Tony DiMarcio was breathing heavy. His pulse rate was way up also. Having someone holding the sharp tanto point of a samurai sword at his neck was bound to cause some anxiety.

       He had heard a slight noise downstairs and went to investigate, but not before grabbing his auto Glock and an extra thirty-three-round clip. He thumbed the firing selector to full auto. Quietly he crept down the stairway. Luckily there was a solid wall all the way down the staircase and his socked feet on carpeted stairs went undetected. Peering cautiously around the corner at the bottom, he was able to make out five armed females, one with only a sword, advancing slowly through the living room. He jumped out quickly from the landing and managed to pepper four of the armed intruders with several rounds apiece due to the rapid firing rate of the Glock. At thirteen hundred rounds per minute, you were hosing your target with lead. They had got off two-three rounds at the most, but luckily they had missed. But the fifth female had gotten the drop on him with her sword, coming in from his left.

       The other end of the sword was being held by a beautiful, half-Asian woman who definitely knew her sword skills. She was applying just enough pressure to show she was serious, and this after fighting Tony with the help of her four now-dead comrades who were lying in various positions of death on the living room floor of his house. It had happened fast; the blood was still spreading from the bodies onto his hardwood floors. He had emptied his Glock during the fight. He could swing up and hit her in the head with it, but he didn't bother trying. She was giving him her full attention, as any professional would do. Any sudden movement on his part and he was dead.

       "Your slide is locked back, so thumb your magazine release and let it fall free. Then drop the gun to the floor, Mr. DiMarcio, and you get to keep on living for the moment."

       Tony did as she asked, letting the Glock slip slowly out of his fingers, clattering to the floor. She quickly picked it up without changing the pressure on his neck from the sword.

       "You have another magazine. No one who shoots like that would be unprepared. "

       "Yes."

       He pulled it from his back pocket and handed it to her.

       She backed up quickly and sheathed her sword, inserted the magazine in the pistol, and thumbed the slide release to chamber a round in one smooth motion. She was now pointing the Glock at him.

       It felt good to have the sword off his neck, he thought. Those swords are just too damn sharp. He was bleeding! It wasn't much, just a few drips from the skin being broken.

       "You bitch—you cut me!"

       "Keep mouthing off and you'll have a few holes to match," she said, gesturing with the Glock. "Now Mr. DiMarcio—where is the virus?"

       Tony worked with the NSA, one of the most secretive of government agencies. Some of the stuff they pulled off made the FBI's antics look like a bad day at an amusement park. He worked on the programming staff writing some of the most interesting code he had ever had a chance to come up with. They touted him as a programming genius, but with an IQ of 161, it all just came naturally. They had loved the program he put together called 'Cipher'. It could take any code a nation or entity was using and crack it within five minutes. He was golden.

       Through the NSA, he was able to use some of the most sophisticated computer equipment he had ever seen. They let him write programs for spy satellites, eavesdropping devices, network sniffers and firewall/port crackers that would let the NSA cull any information they wanted from a variety of sources: wired or wireless computer connections, cell phone connections, city-wide broadband, other countries' satellites, etc. There was not a scrap of information they couldn't retrieve, given the chance.

       He lived the golden lifestyle. They bought him an ornate house in upper class DC, gave him a fast car and paid him a six-figure income for what he was able to do. Tony also knew it wouldn't last forever, unless he moved up to the higher ranks in the NSA. But you always needed a backup, trump card, etc. to use if trouble came along.

       Tony's trump card was a super virus he had put together himself. He had made sure the threat was solid. If it was ever introduced into the computing world, it would render every piece of computing hardware and software world-wide absolutely useless. You would have to talk by old school crank up phone after that. He had a copy that would go out from a hidden server if he didn't check in once every ninety days. The original DVD he had hidden in the house.

       "What virus?"

       "Don't mess with me, Tony. It's either the virus or your 9MM punctuated head. Your call."

       'Damn,' he thought, 'I haven't told anyone about the virus. A secret's a secret if only you know it. Must've gotten drunk somewhere and said the wrong thing to the wrong person.'

       "Okay, okay. Just what are/were you girls anyway?"

       "Let's just say we're entrepreneurs, and leave it at that. Your virus would be worth a lot of money to, shall I say, the wrong person?"

       "Your name?"

       "You can call me Jezebel. Now let's get moving.''

       "Sure—keep your sword sheathed."

       He could tell she was a professional. The gun was kept just out of arm's reach, and she kept Tony in her sight every second.

       "It's here in the study, behind the bookshelf."

       He pushed a book about a quarter inch. The bookshelf receded about two feet.

       "You first."

       Tony stepped between the bookcase and wall. The space always smelled a little musty with being closed off most of the time. It was filled with boxes of notes, programming and script printouts, along with a PC work area on a desk at the end.

       "Okay… the disk, now!"

       "Here it is." He pulled it off a shelf.

       He handed the case to her.

       "Now go to the far end of the room and sit down with your hands under your butt—and don't make a move."

       "Got it." He headed to the far side and sat down.

       Jezebel took the disk to the other side of the room to examine it.

       "I have no way of knowing if this is the true virus disk or not; it's too dangerous to run it and find out. But a paying customer should have the tech savvy to know the genuine article. If it's not, I'll be paying you a return visit, one you won't live through."

       "Why would I give you a fake? I have a hidden version that will go out on the network if I'm dead. Just make sure you and any customer knows that if I die it would ruin any blackmail attempts on their part."

       She opened the case to examine the contents and a small amount of white powder puffed out onto her hands.

       "What's this—dust?"

       "Not exactly."

       Her hands began to mottle and pustules were forming almost immediately—and it was starting to spread up her arms as she watched. And it burned—like she was on fire! She could feel the skin underneath the surface begin to disconnect from bone and muscle.

       She dropped the gun to the floor.

       "What is this?" she screamed.

       "You wanted a virus, you got it. Meet a little friend of mine, compliments of the NSA. A fast-spreading, flesh-destroying viral agent. I've been immunized, so no worries. It's my fail-safe in case anyone tries to get the disk. The virus has a very short half-life, so that it will die shortly after you do. In fact, it will decompose all flesh and blood down to dust with no smelly decomposition aftereffects—more aesthetic that way. DNA is destroyed in the process so that no one will ever know who you were. All I have to do is bring in the vacuum. I'll be using the virus dust on your dead friends in the living room also. Great way to clean up."

       "I'll kill you, bastard!"

       She tried to pick up the Glock, but her hands were too much of a mess to hold it.

       The viral agent was up to her shoulders now and she was still screaming. It worked its way down her throat and across her face and the screaming stopped. All that was heard now was a harsh bubbling. The agent was covering her completely, her body twitching in the throes of death.

       Tony picked up the virus disk, reloaded the booby-trap, and placed it back on the shelf. He also picked up the auto Glock, his other lifesaver.

       "God, this is gross—I'll come back and clean up later."

       He walked out through the opening between the bookcase and the wall, shutting it behind him.

       "Sneeze ya later, Jezebel."