An All-New Deep Knight Adventure

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
An All-New Deep Knight Adventure

Chapter 1 – Grillin’ ‘n Chillin’

Illuminati Central was all abuzz, we were being audited! And of course I’m talking about our slavemasters from the NWO. A group of natty-suited CPAs from New World Order New World Headquarters, Internal Affairs Division, had shown up, unannounced, and were putting us through the wringer. Soon it was my turn.

“Mr. Knight,” one began, “we understand you thwart the announcement of the secret NESARA law, delay the Iraqi Dinar RV, and perform various other injustices and acts of mayhem, is that correct?” I confirmed my assignments, and my interviewers jotted down notes. “Let us get this straight, this NESARA thing doesn’t really exist, is that right?”

“Since it’s a secret no one can prove it one way or the other, but whether it exists or not, I tirelessly keep it from being announced.”

“You think a law which forgives all debts, makes energy free, and mandates every person in America getting a huge pile of gold, the total amount being thousands of times the world’s supply, could be real?”

“You never know, our minions in Washington have done stupider things. But thanks to my work the government and banks never had to pay out, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I see.” More scribbling of notes later, they continued. “And this RV thing is based on increase the value of Iraq’s currency over 1000 times?”

“Depends on what Dinar exchange tier you’re in, larger groups with contacts get more. But no worries, every time somebody blabs online that it’s happening in the next few days I fly to Reno and delay it. Iraq’s not out any money, and regular people don’t get to be rich.”

“And how do you do this?”

“Mostly by visiting Wells Fargo Bank executives and bribing them. Only a few have required sanctioning with extreme prejudice. I know it sounds too easy, but hey, it seems to work and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

This seemed to satisfy the auditors and they shuffled out with pleased-yet-demonic looks on their faces. I figured that my department was OK, in part due to a 100% success rate on my two highest-priority tasks. But when you’re dealing with Evil Inc. you never know what they might do, and the fact this Deep Knight Adventure is starting this way has to have some meaning, so there was a bit of apprehension just the same.

To be continued…

[Burnaby49]

This is just sad. Deep Knight's last adventure started with;

Deep Knight, surrounded by beautiful, compliant women relaxing in his swank penthouse apartment, was thinking about the benefits of being the world’s greatest lover and spy, known to experts in the field as “the Mata Hari of American men” and to others as “proof there is no justice in the world.” Suddenly, and without warning, his world came crashing in on him. Luckily, it was just the roof of his building, and brushing off the dust and large chunks of concrete, Agent Knight braced for the assault he knew would come.

Suddenly, and without warning, an entire squad of ancient-Roman-soldier-costumed commandoes burst in brandishing swords and shields. “Prepare to die, scion of darkness!” exclaimed one whose helmet plume very well may have indicated he was their leader. “Roman law will see justice done to all of those of the dark agenda and their fellow travelers! Our extremely smart leader, Erasmus of America, has read about your earlier encounters and has planned an assault you can’t possibly escape from! Not only are there more of us than you have bullets in your gun, but we’re sheathed in Kevlar armor and using swords for some inexplicable reason that wouldn’t make any sense even if I told you what it was! We are invincible!”

Deep Knight’s look of concern turned to one of amusement. “Yes, I’ve written about my response to mindless assaults in the past, where my marksmanship has made the difference between order and chaos, which is why I have an all new response to thwart your gambit and enliven my prose. Let me introduce you to, the Slice Girls!”

The details are to graphically horrible to go into here, but suffice it to say the NWO's reunion of the Spice Girls at the Olympics wasn’t just to prevent millions of viewers from tuning in and seeing the landing of the saucers, but also to provide the genes for cloning a new army of female ninja warriors wearing sexy black pajamas and armed with samurai swords. In a clashing of steel and letting of blood that is better recorded on film than in words, sharp shining death and spurting blood danced in a ballet of battle. Sporty Spice, Scary Slice, Slutty Slice, and Skanky Slice did most of the beheading, with Serial Killer Slice and Baby Slice disemboweling and dismembering. Just imagine the goriest scene possible, multiply it by one hundred, add one million, and you’ll get the picture. Unfortunately, Deep Knight’s laid-back attitude prevented him joining the fight until the girls were all mortally wounded, but by this time the assault had been reduced to a handful of easily-dispatched centurions. As he walked through the carnage administering a final coup de grace to his cloned Slice Girls, Deep Knight was almost overwhelmed with a feeling of regret that he had only slept with 5 of the 6 before they were killed. Oh well, being clones there were more where they came from.

And what do we get this time?

Illuminati Central was all abuzz, we were being audited! And of course I’m talking about our slavemasters from the NWO. A group of natty-suited CPAs from New World Order New World Headquarters, Internal Affairs Division, had shown up, unannounced, and were putting us through the wringer. Soon it was my turn.

“Mr. Knight,” one began, “we understand you thwart the announcement of the secret NESARA law, delay the Iraqi Dinar RV, and perform various other injustices and acts of mayhem, is that correct?” I confirmed my assignments, and my interviewers jotted down notes. “Let us get this straight, this NESARA thing doesn’t really exist, is that right?”

Chapter two will probably be a rousing knuckle-gnawing adventure involving DK rummaging through the bottom shelf in the garage looking for those meal receipts from Big Boy.

[The Observer]

Chapter two will probably be a rousing knuckle-gnawing adventure involving DK rummaging through the bottom shelf in the garage looking for those meal receipts from Big Boy

We could only hope it would be that good. This all reminds me of the old Henny Youngman observation about album covers having provocative pictures of good looking barely dressed women, only to find out when you open it up, all you have is a flat record.

[Deep Knight]

Perhaps a lurid cover would help?

[The Observer]

Sorry but that cover is as flat as the record.

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 2 – As the Hammer Falls, so Falls the Hammer

The big company-wide meeting was the next day, and our Supreme Site Manager, who spoke for Satan himself, started it with some humorous stories and dirty jokes. Then he turned the meeting over to the auditors.

“We find that you’re not only over-spending your budget, but you’re doing things that seem unwise and unnecessary. Why should we spend billions each year producing chemtrails when there’s no evidence they’ve been successful? Ditto water fluoridation and the Apocalypse on 12/21/2012. And destroying the World Trade Center to make a profit from the insurance was insane. We owned that insurance company.“

NWO secrecy rules coming in the way of efficient operations, and they’re blaming us? Typical.

“We’ve gone through the numbers, and the various benefits to humanity you’ve been preventing don’t add up. Literally. These prosperity programs couldn’t possibly deliver the huge sums they’ve been promising, free-energy uses more energy than it makes, Planet X is years late in colliding with earth, and sovereign citizens are crazy, so we don’t need to otherwise stop them. And one of your operatives is getting paid piece-wise for sexually satisfying Supermodels at a pace, number, and justification that defies logic. Wicked? Yes. Evil? Perhaps. Somehow helping us rule the world? Don’t be silly. We’ve decided you need to be downsized, and by that I mean closed completely and your assets liquidated.”

Was this the end of the Illuminati? Almost 240 years of disservice to humanity down the drain? Not to mention the source of both my wife’s and my paychecks?

Our manager ended with a few more jokes and wishes of good luck, although he made it clear we were to clear out our office and leave forthwith. No severance pay or extension of benefits. The problem with working for a parent company that specializes in evil, they tend to do unprincipled things.

I ducked into a doorway and looked around for the inevitable assassination squads, but no liquidations to keep us from talking materialized. Uncharacteristic. That division must have been the victims of cost cutting too. Besides, I don’t suppose they worry so much about blabbing since our secrets have been splashed all over the internet, where nobody believes they’ true anyway. Too bad, it would have provided an action scene filled with blood and gore to keep my readers happy, but no soap.

I rushed down to my wife’s office to get the word from her boss, Henry Kissinger, head of wet work (water park assassinations). He was advocating a “gang war” style resistance, and giving a verbatim rendition of the “going to the mattresses” speech from “The Godfather,” mistakenly ending it with the “I hope their first child will be a masculine child” line. The fools. There’s an old saying,” don’t mess with Satan.” Actually “mess” isn’t how we say it, but families might be reading this. The Prince of Darkness still ran the NWO with an iron cloven-hoof fist, and his legions of demons were nothing to f..., er, mess with. My wife had a much clearer head.

“I looked into placement in other sections of the NWO, but found that they were all cutting staff too. The Bohemian Grove Society, Bilderburgers, Breitbarters, Bearbaiters, and even The Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of the Enchanted Realm. It’s all because of the new New World Order hierarchy, young Turks bent on reducing spending by slashing costs. Fallout from the Republicans taking over Congress.”

A crazy idea suddenly came over me, to invest in myself. My wife and I could start our own business, doing evil freelance. After all, with so many secret conspiracies being cut back, there should be plenty of business opportunities. Especially in this, an election year.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 3 – Revenge is a Dish Best Served Shaken, not Stirred

I relaxed at the end of the day in our half-completed private detective offices, the only other people present being the guy painting “Deep Knight and Associates” on our door and the cleaning lady who was finishing up dusting the Venetian blinds. A modern office of glass and steel, it was cold and silent, except for the underground digging and jackhammer sounds beneath my feet. Strange that utilities people would be working so late, not to mention right below the 7th floor. Perhaps it had something to do with the gurgling noises the drains had been making all day, although the vehicles at the manholes outside were clearly marked as being owned by the phone company.

Suddenly, and without warning, the jackhammer noises got louder and the floor burst open in our main reception area. Out of the dust came heavily-armed black-uniformed commandos wearing night vision goggles. Which was strange given that daylight was still streaming through our windows. Then, as if in a coordinated attack, drain water spurted fountain-like from our sinks and out crawled even-more-heavily armed scuba-suited commandos. I ducked behind my desk as the individuals involved got their bearings and, surprised, suddenly noticed each other. In the stillness that followed, the only noise was the whistling painter, still lettering our door.

It was apparent to me, both through training and my keen eyesight, that two New World Order assassination teams had shown up at almost the same time. This was unexpected, but I was prepared for the unexpected because I had expected it. I knew that I would be targeted once I went out on my own, simply because I knew too much. Well, that and the embarrassing in flagrante delicto situation some years back with me, Satan’s married daughter and that group of tattooed midget Spanish flamenco dancers. As you know, the big guy can really hold a grudge, especially when it comes to his dysfunctional family. Before the first commando had fired the first shot, a wall of bulletproof glass had lowered to make my desk a sanctuary, while an extensive weapons locker had opened behind me. I was armed and ready to repel any assault, but my preparation wasn’t necessary given what happened next.

The two different groups of assassins seemed surprised to see each other. It was then that my eagle eyes, and no doubt theirs also, noticed the hidden insignias and badges on their non-descript ninja and wetsuit uniforms, showing them to be from two different NWO divisions. The “underground” group was from the national shadow-government division whose loyalty was to Hillary Clinton, while the drain group was the famed Roto-Rooter Scuba Divers from the international banker division loyal to Donald Trump. The hatred between the two was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Politics had gotten that way recently. The laser-sighting beams from their weapons were two different colors, blue and red respectively. They were visible as bright beams in the dust and drain-water mist, and none of them were in my direction. They seemed to be oblivious to my presence when the shooting started, so I lit a cigarette and sat back to watch the fun.

The underwater team was armed with assault rifles and spear guns, the spears with exploding tips. It was amusing to watch one hit the ninja-masked face of an underground commando, not only was the bloody explosion technicolor red, it left the victim with that surprised look people get when they’re missing their head. The Hillary group dished it out as good as they got it, using motorized “Gatling guns” that spewed out bullets and spent shells at a furious rate, literally cutting people, walls and office furniture in half. The carnage was unbelievable, a bloody explosion of body parts and high-tech equipment. I pulled out my smart phone and recorded a video to watch in slow motion later. When the smoke cleared, no one was left alive. In fact, only the painter, who caught a stray round in the chest, was left in one piece. The cleaning lady, who was also at the edge of the action, had been disrobed and dismembered, but the remaining naked pieces were still large enough to be identifiable and R rated.

Whistling a cheery tune, I dragged what was left of her and the painter into my office and set about dousing them with gasoline from cans I had the printer-supply cabinet. Both looked familiar, which wasn’t unusual because they were my wife and my clones. I had picked them up when I cleaned out my desk at the Illuminati offices, also getting a full set of Slice Girl clones “just in case.” You never knew when you needed backup, or for that matter a good sword scene to liven up the action. With their DNA a match to ours, there was no reason the medical examiner wouldn’t issue death certificates and get our old employer off our backs.

I exited our offices, being careful not to slip or slide on the blood and gore, while throwing a lit match over my shoulder to char the clone corpses just enough to further confuse the evidence. As I expected, the police had yet to respond, no doubt they had been paid off twice by the two groups of commandos to delay long enough to give them a clean getaway. I changed my clothes and put on a wig in a lower-floor bathroom, and by the time I exited the building firefighters were already at work dousing the blaze I had started. Taking a bus out of Washington DC, I met my wife and kids in Baltimore, ready to start a new life. Except, not in Baltimore, I may be evil but I still had standards. I was thinking of someplace tropical and exciting, someplace that would be a good setting if they ever made this story into a movie. That place was Miami, or perhaps Miami Beach, or one of the beach communities between Miami and Miami Beach. Either way, the die was now cast, and it was time for our new business venture, Family Values Investigations, Inc., a name nobody would ever associate with Deep Knight.

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 4 – Lady Into Cement

We opened our Miami office soon after arrival, with me using the pseudonym “Tony Nome, PI.” As you know, Nome is the capitol of Alaska, and many ethnic Alaskan Mafiosi move to Florida for retirement, both because of rumors it’s not 20 below all winter, and to get away from the common law supreme court judges which infest “the old country.” We were in a dingy and decrepit old stone building which smelled of cigars and backed-up drains, just the sort of disreputable place one would associate with hardened private dicks.

My business plan was simple, there were plenty of private eyes to help law-abiding people harassed by crime, but few that helped criminals harassed by the law. Safecrackers, second-story men, forgers, embezzlers, short-story writers, pickpockets, and blackmailers had to look to their own resources – until now. Then there was the Florida Presidential Primary, which attracted the bottom of the crime barrel to the state like bears to something bears like. The seedier neighborhoods were full of pollsters, precinct captains, advance men, ward healers, and campaign managers of all sorts. Truly a smorgasbord of villainy, and a buffet I was ready to feast from - with the exception, of course, of the pickled herring.

With Velna ensconced as my secretary, where she used the pseudonym “Velma,” we opened for business. It wasn’t long until we had our first client, a Miss Wonderly who wanted us to find her sister, who had run off with a man named Floyd Thursby the previous Thursday. I told her that she was much too good for my business plan, and suggested she see Spade and Archer, who had offices just down the hall. She protested at my characterization, and said, “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know,” but I knew better.

“You know, that's good, because if you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be, we'd never get anywhere. You're good. You're very good.”

“Help me,” she replied, her eyes pleading and her voice throbbing.

“You won't need much of anybody's help. You're good. Chiefly your eyes, I think, and that throb you get in your voice when you sing things like 'A puddle o'vooty, puddle o'gooty, puddle o'scooty. Cement Mixer! Put-ti, Put-ti'.”

I scooted her out of my office, past Velna and the knives coming out of her eyes, and waited for a more suitable client. One who didn’t spin stories about a “black bird” being sought by “the Fat Man” or sing Liberace's old Slim Gaillard covers. The chance of every getting paid was too low, and the references too obscure to be humorous unless readers looked them up on Google. I didn’t have to wait long.

“My names is Waldo Gronski and I’m from the Republican establishment,” said the man Velna led into the office, “we need a man who knows his way around but doesn’t know too much, and that man may be you.”

“Sit down Senator Rubio,” I retorted, seeing the surprise on his face behind the fake beard and dark glasses. “I may just be that man.”

To be continued…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSOn5gQFDpE

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 5 – The Giant Rat of Sumatra

“How did you know who I really was?” asked my flabbergasted visitor, what you could see of his visage painted in stunned surprise. I thought for a mad moment about not telling him, for as Sherlock Holmes said, “a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick.” However, since I was addressing a politician I figured I wasn’t going to get credit anyway, so I answered.

“Most people see, but do not observe. For example, that stain of yellow mustard on your collar shows you have recently eaten a Cuban-style sandwich. Such cuisine is rare in Miami except in the tiny Cuban community here, but you don’t have that accent. So, it is likely you are the son of Cuban immigrants. Then there is that tattoo on your wrist, which I recognize as a bust of Herbert Hoover. The subtle pink shading of the scales is unique, and only done for the Republican hierarchy. The tooth marks on your walking stick, the Chinese coin on your watch chain, the red mud on your shoes, and the worn knees on your trousers, all of which point to only one person, Marco Rubio! You can hide your face, but not your ears, which unfortunately for you, your campaign posters show in great detail. Ears are as distinctive as fingerprints, but harder for CSI to lift off of surfaces.”

“Very clever Mr. Nome, but not clever enough!” said my prospective client. Turning his head, and with a few motions taking off the beard, bushy eyebrows, wig, and false nose, I was soon face to face with a face I didn’t recognize. The face of a woman!

“It is I, Debbie Wasserman Schultz!” she said with a triumphant look on her face. It was a name I didn’t recognize either.

“Heiress to the Wassermann Test fortune?” I asked inquisitively, searching my brain for where I had heard that name before, and I mean outside of the almost weekly testing of my misspent youth.

“No, U.S. Representative for Florida's 23rd congressional district and Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee!”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” responded, mostly because it didn’t. I racked my brain, looking in all the nooks and crannies of my memories, but came up as empty as the look on my face. “Are you sure you’re who you say you are, and not some pseudonym-using shape shifter like Sorcha Faal?”

“I’m well known, don’t you follow politics?”

“I may be bad, but I have good taste,” I retorted. “I prefer reading about murder and mayhem, which is much more civilized and less upsetting.”

“Here,” she said, putting a portable laptop computer out of her baggy pants, “just look at the nasty things they say about my online, even on liberal websites. That has to prove I’m a politician.”

Sure enough, the most unbelievably vile statements soon met my eye, posted with vindictive ire and hatred. Many were accompanied with photo-shopped pictures showing her as the victim of medieval tortures and being burned at the stake. Proof positive she was who she said she was and a political party official.

“But what about your tattoo?” I asked, “Certainly, few Democratic Congresswomen would go for Herbert Hoover except for reasons too horrible to contemplate, unless it was due to a perverse sexual fetish, of course.”

“It’s not Hoover,” said my guest, “It’s a naked body builder I picked up at Subic Bay while in the Navy. Alcohol was involved. If you flex your muscles right he dances. See?”

Convinced, I offered her a fat cigar and a lean drink, two fingers of rye in a dirty glass, and settled back to hear her story.

“What I am about to tell you must not leave this room,” she said puffing on her stogie, “but I am sure you can be trusted to be discrete, if not due to professional ethics, for your own safety, Mr. Nome. Or should I say, Deep Knight.”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 6 – The Giant Rat Pack of Sinatra

With a calm look on my face, I faced my fate forthrightly, denying everything. “My name is Nome, baby. Tony Nome, as in the capital of Alaska.”

“Nome isn’t the capital of Alaska.”

“I know, but ‘Pierre Juneau” sounded way too silly and vaguely Canadian.”

“Let’s stop playing cat and mouse, Mr. Knight, we know your face, and let’s face it, it’s your face.”

“I’ve never heard of this Knight character, whoever he is, and am insulted you think I’m him. Unless it’s because he’s a sexy stud muffin, in that case I’m a little flattered, though while still being insulted.”

“You forget that there are ramifications to having millions of lovers, there’s nowhere to hide. One of your blink-and-you’d-miss-her conquests, angry because you ruined here for other men and then never called, let us know you were here in Miami. Instead of turning you over to our party’s ultimate rulers, the New World Order, we decided to use you for our own purposes. Besides, you know what a temper Satan has, you never know what he’ll do, so I find it’s best not to rock the boat.”

I had to admit, she had a point. The faces of the millions of super models who have been through my bed had all melded together into one high-cheek-boned visage, making them anonymous to me, and I assumed the reverse was true also. Besides, who looks at their faces? But they had all remembered my features, no doubt fixing it in their minds forever, and not just so they could describe it to a police artist.

“I’ve heard about you for years, Mr. Knight. As the only subject of a class-action suite for ‘breach of promise,’ what lawyer hasn’t? Our party has a problem that requires a certain set to skills, and it might just be up your alley. And no, it doesn’t have to do with your wee-wee.”

“I don’t like your game, sister, but you’ve got my ass in your sling, so I have no choice. What is it that you want me to do?”

“You’re not gonna like it,” she assured me, “in fact, I think you’re gonna hate it. It will expose you to danger every inch of the way, and even if you’re successful you might not come out with everything intact. And yes, this time I am talking about your wee wee.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. I know which side my bread is buttered on, and that side was toast unless I played this just right.

“First, buzz your lovely wife Velna in here so we can explain it to you both at once. And a piece of advice, if you really want to hide, call her something besides ‘Velma’ in the future, it’s too close to her real name. And don’t try anything cute, my whole staff knows I’m here, and if I don’t return they’ll make the call to the big guy downstairs.”

Using my intercom I ushered Velna into my office, making sure I used the correct code words to let her know not to assassinate our client. She’s naturally homicidal, one of the things that made me fall in love with her in the first place, and it’s best not to take chances. Once settled in together, Ms. Schultz shocked us with a tale too unbelievable not to be true. A tale so perverse and annoying it took me a whole new chapter to gather my wits together enough to get started.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 7 – The Worm Turns

When I had thought that my client was from the Republican Establishment, I assumed it was a political assassination job. While more dangerous than other murders for hire, they paid well and gave the killer a tremendous amount of job satisfaction. Especially if you watched TV and had to sit through the battleground state ads during the primaries. I thought it possible that this was an “Another Super Tuesday” Miami ice bullet delivery, but I was wrong.

“When we installed Hillary Clinton as our Secretary of State, we cleverly had her use her own e-mail server in defiance of the Constitution. Unfortunately, she got caught, and we’ve been having to explain why she deleted thousands of e-mails. Unknown to our political enemies, these were all e-mails from supposed Nigerian bank workers and African princes with offers to share cash windfalls. Being an educated woman, Secretary Clinton put then in her e-trash, but now subpoenas have forced us to recover them.”

“Go on,” I urged Chairperson Schultz, trying hard to keep awake.

“These seemed to be obvious scams, but last week one of our workers responded to one as a joke, sending in my address, SSN, and bank account information. If I had heard, I would have had him killed, but yesterday this unexpectedly arrived in an envelope with a Nigerian postmark.” She opened her small purse, and shaking it over my desk emptied it of a huge pile of US currency, mostly 100s. From the size I estimated it to be around $30 million.

“I assume the worker who played this trick on you is now a hero, so you don’t need him killed,” I observed, “So quite frankly I don’t know what you need from me.”

“It’s not that,” she said sweetly, “I killed him yesterday. One thing you learn in politics is to not leave any witnesses. What I need is someone to answer the thousands of e-mails and deliver the money to me. Someone who would never blab to the New World Order. A perfect fit for you two.”

So that’s why she wanted a fugitive from the NWO, she didn’t want to give them their “cut.” Which considering how short it was of funds seemed doubly dangerous to me. But Velna saw other dangers.

“I don’t mind breaking any and all laws of God and man,” retorted my wife, “but I don’t like sending anyone our banking information. Especially now that we have to establish our credit under our now new name ‘Nome’ from scratch.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Knight,” said our connected client, “I’ve already set up a special dummy account under a phony name in a drug money laundering bank in the Keys. All you have to do is play the part of a middleman, especially since you’re a woman.”

“Enough about my wife’s private parts,” I said angrily, “I doubt there will be any funds. These ‘Nigerian 419 Advance-Fee Scams’ are not only obvious, no one has ever heard of one paying out before. It’s almost inconceivable yours did, it had to be some sort of mix-up. If you want us to waste our time, fine, but how do we know you won’t turn on us when it doesn’t work out?”

“I have assumed from the first that you are keeping a record to this, probably to write as one of your silly online stories. So it would be foolish of me to murder you, even though most of your readers would keep quiet, or worse. It might also assure you to know I’m getting out of politics soon and thinking of buying a Caribbean island to have all to myself, perhaps Jamaica.”

“I know when I’m licked,” I agreed, “those parts smell dank, and feel sort of wet and clammy. Our rates are $1,000 a day, 20% of the take, and expenses. And that includes three martini lunches.”

“5% of the take, and half a martini,” she answered firmly. No doubt an old horse-trader from those days when they actually traded horses. After some negotiation, we settled on 10% and 2 beers and a basket of pretzels for lunch. A good deal, but still something was worrying me. It was like there was some great disturbance in The Force, and not from exploded planets but events that simply made no sense. Not to mention the outrageously false claims made at the political debates. But my middle name was “Danger,” or would have been if I had put that on my newly-forged identification documents, so I pushed my reservations aside and got set to send some e-mails.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 8 – Return of the Turned Worm


Ms. Wasserman Schultz forwarded us the first group of over 10,000 Nigerian 419 e-mails, and we diligently set about answering them. It was a dangerous job, the carpal tunnel alone will kill you, but Velna soon had them all answered. My wife, secretary, and designated assassin was now using the name Velda to confuse any snoopy sleuths, but on our newly-forged identification documents she used “Velveeta,” her name’s Spanish form, which was less conspicuous in Mexico-bordering Miami. The office was quiet again, except for a surprise return visit by Miss Wonderly, who was now using the name “Leblanc.” It seems that she had hired Spade and Archer as I suggested, but was now doubtful of their competence, seeing that Miles Archer had been shot and killed his first night on the job. She tearfully poured her fears to me as Velna gave her the evil eye while cleaning her guns and sharpening her knives in the outer office.

“Mr. Archer was so alive yesterday, so solid and hearty...”

“Stop it,” I replied, really wishing she would, whimpering women are so annoying, “He knew what he was doing. Those are the chances we take.”

“Was he married?”

“Yeah, with ten thousand insurance, no children, and a wife that didn't like him.”

“So little? That was stupid! I knew I should have had you take my case, Mr. Nome, someone I could trust, a real man!”

“He thought it was ten million, I know because I sold him the policy. With a little White-Out and some fast talking, his wife Iva will never know the difference. Besides, she’s having an affair with his partner, Sam, and given how stupid that is, it’s a wonder she can find her way out of his bed in the morning. That’s just another reason you can trust Sam Spade, he knows how to treat a lady. He also used to play piano at a bar somewhere in North Africa, I forget which town.”

“Casablanca, at Rick’s Café Americain,” responded Miss Wonderly, er, Lablanc, or was it now “Lund?” “There's still nobody in the world who can play ‘As Time Goes By’ like Sam.”

His musical talents didn’t seem to sway her, nor did the fact that now half the firm was gone services would be at half price. She still insisted that I take her case, but I wasn’t buying any of it. Besides, Velna had that look that told me she was ripe for homicide, and nothing is worse for a PI’s reputation than dead clients on their premises. I ushered her out the back way so she wouldn’t be subject to Velna’s ire, and spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding my jealous wife by playing ‘Candy Crush’ on my smart phone.

Later in the week I was amazed at the piles of mail that were being delivered to our office, each #10 envelope stuffed with millions of dollars. We had to buy a De La Rue counting machine to keep up with it. I was amazed; you could have knocked me down with a feather. Something was terribly wrong, I had the persistent feeling I was being set up like a bowling pin in a 2-bit pool hall. I had to find what was going on!

On a hunch, I called up one of my inside sources at Wells Fargo, that is to say one of the men I was bribing, and pumped him for information. Using a burner phone I bought for cash in “Little Stockholm,” one of Miami’s many ethnic Nordic neighborhoods, I made the call untraceable – just in case. A Vice Branch Manager, he was anxious when I finally got him on the line.

“I’ve been wondering when you were finally going to contact me,” he moaned, “they’re about to announce the RV and I have my mistresses' debutante ball to pay for.”

“The money is on the way. But, first, tell me what’s happening in relation to the RV.” I said slyly, not letting him know I was out of the banker bribing business.

“After all these years, they’re finally gonna do it! And for some reason they’re moving WF Headquarters here to Reno and using this us as the cash hub. Rumor is that it’s so newly-minted billionaires can get a quick divorce and pick up a trophy wife from the chorus line at one of the casinos – one stop shopping!”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 9 – Assault on Eagle One

Velna saw my mouth agape and the stunned look in my eyes. “You are NOT going to ravish that Wonderly woman,” she requested, “remember that talk we had about your penis and how you would like to keep it? Besides, I don’t trust her! I’m sure I’ve seen here somewhere before.”

“They’re going to RV the Iraqi Dinar,” I gasped, “I’m afraid to ask about the Zim, and who knows what they’re doing with their Dong.”

“What the @#$!?” said my better half wisely, “Those &%#@!s are as worthless as Peruvian guano bonds! Something is very, very wrong.”

It was unusual for my wife to talk like this, even though she had once killed people for a living, that didn’t mean she approved of bad language. I was concerned too, here we were collecting millions of dollars from Nigeria that shouldn’t exist, and it unsettled me. I had the feeling that we were being set up, and if something went wrong we would be left holding the bag. That that bag was full of huge piles of money made me feel a bit better, but still I had to get to the bottom of this.

“Tell any new clients I’m out, doing something a real Dick would do,” I emphatically suggested, “I’m going home to defrost the Slice Girl clones and then pay a visit to our Ms. Wasserman Schultz.”

I had done my homework on our client, she lived in a fortified mountain chalet in the Florida Alps, a snowcapped range that ran through the southwest half of the state. Home to sheepherders and goat-ropers, much of it was still wilderness. Dressing up the Slice Girls in low-cut dirndls and braiding their hair, we approached the compound in the guise of an all-girl yodeling folk chorus taking an inspirational hike. As I had anticipated, the all-male guards were putty in their hands, and with no more noise than a swishing sword, the perimeter was soon ours. Then, once past the minefield, alligator-filled moat, and mounted machine guns, the rest was easy.

“Give it up!” I mentioned to a startled Chairperson Wasserman Schultz, who we had cornered in the palatial laundry room with her uncle. A retired Master Sergeant in the Coast Guard, some said he was the brains behind their operation. He was about to drop his Luger pistol, when our client smiled and motioned for him to stop.

“I thought you might pay us a visit, and knew that you had some sword slinging playmates, so I planned my defense knowing this! Let me introduce you to the Democratic National Committee Ninjas!”

Suddenly, out of every dark corner of the room came masked Florida-style ninja warriors, each with their sword on their back. It looked like another lengthy dual was in the making, but I didn’t have time either for it, or to write about the resulting carnage in detail. So I smiled and suggested the girls drop their swords … then pull out their Uzis! The ninjas, who only had swords were almost immediately dispatched, riddled with bullets their bleeding corpses littered the room. Some were cut in half from the sheer number of holes, and their perforated organs slithered around in the dark red pools of blood. I took pictures using my phone to upload to Facebook later.

Our client’s uncle dropped his weapon and, given the smell, pooped his pants. I decided to he would be the weak link in this chain, brought out my bolt cutter, and put them where they would do the most good. Then I suggested that he tell us what he knew.

“I know everything, everything!” Sgt. Schultz blurted out, pleasing me but disappointing the millions of Hogan’s Heroes fans who read my stories, who expected him to “know nothing.”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 10 – Ten Lords a Leaping

Sgt. Schultz took a long swig from his hip flask, luckily not stored on his hip pocket which was now sotted by a spreading brown stain, and started his story. “It was early 2015 when the members of the Senate Satanic Conspiracy Oversight Committee decided that the New World Order needed a budget cut. Not that the NWO needed funds from the government, their octopus-like tentacles were wrapped around every major source of illicit funds on the planet. Scams, shams, blackmail, bank robbery, extortion, kidnapping, professional football, and you name it. Some saw this as a cash cow to fund the government with, and went in with a red pen to slash expenditures. Of course, being the government, this took some time, but it finally caught up with their operations.”

“I know,” I argued, “they laid off me and my wife in Chapter 2.”

“So you’ve been exposed to the gang of hard-assed CPAs whose granite butts are legendary. I know, I tried to cop a feel once. But what these audacious actuaries didn’t realize is that evil never sleeps. So, when it does sleep, the world is thrown off balance and into a cesspool of irrational events. As we speak, NESARA is about to announced, debts forgiven, prosperity packies delivered, worthless currency revalued, and the Wanta plan implemented. With the microwave mind control cell phone towers turned off, people are finally waking up and smelling the chemtrails. The results could be devastating!”

I had to agree, but was wise enough not to let on. “And the Nigerian 419 scams funds?” I blurted out, “What about collecting on those?”

“Just my niece being greedy,” her finking family member blabbed, “had I not been greedy myself, I would have stopped her. But hundreds of millions in income a day is nothing to sneeze at.”

“The problem is,” he continued, “if this isn’t stopped those hundreds of millions won’t buy a cup of coffee. You can’t distribute the hundred quintadecazillion dollars without causing a level of inflation that will make bubblegum look like kid’s candy.”

“Do you mean the Saint Germain trust?” I clarified, “The one that’s fabulously big because, being an immortal never-dying guy, he’s been compounding interest for years and years?”

“Naw,” replied the fatuous fink, “Saint had lousy investment advice and has lost his shirt over and over again. Besides, as he gets older his expenses keep increasing; you would be shocked at how much daily injections of Botox cost.”

The man was wise beyond his years, not that he was young, but you know how befuddled some of these Florida retirees get. He deserved a reward. I turned to my commando clones and gave them their new instructions.

“Keep the two of them incommunicado here,” I lamented, “and clean up the old guy then give him a night of sexual excesses he’ll never forget. You know, something perverted and sleazy but still sweet and memorable. Then kill them both. It’s best not to leave any loose ends.”

Having been cloned one-too-many times, the Slice Girls were exhibiting some signs of mental degeneration, such as impatience. Not having the satisfaction of slashing and slicing during the earlier Uzi work, they didn’t wait until morning and our former client was boned and fileted before I left. Luckily for their and my reader’s libido, her terrified uncle was spared but stripped naked and tied to a bed. Most men would have performance problems given these circumstances and an impending execution, but the Slice Girls had their ways. I would have liked to stay and write up the scandalous pornographic details, but knew I had to get back and warn Velda, er, Velveeta, er, Velna.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 11 – Nympho Queen of the Faceless Men

The road back was crowded and twisting, winding through the mountains and past Fort Lauderdale Ski Area, packed with college kids on Spring Break. It was late before I got to the office, and although I called to let Velna know, all the calls had gone to voice mail. When I arrived I found out why, she had been drugged! I could tell by her wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and patched, faded jeans, not to mention her enthusiastically listening to “The Grateful Dead” while doing a wavy-armed sort of dance.

“Far-out and groovy,” she said dreamily, “that Miss Wonderly angel is in your office. I like her, she’s got funny tasting cigarettes, but I still like her.”

I opened my office door angrily, and once again saw the lady who had been bothering me for the last couple of weeks. She was wearing all black and her hat had a long veil, but I could still tell it was her by the smell of her gaggingly-sweet perfume. She arose and faced me in the darkened room.

“Mr. Nome, I, I have a terrible, terrible confession to make. That story I told you was just a story.”

“Oh, that. Well, I didn't exactly believe your story, Miss... What is your name, Wonderly or LeBlanc?”

“It's O'Shaughnessy. Brigid O'Shaughnessy.”

“I didn't exactly believe your story. Which is why I sent you to Spade and Archer.”

“Them! One’s dead and the other’s a dud! I can’t say much good about Mr. Spade; he always went heavily armed, and that he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspapers, so that nobody could come silently into his room. Or go to the bathroom to pee without getting shot at twice.”

“You picked a nice sort of a playmate.”

“Only that sort could have helped me, if he'd been loyal.”

I grew tired of playing cat and mouse like a dog, and cut to the chase, “I’m not interested in anything but answers. For starters, why do you keep interrupting the plot’s progression and throwing yourself at me? It can’t be a coincidence, I don’t believe in them. Everything happens for a reason, unless of course you’re in a story by a writer who gets paid by the word and so adds a lot of padding.”

“You’re absolutely the most wild and unpredictable person I’ve ever known. What would you do if I didn't tell you? Something wild and unpredictable?” she answered.

“I might,” I asked, looking her straight in the eyes and lavishly licking my lips. Then I grabbed her, wrapping my arms around her shapely body, ripping the veil from her black pill-box hat with my teeth, and giving her a hard, hot and wet kiss. For good measure I pinched her.

“I love you!” she observed, “Take me here and now, and without the benefit of marriage.”

“Not so fast sister,” I said, disengaging and aiming a brace of 45s at her 42 inch bust. “I gave that sort of thing up for Lent. And besides, you’re going to be too busy telling me what’s going on. It’s your only way out, because you see, I know what’s going on.”

To be continued…

[Burnaby49]

How about abandoning your tedious tale and telling us more about the deadly nazi fight of the depraved nude girl duelists instead. Sounds a lot more interesting. Although I'll just note that wearing bathing suits doesn't qualify as nude. Maybe they aren't even depraved. You just can't trust anything in the media any more.

[Deep Knight]

How about abandoning your tedious tale and telling us more about the deadly nazi fight of the depraved nude girl duelists instead. Sounds a lot more interesting. Although I'll just note that wearing bathing suits doesn't qualify as nude. Maybe they aren't even depraved. You just can't trust anything in the media any more.

I keep forgetting some of you are from the Great White North where cable channels are restricted and you don't get the Nude Martial Arts Network. There are also literally hundreds of channels dedicated to things like mud and jello wrestling, naked game shows, and nudist canoeing. You may get health care, but for a ridiculous subscription price we can watch Nazi guards force unclothed women to dual to the death. My writing about such things would be superfluous.

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 12 – Can Any Man Be Trusted?

I waited, my two hot rods each a hair’s breadth from spitting leaded death at the shapely Miss Whatever, the persistent client who I had tried to palm off on Spade and Archer. Now Archer was dead and Spade exposed, OK for a stripper but devastating for a private dick.

Her tight, clinging little black dress showed all of her womanly charms, charms she had tried to use to ensnare me and my private eye parts. But those parts were made of sterner stuff; after literally millions of lovers, one more notch on my well-carved bedpost meant almost nothing. My steely will resisted her “come hither” looks, her bedroom eyes, and her luscious lips’ pleas for ravishment. Besides, my wife was right outside and the walls of my office glass.

“Talk,” I grumbled, “it’s your only way you’ll make it to Chapter 13.”

“No!” she summarized, “I never squeal, unless it’s when I’m using my baby-doll voice.”

“You forget, little lady, that I tried to pinch you just now when I kissed you. I say ‘tried,’ because your ass was as hard as cement! A good friend, who will be killed on my orders in a few hours, warned me about buns like yours, and how they were attached to the New World Order’s CPAs! The jig is up!”

Her crestfallen countenance told me I had kicked her where it hurt, and she begrudgingly told me her tale full of woe.

“Mister, I met a man when I was a kid, she started, woefully, “he led me in to accountancy. I tried to give it up, to quit and do something different like prostitution, but the excitement always drew me back. A balanced ledger gets me wetter than some month when it’s always raining.”

“The key was always a hard logic, hence the plastic surgery to harden my heiney. So when things get too easy, I get suspicious. Like the apparently crazy things the Illuminati were conspiring against, they were too transparently ludicrous. The stories were just unbelievable enough to be true! I dug a little deeper, and found one of our minions about to contact you as a Nigerian 419 intermediary, so I beat them to the punch. But you repeatedly rejected me, so direct action was called for. Knowing you were gone, I got your wife stoned and she confirmed my suspicious. She also told me what part of your anatomy did your thinking for you. I thought you would be putty in the hands my desirable number-crunching body. Once you had become my love slave, I would find out all I needed to know.”

Her story made sense, which of course made it impossible. “You are a liar,” I objected.

“I am. I've always been a liar.”

“Don't brag about it. Was there any truth at all in that yarn?”

“Some...not very much...Oh, I'm - I'm so tired, so tired of lying and making up lies, not knowing what is a lie and what's the truth. If I had wanted that kind of life, I would have gone into politics.”

She wasn’t the sort of woman you could trust, but perhaps she was a woman who could be used, and not just as a love-juice repository. I decided to keep her busy and keep her guessing. The less time she had to think, the less time she could be thinking up mischief.

“From what you’ve been saying, it’s obvious who those men in the pastel suites who were shadowing me, were,” I lied, having seen no one following me what-so-ever. “This may mean we have only a few minutes before they come back, so we need to get out of here right now.” I could see she was the kind of girl who didn’t get shot at regularly, and would be scared by the idea of a dozen assassins descending upon her. Velna was starting to come out of her 60’s-inspired drugging, and only needed a little assistance to walk in a straight line. Good enough so she could drive, and let me keep an eye on our untrustworthy CPA for the NWO.

Just as the elevator door was closing, the neighboring elevator disgorged its passengers, all of them wearing pastel suits and sunglasses. So there actually were people following me! They were Miami Vice, Interpol, MI-6 or FBI for sure, they had bulges in all the right places. With luck they hadn’t seen us, but I’ve learned over the years that trusting to luck meant an early grave. It was risky enough trusting our new CPA “friend.” To be honest, we hadn’t any choice, help was hours away having sex with Sgt. Schultz. It was time to throw caution to the wind, when the doors opened we hit the parking garage running, silencer-equipped guns a-blazing.

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 13 –The Telltale Footprint of the Constant Velocity Boot

With our automatic weapons spitting a barrage of bullets the parking garage was soon secure. Actually, there was no one there to impede our egress, but you can never be too careful when it comes to covering your butt. Unfortunately, even though our guns had silencers, the crashing of glass, triggering of alarm systems, and fiery explosion of one car’s fuel tank announced our presence in a way that could be heard up to our 4th floor offices. There was no time to lose, so we piled into my fast-yet-furious street racer, and with Velna driving headed out into the night.

We didn’t have to wait long to hear the squealing-tire sounds of our pursuit. We also heard more explosions, no doubt the leaking gas from other cars igniting, like dominoes falling. A lucky accident I would later claim was part of a clever plan. As it was, only one car made it out of the garage to pursue us, and that car’s center was on fire. A bit of a problem when your ride is a convertible, but our pursuer still pursued us, no doubt bent on homicide or worse. Velna’s driving was so erratic that someone distracted by a flaming back seat would have trouble following, but the numerous broken side mirrors she sideswiped still left a clear trail and we couldn’t shake him. Velna decided to take a steep and twisty road up one of Miami’s legendary 7 hills and he followed. No doubt this shifted the gas in our pursuer’s perforated tank and almost immediately he was engulfed in a hellish fireball. If my drug-addled wife hadn’t been driving so erratically, I would have taken an almost-sure-to-go-viral video with my smart phone. We drove on, leaving him in the dust; if by dust you mean charred cremation ash.

We pulled onto the Anita Bryant Expressway, and I instructed Velna to head towards Melbourne. I knew of a safehouse there, repossessed from the rightful owner by one of our “banks” just for this purpose. It had been seized recently, so the odds of its being known outside of ex-Illuminati circles was slight. It was also where the Slice Girls had been instructed to meet me if our offices were on fire. It’s always good practice to have emergency plans, and given the amount of destructions and mayhem that seemed to follow me, something I swear by. Going in excess of 100 mph, our headlights off to avoid being seen, and weaving back and forth like yarn in a tweed factory, we fled north.

Velna must have been coming out of her drug-induced trance as we neared our destination, she was hitting guardrails and signposts less frequently and causing fewer fatal accidents in our wake. Normally I would be concerned that she was leaving a trail of car-wreck breadcrumbs for assassins to follow, but given how people drive in Florida, I doubted anyone would notice. Melbourne was in that part of the state settled by emigrants from Australia, and the safehouse in a rough neighborhood called “Little New South Wales.” The drunken men littering the streets in front of still-open pubs all looked authentic enough, with the brims of their hats folded up on one side, but I still wasn’t taking any chances. I left my wife to “sleep off” her altered state, Miss O'Shaughnessy/Wonderly/LeBlanc to sort out which of her names were real and which ones pseudonyms, and took the first watch.

Dawn had broken, leaving little shards of first light scattered on the landscape, when our CPA coconspirator came to relieve me. Unfortunately, she was thinking of the type of carnal “relief” that would not please my jealous and homicide-capable wife. Naked as a jay bird, yet still displaying a coy shyness, she plopped herself on my lap and gave me a long, soulful kiss. The smell of her perfume, “Midnight in the Everglades,” overwhelmed me and I found myself wavering in my resolve to keep my wedding vows. Fortunately for family values, just then a van pulled up in front of the safehouse, and disgorged what looked like an old Australian sheepherder with a load of wallabies. My keen eye for detail clued me into the fact that something was not as it seemed, for example there were samurai swords stuck in the marsupial’s belts. It was then I realized that we were being joined by the Slice Girl clones, with a still-alive Sgt. Schultz herding them as they hopped towards the house.

I was prepared for lame excuses from the Slice Girls, apparently the man I had left to be their victim was “cute” and “a tiger in the sack,” but unprepared for his reaction to Miss O’Shaughnessy. They fell into each other’s arms and the fireworks could be heard all the way to Daytona Beach, as could certain squishing noises. I looked at the Slice Girls to give them the go-ahead to become a human food processor, but they were smiling and saying things like, “it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.” Weird.

Velna, awakened by the noise, came it and was less curious about Miss O’Shaughnessy being naked than the Slice Girls’ choice of costume. For some reason she thought it was an intricate role-playing sex game, no doubt due that incident with the costumed Disney characters in an Orlando motel, What can I say, sometimes you’re in the wrong place diddling the wrong mousehole at the wrong time. Throwing a robe over our naked CPA’s nakedness, I angrily asked for less foreplay and more explanations.

“It was a dark and stormy night,” began Sgt. Schultz, “with two outs, the bases loaded, and Casey at bat.”

To be continued…

[Deep Knight]

Evil on the Rocks
Chapter 14 – Weird Love … Savage Love … Clown Love!

Sgt. Schultz continued his startling tale.

“That wasn’t really Ms. Wasserman Schultz’s the Slice Girls killed at the alpine chalet; it was merely a soulless clone. No offense. I’d been in tight places before, even once had to dress like a clown in the African jungle, so I turned on the charm. Soon the ladies and I were having multiple orgasms and a wonderful time, making it easy to convince them I was more valuable alive that dismembered. That includes solving this case, because I know a thing or two about things. For example, I had a torrid affair with Brigid here and a few of her co-workers to pump them for information. But while cynically using her for my own gain, I fell deeply in love, especially with her excellent mind and extra-firm behind. You can use it for cracking walnuts.”

“So her name really IS Brigid O’Shaughnessy!” I blurted out, amazed that anything she ever told me was true, “And you were a double, or is that triple, agent for the NWO, DNC, FBI and who knows what other 3 letter combinations.”

“No, Brigid McGill,” admitted the now-covered nude in Sgt. Schultz’s arms, “I use O’Shaughnessy because it’s shorter and called myself ‘Lil,’ though everyone knew me as ‘Nancy.’ But I turned over a new leaf after meeting Siegfried, who everyone knows as ‘Hans.’” She smiled at him and wiggled.

“Brigid and her workmates were unwilling pawns in a gambit to forever defund the New World Order, their international banks, and felonious franchises. Once the huge amounts of wealth in the various programs and deliveries they had been thwarting became available, and everyone would be rich. But, once everyone had billions it would destroy the economy and wipe out everyone’s wealth, including the ruling elite’s! But the dark powers got talked into it by a shadowy presence nobody talks about. They only whisper about him using the code name “e-dabs. No doubt one of those computer terms, like i-phone.”

A light bulb went on inside my brain, but I was careful not to let that insight out and tip my hand. “There only was ever one power center, Satan himself. He used to rule with an iron fist! What happened to change all that?”

“Ever since he started working out at the gym and lost that weight, Satan has been focused on getting out, meeting new people, and seducing them into perdition. His golf and tennis have also really improved. He doesn’t have time to be a hands-on CEO and a social butterfly both, and someone is taking advantage. Someone with an agenda!”

“You’re saying that someone needs to clue him into what’s happening,” I intoned, “But I’ve had some experience with him and bad news, there’s always hell to pay. Think about it, no doubt it’s the reason he doesn’t know about this yet.”

“Exactly right,” said Sgt. Schultz suavely, “you remember the story about the guy who told him about the cold day in Hell after they shut off the utilities? They were never able to get the stains off the carpet. But still, he has to know, before it’s too late.”

“Or does he?” I wondered, thinking outside the evil box, “Maybe the problem is that the people who keep the world safe by conspiring against it, are insufficiently appreciated. What if we let this progress until even the Devil himself can’t ignore it? We could lead him to the edge and let him gaze into the abyss. You better believe that would be the end of cost-savings cutbacks and across-the-board budget cuts!”

Sgt. Schultz looked troubled. “That's an attitude, sir, that calls for the most delicate judgment on both sides. 'Cause as you know, sir, in the heat of action men are likely to forget where their best interests lie and let their emotions carry them away.

“I’m not concerned about their forgetting, I’m counting on it!” I exclaimed, “Besides, I have an ace up my hole that might be the winning combination. But right now I need a cup of strong java and some well-earned shut eye.”

To be continued…