In her fantasies about ________

In her fantasies about being a CIA agent, they never had involved this sheer magnitude of paperwork. When Claire Newton first started it was going to be ball gowns and diamonds and expense accounts in Monte Carlo. Feining a twitter of laughter as the Duke of Upperlower-Eastwestchester the fifteenth just delivered a particularly piercing bon motte towards the heir apparent Sultan of Siam her eyes would be constantly scanning the crowd for "the mark" so at the last minute she could scream at the duke "Down, that man has a gun!". She would simultaneously draw her service pistol hidden in one boot while upending an hor d'eurve tray with the other to deflect incoming bullets.

Now, six years later she spent another late night reviewing her expense reports from "abroad", the most recent exotic locale of which had been Ontario Canada. "Wet ops" where you even had a chance at that sort of fun were more and more being doled out to Army and Air force special agents. No one seemed to have need of a covert op any more.

Her most exotic posting had been the four day stint where she accompanied a UN ambassador to Western Sahara 1 year earlier. All four days had been spent in a windowless non-air-conditioned building in El Aaiun counting and correlating export records of some 16,483 telephone poles that the Moroccans had insisted on collecting from some obscure debt from World War Two 60 years later.

While there was a three pole discrepancy (Western Sahara had shipped three too many poles) the true thrill had come that night when the UN dignitary hadn't answered his door for dinner the night before they left.

She had knocked with no answer. The innkeeper hadn't seen him leave. They had considered themselves lucky that their rooms had window based air conditioning units. Not so lucky in that the rolling blackouts across the city had kept them turned off most of the day. She knocked again.

"Mr. Booten?" she announced cautiously. The door was unlatched and she pushed it gingerly trying to peek around it but also trying to maintain Andre's privacy.

Andre Booten was in his mid-60s and quite morbidly obese with quite the penchant for fine scotch and barring that any red wine he could get a hold of. Add to that his European propensity for wearing scarves no matter time of year and the fact that it had been a sweltering 124 degrees Claire was none too surprised to see him laying on the floor of his room wearing nothing but boxers, and undershirt and his signature scarf. His skin color was off however. He seemed paler than normal and a tipped over chair next to him made Claire's heart race a bit.

"Mr. Booten, I'm coming in, are you alright?" No answer.

She saw a broken bottle of scotch on the floor near the table, a glass still half clutched in his hand. His chest, however, was motionless. Clair flew into action, she put her cheek to the man's mouth. Heat yes, but no breath. Forefingers to the carotid artery showed no pulse. A quick search showed no other signs of foul play. She placed both hands on his ribcage. One and two and three and four and cover the nose and mouth blow. She watched the chest rise and fall. She kept reciting the ABC's of CPR in her head as she continued.

On the third cycle she saw Andre's eyes open wide, her mouth on his followed very shortly by an explosive gust of scotch and half digested shwarma and hummus from lunch. She had seen it coming quickly enough to at least move her head a few inches away and close her mouth, but still, even in retrospect, the thought still nauseated her. Andre Booten began coughing and sputtering, color returning to his cheeks. As soon as his airway was clear of lunch he began thanking her, in between wheezes, gasps, and hacking coughs.

In her fantasies about being a spy they had been so much more about dressed and guns and Monte Carlo, not sitting in a 120 degree room in Africa with a half naked man's half digested lunch and what appeared to be about 1/3 of a bottle of scotch drying on her best Liz Claiborne evening wear. She remembered trying to comfort him and barely managing to hold onto her own lunch for the hour and a half it took an ambulance to arrive. Over a year later she still couldn't look at glass of scotch without gagging or turning green. It had been a funny departmental holiday present exchange that year. Funny to everyone else at least.

Now a year later she looked over at the clock. 11 PM. And she hoped that El Aaiun wasn't going to be the most exotic or interesting part of her career.

Her cell phone chirped, breaking her concentration. Caller ID announced department head Iverson calling.
"Newton here."
"Claire, its Chris. Am I disturbing you?"
"Not at all, just going through some paperwork."
"Excellent. I need you to come into my office first thing in the morning. Clear your calendar for the next few days."
"Can I ask why?"
"Its about your old friend Andre Booten."
"I was just thinking about him. I need to go count some more telephone poles?" She hoped that came out as joking as she meant it and not sarcastically. Lack of enthusiasm for any assignment no matter how dull or depressing was a fast track for future desk-ville.
"He's dead."
"Really?" She wasn't completely surprised but more disappointed. He had sent her the best Christmas card that year. "Heart attack?"
"Surprisingly no. Car bomb. His car and three others seemed to be targeted outside The Hague earlier today, you can catch up on the public information on CNN right now I'll have a dossier in my office in the morning. You'll be heading to Holland shortly afterwards to liaise with Interpol."
"Yessir." She said but the other side had already hung up.