Title Illustrated Men Author Various ISBN# 978-1-60820-148-8 (print) $64.99   978-1-60820-149-5 (ebook) $16.99 Release Date July 2010 Cover Artist Michael Breyette Paperback: 164 pages     Available At: MlrBooks (ebook)

Since artists are often called up to turn prose into a visual for such things as book covers, I wondered, would writers be able to pick up the creative torch and run in the opposite direction? I had little doubts they could and it got me excited wondering what they would come up with for my own pastel paintings.

So with that in mind I thought it would be fun to launch a contest and invite friends, fans of my art, amateur scribes, professional writers, really anyone who wanted, to pick a painting from my body of work and build a short story around it.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. I wanted to find out if that was true.

Art-inspired short story contributors for this collection include: L. John Williams, Todd Schoonover, Veronica, Aleksandr Voinov, Marquesate, Linda Schnelle, John Stewart, George Seaton, Gabriel Morgan, Alan Bennett Ilagan, Todd Peissig, Harold Dixon, Justin Shepherd, Clare London, and artist Michael Breyette.

Title Keys to Love #3 in the Conquest series Author S.J. Frost ISBN# 978-1-60820-158-7 (print) $14.99   978-1-60820-159-4 (ebook) $6.99 Release Date July 2010 Cover Artist Deana C. Jamroz Paperback: 278 pages     Available At: MlrBooks (ebook)

Morgan Chandler spent years teaching students to love music until budget cuts forced him out of a job. With family debts rising, Morgan accepts a job as a roadie for Conquest. He thinks he’ll hate it with one exception—he’ll be close to Julian.

Can the two find the right music together that will lead them to the Keys to Love?

Title	A Deadly Deception
Author	J.P. Bowie
ISBN#	978-1-60820-144-0 (print) $14.99
	978-1-60820-145-7 (ebook) $6.99
Release Date	July 2010
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	300 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)

Some things are not always what they appear to be. So Nick Fallon discovers when he is hired to investigate the death of a young man whose body is found buried in a wooded canyon area of Los Angeles. Not that he’s surprised. After ten years in law enforcement, Nick is pretty much used to the unexpected. However, he soon becomes frustrated by the bizarre behavior of his client, John Hammond, and the apparent indiscretion of his business partner, Jeff Stevens.

Nick’s investigation leads him to a gay bar in LA, and from there to the still recovering city of New Orleans where he finds what appear to be the answers to the mystery. But what he has unraveled is only a small part of the truth. What remains is even more terrible—a trap, where the price of pleasure is death.

Along the way, Nick is reminded of the often-high cost of friendship, and that trust and honesty are essential elements in any relationship—be it friend, or lover.

************************

Chapter One

Nick Fallon looked up from the paperwork he was working on when his partner Jeff Stevens strode into the office they shared. He grinned as Jeff flung himself into his chair, glaring moodily across the office at him, his handsome face unusually glum.
“Bad start to the day?” Nick asked.
“You could say that. Don’t ever live with an artist!”
“Oh, oh.” Nick leaned his long frame back in his chair, and waited.
“Now he wants to open a gallery in San Diego,” Jeff growled. “Like the one here in town isn’t enough to keep him busy, night and day.”
“San Diego, that’s not so far.”
“Nick, Peter and I hardly see each other anymore as it is.” Jeff gave his chestnut brown hair an impatient swipe. “What with his schedule and mine, it seems like every hour of every day is filled with stuff that keeps us away from each other. You have it easy. Eric has regular hours at the gallery. He’s at home every night when you get there’s candles lit, cocktails poured, dinner in the oven. Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not denying…”
“But me,” Jeff continued to rant, “I get home to a dark and empty house and maybe, just maybe, there’s a note saying something to the effect that he’s in conference or got a sitting, or…”
“Well, he’s a successful…”
“Or, he’s having dinner with some high-powered business people that want him to design a mural for their fucking office.”
“You should be proud of…”
“And that’s not all. The other night–get this, he told me he might go to Europe for three months!”
“What for?”
“Some school in Paris wants him to coach their more gifted students.”
“But surely that’s quite an honor, Jeff. You should be proud of him, buddy.”
“I am proud of him!” Jeff slumped back in his chair with a heavy sigh. “I’m behaving badly, aren’t I?”
Nick nodded. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, don’t be so quick to agree, partner mine. You won’t like it when he asks Eric to manage the gallery in San Diego.”
“He’s going to do that?”
“Of course he is. You know he thinks the world of Eric’s management skills. Never stops telling me what a great choice he made in hiring your sweetie.”
“Well, San Diego’s hardly at the ends of the earth.”
“Yeah, but he’s going to be driving back and forth till they get it up and running,” Jeff told him. “And then,” he added with a degree of triumph, “He won’t be at home ready with your pipe and slippers!”
“I don’t smoke a pipe.” (continue reading)

Stirring Up Trouble	Stirring Up Trouble
Z.A. Maxfield	Z.A. Maxfield
ISBN#	978-1-60820-130-3 (ebook) $3.50
Release Date	July 2010
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	158 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)

Toby Andrews is cooking up more than a little trouble for Evan Blankenship. Because of pranks, indiscretions, and plain bad timing, his ability to work in New York’s temples of haute cuisine is a thing of the past. When Toby’s sister tells him he should look up an acquaintance whose restaurant — Le Potiron –is failing, he doesn’t have much choice.

Pretty soon he’s in bed, literally, with a cook who hates people, trying to save a restaurant that only the neighborhood mothers seem to love, and on the verge of another –possibly painful — lesson or two about what it means to be successful.

Evan hates everyone but Toby. Toby likes to stir things up. See what’s on the menu at Le Potiron, in Stirring Up Trouble.

************************

2010 A.V. PRIDE Details:

Date: June 19, 2010

Time: 10:00am – 5:00pm

Location: Poncitlan Square, 38315 9th Street East Palmdale , CA 93550

http://www.avglbtcenter.com/av_pride_2010

Title	The Blood of Love
Author	Victor J. Banis
ISBN#	978-1-60820-154-9 (print) $14.99
	978-1-60820-155-6 (ebook)  $6.99
Release Date	June 2010
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	208 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)

An ancient curse. An endless terror. A love that will never die.

The Amorinii, “the Blood” – the undying sons of the loins of Amor, the ancient Roman God of Love. For desiring men, they are forever cast adrift by the Goddess of Love, Venus herself. Scorned and pursued through the centuries by those who would see them destroyed. For some men, love is a curse.

************************

Chapter 1

“Ethan?”

Jonathon Everest, just leaving his office, started and turned his head in the speaker’s direction. What he saw was an old man, round shouldered, leaning on a cane with hands that trembled noticeably. An old, old man, wizened. Staring wide-eyed at him, a look of hopeful expectancy on his face.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It is you.” The stranger grinned widely, revealing a gap in his yellowed teeth. “I knew, the minute I saw the picture.” He tugged a newspaper clipping from the pocket of a worn but clean shirt and shaking it open, held it out for Jonathon’s perusal.

Jonathon took no more than a glance at the clipping. He recognized it, of course. It had come from the San Francisco Chronicle, yesterday’s edition. It showed him accepting an award for humanitarian of the year from the Council on Gay and Lesbian Studies. He’d clipped it from the paper as well. At the moment, his copy was tacked up on a corkboard in his office. He knew, also, that it clearly identified him by name: “Jonathon Everest, of Weatherby, Weatherby and Dean, accepts humanitarian award from Gay Council.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said now.

The old man thrust the paper at him determinedly. “Here, take it.” His voice insistent.

Jonathon ignored the clipping. “My name is Jonathon Everest and…”

“No.” It was said in a surprisingly forceful tone. “Your name is Ethan Soames. Do you think for a moment I could ever forget you?”

“I tell you, you don’t know…”

“But I do know.” The old man’s voice was rising in pitch and volume. He was nearly shouting now.

They were in the corridor outside Jonathon’s accounting office. It was five o’clock, quitting time, and the hallway was filled with people hurrying on their way home for the day, eddying around the two men and some of them casting curious glances.

“Look, we can’t stand here arguing,” Jonathon said, mindful of the sideways glances. “Come with me.”

Without waiting to see if he was obeyed, he walked quickly, decisively in the opposite direction from those heading toward the elevators, taking a key from his pocket as he went. He unlocked the unmarked door at the end of the corridor, stepped inside and, as the old man followed him in, closed it after them and locked it again.

They were in the firm’s executive restroom. It smelled of disinfectant and soap, something artificially piney. Other odors lingered beneath those, faint but unmistakable. Bright lights glittered off gleaming white tile and spotless porcelain. Brass fittings winked. There was ice in the unmanned urinals, glittering as well. The stall doors stood open.

The two men were alone. The toilets suddenly flushed in unison, water gurgling, breaking the silence, but it was an automatic system, timed for every six minutes—just in case someone forgot. Executives had other things on their minds, it seemed, more important than flushing when they’d finished Number Two.

Jonathon turned to confront the old man. “Now, then, Mister…?”

“But you know my name. You can’t have forgotten that.”

Jonathon only stared at him, waiting.

The stranger sighed. “Samuel,” he said. “Samuel Barney. Sam. But I can’t believe you didn’t know that. I can’t believe you don’t remember.” Samuel Barney stood now without the help of his cane, and he drew back his shoulders in a determined way. He looked like a man very sure of himself. A man not easily intimidated.

“Mister Barney,” Jonathon said, speaking in a patient and carefully neutral voice. He was sure he could handle the situation. Handling situations was a specialty of his, perfected over long time. At this stage in his life, he thought that nothing could surprise him. “I don’t know what kind of delusion you’re suffering from, but…”

Barney did surprise him, though. “Take down your pants.”

Jonathon’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Samuel Barney smiled. “Your trousers. Lower them.”

Jonathon’s laugh was embarrassed. “Now look here, if this is some kind of, well, I don’t know what—sexual advance, I suppose, whatever, I am not…”

“You have a wound, a prominent scar, right here.” The old man put a hand to his right groin. “You show me. If there’s no scar, I’ll apologize and leave. Otherwise, you’re going to have to do some serious explaining. Or I’m going to raise some serious hell.”

They stared at one another for a long moment, eyes locked. Jonathon gave a shake of his head and sighed. “No. I’m not going to do it. This is ridiculous. A perfect stranger accosts me on my way from work and demands that I drop my drawers for him? I’ve had some passes in my day, but yours takes the cake. Next I suppose you’ll be describing my dick.”

“I could, you know. You know I could. Hard, soft, anything in between. I saw it often enough. The never-cum-dick, I used to call it. You see, I remember everything. And you won’t do it, you won’t show me because you can’t, because you know I’m right.”

Jonathon looked around as if to appeal to some higher, restroom authority. “Look, what is it that you want, really? Forget about my dick, I’m particular who I share that with, but, what then, money?” He reached for the wallet in the inside pocket of his blazer. “I don’t know how much I have, but if it’ll get you out of my hair…”

“Money?” He fairly spat the word. “You dare to offer me money? After what we…after…” He sputtered and seemed to lose the thread of what he had been about to say.

“What were we, Mister Barney? Or, rather, what do you think we were?”

“We were…” For the first time, though, Samuel Barney grew confused, lost the confidence with which he had spoken up till now. He blinked, his head rocking to and fro in a palsied motion. He saw himself in the mirror behind Jonathon, and was shaken by his image, looked quickly away from it. Old men were not fond of mirrors. Especially not old men who had once been young and very, very handsome. Now he was…just old.

“But…but, it can’t be, can it? Look at me. Look at my hands.” He looked down at them himself. They were shriveled, brown-spotted, the knuckles prominent. And they had begun to shake again. “I’m old. I’ll be eighty four in another month. And you ought to be too, but you’re not. You’re so young. As young as you were then. You haven’t aged a bit.” His shoulders, a moment before held back firmly, slumped in an attitude of defeat. “I don’t understand it.”

“I’m forty one. Half your age, if you want to look at it like that. So you see…” Jonathon spread his hands in a dismissive gesture.

“I see that there’s something very peculiar here. Something…something unnatural, something weird beyond comprehension.” Sam tilted his chin up, and his eyes blazed with sudden anger. “Damn you, I want to see your groin. I insist.” He raised the cane as if he meant to strike Jonathon with it. “Show me.”

They were interrupted by the sound of a key in the lock and the door swung inward. Horace Weatherby, Jonathon’s boss, appeared in the doorway.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” he asked in a voice that said he knew perfectly well he was interrupting. He looked from one to the other, an eyebrow cocked.

“No. The gentleman just mistook me for someone else. He’s leaving.” Jonathon’s tone was final.

Weatherby came the rest of the way into the room, unconsciously moving to stand beside Jonathon, the two of them confronting Samuel Barney with a kind of united front. Barney looked back and forth, swallowing.

“I think you should go home,” Jonathon said in a gentle voice. “Forget whatever you think you know—about me.”

The toilets punctuated his suggestion with another flush, the noise loud in the room’s tense silence.

“Oh, I’ll go all right. Home.” Barney made the single word sound ugly. “But I’m not going to forget. And you needn’t think for a moment you’ve fooled me either. We aren’t finished yet. I’m going to learn the truth. Something’s rotten in Denmark, all right, and I’m going to find out what. What’s more, when I do—and I will, you can believe that—I’m going to share it with the world. I told you, I’m going to raise some serious hell. You aren’t going to jilt me twice, in the same lifetime, and get away with it.” And he added, in a definite voice, “Ethan.”

He went out, once again leaning on his cane, his fingers quaking. The door swung shut behind him.

Weatherby looked at Jonathon. “Ethan?” he said. “Is he…?”

“No one,” Jonathon said firmly. “No one that need concern us.”

* * * *;

Samuel Barney’s “home” was just a room in a Tenderloin hotel for transients. He could have lived better, had often been coaxed by his grandson to move in with him in his Castro apartment, but he’d preferred to be alone. His loneliness was his only legacy from the great love he had once known.

The loneliness, and the mirror. He took it out of the locked drawer where he kept it, held it up and looked into it, as he did every day. He was not looking at himself, but at the shabby room behind him. Or, really, not even at that. He was looking, as he always did, for something. But for what, he had no idea. In some far corner of his mind, he knew there was something he should see, something that he had once seen, but that had slid away from his consciousness without recognition. What? He’d asked himself that question a thousand times or more, but still the answer did not come.

The mirror was small, no larger than a sheet of typing paper. The glass, cloudy with age, was surrounded by an elaborately carved bronze frame, inset with semi-precious stones. It was pre-renaissance, maybe even late Roman, someone had suggested years before, and a collector had once offered him an incredible sum of money for it. He could sell it at any time, he knew, for enough to leave this seedy room behind and make a new life for himself.

He couldn’t bring himself to do that, though, and not only for sentimental reasons. He wasn’t sure how safe it would be to sell it. He’d stolen it, though that had been long ago, and whether anyone else even knew of its existence, he had no idea. Ethan did, surely. And must have known who had taken it. It had been valuable to Ethan, certainly—yet in the intervening years, Ethan had made no effort to reclaim it, which was in itself a mystery.

More than forty years ago. In some ways, it felt as if it had been only yesterday. He’d gone to Ethan’s apartment in not-quite Beverly Hills, unable to believe the note he’d gotten, that Ethan was gone, that they would never see one another again.

How could he believe it? They had been so in love, so devoted to one another. Yes, yes, he knew for certain they had been in love, and both of them. His had been no one-sided passion, his love for Ethan had been matched by Ethan’s love for him. On that score he had not a single doubt: Ethan had loved him too. So, then, what possible reason could Ethan have for ending it so suddenly? It made no sense. What could have led him to pen that note?

“Remember me fondly, please. Our time together has been very precious to me, more precious than you will ever know.” And then, one word, that had never before seemed so stark, so terrible: “Goodbye.”

At Ethan’s apartment he used the key Ethan had given him to let himself in, half expecting to discover that the lock would have been changed.

It hadn’t, but it was clear at a glance that Ethan had gone. Or, at least, that he was in the process of going, of moving out. The closets were empty, his clothes, all his personal belongings gone. Only a few cardboard boxes, already taped shut, stood neatly stacked against one wall.

And atop the boxes, the mirror, with a note attached to it, in Ethan’s handwriting: “Frank: Pack this for me, please, carefully. I didn’t trust myself to do it right.”

Samuel debated just staying there, waiting for Ethan to come back; but it did not appear he meant to return. This looked more as if someone else, movers perhaps, would be coming to finish emptying the apartment. He even toyed with the idea that they must surely be able to tell him where Ethan had gone.

But what explanation could he have given them for needing to know. This was a long time ago. Homosexuality wasn’t as accepted then. Certainly homosexuals had few rights. He knew that. At best, they’d probably laugh at him. Or, worse, throw him out violently. Maybe call the police. Homosexuals were still arrested then, often on the slightest pretext.

He left without waiting to see anyone, but he crumpled up the note and took the mirror with him, partly to have something of Ethan’s, and partly in the hope that Ethan would come for the mirror. He hadn’t even, at the time, thought of it as “stealing.” Certainly he had no qualms about taking it.

If he doesn’t care about me, he told himself, maybe he’ll care enough for it.

He went back to his own apartment with the mirror, a real apartment then, and not just a room in a seedy Tenderloin hotel. He got drunk.

Four years drunk, as it turned out, until he awakened one morning lying in some garbage in an alley, with no memory of how he had gotten there, with no money, everything he’d owned gone—except for the mirror. When he got up, brushing garbage and alley dirt off himself, he discovered the mirror carefully wrapped in his filthy jacket. He had somehow held on to that. Or maybe it had held on to him.

He stood in the faint light of early dawn, staring into the milky glass, trying to remember. Something that he had seen in the mirror, or half-seen, anyway, teased at his memory. Something that he wanted to see again, that instinct told him would solve the mystery of Ethan’s disappearance. The memory would not come. Like the mirror’s glass, the four years were shrouded in mists, and they had remained so.

He sobered up, got a job. Met and became friends with Annabel and her new son, Nate, the only people since Ethan who had really cared for him. He resumed his life—or a pretense of it. Without Ethan, it wasn’t really a life, just an empty ritual. He’d gotten through it as best he could, had managed to regain some sense of self-respect. If he’d ever asked himself what it was that he had kept living for, ever delved into that question, he would probably have told himself it was for Ethan. Somehow, over the years, he had remained convinced against all odds that he would one day see Ethan again.

And, finally, so he had. He had recognized him instantly when he’d seen the photograph in the newspaper. How could he ever forget that face? He was certain beyond any doubt that the man he had accosted today was Ethan Soames, no matter what Ethan said to the contrary.

But that thought no sooner entered his mind than he asked himself, how could that be? Ethan would be as old as he was now, or nearly so. And the man today had been as young as Ethan had been back then. He hadn’t aged a day.

He stared into the glass as if he might see the answer there, but whatever the mirror’s secret, whatever he was supposed to see, had gone with his memory of those four years. And today, too…something flickered in his memory of that scene in the restroom. The artificial stink of pine. He heard the water running, Ethan’s voice as if from a great distance…he had a conviction that he had seen or heard something significant in those brief moments. But, what? Again, the answer refused to come.

Something moved behind him—and as suddenly as that, the mists vanished from his mind and he remembered. In a single instant, the mirror revealed its long held secret to him. The glass into which he gazed showed him an empty room, though he knew with chilling certainty that it was not empty. Just as once before, years ago, in Ethan’s apartment, he’d seen an empty room, though Ethan had stood no more than two feet away from him…and today, too, when he’d glanced in that restroom’s mirror. He had seen an empty glass, that should not have been empty.

He turned. A man stood just inside the room, though the door was locked. How had he come in, through the locked door, without a sound?

Samuel said, “You.”

It was the last word he uttered.

Title	A Deadly Game
Author	J.P. Bowie
ISBN#	978-1-60820-143-3 (ebook)  $6.99
	978-1-60820-142-6 (print)  $14.99
Release Date	June 2010
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	212 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)

Nick Fallon, private investigator, gets a rude awakening when his past life unexpectedly catches up with him. Four years earlier, Nick, then a member of the Pittsburgh Police Department, was instrumental in arresting Francisco Garcia, a drug dealer and cold-blooded murderer.

Now, Garcia has escaped from death-row, intent on making good his threat of reprisal for the death of his son in the shootout that brought down his notorious empire—a confrontation that also claimed the life of Nick’s close friend, Sam Valance.

Nick, only too aware of Garcia’s ruthless and cunning tactics, fears for the safety of his family and his lover, Eric Jamieson. Nick knows in order to protect those he loves he cannot, for one moment afford to let down his guard, until Garcia is either apprehended—or dead.

A Deadly Game is an erotic thrill ride, filled with danger, excitement and suspense.

**********************************

Chapter One

Laguna Beach. California

The early morning sun, rising in the east behind the hills and canyons that separate the town of Laguna Beach from the rest of Orange County, spilled its light onto the calm waters of the Pacific Ocean, touching the whitecaps with silver as they broke gently on shore. It was early October, but a Santa Ana condition had kicked in the day before, bringing a warm, dry, off-shore wind from the desert that could already be felt, despite the fact it was not yet six a.m.

The runner on the beach churned up the sand as he ran with a long, loping style. Tall, broad shouldered, with lean, hard muscles gleaming under a fine layer of perspiration, he drew admiring glances from the scattering of men and women likewise engaged in their early morning exercise. As he approached Main Beach he stopped, wiped the perspiration from his eyes, then pulling off his tank top, he ran into the ocean before diving headfirst beneath the waves. He swam with strong, sure strokes against the tide, enjoying the coolness of the water, feeling energized by the tugging of the riptide. For a time, he floated on his back on top of the rolling waves, gazing up at the azure sky, his mind turned off to the rigors he knew the day would eventually bring him. This he considered his just reward for getting out of bed at the crack of dawn and running for an hour every day.

The roar of a speedboat’s engine close by shattered the early morning quiet, and he was caught in the undulating wake created by its passing. His reverie interrupted, he flipped himself over, and with a strong kick of his legs, headed back to shore.

Nick Fallon waded from the water and stood for a moment surveying the pleasant view in front of him, his hazel eyes squinting against the glare of the morning sun. From his vantage point, he could look across the sand to the boardwalk and the green swath of grass beyond, dominated by palm and cypress trees. At this time of day, the town was still quiet, affording him a relatively relaxed run back up the hill to the apartment he shared with his lover, Eric. He bent to pick up his tank top, shaking the sand from it then using it to wipe his face and chest, before he set off at a leisured pace toward home.

Nick and Eric had moved to Laguna from New York the year before, mostly at Eric’s urging, but also so that Nick could take advantage of the offer from Jeff Stevens to become his business partner in Stevens’ Investigations, a thriving private investigative business. Jeff had insisted he needed help with his ever increasing client base, and had dispelled Nick’s notion that he’d be bored with the on-the-surface sedate Orange County lifestyle. Nick had learned very quickly that all is rarely as it appears to be, and that wealth and refinement do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Some of the more lurid cases of larceny and fraud were perpetrated by the extremely well heeled of society. Greed, not need, was their motivation. Still, that’s what kept people like him and Jeff, along with the police force for that matter, in business.

Jeff and his lover Peter Brandon, a celebrated local artist, had taken off on a well-deserved vacation, leaving Nick in charge of the investigative business and Eric looking after Peter’s art gallery in downtown Laguna. They’d be in Europe for a month, maybe longer if they weren’t needed for any urgent business back home. Rounding the corner of the apartment building, Nick bounded up the steps and flung open the front door.

“Hey, stud!” Eric smiled at him from beneath the towel he was using to dry his light brown hair. He was naked, and Nick paused for a moment to drink in the sight of his boyfriend’s lightly tanned, lithe and compact body. In New York, where they had met two years before, Eric had been a paramedic, a job that had kept him in great physical shape. Now that he had what he called the “cushy life,” managing Peter Brandon’s art gallery in town, he worried about getting soft and had joined a nearby gym to keep himself toned, working out regularly with Peter and Andrew, a mutual friend. From the look of things, Nick thought carnally, it was paying off.

“You’re the stud,” he whispered. His voice husky with desire, he pulled Eric’s smooth skinned, still damp body into his arms, and delivered a scorching kiss to his mouth.

“Those early morning runs sure seem to agree with you,” Eric gasped when they came up for air. With a sensuous curl of his lips, he ran his tongue over Nick’s left nipple, tasting the salt from the sea mingled with the sweat of his body. “Mmm…look at you. You’re all sweaty, and I’m suddenly all horny—”

Nick pulled him closer. “I can take care of that for you.”

“I knew there was something I liked about you,” Eric said, wrapping his arms around Nick’s neck and pulling him in for another long and hungry kiss.

Later, after they had showered together, Eric made some pancakes while Nick perused the morning paper. “Jeez,” he muttered, looking at a gruesome photograph of yet more carnage in the Middle East. “When the hell are we ever going to get some good news?” His eyes were suddenly riveted to a piece on an inside page:

Death Row Inmate Escapes From Pa. State Prison:

Francisco Garcia, sentenced to death three years ago for the drug related murders of two Pittsburgh homicide detectives, escaped from prison yesterday during a riot that prison officials are now calling a smoke screen to cover the escape…

“Aw, shit—” Nick exclaimed.

Eric turned to look at him with concern. “What is it?”

Nick closed the paper quickly. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? ‘Aw shit’ about nothing?” Eric narrowed his light blue eyes. “I can see on your face it’s a lot more than nothing.”

Nick rose from the table. “I gotta get dressed and get to the office.”

“Nick.” Eric advanced on him, his eyes glittering. “You do not get to do this, my friend. You are not skipping out of here without telling me what just bothered you. That was the deal remember? Anytime we have a problem, we share.”

“Eric,” Nick groaned. “Don’t push this. I really don’t want to talk about it right now. Later, maybe…”

Eric could not quite conceal the hurt look that shadowed his face, but he turned away quickly and went back to the stove. “Pancakes to go then?”

“Eric, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”

“But ya did, Blanche. Ya did!” Eric tried to keep his voice light as he imitated Bette Davis, then he turned round to look at Nick and smiled. “Okay—tell me when you want to.”

Nick took him in his arms. “Thanks Eric. I love you, you know.”

Eric kissed Nick’s chin. “I know. Now go do what you have to do.”

* * * *

Nick pulled into his allotted space outside the office he and Jeff shared. For a moment he sat in the car, mulling things over in his mind, then with a sigh he climbed out and pushed his way through the heavy glass doors that led into the reception area.

“Hi, Nick.” Monica Kwan, their secretary, gave him a wave as he entered.

“Monica. Any messages?”

Monica gave him a shrewd look. “That kind of day already?” She handed him a couple of telephone messages.

“Mmm.” The smile he started became a grimace as he thought of the calls he had to make. “I’ll be on the phone for a time. Just take messages. Okay?”

“You got it.”

“Thanks, Monica.” He went into his office and closed the door behind him quietly. He looked over at Jeff’s empty desk and wished like hell his partner was sitting there so he could talk with him. Jeff was the kind of guy who remained calm under attack, resilient when pushed, and usually had a sensible spin on situations that seemed crazy at times. Nick felt he could certainly use some of that calmness right about now. Francisco Garcia somewhere out there on the loose. This was not good. Not good at all. He punched in a number on his phone, then sat back listening to the ringing tone.

“Detective Hawkins.”

“Andy, it’s Nick Fallon.”

“So you heard, huh?”

“Read about it in the paper this morning.”

“How are you?”

“Okay. Yourself?”

“Fine, until all this shit happened. Margo’s threatening to take the kids over to her mother’s ‘til he’s caught.”

“That might not be a bad idea, Andy.”

“You think he’s crazy enough to try something?”

“Yes, I do. You know what he threatened to do when we brought him down, and you know he’s capable of just about anything. The guy’s a killer first and a homicidal maniac second.”

“Jesus,” Andy blew the word out on a long breath.

“What’s the word, anyway? How did Garcia manage this?”

“Beats me—he was on death row. It should never have happened.”

“He had inside help then.”

“That’d be my guess. They’ve got search teams all over the state looking for him of course.”

“Let’s hope they get lucky.” Nick drummed his fingers on his desktop as he spoke. “Andy, make sure you take precautions there. Don’t go anywhere alone. I have a bad feeling about this. Garcia—that son-of-a-bitch is clever.”

“Not so clever. He got caught.”

“And we got lucky, Andy. Don’t forget, he still managed to take out two of ours.”

Andy was silent for a while then he said, “Maybe I should take Margo and the kids to her mother’s house.”

“Good idea.”

Nick felt like saying he should have done it right away, but Andy was a stubborn guy who thought he could handle anything that came along—even someone like Garcia. Nick wasn’t so sure he could, but he didn’t want to voice that opinion right then.

“So, you don’t have to worry way out there in sunny California, right?”

“Andy, just watch your back. If you hear anything, let me know. Okay?”

“You bet.”

“And tell Margo I said hello.”

He hung up and rose slowly from his desk chair to look out of the window at the now bustling activity on Coast Highway. Pittsburgh sure seemed a long way away, he thought. Once it had been his home, where he had gone to school, to college, to work, and where he and his family and friends had gathered to celebrate birthdays and Thanksgivings. Where he had met Martin and lived with him for close to ten years. And then all that had changed in such a short space of time. Martin had died in a plane crash, and Francisco Garcia, along with his henchmen, had shot two of Nick’s associates to death. Yes, they had brought the gang down, but at a terrible price.

Nick had never really been able to find closure in the death of his lover and friends. His move to New York and his year with the NYPD had helped because it had brought Eric into his life. That he had found a man as loving and as caring as Eric had seemed to him, at the time, to be something of a miracle. Nick knew he wasn’t the easiest guy to live with. He could be quick-tempered, pig-headed, sullen even—but Eric rarely seemed fazed by Nick’s moods. Sometimes, showing a great deal of patience, he would just wait quietly for the mood to pass, then other times he would use humor or start a lively discussion to distract Nick.

And then there was the sex, or rather the lovemaking, as Nick preferred to call it. Those moments of sheer bliss when they were alone together, when they could express their love for one another, making everything seem right and worthwhile. That was why he could not tell Eric of what he had read in the paper that morning. He would have to eventually of course, but right then, he had felt that cold shudder of fear when someone you cherish might just be taken away. In the years since Garcia’s trial, Nick had almost forgotten the man’s existence. Now, the events of the past had come back to haunt him.

Francisco Garcia was a cold, lethal killer with many options for revenge. Nick knew there was a network of like killers in almost every section of the country—there just for the paying. Garcia had vowed revenge on the men who had brought him, and his empire, down.

But there was a greater need for vengeance in Garcia’s heart, because of the fact that his son had died in the shootout that had claimed the lives of the two detectives. Nothing would appease him, he had said at his trial. His soul would never rest until his son’s killers had all been destroyed.

That meant Andy Hawkins—and Nick Fallon.

Nick was worried about Andy’s being on the front line. If Garcia was not apprehended in the next couple of days, it put his friend’s life in a great deal of danger. Nick did not doubt for one moment that Garcia would attempt to carry out his threat. Despite the man’s need for obscurity at this point in his escape, no matter how risky it would be for him to get close to a police detective, Nick innately knew that Garcia would gladly take that risk. He had seen him in court, railing against those who had “murdered” his son. The man’s eyes, small, dark and glittering with hate had met Nick’s from the other side of that crowded courtroom, and Nick had been left slightly shaken by the malevolence in the prolonged stare Garcia had cast upon him.

Garcia had been sentenced to death, but it had not stopped him from delivering his own sentence on the two remaining men he considered guilty of taking his son’s life. Before he was led away in the shackles he had worn during his entire trial, Garcia had pronounced his judgment across the courtroom on those who had taken his son’s life. His son would be avenged, he had yelled as he was hustled out amid a rush of reporters and photographers, intent on capturing the moment for the headlines of the day.

Nick could still see the photograph that had appeared in the paper later that day. Andy and himself, standing side by side in the courtroom under a headline that had screamed, “Garcia Threatens Arresting Detectives!” The reporters had a field day recounting Garcia’s threats and promises to “seek out and destroy the men who had taken his young son’s life.” Nick knew that the cops in Pittsburgh would be doing everything they could to find the escaped prisoner, but would it be enough? He also knew that Andy would be given protection until Garcia was caught and back behind bars once more. But what if Andy let his guard down before that happened, and what if Garcia could get through the protection?

“Christ,” he muttered, running his hand through his dark brown hair. There were just too many possibilities, and all of them not good. Garcia was clever. Clever enough to engineer his escape from a maximum security prison and still be on the loose. Nick did not like the feeling he was getting from this. Instinctively, he knew this was going to be bad. Returning to his desk, he pulled a name from his Rolodex and quickly dialed the number. After a couple of rings, a voice with strong nasal overtones answered.

“Tom Carradine.”

“Tom—Nick Fallon.”

When Nick was still a detective with the Pittsburgh Police Department he, and a couple of his associates, had used Carradine as an informant. Once upon a time, Carradine too had been a police officer. He’d been fired several years before for taking bribes. The popular opinion among his fellow officers was that Tom was not a bad guy, just stupid. He’d managed to get a private investigator’s license, but his propensity for trying to make a quick buck frequently got him into trouble. On one occasion, when a man he was dealing with turned ugly, he’d run to Nick for help. Nick had stepped in and made the man back off, earning Carradine’s undying loyalty—or at least as loyal as Tom Carradine could ever be.

“Hey, Nick…” Carradine’s voice took on a wary edge. “What’s up?”

“Garcia escaped from prison.”

“I heard.”

“What else have you heard?”

“Nothin’—too early yet. All’s I heard was what you read in the papers. Looks like an inside job, so they say.”

“It had to be, Tom. And he has to have people helping him on the outside. I need a favor.”

“Yeah?”

“Talk to the people you know. Anything you hear, get back to me right away.”

“Nick…”

“I mean it, Tom. Don’t forget what you owe me. I’m pulling in all my markers on this one. Andy’s right there in the line of fire. You hear anything, you let me know. Got that?”

A deep sigh sounded on the other end. “Okay,” came the mumbled reply. “But Nick… Garcia…man…he’s—”

“I know what he is, Tom,” Nick said, his voice harsh. “I know only too well what he is. That’s why I need you on this. Andy’s life could depend on what you can find out. You owe him too, don’t forget.”

“I don’t forget. Okay, I’ll be in touch.” Carradine paused then asked, “You all right?”

“I’m fine, Tom. Just help me with this one.” Nick put the phone down and sank back in his chair. He closed his eyes…and let himself remember.

Title	The Code
Author	David Juhren
ISBN#	978-1-60820-169-3 (print) $14.99
	978-1-60820-170-9 (ebook) $6.99
Release Date	May 2010
Cover Artist	Deana C. Jamroz
Paperback:	188 pages
Available At:	MlrBooks (ebook)
	Amazon.com (paperback)

London, 1941, and Roger Mathews, a special attache with the U.S. is teamed up with British captain Clive Westmore to execute a secret plan to secure the final key to solving the Nazi’s secret codes from within occupied France. Complicating matters, the two are instantly attracted to each other, beginning a romantic involvement whose tender alliance can only make more intricate their already convoluted mission.

***************************

Chapter I: Enigma

February, 1941

Roger dropped the cigarette and stomped it out with his loafer. Seconds later, another bomb exploded. About a quarter of a mile away, but still in the Whitehall area, he suspected. It rumbled like a giant, so different from thunder-an ominous, man-made sound he knew he would never forget.

The Nazis are really dishing it out to London tonight, he thought, standing on the rooftop of his blacked-out apartment building. The structure, like the others in the neighborhood, had been built in the latter part of the last century, and had at one time been dwellings for more affluent inhabitants. Designed, in fact, to be so posh that when the neighborhood was constructed, the streets were torn up, and re-cobbled in broadly curved promenades. All of the buildings in the neighborhood looked alike; four stories high, with columned facades, white gingerbread latticework, and second story faux balconies with French doors. But age had taken its toll on the neighborhood, reducing it from its former elegance to that of middle class. The cobblestones had been paved over, yet the water-stained buildings were still architecturally superb, and retained their distinct beauty, like older women who have kept their attractiveness despite unflattering sags and bulges.

The U.S. Embassy had given strict orders that all personnel were to either report to the embassy itself or follow the Londoners down into the Underground. Roger, however, was known by most of his friends to take unnecessary chances with his life, all twenty-eight years of it, as if death might bring some kind of release, and tonight would be no exception. Roger was a political attaché at the U.S. Embassy. His father had worked for the State Department, too, during the Great War, but the elder Mathews had been stationed in Paris. It was through his father’s contacts in Washington that he had landed his job-he and his father preferring an ocean between them. Now, the embassy was doing its best to secretly help the English in its war with Nazi Germany. Despite the fact that the United States would prefer not to enter the war anytime soon, any one of a number of clandestine activities the Americans were doing to assist the British could easily and quickly drag the U.S. into the melee.

Roger had graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Government-summa cum laude, no less. This was unsurprising, but not because Roger was brilliant. No, it was more because Roger applied himself, for he knew that applying oneself can be more beneficial than possessing an attribute like genius. For three years after college he ran one of his maternal grandfather’s factories back in Massachusetts, close enough to his hometown of Boston to visit regularly, which he liked, having spent most of his childhood there. His grandfather had passed away a few years earlier and left his business to Roger’s mother and father.  Although Roger didn’t want to help with the business, he’d acquiesced for the sake of his mother, whom he adored. It had been hell for the first year and a half, until he fell in love. But that situation soured after little more than a year. So, after roughly three years and the end of a relationship, he decided it was time to move on, and begged his father to get him something in Washington. Though on doing so, Roger’s father insisted that, if he were to land Roger a job, there would be none of his college shenanigans or “disgusting behaviors.”

A flash lit his handsome face, followed a millisecond later by the anticipated explosion. That one was only a few hundred yards away, but Roger stood firm, thinking. He thought of his mother, recalling that last year before she finally succumbed to tuberculosis; it was also the year before he graduated from college. Thoughts emerged of his friends, Stephen from college and John from his family’s factory, both of whom he had continued to see regularly, regardless of his father’s insistence that he not. To the world, Roger appeared an eligible bachelor, and well educated. Handsome, with his mother’s brown hair, and his father’s crystal blue eyes, he had small, perfectly shaped ears, a jaw that was slightly dimpled, and lips thin and aristocratic. He was certainly what the English girls called a ‘looker,’ but he was not complete, nor was he looking for what the English girls offered.

“Why don’t you come up and visit me at my family’s summer home in Boothbay Harbor?” Stephen asked, his head lying in Roger’s lap. They were at their favorite hiding spot on Roosevelt Island, which had only recently been renamed in honor of Teddy. Their favorite tree, a large black oak, shaded them from the sun as they watched the muddy waters of the Potomac roll along. Graduation ceremonies had taken place only the day before, and Washington was seeing its usual summer exodus of congressmen, lobbyists, and students.”You wouldn’t have to put up with your father. And now that your mother’s gone…” Stephen stopped, realizing he was treading in painful territory for Roger.

“I need to stay in Boston,” countered Roger, “so that I can continue getting ready to take over part of my grandfather’s business.” He was lying. The reason that he wouldn’t visit Stephen was because his father had found out about their “friendship,” and threatened to disown Roger if he were to continue seeing him. He hated lying to Stephen, but he hated his father more. As if somehow knowing that Roger was lying to him, Stephen replied, “You really need to learn to trust and let go, Roger. In leaps of faith, the hand that catches you will not be seen until after your feet have left the precipice.” It was no wonder Stephen graduated in the top three percent of the class, Roger thought, and lowered his head to kiss Stephen. He was always surprised at how exhilarating it was when he kissed a boy. In the distance, a boat somewhere in the Potomac’s haze blew its whistle in celebration…

The whistle slowly turned into an air raid siren, which lured Roger out of his slumber. He must have fallen asleep, his head resting against an ancient chimney. The siren marked the end of that night’s bombing. He looked at his watch, 4:20 a.m. The sliver of moon had shifted position, surrounded now by a halo of long clouds that glowed a pearly gray.

He stood, stretched, and groggily headed down to his flat. He lived rather well, mostly because on top of his income from the good old U.S. government, he received, much to his father’s chagrin, an expense entitlement. It was something that his mother had arranged before she died. He came from money on both sides, and his mother had made sure she personally managed much of what she had brought to the family coffers when she married his father. Roger had lived a very entitled life, but his mother had taught him the value of all people, to be socially responsible to those less fortunate, and to be fair and honest – all of which were hard to do with a father who was filled with anger and cruelty.

His father had grown up in Philadelphia, girdled in a wealthy family with nine other children. He was the fifth child, born to a house and a father who ruled with an iron hand. His mother was an apathetic woman whose main concern was a social life that kept her busy with grand teas, courtly balls, and elegant dinner parties. Neither the oldest nor the youngest, Roger’s father was a forgotten child-even the two nannies ignored him. Except by the father’s explosive temper-which was usually directed at the children as a group-he was pretty much disregarded.

But there had been a sister, Judith, two years older than Roger’s father, who had taken the neglected child into her care. It happened when the two were six and eight years old, and he reveled in the attention. He grew to adore this older sister who loved him, watched out for him, and sheltered him from their father’s tirades. She gave him the attention he had always craved, so he was devastated and lost when she died at the tender age of twelve after falling from a tree she’d been climbing.

When Roger was old enough to understand, his mother recounted his father’s history, explaining that this was why his father acted the way he did, and although it gave Roger a degree of pity for his father, it didn’t really detract from his feeling of resentfulness. At times, in fact, it made Roger, an only child, angrier that his father had grown up with such distant and angry parents, and yet was not empathetic enough to be a compassionate, loving parent himself.

As he entered the apartment he flicked on the lights, which he had remembered to turn off at the beginning of the air raid. Only once had he forgotten to turn the lights out during a raid, and had gotten into a lot of trouble with the street’s air-raid warden. A lone, lighted window could be seen by the Luftwaffe’s pilots at great heights and used as a target, but worse, if many windows were lighted, the pilots could get a better sense of where they were over London, and hit more strategic targets. So it was imperative that everyone block their windows or turn off their lights during a raid.

He flicked on the walnut-encased radio. The station it was set to was in the middle of playing a popular tune by Vera Lynn called “The White Cliffs of Dover.” He sang along with her, and thought about the song’s positive outlook on the war. How it looked towards a better tomorrow, when the world was free.
How optimistic the English are, Roger thought to himself. It was all over the papers how dire their situation was, and yet, in the face of the nightly blitzes and the ongoing war against Hitler, the common person on the street still walked around whistling, the women did their gossiping and laughing, and handsome young men in uniforms walked around joking with their mates.

Roger walked through his spacious living room, maneuvering his way through the large sofa, table, and love seat ensemble that sat in the middle of the room. He picked up and glanced at the previous day’s London Times, which rested on one of the two overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace, then neatly folded it and placed it on his round Chippendale table.

He walked to a small table with a vase-like lamp and flicked it on, further illuminating the walls, tastefully papered with a muted beige pattern. The light from this lamp gave the room a warm, yellowish glow regardless of the time of day or night, and Roger had always appreciated its beauty. On the wall full of shelves, his eye fell on an oval framed photograph of his mother, who had been taken from him far too early. He loved this photo, and believed it to be the only one to fully reflect his mother’s beauty. It was nestled among the many books and other photos of his family and friends that populated the bookcase. He picked up an empty water glass he had left on the bookcase the night before and headed into the small kitchenette with its long counter and glass-paned cabinets, which always reminded him of the ones at his family’s summerhouse on Cape Cod. He had considered using tape on the cabinets at one point-no sense in having that much glass flying around if a bomb exploded nearby-but he decided they looked too nice to tape up.

He placed the glass in the empty sink, and passed through the small door at the back of the kitchen that led to his den. The den had once been a servant’s quarter, but now housed more of Roger’s books and photographs. Roger pushed the chair further under the desk that sat against the wall, walked over to the den’s large, overstuffed leather chair, and fluffed the pillow that sat upon it. The den opened into his bedroom. Roger always appreciated the fact that the apartment was a full circle. If one went the other way, starting once again from the sitting room, they would enter a short hallway that started from the living room, and ran the length of the apartment. The first door led to the water closet, one of Roger’s favorite rooms because he loved its oversized bathtub, which took an impressive twenty minutes to fill. Then down to the end, where again one entered the second door into his bedroom.

Roger opened the door from the den into the bedroom, its walls painted dark burgundy with moss-green accents; the effect one of refined and gentlemanly taste. He picked up the unused pajama bottoms from the night before, which were draped over the chair by the door, and tossed them into the closet, from which he pulled a gray flannel suit, a shirt, and a matching tie. He gently placed these on the huge, thick sleigh bed that had been left by the previous tenant-probably because it was impossible to get through the doors, and God only knew how they had gotten it through in the first place. He had bought the bed’s thick, tartan blankets on a trip to Scotland shortly after coming to England. It was a handsome apartment, which those few who had ever seen it called charming. A cleaning woman came twice a week, but Roger usually kept the place neat and organized.

He gave himself a quick wash, got dressed, and was out by the time the sun was peaking over the skyline. Because of the smoke and dust that was hurled into the air, the sunrises over London were beautiful after air raids, and this morning’s sunrise was spectacular, with orange and violet drifts of clouds. The only mar was when he turned to the opposite direction of the sunrise, where a number of small ominous columns of smoke rose into the sky. Nevertheless, Roger thought, it looked as if, once the dust and ash settled a bit, it was going to be a crisp and sunny February day.

His morning routine was uninterrupted. He bought his London Times from the boy at the corner and didn’t have to wait long for a passing cab to pick him up. He began reading the newspaper, spreading it out over the roomy back seat of the cab. The headline announced that England’s supply line was drastically in peril due to the Nazis’ constant sinking of Britain’s merchant ships, which took down with them their precious cargo.

Because of the fires raging in White Hall from the previous night’s bombing, his cab ride to the embassy at Grosvenor Square took longer than usual. Roger didn’t mind, though, because it afforded him the chance to read more of the morning’s paper. The eastern sky was bright, almost sunny, as he paid the driver and jumped out of the cab. As it drove away, he turned to look up at the heavy, yet delicately ornate exterior of the Annex, which the English had given the Americans shortly after the start of the war. It was called the Annex because it sat away from the rest of the Embassy’s compound at the Court of St. James and having been built originally as a bank, contained fortified walls, strongholds, and vaults that made for safe places during air raids. It reminded Roger of Washington’s National Archives Building, upon whose steps he’d sometimes sat and read, and where he gained an appreciation of that structure’s resonating sense of protection and security. The Annex now gave him the same feeling, and he liked it. Nodding to the marines at the gate and flashing his identification tag, Roger walked up the twenty-three stone steps (he had counted them many times) that ran the length of the building, and entered the marbleized sanctum of the large foyer. He was halfway up the grand marble stairway when he heard his name being called.

“Mr. Mathews!” the voice of the young woman softly echoed from the walls of the foyer. It was Judith Feniway, secretary to the Embassy’s Chief of Staff. He had known Judy since long before the war, their parents having been acquaintances back in Boston, and so Roger had met her at a number of social events of Boston’s elite. He waited on the landing for her to climb the polished stairs and catch up with him.

“Judy, good morning,” he said, smiling genuinely as she walked up the last three stairs. “Glad to see you’ve survived another one of Hitler’s attacks.”

“Barely,” pushing a lock of blond hair behind her ear. “The building right across the street from mine took a direct hit, and killed a family of six. I had become friends with the eldest daughter and had spoken to her on a number of occasions. It’s just so tragic, Roger. I don’t know why they hadn’t gone to the Underground.”

“Judy, I’m sorry.” Roger was clearly concerned.

“I wish they’d hurry up and end this thing,” she whispered as they started climbing the stairs. “Or at least maybe we could enter the war and help the English end it sooner.” Their conversation was being underscored by an ambulance’s wailing siren in the distance.

“Well, at least we’re helping as best we can without getting into the war,” Roger said as they stopped at the banister at the top of the stairs. Roger followed Judy’s gaze to a shaft of dust-filled sunlight that fell on a fern at the top of the landing. Roger, too, became mesmerized by the sunlight but pulled out of it after a few seconds of silence.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine, thanks, Roger. Chief of Staff Peligro wants you to be in on a meeting this afternoon. It’s about the recent work you’ve been doing, so you might want to bring your files and do your homework,” she smiled. “It’s at the British Admiralty Building at three thirty, and you’ll be riding in the Chief of Staff’s car for a pre-meeting briefing at three o’clock.” She started back down the stairs.

“Thanks, Judy. I’ll be ready,” turning and heading toward his office.

Peligro was the embassy’s Chief of Staff, and Roger was titillated by being asked to join such a high-ranking meeting. The Admiralty was the nerve center of the English Navy, and anything taking place there was of the utmost importance.

As he walked the maze of corridors and hallways to his office, Roger reviewed the year that had passed since he had arrived at the embassy, and how quickly things had moved along for him. Upon assuming his duties, he’d been immediately put to work with members of His Majesty’s Government, along with a few select members of the State Department and U.S. military, to finish an assessment of Germany’s use of encryption devices and the various tools the Nazis were using to send and receive coded messages. Working at the very secretive British Cryptanalytic Department at Bletchley Park, he was introduced to Alan Turing, the English mathematical genius working on solving the Enigma machine, which was being used to put the Nazis’ secret messages into codes. The Enigma machine had become Alan’s life by then, and it soon became Roger’s, too.

Their relationship became very close, with Alan adoring Roger, the handsome young American, as Roger was attracted to Alan’s genius and impishly youthful looks. It was known amongst certain sets in London that Alan was a homosexual, but Alan didn’t care much what others thought of him. Roger, on the other hand, felt the need to be very secretive about how things looked from the outside. Alan obliged Roger’s request for secrecy, and their relationship from the outside took the facade of a good working alliance; yet for the three weeks they had been together, they were very much a couple. Roger looked back on that time as one of those relationships hard to place on the continuum between friendship and love. At least on the friendship level, they had, indeed, loved each other very much, and there had also been a lot of physicality, which made it fun and sexually gratifying. As quickly as they had fallen into this loving friendship they fell out of it, but on the best of terms.

It was a healthy changeover, Roger thought as he instinctively stooped to help a secretary pick up some papers she had dropped in the hallway. He smiled as she thanked him, and he continued on towards his office. He marveled that he and Alan continued to have the strongest of friendships-either man would do anything for the other.

As Roger entered his office, he stopped to look around at the books and files that occupied the space he had moved into a year earlier, papers that related the history of the infamous Enigma machine. It was used not only to put messages into secret code, but could also be used to decode messages as well. The Germans had been using the Enigma machine in one form or another for over ten years. It was, in principle, a rather simple device, but one wrought with intense internal complexity, and one whose output was bewildering, to say the least. It contained “rotors” that moved a notch with each character entered and assigned that character its own code letter. Put simply, each of the Enigma’s circular rotors had twenty-six characters, and each time a character was assigned a code letter, one of its rotors would turn 1/26^th of a notch before assigning the next code letter. The result of this was that, even if the letter “a” appeared twice in the same word, neither “a” would have the same corresponding code letter.

The English didn’t have the time or resources it would take to try each possible permutation of the code. But neither had Poland in the years leading up to the war, and yet they had discovered a way to break the Nazis’ earlier codes. What the Poles found useful was a mathematical system called permutation theory which reduced this time to a more realistic schedule. Poland’s move to break the code had come in response to a little-known man named Adolph Hitler, who had just been elected to office, but who in 1933 quickly seized control of the German government and began pushing his military leaders to develop treaty-breaking militaristic might. As the thirties wore on, the Reichstag began making menacing threats to the Polish government.

In 1939 the Poles, using decoded messages, knew they were about to be invaded by the Nazis, and arranged a secret meeting with British Intelligence. They surprised the British by handing over all of the Enigma equipment and information they possessed. In turning over its knowledge of the Enigma machine, Poland gave the English a greatly needed head start. No one knew it at the time, but the Nazis, with the addition of three new rotors, had just vastly improved the Enigma machine. This would bring the number of rotors to five, rendering the Enigma’s codes almost unbreakable.

Since then, the English had been urgently trying to break the codes. On top of almost daily blitzes from the Luftwaffe, the German Navy was torpedoing Britain’s merchant ships at a perilous rate. England’s plight was desperate, and it would be only a matter of months before it would run out of supplies. That’s what was driving the deciphering efforts at Bletchley Park, and what was motivating this group of Englishmen and Americans through every waking hour.

Roger thought about his admiration for Alan, who was more than a mathematician, he was a philosopher-a combination that made him a fascinating person to be around. Roger loved to listen to Alan’s lengthy dissertations about the world, his thoughts on life and death and the internal mechanisms of the universe. Alan would go into lengthy discourses about the future and the wondrous things it would bring. Like machines that would eventually think and perform computations and tasks at speeds not unlike those of the human brain.

But these other interests were now secondary, and Alan, who had already done major work on cracking the Enigma’s previous codes, was currently working on a more formidable problem. Bletchley Park had recently turned its attention to the German Navy’s development of a stricter Enigma code that was proving almost impossible to break. It was this new coding method that was causing the British to steer their merchant ships straight into the paths of waiting German U-boats. If this new code wasn’t broken soon, England could well lose the war. Without England to worry about, the Nazis would easily conquer the rest of Europe, including the Soviet Union, and become the largest and most powerful nation on the planet. Alan was heading a team that was close to breaking the German Navy’s stricter encoding methods, but the final key was proving elusive and obtuse.

As Roger sat at his desk, his mind quickly turned to what he might need at today’s meeting. Being called to join a meeting at the British Admiralty was no small thing. He had labored greatly to get to this point in his life, and always worked harder than most. Maybe it was his own homosexuality, and the internalized struggles caused by a society set against the love of two people of the same sex that drove him-and not by coincidence a drive possessed by other gays Roger knew-to stay one step ahead of his peers.

Getting up, he passed through the very narrow suite he shared with his secretary, Elizabeth. He went past her neat desk, opened a file cabinet and pulled out their master file, then headed back to his own desk, which sat under a very large window. Roger liked a lot of light, and usually kept the shades drawn open, even when the sun splashed blindingly across his desk. This always reminded him of when he was first assigned Elizabeth.

He had already been at the embassy a few days, and was in his office with his back to the door when he heard a raspy voice say, “Your papers are all going to turn yellow with all that sunlight on ‘em.” It was Elizabeth, with a deep London accent to boot. He swiveled around to see the short, white-haired lady standing at his doorway. He told her he liked things with an historical look, to which she replied that he’d then like having her around, which made them both laugh, and since then they had been good friends. Elizabeth was smart, but more importantly intelligent, and although she had never gone to Oxford, she exhibited a sophisticated view of the world and was able to analyze problems using an amazing knowledge of facts and figures. She was also very faithful to Roger in a maternal way and on occasion had gone out of her way for him. She mothered him, and he treated her as he would have treated his own mother.

He sat down and began a list of what documents he’d need to bring to the afternoon’s meeting. It was still early, but already the sound of typewriters and voices could be heard filtering into the hallways. Although working at the embassy was a job, both American and English staffers knew that somewhere at that very moment, there were brave men who were doing the actual fighting and dying in this war. So coming in early and staying late, working at home, and donating their time to war drives was their way of supporting the war effort.

Elizabeth came in wearing her customary brown “uniform,” which always reminded Roger of an outfit that would have been worn by a headmistress of a reformatory school. But like most English women working jointly for the U.S. and British governments, she wore her uniform proudly. She went to work without so much as a word, and was in his office in ten minutes, carrying several folders under her left arm.

“Good morning, Mr. Mathews. I trust you slept well?” This was a private joke between the two, as few Londoners slept at all during bombing raids.

“Slept like a baby,” he grinned, not removing his eyes from the paper he was writing on. He dotted a period and handed the sheet to Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth, I’ve been asked to attend a meeting at the Admiralty, and have been told to prepare for it.” He raised his face now to look at her and hand her the sheet he’d been writing on. “I’ll need the following papers and files before three o’clock.”

She took the list with her right hand, examined it, and placed the files she was holding on his desk.

“Here are all of ‘em, except the Coding file, which we don’t have because it’s still with the Department of Navy. I’ll have it here by two o’clock.” She started to walk out of his office when Roger started to say something, and she cut him off as she continued walking, “I know, I know, I bumped into Ms. Feniway. She told me.”

He smiled at the now empty doorway, and went back to his preparations. He was both elated and nervous at having been asked to join this meeting. He couldn’t wait to wire his father about it, and only wished he could see the old bastard’s face when he read it. Ever since he was a boy, he had succeeded at almost everything he touched and yet nothing was good enough for his father. It wasn’t really that his father thought he could do better, only that he thought Roger never really did well enough. But this, this taking part in a meeting at the Admiralty on such a highly significant matter, certainly should impress the old man.

Roger was at the office of the Chief of Staff shortly before three that afternoon. He had met Mr. Peligro several times, and given him a number of briefings on the Enigma machine. He was shown into the large office where Mr. Peligro was seated at his desk. Another man was seated in one of two low, sunken armchairs that were situated across from the desk, both men were silhouetted by large windows that took up half the room and framed by heavy moss-colored curtains.

“Roger, how are you?” Peligro greeted him, rising and shaking Roger’s hand from behind his desk. “I’d like you to meet Milton Pomboi of the FBI,” he motioned to the middle-aged man who was now moving to a standing position. Roger shook Pomboi’s limp hand and looked into the stony face of age-worn arrogance, but also an undeniable intelligence. Pomboi looked older than his age, and his face had many wrinkles caused, Roger assumed, by a lifetime of pure career-mindedness and daily doses of cigarettes and cheap gin.

“Good to meet you,” Pomboi said, with so little sincerity that nothing on his face moved but his mouth.

“Let’s get going, we’ll explain a bit of what’s going on in the car,” Peligro said putting on his coat.

The ride to the Admiralty Building was not a long one, and the Embassy’s Chief of Staff didn’t need that much time anyway.

“Roger, we’re meeting with the British on something that you will be involved in-Milton, can you explain?”

“Well, Mr. Mathews,” Pomboi began, “we can’t go into great detail now, but let me just say that the British are in a position where they will do almost anything to break the Enigma codes. I’m sure you saw this morning’s London Times?”

“Why, yes,” Roger answered, “that if the tonnage of lost supplies because of merchant ships being torpedoed continues at this rate, England has only about seven months before… before…”

“Before it must throw in the towel and negotiate a separate peace,” Pomboi finished, his yellowish fingers lighting a cigarette. “I’m glad you understand the gravity of their situation, Mr. Mathews. Keep that in mind when we meet with them in a few minutes.” It was then that Roger noticed that Pomboi had a slight accent, but because it was so slight, he couldn’t tell what kind of accent, though certainly European.

“Can I ask, sir,” Roger said, turning now towards Mr. Peligro, “what my involvement might be in this matter other than supplying information on Enigma?” He was now somewhat bewildered and just barely covering his intimidation by the FBI agent. Pomboi put him on edge, and Roger was trying everything he had not to stammer, or say something stupid.

“You can ask,” Peligro responded, “but your answer won’t really come until we’re in the meeting.” Roger nodded and turned to the window, watching the city pass as the car neared the Admiralty Building, looming in the distance, its facade oddly lit in the rare February sunlight.