The disclaimer: none of these characters belong to me; they belong to Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros to whom I am eternally grateful for the opportunity to take them out for a spin and bit of light humour.
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Zero Contact
Amanda King could no longer concentrate on the reports she was working on for Fred Fielder. Normally she found the work she did helping at the Agency fascinating. So much went on in D.C. that she never knew before: the drops, the exchanges, the surveillance, the spy vs. spy stuff that she had never been aware of before that day in the train station. It wasn't that Fred's report was dull, far from it. He'd been tailing a minor clerk from the Russian Embassy who had turned out to have a lucrative side business dealing in blue jeans and bootleg rock and roll cassette tapes that he was smuggling back to the USSR in diplomatic bags. Unfortunately his side business had ended up getting him involved with organized crime and the whole thing was now a huge inter-Agency mess with State Department and the FBI involved. Not that Amanda was supposed to know any of that, but Fred could just never resist trying to impress and he had let more than a few details drop to her. She was pretty sure that Billy had no idea how loose-lipped Fred could be, but had decided that as long as she didn't share the information, it could still be considered a secret. She liked Fred and didn't want to get him in trouble, although she did worry about his future at the Agency if he continued to be so indiscreet.
She was worried about him. She sighed as she realize why her concentration was shot. She was not worried about Lee, she told herself. He was just out of town on a mission, a no-contact mission, a mission which had kept her tied to a desk in the bullpen for the past three weeks, since no other agent was willing to use her on a field mission of any kind. She wasn't sure why that was and had assumed it was still her inexperience which kept her tied to the desk, but a snarky comment from Francine about how no one but Lee could work with her had left her wondering if he had anything to do with the enforced desk job. Not "would work with her" but "could work with her" – it suggested that someone had made it impossible for her to be allowed to leave the desk. "Stay at your desk Amanda! Stay in the car Amanda. Ungh!" she muttered under her breath. Three long weeks of desk duty and no word from Lee to break up the monotony.
She was bored. Bored and distracted. Distracted by worrying. Worrying about Lee. She glanced at the postcards propped up by her phone and smiled faintly. The first postcard from San Angelo was a souvenir from her fake-wedding cruise with Lee but the other postcard would have confused anyone else since it was just a photograph and recipe of a Czechoslovakian dessert called skubanky. Lee had brought it back when he'd had a mission in Eastern Europe just after that Spiderweb fiasco when Mr Larner had been convinced she was a double agent. Philip had been working on a school project on Czechoslovakia and somehow Lee had remembered their conversation about the crazy menu she and her mother had helped him prepare for school. These postcards she had kept at the office, but there was a collection at home that no one at the office knew about. Unlike Fred, Amanda could be discreet and she never mentioned the postcards that dropped into her Arlington mailbox whenever Lee was away on a lengthy mission. They came from all over the world and were usually unsigned but occasionally there'd be a doodled sketch with the letters L-E-E hidden in it, or a coded message that let her know he was safe. She had told her mother she was participating in a chain letter of postcards to explain why these random cards from strangers dropped into her mailbox. She didn't really know why Lee sent them. Perhaps he just liked knowing there was someone at home who worried about him, but she was certainly grateful that he did. He wasn't her only friend at the Agency but he was certainly her best friend.
This mission was different though – it was zero contact and she had no expectation that he would be foolish enough to send her anything this time. Zero contact missions drove her especially crazy because that meant they were probably more dangerous than the usual stuff and with no way to find out how he was. She leaned back to stare at the ceiling and sighed deeply.
"Excellent! You're not busy – you can come help with me with this" said Francine's voice right beside her.
Amanda straightened hurriedly. "Help you with what Francine? I'm still working on this for Fred."
Francine was holding a large stack of newspapers in her arms. "Wouldn't you rather come help me with romance, intrigue and infidelity? Even if I won't tell you anything about where Lee is or when he'll be back?"
Despite herself, Amanda was intrigued. "That actually does sound more interesting than this. What do you need me to do?"
"Just come this way". Francine led her over to the conference room and dropped the papers on the table and began spreading them out. "We are going to comb the personal ads and look for anything out of the ordinary or interesting."
"Francine, is this work? Or are you just suckering me into helping with your dating life?"
"Very funny. Although if we're lucky I'm sure we could find you a nice accountant who likes pina coladas and taking walks in the rain." Francine smirked at her across the table. "Ok, seriously, this is work. We look through the papers and check the personal ads, the missed connections column, even the Pets for Sale section and look for anything out of the ordinary that might be other operatives passing information that we should know about. So you're looking for phrases like import/export or field experience or references to Russia or China – stuff like that. Lee says you have good instincts for seeing stuff beyond the surface – let's see how much you can help me with this."
"Lee said I have good instincts?" Amanda was secretly thrilled to hear Lee thought she was good at something.
"Yeah, well, Lee also thinks girls whose names end with "i" are good dating material." Francine shoved a pile of papers across the table at Amanda. "Here, you start with the out of town papers. I'll start with the European and Washington papers."
They worked in silence for about an hour, both of them making an occasional note, but although Amanda learned more about the despair of missed romances and post-divorce estate sales than she could have imagined, nothing leapt out at her as a coded spy message. Francine, however, seemed to be having more luck.
"Huh – that's the third one in as many papers. What the hell does it mean? 'Just walk with me' - is it a quote from something?"
Startled, Amanda looked up at Francine who was still muttering across the table, "What did you say?"
"Just walk with me. Three times in three papers, there's the exact same ad. "Just walk with me. Missing our Leesburg rambles. Reply Posthaste" but there never seems to be an answer, just the same ad in the Post, the Herald and USA Today."
Amanda leaned over and took the paper out of her hands. "Let me see" and sure enough, there it was in black and white. Just walk with me. She lowered the paper, but didn't hand it back to Francine. "And, uh, why does that one attract your attention?" She couldn't believe Francine didn't notice the way her voice squeaked asking the question.
"Well, for one it's interesting that it keeps repeating, so that could suggest it's a special message. But the reference to walking and rambling could mean something else like moving from one place to another, or from side to another. I wonder if there's something or someone in Leesburg that the Russians want." Francine leapt to her feet. "I'm going to go run this past Billy and see if Ciphers can have a look at it."
Amanda watched her whisk out of the room and looked back at the paper smiling. Reaching over the table, she pulled the other papers towards her and looked at the ads Francine had circled.
Just walk with me. Missing our Leesburg rambles. Reply Posthaste.
She dropped her face into her hands and sighed "Thank you Lee" into her hands. She had no idea how he was getting the ads placed or where he was, but at least she knew he was safe. Francine and Billy walked back into the conference room, deep in conversation about the ads.
"Well, Francine I'm not sure it's code, but it is interesting. Why don't you start checking on who or what might be in Leesburg that might attract interest and Amanda, do you think you could go down to the Post and Herald offices and see if we can find out who's placing these? I can't get you anything that will make them tell you but perhaps you could just use your unique ability to charm them into telling you anyway". He smiled benevolently at his favourite accidental recruit.
"Yes sir! Happy to, sir!" Amanda was thrilled with the assignment. She had spent the last few minutes wondering how she was going to get to the newspaper office to place an ad in reply and here was the opportunity handed to her on a silver platter. "But I haven't finished helping Fred Fielder with his reports yet"
"Oh we'll let Fred finish those up. I think he's taken up enough of your time and told you more than you need to know already". Amanda's eyes widened as she realized that Billy knew all about Fred's indiscretion with need-to-know information. Billy grinned at her and added "I didn't make Section Chief without learning to recognize my agents' faults and foibles, Amanda. I usually have a pretty good idea what they're up to"
Amanda smiled and headed out to grab her coat and purse to head out on her mission. "You don't know everything they get up to" she thought to herself as she swung out of the bullpen, free at last from desk duty.
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It was remarkably easy to get the clerk at the classifieds desk at the Washington Post to tell her about the ads, especially because she was doing the exact same thing. She had thought he'd be surprised by her desire to place an ad without giving him any personal information.
"Oh no ma'am. You'd be amazed at how many people want to just pay their money and not tell us anything else. Mind you, not so many of them come in person like you do – most of the requests just come in letters with cash in them. I'm always surprised by how many people will just send the cash and trust us not to pocket it, but I guess since we broke Watergate we're seen as a pretty trustworthy paper!"
Amanda laughed and pushed her own ad across the counter to him along with exact change. "Well I'm sure you are! No, no receipt thank you."
She turned and left, heading back to Georgetown, grateful that she would be able to tell Billy completely truthfully that it was not possible to trace who had placed the ad.
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Two days later, Lee picked up a copy of the Washington Post from the news cabin outside the Berlin Hilton and flipped to the classifieds. "Atta girl" he thought to himself as he finally saw the response he'd been hoping for.
Walking with you in spirit, but I don't get out much when you're not home. Sorry for delay but Aunt Dee finally let me know you called.
Walking to a phone booth, he dialed a Washington number and waited for the expected voice to answer. "T.P.? It's me. I need you to place an ad for me."
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"Amanda, are you done with that section of the paper? I want to look at the obituaries".
"Oh Mother, I would have thought you'd be over that ever since I showed up in them"
"Well Amanda, unfortunately at my age, you have to start reading them in case it's people you know". Dotty looked over her glasses at Amanda "Not everyone in the obituaries turns out not to be dead after all".
Amanda grinned at her mother and then turned back to the section of classifieds she was perusing. With racing heart she spotted Lee's response:
Ling-ling, glad to hear you haven't been walking far without me. Not sure when I'll be home to ramble but in the meantime I'll see you in The World. Tu me manques. Reply Posthaste.
"Mother? Do we have a French-English dictionary?"
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She arrived at work a few days later to find Francine at her desk already with Efraim Beaman of all people, hanging over the Saturday Post.
"Well no Francine, I still don't think it's a code exactly, but I agree that the Chinese reference is pretty suspicious.
"Chinese reference?" asked Amanda.
Francine looked up at her and Amanda could see her warring internally whether this fell under a need-to-know basis before she finally shrugged and pointed out the ad that contained Lee's response. "You know that walk-with-me ad? Well we saw what we think was a response but now they're using a Chinese name in the ad and that has sent up red flags all over the place. And look at the rest of it – why is The World capitalized? Beaman here doesn't think it's an anagram but I think it must be code for something."
Amanda pretended like this was the first time she'd seen the ad. "What does the last sentence mean? My high school French is pretty rusty but it looks like 'You missed me'?" She raised her eyes and watched Francine put on her best superior face.
"Not 'You missed me', it's 'I miss you'. Well, literally it says you are missing from me. The French are so romantic."
"Oh, I see. Well this all still seems pretty innocent to me. Why do you think it's a coded message?"
"I just feel like I've heard that walk-with-me line somewhere. Is it a Bible verse or something? Maybe the verse numbers are a clue. And I know I've heard the name Ling-Ling before but I just can't place it." Francine lapsed into silence, staring into space.
"Do you mean like 'yea, though I walk through the valley of death'? That's from Psalms, I think. Would you like me to look it up?| Amanda was thoroughly enjoying watching Francine chase her tail over nothing. She could have told her that Ling-Ling was the name of one of the pandas donated to the Washington Zoo by the Chinese government, but didn't want to remind her that that was her childhood nickname in case it led Francine in the right direction.
"Francine! Have you seen this?" asked Efraim excitedly, holding out a paper. "Look! In the Post two days later there's this one 'Kangaroos can be seen in The World. Aunt Dee is suspicious and Uncle Mel believes her. Walk with me soon'. It can't be coincidence that 'The World' is repeated, but why kangaroos?"
Francine leapt to her feet and headed to Billy's office. "Billy! Have we heard anything about Australian Intelligence trying to recruit Chinese defectors? "
Amanda smothered a laugh and went to work on the pile of reports on her desk, her heart lighter than it had been for a while.
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In Paris, Lee was skimming the hotel copy of the Post when he spotted what he was looking for – the small ad that told him Amanda had understood the reference to the French paper 'Le Monde'. The reference to kangaroos confused him for a moment. "Kangaroos? Why is she responding to pandas with kangaroos? The only kangaroo I know is Skippy." He burst out laughing as he realized what she'd done. Ever since Amanda had found out that his uncle's nickname for him was Skip, she had started singing the theme song from "Skippy the Bush Kangaroo" whenever he was bugging her during stakeouts. She could hardly get out the words from laughing while she sang "Skippy, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Skippy, Skippy Our friend ever true" purposefully off-key. He sighed – whoever would have thought he'd miss stakeouts, bad singing and worse coffee?
He was fairly certain Uncle Mel was Billy Melrose but he wondered about Aunt Dee – did she mean Dotty? It seemed likely Dotty would have noticed the ad and she had said it was Aunt Dee who told her about the ads but why was Dotty suspicious? Lee laughed to himself, wondering what was going on back in Washington. He could hardly wait for this mission to be done so he could get the answer but in the meantime, he headed to the phone to call Le Monde to place an ad:
Ling-Ling, will be walking solo for a while, but ever true, Roo
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The weeks continued to pass, Lee dancing around his zero contact order, and Amanda with a front row seat watching Francine work on the case of the non-existent Chinese defector. Thanks to all of Lee's ads being in Le Monde, Francine was now convinced that French Intelligence was involved as well and she spent all her spare time hunting through copies of the two papers looking for clues and contacting informants to see if anyone had heard any stories of wannabe defectors. It was so enjoyable to have Francine kept busy on something other than bugging her that Amanda began throwing in song titles that referenced walking and rambling and Lee played right along.
Roo, Ling-Ling is tired of walking after midnight.
Ling-Ling, when Roo gets home, you'll never walk alone.
Roo, these boots are made for walking. Tired of being inside.
Ling-Ling, the Midnight Rambler will open that kitchen door as soon as he's home
Amanda just couldn't believe it when that one went right over Francine's head. For heaven's sake, she was the one who had christened Lee the Midnight Rambler, but Francine was so caught up in her Chinese-Australian-French intrigue that even her own jokes passed her by. Instead she was spending more and more time with Efraim Beaman as the two of them pored over song lyrics looking for hidden clues.
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"Amanda, have you heard from Lee?" Amanda looked up at Billy, startled by the question.
"What?"
"I asked you if you'd heard from Lee at all"
Amanda couldn't process why he'd be asking her such a thing. Had he seen through the game? He looked serious, but not angry. Her heart dropped into her stomach. Several days had passed since the last ad. Was something wrong?
"Isn't he on a zero contact mission? Why would I have heard from him?"
Billy's eyes narrowed as she answered a question with a question again, but she looked so genuinely worried that he decided it was probably just nerves.
"Yes he is, but reports out of Interpol made me think he was getting close to the end of it, but he hasn't checked in with of our usual contacts and I suppose I was just hoping maybe he'd called home, so to speak"
"Well no sir, Lee has not called me in months." That at least was the absolute truth.
"I'm sure we'll hear one way or another soon." Billy looked at her closely, suddenly guilty for having worried her. He was sure the enforced desk time had been driving her crazy, but she had remained a sunny presence in the bullpen for all these weeks that Lee had been away.
"How have you been Amanda? I'm sure this has been a pretty dull time for you, although I have to admit I'm relieved you didn't get into any trouble with Scarecrow away. He would have had my hide otherwise." He chuckled as Amanda rolled her eyes.
"Yes sir, I'm aware I've been kept in the car all this time." She smiled when Billy snorted with laughter at her description of the past few months. "I'll have to make sure to get into double the trouble once Lee is home just to pay him back. Although nothing could give him as much trouble as Francine's Chinese defector that refuses to defect." Her eyes sparkled with merriment and Billy laughed along with her.
"I'm sure that trail is just going to turn out to be young lovers but it's kept her quiet and out my hair and best of all, she's having to be nice to Beaman so he'll help her break the walking code. Although I have to admit that phrase is driving me crazy too – I'm sure I've heard it somewhere, but I just can't place it."
Amanda patted his arm soothingly. "Oh sir, I'm sure it'll come to you eventually."
"I'm sure it will Amanda. Although when you get to my age, it's amazing how things that used to be on the tip of your tongue just slip away." He smiled at her and said "Why don't you knock off early for the weekend? I think you deserve some time outside after all this time in the car." She beamed at him and leaned down to start tidying away the reports she'd been working on.
"Thank you sir! I'm going to take advantage of that before you change your mind!"
As Billy walked back into his office, the phone began to ring. With a feeling of dread that only comes with a call late on a Friday afternoon, he picked up the receiver.
"Melrose here! …..Scarecrow? Where the hell are you, man?" He turned to his office door to get Amanda's attention through the window but he was too late as she disappeared down the corridor towards the elevator.
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Amanda leaned against the kitchen sink, drying the last dish. She had checked the paper for a second time after Billy had sent her home, hoping against hope that a new ad would have appeared since the last time she checked. It worried her that Billy seemed worried, even though zero contact would have meant no contact with him either. She didn't even know where Lee's mission was taking place, although it had to be somewhere in Europe and thankfully not in a jungle somewhere, since he obviously had access to Le Monde.
The phone rang and Amanda lifted the receiver hoping it would be Lee calling to say he was home. She tried to hide the disappointment when her mother's voice bubbled down the line.
"Oh hello Mother. How was your trip? How is Aunt Lillian? Are the boys behaving themselves?"
She let her mother's tales of travel and her latest tiff with her sister wash over her as she wandered around the kitchen, phone tucked into her neck, putting the dry dishes away. As she wiped the counter, her hand knocked against the stack of mail she'd brought in earlier. Still absently listening to her mother, she started to sort through it again. Flyer, bank statement, postcard from Berlin, reminder from the dentist…
Postcard from Berlin? Where had that come from?
"Alright Amanda, we're heading out to dinner at the marina. You have a nice weekend by yourself. Me-time is so important you know"
"Yes Mother, thank you Mother, you have a nice time too. Good night". Amanda answered her automatically, still staring at the postcard, afraid to turn it over and see what it said. She hung up the phone and picked up the card. Slowly turning it over, she was overwhelmed with disappointment that it was completely blank. She turned it back over, hoping there would be a message hidden in the picture on the front but it was just a photo of the Brandenburg Gate.
Glancing back at the pile of mail, she noticed another corner of a postcard sticking out of the pile. She scrambled through the stack and found four more postcards, from Paris, from Vienna, from Brussels, from Munich. She groaned as she turned them over one by one and found every one of them completely blank and with pictures that told her nothing.
She was staring at the five cards laid out on her counter when it hit her. Completely blank. No message. No address. No stamp. These hadn't been mailed to her, they'd been delivered to her and she was almost certain they hadn't been in the pile of mail when she'd brought it in. She stepped back from the counter and stared at the cards as if they were snakes. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She stepped sideways quickly and leaned over slightly to pick up the baseball bat she'd kept by the door ever since Gordon Sinclair's men had tried to kidnap her right out of her own house last year and began to walk softly into the family room.
"I really wish you were here, Lee," she whispered to herself and then almost jumped out of her skin when a deep voice behind her said "That's good". Whirling around, she found herself face to face with Lee, slightly rumpled, hair longer than usual, the five o'clock shadow of a man who'd been travelling all day but the same beautiful laughing eyes, and the smile that deepened the dimples in his cheeks when he saw the bat in her hands, "Wow, you still really hate it when I do that, don't you?"
Half laughing, half crying, she threw herself across the room into his arms and clung to him almost as hard as he clung to her, arms wrapped around her slim form, face buried in her neck. Finally he pulled back and laughed down at her, one finger wiping away the tears on her cheeks. "Missed me, I guess?"
"Always. Billy wouldn't even let me in the car while you were away"
Lee threw his head back and laughed at the annoyed tone.
"Well, I stopped to talk to him before I came here so I am all debriefed and free all weekend, so we can go stake out the Russian Embassy for old times' sake to make up for it"
Amanda chuckled. "But if we go to the Chinese or Australian Embassy, we could go stake out Francine's stakeout instead."
Lee looked down at her where she was still nestled against his chest. "Why on earth would Francine be staking out the Australian Embassy?" Amanda let out one of those long throaty laughs he'd missed so much.
"Well, Roo, let me make you a sandwich and I'll tell you all about what's been going on while you were away."
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