The name is Edwin Fogarty. I used to be an investigative reporter for the L.A. PICAYUNE. And, for me, it all began a week before Christmas Eve, 2004.

You see, I had imbibed a little too much "holiday spirit" at the office Christmas party. As a result? While driving home, my car ran off the road and head on into somebody's Nativity creche!

That nobody flesh-and-blood got killed was a minor Christmas miracle. The fact that the creche was on the front lawn of a Los Angeles city councilman, however, cost me $2,000; a two-year suspension of my driver's license; and court-ordered membership in the Twelve Steps program.

That's where I met "Ted."

He had been born Fyodor Sergeivitch Ivanov. And, in 1968, he had attended the Mexico City Olympics as a weight-lifter. He was expected to bring home a gold medal in the event. But, he chose to defect, instead!

A year later, he was appearing in both movies and the wrestling ring as that champion luchador, "El Carbonado" ("The Black Diamond").

It was a pseudonym he wore, and a responsibility he bore, quite proudly for fifteen years. That is; until some schlockmeister movie studio in Hollywood conned him into signing away all his rights to the name!

They had told him they were going to make an action-adventure film by that name. And, that Sybil Danning would be playing the title role (as sort of a cross between Indiana Jones and Modesty Blaise). But, guess what? The film never got made. And, Ted had to find himself a new identity.

So, he joined the WWF as "Biff Stroganov (the Psychotic Cossack)."

Unfortunately, he had recently fallen on hard times. After the death of his wife of twenty years, he took to drowning his sorrows in vodka. Which gave his employers no choice but to issue an ultimatum. Join Twelve Steps, or get out!

We got assigned to each other by the guy who ran our meetings. And, pretty soon, everyone else who attended them started calling us "Ted and Ned." Especially as we started going to the nearest Starbuck's after each meeting.*

* Say what you will about their prices. Their stuff still tastes better than that caffinated _horse-piss_ they serve at the meetings.

Then, it happened. Ted missed three meetings in a row.
Worried that he might have fallen off the wagon, I went over to his Venice Beach apartment. And, my worry only increased when the landlord told me that Ted had gone out one day...and never came back!

tbc

To get a peek inside Ted's apartment, I first had to write out a check to cover the back-rent he owed his landlord. Half an hour later, I found it. A back issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED dedicated to the Athenian Summer Olympics of last year.

On one page, there was a photo of Courtney Carlson. The petite carrot-top who had swept most of the gold medals, in women's gymnastics, at those Olympics. In this case, it showed her in the middle of a floor exercise leap. Even more intriguing, however, was the fact that it had been circled in red magic marker. Similar to the snapshot paper-clipped to the back of that page!

That second photograph was in black-and-white. And, it showed a much-younger Ted wearing a Cheshire cat grin, while hugging a very pretty (and much shorter) girl to his right. I couldn't see too much of the girl's face, as it was partially obscured by a Mexican sombrero. But, I could tell from her own toothy smile that she had been having a good time, at the time, too.

Turning the snapshot over, I found something written in Russian above a four-digit number that was much easier to distinguish: "1968."

Luckily for me, I knew someone who could translate the Russian portion; Lazlo Petulengro.

When most people use the phrase, "gypsy cabbie," they usually mean a driver of taxi cabs unaffiliated with any large company. But, Lazlo was a genuine gypsy! More specifically; a Rom of the Lowara tribe who had been born in Hungary, raised in the U.S., and served in the Vietnam War.

I had become his best customer since the suspension of my license. And, more importantly, in this case? He was as fluent in Russian-as-a-second language as he was in colloquial American!

When I asked him to translate the Cyrillic lettering on the back of the snapshot, it didn't take him long.

"All it says is, 'Svetty and I.' "

" 'Svetty?' " I echoed. He nodded, as he handed the picture back to me.

"It's short for 'Svetlana.' A very common given name for Russian girls."

"And, this was taken in 1968," I mused, half-aloud: "I wonder if she could have been a fellow athlete at the Mexico City Olympics?"

Lazlo shrugged: "You're the news-hound. Not me! Pick you up at six?"

I nodded, paid him for the ride, then continued on inside to my desk at the PICAYUNE.

I may not have become a hot-shot foreign correspondent like my late dad (the legendary "Buck" Fogarty). But, at least I have the Internet. And, after two hours of intermittent googling, I had the answers I was looking for.

Svetlana Blefescu (Russian mother/Romanian father) had been born in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1952. Which means she was sixteen at the time of the Mexico City Olympics. As captain of the girl-gymnasts for the U.S.S.R., she had been expected to bring home at least half the gold medals awarded there.

Unfortunately, for her, she was rendered so upset by the defection of her boyfriend--Fyodor Ivanov--that she didn't even win bronze! As a result, she and her parents went into "voluntary seclusion" when she returned to Mother Russia. English translation: they got sent to Siberia.

As fascinating as all this info was, however, what really blew my mind was the uncanny resemblance between Svetlana Blefescu...and Courtney Carlson.

tbc

I did some math.

Subtracting Courtney's (recently well-publicized) birthday from 2005 gave me 1988. Twenty years after the Mexico City Olympics. That plus the equally public knowledge that she had been adopted equaled two hypotheses that I transcribed to my notepad as questions.

"1) Did Svetlana Blefescu have a love-child by Fyodor Ivanov?"

"2) Could Courtney Carlson really be Ted's biological granddaughter?"

The only way to answer those questions would be to ask them of Courtney, herself. There was only one problem. According to that SPORTS ILLUSTRATED story, she was now a freshman at the University of Georgia. And, even if I bought a plane ticket with my own money, without a driver's license, I'd never be able to rent a car at the Atlanta International Airport.

I decided to literally sleep on it. So, at 6PM, I punched out and had Lazlo drive me home. The next morning, after punching in, I went straight to my editor and told him everything I had dug up and/or concluded.

"If someone on staff, who _does_ have a driver's license, could accompany me, I'd deeply appreciate it. More importantly, the paper would have a great human interest story for the front page!"

Long story, short? The Old Man had Bernie Jensen, the head of our Legal Department, put me in touch with a private detective named Diego Garcia. Diego would accompany me as my cameraman. Not quite a stretch of the truth, as he genuinely was an ex-LAPD crime scene photographer! And, after handling the car rental for both of us, he would take my lead in tracking down Ted...and confirming whether or not I was right in my suppositions.

We departed LAX on a red-eye flight. With the clerk who handed us our tickets explaining why mine was only one way.

"Your editor told me to tell you (and I quote); 'If this turns out to be a wild-goose chase, that b.s. artist won't need to come back.' End quote."

To relieve the boredom of insomnia (I was too keyed up to fall asleep, right away), I asked Diego how he had happened to become a private eye.

"Tio Pepe," he replied: "My Mom's only brother. He disappeared back in 1963. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, in fact! I think he was working for the CIA, back then, and got captured by the Commies. I've been trying to use the Freedom of Information Act to find out for sure. So, I can finally keep the deathbed promise I made to Mom."

After that, we both resumed our attempts to fall asleep with a little more success. By the time the flight attendants woke everyone up, to tell us we were about to land, it was five-thirty in the morning (Eastern Standard Time).

tbc

After claiming our luggage, we went over to the rental car desk. Ten minutes later, Diego had rented us an Acura Legend. We drove to a nearby 24/7 IHOP for some breakfast. After which, we headed for the campus town of Athens, Georgia.

When we got there, we registered at a local Motel Six. Then, after getting all our belongings suitably unpacked, we planned our next move.

"We obviously have to start with the Student Registrar's Office," I said: "Because, that's where we'll find out whether or not she's living on campus."

"I got a short cut," replied Diego, grinning like a hungry shark.

Moments later, he had a laptop computer out and turned on. His fingers were so much like a blur on that keyboard, he made me look like a hunt-and-pecker by comparison!

"What the frig...?" I began.

He explained that he occasionally did leg work for American Fidelity Insurance. And, that he had just used their database to access the college's database on the pretext of checking on Courtney Carlson's medical records!

"She's currently residing at the Kappa Alpha Tau sorority house."

"Excellent!" I exclaimed: "Then, tomorrow morning, that's where I'll go for Phase 1."

"Phase 1?" he echoed.

I nodded: "Asking the house mother for permission to talk to Courtney. If she politely-but-firmly refuses, then I move to Phase 2; flashing Ted's photo to the campus cops. If they turn out not to have seen him, we move to Phase 3."

"That being?" prompted Diego.

This time, it was my turn to grin like a hungry shark.

"How do you feel about posing as a janitor?"

* * * * *

By ten o'clock the next morning, I was at the front door of KAT House, gently manipulating a Victorian-looking door knocker. The house mother who opened it resembled a cross between June Cleaver and Carol Brady!

"Yes?"

"Good morning, ma'am. My name is Ned Fogarty of the L.A. PICAYUNE. And, I'd like to talk to Courtney Carlson about her biological grandfather."

The expression that suddenly appeared on this woman's face might not have been visible to most people. But, I had seen that particular look before.

It was the look of an amateur who was about to lie to me.

tbc

"Sh-she's not here, right now, young man. She's in class. Besides which; both her grandfathers have already passed on!"

"I'm not referring to either side of her adoptive family. I'm talking about her birth-mother's father! Please; could I just come in and wait for her, Miss?"

The house mother's face turned almost as white as her hair.

"NO!!! N-Now, you...you get out of here! Before I call campus security."

And, with that, she slammed the door in my face.

I walked away, completely puzzled. I had interviewed mobbed-up union whistle-blowers who had been less scared than this woman! Which meant that what I initially thought was a human interest story had suddenly become much bigger. And, I was determined to find out what.

* * * * *

I cellphoned Diego right away. As soon as he picked up, I told him how I had struck out at the sorority house.

"So, you're going to Phase 2?"

"Yeah, but not as initially planned. Could you hack into the video surveillance system used by the campus cops? See if anyone matching Ted's description showed up anywhere, on-camera? A more recent picture of him might help get me past KAT House's door on the next visit."

"You got it."

No sooner had I hung up, than I felt a tap on my left shoulder. I quickly spun about.

Lo and behold, it was Courtney Carlson!

Her orange-red hair was tied back in a ponytail. And, she was wearing a lavender-pink sweatsuit with white sneakers. But, it was her smile and hazel brown eyes that really grabbed my attention.

If I had been asked to describe that look in one word, at that moment? The only one that would've done it justice is...beguiling.

"Are you Ned Fogarty? The reporter? When I came back from algebra, to do some jogging, Ms. Ericson told me someone by that name had been looking for me."

"That's me, alright. I was wondering if..."

Before I could utter another syllable, she whipped some kind of perfume atomizer out of her right jersey pocket, and sprayed me right in the eyes with it!

I remember collapsing to the ground, in pain. And, then, nothing. When I revived, it took me a few minutes to get my bearings. Then, I saw where I was. A dome-shaped jail cell, roughly the height of a cathedral ceiling, with what I presumed to be the front half facing a high purple wall. Imagine my shock, then, when the "wall" moved counter-clockwise, one hundred-eighty degrees!

Revealing a giant-sized Courtney Carlson wearing a purple practice leotard and blue sneakers!!

tbc

"Hello, there, little one. Welcome back to the Land of the Living!"

For the first few seconds, I was paralyzed speechless with shock. Then, I shook my head.

"I'm dreaming. This has got to be a dream! She sprayed me with a mixture of LSD and mace."

The carrot-topped giantess in front of me laughed. Then, she unlocked the door of what I now recognized as a giant birdcage, and withdrew me from it in her right hand!

"You're not dreaming, Mr. Fogarty. Have you ever experienced this in a dream?"

She then began licking my entire upper torso like I was a popsicle! Naturally, I sputtered and coughed like a swimmer who had very nearly drowned in heavy surf. Which only made her laugh all the more.

"Oh! I never get tired of that reaction! And, coming from you, Mr. Fogarty, it's all the more priceless."

"W-W-What do you mean, by that?"

"This is only the second time, in three months, that I've shrunken someone nearly my own age. Prior to now, I've only shrunken teenagers!"

"What the frig are you talking about?" I instinctively exclaimed (momentarily forgetting my current stature).

Instead of crushing me, though, my giant captor merely smiled and stood back up. She then walked over to a dresser bureau, and opened a jewelry box on top of it.

I gasped like an asthmatic when I saw that it contained more than just jewelry. Lying inside it, wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy in gold bracelet chains, was my missing friend; Fyodor Ivanov!

"Ted?! Is that really you?"

"Hmmmmmph mmmmmph! Plfffffff, hmmmmph mmmmmmph!" was all he could reply.

"Apparently, you jumped to the same conclusion he did," replied Courtney: "That I was the look-alike granddaughter of his gilted ex-girlfriend. But, the truth is far more incredible, Mr. Fogarty. There is no granddaughter, illegitmate or otherwise. I really _am_ Svetlana Blefescu!"

tbc

I looked at her in slack-jawed amazement.

"That's impossible," I finally said: "You'd be as old as Ted, by now!"

My giant captor merely laughed: "A fringe benefit of the alchemical elixir that's kept me petite enough to compete, all these years. In diluted form, of course. At full-strength? It shrinks busy-bodies like you to six inches in height!"

I looked down at Ted's struggling form in the jewelry box.

"That's why Mrs. Ericson is so scared of you. She saw what you did to him!"

Courtney smiled: "Very good, Sherlock! Yes. Fyodor told her his long, sad story...and his theory about me. So, what does the soft-hearted old biddy do? She lets him wait for me in my bedroom! A few minutes after I came back from gym practice, she came upstairs with some lemonade and cookies for us. And, walked in on Fyodor's reduction...already in progress."

"She was the only witness in the house?"

Courtney nodded: "Fortunately, for them, all my sorority sisters were still attending their own classes, at the time. So, I only had to scare Mrs. Ericson into keeping quiet. But, now that you're here, I might have to amend that policy."

"I don't follow."

She looked down into the jewelry box...and grinned.

"I'm gonna donate him to the rest of the sorority. And, once they get over their initial astonishment, they'll absolutely love him! After all; he's still in pretty good shape for a man his age. His muscular little frame should be able to stand up to a lot more punishment than any of the younger guys I've shrunk."

"Guys?" I echoed, not failing to notice the plural.

"He's not my first," she replied with a wink: "But, you might be my last. At least, for a while. You're cuter, younger, and smarter than him. And, obviously more loyal to him than he was to me! So, Fyodor is going to wind up a mascot for the whole house. While _you_ are going to be all mine,...my little pet!"



to be continued?

No sooner had she made that ominous pronouncement than she put me (birdcage and all) down on the carpeted floor. Following which, Courtney lifted Ted out of her jewelry box. She unwound the bracelet chains binding him with sadistic slowness. Starting with the loop that she had used to gag his mouth. And, ending with the one around his ankles. Letting him dangle upside-down, from the latter, like a side of beef in a butcher shop!

She laughed as he tried to protest this. Although, he failed (due to the blood rushing to his head).

A moment later, she removed that last bit of chain and threw him in the birdcage with me. She then put the cage on the top shelf of her closet.

"Sorry, guys. I have to go to another class. But, don't worry! You can use this quality time to get reacquainted!!"

She laughed again, before shutting us both in darkness. But, at least it wasn't total darkness. There was just enough ambient sunlight coming through the wooden slats of the closet door that I could make out Ted slowly sitting up. His back to the cage bars while he wiped his bleeding mouth off with his left hand.

"So!" I began: "Fancy meeting you here."

Ted looked me at me for a second, like I had lost my mind or something. Then, he grinned...before laughing his head off, altogether! The kind of laughter that relieves all of one's pent-up fears and tensions.

"Forgive me, tovarisch," he finally managed to say: "I have missed your sardonic wit."

"I think you mean 'sarcastic.' But, thanks just the same. It's always nice to be appreciated by one's peers," I replied: "So, tell me something. I get why she did what she did to me. To keep me from finding out about you, on my terms. But, why shrink you, in the first place? I mean; thanks to her magic potion, she's gotten what most people spend their whole lives vainly wishing for! A second chance to make their dreams come true. So, why risk blowing all that over a forty-year old grudge?"

Now, he looked at me as if I'd grown a second head.

"How...?"

I shrugged: "Now, that I've accepted the fact I'm not imagining things, my brain is back to normal. And, it tells me that she could easily have kept her mouth shut. That is; she could have passed off her 'resemblance' to Svetty as meaningless coincidence. So, I repeat: why didn't she? The only answer that makes any sense is that she's still super-pissed at you for defecting, back in '68. And, for not taking her with you!"

Ted shook his head in mild amazement: "You are half-right, tovarisch. She was still angry with me. Although, not for the reasons you hypothesize! My weight-lifting coach, in 1968, was a Slovak named Milan Sokolnik. Twenty years earlier, he attended London Olympics as sparring partner for welter-weight boxer--and fellow Slovak--Julius Torma. That is the same Olympics in which Gymnastic Federation President Marie Provaznikova (also from Czechoslovakia) defected to the West. In protest of former's post-WWII Communist government."

"Milan went on to become assistant boxing coach for both Anatoly Porov and Lev Mukhin; assistant wrestling coach for Bohumil Kubat; and assistant weight-trainer for Yuri Vlasov.* Of those four Olympians, three earned medals for the Soviet Union. The same Soviet Union that invaded Milan's homeland in the summer of 1968!"

"When he told me that he was going to defect in protest, I impulsively told him that I would go with him. You see, he was like second father to me! And, when he found he could not dissuade me, he wearily smiled and agreed. So, the night before I was to first compete, we did not report back to our dormitory for curfew. Instead, we went to the American embassy in Mexico City and requested political asylum."

What happened next, you already know. But, what I didn't know was what Courtney/Svetlana, herself, had told Ted following his shrinkage and capture.


"Her mother died, in Siberia. From pneumonia. Her father soon followed; from suicide. That is why she has risked self-exposure, tovarisch. In her eyes, I as good as murdered her parents."

tbc

The silence hung between us for a few seconds. Then, I shook my head and sprang to my feet. Well! Not exactly "sprang." More like half-climbed/half-staggered.

"It doesn't matter how she regards you, Ted. This is still kidnapping. And, by her own words, more than two counts! I don't what happened to all the others. But, I am NOT gonna share the same fate, if I can help it! Once I..."

I felt around in my right coat pocket, looking for my cellphone. Yet, to no avail. So, I did the same thing with the left pocket. Still nothing! Then, I polked through each of my pants pockets.

"Shit!" I hissed, kicking at one of the birdcage bars in frustration: "I lost my frigging cellphone. I must have dropped it when she spritzed me with her mojo juice!"

"Who would you have called anyway, tovarisch? The local police? They would probably have thought you were adolescent crank."

So, I told him about Diego Garcia. Which momentarily cheered him up! Then, the realization hit him.

"If you dropped your cellphone at time she shrank you..."

I nodded: "...all she has to do is hit 're-dial,' and she'll know I'm not alone, here."

Although I didn't know it, until much later, Diego was already initiating the Phase 3 that I had mentioned in our earlier planning. Namely; he disguised himself as a janitor, using green cover-alls and equipment lent him from a real one he had bribed.

As I re-hashed it for Ted, the plan had called for Diego to wait for Courtney's next class to finish up, by half-pretending to mop the floor (or fix a broken light, or whatever) in the hallway just outside the classroom. Then, when all the students eventually started pouring out, he would block her path and pretend that _he_ was the one who'd been bribed to give her a message.

Unfortunately, for him, there was no way he could have anticipated getting the same response I'd gotten.

tbc

With nothing else to talk about, for the moment, Ted and I decided to try and get some sleep. I don't know exactly when we nodded off. It seemed like only a second later, though, when we were forcibly awakened by a loud clanging noise!

It was Courtney, opening up the birdcage door.

"Wakey-wakey, boys! I have a new roommate for you. Help make him feel at home."

She laughed as she said that last part. Then, she slammed the cage door shut, before relocking it and sliding the closet door shut, once more. During the brightly lit interim, we saw that my hunch had been right. It was Diego Garcia! Wearing green custodian's cover-alls, and a gray Gatsby cap.

"So, this is why you didn't answer your cellphone," he declared after an awkward pause.

I half-smiled and nodded, before introducing him and Ted. I then asked where he had been captured.

"Well," he replied: "I followed her to her Creative Writing class. And, to kill time while I waited for her, I half-pretended to fix a clogged sink in the boys' room, down the hall."

Ted gave me another look of astounded admiration. I tried to shrug, modestly, as Diego continued.

"The moment that class was over, I followed her to gym practice. I caught up to her, just outside the Hanner Fieldhouse, and I gave her the schpiel I'd prepared. I thought she had bought it when she told me to follow her to a less-public corner of the building's exterior."

"And, that's where you got spritzed with Eau de Mini-man," I finished for him. He nodded.

I could not help sighing: "Well! I hope your friends at the CIA know where you are."

Diego started to reply. Then, he paused as he and Ted did a synchronized double-take.

"Que dice...?"

So I reminded him of a few things that I'd admittedly been a little slow on the up-take with, at the time.

"On the flight, here, you mentioned the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963. Actually, that occurred in October, 1962! Then, at our motel room, you handled that laptop like a Silicon Valley whiz kid. And, you mentioned having done leg work for American Fidelity Insurance!"

Ted's eyes widened at those last three words. But, I momentarily ignored him, as I began counting off on my fingers.

"The first one isn't a big mistake, in itself. What with the current state of the American educational system. And, the second one could be the result of cross-training or a natural aptitude for multi-tasking. Probably both. The third one, however? Ted; why don't you tell him what you first told me (after our very first Twelve Steps meeting, together)?"

Ted nodded, and looked straignt into Diego's eyes.

"American Fidelity Insurance was the name of CIA front that helped re-situate me after my defection. They even bonded my first film: 'El Carbonado Contra Oso Rojo!' "

Diego was stone-faced for about a minute or two. Then, he grinned...like a little kid who's just passed his first S.B.D.*

"I know. That's my favorite luchador flick of all time!"

tbc

Have you ever seen one of those animated cartoons from Japan, with the badly dubbed-in English? And, the big-eyed characters? Ted's eyes got wider than _that_ when Diego didn't even make the effort to deny that he was CIA!

When I said as much, and asked him why he had pretended to be a mere p.i., he shrugged:

"The p.i. license is for real. But, whenever the Company needs to conduct a stateside investigation that they're not officially authorized to do? They hire a plausibly deniable free-lancer...like me. In this case? The Company got nervous when Mr. Ivanov, here, began making inquiries about his ex-girlfriend. And, then, disappeared so soon after coming to UGA. Just like some of its students!"

Diego went on to say that my own sleuthing into the matter seemed heaven-sent to him. Because, tagging along with me, to keep me out of trouble (at my editor's high-priced insistence), gave him a perfect excuse to poke around the campus. Physically and cybernetically.

"Well!" I replied: "Seeing as how you're now in the same fix as me and Ted, I think it's safe to say you were only half-successful."

Again, he grinned: "That's what you think."

Whereupon, he stood up, and went over to a pair of bars to the left of the birdcage door. He then took off his Gatsby cap...and withdrew a container of dental floss from it!

Ted and I stood up, ourselves, as one.

"What the frig are you doing? Pick the lock! Not your teeth!"

"Tranquilo, ese! This isn't real floss. It's more like primer cord. Watch!"

He wrapped a long piece of this faux-floss around each bar. Then, after biting it evenly in half with his teeth, he took a Bic cigarette lighter out of his left cover-all pocket...and ignited both halves.

A couple of loud "pops" later, those bars were burned completely through!

Yet, again, that shit-eating grin: "Mr. Ivanov. How's about bending these bars for us? Like you did for that Mexican circus in 'El Carbonado Contra Chupacabra?' "

tbc

The bars proved to be still hot. So, instead of bending them outward, Ted bent them inward and to the sides. Using my borrowed suit jacket to protect his hands. We then clambered through the hole, half-crawling/half-leaping from one intact bar to the next, until we reached the shelf top of Courtney's closet.

"OK, Secret Agent Man!" I asked (between gasps for air): "What now?"

Diego pointed to a long-sleeved white blouse hanging from the higher of two wooden racks.

"We shimmy down the left sleeve of that blouse to the lower rack. Then, we jump down to one of the slacks hung up on it, and shimmy down to the floor on one of the legs!"

Ted nodded his approval. But, he insisted on his going first.

"I have most athletic experience. And, in terms of musculature, I weigh more than you two combined."

Diego and I looked at each other. Then, we looked back at Ted and nodded.

The first half of the plan went as planned. He hung by his hands from the shelf top, then let go. Catching the left shoulder of the blouse. This, in turn, made the hangar swing around a bit. When it had stabilized, Ted let go, again. Yet, when he landed on the hangar containing the targeted pair of blue slacks, his weight proved too much for it.

The slacks slid off the hangar, taking Ted with them!

I started to shout an alarmed inquiry. But, fortunately, Diego had the presence of mind to clamp his right hand over my mouth. He then pointed at the slacks with his left. So, I watched as Ted crawled out from underneath them, smiling and giving us two thumb's-up.

The slacks had cushioned his fall! Something they would now do for us, as well. Three minutes later, Ted was hugging us like long-lost younger brothers.

"T-T-Ted!" I stammered: "Could you please...ease up...on the...pressure...to my...ribs?"

"So sorry, tovarisch. It is just that this was the greatest ray of hope I have seen in a long time."

"Yeah?" replied Diego: "Well, don't count your rays of hope till you get the electric bill. We're still stuck in this closet."

I pointed to my left: "The closet door slides open from that end. Maybe if we add our muscles, to Ted's, we can push it open a crack. Hopefully, a wide-enough one that we can squeeze through...and out."

Now, it was Diego's turn to have an anime face: "I think someone might be about to save us the trouble. Feel that?"

A moment later, I did. Ted, too. It was a rhythmic set of seismic vibrations climbing up through our bodies from the wooden floor. Vibrations caused by...approaching footsteps.

tbc

* * * * *

The three of us huddled to the left of the closet door as it slid open. And, we realized our worst fears when we recognized Courtney's voice.

"Yoohoo! It's me, boys. I've come to get you ready for your deb..."

She gasped at seeing the birdcage empty. Which we subsequently took as our cue to make a break for it. And, of course, she caught our movement out of the corner of her eye.

"You little shits! Get back here!"

You know something? That's the one thing I had always found unintentionally funny about most crime dramas on TV. A kidnap victim is going to be killed; he/she makes a bid for escape; and the would-be killer orders them to return as if he seriously expects them to obey! So, naturally, we were just as disobedient.

Courtney quickly removed her sweatsuit jacket, and tried to net us en masse with it. But, she only succeeded in doing so with Ted. Diego and I managed to scramble beneath her bed. With him, climbing up the right leg of the footboard towards the box-spring mattress. While I high-tailed it towards the wall behind the headboard!

Hiding behind its left leg, I debated my next move. Crawl up into the box-spring, like Diego? Or, hide under the rug before she moved the bed away from the wall?


I was spared any further effort at deciding which was the less dubious evil by an unexpected development. Namely; the kicking open of Courtney's bedroom door!

"What the...? What are you....mmmmmmmmmmph!?"

Two seconds later, Courtney slumped to the floor, her mouth covered by a grayish-gloved hand holding a white handkerchief. One laced with chloroform, by the smell of it! Then, I saw the owner of that hand.

It was the foam-rubber head of Uga, the Georgia Bulldog mascot.

tbc

"Diego? Diego, it's me! Are you under there?"

The muffled voice that made that inquiry was decidely a female one. And, Diego obviously recognized her voice the same way she knew about him. Because, the next thing I knew, he was dropping down from the underside of the box-spring mattress like a frigging acrobat...or paratrooper.

"Over here. Come on out, Ned. She's on our side!"

If I had any doubts to that effect, they were eliminated when I saw "Uga" open up a gym bag and remove an interesting assortment of items. Namely, a sleeping bag; two plastic binding strips; and a ball gag. The latter three were used to secure the still-unconscious Courtney. She was then stuffed into the former, by "Uga," who promptly threw her captive over her left shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

When this had been accomplished, "Uga" shook her sneaker-clad right foot. Diego jumped on to the toe of it. Following which, she dropped him into the gym bag. She then indicated to Ted and I that we should do the same. With little other choice in the matter, that's exactly what we did.

As if to reassure us, "Uga" carried the gym bag unzipped. So, we clearly overheard the conversation that she stopped to have with the sorority house mother.

"Homeland Security deeply appreciates your co-operation, Mrs. Ericson. And, remember: we relocated her for her own protection."

"Oh, don't worry," replied Mrs. Ericson: "I'll be sure to tell that to anyone who asks. They'd never believe the truth, anyway!"

After that, came a twenty-minute car ride. And, when I next saw daylight, it was coming through a motel room window. Thereby allowing Ted and I to get our first good look at our rescuer...who turned out to be a beautiful Sansei woman in her mid-to-late twenties.

Diego proudly made the introductions: "Ted Ivanov? Ned Fogarty? Meet Special Agent Naomi Watanabe; formerly with the FBI (San Francisco branch)."

To Be Concluded

* * * * *

I looked at Diego as he made this announcement.

"You mean, she works for the CIA, too?"

"Not specifically," she replied: "Officially, I'm on detached duty, overseas. FBI liason to the Japanese National Police Agency out of the American embassy in Tokyo. But, in reality, I now work for M.A.C.H.O. The Multi-Agency Counter-Homunculist Organization."

"Never heard of them."

"You weren't meant to," said Diego: "The outfit's been top-secret since it was basically co-founded by my dad."

"Your dad?"

Diego grinned like a Cheshire cat with rabies: "I have no Tio Pepe. My mom was an only child! Pepe Garcia is my dad. An ex-WWII fighter-pilot who went to work for La Compania during the Berlin Airlift."

"So, you even lied about having been a crime scene photographer with the LAPD?" I asked him.

"Oh, that part's true! M.A.C.H.O. has undercover contacts with every American police force that has a Bureau of Missing Persons. I'm the contact for their L.A. office. And, I alert them whenever someone mysteriously disappears, yet for none of the usual reasons."

"Then, you were also telling the truth about Ted's disappearance being the motivation for your bosses' involvement with me?"

Diego nodded: "In fact; that's also why I made that so-called 'slip of the tongue' about the Cuban Missile Crisis. I wanted to see how long it would take you to catch that. Because, once Naomi (who was assigned to this case as my back-up) brings us home, I have a feeling you're going to be offered a new job!"

As if on cue, Naomi's prisoner began stirring within the sleeping bag. Prompting Naomi to knock her back out...with a karate chop.

* * * * *

And, that's how I wound up going back to school! More specifically; "Kleinmann University." A scale-model replica of Yale University that teaches shrunken guys, like me and Ted, how to readjust.

The two of us have a dorm room adjoining Diego's. His roommate is an ex-astronaut named Miles Stone, who was "recruited" down in Florida. And, I'm told that those of us who decide to repay the favor, by working as field agents for M.A.C.H.O., are usually given normal-sized female partners as bodyguards!

I'll be perfectly honest. I definitely wouldn't mind Naomi guarding _my_ little body! But, it may be some time before any of us see her, again. Because, according to Myron Meriwether (the head honcho of M.A.C.H.O.), Courtney's been taken to an "undisclosed location" for questioning. They want to find out what she did with all the other missing shrinkies she's responsible for. And, Naomi will be in charge of the questioning.

The first phase of which will be giving Courtney a quite literal taste of her own medicine. In exactly the same fashion that I was given it. At full strength!

THE END?