Lena is drop dead gorgeous; long legs, fashionably thin, green eyes and long curls of flaming red hair. She is bubbly, witty and inconveniently married. Lena's husband, who I call 'Bod', is away on business most of the time. A civil engineer by profession, he works for the World Bank on development projects that take him overseas for a year or more. I only met him once. A short, nondescript kind of guy who wore an NRA bas...

"Or" The question, if it was a question was left unfinished. A pause and a glance that said all that needed to be said. Hannah put an arm around each of our waists and pulled us towards her. I looked Tim in the eye and the look on his face said it all: neither of us had expected this. She had started off by explaining that she would sleep on the sofa and we should share the bed. Then as if by way as an afterthought she su...

I hate camping. For thousands of years mankind lived in caves and mud huts. They hated it so much that they spent their time inventing bricks and mortar and running water and electricity. So every summer my parents dragged us off to spend a week in a rain soaked mud field for what they called a ‘holiday’. For craft folk, camping is a necessary evil. Anywhere that is far enough from prying eyes is even further from running...

To: (Withheld) Date: 2 Feb 1998 At your request I have examined the remaining four chapters and the original book in which the ciphertext is written. As you surmized, the ciphers increase in complexity. The fourth and fifth ciphertexts have resisted the cryptanalytic techniques used so far and I have set up a batch analysis. While the techniques used in the earlier chapters strongly suggest that the ciphers used in the la...

To: (Withheld)From: Byron LordSubject: Your client’s commission As you requested, I examined the material you provided and have succeeded in deciphering it. The cipher used to encrypt the body of the text is a Ceasar cipher using a displacement of 5 letters. Given the plaintext, it seems likely that the number 5 was chosen for symbolic reasons. Transcribing the material from the photocopies provided took 66 minutes. The c...

“Come, I’ll show you the garden before we leave.” Ginny grabbed me by the hand and pulled me out of the chair, almost spilling my half-finished cup of coffee. “Be quick, we have to leave here in fifteen minutes.” her mother called out after us, “Your cousin’s wedding wont wait for you.” I followed Ginny into the garden. We had met in person for the first time less than an hour ago, but we had known each other online for m...

The day was hot and the camera was heavy round my neck. Much heavier than usual with the 100-300mm Nikkor lens in place of the standard 50mm prime that had come with the camera. The lens weighed almost two pounds, more than double the weight of the camera it was attached to, the Nikon FG I had received earlier that year as my 18th birthday present. The camera was mine but the lens was on loan and expensive. Quite how expe...

San Francisco at night, in all its neon glory! Rooms with a view cost extra, but the company was paying the bill. After the plane trip from hell I needed a shower and a rest before dinner. I studied the landscape before me as I undressed. There is point paying extra if you are going to shut the curtains. The Downtown SF Marriott, otherwise known as the jukebox is a retro Art Deco affair with sweeping curves and mirrored g...

It was almost 9pm by the time Kimberly got to the hotel. The male managers had left for the inevitable boozing at a strip joint. As the meeting had dragged on and the prospect of dinner receded further into the future, she had picked at the remains of the buffet that had accompanied the announcement. It had been grazing rather than eating: Just enough to ruin the thought of dinner, not enough to be satisfied. Desert, then...

The drive to Austin was even more annoying than Kimberly expected. The aggravation started on the weekend with the news that the announcement had been moved up to Monday morning forcing Kimberly to begin her drive early Monday morning. But she would still miss Tuesday in Houston. Her frustration only increased when she arrived in Austin to find that a ‘legal issue’ had delayed the announcement until late afternoon. Only e...

Kimberly drove Kath to a motel and paid the attendant. The attendant was not at all surprised to see two women with no luggage take a room. He was more surprised when she left alone a few minutes later. Kath would be a liability. There would be endless complications. But they could all wait till morning. The reckoning with Frank could wait for the morning as well. He would not listen, he would shut her out of the argument...

Kimberly rapidly adapted to her new routine. It required meticulous planning and execution but the effort was justified by the rewards. She knew must have change. What that change could or should be was the problem. The score sheet painted a dismal picture of their marriage. The simplest analysis was financial. She supported Frank and it would remain that way as long as they were together. She was badly paid, but he was b...

Reliable, dependable, respectable, Kimberly Parsons was the perfect pastor’s wife. Her course had been set since the tenth grade when Frank Parsons had asked her for a date and she had refused. It was the first time any girl had refused the rising star of the football team. A few months later, Frank asked again and was again met with a refusal. Though she did allow him to sit with her at lunch in the cafeteria. By the tim...