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twirl a silky strand of hair around her finger. She couldn't trust anyone and nowhere was safe. The best thing to do would be to escape, run away to another city, but her bank account only had fifty dollars in it and that wasn't going to get her far.
    When Kirk returned with two plates of chicken salad, she was still worried. He handed her a plate and she looked at it as if she'd never seen food before and didn't know what to do with it. “Eat,” he told her. “It will help.” He sat down and turned on the television, the inane blather washing around them as they ate in silence.
    The food was good, she discovered. Though she picked at it suspiciously at first, the chicken had been seasoned nicely and was still hot from the pan. He'd tossed a few sautéed mushrooms and tossed them in with the lettuce and applied a thick dressing that brought the meal together. As she filled her belly, she began to feel slightly better about things. Not a whole lot better, but slightly better. The depression that had been settling over her as she sat alone had lifted slightly by the time she cleared her plate.
    “You should get some sleep,” Kirk said when she yawned a few minutes later. “Come on.” He stood up and walked down the hall that lead out of the lounge, the hall she'd not been down before. At the end of the hall was a bedroom, furnished in the same clean and comfortable style that typified the rest of the house. The center of the room was a fairly large bed covered with a cream quilted duvet and topped with thick pillows that looked very comfortable indeed. “There's a shower, through there,” Kurt pointed towards a door that stood slightly ajar.
    “Thanks,” Eve said in a whisper soft voice. “Where do you sleep?”
    A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Usually I sleep here, tonight I'll be keeping watch. I'll wake you when it's your turn, soldier.” Eve giggled softly at being called a soldier. He smiled when he heard her laughter, gave her another one of those charming winks and left her to her own devices.
     
    * * *
     
    Kirk looked in on Evelyn thirty minutes later and discovered that she was obediently curled up in bed. She must have been completely exhausted, poor thing. There was a sweet scent in the room, the light feminine smell of a woman. It had been a long time since a woman had lain in his bed, since his home had smelled so light and pretty. She was already asleep, her breath was deep and slow and she barely stirred when he pulled the coverlet up so that she would be warm.
    Satisfied that his reluctant guest had been taken care of, Kirk made his way to the small office that lead off from the lounge. There he picked up a phone that at first appeared to be dead. It wasn't until he pressed a sequence of numbers that he got an open line.
    “Command and Control.” The operator's voice was brisk, business like.
    “Kirk here. I need a meeting with Command. Tonight. Things have changed.”
    There was a long moment of silence in which the faint clattering of keys could be heard in the background. “Your request is approved. Hold the line.”
    Kirk sat down heavily, the phone clutched tightly in his powerful hand. He had one chance now to convince his handlers that they needed to move quickly.
    A grunting came over the line. The Commander sounded irritable, as if he'd rather be in pajamas and drinking a hot chocolate than talking to a field operative. He was old now, past his operational prime but they didn't keep him around for his physical abilities, they kept him around for the mind that had navigated the Cold War with precision. The Commander played with people like other men played with chess pieces. You never knew what part you played in his plan, sometimes you were the king, sometimes you were the pawn to be scarified. The Commander had no loyalty to any man, his loyalty lay with the state, with the overarching principles he'd sword to protect long ago. He expected the same type of loyalty from