Note: Thanks to Leviathan, who beta'ed, and contributed a couple of really funny lines.

The work ethic of the German populace is famous worldwide, and for good reason. Consequently, midweek Berlin at one o'clock in the morning was a peaceful city, for the most part. A stray cat or two, a few scuttlings of nocturnal creatures… a few thieves operating under cover of night… in an alley downtown, a rather tall and square-shouldered lady of the night, whose blonde bouffant curls caught the meager light as she loitered against a garbage can…

..from which a disembodied voice issued forth.

"Hey, Bernice. Bernice."

The fair-skinned face would not have won any prizes for congeniality as the muscular arms folded across the pink-clad bosom. No answer was forthcoming.

"Hey," said the dumpster, "this is an important part of the mission here. Shouldn't you, y'know, have a name? I mean, what if the mole decides to call you by your name or something. You'd better get used to it, hadn't you?"

The distinctly unladylike face gritted its square jaw. "You know, you're a fine one to talk, you know, you really are, seeing as you're not exactly coming out of this smelling like roses, oh, excuse me, like the septic tank of the city."

"I don't see you offering to trade places," the disembodied voice said smugly.

"I'll trade you, all right. My right fist for your front tooth."

"Now, is that any way for a lady to talk?"

"You're going to pay for this later, you know. In blood. Your heart's blood, welling up from your veins…"

Scotty snorted. Being crammed into a garbage can had its disadvantages, but they were far outweighed by being able to needle Kelly with impunity. The only thing that would have made today more perfect would have been a camera. "Now, now, honey, you know how excitement affects your complexion."

There was a growl. Scotty thought of saying something else, then decided he could afford to be magnanimous. His patience was rewarded; in a moment his partner started to whine. "Chickenpox?" Kelly threw up his hands as though this was the ultimate indignity of a fickle fate. "I mean, really, man, really, chickenpox? What self-respecting agent gets chickenpox? And what kind of luck is it that she gets chickenpox on the final day of a sting she's spent six weeks—six weeks, Jack!—setting up?"

"That's Murphy's Law in action," began Scotty consolingly, but he was cut off by Kelly, whining on.

"And c'mon, I just don't get it, man, there wasn't a single solitary female agent in the office that could make the meet?"

"What, Eugenia, and miss out on your feminine charms?"

"Get out of that dumpster if you're a man."

"You come in here if you're a... Um, never mind."

"You come out here. I'll smack you right in the kisser."

"And ruin your manicure?"

"You're enjoying the hell out of this, aren't you?"

"Now, Mein Herr, I mean, Fraulein, how could you insinuate such a…"

Kelly growled again. "Remind me again why it had to be me and not you?"

He couldn't actually see Scotty preening, but it was in his tone. "Well, man, it's just that my natural manly physique can't be hidden under wraps, you see, and…"

"Duke…"

"You got more of that slender, willowy thing going on, and…"

"Duke…"

"Not to mention you got the legs for it…"

"I'm going to smack you with my pink beaded purse. It's only ladylike to give you fair warning."

Scotty sniggered. "Also, you're the most delicate guy in the Berlin embassy."

"Delicate." Kelly sounded aggrieved. "Delicate. Well if I'm delicate, so are you and so is Andre the Giant, compared to them. I mean, what kind of Aryan ideal do they got going on in there, anyway? The little guys, y' know, even the little guys are built like tractors. And the big ones, they could just paint 'm green and save a whole lot of money if they ever make a Hulk movie…"

"Sure a delicate girl like you should be watching that kinda flick, Ernestine? Millie the Model, maybe…"

"Gahh!"

That damned sniggering again. Kelly resisted smiling for a bit, then gave up and grinned. "These heels are killing me."

"You think it's true what they say, that the female agents got stilettos hidden in them?"

"You've been watching too many Bond movies, Clyde."

"Don't knock it. Least they got the Bond girls. Oh, don't be jealous, you know you're the prettiest girl in the world to me."

"I'm gonna make you the prettiest girl in the world as soon as I get out of this get-up. Stick my stiletto heel right in your…"

"Now is that any way for a nice girl to talk?"

"Would any nice girl dress up in this?" Kelly fingered the pink satin mini-dress with disgust. "Bad enough I got to traipse around Berlin as a woman, but I can't even be a woman with decent taste!" He exhaled, growing a little serious. "You think it'll be good enough for him?"

Scotty matched his tone. "Well, if Trudy really has been as careful with this operation as she said, sure, yeah. I mean, all he knows is he's gonna be meeting a chick."

"Yeah," Kelly sounded unconvinced. "I just hope he doesn't expect me to holler at him from the other side of the road. Boy, is he gonna be in for a shock."

"Even if he does," Scotty's voice was a little harder now, "he only knows her voice from the telephone, right?"

"And what, you think my voice could pass for hers?"

"Well, I thought, if the situation did arise, you see, it might, it might be a good time to utilize the wonderfulness of your talents at show business."

"You lost me, Jack."

"You know, your amazing falsetto, envy of castrati the world over?"

"I'll make you pay for that remark."

"Says the guy in a pink dress."

"You're gonna be the guy the pink dress is in when I'm done with you."

"Aw, now, that's just low, man. C'mon, Otis, you know what our acting coach told you: Be the woman!"

"He told you to be the garbage!"

"Be the woman!"

"I'll be a woman, all right! Next time the bullets start flying, I'll just split like the seam on a pair of used pants and say I've simply got to change into some nice capris!"

"Now, really, man—or should I rephrase that…"

"Movement at nine o'clock," Kelly whispered.

Both agents fell silent as a tall man appeared in silhouette at the end of the street. It was impossible to ascertain the mole's identity from this distance, if indeed it was the mole at all. Kelly shifted position slightly, not daring to show too much of his face.

The man pulled out a lighter and lit a cigarette. The signal.

Kelly fumbled in the lady's purse, finding a lighter and a cigarette—the pack had spilled into the bottom of the handbag—and lit up, careful to hide his face in the bouffant curls when the match flared.

In later years, when he told the story, he always maintained that it wouldhave worked, too, if only his hair hadn't caught fire.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow-motion, but he would later realize it had only taken a second. Kelly let out a yell, batting with his purse at the flammable wig, only the last vestiges of professionalism keeping him from ripping it off. Scotty, the subtle clue of seeing his partner turn into a flaming torch perhaps alerting his brilliant mind that the mission was going to hell in a handbasket, surged up out of his garbage can, only to topple over onto his side, can and all, as karma caught up with him and he found out his legs had fallen asleep. The mole, who subsequently turned out to be Werner, snapped out of his stunned trance and made a beeline for the mouth of the alley.

And Friedrich Freiberger, head of the Berlin liaison with the Department, dropped upon Werner from a great height, namely the corrugated-iron roof of the garage where he had been stationed.

Time speeded up to normal again, as Kelly ripped off his wig and stomped on it, restraining himself from jumping up and down on the offending article for good measure, instead shucking off his heels and running to assist Freiberger. He could hear his partner making incoherent grunting noises, trying to shake the feeling back into his useless legs, as he arrived at where a dazed Werner was being hauled up by the lapels.

"Thanks, man," Kelly said to Freiberger gratefully. "You need any…" he began, but was silenced as the big Berliner looked him up and down, visibly discomfited.

"I'll handle it from here," said the German agent, bundling his captive ahead of him and striding rapidly to the mouth of the alleyway. Kelly looked down at his pink-satin-clad self, then back to where Freiberger had been. The sound of a car starting echoed in the distance.

"Did you see that?" Kelly whirled to Scotty, who had just managed to hobble up to his shoulder. His partner opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off as Kelly barreled on. "No, I mean, did you see that, Jack? That melvin, that… that two-bit spy-school reject… he treated me like some kind of an embarrassment! And, and he was staring at my tits, man!"

Scotty looked at him for a moment, then shouldered out of the coat he was wearing.

"What are you—I know my rights!" Kelly drew himself up indignantly. "Agents in pink dresses are entitled to respect too, you know!"

Scotty draped the coat round Kelly and gave him a gentle shove towards their car, stumbling as he did so. "C'mon, Hortense, you know how the cold affects your nervous diarrhea."

"I'll give you nervous diarrhea!" Kelly stuck his hand into the neckline of his dress and fumbled in it as he walked, a pair of falsies arcing lazily out to hit the rim of the nearest garbage can. "Just wait till I get my hair back, I'll… I'll…"

Scotty stumbled suddenly and Kelly gripped his arm. A sly smile spread over Kelly's face. "Trouble walking, my good man?"

"Not at all, my good woman." A definite hiss as he shook the pins and needles out of a leg, hopping on the other.

Kelly's delighted grin grew broader. "See? See? Went right off to dreamland, didn't they?"

Scotty gurgled unintelligibly. "Just cool it and make like a nice crutch, willya?"

"Straight to the Land of Nod. With visions of sugar-plums dancing in their little toes…"

"Groovy," Scotty shook his legs out one more time in disgust, then gave it up as a lost cause, hobbling forward, leaning on Kelly. "Get in the car, Millicent."

"I always said," Kelly gave a final, vindicated smile, "don't knock it till you've tried it."

"Knock you if you don't pipe down…"

"What, you'd strike a lady? I'm surprised at you, really."

Scotty opened the passenger door of the Trabant like a gentleman, walked stiffly around the car and climbed in, starting the engine. "Settle down, honey. I'd hand you the keys, but you know what they say about women drivers."

Kelly had something to say about that, and he said it, all the way back to the hotel.