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Spies Are Like Daffodils
A Spontoon Island story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer
Thumbnail art by
RockBaker
One.
The Sea Bear Republic sat squarely between the American states of Washington, California and Idaho, but the independent nation had enjoyed good relations with its neighbors since its founding back before the start of the American Civil War. Recognized by the other members of the League of Nations, its capital city of Tilikum was host to several foreign embassies.
A mink femme, midmorning sunlight striking deep golden highlights in the caramel-colored fur on her arms and head, walked along a sidewalk and tried to ignore the hoots and catcalls from a group of ironworkers six stories above her. She unconsciously drew her coat a little tighter around her in an effort to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Horosho; a building presented itself, the United States flag moving idly in the breeze coming off the river. A Marine wearing a greatcoat over his uniform stood stolidly as she walked by, and she tried to casually drop an envelope at the feline’s feet and move on.
She hadn’t gone two steps when her ears perked. “Excuse me, lady, but you dropped this,” the Marine said.
“No, I didn’t,” the minkess said, and she dashed off, leaving the Marine scratching his head.
She got around the corner and two blocks north before she slowed down, trying to get her heart under control. She’d never been taught fieldcraft at the Foreign Ministry institute in Tsarogorod, but after several minutes she realized that she wasn’t being pursued.
Good.
One envelope remained in her pocket; if she headed to work now and it was found on her, she’d be killed almost immediately. She looked around and spotted another embassy, this one sporting a red and black banner, the two colors divided diagonally.
A lifetime of education and training made her curl her lips, baring her teeth in anger and contempt, but then she recalled what she was doing. She glanced in both directions and stepped across the road to the Rain Island Embassy. Socialists they might have been, but they might help.
The guard at the front of the building, in his maroon and forest green formal uniform, was a mink like her – or maybe a ferret; either way, he smiled appreciatively as she walked up to him. “Good morning, Miss,” he said, “may I - ?”
“Here,” the minkess said, almost throwing the envelope at him and taking to her heels.
Again, she stopped after several blocks and tried to calm herself. Had she been seen? Had she been followed?
The minkess took a winding route, doubling back randomly in order to check, and it didn’t help her sense of unease when she realized that she hadn’t been followed. She squared her shoulders and headed for work, determined to brazen it out if she was confronted.
The gate guard was a wolverine, a hussar in white and gold and wearing a burnished armored breastplate that shone in the sunlight, and he nodded at her as she presented her identification papers. She smiled at him and glanced up at the flag overhead, gold and bearing the double-headed eagle of the Russian Empire-in-Exile. “Good morning, Nunevya Iosifevna,” the wolverine said.
“Good morning, Sergeant Yusupov.”
“You are a little late.”
“Oh, I know. I’m afraid I lingered over breakfast.”
“Shouldn’t eat so much,” he admonished, and he winked at her. She smiled and went into the Embassy to start her day.
***
Carl Hooker put his head in his paws and grumbled, a rather incongruous sound coming from a rabbit, as he looked through the packet again. Outside his office window on the fifth floor of the building, the hustle and bustle of life in San Francisco went on, while beyond his office door, the work of the Minkerton Detective Agency continued.
Minkerton’s was the sine qua non of private detective agencies in the United States, with its reputation and reach extending worldwide. That was probably why the packet had been sent to him, Hooker thought.
A letter had been delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Tilikum from a cipher clerk in the Imperial Russian Embassy, asking for asylum in exchange for what she knew. The Department of State was keen to get the information, as was the War Department; the problem was that neither of them wanted to get their paws dirty. That was Hooker’s private assessment.
Instead, the matter had been brought to the attention of Allan Minkerton IV, who approved the operation and then sent it, by courier, to the nearest Minkerton’s office.
That is to say, his.
The rabbit buck leaned back, rubbed his eyes and started going over his roster of available agents. Carson had run afoul of a gang, and was still in the hospital; Harrison was out of town, and Wisneski was down south. That left . . .
He sighed.
A finger reached out and touched his intercom. “Doris? Do you know if . . . Bernie Phlute’s in the building?”
A good executive secretary can be a pearl beyond price; they tend to know everything that goes on in their purview. “Yeah,” the gray squirrel said, “I saw him downstairs – that is, I saw him falling down a flight of stairs a little while ago.”
“Have someone find him and have him report to me.”
“You’re kidding.”
Hooker grimaced. A nervous tic was starting to develop at the corner of his left eye. “I wish I was.”
***
A red-piped green uniform kepi flew through the air at the hatrack in the office, only to fall short more than a yard from its target and land on the floor. The collie femme behind the desk merely rolled her eyes as the hat’s owner stepped fully into the room.
“Hi, Kathy!” A rather well-built and athletic red fox strode in, scooped up the kepi and straightened his maroon uniform tunic. Henry Patafuerte grinned, a stray bit of light glinting off one tooth. “Is the Boss in?” He tossed the hat again.
The collie reached out with a paw and slapped the hat out of the air, following it with a side-to-side wag of a finger. “You’re fifteen minutes late, Lieutenant Patafuerte – and it’s Mrs. Daniels to you.”
“Shucks, Kathy, you know I don’t mean anything by it,” Patafuerte said in a breezy tone as he picked his hat up again. He rested a hip on a corner of the desk and added while running his free paw over the inbox containing several classified files, “Besides, I know you’re a married woman and all – OW!” He snatched his paw away, grimacing and examining his knuckles as the collie put the metal ruler away. “That hurt!”
“Good. Means there’s at least some connection between your body and that lump of whatever between your ears. Go on in,” and Kathy hit a button under the desk. There was a buzz and the inner office door unlocked. She kept an eye on the fox until the door closed behind him.
“You’re late, Patafuerte,” Vice-Commodore Richard Broome growled. The gray fox was the head of Rain Island’s intelligence service. He suspected that the reason that the red fox tod was working in Intelligence was because he’d already been through the other branches of the Military Collective, and the other Vice-Commodores were taking bets on how long it would take before there was vulpine-on-vulpine violence. “Why?”
“I was late getting off the range, Boss,” Patafuerte replied, “and I got here as fast I could.”
“What kept you on the range?”
“The range masters kept giving me guns to shoot, but every time I tried to load them I had the wrong ammunition. And then, well, one pistol fell apart when I pulled the trigger the first time. Took a while to find all those itty-bitty springs.”
Broome had heard about Patafuerte’s almost uncanny ability to have firearms either fail spectacularly or not fit the bullets he had at paw. He suppressed a sigh and opened a file. “Sit down,” and after the tod had obeyed Broome offered Patafuerte a black and white photograph. It had been taken from a discreet distance, and showed a mink femme in a dress and coat.
Patafuerte took the picture and whistled admiringly. “Quite the looker, Boss. What’s her name?”
“Nunevya Bizwacz.”
The red fox looked over the top of the picture at him with a knowing grin. “Playing them close to the chest, huh Boss? That’s okay,” he chuckled. “We must have our secrets – “
“That is her name,” Broome snapped. ”Now, listen to me. This woman dropped off a letter at our embassy in Tilikum. She’s a cipher clerk at the Tsarist Embassy there.”
“Oh, I see. And you want me to kill her?”
“No.”
“Seduce her?”
“No.”
“So – “
“She’s requesting asylum, and offering to tell us what she knows.”
The red fox studied the photograph again. “I could show her a few things I know – “
“Shut. Up.” Patafuerte complied and Broome said, “The Tsarists are using a new code, called Diamond. If she knows about it, she can help us crack that cipher. Your mission is to go to Tilikum, get her out of the country, and get her back here to Seathl.” He held up a sealed manila envelope. “Here’s a copy of the file, and your orders. Rule Twenty applies.”
“What’s that again, Boss?” Patafuerte asked, tearing his gaze away from the pretty face in the picture.
Richard Broome resisted the urge to facepalm. “Rule Twenty means that this is wartime-secret. You talk about this to anyone, you’ll be in my garden.”
“Well, it does look like it needs weeding – “
“As fertilizer.”
The Vice-Commodore was known for having very healthy roses in the garden outside his office window, and there were rumors about what he used to make them look so good.
“Okay, gotcha Boss,” the tod said. He gathered up the envelope and his hat and left the office.
Smack!
“YIPE!”
Broome smiled. Trust Kathy to get in the Parthian shot.
<NEXT>
A Spontoon Island story
© 2023 by Walter Reimer
Thumbnail art by
RockBakerOne.
The Sea Bear Republic sat squarely between the American states of Washington, California and Idaho, but the independent nation had enjoyed good relations with its neighbors since its founding back before the start of the American Civil War. Recognized by the other members of the League of Nations, its capital city of Tilikum was host to several foreign embassies.
A mink femme, midmorning sunlight striking deep golden highlights in the caramel-colored fur on her arms and head, walked along a sidewalk and tried to ignore the hoots and catcalls from a group of ironworkers six stories above her. She unconsciously drew her coat a little tighter around her in an effort to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Horosho; a building presented itself, the United States flag moving idly in the breeze coming off the river. A Marine wearing a greatcoat over his uniform stood stolidly as she walked by, and she tried to casually drop an envelope at the feline’s feet and move on.
She hadn’t gone two steps when her ears perked. “Excuse me, lady, but you dropped this,” the Marine said.
“No, I didn’t,” the minkess said, and she dashed off, leaving the Marine scratching his head.
She got around the corner and two blocks north before she slowed down, trying to get her heart under control. She’d never been taught fieldcraft at the Foreign Ministry institute in Tsarogorod, but after several minutes she realized that she wasn’t being pursued.
Good.
One envelope remained in her pocket; if she headed to work now and it was found on her, she’d be killed almost immediately. She looked around and spotted another embassy, this one sporting a red and black banner, the two colors divided diagonally.
A lifetime of education and training made her curl her lips, baring her teeth in anger and contempt, but then she recalled what she was doing. She glanced in both directions and stepped across the road to the Rain Island Embassy. Socialists they might have been, but they might help.
The guard at the front of the building, in his maroon and forest green formal uniform, was a mink like her – or maybe a ferret; either way, he smiled appreciatively as she walked up to him. “Good morning, Miss,” he said, “may I - ?”
“Here,” the minkess said, almost throwing the envelope at him and taking to her heels.
Again, she stopped after several blocks and tried to calm herself. Had she been seen? Had she been followed?
The minkess took a winding route, doubling back randomly in order to check, and it didn’t help her sense of unease when she realized that she hadn’t been followed. She squared her shoulders and headed for work, determined to brazen it out if she was confronted.
The gate guard was a wolverine, a hussar in white and gold and wearing a burnished armored breastplate that shone in the sunlight, and he nodded at her as she presented her identification papers. She smiled at him and glanced up at the flag overhead, gold and bearing the double-headed eagle of the Russian Empire-in-Exile. “Good morning, Nunevya Iosifevna,” the wolverine said.
“Good morning, Sergeant Yusupov.”
“You are a little late.”
“Oh, I know. I’m afraid I lingered over breakfast.”
“Shouldn’t eat so much,” he admonished, and he winked at her. She smiled and went into the Embassy to start her day.
***
Carl Hooker put his head in his paws and grumbled, a rather incongruous sound coming from a rabbit, as he looked through the packet again. Outside his office window on the fifth floor of the building, the hustle and bustle of life in San Francisco went on, while beyond his office door, the work of the Minkerton Detective Agency continued.
Minkerton’s was the sine qua non of private detective agencies in the United States, with its reputation and reach extending worldwide. That was probably why the packet had been sent to him, Hooker thought.
A letter had been delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Tilikum from a cipher clerk in the Imperial Russian Embassy, asking for asylum in exchange for what she knew. The Department of State was keen to get the information, as was the War Department; the problem was that neither of them wanted to get their paws dirty. That was Hooker’s private assessment.
Instead, the matter had been brought to the attention of Allan Minkerton IV, who approved the operation and then sent it, by courier, to the nearest Minkerton’s office.
That is to say, his.
The rabbit buck leaned back, rubbed his eyes and started going over his roster of available agents. Carson had run afoul of a gang, and was still in the hospital; Harrison was out of town, and Wisneski was down south. That left . . .
He sighed.
A finger reached out and touched his intercom. “Doris? Do you know if . . . Bernie Phlute’s in the building?”
A good executive secretary can be a pearl beyond price; they tend to know everything that goes on in their purview. “Yeah,” the gray squirrel said, “I saw him downstairs – that is, I saw him falling down a flight of stairs a little while ago.”
“Have someone find him and have him report to me.”
“You’re kidding.”
Hooker grimaced. A nervous tic was starting to develop at the corner of his left eye. “I wish I was.”
***
A red-piped green uniform kepi flew through the air at the hatrack in the office, only to fall short more than a yard from its target and land on the floor. The collie femme behind the desk merely rolled her eyes as the hat’s owner stepped fully into the room.
“Hi, Kathy!” A rather well-built and athletic red fox strode in, scooped up the kepi and straightened his maroon uniform tunic. Henry Patafuerte grinned, a stray bit of light glinting off one tooth. “Is the Boss in?” He tossed the hat again.
The collie reached out with a paw and slapped the hat out of the air, following it with a side-to-side wag of a finger. “You’re fifteen minutes late, Lieutenant Patafuerte – and it’s Mrs. Daniels to you.”
“Shucks, Kathy, you know I don’t mean anything by it,” Patafuerte said in a breezy tone as he picked his hat up again. He rested a hip on a corner of the desk and added while running his free paw over the inbox containing several classified files, “Besides, I know you’re a married woman and all – OW!” He snatched his paw away, grimacing and examining his knuckles as the collie put the metal ruler away. “That hurt!”
“Good. Means there’s at least some connection between your body and that lump of whatever between your ears. Go on in,” and Kathy hit a button under the desk. There was a buzz and the inner office door unlocked. She kept an eye on the fox until the door closed behind him.
“You’re late, Patafuerte,” Vice-Commodore Richard Broome growled. The gray fox was the head of Rain Island’s intelligence service. He suspected that the reason that the red fox tod was working in Intelligence was because he’d already been through the other branches of the Military Collective, and the other Vice-Commodores were taking bets on how long it would take before there was vulpine-on-vulpine violence. “Why?”
“I was late getting off the range, Boss,” Patafuerte replied, “and I got here as fast I could.”
“What kept you on the range?”
“The range masters kept giving me guns to shoot, but every time I tried to load them I had the wrong ammunition. And then, well, one pistol fell apart when I pulled the trigger the first time. Took a while to find all those itty-bitty springs.”
Broome had heard about Patafuerte’s almost uncanny ability to have firearms either fail spectacularly or not fit the bullets he had at paw. He suppressed a sigh and opened a file. “Sit down,” and after the tod had obeyed Broome offered Patafuerte a black and white photograph. It had been taken from a discreet distance, and showed a mink femme in a dress and coat.
Patafuerte took the picture and whistled admiringly. “Quite the looker, Boss. What’s her name?”
“Nunevya Bizwacz.”
The red fox looked over the top of the picture at him with a knowing grin. “Playing them close to the chest, huh Boss? That’s okay,” he chuckled. “We must have our secrets – “
“That is her name,” Broome snapped. ”Now, listen to me. This woman dropped off a letter at our embassy in Tilikum. She’s a cipher clerk at the Tsarist Embassy there.”
“Oh, I see. And you want me to kill her?”
“No.”
“Seduce her?”
“No.”
“So – “
“She’s requesting asylum, and offering to tell us what she knows.”
The red fox studied the photograph again. “I could show her a few things I know – “
“Shut. Up.” Patafuerte complied and Broome said, “The Tsarists are using a new code, called Diamond. If she knows about it, she can help us crack that cipher. Your mission is to go to Tilikum, get her out of the country, and get her back here to Seathl.” He held up a sealed manila envelope. “Here’s a copy of the file, and your orders. Rule Twenty applies.”
“What’s that again, Boss?” Patafuerte asked, tearing his gaze away from the pretty face in the picture.
Richard Broome resisted the urge to facepalm. “Rule Twenty means that this is wartime-secret. You talk about this to anyone, you’ll be in my garden.”
“Well, it does look like it needs weeding – “
“As fertilizer.”
The Vice-Commodore was known for having very healthy roses in the garden outside his office window, and there were rumors about what he used to make them look so good.
“Okay, gotcha Boss,” the tod said. He gathered up the envelope and his hat and left the office.
Smack!
“YIPE!”
Broome smiled. Trust Kathy to get in the Parthian shot.
<NEXT>
Category Story / General Furry Art
Species Mink
Size 87 x 120px
File Size 49 kB
Listed in Folders
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