"The slums."

"Thanks a lot," Scott said sarcastically.

"No, this is for middle cla.s.s tourist s.e.x. Yab Yub is first cla.s.s but this"ll do me just fine. How about you? Ready for some serious debauching?" The Spook queried.

"Huh?" Scott laughed anxiously. "Oh, I don"t know, I"ve never been terribly fond of hookers."

"First time when I was 13. My uncle took me to a wh.o.r.ehouse for my birthday. s.h.i.t," the Spook fondly grinned at the memory.

"I"ll never forget the look on my mom"s face when he told her.

She lectured him for a week. Christ," he paused. "It"s so funny, you know. My uncle"s gay."

Scott was enjoying the conversation and the company of the Spook.

Americans meeting up with kindred Americans in a foreign land is a breath of fresh air and the Spook provided that.

Scott window shopped as they walked, sidestepping the very few venturesome cars which attempted to penetrate the h.o.r.n.y humanity on the crowded cobblestone streets. The variety of s.e.xual mate- rials was beyond comprehension. Spook seemed to be avidly fluent in their description and application. In one window, a spiked d.i.l.d.o of emmense girth and length dominated the display. Scott grimaced at the weapon while the Spook commented on it"s possible uses at an adult sit"n"spin party.

"Here"s the live s.e.x show," the Spook said invitingly. "Pretty wild. Look at the pictures." Scott leaned over to view a set of graphic photographs that would have caused the Meese Commission on p.o.r.nography to double dose on its Geritol.

"d.a.m.n, they show this stuff on the street, huh?" Asked the sur- prised Scott. He wasn"t naive, it was just quite a shock to see such graphic s.e.xuality in such a concentration and in such an open manner. On Sundays when the Red Light District is closed until 6 P.M., many Dutch families use the window dressings as the textbook for their children"s" s.e.x education. "No, let"s keep going," Scott said unconvinced he would partake of the pleasures.

"Isn"t this great?" The Spook blurted out as Scott was looking in the window of one of the hundred plus s.e.x shops. "I just love it. Remember I was telling you about freedom in Amsterdam? It"s kind of like the hacker"s ethic."

Spook was going to equate s.e.x and hacking? "Is that "cause all hacker"s are hard up?" Scott laughed.

"No, dig it." The Spook suddenly stopped to face Scott. "Free- dom, total freedom implies and requires responsibility. Without that, the system would collapse into chaotic anarchy. Hacking is a manifestation of freedom. Once we have cracked a system, and are in it, we have the freedom to do anything we want. But that freedom brings responsibility too, and, just like with s.e.x so freely available, legally, it must be handled with care." Spook was sermonizing again, but was making more sense. His parallels were concise and poignant.

They walked further into the heart of the District and the Spook was constantly distracted by the quant.i.ty of red lights over the bas.e.m.e.nt and first floor windows. He wanted to closely examine the contents of every one. In each window was a girl, sometimes two, clad in either a dental floss bathing suit or a see through penoire. Scott enjoyed the views, but thought that the Spook was acting somewhat obsessively. The calm, professional, knowledge- able hacker had reverted into a base creature, driven by hormonal compulsion. Or then again, maybe they were just stoned.

"I gotta pick the right one, just the right one," the Spook said.

"Let"s see what else is available. Got to find you a good one, too."

Scott shook his head. "I don"t know . . ."

"What, you don"t wanna get laid? What"s the matter with you?"

The Spook couldn"t believe his ears.

The sheer intensity of the omnipresent s.e.xual stimulation gave Scott the urge to pause and ask himself why. The desire was physically manifest, but the psychology of hookers; it wasn"t his style. In the three years since he and Maggie had split, Scott occa.s.sioned to spend time with many ladies. He had kept himself in reasonable shape without doing becoming fanatic about it, and his high metabolism helped keep the body from degenerating ahead of schedule. So he had had his share of companionship and oppor- tunity, but right now he was enjoying the freedom of his work and the pleasures that that offered. If a woman was in the cards, so be it, but it was not essential at the moment.

"Nothing, it"s just that, well, I prefer to know the lady, if you know what I mean."

"Oh, no problem!" The Spook had an answer. "That"s an all night- er and will cost you 1000 guilders."

"No, no," Scott said quickly. "That"s not it. I just don"t get a charge from hookers. Now, if some friends set it up to like a real pick-up, at the beach, a bar, whatever, as long as I didn"t know. That could prove interesting. Hmmmm." He smiled to himself. "But honestly? I been a couple of times, just for giggles. And boy was it giggles."

Scott laughed out loud at the memory. "The first time it was a friend"s birthday and a bunch of us put up enough to get him laid at the Chicken Ranch." That was the evening Scott had lost almost two hours of his life on the drive back to Vegas. He speculated to himself, in private, that he may been abducted by alien creatures from a UFO. Right.

"I know the place," added the Spook.

"I was designated drunk driver so I drove him over to the high desert in the company van, about an hour"s drive. Before we went in I insisted on a couple of beers. He was getting laid and I was nervous. Go figure. At any rate, the security cameras let us in and two very attractive ladies in slinky gowns lead us over to the couch. They immediately a.s.sumed that we were both there for, well, the services. I was too embarra.s.sed to say no, that I wasn"t interested, but then out came a line of 20 of the most gorgeous girls you could imagine. The madam, I forget her name, stepped in and begged our indulgence for the interruption. It seems, she said, that the BBC was filming a doc.u.mentary on broth- els, and they had a camera crew in the next room, and would we mind too terribly much if they filmed us?" Scott feigned extreme shock.

"Filmed you? For TV? Even I won"t go that far," the Spook said impressed with Scott"s story. "My movies are all first run private. Alphabetical from Adelle to Zelda."

"Not film that, pervert!" He had pegged the Spook. "They only filmed the selection process, the initial meetings and then the walk down the hallways to the bedrooms."

"So what"d you do?" The Spook asked with interest.

"We did the camera bit, Jim got laid and I take the fifth."

"You chicken s.h.i.t a.s.shole," hollered the laughing Spook.

Scott took that as a compliment from the male s.l.u.t to whom he was speaking. "Listen, that was a long time ago, before I was mar- ried, and I don"t want it to screw up our divorce. Three years of bliss."

The Spook kept laughing. "You really are a home boy, huh?" He gasped for air. They continued down a side street and back up the Oude Zijds Achterburgwal, the other main ca.n.a.l in the Dis- trict, so Spook could check out more windows. Those with the curtain drawn indicated that either services were being rendered or that it was lunch hour. Hard to tell.

As they pa.s.sed the Guys and Gals s.e.x Shop, the Spook abruptly stopped and stepped back toward the ca.n.a.l. He whistled to him- self in appreciation of the s.e.x G.o.ddesses that had captured his attention. In the bas.e.m.e.nt window was a stunning buxom brunette, wearing an invisible g-string and bra. She oozed s.e.xuality with her beckoning lips and fingers when she spotted the Spook"s interest. In the first floor window above the brunette were two perfectly voluptuous poster blondes, in matching transparent peignoirs. They too, saw the Spook, and attempted to seduce him to their doorway. Scott was impressed that the ladies were so attractive.

"Some sweet meat, huh?" Said the Spook ogling his choices. "Well are you or aren"t you?" He asked with finality. "I"m all systems go. You get first choice: 2 from window A or 1 from window B.

What"ll it be?"

Scott responded immediately. "I got a safer way. There are five billion people on the planet, and at any given time at least a million have to be having s.e.x. So all I have to do is tune into the Planetary Consciousness, the ultimate archetype, and have an o.r.g.a.s.m anytime I want."

"You"re a sick mother," laughed the Spook. "Transcendental group s.e.x. At least I can tell the difference between p.u.s.s.y and pray- ing." He asked Scott again to pick a girl.

"I have to pa.s.s. It"s just not my thing." Spook glared at him askance. "No really, go ahead. I"m a bit tired, I just arrived this morning." He had forgotten to take his 3 hour afternoon nap and it was close to 6 in the morning body time. "I"ll see you at the conference tomorrow. All right?"

"f.u.c.kin" A!" The Spook beamed. "I get "em all." He motioned to the girls that he would like to hire all three of them, at once.

They indicated that that would be a fine idea. "Listen, I don"t mean to be rude, but . . ." the Spook said to Scott as he pro- ceeded up the stairs to meet the female triumvirate. He turned briefly in the open doorway with two of the girls tugging at his clothes. "Scott! What happens if the medium or the message gets sick? Think about it." The door closed behind the Spook as the girls shed their clothes.

"Medium? Jeez you are really f.u.c.ked," laughed Scott. "Pervert!"

He called out as the window curtains closed.

Scott got directions to the Eureka! from a live s.e.x show sales- man. For all the walking he and the Spook had done, miles and miles, it was odd that they had ended up only a few blocks away from the hotel. Ah, but that would figure, thought Scott. The s.e.x Starved Spook was staying at the Europa around the corner from Sin Street. Scott rolled a joint of his own to enjoy for the pleasant evening promenade home along the ca.n.a.ls. Spook, what a character. In one breath, perfectly rational, but then the Jekyll and Hyde hormone hurricane. Wow.

What Scott Mason could never have imagined, indeed quite the opposite, was that the Spook was unable to respond to the three very attentive ladies he had hired for that very purpose. Noth- ing. No matter what stimuli they effected, the Spook"s brain could not command his body to respond. His confusion alternated with embarra.s.sment which made the problem only worse. Never before had the Spook had such a problem. Never. One of the ladies spoke to him kindly. "Hey, it happens to everyone once in a while." At hearing that he jumped up, removed the loose condom and zipped his pants while screaming, "Not to me. It doesn"t happen to me!"

Scott did not know that the Spook bolted into the street and started running, in panic, away from the scene of his most pri- vate of failures. He ran all the way, in fact beating Scott to his hotel. He was driven by the terror of the first s.e.xual failure in his life. The Spook felt emasculated as he sought a rationalization that would allow him to retain a shred of digni- ty.

He was used to commanding women, not being humiliated by them.

What was wrong? Women fell all over him, but why this? This of all things? The Spook fell asleep on the top of his bed with his clothes on.

Scott did not know that he would not be seeing the Spook tomor- row.

Wednesday, January 6 Washington, D.C.

"Eight more!" exclaimed Charlie Sorenson into Martin Templer"s face. "What the h.e.l.l is going on?" The private office on twenti- eth and "L" Street was well guarded by an efficient receptionist who believed she worked for an international import export firm.

Consulting offices were often easier for senior intelligence officials to use for clandestine, unrecorded meetings than one"s own office. In the interest of privacy, naturally.