U.S. Wyo rounded the corner of the partition where she had spent what had turned out to be a couple of hours with the amorous guard. She hadn't meant to fall asleep, but ... once she and the swarthy stranger had found the rhythm of their passionate pas de deux, he turned out to be not half bad -- and oddly familiar. And her diversionary tactic apparently had worked, for Cmmdr. Kat, her Commandos and various hangers-on were nowhere to be seen. USSWW hummed a voluptuous version of "Ain't Nobody Bake a Sweet Jellyroll Like Mine" as she brushed her robe and languidly pulled pieces of straw from her hair.

Suddenly, the fog of all that fore and aft-er play began to lift and she gasped slightly as she looked around the ratty dungeon that had held her and her mates. Not only were they gone, there were definite signs of a struggle. Cmmdr. Kat's radio was abandoned in the middle of the floor, Susan's green algae glop had been flung all over the room -- or else a large moose with a bad headcold had been tossing his head around, but Wyo wasn't betting on that option, since there were, to her knowledge, so few moose in Afghanistan -- and there, shiny and looking so out of place in all the dung and straw and moose-snotlike green algae stuff was Mbo's harp. No way he would have just dropped that harp, no matter how hard Susan might have been trying to get him to just take "one little taste..." Plainly, something terrible had happened.

And she, she had been rolling around in the throes of diversionary tactics with apparently the only guard still left in the place.

As he came around the corner, he was humming a sensuous tune she instantly recognized as ... what WAS that song? And how could a Taliban guard know even one verse of it?

He began to whistle unconsciously as he casually walked across the dungeon, carefully rearranging his robes to look as though he HADN'T been so recently succumbing ... to diversionary tactics. He looked up at USWW from underneath his hood. His eyes locked onto hers like a tractor beam from that first, or was it the second Star Wars movie, you know that part where the ...

"Why .... why .... " Wyo sputtered. "why ... you aren't a guard at all. You're that famous Mudcateer, whatzizname. Why are you here, and why oh why oh did you let Wyo diVERT you so?"

He looked up, smiled and shrugged.

"I ...