Silver Bells

Chapter 1 Max Futé finally had a minute to spare, and he decided a cup of coffee would hit the spot. As the doctor in charge of the medical department of the WBIS—the Washington Bureau of Intelligence and Security—he’d been run ragged for the past two weeks treating a number of agents who’d thought they were immune to the latest strain of flu. They’d insisted on coming in to work in spite of feeling ill, and had succeeded in spreading it to most of their fellow workers who’d been stubborn enough to refuse the flu shot. M. Wallace, who ran the organization, had not been pleased, and he’d had his secretary send out a memo that this wasn’t to happen next year. If it did, he promised there would be hell to pay. As if dealing with all the ill agents hadn’t been enough, Max had just been visited by Granger, the spy who got things to happen by cross-dressing. And Max had to admit he made a very attractive woman. If Granger wasn’t straight and in a relationship, and if Max himself wasn’t in a relationship, he’d have been willing to trip Granger and beat him to the bed. However, Granger was straight and in a relationship, and Max was madly in love with his own partner. * * * * No one knew two of the secretaries in Interior Affairs were involved with Granger, so when Ms. Parker, M. Vincent’s secretary, and Ms. DiNois, who was Matheson’s, both turned up pregnant, and it was revealed Granger was the father, it had been a nine days’ wonder. As a matter of fact, the entire staff of the WBIS had been titillated, and waited with baited breath to see how the women reacted when they learned of their paramour’s betrayal. Everyone was stunned to discover there had been no betrayal, because they were in a relationship. So then the staff waited to see M. Vincent’s reaction. Surely he would be livid that two of the secretaries in his department, one of them his, were enceinte. From what Max had learned, it had been anticlimactic, to say the least. All M. Vincent had to say was of course all this had come to light on that particular day—it was a Monday, after all.