With  a crisis in Lithuania looming, my anxiety grew.  When my nerves felt unsheathed to every element, I sought refuge with Melania.  She was my shelter from the storm.

I knew how to stowaway on an airline, get to NYC, and then sneak a ride to Trump Towers.  Once there, Melania spoiled me.

With Donald all-in to be President, it became likelier and likelier that I would have Melania all to myself.  She loved it when I would walk about her silk-swathed body with my claws all out.  She would giggle and carry on about how divine I was.  Much better, I’d say, than having Donald’s chubby paws running over your bod.

After having my way with her, she would order puree of tuna brought to the bed for me.  She would coo what a handsome boy I was as I ate.  She told me that nobody knew how to love her the way I loved her.  By then, I knew she liked it a bit rough, and I thank God nobody had ever declawed me. If you’re the Love Machine, you must have all your tools.  

Chaucer was the chief impediment to my staying away from Waynesville.  He saw my assistance of Lucky as a must for the handling of Wolverine.  Also, I knew he made no idle threats.

Wolverine was, of course, aware of Lucky’s casing of him and his holding.  But Lucky never scared him, even though Constance sent a stream of warnings from around the world. Instead of worrying, Wolverine bragged that Lucky was no longer going after an easy mark. 

One evening, he asked me where she slept.  I told him that she seemed to sleep in a different room each night. She had a labyrinth of sleeping fortresses under her house.  Wolverine thought that news a pity.  “What a paranoid world we live in,” he griped.

I kept worrying, based on Peregrine and Wolverine’s brags, that an explosion in Lithuania was imminent.   So, it bothered me that I had no contacts in Vilnius. Who does?  One day I  endured listening to Wolverine talk up the delights of bathing in the Baltic Sea at Girulia.  Worse still,he bored me with chatter about a beach party the town had in late July.

I wondered who wishing to bathe chooses Girulia as their beach destination? The Lapps?  To be fair, the water temps in summer are, if anything, slightly warmer than in Malibu. Count on it.  I’m not tempted.  Let the Love Machine stay on the sand with the babes.  I’m no fool. I’m a kitty Jimmy Cricket.

One morning, I heard the front door ring. In strolled Wolverine dressed to the nines, and smiling like a boy back from an orgy.  He had come to brag.  

According to Wolverine, an explosion had occurred at the Klaipeda bus station.  The bomb was small and less than a quarter of the station was destroyed; however, for about 1/2 km radius human beings had what some described as “frozen” blood. 

Wolverine bragged about Peregrine’s gifts.  He had used contacts to plant a story that a crazed Norwegian had the bomb go off on his way to a less than $40 per night Hostel where he felt he had been overcharged.  The chap disliked paying a 1/2 buck for a towel and for there being no free coffee or tea. But that blast educated us. 

Less than 30 minutes after the blast and reports of a “freeze,” Russian, Chinese, Americans, Brits, French, and Israelis were prompt in offering assistance. As Lord Caligula would say, “We know who’s got Ice-10 in their sights.  We wanted a diversion.  We have one.”

Lord Caligula also pointed out the obvious.  Aside from the retarded, who would believe that a Norwegian cheapskate could afford an Ice-10 bomb.  His Lordship chuckled and cackled, as he announced, “My, my.  I dare say some agent must have sold him the bomb for next to nothing when this dodo began complaining about the price of bombs on the dark web.”

Munitions Galore had used other agents as bellows for the chap’s rage.  They had, if you believe his Lordship, suggested he could never let people charge him 50 pence for a towel without taking murderous vengeance on them.  Fair’s fair.

A day or so later I spotted a brief report of a mad bomber who blew himself up in a Lithuanian bus station.  There were reports of damage and a possible biohasard.  Authorities made the ordinary lying promise of authorities everywhere that “the situation is under control.”

Even Lord Caligula zoomed me regularly to gloat.  He imagined Emperor Xi pissing himself with curiosity about this one.  His Lordship laughed about calls he had got as titular head of Munitions Galore from Putin and Xi.  His Lordship, being a cagey master of all that is vague, put them both off. He told Putin he must be the prime suspect at every intelligence agency outside Russia.  After all, he gave speeches about the happiness that Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia would have once reunited with mother Russia

Peregrine called me the next day and was in bad humour.  He had had a visit from MI-5.  One of the agents asked if anybody at Munitions Galore with expertise in Ice-9.  As a toss-off, the agent asked if he knew of anybody who knew if anybody ever developed an “Ice-10 or higher.”

Peregrine wanted to kill the fink agent right then and there but feared MI-5 might send somebody smarter than the dead agent.  Hence he remained a live agent.