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trigger.
    “Inspector, I have credentials in my pocket. May I drop this raincoat?”
    “Please do so. Slowly.”
    Kris did. She got upraised eyebrows from both the inspector and corporal as her uniform emerged.
    “The Navy part seems to have some substance,” the inspector said, then glanced around at the rest of her party. “Marines?”
    “First Lieutenant Montoya is the chief of my security detail. The others were ‘volunteered,’ when Lieutenant Martinez of your police asked to talk to me.”
    Now the inspector glanced at his own officer. “You have credentials handy?”
    “In my coat pocket.”
    “Produce them slowly.”
    Lieutenant Martinez did. The inspector examined them, whispered something to his personal computer, and seemed happy with the answer he got. “You may get up, Lieutenant. Is she what she says she is?”
    “I have every reason to believe so.”
    “Gentlemen, I’m going to ask you Marines to stay down a moment longer. Your Highness, will you slowly present your ID.”
    Kris did.
    “Lieutenant Montoya?” the inspector said. Jack answered with a grunt. “May I see your ID card?”
    Jack slowly produced his. The inspector looked at all three of them together.
    “Can any of you explain why our explosives experts swept this area and found nothing. Our advanced guard had no inkling of anything, but a mine exploded for you?”
    “Corporal Singe, report,” Gunny snapped.
    “I was using an MK 38, Mod 9 sensor both to search for illegals and to control our own nano-guards, sir. As I approached the curb, I got the first alarm that there were explosives and electronic devices present. They appeared to be well shielded. I announced the problem and followed the princess. That caused the sensors to spike and I concluded it was either in the popcorn box or being covered by it. Gunny then took action, sir!”
    “And that action was?”
    “I shot it until it exploded, Inspector,” Gunny Brown said.
    “You have a permit for that weapon, mister?”
    “That was what I was talking to your lieutenant about,” Kris put in. “My submitted request for a weapons permit for me and my security detail. I think this proves I need one.”
    “Hmm,” said the inspector.
    Lieutenant Martinez shook his head eying the direction of the vanished motorcade. “I’m not so sure you get credited with this one.”
    “You mean she’s now walking into other people’s assassinations.” Jack shook his head. “That’s really not fair.”
    In the road, four people in civilian clothes organized a thorough search of the bomb scene. One of them came over to talk in dark whispers with the inspector. He waved Kris and company toward a tree ten meters away. They went.
    A few minutes later Inspector Johnson rejoined them. “Did that bomb sniffer of yours make a record of findings?”
    Kris glanced at Corporal Singe.
    “Full and complete, Your Highness.”
    “I’ll need that record,” the inspector said.
    “We’ll make a copy,” Kris said.
    “I want the original.”
    “You may have the original. We want a copy.”
    The inspector nodded. A large, apparently armored, vehicle pulled up. “I will need all of you to accompany me downtown.”
    “For what reason?” Kris demanded.
    The inspector seemed to recognize the error of his ways and moved to explain. “We need as much residue from this new form of bomb as we can get. Your clothes are potentially peppered now with fragments of the explosive, electronics, what have you. Would you please accompany me downtown where our experts can examine you and your clothing.”
    Put that way, Kris could only answer, “We will be glad to. Let me call my embassy and explain why I will be late returning from lunch. Don’t want to be declared a deserter… again.”

    Several hours later, Lieutenant Martinez offered Kris a hand in her dismount from the same armored transport, or its sibling. Her hair was stripped clean down to the second layer of cells; Abby would have a fit. The