She was a succubus, a cunning temptress, adroit acrobat, competent ornithologist and celebrated sprinter. She was also the operative that I was tasked with eliminating from the CIA's list of violent femmes and enraged suffragettes--me, a guy who a year ago was deemed unfit for service in the merchant marines after initial testing demonstrated a predisposition and predilection for high stakes games of truth or dare, on the lam now for three years trying to forget that fateful night when all I had to say was "dare" and everything would have remained the same--still living in Dubuque with Basque seperatist wife, Fabiola, and three loving children, Toulouse, The Greek, and Little Chaka, still eating the same old Basque finger sandwiches that Fabiola made, still watching The Greek excell at home economics and civics, still trying to find the time to fix the roof, still wondering how long I had to stay away from rhubarb before the swelling would go down, still a palooka. What happened? Well, I can't tell you that but let's just say that a poster campaign to end women's suffrage I had made in the 12th grade finally caught up with me. I'd approach, ostensibly inquiring about the eating habits of the tufted puftin, and she'd withdraw. She'd approach, lured by the identity I'd assumed which held itself out as an expert in ancient kitchenware, ostensibly to ask about a 8th century fork that she had a line on in Oman, and I'd withdraw. And so we danced--both knowing full well that one of us would win, one would lose, both understanding that the future vindication of our respective world beliefs depended on the other lying dead in a kiddy pool, both slaves to the common blood which surged through us demanding with the pound of every heart beat that we don't ask and just take, that we extinguish the flames of our missions by pressing together our wet bodies like amorous seals, both knowing that love, the only adventure we had left, was something the world would not allow us--at least not until it was too late--a series of events having been set in motion that could only end with the world merging back into a single continent under the publicly intrepid urging, and secret machinations, of a single frenchman who dared to dream--a dream from which no one would ever wake up.