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FOX Academy Flashbacks

Scarlet Necklace

Part VII - A Date With Death

As Silver sped through the night on route to his first rendezvous, others were getting ready.

Scarlet had moved off the Academy grounds when she returned to Canada, and into a rented suite in a downtown hotel. The proximity to good restaurants and the nightlife of Hull attracted her. It also freed her from the mundane domestic chores that she detested.

She had not seen Silver since their meeting at the garden the week before, and was filled with regret. That meeting had ended in a session of lovemaking that was physically satisfying, but strangely unfulfilling. In their early years she had sensed an emotional attachment forming on his part, one she did not return at the time. Now it seemed that just as she had developed feelings for him, he had lost those that he had for her.

Scarlet sat in front of the makeup table that the hotel had thoughtfully provided her and looked at herself in the harsh light it threw. She was on the far side of fifty now, and the hard living was starting to show. There were little wrinkles in the corners of her eyes. The line that formed across her forehead when she frowned did not disappear completely like it used to. The skin on the back of her paws was getting loose and scaly. And what was that, amongst the longer fur on the top of her head? She parted the brilliant crimson locks. It was a single strand of grey.

Scarlet was about to pluck it, but stopped and let her fur fall back into place. What's the use, she thought, I could pluck myself bald and it won't stop the march of time. Still, she made a mental note to visit the fur care section of the pharmacy to see if they had any touch up products that matched her tone.

She took stock of her life so far. Fifty years old, okay, more than fifty, and caught up in a scheme that she knew from the beginning was likely to end badly. She was not just single, she was alone. Although she had a lot of male friends, she had never felt the need for companionship on an emotional level before. It had seemed irrelevant in her reckless youthful days, but now she could feel an emptiness that must have been there all the while. Acknowledging it made her chest ache in a little spot just above her heart.

She clutched the large silver cross that she wore. More and more lately she found herself wondering what her life would have been like if her father had lived and she had not become a police officer to honour him. Their family had been deeply religious, and she had been particularly devout before his death. Her aunts had speculated about her becoming a nun, there had been at least one in the family in every generation. But she had fallen away from the faith after her father's death. She was unable to worship a god that would let such a good person die so young, a god who would leave a little vixen fatherless.

She stopped going to church and started doing the things that the priests had warned her against. She could be found out on the streets at all hours, hanging out in leather jackets with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She was willing to participate in, or instigate, all manner of mischief, but stopped short of getting involved in any major crime. She completed high school, her natural intellect overcoming her lack of effort, to graduate with high enough marks to get into the police college program.

The RCMP was hiring females at the time in an attempt to please the Treasury Board, which was promoting demographic balancing policies. Her street smarts and toughness soon earned her a place on the specialty squads; SWAT, Counter-Terrorism and eventually, Counter -Intelligence. It was in the latter that she first met the creature that would become first her lover, then her controller.

Scarlet sighed and released the crucifix. She lifted it over her head and placed it on the table, its chain hanging over the side. It was too late to go back now. Things had been moving quickly in the last few years. The shadowy underworld of espionage had become more treacherous as the cold war came to its peak. W had predicted that a crescendo was coming, a tidal wave that would wash away much of the old order and leave something new and unfamiliar behind. She and W were part of that old order, she now realized.

The arrest of W meant that the leading edge of the tsunami was here. Would she be washed away with him, or could she manage to ride it out? Could she cling to Silver for survival? Would he let her? Would Silver come to her now, demanding an explanation, or would whoever replaced W send him after her? Someone was sure to come visiting tonight, and she had to be ready for them.

It might be the dawn of a new age, but she had only her old skills to rely on. Opening the drawer of the table she pulled out a small automatic pistol and checked the clip. She made sure that the safety was off before she put it back. She left the drawer open enough to slip a paw in. Reaching out, she took one the other tool of her trade. It was a small brass-coloured tube. She twisted the base and a crimson bullet-shaped head emerged from the other end. She pressed it against her lips.

After applying the lipstick, she reached for the mascara.

* * * * * * * * *

A few streets away, In the Chateau Laurier hotel, Pavel Lobodin, Director of the KGB's North American Department and concurrently an assassin with the dreaded Department Five, had just finished dressing. As an assassin on a tight budget he should have chosen a less prominent hotel, but it was his first trip outside of the Soviet Union and he wanted to make the most of it. He had rented one of the better suites, in the tower overlooking Parliament Hill and the Ottawa River.

The attendant had laid out his suit, as requested, but Pavel had kept his accessories locked up. It was not that he was afraid that the hotel staff would rob him, it was just that it would be hard to explain some of the more exotic items. Not every guest brought their own stilettos, brass knuckles, silencers and garrottes.

Lobodin went about strapping the weapons on in a methodical manner. He had never been a field agent, but he had practiced for this a thousand times over the years. Like most KGB officers, he studied the martial arts and sparred in the gym regularly. His work with Department V inside the motherland had served as good rehearsal too. He had thought through every possible move, as he did when playing chess, and was confident that he would prevail. Unless the opponent did something completely unorthodox. He pushed that thought away.

Unlike some in the KGB, Lobodin, like his colleague Putin, could see the end of the era approaching fast. But he could not just quit and change careers like Vladimir had done. As spy master he had a duty and an obligation to those had served the cause in secret, and to those who had betrayed it. There were agents to protect, traitors to punish, and a few loose ends to clear up before he could retire quietly.

Pavel checked himself in the full-length mirror. There were no tell-tale bulges, creases or sheaths poking out. He tried drawing a few weapons and was content that nothing would get hung up at a critical moment. He let his paws relax at his sides. He would choose the appropriate weapon when the opportunity presented itself.

Lobodin locked up the empty case and placed it under the bed. He decided against wearing an overcoat. The evening was warm, and it was only a short walk to the hotel where the scarlet vixen was holed up.

He hoped that he would not be too late for their date.

* * * * * * * * *

In the shadows between streetlamps, a creature made a final check its equipment before going in.

Satisfied that all was in order he pulled the silken glove off his paw to check the time. Timing was going to be crucial. Others would be on the move this night and the kill had to be made at just the right time to start a series of inevitable events in motion. Once begun, they would accelerate out of control until only one would be left to pick up the pieces, and place the blame where he wanted it.

Pressing the stud on the side of its wristwatch made the face glow a dull red, one of the harder colours to detect at a distance. If anyone had been within ten feet of the creature, however, they would have seen the light briefly illuminate the paw and face of a fox.

The fox released the stud and pulled the glove back on. It was time.

* * * * * * * * *

Sir Wilbur W. Withersby, Director of the Foreign Operations eXecutive since its inception, was bored. This was an unusual state of affairs for the old walrus, who had spent the last thirty years of his life occupied in a constant battle of wits, engaged in the great game of espionage that is played on several levels, and with an ever changing set of opponents.

The evidence against him had been put before the National Security Committee, on behalf of the Foreign Affairs representative, by one of his own senior agents. There were copies of the register with either Scarlet's or W's initials beside every document known to have gone missing. There were posting assignments that showed Scarlet working on operations that had gone wrong for unknown reasons. There was a list of dead agents, defectors and contacts that were associated with the vixen. There was an affidavit from W's driver and bodyguard, attesting to mysterious meetings, communications and documents passed without receipt. Finally, there were surveillance photos of meetings in parking garages. Some showed her entering his distinctive black Rolls looking good and dressed stylishly, and others showed her exiting with makeup blurred and clothing awry.

It painted a picture of someone who was either complicit in espionage or so infatuated as to be blinded to the truth. When Yellow was done, the group had turned to W for an explanation. Sir Wilbur had none to give. The evidence was irrefutable, especially since it was all true. He had declined the opportunity to make a statement at that time. The hedgehog from Foreign Affairs who had set this all up had also conveniently brought an arrest warrant with W's full name on it. Under the Official Secrets Act, anyone with access to the kind of information that W did, could be detained indefinitely and tried secretly.

The Commissioner of the RCMP had called in several of his officers on special protection duty at the nearby Parliament Hill. They had taken W into custody, searching him thoroughly and intimately in the washroom. When they were satisfied that he had no weapons, electronics or suicide devices on his person they took him to a special facility in Rockcliffe. It was an isolated stone house, near the Governor General's mansion, where the extra police presence would not be unusual. The RCMP owned it, and used it to accommodate the SWAT team when heads of state visited, to house important crown witnesses and defectors testifying at Royal Inquiries, and for the drunks to sleep it off after the annual RCMP Senior Officer's Christmas party.

The room they were keeping him in was in the middle of the ground floor. It had no windows and only one door, locked from the outside, of course. Having borrowed the facility in the past, W knew that the room he was in was monitored constantly when a prisoner was inside. There were microphones in the walls, video cameras in the ceilings and motion detectors under the floor. There would be guards roaming the grounds, controlling the outside doors and watching on the roof. Another pair would be stationed just outside the room. Someone would have to be awfully cleaver and talented to get at W in there. He wondered how long it would take and who would get to him first.

The room was bare except for a mattress on the floor by the back wall. Sir Wilbur sat on it with his back against the wall and waited. There was no clock and the lights were left on constantly, so there was no way of telling what time it was. He guessed that it must be around midnight when he noticed the trickle of white dust falling from the ceiling.

A line was appearing in the plaster as someone cut silently through the ceiling from the room above. Soon a circular section was freed and lifted up out of the way. W was blinded by the light from the chandelier, and could only see blackness beyond the opening, but whoever was up there would have an unobstructed view to look, or shoot, down into the room. W sat patiently, waiting for whoever it was to make the next move.

The intruder leapt down through the hole, head first, landing on the floor in a roll that ended a few meters from W. The trespasser was crouched on one knee, facing W. He was dressed all in black and had a silenced Glock-17 in his paws, with one digit on the trigger. It was Silver.

"Good Morning Silver." W said jovially. "Managed to bypass the audio and visual surveillance I hope?"

"They're on a loop, and the motion detectors are disabled. We should have a few undisturbed minutes before they catch on." Silver's gun remained pointing steadily at Sir Wilbur's nose. "Do you know why I am here?"

"I know why you are here." W replied calmly. "But do you know you are here?" If he was hoping to confuse Silver with his reply the fox did not show it.

"I came to deal with a mole."

"Why confront me? Shouldn't you be talking to Williams?" W whined. "He's much more likely to have been compromised back when homosexuality was grounds for dismissal and even imprisonment."

"Blackmail only works when you want to keep something secret, and Tancred has never hidden his sexual preferences from anyone. It was also very unlikely that he would be Scarlet's secret lover."

W looked sheepish. "How did you know?"

"The cigar smoke. The smell may wash off your leathery hide but it gets in our fur and lasts for weeks. Most wouldn't notice it, but I had just quit smoking when I started with the academy, and the smell of it on Scarlet used to drive me nuts. I recognized it the first time you lit one of those Cuban stoggies up in my presence. It didn't surprise me, a vivacious and promiscuous vixen sleeping with the boss, or you having an affair in the office. Powerful people have powerful appetites. But when I saw that either she or you had access to all the unaccounted for files it clicked."

"It's obvious that Scarlet has been passing information on to the Soviets." Silver continued. "Information that only a few have access to, the question is why? What was the motivation? She did not need the money, she didn't care for their ideology, and she was not bitter or angry at Canada. Trying to please a lover perhaps?"

"Perhaps."

"But she could not do it alone." Silver threw a copy of an old photo onto the floor between them. "That is you amongst all those Soviet intelligence officials in Murmansk in 1943, is it not?"

"The fact that I spent part of the war as MI-6's liaison with the Soviets, countering the Nazi threat, is a matter of record."

"And what better time to establish contacts. Half the creatures in this picture are Chiefs of Directorates now and two of them have been heads of the KGB. Very powerful connections."

Silver pulled out the Chinese message that had saved his life and showed it to W. Silver noticed that his eyes scanned the contents in an instant. "Of course, like any true professional, you studied Chinese when Mao became a threat, didn't you?" Sir Wilber did not react.

Silver put the paper away and pulled out the hand-written note in Chinese. W's eyes went wide for an instant before he could regain control over his expression

"You recognise the writing, don't you?" W nodded. "After going through your personal correspondence, so do I. Along with the registry records, these two papers provided the final pieces of the puzzle."

"You know," W said offhandedly, "You really came for revenge. You are a devoutly loyal individual, but those types can be particularly dangerous when they feel betrayed by a lover, a leader, or a colleague. Fanatical devotion followed by an obsessive need to punish the transgressor. It's all been documented in your personality profile. Doctor Gordon was afraid that you would take matters into your own paws if you were given enough leeway. I was counting it." W waved at the hole in the ceiling to indicate he had anticipated the visit.

"You are not going out through that hole, W. You know that. You have to stay here and answer for what you have done."

"What will you do now?"

"What I was trained to do."

The big black hole in the business end of the silencer did not waver in the slightest as Silver returned the Chinese note and withdrew two new papers. He handed them to the Director. W unfolded the crisp sheets and saw that they were what he suspected they would be: executive execution orders. Orders that would allow, even compel, a FOX agent to kill the creatures named therein in cold blood. W ran the tip of one digit over each of the names with regret.

"Why not just step up and pull the trigger, Silver?"

"I want to keep things legal."

That made W bark out a laugh. He stifled it quickly before he attracted the guard's attention. "Legal? I'm under arrest here Silver! I'm not authorized to sign these under these circumstances."

"I don't think that the Security Council will object once the truth comes out." Silver said. "It will save the government the embarrassment and expense of a public trial."

"Highly unorthodox." W shook his head at the irony of it. "Besides, I don't have a pen."

Silver tossed something down at W's feet. Grey metal shining in the light. W picked it up. It was a small disposable knife blade with a pointed tip.

"You must be kidding." He looked up into Silver's eyes, a cold dead shade of grey, like the blade, at the moment. "No, I guess that you are not."

W picked up the blade gingerly. He stuck the tip into one of his digits with a small grunt and let the blood bead form. Taking the blade like a short pencil he dipped the tip in the blood and signed the first execution order. Squeezing out another drop he signed the second. It was a good thing that he typically signed with nothing but the initial 'W'. Signing 'Sir Wilbur Wadsworth Withersby' could have bled him to death. He waved the papers in the air to dry the signatures before folding them.

"I hope you are enjoying this, Silver." He said as he handed back the orders to kill and the blade. "I suppose you are anxious to carry out those orders without further delay."

"Soon." Silver replied as the orders joined the other papers inside his jacket. "There's something I need to see to first." He stood, keeping his Glock pointed at the walrus. "Don't go anywhere until I get back."

"Funny. You always were a bit too sarcastic for my taste." W shook his head in resignation. "By the way, Silver. Just how did you manage to get in here in the first place?"

"Didn't you know? The junior agents have been using this place to practice infiltration for years. There's practically a path worn down in the attic from the loose tiles we get in through to the crawl space between the floors up there." Silver crouched under the hole and tensed in preparation to leap. "Bye for now, boss. Catch you later." And with that, he sprang up and pulled himself through the hole in an instant.

W watched as the ceiling panel was returned to the hole it was cut from. Silver had put some fast-hardening foam around the edges that matched the dirty white tone fairly well. A moment later W noticed the lights flicker. Silver had plugged the sensors back in.

Now what to do, W wondered. With a yawn, he realized that for the first time in over forty years he was powerless to influence the outcome of events. The realization brought a sudden release of tension and a calmness that he had not experienced in decades.

W settled down on his back on the mattress and covered his eyes with one arm. He was asleep in seconds. The RCMP officers in the monitoring room were treated to tens solid hours of snoring so powerful that they were forced to turn of the motion sensors.

* * * * * * * *

Scarlet was still sitting at the makeup table when she heard footsteps in the hallway. The acoustics in this hotel were terrible, you could hear everything going on outside your room. That was why she had picked this particular hotel. Any competent assassin could still approach silently of course, but she had other surprises waiting for them. She did need to watch out for innocent visitors however, and the extra warning of their approach gave her time to do that.

The desk had not announced a visitor, so whoever it was knew which room she was staying in. When the knock came on the door she stood to one side of it and checked the monitor on the pin-hole camera she had mounted through the door. Using peepholes were a bad idea, at least according to Clarence 'One-eye' McIntyre, one of her earliest instructors.

Scarlet recognized the fox standing there patiently. She wondered whether he had come to kill her or get information from her. There was only one way to find out. She unlocked the door.

The fox stepped in and nodded to scarlet.

"I should have expected you," she said as she turned and walked back to the makeup table, "considering what happened to W." She sat and adjusted her eyeliner with the tip of one claw. "Have you talked to him?"

"As much as I need to."

He had followed her to the table and was standing behind her with his paws clasped in front of him. She examined them in the mirror. There was no gun, no knife visible, although that could change in an instant. He was wearing thumb rings though. That was different. She leaned into the mirror, pretending to examine a spot on her fur. The move shortened the distance between her eye and the image of the thumb rings. It also hid her paw from his observation. She slipped it into the partially open drawer and lightly gripped the pistol in there.

The thumb rings looked like pain stainless steel, hardly his style. She sensed danger here.

"So what do you want from me?"

"Nothing."

Oh oh. She tightened her grip on the pistol and tensed to push back from the table, but he moved before she could. He drew his paws apart and she caught the glint of light off the thin steel cord that connected the rings on his thumbs. Simultaneously, he drove one knee into the back of her chair, forcing it against the table, closing the drawer on her wrist. He twisted his paws to turn the cord into a loop and then he dropped the loop over her head. She struggled to bring her other paw up inside the loop, but her own body blocked it. She realized, too late, that he had anticipated her every move.

She felt the wire around her neck growing tighter, cutting through fur and flesh. In a desperate move she threw herself to the right, and tried to turn the pistol inside the drawer back to where she had been an instant before. She squeezed the trigger, three times, but to no avail. He had moved with her, taking a half-step around to keep her body between him and the gun. The bullets lodged in the wall by the door.

She could not breathe. She could feel the pressure building up in the carotid artery on the right side of her neck as the wire blocked the flow of fresh oxygenated blood to her brain. The jugular vein on the left side was throbbing also, as the old depleted blood backed up behind the obstruction. Black spots were dancing before her eyes.

Suddenly the sense of pressure on her veins and arteries was gone, but it brought no relief to her starving brain. Instead, there was a wet sensation where the pressure used to be. She understood that the steel cord had cut through both vein and artery. Remembering her lessons, she knew that death would follow in minutes now. It was inevitable. She stopped struggling, even though she could feel the cord sawing through muscle as the assassin continued to tighten the loop.

If it did not hang up on a vertebra he would take her head clean off. Maybe that is what he wanted? A curtain of red seemed to descend behind her closed eyes. When nothing was left, it darkened, turning black. Only a dim glow in the distance seemed to connect her to reality now. She tried to concentrate on the glow, to keep it from fading, but it was becoming very hard to focus.

Faintly, through a buzzing that increased as the loop grew smaller, she heard a familiar sound. Footsteps moving fast down the hallway. Someone was coming. But she had so many enemies. Was it a saviour, or another assassin?

Before the footsteps reached the door she surrendered to the blackness.

* * * * * * * *

Silver arrived at the door to Scarlet's hotel room to find it slightly ajar. He drew his Glock-17 and held it up in front of his chest as he approached. He had been walking along the edge of the hallway, where the floor was most solid, and the soft shoes he was wearing made no noise on the bare tile. He was certain that his arrival would be a surprise. When he came to the door, he nudged it open with one toe and stepped inside quickly, where he could cove the whole room.

He was greeted by a grisly sight. A tawny fox in a three-piece suit was leaning over the body of Scarlet. She was sprawled on the floor, arms and legs akimbo, in a spreading pool of blood. Her eyes were open, glazed and lifeless. Her maw was hanging open, tongue protruding. A second mouth, edges as red as her glossy lips, gaped below her chin. The strange fox had its paws on her neck where the wound pulsed with blood.

The hoary fox looked up at Silver, its face frozen in a desperate rictus. Silver raised his pistol to take aim between its eyes and began to apply pressure to the trigger.

"No! Wait!" The fox cried. "She is still alive."

Silver did not lower his gun, but he did not fire either. Both of the other fox's paws were occupied on Scarlet's neck, he could afford to listen, for a moment.

"My name is Pavel Lobodin." The fox said in English with a definite Russian accent. "I am the Director of KGB's first department, and the spy master for all the double agents recruited since nineteen eighty." The fox paused, assessed Silver's blank expression, and continued in a less certain tone. "I am also most recently an assassin with Department five." He closed his eyes tightly, waiting for the impact of the shot that was sure to follow such an admission, but it did not come.

"Explain." Silver's tone was curt.

"During the Great Patriotic War, what you call the Second World War, when I was a junior KGB agent, I met a most extraordinary walrus. We worked together combating the Nazi agents that had infiltrated the motherland. He was the most intriguing chess opponent that I had ever encountered. We talked for hours over the board about philosophy, politics, and ideology. Eventually I volunteered to work for him as a double agent. He turned me down. Instead, he offered to send me information from the west, information that would guarantee my rise in the KGB. In return, I asked to be placed in the first department, where the spies in the US and Canada were controlled. I passed all the information concerning that program that I could find to him."

"So you were a double agent."

"More than that. After he became too high up in your agency to risk passing information himself he recruited others to do it for him. This vixen was one of them. They fed me with enough real information to keep the KGB believing that I had golden sources. But along with it they passed disinformation designed to lead the communists into bad decisions. My contacts were pretending to be double agents to turn the course of history. It was a dangerous game, one where either side could catch on and terminate them on the slightest evidence. Your presence here speaks to that."

Silver continued to stare at the foreign fox while he digested that.

"I have heard of you. In your role as the KGB spymaster, you were one of our priority targets. We would have kidnapped you and brought you back here for grilling if you had put as much as a toe outside of the USSR. But you are asking me to believe that W has been running a triple agent scheme for over forty years now. That you didn't come here to eliminate your moles before we could get to them and assess the damage. What proof can you offer?"

"There is no way to prove it here where we are, and we have no more time for debate. In case you had not noticed, I am crouched here in a very awkward position holding this vixen's head on her neck and hoping that there is enough blood getting to her brain. If I wanted her dead all I have to do is remove my paws. I may have been too late in any event. I am no expert but the pool of blood looks very large to me."

"They can be deceptive." Silver's gun did not waver, but Lobodin could see the line that had formed between the FOX agent's eyes as he struggled to decide. The Russian had one last piece to play.

"I received a message from her a few days ago, when you started your intense investigation. It was obvious that this matter would soon conclude, one way or another, and W wanted me to come to be his 'ace in the hole'. I was supposed to help protect him and her but I arrived a day too late. We were to meet tonight, she and I, to plan his rescue, and decide whether to risk brining you into the scheme. Not as a pawn, like before, but as a Knight."

"I hate chess." Silver replied. "It is too slow and methodical. I prefer a game where skill and a little luck can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. And so did Scarlet."

"That is true, she always was an impetuous one." Pavel said sadly. "She and W did not agree on recruiting you. W thought that you were too much of a 'straight arrow' to play the triple agent game. Scarlet thought otherwise, she saw more depth to you than he did. When she arranged for this meeting she was afraid that the real mole would get to her first. She asked that I approach you and enlist your help in tracking down the true double agent and gave me references that would help prove her innocence. W asked a similar thing, that I contact his Chief of Staff, Gold. He also gave me papers by way of introduction, but of course I have not brought that material with me tonight, and we do not have time to go get it."

His digits slipped on the blood still oozing from her neck and there was a sudden spurt from one of the arteries. He swore in Russian, something he had not done in decades. "Damn it Silver!" He turned desperately to the larger fox. "She said that she believed in you. She also hoped that one day you would believe in her also. What are you going to do?"

Silver made up his mind. He slipped his pistol back into its holster under his jacket and ran to the bed. He began ripping the sheet lengthwise.

"Hold tight Lobodin. I have a fast car downstairs and I knew just where to take her."

* * * * * * * *

Silver rushed down the fire escape stairs carrying Scarlet. Her neck was swathed in makeshift bandages, and they were already turning red. Loops of more material went under her arms and over her head in an attempt to keep the massive wound closed. There did not seem to be any spinal damage, but if they could not restore the flow of blood to her brain soon she would be as good as dead. Pavel Lobodin ran ahead to hold open door for him. In less than a minute they were on the street.

Silver had taken his convertible Firebird this night. A set of magnetic diplomatic plates stuck over the real ones had allowed him to park in the street directly in front of the hotel. He had anticipated the need for a quick retreat, but it served just as well for a medical emergency. He pointed out the car to Lobodin and they ran over to it. Fortunately the roof was down.

"Passenger seat" He directed the Russian fox. Pavel leapt over the side and settled in quickly. Silver placed Scarlet carefully on his lap and strapped them both in.

"Hold her head steady. It's going to be a rocky ride."

Silver left the curb in a cloud of burning rubber. The illegal 'U' turn through three lanes of traffic was the first of twenty-two separate traffic laws that he broke in the next five minutes. At one point a city police car pulled up behind them with lights flashing and siren wailing. Silver reached over and flipped up a section of the dashboard above the radio-cassette player to reveal a number of coloured buttons. He pressed the blue one and an instant later the police car's lights and siren faded, and its engine died. They left it stalled in the middle of the road as they sped through the night.

"Nice car." Pavel commented. "What did you use on the police vehicle?"

"Directional electro-magnetic pulse generator." Silver replied curtly, concentrating on driving at one hundred and eighty kilometres per hour in a sixty kilometre zone. "Kills anything electric for twenty metres behind it, and a few things on the sides that are closer. If you have a pager or one of those new cellular phones you might as well throw it out."

"Impressive. All's they gave me was a standard Lada."

"That's because communism is evil. The Lada is God's punishment on you for promoting an atheist state." Silver said no more as they were approaching the traffic circle at the entrance to the Central Experimental Farm, where FOX Headquarters was hidden. He cut across the circle, sending a sedan into the ditch, and entered the lane leading to the Academy infirmary in a skid.

The Infirmary was disguised as one of the farm's research labs, to help explain the white coats and instruments. The ambulance bay was made to look like a loading dock. Silver pulled up and jumped out of the car while it was still rocking. He ran around to the passenger side and gingerly lifted Scarlet off of Lobodin's lap.

"I can't be seen here." Lobodin told him. "For now, you are the only one other than her and the walrus that know of my involvement with the triple agent scheme. I'd prefer to keep it that way a while longer."

Silver gestured with his chin. "Can you drive an automatic?" Pavel nodded as he climbed over the transmission hump and took hold of the wheel. Silver held Scarlet against him with one arm, and fished a package out from under his jacket. He threw it on the passenger seat. "Take that along with the papers W gave you to Gold. Its proof of who the real doubles agents are. Give it only to him. Abandon the car anywhere, I'll find it. Put the roof up though, it looks like rain." A shaft of light cane from the hospital entrance as someone came to see who had come screaming into their ambulance bay. "Now get out of here." The silver firebird's tires spun, caught, and Lobodin fishtailed out of the lot onto the street.

Silver jumped up onto the platform level with the door and brushed past the startled nurse there. She recognized him from the numerous times he had been a guest of the facility, but it took her a moment to identify Scarlet though all the bandages. Silver ignored her questions as he ran to the emergency operating room.

The staff at the Academy infirmary were more used to treating bullet wounds than paper cuts. Supporting an agency where the main business involved violent death saw to that. The doctors there were experts in trauma treatment. They had studied the effects of a hundred exotic poisons, and the wounds made by a thousand unorthodox weapons. If an agent was not dead already, the Academy doctors were their best chance of recovering. For a vixen who had been all but decapitated by a piano-wire garrotte, they were her only chance, and a slim one at that.

Silver was relieved to see that the doctor on duty tonight was the same albino wallaby that had saved him on the flight back from China. Doctor Jones had extensive combat surgery experience with the Australian Special Forces, and he could operate under pressure. Silver laid Scarlet down on the gurney with the wallaby's assistance and explained the situation. Doctor Jones was already examining the wound by the time Silver was finished.

Silver was expecting the doctor to begin barking out orders that would begin a flurry of activity. Instead, the doctor straightened up and put his paws in the pockets of his white jacket.

"There is nothing I can do for her." He told Silver solemnly.

"What do you mean nothing?" Silver asked, incredulous. She's still breathing! There must be something you can do!"

"There is too much damage. I don't have the proper equipment or support to attempt a reconstruction of this scale, and besides, she's been ordered terminated."

Silver's eyes turned a dark, still, grey and locked onto the doctor's. "Terminated?"

"You've not heard? The acting director has issued a death warrant for her, signed by the Security Council. She's the mole we've been looking for. A double agent."

"Get Gold on the phone. I can't believe that he would issue an order like that."

"He did not." The wallaby informed him. "He is still the Chief of Staff. Yellow has been made acting Director. He issued the order through his new Aide de Camp, some stocky yellowish fox that I've never met before."

Silver leaned over the body of Scarlet and stared hard at the doctor. He could hear her breathing shallowly, in weak gasps. It sounded like every breath might be her last.

"Fix her." He demanded. "Save her life and give me a chance to get that order rescinded."

"I wouldn't even if I could, Silver. The order is to terminate on sight. You can't pick and choose which orders to obey and which to ignore."

"She doesn't have time for us to debate this." His eyes went another shade darker.

"Then give it up." The wallaby wasn't about to be intimidated by someone he thought was little better than a hired gun.

"I just have one more argument to make Jones." Silver's Glock appeared in his paw as if by magic. "Now you don't have time to debate either. Start sewing or you'll be racing her to the pearly gates. I'll be betting on you."

The Glock had no hammer, so there is no visual indication that it is about to fire, yet Jones swore later that he could hear the squeak of the spring inside as Silver applied pressure to the trigger. That, and look of sad resignation in his eyes convinced Doctor Jones that the fox was serious, deadly serious. He started barking out orders as his paws felt for the ends of the largest arteries. There could still be a chance.

Between orders and mumbling half-forgotten lessons to himself, he looked up to see that Silver had moved to one corner of the room, where he would be out of the way but could cover everyone in the room. No one could sneak up on him there either. He still had his gun pointed at the doctor's head.

"Put that dammed thing down. It makes me nervous."

"When you are done."

"And what are you going to do if she dies, which she probably will, kill me?"

"Only if it looks like you gave up too soon or deliberately let her die."

"How are you going to determine that? You aren't a doctor."

"And you aren't a liar. I'll know whether you are telling the truth or not when the time comes."

The blood cart arrived, and Jones went back to work. He cursed his nurses for being too slow. He cursed whoever had done this to Scarlet. He cursed his own paws for being so clumsy, and he cursed Silver for being so stubborn. Finally, he cursed Canada and its backward ways, regretting the day that he had emigrated.

"Why did you come to Canada anyway?" Silver interrupted. "Surely with your delightful personality you could have been Surgeon General back in Oz."

The sarcasm was lost on the preoccupied wallaby. "It was the sun." He answered as he worked. "It's hell on an albino like me. I dreamed of living someplace where I didn't have to wear an inch of sun screen, floppy hats and long-sleeved shirts every single day."

"You should have moved to Vancouver. They worship the rain gods there. They hold sacrifices if the sun stays out more than two days in a row. In fact ...." a fountain of blood rose up from Scarlet's neck and Jones began cursing again. Silver shut up and let him work.

* * * * * * * *

Scarlet found herself walking in an unknown land. A mist that came up to her knees swirled around her as she walked, and the fog seemed to blur everything more than a few paces away. The only discernable features were the occasional rocks that jutted out of the haze, and they were not remarkable in either size or description.

Why she was walking when she could just as easily stop and stand, or sit on a rock, she had no idea, but it seemed to be the right thing to do at the moment. Brushing a paw across her chest, she realized that she was naked. Looking down she verified that this was so. No skirt or blouse, no bra or panties, even her wristwatch and rings were gone. Have I been robbed, she wondered? She felt her neck to see if the cross still hung on its silver chain and received another shock. There seemed to be a large gash in her neck.

Feeling around she determined that the gash went all of the way around, although it might have been a little shallower in the back, near her spine. Other than there, it was quite deep and well defined. She recalled ... something ... something bad had happened. She must have been injured, but why wasn't she bleeding?

Frowning in deep thought she tried to work out how she could have such a horrendous wound and still be walking. She kept moving as she pondered, reaching up occasionally to touch the gap in her neck. Hopefully she would either figure this out or reach help before it became worse.

She didn't seem to be making much progress in either department however, as the mist and the landscape, what she could see of it, didn't change. How long had she been walking? It seemed like days, but that could not be right, could it?

Something different was up ahead, a larger rock? As she drew closer, she could see that it wasn't just a taller rock, it was someone sitting on one of the rocks. Somehow, when she was closer still, Scarlet wasn't surprised to see that it was a figure clad in a black robe and hood, although she was taken aback by the double-barrelled shotgun it had across its knees. Nasty, indiscriminate things, she thought.

There was smaller rock opposite the figure, and it seemed appropriate to sit there, so she did.

The creature raised a paw and pulled the hood back from its face. Scarlet saw that it was a fox. Emphasis on the 'was', because only the skeletal structure and a few wisps of dried flesh and fur remained. One eyeball, brilliant white around a yellow pupil, rolled impossibly in its socket to regard her. The creature remained silent. Scarlet had a fair idea of what was going on now.

"You are Death." Scarlet stated.

"How astute." She heard Death reply, although she could see no tongue or larynx to produce the sound.

"What happened to your scythe?" she asked, pointing to the shotgun. "Modernize?"

"No. I carry this for you."

Scarlet thought about that one for a minute. She started rubbing her belly unconsciously while she did and realized that she was feeling for the six puckered scars. An accidental discharge from her partner's shotgun during a raid in her police days had almost cost her life.

"You carry that because I'm afraid of shotguns." It was true, although she had never admitted it to herself before. Knives, pistols, rifles and bombs she could handle, but the sight of someone approaching with a shotgun could freeze her in her tracks.

"That is correct. You have retained quite a bit of your capacity to reason. Unusual. I appear as what one expects me to appear as, although it is usually an unconscious decision. Some people are quite shocked."

"So you have come to collect me."

"That is the general idea."

"To take me to the other side?"

"That is one way of putting it."

"So what's on the other side? Christian Heaven and Hell? Nirvana? I hope it's not Valhalla, I didn't dress for that."

"I can not tell you."

Scarlet noted that the answer may have two meanings. "You can't or you won't?"

"I am not permitted to. There are rules in force here that you cannot understand in your present state. I cannot simply tell you what is beyond, but I may answer some of your questions until it is time to collect you. If you ask the correct questions you may be able to figure it out, smart as you are."

She reflected on his response, or was it a she? She would have to be an anthropologist to tell from what little remained.

"How long do we have before you collect me?"

"It is difficult to tell; modern medicine being what it is. I preferred the old days. It was much easier to schedule collections without all the mechanical and legal interference. Of course there were a few embarrassing mistakes where the so-called corpse would sit up in the middle of the funeral service, but since they generally revived after burial it was a simple matter of waiting a few more hours for them to suffocate. But I digress. Given the state of your wounds and the paleness of your flesh under that fur they must have you on the operating table right now. That is a lot of damage to repair; I'm surprised that they are even bothering to try. You could go any second."

"Or not."

"Correct. You may last hours, days, even years if they are determined to keep you hooked up to life support long enough."

"Are you the only one that I get to talk to while I wait?"

"Yes, but if you find me boring just ask and I will leave."

"When will you be back?"

"I will return only to collect you, be that in five minutes or fifty years from now. You will not see me again before then."

"In other words, this is my only opportunity to find out more about life after death."

"As I said, very astute. You are a smart one."

Scarlet had been fingering the wound on her neck while they talked and noticed a change on the right side. The gap was closing from back to front, leaving a bumpy ridge behind. Death must have seen the puzzled look on her face.

"They are stitching you up. That can be a good sign or a bad one; they have either repaired you or have given up. You are not as pale as you were, so you may be in luck."

Sensing that her time was short in either case, Scarlet tried to think of questions she should ask while she had the chance. "Will I remember this when, if, I wake up?"

"That depends. Some of my few repeat customers have mentioned that they did, while others only remembered when they saw me again."

"Will I be punished for the bad things I've done?"

"Have you done bad things?"

"I suppose everyone has. How do they judge that on the other side?"

"I could not say."

"Is this one of those 'you get what you believed in' things? Will I only be punished for things I think I should be punished for?"

"Sorry. I can not help you there."

"Does it depend at all on my beliefs? Does a true atheist just fade out of existence while agnostics wait outside the gates of heaven for eternity?"

Death remained silent.

"I thought you said that you could answer my questions?" Scarlet was angry now.

"I said that I could answer some of your questions."

Scarlet tried to recall the exact words of the earlier conversation. "And if I asked the right questions, I might be able to figure out the answer." It was like interviewing a hostile or terrified witness, she thought. Sometimes you could tell more from what they wouldn't say that what they did. She opened her mouth to ask a new question, but stopped when her head began to tilt back alarmingly.

"The stitches are coming out fast." Death observed. "You must have sprung a leak."

While Scarlet's paws felt the gap for signs of progress, the skeletal fox began checking the shotgun. It broke the action to verify that it was loaded. It extracted the shells and peered down the barrels. It pulled back the hammers and let them drop on the empty chambers. Satisfied that all was in order, it reloaded the shotgun and raised it to its shoulder.

"You have time for one last question."

Scarlet wanted to argue with the creature, but she knew that it would be useless. It was just doing its job, just as she had done all those years. The thought of it going through eternity mindlessly separating the souls of the dead or dying, reminded her of her long-forgotten religious instruction. Something the nuns had said about god's first gift to sentient beings.

"Can you choose not to collect someone? I mean, do you have free will?

"No. But you do. Now hold still ..." Death aimed the shotgun, not really necessary at this distance, but it did not pull the triggers. It lifted its head and seemed to stare at Scarlet. If one could look disappointed with no face to do it with, Scarlet thought, that's what he looked like right now.

"What's wrong?"

"Your neck. It is closing up again. Your colour is improving also." It lowered the shotgun and stared at her for another minute. "The stitching is very fine, meant to last. It's not just a quick job to keep your head on until the autopsy. I do believe that they have saved you, for now." The fox put the shotgun behind the rock it sat on, where it seemed to disappear.

"Before you ask," Death continued before she could open her mouth to speak, "the answer is no. No, you cannot stay to chat. No, you cannot ask any more questions. No, I do not know when we may meet again, or under what circumstances."

Scarlet looked down at herself. She felt different. She was no longer naked. Now she had on the clothes she remembered wearing in the hotel as she got ready for her visitors, or what was left of them. The hospital staff had sliced them open to allow her to breathe easier and to provide access for the defibrillator. She could hear faint noises and smell medical odours. They were getting stronger and louder. She was also becoming transparent as the sounds and sensations of the real world increased.

"I guess that I will see you again someday." She said as she dissolved.

"Not if you are good." came through just as everything went black.

Scarlet thought at first that it had broken the rules by answering an additional question. Then she realized that she had not asked a question, merely made an observation. But perhaps, she had finally gotten the answer she was looking for.

* * * * * * * *

"Blood pressure is ninety over fifty, Doctor."

"Is that good?" Silver asked from the corner. He had holstered his gun sometime during the four-hour operation after seeing how hard the surgeon was fighting to save Scarlet.

"For someone who was dead a few minutes ago, it's great." Jones replied. "I think that we got it now. She'll live, I think."

"When do you think she will wake up?"

"It's more like 'if' she wakes up." Jones was shaking his head. "We have no idea how long her brain was without oxygen. If by some miracle you didn't cripple her by racing across town without a neck brace on her she will probably have some degree of brain damage. Anything from mild motor impairment and memory loss to a persistent vegetative state." He turned to face the silver fox accusingly. "If she isn't reduced to an idiot the Academy will carry out the execution order anyway. So what have you accomplished here tonight Silver?"

"I've bought some time, doctor. Time for others to come to their senses and see the truth."

"I think not."

Both Silver and Jones whirled to face the newcomer. Gold stood just inside the double doors of the operating room. He must have slipped in when one of the nurses was carrying the bloody bandages out a moment ago, Silver realized. Tancred held a large black gun in his right paw. It was aimed at Silver. Silver recognized the firearm from the collection of special weapons. He looked up into Tancred's eyes and nodded to his friend.

"So that's the way it's going to be, Tanner?"

"Yes, Silver. It's the only way."

"Alright then. Let's end this."

The nurses were frozen in place, fascinated. Doctor Jones wisely stepped to one side to clear Gold's line of fire. Silver's paw twitched at his side, centimetres from the grip of his Glock-17.

Silver had a reputation for being fast, the fastest the Academy had ever seen. But Gold did not have to draw, he just had to pull the trigger. He managed to do so twice before Silver's paw came up ... empty. The Glock lay on the floor at his feet, dropped when the impact of the two shells had slammed Silver back against the wall. Silver clutched his chest and looked down at the red stain on his paw. He looked back up at Tancred, and then his eyes glazed over. He slid down the wall to come to rest sitting against it with his snout between his knees. The twin stains spreading slowly across his shirt were barely noticeable on the black material.

Doctor Jones walked calmly over to Silver and put two digits to his neck. He stared off into space as he silently counted to sixty.

"No pulse." He said, turning to Gold, waiting for instructions.

"Have the nurses take her to a secure room." Gold snapped, waving the pistol at Scarlet. "No one is allowed in without my permission. No One! Understood?" He glared at the nurses. The senior nurse nodded vigorously, eager to be out of the room. Gold indicated that they could proceed and then he turned back to Jones.

"Help me get this one on the other gurney then you can leave. I have a hearse on the way."

"I have to do an autopsy before I file a report with the Director. That's the regulation."

Gold spun and grabbed the doctor by the front of his jacket and lifted him off the floor to bring his face level with Tancred's. His eyes blazed like the setting sun.

"This was my only friend, and I have just shot him dead. He has been through enough. I intend to see that he rests in peace now. As Chief of Staff I can overrule the regulations. You can inform the acting Director of Silver's death and tell him and that thug Kevin, that the current Chief of Staff has gone to help prepare his friend's body in accordance with his wishes. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Uh, no. Not at all. Sir."

Jones helped Gold lift the limp body onto an empty gurney and push it to the ambulance bay. He left Gold there alone with the body, at Gold's request. The wallaby headed for the doctor's lounge to clean up, shower and change before reporting on the night's events to Yellow.

In the ambulance bay Gold patted the head of his friend tenderly. Then he looked around to see if any of the medical staff were lurking nearby. This part of the hospital was deserted. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a tube with a red cap on one end. He flipped the cap off with one paw and pulled Silver's shirt open with the other. He felt for the space between Silver's ribs, just above his heart, and he placed the exposed end of the tube against it. Pressing down hard on the other end released a spring-loaded needle into the fox's heart. One hundred cc's of a very special drug followed.

Silver gasped and sat up so suddenly that Tancred had to let go of the tube in case the needle broke. Silver's eyes were as wide as dinner plates and his nostrils flared as he sucked in an endless supply of air. He stopped inhaling when it seemed that his lungs might burst out of his chest and froze for a minute. Finally his eyes relaxed and he exhaled in one burst.

"Holy crap! Did you have to do that? It's like being pulled through a knot hole on a shit house door. Don't we have something that will bring you back gradually?" He complained as he pulled the needle out of his chest.

"No time, Silver. Lobodin is going to be here any second with a hearse we stole. How was the land of the dead?"

"Foggy. Your Mom says hi."

"Funny, she's still alive."

"Must have been your Dad then."

"He's amongst the living too."

"Your love life?"

"Ouch." Tanner pushed him back down on the gurney. "Now play dead in case someone comes along. I'll brief you in the hearse."

* * * * * * * *

Yellow strode across the Academy grounds. He was angry and upset. Things were not going exactly as he had planned.

True, the Walrus was under arrest and there was enough evidence to put him away for life. A fortunate coincidence that. Yellow had been setting the fat old walrus up for years with what he thought was circumstantial evidence. He had not imagined that there was another double agent in the Academy, let alone for it to be the Director himself! That Scarlet was involved did not surprise him. He had no respect for anyone who used their body more than their brain in this business. As far as he was concerned, that group included most of his superiors and all of his fellow senior agents, especially Silver and Scarlet. He briefly considered the possibility that jealousy might be influencing his opinion, but dismissed it. What did he have to be jealous of?

Scarlet was still alive, and that might be a problem, but not for long. As soon as he was confirmed as Director he would replace that great gay golden fox Williams and put someone he could control in his place. Maybe Kevin. The stocky yellow fox was an intellectual pipsqueak but he could intimidate people twice his size. Once Williams was out of the picture he would order Scarlet out of isolation and Kevin could finish what he had started.

Silver was dead, however, and that was a relief. Scarlet's young lover was like a machine when he was on a task, relentless and unstoppable. Did Silver suspect something? Is that why he saved Scarlet? Could he actually have known about my activities, Yellow wondered, and if so did he have any hard evidence? It was unlikely, he decided. He had covered his tracks too well. There were alternative explanations with simpler motives for everything that he had done; from Greens murder, to Silver's detention in China, and even Scarlet's botched execution. Still, he would rest easier once Scarlet was dead and he had his own people in key positions.

Yellow was on his way to meet one of the people that he badly wanted to replace; White, the agent-at-large, liaison officer to the allied agencies and enforcer of discipline on the other senior agents. The Academy's internal executioner, for those rare times when it was necessary to take out one of their own. Yellow thought that White was a cheerless, dull individual, but he was a little afraid of the older Arctic fox. White had no conscious when it came to killing. Foe or former friend, he did not question execution orders or hesitate to carry them out. He just got it over with quickly and efficiently, like any other routine duty. How do you reason with someone like that?

You don't, of course, he told himself. That's why he had come up with another plan should the last of his rival senior agents show any sign of taking up the executioner's mantle today.

Yellow entered the code to open the side door of the Headquarters building. It was the one closest to the staff parking lot on the outside and the interrogation rooms inside. White had asked to meet somewhere secure, and Yellow had chosen the room. He had also timed his entrance for ten minutes after the meeting was supposed to start, to ensure that White was in the room already when he arrived.

"White." He said as he entered the room and closed the door behind him. The lock did not engage. It could only be looked from the outside. That was why he chose this room, so that his escape would not be hindered if he had to run. Yellow had also taken the precaution of disabling the sound and visual recording devices earlier.

White was sitting behind the interrogation table, facing the door. He had both paws on the table top with a red file folder between them. He began speaking without acknowledging Yellow's greeting.

"As you know, Yellow, in my role as Liaison Officer I sometimes have to work outside of normal channels, like when the allies request assistance in Canadian territory. As much of the material that the double agent passed was of American origin the CIA has asked me to make sure that the leak has been plugged." He opened the file and Yellow could see copies of the messages that he had passed through his Russian contact in Beijing. But W had apparently passed much of the same material. Yellow had been careful not to sign for most of the documents, preferring to blackmail the weaker of his junior agents into helping acquire them.

"I'm sure that when you check the registry you will find that W and Scarlet had access to all of those documents, and many more." Yellow waved a paw over the papers. "Perhaps the walrus even had his Chief of Staff assisting him. Williams certain owed him for saving his career when he turned out to be a homosexual. I'd say that it's over now with W in custody and Scarlet probably a vegetable."

"No. Some new evidence has come to light." White stared steadily into Yellow's eyes as he flipped some of the papers over to reveal another list of American documents, one annotated as never being distributed to foreigners, like the Canadians. "The Americans want him to checkout some other leads. Their Liaison Officer, Red Fox, flew up early this morning."

Yellow crossed his arms and squeezed his paws in his armpits. "How can we help them with those documents?" He asked, puzzled. "It says that none of them were ever released to us." He slipped the tips of his right digits through a slit in his shirt and felt the butt of the pistol hidden there.

"Oh, he doesn't need help with these." White gestured to the list. "This was sent to him by Silver. Each of these documents was either handled by an analyst named Aldrich Ames or by another analyst that smoked. Five of those have already admitted to discussing their work in the smoking area and all of them recall that Ames seemed to be nearby. It's a miracle that cancer hasn't taken the poor fellow yet."

White held up the paper in front of Yellow. "No, this was payment for a favour." He put the paper face down on the other side of the file and held up another list. This list had the names of all the agents that had seen certain documents listed by region and arranged by date. The only one that appeared beside every document was the word 'Asia'. The earliest date was just after Yellow took over the Beijing office, headquarters for the Asian region.

Yellow opened his mouth to provide the explanation he had rehearsed for this situation. Even if they did not believe it, the list was not evidence, and they were unlikely to order his execution when there was a possible alternative. But the white fox did not give him a chance to speak.

"Then there's this." White held up a copy of the handwritten Chinese note. Yellow shut his maw with a snap. He recognized his own characters. He often wrote the reports for W's eyes only by paw, just to show off. But who could have gotten into W's private files?

Oh well, time for plan B. White still had both paws on the table. Yellow gripped the hidden pistol, pulled it out smoothly and put the muzzle against the other fox's forehead.

"That's enough White. Keep those paws where I can see them." Yellow leapt across the table and frisked White in his chair before making him stand against the wall and strip. He found a number of guns and knives hidden on the fox. He folded them and White's clothes into a bundle and stood by the door.

"You never did have any imagination White. With W under arrest and Gold out taking care of Silver's body there's no one left to open this door once I lock you into this sound proof room. With the Soviet's money, and what I have to trade the Chinese, I'll be comfortably settled in a villa in the Yunnan Mountains before they let you out."

"Silver thought that you murdered my friend Green."

"Of course I did. The Red Brigade worked for the Soviets and it was a simple matter to arrange for them and Green to cross paths. Green really was getting to close. My Soviet contacts also provided me with the evidence I needed to arrange for W's arrest. Silver's capture I arranged on my own. I'm still not sure how he got out of that one."

"And Scarlet?"

"Yes. I arranged that too. She was fortunate that Silver happened along when he did. Strange, I was sure that he would want to kill her and W when he found out about them." Yellow shrugged. "But, I'm alive and rich and he is dead, so I guess I win." Yellow reached for the door handle.

"Wait!" White called out. "Why did you do it, Yellow? Why did you turn double agent in the first place?"

"Why? Because I could. The rest of you are all so stupid, barely better than thugs. The same goes for the opposition. There was no intellectual challenge in sneaking around stealing secrets, seducing contacts and shooting enemy agents. But for ten years I did what I wanted, playing both sides against each other. And no one suspected. I did it because I'm better than all of you." Yellow swung the door open and looked back over his shoulder as he stepped out. "I never liked you in particular, White."

Yellow locked the interrogation room and pocketed the key. He stepped across the hall and entered the code for the exit onto the parking lot. There was a trash bin to one side of the door and he dropped the bundle of clothes and weapons into it. Looking around hastily, he walked as quickly as he dared to the car he had taken from the motor pool. The keys were under the sun visor. Spare clothes were in the trunk, and several sets of false identification were in the glove box. An open airfare ticket, good for any international flight, was in there too. He should be out of the country long before they realized that he was missing.

He hopped behind the wheel and pulled out of the lot. Instead of turning directly onto the main street he chose one of the quiet lanes that crossed the experimental farm for his exit. He would take a round-about route to the airport just in case anyone was watching the main entrance.

Something, a slight out of place noise perhaps, put him on the alert. He looked around for signs of pursuit, but saw no other vehicles. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and his eyes went wide. A pair of black ears, surrounded by silvery fur, were rising up from behind him. As his paw left the wheel to go for his gun he felt the unmistakable presence of a large calibre muzzle against the base of his skull.

"Don't." Was all that Silver had to say.

The lane was straight and deserted, so Yellow could keep his eyes on the mirror. Silver was wearing safety goggles and a military radio headset with a boom microphone. He spoke into it. "Got him." The headset had large earpieces that were turned around, to act like small speakers. They crackled to life and Yellow could hear the voice of Tancred Williams.

"You hear what he said to White?"

"Yes." Silver replied, his eyes never leaving the back of Yellow's head.

"You are authorized to carry out the execution orders. Gold out." The earpieces fell silent. Silver turned the radio off.

Yellow debated the merits of either crashing into a tree or trying to argue with the younger fox. But something Silver had lifted up onto the back seat with his other paw intrigued him. It looked like a miniature Electro-Magnetic Pulse generator. A cord ran from it to a switch in Silver's paw.

"I never liked White either," Silver said casually as he put a thumb on the switch and pressed the gun harder against Yellow's head, "but right now I like you a lot less." Silver pressed the switch and pulled the trigger simultaneously.

The mini EMP killed the car's engine and stopped Yellow's digital watch cold. The bullet did the same for Yellow. Silver wiped the bits of brain and chips of bone off the lenses of the safety goggles as the car rolled to a stop in the middle of the road. He reached over the seat and turned on the hazard lights before activating the radio again.

"Send in the cleanup crew."

Silver climbed out of the rear of the car and leaned against it while he waited for the technicians to arrive. He looked across the lush fields of the experimental farm at the distant homes and high rises that surrounded it and heaved a sigh. Silver knew that there was one more killing yet to come.

* * * * * * * *

Silver was still wearing the same clothes that he had donned in his room before heading out to confront W in the safe house. His weapons were still in place under the loose suit, and the pockets still held the deck of cards and the freshly sharpened pencils he had put there the night before. The black material was torn, tattered and stained with both real and fake blood. But there was only one other in the junior agent's lounge to see him.

"Hello Kevin."

His old friend didn't look around. "Hi Silver." He had a full beer and two more empty bottles in front of him. Silver came around the table out of arms reach. Kevin had one paw on the table, but the other, his shooting paw, was out of sight below it. Silver sat on the edge of a chair opposite Kevin. There was an open case of beer on the floor beside him. Silver ignored it.

"Not going to have a beer with an old friend?" Kevin enquired with a sad grin. Silver shook his head no.

"How did you know?" Kevin asked.

"I started to distrust you when you cheated at cribbage against the old beaver." Silver relied. "You were never the competitive type so your explanation didn't fit. It was losing the money that bothered you. Then there was the incident with Carpenter and the unsecured file. But who had the most to gain? You never accused him outright of trying to sabotage me, you just dropped enough information to lead me to a conclusion. With a breach of security against me and the circumstantial evidence against him, we both would have been punished and knocked down a couple of places. Leaving you in position to win the higher-paid field posting and a quicker route to promotion."

"It turns out that you didn't need to do it though. There were two openings and the Academy had no intention of offering one to Carpenter. So off you went to Asia, where you took risks to accelerate your career. Again, you were never that ambitious, but the pay scale for senior agents starts a lot higher than the most you can get as a junior agent, doesn't it? Why did you need the money Kevin."

"Child support. Alimony. Gifts for my kit when I visited. I never spent any of it on myself, but I couldn't let my kid think that his dad was a loser. The bitch would have loved that."

"So once you really screwed up Yellow had you by the balls. Then I came to Beijing and you tried to plant the idea of the mole being back in the headquarters. Did you know about W then, or was it just misdirection again?"

"We had no idea until recently. Yellow just wanted to muddy the waters. He visited Ottawa regularly and checked the registry. He only sold documents that had been seen by several others. Even then he made his junior agents sign for him. Mostly me. I think that I was his next fall guy."

"Probably. Was the set up in Beijing to get rid of me?"

"Yes." Kevin admitted. "Yellow thought that you were getting too curious and we knew that the fifth department wanted you dead. It was meant to buy a comfortable retirement in case we had to flee to the Soviet Union like Philby, Burgess, and MacLean. But you got out somehow, and the damned communists couldn't hold on to power. Yellow was still set, he had millions stashed away. But me? I'm broke.

"If you cooperate, help with the damage assessment and identify the KGB agents involved, you can avoid a humiliating trial. Of course, your ex-mate will have to know, when the payments stop coming."

"No. I'm not going that way." Kevin looked determined and Silver realized that the two beers had done nothing to impair him.

What are you going to do Kevin? Shoot me and run for it? You know that Gold and a security crew are waiting outside. You don't stand a chance."

"I can use you as a hostage."

"I'm expendable. They'll shoot us both down."

"I don't think so." Kevin brought his hidden paw up to reveal the .45 calibre automatic he was holding. At my count they have only two senior agents left. I don't think that they can afford to lose you Silver. Get up and strip."

Kevin made him throw all of the guns and knives into a corner and searched the pile of clothing himself. He broke the pencil he found in two and checked the deck of cards for hidden blades. Satisfied, he put the deck down on the table between them and allowed Silver to dress.

"Why did you bring the cards, Silver?"

"They are symbolic of this whole sad affair Kevin." Silver said as he picked up the deck and fanned the cards, first in one direction then the other. "Your tactics, W's triple agent scheme, Yellow's arrangements to cover his tracks. It's all about misdirection." Silver waved a paw, pads toward Kevin, over the deck and the ace of spades rose up out of the pack. He turned his paw so that the scarred back was to the other fox and the ace lowered slowly back. "Like a card trick. Make them look at your paw or the deck or anywhere but where you are holding the ace in the hole." He cut the deck several times in rapid succession, revealing the ace of spades each time. "Make them think that they knew what the trick is, then pull the real rabbit out of the hat."

Silver saw that Kevin's eyes had left his face and were focused on the dancing cards. He checked to see that the second pencil, the one he had palmed during the search, was still in position, wedged between the digits of the paw holding the deck where Kevin could not see it. Then he made his move.

Silver Bent the cards back and released them. They shot across the table in a steady stream, fifty-two aces of spades flying toward Kevin's head. He reacted instinctively and his arm jerked up to protect his eyes as he pulled the trigger. But Silver had already spun on one foot and stepped around the table. Blinded by the flying cards Kevin continued to fire into the space Silver had vacated. Silver twirled the pencil in his paw, holding it point up by the rubber eraser. He ducked under Kevin's outstretched arm and brought the pencil straight up.

The sharp point pierced the soft skin under Kevin's chin. There was no blood yet as the pencil continued upward. Silver drove the pencil in, through the base of Kevin's tongue, through the soft pallet at the back of his mouth, and into his sinus. As the last of the wooden shaft disappeared he released his grip and pushed on the eraser with the tip of one digit. He felt the graphite tip break against the inside of Kevin's skull and the pencil would go no farther. Only the end of the pink eraser protruded.

Kevin's paw went slack and the automatic dropped to the floor. His eyes were wide, like he was astounded, and maybe he was. He turned toward Silver, eyes wide and focused on something a thousand miles away. A trickle of blood came out of the corner of his maw and dripped from the fur on his chin, staining his shirt.

"Ughrg." He gurgled, displaying a centimetre of yellow painted wood when his lips parted to speak.

Silver squeezed Kevin's jaws together between two digits to keep the blood in and prevent the pencil from coming loose.

"That's another habit of yours that irritates me Kevin. You talk with your mouth full."

* * * * * * * *

Scarlet's recovery was long and hard. Silver was not there when she woke from her coma a month later, he was back in Europe. Gorbachev officially disbanded the KGB in November 1991 in the aftermath of the attempted coup d'etat, but it was leaking operatives for months before that. The allied agencies needed all their agents to scoop up the ones with information to sell, and all their guns to deal with the ones that went renegade.

Gold came to visit her, as did White. Both filled her with words of encouragement. The odds of a full recovery were good, they said. The doctors weren't so optimistic, but they did not rule out the possibility either. W came to visit after he was cleared by the secret senate inquiry. Pavel Lobodin testified with a hood over his head. It was believed that he went into witness protection afterward, and was living comfortably in some small town out west. Actually, W confided to her, he returned to his duties in Moscow, transferring to the FSK when the KGB was disbanded.

The Russians thought that Scarlet was dead, and Lobodin took the credit for taking her out. With no ties to the plot to remove Gorbachev and an enhanced reputation, the old fox was able to feed disinformation to the highest levels of the crumbling Soviet Union, speeding its demise. The Americans carefully feed the Russians the same bogus intelligence by letting the badger Aldrich Ames overhear rehearsed conversations in the smoking area.

It took another two months for Scarlet to be well enough to get out of bed. Two years of intense physiotherapy followed. In the world outside the Academy, regimes shattered, empires crumbled, and coalitions collapsed. By the end of 1993 there was only one superpower left in the world, but so many small wars had erupted that conventional military force could not be deployed to deal with all of them. Small teams, striking at strategic facilities and taking out key leaders, were sent in.

Silver went from one mission to another without a break. All the allied agents were being driven to the breaking point. The next time that Scarlet saw Silver was the day that she was being cleared to return to light duties. She was just leaving the hospital when he was being checked in. A mission had gone bad in the Balkans. Silver had to be rescued by an old friend of his, a cloud leopard with the US Navy SEALs. Silver had survived the tricky river escape, but his friend had not. Silver was not conscious when he arrived, but Scarlet went to visit him as soon as the doctors permitted it.

A weak "Hey there good looking" greeted her as she entered his room. Silver was awake and apparently cognisant, that was a good thing.

"Hey, sexy blue eyes." She had not called him that in over ten years. She sat on the edge of the bed and took his paw in hers. They looked at each other silently for a moment, noting the differences in each other.

Besides the fresh wounds, Silver had acquired a scar above his left eye and a couple of new puckered bullet scars. He had not had the scars on his chest removed, and Scarlet suspected that he never would. He looked tired too, and not because he was injured. It was a deep-seated fatigue, a weariness that would take more than a stint in the infirmary to cure.

Scarlet was thinner than when he had last seen her, but lean with muscle. She was fit but she had aged rapidly since the attempted assassination. Her brilliant red coat was duller and streaked with grey. She wore no makeup to conceal the wrinkles or hide the sagging skin under her eyes. She looks her age, Silver thought to himself. She still looked good, but not young anymore. She had a black velvet choker around her neck, and Silver knew that she too had decided to keep the memento of her encounter, although he did not know why.

"Tanner was in to see me this morning." Silver broke the silence. He said that you were ready to go back to light duty and that soon you'll be back in the field tearing the hearts out of those young punks."

"Tancred was being kind." She smiled ruefully. "We both know that I will never go back to the field, and a headquarters job would not suit me."

"What are you going to do?" Scarlet noted that his expression held only curiosity and a bit of regret, not the dismay of someone about to lose a loved one. She realized that the physical wounds were not the only ones that left scars. They would never be anything more than friends now.

"I am leaving the Academy, and the government service altogether. I'm old enough for a decent pension, and I won't even need that where I am going."

"What are you talking about?" Now he looked worried.

"Don't be concerned Silver. I'm not going to kill myself or go on some suicidal adventure. I am changing career. I have spent my life taking, taking the love of others, taking their secrets, taking their lives. It's time to give back. I'm joining a convent."

"You're kidding."

"No." She laughed. "I know that it sounds funny coming from me, but my family had at least one nun in every generation. When I was a little girl everybody, including me, thought that I would be the next to join. But something happened that changed all that." She looked away sadly.

"Did the Academy padre get to you while you were still under the drugs maybe? Persuade you while you were in a weakened state?"

"Let's just say that I met someone who convinced me to change my ways and leave it at that."

"You can't just go be a nun Scarlet. I don't mean that you can't join or anything, but I just don't see you sitting in an eight-by-eight room with an iron bed praying all day."

"I'm joining a teaching order. Besides the attraction of wearing a wimple that covers sagging jowls, and other things," she touched her neck, "they run schools for females in Afghanistan, Africa and Asia, as well as a few private institutions here and there to help finance the charity schools. There's one in town here, near Beechwood."

"I doubt that even you could handle those rich society bitches." Silver was smiling now too. "Teaching in a war zone is more your speed."

"I'll let you know how it works out." She patted his arm. "Save a seat for me at the annual Academy Anniversary party, and since I'll have to take a vow of poverty, you'll have to buy the drinks for me."

Scotch, right?"

"Right."

* * * * * * * *

Epilogue: 10 Years Later

It was Sister Rufina's week to do the rounds. Most of the other nuns, she knew, did them early and quickly, not really checking the doors and windows diligently. Sister Rufina was a little more conscientious than most however, plus, she was on a mission. Her mission was to thwart the schemes of her two most felonious students. The other nuns called them the Polish Pair, or the Delinquent Duo. Sister Rufina called them trouble. They were the wild feline Geno and her canine follower, Coyotka.

Using a flashlight, Sister Rufina checked the hole in the fence that the girls thought was hidden behind a bush. The nun had watered the ground around it to keep it soft and tonight it bore the prints of a dozen sneakers, and the clogs that Geno typically wore. The sneaker tracks were too large to be female, and they were heading into the grounds of the private school. What had Geno gotten up to now? Rufina wondered.

She followed the tracks through a side door and down a darkened hall to the gymnasium. She could see that the lights were on inside, but that was not unusual. They would turn off automatically at eleven unless someone reset the timer. As she approached, Sister Rufina could hear the crashing and banging noises of destruction coming from the gym, her gym. Sister Rufina had taken over the physical education program this year, to the regret of the lazier of the girls. Geno in particular was resentful of the extra discipline.

Could the little slut have gone as far as to trash the gym? A beer bottle shattered one of the lower windows and landed at the nun's feet. Oh yes, she could.

The Sister removed her wimple. It was too white and reflective. Without it, the dark red fur of the old vixen's face blended into the shadows under the black scarf that the order wore over the wimple much better. She unconsciously touched the scar that went around her neck, unaccustomed to having the open air on it. She slid up to the broken window and peeked inside.

It was a horrible scene. Here beautiful gymnasium was ruined. A dozen young rats, a street gang whose territory began a few blocks away, were running about with spray paint cans, leaving obscenities behind in bright colours. They had torn down the nets, poured acid on the polished wooden floor, and ripped the stuffing out of the mats. A strong smell of rodent urine wafted through the hole in the window.

In the centre of the room, the cat Geno was on her back on the last intact mat. A large rat was between her legs, its ass and tail held high as its greasy cock slid in and out of her. Another had her head in its paws and was forcing her to swallow its prick while she stroked the shaft of a third. Four more were lined up waiting their turns.

Sister Rufina had almost decided to leave the young feline to her fate. It would serve her right if the rats slapped her around or if she caught some sexual disease. But then her conscious reminded Sister Rufina to be charitable, and she saw the other females cowering in a corner.

The spray paint was all used up. The other twelve rats were standing around with their cocks in their hands, calling out to the rest to hurry up with the pussy. Then one of them pointed to the group of terrified females in the corner. Two of them dropped their cocks and dragged Geno's friend, the coyote, from the pack. They pulled her onto the broken pommel horse and held her down.

The one that had pointed dropped his pants to the floor and ripped Coyotka's plaid school skirt from her. He laughed evilly and stoked himself hard as her butt jerked to and fro under the white cotton panties in her efforts to escape. Rufina heard Geno shout "No!" followed by the sound of a paw striking flesh. The rat pulled Coyotka's panties off roughly and squeezed her ass as he shuffled into position. He spit on the head of his cock and lined it up with the hole he had exposed under her tail.

Sister Rufina felt herself faded into the background. Scarlet stepped up from the depths to take her place. A paw shot out and pulled the main switch on the gym's circuit board. The rats froze in the sudden darkness, but not before Scarlet had slipped inside the gym. One by one the rats went down. They began to run around and yell in their confusion, blind in the gloom. Scarlet's eyes were already accustomed to the dark, however, and she could navigate by sound too.

Some of the rats had broken collar bones, some had shattered snouts. None had any fatal injuries, there was enough of Sister Rufina left to see to that. By the time that the third went down they were trying to fight back. That's when Scarlet really started to kick ass.

Almost invisible in her black habit, she whirled like a ninja, struck one gang member down and swirled away before another could touch her. Soon the floor was littered with moaning criminals. One of the students had managed to find the door in the confusion and the rest ran screaming after her. Those of the gang that could still move soon followed.

With no threat left to fight, Scarlet receded again. Sister Rufina was back in charge. She went first to Coyotka. She lifted the frightened young canine up and covered her with the black robe she wore. She mumbled a few words of assurance and sat her down against the wall. Then, wearing nothing but an undergarment that looked like a bathing suit from the roaring twenties, she came to stand above Geno, but her mercy was absent.

"Get up." She barked. Geno did, and bean to weave an excuse, but Rufina would have none of it. "Get to your room. Now. Either be here at eight am tomorrow to accept your punishment or leave tonight and never come back."

The frightened and ashamed young cat fled the gym, leaving the nun to care for the trembling Coyotka.

* * * * * * * *

Sister Rufina was bored. The brief return to action has made her nostalgic for her former career. She had taken to coaching the two wayward females, Geno and Coyotka, to keep herself busy, and to keep her mind off the old days. She was pleasantly surprised to find that they were responding well to the personal attention. Although still full of boundless energy and mischief, they were able to channel it into more acceptable avenues under the old nun's guidance.

The night in the gym had been several months ago. Tonight, she was back at the Foreign Operations eXecutive Academy for the annual FOX anniversary party. Only current and former staff were invited.

It was good to be able to talk and gossip and laugh about the old days, but Scarlet found that she was fitting in less easily each year. White, the only agent left from her generation, was out of the country tonight, and Silver was arguing with some of the younger agents about whether or not FOX should accept species other than foxes as agents. She listened to the argument with half an ear, wondering who she could intimidate into buying her another scotch. Suddenly, something Silver said gave her an idea.

"What did you just say Silver, dear?" She called out.

"I said that if we find someone with the right analytical or technical skills we would be better off training them to work with the agents in the field than trying to teach agents to be analysts and technicians."

"No, after that."

"I said that unfortunately it didn't look like we would ever find some. Those with the right skills just aren't adventurous or audacious enough to survive in the field. If we can't even find a fox to fit the bill I doubt that we will find an analyst from any other species that would work out."

"Hmmm." She thought about the innate analytical abilities she had recognized in Geno. The feline certainly did have the moxie required, and the Academy did not need virgins, or saints. With a few specialized lessons and the right mental exercises ... she found that she was caressing the large silver crucifix she wore, the one that transformed into a dagger. Maybe she was fated to pass on her legacy.

"Silver." she called him over. "Do want to put your money where your mouth is? I've got fifty dollars that says you will hire a non-fox for field work within," she made a few quick calculations, "five years."

"It will never happen Scarlet, not that soon. Do you know how long it takes just to get the analytical qualifications?"

"I'll sweeten the deal if you are afraid. I'll go as far as to predict that the first non-fox will be female, and feline. Well? What do you say?"

"Alright, but I'll feel bad taking the churches money five years from now. Are you sure you want to do this? I thought that gambling was a sin."

"This isn't gambling, Silver dear. It's a sure thing."

The end

Geno and Coyotka © Coyotek

Pretty much everyone else who isn't a historical figure © me