Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 The Honeymoon Hostage Affair by curvasion curvasion illustrated stories
curvasion@yahoo.com

   Part 1

   Advisory-- This story for adults only, and is not intended for anyone
who is not a legal adult in their community.

   Pam lifted herself out of the swimming pool, seemingly oblivious to the
attention she attracted from the male bathers gathered at the luxury
hotel's patio.  Her dark hair and deep tan gave her an exciting, exotic,
gypsy-like character quite in contrast to her actual background of wealth
and prililege.  And she possessed a voluptuous, athletic body that
transcended all class barriers-- young or old, rich or poor, anyone of the
masculine persuasion would find themselves enthralled.

   That included me, of course, and as Pam approached I got up from the
sunning bench and met her halfway.  Taking her into my arms, I leaned into
her and gave her what would appear to be a very passionate and very public
kiss.  She leaned back in my arms and smiled up at me.

   'Let's go get ready for dinner, sweetheart,' I groaned at her, pointedly
ignoring the dozens of envious eyes that were upon us.  'Anything you say,
dear,' she breathed.  She was overplaying it a bit, but the male onlookers
would be quite incapable at the moment of making such critical
distinctions. And female witnesses would be too busy shooting tiny little
knives out of their eyeballs to notice the cadence of Pams' performance.

   We turned and headed back to the hotel, arm in arm like the perfect
honeymoon couple.  And we kept up appearances until we were past the
threshhold of the hotel room door.

   Inside our honeymoon suite, however, the emotional climate would make a
meat locker seem balmy!

   Pam turned on me, and I got a fusillade of the aforementioned tiny
knives from her blazing baby blues.  She didn't speak, she was too
disciplined for that, too cautious to say anything that might be overheard.
Instead, she grabbed the pad of hotel stationary and began writing.  When
she was done she thrust it at me, and gave me a devastating look that
almost made me fumble the pad when I took it.

   'How dare you FRENCH me!!' It said.  'How DARE you take ADVANTAGE of
this situation!  Do you think for one MINUTE that I LIKE being handled by
you?  Are you forgetting that I'm going to REPORT YOU to COLONEL HENDRICKS
if you get out of line?!?'

   Now, truth to tell, I would have loved to take advantage of the
situation if I had the nerve to.  I'd have loved to find out just how soft
every inch of that tanned body of hers was, and how that softness segued
into the tight, catlike little muscles.  I'd have loved to play
cartographer with her anatomy, measuring how many kisses it took to travel
from the tip of her nose to the nape of her neck (taking the scenic route,
of course!) But it was not to be, and I accepted that with a
characteristically noble attitude of self-sacrifice.

   What I wrote in reply to her was-- 'This is not a game, it's serious
business.  We have to be convincing as a honeymoon couple, and that means
public displays of affection.  I am only acting, and I can assure you there
is no personal feeling behind it.  Everything I'm doing, I'm doing for the
sake of the mission.'

   She glanced at the script and threw it on the table with a 'harumph!'
Then she stalked off into the bathroom to keep her own counsel.

   This is to be expected, I thought.  She doesn't have any experience in
undercover work; she's in way over her head.  If Colonel Hendricks hadn't
taken pity on the grieving daughter of his recently-assasinated colleague,
she would never have been permitted to get mixed up in this business.

   Too bad I didn't merit as much of Hendrick's consideration!  What had I
done to get saddled with a revenge-driven amateur who couldn't stand the
sight of me?

   Well, it was supposed to be a low-risk venture, anyway.  Posing as
honeymooners, we planned to 'run into' two of Pam's acquaintances, the
Wallaces, and thus, maybe, provide me with an incrementally closer vantage
point to a circle of crypto-monarchists who might be funneling support to a
secret organization.  That secret organization was suspected in the death
of Pam's father.

   When I lose track of how many mights and maybes there are in a mission,
I breath a little easier-- it means I only have a 60-40 chance of being
shot at.  But this time it was impossible to relax-- partnering with Pam
was like walking across a minefield with a beaker of nitro-glycerine
balanced on my nose!

   ...

   It was a hot night, and the Banana Bunch Nightclub's crowd was wearing
as little as possible.  The club's waitresses and floorshow entertainment
wore even less!  The sensuous bodies all around me and the nightclub's
phallic-themed decore had my erotic imagination working overtime!

   Good food, cool drinks and a beautiful woman sitting next to me-- I
should have been having the time of my life!  But I was too much the
sensitive sort to get any pleasure out of keeping company with a young lady
who hated my guts!  Sure, we both smiled at each other sweetly-- but I
avoided making eye contact, I just kept staring at the center of her pretty
little nose.  It was a Herculean effort for me to keep the conversation
going, dragging out one stale gambit after another.  Ten minutes with Pam
was like an hour stranded on a broken-down subway!  When I reflected that
we'd have to keep up this act for another two days before the Wallaces
arrived, I cursed Hendricks for the fool he was!

   Just when we'd finished our fifth inquisition on the changeable nature
of the weather, an older couple approached our table.  'Excuse me,' said
the man, a short, portly gentleman in his 50's.  'I've promised my wife
that we would see the floorshow, but the club has become so crowded... 
would you be willing to share your table?'

   'Of course,' I said, turning to Pam and asking, 'you don't mind, do you
honey?' Pam smiled pleasantly at the newcomers.  'You're welcome to enjoy
the show with us,' she said.

   We made our introductions.  I gave them my alias, Ward Green, and
introduced Pam as my wife, Pam Green.  The gentleman was Thor Dansk and the
woman, a slender redhead in her late thirties, introduced herself as
Monique.

   Their witty repartee was like a reprieve from a prison sentence. 
Monique hadn't a tenth of the beauty Pam possessed, but her flirtatious
glances alighting on me were like a cool breeze in the desert.  Thor's
risque commentary on the cabaret dancers had me chuckling.

   Presently, Monique said, 'My Gawd this heat!' , and invited Pam to
accompany her to the powder room.  Pam got up and followed her out.

   A quarter of an hour later, Thor was enjoying the floor show, saying,
'Ha!  Ha!  She's going to slap him in the face with those big ones if she's
not careful!'

   'I wonder where Monique and Pam are,' I ventured.

   Thor frowned.  'I suppose we should go see if someone's been sick,' he
said.  'A shame to give up this table, though!' He gave the buxom dancer
one last longing look, and we got up.

   'A well-tanned American woman,' Thor explained to the maitre d'hotel. 
'She was with a redheaded woman.'

   'The women you described left for the parking lot ten minutes ago,' said
the headwaiter.  'Perhaps to get some air?'

   Thor shrugged his shoulders to me, and we proceeded out into the parking
lot.

   'Monique!  Monique!' called Thor as we walked out into the night air.

   With his bellowing, I didn't hear the footsteps that quickly caught up
with us from behind.  Two men, one who settled in beside me, the other
behind, poking the barrel of a gun into my back.

   'Just keep walking, Mr.  Samuel!' said Thor, as we proceeded towards a
waiting van.

   ...

   As I lay on the floor in the back of the traveling van, handcuffed and
with a gun still pointed at me, my mind raced.

   'Mr.  Samuel' was the alias I'd used on a previous mission.  Thor
apparently thought that's who I really was.  If so, it followed that he
didn't know I was an agent..  and thought that I was the professional thief
I pretended to be when I was Samuel.

   The whole picture became clearer when I stopped staring at the gun
pointed at me and took a good look at the thug who was holding it.

   'Ya recognize me, Samuel?' he said with an evil grin.

   'I almost didn't, Gristle, with you wearing that tux.  You should dress
up more often-- you look good!'

   'Heh, heh, heh, I'd forgotten what a wise-ass you can be!' He smiled
meaningfully.  'Lucky for me we crossed paths again...'

   'Yeah,' I said.  'Small world, isn't it?'

   ...

   When my body hit the chair I almost knocked it over.

   'Careful, Mr.  Grisaille!' said Thor.  'If Mr.  Samuel were to receive a
sprained shoulder, he would no longer be of much use to us!' Gristle
snorted.  He didn't like being kept on a short leash.

   'I can be more useful to you if you'd take off these handcuffs,' I
suggested.  My wrists were still manacled behind my back.

   Gristle stepped over and I saw his open hand swing towards me.  Then it
felt like my face collided with the business end of a steel girder.

   Through a field of spiralling stars I saw Thor settled down into his
easy chair across from me.  'That is how my friend Grisaille shows
affection, Mr.  Samuel,' he said.  'I caution you not to persuade him to
like you too much...'

   He lit a pipe and puffed on it, studying me expertly.  'The handcuffs
will come off presently, but I prefer that you wear them, as a formality,
while we get down to business.  As you may have surmised, Mr.  Samuel, I
acquired you because of various skills you possess.  When you and Mr. 
Grisaille first made your acquaintances, you worked together on a job where
he was the 'muscle' and you were the 'mastermind.' A very successful job,
as I understand it...'

   'Are you kidding?' I said.  'That job blew sky-high!'

   'Only because you pulled a double-cross!' growled my former partner in
crime.

   'Let's be frank, Mr.  Samuel,' said Thor.  'The jewels in question went
missing from their former illicit owner, and recently turned up in the
Guademalan National Museum.  And you turn up in a luxury resort with a
pretty debutant on your arm.'

   'Yeah,' said Gristle.  'And three men dead, and me on the lam with
bullets in my gut!'

   'Unfortunate,' said Thor, 'but irrelevant.'

   Gristle bit down on whatever he was going to say next.

   Thor continued, 'We had our own 'mastermind' for the operation we're
planning.  A fellow by the name of Mazli.  Unfortunately our collaboration
with this Mazli fellow unraveled a few days ago; the man was excessively
greedy.  Lucky for us that Grisaille recognized you and told us about you.
You appear to have the qualifications, and I trust we won't have a problem
with your greediness.  After all, we have your beautiful wife.'

   'What have you done with Pam?!?' I snarled, struggling in my handcuffs.

   'We've done nothing to her, at least not yet.' Thor picked up the phone
and dialed an inhouse extension.  'Monique, sweetheart, could you bring the
young lady in?  Thank you.'

   Moments later the two women entered the room.  In spite of our feigned
honeymoon, I'd never seen Pam in the nude before.  It was with very mixed
feelings that I took in the sight of her now-- incredibly beautiful and
voluptuous, her full young breasts bouncing enticingly; but her expression
was one of fear and apprehension, her posture cowed, her movements
cautious.

   Monique came in behind her, still dressed in her nightclub gown, but
with a very different attitude.  Cruel and triumphant, she put an
affectionate arm on Pam's naked shoulder.  I surmised the other emotion
flickering over Pam's distraut features-- shame and humiliation, at being
captured and disrobed by this small, slender, older woman.

   Monique roughly pushed Pam across the room towards me, and the luscious
tanned nude stumbled into my lap.

   'Pam...  Pam...' I muttered.

   'Oh, Ward,' she confessed tearfully.  'She took me by surprise-- I
couldn't stop her!  What are we going to do?' She was using my alias, I
noticed with some relief.  She'd kept her head in spite of everything.

   'Are you alright?' I asked.

   'Yes.'

   I looked her in the eye and said, very softly, 'Trust me.' She nodded
her head slightly.

   Monique took hold of Pam and pulled her away.  'Come along, dear; these
men have much to discuss.' Pam struggled in vain as Monique held her in a
hammerlock.  The diminutive redhead smiled at me.  'Don't worry about your
wife, Mr.  Samuel.  I don't intend to harm her-- she's just going to be my
plaything for a while.  I never break my human toys, at least not by
accident!  Of course if you fail us, I'll have no recourse but to take out
my frustrations on her lovely anatomy...' Pam whimpered, helpless in the
older woman's grip.  Monique laughed, and marched Pam out of the room,
obviously in complete control of the younger woman.

   'She's not from the same life as we are, Dansk,' I said to Thor.  'I'll
cooperate with you, but you've got to give her back her clothes, and your
wife has got to leave her alone.'

   Thor nodded sadly.  'Quite impossible.  Alas, I find it difficult to
control Monique.  You should have seen what she did to poor Mazli-- and
with her bare hands!  She was only supposed to interrogate him, but she got
carried away...  no man should die like that...'

   'DAMN IT!' I growled.  'WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?'

   'When you've successfully completed the job Mazli was supposed to do, we
will return your wife-- unharmed.  Obviously you'll wish to expedite
matters, to minimize her propinquity with my dearest Monique.  And if you
fail, Monique will do to your wife what she did to poor Mazli.  But let's
not think of that-- you are not going to fail.'

   From some room beyond the one we sat in, I heard a frantic scream which
was abruptly cut short.

   ---------

   Part 2

   I had access to Mazli's notes and research material, including a map of
the harbor and a schedule of the comings and goings of the Princess Flyer,
an Abeking & Rasmussen motor yacht, 156 ft length, 22 ft beam, 7 ft draft,
with twin engines (2X 830 hp), and holding 10 berths.

   Which told me squat about how to pull a heist on this damned boat.  And
furthermore, Thor and company were being tight-lipped about what I was
supposed to steal once I got on board!

   'Sorry, old man,' explained Thor, 'but we don't entirely trust you. 
Once you have the item in hand, you might simply forget about your wife's
plight, and take advantage of a lucrative opportunity.'

   'That's BULLSHIT!' I shot back.

   'Ah, but we've already been burned by our experiences with Mr.  Mazli,
and so we are taking every precaution.  Hence, we are holding back a little
bit of information; and you will plan on Mr.  Grisaille accompanying you on
the operation, as an additional safeguard.'

   I groaned.  'If Gristle tags along, he's got to pull his weight-- I
don't need some goon standing next to me with a gun in my gut while I'm
trying to crack a safe!'

   'The item is not located in a safe,' said Thor.  'It is in the open, in
plain sight, on board the ship.  But the ship is tightly guarded-- that is
where the difficulty lies.'

   'How do you expect me to plan a heist when all you give me is RIDDLES?'

   'Just consider the alternative,' advised Thor, 'and you will find a
way.'

   ...

   What I came up with wasn't a planned heist-- it was a suicide mission, a
blind date with disaster!  But 'considering the alternatives,' I had no
choice.  I gave them a list of materials I'd need, and Gristle went
shopping, while I spent a few tense hours locked in the basement.

   I'd tried to figure out where we were.  It had to be near the resort,
and I was pretty sure I heard shoreline sounds when they were dragging me
inside.  I'd seen three rooms, including this basement cell; and I knew Pam
had been taken elsewhere in the house.

   I was racked by worry about Pam.  I was worried about what Monique would
do to her-- and I was worried that Pam would end up spilling her guts.  If
these baracudas found out that we weren't really married, then Pam would
lose all value as a hostage, and they'd have no confidence in their ability
to control me.  That would be very deadly for the both of us!

   I hoped she was smart enough to realize that too, and that she was tough
enough to take whatever Monique dished out.  And my imagination went crazy
conjecturing what that redheaded viper was capable of!

   I must've slept a few hours in spite of everything, because I was in the
rapture of some wonderful dream when Gristle shook me awake and yanked me
to my feet.  The dream-bliss vanished as I remembered where I was and what
I faced.

   As we climbed the basement stairs I could hear crickets outside.  It was
evening again.  I also realized that I was starving, since I'd eaten
nothing in all that time.

   Gristle led me down a hall into another room I was seeing for the first
time; it was a dining room, and seemed a pretty fancy affair.  But given
the company, I'd rather be eating in a sewer.

   'Considering that this may be your last meal, Mr.  Samuel,' said Thor,
'I tried to cook up something special.  Nothing too heavy, of course-- we
need you wide awake and alert tonight.  But I think you'll agree that I
missed my calling-- at least that's what I'm often told...'

   'I want to see my wife.  If I can't see her, everything's off.'

   Thor frowned.  'We'll take care of that in due time.  But we don't want
our dinner to get cold!'

   'Let me see her NOW-- or Gristle's gonna have to use that gun of his!' I
knew I had leverage-- their plans wouldn't brook any delay.

   Thor frowned, looking at the plates of neglected food.  'Alright!' he
said.  'But one look and that's it.  We don't have time for sentiment.'

   He led me over to an adjoining room with a control panel and a TV
screen. 'This is the best I can do-- Monique said in no uncertain terms
that she didn't want to be disturbed.  It's often like that when she has a
new pet...' he glanced at me, and added politely, '...if you would excuse
the expression.'

   He flicked on the screen, and I watched carefully as he jumped from one
camera to another until he got to a kitchen view.  At least at first glance
it looked like a real kitchen, but one from the late 1950's.

   Sitting in an oversized baby's high chair was Pam.  She was dressed in a
frilly, brightly-colored toddler's outfit, complete with a baby bonnet. 
She appeared to be tied down in the chair, her wrists restrained somehow
behind her back, her long, beautiful legs folded up, her ankles tied
together and pulled back.

   Monique had a bowl of pudding, and was patiently feeding it to her
captive with a spoon.  The redheaded hellion took obvious pleasure in Pam's
humiliating predicament.  She cooed over her, and stroked the young woman's
leg affectionately.  Pam turned her head away from the offered pudding, and
Monique grasped her captive's hair firmly and turned her back.  She
force-fed Pam, not angered by her resistence but amused.

   I could only imagine what Pam was going through psychologically. 
Monique had taken the spirited, beautiful young woman and regressed her to
babyhood.  There was absolutely nothing Pam could do to stop her.

   As long as Monique was content to play absurd games of dress-up, Pam
wasn't in danger.  But the psychotic redhead no doubt had other plans for
the young woman that were starkly more fiendish if I should fail at my
mission.  The flicker of fear in Pam's expression as she met Monique's gaze
showed that she was realizing the fact herself...

   Thor flicked the screen off.  'There, you see?  She's unharmed!  Now go
eat your meal-- it will be time to leave soon!' He glanced towards the
dining room, inpatiently.  Then he took me by the arm-- 'Come on, damned
you, it will all be fine if you just keep your head!'

   We'd only been gone a few moments, but the culinary showpieces that Thor
served me were as cold as ice.  Or at least that's how they seemed to my
palette.

   ...

   The Princess Flyer gleamed in the night waters.  Gristle and I paddled
silently towards it in a rowboat.  He'd taken up the back position in the
boat, which didn't surprise me, but worried me.

   I was tipped by the fact that when we left the house, they didn't do
anything to prevent me from seeing where I was and what the house looked
like.  They were dropping the precautions they'd taken earlier, because
they knew I was never coming back, voluntarily or not.  After I'd planned
the operation, they'd made their own plans, which didn't include my
continued survival

   'Hey, Gristle,' I said.  'Don't you think it's about time you told me
exactly what the prize is here?  I'm gonna find out anyway!'

   Gristle chuckled.  'I guess it won't do any harm.  We're goin' after the
Pearl of the East!'

   'Never heard of it.'

   'Sounds like you don't travel in the right circles.  Trust me, we're all
gonna be millionaires!'

   'You don't say.  I'd of thought a bauble that valuable would be locked
up tight in a safe.  Just suppose it is-- then what'll we do?'

   'It ain't no bauble...  hey, you just keep rowing!'

   'We gotta hang back still,' I said.  'I hope Evans didn't screw up.'
Evans was Thor's other hired hand, a muscle-bound creep like Gristle, only
he knew how to keep his mouth shut.  When I'd explained to him what he
needed to do, he'd just nodded.

   I could see the figure of an armed guard walking the deck of the
Princess Flyer, because of the lights that shone on the ship.  There were
no lights on our boat, and I was counting on the fact that our black
outfits and greased faces would blend in with the dark shoreline behind us.
Mazli had written nothing about infrared goggles-- if the guards were using
them, then we were sitting ducks out here.

   Suddenly, a hundred yards in front of the Princess Flyer, there was an
enormous flare of light.  A 'FFWWOOOMM!!' resounded in the air as a small
watercraft exploded, shooting embers into the air.  Some landed on the deck
of the Princess Flyer, and a few hot splinters came down around myself and
Gristle.

   The guards ran towards the front, and others on the ship came out to
find out what had happened.  There was nobody left watching our starboard
approach.

   'I'll take it from here,' said Gristle, and I felt the butt of a pistol
in my back.

   Using every ounce of my strength and every fear-instinctive reflex I
had, I twisted around and brought my oar swinging back at Gristle.  The gun
exploded, and I felt a burning flare up above my right hip.  The oar
connected with Gristle, though, and he lost the gun in the water.

   I lunged back at him, bearing down on him with the oar.  I got the
handle under his chin, and was pushing him back against the edge of the
boat.

   Gristle got a hold of his own oar, and began wacking me with it.  He
brought it down on my head and the thing snapped in two.  I was seeing
double as Gristle pushed up against the oar I was holding.

   He was trying to turn the tables on me.  I let him.

   But as he leaned forward to bear down on me, I pulled him down on top of
me and tipped backwards.  Our stores in the bottom of the boat gouged into
my back as I rolled backwards, but I managed to get my legs under Gristle
for just an instant, just long enough to kick upwards...

   There was a splash as Gristle hit the water.  I twisted around to see
his boots kicking in the air.  I grabbed them and hugged them to me.  His
top half was under water, and with me holding his legs, he couldn't come up
for air.

   I flattened out on the boat as much as I could, to keep it from
capsizing as I held onto Gristle.  I felt his fists pounding on the bottom
of the boat.  His legs flexed desperately trying to thrash out of my grip.
But I had the leverage, and he didn't have any air.

   Presently, his legs relaxed in my grip.  I held on, just in case he was
playing possum.  But by the time the rowboat had drifted over next to the
Princess Flyer, I knew there was no life left in him.  I released his legs
and watched them sink into the bay, instantly swallowed up by the black
water.

   I quietly paddled the boat up to the hull of the larger ship, and tossed
a grapnel up to the railing.  I slung my pack over my shoulder and climbed
up.  I had no idea how severely my back was injured, but it didn't
interfere with my movements, other than to distract me with with a searing
agony.

   I had to steal the Pearl of the East in order to rescue Pam-- but I had
no idea where the Pearl was on board, or even what it was, assuming it
wasn't a precious stone.  There was nothing for it but to use my stealthing
skills to capture one of the crew and interrogate them, all the while
avoiding capture myself.  This was surely an instance of grievously poor
planning on my part.

   My only piece of luck, I thought, was that nobody on board had heard
Gristle's gun go off in the commotion of the other exploding ship.

   But in that, I was wrong.  I suddenly heard the rush of feet behind me.
And, disasterously, I began spinning around to face it, spinning the wrong
way...

   It was a bare-footed kick that connect with me.  But the foot made
contact right where the gun had injured my back.  The pain was like an
exploding inferno, and I blacked out.

   ...

   There is nothing more terrifying than a pair of shapely, tanned,
feminine legs.  That is, when those legs are athletically muscled, and
those muscles are bent upon the crushing of your windpipe, and the owner of
those lovely legs has seemingly no concern about what shape you're gonna be
in later to sing an aria at the Met.

   I would have gladly taken measures to discourage this attention, but my
wrists were tied behind my back, and the owner of those lovely legs was
busily engaged in a vigorous attempt to dislocate my right ankle.

   Thusly engaged, I was busy working out an ingenious plan to turn the
tables on my antagonist, vanquish her, interrogate her, forcing her to give
up the location of the Pear of the East, and exchanging witty repartee the
entire time.  But just then, someone else entered the room.

   'I need you back on patrol, Kolika,' the feminine voice said.  'I can
handle this one.'

   Kolika stood, and I looked up at her.  She was a beautiful Hawaiian
girl, dark, long-haired and bikini-clad.  She had a knife in a sheath
banded to her right thigh, and I'm sure she could use it to carve out the
heart of any bothersome admirer.  She looked down at me with fierce animal
hostility and contempt.  It inspired an intense lustful response in me, as
I'm sure it would have in any red-blooded American boy.  After all, if she
was this intense when she was on duty, imagine what she'd be like on a
date!

   Kolika turned and marched barefooted out of the room.

   I heard a pair of high heels pacing forward across the wooden floor of
the brightly-lit cabin.  They were worn by a pair of shapely legs that came
into view, beautiful dancers legs in black net stockings that stretched all
the way up to the wearer's hips, where they were seamed to the glossy black
fabric of a leotard.  The leotard, in turn, clung enticingly to the
hour-glass figure of a tall, curvaceous blonde, whose silky hair dropped in
front of her face as she leaned down over me.

   She turned me over onto my back and straddled me.  I stared in awe at
the swelling breasts gathered at her V neckline as she bent down over me
and pulled her hair back.  Then I gazed upon her flawless, classic
features, and saw the trembling of her ruby red lips.

   Then she slapped me!

   'You brute!' she said 'How dare you leave me in Stockholm-- without so
much as a goodbye!'

   I gasped, trying to articulate a defense.  'Heidi...  I had urgent
business...  I didn't have time to...'

   'I know all about it!' she hissed.  'A mission-- another mission!  Can
you imagine what it does to my self-esteem when somebody leaves me alone in
bed so they can go off and save the world?'

   'Heidi, sweetheart,' I pleaded with her, 'you know if I'd had any choice
in the matter...'

   'I can't tell you how much that hurt me!  After that, I began to do
silly things.  I spent the next ten years doing silly things!  I thought I
had forgotten you, and now suddenly you turn up here, on the deck of my own
ship!  What are you doing here, Max?' It wasn't my real name, but the one
she knew me by.

   'I didn't know you were here, Heidi.  I was trying to rob this ship.  I
have to rob it, I absolutely have to!' And then, briefly, I told her about
Thor and Monique, and about Pam.

   Heidi had untied my wrists and was helping me to a chair.  'This Pam--
are you close to her?'

   'I should say not!  But I have to protect her-- she's an innocent in all
this.'

   'Just as I once was,' she said.

   'Can you tell me about the Pearl of the East?' I asked.  'Do you have
it?'

   'Yes...'

   'I have to have it, Heidi.'

   'I can't give it to you,' she said, almost tearfully, but with finality.


   'Can you at least tell me what it is?' I pleaded.  'I have no idea!'

   'We don't have time for that,' she said.  'We have a rescue mission to
carry out.  This ship carries a very fast motorboat.  We also have some
armaments, and other equipment that you might find useful.'

   I looked at her, open-mouthed.  She leaned forward and took me in her
arms, and gave me a fiery, passionate kiss, like the kisses she used to
give me ten years before, but with more hunger, more urgency, and more
despair...

   Then she broke it off.  'Hurry,' she said.  'They must be expecting you
back soon!'

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