In response to his question I cautiously offered,“You ... Are improving.”

“The way you say that, I’m not certain if it was a good thing or not.”

“Don’t push your luck, James.”

“Perhaps we had best find our places. The banquet should begin soon.”

He directed me over toward the tables located closer to the stage. We managed to locate our spots in just a few minutes. Our meal orders had been placed only the week prior and were keyed to the numbered place settings to avoid errors. I went for the chicken, figuring there wasn’t much they could do to go wrong in it’s preparation, unless they decided not to cook it. I intended to eat just enough of the meat to be fashionable but generally to stick mostly to the salad and vegi’s. I think James selected the fish as his entree.

Surprisingly, the meal was very good. The dinner conversation poor, but the after dinner speeches including James’ were interesting as well as funny, and I had a second opportunity to accomplish some more networking afterward. Once the evening ended I checked the business cards remaining in my clutch and discovered I had given out nearly 30 cards. I was pleased I had given out so many as well as upset that I hadn’t given out all fifty which I had brought along on a hunch. I didn’t recall having that many conversations, but there were a few times when more than one card found a potential client during one gathering. I was surprised mostly because I was looking for quality, not quantity.

At three to eight thousand a day, we were decidedly somewhere far above the low-priced spread. In case you happen to be curious, James was paying very near to the eight K end of the spectrum, of course that included two other principals, but even so ... Despite our cold shoulder to him during the first days of our detail, he seemed satisfied so far.

As far as the business’ profitability... even though we were entering one of our weakest periods, we had seven jobs going down and continued to be rapidly filling our Christmas stockings (ie. The company savings account) so it looked to be good through the beginning of the New Year with twelve jobs already lined up for the first two months of next year and the possibility of eight more lingering within reach. Those jobs would max us out for our first two months, personnel wise, not necessarily income wise. We had over twenty more jobs lined up or nearly so for the March to June dates with only a few additional jobs each month needed to place us solidly in the green or even to take us into the blue on the spreadsheet. We would either “crack our nut” with the potential jobs we had or come close enough to it that nearly anything else would be profit. Any walk in’s or last second business would be the cream we could skim off the surface. That meant all we had to do was keep the cats, in the form of other security agencies, away long enough that we could gather all our mice into a nice tidy package. The New York region was already shaping up to be an almost instant break even if not showing a profit almost right away. It was nice to be wanted. Jobs still cleared through our central location but we handed off the ones which were nearest to our two new locations. Our first attempt in Canada would begin in a month and it would have it’s own phone number and do it’s own set ups. It was a stand-alone unlike our other locations here in the States.

That our number of jobs was rapidly climbing and most of our business was by referral, that told us a great deal about our client satisfaction. If we added in our support jobs and the occasional give away to other agencies or to the Feds we would normally find a balance between income and outflow which broke even in those areas so our special jobs for our ‘friends’ didn’t weigh too heavily on us. Publicity although infrequent was usually good so we felt we were coming out ahead on that score in the long run. Oh, and by publicity I don’t mean in the newspapers or television. The publicity we received was more referrals and an increasing client base and both were picking up. By now we had quite a few who would deal only with us even when they were going to be in other cities.

There was this one Russian government official who had visited over here a few times and been guided our way on his second or third visit. We ran his protection six times after that and he was so taken with our thoroughness and professionalism that he even asked us to tell him the second we had our European ... Well, you get the idea. We had the feeling he intended to act like a pimp for our Euro business. It took a while before I began to wonder how much he would take ‘off the top.’

We were paying our guys fairly well, ranging from 28K for a newbie to 70K a year for old hands who possessed ten or more registered talents. I know that’s a lot but it never hurts to pay people if you want to keep them. The team leads got another 5K above that.

Our newbies were trained up quickly so they began moving up the ladder adding to our capabilities and diversity. Ralph and I had spent some time discussing it all and decided our central business would be the one which, for now, would be responsible for training up our newbies before they were reassigned to one of the other cities. True, a lot of the training occurred in Virginia, but we had a number of old hands here who were good at mentoring and who didn’t want to move so that helped us make up our minds.

For the early to mid 1970s we were a company which paid extremely well and as a result we received fantastic loyalty from our agents. At the moment we were a little thin since we had four of them out of service, so to speak. They were presently receiving twenty eight weeks training in Europe. When they returned home, we would have them prepare our own training program for the rest of the guys gradually running each of my guys through it.

That would be advantageous for us since then we could simply run the rest of them through a twelve-week course which would get them certified over there so we could add them to those whom we had hired away from other European companies. The new certifications, of course, would need to wait until we had European sanction, which wouldn’t happen until we had personnel who were certified. A catch twenty-two of sorts which was designed to require the hiring and employ of European personnel. That was the reason why I was so interested in Jerry’s talents. He already had his certifications having received training and spending two years with a Swiss team. It should be a simple matter to use him to open the door on his re-certification and then shove some more guys right along behind him for their initial certs. In the end, we hired ten of the Swiss, five Germans, and a mix from five other countries to bring our European arm on line more quickly. Then we started adding American personnel as well as more from all parts of Europe. Getting timely info on each prospective employee was getting to be more difficult but our friends at Meade had a small team of us fly to Europe to meet with some of their other friends and counterparts which got the ball rolling very nicely. You’d be surprised how much it helps to have contact with the right people.

Payroll ... God, payroll each month was becoming crazy. Affordable, but crazy. With all that was happening, payroll was climbing. With all of our recent changes, increases in personnel and acquisitions of property in other cities (and countries), plus the increases in the numbers of agents and in the number of support personnel we were down to only two months of cash assets from our once high of ten. We were working on re-building it, however that didn’t stop me from worrying about it.

Then too, we needed several more people like Nicci. They were actually incredibly difficult to find. Most of the people who worked related positions at other companies really didn’t have a clue when it came to our operations and they probably should not have been in charge of the jobs they were doing in the companies they were in. We decided Nicci did really well at coordinating from our central location and although she was handling our other two cities as well, we liked the way our business model worked and that’s what prompted us to begin searching for a Nicci for each of our cities as well as intensifying the hunt for one and then, shortly thereafter, three for Europe. One for now even though we were still in what could be thought of as the early stages over there. I felt it would be better to bring a Nicci clone up with the growth of the business than to spring it all on someone fully grown, messed up and likely to drive them to distraction as they tried to get a handle on it. Turns out that was a wise decision.

The new office buildings in our coastal cities had been leased out so we were guaranteed enough income each month to use to pay the loans down and to handle the utilities and other less major expenses. That would also give our business locations the free rent we desired for our enterprises. We provided our tenants a lot of services for their money as well as generally lower leasing costs than most of the businesses who needed to make a sizable profit from their leases. That meant our tenants were happy with the arrangements and so were we. Generally, we were well below ten-percent empty-space in our buildings. That was nice since the norm at most places was twelve to fifteen even with these boom times, although we could see that the ‘boom’ was unlikely to last much longer.

Sorry I tend to think about a lot and diverge from my train of thought fairly often. Back to how this all came about ... James and I finished our evening at the University fund raiser so I asked one of the newbies to call for the car. Ten minutes later we were wheeling our way back to the safe house arriving about 11:30. He and I had a private talk until a little after midnight.

“I’ll fly Cathy up on the seventeenth and I’ll show up around the twenty-third or twenty-fourth. She can stay until after New Years, if that’s okay with you, and I’ll try to stay until then also. No guarantees, but at the moment it’s more likely than not. ‘Piye’ hasn’t planned on getting into anything over the holidays.”

I was thinking about presents and the need to add Cathy to the office list so his slip went right over my head for a few months until I played it back during one of our subsequent discussions three or four months later. I was still into planning how I could handle my guests and completely missed his reference as well as his next comment.

“ ... again?”

“I’m sorry, James. I was thinking about something and didn’t catch what you just said.”

“Oh ... Uh ... I was just wondering ... Lynnette ... could we start over as though I didn’t make a jerk out of myself?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Well, You say you’re going to remain female and I suppose that means you intend to go all the way and have some sort of surgeries to at least give you the appearance and everything. Hormones, the whole 9 yards. See, I’m not totally out to lunch concerning this sort of thing. I like your personality, and Cathy likes you. I ... Umm ... I was just wondering ... If I wasn’t such a jerk and really behaved myself, if maybe ... Uh ... maybe ... we could date a little?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Date? And, why is it you seem to know so much about this sort of thing?”

“Umm ... Well ... I’ve got a lady working for me in the development group who used to be a guy. She’s really good at software and I didn’t want to lose her so ... Well ... anyway I asked her if she minded if just she and I knew about her change and my insurance helped foot some of the bill for her while I made certain the company funded most of the rest as well as kept her on. Anyway, she stayed on. Same job, same salary but now female. It wasn’t really a problem since most of the developers didn’t meet with each other very much. They just pushed their software around for each other to work with and integrate. I was the one who usually met with each of them one-on-one so it was easy for me to say she had always been there, just off in another part of the building and working nights instead of days.

I told the others working days that I decided to move her into the slot which had been vacated by ‘her male personna’ when he ‘quit to take a job with another company’. She had federal clearances as a male and I just pushed at the... agency... for which I’d been doing special work so they made certain the name change wasn’t a problem. The two projects we had going for them gave them a little incentive to cooperate, especially when I explained that her work had been a major part of our products for them during the past two years. Her quality of work hadn’t changed just because she became female after all.

I also cleared the way with my day people by telling them that, ‘I don’t want any of you pestering her. She’s a little shy about having just been promoted but her work is quite good so she will fit right in.”

“If you say so boss. Can she handle the stuff Rivera was doing?”

“I think so. I’ve given her a hint about much of it over the past couple of months and she’s done pretty well. She came up with a lot of the same ideas and code that Rivera did. Maybe a little different but, what the heck, everyone can’t program everything identically.”

“Yeah. Sounds like she’ll fit right in. Okay, we’ll see how she’ll do. Maybe she’ll be able to kick out code that has some of the same idiosyncracies to it that Rivera’s did. He could come up with some of the most off-the-wall stuff that worked like lightning.”

“I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. As I said, during these last couple of months she pretty much matched the way he did things. She was a bit surprised to find someone thinking that way but seems to have been able to apply the same approach to other of her work. Very surprising lady.”

James segued from his relating of the woman who worked for him and back to my or our own situation, “And as to us ... Well ... uhh ... Maybe, You know, we could sort of like pretend we just met; you’re a girl, I’m a boy and maybe just ... date ... a little ... to see if we like similar things ... and, maybe, have some chances to talk more and ... well ... oh hell, I’m really messing this up.”

I reached out to touch his arm, “No, you’re not, go on.” What the hell was I saying?

“Well, like tonight. I really had fun. We were talking to others about our businesses but we were together and it was ... nice. I liked having you there holding onto my arm or my hand and smiling at me once in a while and just ... being close ... It was ... Comforting and ... Nice.”

He was trying hard not to act like a schoolboy asking for his first date but failing miserably. It was hard not to laugh as he tried to negotiate the minefield of asking for a date.

“ You’re repeating yourself. You really mean all that, don’t you?” I was flattered and shocked but it was kind of nice despite the fact he knew about my origins. Even if he didn’t quite believe me concerning them.

“Well ... Yeah. I don’t know why but I like it when you’re near and I just feel like something ... someone ... is missing when you’re not there. Then whenever you get angry with me I just can’t think and just ... I want ... You are ... I’m really messing this up. I’d say I had too much to drink except all I had was one glass of wine with dinner. That’s funny too, I usually have three or four glasses of wine but I don’t see you drinking and I don’t want to offend you so I don’t either.”

“But you would if I wasn’t around?”

“I ... don’t know. Maybe a glass but not three or four. You don’t drink do you?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Never?”

“No. Never.”

“Okay. Would it bother you if I have a glass with meals?”

“It would if we began dating. I won’t go out with someone who smokes either.”

“I don’t smoke.”

“I know.”

“You’d rather I didn’t drink at all?”

“If we continue to go together, which at this time we’re not. But if we were going to do so then I would ask you never to drink. That’s a major reason I won’t date someone.”

“Oh ... I see ... and if I stop altogether?”

“I might consider dating you long enough to see how we get along. If for no other reason than to see Cathy some more.”

“Cathy? ... ”

“Yes. She should be included if we go on dates. Not necessarily all of them but probably at least half anyway.”

“Okay ... I ... Lynnette, if I won’t drink anything could we go on a date tomorrow? I know Cathy isn’t here, but maybe we could continue again near Christmas, and then she could come along.”

“Tomorrow?” I was stunned. It was one thing to be considering this academically as something which might or might not occur at some indeterminate time in the future but ... tomorrow?

“Yes. Please. I promise not to be a jerk, or at least to try not to be one.”

I thought about that. This was all very weird. He knew I wasn’t a female but he wanted to go on a date. Then again, he also knew I intended to become female ... I shook my head as I was considering all this. It looked like I was saying no which caused him to get this obviously stricken look on his face.

“Okay, James. I have some work to do tomorrow morning but we could have a date in the late afternoon, casual?”

His face brightened again, “Okay, casual and maybe Friday we could go out to supper together. You pick some really nice place since I don’t know the area that well.”

“Do you like Italian?”

“Italian? Italian’s good.”

“Okay, I know a nice little place we could go to Friday that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. They prepare great food, and there’s always a space for people from our agency even when their business is packed beyond belief.”

“Will we be able to get in on short notice, Lynn?”

“Oh yes. They lease from us and we have an offer of a reserved table, there’s always someone from our group going there every few days.”

“Thanks Lynnette, Tomorrow afternoon - casual, then Friday for Italian. I’ll look forward to both. Thank you Lynnette. I’ll try not to make you regret the decision.”

“James, it’s nearly twelve-thirty and I need to get home. I have a lot to do tomorrow before I can even meet you for our date. I’m bushed. I need rest.”

He gave me his hand to help me up, then leaned down as he kissed my fingers before he released my hand allowing me to precede him out of the room. I asked one of my guys to call for a taxi but Bill had them bring up the limo to give me a ride home. As the car was coming around he helped me put on my mink, another minute or two and the lights from the limo could be seen crossing the front windows of the house as the car approached on the circular driveway. We walked out into a light snow and Bill opened the car door for me then closed it again behind me. I asked to be taken home which prompted a short question and answer session since this newbie didn’t know where I lived. He consulted a map then we headed on down toward the gate, stopping long enough for the tire spikes to be retracted. I was home by one-twenty and in bed by one-forty-five with the alarm set for seven so I could have a little rest.

The next morning I woke up wondering why I was awake since I had just put my head on the pillow. A second later my alarm went off nearly causing me to leap up. Terrific. Putting my hair up and covering it, I went through a rapid shower with the spray on pulse allowing the hot water to beat me soundly about my back, neck and shoulders slowly drawing the tension in my muscles down and out through the drain.

I considered it to be my good fortune that I didn’t need to shave anywhere, I’ve never had body or facial hair. Now I didn’t want any. While I was in the shower my mind was covering a few dozen topics, one of which fleeted across the vacant spaces of my mind concerned the alarm clock and wakening moments before the alarm became a shrill pest. I decided that the clock produced a ‘click’ sound which actually awakened me an instant before the clamor began but the speed at which my mind was working gave me an altered impression of how long I was awake before that clamor started. I finished drying and went to find clothes for the day.

Dressing semi-casual in a pant suit, I allowed my hair to hang long. It took longer to brush it this morning, must have been due to my tossing and turning all night. The bed was a wreck. Oh well, it was time to change it anyway. I had to be out of it as I couldn’t figure out what day it was until I looked at my newspaper which had somehow been delivered on time during the early morning.

Checking my mobile showed me a red battery light. Great. That meant I forgot to charge it last night, but then that was the reason I had a second charger at work and could also plug it into the cigarette lighter socket in my car to provide power for it. I needed to remember to obtain a third charger to keep with my suitcases for those times when I traveled. I wished, more than once, they had thought to build one into the large case they used for the damn thing. There had to be some room in there somewhere that they could have hidden one, the chargers aren’t all that big.

As I drove in to work, I kept thinking back to last night trying to figure out how I went from hating James guts to deciding to go out on two dates with him. I didn’t come up with any reasonable answers. Most of my thoughts were interrupted by the excitement of realizing I’d scheduled a date before I began worrying he might not like me, then starting to worry that he might. So far the only saving grace I had come up with was called Cathy.

I eventually became aware that my car’s autopilot had shut down which caused me to finally come to. Looking around in confusion for a few seconds until I realized that I was parked in a visitor’s slot in the front lot at work. Starting the engine, I drove around to the employee’s parking noting as I arrived that Nicci and Ralph’s cars were both there ahead of me. I yawned as I took the elevator up to the first floor as I considered briefly where the employee parking would be if we ever received enough rain to cause the building to slide down the hill. Sensibly, I decided it wouldn’t be a total catastrophe as we could just pave the area where the building had been previously located and make that the new lot. Damn, I needed more sleep ... and a huge pot full of coffee. My mental focus at the moment was anything but.

Standing in the building lobby, I looked around in some confusion, something didn’t seem quite right but I could quite place it. I took me about a minute to figure out that I got off on the wrong floor. I needed the next floor up. Again I hoped for some coffee and had to trust that by now Nicci would have some ready. If not, I guessed I could always eat some of the grounds while I waited for the rest to perk.

Taking the stairs I made it up to our floor then went in, my heels clicking staccato as I walked down the hall, across our entry and past the receptionist who also had made it in early. We mutually said “good morning” as I walked by, she didn’t even look up to see who I was. I was about to say “good morning” to Nicci as she gave me the strangest look which caused me to stop cold. She came out from behind her desk, grabbed my hand and half dragged, half led me into the lady’s room away from that wonderful aroma of a caffeinated beverage I so desired while I wondered what the hell this was all about.

“Are you all right?” She held me facing her, looking into my eyes with concern.

I stared at her, “Yes, the last time I checked. I’ll be better after a couple of cups of COFFEE.”

She gave me a look as though I wasn’t all there then turned me toward the mirror, “See anything that doesn’t look quite right?”

I briefly thought she had gone off the deep end but decided to humor her and looked at myself in the mirror. I started to say, ‘I don’t see anything wro’ when I discovered two immediate problems. The easiest one to fix would be the lack of mascara, which I thought I had put on at home. The more difficult one would be to remove the mascara where my eye shadow should have been, I almost screamed.

Covering my eyes with my hands I started shaking my head, “I’m losing it. Is there any coffee ready?”

“Start cleaning your face, I’ll bring the coffee.”

I grabbed paper towels, making the mental note that we needed to install a small closet here which held wash cloths and towels. Running warm water to wet the towel, I began to wash my face while trying not to splash my pants suit with the now tainted water. My mind began working in overdrive trying to remember and detect how many more mistakes I might have made as I was getting ready for work. With the way my luck was going today I probably brushed my hair with my toothbrush.

A quick check showed everything else seemed pretty much okay. The shoes didn’t match my pant suit but they were a very near black and marginally acceptable, the blouse was a stretch but fortunately not altogether out of it. My face was improving, then I again remembered the long time I had brushing my hair. Not seeing any toothpaste in it, I begin to worry I might have used the mascara brush on it or something else equally depressing.

Nicci returned with coffee and I gulped down nearly the whole cup in four swallows and in about as many seconds.

“Is my hair okay?”

Nicci took a good look, “Yes. What happened? You usually look a lot better.”

“Rough night. Even my bed was a wreck. I don’t know why. I remember going to bed a little after 1:30 and waking up a few moments before the alarm. The night went by in a flash, guess my mind didn’t shut down.

“Anything special or just ‘bad food’?”

“Bad foo ... Oh. No, the meal was very good. Which reminds me, we might have a few jobs coming our way due to the contacts I made last night. I’ll try to detail it all in a head’s up so you will be pre-informed should we receive any calls.”

“Okay, Lynn. This just isn’t like you, so I thought maybe there was a problem. Just not enough sleep, huh?”

“Or something else.”

Her eyebrows rose up at my comment, “What sort of a ‘something else’?”

“I’m not certain where to start.”

“You were okay yesterday. So let’s start with when you went home to get ready for the Uni. thing.”

“That went okay. So did everything else with the Uni. It’s the conversation after we returned to the safe house that kind of shifted things into the twilight zone.”

She moistened and soaped another paper towel and as gently as possible cleaned away some more of my offending mascara, rinsing it off with another wet towel. I’m glad we use the soft white foldy kind and not the paper rolls which I’ve always felt were hard and scratchy and smelled funny.

She finished then looked at me expectantly, “and?” she prompted.

“And James and I talked for about an hour or so.”

“You talked for an hour. Let’s see, you were okay after the U. event, but not after going home. Looks to me like that hour’s worth of conversation is somehow important to this story. Spill it, what happened?”

“We talked ... ”

“Yes, you already said that. What did you talk about?”

“Cathy. And him ... and me.”

“And? Come on girl. Something’s wrong.”

“Ah ... we ... ... sort of made a date.”

“What? What do you mean you ‘made a date’?”

A look of sudden comprehension crossed her face, “Oh no. You didn’t. You have a date with that jerk? What were you thinking?”

My explanation poured out in a river, it was like I was trying to get as many words out as I could before Nicci interrupted me.

“It’s not like that. As we talked I figured out he isn’t as bad as I thought. He’s just ... overwhelmed and worried his daughter is going to grow up all warped without a Mommy to help her grow up. I invited them here for Christmas through New Years. Cathy will arrive almost a week prior to Christmas and I figured I’d add her to our office Christmas party for the kids. She and James will stay at my place during that time since I have spare rooms. I think she’ll have fun.”

“Okay. Cathy for Christmas is fine, but tell me more about this ‘date’ you have with Mr. Thompson.”

“Well, I’m not certain. That’s this afternoon and is casual but I don’t know what he has on his mind. Tomorrow evening we are eating downstairs.”

“You have two dates with him?” she stared at me dumbfounded. She felt my forehead, “Nope, not a fever. Darn, I guess it’s a momentary lapse of sanity. Be careful girl, leopards ... ”

“ ... don’t change their spots,” we said at the same time.

“That’s right Lynn. Be careful, he has to have a hidden agenda.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s hidden. I think he is still trying to get me to take the position as mother to Cathy. Which, actually, I don’t believe I would mind. She’s a pretty terrific little girl.”

“Watch it Lynn, so far I’d say his tactics are working. She’s coming up for Christmas through New Years and he’ll be up for part of that time too. God, I knew we were in trouble the moment you kissed him.” A look of horror crossed her face momentarily, “You didn’t kiss him again, did you?”

“No.”

“Thank God for small favors.”

“Any more of this?” I held my coffee cup up hoping to distract this throwback to the Spanish inquisition.

“Until the guys get to it, a whole pot. Come on, go plain vanilla today. You look good enough without make up.”

I checked myself in the mirror again, still wondering about my lapse of sanity.

“You’re certain nothing else is really messed up?”

“Nothing as bad as your eyes were. I question your clothing selection since you are usually impeccable but you’ll do. No meetings or special events scheduled. You need to stay away from James though, he’s an evil influence.”

“He promised not to be a jerk.”

“Yeah? Then why are you so messed up this morning? Come on and get another cup of coffee before the pot’s empty. Your morning stuff is on your desk. Take a look at the New York report first, and Ralph wants that meeting as soon as you both are in.”

“Something bad happen in New York?” I really wasn’t ready for that.

“No. I think it’s something good but I don’t have the whole picture on the New York thing yet. You’d be in a better position to decide.”

“I suppose Ralph’s meeting has to do with the calls he got from Lucy?”

“I think so. Who’s Lucy?”

“One of the high muckety-mucks with one of the government agencies we deal with. I’ll need to talk it over with them before I can tell you any more.”

“Oh. Okay, classified shit, huh?”

“Uh... Something like that.”

“Does this have anything to do with what some of the guys have talked about every now and then?”

“What kind of talk?”

“Something about all the agents being members of a military reserve.”

“Nicci. For now, forget you ever heard them talking and if you hear any of them again remind them not to say anything.”

She looked at me then frowned for a moment, “If you bring me into the know on this, does that mean I’ll need to be a member of this reserve unit too?”

I hesitated before I said anything, “I don’t know. Nicci, that’s all I can say for now. Don’t push it. Is there any more of this?” I held up my coffee cup.

Nicci led me out of the ladies room going to the coffee pot where I drained next to the last cup from the pot. Nicci gave me an ‘I told you so’ stare before she began to make another twenty cups. First thing in the morning that twenty cup pot went dry pretty quickly. We all drank so much coffee every day that I began to consider we should invest in futures, or whatever it is they have for coffee.

Retiring to my office, I elected to hide for a while as I immersed myself in work. Around twenty reports later Nicci barged in with more and took the ones I’d completed.

“Lynn, are you expecting any investigation into our capabilities during the day today as a result of your networking last night?”

I thought about the conversations, “Not really. Most of it was several months down the road. I was trying for more for our two new cities and our March through June here. Why?”

“Just wondering. I got a call from our contact at the FBI who said some Senator had made inquiries about the business in the wee small hours of this morning.”

I laughed, surprised, “Yes. That was one of the contacts. That’s fast. I thought the potential jerk ... er ... God, I need more sleep and more coffee. I meant job, was two or three months away. He did say something about ‘spur of the moment needs’ occasionally cropping up, but nothing specific was mentioned. I didn’t expect inquiries so soon. I’ll put together my contacts report and get it to you before lunch.”

“Then you better hurry. Lunch started about half an hour ago.”

I looked over at the clock which cheerfully showed me the little hand was between the twelve and the one and the big hand was on thirty-four. I dropped my shaking head into my hands, groaning as I did so.

“Boss, if you don’t mind, I’m hungry and I was waiting for you. If you’re not going out then I’m off for some food.”

“Let me get my purse and lock up these reports. I’m losing it.”

“Lynn, that’s twice now, and both times were after contact with Thompson. Is he some kind of drug?”

“I hope not. I really don’t want to become addicted to him.”

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relationship whatsoever to anyone or anything bearing the same name or names. The characters contained herein are not even distantly inspired by any specific individuals known or unknown to the author. All incidents described or alluded to within this work are pure invention. No affiliations, involvements or gender assignations due to the use of any images contained within this work are to be implied, intended or inferred.

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DUTY CALLS, L.J. Stevens Vol. One Copyright  © 2012 USA, Earth by R. A. Dumas.

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