Using the "Edit" buttons below, you can modify the text on your Book Store page of authorhouse.com. Simply click on the "Edit" button for the section you wish to modify and then make your changes. Making changes here will not affect your cover or galley if (type of (tagVars) = "undefined") ; About The Book Three Santa Barbara sailors depart for Ensenada Mexico to take delivery of a forty-four foot sailboat named the Swan. But before they leave on their journey, one of them, an attorney named Tom slips in the crosswalk of an intersection in front of the courthouse and is temporarily knocked out. When he comes to, a man with a black hat and a soft voice is leaning over him. It is none other than the Prince of Pop himself, Jeremy Princeton, who almost hit him while riding in his limousine. Concerned that Tom may be injured, Jeremy takes Tom to his estate Tierra Bella in Santa Ynez to see his physician. There, Tom is shown two masterpieces, a Renoir and a Rembrandt, which had been stolen from the Swedish National Museum and then mysteriously shipped to Jeremy in a box of musical instruments. Along with the stolen masterpieces, Jeremy also has in his possession a mystical sphere called the Black Piper which grants the owner great wealth and power at first but eventually becomes a curse.

Top Secret

Eleven Years of Blood, Sweat, and TearsBy DALE KISER

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Dale Kiser
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4490-8298-7

Contents

Chapter 1. Molly and Jim Meet......................................1Chapter 2. Jim Owens...............................................13Chapter 3. Sonia Obrusk............................................16Chapter 4. Jim and Molly Date......................................20Chapter 5. Molly returns to Seattle................................35Chapter 6. The Breakup and the Makeup..............................43Chapter 7. Molly Unable to Accept Jim's Work.......................59Chapter 8. Jo Ann Peterson.........................................64Chapter 9. South America and General Thomas........................87Chapter 10. Jim and Sonia Obrusk Meet................................112Chapter 11. Sonia and Jim Travel.....................................131Chapter 12. Mollie and Her Dilemmas..................................144Chapter 13. Mollie to CIA Training...................................167Chapter 14. Sally Redkin and George..................................200Chapter 15. Mollie Begins Work as CIA Operative......................225Chapter 16. Sonia Obrusk.............................................248Chapter 17. Mollie and Jim Work Together.............................276Chapter 18. Sonia and Jim Travel.....................................310Chapter 19. Sonia Uncovered as KGB Operative.........................328Chapter 20. Double Agent.............................................364Chapter 21. De-bugging...............................................390Chapter 22. Sonia's Disappearance....................................408Chapter 23. Mollie's Hurts...........................................420Chapter 24. Jo Ann and Jim to Prague.................................425Chapter 25. Thomas Rhodes, Alias Angel in Prague.....................457Chapter 26. The Prague Caper.........................................483Chapter 27. House of the Golden Key..................................497Chapter 28. The Exchange.............................................510Chapter 29. The Escapes..............................................538Chapter 30. Little Greek.............................................557Chapter 31. African Chase to Avenge Jo Ann...........................569Chapter 32. Jim and Mick Return......................................604Chapter 33. Athens, Greece and Georgia...............................618Chapter 34. Return to Alaska.........................................636Chapter 35. Chase to the Orient......................................644Chapter 36. Resignation..............................................662Chapter 37. Healing Time.............................................674

Chapter One

The end had finally come. The end of years of blood, sweat, and tears. To end with the few words, "I'm leaving. I can't take it any more. I've given all I had and I'm getting out." Just like that, he told me everything had come to an end. Then he simply walked out of my life and was gone.

Definitely there had been blood, sweat, and tears. I'd shed much sweat and hundreds of gallons of tears. It was a miracle there weren't tear troughs down my cheeks. I'd cried over him, and over myself for eleven years, most of the time hoping to undo the tremendous hurt I'd caused him. And hoping that eventually when he'd forgiven me, we could start a life together with me by his side as his wife. But the deep-seated hurts, along with his inability to sanely rationalize our situation, coupled with all the other problems he'd had, in the end had finally driven him from me. Now he was gone.

I gave him much, and I received much from him. I had given him much pleasure, as well as a lot of hurt. I was his confidant, his love, his lover, but never his wife. I let him down on at least three occasions, all of which were desperate for him. That was at least a major contributing factor in his leaving without me. I believe he could never fully trust me after the last of those times. Much time passing and much time spent working together had not erased the hurts. Eventually the hurts and the problems created by the job were more than he could bear. Now everything had fallen apart. Even as hard as I'd tried to atone for the times I'd hurt him, we were not able to get back where we had once been in our relationship. Could we ever really have gone back once we passed a point in time? Maybe we didn't admit that possibility to ourselves. Some seem to be able to go back, but not us.

But of course few had ever been where we'd been, or through what we had been through. I felt like a huge tidal wave had hit me. Like an earthquake that measured the maximum on the Richter Scale. Like the quake we'd gone through. We had stood and watched and felt huge buildings crumbling around us. Huge chasms in the earth opened up, as if the earth was trying to swallow us. But the shock of that, and the resulting destruction was minor to the way I felt I was about to crumble. For eleven long years I'd suffered, sweated, and cried. I didn't crumble through all that, yet I was about to now that he was gone.

As I climbed "our hill" I couldn't help but remember the first time, and all the other times we'd climbed up together. Over the years our hill had become a very special and meaningful place to us. I know it was there that I first fell in love with him as I watched and listened to him the first time we were here. We stood on the hill and talked and marveled at the great creations of God. We sang the song "North to Alaska" many times as we looked around. He once said I made him glad that he'd made the long journey north. At one point in our relationship, he said that all the struggles and all the hardships had been greatly lessened because of my presence. And he said that when he was going through those darkest hours of his life, the thoughts of me had helped him persevere. Why wasn't he able to let himself accept my love and admit that all the hurt we caused each other was erased?

Yes, I thought to myself, I certainly would trade all the gold, and all of everything else buried in this land, for a band of gold for my hand. A band of gold placed there by him.

It had been a hell of a battle for the eleven years. Would we ever get over it? Would he ever be able to forget and live with the heavy load of guilt he was carrying? Would the mental scars ever heal and be erased? Or, would they simply dim to the point where he could cope? Time! Time and only time would answer these and other questions. The physical scars and pain he would suffer, would always be with him as gross reminders. Perhaps in time, he would be able to look at them, while feeling pain, and not suffer.

At one time I felt than an hour with him was worth a lifetime of other pleasures. Had I truly become his conscience, become a part of him, as I said I would the first time we were on "our hill?" Perhaps so. Certainly I'd tried to show him some justification for what he had done when he was depressed and questioning himself severely. I did that after I finally accepted him and the job he was doing. But the thoughts and hurts of those critical times that I had rejected him, had in the end, proven to be the end of us. But was that really true? I'd never be able to completely understand the complexity of his mind and what happened to us, and what had happened to me.

As I spread the blanket out on the ground, I felt as if he was near. I laid back, my mind wandering...