Winter had suddenly and unexpectedly decided to provide a preview of the season to come.  For three days the sun had shown and the temperature had climbed enough to discard the heavy, protective coats and hats, and there were even a few trees that dared to sprout tiny green buds. 

          The sidewalks of Paris were frequently crowded, but now they were positively teaming with city dwellers and tourists reveling in the unexpected gift of warmth.  Tessa Noel was no less delighted with the opportunity to feel the sun on her face.  She had spent months indoors in classes and studios working on her final senior projects, and her part-time job as a tour guide on a tourist barge along the Seine was always more pleasant when she could do it in the fresh air of the top deck rather than in the boat’s crowded, stale interior. 

          "And to your left, is the Ile de la Cite," Tessa gestured, ”where you will see the Cathedral of Notre Dame, whose construction began in 1163 and was completed in 1343.” The schpiel fell from her lips automatically, having now been repeated countless times.  Her audience dutifully all turned their heads, many of them also consulting their tourist maps as though they didn't quite believe her.  The sightseeing boat pulled over to the bank where a few of her audience got off, and a few more got on.  During the brief break Tessa quickly walked the aisles between the benches, picking up candy wrappers and half-filled paper soda containers so they wouldn't get ground into a sticky morass on the deck, making the clean-up job at the end of the day even more tedious.

          The seats were almost full again when they pulled away from the dock.  She settled into her place facing the passengers and began again, pointing out the various attractions.  There was a couple whispering and groping each other in the back, but Tessa studiously ignored them.  More distracting were the two children in the middle who were getting restless, squirming in their seats and finally beginning to throw popcorn at each other.  She had to speak louder and louder, more to cover the mother's shushing than the noise generated by the kids.

          At last the day was done, the tourists gone.  Partly because she had been energized from the unusually pleasant weather, she had put more effort into her work and now Tessa's voice was tired, her whole body aching slightly from sitting perched on her little speaker's chair all day.  A few American tourists had given her tips, the Europeans generally did not.  The wages she got were barely enough to cover her third of the rent of the tiny flat she shared with two other students near the Sorbonne on the left bank.  She waited tables on the weekends in the evenings to be able to cover her tuition and to afford a few extra supplies for her sculpting classes.  She felt fortunate, in many ways, though.  She was young and resilient, she lived in a city she loved and, best of all, was learning and creating among the best and the brightest artists in the world.

          She caught the Metro, then walked the last four blocks to the tiny street where she lived.  And there, waiting for her on the curbside was Andre.  He smiled broadly and stood, watching her in open admiration as she came up the street.  He was nice looking, tall, with kind gray eyes, and light brown hair left a little too long, its uneven ends brushing his shoulders.  Andre caught her hand as she drew abreast, and kissed her enthusiastically.

          "I love to watch you," he whispered, his lips brushing her ear.  "You are so beautiful."

          Tessa smiled, feeling simultaneously pleased and slightly uncomfortable with the flattery.  Andre adored her, she knew.  And she really liked him a lot.  He was the right age, also an art student, a talented painter.  She kissed him and smiled, feeling a little twinge of unease at his unabashed devotion.  "You are such a romantic," she teased.  "I'm a mess.  My hair has been blowing all over today, and my nose is sunburned."

          "I love a sunburned nose," he replied, his eyes crinkling up in a smile.  He took the groceries she had picked up on the way home and followed her up two flights of narrow stairs to her apartment.  On the way up, he spoke excitedly of a new exhibition of student works that was being planned, thrilled at the prospect that two of his works would be included.  Tessa was politely enthusiastic, wondering the whole time why her own works hadn't been solicited for the show.  She was one of only six women students in the program, and the only female sculpting student.  She knew she had to work twice as hard, to be twice as talented, in order to be noticed, but she felt her work was at least as worthy as Andre's.

          "Tessa?  Aren't you listening?" Andre was demanding.

          "What?  Oh, I'm sorry.  What were you saying?"  Tessa continued to put the groceries away while Andre sat at the tiny kitchen table, talking excitedly about...she couldn't remember.

          "When are Elaine and Claudine coming back?" he asked.  He stood, coming up behind her and enveloping her in his arms, his breath hot on her neck.  "Maybe we have time for a little...?" he pressed against her.

          Tessa closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.  She was tired and distracted, but if she didn't let Andre make love to her, he would only get more and more demanding, and he really wasn't a bad lover, just a little abrupt.  She turned in his arms, deliberately letting a smile reach her eyes.

          "Maybe," she teased.

          Tessa lay in bed for awhile after Andre left, just dozing.  It was nice to have a few moments of peace and privacy before her roommates arrived.  If only Andre had let the foreplay last a little longer, had kept going a few more minutes, she could probably have fallen asleep for a much needed nap before heading off to her evening job.  As it was, she was feeling vaguely frustrated.  She let her hand trail over her breasts and down her stomach, into the curls between her legs.  It was still warm there, and moist from Andre's semen and her own unfulfilled arousal. 

          She slipped her forefinger into the soft folds of flesh between her legs, finding that small bundle of nerves that few lovers managed to stimulate sufficiently to actually bring her to orgasm.  With a gentle circular motion, she touched herself, closing her eyes and letting her imagination wander.  As a sculptor, she had a knack for visualizing a hard, muscular body over hers, a penis, fully engorged, tight and hard, moving inside her.  She felt her nipples tighten and she rubbed faster, arching up a little.  She imagined soft lips caressing her neck as the heavy body undulated in and out, again and again.  Her breath quickened.   Yes, she was close, so very close...

          "Tessa?  Are you home?"  Elaine's voice reverberated through the small apartment.

          With a growl of frustration, Tessa rolled over, almost screaming into her pillow. 

          "Hey," Elaine smiled at her, poking her head around the door.  "Hadn't you better get going to the restaurant?"  The she saw the tangled covers on the bed and took in Tessa's flushed, naked body.  "Ah, Andre was here?  Lucky girl!" she grinned, winked and returned to the small living area, leaving her roommate to make the bed and dress for her second job.

          "That's lovely, Tessa," Professor Schumacher opined, looking over her shoulder as she worked a clay model of a male nude.  It was stylized and idealized, both smoother and more muscular than the unimpressive live nude model on display in the center of the room.  "Not terribly accurate, but lovely, eh?  Women have such interesting imaginations when it comes to the male form," he observed to no one in particular before moving on to the next student. 

          Tessa felt her mouth tighten in irritation, and as the man walked away, she let her imagination picture Schumacher posed naked on the model's pedestal.  The snort of laughter the mental image created made the teacher turn, but by that time she had herself under control and was bent studiously over her sculpture.  Nevertheless she had an almost irresistible, childish urge to stick her tongue out at him, and she found the professor watching her suspiciously as her mouth twitched in an uncontrollable smile.

          The scruffy looking young man in the sleeveless down vest, denim shirt and well worn jeans sat on the park bench in the Tuilleries for over an hour, just watching the tourists walk by.  The air was getting chilly as the sun went down, and pedestrians walked more quickly, their shoulders hunched against the brisk wind, their breaths fogging with the rhythm of their steps.  The cold seemed not to bother him, but eventually he did pull the seaman's cap he was wearing a little closer over his ears, mashing down a little more of his thick, tousled dark hair that curled down to the nape of his neck.

          At last, either bored or getting cold, he stood, picked up the folded newspaper he had been carrying, and walked slowly away from the Place de la Concorde, towards the Champs Elysees, and found a phone booth.

          "Universal Exports," a smooth woman's voice answered on the second ring.

          "Accounting Department, please.  Mr. Scott calling," the young man instructed.  His English was lightly, unidentifiably accented, maybe Scottish, maybe something else.

          After one ring the phone was picked up.

          "He didn't show," he said.  After about a ten-second pause, he heard the click of a transfer to another line.

          "He may have been compromised," a woman's voice with an aristocratic English accent stated.  "Stand by for instruction from the usual source.  We might have to intervene."  The line went dead.

          Duncan MacLeod hung up the phone, tempted to shake his head in frustration, but kept his expression neutral and casually walked away.  It was about three miles to the small apartment he kept on the Left Bank where he maintained his identity as a student of medieval art and history at the Sorbonne.  He walked the distance, eager to work off the irrepressible energy his body had always generated.  In his current persona he looked to be in his mid-to-late twenties and easily blended into the usual Paris crowds of young people and tourists, but the facade was getting tiresome.

          He had been with British Intelligence on and off for many, many years.  Probably too long. For all of their obsessiveness about knowing virtually every detail of every intelligence officer's life, not even they suspected that the Duncan MacLeod that worked so quietly and diligently against the threat of Cold War in the late 1970's and early 80's, was the same Duncan MacLeod who had gathered intelligence for them in the early years of World War II.  The same Duncan MacLeod who had later 'died' in a suicidal and ultimately failed attempt on Hitler's life. 

          But he was getting weary of it all, and it seemed like a nearly futile exercise.  The evil empires against which they fought seemed more amorphous these days, and sometimes their villainy seemed to exist only in the minds of the bureaucrats in MI6. 

          In the past decade he had gone through all their extensive special agent training, up until the final indoctrination when they had wanted him to become one of the elite double-00 agents licensed to kill on behalf of the British government, acting like it was some great honor to be an officially sanctioned assassin.  If they only knew. 

          He declined the honor.

          He let himself into his apartment, automatically going through the usual checks to make sure nothing had been disturbed, that he had not been followed.  He dropped the paper containing the untraceable bearer bonds onto the large coffee table in the expansive room.  They had been intended to funnel funds through an inside agent from the Czechoslovakian Embassy to acquire coded Soviet messages about the Russian's nuclear readiness.  If the insider had been "made," the intervention his contact had spoken of could involve anything from hustling the man out of the country, to something really nasty that got the agent out of the way permanently. 

          Spying could be an ugly business.  It had also always been a lonely business, and he was getting tired of both -- the ugliness and the isolation.  He had told himself for a long time that in this day and age it was one of the best uses of his skills and unique talents, something that left the world a better place.  He wasn't so sure any more.

          He was a warrior out of time, out of place.  A trained killer who had no desire to kill, only to prevent the killing.

          He peeled off his vest and cap, running his fingers through his tangled hair to get it out of his eyes.  He needed to either cut it all off or let it grow long again so he could tie it back.  He preferred the weight and warmth of the hair on his neck even though it was more of a bother to deal with, and slightly anachronistic in this day and age.  But then, he was a walking anachronism, a 400-year-old warrior who was not from this day and age.

          Graduation.  The thought was thrilling and frightening at the same time.  If Tessa didn't manage to draw the attention of any gallery owners during the formal viewing of the Senior Show, she would essentially be starting without prospects, without backing, without any outlet for sale of any of her works.  And without the space the school provided, and the student discount on materials she would have a nearly impossible time just creating her work, much less selling it.

          She had been sculpting for hours, her hands dry and sore, the skin cracking from constant exposure to the damp clay.  It was a male torso, slightly idealized, curving around, but not touching a female torso.  She was trying to capture the straining ecstasy of sexual passion without being explicit, without the bodies even touching, but it just wasn't working the way she wanted.  With a quick glance at her watch, she almost snarled in frustration.  She had to get to her waitress job in only thirty minutes.  She wet a cloth and draped it over the unfinished work, hurriedly washing off her hands and once again spreading lotion over them.  It was one of the banes of her art, that her hands were always cracked and chapped.  She had been told so many times she ought to be a model instead of a sculptor, and she had considered it, but she finally decided she couldn't do both. 

          Being a model required too much attention to appearance, for which she had little patience.  And she would have had to give up her art, which was unthinkable.

          The Paris Section Chief of the British Intelligence Service commonly known as MI6 finished the report on the Czechoslovakian agent and closed the file with a sigh.  She would have to bring in a "00" agent, it seemed.  And MacLeod was always touchy about that.  She found Duncan MacLeod both fascinating and frustrating to deal with.  She had never seen anyone as gifted in so many fields essential to the intelligence field.  He spoke at least ten languages so fluently that he could pass for a native, he had achieved the highest ratings in the history of the service in hand-to-hand combat, seemed comfortable and at ease in social situations ranging from construction work to royal court balls, but had consistently refused repeated offers to join the highest ranks of the service's elite agent corps. 

          She had looked through MacLeod's file again, hoping for some clue to his complex character, but found little there to enlighten her, not that she hadn't looked before.  Barbara Mawdsley was not someone who gave up easily, however.  She knew she was nicknamed Lady Bulldog by the agents under her control and was rather proud of the appellation.  She would find out what made MacLeod tick, eventually.

          In the meantime, she had better get another agent on the scene, one who was a little less squeamish, just in case it became necessary to eliminate the Czech diplomat whose cover was currently in jeopardy.

          The spring floods had come early this year, and the tourist boats were temporarily suspended.  It was both a blessing and a curse, Tessa decided.  It gave her more time to work on her senior projects, but without the extra money from her tour guide job she would have to dip into her nearly non-existent savings to pay her share of the rent.  Or ask her parents for another loan.  Both her pride and her conscience balked at that solution.  Her father had scoffed at her artistic ambitions, telling her it was no way for a decent girl to make a living.  Even so, he had helped her when he could, grudgingly all the way.  It was a measure of his great love for her that he did it despite his belief that, eventually, she would simply get married and have babies for some French bureaucrat.  Tessa shuddered at the thought.

          She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes, examining her work with a critical eye.  It was good, the two figures almost touching, as though pulled together by some invisible force, but it wasn't quite right.  In her mind's eye it was magical, the male torso almost vibrating with sexual energy, the female torso full of passion, lost in the moment, the nipples tight and hard, arms moving forward.  But in execution, it seemed to be missing something, she just couldn't say exactly what, but it lacked that final spark of inspiration.  "Merde," she muttered to herself.

          "They say that talking to yourself is a dangerous sign," Andre's voice said behind her, and she felt his arms slip around her waist.

          "Not here," she whispered, pulling away slightly and looking around.  There were several other students working in the large studio, and Professor Schumacher was already disinclined to take her seriously.

          "Oh, come on, no one cares," Andre approached again, kissing her on the nape of her neck.

          "I care," Tessa snapped.  "It's hard enough for me to be taken seriously without everyone watching me smooching another student."  She went over to the sink to wash her hands and soak some cheesecloth to drape over the work.  She could feel Andre's irritation hanging in the air. 

          They were silent until they had gotten outside.  It had stopped raining at last, but the air was blustery and cold, with the wind blowing drops of cold water on them from the dripping bare winter limbs.

          "Is that all I am?" Andre finally blurted out after several moments of walking.

          "What do you mean?" Tessa asked, without a clue what he was talking about.

          "You said you didn't want everyone to see you kissing another student.  Is that all I am to you, just another student?"

          "That's not what I meant!" Tessa answered, feeling her temper rise.  "You read dire meanings into everything I say.  I was just...just talking.  I meant seeing me carrying on romantically in the studio does not help get me taken seriously as an artist, that's all.  Stop being so...so paranoid!"

          They walked on in silence for another block, each hunched protectively in their coats.  At last Andre draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close so they walked side by side.  "I'm sorry," he sighed.  "You just make me crazy sometimes, you know?"  He stopped and turned her, tugging affectionately on her coat lapels.  "Why don't we move in together?" he asked, ducking his head and looking up at her with a sweet, pleading expression.  "We can find a big space for my studio, throw a bed in the corner and share the expenses.  It will be cheaper than an apartment, and we can be together, Tessa.  And after graduation, your roommates will be moving on anyway.  How about it?  Eh?  We'll be together all the time."  He pulled her close, nuzzling her neck.  "We'll have all the privacy we want and you can model for me anytime, day or night," he whispered.

          Tessa put her palms flat on his chest and pushed away.  "I don't think that's a good idea," she whispered, her mouth suddenly dry.  Even as she said the words, her brain spun with the difficult options she was facing.  Andre was right, in a few weeks her roommates would probably be gone and she could not afford the apartment on her own, and she had no studio space at all.  What Andre was suggesting was the first and only offer she had that would keep her in Paris and give her any opportunity to continue sculpting.

          "Why not?" Andre asked, obviously full of enthusiasm about the idea. 

          "I need space to work, too," Tessa insisted, "and I just don't know if I'm ready to...to make a commitment like that."

          Andre threw his head back and laughed, taking her shoulders and shaking her a little.  "Silly girl," he smiled.  "I'm sure we can make enough room for you to work when you want to.  And just because we share a space doesn't mean we're married or anything.  What's the matter, you don't like making love with me, any more?" he cocked his head at her with a big grin, certain of her answer.

          "No, Andre, that's not it," Tessa answered with a determined smile.  "I...just let me think about it a little, alright?  Give me a little time."

          "Sure!" he answered, throwing his arm around her again and moving them further down the sidewalk.  "It will take some time anyway to find a place.  Just think, the galleries that are interested in my work might even consider showing some of your pieces as well," he enthused.

          Vitali Nazlimov looked older than he was, but then he had every reason to, Mac decided.  The two men were standing in line outside Notre Dame Cathedral, purportedly waiting to get in for the next tour.  They were surrounded by a couple of hundred chattering pre-teens on holiday or field trips, but the diplomat and the spy stood slightly apart, each studiously reading the pamphlet on the history of the landmark building.  Nazlimov was of Russian descent, but married to a Czech.  That had made him the ideal candidate to place in the embassy of this most decadent of western capitals, in the view of the Soviet controlled Czech government currently headed by President Husak.  Unfortunately for them, his loyalties were clearly with his adopted country.  The man had taken enormous risks to provide information to the western allies, and Mac both sympathized with him and admired his courage, although that courage had every reason to falter now.

          "I was followed before, that's why I didn't make the last meeting," Vitali murmured in Russian.

          "I know," MacLeod answered in the same language, also keeping his voice low and his focus on the paper in his hand.  "Are you alright?  Your family?"

          "Da.  So far, at least.  I sent my wife and children to her parent's country house, though, just to be sure.  I think it's time, MacLeod.  I think you have to get us out.  There is something very big about to happen.  Lots of closed doors.  Lots of whispers in the hallways, and they suspect me, I know it!"

          The line moved forward until both men were inside the building at last.  They waited until they had been divided off into a tour group and entered the main building, then they slipped away to a dark corner of the huge sanctuary. 

          "It will take a little time to arrange to get you all out," Mac whispered.  "I'll start working on it immediately.  But if something significant is going to happen, we need to find out as much about it as we can.  Do you have any clues at all?"

          "Look, MacLeod," Vitali insisted, "I have risked enough!  I trusted you.  You said you could protect me."

          "And I will, Vitali.  With my life, if necessary," Mac put his hand on the man's shoulder and squeezed reassuringly.  "But do you know anything about this crisis you think is about to occur?"

          Vitali shook his head.  One of the reasons Vitali had lasted so long undercover was simply because he looked so utterly harmless and had made efforts to conform to the Communist lifestyle in every way.  He was stoop-shouldered, with thinning hair and a pasty complexion, wore thick glasses and always wore boxy, unattractive suits that looked like they had been made for someone slightly larger than himself.

          But in his heart, Vitali Nazlimov was a poet, a lover of pop music, a dedicated father and husband to a lovely, delicate wife. 

          "I'm not certain, but I think they've mentioned Havel's name," he reluctantly answered.

          "Vaclav?  Isn't he still in prison?"  Mac remembered Vaclav Havel, had actually met the quiet little playwright back in the states during the late 1960's, and had seen a number of his plays.  That he had subsequently become an outspoken and articulate leader of the Czech underground opposition had come as a surprise since Vaclav had always seemed more poet than politician.  But imprisonment for the sole crime of having ideas could do that to anyone.

          "He's been out for a few months now, essentially under house arrest, but his supporters are smuggling out his samizdat and he's become a huge thorn in Husak's side.  I think..." Vitali lowered his voice even more.  "I think there's been talk of bringing in an assassin, and making it look like it was done by another member of the opposition, to try to break up the unity of the Chapter 77 supporters."

          Duncan scrubbed his face with his hands, then pulled his vest closer around him.  The inside of the ancient church was cold, but his thoughts were even more chilling.  "All right.  Find out what you can, and I'll put things in motion to get you out of there, including the rest of your family."

          Vitali stepped up and threw his arms around MacLeod, squeezing him in a quick hug, then backing off, uncomfortable at his own display.  "You've been a good friend, MacLeod.  Always there, even when I just needed someone to talk to, to reassure me.  Thank you."

          Once again Mac squeezed his friend's shoulder.  "Don't thank me yet, my friend.  But when you and Lydia and the boys are free, maybe we can have a drink together, eh?"

          "We will not be truly free until the country is free, Duncan," Vitali responded.  "And we can have that drink together in Prague."  The two men parted, each slipping into a different tour group passing through.

          "The analysts in Whitehall are convinced its going to be an assassination attempt," the Section Chief observed shortly, dropping the "Eyes Only" file onto her otherwise pristine mahogany desktop.  "There was a big article in the Prague papers today about Havel being allowed to attend the Paris New Playwrights Festival at the end of the week.  Once out of the country, it is believed he will be killed, and the murder made to look like some kind of internecine war among the anti-government factions.  It would split the underground movement, rid them of their most effective spokesman and make the current Russian puppet regime look both benign and generous."

          Mac nodded.  The scenario fit with what he had learned from Vitali.  "And what about Vitali and his family?" MacLeod asked.

          "It's in the works," she answered, her lips pressed together in a signal Mac knew meant she did not wish to discuss further details.

          "I promised him it would be soon," Mac insisted, unwilling to let bureaucratic nonsense get in his way.  If necessary, he had his own resources to call on.  Acting independently from the agency might just put him under greater scrutiny than he wished, however.  His current identity was carefully crafted, but he had no desire to risk closer inquiry into his background. 

          "We can't act before Havel gets here and this assassination business plays out.  Any attempt to move Nazlimov now would alert them to our knowledge about Havel," she snapped.  "I will inform you when I know more.  In the meantime," she leaned forward, putting her forearms on the desk and studying her most interesting agent intently, "I am bringing in a double-0 agent to deal with the assassin."

          Mac forced himself to remain still, his face expressionless.  "I don't think that's necessary, Chief.  I know Havel, I speak his language, and I am quite capable..."

          "I am not questioning your capabilities, Duncan," her eyebrow raised slightly and her thin lips twitched.  "But you declined double-0 status, and you tend to bend over backwards to prevent anyone's death, even those of our adversaries.  While under most circumstances that would be an admirable trait, in this instance, I want someone there who will be absolutely ruthless, who will do whatever is necessary to see that Vaclav Havel is returned to Prague safe and sound.  The consequences to others are of...lesser importance."

          This time Mac couldn't hide the flash of anger.  "You think I wouldn't..."

          "I think you would protect Havel with your life, Duncan, and do so as well or better than anyone alive.  I just think Commander Bond has fewer...scruples, shall we say, in dealing with civilians."  She stood, a small woman, her short dark hair cut in a mannish, but not unattractive style.  "Double-0 Seven will contact you shortly, and you will be under his orders."

          "Ma’m, I believe..."

          "That will be all," she snapped, and picked up the phone, turning away in dismissal as she dialed.