Same Disclaimer as before

Chapter 8

Early March 2008, London

Harry met Sandra Smith just a little over a year before he left on that trip to Hong Kong.

It was during the early hours one rainy day when Harry was being driven home. He passed by the bus stop that Ruth used to wait for her bus and for a moment, he thought that he saw Ruth sitting there, waiting for a bus. Like Ruth, the woman was a brunette with shoulder length hair, and even though she was sitting down, Harry thought that she was about Ruth's height and build. He told himself that it could not be Ruth and was about to look away when he noticed that a couple of Asian youths had approached the woman in a menacing way. The woman had been talking on her mobile phone and it would appear that the youths wanted to relieve her of her mobile phone. When Harry saw a knife being pointed at the woman, he told his driver to stop immediately and he jumped out of the car.

"Can I give you a lift?" Although the question was directed at the woman, Harry's eyes were on the youths with the knife.

The two Asian youths saw the look on Harry's face and quickly decided that they could do without the woman's mobile phone. They ran down the street and disappeared round a corner. The woman looked quite relieved and accepted his lift. Harry knew that it was against protocol for someone in his position to be giving lifts to complete strangers but he was not about to see a woman being mugged for a mobile phone without lifting a finger to help.

"You should not be using the bus at this time of night." It was 2:30 am.

"I wasn't waiting for the bus! My car broke down back there and I had called a towing service. I also needed a cab to take me home. With the rain and all, the cab company couldn't fill my order quickly enough. I have been waiting for half an hour. Thank god you came along." She then gave Harry's driver an address in Islington.

Harry took a closer look at this woman. Yes, she did resemble Ruth in certain ways but she was not Ruth. Harry could not be sure. Any woman he would care to look at these days tended to resemble Ruth in some way. He missed her so much.

"So what were you doing, driving around at this hour?" Harry did not really want to know but thought that he should make polite conversation.

"I'm a book editor with the London office of Random House, and I had been on the phone to my New York office about a new author we're about to sign. The Americans do like complicating everything, don't they? That conference call went on for 6 hours. Can you believe it? By the way, I'm Sandra, Sandra Smith."

"I'm Harry." Again, that was not the protocol. Harry should have used a cover name but everything happened so fast that he forgot to come up with one. At least he did not give his last name or declare his profession as readily as Sandra had.

During the journey to Islington, Sandra mentioned that her portfolio consisted mainly of writers of history. She also mentioned that there would be a book signing by one of her authors in a week's time at Waterstone's in Piccadilly and suggested that perhaps Harry might want to drop by.

So that was how Harry met Sandra. Harry did not intend to start a relationship with this woman and thought that he would never see her again once he dropped her off. Harry also did not plan on going to the book signing, but he found himself walking past Waterstone's in Piccadilly the day of the signing and saw a small crowd gathered outside the bookstore. He remembered that Sandra mentioned that there was to be a signing and he walked into the bookstore without thinking. When Sandra saw him, she looked very please.

"Ah, my knight in shining armor! I'm so glad you came."

If only you knew that you're really looking at a knight of the realm. "I wasn't intending to, I was just in the neighbourhood." That sounded lame, but it was the truth.

Sandra arranged for Harry to receive a complimentary copy of whatever book she was helping to promote that day, signed by the author of course. To show his gratitude for the book, Harry bought Sandra a coffee at the nearest Starbucks. When they parted, Sandra gave Harry her business card and asked Harry to call her sometime.

It was clear that Sandra had taken an interest in Harry and wanted to pursue this further. On Harry's part, he was unsure. Quite apart from the fact that he was not ready to let go of Ruth, there was the small matter of his job, and that tended to make things difficult where personal relationships were concerned. He remembered his own disastrous first marriage, and Tom Quinn's and Adam Carter's attempts at love affairs. He was not sure he wanted to go through all that trouble.

A month went by without any further contact. When things got particularly nasty one day on the Grid, Harry picked up Sandra's card, called and asked if she was available for dinner later that evening. He wanted to relax and did not want to do this in the company of other spooks or politicians. He had half expected Sandra to turn him down since it was on such short notice. He was quite pleased when Sandra agreed to meet him in a couple of hours' time. Harry told himself that it would be just dinner and nothing else.

Over dinner, Harry found out that Sandra was a recent divorcee with no children. From the things she told Harry about herself, Harry guessed that she was in her late 30s, possibly early 40s. Like Harry, Sandra had a demanding job and it involved frequent travel, both within the country and abroad. Harry decided that she was attractive in a way that was more immediate and obvious than Ruth was and she carried herself with much more confidence than Ruth did.

When Ruth first started working for Harry, he did not pay any attention to the way she looked. He simply wanted an analyst who had brains so whether the person who filled that position was also pretty or not was immaterial. Over time, however, after her personality and intelligence shone through and Harry got to know her better, he started to notice each of her features, her eyes, her nose, her lips, her voice … Harry had to remind himself not to keep comparing his new friend with Ruth.

Harry gave himself the cover of a senior executive with a multi-national corporation which advised on and supplied security services. He could not give Sandra his work phone, naturally. So before he went to dinner, he purchased a new mobile phone with a new sim card and gave Sandra that number as his contact number. He would keep the phone turned off at all times but would check his phone messages from time to time in case Sandra called.

Given Sandra's dealings with history writers, she had a healthy interest in current affairs and politics, both of which were Harry's favourite topics. For this reason, Harry found conversations with Sandra interesting and stimulating. At the end of the evening, Harry decided that he would continue to see Sandra.

Both of them had crazy work schedules and most of their 'dates' were arranged on a last minute basis. Harry was in no hurry to build up this relationship at breakneck speed. If pressed, he would admit to himself that something was holding him back. On her part, Sandra also indicated that given the acrimonious divorce she had with her ex, she too was not in any hurry to enter into another long term relationship, though she was interested in continuing to see Harry whenever they were both in town at the same time. With that understanding, Harry put in the necessary paperwork to have Sandra's background checked out after their second date. This was how Connie found out about Sandra. Harry had asked her to personally walk the papers down to the DG's office for processing.

Harry intrigued Sandra. After going out with Harry a few times, she concluded that he remained a total mystery to her. Here was an attractive, intelligent man in his mid fifties who seemed to have an important and powerful job. The fact that he was in danger of losing all his hair and was carrying around some extra weight round the middle did not bother Sandra. By the time a woman got to Sandra's age, how a man looked was secondary to whether or not he had a good brain and pleasant personality. To most women, power and authority could make a man much more attractive than good looks. Even though Sandra was not told exactly what Harry did on a day to day basis, she got the impression that Harry wielded great power and authority in his job. Since Harry was also an attractive man, that made him a very sexy package as far as Sandra was concerned. There was a significant age difference between them, but nowadays, that sort of thing was not considered important.

Harry told her that he had also been divorced and that it had been a long time since he had a deep and meaningful relationship with any woman. Sandra believed him and was quite certain that Harry was currently unattached since he did not strike her as a married man looking for something on the side. Harry never made any demands of a sexual nature on Sandra, at least not yet. Apart from a polite peck on the cheek when he said goodnight, he never tried to kiss her on the lips, hold her hand or had his arm around her shoulders when they went out. Sandra initially thought that he might be shy or old fashioned.

After her divorce, Sandra logged a significant number of hours at the gym in order to get her figure back. She wanted to make herself attractive to members of the opposite sex, of course, but she also wanted to regain her self confidence and working on her body was one way of going about it; having her demanding job at the publishing house was another way.

After their fifth date in as many months, Sandra became a little miffed that Harry remained oblivious to her physical charms. She was a healthy woman with healthy needs. What's the point of having a boyfriend like Harry if you cannot enjoy a physical relationship? How is it possible that this beautiful man was roaming the earth without some woman's claws already sunk into him? He told her that he had been in the army in his younger days. Maybe he's damaged goods. Could it be that he's either impotent or gay? Sandra could deal with either situation. If Harry was indeed impotent, there were always the little blue pills nowadays to help with the hydraulics, assuming that he wanted that sort of assistance. If Harry was gay and simply wanted female company for show, that would be acceptable to Sandra also, and she would understand and scale back her expectations. She would rather spend time with an intelligent man who could make her laugh than be with an abusive man, like her ex-husband.

The point was, she had to know. By then, it had been over five months since they started to see each other, and Sandra decided that enough was enough. The only way to get answers was to confront the situation head on.

It was late one Saturday evening. They had been out on a country walk during the day followed by a meal at a small bistro place somewhere and had gone back to Sandra's house to watch a DVD of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. As usual, Harry had fallen asleep half way through the movie. He liked these Hollywood blockbusters as much as the next man, but if he had only recently come off an op, watching something on television helped him relax and he would invariably doze off before the movie was over. Given Harry's position, his role in most ops was restricted to sweating it out in his office, waiting by the phone for news from his agents out in the field or making those hard decisions which could result in someone being killed. The tension could become very draining in some of these ops.

"Hey, its over, its OK to open your eyes now," said Sandra to Harry softly. She ran a finger down one side of his cheek and then decided to run her fingers through his curly blond hair, such as there was on his head.

Harry opened his eyes groggily.

Sandra always thought that Harry had such lovely brown eyes and at that moment, he looked so cuddly that Sandra did not think she could hold herself back any longer.

"Why don't we ever do this over at your place?" Sandra had never been invited to Harry's place.

"You have the better entertainment system and a TV with a bigger screen. You don't want to see my place, its nothing more than the usual messy bachelor pad." Harry stretched and gave a little yawn but he remained seated.

"How do I know you don't have a wife or girlfriend stashed away at your place?"

"Well, you'll never know, will you," Harry teased and inadvertently finished that remark with a pout.

That did it. Sandra held Harry's face in both of her palms and planted a small, tentative kiss on him. Harry's eyes glazed over, and Sandra took that as a sign that she could go on. She gave him two more little kisses. Harry closed his eyes and immediately drifted off to another time and place. Sandra noticed that and intensified her assault by planting more passionate kisses on Harry. She also got busy with the buttons on his shirt. Once she was able to unbutton his shirt, she started to caress his chest. Soon she noticed the bulge in his groin area, smiled to herself and started to undo his belt buckle.

Harry was initially a little surprised by Sandra's aggressive approach but he knew that he had been putting off the physical side of this relationship long enough and that he would have to deal with it at some stage. He was kind of glad that Sandra had taken the lead. Biological urges have to be satisfied, he reasoned with himself. In any case, by the time Harry thought he should resist, it was too late as he had noticed that Sandra had removed her own top and was trying to undo her bra.

When it was over, Harry held Sandra close. On the outside, it looked like lovers huddled in post-coital repose. That might well be true for Sandra, but Harry was deep in thought. Whilst he did achieve physical release, mentally, it was not as relaxing as he had hoped. When he climaxed, the woman whose name he wanted to blurt out started with an 'R', not an 'S'. It was all he could do to stifle that name and merge it with a groan.

Harry checked the time on the clock on Sandra's night table and saw that he had stayed in Sandra's bed for the obligatory half hour or so after they made love. He got up to get dressed and told Sandra that he had to leave.

"You're welcome to stay the night, you know." Sandra tried to sound as seductively as possible since she was hoping for a repeat performance later on during the night. When she saw that Harry was intent on leaving, she started to worry that maybe she had been a little too aggressive.

"No, thank you." Harry kissed the top of her head. "I'm expecting a call from head office and …."

"Where is this mysterious head office that I keep hearing about and why is it that you have to speak to them at such odd hours? Tomorrow's Sunday, you know. Most people don't work on Sundays."

"Well, I've told you since the beginning, I don't have your usual 9 to 5 job. I must go. Sleep well." Harry planted a small kiss on Sandra's cheek.

Whenever Harry was with Sandra, he kept his work phone switched off and that made him uncomfortable. He wanted to know about alerts and special codes as soon as these were broadcast. He was still undecided as to when or how to tell Sandra about his job, his real job. Sandra did not usually ask too many questions about Harry's life and was a 'low maintenance' kind of woman. Harry thought that that boded well for the day when he would finally have to come clean about his actual job.

Sandra was so pleased to find out that Harry was neither impotent nor gay that she let him go without too much of a fight. She did not realize that Harry would never spend the entire night in her bed. After having started the physical side of their relationship, they had sex on a few more occasions, but Harry would never agree to stay overnight at Sandra's. Harry felt that as long as he did not stay the night, the relationship remained at some level just below formal 'couple-hood'. This was a constant source of frustration to Sandra. In time, Sandra also began to feel that there was always an invisible third person in bed with them. She could not point to anything specific and put it down to just one of those woman's intuition thing. She had no idea how to address this problem with Harry.

By the time Harry was ready to climb on board that plane to Hong Kong, Sandra was almost ready to give up on Harry. She had not heard from him for over one month. She was sick and tired of never being able to get him on the phone; she was always diverted to his voicemail. She had enough of his evasiveness about everything that had to do with his work and his private life. Then there were his frequent and long disappearances. Whenever they went out, Harry seemed genuinely pleased to see her. Yet as the evening went on, he sometimes acted as if he had changed his mind and could not wait for the date to be over. During the occasional long walk in the countryside, Harry would often be lost in thought. Sandra accepted that in any relationship, a couple did not have to be chattering to each other constantly and that they could be enveloped in a comfortable sort of silence from time to time. Still, she thought that this was too early in the relationship for that kind of silence and she felt a little shut out when that happened.

Even though Sandra was not looking for a long term relationship when she first met Harry, by now she knew that she had fallen hard for him. Sandra told herself that if Harry asked her out again, it would be time for the chat, the one which all couples have at a certain point in their relationship, the chat about their future. She was getting tired of this hot and cold treatment from Harry.

# # # #

Meanwhile, back on the plane hurtling towards Hong Kong

What about Sandra? Connie was right to remind me about her. I guess that would depend on the current situation with Ruth. The only thing wrong with Sandra is that she's not Ruth, and now that I know where Ruth is and I've cleared the way for her to come back, I know what my preference would be. Except … I have no idea what has happened to Ruth these past few years, whether she is still interested in me, whether I still have a chance … If I have to break up with Sandra, what would I say to her and how should I go about it? I haven't spoken to her in over a month. I wonder if she'll even take my calls anymore?

It was not so much that Harry bore any ill feelings towards Sandra for having taken the lead in pushing their relationship onto another level. Harry did not have a problem with aggressive, feisty women, having been surrounded with these women almost all his life. His ex-wife, Jane, his daughter, Catherine, Juliet Shaw, Connie James, Sandra Smith, and some of his other female friends, none of them could be described as shrinking violets by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, his heart strings ended up being held by the least aggressive one (though no less intelligent) of them all. As long as Ruth was still available, there was no doubt in Harry's mind which woman he would rather be with.

Harry had no idea how to handle this situation when he drifted off to sleep on the plane. By that time, he already had three scotches, even though he knew that having too much alcohol was bad for long haul flights, but he was troubled and needed something to numb the brain and get some sleep. The last thing he wanted was to step off that plane looking like a panda bear with dark circles under his eyes.

My apologies to any POG and HOG whose real name is Sandra. The choice of name was completely random.

Many thanks to those who have made an effort to leave a review so far. Reading your comments is the most fun part of fic writing.

All reviews will be gratefully received.