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FOX Academy:

Book I - The New Breed

Book II - The Werewolf of Odessa

Book II.5 - The Love Who Spied Me

Book III - The Curse of the Yellow Monkey

Book IV - Wait For No One

Book V - Dawn of Vengeance

Chapter 7 - Clouds and Eclipses

With over thirty years on the national police force, Acting Deputy Commissionaire Parker could smell it when something funny was going on. Being a basset hound didn't hurt either. Although it was not strange to find a dead body after a FOX agent had been around, it was unusual for them to be caught at it, and three in a row was too much of a coincidence for her. She was also having a hard time believing that the diminutive lemur had strangled a much larger and stronger badger, even if the badger was drunk. But the local police and her boss, the Commissionaire of the RCMP, seemed willing to believe it, and did not appear to be interested in further investigation.

And then there was the mystery of her missing security guards.

The officer assigned to patrol the outer perimeter of the Academy grounds had failed to return at the end of his shift this morning. A second officer sent out to see if he had fallen asleep had not reported back either. The security supervisor has gone to his last reported location and subsequently communications with him were lost too. His Second-in-Command had suggested a sweep of the area with a SWAT team, but Parker wanted to check it out personally. She set off alone, with only a radio and her service revolver for protection.

She had two reasons for doing it this way. First of all, the SWAT teams had gone back to their normal duties and she would have to get authorization to use them. Having to call them in would make it look like she could not handle the job of Deputy Commissionaire. Secondly, the personnel that had assigned to her for security were not the brightest candles on the chandelier. She half suspected that they had gotten stuck somewhere in the untended wooded area behind the Academy. But she went cautiously, remembering the story of the five dock workers who died after entering a barge full of toxic gas one by one, each looking for their predecessor.

Parker found the trail from gate in the fence behind the lounge that the second security officer had reported using. She identified the rise where the security supervisor had last reported in. Beyond that the trail dipped into a notch that could well interfere with radio communications. From there the path followed a meandering creek bed, criss-crossing the stream several times. After winding through increasingly thick and tangled brush she came to another rise. She crawled to the edge and peered cautiously over. What she saw astounded her.

Down below there was a wide flat area between the walls of the notch. There was a pond in the middle, fed by a spring at the near end and emptying into a creek at the far end. Someone had used local rock to build a series of terraces on each side of the pond and planted flowers in them. The northern terraces were complete and the plants there were mature, but on the south side the work was more recent, and the terraces were incomplete.

There was an open gazebo between her and the pond. Inside the Gazebo there was a bench. On the bench were three dogs in RCMP uniform. They were tied and gagged, but appeared unharmed otherwise. Other than a few soft whines coming from them the only sound was that of someone whistling a tune in the distance. She recognized it as something classical, something Russian, from a ballet perhaps.

As she watched the whistling grew louder and a head appeared over the horizon. It was the fox that she was investigating, the one called Silver! He was pushing a wheelbarrow full of rocks up the path beside the creek. He was shirtless in the warm sun, and his muscles bulged from the strain of pushing the heavy load uphill. The long scars on his chest seemed to dance as he manoeuvred the barrow around some debris. When he reached the site of the most recent work he stopped and dumped his load of rocks beside the trail. He left the wheelbarrow up on its nose, the steel bucket blocking her view of his magnificent body. He stopped whistling them, and looked in Parker's direction

"Please show yourself Ms Parker." He called. She crouched lower, and cocked the hammer on her revolver. One of his ears twitched at the sound.

"Oh come now. If I wanted to add you to my collection in the gazebo I would have taken you before you crossed the last rise. So unless you like your chances in a shoot-out," his paw came up from behind the wheelbarrow holding a pistol that was much bigger, was more accurate, and that held more bullets than hers, "I suggest that you holster your gun and join me."

Parker realized that the whistling act had been a ploy to get within pistol range, and that the heavy-gauge steel tub of the wheelbarrow formed an effective bullet-proof shield. She had been out manoeuvred, but she could call in the Calvary. She brought the radio to her head and thumbed the 'talk' switch. Instead of the soft hiss of an open channel she was greeted with a high-pitched squeal of feedback. The sound easily carried as far as the waiting fox.

"Radio suppression unit." He commented dryly. "It activates when the motion or thermal sensors are activated. Normally I greet my guests personally." He waved at the three dogs in the gazebo. "But with all the interruptions this morning I'm falling behind in my work. So if you won't join me, you'll have to excuse me while I continue." With that he set his pistol down on the rock wall and lowered the wheelbarrow to expose his torso. Looking away from her, he bent to the pile of loose rocks and began fitting them into the wall.

The audacity of the creature, she thought. But she turned off her radio and holstered her weapon all the same. From what she had read of his file this was sure to be a trap. Perhaps he had one of the other ousted agents up on the bluff with a sniper rifle. If so, she was already in their sights, so she had no choice but to cooperate. She stood up, brushed the dust from her clothes and marched down the path towards the big silver fox. She ignored the pleading looks coming from the three in the gazebo. She would deal with them later.

Silver continued to work as she approached. He neither stood nor looked up when she stopped a metre away with her paws in fists on her hips.

"You were ordered to stay away from the agency." She said forcefully. "Technically this is still Academy property."

"This portion was ceded to me for my use by the former Director, Sir Wilbur." The fox answered as he gave up on the rock he was trying to fit into a gap in the wall and selected another. "Technically, you're trespassing." The new rock fit the gap perfectly. He chose another rock and started another level.

"Actually I can arrest you right now for three counts of assault on a peace officer and forcible confinement." She dropped one paw to her side, the one she used to shoot with.

"You don't want to do that Parker." He said, glancing at the half-opened paw hovering close to the holster.

She calculated the distance between him and his pistol. It was too far away for him to reach if she chose to draw, or was it? She had imagined herself in a standoff with the great cold war gunslinger, forcing him to back down or shooting him dead. Now it looked like her fantasy would come true, and the three witnesses in the gazebo would spread the stories of her supremacy through the Force and beyond. She had also imagined herself in the arms of the big silver fox, her lips sealed against his, his paw on her breast, hers on his ... then she remembered those three idiots in the gazebo. If Silver as much as tossed his hair seductively she would march right over there and kick them behind the low wall and out of sight first.

"Why shouldn't I arrest you?" She asked, her paw twitching near the butt of her revolver.

"Because this business stinks, and you know it."

The comment caught her off guard. Visions of her standing over his dead body, or straddling his very live one, disappeared, and her arm went slack. It was exactly what she had been thinking before the business of the disappearing guards had distracted her.

Silver continued to work on his wall, as if they were a couple of neighbours chatting over the fence. Charlie could think of nothing to say. She was conditioned to be loyal to the Force and not to express her doubts to outsiders. She changed the subject.

"Did you build all this?" She asked, gesturing around at the pond and garden.

"Most of the garden, but the pond and gazebo were already here."

"Why?"

Silver straightened up and paused in thought, as if he had never considered the question before himself. "It's a creative outlet for me I suppose. The physical labour helps me to unwind." He finally answered. "It is also a truly beautiful spot to watch the sunset, and it deserves to be finished the way the person who discovered it intended." He looked around. "I've planted perennials that bloom in different colours at different times of year. From May until October, each month the colours change. White to pink to yellow to red to blue and finally purple. Every week is a different combination as one set flowers while another dies. But the miniature roses in the corners," he pointed them out, "they bloom all season, unchanging. It's like life."

"What do you mean?" She asked, puzzled.

"Some things are constantly changing. The weather changes from day to day, season to season. The water in the river is always different water. People come and people go. The other day Gold and I were in charge at the Academy, and now you are. But the seasons always follow one another in the same sequence. The river floods every spring. No matter who is in charge of the agency there will be enemies trying to bring it down, so that they can have free reign to plunder our nation's secrets." He looked up at her, held her eyes with his unusual and intense blue-grey orbs. "That is you job now, Parker, protecting the nation. Not chasing shadows cast by a false beacon."

Parker did not know how to respond. The situation was absurd. A armed senior RCMP officer being lectured by some ... some ... kiss-kiss bang-bang cold war holdover while three of her subordinates sat hog tied in ... in a very pretty garden. And the worst part was that the bastard was probably right.

"I am going to release my officers." Parker stated as vigorously as she could, although she did not sound very forceful even to herself. "And I think that you should leave, and not return until all of this is settled, one way or the other." Her paw slipped on to the butt of her pistol for emphasis.

"I might as well." He conceded, straightening up and going into a thigh melting stretch. He gathered his shirt and jacket from where he had set them earlier and turned away from her to leave.

"You forgot your gun." Parker called after him. The big silver pistol was still sitting on the ledge he had put it on several minutes before.

"Oh, that one is not even loaded." The silver fox responded without looking back. He produced another, smaller gun from nowhere and held it up. "But this one is." In a flash it disappeared again, faster than Parker's eyes were able to follow. Silver had reached the point where the trail descended rapidly, and already his legs were out of sight.

"Good bye, Silver." She called as he strode out of sight.

"Good hunting, Charlie." He called back, and then he was gone.

* * * * * * * *

The guards at the county lockup did not bother to break down the door leading to the holding cell Joel was in. Partially because they thought the lemur might be more cooperative after a night spent having his tailhole reamed by a pack of predators, but mostly because armoured doors are expensive. First thing in the morning they called a locksmith and had the door opened without damage. What they saw when they entered was a sight that shocked even the oldest and most experienced of the guards.

The cell was littered with bodies. Bears, tigers, wolves, even the old coyote, lay comatose about the chamber. Only one creature remained conscious, the lemur, who was sitting on the bench against the bars with his back to them, intent on something on his lap.

Approaching cautiously, the head guard saw that the lemur had the prison laptop open. He was busy making entries on his Facebook page while chatting with someone named Barney in another window.

"Had the most wonderful night." The guard captain watched the lemur type. On the other side of the screen he watched him chance his status to 'Filled to Bursting'.

The sound of snoring from the naked and exhausted felons had covered the sound of their approach, but Joel heard a gasp of surprise behind him. He set the laptop down and turned to face the guards.

"Breakfast time already?" He asked, yawning and stretching, his ringed tail waving behind him. "Thank God, I'm starved." The lemur paused, reached behind to scratch his butt, and frowned. "Say, you guys wouldn't have any ointment would you? I'm a little chafed."

* * * * * * * *

Mademoiselle Chienne-Caniche, the black-on white party poodle who served as secretary to the Director and Chief of Staff of FOX, was not sure that Silver's plan would work. Not until the basset hound with the bad case of sexual frustration called her into the Chief of Staff's office and demanded all of the files dealing with the powers of FOX to overrule local authorities and detain or release persons of interest.

An hour later Parker called her in again and quoted the relevant legislation, commanding Miss CC to draft up a release order for the Deputy Clerk's signature. She provided the name of the creature for the order, and at the same time told Miss CC to draft a dentition order for the same name. Essentially they were going to get someone from civil custody and put them under house arrest at FOX.

Miss CC pouted through the entire process, just because the basset would expect her too, but inside she was bubbling. The success of this phase of Silver's ploy boded well for the rest of the plan. She would take on her next task with more confidence, in a phase she had dubbed 'Operation Soulagement' or 'Relief', in English.

Maria Frederique Louise Stella Eunice Chienne-Caniche, known simply as 'Miss CC' to most, hummed an Edith Piaf tune while she completed the warrants Parker had demanded. After filling in the dates and the relevant references to the Foreign Operations Executive Act, she carefully typed in the name and description of the subject:

"Joel Grigori, ring-tailed lemur."

* * * * * * * *

Kain did not go to see Silver right away for a couple of reasons. First of all he was as tired as Ophelia after having stayed up for almost two days searching the internet and hacking the files of his own as well as several other Canadian security agencies. Second, he did not know where to find Silver. He could only send a message on the device George had given him and wait for an answer. Third, no matter how tired he and Ophelia got there was always enough left over for a slow sensuous session on the sheets before drifting off.

Thiers started in the shower, where lips met and paws caressed, and ended an hour later in bed, while a technique known as the 'thousand agonizing strokes', something Ophelia had found in a ancient Chinese scroll liberated from the penthouse apartment of Lao Huidan, the former go-between for the Perfect Stalker. Unlike most advanced sexual techniques, which demanded that one be fresh and well rested before attempting them, this one required that the participants be exhausted before starting. It was their first opportunity to try it out, and it was a resounding success. A success they celebrated by passing out in each other's arms and sleeping for the next eight hours.

By the time they woke Silver had replied to Kain's message, several times. The latest gave an address and room number for Kain to come to. It was one of the old apartment blocks near downtown. Kain did not recall FOX having a safe house there, but then he wasn't privy to all of the agencies secrets by any means.

Kain drove his car in from Kanata and parked at a meter down the street from the address. He was buzzed in immediately after pressing the cracked and yellowed button beside a label that read 'G. Mustela'. The room was on the fourth floor, and there was no elevator. The stairs were dark, and the hallway smelled of cabbage.

The door to the apartment he was going to opened a crack as he approached. Kain pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside. It was a small place, not much more than a kitchen, living room and a bedroom. Unlike the dreary hallway the apartment was clean and freshly painted, but just as unadorned. The only expensive thing in it was an elaborate stereo, the kind they used to make back in the seventies before digital sound. The centrepiece was a turntable with five layers of counter-rotating discs where the records rested. The arm holding the needle looked as delicate as a spider's, and it hung in perfect balance a centimetre above the turntable.

"Make yourself at home." Silver's voice came from the direction of the kitchen. "I'm just making a sandwich. Want one?"

"No, thanks." Kain examined the collection of LPs that were stacked on a shelving unit made of old bricks and unfinished planks. He recognized most of them as famous jazz musicians: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra ... who the hell was Sun Ra? There was a whole shelf dedicated to the saxophonist Charlie 'Yardbird' Parker. Kain pulled a few out of their jackets. They were all original releases, and they were all in immaculate condition. He tucked his paws under his arms for fear of the oils and acids of his pads getting on the pristine vinyl and ruining them.

"Whose place is this?" He asked as Silver came into the room holding a plate with a triple-decker sandwich in one paw and a beer in the other.

"An old friend of mine's. You net him the other night. George, the weasel." Silver sat on the old couch and put the plate down on an equally ancient coffee table. "What have you found out?" He asked before taking a big bite out of the sandwich.

Kain started with the information that Ophelia had gathered, without mentioning her involvement. He told Silver about the pressure the pandas were under from someone with influence over the Chinese Ministry of State Security. He explained how the squirrel had been a prostitute sent to lure Marcel into a compromising position, and later killed to set him up. He recounted the discovery of the dead racoons as if he had been there himself, and finished with the suspicious disappearance of Reginald Paquin, the suspected paedophile who looked a lot like Marcel.

"The bodies of the racoons are still there in their unit." He concluded. "I've narrowed down the search are for Paquin's car to a few local lakes, and I know how to find the Squirrel's older sister when we need her. I'm sure that she will testify if we can provide protective custody."

"That's a problem at the moment." Silver observed. "We still aren't ever sure who it is we're up against yet. Have you had a chance to do the network research I asked you to do with all that running around?"

"Most. It was really hard hacking into the Chinese sites." Kain complained. "They have only a couple of exchange points for the Internet but thousands of creatures monitoring them. I did find out one thing, the Caiman, Wodsworth, was not working for the Canadian development project. He was working for the Ministry of State Security, keeping tabs on the foreigners working on the various development projects. Hacking into their files to see if they were fronts for espionage activities or radical religious-political groups like the Falun Gong." He gave Silver a short history of several other foreign security agencies that the red-eyed reptile had worked for: North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, Holland, Afghanistan when the Taliban were in charge. Kain had other suspicions regarding the Brazilian reptile, but he kept them to himself.

"He was the one who exposed the corruption of the Commissionaire's partners to the Chinese government." Kain went on. "He would have had all the information necessary to blackmail the westie. Could he be the mastermind behind this?"

"I can't see how." Silver said, shaking his head. "He's always worked for others and never instigated anything himself. This is just too ambitious for a first-time effort. But the connection with the Commissionaire is interesting. What else have you learned?

"The RCMP had Reggie Paquin on their radar from a floating chat room for seriously dangerous paedophiles that they were monitoring. I helped them with the tracking software they use to trace guys like him. Reggie was heavily involved with a guy who called himself 'Resolute Spawn'. The original investigators thought that this 'Resolute Spawn' was either the Slasher or had goaded Reggie into committing the acts. But the investigation was shut down after the squirrel's death, by order of the Commissionaire."

"Resolute Spawn." Silver tried out the name between bites. The sandwich was almost gone now.

"Resolute, isn't that the name of the island the Chinese were setting up their missile intercept station on?" Kain asked. "The one that Marcel and ... uh ... Sommer helped you destroy."

"No. That was Resolution." Silver pulled a paper from a pad on the coffee table and produced a pen. He drew a number of quick stokes on it. "These are the Chinese characters we found on the paperwork in the Werewolf's safe. 'JueXin' in pinyin, it means resolution, or resolve. Resolute would be 'GangZhi', like this." Silver wrote two more characters.

"Cool. Didn't know you knew Chinese." With his boss and his lover both adept in the difficult language, Kain was starting to feel undereducated.

"It's a hobby I picked up after a short visit there." Silver answered, gazing off into the distance. Kain noticed the silver fox's paw was rubbing his chest, where the legendary scars were supposed to be.

"What would the character for 'spawn' be?" Kain asked to break the awkward silence.

"Depends on in what sense. Chinese is a very contextual language. A fish spawning would be this." Silver drew a character that did look vaguely like a pair fish. "Spawn meaning seed would be like this." He drew another character that seemed to have wings. "And spawn as in child, or son would be ..." He was drawing a third character but froze in mid stroke. "Son." Kain thought he heard him say. "Resolute son. Son GangZhi."

"What is it Silver?" the older fox looked troubled and was rubbing his chest again.

"Nothing, nothing important." He said, but Kain could hear the concern in his voice, and did not believe him. "What about those FOX files?" Silver said with unnecessary gruffness. "Have you tracked them down yet?"

"I can't restore the original files, Silver, but I do where to get original copies of them from, tamper-proof copies. What do you want me to do with them?" He listened as Silver told him who to send copies to. After he had repeated the instructions back for confirmation Silver's expression lightened and he looked on the young Arctic fox with respect.

"I must say that I am impressed. You've been so busy that you've accomplished the work of two in a short time. No wonder you couldn't answer my messages."

Kain blushed, not wanting to take credit for Ophelia's work but forced to do so to keep their relationship a secret. "It wasn't anything special. I just got lucky early is all."

"No, you really have been outstanding. Here, show me the files you found." Silver pointed at the laptop sticking out of Kain's bag. It wasn't Ophelia's laptop, the one issued by the Academy and supposedly destroyed, thank God. Kain pulled it out and turned it on. It picked up a wireless network that he hacked into in a few seconds and a moment later his screen was filled with alerts and notifications.

"Sorry about that." He apologised as he cancelled them one by one. "I have a number of alerts set up so I can monitor the activity on the popular hacker sites. None of it is relevant to what were up against at the moment."

"Everything is relevant." Silver said absently. His eyes were darting back and forth across the screen quicker than Kain's paws could manage the multiple windows and bubbles that had opened. "Wait!" The old fox called and stuck his paw between Kain's and the 'delete' key faster than Kain would have believed possible. "That style looks familiar."

The window Kain had been about to close was one of the more common hacker bulletin boards, one where senior hackers and script kiddies alike could post their views. Almost everybody who was interested in hacking or preventing it knew of the site. The entry was in bright orange letters, in a large font, and addressed to Algorath and Silver.

"Jesus," Kain said reading the list that had been posted. "This is from Joel."

The list concluded with a single word in extra-large, bold font. Silver tapped the screen with the tip of one claw, and spoke in an ominous tone. "We have to warn the others."

* * * * * * * *

Dongo Fett had a restless night. He had not been left alone in almost two days, and had not had the opportunity to sneak a drink in all that time either. He was not so far gone as to suffer delirium from the withdrawal, but he was suffering all the same.

The worst part was that he knew they meant well, Ruby and Doctor Gordon. But he would trade all the good intent in the world for a stiff drink or three right now. His senior agent, the tall one-armed Vikki Beausoleil, who had taken the codename Ruby, had kept him up and busy until late into the night. Then the white rat Gordon had taken over, discussing the psychosocial aspects of combat and stress until Dongo's head swam with fatigue. Then, sometime during the early morning the psychologist had given Dongo a shot. The rat had claimed that the shot was only vitamins, to help offset the malnutrition excess drinking had brought about. Whatever it contained, it put Dongo out like a light.

When he awoke he discovered that he was in one of the training rooms. This one was done up like a fancy hotel bedroom and was used to train junior agents in quick search techniques, as well as other activities FOX agents were expected to perform in the bedroom. It was complete with a dresser, television, mini-bar, and a king-sized bed. Dongo was lying on the bed, naked but covered by a silk sheet. He had never used silk sheets before, and marvelled at how good they felt. He wondered why they had put him in here rather than his own room. Probably worried that he would hit one of the many bottles he kept hidden there, he supposed, and the thought brought the thirst raging back. But they had forgotten about the mini-bar. Or had they?

Dongo realized that this could be a test. Ruby and Doctor Gordon weren't known for making mistakes like that. Maybe if he went for the booze in the tiny bottles he would fail. He sat up in the bed and stared at the fancy wooden cabinet that hid the fridge full of liquor and snack food. It seemed to be calling to him.

He did a quick physical assessment of himself, as he had been trained to do whenever he woke in strange circumstances. He didn't have any bruises, aches or pains; not even a hangover. His mechanical arm was attached and working fine. His patch, which protected his sensitive right eye, was in place. He felt rested for the first time in weeks, and he felt stronger. Maybe the rat really did give him a vitamin shot, along with whatever had put him out. He did feel a little hungry though. He wondered what time it was. Dongo did not bother checking the clock in the room, it was rarely ever set to local time.

Maybe he would get a bag of chips or a can of peanuts from the mini-bar, he thought, just a little snack. Nothing to drink, except a bottle of water maybe. Yeah, chips and water. Or a soda. Soda was okay.

Dongo get up and tip-toed over to the cabinet. His twin penises hung slack between his legs, reminding him of his other problem. That memory made the urge for a drink even stronger. He hesitated before the mini-bar, struggling to convince himself that he had the will power to open it without taking the vodka or gin. He took the last step and swept open the door in one move. His paw shot forward and pulled a bag of pretzels out. He didn't particularly like pretzels, but he didn't want to risk rooting around in there for something else. Already the row of one-ounce bottles of famous brand name liquor on the inside of the fridge door was tempting him.

He must have something for his dry throat though, and he directed his robotic paw to a green bottle that looked like a brand of expensive mineral water before closing the fridge door. Feeling good about himself, he lifted his prize to remove the cap, and froze.

It wasn't mineral water. It was a miniature bottle of white wine. It held the equivalent of two glasses. He checked the label; it contained thirteen percent alcohol by volume. Strong for wine, enough to give one a little buzz, or kill off an itch. There were five more bottles like it in the fridge, he recalled.

Trembling slightly, a tiny voice in the back of his mind screaming at him to stop, Dongo raised the bottle level with his lips and grasped the twist-out cork with his good paw.

"Pop that cork and I will break your other arm off."

Dongo whirled. The busty French party poodle, Miss CC, was standing in the doorway of the fake bedroom. "Mon Dieu!" She exclaimed, staring at his crotch. "It's true."

Dongo tried to cover his cocks with the wine. It was no use, even in their diminished form he would have needed at least a litre-sized bottle, and a magnum would have been better. The bottle was also very cold and uncomfortable. Dongo dropped it to the carpet and dove into the bed, quickly covering himself completely with the silk sheets.

He heard the shuffle of feet on the carpet and the sound of the fridge door opening and closing again. A moment later the hiss of a carbonated beverage being opened reached his ears. More shuffling, and then the sheet was pulled forcefully away from him. He used the strength of his mechanical arm to hold it and keep from being exposed again.

"Here, drink." The poodle was holding out a can of cola. Dongo took it, mumbling thanks.

"This is for you also." She said, holding out a file folder with her other paw.

"What is it?" He asked, still stunned.

"You will see. Go on, read it." She demanded.

The busty poodle had a commanding way about her and it was hard to refuse. He gulped half of the soda and pretended to read, watching her over the top of the file. She wore high heels that accentuated the curve of her legs. Her tight blouse was translucent enough to reveal that she was wearing a black lace bra underneath. A red mini-skirt barely covered her well-rounded bottom where, it was said, there were two more black patches like the ones on her ears. Otherwise, her fur was white as fresh fallen snow. She kept it cut close, except for tufts on the wrists, ankles and the ends of her ears and tail. There was a great bunch of curly hair on the top of her head too, and Dongo wondered idly if it was duplicated down below.

As if the gods had heard him, he was suddenly provided with the answer. Miss CC bent forward at the hips to examine the radio alarm clock on the dresser, keeping her legs perfectly straight. As she bent forward her skirt rode up, revealing the famous spots and the fact that she was not wearing panties. There was no tuft of white fur where the panties should have been; that area was shaved clean and smooth right down to the pink skin. Dongo felt something twitch under the sheets.

Miss CC looked over her shoulder at him. He quickly dropped his eyes back to the report in the file folder, but not before catching her knowing smile.

Dongo realized that he was reading a copy of the report from the mission where he lost his arm and injured his eye. Why had she brought this to him, he wondered? Hadn't he already read both the 'official' version and the real facts of the case? It was what had set him off on his latest binge. There was something subtly different about this file though.

It took him a moment to realise what it was. The watermarks behind the text were different. This was not the Academy copy of the file, it was the copy held by the Privy Council Office on behalf of the Prime Minister. It was certified as a true copy and signed by the former director of FOX and Clerk of the Privy Council. Dongo read on, Miss CC and the soda forgotten.

The essential facts were the same. He had been on secondment to the CIA and loaned to FOX to help take out an arms dealer supplying the Taliban in the Canadian sector of Afghanistan. The dealer's own sniper had got Dongo, hitting his fifty calibre rifle on the sight mount and driving it back into his eye before ricocheting off into his upper arm. Even the part about him waking up and taking a shot with his off-eye. A shot that took out not only the enemy sniper, but also the creature that Dongo had thought was the sniper's spotter. But it had been a friendly, a Russian security agent sent to do the same job Silver and Dongo were there for.

The last half of the report was completely different from the one Dongo had been given illegal access to. Instead of the accusations of abandonment and blame on him there was a report from the search and rescue commander commending Silver for keeping Dongo alive long enough for them to get him to medical help. A separate annex written by Silver extolled the stamina, determination and skill shown by the American sniper. He noted that there was no way that Dongo could have known about the Russian agent or interpreted what he saw in those last seconds differently. It was just bad luck that the Russian stood up and charged the enemy sniper just as Dongo was pulling the trigger. It was Silver who had recommended that Dongo be kept on at the Academy.

"He has no more future in the American Army with only one arm and a bad eye." The silver fox had concluded. "But we can provide him with the prosthetics he needs and the training required for him to contribute to our never-ending work. We not only owe it to him for him being injured on our watch; we also need creatures with his courage and fortitude on our team."

It felt like a weight had been lifted off him. He closed the file with watery eyes. Yes, he had killed a friendly, but as Silver had pointed out, he could not have known, and there was no guarantee that she would have killed the enemy sniper and completed the mission either. It was the fortunes of war, something his instructors had told him would happen one day if he stayed in the sniper business long enough. He had though that he was mentally prepared for that day, but reality always hits harder than you expect, doesn't it? Now at least, he knew the truth, and knew that he had the confidence of the creature he respected most in the world.

There was a noise that had not been in the room when he started reading, but he realized that it had been going on for a while. He wiped his eyes and looked up. Music was playing on the radio, something sultry, sung in French. Beside it Miss CC stood watching him, leaning against the dresser with her arms crossed below her substantial bust. Had she undone some more of the buttons on her blouse? He was sure that he could not see the tops of her breasts or the edge of that black lace bra before.

"Mon Dieu but she is hot in here." She said, and waved a paw in front of her long pointed snout. "No wonder you took all of your clothes off. Mine will get stained if I start sweating, no?"

Dongo did not recall the room being warm. In fact it had been quite cool when he was up fetching the pretzels, but it did seem to be getting warmer all of a sudden. The 'Y' formed by her cleavage captured his eye and his gaze was locked there. The sheets stirred again. Dongo put the file folder down on his lap to still them.

Miss CC smiled that snarky poodle smile again, the one that shows only the tips of the fangs. It managed to convey dominance and hunger at the same time. She leaned forward to break contact with the dresser and slowly crossed the room. When she reached the bedside she toed off her stilettos and sat down on the bed beside him. He noticed her perfume for the first time. It was sweet, flowery, and it traveled straight down from his snout to his groin. The file folder tilted, and he slapped his paws down on it.

Miss CC's paws moved too, much faster than Dongo would have suspected, and she pulled the thick file away an instant before his paws made contact. But it was too late for Dongo to stop his own paws, and they slammed painfully down, squashing his cocks against his tender testicles. He grunted in pain through clenched teeth. Blood rushed to the injured area.

"Oh, pouvre p'tit. Here, let me look." Miss CC pulled at the sheet, but Dongo kept an iron grip on it, or rather, a stainless steel one. "Don't worry." She chided him. "I am a trained nurse."

"I thought you were a secretary and bodyguard?"

"Well, I own a nurse's uniform, at least. Now let go." She pried the silk from his steel paw. "That's better. Oh look! They are still alive, but just barely!"

Dongo looked, compelled by her performance. His pricks were indeed showing faint signs of life. More than they had in months. But they still ached terribly.

"We must render the First Aid to them." The poodle said earnestly. "First we check the ABC's, Airway, Breathing, Circulation!" She grabbed both his penises before he could stop her and peered at them one after the other. "The holes in the ends look clear." She said seriously. She put the tip of one in her ear. It felt strangely good to Dongo. "But I hear no breaths." She switched cocks, and ears. It felt just as good, if not better. Dongo sensed more blood flowing into his organs and they started to swell. Miss CC pulled it from her ear and squeezed them both, firmly but not painfully. They throbbed in her paws.

"The circulation, she is good. With a clear airway and a strong pulse but no breaths the treatment is clear ... artificial respiration!" And before Dongo could react she took a deep breath, slapped his dicks together, and plunged them into her mouth.

Dongo's arms twitched as he tried to decide whether he should be protesting or not. The longer he hesitated though, the harder and longer his cocks grew. She really had brought them back from the dead. He wondered if Doctor Gordon might not have slipped a little something into the soda she had given him, but discovered that he did not care. Instead of pushing her away, his good paw came to rest on her head and helped guide it as she swallowed his twin towers of flesh.

They were soon too big for her to keep both of them in her narrow maw at once. She alternated instead, licking and sucking one while stroking the other, her warm saliva coating the shafts. She stopped and smiled when the first drops of pre-cum appeared. She released his cocks and brought his paws to the few remaining buttons on her blouse.

"Undress me." She said softly. Dongo complied, carefully undoing each tiny black button with his large steel digits. While he worked the snap between her breasts that held her bra closed she pulled a mobile phone out of her cleavage and thumbed the switch to set it on 'silent'. "So we won't be disturbed." She said and she tossed the phone unerringly over her shoulder and into her open purse on top of the mini-bar.

Dongo's paws caressed her liberated breasts. They were large, round, and firm, with large pink nipples that were already standing ou from the surrounding fur. He pinched them experimentally and she moaned assent. He pinched them harder, and leaned in to suck one into his mouth.

While he flicked at one nipple with the tip of his tongue she slipped off her blouse and bra, letting them drop to the floor. When he switched to the other she leaned over him and forced him back on the bed. On her knees beside him, she put his free paw on the tab above her tail that kept the miniskirt in place. He pulled it loose and pawed the skirt down over her hips. Lifting one leg at a time she helped him pull it the rest of the way off. When she was done she was straddling him.

He kept his paw down there, caressing the round globes of her ass and tracing the lines of muscle in her thighs. Coming back up her leg the tips of his digits brushed the shaved area between her legs, and he was pleasantly surprised to find it already damp and warm. He had heard that she was a party poodle in more ways than one, but he had barely touched her. He brought the digits to his snout and sniffed. Pure female, no artificial gels or lubricants. His cocks ached with a different pain now.

He slid one digit along her slit and felt it part willingly. There was a little knob of hard flesh at its apex, hidden between two folds of warm flesh. Dongo rubbed it and she wiggled happily. He continued to caress her clit, dipping his digit inside her occasionally to wet it and rub the soft spongy patch growing inside her.

Miss CC pulled his head from her breast and clamped her mouth on his. Tongues knotted together as she rode his paw. His cocks were squeezed between her thighs, sharing in the heat and moisture coming from her vagina. It was good, but they wanted more.

It looked like Miss CC was going to give it to them. She broke the kiss and reached down between her legs, pushing his paw out of the way. He watched with his one good eye, fascinated as she dipped her paw deep inside her twat and brought it out dripping wet. She spread the juice of her cunt onto his cocks then went back for more. When every inch of them was glistening wet she smiled that poodle smile again, and went back to the well for one more pawful of sweet nectar. This time she ignored him and reached farther back between her thighs. Dongo could see what she was doing in the mirror over the dresser; she was spreading it around and inside her tailhole.

Oh Yeah, he thought, a twofer.

Squatting above his groin, Miss CC took a cock in each paw and guided them to their respective holes. A bolt of electricity shot through Dongo as the tip of first one, them the other, met warm and willing flesh. The poodle wiggled her hips and jiggled his pricks until the tips were inside her, front and back, and then she let go and put her paws on his chest to steady herself while she impaled herself on the two poles. Slowly, bobbing a bit but always going lower each time, she took them all in.

When she was fully seated Dongo could look down along his abdomen and see where his cock disappeared into her twat. He glanced at the mirror over the dresser. Her tail was up to expose a similar scene with his other cock plugging her tailhole. As he watched she strained her legs and began to rise up. His cocks seemed to be growing out of her.

Dongo raised his arms and took her paws in his. He cocked his arms like he was lifting weights so she could sit straight up and use her arms as well as her legs to push. Gravity was enough to bring her back down, and both her holes were producing enough natural lubricant to smooth the ride. Her full breasts bounced in time with her gyrations, but Dongo alternated staring at his groin and the image in the mirror, fascinated by the rhythmic disappearance and reappearance of his cocks and the way her anus and vagina were alternately compressed and stretched out.

Her eyes were closed, and her tongue was sticking out one side of her slightly open maw as she concentrated, fighting to keep her balance and stave off her impending orgasm as long as she could.

"Mon Dieu, mon cher." She gasped. "I can feel them rubbing against each other through the walls of my passages." After that, she grunted out a series of words in French that Dongo could not understand, but they encouraged him none the less. Sensing that the poodle was about to lose control, he grabbed her hips, bent his legs, and sat up hard. The force and timing flipped her over on her back with Dongo upright and between her legs. Fully in control now, with his former strength, stamina, and confidence restored, he began driving his cocks into the squirming poodle, as hard and as deep as he could.

She screamed and wrapped her legs around his hips as her orgasm flooded forth, streaming down around his other cock and washing his balls before soaking into the silk sheets.

"Oh, stop, stop, enough." She panted as he used the new source of lubricant to pound even faster. He slowed, and she bit him on the shoulder. "No! Keep going, Don't Stop." She demanded.

Dongo increased the pace again. Both holes were warm and wet and tight, and he felt her on every inch of him. However he had only a few moments to enjoy the sensation before the swelling in his balls reached the breaking point. He slammed his cocks in one last time, and held them there while he painted her insides with buckets of pent up cum. She screamed again as his spasms brought her to a second orgasm.

Dongo collapsed on top of her, squashing her breasts against his chest in a very pleasant manner. Pleasant for him anyway, but he was a considerate lover, so he locked his metal arm at an angle to take the weight off her as they both gasped for breath, their heads side by side. Miss CC brought her arms up around him and began to trace patterns in the fur of his back.

"There is still half a can of soda pop left for my twin stallions." She whispered in his ear. "What do you say to an encore?"

"Giddyup."

Deep in her purse on the dresser, unseen by either of them, the red message light on her phone was blinking.

* * * * * * * *

Vikki received word in the late afternoon that Joel had been bailed out of jail and brought back to the FOX interrogation rooms.

"He claims to have information relative to the events of the past few days." Parker told her angrily. "But he refuses to speak to the RCMP investigators."

From what Vikki had heard, there were no RCMP investigators. They had already made up their minds that Silver, Kain, Marcel, and Joel were guilty. She kept her opinion to herself however, because she could sense that the basset was about to offer her an opportunity to get directly involved.

"You did this work before you came to FOX." The basset reminded her. "The lemur is willing to talk to you. Are you able to suppress your feelings for Silver and act professionally in this matter?"

"That jerk can kiss my ass." Vikki told her, and then had to strain to keep a straight face. Silver had indeed kissed her ass during their second session in the abandoned house this morning, amongst other things. She must have done well enough because Parker nodded and picked up the phone to alert the new guards in the interrogation wing to allow her through.

"Bring whatever you can get out of him straight here to me." She warned Vikki as she hung up. "Tell no one else."

Before heading to the cells Vikki made a detour. Recently promoted to senior agent status, she rated a small office in the restricted wing. Senior agents needed the privacy and security to study classified files dealing with sabotage techniques, bomb defusing, killing methods, and wine selection. Each senior agent had their own private vault, which they set the combination on themselves. Vikki opened hers and extracted an envelope that someone had slipped under her door earlier that day.

Vikki left the senior agents wing and traversed the operations centre on her way to the interrogation wing. She noticed the black caiman working at his terminal, all alone and intent on whatever it was he was doing. He had angled his screens so that no one else could see what he was up to. Most of these IT security guys were a bit ... intense ... but this one gave her the creeps. She reminded herself to look into him when she was done with Joel.

They had changed the access codes and disabled her proximity card, so she had to ring the bell and wait for the new guards to let her into the high security area. One of them, an oversized bulldog with massive jowls, escorted her to the room Joel was being held in.

"Vikki!" Joel squealed as she entered, ignoring protocol since he was not officially an employee anymore. He jumped up and ran into her arms.

Vikki hugged the squirming lemur, feeling a little uncomfortable. They had never been really close. In fact, she had given Silver, Marcel, Geno orders not to let the lemur anywhere near her kit, and had been avoiding him herself. But Silver spoke fondly of the little primate and he had helped watch over Leslie while she was a captive in Saskatchewan. She patted him on the back, somewhat kindly.

"Parker said that you had some information that might be of value to the investigation?" She inquired. She had to keep her questions neutral in case they had figured out how to work the monitoring equipment. The tiny red light behind the subject's chair was off, so they weren't filming, but that was no guarantee that they were not listening. As they sat she pulled the corner of the envelope that she had hidden in her blouse out and waggled her eyebrows at Joel to draw his attention to it.

"I might, let me tell you about the Badger I'm accused of killing." Joel was no stranger to the game. If they were eliminating everyone who had a relationship with Silver then he must have guessed that she was pretending to cooperate with the RCMP surrogate. He slipped a wad of paper from somewhere in his trousers and pushed it across the table to her. She gave him the envelope in exchange.

Joel recounted the history of his contact with the Bible-thumping badger while they both read the other's documents. Occasionally his voice would falter or catch, but the local prison warden had reported that a gang of hardened criminals had raped him exhaustively, so a little emotional instability did not seem unnatural.

Vikki studied the slightly damp papers, holding them with the tips of her claws and trying not to think about where he had hidden them. It was a list of quotes and sayings. In the original list the sentences were incomplete, but he had added to them later, completing the quotes or interpreting the sayings. Several words were underlined, like dawn and dusk. The words moon and love also showed up in several lines. But each line had only a single word circled, and the word was the same each time. The word was 'Sun'.

Dawn and dusk quotes were about the sun. A mistress' eyes were compared to the sun. Soldiers were mourned at the going down of the sun. Complete Shakespeare quotes each contained the word sun. Mad dogs and English went out in the sun at noonday. It was obvious once you put them all together. Joel had added a line and circled it several times: "Sun = Threat to Silver".

Vikki began running a list of Enemies of the State that Silver had defeated lately through her mind. There was the Werewolf, but he was dead, as well as his minion, the yellow monkey Miko Dourado, she had killed that little pervert herself. Silver had not been involved in the affair with the mad platypus. Could the sun be a symbol? Might it represent a nation or a group with a grudge against FOX or its former senior agent? Who used a sun on their flag? Japan, Macedonia, the Philippines, Taiwan, British Columbia ...wait, didn't Silver mention some sort of tax dispute with British Columbia? No, she thought, that can't be it. Think, think, Goddamn it!

Her thoughts were interrupted by Joel tapping the papers he was reading. She looked down. She recognized it as a hard copy of a secret FOX mission report, but an old one. It was a carbon copy, so the original must have been typed. When had they stopped using that technology, the late eighties? It bore the stamps that the agency used when it closed a file and more from the National Archives. She remembered a lesson she had almost slept through when she was a student at the Academy. Files were kept here at FOX records section for ten years and then shipped to the classified storage section of the Archives, where they were kept in perpetuity. This must be one of them.

She read the title and executive summary upside down, another useful skill the Academy taught. It dealt with a mission to retrieve two missile scientists from the Soviet Union, or the secrets they held. The subjects were a pair of ring-tailed lemurs, husband and wife. The summary listed them as having been killed in the course of the escape. The male's first name was the same as Joel's last name - Grigori. The agent assigned to the mission was D. Auvert, and a note from the old Director confirmed his promotion to senior agent Silver due to the successful conclusion to the mission.

Joel opened the report and turned it around so that Vikki could read it easier. There were tears in his big green eyes. The section he indicated described the deaths of the two lemurs, the wife after giving birth, the husband while creating a delay for Auvert to escape with the baby. That escape, it went on, had resulted in the secrets the wife had arranged to be spirited out being passed to FOX. Passed by a bible smuggling badger.

Vikki mouthed the words "same badger?" and Joel nodded. Aloud she said, "When the badger was killed, was there anyone else around? Anyone suspicious or unusual?"

"There was this weird looking cat wearing sunglasses inside the dim room." Joel recalled, frowning. "His face was stripped like a tiger but he was very small, and his tail was too stubby and broad, not like a tiger at all. He was wearing shorts so I could see that his legs were spotted instead of stripped."

"A tiger-leopard mix maybe? A Tigard?"

"No, something else I think, but I can't place it right now." Joel shook his head and frowned. "Wait a sec, I know! It could be ..."

But before he could finish the great steel door of the interrogation room banged open, and they both turned to stare. The creature standing there was one of the last they had expected to see in this restricted area.

* * * * * * * *

Geno was trying to get some work done, but with not much success. It was very hard to concentrate with so many distractions. First of all, they had moved her to an office outside the restricted area, one with a window overlooking the fake labs and barns designed to blend in with those of the Central Experimental Farm. To further blend in, the landscaping included flowering trees and shrubs that attracted local blue jays, cardinals and wild finches. Geno had not worked in an office with a view before and found herself staring out the window for long periods at a time.

The mundane nature of her new duties was another factor. Since she was no longer in the restricted area she could not work on the interesting secret research projects. She was assigned to open source research at the moment, collecting data from radical foreign web sites. It was valuable information, but she would rather be analysing it and comparing it to the classified sources than compiling it.

And then there were the constant interruptions. This area was accessible to all of the new guards and somehow the word had gotten around that the cheetah in the third office might be easy. Geno had no idea where that rumour might have come from. Probably from that rottweiler I had to blow to get into the Ops Centre the other day, she thought, hoping that Marcel did not find out. It had been an operational necessity, and she had slipped a condom over the guy's dick while he wasn't looking, pulling off with her teeth after he thought he had come in her mouth. It was an old talent that had proved useful since joining FOX.

There was one of the overly macho canines in her office right now, leaning over her desk to stare down her cleavage while he bragged about his physical prowess as a former SWAT team member. Geno sighed; she missed Marcel. She listed with half an ear while she watched the birds playing in the trees outside. The sudden arrival of a number of official cars and a large white van made her sit up straight. The van stopped in front of the Academy Daycare centre. The cars, police cars, positioned themselves to cordon off the area.

Geno spun around to face her computer screen and typed frantically. Each senior agent had to log their whereabouts so they could be located in an emergency. While on Academy property the process was automatic, their proximity card would update the file whenever they left or entered a building. Geno was allowed to see where her supervisor Ruby, was unless the senior agent blocked her. She had not. She was in the interrogation rooms. In the restricted area where Geno was no longer allowed.

Geno stood up suddenly and grabbed the guard by his shirt collar. She pulled him to her and sealed her mouth on his, which was open in surprise. She closed her eyes and sucked his tongue into her mouth as hard as she could while pressing herself against him. After an awkward moment while he regained his balance she felt him respond to her kiss, and felt a paw on her breast as well. The guard kicked the door to the small office closed behind him and tried to undo the buckles on the straps that criss-crossed her chest.

"Not here!" Geno exclaimed, pushing the startled dog away. "Too public. I know a great place though. In the interrogation wing. There's a room there with a comfy couch for soft interrogations." She pulled herself against him again, slid one soft thigh up between his legs and caressed his neck while she kissed him again. "I love soft interrogations." She breathed into his cropped ear.

"Me too, baby. Come on." The guard took her by the paw, as if he was afraid that she would change her mind, and almost dragged her out of the building and across the lawn to the interrogation wing entrance. Geno looked over her shoulder at the daycare centre. Some muskrat she did not recognize was arguing with two police officers and a funny looking feline in a big hat and dark glasses. The feline had an official looking paper that he was holding out patiently to the muskrat.

The guard used one of the new proximity cards to open the doors. His card allowed him to act as an escort so the alarm did not sound when she entered with him.

"Which room is it? He asked anxiously, a bulge already deforming the front of his trousers.

"I'm not sure." She answered, thinking hard. "It's beside the one that Ruby, the tall vixen with the bright red fur, likes to use to torture suspects. Check the register and see which one that is and them we'll know." She pressed her breasts against his chest and smiled innocently up at him, tilting her head back so he could get a clear shot down her cleavage. He licked his lips and turned to check the register.

"She's in room three right now." He said happily. "So does that mean we want room two or room four?" He started to turn back, but not quick enough to spot the bright red cylinder approaching his head at a great rate of speed.

Geno dropped the fire extinguisher that had been hanging by the door after she was sure that the dog would not be getting up again for a while. It had been messier than she liked but there was nothing she could do about that now. She plucked the proximity card from his chest and wiped the blood splatter off it before running to the door of room three and inserting it in the slot. As soon as the lock clicked open she stepped back kicked the heavy door hard, knocking it back against the inner wall and startling the occupants.

Vikki Beausoleil, also known as Ruby, and Joel the lemur stared back at the blood splattered feline in the tight halter-top and hot pants.

"Something is going on at the daycare centre." Geno heaved. "They're taking the children."

"Leslie! Vikki exclaimed. She leapt past Geno and ran out of the building.

Joel looked after the vixen and then at Geno. "Jesus, you're a mess. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"You're good with knots, right?" Joel nodded yes. "Then come help me tie up this mutt before he wakes up screaming in pain."

* * * * * * * *

Vikki ran as fast as her long legs would take her across the Academy grounds toward the daycare centre. There was a crowd in front now, mostly analysts and clerks who had young ones there. The kittens, pups and kits were being led out between a double line of police officers while the duty matron, a muskrat who had once been chief librarian, cried on the sidelines. The children were being loaded into a van with the provincial children's aid authority logo on the side. A short, older cat in sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat was checking a list as they were seated.

"Gertrud! What's happening?" Vikki called to the distraught muskrat as she skidded to a halt beside her."

"We are being closed down. They have a warrant." The old rodent wailed as the last of the children were led out. Leslie was amongst them.

"Where's Missus Brown?" Vikki demanded. Brown would never have let this happen, not with only a dozen cops to enforce it. She wished that the Director was here too, but he was away all the time now, testifying at inquiries and investigations that the Deputy Clerk had instigated since the takeover. Vikki realized now that it was a ploy to keep him out of the way while they did this sort of thing.

"She went to the gym, on the other side of the farm, to give some of the guards a boxing lesson." The muskrat sobbed. "She won't be back for an hour and they won't let me use the phone to call her."

"There is no need." A stern voice interrupted. The two whirled to see who had spoken, but Vikki had already recognized the voice of Acting Deputy Commissionaire Parker. A voice she had grown to hate in a very short time.

"An espionage agency is no place for a daycare centre." The basset hound continued, looking up at the tall Vixen.

"They are taking my son." Vikki said between clenched teeth, trying desperately to keep her temper.

"And a senior agent has no business trying to be a mother at the same time. The old rules about agents remaining single, and childless if not celibate, are being reinstated. You will be able to visit your kit at the Children's Home tomorrow, but if you decide to remain an agent of FOX he will be placed with a foster family until he can be adopted."

"Adopted!" Vikki was aghast. "But he has a father, Silver!"

"Not legally, seeing as you two have never married, registered as common law or had Silver adopt him."

"DND tests will prove it."

"Face the facts Beausoleil!" Parker snapped, startling Vikki with her vehemence. "Silver is going to rot in jail if he doesn't die in the attempt to arrest him for killing Ophelia Sommer! If you insist on claiming him as the father you will be declared an unfit mother and you will lose both the child and your career."

So startled by this outburst was she that Vikki forgot about her son until he saw her, head and shoulders taller than any of the creatures around her, standing in the crowd.

"Mama!" He cried, and waved a paw happily. Vikki tried to lunge forward but the basset, with more strength than Vikki would have given her credit for, held her back. The elderly cat ticked off another box on his list and flipped his file shut. He removed his hat, revealing his stripped head, and climbed into the passenger side of the van. The engine roared to life. Half of the police jumped into their cars and prepared to escort the van away.

Just then Joel and Geno ran up to join them. Seeing Parker behind the taller vixen, Joel tried to turn away, but he was too late. The basset's stern look forced him to remain where he was, until the van almost ran him over. Joel jumped back with a cry, shaking his fist at the feline passenger, who did nothing more than tip his sunglasses to give the lemur and his companions an inscrutable look. Vikki saw that the cat had Asian features, and that ignited a spark of memory, but it did not burst into flame immediately.

"Hey!" Joel said as the van disappeared around the traffic circle at the exit to the experimental farm. "That's the same cat that I saw in the pub!"

Vikki stood frozen, staring in the direction the van had taken. A coldness like she has never known settled over her. Suddenly, everything had clicked. The elaborate plan to discredit and humiliate Silver. The word from Joel's list. The Chinese connection. The van had already out of sight, and by the time she could get to her car it could would have dismissed its police escort and changed direction. Maybe they would switch vehicles, but if they did she knew that they would take only Leslie and leave the rest. She was certain of that because she knew what this was all about now.

She knew because she was the only one that Silver had confided the entire truth to about what had happened in that cell in China. About his scars and why he could not be intimate with anyone until he met her. About the notes he had palmed, ruining his torturer's meteoric rise.

Felling like she might collapse any second, Vikki staggered toward Parker on stiff legs. Geno tried to step between them, to say something to comfort her, but Vikki held a paw up, not unkindly, and silenced her. Geno backed off with an apprehensive look and Vikki continued until she stood over the basset.

"You may not realize it," Vikki said in a voice that sent a chill down more than one spine present, "but you have just unleashed a force of nature. When Silver hears of this there is nothing in the world that will stop him from getting our kit back. Not your threats. Not your SWAT teams. Not every cop this side of the Atlantic. He'll go through anything that gets between him and that ... that creature that took our baby. Anything, and anyone, and I will be there at his side when he does. And when he is done, when our son is safe and this enemy is dead, he's going to turn around and come after every single living creature that helped that beast, whether they did it knowingly it or not. I'd start rethinking your career options if I were you."

Vikki took a step back. "Now you will have to excuse me. I have to call my son's father."

* * * * * * * *

One of the police officers left behind to control the mob was a veteran who had known Parker since she had been with the Watchers. While his career had stalled when he was still in uniform, her star had continued to rise, and their paths had crossed often in the intervening years. He was too far away to hear what was going on, but he was close enough to see Parker's face when she turned and went back into the building she had come from. In all that time he had known her, he had never seen an expression like the one she had on after the tall vixen had spoken to her.

He shivered, even though he was standing in the full sun on a hot summer afternoon. Maybe her mood was contagious, he thought, because he suddenly felt like she had looked; worried, doubtful, and terribly afraid.

* * * * * * * *

Vikki pulled the special cell phone that George had provided from her pocket as Parker stalked away. It had not been able to receive while she had been inside the Academy buildings as all non-agency phones were electronically suppressed. But now that she was out in the open its message light was blinking furiously. She ignored it, flipped the phone open and pressed the speed dial number that she had been told would connect her to Silver anytime, anywhere. Her expression never changed as she put it to her ear and waited for an answer, but a careful observer would have seen the gleam of a tear in the corner of one eye.

"Silver?" She said as the connection was made. "Colonel Sun has taken our baby."