Hazardous Duty (Presidential Agent 8)

DCI Lammelle came into the lobby, followed by two burly CIA operatives supporting Roscoe J. Danton between them.

Then Lieutenant Colonel C. G. Castillo appeared, accompanied by a spectacular redheaded female.

There was an excited conversation between the two men. Seated as far away as they were behind the potted palms, they could only hear parts of the conversation. But they did hear that the President was ordering Castillo to immediately cancel any plans he had with Somalian teenagers, including slaughtering them.

Castillo then asked, “And he has no other nutty orders for me?”

“Just that you are to fall off the edge of the earth again, and never be seen by anyone.”

Castillo had then grabbed DCI Lammelle and kissed him wetly on both cheeks. And then the spectacular redhead had grabbed Lammelle and kissed him. Wetly. On the mouth.

“I love you, Frank,” she cried. “I don’t care what everyone says about you!”

Both men, fully aware of the news value of films of CIA directors being kissed by females to whom they were not married, not to mention their being bussed by men, groaned with the regret that this kissing session was lost to posterity.

They had then disappeared, only to appear fifteen minutes later with large numbers of other people dressed to the nines.

It was at this point that the Archbishop Valentin and the Archimandrite Boris marched into the lobby attired in their finest vestments.

A man whom neither Hockey Puck nor C. Harry recognized—Aleksandr Pevsner—then advanced on the clergymen, dropped to his knees, and kissed their rings.

Then Castillo and the spectacular redhead did the same.

“That redhead looks somehow familiar,” Hockey Puck whispered to C. Harry.

“What the hell are you doing here?” A. Franklin Lammelle demanded to know.

“We’re here to unite Carlos and Svetlana in holy matrimony,” Archbishop Valentin said.

“Not you, Your Grace,” Lammelle said. “Him.”

He pointed to General Sergei Murov, who, with Agrafina Bogdanovich, had just come through the revolving door into the lobby.

“Actually, Frank, old buddy, this is a delightful surprise. I want to defect.”

“My God, there’s two of them!” Hockey Puck cried loudly, as he came out from behind his potted palm to demand, “Which one of you redheads threw the Frenchman at Roscoe J. Danton and ruined my television career?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Aleksandr Pevsner ordered. “But grab him.”

Two burly ex-Spetsnaz instantly complied. And then two more went after C. Harry Whelan.

“I know who that ugly man is, Sergei, my precious,” Agrafina said. “He’s the pervert who made all those awful allegations about me!”

“I hate to say this with these distinguished Russian Orthodox clergymen standing here,” Murov said, “but you’re a dead man, sir. No one insults the woman General Sergei Murov loves. Not and lives.”

“As a distinguished Russian Orthodox clergyman, my son, I must forbid you from killing anyone.”

“Excuse me, miss,” Svetlana said. “Did Sergei say he loves you?”

“That’s what he says, Svetlana,” Agrafina said.

“Your Grace,” Murov asked, “if you say I can’t, I won’t kill the pervert. But how does Your Grace feel about me sending him to Moscow and turning him into an ice sculpture?”

“I have a confession to make,” Svetlana said. “It was I who threw the French pervert into the paparazzi. I wasn’t aiming at Roscoe; he was just collateral damage. An

d this lady was in no way involved.”

“Why, my daughter, would you do something like that?” the archbishop asked.