Boris, Gefilte Fish and Caviar

"How did this happen to me?" our man, John Wayne Stone asked himself as he sipped a cold Budweiser, in the living room of his newly bought house in Landsthul. Hours earlier, pinned down in the Dragon's Teeth between Czechoslovakia and West Germany, he and his foreign asset sat it out. The Special Operations Command of USAEURE, with the aid of a West German Spahpanzer Luchs and its 20mm chain gun, flamed the pursuing Soviets, rescuing them with accurate and sustained mayhem from four-hundred meters away. The festivities did present a moment of ironic humor, as he came to a stop by the Spahpanzer, the vehicle commander was standing outside with a telephone to his ear directing fire, they stopped and stared at each other. The first word out of the German's mouth is 'Fritz! What are you doing here?' Then turning to another German who stuck his head out of the hatch, asked him, 'Karl! When did your cousin Fritz join the Army? I didn't think he was that stupid!' Ironically the first thing Stone thought when he saw the German was, 'Vern! What are you doing in the Bundeswehr?'

Lavern, is his cousin that lived in Ohio.

Hours later, Bonnie handed him a beer, as his wife drove to Wiesbaden to handle his finances, a six-figure hazardous duty payment, leaving him baffled. Normally, they fought as a one-hundred- thirty-pound rabid puma assaults an equally rabid ninety-eight-pound wild cat, currently both sported missing teeth and black-eyes...Asexy had a broken nose...Things they didn't sport a day earlier. That didn't surprise him. What terrified him is they now dressed alike, and both tittered like school girls as they did the dishes before Asexy left.

This situation came about due to his wife's fertility issue. She wanted children as in right now, adoption wasn't for him and furthermore he wanted to wait and one fight commanded another, hence, enter Bonnie. She volunteered to become their surrogate, her motivations reduced to the following; She didn't want a husband, she didn't want a family but she wanted to experience the joys of maternity. Both Asexy and Stone in spite of, or because of, their conduct in the line of duty, found selective abortion as a result of invitro repellant, the cost even on their combined incomes mildly dissuasive and not being able to hash out what came first, a boy or twin girls...Then they decided to take what they got with Bonnie.

Asexy is nineteen, Bonnie is thirty-three. Bonnie took her time conceiving and after a month moved into the Stone residence's guest room to hasten the blessed event. This naturally, put Stone in the position of a de facto bigamist. Bonnie took to wearing a wedding ring, to discourage other males, and leafing through catalogue after catalogue of maternity wear, smiling pleasantly to herself. Hence Stone's bewilderment on how that happened to him.

He didn't even like the idea of having one wife.

"At least Asexy isn't a Nervous Nelly anymore...She's downright perverted. From the barren wasteland of a desert to a tropical deluge ...The sex is going to kill me," he giggled. He decided the situation is a conspiracy between Lucifer and the CIA. This situation is something he'd expect from either, mostly from the CIA, who Lucifer took notes from. Then Bonnie walked in again, smiling and dropped a bomb. They, all three, as decided by Asexy and her, were going to Switzerland for an antique festival and shopping. The decision by the co-matriarchs of the Stone household is final.

Two days later, they used Stone as a pack mule for what he estimated to be fifty-pounds of garbage, then he had one of his moments. He used the excuse of needing a cigarette to stop on the slopes of an alp in Switzerland, they were attempting to cross it as a short-cut, he insisted on the detour to the parking lot, to point out they have a tail. He made his case and then mused; he was learning to enjoy married life. After both women casually, with a less than well-studied slyness scanned the crowd behind them, Bonnie agreed. They then agreed to play it off and made their way back to the rented car, with Asexy mentioning they should've brought 'Claus', her Mercedes.

"If we brought Claus," Bonnie reminded her nervously as they stuffed the trunk of the car. "We would've had to leave John Wayne here back in Landsthul...You have a coupe and bonehead would've never fit in the back seat..."

"You could've ridden there," Asexy shrugged as they entered the rent-a-wreck. Well, they got up front, John made himself fit in the back seat among more bags of this that and the other thing.

"I'm not ridding behind bonehead," Bonnie replied slamming the door.

"Now what?" Asexy asked and then agreed, she saw that face in the rearview too often.

"We go to the hotel and pretend we're stupid," Bonnie replied. She looked over her shoulder and asked John, "So how we doing there, skipper?"

"Just fine dear," John replied with a new found rapidity.

"See? He's housebroken, not a problem, drive," Bonnie ordered.

Once in Winterthur they checked in to the hotel, toured the museums, whereas Bonnie attempted to culture Stone. Asexy then, struck with her usual aplomb. She acquired 'gourmet' gefilte fish, imported from Poland. Once in the hotel, Bonnie asked her, against Stone's advice, what made in her words 'pickled carp so special'. For the next ten minutes, she explained it in detail, John by this time had fallen asleep and Bonnie thought her eyeballs were going to fall out. The jar is a large two-gallon glass affair with a gold foil wrap over the brass sealed with wire lid, very expensive, since the fish according to Asexy, are hand fed.

In the morning they packed up and after driving a few blocks, Asexy screamed, she forgot the gefilte fish. Then went on that the item isn't found in Germany, as they didn't import it due to purity laws, only available seasonally and she got the last unit. They couldn't find a place to park nearby, so they walked (got a parking ticket also) a couple of blocks. They then learned the hotel staff, finding the jar on the bed, had taken the liberty of having it shipped to Asexy's home address via a private carrier. Furthermore, it would take twenty-four to forty-eight hours to get there as the courier passed through Zurich. After they found the parking ticket on the car, Bonnie with a haste pushed both into an adjacent alley. She then announced she saw 'Boris'.

"Boris?" John asked mildly surprised. "Boris Sergei Ryabkov?"

"What are you doing with that?" Asexy shrieked as she took a nervous step away from her husband.

"Shut up!" Bonnie hissed at Asexy and then saw what Stone is doing. "What the hell are you doing with that?"

"What I get paid for," Stone replied as he fits a suppressor on his sidearm. "Probably going to have to shoot Boris eventually anyhow."

Asexy pushed him against a wall as Bonnie acerbically ordered him to put that away before anyone saw the pistol and the police arrested all of them. He reminded them of SOFAs, not that it mattered. She, Asexy, then asked either of them how they knew Boris.

"Everybody that is somebody, knows Boris, you wench," Bonnie barked as she peered around the corner and noted he and his boyfriend walked into the hotel.

"What?" John chirped and looked around the corner himself and watched Boris walk out while talking to what appeared as a woman.

"Gelya is a transvestite," Bonnie corrected him and pulled him back into the alley.

"Boris is gay?" Stone chuckled. "Never saw that coming..."

"I have to see this..." Asexy muttered and as soon as she stepped out on the sidewalk Bonnie pulled her back into the alley. "Looks good to me...I'd have never figured it out in passing..."

"He hasn't figured it out yet either..." Bonnie chuckled with her back to the building's wall. She then went on, "Boris is a narcissist with multiple obsession disorders. They've been dating two years and...Well he's probably still a virgin..."

"Hold it, who goes two years in a relationship and never sees the other guy nude..." John asked as he then pointed to Asexy and remarked. "I got her panties off before that!"

Asexy blushed.

"Okay, he has to keep up appearances as the supreme Soviet man, moral and all that. That's more important than sex and he has a mommy problem. The fact he's forty-four and never got laid doesn't occur to him since he never questions anything, disbelieves everything and thinks most people are bullshitting him...." Bonnie tersely explained. "He got connections that keep him in business via his father. He flunked out of most schooling the KGB sent him too and they just let him bumble about..."

"Sounds like the average Russian," John noted.

"Well that explains why we spotted them..." Asexy mused.

Bonnie then hustled them into the car and aimed them toward Zurich with the motivational statement; I got a plan! We got to get the fish before they do! For the next several minutes John couldn't get a word in edgewise as they careened from the city into the openness of the highway, he smoked half a pack of cigarettes and resorted to sticking his head out of the rear passenger side window. When asked why, he replied that if they were going to treat him like the family dog, he might as well enjoy it.

"Get your head in here!" Bonnie harshly ordered. She then turned to Asexy and asked calmly, "Can't you drive any faster?"

"Drive faster?" Asexy politely rejoined with a well-studied disparagement. "I'm surprised this heap hasn't disintegrated yet. The front right toe is out by one sixteenth of an inch, the front left ball joints I question, and the tread on the rear tires are subpar.... Furthermore, it has a bad main bearing and the clutch is spongey."

Bonnie stared at her with a disbelieving, empty gaze.

"It's what I do," Asexy replied. "That and the front-end alignment pulls one thirty-second of an inch to the right."

Eventually they found the delivery truck, flagged it down and Bonnie accosted the driver with a bribe attached to an affected charm. They learned from the experiencing a borderline nervous breakdown driver that Boris and his other half flagged him down moments before. They bribed him and they learned that in his excited state gave them the wrong package. The fish is still in the truck, not in a box, but plainly tagged with a mailing label. Bonnie deduced, correctly, that Boris is heading toward Zurich. She justified it later as she ordered Asexy to drive toward Vaduz, Liechtenstein.

"Because everybody knows Zurich is a place for off-book banking," she explained once she returned from the front offices of Spion und Schmuggler Finanzaiell (a private service bank). She, as all three hid in line sight, peering around the corner of another alleyway watching the entrance for Boris, who she assumed would slip up again. She then expanded on her scheme's reasoning, "Everybody goes to Zurich, but what most people don't know is Liechtenstein has even tighter privacy laws than Switzerland. I have a drop box here...Haven't used it in a while. So, what happens now, is Boris once he figures out, I'm not in Zurich, he comes here and waits. So, in twenty minutes or so I'll go in and retrieve the fish, he'll see that and really get his pants in a knot...."

"How'd you find out about this place?" Asexy asked leaning over her shoulder.

"I needed a million-dollar loan for an hour..." Bonnie shrugged. Then looking over her shoulder at Asexy said, "Don't ask."

"Can I get a word in here now?" Stone blandly asked.

"What do you have to say about it?" Bonnie inquired.

"Well since we're really giving it to Boris let's go full tilt," Stone suggest casually. "He expects to see you come out with the fish. By now he's figured he got the wrong package and is probably several minutes behind us, or got lucky and has seen you go in. He expects you to go in and come out and not knowing Gelya, he might be the brains of the operation, might figure you're just pulling his chain...So we send Asexy back to the confectionary shop we passed and get a few of the large tins of caviar...Wrap them up and have her go in and exchange that for the gefilte fish. When she comes out, she can fumble around in her pocket for the car keys and drop your lock box key and the pass code accidently on purpose to the sidewalk. Boris sees that and he just has to go in and check it out...."

"You think that up all by yourself?" Bonnie gasped, looking up at him with a long hard questioning stare. As a note what added authenticity to her reaction, is she betrayed her voice training, and her pretensive behaviors, by speaking in her by birth mid-west as in I'm from Missouri accent.

"Yeah," Stone answered. "What of it?"

"Oh! Your head injury is healing! I'm so proud of you!" Asexy shrieked overjoyed, and then threw herself around his neck.

"Get the expensive stuff," Stone replied, kissed Asexy then watched her run off.

"What did you ever see in her?" Bonnie sneered and returned to watching the bank.

"Got her out of her originating MOS deployment, made the dicks at the CIA happy," he answered and, in a flash, the complete story muted him, and then evaporated as quickly as it came. "Besides, you get to carry the baby."

"Everybody needs a hobby," Bonnie replied as they both watched Boris and Gelya suspiciously meander in front of the bank doors and walk off to the right.

"Okay I have it!" Asexy returned with what looked like ten pounds of caviar tins, happily smiling. "I didn't have them wrap it since I didn't know what color paper, you'd like so I got all these ribbons and papers and can wrap it all here! So, do you like lavender or do we go for the Edelweiss Cream with Sun Yellow ribbons or what?"

"You married her," Bonnie muttered.

Asexy walked sharply with the caviar wrapped up in the Red Magenta Sunset paper with a Forest Morning Green bow. She walked into the bank, Bonnie times her and almost began complaining when she reappeared with the gefilte fish. She fumbled around in her pocket almost obviously dropping the key and the paper note with the code. She then walked off to the left, leaving Bonnie and Stone wondering what she was doing. Minutes later she appeared from the far end of the alley breathing heavily, clutching the fish.

"I walked off in a different direction than I arrived...I figured if Boris saw me return the same way, he might think something of it," she smiled while the color returned to her face. "When you guys do this for real.... You normally run this much? This, is why I'm a courier, it lets me drive a car."

Several days later, in an office building off Red Square, Moscow;

Sitting behind a desk, a serious man with graying hair reads a single piece of paper, delivered to his desk in an envelope, by a military staff officer. He wore the olive drab/field grey wool uniform in common service and the older, who sat behind the desk wore a black suit and a chest full of medals.

"Comrade Dostoevsky," the older spoke as he read the paper a second time. "This report indicates that somebody, perhaps Comrade Boris Sergei, has lost their mind completely..."

"Comrade Karamazov," Dostoevsky answered in complete confidence. "Comrade Tolstoy in the lab has completed the test and no known poison could be found. However, he believes a naturally occurring substance native to beluga whales, perhaps an amino acid or an enzyme may be used for the stated results of Comrade Boris Sergei's report."

"Or perhaps Boris Sergei's poofter has finally gotten lucky," Karamazov chuckled. "So, what has Comrade Tolstoy decided to do, as to ascertain the existence of this bizarre amino acid or enzyme? Even in Russia where the strange is common place, I can't walk out into my backyard and find a beluga whale standing there in the garden eating beets and ask it about such things."

"Comrade as we stand here now, they are eating the caviar and waiting for any reaction," Dostoevsky replied placidly.

"Well my reaction is comrade; is we send Comrade Gelya Kareninova to the Arctic Ocean to observe beluga whales with a team of biologist and take tissue and bodily fluid samples. While he or she is doing that, Comrade Boris Sergei observes aquariums in Europe to see if the Americans are using those beluga whales as a study guide...."

"Comrade Karamazov, it will be done, however am I to understand you take Boris Sergei seriously?" Dostoevsky asked mildly stunned at the response.

"No comrade, I take Boris Sergei to be a fool of the highest magnitude," Karamazov answered. "This way we keep that fool and his transvestite out of trouble. Only a chump would believe that the CIA would attempt to introduce a hallucinogenic substance into Russia via caviar. Like we all eat caviar to begin with...Besides we already do that to ourselves with vodka, who'd notice the difference anyhow? Send for a sample, I wish to participate in the study of this compound. Maybe I'll make medical history by finding this mysterious hallucinogenic enzyme."

Dostoevsky turned to the closed office doors and snapped his fingers. An orderly walked in, carrying a tray with the remainder of the caviar. Karamazov then produced a bottle of vodka from his desk and two small glasses. They then agreed, it was good caviar, however it did not compare to the caviar from Saint Petersburg.