the bedroom.

Auvert could see that she had started bleeding again even before she had gotten out of the bed. She had put the baby in the corner, surrounding it with clean blankets before crawling over to get the gun from her parka. What happened after that was obvious.

They laid her on the clean side of the bed. Grigori picked up the baby and held it tightly while the fox examined her. Auvert looked up at him and shook his head. She had lost too much blood and he could not stop the internal bleeding.

"Grigori," her voice was weak, "Grigori."

Grigori came over and sat on the edge of the bed. "Nadya."

She took one of his paws in hers, held it to her lips. "I love you Grigori. I will always love you. Take care of our son." She dropped the paw. "Marty, are you there?"

Auvert could see that her eyes had grown cloudy, unfocused. "I'm right here." He said. She waved a paw in the air and he gripped it in both of his, ignoring the pain.

"I won't use your real name, I could see that it brought back bad memories, but you will always be my Marty, my friend." Auvert could feel his eyes growing wet. "Get my son back to your homeland Marty, watch over him like a godfather."

"I will." He promised.

And then, she was gone.

Auvert felt the tears coursing down his cheeks, but he didn't cry out load. He squeezed her paw once more, bent and placed a chaste kiss on the corner of her mouth. Looking up at Grigori he saw none of the animosity he had expected. "Stay with her. Clean her up. I have to get ready for the wolves she said were coming." Auvert left the room.

The first thing he did was to pick up the limp body of Sweet Tooth and dump it behind the cabin in a snow bank; she didn't deserve to share the cabin with Nadya. After that, he examined the storage shed he found back there, it was full of traps and snares for small and large game alike ... perfect for what he had in mind. Then he set about preparing the approaches.

When he was done, he felt that he had evened up the odds a bit, but he was worried about how many there would be and how experienced they were. A trained force of four or six incompetent ones they may be able to handle, but anything more than that and they were just delaying the inevitable. He went back inside the cabin.

Inside, he found that Grigori had not been idle. All the bloody sheets had been rolled together and put in a spare room. The trail of blood had been cleaned up, as had the stains in the two rooms. The baby was asleep, bundled in wool blankets and secured in a backpack from their gear, ready to travel. Another pack sat beside the baby. Grigori sat on the couch, still wearing just light indoor clothes.

"I saw some skis in the shed." Auvert told him. If you leave before the storm gets here, you have a good chance of making it to the border before it snows. From there it's all downhill."

"I can't ski Marty." The lemur said sadly. "You should have guessed that. I'm not good for much at all, except rockets."

"Nadya said that you were a poet once."

"If it would help, I would compose a saga, but you are the one skilled in the practical matters. Nadya's father would have liked you. He would have shot you for being a western spy, but he would have respected you while he did it."

"We'll hold them off Grigori. Eventually someone will come along and then we'll get out, you'll see."

"Don't try to fill me hope Marty; I'm Russian. Even if we survive the attack, the baby will not survive for long without his mother. No, we must do as Nadya asked. I have to take care of my son, and you have to get him out safely and watch over him. The only way we can both do as she asked is if you take the baby now, and I stay back to delay them."

Auvert wanted to argue with him, for Nadya's sake, but he was too tired. The lemur was right. Even with his superior shooting skills, a pistol was not enough against God knew how many automatic weapons. If the lemur couldn't ski now it was too late for him to learn, and there had been no snowshoes in the shed. The only chance the baby had was if he left now with it. If Grigori could distract them, make them waste time assaulting the cabin and checking it out before realizing that he was gone, then maybe the storm would keep them from following at all.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't get her out Grigori. I'm sorry that I can't get you out with your son."

"You feel bad because now you won't get your secrets?" Grigori asked.

"No. A son needs a good father. Someone who is brave and loving, even if he can't light a fire or shoot a gun. I'm sorry that he won't have his real father to give him that."

"Pshaw." The lemur shook his head. "You will find him good parents, a Russian couple, yes?" Auvert nodded. "Name him after that actor Nadya was always on about, Give him any surname that you wish, but if you won't use your name for his patronymic then don't give him one at all. I hear that Russians in the west don't even use them anymore. Just keep your promise, watch over him as if he bore your name."

Auvert's snout twitched. A smell filled the room, a good smell. "Is that ..."

"Coffee, yes. I found some in the cupboard along with a percolator. I thought you could use a lift before you left."

"Grigori," Auvert said as he licked his lips in anticipation, "I apologize. I've misjudged you; you are a talented guy."

* * * * * * * *

The wolves were two hours behind Sweet Tooth. The van was starting to show the strain, even thought it had only gone half as far as the Lada had it had covered the ground twice as fast. They found the lane easily enough, since the Lada was parked at the end of it. One of the wolves pulled the door open to check the inside. The phosphorous matches wired to the doors burst into flames as they were pulled through a strip of sandpaper. The flames ignited the gasoline soaked rags sticking out of the gas cans. The explosion ignited the wolf that had opened the door and one other nearby.

Acting with more caution now, the remaining six wolves crept toward the cabin, staying off the obvious trail that had been tramped down by the car's occupants. The bear trap that took the leg off one of them therefore came as a complete surprise. The rest moved back onto the trail, but swept the snow in front of them with the tips of their rifles. They sprung two more traps safely before they were close enough to the cabin for the lemur to fire. As instructed, he took three quick shots and changed locations, not bothering to look to see if he had hit anyone. The shots had their expected effect, the wolves spread out, springing another trap in the process if the screams were any indication, and moved forward even slower.

Only Four wolves remained mobile by the time they had surrounded the cabin. They moved in silently and took up their positions, just as they had rehearsed countless times back in Murmansk. At the leader's signal they burst in through windows, avoiding the doors, assault rifles ready, alert for traps and ambushes. The leader noted the big snares placed in front of the doors, and signalled them to search the cabin. Maybe the shooter had escaped out back before they surrounded the building?

Three of the four side rooms were empty. In the fourth they found the two lemurs in bed, side by side, with the sheet pulled up under their chins. The female had obviously bled to death, she was so pale, but he couldn't tell what had killed the male, so he stepped up and pulled back the sheet to see.

Grigori fired with both pistols, the spare Glock and Menefer's smaller Russian one, simultaneously. The leader flew backwards against the wall, propelled by the impact of several bullets. Grigori sat up, guns blazing, teeth clenched, determined to kill as many of them as he could. The last three had dropped to the floor at the first sound of gunfire however, and they had the angle on him as he rose up in bed. When they stopped firing, he was back beside his wife again, to rest with her forever

The three wolves searched the rest of the cabin nervously. They were junior members of the Werewolf's security staff and the death of the leader had shocked them. They knew that the lemur had been pregnant but they found no baby, and no fox. Sweeping the ground outside with flashlights they found the storage shed and noted that there were empty slots where two pairs of skis should have been. They briefly debated following on the remaining skis, but the rising wind, carrying the first flakes of snow, settled that argument for them.

"Should we drive ahead to the border? Try to get in front of them?"

"No. They won't be on the road and we'll never see them once the snow starts, even if they're right beside us. I say we head back home."

"Home?" The third spoke up. "What is waiting for us at home? The Werewolf will castrate us if we come back without either the lemurs and the fox or Sweet Tooth, and I'm not about to drive a broken down van back across Finland with two dead bodies in it. I vote that we leave everything here and drive south, to Sweden. We can claim to be political refugees when we get there."

The other two agreed. As they trudged back to the van one suddenly realized what was missing.

"Hey. What do you think they did with Sweet Tooth's body? I didn't see it around anywhere."

* * * * * * * *

19 January, 1987

Charlie McCrea was a black beaver, descended from the northern Cree beavers that inhabited the continent of North American before all the European species had shown up. His family name had come from a Scottish trader that had visited the village two hundred years before, leaving behind trinkets, legends and twelve children by four different wives. His fist name came from his grandfather, who had a Cree name that sounded similar and thought that Charlie was close enough to please both the government record keepers as well as the Cree spirits.

Charlie was in the Canadian Forces now, proudly serving his country and his people in the honourable role of a warrior. Actually, Charlie was a Supply technician, a storesman who worked for the quartermaster, and a Navy one at that, but that was the only opening they had in the Canadian Forces at the time and his family didn't need to know the difference. In any event, he was now stationed in Norway, part of Allied Command Europe, the ACE deployment force. Much of the ACE Mobile Force's equipment was pre-positioned in Europe, and the Canadian Navy depot was in Tromso, Norway.

It was considered hard duty to be permanently stationed there, taking care of the gear between deployments, but Charlie loved it here; it reminded him of home up on James Bay. Here he could hunt and fish and drink with the locals, who didn't care that he was a native, didn't even know the difference. The females were sturdy and the beer was cheap, and that's all that mattered to Charlie.

Although it was a Monday Charlie had the day off, that was another thing he liked about working here, flexibility. He had come to Lake Galgujav'ri, an alpine lake just inside Norway close to the Finnish border for the ice fishing; it was supposed to be the best in the region. He had packed his gear, most of it paw-made from his village, and his old Lee-Enfield .303 just in case he spotted a moose. He had a deal with the local game warden; if he helped count the herds in the spring, he could take a moose anytime. Charlie was waiting for the perfect moose though, and had not found one to his liking yet.

He sat beside his fishing hole, luxuriating in the unseasonably warm temperature, with his Colman lantern lighting up the lake. When he heard the crashing in the bush nearby he jumped up and grabbed his rifle, ready for anything.

Charlie had seen a lot of strange things out in the bush at night. Some he could explain, and others he couldn't. He put the latter down to the work of the spirits. How could you watch the Northern Lights dance on a February night and not believe in the spirits? What he saw this night only reinforced that belief.

Watching the tree line cautiously, he saw a strange creature emerge. It was dressed like a soldier in winter camouflage, but its body was strangely shaped, like it had a humpback but on the front. It slid across the snow toward him and when it got closer Charlie could see that it had a fox's head on its shoulders, and a monkey's face on its chest. The fox head was panting, the monkey head was wailing and Charlie was terrified that some Norwegian lake spirit had come to steal his soul. Knowing it was useless, but ready to do anything he could to save his soul, he raised his rifle to his shoulder and took aim.

Two things happened before he could pull the trigger. First, the creature called out to him, in English! "Help me," it said, "save the baby." Charlie was puzzled enough to pause, was this spirit trying to fool him? As it slid closer he could make out the cross-country skis on its feet, the pack slung on its chest, the monkey inside it was just a baby after all. Charlie began to lower the rifle.

The second thing was the appearance of what surely was an evil spirit. It came out of the woods behind the fox, moving fast across the snow. Half its face was gone and the rest was frozen in an evil rictus, a single hazel eye blazing in the lamplight. It screamed in a tongue that Charlie didn't recognize, in some daemon language, casting a spell no doubt.

The devil caught up to the fox on the edge of the lake, knocked it to the ground. The fox tried to shot it but the daemon had torn the pack from his chest and was holding the baby up between them. The fox could barely hold the gun up, and the evil spirit knocked it aside easily. While the fox struggled to stand the creature held the baby up and cackled in triumph, then it raised the child to its mouth.

Charlie realized that it had not come for a tough old beaver like him; it was after the baby. He could let it have its prize and maybe it would go away and leave him be, but the values of his people ran deep in Charlie's veins, and he could no more stand by while the daemon ate the stranger's baby than he could if it were his own child. Thirty years of hunting geese on the wing made the rifle snap up into the notch on his shoulder like it was on a spring, and before he even had time to aim, the shot cracked the night.

Charlie walked over to where the body of the daemon lay; the fox had already crawled over and picked up the crying baby. Charlie rolled the body over and saw that it was some sort of canine, a fancy dog by the look of her. Her clothes were a strange collection of locally manufactured outerwear, and smelled of storage. Her ski boots looked too large for her feet. The rest of her face, as well as the back of her head, was gone. Charlie looked over at the fox, keeping his rifle up just in case.

The fox was standing now, but having a hard time of it. It clutched the baby to its chest and stared back at Charlie. Its blue-grey eyes were weary, and haunted. It stumbled, straightened, and held the baby out to Charlie.

"Take it. I ... I can't hold on ...going to fall ..."

Charlie slung his rifle behind him and rushed over, taking the baby as the fox stumbled again. The fox was exhausted, he could see that now, and he looked like he had suffered the loss of his soul. Charlie shivered at how close he may have come to losing his own if he had not had killed the daemon. The fox fell against him, clutched at the patches on the beavers military issue parka. "You're Canadian?"

"Yes. ACE Mobile Force, Tromso depot." Charlie answered.

"Thank God" and with that, the fox collapsed in his arms.

* * * * * * * *

2 February, 1987

Auvert was up and out of his rooms at FOX Academy before seven a.m. Today was his first official day of work since returning from Norway. He had an appointment with the Chief of Staff, Tancred Williams, at one o'clock, and one important appointment before then. He started his car and headed off the grounds. With little concentration needed to navigate through the sparse early morning traffic he began to review the mission in preparation for the meeting that would probably end with his dismissal.

He had woken up in the NATO military facility in Tromso, Norway on the twentieth of January, after sleeping almost twenty hours. American and Norwegian Military Police officers stood guard on his room. After a quick chat with the base Security Officer, and an exchange of messages between Ottawa and Washington, his identity was verified. Then he had been allowed to see the baby.

All kits, cubs, and pups are cute; Auvert had read that it was a survival mechanism. This baby was no exception. Unlike a canine pup, his eyes were already open and looking around curiously. He cooed when Auvert's face came into view. In recognition, or just because he identified it as a face? Auvert stuck a digit out and the little lemur griped it tightly, and then sucked on the end. He fell asleep in that position fifteen minutes later and Auvert finally pulled his finger from its grip.

Auvert had cautioned the staff to keep everything that he had come in with, especially the baby supplies that the lemurs had brought from Murmansk. It would all have to go back to the Labs at FOX Academy for examination; who knew, maybe Grigori had hidden notes somewhere amongst the pacifiers and teething toys? Auvert allowed himself to be dragged back to his room then for treatment to his burned paw and for general exhaustion, but only after they promised to send the beaver to his room at the earliest opportunity. Auvert wanted to thank him personally.

He had spent another five days in the facility's medical ward, resting and healing. FOX's senior agent in the district, codenamed White, came and took his preliminary report. While White was there he led a clandestine raid into Finland to recover the bodies of the lemurs and any other incriminating evidence. Although he was not supposed to comment, he told Auvert that he was screwed. In his opinion, the mission had been a complete and utter failure, and entirely the fault of Auvert.

Back in Ottawa he had been subjected to intense physical and psychological exams, in case he had been brainwashed and sent back to spy on his own agency, or worse. A full debriefing was conducted concurrently. The reports on the materials began to trickle in, all negative. If the lemur had recorded his secrets, he had not brought them out with him. Things were looking bad for Auvert; he could tell by the way everybody avoided eye contact with him.

Ottawa had no Russian Orthodox Church in 1987, although the Russian ex-partite community had petitioned for one. For now, the congregation-to-be met in the basement of a local Russian priest, a brown bear that happened to owe his freedom to FOX. Amongst his group there were several other refugees and defectors that FOX had brought out over the years. One such couple, a pair of arctic hares, were and would always be childless. They worked for FOX and other intelligence agencies in Ottawa as translators for the most sensitive of material, and they eagerly agreed to adopt the baby lemur. Today was the baptism ceremony.

The real paperwork, identifying the true parents of the orphaned lemur, was too sensitive to be registered publicly. The resident forger at FOX had created new papers for the child, ones that would be filed along with the baptismal certificate to complete his official identity. The priest, privy to the truth, had insisted that there be two baptisms, one in secret with the child's real name and heritage, the next public in the new identity. Auvert was to stand as godfather in the secret ceremony.

At seven thirty the ceremony began. The child was baptised into the church in the presence of the priest, Auvert, and the adoptive parents, who acted as witnesses. Auvert gave the name of the child as Grigori Mishin, and he gave his own name for the child's patronymic. The couple looked up at that, their English was good enough to recognize the implications, but then, it would never be known outside this room. Auvert sealed the certificate in an envelope and slipped it inside his jacket.

The Public ceremony began at nine. Most of the congregation appeared to welcome the baby to the church and the community. Auvert stood in the back of the room, apart from the rest, as the child was named Joel Grigori. The group was perplexed, it was an unusual combination, but as it was an inter-species adoption, perhaps the real parents had asked for that name? The adoptive parents declined the opportunity to register a patronymic.

As he watched he sensed someone slide up beside him. Turning slightly he evaluated the newcomer. It was a badger, mid-sized and slim, rough looking, not a soft city type. Its face was easy to read, it was intent on the ceremony, expectant, but then it looked surprised, confused.

"Can I help you?" Auvert asked.

"I don't know." The badger answered slowly. "I think that I might be in the wrong baptism."

"Really? How so?"

"I was told to watch the papers for the announcement of the baptism of a lemur into the Russian Orthodox Church of this community, but they said nothing about adoptive parents."

Auvert was intrigued. "If you were looking for the baby's real parents I'm afraid that they died in a tragic accident on the trip over. May I ask though, why you were looking for them?"

The badger looked unsure. Auvert knew that the Russian community was leery of strangers, in case they were KGB informants. He flashed an ID card identifying him as a member of another intelligence agency in Ottawa, a white lie but necessary since the Foreign Operations eXecutive was so secretive. The badger look relieved.

"I work for an organization that smuggles goods into the Soviet Union, and occasionally smuggles people or other items out." The badger certainly looked the part, Auvert thought.

"Several weeks ago we received a package. Someone was leaving the USSR and wanted it carried out separately. This happens when you don't want certain goods or information found on your person during an 'intimate' search. Diamonds, gold, family heirlooms from the imperial era, icons and other religious artefacts, that sort of thing. My organization usually takes a share, dependant on the risk and value of the goods. In this case the package is sealed; its passage was paid for by previous service on the part of the consignee."

"If it was for the parents of this child it could be very important for national security." Auvert warned the badger. "Who were you supposed to give it to?"

"The lemur's father, or a government agent that may be with him." The badger reached into his coat, pulled out a package about the size of a small book, and handed it to Auvert. "Given your presence here I'd say that you'd do." The badger turned to leave, but Auvert grabbed his arm.

"Do you know what is inside this?" He asked.

"No." The badger replied. "Like I said, it was paid for in advance. We honour our commitments."

"Not many smugglers are known for that type of loyalty. Are you going to tell me who you work for or am I going to have to look you up in the files?"

The badger laughed. "Don't bother. We're an independent group. We're Baptists, bible smugglers. The lemur that gave us this package allowed us to fill her father's coffin with bibles when it was shipped back from Afghanistan. She removed them in private and passed them to our people in Murmansk. That's how she paid for the package, in exchange."

Auvert rubbed the package with his thumb, wanting to open it now but forcing himself to wait until the lab cleared it. He had a feeling that his meeting with Gold would be delayed. "I'll be seeing you around." He told the badger, by way of letting him know that he would likely be pulled in for a few questions.

"I have no doubt." the badger smiled. "We've carried stuff for your type before, and," the badger leaned over to whisper in Auvert's ear, "I know who you really work for ... fox.

* * * * * * * * *

4 February, 1987

Tancred "Tanner' Williams buzzed the junior agent Auvert into his office and indicated that he should sit in one of the overstuffed chairs on the other side of the great oak and leather desk. The younger fox sat silently while the Chief of Staff looked down at the personnel file that lay open on the blotter. Williams had a problem; he had called Auvert in to tell him whether he would stay and be promoted, or leave, and he had not yet made up his mind.

Two days ago, the decision would have been easier. With the lemurs dead and nothing to show for it the review committee would have practically demanded Auvert's dismissal; but the package had changed all that. Williams had spent the last two days reading increasingly ecstatic reports on its contents and conducting an investigation as to how it came to be here.

Evidently the lemur Grigori had wanted to defect for quite a while, and had taken steps to prepare his exit, but his mate had refused to go while her father still lived. The Colonel's death, and the discovery that it had been due to one of their own anti-aircraft missiles, had changed her attitude drastically. She had made the deal with the bible smugglers and arranged for the return of her father's body from Afghanistan for re-interment in Murmansk. Her husband had collected all the material that he could and sent it back separately as a form of insurance policy.

The material was priceless. The data that the lemur had sent out would break the nuclear stalemate, and arrangements for a round of summit talks were already being made. Gorbachev would be very surprised when they revealed that they knew every weakness, technical detail and deployment area for the strategic missile forces. It would take the USSR ten years and a trillion dollars to change everything and re-establish parity again. The analysts were betting that the Soviets didn't have that kind of time or money, and they predicted a thaw on the cold war front.

Auvert's successful escape with the baby had made that possible. Williams had confirmed that when he interviewed the badger, the package was to be destroyed unopened if the baptism was not held in 1987, insurance against them refusing to take Grigori's mate or locking them up on arrival, Tanner supposed. Auvert was seen as a hero by some, a lucky son-of-a-bitch by others, and the committee was torn over whether to promote him or fire him. W had left the decision up to the Chief of Staff.

The dilemma, in Williams' mind, was not whether it was luck or skill that had won out, because both commodities were required in this line of work, but whether Auvert had the emotional fortitude to perform at the peak of his capabilities after a setback. Dr. Gordon, the staff psychologist, was of the opinion that Auvert was tearing himself up from inside, blaming himself for the death of the two lemurs and the failure of the mission. In short, guilt and self-doubt had taken root and if Auvert could not come to see that sometimes, shit happens, he would never regain the decisiveness and conviction required to be a senior agent.

"He has to find something outside of himself, yet part of him." Gordon had said just this morning when they discussed the case. "Something to take his mind off this work so he can unwind and begin the unconscious process of forgiving himself for being less than perfect."

"A hobby?" Tanner scoffed. "Like stamp collecting?"

"Like the chalet you built in the Gatineau Hills, Tancred." Gordon countered.

"Touché." Williams had indeed built a chalet by hand from recycled timber to escape the pressures of being gay and in the security services in an age when homosexuals were being hunted down and stripped of their security clearances. "But I'll still try to talk him out of it before I suggest carpentry as a therapy."

Tanner came back to the problem at hand. He looked up at the silver fox. Something seemed different about him today. He looked calmer. Resigned to his fate perhaps?

"Have you read the committee's report?" He asked Auvert.

"Yes I did."

"Do you have any comments?"

Auvert looked down at his shoes, fiddled with the silver cuff link on one sleeve. "I should have killed her, Menefer, back in the cabin that night. If I had she would not have hounded us so, and they would both be alive now." Gordon had mentioned the emotional attachment to the female lemur; it tainted Auvert's analysis of his situation.

"If you had killed her you would have been a murderer on the run with two accomplishes." Williams said harshly. "They could have hunted you openly and you would not have even made it as far as Finland."

"Still, all the bad decisions I made, everything that I overlooked ... "

"You can't control everything Auvert. You considered all the known factors and you made a reasonable plan. You adjusted that plan as you learned new information, but by then, it was too late to make a whole new plan. There was no way of knowing that Menefer was already onto them and they didn't give you the option of aborting the mission. They wanted their son out, and they knew the risks, better than we did it seems."

"What do you mean?"

"We have been finding out a lot about that Project leader of theirs, Timoshenko. He's a cruel and sadistic bastard. He hired Menefer despite her psychotic condition and used her to terrorize the scientists into submission. They knew that the chase wouldn't end when they crossed the border. Look at this." Tanner slid a photograph out from under the file and pushed it across the desk. Auvert picked it up and examined it. It showed three wolves, or rather their hides, nailed to the side of a barn. "That was taken in Sweden yesterday. It's what's left of Sweet Tooth's posse."

Auvert slid the photo back. Williams studied his face, searching for a hint that he was getting through to him. "Do you need some time to sort things out?" He offered the fox an opening. "Relax a bit, unwind, maybe come up to my chalet for a few days and help me put in a deck I'm building?" Come on, he thought, give me a sign, show me that there's someone still alive in there.

"I'm no good with carpentry, but thanks for the offer. Maybe some other time."

Tanner sighed and closed the file. He had no choice then but to ...

"There is one thing you could do for me though." Williams' ears perked up. "I found the most extraordinary spot the other night, an old mica mine that the former owner tried to convert into a garden. I was wondering if there was anywhere that I could get my paws on some gardening tools? If you don't mind we working on it a bit come springtime that is?"

Tanner smiled. "I'll arrange it first thing tomorrow, and take all the time you want on it, you have some light duty owed to you after what you've been through. The offer to visit the chalet stands by the way."

"Sure," Auvert said as he got up from the chair, "why not? As long as you promise not to take advantage of me if I get drunk."

"No such luck. You're just going to have to learn to control your drinking."

"Damn." Auvert went to the door, turned and looked at Williams. "When do you think that you'll make up your mind about me?"

"I already have. You will be promoted to senior agent effective today. Congratulations."

Auvert flushed and looked at his shoes. "I won't let you down."

Williams got up and came around the desk. "I know you won't. Come on. Let's get out of here."

He walked Auvert out to the parking lot behind the headquarters building. When they arrived beside Auvert's silver Firebird they paused. Auvert wasn't sure if a handshake or a hug would be appropriate. Williams didn't want to look like he was coming on to his subordinate. An awkward male bonding moment.

Williams recovered first. "Now that you are a senior agent, you need to pick a colour for your codename." He said. "Your old identity will be expunged, locked away, and since you will be known by your codename from now on, you should pick something you can identify with. I took Gold because of my fur tone, White is an arctic fox, Scarlet a red fox, Green loved golf; you get the idea."

He looked at the silver fox as he leaned against the silver car, idly turning one of his silver cuff links and waited for an answer.

"Actually, I'm kind of partial to Aubergine."

The End

Nenet Menefer, 'Sweet Tooth' is © DevilKitty

Joel 'the Lemur' Grigori, a recurring character in the FOX Academy stories, is © Joel the Lemur and a line in his character background was the inspiration for this story.

The rest of the FOX Academy gang are © Dikran_O