Tom had just tied all the loose ends together for her and now she had to make her getaway without getting on his bad side. No need for him to know for certain that she would be the cause of his late night visit from the Feds. He was on tape admitting to fraud; she was sure he would cooperate when the time came.

She tried to tune back in to what Tom was blathering about, but with his fifth Dewars under his belt he made little sense. She leaned forward and lisped into his ear, "Tom, dear, I think my little friend has just come upon me." Tom looked at her with bleary eyes as he tried to take in her meaning. "Little friend?" he sloshed. "Yes," she sighed. "My monthly visitor. I must get to the ladies room and then I really should get home. I suffer from the worst cramps!"

Befuddled, yet not wanting to appear unsympathetic, he rose from his chair as she stood. He took her hand and drew her close, squeezed her a bit too hard and kissed her full on the lips. As she backed away from him as graciously as possible she said, "Do call me Tom, let's do this again soon." As she turned her back she muttered, "Yeah right, as soon as possible," and she hurried off in the direction of the ladies room. Almost simultaneously Tom growled under his scotch-soaked breath, "Women, you'd think they would know when this is going to happen," and he sank back into his chair to finish his drink.

Theresa stripped off the wire as she exited the restaurant, handed it off to the waiting agent and made her way home.

Not long after, she made contact with the good Senator personally and, using the same amazing breasts that had so tantalized poor Tom Jenkins, wangled herself an invitation to have drinks with him at his home this hot summer night.

With a last glance toward her appearance in the window of her hot little sports car she slithered up the sidewalk to the Senator's mansion. Her high heels made little sound as she approached the side entry he had told her to use. It took a lot of practice to walk so quietly in stiletto heels. Evidently he was going through a nasty divorce and wanted to be as discrete as possible. She guessed why he had her park all the way around back near the garage:  her car would be invisible from the street.

Just as she raised her hand to knock on the door she heard a thud and a choked-off squeal. Sensing trouble, she slowly pushed the door all the way open. She reached into her tastefully selected purse for her 9mm, the only thing she carried in it. Adopting a protective pose, she moved into the entry hall.

She heard muffled footsteps and the sound of struggle. Knowing that her cover would be blown if she shouted a warning, she debated what to do. Perhaps it was nothing more than a domestic squabble. Just as she was about to make a final decision, one was made for her. A tall man thundered out of an adjoining room nearly knocking her over in his rush to leave the house. She knew him--what FBI agent did not. Thad Mussleman, hitman to the stars. He had not even taken pains to disguise his appearance. What a cocky son-of-a-bitch. Good looking, but cocky.

Letting Thad rush past her she shrank into the wall like a weak fainting sort of woman. He did not even give her a second look. She hurried into the room to find Senator Billings unconscious but alive. The blow was not strong enough to be fatal. Thad had bungled another one. She gave the Senator one last look to make sure he would live, then went to his appointment book lying open on the desk to be certain there was no reference to her meeting with him. Satisfied there was not, she returned her gun to her bag, walked to the door and with the hem of her skirt she wiped clean of prints the places she had touched. No one must learn of her connection, there was too much at stake.

Slowly she made her way to her car and coasted down the driveway. Thankfully a thick fog had settled on the city and anyone spying her would never be certain what or who they had seen. She wondered if Thad had been as careful.

By the time she got home Theresa was awash in analysis of the evening's activities. She knew that it would be days until she could get to the Senator again. She wondered if he would call the police and report the assault. It would depend, of course, on why he thought he was being assaulted. It would not do for his public if, for example, his lovely wife Martha had hired Thad.

Pondering this mystery, she rode the elevator up to her 15th-floor apartment in the posh gaslight district of D.C. She chose such accommodations in order to prop up her successful career-woman persona. Besides, after the way she had lived in Vegas the FBI, who was paying the tab, owed her big.

Upon entering her apartment and triple-locking herself in, she tossed purse, shoes and jacket onto the couch and padded to the wet bar with a sigh of relief. A stiff gin-and-tonic is just what the assassin ordered, she thought ruefully to herself.

Once again she found herself wondering about Thad. Amongst the agents he was known as "The Bungler." No one knew for certain if any of his "murder-for-hires" had actually gone as planned. Evidence indicated that, where one shot should have sufficed, bad aim or panic had led him to use ten. His murder scenes were always unnecessarily gruesome and overdone. Neither his friends nor his FBI profile depicted him as overly violent. He just screwed up.

She had had occasion to debrief one of Thad's intended victims. She had to pinch the back of her leg furiously in order to keep from laughing as the mark, a famous movie star, described Thad's attempt on his life.

"I heard a knock at the door about one in the morning," he said thoughtfully.  "A girl I'd been seeing on the side often visited me at that time so I didn't even look out the peephole. I opened the door to find a pizza deliveryman staring me in the face. He jumped a bit as the door swung open and he seemed nervous. I imagine he was a bit star-struck at first to find me opening the door. After all I had not ordered a pizza and he clearly had the wrong apartment. What a surprise for the ordinary guy-on-the-street to have one of America's most famous actors open the door in his face."

The victim went pompously on, oblivious to the humor in what he was saying. "The pizza man stared at me for a second and then said, 'This is from your wife.'  He shoved the box at me, almost knocking me off my feet. I managed to grasp the box from the end and as I tried to take it from him it appeared his hand was stuck in it. We stood for a moment in a tug-of-war, me trying to take the box and he trying to keep a grip. I could not imagine what he was doing.

"Then I heard a popping sound, like a muted firecracker. Tomato sauce splattered all over the wall to my right. More popping sounds followed and I felt my right hand stinging. I still did not know what was happening. The pizza man growled in frustration, still yanking at his hand, which appeared to be at this point stuck inside the box. He muttered to me 'Goddammit, let go of the box.'"

The actor assumed an air of hurt as he went on.  "I refused, it was my pizza. How thoughtful of Tiffy to send me a snack; she must have known how hard I'd been working. The man wouldn't let go of the box. I deduced that he couldn't get his hand out because he had something in it larger than the opening. I could hear it rattling around under the lid as we tussled for the pizza. I gave a mighty heave and wrenched the box from him in a last-ditch attempt to get my pizza. He looked stunned as his hand slid free from the box. He stood and stared at me for a second, then turned to run. I stood at the open door and opened the box. Inside lay a small caliber Smith and Wesson handgun heavily coated with extra cheese and pepperoni. I remembered the popping and the stinging in my right hand and I looked down at it. The very tip of my pinky finger had been blown away. I passed out at the sight of my own blood," he said squeamishly.

"My girlfriend found me lying in the foyer covered in pizza sauce and called 911. Hey,"  he said, "you won't put in the part where I pass out will you? It would not look good for my public to know I, The Great American Hero, passed out at the sight of blood."  He was waving his slightly bandaged hand in the air. "It's bad enough that my wife tried to have me put to sleep--I don't want a lot of publicity."

Theresa assured him that he would be shielded as much as possible from the publicity. In fact, she told him, she doubted very much if the press would pick this one up. She bid the movie star good day and stifled a chuckle at Thad "The Bungler" Mussleman's criminal life.

Theresa grinned again at the memory as she sank into the hot tub of water clutching her G&T. It would feel good to lie here and rest. That was the idea. However, she could not keep the Senator's prone frame out of her mind. "I wonder who hired Thad?" she said aloud. Thad had not yet become famous on the East Coast. She would have to fill in her superiors at the FBI on his latest work, and look a little deeper into the Senator's present situation.

Honestly, she was only interested in discovering what happened to Tony "The Big Cheese" Corello. He was a key witness to a murder she was working on in LA and she badly needed his testimony. If Tony was not dead, she would find him and she needed the Senator's help to do that.

She laughed as she remembered how the story had all fit together. Tom Jenkins was a big help putting the final touch on it. She found herself laughing aloud as she wondered what the Senator must have thought when he discovered for the first time that his latest paramour, the lovely Miss Toni, goddess of haute couture in Idaho, was in fact a man. The very idea dissolved her into a fit of laughter so furious that the water threatened to spill from the tub. Sighing with pleasure at that mental picture she quickly washed, shaved and shampooed all the necessary parts of her body.

Stepping from the tub she found herself confronted with her image in a slightly steamy mirror. She dropped her towel and made a slow perusal of her body. Not bad for thirty-four, she thought. Actually, pretty good. She looked more critically in the full-length mirror mounted on the back of the bathroom door.

Her hair hung in wet ropes to the middle of her back, pulled away from her face with the weight of the water still dripping from it. Her face was as yet unlined; she could still be modeling if she wished. In her younger days she had tramped a runway or two in pursuit of the money that helped her get her Master's, thence into the FBI. High cheekbones and wide-set eyes were her most remarkable features. Her brows arched artfully over them, lending a lovely accent and expression to her eyes. Men often told her that her eyes were spectacular, the most cerulean shade of blue. That is, when they actually got as far as her eyes. Like Tom Jenkins, men were stopped dead by her breasts. She was only 5'10" and weighed perhaps 130 pounds, a healthy weight for a woman of her physical condition and height. Her breasts were not, to her, overly large. Perhaps it was the way were molded onto her body that made men turn and look. A comfortable large C they fit her body perfectly. The Wonderbra gave them heft and made her look a D cup, but she only broke that out of her drawer for the tough cases, like Tom. Her breasts were firm and well-rounded, and accentuated the dip in to her waist.

Perhaps that was the draw—the gentle slope that followed waist to hip, giving her tremendous curves. Her legs were long and lean, well-shaped from all the running she had done to stay in shape for the academy. She still ran occasionally, but now she chose to get most of her exercise on horseback. That was her passion. Perhaps the upper body strength that was required to muscle a horse into a frame for dressage was what kept her breasts so pert and upright.

Continued—»