Chapter 13: Building defenses

"Answer the door and be careful," I told Bobby. It was Captain Woods.

He stepped in and looked down at the naked pair on the floor. The fat one had recovered enough to sit up. He looked around dazed and grunted. "What the hell?" Captain Woods finally reached the point where he lost his cool.

"You recognize this pair?" I asked.

"What happened here?" he asked. "What in hell is going on?" He eyed the two FBI agents again and looked back and forth between Bobbie and me. He repeated, "What in hell is going on here?"

"I decided our minions of the law needed a little lesson. At first I was going to call the police here and have them arrested." I told him.

"They have diplomatic immunity," he told me. "They would have been turned loose with a stern protest."

I nodded. "Yeah, that's what I figured so I did the next best thing. There is no immunity from a nosy news reporter. The television newscasters and the newspaper reporters would have a feeding frenzy over this."

"Where are their clothes?" he asked. "Don't tell me they were eavesdropping naked." He looked down at them and shook his head in disbelief. The skinny one started to stir.

"Their clothes will be returned in a little bit. You didn't ask why they are naked. That is the important question." I smiled a shark-eating grin at him.

"I-am-almost-afraid-to-ask," he spaced his words slowly.

"We took a ton of pictures of the two," Bobbie cut in. "We are waiting to have them printed and delivered. Then we'll decide which of them will be the best one to enter into a single entry photo contest titled, "Gay times with the FBI."

"Jesus, lady, that would be lethal." He looked horrified.

"So is spying in a foreign country." I looked him in the eye and asked, "Are you going to tell me their actions would be condoned if the British authorities became aware of what is going on?"

"No I won't insult your intelligence. But what do you think you would accomplish if you take this public?" He waited for an answer that didn't come right away.

Keith came in without knocking, saw Captain woods and asked, "Is this the marine you told me about? Or do I hurt him?"

Woods started to drop into a defense posture. "This is Captain Woods," Bobbie said. "Show him the pictures."

As he looked at the posed photos, his eyes got wide. "Jesus!" he exclaimed. "Holy cow!" Slowly he stopped exclaiming and started to laugh. "God, I do hope this is merely a threat. You would damage relations between our two countries in ways you have no idea."

"No, this is not a threat. It is a promise. Keith here is head of hotel security and a loyal British subject. He is not happy that American agents bugged a suite of rooms in his hotel not once but twice in the same day. Now you tell me why I should not send those pictures to the newspapers. The PM will hate to read in the newspapers how his loyal American friends have been jobbing him."

"Because you're a loyal American?" he asked.

"Not even close. I consider myself a loyal American who loves his country and would rather live in the US of A than anywhere else in the world. However, I hate the self-serving bastards in our government who subvert any law they wish to merely because it is more expedient for them to do so. I consider them fair game. Normally I am not a flag waver, but the past few days showed me how bad things really are."

"Please stop and think. What good will it do to go on a rampage and embarrass your government?" One thing about Captain Woods, he was honest and honorable.

"Now shouldn't my government have thought about that before fucking with me?" I took a deep breath and added, "I want the sons of bitches out of my life."

"What will it take to satisfy you?" Now we were getting to the nitty gritty.

"Fire all four of the FBI clowns who have tried to screw my life up so badly, Agent Olson, Sidekick Henry and your pair Frick and Frack." Bobby gasped.

"There is some sort of operation going on that involves the government and us. I caught glimmerings about it in Berne. But we were so busy running for our lives I couldn't check it out. I want to be safe, damn it. I realize you can't do anything about our safety once we leave here, so I'll handle that in my own way." Then I threw in another bluff. "I also have some other misdeeds of these people recorded and hidden away. The next time an agent of the US Government fucks with me I'll let everything hang out. Are there any questions?"

He shook his head no as the one I thought of as "Frack" tried to come up off the floor in a rush. Keith dropkicked his head and he fell back unconscious. "As you Yanks say, 'damn that felt good.' I just might take it up as a hobby."

"Captain Woods, I feel you are an honest man in a den of thieves. Watch your back." I truly had taken a liking to the man.

He nodded. "May I take these pictures back to the ambassador along with Frick and Frack?"

"Give them their clothes and get them out of here. Make certain your nephew and his buddy contact the law offices of Norman Brace in Manhattan first thing. Bobbie will write down the address and phone number." She nodded and quickly wrote down the required information on a piece of hotel stationery. Captain Woods accepted the paper with a grateful nod of his head.

Bobbie dropped all the clothing on the floor. "Get dressed and get out," she told them. "Look at the small dicks on both of you." From being a prude just a couple of months ago, she had suddenly begun to develop a nasty mouth. I couldn't understand where she got it.

Just then, Captain Woods came across the picture of Bobbie holding her nose and pointing down at the two agents who looked like they were preparing to go sixty-nine. "Oh god, you just ruined two careers."

"I hope so," Bobbie answered.

Two shaky FBI agents got dressed and were escorted out. "You don't take any prisoners, do you?" Captain Woods remarked on the way out the door. "By the way, my given name is Warren." The door closed behind him.

Keith asked if we were ready to try to wrap things up. "Let's go to the coffee shop and discuss the rest of our business."

Once we were settled in the smaller dining room, Keith dropped his bombshell. "That wire you found, Missus Hundley looks to be part of a Russian designed system."

I started to get angry, "Why don't you just go in and confront the people on the other end of the wire?" It made great sense to me to do things in a direct manner.

"I would be more than happy to do so except the person in that room is an Arab businessman, a Saudi. It is considered very impolite and extremely bad form to have any harsh words with the wog bastards unless you catch them in the act. We mustn't hurt their feelings and all that." I detected more than a slight resentment in Keith's voice. I learned later Arabs were not held in high esteem by the average Britisher.