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always liked to refer to herself in the second person possessive; this to bolster up an inner sense of inferiority that her ner-do-well mother had instilled in her since she was a child, not wanting to compete with such a "pretty little girl.") Noting that now not a hair was out of place, she turned around and looked at the young twenty-three year old tire salesman lying in bed, half covered, totally smashed, that she had befriended just eight hours earlier in a fit of passion and thought to herself that her suitor looked a lot better in the dim light of the bar. She hadn't noticed it then, but she did now, that the guy still had acne. Yuck!
    Dressing quickly and quietly, she turned and left the room being careful she removed her business card from the night stand to ensure the loser wouldn't try to track her down for one, and two, to avoid any potential future compromise in her security clearance. The NSF wouldn't think too kindly of this sort of behavior, and she had been cautioned already once. One more episode and she might get her clearance yanked entirely.
    Hurriedly, she headed down the grimy stairs of the cheap motel and out onto the streets now bustling with people on their way to work. She dreaded the thought of anyone seeing her come out of this place, so she buried her head in her scarf and hailed the first taxi that happened by, quickly entering into the safety of the its warm surroundings, happy to be out of the biting cold wind which had begun to numb her.
    She didn't notice the blue green station wagon and the two secret service agents, who immediately started to follow her as the cab pulled away from the curb. She was in too big a hurry to get to the NSF and her job.
    The cab ride from downtown to her office took much longer than she had planned. When they finally arrived, Cherisa looked at her watch, threw the cabbie a twenty and left in such a hurry she didn't even get the change. As she entered the building, Cherisa stopped short of the security guard and hurriedly fumbled in her purse to get her identification pass. Normally she would have had it in her hand so she could walk right in, but she didn't recognize the guard at the door this day, and she didn't want to draw attention to herself. She was, after all, forty five minutes late for work.
    Stepping forward, Cherisa showed her badge to the guard who did a double take, flashing his eyes first at the badge and then at Cherisa. Satisfied of her correct identification, he buzzed the door and let her inside. Before letting the security door close completely, Cherisa looked over her shoulder and batted her eyes at the guard and spoke.
    "Please do me little favor, handsome. Okay?"
    The guard responded, "What's that you want Ms. Hunt?"
    "Just remember when you log in my arrival time, could you fudge just a little and put down 8:30 instead of the actual time? Mr. Huxley said if I was late one more time he'd fire me. And we wouldn't want that now. Would we?" She batted her eyes again, hoping her ploy would work. It always used to work on the guard in the Capital Building when she worked for Senator Radcliff.
    The guard scanned her up and down lasciviously and then nodded his head in agreement. Maybe Ms. Hunt would remember this later on. He hoped so anyway.
    Cherisa closed the door and proceeded down the long corridor of vault doors to her office at the end.
    When she was halfway down the hall, one of the vault doors opened. The soft sound of classical music could be heard briefly as the petite brunette, Amanda Yates, stepped out almost running into Cherisa and dropping a pile of loose-leaf papers in the process.
    "Hi, Amanda. What's the hurry?"
    Amanda composed herself, stooped down and picked up the papers. When they were situated in her arms again she replied apologetically, "Oh, hi, Cherisa. I've just got to get these papers into art. We've got a big presentation to the budget committee tomorrow. You know. Same old thing. Tell 'em what we're spending. Tell