"BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, make missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations.

The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished sometime after the American-led invasion last year.

The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes."

American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings.

The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked some of it. The other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain.

"This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk," one senior Bush administration official said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Sunday evening that Saddam Hussein's government "stored weapons in mosques, schools, hospitals and countless other locations," and that the allied forces "have discovered and destroyed perhaps thousands of tons of ordnance of all types." A senior military official noted that HMX and RDX were "available around the world" and not on the nuclear nonproliferation list, even though they are used in the nuclear warheads of many nations.

After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

The trip to Kabul had been arduous. First, there was the climb over the mountains to a rocky undetectable, dirt track leading down to an ancient and battered Willys jeep. He rode in the back to the edge of Nahrin, where earthquakes had pummeled the ancient walled city into dirt and rock and then they jounced through the rutted post roads. It was dusty and especially hot wearing the gray lungee that they had wrapped on his head. With a full beard and dressed in the traditional heavy woolen chapan that signified he was making his way to the Hajj, he looked much like any other devout Muslim.

After seven hours in the back of an Afghani truck filled with sheep, goats and chickens, the lunar landscape melted into brown, tired, earth tones. In the city, he took a taxi downtown and switched to another, just to be sure he was not followed, and melted into the crowd like a snowflake falling on a window pane.

The following morning, he arrived at the airport. There was a lingering stench of death about the airport in Kabul. The Taliban had often used it for public executions and the smell of rotting flesh had never left the place. The mullahs had every airline manifest and the Taliban knew how to tear the heart out of hope. Anyone who thought they could escape the Hand of God got no further than the airport. The Taliban hauled them off planes, knocked them to their knees and, in front of lines of people waiting to leave the country, mercilessly shot them in the back of the head. The dead were left on the floor and anyone who tried to cover or remove their bodies received the same treatment.

On that morning, Kabul International Airport was filled with pilgrims who were waiting for flights to make the Hajj. Wearing his modest Muslim costume, he blended in perfectly. The check-in line for Ariana, the Afghan national airline, went out the door and around the building like a coiled snake. Anticipating the long delay, the chosen brought prayer rugs ready for the mid-day prayer. The man wearing the gray lungee passed a few bills to the one of the transport police and was escorted directly to the front counter. In Kabul, nobody with money waits in line. When he finished checking in, he made his way upstairs to the new bathrooms, where he shaved and changed into Western clothes.

The bearded, old Muslim who walked into the bathroom disappeared and a clean-shaven, tanned, younger man in an Italian designer business suit appeared in his place. Holding out his boarding pass at the gate, the agent asked to see his passport. He smiled broadly and took the passport out of his suit pocket. The passport was Nicaraguan. "Mr. Bolognos?" the agent asked, as he looked at the photo in the passport.

"Si, Senor Juan Pedro Bolognos."

There was a look of suspicion that crept into the agent's eyes. Very few visitors came to Afghanistan these days and even fewer from Nicaragua. The man who stood in front of him and the picture on the passport were identical. Long black hair, determined brown eyes, straight nose and smiling confidently, not unexpected for a man in his late thirties.

"Is everything in order?"

"Yes. We do not have many guests from Nicaragua coming here."

"Oh, there will be many more coming to do business here."

The agent returned the passport. "Have a nice trip to Moscow, sir."

Juan Pedro Bolognos moved down the ramp to the bus leading to the 727. As the aircraft taxied out onto the runway, skeletons of destroyed planes on the sides of the tarmac marked the failed Russian occupation like gravestones. Bolognos smiled when he thought of the irony. It took the Russians more than five years to get out of Afghanistan. Now, it would take him only a few hours to get to Moscow.

The Russian Ministry of Defense invested its capital in a hidden facility outside of Chelabsynk, Kazakhstan for only one reason. It was in the heart of two impenetrable mountain ranges, seventy-five miles from the nearest town with only one dead-end dirt road in and out, which lay along side a rusted railroad track. There were no road signs to the rural site, no maps marking it, and no references to the town because it did not officially exist.

The Russian Army was responsible for guarding weapon grade nuclear materials and nuclear waste. General Viktor Valyntin was assigned to protect the nation's largest nuclear storage and waste facility at Chelabsynk. The former Vice-Minister, loyal Party member and an outspoken critic of the newly elected democratic regime, Viktor Valyntin, Colonel General of the Russian Army, winner of The Order of Lenin, The Order of Glory, The Order of the Red Banner, The Order of the Red Star, and scores of medals and distinguished awards had been banished to the mountains of the forgotten where he commanded an army consisting of two battalions of tin soldiers and several hundred civilian laborers. Except for the general, only the most desperate men were willing to risk their lives living on top of a nuclear dump for the equivalent of forty dollars a month.

Few were aware that the storage facility at Chelabsynk, Kazakhstan and that the men who guarded the nuclear dump existed. Even fewer knew that there was a raging battle to contain the streams of nuclear slime from poisoning the rivers that swept down from the mountains and ran eastward into deep gorges, but slowed along the green fertile heartland which was dotted with privatized collective farms. Only General Viktor Valyntin seemingly worried about the millions of people who surely were going to be threatened by contaminated ground water. He had begged vainly for more men and equipment, but with the Russian economy in shambles, there was no money to wage war against the coming doomsday. The General had crossed the Rubicorn and ultimately was painted as an alarmist. Moscow refused to answer his calls or to see him when he came to the capital. He saw a forming catastrophe, but stood as helpless as a passenger on a runaway train.

At age 62, General Valyntin would soon be forced to retire to the senior officers' complex, a dark gray cement monolith many miles outside of Moscow, to live out his life in a single room with shared bath facilities on a meager pension of eight hundred Rubles a month. He had neither money of his own nor had he accumulated anything of value except for the medals and ribbons on his uniform.

The general sat in his underground office surrounded by piles of reports wondering what was going to become of him and how to deal with the apocalyptic problems of his command in Chelabsynk. The general bent over and tried his best to open the bottom drawer of his scarred, army-issued, green, metal desk. Like a stubborn child, no matter how he pulled, and pushed, or coaxed it, the defiant drawer refused to open. Finally in frustration, he stood up and kicked the drawer with his boot. The metal sagged and the drawer miraculously opened a crack. He reached down, pulled the drawer out, and removed a bottle of vodka. He drained the glass in one mouthful and poured another shot. He tapped his fingers and thought that perhaps only the vodka could cure his anxieties. He was about to have another drink, when there was knock at the door.

"Enter."

The general's adjutant poked his head through the door. "Sir, you have a visitor."

"Not today. Tell him to come back tomorrow."

The adjutant closed the door and then the general snapped up his second shot and put the bottle away. He realized that no matter how much they struggled to plug up the streaks of slime, they were losing the war against time. A thousand men with machines, shovels and sandbags would not be sufficient to plug the leaking containers.

There was another knock at the door. Without raising his eyes from the file in front of him, General Valyntin shouted at the closed door, "I told you, Gregor, that I am busy. Tomorrow!"

Again the adjutant shoved his head though the door. "Please, General. He has come a long way. He wrote you about providing us with cement and bulldozers. Do you not remember the letter? You gave him an appointment for this morning." The adjutant came in and shut the door. "Senior Bolognos has come here all the way from Nicaragua. You know the one. The brother of the President."

General Valyntin's eyes blinked open like he had just seen the first morning light. "Of course, I remember. Senor Bolognos. The man with the cement factories, who sells bulldozers and earth moving equipment. Does he speak Russian?"

"General, he speaks the language of money. English."

"Ochen Chorosho! Send him in and we shall speak English only." The general put out two glasses. He carefully wiped them clean with his well-worn shirtsleeve, allowing only a tiny streak of vodka to betray the past. He took out the half-empty bottle of vodka and, holding the bottle to the light, the general checked the level of vodka in the bottle like a doctor checking a patient's IV. Being unsatisfied, the General quickly said, "Bring us in a new bottle, Gregor. I have a feeling that this is going to be a long, dry morning."

"Should I take him on a tour of our facility first?"

"Are you crazy? So he sees the contamination firsthand and then knows our desperate plight? Once he sees that stinking slime, he'll want to get the hell out of here before he lights up like a bolt of lightening and mutates into a six-fingered frog. No Gregor. No tour. Just give me a moment to put on my jacket and then send him in." The general dismissed his adjutant who gave a sharp salute, which was casually returned with a raised hand toward the ceiling.

A few minutes later, Juan Pedro Bolognos walked in. "Good morning, General. Thank you for seeing me this morning." Bolognos smiled warmly and shook the general's hand.

"Zdrastvutche mi druygu! Please sit down, Senor Bolognos. You are most welcome. And come now, we are going to be friends, are we not? So call me, Viktor."

"Thank you, Viktor, and I am Juan Pedro. But where did you learn how to speak English so well, Viktor?"

General Valyntin did not want to admit that he spoke American idiomatic English so well that he taught at the "Charm School," but rather replied, "I was attached to our embassy in Washington for five years and taught English at the Russian Officer Candidate School in Kiev. And you, my friend?"

"I went to Harvard," he admitted.

"A Harvard man. Impressive. We should drink to Harvard."

"It's a little early for me."

"Nonsense. A drink will do you some good." The general poured and they drank.

After a half-dozen toasts, beginning with Harvard College, and continuing onto the Russian Army, Nicaragua, the President, the brother of the President and every patriot of both countries, they turned to the business at hand.

"We can provide you with ten thousand metric tons of cement and enough heavy equipment to build or bury anything you have out here, Viktor."

"That is good, my friend. But how are we going to pay for this? The country has no money and the politicians in Moscow just don't give a damn what happens out here."

"I don't think Moscow needs to know anything about this. Viktor, let's work this out just between the two of us."

The general poured another drink, stood up holding onto the desk for support and raised his glass. "To the two of us," he pushed his glass forward until it touched Bolognos' glass and chugged down the contents.

For the next half-hour, the two men spoke in muted tones. Finally, they shook hands and Bolognos turned and left. General Viktor Valyntin believed he was on his way to saving millions of Russian citizens from radiation poisoning and, for the first time since he had taken command of the nuclear waste dump, he began to smile once again. Not only would he have enough cement and earth moving equipment, but also he would now have a personal fortune for a comfortable retirement anywhere in the world. And all of this in exchange for only ten kilograms of enriched weapon grade cesium 147.

I grew up poor. My older brother and I shared a room next to my parents in a three-room tenement flat in Brookline, Massachusetts. We lived so close to Fenway Park that when you opened the windows, you could hear the crowds wildly cheering the Red Sox at the beginning of the season and pitifully cursing them at the end.

My parents were part of an early sea of refugees tossed up onto New England shores, having escaped a brutal Stalinist regime in the 1930s. My father, once a sports teacher at the Gymnasium in Kiev, had been sentenced to fifteen years in the Ukrainian coal mines for dissenting against the Soviet state. I never learned the exact nature of Papa's dissent because he was not the kind of person you could question about it. I assumed that if he wanted us to know, he would have told us. All I know was that after five crushing years at hard labor, a sentence that would have killed most men, he escaped and was elevated to the status of enemy of the state. The years of backbreaking work in the mines, hauling coal twelve hours a day and six days a week had turned Papa into a man of tempered steel.

Unbelievably, he rowed a sixteen-foot pram stocked with food and my mother across the Black Sea to Turkey. There they were given asylum and, after two and a half years of petitions, were admitted into the United States as political refugees.

Papa bounced around from one part-time job to another until he found a job with the water department. In those days, city jobs in Boston mostly went to Irish immigrants who had friends in City Hall, and in a sea of Irishmen, Papa was the only Russian Jew working at the water department. When he started, they gave him every dirty job, from tearing up streets with a pick and shovel to cleaning wastewater sludge pits and catch basins. Some nights he got off the trolley with his lips swollen and his face cut and bruised as purple as an eggplant, but the few who were stupid enough to hurl ethnic invectives at him were quickly dispatched to unconsciousness. After a few years, most of the men came to respect him.

Papa knew people in the State House who helped my brother Dick and me find summer work. Dick worked at the Massachusetts State Sewage Pumping Plant in Houghs Neck in Quincy for sixty dollars a week and saved every penny for college. It was a two-hour trip each way, but he never missed a day and was always on time. I worked summers on Cape Cod cleaning the roads for the Department of Roads and Bridges for forty dollars a week and spent every cent.

I went to Boston Latin School where the curriculum was brutal. The pressure was appalling. There were neither guidance counselors nor school psychologists to help students deal with the stress. The only way I could make it through Boston Latin was by figuring the angles and breaking all the rules and I was a genius in that capacity. I made friends with upperclassmen who gave me their test papers. I had notebooks crammed with questions and answers from prior exams. If a teacher gave the same test to another class earlier in the day, I found someone who would give me the answers. I found where the undgraded exams were kept and I switched test papers after tests were over. I simply exchanged my ungraded exam for a new one with the correct answers on it.

Unfortunately, I met my match with Mr. Rosenthal, the "master," as we called our teachers. The day after one of the exams, he announced in class that he had suspected someone of switching tests. The classroom fell silent.

"What the test-switcher didn't realize," Mr. Rosenthal went on, "was that I had stuck a pin through all of the test papers before handing them out. I found one test paper without any hole in it."

My heart stopped.

"Mr. Parker, may I see you after class?"

All heads turned to face me. In the space of one second I had myself expelled, banished from home, and facing an uncertain future.

I don't know why Mr. Rosenthal didn't report me to the headmaster. Perhaps he thought that I had learned my lesson and that cheating never pays off in the long run. Or maybe he took pity on me because I was a Jewish boy and he was one of the few Jewish masters in a school of Irish masters. Whatever the reason, it worked. I shredded the notebooks that I had filled with borrowed tests and swore never to pull a stunt like that again. After graduation, I never wanted to see another classroom. I enlisted in the Army.

My parents always spoke Russian or Yiddish when they didn't want us to know what they were saying. As we grew older, they began speaking more Russian than English and both my brother and I soon became fluent. When the army learned that I spoke Russian like a KVD commissar, I was assigned to army intelligence, sent to Langley, and eventually shipped to Eastern Europe. But I was a much better analyst than a field agent, so they sent me back to Langley where I spent most of my intelligence career as an analyst.

****

I've often wondered how different my life would have been if I had listened to Papa. He wanted me to go to college and become a lawyer. After all, my brother, the money-saver, went to Harvard and became the dentist just as Papa had expected. I rejected Papa's advice and skipped college.

Papa would not let go. We had the same conversation each time I visited him. "Your brooder, de doctor, vent to Harvard and he has a wife and children and a nice house. Vat is it wid you? You like working for the kakamemme post office for bupkes?" Papa thought I worked for the post office as a postal inspector. If only I could have told him that I was the senior analyst at the Russian desk at CIA, he would have been so damned proud. I was the son who was giving the Soviets more trouble than they had ever given Papa. I think the Agency had suspected that it was not all business with me.

Twenty years had passed since I had left home, but the script was the same. "Your brother is a doctor and you could still be a lawyer." He was relentless.

"Papa, he's not a doctor. He's a dentist, for crying out loud. What's the big deal? I have a good job and I just don't have the time for a family."

"At de post office you don't have enough time? You hear that, Tova? A postman does not work night and day. Where are you when we call you at home at night?"

"I work different shifts. Sometimes I have to fill in."

"For three months at a time, you fill in?"

"It was Christmas time. We got busy."

Papa was right. For three months, our section had been on full alert. A highly placed double agent at the Russian Embassy reported that someone at their embassy was buying top-secret papers straight out of the Pentagon, placing many of us at risk. Our section buried itself in a three-month manhunt to uncover the mole, and so for weeks at a time, I didn't go home, pick up my mail or answer my calls. I ate, slept, and worked at the Agency.

From the very beginning, the leak was confined to one or two highly placed sources at the Defense Department. CIC confirmed the information was coming directly out of the Pentagon's document storage facility. Contingent war plans, which had been played out by the Joint Chiefs, were being pilfered from a steel vault buried in the bowels of the Defense Department.

It was not unusual for scores of files to be checked out and returned weekly to the document vault at the Pentagon. However, when documents went missing and then mysteriously reappeared, vault security thought that the missing documents had been inadvertently misplaced for a few days and then returned. But that was not the case. None of the papers discovered missing had ever been checked out. Instead of copying original documents and then returning the originals to the vault, someone with legitimate access to the document vault was pulling original documents and replacing them with subtly changed copies. Five specially mounted hidden television cameras in the vault failed to reveal the culprit.

Finding the mole required the combined resources of both CIA and the FBI. We had assets at our embassy in Moscow who euphemistically were called "security officers," while the Russians had the same arrangement in the District. The FBI maintained a round-the-clock surveillance team at the Russian Embassy. We also placed two team members outside the Russian Embassy and we had bugs inside most of their offices. I reviewed audio tapes and photos of everyone entering and leaving at least twice daily. The work was grueling. I slept in the office for weeks at a time. After nearly three months of surveillance, head-banging interrogations, and failed leads, I took a page out of Mr. Rosenthal's book at Boston Latin School. We punched pinholes in all our top-secret papers. At the beginning and end of each shift, vault security examined the originals to see if they were replaced with copies by checking for pinholes.

Every few weeks, sensitive documents continued to disappear and reappear a few days later without pinholes in them. With less than thirty days to go before the Christmas rush, I had not started shopping. Instead of dodging foot traffic at Macy's, I was buried knee-deep in electronics in a cloak closet in the basement of the Pentagon with Jack McCarthy. McCarthy was a jolly, red-faced FBI agent who looked more like Chris Cringle than a special agent. We had been ordered to cooperate with one another at a time when inter-agency cooperation was non-existent. We were shoehorned into the four by six-foot space, tripping over wires and electronic gear, but next to the Pentagon's sanctum sanctorum --- the Pentagon Document Vault. The basement vault was supposedly more secure than Fort Knox. We spent twelve-hour shifts together watching a series of high-resolution television screens monitoring all clerks, files, and pouches inside the vault and corridors leading in and out of the vault areas.

The hours seemed to drag on a like a bad movie until late one afternoon in December. After a navy clerk finished filing documents into several draws, he picked up a file and headed toward the vault door.

"Hey, did you see that?" McCarthy whispered. "There's a navy chief leaving the vault carrying a file folder."

"What's so unusual about that?" I asked him.

"There are no files scheduled to be checked out this afternoon," he responded slowly.

"Maybe someone called in an authorization," I quickly suggested. I picked up a direct line and called the vault desk. They instantly reported that no one had been authorized to remove a file from the vault. Documents had been received that day, but none had been scheduled to be removed.

I cracked open the door and, with the splinter of light filtering in from the corridor, I saw a barrel-chested chief petty officer dressed in khakis walking out of the vault. He carried nothing in his hands.

"Hey Mac, this is strange," I said quietly. "Come here a moment and take a peak. Tell me if that navy guy we have been just been watching is carrying a file folder with him."

"He was. But I don't see anyone carrying anything now," he answered.

"Where's the file he was carrying? He's walking out clean."

The Chief Petty Officer was the size of an NFL lineman. "Look at that guy!" McCarthy responded. "He could be carrying a battleship under that jacket and nobody would ever notice."

"Let's see where he's going," I said.

"Hey, our orders are to stay here. And orders are orders, if you want to keep your job."

"I'm sorry Mac, but I've a bad feeling about this guy," I said quickly. Each time I looked at the chief, a little compass somewhere inside my head was pointing further away from kosher. "I want to see where he's going to take us."

McCarthy hesitated. "We'll get reamed if we leave here. We're under orders to eyeball these television monitors. Nothing else."

I didn't feel there was a choice. While the Bureau generally penalizes agents for imaginative, independent action, the Agency pushes its assets to take charge. I turned to McCarthy and said, "You stay and watch TV. I'm leaving." I cracked the door just wide enough to edge out of the cloak closet unnoticed. I followed the navy chief as he moved through the seemingly endless Pentagon basement corridors. He headed for the front of the building where he briskly took two flights of stairs to the first floor and walked out. I took two stairs at a time after I heard the door close from above. I was right behind him in a crowd of people as he methodically made his way to an employee parking lot on the east side of the building. I noticed that he was now carrying a leather pouch and his jacket hung loose around his chest. The chief looked considerably thinner.

He was out of the building and I was on him like a hungry mosquito. When he stopped in front of a car and reached for his keys, I asked myself how this was going down. I mentally gauged that he was a few inches shorter than me, but more than fifty pounds fifty pounds heavier. With wide shoulders and broad chest, he oozed bull-like strength. I was a backroom brainiack analyst. "Ah, crap," I told myself. "It's too late for second thoughts."

The die was cast. I approached the front of the car, pulled out my badge, and hollered in my deepest voice, "Hey, hold up Chief. Federal Officer."

He took one look at me, threw the pouch in the air, and jumped into his green Jaguar sedan. Like a bag filled with groceries, the papers tumbled out of the brief case and hit the ground. I bent over and picked up a few of the papers that landed at my feet while the Chief sat in his car and watched me. The file jacket was stamped with red letters, "Top-Secret, Not to Be Removed From Joint Operations Vault." I examined the corners of the papers. There were pinholes in some, but none in others. Unlike Mr. Rosenthal, this guy needed to be sent straight to the headmaster.

I looked up and moved about fifteen feet directly in front of the chief sitting in the Jag. Our eyes locked for a moment. As I slowly approached the front of the car, he started the engine. As the big eight-cylinder engine turned over, my hand instinctively went inside my jacket and I pulled a steel gray Walther PP-38 out of my shoulder holster. I had one in the chamber and ten in the clip. I pointed the pistol at the windshield directly at the driver's head. The Jag's engine roared and the car lurched forward directly in front of me. "Stop or I'll shoot," I shouted by the numbers. By the time I thumbed the safety off, the car was on me. "Oh, shit," I screamed as the chief tried to run me down. I had no time to do anything but jump to the side. As I flew into the air, I felt the front fender crash against my feet and spin my body around. I fell hard on my side but managed to hold onto the pistol. I moved to one knee quickly and took aim. I cleared the area of fire for civilians as I had been trained and then fired three quick shots at the tires. Three clean misses. The Jag jumped the parking lot exit barrier, bounced off the curb and turned sharply into the street.

I limped toward a line of waiting taxis in front of the building. I got to the last taxi in line and squeezed my bleeding frame into the front seat next to a cab driver and flashed my badge. "Federal Officer. I need you to follow that green Jag."

The cab driver looked at my badge and ignored me. A hackney license dangled off his rear view mirror. The name Mahamoud Avadhar appeared under a photo of his unshaved face. "Don't you speak English?" I screamed at him.

"Of course. I am sorry, but I cannot take you for your journey," the driver said with a sing-song Pakistani accent. "It is a rule. You must take the first cab in the line," he explained.

I glanced down the road. The Jag was turning into a fly speck as the distance between us increased. I shouted again to the cabbie, "Federal Officer. Get the hell out of the cab. Now," I demanded. "I need your cab." I pointed my Walther at him. The driver froze at the sight of the gun. He didn't move and I couldn't wait. I reached over, opened the driver's door and, leaning my back on my passenger door for leverage, I pushed my foot up the cabbie's ass so hard that he went flying out of the car and onto the asphalt. I swung my legs over, grabbed the wheel, hit the accelerator and spun the cab into the traffic. Weaving in out of the passing lane, I approached the entrance to the 495 Beltway, but I couldn't see which direction the Jaguar took. I could only guess. I shot down the second ramp and headed west toward Virginia.

I hit the Beltway at seventy and accelerated directly across four lanes of traffic until the needle stuck to the end of the speedometer. I could hear my heart pumping. I started to sweat. This was insane. I was using the Beltway like the racetrack at Indianapolis. I artfully dodged slower cars, moved past and in and out of traffic for about five or six minutes. I was about to give up when I finally saw the green Jaguar a hundred yards in front of me roaring down the left hand passing lane.

I stomped on the accelerator and the cab instantly responded. With my palm pressed on the cab's horn, the traffic in front of me pealed away. Suddenly I heard a siren and saw a flashing red light behind me. A black and white had picked up the chase and was hugging my rear bumper. I wondered if the Agency had called the police to help me or if the black and white was simply after me. In either case, it didn't matter. The chief was forced to brake for slower moving traffic and I was cutting the distance between us. With the black and white hugging my rear bumper and siren screeching, the traffic cleared out. I moved to the lane along side the Jag.

When I pulled beside the chief's car, he put a shotgun through the passenger window. I pulled the cab hard right and braked. The police car continued in the same lane while I leaned over onto the passenger seat just as the shotgun explosion blew out part of my windshield. I peeked over the wheel and could see that the Jag had moved fifteen feet in front of me and was to my left. The cop in the police car now moved to follow the Jag. I rolled down the cab window, steadied the cab and fired three or four shots at the Jag with my left hand. Several shots hit the Jag's trunk and rear window, but the others missed their mark altogether. The Jag raced over to the right and struck the police car. The black and white lost control and flew up an embankment and, tumbling several times, rolled over and was instantly crushed by the oncoming traffic. I sped by the carnage.

I quickly pulled into the passing lane and overtook the green Jag while the traffic moved in every direction to avoid us. The chief shoved the shotgun through the driver's window this time as I moved to pass him. He fired and missed as I swerved and sideswiped his car. He turned his wheel and came back at me, trying to power me over the narrow barrier and into the grassy median and oncoming traffic. The cab smashed hard against the cement barrier showing sparks and fire, but I hung on against the barrier and then shot back into one of the middle lanes. The engine temperature shot up alarmingly beyond explosive danger as steam poured out of the radiator and cloaked the windshield with boiling vapor. I could see smoke pouring out from under the hood and I knew that the cab was on its last legs. I had to find some way to stop the Jag before the engine froze up.

I could see an overhead bridge abutment a hundred feet or more in front of us. I swerved the cab into the Jaguar's right rear fender and accelerated until the Jag fishtailed and began to roll over out of control. It hit the abutment and stopped cold. I brought the cab to the side of the road and limped back to the Jag. The Jag had landed upside down and smoke started to pour out of the engine. I cautiously approached the Jag with my gun drawn. I could see the chief inside the car still holding onto his shotgun. He lifted the shotgun and I fired the last few shots in my clip. When I reached the car, the chief was unconscious and bleeding. I leaned over, grabbed the shotgun through the open window, and pulled the son of a bitch out of the Jaguar.

The Chief Petty Officer turned out to be a Navy clerk who worked for the Department of Defense. He lived to tell us that the other side trusted nobody. They only wanted original documents which they changed and paid the chief to replace. The Justice Department obtained a search warrant for the chief's house in Alexandria, Virginia, where they found enough naval plans and electronic designs in his garage to track the location of every American warship in the world. The chief's Russian controllers involved in the operation held diplomatic passports, but were declared personae non-gratae and deported within seventy-two hours. The chief petty officer, who had fat bank accounts worth a half-million dollars, a house worth another half-mill, a couple of boats and some snazzy new cars, pled guilty and went to work busting up rocks in Leavenworth for a twenty-five year stretch.

I went home and tried to explain to Papa how busy I had been at the post office during Christmas that year.

****

The Day before I retired, I was called into a debriefing session where they explained the legal sanctions and jail time waiting me should I ever whisper where I had spent the last twenty years of my life. I left with a short leash attached to me. Nobody ever completely gets away from the Company. Retirement at CIA is more like a lifetime parole with an agent assigned as a parole officer.

Three months after 9/11, Ed Northrop became point man at Central Intelligence fighting terrorist plots against the United States. Northrop sat in his corner office, examining the file in front of him stamped in red, "TOP SECRET." The confidential line buzzed loudly and blinked red, breaking his concentration. He reached over and picked up the direct closed link line to the Director.

It was the Director's voice. "Ed, there's a lot of talk on the street about a dirty bomb coming in. Have you heard anything?"

"Where did you get this information, sir?

"Satellite intelligence. Nothing specific. Do you have anything?" the Director asked.

"Maybe."

"Let's have it Ed, for whatever it's worth."

"We learned that a suspected Nicaraguan smuggler recently met the senior officer at a Russian nuke storage site. The site supposedly is filled with spent nuclear materials and a great deal of weapon grade plutonium."

"Are any fissionable materials missing from the installation?"

"We don't know, Mr. Director." Northrop responded.

"Can we ask Moscow to run a check?"

"We could, but it would take months to reconcile their storage records. A lot of the spent rods are buried under tons of dirt. Even if they made a physical inspection, they're such lousy record-keepers, they wouldn't know if half the nukes went out the back door."

"Why didn't you tell me about this right away?"

"This is fresh out of the can, Director."

"What do we know about this smuggler who was at the storage facility?"

"He's the brother of the President of Nicaragua."

There was a discernable pause on the line. "Nicaragua again. Shit. This little third world country in Central America nearly cost Reagan his job and almost brought down one administration. Now they're at it again? President Bolognos has a brother who is hanging around nukes? What the hell is going on? Why does Bolognos want nukes? For the moment, I think we should keep this within the agency."

"Sure, if you want."

"OK. Have you developed any plans?" the Director asked.

"We need someone down in Nicaragua pronto to find out what's going on."

"Who do we have in Nicaragua?"

"Our best man is Vega. Armando Vega. He is a drug dealer."

"A drug dealer. Well, at least he knows every smuggler in the country."

"He's big time, boss. And he's our man in Central America."

There was no time for moralizing. "Get Mr. Vega started on it right away and, in addition to Vega, get someone else. Someone who will blend in down there. Someone who will be hardly noticed. Maybe someone outside of the agency would be better. Let me know before you go ahead."

Ed Northrop replaced the phone on his desk and sat a long moment, looking out the window, pondering who would be the best man for the job. He tapped his fingers on the desk like a classical pianist warming up before a concert. He needed someone fresh and unknown, who knew how to handle pressure, but had never before been seen in a field operation. He wanted someone with a quick, incisive, analytical mind. Someone who paid attention to detail. Someone who spoke fluent Russian and Spanish. He needed someone who was would not be considered an asset of the agency. There were few that fit the description. He would contract the job to someone outside but it had to be someone he trusted without reservation. Perhaps, he thought someone who was older, who would never be suspected of being an agent. He had to find someone to be his eyes and ears and he needed to find someone quickly.

He began reading the file on his desk. Colonel General Valyntin had served his country long and faithfully, but was removed from a position of authority in the Ministry of Defense and sent to one of Russia's largest nuke storage vaults in Chelabsynk. Valyntin sat on top of hundreds of kilograms of enriched weapon grade plutonium and thousands of pounds of other nuclear materials. The general was scheduled to retire in twenty months. Northrop tapped his fingers as he connected the dots and he did not like where the dots were leading him. Northrop thought if a few nukes went missing at Chelabsynk, they probably would never be noticed.

****

The Community Boat Club on the Charles River was an institution where children learned to sail boats and take them to sea. Membership was free and open to all the children of Boston. Papa took us to the boat club on the river every Saturday morning during our summer vacations and I have remained a member of the club for more than fifty years. Although I had worked outside of the area for many years and was unable to use the club's facilities in Boston, I continued to pay membership dues to help maintain the club. After I retired and returned to Boston, I volunteered to teach sailing to inner city kids.

I was sailing on the Charles across from the Massachusetts Avenue Bridge one sunny summer Sunday morning, when a gust of wind came up and healed the boat over, showing water to the gunwales.

"Oh my God, Mr. Parker what should I do?" the teen-age Asian girl at the helm squealed. I grabbed the tiller and brought the boat into the wind to right it before we were swamped.

"Ease off on the main sheet, next time, Annie. The boat will come even."

"Why did that happen? That sudden puff of wind?" she asked.

"Wind is rarely steady and from the same direction on this river. We're next to a bridge and there's a lot of cross-winds. Some of them are strong. You have to pay careful attention to the ripples in the water. See over there. Those white caps give you direction and a good idea of wind speed before you ever get there."

"Where did you learn all this stuff, Mr. Parker?" she asked sheepishly.

"Right here, just like you." I looked over my shoulder and saw the club's power boat moving upriver toward us. "Of course," I continued, "that was about a hundred years ago."

She laughed and turned her head a few moments later when she heard the engines of the powerboat growing louder and coming up from the stern. "Oh my God! There's a boat behind us, Mr. Parker. What should I do?" she asked.

"Nothing. We have the right of way over all power boats."

She looked back once again. "I know, but they are going pretty fast and they are heading straight for us."

I pulled the tiller to get her back on course. "Watch yourself. Don't lose your nerve, Annie."

"But what if they don't see us?" There was real concern in her voice.

"Come on. They'll see us."

"But what if they don't?" she persisted.

I smiled. "Well, I hope you know how to swim."

"I do. But it's moving pretty fast."

"Well, ease off the wind a bit and see where he goes."

She pulled the tiller toward her and the boat move downwind in a new direction. The powerboat adjusted its course and continued straight for our stern.

"Oh my God! I hope we don't have to go swimming in this muddy river," she said.

"Me too," I responded and looked down at the murky, black water. Three hundred years of shoe factories and leather tanneries had left their mark on the river.

At the last moment and only about twenty feet away, the power craft slowed and reversed its engine with a roaring noise. The boat then idled down and gently pulled alongside the sailboat.

It was the club's tender and I recognized the kid at the center console who deftly ran the Boston Whaler 24. He waived to me, smiled, and then, as he looked at the others on his boat, he pointed his thumb downward.

There were two men onboard the tender. They wore dark suits, white shirts and dark ties. They had very ruddy cheeks and were beefy. From the size of the large bulges in their jackets, I was certain that they were carrying guns. It was painfully obvious they were FBI.

The field agents stuck out on the water like two Boston College football players auditioning for a ballet.

"Mr. Parker. Bring your boat to," the bigger one commanded in a loud authoritative voice.

I moved to the stern of the sailboat and took the helm from Annie. "State your business, Special Agent."

"Do I know you, Parker?"

"No. But all you FBI guys wear the same damned black shoes, white socks and dark suits. Different sizes. But all the same." I answered.

"Are you trying to be cute?" He was miffed.

I had history with guys like these all my life at the Company. Like a pack of big dogs, FBI field agents were myopic, territorial and generally barking up the wrong tree. They compromised our field operations and took jurisdiction for the headlines. They rarely had an original idea or thought and, as detectives, they couldn't find their own grandmothers if they went missing in a supermarket. "Just state your business, Special Agent." I demanded coldly.

The closest agent reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge. "I am Special Agent O'Halleran and this is Special Agent O'Neil."

"Geeze, I never would have guessed," I quipped. "Do you think I might ever hear the words 'Special Agent' attached to names like Goldberg or Cohen?" I asked them with a smile.

Without missing a beat, Special Agent O'Halleran continued. "We have been ordered to accompany you to a meeting downtown. Will you please climb aboard and come with us?"

"I would like to but I can't."

"What do you mean, you can't? We are under orders to take you, one way or another."

"And what are you going to do with my student?"

"She can sail back herself."

"The hell she can," I replied. "This is the first time she's ever been on a sailboat. I am responsible for her. Do you want to jump onboard and sail back with her?"

I could see instantly that the idea failed to appeal to either of them and that neither of them particularly wanted to get into a craft that they outweighed.

"We'll throw you a rope and we will tow you back," Special Agent O'Halleran suggested.

"Yeah, you could. But no sailor worth his salt would ever agree to have his boat under tow unless it were sinking."

I glanced at Annie. She was enjoying this as much as I.

O'Halleran grabbed a line. "Look, catch this line." He threw the line and it fell lifelessly onto the deck of the sailboat. He pulled it back in and readied himself to throw the line to us once again. "I am ordering you to catch this line," he shouted angrily.

"I am the captain of this vessel and, under the law of the sea, I make the decisions on this boat," I yelled out. "You've got to be kidding me. Captain?" he hollered. "You're on a dinky fifteen foot sailboat. Don't you know who the fuck we are, Parker?" the Agent screamed at the end of his wits.

I kicked the sailboat away from the tender, pulled the tiller to me and hauled in the mainsheet. The sailboat briskly responded and we left the tender in our wake to the stern, as I shouted back: "Yeah, I do know who you are. You're the two clowns who don't know shit about sailing."

****

They were waiting for me on the dock with two black and whites from the Boston Police Department. A couple of uniforms brought me over to one of the cruisers. I peered inside. Ed Northrop was sitting behind the wheel.

Northrop rolled down the window. "Hey Josh, I understand you are getting to be quite an old curmudgeon. Why don't you get in?"

"Just don't like being told what to do by a bunch of suits."

"That was always your strength and your weakness. Come on. Get into the car. I've come a long way to talk to you."

We pulled out of the driveway and into the traffic along Storrow Drive. "How do you like retirement?"

"It's OK. I'm still teaching Russian at Metropolitan College, you know. I'm sure you didn't come all the way to Boston to find out how my retirement was going."

"No, as a matter of fact, Josh. I wanted to talk to you about a situation. Something urgent."

"There are telephones, you know. And e-mail."

"This is something too important to leave to an e-mail and I need your answer right away."

"Shoot, boss."

"Alright then. It's simple. Since 9/11, we've been on the lookout for a nuclear attack. We just don't know when or where."

Northrop pulled over to the side of the road and faced me. "Well, I think it's coming. We need someone with your particular language skills. Someone who will blend into a crowd. Someone fluent in Russian and knows Spanish. Someone outside the field who is smart."

"You want me to go back to work at the Post Office? At my age?" I asked.

"Hell, you're in better shape at sixty something now than you ever were at the Company. You're like Jack LaLanne, for Christ sake. Besides, the Post Office owes you a vacation. How would you like to go fishing with a buddy of mine in Nicaragua for a week or two?"

"I have classes for the next four weeks."

"It's been taken care of."

"Where do you want me to go?"

"I hear the fishing is very good this time of year in Nicaragua."

"Hey, I've always been a sucker for a fishing trip."

Rio Escondido washes through mountain clouds, cracks open a dense jungle canopy and sluggishly snakes its way down into a broad lagoon before touching the white sands of the Caribbean coast. A sheer curtain of rain and fog almost conceals the Nicaraguan pueblo of Bluefields resting beside the lagoon. Boat yards and rough-cut stone docks crowd the shoreline and face a front street where rows of tired cinderblock shacks with tin roofs trace their way to the little square park in the center of town.

As I passed by, small shoeless children giggled in delight as they watched some straggly-looking dogs fuck on the street. The blast of an air horn from an approaching truck sent the children scurrying onto the sides of the roads, but one pair of conjoined dogs did not give way easily and there was a loud thump, yelp and one of the dogs ran off. The other was not so lucky.

The dark blue Casa de Urrican was a five-star hotel in comparison to the others in town. But it was hardly The Ritz. The roof was repaired so many times it looked like a patchwork quilt. The jalousie windows in the rooms were broken and bereft of screens or curtains. A single, naked light bulb hung from a wire nailed to cracked ceilings and ran along the walls in each of the rooms. Broken chairs propped up the scarred wooden tables. The mattresses on the double beds sagged like old Mexican workhorses. I settled on the Bluefields Bay Hotel en Casa de Urrican. The toilet worked and the room cost twelve dollars a night.

"Señora, is there a restaurant close by?" I asked the bulky woman behind the front desk.

"We have a restaurant and perhaps afterward you would like a guide for the boat trip in the lagoon. If you like to fish, we can arrange a trip to the Rumbles Fishing Camp or perhaps you would like to visit our snake and crocodile farm." She handed me several brochures and pointed the way to the outdoor restaurant.

There were a half-dozen tables on the small patio, each overlooking the lagoon. Except for a woman who sat alone, the restaurant was empty. The woman was young, perhaps in her twenties, though it was hard to judge since I could only see her in profile. She was obviously a Latina, but her skin tone was not the warm café-au-lait of a Nicaraguesa, but rather lighter and more European. Her long black hair fell to her shoulders, and when she turned toward me for a moment, I was startled by her striking beauty. High cheekbones accented her sensuous lips and her brown eyes, as wide as a child's on Christmas morning. Her eyes were streaked with a redness that betrayed a tearful sadness. When our eyes met for a moment, I felt an overwhelming impulse to go to her side. But she quickly turned away and I returned to reading my brochures.

I was waiting for my shot of Tequila Gold to arrive when I heard someone with a heavy Caribbean accent behind me. I turned and saw a thin black man in a rumpled suit approaching me. He courteously excused himself for bothering me. "I saw you looking at our tour brochures. You are an American?" he asked without waiting for me to reply. "I am Henry. Henry Talbot at your service." His next line was a dead giveaway. "How long will you be in Nicaragua?" That question could only mean that Henry Talbot was one of those annoying touts who stubbornly attach themselves to tourists like a tick to an Airedale.

"You speak pretty good English for a Nicaraguan." I thought that if I avoided answering his question, he would leave. He didn't.

"Just like many of places in the Caribbean, Bluefields was settled by the British. They brought black African people to harvest the sugar cane and work the rum trade. Made no difference when the Spanish came here. Just slaves to serve another master. But when Nicaragua became independent, we became free men. So, everyone here learns to speak English and Spanish. Doesn't matter though. Spanish people living here won't speak English, Caribs won't speak Spanish, and Miskito Indians won't speak either English or Spanish."

"You speak Spanish then?"

"And Miskito," he paused a moment. "No Americans come here. No Hilton Hotels. You get lost?"

"Just going fly fishing up river."

He hesitated a moment and then continued. "There is only one good camp for fly fishing here." He pointedly did not give me the name of the camp.

"Yes," I responded, equally evasive.

"The owner is a good friend," he said. I was sure he was lying. "I would be happy to call ahead and arrange your trip."

"Already arranged," I lied right back.

"How much are you paying? I can get a better price from Rumbles. Tell me man, how much?"

His voice trailed off when he saw a couple of police wearing knee-high leather boots and carrying automatic weapons walk onto the patio. I watched them carefully. The taller cop, smaller than six feet and carrying a bit of a paunch, still seemed too tall to be a Nicaraguan. I thought maybe Mediterranean or Southern European. The other, with big shoulders and a barrel chest, had the map of Nicaragua stamped on his face. They both were carrying holstered .35mm Berettas. The big guy had an ugly scar that traveled down one side of his face. Without invitation, Henry sat down at my table and quickly picked up the menu. The big cop glanced at us but moved toward the solitary woman on the other side of the patio, while the other cop stood covering him in the doorway. These guys were not locals. Scarface spoke roughly to the woman in a staccato Spanish that I did not understand. "I bent over and whispered, "My Spanish is a little rusty. Who are these guys, Henry? And what do they want with that woman?"

"The big one who is talking to the woman is Colonel Flores. A bad cop. Her husband disappeared. Armando Vega. He tells her that they have not found him. He tells her to go home. She does not want to leave. But I do not understand. These police would never speak to her that way if Vega were here. He wants her to go back to her country."

Immediately I understood the reason for her reddened eyes and her mournful demeanor. "She doesn't live here?"

"They have a house on the hill, but they are from Colombia."

"She tells him she will stay here as long as he is missing. Until he returns."

"Maybe he went out of town on some urgent business and did not have time to tell her."

"Maybe. But Vega owns la policia in this country."

"So why is Colonel Flores talking to her like that?" I asked him.

"I don't know."

The waitress came and quietly eased my drink onto the table. I sipped the smooth tequila and thought that making people disappear and trafficking in drugs walk hand-in-hand. After a few moments, the cop turned and started out of the patio, but not before his words transformed the woman into a sobbing wretch. This time, I could not help myself. Without thinking, I got up from my chair and began moving toward Colonel Flores. Even though he was twenty years younger, I was three inches taller and considerably broader around the shoulders. About twenty feet away, he stopped in his tracks and brought his machine gun to his hip. I could see the hollow steel end of the barrel. He pointed the muzzle straight at me. I froze. His jet black eyes pierced through me like burning lasers.

"Go ahead, Yanqui. Go to her side and you tell her that it is not healthy for Colombianas to stay here in Nicaragua. Not healthy for Yanquis either. There are many Sandanistas that would pay well for you, Señor Parker. Maybe you should leave and take Señora Vega with you."

He shook his weapon at me menacingly, like a teacher scolding a student with a wag of his finger. I was more startled by his knowing my name than by his weapon. I wondered what else he knew about me.

"Do I have time to finish my drink before the Sandinistas come and take me away?" I asked. The waiter laughed and I saw the woman smile through her tears.

"You Americans think everything is so funny." Flores waved the automatic at me menacingly and said, "You should not make jokes when someone has a gun pointing at you."

"That's the best time to have some fun. Do I get a blindfold, Colonel? Or do you just shoot me in the back when I walk out?" I tried to be cool even though my heart was pounding like an overloaded washing machine. I smiled and laughed.

"What are you going to do? Shoot me and then kill everyone else in this room? Killing an unarmed gringo in front of witnesses--not smart, amigo."

"Perhaps I will shoot you when you leave the hotel."

"Perhaps, but I don't think you would announce it to everyone in advance."

He muttered in Spanish under his breath, lowered the machine pistol and walked out of the patio. I turned to Henry and said, "Your Spanish is better than mine. What the hell was that he said?"

"He says that if the Sandinistas don't get you, you will be un bueno cenar."

"He wants to make a good dinner for me?"

"No. He doesn't want to make you dinner. He wants you to be the dinner."

I sat in my dreary room at Casa de Urrican in Bluefields, wondering what the hell to do. My contact Armando Vega had gone missing and I was alone surrounded by jungle on one side and a river filled with drug smugglers on the other.

I wasn't overly concerned about Colonel Flores. Cops like Flores shoot off their mouths quicker than they shoot off their guns. But then again, it would be nice to have my old Walther PP-38 tucked under my pillow.

I wanted to call in some firepower. But Taco Bell's phone service, which is what the Agency called the Nicaraguan national telephone company, was about as secure as the border between Mexico and the U.S. I was thinking about telephones when the tequila caught up with me and I drifted off to sleep.

I was startled by a knock on the door. I didn't really care. I just wanted to sleep. "Whoever it is, I think I have had enough for this evening. Come back tomorrow," I mumbled.

It was a woman's voice. "Tomorrow you will be fishing. No? Please let me in."

I got up and went to the cracked jalousie windows. I peered through them. I saw the same woman in front of my door that I had seen on the patio with Colonel Flores.

She was stunning. Like so many works of art, she actually looked better the closer you got to her. Her face was angelic with deeply tanned, flawless skin that made her white teeth gleam in the dull evening moonlight. She wore a white blouse that was opened on top revealing a full figure that was pinched at the waist, and a skirt outlining the shape of an hourglass body beneath it. Her large brown eyes were the size of two scoops of chocolate ice cream.

I opened the door.

She extended her hand to me. "Permit me to introduce myself. I am Karla Vanessa Operta Vega. Please call me Karla Vanessa or simply Vanessa. May I come in, Mr. Parker?" she quietly asked, as she gently withdrew her hand from mine.

She was intoxicatingly exquisite. She had a face straight out of Vogue. Although she was a woman in her thirties, she retained the blossom of youth with her tight, juicy body. I looked into her deep, dark, brown eyes and was struck speechless. My mouth went dry. I lost all sense of awareness and, momentarily, I felt consumed by her beauty.

Unable to speak, I opened the door wider, and simply pointed toward the broken chair. As she walked by me, a breath of Caroline Herrara trailed behind her and wafted through the air like a sweet orchid.

After a moment, I recovered from being unglued and said, "I'm sorry that I can only offer you that broken chair."

She looked at the three-legged chair and then her eyes darted around the room while I turned to close the door. She moved to the bed and, crossing her legs, sat down next to the pillow. Warm and wet thoughts ruminated randomly around my brain making it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying.

"Yes, I'm afraid that we have spent much more on the building than on furnishings, Mr. Parker. We bought the building a few years ago because of its history. Do you know that Casa d'Hurrican has withstood every storm on this coast for over a hundred years? Hurricanes, earthquakes and tidal waves destroyed the town, but Casa d'Hurrican somehow survived. It's a national treasure," she said and paused for a moment. I smiled thinking it was the national dump, but said nothing.

She realized that that she was rambling on a bit aimlessly. "Oh, but you don't want a history lesson. Forgive me. I hope you are not too uncomfortable here."

"You own this hotel?" I asked somewhat astounded.

"Yes, with my husband," she replied.

She did not appear upset as I had seen her earlier in the day or a bit nervous about being in my room. I thought about Vega. If I were a drug runner in a town that was a magnet for disasters of cataclysmic proportion, this impregnable building would be the center of my operation and this beautiful woman would be mine.

"Is the history of this hotel a part of the friendly service that you and Armando offer, Senora Vega?"

She laughed and for the first time I could see her eyes twinkle like reflections of diamonds. She responded quickly, "I see you know my husband."

"Actually, Senora, I know very little about Armando. I know that your husband is missing, but little more."

"Do you know anything about my husband?"

"Not really. Just some vague rumors," I answered. I was waiting for her to ask me what I had learned about her husband but she stopped and traveled down another road.

"I heard that you worked for the post office in America," she said.

"And what else do you know?" I asked.

"I know many things."

"Like what?" I asked.

"For example, I know people who say they work for the post office sometimes do not."

"Where did you get that idea?" I asked, but she did not answer.

"I know you are brave and that you are not afraid of policemen with guns."

"That's not bravery. That's just stupidity."

"You are very modest, Senor Parker. Thank you for helping me with Colonel Flores this afternoon on the patio."

"It was really nothing."

"What do you know about Colonel Flores?" she asked.

"I know he's a bully and I think he's probably dangerous."

"He has powerful friends in this country," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Like most countries in Central America, a few rich families control the entire nation. They own most of the real estate, all of the banks, most of the large farms, supermarkets, automobile dealerships, movie theaters, gas stations, and all of the logging, coffee businesses, television and radio stations, and the mines. They once owned the telephone and electric power companies. Now they own the government."

"Do they own Colonel Flores?"

"A handful of families corrupt the police and politicians alike."

"That's pretty cynical. Are you saying that every politician and cop in Nicaragua is crooked?"

"What do you mean, 'crooked?'" she asked.

"Dishonest. You know, falto de honradez."

"Yes, there honest men in this country, but they are hiding in the mountains in the north." "With the Sandanistas?" I asked quickly.

"You are an American. You would not understand."

"Try me," I coaxed.

"From the beginning, Nicaragua has had a history of dictators and corruption. General Samosa ruled this country with an iron fist for forty-two years. He gave big business the right to strip the forests and poison the lakes and rivers. It will take a hundred years to clear the pollutants that Samosa's friends dumped into the Lake Managua. He murdered thousands of indigenous people in the country and appointed corrupt judges to free their killers. Army officers and policemen in the country were on his payroll. For a price, the general confiscated homes and took away people's jobs. Anyone who supported him was assured of a job. Anyone who opposed him, disappeared. He made himself rich and the ruling families became even richer."

"And the Sandanistas? Were they any better than Samosa?"

"At least the Sandanistas tried to bring the country some sense of economic and political justice. A country without morality is like a man without a soul. The Sandanistas were a popular movement supported by the workers of the country, who begged for a government of fairness and compassion. Samosa, with his corps of thugs beat and murdered anyone even suspected of opposition. When they forcibly shut down and eventually killed the Publisher of La Prensa, the only free newspaper in the country, the United States intervened. But not on the side of the Sandanistas, who they thought were communists."

"But the United States got rid of General Samosa."

"He received asylum instead of a noose. How do you think the rich made their money? Certainly not by opposing the General. Now the rich fight with the Sandanistas in the National Assembly. Nothing has changed. The rich get richer and the poor have more babies."

"What has this got to do with you? Aren't you a Colombian?"

"My husband and I were born here in Nicaragua. Our parents lived here. We went to school here. At the university, we joined the legions of students and demonstrated in the streets of Managua against the dictator and his corrupt policies. We managed to leave here just before one of General Samosa's death squads arrived at our house. They raped my mother and tortured and killed my two brothers because they refused to tell them where we went."

"Is that why Colonel Flores wants you out of here? To settle an old score? She did not answer.

"Senor Parker, I have come to ask you for your help. I want you to find my husband."

"How can a retired postman help you? I am sure the police are doing everything they can to find him."

"La Policia," she said contemptuously. "They are the ones who probably kidnapped my Armando or worse."

"Why would they want to hurt your husband?"

"Because it is impossible to do business in Nicaragua without the police. They become your partner."

"What can you tell me about your husband's business?"

"Not much, really. I manage our real estate, which takes much of my time. We have no children, so I went into business buying hotels and investing in property in six different countries."

"That takes a lot of money. What was his business?" I asked again.

"I don't know anything about his business except that he has a partner here in Bluefields. The partnership was not, how do you say, a willing one."

"You mean this was not a voluntary partnership. Your husband was forced to take a partner. And let me guess, your husband's partner is Colonel Flores."

"I am not sure, but I think yes. See how quickly you understand everything. That is exactly why I want you to help me find my husband."

"I'm not a detective."

"And you are not a retired postman, either."

"Whatever you want to believe, I am retired now and only came here to do some fishing."

"Really? Fishing?" She smiled as if she had a secret that she was not going to tell me. "En Bluefields, los gringos non viennen por pescando."

She was right. Americans did not travel to Bluefields to go fishing. But, I was not ready to admit it.

"I will pay you well for your help," she offered.

"I am sorry. I have a pretty good pension from the post office. No need for other jobs."

"What can I do to convince you?"

"Come here, sit down next to me," she said as she patted the bed invitingly. I sat close to her. I could feel her warmth. Her perfectly white teeth sparkled and her smile was so inviting. "I am just a poor woman looking for help."

"With a dozen hotels in a half dozen countries," I added.

"Everyone here is afraid of the police. Everyone, except you. There is only you. What can I offer you to help me? I can be with you tonight."

"That would be heavenly, Karla Vanessa. But that's unnecessary."

"You are a very handsome man. Do you have a woman?" She inquired as she gently slipped my hand inside of her blouse. I felt her firmness. We kissed. Her lips were warm and soft and felt like the petals of a fresh flower. I began to feel a tingling sensation and I liked it.

I looked into her eyes. "You don't have to do this, you know."

She stood up, took off her blouse and unbuttoned her skirt, which fell to the floor. She moved toward me once again. "I don't have to, but I want to."

"Even if I won't help you find your husband?"

"I don't care."

She left in the early morning, but the ecstasy of the night lingered on. I got up and stumbled into the shower. There was no hot water in Casa d'Hurrican. The combination of her warmth and the cold water left me shivering with a chill in a fever. I stepped into the bedroom and dried off. The sun had come up and the light of the early day began to drift slowly into the room like soft snow on a white winter morning back home. I dressed quickly, picked up a cup of coffee on the patio, and walked out into the warm, sunlit streets of Bluefields, Nicaragua.

The Rio Escondido opens into a three-mile wide tidal lagoon, which is shaped like a bowl and empties into the Caribbean Sea. In the opposite direction, the river runs westward toward the mountains where the river is squeezed into a series smooth flowing pools and a maze of wild white water rapids for miles. The smaller hidden Rio Patch and tributaries flow into a lagoon joining the Escondido, which draws drug smugglers from the visible, ocean coastline into the dense, hidden Mangrove swamps. The rivers are breeding grounds for salt water crocs, thirty-foot long anacondas, and the only species of fresh water sharks in the world, whose razor sharp teeth lie in wait for the unsuspecting. Death stalks the traveler on every bend of the river. The locals call it, "Rio De'l Morte," the River of Death. Few ever survive to tell their tale.

I walked down to the waterfront where I had arranged to be taken up-river. It was early and there were few people on the dock. Some fishing boats were getting ready to leave and crews were casting off and bringing in darkened, frayed hemp lines that floated lazily in the water. Some on the quay carried a few boxes of food and clothing onboard. Others sat on the gunwales, inspecting and patching holes in a pile of nets, like spiders weaving their wily webs.

I continued walking to the end of the dock when I saw a dark native Miskito Indian dressed in a pair of threadbare jeans. He was standing with one bare foot on the dock and the other with a toe holding a small dugout canoe at bay. The canoe was no more than sixteen-feet long, with a single outrigger extending from one side, and an outdated and dented 12 ½ horse power Johnson outboard motor slung in an angle on the stern. A handsome, young, bare breasted Miskito woman sat on the transom while she nursed her infant.

The man holding onto the boat saw me and smiled. "Mr. Parker?" he asked in clipped Caribbean.

"Yes, I am Parker," I quickly responded.

As I drew closer, his eyes gleamed with welcome. With a wave of his hand, he motioned me into the canoe. "I'm George. Mr. Rumbles sent me to pick you up. I'll take you up river to the Rumbles Fishing Camp," he offered. Rather than shaking hands, he held out a fist and I pushed my fist into his and we both smiled. He gripped my arm and helped me step aboard. Then, pointing to the woman in the boat, he proudly said, "This is my wife and child."

I sat perfectly balanced in the middle of the canoe, looking forward with my back to George's wife, for fear of spending the entire journey staring at her lovely pear-shaped breasts. Instead, I looked down into the murky, brown, river's edge and saw nothing but a few blue bubbles freckled with drops of spilled engine oil.

"There is a floatin' cushion on your seat in case of an emergency, Mr. Parker," George pointed out. I looked down at the worn-flat, square cushions that were neatly placed in the middle of each seat. It looked like the cushions came as a package deal with the vintage outboard. I thought about falling into a river filled with creatures that belonged in zoos behind three-inch thick Plexiglas. The idea was not inviting, nor using the seat cushion for protection terribly reassuring.

"Do you like birds, Mr. Parker? There are more than four hundred different species of birds on this river to watch. And many kinds of monkeys."

"And how many different kinds of crocodiles?" I asked.

"That brings me to another other matter that is quite important. For your safety, please keep your arms and legs inside of the boat and out of the water. You see, Mr. Parker, no matter how much you may want to cool your hands and feet in the water, we don't want you to lose any of your fingers or toes."

I thought he was joking. When I looked up, he was not smiling. "Is there something in the water?"

"Just a precaution. We do have some very large salt water crocs in this part of the river, but they don't usually approach something as large and noisy as a motorboat. We don't see many fresh water sharks around here. Nonetheless, it's simply safer to avoid tempting them by shoving live bait in front of their noses."

Just then, someone began shouting on the dock. "Hey, man, wait for me." I turned back and saw Henry Talbot scurrying along the dock toward us. George held the boat at the dock while Henry jumped in and sat down in the bow, facing forward and with his back to me.

George pushed off from the dock and immediately pulled the rope starter. The old Johnson outboard sprang to life. The din of the motor made any conversation out of the question.

A thick curtain of massive trees and green plants stretched across the shoreline. While bright sunlight flooded the river, the forest canopy filtered the light and a pervasive darkness shrouded both sides of the river.

The river narrowed as we moved through the shadowy canopy leaving a line of darkly stained foam behind us. White-headed monkeys watched from treetops and the frightening sounds of howlers filled the wooded jungle along the river.

I soon learned that everything that George had said about crocs was not necessarily true. As we forged our way upriver, pods of salt water crocodiles slipped into the water and waved an alarming grin as they swam toward us. I watched them for a while and saw that the distance between the boat and their wake never decreased a foot. I could see their menacing snouts moving on top of the water followed by pairs of black lifeless eyes.

"Hey, George, can this boat move any faster?" I yelled, pointing at the wake in the water the crocs made behind us. The motor made so much noise that he did not hear me. The crocs kept pace with the boat, but did not move any closer.

Henry turned around and shouted, "Don't worry about the crocs. It's the snakes that are the killers around here."

I could hardly hear him, but he pointed to the trees at the edge of the jungle where some snakes, thicker than fire hoses, were stirring from their sleep on low hanging branches, ready to jump into any passing boat.

Then Henry moved closer to me and shouted in my ear, "The thing to look out for are the Bushmasters. Some are two feet long, fast as lightening. In one bite, all you'll have is about ten seconds to live." He returned to his seat as I watched the snakes sunning themselves and dangling off the branches like leaves on trees.

The monotony of the motor noise was mesmerizing. At first, all I saw was the shadow of something falling from a long overhang into the boat. Whatever it was, it disappeared under the seat about three feet in front of me. After a moment, I saw it clearly. The head of a snake stood upward a few inches off the bottom of the boat, mouth open, and fangs ready. I could see the tufts of green and brown skin protruding above its coal, black eyes. It almost looked like it had four eyes. Its red and brown striped body was coiled like a nylon rope and ready to strike.

It looked like the snake I had seen in the hotel brochure, an Eyelash Viper. It was as deadly as a Bushmaster.

The viper waited for me to move, its eyes as black as onyx, its muscles primed, and its fangs filled with poison. It raised its head as if to strike and then slithered towards me. I slowly inched my way onto the wooden seat behind me. The snake followed. It crept toward me. I moved toward the side of the boat. The snake watched. There was no place to hide. I slid over the side of the canoe and grabbed hold of the gunwale. It was slippery. I lost my balance and slid slowly downward toward the river. I grabbed for a hold, but there was none.

I was under water. It all happened so fast that it took a second or two for my mind to catch up. My eyes were open. Under water, day had turned into night. The black, murky water left me sightless. The air had turned to liquid and, without time to take a breath before falling into the river, I had little air in my lungs. The vibrations from the outboard shook my brain like a jackhammer, as the boat began to pull past me. Risking getting torn up by the propeller, I shoved my arm upward and managed to snag a part of the outrigger. I held the outrigger in the crook of my elbow and, in desperation, half hanging in the water and half out of the water, pulled myself onto the lashings of the wooden pontoon while the dugout continued moving forward.

I looked backward and saw several swirls of water approaching me. By this time, Henry had turned around, pulled out a revolver and began blasting away at the snake that had been pursuing me in the boat. He emptied the cylinder, evidently making more holes in the boat than the snake because the boat began to take on water and slow down.

George's wife moved toward the seat where I had been sitting, grabbed the intruding snake in one swift motion, and held the snake behind its head. She shook the reptile, making it do a little dance, while all the time both she and George were laughing. I guess the Common Poisonous Eyelash Viper was more common than poisonous.

I was still hanging onto the canoe but, as the crocs moved closer, they went underwater and came up just behind the outrigger. They were so close that I thought I could see the slime on their teeth and the blood vessels in their eyes. Then one of them jumped in the air and the other followed. My heart stopped. Instead of two crocs, I saw a magnificent pair of bottle nosed dolphins spin over the outrigger and squeak loudly before they fell back into the brackish river and out of sight. As George made for shore, the dolphins re-appeared, playing all the time. Just when I thought I could move my legs out of the water and climb off the lashings and back onboard, I heard shots from ashore and saw another swirling movement behind me come to a stop.

Almost immediately, a croc about sixteen feet long went belly up and the water turned blood red. Within seconds, the scent of blood in the water invited fresh water sharks to a feeding frenzy. I looked back and saw a man standing on a dock with a rifle. He fired three more shots and the water went silent.

In a few moments, we approached the man at the end of the dock who stood under a sign, "Rumble in The Jungle, James J. Rumbles, Prop."