Walking on the Wild Side . . .

It was a hot, humid night in Hampton. You know, like when you're in hurricane season and the air has that heavy, moisture-laden feeling as you breathe it into your lungs. It was dark that night, except for the occasional flash of heat lightning that lit up the sky for a brief instant and quickly faded leaving only its snaky after-image on the backs of my eyeballs. I pulled into the Crowne Plaza parking garage and felt a heightening of my senses as I pushed the button and took my ticket from the automated attendant. Kind of like everything in me went taut for a minute and then relaxed. I always felt like this on a job; a little keyed up. But, it helped me to keep my wits and eyes sharp. I continued driving up the concrete ramps wondering at every twist and turn when my contact would appear and how I'd recognize him.

I drove up to the third floor and found a place well away from the other cars. I quickly did a 360 and scanned the periphery like a radar beacon. Front, side, back, side, and back to the front. It looked clear so I got out, retrieved my weapons from the back, and slapped them into the appropriate hiding places in my clothing and on my body in just a few seconds. Long practice made quick work of it. I always felt safer armed; it pays to be prepared. And with what little I knew about my assignment tonight, I could be in for some real trouble with the group I had to meet.

The parking garage looked relatively empty, only a few cars . . . and no people. But I wouldn't make the mistake of assuming that was the ground truth. Warily, I got out the rest of my equipment and started for the elevator. I pushed the Down button and the door opened. Inside, leaning up against the rail was a sultry, buxom redhead with red, red pouting lips and a low-cut silken blouse hanging way down off one shoulder. She wore large golden-hooped earrings that swayed tantalizingly as she moved her head and one fishnet-stockinged leg stuck out a graceful angle through the high slit in her flaring linen skirt. I walked in. She half-turned her head to me gave me a sidelong glance with a hint of a smile. The rose stuck behind her left ear was as red as those full, moist, pouting, sensuous lips and her perfume was so alluring, so beguiling . . . I couldn't look away from those lips. The door closed on us and we were alone. I leaned forward, took her by the waist, and roughly pulled her toward me. Her arms came up around my neck and those red, red lips got closer and closer to mine until they met each other half-way. Her eyes were closed to mere slits but I kept mine partially open and on her as we kissed all during the ride down. The car came to rest with a thump! on the first floor and the door opened.

With her arms still around my neck, she pulled her body up close to mine and whispered in my ear "I'm Sherrita." She was good. Oh, she was real good. But I've been around the racetrack more than a couple of times and I know another agent when I see one. Particularly one I've encountered before, no matter how well disguised she is this time. I put my hands up and jerked her arms away and down from my neck and out to her sides. Funny. One of her hands had a thin silver blade in it now . . . which had been aimed at the base of my skull. "That wasn't there before." I squeezed her wrist mercilessly. The muscles spasmed and she dropped the knife. It clattered onto the elevator floor until it finally came to rest and I kicked it farther away from us into the corner.

She was breathing hard now and I could see a light sheen of sweat had formed on her skin. She glared defiantly back at me. "You Americaines! You and and your puppet states you control! You weel nevaire ween against us!"

I did the only thing I could do; I had to do. I pressed the "Door Close" button with my elbow keeping my eyes locked with her fierce glare. The sliding door made contact with the wall and I forced her forearms to behind the small of her back and held them there tightly. "We've met before." I said in a low voice. "It was in Budapest, three years ago. You were a blonde that night and said your name was 'Maritza.' But you see, I never forget a kiss." Cruelly, I brought my mouth down to hers again and crushed her lips with mine. In a searing blast of animal heat, we came together and devoured each other.

An eternity later, the elevator door opened and we both realized with a start what had happened to us. We'd been transported, blissfully unaware of the world around us for one brief moment in time. Quickly, we collected ourselves and backed away from each other our hands at the ready. I looked at her. She looked at me. She half-turned her body away from me toward the door and then swung her face back in my direction. She reached one hand up to her mouth, raised her eyes to mine, and made a kissing motion onto her fingertips. She reached that hand up to my mouth and delivered the kiss, then abruptly turned away from me and walked out of the elevator. Allowing herself one backward glance, her eyes told me the goodbye her lips could not.

"Is it 'Sherrita' or is it 'Maritza?'" I laughingly asked, pitched low so that it wouldn't carry.

She stopped and turned her head toward me and said "Maybee ze next time I succeed, eh? I may be told to kee-e-eel you next time . . . not just toooo delay you toooo make you toooo late to meet up weez your contact. Ha ha ha ha!" With a toss of her head, she turned and was away from me into the cover of the night. It didn't matter. Something told me that I was going to see 'Sherrita' or 'Maritza' again. The danger she represented was like a narcotic to me. I wanted more. And my contact would stick around until he met me . . . that is, unless he ended up dead. Which was precisely what I wanted to prevent. We'd worked on many cases together in the past. Not the Budapest caper, though. My contact that time . . . didn't make it. I found him at the rendezvous point floating face down in the river - a knife sticking out of his back.

I made my way through the crowd in the plaza and went into the hotel. I saw him immediately. He was in a disguise and was "working" behind the reception desk. I supposed that the REAL hotel clerk was probably bound and gagged somewhere nearby in a back room while Pablo "took his place" for a little while. We briefly made eye contact and then we both looked away as though we'd never seen each other before. To the casual observer though, nothing would have been detected. I approached the desk and put my hand up on the counter and rubbed two fingers together. He saw my signal to confirm my identity. Body doubles have been used before, you know. He nodded in acknowledgement and said so low that only I could hear "They're meeting in a place called the Dockside Ballroom." and pointed with his eyes outside and then to the left.

Acknowledging his instructions with a narrowing of my eyes, I went back out into the balmy air amidst the throng of summer revelers. They come down here from the cold places hoping for a little sun and fun. But they were blissfully unaware of how close to danger they were at that very minute. I picked my way through them to the beginnings of the Hampton docks and took the first left turn. The boats creaked and swayed in their moorings in the current to my right as I walked down the dimly lit dock and I could hear the slap of the Hampton River against the hulls and a bell clanging a long way off. "The Dockside Ballroom." I thought to myself as I carefully made my way through the fog; one hand ready to reach for a weapon if the need arose. "What sort of hellish place will that be?"

I could see several suspicious-looking characters ahead of me in the fog but they slunk away from the light one by one. Usual port scum, I've seen them from Vladivostok to San Francisco. They're all the same. If they sense you're not intimidated, they look for easier prey.

There it was. I could see it through the fog. "The Dockside Ballroom."

I carefully looked around me for people looking where I didn't want them to look and then tried the door. It was unlocked and I went in. It was a ballroom alright. An empty ballroom. Dark with just one light hanging over a large sqaure marble table in the middle of the floor. A big table with tall, high-backed chairs around it on all four sides. I could see who I already knew were some of the world's most dangerous secret operatives, famous scientists, and influential power brokers already seated at the table all dressed in identical hooded robes. They all turned warily at my entrance and they took my measure as I walked across the empty ballroom, my shoes making an odd staccato sound on the floor, to an empty chair at the table where I boldly took a seat. I spoke to no one. I probed their cowls pulled low over their faces; the glint of a watchful eye here, an abrupt turn of a head there. Several more robed people quickly came in from other hidden entrances and all of the chairs were soon full.

When all had arrived that they were apparently expecting, they pushed their hoods back, joined hands, and began to chant in what I thought I recognized as the ancient Etruscan tongue. I was part of the circle, clasping hands with the people on either side of me! I felt a current of electricity shoot into one hand, across my chest, down my other arm, and out through my hand to the person next to me. Somehow I remembered reading somewhere that the Etruscans, a shadowy civilization in ancient Italia that pre-dated the founding of Rome, worshipped the lightning! Or to be more exact, one who had been struck by lightning. The secret meeting had begun.

Jolt after electric jolt - Lightning! - circled around the room from one person to another. Faster and faster now, the chanting increasing in intensity. The table opened up and a brilliant, light-emitting orb rose out of its middle and hovered - gravity defying - above the table. It glowed brighter and brighter, electricity flashing around it like a Tesla coil. At a word from the leader, the circle was broken all around the table. The hypnotic chanting and ritual now over, all took their seats and the meeting began in earnest under the baleful influence of the glowing orb. I scrutinized each face in turn as the meeting progressed. I study faces, part of the job. That's just the way I am; I look at people when they're talking to someone else and watch their movements, study their mannerisms.

Now they were going around the room and each person was saying apparently totally unrelated things, like it was a code of some sort with pre-arranged meanings for seeming random words and phrases. I didn't understand a word of any of it. Obviously, I wasn't MEANT to understand. I was just the courier. And now it was my turn. I said the words I had had to memorize "Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!" I saw several at the table exchange barely concealed looks. Whatever it was that I said, it must have been what they wanted to hear. The person to my right said the words that I had been programmed to expect, "Have you tested this theory?" And I gave him the pre-arranged response "I find it works well enough to get me from one planet to another." They all nodded at me and visibly relaxed. My bona fides had been accepted. I was the messenger they'd been waiting for. Any response other than the one I'd received, I would have had to get out quick. Blasting my way out if I had to. I don't want to even think what they'd have done to ME if I had given the wrong response. I opened the case I'd brought with me and took out the laptop I had been given at Headquarters.

I stepped away to the wall and powered up the computer. It hummed oddly and began to emit a pulsing, unearthly glow. One of the robed ones at the table arose and silently approached me. He came to a stop two paces in front of me and slowly opened his clenched fist - he had a flash drive in his open palm. But not like any flash drive I had ever seen before. It glowed with an inner fire like . . like a star had been captured and placed inside it. He communicated to me via telepathy that I was to put the flash drive into the computer that I had brought. Special components in one would activate or "awaken" components in the other that might - in the wrong hands - set off a chain reaction that could destroy the Earth and most of the galaxy!

"What?"

"Me daydreaming at the Reunion meeting?"

"No, Mr. Cronau. Umm, I mean Bonnie. Umm. Yes. We had thirteen new classmate registrations last week."


Sigh. Just like when I was back in Mr. Cronau's Algebra class in the 11th grade. I can dream can't I?