In the soft grey glow of late moonlight, her face, twisted for a time by the agony of her passion, was smiling calm and her eyes looked up at me serenely. I rolled away from her and pulled the blanket over us. She cuddled into my shoulder and slept. CHAPTER 11 The sunny days slid by as we explored farther and farther north. The weather held fair all that month except for a few quick showers that washed the warm decks and cooled the quiet air. There was little good sailing weather but we didn't worry. There was fishing enough, swimming enough, and loving enough to fill the days and nights. In a deep side channel of Louise Inlet, I was trolling one day in the fourth week. Pat held the tiller and the engine, throttled back hard, barely puttered along. Then, above the noise, the sound of a more powerful engine rose and gained rapidly in intensity. Around the bend from the main channel an amphibian swung into view and banked to glide down over us. It banked again, full circle, and the pilot let down and taxied up behind our boat. I stopped the engine and waited. The small door on the passenger side opened and a bare head stuck out. I recognized that full, cheery face. "For the love of Pete! It's the Chief," I yelled above the motor. Pat nodded, not too happily. Her woman's intuition was probably working overtime. A short time later we anchored inshore. The Boss and his grim-looking pilot climbed aboard. "Lord, we've had a time finding you two," Hallam sighed. "This is Colonel Jones, United States Air Force." I raised my eyebrows at Pat. Neither the man's flying suit nor the plane's markings had shown any indication of their military nature. "How do you do sir," I said, as I shook his hand. "Are you up here on a vacation?" "Strictly business, I'm afraid," he said crisply. "Business? With whom?" "With you." The lips opened and shut in his face like a ventriloquist's dummy. He was strictly business, I thought. "With me?" I turned to Hallam. "What have I done now?" He didn't smile at my feeble joke. "It's not what you've done, John, it's what they want you to do. Colonel Jones is from the CIA." "Oh oh, the cloak and dagger boys," I thought. "Trouble coming up." Out loud I said, "We might as well sit down and be comfortable while we talk. Pat, how about some beer?" The Colonel was obviously impatient but he tried to swallow his irritability with his beer. "It's nice being a civilian at times," I was thinking. "I don't have to take any more guff from the brass. This guy's obviously a West Point type in a hurry and it must gall him to have to wait on my royal pleasure. He wants something. Let him wait for it!" It was a rebellious thought but I'd been prodded painfully by his classmates on occasion in the past. I couldn't resist getting a little of my own back. "All three of you are cleared for Top Secret," Jones said. "I checked before I came out here."