practical man and prefer hips large enough to bear many, many children. So perhaps you will make me happy after all.”
Ha! Says you , I think, but I stifle the urge to stick my stiletto into his heart.
Besides, his breasts are bigger than mine, so I’m not sure I’d find his heart underneath all that blubber.
I’d sure have fun trying, though. Like playing a real-life version of that old game, “Operation.”
Instead, I bow my head to the man once renowned as the top torture expert in Qaddafi’s army and murmur, “It is true, sir. Allah has given me many wonderful years. But the life of a fertile virgin is empty if it is not spent at the side of an honorable husband.”
Melmud was ID’ed by Interpol’s Universal Face Workstation as the thug standing with Carl in the munitions exchange video. His payoff in arranging the fatal meeting was a new identity and a one-way ticket to the United States.
Ladies, big FYI: because this coward left his three wives and nine children to face Libya’s mob rule, he’s back on the market. His online dating profile in Anastasia Date (the leading website for men seeking Russian brides looking to move overseas) reads like this:
Join me in America!
Strong, virile and handsome man seeks slim and perfect woman with whom to share his life. Let’s hit the links, and take long walks on the beach at sunset!
Must be Muslim, and a virgin. Natural blonde preferred. Must like golf and also hiking, since sometimes we may spend time camping out in the desert for long periods of time. But I am well-endowed, so it will be worth your while.
Quite a charmer, ain’t he?
Arnie hacked into Melmud’s account and zapped the responses from the few Slavic singletons desperate enough to answer the ad so that I’d be his default choice.
My own response was fine-tuned in the hope of making me sound meek, pious and submissive. My profile photos were shot by a photographer who freelances for Playboy , and all that implies. With the help of a sheer, form-hugging shift and some soft backlighting, the photographer knew exactly how to accentuate the positive.
So did Arnie, who’s a wiz at Photoshop. Pippa has set a very high bar for the rest of us. I may have been wearing a headscarf, but now it’s obvious that Melmud’s eyes weren’t drawn to the shape of my head.
Ideally, “Nadia” would have flown from Moscow to LAX, but thanks to Arnie’s hacking, the best Melmud could pull off on such short notice was a flight to San Francisco, where he was to meet her, then fly her into Santa Barbara on his private jet.
A blond female Acme operative with my height, weight measurements (perky breasts and all) and an identical headscarf boarded the flight. When she got off, she went into the fifth stall of the closest ladies’ lavatory, where I was already waiting for her. We’re dressed as twins down to our matching headscarves, so anyone following her would presume we’re one and the same. She handed me her ticket to put with my fake passport, changed her clothes and wig, and then there was one.
Melmud’s bodyguard met me at baggage claim and hustled me into another terminal, where Melmud’s private customized Gulfstream G650 was ready to whisk us down to Santa Barbara. The plane is tricked out with a private living room, bedroom, dining room and kitchen galley.
In other words, all the comforts of home for a fugitive on the run.
Now that I’m in mid-flight with my supposed betrothed, I’ll slip him the ultimate mickey—SP-117, a concoction invented by Russia’s external foreign intelligence arm, the SVR. It’s tasteless, colorless, and leaves the victim clueless as to anything he may have said.
While he’s under the influence, I’ll ask him the whereabouts of the missing munitions cache. But it’s only a fifty-minute flight, so I’ve got to work fast. My problem: being Muslim, neither Melmud nor his thug drinks liquor or caffeine. A glass of water will have to do.
I begin with
Jennifer - a Hope Street Church Stanley
Bill Dugan
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Anne McCaffrey
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