Chapter 16: Out of the Frying Pan

The ambassador's face appeared to be carved from granite. He walked around his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a handful of pictures, the ones of Frick and Frack I had given him through Captain Woods. He handed them to Keith. "Give these to the media. Mister Hundley sent this packet of pictures to this office. I have no words to describe my feelings right now."

Sidekick Henry, very woozy, staggered to his feet. "What happened?"

Agent Olson made a grab for the pictures. Bobbie slammed a paperweight into her forehead and Olson dropped, to take Henry's place on the floor. Keith nodded as he accepted the pictures and the dossiers on the Watkins people. We all stood by quietly looking back and forth at each other. Bobbie glared at the fallen Agent Olson.

The ambassador picked up his phone, "Connect me with security." He waited a moment then spoke firmly. "Go to the guest suite and arrest Marty Hawkins." His eyes widened and he yelled, "Detain him, now!"

Captain Woods asked, "What's up?"

"That man just now came down the elevator and is walking toward the front gate." He kept the phone to his ear. A moment later, he barked, "Hold him and call the British authorities. Turn him over to them. He is a wanted felon."

"I'll call my father and have you recalled," Agent Sidekick Henry blustered. Bobbie swung her lethal paperweight again and Henry joined Katherine on the floor.

Bobbie carefully replaced the crystal paperweight on the desk. "I must see about getting one of these things for my office," she said to herself. Bobbie had begun to show the inner steel in her makeup that had lain hidden for all those years.

Warren Woods took the phone off the ambassador's desk and barked an order. "Security, right now." There was a pause, then, "Four men, two gurneys to the big office on the double."

I begged, "Mister Ambassador, would you please help my wife and me to go home?" I felt like I was ready to explode. "Please, it's imperative we go home immediately." I sat quietly in my wheelchair.

"Yes, of course. The Hundley corporate jet is parked at Heathrow. Why not fly home? Sir William is dead. You and your wife are the joint heirs of his estate. His title probably goes elsewhere, I really don't know. From what I understand of the situation, you and your wife collectively are now in essence the number two stockholders in Hundley Holding Corporation, North America and Great Britain, as well as the two European factories in Germany and France. Inasmuch as the agreements were drawn up right here in this office and show my signature as witness, no court in the land will question the authenticity of those agreements."

I nodded, unable to speak. So much happened in too short a period, I was too numb to think. "Yeah," I finally answered.

Keith came rushing in, "Did I just see the gentleman in the picture escorted out under arrest?" He shook his head and exclaimed, "Jaysus! What a fookin' day."

"Keith, Bobbie and I are leaving this afternoon on the company jet. Do you have a passport?" I had barely started to function mentally as he made his entrance.

"My whole family, all three of us, have passports. We travel to Switzerland regularly for special treatments for my daughter, Mary." He cocked an eyebrow and asked, "What's up?"

"You are now our liaison to Hundley GB and EU on this side of the Atlantic, if you want the job. If you accept, you need to come back to the states with us for what I hope will be a final showdown and a thorough briefing.

In the meantime if any problems pop up over here, you are to run interference for us. As soon as we have access to the corporate records you are to return here and take over for us in Sir William's place. I believe you would be the right man for the job." Bobby had snapped out of her funk. She looked at me in surprise. She opened her mouth and closed it again. Her eyes narrowed.

"Oosh! You've outdone yourselves this time. What do I know about running anything?"

The ambassador interjected his little bit of wisdom. "You have been offered what most junior executives dream about. What the number one man in any large corporation does is twofold. First he formulates a plan, a set of goals. Secondly, he hires competent personnel to implement those goals. You have shown yourself to be resourceful, honorable and tenacious. You'd be a fool to turn down the job."

"Daniel, I would like to be consulted when decisions of this magnitude are being made," Bobbie told me in a sharp tone of voice. She did not look like a happy camper right then. In fact she looked very pissed off.

"Okay, I withdraw the offer, Honey, I'm sorry." After my apology I asked her, "Whom would you place in charge over here on a trial basis?"

"Keith," she mumbled. Then more clearly she added, "That's not the point. I refuse to be shut out any more. I own a part of the company and I demand to be made privy to all that is happening. I will not go back to being a permissive fool."

"Hon, I am sorry. All my life I have had to make fast decisions and in this case I overstepped my bounds. If you'd like, I'll turn it all over to you right now. You mean more to me than some chicken shit company."

"Damn you! Now you're making it all my fault again." She looked ready to grab up that heavy paperweight and hit me with it. "Just kiss me." She said as her mood swung back the other way. "Let's get some lunch. I want corned beef and cabbage."

"What the shit?" I stared at a stranger who looked like Bobbie.

"Missed out period, have we?" Keith asked her and began to laugh.

"Wh ... H- how did you know?" Then the impact of his words struck her. She looked at me, sitting dumfounded in the wheelchair. "Do you think... ?" she started and shut up.

"I sure hope so, it's either that or you have gone completely around the bend. Oh, babe, I hope so. I truly do. Oh yes." Before this I had always looked on fatherhood as something to be shunned and avoided at all costs. Suddenly, without any reservations whatsoever, I wanted to be a father. I wanted kids of my own.

"Well, Keith, are you up to a trip to the states?" Bobbie asked him. "Bring your wife and daughter along also. There should be plenty of room."

Ever the smart ass, I protested, "Hey, you didn't consult me before inviting all those people." I grinned.

She ignored me completely. "There is another problem we should address," she told the ambassador, all business again. She turned to Keith, "Did you give those pictures to the media? Did you tell them what it was all about?"

"That I did with a vengeance." He checked his watch, "If you turn your telly on about now you'll see the breaking news stories. I'll wager they are quite interesting."

The Ambassador nodded grimly and motioned for Captain Woods to turn on the television, a large forty-inch model. An announcer for BBC news came on air. Just as he started to speak, a very irate Ted Kennedy look alike who turned out to be a senior senator from Texas with the loud mouth to prove it, stormed in. "Some bullies beat up on my son Henry. I want to get to the bottom of this."

Before the ambassador could say anything, the BBC announcer's voice filled the room. "An unidentified special agent assigned to the American consulate in Bern was caught poaching in another area of authority here in London. The only name we have for him is 'Agent Sidekick Henry." It's probably a code name of some sort. British authorities are seeking both he and his partner, known as 'Katherine with a K.' The cousins do pick colorful names."

"What in hell is this?" the senator roared.

"Shut up or I'll brain you with the same paperweight I used to brain your idiotic son and his partner." Bobbie's eyes blazed as she hefted the paperweight.

"In further breaking news, two more American FBI agents were photographed in rather delicate circumstances. The following pictures, taken in a posh London hotel, are of two gentlemen of the FBI assigned to the American consulate here in London." There followed a few of the pictures I had ordered taken of Frick and Frack. "The," his face contorted into a grin, "haw, gentlemen have definitely been identified as employees of the United States Federal Bureau Of Investigation and ... and ... haw!" The announcer had a fit of laughing and couldn't continue. The rest of the pictures were shown without comment. Some