In order to maintain the appearance of knowing nothing which had transpired, Amy went to the tournament hall to register as though nothing had happened.   She sold her reaction of shock sufficiently she thought.   She would enjoy the day off, she assumed that her opponent which be the Rajah.   He had set the bracket up so that he would be the last man standing, ready to face whoever else in the final.   This was also the first day that Carson or Medveyev were playing so many were excited at the prospect.   Some gamblers were even betting on who would finish first.   Amy didn’t like the atmosphere, it was approaching too much of a sports match, not the meeting of the chess minds that it was supposed to be.  

As she was set to leave, Amy received a note from Rajah.   He offered her a driver and full access to the country’s museums.   It seemed hospitable, but Amy was also one of the semi-finalists, the less time she spent preparing would make life easier for her next opponent.   She seemed at least interested in the offer in the morning though and returned to the hotel to try and find Scott.   Uncharacteristically she found him sleeping.  She hadn’t really thought of it but he didn’t sleep so much.

She was about to leave when he grumbled, “Sunshine …”

Amy was used to his playful nature by now, but she wasn’t sure if she was calling her jokingly or whether he was complaining about the light.

“Sorry Scott,” she said, “what do you mean?”

Scott sat up in bed, looking a little confused.   He looked almost as though he didn’t know what to say.   Finally he stammered out “Why is there so much sunshine?”

“Its daytime that’s why,” she answered, “remember we went to breakfast together?”

“Right,” Scott answered and looked at his watch, “right.   How was check-in?”

“Fine,” she replied, “Rajah lent me a driver for the day.”

“Cool, where are we going?” he asked

“To the national museum for a bit I guess, then back here to study,” Amy answered.

“The museum?” he asked.

“Yeah, it’s a place where they keep old documents and artifcats,” she replied.

“I know, I was there yesterday,” he replied as he stood up.  

Neither of them said anything as he stood up and put a shirt on.   He turned back to look at her, “Don’t seem so surprised, you’re not the only one here with complex interests.”

“Sorry, just didn’t figure you were the type,” she replied, “and weren’t you busting drug dealers and framing others yesterday?”

“Sure but how long do you think that takes?” he said, “Let’s go.”

Amy actually wasn’t very interested in the museum, the artifacts and presentations were interesting but she was really there to talk to Scott.   At this point she wasn’t sure that there room hadn’t been bugged – they had both been gone for extended periods the previous day.

“We need to talk strategy,” she said.

“I suggest leading with your pawn,” he replied

“Not chess strategy,” she replied, “real world stuff.”

“You think you are going to lose,” Scott said more as a statement than a question.

“Yes,” she said, “not for lack of trying but I don’t know how I got to the semi finals as it is.”

“So we plan around that,” he said, “whatever Petrov has planned it means intercepting at some point.   So wins the pieces and we follow .”

“I would like to get my hands on those pieces first,” she said, “I would feel a lot safer if they were out of play, especially as is a bit of a disappearing artist. But if we just go take the pieces then Medveyev and Petrov will know we are on to them.”

“You don’t think we can track ?” Scott asked defiantly.

“Not sure,” she said, “the CIA sure couldn’t.   I think its safe to assume that Petrov knows something we don’t.”

“So we bring in Rajah then,” he said, “do you think he can be trusted and beat ?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, “I guess we will find out.”

“I still don’t get why Petrov is getting Carson to move them,” Scott said, “if he can come and go with such ease then why not just smuggle them himself?”

“This involves as well,” she said, “something we don’t know yet, something he doesn’t know either probably.”

The semi-finals were set a lot faster than anyone had thought.   The day’s play after starting at nine was over by ten thirty.   Carson and Medveyev made fast work of their opponents, and surprisingly so did Rajah.   They decided that Scott should meet her later for the time being she would meet with Rajah alone.  

Her driver at first seemed confused with where she wanted to go, but after her persistence he agreed to take her to his residence.   It was not hard to get to, it was after all where he worked.   She was not sure if Rajah would want to see her before the match, but her suspicions with misplaced as after calling for permission the driver drove her straight there.   She was met at the front door to his palace by Rajah himself.  

“The beautiful Anne Marie, he said, “to what do I owe the privilege of your company.”

Speaking for the first time without her fake French accent, “The truth, your highness, and a request for help.”

That Rajah did not look surprised was probably due more to his royal demeanour than his shock at what was occurring.  

“Please,” he said, “will you join me inside?”

She was not surprised to find Scott missing from where he said he would be.   He had seen someone or something and had gone to investigate.   She was off to her hotel room where she needed to contact as soon as possible, but no sooner than she had the chance to sign on to the secure line that was calling her.”

“Don’t you ever sleep?” Amy asked.

“I heard you won,” said.

Amy didn’t know how she had heard so fast.   “Took down Hand Ulrich in round 1, now on to round two.   I will need a history of games for all players I might face.” Amy said.

“Already got it,” replied, “your competition for round 2 is an Indian, Krishnan Sasikiran, former national champion.   Working on everyone else as well.   I guess you only want these as they come?”

“It’s all I will be able to handle,” Amy said, “most of these guys have been preparing for weeks, I have hours.   Anything on Carson or Medveyev?”

“I have been able to find absolutely nothing on ,” admitted, and this meant a lot from her, “Medveyev you already know everything about, but I am checking between him and Petrov.   I can’t find anything on that either.”

“Send me what you got on both of them and keep me up-to-date on anything else,” Amy said.

“You got it boss,” answered before closing the connection.  

Amy sat for a while studying the moves of her next opponent.   She was not sure how long or even if it was worth keeping up this cover.   Still she thought it was better than nothing.  

A couple of hours passed before Scott walked in.

“Hard at work I see,” he said.

Amy looked up from the files she was reading, “Trying to be, where have you been?”

“A few places, most importantly at the airport watching Petrov leave,” Scott said.

“He left? Where did he go?” Amy asked.

“Flight to three hours ago,” Scott replied, “You can get to track him?”

“Sure,” she replied, “but you don’t seem so concerned?”

“Of course not,” Scott replied, “he didn’t have whatever you wanted with him?”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“Ever seen white kids in the inner city driving around their expensive cars?” Scott asked, “They are only usually there for one thing.   To pick up some drugs.   So you don’t make a long journey to some out of the way place where you don’t belong because you are using it as a transit location.   He dropped what he needed here and got out.”

“So where is the stuff then?” she asked.

“I was hoping the all-female dream team could figure that one out,” Scott replied referring to Nancy and Amy.   He sat down and took a couple of pistols out of his jacket and placed them on the table.

“Where did those come from?” Amy asked.

“Liberated them from a couple of meth dealers who won’t be needing them,” he answered, “apparently there are some harsh penalties in this country for dealers.   Sucks to be them I guess, but if you can’t do the time then don’t do the crime, right?”

Amy looked at the pistols on the table.   Scott sensed some apprehension.

“I didn’t kill anyone, just the previous owners are having a visit from the police now with some explaining to do. Do you want one of these?” he asked referring to the pistols, as they had had to travel here without any.

“No, not yet anyway,”   Amy was curious how Scott had found a place to raid so fast, but then it was usually not that hard to find dealers.       

“So what about the other stuff?” he asked.

“We have two probables – Carson and Medveyev.   Their files are on the table.   I already printed them out because I thought you might want to have a look,” she answered.

Scott went over to have a look.   After a few minutes he put the files down.

“It says here that is a bit of an eccentric, whenever he plays someone and beats them he insists on taking their chess pieces after,” he said

“That’s interesting Scott, but I am studying,” she said.

Scott put down the one file and picked up another.   Less than a minute later he interrupted her again.  

“Do you mind if I talk to ?” he asked.

“Sure let me just print this stuff, so I can work at the same time,” she said.

As soon as she hit print Scott was on to talk with .

“I am still working on some stuff Amy, trying to put it together still,” she said.

“Its not Amy,” he said, “its Scott.   Tell me, have you looked into when Medveyev is leaving?”

“Not yet,” replied, “is it important? Wouldn’t he just be leaving after the last match?”

“Maybe,” Scott replied, “maybe not.   Also Medveyev wears a small lapel on his jacket, what’s the significance?”

“That’s easy,” she replied, “it signifies a small group of radicals that aim to reunify with .   Why?”

“Petrov has the same tattoo on his right arm, near the palm, I made note of it when I saw him,” Scott replied.

“So we can see that the two of them are linked,” said.

Amy wasn’t reading anymore.   She was standing behind where Scott was sitting.  

“And the flight?” Scott asked again.

“Just getting it now?” replied, “That’s strange, he already has a plane booked on the night of the semi-final.”

“What’s going on Scott?” Amy asked.

“Hold on,” he replied, “We can tie Medveyev to Petrov, and Medveyev is planning on losing because he has already booked his flight.   Therefore he loses his pieces to .   Whatever they are trying to move they are getting to move for them in the pieces, they will be hollowed out or something.   No one will think of looking at some chess pieces too much, especially for a world famous chess player.”

“Its brilliant,” Amy said.

“They must have been planning for months,” Scott said.

“I meant your analysis,” Amy said, “, this is our new number one motive, work all the angles.   And I am going to need some new chess pieces.”

“What kind of chess pieces?” asked.

“Something that is going to want to play for,” Amy said and hung up.

Amy now had a new goal, she had started out intending to play to keep herself exposed to what might be going on, but now she had a different goal out of the tournament.   Whatever was being moved could be stopped if Amy could play for those pieces.   Her next step though was to beat her next opponent.   Krishnan Sasikiran was the national champion of , but Amy was already well versed in his game.   He was notorious for having sloppy play in the middle of a game, although his start and end game were quite strong.   He had a background in mathematics, and this sort of reflected his approach to the game.   He could figure out all the permutations a lot easier with fewer pieces on the board.   He was still a much stronger player than Amy though, and despite her dark horse role, she was not sure she could beat him.   The only way she could think was to attack his weaker middle game.   She started looking for his weaknesses and ways to exploit those.   She now had prefect silence for her studying anyway.   Scott had left, he didn’t say where he was going, but he was still not due back until later.   was under orders not to call unless absolutely necessary either.   Pretty much at the moment everything rested on her winning the next three matches.  

It was two o’clock in the morning when Scott returned.   Amy had fallen asleep at her desk where she had been studying, but she woke up to the noise he was causing.   She instinctively reached for where Scott had left the pistols, but then she realized it was just Scott.

“Whoah, easy there tiger,” he said, “still looking for some payback on that shot in the leg?”

“No I have my plans for paying back that one,” she said, “and they don’t involve a gun.   What have you been up to?”

“A little bit of mischief,” he replied, “nothing too illegal though.”

“Do I want to know?” she asked.

“Not really,” he said, “but I have the feeling you will anyway.   You should get some sleep, and in a bed, not at a desk.”

Amy headed off to sleep, making a mental note to check what Scott had meant about her finding out.   She would in the morning.  

She awoke to find herself alone in the suite.   She wasn’t sure what time it was but it was still early enough.   She needed to be at the tournament for 830 to check in and make final preparations.   She checked her watch, it was 630.   That left two more hours for studying.   She heard some noise outside and knew it could mean only one thing.   Scott was outside at the pool swimming.   She stuck her head out and had a look down.   Amy hadn’t seen Scott with so few clothes on before and is was not surprising to her that Scott was in amazing shape – he would need to be to do what he did.   She would actually like to join him, she felt when she dedicated herself too much to mental activities that she missed the more physical ones.  

By the time she was out of the shower Scott was back upstairs.

“Good swim?” she asked.

“Refreshing,” he said, “so what are we doing today?”

“We aren’t doing anything, I have to go and try and find a way to beat this guy that I am far outmatched against,” she said.  

“Yeah, I, uh, sort of took care of that last night,” he said.

“What did you do?” she asked, with an accusatory tone in her voice.  

“Let’s just say that I didn’t leave all the meth at the crime scene yesterday, and a significant amount somehow found its way into his hotel room,” he said, “I was nice enough to inform the police of this criminal activity, but I was also nice enough to let the guy know that he should get to the Indian embassy as soon as possible.   Good thing he knows powerful people in .   I think he is already on his way back there.”

“You could have told me this last night,” she said.

“I didn’t know myself until I got back, and by then you were going to sleep,” he said, “anyway you still have to go to pretend that you didn’t know.   Maybe have a decent breakfast first and leave the books behind.   They have fresh papaya and mango downstairs you know?”

Amy didn’t know what to say.   She was sort of annoyed at Scott for his behaviour, but he had saved her a lot of time and effort.   She was after all not here for the chess.   Scott was at least right about one thing, after days of hard work, at least a relaxing breakfast sounded nice.     

She met Scott downstairs.   He was ready to go, carrying almost nothing with him now.   He looked more like a journalist than a vigilante now, with khaki shorts, a russled looking safari shirt and sunglasses.   She was similarly dressed, they would change in New Dehli into something more refined if they could find something on their two hour layover.  

            The quick stop into the embassy got them their passports and tickets.   They would be traveling as Mr. Scott Anderson and Mrs. Amy Anderson.   She handed him his passport.

            “Married again are we?” he asked, “just remember this time it was your idea.”

            “It’s a pretty big commitment,” she said, “we aren’t even monogamous yet.”      

            The flight into New Dehli was fast and quite scenic, with the quite visible from their side of the plane.   The airport in New Dehli has every modern convenience, and they took some time to find some more appropriate clothes.   is a fairly modern and rich country, and they were going their under the auspices of a couple on a decadent journey.   If they showed up looking like they had just come from the wilds of it might look weird to the customs officials.  

            Scott chose a fairly simple looking suit.   Amy went a bit further to get her appearance right.   She chose a fairly elegant looking red dress with some high heeled shoes and black pantyhose.   She smiled to herself remembering back to her first thoughts in her office thinking she wouldn’t ever need to be dressed like this.   With their elegant look achieved they went to the airline office and upgraded to first class and one of the airport lounges.   Amy checked her email on unsecure lines and saw that she had a message from ’s account.   Not too much information could be passed, and nothing specific, in fact ’s email contained only a short phrase “the bird is still in the house” among a whole message of random goings on which most likely didn’t happen to her.   This was to confirm that Petrov at least for the moment was still in .

            Once on the plane and now that Amy and Scott finally had some time to talk, they couldn’t really.   They engaged in a bit of small talk about other thing’s but anything related to the mission was out-of-bounds.   There was not much to talk about anyway, they wouldn’t know anything until they got on the ground.   As they expected, customs was fairly straightforward, and after a short taxi ride, they arrived at the 5 star hotel Nancy had booked for them.   Once they were in and settled into their suite Amy got online to see what had been able to come up with.

            She logged on and got a secure encrypted channel over the computer.   It was theoretically possible to hack their code, it was only running off of a laptop, but no one would expect them of anything which could be spied upon, plus the encryption was top notch.  

            Amy found waiting for her on the other side of the voice chat.  

            “ , what do you have?” she asked.

            “I trust the hotel and room is to your liking,” sort of joked.   It was a nice place, but the plan was not to spend a lot of time here.  

            “Under the conditions it will suffice,” Amy replied, keen to get down to actual business.  

            “Have you heard of the Lapau Challenge?” asked.

            “Hell I have heard of it,” Scott interjected, “underground chess tournament run by the Sultan of Brunei’s son, man known most commonly as Rajah Bolkiah, with ten million on the table for the victor.”

            “Exactly,” said, “Its running starting tomorrow, seems like too much of a coincidence that people from all over the world are descending on only for Petrov to show up at the same time.   You don’t think he would …”

            “Use whatever he has on them?” Amy interrupted, “Probably not.   If he is going to use it he wants to make a statement, not kill a bunch of chess players in a place most people have never heard about.   No he will be using them for getting whatever he has some place that he wouldn’t be able to get to otherwise.”

            “He is going to use one of them to smuggle his bio-weapon?” asked

            “Seems like it,” Amy said.

            “How is he going to do that?” Scott asked.

            “Don’t know yet,” Amy replied, “but , you are probably thinking what I am.”

            “Already done it as a precaution,” replied, “you are entered as Anne-Marie Constance, from France, the only woman in the competition.”

            “Thanks , keep me up-to-date,” Amy replied as she closed the connection.

            She turned to Scott, he looked at her.

            “So our big plan is that you lose at chess tomorrow?” he asked half-jokingly, knowing there must be more to it.

            “You have no faith in me,” she said, “I actually had a world ranking under that name, a cover I spent some time building up.   I should be able to keep us in the game long enough to find out what is going on.   In the meantime let’s go eat, we won’t have another opportunity to enjoy the country.”

            “Our first date? But I have nothing to wear,” he smiled back.

            Walking into the tournament room, Amy wasn’t sure what to expect.   Scott had decided to hold back for the time being.   They weren’t sure what to expect in terms of security, and if he got recognized it would throw up some red flags.   For the time being he would remain outside in the car they rented watching people coming and going, hoping to catch sight of someone they were after.

            Amy still wasn’t sure they were in the right place until she got in the room then she was sure.   This was no regular group of chess players, it was the world’s elite and maybe Scott was right that she would lose and be out.   Just being in the room was worth the $50,000 entrance fee though for the information she was getting.   The registration fee was to make sure that only serious players showed up.   The real money on the line was from the Rajah.   He was quite a talented player himself and he lied to foster the game when he could.   In addition to the winner-takes all prize money he had 10 million of his own for the winner.    The tournament was set up single elimination style.   There were only 14 players so the first round would involve 2 byes and the byes had already been decided.   In fact despite the lofty buy-in the whole tournament was already pretty much decided by most.   The two late entries were expected to win, and furthermore they were in the same bracket, so the championship most thought would be decided by those two.  

            Rajah had set it up so that he would be available to play the visitor of the other bracket in the final, if only for practice.   This would be the first meeting since 5 years of two of the legends of the game – American Mortimer Carson and Kazahkstani Vladimir Medveyev.   They had last met for the World Championship which Medveyev took but just barely.   Their paths had gone in different paths since then – the always reclusive Carson became more so, in fact as far Amy knew this was the first time he had been seen in those five years; Medveyev became an ultra-national politician intent on reuniting Kazahkstan with Russia.  

Amy considered the field, she was definitely up against heavy odds.   However, Rajah had presumably drawn the brackets himself, he had stacked the one side with the tougher players and left his side with the weaker players, including Amy.   Something which she knew that they didn’t though is that she was misrepresented, in building her cover she wanted to be known among certain circles but not famous.   This meant purposefully losing a lot of games she should have won.   Now she was free to win as much as she could.   Each match would be twenty four hours and the pair had to play to win.   Each move was timed at 10 minutes.   The only uncontrollable factor would be if games ended in draws and then went over time.   They would play that as necessary if it occurred.    

Amy’s first draw was a man named Hans Ulrich from .   As Amy sat down to the table she shook hands.   She had tried to present herself as mousy and academic but her attractiveness still came through.   This would work to her advantage.   Another advantage that she had is that no one had ever really seen her play.   They could look up her previous games as she was would do to them after, but for her they would find a lot of games she had lost on purpose.   A claxon signalled the begin of play and the tournament was underway.  

Time passed at the click of the clocks switching between players signalled the ongoing play.   Amy felt a little out of place.   Most of the other players likely had been preparing for weeks.   She had just found out about this yesterday.   As time passed she was worried that she might not get the chance to play for much longer.   At least by having been here though she wouldn’t look out of place in the spectator’s gallery, which at the moment was almost empty.  

Hans made a move which caught her off-guard.   There was something off about it.   Amy looked at the board for a moment, then she could see it.   Seven moves to mate.   He had just made a rather unfortunate mistake which would cost him the rest of the tournament.   He could recover from it, but it would mean losing a rook and his queen to Amy’s loss of a pawn and bishop.   Either way he had lost.   On Amy’s next move he looked at the board and realized what he had done.   In knocking his king over he conceded.   He had no way out of this.   As they stood up all eyes in the room were on her.   Partly because she was the first to finish but more so because no one had expected her to win.   She hadn’t even really thought she would, but she was on to the round of eight.  

She gathered her things and headed outside to meet Scott.   There was a lot still left to do today.      

The drive into Kabul was long and arduous.   They weren’t going far, only about the distance between Boston and New york City, but where that would take four hours of driving this took almost a full fourteen, between shoddy roads and long waits at road blocks.   Scott did all the driving as it was customary for a man in this country to do.   The two made small talk from time to time but because of the noise from the car and the road conversation was usually not practical anyway.   Amy spent most of the time either sleeping or reading.   Scott had given her a beaten up copy of Lord of the Flies which he had with him.   He said he had found it in a collection of books at their safehouse.   She didn’t care, even though she wasn’t particularly interested in the story, it was at least something to break the monotony of the bleak terrain.

            She made relatively fast work of the novel, and interspersed the journey with sleep.   When she woke up from her second nap, she could see that they were approaching the outskirts of Kabul.   She had also drooled all over her clothes, not very superspy like of her she thought.   At least as they got to the more modern city she didn’t have to worry as much about being fully covered at all times.   By the time they got to the embassy it was late evening.   Showing her passport got her immediate entry.   Scott was a little hesitant to go in, but Amy assured him it would be all right.   He wouldn’t be re-arrested here.   In most parts of the world it was not very common for a plainclothes person to walk into an embassy and ask to see the military attaché but here it was an almost daily occurrence.   

            Amy didn’t have to wait long, she was soon greeted by the man she needed to talk to. “Major Tom Reston, and you are?” he said as he walked in to meet her.  

            “Amy Dover,” she replied, “I need a secure line to this number right now and if you could get someone to get me a laptop …”

            “Of course,” he replied.  

            They were led into a room presumably set up for this exact type of issue.   Despite just walking in, this was a common enough experience, that the military attaché didn’t ask any more questions of them.  

            He came back in indicating that her line was available from the phone on the desk.   She put it on speaker phone.  

            “Hello,” Amy said.

            “Amy its ,” the familiar voice on the opposite end of the phone answered, “can you authenticate?”

            They had devised a pretty simple code for authentication purposes.   It was based on colours, numbers and letters on their watches, which to someone who didn’t know how it worked, would just think it was a different coloured watch. “8-2-Blue-Alpha-November-Red.”

            “Authenticated,” replied, “What are you doing in Kabul?”

            “More on that later,” Amy replied, “I need you to track a name for me, Dmitri Fedorov.”

            “Hold on,” said.   A silence permeated in the room and on the line for a moment.   “Getting a few hits, it’s a pretty common name,” replied, “cross referencing it against your geographic region.”   Silence again.

            “Your probable is Dmitri Fedorov, ex-Spetnaz, veteran of various campaigns.   Sources in Moscow report that he and one of his superiors have been missing since last week.   His superior’s name is … Yuri Petrov,” she explained.  

            “What about Petrov?” Amy asked, unnecessarily she could see as she already heard typing.

            “Oh wow!” came the response, “Tough as nails Russian army officer, ex Spetsnaz as well, rumoured to be responsible for the Shali Massacre.”

            “That was him?” Scott exclaimed, before realizing he probably shouldn’t have said anything.   The Shali Massacre had been infamous at least among military circles.   Russian soldiers ordered out of an area had taken it upon themselves to teach the local population a lesson.   Rape and murder soon followed as over two thousand civilians lost their lives.   No one had ever been held responsible for it either.  

            There was another silence on the phone, before said “Amy can you take me off of speaker phone?”

            “It’s all right, ,” Amy replied, “what is it?”

            “Umm, OK,” replied, “voice recognition has a 95.8% match on that voice in the room with you being Scott Sinclair.”

            “Yes,” Amy said, “more on that later as well.”

            “I mean Scott “the Sinner” Sinclair,” replied, “he’s supposed to be dead.”

            “It’s a long story,” Amy replied, “more on that later though.   What about Petrov?”

            “Already running it, just will take a minute,” said, “Are you all right?   What about Kevin?”

            “I am OK, had a couple of surface bullet wounds, Kevin didn’t make it, I will send the coordinates of his grave when I get a chance,” Amy replied.  

            “Its too bad,” replied, “I liked Kevin.”   Her somewhat emotionless reply had been earned by having seen a lot of friends meet the same fate.   “Here is something,” said, “CIA reported an unidentified and suspicious looking man traveling through Kabul International yesterday.   The name on his passport is consistent with one of Petrov’s aliases.”

            “Looks like its Petrov then,” Scott stated.

            “Disappeared after connection in New Dehli,” said, “hold on, running face recognition software on all airports in the area in the last 24 hours.   This could take a minute or two.”

            Amy and Scott could hear typing away at her computer on the other end.   She was running Petrov’s face against literally millions of airplane passengers that were caught on tape on security cameras that the government has access to either directly or through less legal means.   Face recognition usually worked the opposite way, a captured picture running against a databank.   This would take substantially more time on a regular computer, but wasn’t running a regular computer.

            After about three minutes finally spoke again, “I have a 99.3% match at Brunei International airport this morning.   Already booking you a flight.”

            “Hold on,” Amy said looking up at Scott, “we will need two.”

            Scott had his own stash of documents and money, but Amy decided to get both of them new passports while she was here.   Other than taking pictures the whole process was out of their hands.   Amy would have to strip down her kit and have it sent back to headquarters.   She wouldn’t be able to get into a foreign country with weapons.   Scott surrendered his weapons as well.   They made a short shopping trip to provide some proper vacation clothes and then the two soon departed for a nearby hotel, on the embassy’s safe list.   Amy bid Scott good night.   This time he was the tired one and she not.   She sat and reviewed all she knew and then typed up some notes to pass on to via secure means in the morning.   They would have to stop back into the embassy before their flight in the morning anyway to get the passports.   Her notes would get up to speed on everything else she needed.  

            Amy fell sleep when she was done late in the night.   Morning came all too soon, but she could sleep on the airplane.   

Scott Sinclair was born into the extremely rich Sinclair family, best known as industrialists since at least the Great Depression.   His father, a civil engineer, had taken what he could from his inheritance and started his own empire, Sinclair Energy solutions, or Sinergy Solutions as they came to be known.   His father had met and married his mother, but she had died when Scott was born.   His father forever after blamed Scott, and while all the attention was lavished upon his older brother Daniel, Scott lived a regimented lifestyle that was crude and harsh.   He would be severely punished for even the smallest transgression, and had spent a significant amount of time in military style reform school despite not having done anything wrong.   In and out of these schools with a tyrannical unloving father, Scott found the only remaining familial connection with Daniel, and at 8 years his senior he served as a sort of father figure.  

            Scott’s life went mostly on as it always had.   Daniel was afforded every opportunity, and Scott had to constantly struggle for even the most meagre accomplishments.   When Scott was thirteen, Daniel had taken up with the partying crowd and due to a complete lack of structure in his own life, got into trouble that he shouldn’t have.   He became a heavy drug user and after crossing the wrong guy, it was not long until his time was up.   Scott still vividly remembered coming home from school that day when he was 13, to find out that Daniel’s body had been pulled from the river that morning.   It looked like a drug overdose, but no one really knew what had happened.   Scott was now left effectively without a family.   His brother was dead, as was his mother and his father was effectively dead to him.   That very day, Scott walked into his father’s office something which was forbidden to him and told him the exact words “We both want the same thing, and that’s revenge for Daniel.”   Scott had not seen his father since that meeting.   If they communicated at all it was by short emails.   Scott was to be the avenger and his father was going to pay the bill.  

            The next 12 years passed almost in a flash. Scott trained himself in all the skills he would need to wage his war on drug dealers.   He even enlisted for a short time in the military and served with one of the Navy SEAL teams.   This wasn’t for a sense of loyalty to his country though, rather he needed those skills for his war of vengeance.   After leaving the military he returned to his home city and finally began a one man war on drugs.   His methods were not very refined.   Small time dealers were usually delivered to the police.   Bigger players were dealt with more directly and more harshly.   The police turned a blind eye to his vigilante actions.   He was accomplishing more than they were by operating outside the law, but there were those who wanted to take him down, he was after all murdering people, even if he didn’t think of it as murder.  

            For 15 tense months he waged his one man war on drugs, stopping at nothing.   His only source of income was from his father, who wanted to know nothing about what he was doing.   Finally Scott took a wrong step though.   A raid on wealthy penthouse nabbed two major drug lords, and he had apprehended them without either of them dying, but someone had died.   There had been a brief firefight and a young kid had caught a bullet.   It probably hadn’t come from him, but it didn’t matter.   The kid was the son of a U.S. Senator, and Scott’s days on the streets were now numbered.  

            The trial had been epic, it was one of the ones that people tuned into on television to watch.   The media had jumped all over it as well, and tried him on air and in print before the jury ever did.   Various nicknames persisted but the most popular one was a play on his last name – Scott Sinclair became Scott Sinner, and eventually they just stopped calling him Scott altogether.   One of the main reasons for the spectacle was that Scott had come clean, completely clean.   He freely admitted to being responsible for 46 deaths, though not the senator’s son.   As he explained it though, they weren’t murders, he was at war with drugs, and there is no murder in a war.   He was so forthright because he wanted for the American people to know what he had done and to show that people were willing to stand up to crime.   The jury seemed to sympathize with him, but had no choice but to declare him guilty of the 46 deaths he had admitted to plus the senator’s son.   And despite the positive impact he had made, the crimes were too numerous to consider otherwise.   He was sentenced to death by lethal injection, as he was deemed too grave a threat for society.

            Prison time was easy for him, no one in prison liked cops or other people that punish criminals and that was exactly what he was, but after the first fight sent 8 other inmates to the infirmary with not a scratch on him, he was thereafter considered too dangerous to touch.   Even the guards were sort of afraid of him, though he was nothing but respectful to them.   They were not his enemies.   Then eventually the day came that he knew would.   Scott was informed that he had two visitors.   He met the two men who would change his life forever dressed in prison overalls and chains in a private prison room.    He could see that one was a colonel judging by his uniform.   The other was not military but sure tried to talk like it.   Scott guessed either CIA or FBI.  

            Scott sat down, and waited.   It was not for him to talk, they held his life in their hands and not vice versa.

            “Scott, I am Special Agent Dan Paulson and this is Colonel Taylor Dane,” the agent looking man eventually said, “You know why we are here, yes?”

            “Yes,” Scott replied.

            Dan looked down at the dossier, then looked up, “I am not going to try and play mind games with you, we both known what you are capable of and also what you have done.”

            Scott didn’t feel like playing games either.   He looked over to the colonel who was still standing and had yet to say a word.

            “Sir,” Scott said before looking back to the agent, “and Dan, whatever it is you want me to do, I am in for.”

            “We know you are soldier,” the colonel replied, “just you probably don’t know what it is we are going to ask.”

            Scott sat in silence.  

            Dan broke it, “You get to continue your battle, but Scott Sinclair dies here today, and you never get to come back to the United States.”

            “Sure,” was all Scott said, “when do I leave?”

            “Right now,” said the colonel, “you are coming with us.”

            Scott didn’t care about the details about how they would cover this up.   But he was indeed leaving.   Dan untied him and threw him a set of clothes to change into.   They passed through the security doors and got to a black SUV and simply drove out of the prison.   He was taken to the nearest international airport, where they handed him a package with instructions to open it once inside and bid him farewell.   He found a few thousand dollars and a few fake passports and a plane ticket to .   Once there he knew it would be nothing to start the stream of cash from his father once again.   And just like that Scott was back doing what he had dedicated his life to doing, only this time on a global scale.  

            As Scott explained this to Amy she finally understood why he was here.   He was waging a mostly one man war against drugs all around the world and going after people that were too hard to get at for most others.   He would be a valuable ally for now, at least until she could get the information she needed and get out of the country.  

            “We have to get to ,” she said.

            “All right,” he said and cracked open the window to have a look, “We will leave at dawn.   You will need a disguise though.”

            Scott drew his attention to a pile of clothes sitting near Amy.   It was traditional Afghan women’s clothing.   “We will travel as husband and wife,” he said, “it will make things easier for you in this mostly patriarchal society.   Presumably your other cover is blown.”

            Indeed it was, Amy had been traveling under the auspices of a doctor with an aid group, but she had told them she was traveling home, not to conduct surveillance on a farmhouse.  

            “Husband and wife, huh?” she said, “a lot of girls fall for that do they?”

            “More than you would think,” he said back, smiling a bit to let her know that he knew she was joking.  

            “What’s the plan until then?” she asked

            “I was hoping you would tell me that as well,” he said, “the documents I got off that guy are just that to me.   You have any way of getting info on them?”

            “In Kabul more than here,” she answered, “I have a sat phone, but I don’t know who is listening or radio finding out here, so I am hesitant to use it.”

            “All right,” he said grabbing the identity documents off the dead man, “Have you heard of this guy, Dmitri Fedorov?”

            “No,” she replied.

            “Then I guess we are in for a long night of Afghani board games,” he said looking away and closing his eyes.   Apparently he was tired enough now to sleep.  

            Amy was a little taken aback, he was actually quite personable, and one wouldn’t think that he was a mass murderer or vigilante, however, you wanted to look at it.   Amy went back to the room she had been sleeping in and checked her equipment.   She first found her watch and got an exact GPS coordinate.   She checked it on a map.   Driving to would take some time, but she was forced to wait.   The last contact she had with had her in Pakistan, and it was too dangerous to call for help here.   It was too bad because the trail on the dead guy would be getting cold.   And she wouldn’t be there until at least the end of tomorrow.  

            The rest of the day passed easily enough.   Amy wasn’t expecting much, but the family they were staying with was actually quite hospitable.   They laid on a lavish feast for them, which was probably well beyond their means.   And the family’s younger girls took an interest in Amy which one would expect when looking at a foreign and exotic woman.   There were no board games, but the family engaged the two foreigners in a heavy discussion late into the night.   Scott seemed almost fluent at Urdu, but Amy even kept up only using Farsi.   They set off to bed finally ready for an early morning departure.   Amy was not sure how Scott knew this family, but his connection with them seemed to involve more than just money.   

Amy took a moment to pick herself up.   She was not really sure what had just happened.   The whole thing occurred in a flash especially as she was a little dazed from being shot twice.   Still she didn’t waste a moment.   She quickly retrieved her pistol from the main room and followed her rescuer.   She was an exceptionally fast runner for a woman, but she was not going to catch him, he was moving at a really fast pace.   Still she reasoned that he would have waited for her if they were going a long distance.   Her reasoning proved correct.   Less than two minutes of running down the road led her to where he was searching a body.

            “Russian military,” he said.

            “That was my suspicion,” she said.

            “You’re after drugs?” he asked.          

            “Weapons,” she answered without elaborating.

            “I got all his documents and identification,” he replied, “Let’s go clean up the mess in the house and get out of here.”

             The two quickly made their way back to the house.   They hadn’t bothered to check yet, but Kevin was evidently dead.   They put his body in the back of the truck and cleaned out the rest, grabbing the weapons and torching any drugs that were there.

            The whole action occurred with hardly a word being spoken.   When the truck was loaded they got in.   Amy had her own beaten up vehicle which she had brought here, and Scott drove her up towards it.   Scott was apparently not so attached to his means of transportation, he seemed to be happy in the truck.

            As she got out of the truck she finally broke the silence which had pervaded for about 20 minutes, “What now?”

            “You don’t have some rendezvous or safe house to get to?” he asked

            “No and plus you have all the information off the guy,” she replied.

            “True,” he replied, “Ok follow me, with your lights off if you can, one set of lights traveling through this area is suspicious enough, two justifies an air strike.”  

            “Sure,” Amy replied.  

            The next few hours were taxing for Amy.   She had lost some blood and she hadn’t slept much and the hypnotic motion of following another vehicle almost put her to sleep a few times.   As the morning was starting to break they came into a village.   Whoever it was that she was following obviously had some place to go.   When he finally stopped outside a rough looking building he signalled to her that they were where they were going.  

            “Grab all you stuff,” he said as the two got out of their vehicles, “we don’t leave anything unattended here.   Leave your friend.   I will get a couple of guys to bury him.”

            Amy grabbed all her items and followed her rescuer inside.   It was a pretty standard looking Afghan home.   Not much furnishings and poorly lit.   Seeing the two of them enter, they proprietors jumped to their feet and offered to help with bags and equipment.   The women immediately went for the kitchen to boil some water for the customary tea.   Amy was offered a place on a small mattress, and while she wanted to stay up for the tea, her body and mind had different ideas, and she was asleep in seconds.  

            Her next conscious moment was much later.   She didn’t know how long she had slept, but she was no longer where she had started.   She was now lying on a bed in one of the bedrooms.   She checked her watch for the time, but instead nothing there.   In fact she found that she had been mostly stripped down.   She put a finger to her head and leg, the wounds had been cleaned and dressed.  

            Her clothes as they were had been hung up to make sure they had a chance to air out, but she had a spare set in her backpack.   She quickly put those on, though she realized that for Afghan society she was quite underdressed seeing as she was wearing only a tank top.   Still it was enough to venture out into the main room.   The only one there was her rescuer, she could see cracks of sunlight peering through the shuttered window, it was either early morning or late afternoon, and judged by when she got in she knew it was the latter.   Her rescuer was lost in thought as he sat with his feet up on one of the tables, yet staring at nothing in particular.

            “You didn’t sleep?” she asked.

            This broke him out of his trance.   He looked over at her and gave small almost imperceptible smile.   “Sure,” he said, “just I didn’t get shot twice, or presumably not sleep much for the past few days.   Sorry about the leg by the way.”

            Amy searched for what he was talking about and then realized that technically he had shot her.   “Don’t worry about it,” she said, “so what’s the plan now?”

            “I was hoping you would tell me,” he said

            “What do you mean?” she said.

            “I mean I have no plan, I have no real way to track the ones that got away and I have no idea where they went,” he replied.

            “Who do you work for?” she asked.

            “Technically, no one,” he said, “and yourself?”

            Amy wasn’t supposed to divulge that info to just anyone, but whoever her rescuer was, he had saved her life and had presumably been working for some one.   She decided to tell him the truth – most of it.   “Officially no one,” she said, sort of returning his words on him as a way of lightening the mood, “but I work for a group called the Strategic Arms Interception and Neutralization Team.   We track biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.   The name is Amy Dover.”

            “That’s your real name?” he asked.

            “Yes,” she replied.   He reached out his hand to shake hers.

            “Well if we are using real names, my name is Scott Sinclair, and maybe you have heard of me,” he replied.  

            The name was instantly recognized by Amy.   She had heard of him.   Anyone who knew anything about law enforcement in the , as well as probably half the population had heard of him.  

            “What are you doing here?” she asked, “Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”

Amy realized that the question sounded kind of rude to someone who had just saved her life on the other side of her sleep, but it was a serious question.  

            “Legally I suppose so,” he said, “but morally no.”

            “How did you get here?” she asked.

            Scott looked down at his watch, “Well wherever we are going it won’t be anytime soon, not before nightfall anyway.”   And then he started to explain what he was doing there.      

             A lot can happen in five weeks, but Amy never thought she would be here.   She was lying in wait outside a safehouse in a semi remote part of near the border.   Fighting in this region was not as fierce, but there were still rebel strongholds like the one she was looking down upon.   She looked at her watch – it was 3 o’clock in the morning.   She was not really supposed to be here.   Her mandate had sort of been along the lines of a spy, finding weapons of mass destruction and then either destroying or tracking them to a place where they could be seized or intercepted.   What they were up against here was something more like a military raid.   Her support for this mission, Kevin Germaine, lay beside her.   Since arriving on the ground in the two had been drawn to this farmhouse in the mostly lawless country.   The farmhouse acted most as a drug transshipment point – the rebels were using the drugs to fund their resistance against the government.   Tonight though something more was supposed to be coming through here, a biological weapon from a closed lab in .   Regardless of who they were going to use it against Amy couldn’t let the supposed weapon fall into the wrong hands, and it was supposed to be arriving soon.   Counting the men coming and going, Kevin and Amy guessed that there were no more than 5 people inside, they would wait and raid the building and take them down with the element of surprise.              

            Kevin was a skilled soldier, he had served two tours in Iraq in Army Special Forces, but just the two of them while watching the house fell into the same routine as prison guards, they were only looking in and not out and didn’t realize that they had been spotted and were being stalked.   The takedown was almost too fast to notice.   Amy and Kevin didn’t even have time to draw their weapons.   They would be seeing the inside of the farmhouse sooner than they had anticipated.  

            The two were tied up, gagged and thrown in the back of a pickup truck to be driven to the house.   Once they got there they were dragged out and led in.   Amy was keeping her cool, but she didn’t see much of a way out of this.   Two white Americans in the middle of nowhere with a group of people that didn’t much care for Americans.   Amy and Kevin were taking into a back room where their arms were tied up to the ceiling.   Despite her predicament, Amy’s main worry was not her potential death, rather she felt as though she had let everyone down.   She was here on her first deployment and was bordering on being an utter failure.   She could hear the men discussing them in the other room.   She could make out parts of what they were saying because Urdu is close enough to Farsi.   They were debating whether to kill them or keep them as hostages.   They were not coming to a conclusion though it seemed as they were screaming at the top of their lungs.   Whoever was standing closest to the door finally kicked it open.   He fired one shot at Amy and one at Kevin.   The shot at Kevin hit home, but the gunman was tackled by his colleagues before he could get a clean shot at Amy.   He did get one shot off, and the bullet grazed by Amy’s head.   She was hit, but for the time being at least she was ok.  

            Scott was pissed, he had been tracking these guys for a month only for some other unknown people to show up at the last moment.   It seems to him that government agencies should talk to one another so that these problems would never go down.   Then he remembered he wasn’t a government agent anyway, at least not in the traditional sense.   He weighed his options but he didn’t need to.   He knew the vehicle coming in would be here soon and that if he intervened it would mean that his opportunity to intercept the shipment would be gone.   Still in making his decision he knew he did not have one.   Whoever had just been taken in the building was not his responsibility.   Furthermore getting in would be no problem.   Every single one of the drug traffickers has returned to the house when whoever the two were had been found.   This made moving over the open terrain quite easy.   He was pretty sure this area wasn’t mined, but he didn’t have the time to pick and choose his route anyway.   He set out on a mad sprint for the house.   He paused outside for a moment.   He heard the vehicle coming in now – maybe it wasn’t too late to nab everyone and rescue whoever it was that was inside.   A quick mental check of the origin of voices broke down for him where everyone was in the room.   There was some yelling and gunshots.   He might be too late, but the time for action was now anyway.

            He made a quick calculation of where his weapons were.   He would go in pistols drawn.   Anything bigger would be too cumbersome for a firefight inside a house.   He pulled open the door and fired a shot before even through the doorway.   The first guy was down.   In the room, one shot right, one left, two more to go by his count.   Scanning the room he saw no one but saw the open door to the back.   This is where the shots had come from, and he could see on the floor where the men had wrestled.   There were still three of them back there, with whatever hostages might still be alive.   He could see in the reflection of an old rusted kettle through the open door to where the two prisoners were hanging.   He holstered his pistols and grabbed one of the AK-47s that was left lying on the ground, after his first three kills.   Judging by what he could see in the other room from the reflection, the other three could only be in one place in the room.   He fired a burst of 10 rounds through the wall in their direction.   He had still not really stopped moving since he had gotten in the house, this had all occurred in maybe two seconds.   He finally took a second to pause and swivelled himself into the next room.   One of the prisoners was for sure dead, the other, a woman might be.   One of his rounds looked like it had grazed her leg, she was bleeding from it which meant she was probably still alive.   Scott looked to the ground.   Apparently his shots were all too accurate.   He would have liked to have kept at least one of these guys alive to question.  

            There was no time for the woman at the moment.   Scott jumped through the back window and climbed onto the mud roof.   The vehicle was still there.   He was not sure why, if it was him he probably would have taken off right away.   He got down and fired off a round from the AK-47.   It was a long shot and the AK-47 is no sniper rifle, but even in the darkness he managed to hit the windshield of what looked to be a military style jeep.   This wasn’t what he was expecting, he was looking for a drug shipment, not a small vehicle.   He took another shot, this one was well to the right.   He could see the passenger shove the presumably dead driver out and turn the vehicle around and drive off into the darkness.   Scott got a couple more ineffective shots off.   They were gone.

            He quickly gave up the cumbersome rifle and got back downstairs.   The adrenaline rush was not over yet.   He got back into the room, pulled out a knife and cut down the woman.  

            “Are you alive?” he said

            “Yes,” came the answer

            “Seriously injured?” he asked.

            “No,” she said.

            “Meet me down the road as quickly as you can, and stick to the road so you don’t get lost” he said as he sprinted out of the room.

             Amy looked at the stack of dossiers on her desk.   It was her first day on the job and she was already months or maybe even years behind.   It was not surprising really, the job had been here waiting for her ever since she had agreed to take it on eight years previously.   Since graduating med school she had been recruited to be the head investigator for this secret government division and in the mean time the tasks had fallen mostly to the FBI or CIA.   Those agencies were hindered by rules and diplomatic realities, she was not technically government, so she was not.   The task was basically to do as much as she could, her victories would be silent ones, and maybe were just a small ripple against the huge storm, but she would focus on the areas that were the most important and maybe catch some bigger flies in her web than others had been able to.  

            Amy looked out her office window.   This was her first job and so this was her first office.   She looked out on a rather boring field in a rather boring commercial area.   She didn’t much like it, but maybe that was the point.   If she was here she wasn’t doing her job anyway.   For the time being though she settled in and moved in a few personal items before taking a seat in her chair.   It was a nice chair - at least the office had that if not a view.   The dossiers on her desk seemed to be a nearly impenetrable mass, but there was no need to tackle them right away, instead she took a moment to reflect on what had brought her here.   She kicked off her shoes and recrossed her legs.   Looking down at them she realized she wouldn’t have much need for skirts, pantyhose or high heels in this job, even her painted toenails would seem out of place.   Still she wanted to look professional for her first day.   With the first meeting with the team at 10 she had two hours to basically sit and do nothing.   For one of the rare periods in her life Amy had nothing to do, and lost herself in her own thoughts.   She thought back to the weird path that brought her to be sitting here today.

            Her story began before birth.   Her ancestry was so varied that she was perhaps one of the finest examples of the multicultural melting pot.   Her father Adam was an aeronautical engineer and came from a background that was mostly pretty typical for the .   His grandparents had all immigrated to the , and all from similar though different countries – , , and .   Her mother, Angelica, had a quite different background, her grandparents were a much stranger mix – Hungarian Roma (which some might call a gypsy), Dakota Native American, African American and Hispanic Cuban.   Her mother had been raised in various places around the country, from hippie communes to Indian reservations but once she randomly met Adam on a city bus, their paths were intertwined.   She had been working as an artist, practically penniless, but it didn’t matter, it was love at first sight, and the two were inseparable afterwards.   He was substantially older than her, by eleven years, but they each provided something the other wanted.   Angelica gave Adam a feeling of liberation from the strict confines applied to him by his occupation and his family.   Adam gave Angelica a firm steadiness she had never known and the feelings of both freedom and security reinforced their love into an unbreakable bond.  

            Their love would only produce one fruit, and that was Amy.   Her name was something of a compromise between parents.   Her full name was actually Amaranta Falcon Dover, her father had wanted to call her Amy after his mother, but Angelica was free to make that happen however she wanted.   Her interesting genetic heritage gave her striking physical characteristics.   Her exotic form of beauty captivated most from a young age but those who focused on her outer appearance missed her greatest asset – her mind.   Growing up she was constantly challenged by her parents, not in a torturous way, rather they quickly understood her talents and sought to prepare her for a life of accomplishments related to her mind and not her body.   Her father took care of the formal side of education and her mother focused on the less structurized creative aspects. Amy also learned a variety of languages growing up, something she was a natural at.   Her mother spoke mostly Dakota with her mother, and her father either Polish or German with his parents, and Amy adopted these languages as her own.   Her exposure to Spanish on her neighbourhood streets also did not go long without being understood.  

            Her advanced mental aptitudes placed her teachers in school at odds about what to do with her.   She was already exhibiting the skills of a sixteen year old at age nine, and no matter of advanced classes or extra homework was sufficient for her.   She was eventually placed in a school for the gifted, where her remaining years of school were but a formality.   At age 10, Amy was already off to medical school, with the goal of her graduating as a doctor by the age of 16.   Her university years were difficult, especially as she was studying with people more than twice her age, at a time when girls her age were still playing with dolls.   This did not stop her though, she was as apt to succeed here as everywhere else, and she graduated just shy of 16 at the top of her medical school class.   Her path onwards from here was not as clear.   Her parents assumed that she would be happy applying herself to becoming a world class doctor, but her mother’s wild streak still ran in her veins.  

Still in the process of deciding her future, she received an invitation to an unconventional interview.   She was to meet with two people well outside her field, Special Agent Dan Paulson and Colonel Taylor Dane.   They had an offer for her, a unique offer, and that offer is what got her to this desk where she sat today.   The government was growing increasingly concerned about the growing threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and they needed someone to counter their proliferation.   Not someone like a special operations military group, but a field agent who understand the threats and knew how to find them and neutralize them.   Someone who could operate independently outside of the confines of the government was also needed.   Amy was the sole interviewee and the position was hers alone to either create or watch perish.   Dan and Paul tried to sell her on the patriotism angle, the job perks and various other things.   The truth is though Amy was sold almost immediately, the challenge was one which she needed, something to keep her constantly on her game mentally.

What followed were eight years of intensive preparation.   Amy still got to live something of a regular life, but everything was designed to teach her.   She immediately began working on a Ph D in nuclear physics, her Ph D in Organic Chemistry would come next.   Her Masters in International Relations would come during the other two.   Her free time was spent learning the skills of an agent, hand-to-hand combat, firearms handling, and a host of other languages among them Farsi, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, Arabic and Russian.   While it might have been assumed that her studies would take up all her time, these were actually only of equal importance to teaching her streetwise skills.   Her summers away from study were spent traveling, so much so that she had forgotten how many countries she had been to.   Although she considered herself Caucasian, her exotic features came into heavy use as she learned to blend into societies where others could never dream to fit in.   Finally the skills of manipulation and seduction were taught to her to make her even more potent.  

Amy snapped out of her daydreaming, thinking back it all seemed like yesterday, but she also seemed to have already lived five or six lifetimes.   She had already been to over 100 countries, could speak ten languages and had four post graduate degrees by the point in most people’s lives when they just looking for their first real job.   She heard a knock on her door and signalled the visitor in.   It was , she recognized her from the files.   Amy slipped her shoes back on and stood up to meet her.  

“Hello ,” she said, “it’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Hello, ma’am,” replied, “its great to finally great to be here.”

was somewhat of a prodigy herself.   She had risen quickly through the ranks of the Navy as one of the experts in military intelligence.   She had accepted to revoke her commission and be transferred to work with Amy as a civilian at the personal request of one of the admirals.   She didn’t feel as though she could say no.   Still Amy was a little annoyed, even though was ex-military and not intended for any field ops, all reference to military protocol would have to be erased around here if they hoped to maintain their cover when on assignment.   She was going to brief the others later as a mistake like that could compromise a mission and even cost lives.  

“Just Amy is good ,” she replied, “we have that meeting at 10 o’clock..”

“I will make sure everyone is seated five minutes before, Amy,” replied

was the team’s administrator.   They were a small cell and they wouldn’t depend on secretaries or other support staff.   In terms of life at the office, was it.   So while again Amy felt that her authoritarian response was maybe a bit too military like, at least for now it had to be tolerated and maybe perpetuated indefinitely.   At least she had called her Amy and not ma’am.

Amy sat back down and grabbed the top file off the pile.   She would have to become familiar with all of these.   They all either were related to certain key people, dangerous locations, or specific items to be seized or destroyed.   She picked the top file off of the pile – Aral Sea Bio Weapons.  

 Yuri Andreovich Petrov stood looking out at the bleak terrain.   He had seen it many times before, but he had always hated it.   His mother felt that this place was home.   Her parents had relocated here at the suggestion of the government of the so that the Central Asian regions might become more Russified.   Yuri’s father had met her when he was a young soldier in these parts and she moved to soon after.   His father was long since dead.   They told Yuri it was the war, but he didn’t believe that.   The dates and times didn’t match up but he also didn’t care.   The military told the lies that it needed to accomplish what it must.   Yuri was a soldier and understood this all too well already, though not even yet thirty.   His mother had moved back here after his death and lived within her means.   But Yuri was here in an adopted ancestral home not to celebrate life, but rather to recognize death.   His mother had been dying of a cancer that the doctors either knew nothing about or chose to do nothing about.   He had just come from burying her in this harsh soil.  

The shrinking may have actually been the thing which had cost her the life which she held on to so tenaciously at the end.   Some scientists speculated that the salts that blew in the air were causing the many illnesses in the population.   Yuri had not much time for speculation, his military career taught him to only deal in facts.   And the fact was that the which had killed some of his Russians, would soon be killing some more, only this time not the innocent and not his countrymen.   A one time biological weapons facility which once had been on a remote island was now part of the mainland, and a small depot was all the remained behind.   The depot contained what Yuri was after, and in a few short hours he would have the ability to fundamentally alter the world order.