By the time the meeting ended two hours later, Lucy and Kevin realized that Ruthie was setting herself up for a very difficult and potentially deadly situation. But they also realized that the ever stubborn and ruthless minister was also the best person placed for the contact and drop.
Ruthie, in the meantime, went about her business as if nothing was even remotely wrong. After her and Peter`s meeting with Shelby and Rod, she went to the communications department at the state university and took her amateur license test. She got twisted for a few minutes with the Morse code section until she pulled up her mnemonics to fill in the answers and passed with flying colors. She confirmed her new call sign and went to the DMV to get her vehicle plates changed to the call sign.
Several days later, with only a briefcase as well as a three days' change of clothes and intimate apparel, Ruthie boarded her assigned plane for Frankfurt. An hour later, a forty-something woman wearing a non descript business suit handed her an envelope. It was a scrambled message which Ruthie expected. Very carefully, she opened up her laptop, popped up Shelby's Enigma emulator, and after plugging in the start codes she entered the message. The message that came out of the descrambler stunned her.
"Reverend Camden, there has been a major breach in security. We need to meet at Customs in Frankfurt. I'll explain when we're waived through. Please destroy this message upon reading."
Ruthie did exactly that. Several hours later, the plane arrived in Frankfurt. The moment her passport was scanned, the customs agent pointed her to an antechamber halfway down the sprawling hall. Ruthie walked down that way, getting even more nervous about this. She found the room and walked in.
"Please close the door," a woman's voice said.
Ruthie followed that instruction and turned around. She faced a woman and two men.
"Reverend Camden," said the woman who had handed her the note earlier, "my name is Jeanne-Marie Charbonneau. I am an Inspector for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. These gentlemen are Fritz von Finklestein and Gottfried Genscher, they work for the Bundespolizei – the German FBI. Two days ago, they tipped me off on the fact that your rendezvous with the Luxembourg contact in Bucharest had been compromised. Despite all attempts to keep your movements secret, some one connected to whomever we're all trying to take down managed to figure out where you'd be and when."
"Terrific!" groaned Ruthie.
"All is not lost, Hochwürden Camden," said Finklestein, using the German title for Reverend. "We have arranged safe conduct for you on a rail car from here to Budapest, Hungary."
"Well, at least I don't have to clear customs again," said Ruthie sublimely. "Your open borders are great."
"Once you get there," said Charbonneau, "you will get a previously hired cab to the plaza in front of the Hungarian Parliament." She showed Ruthie a picture of an early twentieth century castle that actually looked like a medieval palace from the tenth.
"Okay, nice building," said Ruthie, "but can you absolutely guarantee that my contact and I will be safe there? I don't want to keep changing locations on the fly."
"I think you're beginning to understand the lives your fellow ministers lead as spies," said Genscher. "My wife is in the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German CIA, and there are days and nights our kinder and I wonder if her next mission shall be the last. There are no guarantees, but there are now several agencies invested in this, because the fraud is even worse than first assessed. We shall do the very best we can in our power to protect you. After all, you have a family to come to also."
"Thank you," said Ruthie. "I guess the last question is, high-speed or overnight?"
"An overnight train will be leaving from Track 17 in twenty minutes."
"Whaa .. where's the station?!" asked Ruthie, shocked.
"Here," said Genscher. "The airport is also the intercity train and bus station; and the local subway, tram and bus station. Two floors down, and your baggage has already been loaded into your single cabin."
Impressed by the level of efficiency, Ruthie thanked all three cops and made her way towards the train. She enjoyed the catered supper and slept so well that she only woke up when she was called up for breakfast which was as good as what she and Peter had on their honeymoon years ago.
She stepped into the private shower, and took advantage of the luxurious soaps and shampoos. She stroked herself all over while doing so. This was the first time in over a year that she managed to pleasure herself without Peter being around, and she came several times. If this was to be to among her last days in this life, she felt, she had the right to please herself.
Having put on a fresh change of premium brand lingerie red in color, she then put on white stockings, a blue blouse, a tan jacket and skirt, and gray high heels. She had been told her suitcase would be delivered to the room of her and her contact at a luxury hotel a few blocks from the executive government offices, so she just took her briefcase with her secured computer and took the preassigned ride to the people's plaza.
For nearly a half hour, Ruthie was waiting. She began to wonder if there was some mistake – the wrong time, the wrong place. Or even worse, someone had kidnapped or murdered the contact.
Finally, a woman the same age as Lucy sat down next to her. Deliberately disguising her voice, she said, "And he left them, and went out of the city into Bethany, and he lodged there."
Matthew Twenty-one, seventeen That was one end of the verification.
Ruthie then said, "Behold, thou shalt call a nation that thou knowest not, and nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee because of the Lord thy God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he hath glorified thee."
Isaiah Fifty-five, five. That was the other end.
"Reverend Camden, it's unfortunate we have to meet again under these circumstances," said the woman, "but after my misjudgment a couple of weeks ago, my brother and I have had to resort to something else."
The woman's voice was still disguised. She was wearing a black hat and veil and a black dress, as if in mourning.
"Look, I agreed to come here on business, so let's get down to business!" said Ruthie impatiently. "Who are you?"
The woman stood up and took off her cap. Under this was a flesh colored skullcap to make it appear she was balding as a patient in treatment might. She pulled off this and shook off her hair which was a bright auburn. Finally she pulled off her fake eyebrows and eyelashes.
"Ruthie, do you remember me now?" said the woman in her natural voice.
"Oh my God ... Lisa Lumby!" Ruthie could barely stand up in shock as she walked over and hugged Lucy's old friend from Habitat for Humanity. Lisa had once been raped by a would-be stepfather and needed Eric's help to get her mother out of denial about "the incident" and that the act of violence was not Lisa's fault.
"Wow, you look great!" the minister said. "Now, I have to ask you, how did you get involved in this mess? Well, let's back up. How did you ever end up in Luxembourg?"
"I'll discuss the first when we get back to the hotel room which has been swept for all bugs," said Lisa. She motioned Ruthie to walk alongside her, indicating they would be strolling to the hotel. "The second ... well, my much older brother was already out of the country at the time I was raped. Had he been around he would have killed the coward. Seriously, he wanted to murder him and still has a death wish. I finally met up with my bro again when he needed a babysitter for his and his wife's kids – she's French – and I liked the city so much I became a teacher. I met another guy who was really nice. Our affair only lasted a year, but it produced twins. Mind you, he and I still have sex, even though I came out as a lesbian four years ago."
"If you're a lesbian," asked Ruthie, " why are you still sexing the ex? Isn't that kind of like 'hate fucking'?"
"Because as much as I enjoy the company of women – well, the woman I'm with is my brother's now ex-wife ..." Lisa let Ruthie sink that in for a minute. She continued, "well, I just can't orgasm the same way with her. Even a vibrator doesn't do it, so I need the real thing which I get once a month. He wears a condom and I'm on the pill. And all of us live together, in the same house, and get along, all the kids get along, and we just leave it there."
Of all the living arrangements Ruthie heard of, this was the strangest one of all. And it became obvious quickly how Lisa and her brother, Thomas, could easily become the victims of blackmail.
It did not take long to reach the hotel. They went up to the nineteenth floor and Lisa swiped in. As promised, Ruthie's suitcase was in front of her bed. She put her briefcase on the table next to the window, and after closing the blinds, Ruthie turned to Lisa.
"Lisa, now that I am here," Ruthie said, "would you please tell me what is going on?"
"Well, to stop an iceberg, you need to blast the bottom and not the top," said Lisa. "But the rot starts at the top, so we need to deal with that first. So let me ask you, do you know what a 'brother and sister' is in the money world?"
"Two bills of different denominations that were printed in the same year and have identical serial numbers," replied Ruthie. She had been tipped off about this by Rod. "The higher the denominations and the lower the serial number, the more valuable. Especially when it's gold certificates or bonds of different values."
"Yes," said Lisa. "Auction denizens love them. They're also very easy to forge too. Most countries and corporations who issue bonds no longer issue paper instruments for that reason. Simply serial numbers on a computer, attached to the name and address of the holder. But imagine if you hack into their computers and create a bond with a fake serial number and a fake denomination and then you try to sell the fake 'sister' with a real 'brother'? Then on top of that, you get people to invest in the fake bonds too? And with religious motives?"
"I don't like where this is going," said Ruthie.
"Trust me, it gets worse," said Lisa. "When Thomas stumbled on this, he had to make a few emergency swaps to save his bank ten billion euros. He then checked into a hospital for a panic attack - although it was awfully close to a heart attack. That's when he asked me to get a hold of another friend of mine from high school, Shelby."
Ruthie opened up her laptop.
"All right, Lisa, tell me what you've got."