More literary genius from my protegé, Troy Cutcross. Troy has generously given me permission to publish Chapter Four in its entirety! Previously, "Doughnuts's" boss at the spy agency had been assassinated by a Russian known as "The Cosmonaut." At the end of Chapter Three, Charlie arrived at the International Space Station only to find its entire crew dead, including his old friend Major Jacques LaVie.
And now.....
THE CONUNDRUM ENIGMA: A Charlie "Doughnuts" Duncan Sexy Thriller
by Troy Cutcross
CHAPTER FOUR
Attached
by a Laurel and Hardy-shaped magnet to the door of the crew
refrigerator––reminding him of the nickname those jerks back at the agency had
for Tammi––was a note.
SORRY ABOUT
ALL YOUR DEAD FRIENDS
––THE
COSMONAUT
He
was a fiend, And now he had a head start to Europa! Who even knew what his plan
was when he got there? A lesser man would have given up. But Colonel Charlie
“Doughnuts” Duncan was not that lesser man.
The
first order of business after fixing himself a nutritious snack of Tang and
Space Food Sticks was to get rid of the astronauts’ corpses. This was because
the heavier the ship was the more fuel it used, even though they were in zero
gravity, and if they weren’t alive, they were just “dead weight.” “Doughnuts”
suddenly realized that the phrase he had just used was full of terrible irony
of the sort that made him known as a great wit. This time his wit was tragic
and not funny, he reflected.
Standard
protocol, or operating procedure, for removing cadavers, or dead bodies, from
the International Space Station called for Duncan to wait until the Station
passed over the dead astronaut’s home country and then shoving the former space
hero out the hatch so that he or she would burn up in the atmosphere over his
or her homeland. It so happened that just as he finished the last of his Tang
he was passing over France.
“So
long, Jacques,” he said as he dragged Major LaVie by his boots across the floor
to the trash expulsion hatch. “You were anything but trash, in my opinion––from
now on I’m going to call this the ‘trash and heroes expulsion hatch’!” He was
sniffling a little as he shot his old friend into space and toward the earth,
and he didn’t even have to pretend it was allergies since there was no one to
see him. Or so he
thought.
Next
was a Captain Swierczinski, who came from Poland, which as near as Charlie
could tell they would be passing over pretty soon. Not for the first time he
wondered why the Poles, about whom jokes used to be told called Polack jokes
which were anything but funny if you were one, used so many consonants in their
names. Since he didn’t know the Captain he didn’t say anything, just stuck him
into the hatch and blew it. There were two crew members from China, so he shot
them down together, hoping that in life they’d been friends and that he wasn’t
just making an assumption to save himself some time. Then there was a Korean Colonel,
but since “Doughnuts” didn’t know for sure whether he was from North or South
Korea he did his best to aim him toward the Demilitarized Zone between the two
divided halves of the nation as a gesture toward international peace. As he
watched the colonel burst into flames in contact with the earth’s atmosphere
Charlie couldn’t help smiling at memories of the TV show M*A*S*H, which was set
in Korea and always made him chuckle, even when there was a serious element as
there often was in its best episodes, like the last one, “Goodbye Forever
Amen.”
Next
there was a Lieutenant Nummelin, and since he didn’t know what kind of name
that was he dropped him over the Pacific. There was only one astronaut body
left, that of a beautiful woman. When he looked at her nametag he was surprised
by two things: One, she was Russian, and he’d already passed over Russia! He
cursed the fact that he’d have to wait until the Station got all the way over
to that side of the world before he could relax and do his zero gravity exercises,
which he would perform by turning off the artificial gravity. The second thing
that surprised him was the size of her bosoms, which were quite large by
western standards. Almost without thinking he put his hand on the left one,
which is when he got his third surprise: she let out a loud gasp and slapped
him in the face!
“You’re
alive,” he deduced.
She
squinted as though she were trying to place his face. “And you’re Charlie
‘Doughnuts’ Duncan!” she exclaimed, surprising Charlie, because he had no idea
how she knew that.
“How
did you…” he began, intending to ask how she knew his face.
“I
recognized you from the pictures Major Jacques LaVie kept showing us all the
time,” she said. “You are as handsome in person as in your photos, but that
doesn’t mean you get to ‘cop a feel’ without permission!”
“I’m
very sorry. I thought you were dead.”
“No
harm done,” she said, and extended her hand. “Svetlana Skikorskova,” she said.
“Where are my crewmates?”
“All
dead, I’m afraid.”
“Murdered
by that villain Toborsky! He’s a disgrace to the Cosmonaut program,” she spat.
“I
just got finished shooting them through the trash hatch toward their various
native lands. I was going to do the same thing to you before I realized that
you were alive.”
“It’s
a good thing you decided to get ‘fresh’ with my corpse, or I might have burned
up alive! You don’t suppose…” She hesitated.
“What?”
“Nothing.
I was just wondering if any of the others were just unconscious when you
jettisoned, or shot, them out of the station.”
“Doughnuts”
thought about it really hard. No, he was pretty sure they’d all been dead, and
he said so.
“So,”
she deduced. “Two questions: One, do you want a passenger on your trip to
Europa, which Major LaVie told us all about?”
“I
guess I could use some company. Especially a pretty girl who speaks the
Cosmonaut’s native ‘lingo,’ or language! Just in case we have to use his ship
to get back and the controls are all marked in Russian, like in that one Star
Trek movie whose number I can’t remember. Now what’s the second question?”
She
grabbed hold of her right bosom, the one Duncan hadn’t touched yet, and gave
him a catlike smile of seduction. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
