"Mr. Delano? Leland Cassidy here. We met last night at your party." Lee had sequestered himself in a soundproof meeting room so that Delano's suspicions wouldn't be roused by the sound of office chatter in the background.

"Mr. Cassidy! So glad you've called! It was such a pleasure to meet you last night! I hope you're planning to take me up on my offer of dinner tonight for you and Sunny?"

"Oh well, I'm not sure Sunny would be all that interested if it's just going to be the two of us discussing that investment opportunity you mentioned," Lee prevaricated. "She has a pretty short attention span for things like that. Or for most things really."

"Oh no, I must insist," boomed Delano over the phone line. "I'm bringing along a date myself you know, and I promised her there'd be someone along for her to talk to when she complained about that exact same thing!"

Lee grimaced silently and tried again. "Well, perhaps we could do it another night then. I'm not sure what plans Sunny might already have made. She seems to have a million things lined up these days."

"Oh, that's too bad," answered Delano smoothly. "I need to get all my backers in place before Friday and I really think this one would be right up your alley. With my expansion across the Iron Curtain, I'm going to have some very high up members of the East German government at my party after we sign all the contracts on Saturday. I would have thought someone in your line of work would be very interested in making some contacts there. But if the two of you can't make it tonight…"

Lee was silent for a moment, calculating quickly what possible harm it could do to have Amanda out at dinner in a public place. "Well, you've got me there, Delano. How can I resist that kind of access?" He could only pray Amanda would actually be available for dinner. "Where shall we meet you?"

"Oh please, let me pick you up. You still have that house on Rock Creek Drive, don't you?"

Damn it. Delano – or even more likely, Hollander – had obviously been putting in the same kind of research time on Leland Cassidy as Lee had.

"Actually we're not staying there this time around. It's being treated for termites or dry rot or some damn thing," he answered quickly. "We've rented a little pied-a-terre in Georgetown since we're only here a few weeks. It's over on N Street." He sent up a second quick prayer that the Agency safehouse would also be available.

"Well, that's just a few blocks from where I was planning to take you so now I must insist on acting as host and collecting you en route," purred Delano. "No point in both of us paying our chauffeurs overtime, after all!"

"Well, that would be very kind, thank you," replied Lee. "What time should we expect to see you?"

"How about 7 o'clock?" answered Delano. "Washington does do everything so early compared to everywhere else, doesn't it? That's what happens when your movers and shakers are all expected in their boring little government offices by 9 a.m."

Lee gave off what he hoped was a sympathetic laugh. "Yes indeed, it lives up to its reputation for a sleepy swamp town most of the time. Dull as ditchwater – which is why I try to never be here."

"Well, then I'm certainly glad we had the opportunity to meet then," said Delano smoothly. "We'll see you at 7."

Lee dropped the phone back in its cradle and gathered his thoughts before getting up and heading to Billy's office. Billy looked up and seeing the look on his face, gestured to the chair opposite his desk. "What have you got, Scarecrow?" he asked as Lee dropped into it with a sigh.

"Well, the good news is that he seems to be buying the Cassidy cover hook, line and sinker. Dinner is set for tonight and he's dangling the East Germans in front of me the way an ice cream truck hangs out outside the Weight Watchers office. There's some big party on Saturday night apparently – and I'd bet my Porsche that's the cover they're going to use for any information exchange."

"But?" Billy prompted. "What's the bad news?"

"Two things: first, with that many Washington power brokers in attendance, we won't be able to track them all. And second, he's insisting I bring Amanda tonight so I had to pretend we were living at the house on N Street because he wanted to send his car to pick us up as a gesture of hospitality. He knew about Cassidy's real house so I had to come up with an excuse about why we weren't staying there."

Billy leaned back to pull a drawer open in the filing cabinet behind him. He flipped through some files until he found what he was looking for and grunted approvingly. "The N Street house is available, so that isn't a problem."

Lee heaved a sigh of relief. "Good."

"But will Amanda be able to get away from her family to live there with you until Saturday?" Billy asked.

Lee sat bolt upright, jaw dropping in horror. "Will she what? Oh no, Billy – she's not part of this scenario, no way. I already told you last night, I don't want her mixed up with these guys. She can come to dinner with me and Delano tonight in a nice public place and then that's it. She's done, out of there, finito."

"Lee, be sensible," said Billy reasonably. "You just said Delano must be putting as much research into you as you are into him. If he or Hollander have set up spies on you, they'll notice if Amanda isn't living in the house! Especially since Delano seems to have taken such a shine to her!"

"Oh my God," Lee ran his hand along the back of his scalp. "How the hell does she do it? How does she do nothing and still end up in the middle of these things?"

Billy tried – and failed – not to laugh at his woebegone expression. "I'm sure it'll be fine, Lee. If we know nothing else about Amanda King, it's that she can think on her feet no matter what the situation."

"But she's not an agent, Billy! She shouldn't be having to think on her feet – she should be sitting at home quietly with her feet up - reading romance novels and helping with her kids' homework like a nice suburban mom!"

Billy couldn't help the bark of laughter at Lee's description. "I'll grant you that last part about the homework, but I simply cannot picture Amanda King ever sitting quietly!"

Lee groaned in agreement. "That makes it worse! Just think what kind of trouble she'll get into if we actually start including her in things!"

"But isn't it better if we include her and give her a story to work with instead of her being a loose cannon?" Billy asked, trying to sound reasonable. "I still wake up sweating when I think about Mrs. Ricky Joe Jackson breaking down that motel room door!"

"Me too," admitted Lee.

"But if she did that well off the cuff, imagine what she could do with a real scenario behind her."

"You're not making me any happier about this, Billy, no matter how hard you try," growled Lee.

"Well, look at it this way…" Billy began to chuckle at the thought that had just occurred to him. "If Amanda is locked up in the N Street house playing Mrs. Cassidy, at least you know she really is sitting quietly somewhere instead of out getting into trouble."

Lee actually perked up at that thought. "Now that's a silver lining I can get behind," he agreed. His face fell again. "If I can even get her to go along with it."

Billy didn't seriously think Amanda would say no but he pretended to give that some serious thought. "Well, you won't know until you ask her," he pointed out. "You go do that and I'll get our boys working on pulling together everything she'll need to be Delano's perfect woman."

Lee lifted his eyes to glare at Billy. "Why?"

"Why not?" Billy shrugged. "If she's what got Delano's attention in the first place, why not use it?"

"Because it could be dangerous? Because she's not a trained agent? Because she never asked to be bait?"

"I don't think you can go as far as describing her as bait, it's more like using a spotlight to attract the fish, but either way – you'll be there the whole time holding the rod and able to pull her out of the situation anytime."

Lee glared at him for a few seconds before finally grunting "This whole thing stinks worse than that fishing analogy."

"I know," said Billy sympathetically. "But we don't have the time to play nice here, Scarecrow. If she can help, we have to ask her to."

"Fine," Lee scowled. "But I don't have to like it."

He stood up and left Billy's office like a man carrying the weight of the world. Billy couldn't help grinning after him. "My, oh my, Scarecrow, you sound like a jealous person," he chuckled to himself.