Our Man in Lanwdale

Daria, Jane, and Brittany exited the van, which was parked on a quiet, tree-lined, side street, a short distance from their quarry's mansion. A brick wall surrounded the mansion itself. The wall was an elegant touch, but not particularly effective as a defense. The risk would be inside the wall, from guards, dogs, or mere electronic sensors.

The three moved up to the wall. Nobody seemed to be in a position to observe them, although in the bright mid-day sun it was hard to tell if someone might be watching from another house. The three were anonymous in black fatigues, body armor, and full-face hoods, but even with the letters "FBI" stamped on the back of their jackets, it was possible a concerned neighbor might call 911. If that happened, Daria could deal with it, but only at the risk of alerting the terrorists due to the leak at HQ.

At the wall, Brittany deployed a variety of passive sensors, looking for electronic watchers, or the traces of radio that would give away human guards carrying communications equipment. Daria and Jane flanked her, facing outward. Both carried short-barreled semi-automatic shotguns. Useless at any significant range, but highly effective in the close quarters of a house. They all wore short-range radios that Fingers had checked and declared clean, but were keeping silent to avoid alerting any guards.

Brittany finished her initial sweep, and gave a thumbs-up. Then she pulled out the device she'd used when they rescued the President, and held the flexible tube containing the camera over the top of the wall. Daria looked up at the LCD, as Brittany panned back and forth, verifying the grounds were clear of obvious guards. Next she scanned the house itself, but no watchers were visible in any windows. Brittany returned the camera to her belt, and nodded to Daria.

Daria slung her weapon, and made a stirrup with her fingers. Brittany launched herself to the top of the wall with a cheerleader's grace, pausing to look for guards again. Then she assisted Jane to the top of the wall. Jane took up a guard position, as Brittany hoisted Daria up. Then, with the other two watching for guards, Brittany dropped into the grounds, and began scanning with her electronic toys. Shortly, she waved the two down, and the three of them began moving slowly across the lawn, towards the rear of the building.

They reached the back yard, and what proved to be a kitchen door, without incident. Daria was beginning to sweat from the combination of sunlight on her black clothing, and the weight of the bulletproof vest over it. She brushed the moisture from her forehead with her left hand, and then returned it to holding the barrel of her gun. A glance through the glass in the upper half of the door showed no obvious guards.

Brittany ran a small box around the edge of the door, marking one spot with a pencil. When she was done, she glued a small box to the spot she had marked, and pushed a button on it. A small green light on the box illuminated. She turned to Daria, and mimed unlocking the door. Daria nodded, and Brittany set to work with a set of lock picks. When the door unlocked, she glanced at Daria for confirmation, and then turned the knob and pushed the door inwards, jumping to one side.

As agreed, Daria went through the door first, breaking to the right. Brittany followed, going left with a pistol in her hand, and Jane came last. The room was empty, and Jane closed the door behind them. Daria could see the alarm sensor on the inside of the door, right where Brittany's box was mounted to the outside.

They moved through the house cautiously, encountering nobody. After sweeping the ground floor, they moved upstairs. Again, it was deserted. There was a locked door closing what the floor plan claimed was a stairway to the attic. Daria had Brittany check it for alarms, and unlock it, but held off opening it. It was possible an ambush waited inside the door, or a booby-trap. She whispered into Brittany's ear, and she nodded, extracting yet another gadget from the capacious pouches around her waist.

Daria and Jane retreated from the door, as Brittany unfolded something that looked like a mechanical spider, and attached it to the doorknob. She pushed a button on it, and ran to join the other two. As the spider's legs extended, and it began to simultaneously turn the doorknob and push against the doorframe, the three ducked into a room across the hall, Brittany watching out the door with her electronic periscope.

As the door swung open, there was a loud explosion that blew it off its hinges. Brittany dropped the periscope in surprise, and Jane dived to the floor. Daria, who had been given some training on building assaults, leaped into the hallway and covered the shattered doorway with her gun while the other two recovered themselves. When they were ready, she moved down to the doorway, darting a look though the smoke and dust filling the stairway.

The stairs themselves, although torn up by shrapnel, seemed intact. Nothing was moving. Daria took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and pulled a grenade from her belt. It was a flash-bang; a mild explosive intended to stun and confuse anyone in the room. It was probably redundant, given that a real grenade had just gone off, but just to be safe she pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade into the room above.

As soon as it went off, she charged up the stairs, diving out of the stairwell onto the floor in a low roll that brought her upright facing back the way she'd come. The room was empty, except for some dusty furniture. She moved cautiously to the stairwell, and waved an all clear to the other two, then she began to search the room.

Jane and Brittany joined her, and it was Brittany who eventually found the bomb. It was lying on a couch, in a nest hollowed out of the bottom of a seat-cushion, hidden from casual discovery. Daria checked the arming panel, which showed signs of tampering. It was definitely armed, a red light glowing ominously on the panel, but there was no convenient clock counting down the minutes until detonation. Normally a shell like this could only be detonated by impact, or a short timer started by the shock of the shell being fired. She expected that someone had tampered with the internals of the arming mechanism to add a longer manual timer. Hopefully they hadn't added a mercury switch to detect anyone moving the shell. She doubted it, given the resting place on the couch. It was too likely that sagging springs would set off a motion sensitive switch; they would have used a more solid resting place if they had made such a modification. She hoped.

For the first time since leaving the van, she spoke: "Fingers, we have the package, and it's warm. We're on our way out." She turned to the others. "You two, carry the shell. I'll take point in case we've attracted any attention."

"Um, you want us to carry a live atomic bomb?" Jane asked, incredulous.

"It's not going to go off if you drop it," Daria said. "And it almost certainly will go off if we try to disarm it ourselves. I want Fingers to work on it, and that means getting it to the van."

"But I want to have kids someday!" Brittany wailed. "I don't want them to have three eyes, or to be cannibals or something! You carry it."

"Brittany," Daria said, exasperated, "it's well shielded, and not very radioactive anyway. You probably run more risk every time you use a microwave oven. Just pick the damn thing up. I'm the only one of us who can hit the side of a barn with one of these guns, so I need to be the guard."

"Oh," said Brittany. "Okay."

Jane and Brittany lifted the bomb, which was not light, and began to carry it towards the stairs. Daria went down quickly, diving into the hallway in case anyone was waiting for them, but there was nobody there. She searched the rooms opening off the hall while she listened to the others come down the stairs slowly. Once they were down, they moved to the main stairs.

They left the building, unmolested, through the kitchen door, circling around to the front. Fingers had brought the van up to the gates, and as soon as he saw them, he drove in, smashing the decorative wrought iron aside easily; the van was reinforced for such work.

They loaded the bomb into the van, as Fingers moved quickly from the driver's seat, which was equipped with special controls to allow him to drive, into his wheelchair. He rolled over to the desk where the bomb sat. He turned to Daria. "Do we have the disarm codes?" he asked.

"Yes, but I don't trust them. Someone had to modify the arming system to give it a countdown timer, they could easily have wired it so any use of the keypad detonated it."

"Okay, then we do this the hard way. I'll drill in from the side, and use some micromanipulators to cut the power to the trigger assembly. This will take a few minutes. What don't you wait outside?"

"Why?" asked Brittany. "It's not like we're any safer out there."

"No, but you're a lot less likely to distract me at the wrong moment, and get us all killed."

Daria could hear the strain in his voice. No matter how straightforward he made it sound, this wasn't an easy procedure, but they couldn't risk waiting for a disposal squad. She led the others out of the van, looking around for the first time at the house and grounds as a home, rather than as a collection of potential hiding-places for enemies. It was a nice place, much nicer even than the Sloane house. The grenade had blown out several of the upstairs windows earlier, but otherwise it was spotless. The lawn was precisely manicured, and no weed marred the flowerbeds. Everything spoke of extensive, and expensive, maintenance. She wondered what could motivate someone who obviously loved their home to use it as ground zero for an atomic bomb. How could greed, or a lust for power, override such a basic emotion. Perhaps they'd find out when they interrogated the owner, but it would probably be as inexplicable to him as it was to her.

Daria sat on the ground, in the meager shade cast by the van, where the other two joined her. They waited, impatiently, for Fingers to disarm the bomb, or for their deaths if he made a mistake. At least a mistake would kill them so suddenly they'd never even know it had happened. Daria supposed that should be comforting, there were many less pleasant ways to die than simply switching off like a light, but she failed to draw any comfort from the thought.

After nearly a half hour, Fingers called out to them. "That's it, it's not a bomb any longer."

Daria stood and climbed into the van, feeling a sense of anticlimax. It was over so simply. Well, not quite, there was still the agency leak to deal with, but the city was safe, and that was the really important part. She stepped up beside Fingers, and looked at the bomb. "It doesn't look so threatening now, does it?" she asked him.

"No, but I'll still be glad when we turn it over to someone," he replied.

Daria nodded. "Brittany, Jane," she called, "saddle up. We're headed back to Bolling."

The others climbed in, and Brittany moved up front to drive. Daria joined her to give Jane and Fingers some privacy; Jane had clearly come to terms with any issues she'd had regarding his past, and they apparently needed to reassure each other that they were still alive.

As Brittany pulled out onto the street, she phoned Major Stewart to let him know the emergency was over, and that it was time to start the hunt. Then she called another number, and said, simply: "It's Cynic, we'll be in place in an hour, do it." Then she relaxed, and began to peel the body armor off; she'd need it again, later, but for now she wanted to cool off and let her muscles, sore from the unaccustomed effort of assaulting a house in full gear, relax.

The flight of three Marine helicopters bearing the Major's team swept into Lawndale at treetop level, eventually landing in a field near the multimovieplex on the outskirts of town. A battered car, and a delivery van for the town paper, waited nearby. Daria and the Major jumped down from the lead helicopter, and hurried to the car.

The door opened, and a young man wearing a Russian army officer's uniform stepped out. "I told you we'd meet again, Daria. Hello, Major Stewart."

Daria smiled, while Alexei and the Major shook hands, then she stepped up and gave him a quick hug. "It's good to see you again. So, you're official now?" she said, gesturing at his uniform.

"Yes, with my cover blown I've been reassigned. My superiors were quite pleased by the rescue of your President, and I am now the military attache in our Washington embassy. It's quite a coup; usually only officers with twenty years of seniority get such a posting. And I owe it all to the two of you."

"Well, we're here to collect," said Daria. "Is the bait set?"

"Yes. Although the KGB destroyed any records of agents in Lawndale at the end of the Soviet Union, I sent a request for a meeting through one of our usual methods. If there's an ex-agent in town, this should flush him out. I'm putting my neck on the line here. If we flush someone other than your leak, there are people in Moscow who will see this as treason."

"I understand," said Daria. "If someone else shows up, they can walk away clean, although their cover will obviously be blown. I'm only interested in the people behind the Presidential kidnapping, and the leak who will lead us to them. I think we still have a common goal there."

"Yes, we do. The meeting is in fifteen minutes, at an abandoned gas station two miles from here. You and I will go in by car, and the rest of your team can stand by in the van until you call for them."

"I suppose it's pointless to object to this plan," said the Major. "But I don't like watching the two of you go in without backup."

"We need to keep a low profile," said Daria. "If the agent realizes it's a trap, he'll just claim that he intercepted the signal, and was looking for the Russian agent himself. I need to surprise him, and gain a confession."

"Hmph," the Major grunted. "Capture him first, get the confession later. If he's guilty, we can get a confession, and if not, well, it's one of the risks of the job."

"I'm not as confident as you that you can force a confession. This is a tough agent, who's been in place since before the end of the cold war. He won't necessarily crack without a more strenuous interrogation than we can justify on suspicion alone."

"So, what makes you think you can get a confession yourself?" asked Alexei.

"I'll have the benefit of surprise. Anyway, it's not up for discussion. This is my operation, and you both agreed in advance to let me run it my way. Shall we go?"

"You haven't led us wrong yet," said the Major. "We'll be in the van, listening to your radio. Call when you need us."

Daria climbed into Alexei's car--she was still wearing her black fatigues and armor--and pulled on her hood, becoming an anonymous guard. She wore a sidearm, but had left the shotgun behind. Alexei climbed in beside her, and they drove down the road.

"How do you want to play this? he asked.

"When we get there, we both get out. I'll act the silent guard, you engage her in conversation. Try to get her to admit she's your agent. I'll jump in when the time is right."

"Her? You know who the agent is? Why didn't you say?"

"I don't know, but I have a strong suspicion. I didn't want to bias anyone's judgment in advance by sharing my guess."

The car pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned gas station a few minutes later. Daria, playing her role, exited the car first and broke the flimsy lock on the building, checking to ensure it was empty. Back outside, she walked around the building once before waving to Alexei. He joined her, and the two of them waited at the front of the building. Daria stood a few feet behind Alexei, in an alert rest position, with her hands folded behind her back and her spine straight, doing her best to look like a skilled, but inconsequential, bodyguard. The gas station was on a lightly used side road, and no cars went past while they waited. Precisely on time, a sedan pulled up, and Angela Li stepped out of it, looking around quickly.

She hurried up to Alexei, surprise and anger warring on her face. "What the hell are you doing in uniform?" she asked. "Do you know where you are?"

"Yes," said Alexei. "It doesn't matter now. You've been blown. I'm here to evacuate you before the FBI arrives. If we can get you to the embassy, we'll be able to move you out under diplomatic immunity."

"Blown? I can't be. I've been inactive for ten years." Angela's response was indignant, but it was still a confession. However, Daria needed something more than a ten-year-old double agent. She held herself silent, while Alexei continued.

"Inactive until your recent adventure with the President," he said, causing Angela to tense. "Yes, we know about that. Did you think it was a secret from us? Really, we're not that inefficient. It was a good attempt, but you failed, and the failure exposed you."

"No! There's no way they could know. Everything was done through layers of cutouts, and the last evidence will be wiped in a couple of hours. Go back to Washington, but I'm staying here. Don't contact me again." She began to turn away, and Daria reached up with her left hand, and pulled off the hood.

"He's right, Angela, you're definitely blown," she said, to her look of disbelief. "It's over, and your little toy has been disarmed. Surrender quietly, and I'm sure we can cut a deal. Alexei here would really like to know who your friends back in Moscow are, and we're interested in who else over here was involved."

Angela started to reach inside her jacket, but stopped as Daria had already covered her with the gun she'd been holding behind her back during the conversation. A defeated look came over her, as she held her hands away from her body. "Damn," she said, "I knew you were too good."

"That's why you set us up, isn't it?" Daria asked, surprised that she could be so calm, facing the woman she'd thought was her friend, who had tried to murder her and her team.

"Yes, it was. I knew if you survived, you'd find me out. You know me too well, and you'd never stop looking for the culprits after the bomb went off. That sense of justice of yours would have undone me, in the end." She chuckled, an ironic sound, devoid of humor. "It did. And I have nobody to blame but myself. I should have left you as a student, rather than deliberately using the satellite transmission jammer when you were on the roof so I'd have an excuse to recruit you."

"Bomb?" asked Alexei. "What bomb?"

"The bomb she tried to use on the capitol this afternoon. Just a little tac nuke. We defused it." She returned her attention to Angela: "So, why did you recruit me?"

"Because I knew you'd make a good agent. I've been grooming you for years for the job. All of our conflicts: the altered painting for the contest, the soda contract, everything since Manson identified you as a potential candidate has been to ensure that you were prepared to fight impossible odds for your ideals. I didn't plan on using you for this operation, I didn't even know it was going to happen, but when the opportunity came along, it was too good to miss, and you were the perfect combination of skill and naivete to throw into the mix. You were good enough that I could justify using you, but I expected you to fail."

"Your confidence overwhelms me," Daria said, deadpan. "But why do this in the first place? You said yourself you haven't been a double-agent since communism died, why now?"

"Because I'm approaching retirement, and I can't live on a government pension, if I even get one. With the cold war over, it's likely that the agency will be shutdown before I even make my twenty years, and I'm too old to start a new career. All the money I made as a double agent has been spent, and I barely make ends meet on what I can divert from agency and school funds. When we captured the German eco-terrorists who hijacked the nuclear weapon, I knew I could use it as a bargaining tool to guarantee the agency's survival, and a larger budget. All I had to do was see that it fell into the hands of some ex-KGB people who wanted to play terrorist, and push them in the right direction."

"So it was all about money?" Daria asked, disappointment clear in her voice.

"No, it was about preserving the agency. I won't deny I had other motives, but there are threats out there, and people like you and me are needed to combat them. We've done such a good job that others forget how real the threat is. This is a war. Not the cold war, but a new war against people who value their own objectives above human life."

"As you value the agency above the lives of a half-million residents of the Capitol? You talk a good game, Angela, but when you come right down to it, you're no better than the terrorists you fight. Nietzsche said that when you fight monsters, you need to be careful not to become one. You weren't careful enough."

"You fight them for twenty years, and see how lily-white you are, Daria. This isn't a job where you can keep your conscience clean. You think you're bothered by lying to your boyfriend now, but when happens the day you discover your boyfriend is one of the enemy? Tell me who the monster is then." Angela slumped, apparently having said all she had to say. Daria faced her, unspeaking, unwilling to find out anything more about her idol's motives. She already knew more than she'd wanted to, and they weren't things she'd forget readily.

The delivery truck pulled in while they were speaking, and marines poured out, surrounding the three of them. As the soldiers led Angela away, Daria holstered her gun, following Angela's departing back with sad eyes.

Angela had been the one who taught her to trust no facts she had not verified herself, and it was that training that had led Daria to question the convenience of the captured terrorists story. Investigating surveillance records on Angier, collected as part of the routine checks run on anyone who regularly interacted with students or staff at Lawndale High, she'd found that some of the records were missing. That led her to suspect a leak in the agency, and to look for unexplained absences or travel. She'd turned up several trips to the city by Angela, ostensibly to report to her superiors. As Angela's aide and Ops coordinator, Daria had the authority and contacts to check with those superiors, and there had been no such meetings. After that, it was merely a matter of maneuvering her into a confession.

Daria thought that she should feel proud: she'd unmasked a double agent who'd operated in the center of one of the most secret agencies in the government for years, passing every security check. That was an accomplishment any agent should revel in. But even though Angela had been a traitor, and had intended to murder an entire city for personal gain and misplaced ideals, arresting her merely felt like another betrayal. It was the final straw, on top of sending Tom's father to jail, and lying to her family. What was the point of being good at a job, if you couldn't accept the results? There didn't seem to be one.

Brittany and Jane walked up while she was thinking, with stunned expressions. Neither seemed able to form a sentence, so the three of them, plus Alexei, simply stood there in silence. The Major came over and said something congratulatory. Daria really wasn't paying attention, although she made some appropriate response. He eventually left, followed by Jane.

Alexei, with Brittany, led Daria to the car, where she sat quietly for a time. Eventually Jane returned, and the three of them joined Daria, and drove to the Lawndale Airport. There, Alexei left to catch a flight back to the city, and the other three returned to Lawndale High in the car they had left at the airport earlier in the day, stopping only to change into normal clothing on a quiet stretch of road.

At the ops center, Daria broke the news to the staff, and had them begin sweeping the facility for bugs, and checking the records to determine what agents and secrets might have been compromised. The odds were that everything had been compromised at one time, but if Angela had truly been retired as a double agent for ten years, recent agents might still be clear. Records identifying field agents were tightly controlled, and even Angela could not have accessed them without cause, or without leaving a trail.

Once the staff had their work to occupy them, Daria wrote her report, and forwarded it to her newly acquired superiors in the city. Let them sort out this mess, she thought. I'm done.

At the end of the day, she and Jane walked home. She found her parents obsessing over Quinn, and retreated to her room with a few words.

The last few weeks of school went by quickly. Daria was fully occupied with finishing up a few last-minute assignments, as well as managing the Ops center by herself. The powers-that-be in Washington promised to send out a replacement for the Colonel, and asked her to remain on full-time over the summer, to train him. She didn't have anything better to do, so she agreed, but her heart wasn't in the work any more.

She and Tom had several serious fights, stemming from her withdrawn state, and unwillingness to talk to him about it. Even her parents began to notice that something was wrong, but some careful excuses, supported by Quinn, convinced them that it was just nostalgia for the end of her high-school years. Some days she wondered how they could be so out of touch with their own daughter, to believe she'd ever had fond feelings for the place that had been her prison for the last three years.

One night, several weeks later, she was sitting at home, reading. Her father was watching television, and her mother and Quinn were in the kitchen, discussing Quinn's lack of a summer job. Daria was at least able to avoid that conversation this year; her work for the agency had resulted in a cover job doing inventory in the school library. As Quinn had once said, nobody ever questioned a simple, obvious, explanation.

The doorbell rang. Daria looked up from her seat on the couch, as her father called into the kitchen: "Quinn! Your date's here!"

"What are you talking about, Dad?" Quinn asked, entering from the kitchen. "I don't have a date tonight." She continued over to the door, and opened it, revealing a man in uniform standing in the doorway. Daria dropped her book, as she recognized Major Stewart.

Helen walked into the living room, while Quinn was trying to explain to the Major that they weren't interested in whatever he was selling. Daria choked back laughter at the expression of confused disbelief on the Major's face.

Helen interrupted her daughter before she could slam the door in his face. "Good evening, uh, officer? What can we do for you?"

"It's Major, ma'am. Major Stewart. I have a message for Daria Morgendorffer."

Daria stood up and walked to the door, as her mother tried to decide how to deal with the man standing on their front step.

"Do come in, Major," Daria said. "There's no point in inviting in all the mosquitoes in town by holding the door open."

The Major entered, closing the door before Helen could object. He pulled an unmarked white envelope from his briefcase, and handed it to Daria. "Go ahead, open it. I'm supposed to wait."

She tore the envelope open, wondering what kind of message had to be delivered in person, and to her home, violating every security arrangement she knew. A single sheet of paper was contained within, headed by the Presidential seal. Below it was a short paragraph. She read it to herself, and then handed the letter to her mother, who was hovering nearby.

"Dear Ms. Morgendorffer," Helen read aloud, "I understand from one of your team members that the secrecy surrounding the events of May 19 through 22 have placed an undue strain on your family and personal life. Although the details must remain classified, you are hereby authorized to provide general information regarding your role in those events to whomever you deem necessary. I trust in your discretion. The bearer of this letter, Major Stewart, will provide confirmation of any necessary facts, since he was involved in the more significant events surrounding my kidnapping and the terrorist threat. I do hope that the regrettable conclusion of this affair will not taint government service in your eyes. You have been of immeasurable value to your country, and I hope that we may continue to count on you in the future." Helen stopped, and looked at Daria. "It's signed by the President. Daria, what's this all about?"

"Mom, it's a long story. Why don't we all sit down, and I'll tell you the important parts." She turned to the Major. "Have a seat, this will take a while, and when we're done, I'm going to need to do it all over for my boyfriend."

"Not a problem, Daria. When the commander-in-chief tells me to make myself available, I don't have any other duties. Besides, I owe you myself for all of your assistance."

"Thanks," Daria said. She turned to her parents, and Quinn, and began to explain recent events: "It all started a few months ago, when I was skipping study hall and hanging out on the school roof. I saw something I shouldn't have, and, to make a long but classified story short, ended up being recruited by a counter-terrorism agency. That led to my recent trip to Washington, with Jane providing unwitting cover..."

Daria continued to talk, glossing over details that would identify other agents, or reveal unnecessary information. As she did, a sense of accomplishment came to her. She really had done quite a lot, and even if she couldn't tell her family the details, it was enough that they knew she was doing something important, and doing it well enough to merit a letter from the President. Angela's betrayal still bothered her, primarily because she could see herself losing perspective the way Angela had. But since she knew the risk, she could guard against it. She enjoyed working in the ops center, and began to think that after she had a degree, she might find the analysis and planning end of things rewarding. Fieldwork was definitely not her favorite task, but it would be shortsighted to write the whole Intelligence field off without more experience. Besides, now that Angela was gone, someone had to see that Quinn was recruited when she turned eighteen...

Next week: Nothing. That's it; it's over.

Author's Notes:

When I originally decided to extend the original story (chapter one) into a serial, my intent was to do a humorous version of True Lies, hence the title. After the first chapter, the characters began to lead lives of their own, and the story took a more serious tone. Around halfway through, I realized I was telling a coming-of-age story, where Daria puts aside childhood concerns for the responsibilities of an adult. Daria has always been a thirty-year-old in a teenager's body in some senses, but she's never had the responsibility that comes with being an adult. Of course, most of us never have to deal with responsibility of the level she has in this story, but examining issues through exaggeration is a well-established technique of story telling. One of the reasons you don't see Daria being cynical and sarcastic as much in this story as she is in other things I've written, is that sarcasm is a mechanism she uses for dealing with things that offend her, but over which she has no control. Here, I've kept the focus on things she has the power to control, and hence there's been little room, or need, for sarcasm. That doesn't mean she isn't still a cynic. A cynic (by one definition) is simply a disillusioned idealist, and if anything, she has the illusions ripped from her ideals fairly thoroughly in this story. But, in the end, the "True Cynicism" of this story is Ms. Li's motivation. The whole reason for the terrorist plot is her cynical assumption (quite probably true) that all of her work at the agency, along with her personally, is going to be discarded as no longer necessary.

This story was a departure for me in a number of ways. Usually when I write, I first make a detailed outline laying out action and events scene-by-scene (this, incidentally, is the exact opposite of how many "how to write" guides tell you to write, but it works for me). Here, I had some vague ideas in my head about how I wanted it to end (the evil mastermind being a supposed good-guy) but each chapter's events were made up as I wrote the chapter, and I didn't know Angela was the bad guy until around chapter 7, although I think my subconscious may have been planning it before then. This makes for a somewhat uneven story in places, and it could certainly do with an outline-and-rewrite cycle, but I'm not going to do that. I think the story works as it stands. It was also a departure due to length (two to three times the length of my usual story) and format (prose, rather than the pseudo-script form I use most often, although I'd done two prose Daria stories before this). And, finally, it was written as a weekly serial, with dramatic hooks at the end of each chapter to (hopefully) inspire readers to wait impatiently for the next chapter. Writing short, interesting chapters turned out to be easier than I expected, although many were twice the 2,000-word size I'd originally planned.

Finally, this was a fairly intense experience. I usually write dialog and descriptive text for a story in a week or so, but spend several quiet weeks planning plot in advance and rewriting after the first draft. Here, I was writing intensely several days a week, for an eight-week period. It was good experience, and my writing skills definitely improved over the course of the story, but the cost was putting the rest of my life on hold for two months. I'm not likely to do something so intense again, but it's nice to know I can.

For those readers with an interest in real Intelligence activities, one of the most informative books I've read on the subject is: The Double-Cross System, by J. C. Masterman (large-format paperback, The Lyons Press, ISBN 1-58574-130-2). This is the text of a 1945 report, declassified in the seventies, regarding the British Intelligence operation that turned most of the German Intelligence network in the British Isles during World War II into double agents. It's full of interesting detail about the organization and operation of Intelligence networks.

Title origins:

(Chapters 1-6 were explained in the notes for chapter 5, but I'm repeating them here so there'll be a complete list in one location).

Most of these titles draw somehow from other books/films involving espionage, terrorism, or something related. A few come from nowhere in particular. In any case the contents of the chapter rarely has much to do with the original inspiration of the title, but I try to use titles that relate to the chapter somehow.

Chapter 1: Satellite Transmission Jammer - as previously noted, this comes from a brief comment by Ms. Li in Fizz Ed about the cost of such a device. In the chapter, Daria becomes suspicious of the behavior of a satellite dish antenna on the school roof.

Chapter 2: A View to a Spill - Derives from the title of the James Bond film, A View to a Kill. Kevin falls in a fountain at the end of the chapter. Okay, it's weak, I admit it. But I liked the title.

Chapter 3: Mission Implausible - Obviously derives from Mission: Impossible. And what could be more implausible than a high school girl saving the President from an assassin?

Chapter 4: Last Tango in Washington - The title is a variation on Last Tango in Paris. In the episode, Daria dances the tango with Alex, a scene inspired by the two tango scenes in True Lies.

Chapter 5: Executive Disorder - An Executive Order is a directive signed by the President. The Chief Executive being kidnapped is fairly disorderly. See the connection?

Chapter 6: A Small Town in Maryland - From the John le Carre novel, A Small Town in Germany. The town is Lawndale, of course, since this is the chapter where Daria returns home from Washington. For purposes of this story I'm presuming Lawndale is in Maryland, one of the places that's been suggested as a possible location. Before anyone notes all the reasons Lawndale can't be in Maryland, I'll just point out that this story would make much less sense if it were in California, Texas, or New England.

Chapter 7: The Honourable Schoolgirl - Another le Carre inspired title (The Honourable Schoolboy). Can you tell I'm a le Carre fan? The schoolgirl is Quinn, whose secret life is revealed which she wins an award for coordinating a clothing donation project.

Chapter 8: Pale Pink for Peril - This one is a play on John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee mystery novels, all of which have titles relating to colors. I've even included an FBI agent named McGee. It's another Quinn reference, since she has a fondness for pink, and this is the chapter that centers on her experience as a hostage.

Chapter 9: Daria's People - Another le Carre title (Smiley's People). I chose the title mainly because the chapter focused on incidents with Quinn, Jane, Angela, Major Stewart, and finally Daria's team preparing for the assault.

Chapter 10: Our Man in Lawndale - A play on the Graham Green novel, Our Man in Havana, about a reluctant secret agent who falsifies reports for financial gain. It's a reference to Ms. Li, with the gender changed to avoid telegraphing the guilty party.

What's Next?

Well, I'm going to write a more conventional Daria story next. I don't have any immediate plans for a sequel to this story, but the idea of a collegiate or post-college Daria the Intelligence Agent won't go away, so an eventual sequel is probable.

Finally, I hope those of you who stuck with me this long (or who came to this after it was done, and actually read the whole thing) have enjoyed the ride. Now that fanfiction.net has stopped recording hits, I have no way other than review comments and email to know how many people are reading my work. If you liked it, or even if you didn't but made it this far, drop me a line. I won't promise to reply (I'm terrible at that), but I read and appreciate all comments.

THE (REAL) END.