John breathed in the salty air as he strode on-deck. With him was his ever-popular posse: Tyler Browder, Stephen Clower, Paul LeMaire, and RJ Regenold. It had taken John many months and dozens of slurpees to convince his friends that the senior class cruise wouldn't be a haven for sin but rather, adventure.
  "I don't see anyone we know." Paul whispered.
  Just as Paul spoke, a tall man in a tux came up to the five.
  "Mes amis, may I show you to your room?"
  "But of course, Monseur." RJ said politely.
  As the Frenchman showed the group to their room, they waved at Lauren Wick, Jessica Castro, Katie Reynolds, and Nicole Taylor, who were walking toward their own room further down the deck.
  "I still wish Genevieve could have come." RJ reflected.
  "Eh she had chronic fearsindrome." Paul replied. "Leigh was deported! How do you think I feel?"
  "Like a guy on a ship full of beautiful girls." Tyler said slyly.
  Paul's eyes lit up and gave Tyler a high five.
  "Score!" Both shouted.
  "Your room, mes amis." The Frenchman said and nodded toward a room at the end of the narrow corridor. "If vous voudriez anything, let us know, s'il vous plait."
  "Thank you, Jacques." RJ declared.
  "I am Jacques Jean-Paul de le Mouton!" The man said proudly. "I bid you: "au revoir"!"
  Paul and RJ exchanged amused looks and then followed John and Stephen into their room to unpack.

  Lauren and Jessica laid their suitcases down on their beds and began to unpack.
  "There'd better be a lot of hot guys here. It's summer, and I'm ready to have some fun!" Lauren whined as she unpacked her fifteen pairs of shoes.
  "Lauren, why did you bring all those shoes anyways?" Jessica asked. "We're only going to be here for a week."
  "Well, these are my flip flops that go with my red outfit. These are the doc's that go with my punk outfit..." Lauren began rambling as Jessica turned and quickly left the room to go check on Nicole and Katie.

  As she walked down the breezeway, she thought she saw a shadowy figure behind her. But when she turned around to look, no one was there.
  "Hey, Lauren!" Jessica called out, but with no response.
  When she walked back into the room, Lauren wasn't there. A bit confused, Jessica strolled down the corridor once more to Nicole and Katie's cabin.

  Inside, Nicole was shaving her back.
  "Hey ya got shag carpeting now." Jessica laughed dementedly and fwopped Nicole on the head. "Have either of you seen Lauren?"
  Both shook their heads.
  "Eww, Nicole, you're shedding again!" Katie scowled.
  "Don't make me bust a cap, lil' white girl!" Nicole said, standing up.
  "I taller than you, shorty!" Katie raised a fist.
  Jessica just laughed psychotically and left the room in search of Lauren.

  On the upper deck, John, Stephen, Tyler, Paul, and RJ were gazing down at the ocean below.
  "It's like a blue majestic thing," RJ said quietly, "forever does it stuff with some things in places where objects can do something."
  "That was odd." Paul laughed. "Hey, there goes Lauren with some Italian."
  "Maybe it's one of those dudes from the Macaroni Grill Commercials," John said excitedly, "or Machiavelli!"
  "That was sixteenth century, stupid." Stephen said dryly.
  "You're stupid!" John shot back.
  "John, come up with a clever come-back for once." RJ declared.
  "No, you're stupid!" John whirled on RJ.
  "I give up." RJ turned just as Lauren came running to meet them.

  Without a word, she threw her arms around Tyler's neck and panted with exhaustion.
  "Lauren, I've got a wife and kids." Tyler said quickly.
  "Wife and kids?" Paul asked, awestruck.
  "There's something weird going on." Lauren whispered. "I saw a shady character eating a mango and followed him. He met someone in the bathroom and came out with a briefcase that smelled like egg nog."
"Wife and kids?" Paul asked, awestruck.
  "Did he have an eye-patch and dress in black?" Stephen asked.
  "Yes," Lauren replied, "and he wore sunglasses and reeked of smoke and cologne."
  "Wife and kids?" Paul asked, awestruck.
  "Clearly there's more to the picture." John speculated. "I know this, for I am in charge of the plot."
  "What are they up to?!" Lauren shook John violently.
  "Hey you leave a bruise, and I'm having you meet with an unfortunate accident!" John threatened.
  Reluctantly, Lauren composed herself and looked up as Jessica ran past, hitting Katie in the head with a large pillow. Without another word to the guys, she sprinted off after her friends.

  Lauren caught up with Jessica and Katie out by the pool.
  "Where is Nicole?" She asked.
  "She's still shaving her back." Katie replied. "It should be another hour or so before she can get down here. Go change, come back and enjoy the nice scenery of males."
  "How could I resist an offer like that?" Lauren laughed as she ran off to her room to go get changed.
  As she got to her hall, she quickly remembered Jessica had the only key. But when she came to the door, she noticed that she didn't need her key the door was already open. Quietly, Lauren pushed the door open and noticed a shadowy figure frantically going through her drawers. She hurriedly came up behind the figure and knocked them to the ground. The figure landed with a loud oomph on the floor and immediately tried to get back to its feet, but Lauren was too quick. She swiftly landed a punch to the figure's chest, knocking it back to the floor. She forcefully stepped onto its chest and scowled down at the intruder with contempt.
  "Speak and tell me who you are!" Lauren demanded.
  "La-la-Lauren... You're hurting me!"
  "Paul?!" Lauren asked as she pulled him to his feet. "What were you doing in my room?"
  "I was looking for unmentionables." Paul confessed.
  Lauren seized him around the throat.
  "For your sake, I hope you didn't find any." She said in a low tone.
  Paul nodded. Reluctantly, she released him, and he fled out the door like a French soldier.

  Back at the pool, Tyler and RJ were chatting it up with Katie and Jessica. Stephen was in their cabin programming, while John was off eating all the cheese he could find. Presently, RJ was skimming over a newspaper.
  "Hey, there's another Communist Convention going down this weekend." He said absent-mindedly.
  "Oo, in Beijing?" Tyler asked.
  "Nah, it's in Havana." RJ replied and threw the newspaper at Jessica's head.
  "So you say Nicole's really hairy?" Tyler asked.
  "Yeah." Katie laughed, winking at a burly lumberjack. "She has to shave twice a day."
  "That's disgusting." RJ remarked. "Even I'm not hairy."
  With that, he wripped off his shirt.

  Lauren poked him in the side.
  "Nice ribs." She laughed and sat down next to Jessica. "Any cute guys?"
  "You mean besides me?" Tyler smiled and pulled off his shirt, exposing his white white belly.
  "Ewwww," Lauren recoiled, "Browder, put it back on."
  Ignoring her, Tyler sat down next to RJ and watched as Katie and a tall Italian went off together.

  Lauren was about to comment on the new couple when John came up to them still carrying a platter full of cheese cubes.
  "Is that yours?" Tyler asked.
  "It was just sitting there on the buffet, so I figure I'd help myself." John explained.
  "John, you're not supposed to take those." RJ pointed out.
  "So that's why everyone was chasing me!" John said indignantly.
  As if on cue, I say this because it was, several dozen angry individuals suddenly rushed onto the pool deck.

  Lauren just pointed at John and laughed.
  "Looks like you better get running." She smiled.
  John sighed angrily and, being the bright one that he was, ran in the opposite direction with the tray.
  "Five bucks says he doesn't make it to the stairs." Tyler said, turning to RJ.
  "You're on, Browder."
  "That's a bet I wouldn't take." Jessica remarked. "Hey Lauren, let's go track Katie down."
  "What, you don't want any of this?" Tyler stood up and shoook his belly.
  Both Lauren and Jessica screamed girlishly and fled in terror.
  "And you have a girl friend?" RJ asked, bewildered.

  After some searching, Lauren and Jessica finally headed back to their cabin to freshen up, whatever that's supposed to mean. As they reached the door, both sensed that something was wrong. Jessica nodded to Lauren who put her ear up against the door. Inside, Lauren could hear quiet giggling. A bit confused, she turned to Jessica who just shrugged. She was about to knock again when the door began to open.

  Looking somewhat flushed but composed, stood the Italian man Katie had left with at the pool. Nodding politely, he smiled at Jessica and Lauren and made his way down the corridor.

  As the two entered their cabin, they found Katie lying sprawled on one of the beds. She hardly seemed to notice them. She appeared just as flushed as her Italian companion with a pleasant smile across her face.
  "Katie!" Jessica leapt on the bed next to her friend. "What happened?"
  "Oh nothing." Katie giggled. "Vinnie was just..."
  "Leaning your tower?" Lauren asked.
  Katie just smiled and began giggling girlishly again.
  While Lauren looked amused, Jessica's normal laid-back demeanor suddenly hardened.
  "Damn it, Katie! We've only been on this cruise for two hours, and you've already... channeled the canals."
  "So what?" Katie said, getting to her feet. "I'm just enjoying myself. So what if I had the manicotti before the calzone?"
  "Could you have at least waited till our first night of drinking?" Jessica said, frustrated.
  "I suppose," Katie stretched, "but after sampling the cuisine, I need a nap."
  Lauren and Jessica nodded.
  "Let's all get some rest." Lauren said as she lie down, and then cast her friends a devious smile. "We'll need our energy for tonight."

  Stephen looked up as Paul walked in.
  "Where are the others?" Stephen asked.
  "John's being attacked by a mob, and RJ and Browder are off calling their womens in the media lounge."
  "Isn't that like two dollars a minute?"
  "Yeah, but they're whipped so, in RJ'S words, "you can't put a price on love"."
  "Yes you can!" Stephen laughed.
  "I know, I know." Paul sighed and sat down on his bunk.
  "So why aren't you with them?" Stephen asked after a slight pause.
  "Well, I called Leigh in Belize where she apparently had been deported to, and apparently she's "fallen in love" with a Panamanian fishermen apparently."
  "Ewww, that's rough, man."
  Paul nodded, though he knew full well that Stephen couldn't see it.

  Suddenly there was a desperate pounding on the door.
  "Open up, you guys!" John shouted from outside. "This isn't a drill! Emergency!"
  "What's the secret pass-word?" Paul shouted back.
  "Flipper!"
  Paul again nodded to no one and opened the door.

  John threw himself into the room and slammed the door hard behind him. As the door slammed shut, Paul could clearly see that the mob that had chased John across the pool deck was right behind him.
  "Man that was close!" John panted and sank down on one of the bunks. "They were threatening to throw me from the Fiesta Deck."
  "It's only been three hours, and people are already out for your blood." Stephen laughed.
  "Still better than last time." Paul sighed.
  "If the people didn't want me taking the cheese, they shouldn't've put so much of it in one spot." John protested.
  "Hey, it's about time for dinner." Paul said, standing up. "We're supposed to meet the girls at 6:00 outside Chez Maison."
  "Oh la la. Avec de la crevette, j'observerai les mots de mon coeur sur les levres des femmes." John said in his horrible French accent.
  "And people wonder why he's single." Stephen remarked and followed Paul out into the hallway.

  Lauren sighed with frustration. The guys should've met them fifteen minutes ago. Mumbling to herself, she made her way to the media lounge. As she suspected, RJ and Tyler were both at two of the phone booths. If they thought she intended to wait on them, they had another thing coming.

  Smiling slyly, she slid the door open to RJ'S phone booth and put an arm around his neck.
  "Oh RJ, come back to our room!" She shouted into the phone.
  It amazed Lauren just how quickly RJ'S complection turned snow white.
  "Lauren, what are you doing!" He shouted, as best he could.
  "RJ, I'm so lonely! Come back to our cabin so we can continue our---"
  "Gen, I'll call you back." RJ said quickly and hung up the phone.
  "That's what you get for keeping us waiting!" Lauren shouted.
  "I have nothing to say to you." RJ said bitterly.
  "But you just said something to me." Lauren smiled.
  "Lauren, if Genevieve breaks up with me because of you, I'll..."
  "You'll what!" Lauren growled, catching RJ in a headlock.
  "I'll... I'll get Browder to throw you in the pool."
  "That's what I thought." She said, releasing him. "I'll talk to Genevieve after dinner. Don't worry."
  RJ was still angry, but he was satisfied with Lauren's statement and followed her to Chez Maison.

  Paul punched John in the arm.
  "Hurry up and order." He said impatiently.
  John hit Paul with the menu and turned to their Bolivian waiter, Carlos Mesa.
  "I believe I will have the escargot ala carte with a double order of creme des moutons."
  "Excellent choice, sir. And for you ladies?"
  "We'll each go with the international salad, with extra soy sauce on the side." Katie replied.
  "You all are getting the same thing?" Tyler asked, a bit confused.
  "It would take too long to write out, I mean read out, all our orders individually." Jessica pointed out.
  "That's true." Paul agreed.
  "So where'd Nicole run off to?" Stephen asked.
  "She's got bad gas." Lauren explained. "I don't think we'll ever get that smell out of our cabin."
  "Too many fajitas, eh?" John laughed.
  Katie and Jessica nodded.
  "So Paul," Lauren began, "why did Leigh get deported?"
  "It's a long story." Paul sighed.
  "And this isn't?" Stephen pointed out. "Come on, John's already on page six. Might as well add a page or two."
  Paul nodded.

  "It all started a couple years ago in Indonesia. Leigh was visiting her uncle in Surabaya. One day, Abdurrahman Wahid, the former president of Indonesia, saw her out in an out-door market and made a pass at her. Leigh shouted expletives at him and belted Wahid in the turban, sending the former head of state to the hospital for several days."

  "Well at this same time, President Bush was negotiating the transfer of Amrozi bin Nurhasyim and Imam Samudra, two top lieutenants in Gemaah Islamiyah, a terrorist group with ties to al-Qaeda, into United States custody. As it happened, Abdurrahman Wahid was one of the key diplomats involved in those negotiations. And out of anger over the incident with Leigh, the Indonesian government withdrew their offer. And for unknowingly sabotaging the negotiations, Leigh was deported to Belize as a result."

  "Wait a minute, Paul. If this were all true, why was she just recently shipped off?" John asked.
  "You know how our bureaucratic judicial system is. The case took two and a half years to finalize." Paul replied.
  "Lousy bureaucrats." Stephen murmured.
  "Yeah well, what you gonna do." Tyler sighed and kicked Katie's leg.
  "Hey, you wanna start something, Browder?" She said, kicking him back.
  "Oh it's on now!" Tyler shouted back and commenced kicking his feet wildly.
  It didn't take long for him to kick Jessica and Lauren, and for Jessica and Lauren to retaliate, getting John, Stephen, and Paul into the altercation. Within about five seconds, there was an all-out foot war going down. RJ just held his head in his hands and, at that moment, wished he were anywhere else but there.

  The night progressed quite nicely after the foot incident. RJ and Tyler debated about the advances of Austrian botany during the seventeenth century, John and Stephen talked with the girls about prospective colleges, and Paul did his best to drop suggestive innuendoes whenever he saw an opportunity.

  By about 11:30, it was almost midnight. Stephen, Tyler and RJ headed over to the media lounge to spend another hundred dollars on phone calls. Lauren went with RJ to go apologize to Genevieve for the incident earlier that night. Nicole went back to her cabin to shave. Katie had gone off with Carlos, and Jessica was ready to call it a night. This of course left John and Paul with nothing to do.

  After they'd discussed the numerous reasons why the Democratic party had become a shadow of its former self, a Peruvian woman walked up to them.
  "Could you two help me? The lock on my door is stuck."
  "Couldn't the management take care of that?" John asked.
  "They can't." The woman replied. "Most of them have gone to bed for the night, and the ones that haven't are over there dancing with that friend of yours."
  Paul sighed and stood up.
  "We'll do what we can." He said politely.
  The woman smiled and led them both out of Chez Maison.

  After Lauren had assured Genevieve that she had no romantic interest in RJ, she decided to head for the Fiesta Deck to pick up some guys. With luck, she could track down that Italian that Katie had bagged earlier that afternoon. As she reached the deck, she found Katie, clearly inebriated, flirting with their Bolivian waiter and two Colombian men.
  "Katie, what are you doing?" Lauren whispered harshly.
  "Oh and who is your friend here?" One of the Colombian men winked at Lauren.
  "Oh, this, this is Lauren." Katie slurred. "She-she is the greatest person-the greatest person that I've ever met ever. She's so great, that she could do anything she put her mind against."
  "Would you care to dance, Chica?" The second Colombian smiled at Lauren.
  "But I don't even know your name." Lauren said with a wink.
  "Oh of course, where are my Colombian manners." The Colombian grinned and put an arm around Lauren's waist. "I am Enrique Olaya Herrera."
  Lauren politely returned the smile and allowed herself to be escorted to the dance floor. What did she have to lose?

  After talking with Kera until about 1:30, Tyler was ready to call it a night. There was a wild party up on the Fiesta Deck, but he was too tired even for that. As it was, he had a full schedule tomorrow: wake up at 7:00, call Kera at 7:15, have breakfast, call Kera, shop for Kera, write a song for Kera, call Kera and play the song he wrote for Kera...

  John suddenly came charging at Tyler and nearly knocked him flat.
  "John, what's wrong!" Tyler demanded. "I was busy thinking about Kera!"
  "It's Paul." John said quickly. "We were helping some Venezuelan woman--"
  "Peruvian woman." Tyler corrected.
  "Are you sure?"
  Tyler pulled a packet out of his pants.
  "Let's see." Tyler murmured as he began flipping through the pages. "Yep. Says right here about two-thirds the way down page seven: "After they'd discussed the numerous reasons why the Democratic party had become a shadow of its former self, a Peruvian woman walked up to them.""
  "Touché." John replied. "But anyway. We went with her back to her cabin, and you know Paul. He just had to go for it. But before he'd even gotten that far, we were jumped by a band of Mongolians, and Paul was dragged away."
  "Rousy Mongorians, arways tearing down my city wall!" A Chinese man ranted as he ran past.
  "So how did you escape?" Tyler wondered.
  "What are ya kidding? I knew the ambush was coming." John laughed. "It is my story after all."
  "But if you knew it was coming, why didn't you warn Paul?" Tyler asked.
  "Because that wouldn't make this story very interesting." John replied. "Now look. We need to keep quiet about this. If Paul's captors know we're looking for them, they may get desperate and subject Paul to poking or worse... Pinching!"
  "I ain't scared of no Mongolians." Tyler said defiantly.
  "Me either!" RJ shouted, running up to them. "I'm only scared of large men, fire, drowning, John Kerry, truck drivers, dentists, feminists, and the teletubbies!"
  "Dah!" John and Tyler both screamed.
  "Dang it, RJ. Now I'm gonna have nightmares!" John said indignantly.
  "Look, we're all real imitable right now. Wait, irritable, not immitable." Tyler exclaimed. "Let's just go get some rest, and hopefully Paul will still be alive tomorrow morning."
  John and RJ nodded in agreement.

  Paul opened his eyes to find himself tied to a chair. A dark man in an even darker suit held a pistol in one hand. In spite of the gun, Paul gave the man a puzzled look. This was neither one of the Mongolians who'd attacked him nor their Bolivian waiter, nor one of the shady Italians the girls were after.
  "Don't move!" The man said in a deep voice.
  "Who are you?" Paul asked.
  "I am Thabo Mbeki from South Africa." The man replied.
  "Dang, what are you guys, the politically correct militia?" Paul laughed. "Do you have two Albanians with knives and a Korean with a machete? You know you should really go talk to the UN. They'd love you guys."
  With that, Mbeki slammed his fist into Paul's jaw, knocking Paul so hard that the chair toppled backwards. As Paul felt his lip beginning to swell, he couldn't help but laugh inwardly. A criminal's worst nightmare was a hostage who had spine.

  Just then, Paul heard a door open. He heard a second voice say something in a foreign tongue to his African captor. After a moment, Paul was set upright and looking into the face of a greasy Colombian.
  "Buena muerte, Senor LeMaire." The man smiled cunningly. "My name is Alvaro Uribe. Welcome to my headquarters."
  "Your headquarters is a crewman's cabin aboard a cruise liner?" Paul winced as Mbeki slugged him again.
  "There is spirit in this one, eh Thabo?" Uribe laughed. "Though I believe Mr. LeMaire will soon cooperate quite readily with us soon enough."
  "I'll never help you vermin!" Paul said defiantly. "Primarily because, because, because... I have no idea what it is you do exactly."
  "That need not concern you, Senor Stupid." Uribe said angrily. "Bring her in!"

  Paul looked over toward the doorway and gasped as a second Colombian and one of the Mongolians dragged Lauren Wick into the room.
  "Paul!" Lauren screamed as she tried to break free.
  "Oh good. You two already know each other." Uribe said, closing the door quickly. "Senor LeMaire, I would like you to meet Enrique Olaya Herrera, and I believe you have already met Natsagiyn Bagabandi."
  Paul nodded.
  "Herrera, secure this lovely young lady securely. We still have much work to do."
  Pulling Lauren roughly to her feet, Enrique procured a second chair and, with Uribe and Bagabandi's assistance, tied Lauren down. As Herrera was tying her around the waist, Lauren suddenly lashed out at him with her high-heeled foot.
  "Ah!" Herrera leapt back in instantaneous anguish. "Alvaro, that perra kicked me in me bolas."
  "Come my friends." Uribe said, ignoring Enrique's moans. "Destiny awaits us. And if you two think you can escape, Mbeki here will be just outside the door if you should need anything."
  Uribe clapped the African on the back and motioned for Herrera, Bagabandi, and Mbeki to follow him.

  Once they were gone, Lauren's face turned bright red. Paul quickly wished his hands weren't tied, because it didn't take long for Lauren to let out a string of curses that would make even the orneriest of sailors uncomfortable.
  "How did you get caught up in this?" Paul asked.
  "I don't know!" Lauren scowled. "Enrique and I were just dancing the night away. Katie had passed out on the floor, so we carried her back to our cabin. We went back to the Fiesta Deck to have a few drinks and got to talking. I mentioned that I was a Republican, and suddenly Enrique said he had to go shake the dew off the lily. Ten minutes had passed, and I'd knocked back a few Donald Ducks when he came back with that Mongolian thug of his, "Bag of Band-aids," or whatever his name was. Next thing I know, I'm being carried out of the bar like a deranged mental patient."
  "There's definitely something big going on here." Paul concluded. "John and I were bashing Democrats for hours. One of them must have heard us and thought we posed a threat. That's why we were attacked earlier."
  "If you were both attacked, then where's John?" Lauren asked.
  "Oh he was a coward and ran away." Paul frowned. "But chances are he's told the others, and they're trying to figure this thing out."
  "I'm sure he'll figure this out." Lauren replied. "It is his story after all."
  Paul sighed.
  "Knowing John, he'd find a way to keep from catching on, despite the fact that he's writing every word of this."
  "Hey now, he didn't right every word. John and I traded off on the first three pages." Lauren pointed out.
  "Ah, true," Paul agreed, "but we're on page ten now. So you haven't contributed anything in almost thirty paragraphs. THIRTY!!"
  "Paul, I swear if I weren't tied up, I'd slap you." Lauren said harshly.
  "Yeah yeah yeah." Paul laughed. "But you can't, so there."
  Suddenly there was a pounding on the door.
  "You two, keep it down!" Mbeki shouted.
  "Oh yeah?" Paul smiled deviously. "Well you know what, Mtrekkie? Mandela may have been a great president, but his old age has transformed him into a senile old pachyderm!"
  Lauren winced as Thabo began shouting at them in a native African Xhosa dialect.
  "If that man comes in here and murders us, I'll kill you." Lauren threatened.
  Paul nodded, but couldn't help laughing as Thabo Mbeki continued shouting.

  Katie woke up with a pounding headache. Five Jack Danielseses and a personal pizza had been a big mistake. Trudging over to the bathroom, she splashed water on her face to wake herself up. After a few minutes, she at least felt alert, but her head still felt like John Kerry's presidential campaign. She really needed to stop going on these nightly benders.

  Katie was about to lie back down and catch some much-needed rest, when she noticed Lauren wasn't in her bunk. Typically she'd assume Lauren was out partying till the break of noon. But for some reason, Katie suspected something was wrong.
  "Jessica, wake up!" Katie whispered, poking Jessica in the side with a Pepsi bottle.
  "Oh no, Peter. Just five more minutes." Jessica moaned.
  "Jessica Valdez Miguela Castro!" Katie shouted.
  "I swear I didn't eat the preschoolers' graham crackers!" Jessica said quickly, bolting upright in bed. "Katie, what's wrong?"
  "Lauren still isn't back." Katie explained. "I think something happened to her."
  "Well duh!" Jessica scoffed. "She probably found some handsome Danish man to go gambling with."
  "Like Anders Fogh Hasmussen?" Katie gasped.
  Jessica nodded and reached over to the nightstand to check the time.
  "It's 7:00 now." She said finally, getting to her feet. "At the very least, I could go for a jog up on the Lunar Deck. Should we wake Nicole?"
  Katie almost laughed.
  "You remember what happened the last time we woke Nicole up before 9:00 in the morning?"
  Jessica nodded.
  "I've still got the scar." She replied.
  Nodding in agreement, Katie handed Jessica a pair of pants, and together they made their way out into the corridor.

  John stretched as he sat up in bed. Crap! He'd forgotten he was on the bottom bunk. Doing his best to stifle the sudden string of expletives that immediately came to mind, John got to his feet and stumbled around in the dark until he found his suitcase. After he'd taken a quick shower, John found that RJ was up as well. After RJ had gotten a shower of his own, the two headed to the Fiesta Deck to grab some breakfast.

  As they sat down at a table on the far side of Chez Petit Dejeuner, an olive-skinned waiter approached them.
  "Five bucks says he's Greek." John whispered.
  "I say he's from Cyprus." RJ challenged.
  "You're on!" John whispered as the waiter reached their table.
  "Good morning, gentlemen. I am Tassos Papadopoulos, I will be your waiter this morning. Now what can I get you two?"
  RJ glanced over the menu quickly.
  "I think I will have the garden salad with a Dr. Pepper." RJ said after a moment.
  John gave RJ a disgusted look.
  "Very good choice, Sir." The waiter nodded and turned to John. "And for you?"
  "I will go with some creme de crevette, an order of nachos, and some coffee."
  RJ recoiled slightly.
  "Excellent choice, my friend." Papadopoulos said, taking both of their menus. "I'll be back with your breakfast shortly."
  As Tassos walked off, John suddenly went even whiter than normal.
  "John, what's wrong? Is that macaroni and fudge acting up on you again?" RJ laughed.
  "No." John whispered and gestured behind RJ. "Over there, about four tables back."
  RJ looked over his shoulder.
  "What am I looking for?" RJ asked, utterly confused by this point.
  "One of the guys that jumped me and Paul last night." John explained. "He must be trying to track me down."
  "Wait a second." RJ looked puzzled. "If you're legally blind, how could you possibly see that Mongolian? Or out-run two-dozen cheese enthusiasts? Or... Or..."
  "Or read a menu?" John suggested.
  "Or read a menu!" RJ replied.
  Ignoring the subtle yet obvious inconsistency in his own character, John scowled at the distant Mongolian.
  "There has to be some kind of conspiracy afoot." John continued. "Something Paul and I had said last night must've made these people a little uneasy."
  "What were you two talking about?" RJ asked.
  "Oh, just the usual stuff:" John replied, "the Democrats' own double standards about freedom of speech, John Edwards' Hippocratic speeches, the prevailing moral breakdown of our society thanks to politically correct hippie attorneys."
  Quickly, John glanced around them. He thought he saw one pale-faced man wince when he looked at him, but he couldn't tell for sure.
  "Hold on a second." RJ exclaimed. "Why don't you just solve this whole conspiracy right now? You already wrote the story. You know what's gonna happen."
  John pulled out a stack of papers entitled "The Cruise" and flipped through the pages until he came to the bottom of page twelve.
  "See?" He said, handing the packet to RJ. "I just make the story up as I go along. That whole planning things out with storyboards is just crap."
  "Wow, awesome!" RJ'S eyes lit up with excitement. "I can see what I say! Sweet!"
  "I know, isn't it great?" John sighed and grabbed the packet from RJ. "But seriously, we need to find Paul."
  RJ nodded solemnly.
  "So do you think they're affiliated with some sort of left-wing movement back in the states?" RJ asked.
  "It seems that way," John agreed, "but why would they be on a cruise liner?"
  "I'm sure I don't know." RJ replied. "Say, what's this cruise's destination anyway?"
  "Ah crap!" John hit himself in the head. "I knew there was something I'd forgotten. Well since the orchestra cruise went to Cozamel, I assume that's where my subconscious has in mind for our destination."
  "Wow, your subconscious is predictable." RJ remarked.
  "At least mine thinks about something besides Genevieve." John shot back.
  "Hey when you get a girl friend, we'll talk." RJ said, raising his voice.
  ""Oh Genevieve, I'll wait by the phone for you, my love"." John said in a high-pitched voice.
  ""Oo look, I'm John. I've been single for twenty years. I'm gonna marry a hurricane!" RJ patronized.
  "Oh that does it!" John lunged across the table and punched RJ in the face.
  RJ shoved John as hard as he could, sending John into a party of uptight Japanese businessman.
  "Jou crumsy Amelicans!" One of the men jumped up and karate chopped John in the back of the head.
  Leaping over the table, RJ lashed out at the oriental as John got to his feet.

  After a few more moments, an all-out brawl ensued. Although both RJ and John were expert swordsmen and advanced students in the secret art of the bouzouki, they didn't fair too well against a half dozen Japanese suit-sportin' samurai. It wasn't long before the two had been knocked unconscious.

  Katie paced down the corridor apprehensively. They'd scoured the entire ship and had found no sign of Lauren. As wild as she could be, Lauren was never out partying this late. Katie knew something was wrong. And by the haunted expression on her face, she knew Jessica agreed.
  "Katie, pacing won't help anything." Jessica declared.
  "You're right." Katie sighed and sat down on the still-sleeping Nicole. "I guess we might as well go get some breakfast."
  "Can't worry on an empty stomach." Jessica said sarcastically.
  "Hey Nicole, you up for some food?" Katie said loudly and tapped Nicole on the back of her head.
  Groaning, Nicole got to her feet, Katie still on her back. Lifting Katie to her shoulders, Nicole pitched her fellow Texas Longhorn across the cabin. With a horrific crash, Katie went headfirst into the grove of suitcases that lay at the far end of the room. After a few tense moments, Katie sat up, cradling her head. Jessica ran over to her fallen friend and gingerly pulled Katie's arms away from her face.

  Katie just smiled up at Jessica and jumped to her feet.
  "That was so awesome!" She squealed. "Nicole, do that again!"
  Nicole sighed and laid back down. Jessica laughed and poked Nicole in the side.
  "We'll bring you back another fajita." Jessica smiled.
  Nodding to Katie, they headed out the door and toward the Fiesta Deck.

  It didn't take them long to notice the commotion up on deck. A crowd of passengers packed the stairs leading up to the Fiesta Deck. The two tried taking an elevator, but two crewmen blocked their path. Jessica grabbed one of them by the arm.
  "What's going on?" She asked.
  "There was a fight up in Chez Petit Dejeuner." The woman explained. "We have strict orders to keep all passengers off the Fiesta Deck until the situation has been dealt with."
  ""Dealt with"?" Katie repeated. "Was it serious?"
  "I don't know, Ma'am." The woman replied. "Those are my orders."
  Katie and Jessica nodded and moved away.

  As they did, they caught sight of a small medical team slowly navigating through the crowds. After another few moments, Katie and Jessica saw that two gurneys were being wheeled toward the guarded elevator.
  "Katie!" Jessica gasped. "That's John and RJ!"
  Katie leaned forward to get a better look and nodded solemnly.
  "We need to get to the sickbay." Katie said after a moment.
  Nodding slightly, Jessica turned and followed the procession toward the sickbay.

  Paul opened his eyes and shook his head warily. His muscles ached. His face still stung with the after-effects of Thabo Mbeki's attack. He really had to drop the kids off at the pool, and he had only dozed off for maybe five minutes the entire night. Across the room, Lauren's cheeks were flushed from tears of frustration.

  Paul was about to try and console his violalumni when their old African friend entered the room. With him were Enrique Herrera, Natsagiyn Bagabandi, and another Mongolian. With Thabo's assistance, the three crinimals wheeled two gurneys into the small cabin. Both John and RJ were tied down securely and were unconscious.
  "John, RJ!" Paul gasped.
  "Why is it that you know all of these people?" Herrera asked.
  "Meh, I'm just that popular." Paul replied
  "So whose this grease monkey?" Lauren said dryly, nodding slightly toward the second Mongolian.
  "Oh how rude of me." Herrera turned to his companions. "Hostages, meet Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj. Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj, meet the hostages."
  "Can't you Mongolians have normal names?" Paul asked.
  "You're worse than the Russians." John said weakly from the gurney.
  "You take that back!" Bagabandi shouted, drawing a knife.
  "No, Natsagiyn." Herrera said firmly. "We still have work to do."
  "Hey, I gotta go potty!" Paul shouted.
  The foreigners all sighed collectively. At that moment, Enrique was glad he was higher up on the ladder.
  "Thabo, Tsakhiagiyn, escort him to the lavatory." Herrera said sharply. "Bagabandi and myself will stand guard in case you three try anything."
  When they had gone, Lauren scowled at John.
  "John, only you could get taken hostage in your own story." She exclaimed.
  "Hey, it was your story, too." John replied.
  "Only till page three." Lauren shot back.
  "Dang, how long is this?" RJ asked.
  "Hmmmmm," John thought for a moment, which was difficult to say the least, "we're working on page fifteen."
  "So why'd you two get beaten up?" Lauren asked.
  "We were mocking each other and collided with some ninjas." RJ explained.
  "John, what is it with you and ninjas?" Lauren sighed and winked at RJ.
  RJ shuddered uneasily and avoided eye contact.

  After a few tense moments, Paul was brought back in.
  "And stay in there!" Thabo shouted and tossed a bound and gagged Paul LeMaire into the cabin.
  "What'd you tie him up for?" RJ near-shouted.
  "He kept singing that stupid Jewel song." Elbegdorj explained.
  "And his odors were quite offensive," Mbeki added.
  Lauren stifled a laugh as the dynamic duo of dumb resumed their posts outside the door.

  Katie ducked back into the alcove where she and Jessica were hiding. They'd tracked John and RJ to a room on one of the lower decks. This part of the ship was reserved for the lower-ranked crewmen. Quarters were often empty, since the grunt work of the ship was a full-time undertaking.

  Since John and RJ had been brought in some ten minutes earlier, they'd waited for an opportunity to go in and find out what was going on. But at any given moment, there were always at least two men standing by the door. Katie recognized one of them as Enrique Herrera, one of the Colombians she'd had drinks with last night. She was about to run up to him and bid him good morning, but Jessica held her back, for her Bogotan beau was sporting a pistol.

  After a few more minutes of waiting for a window of opportunity, it became clear that such a window would not be forthcoming. Carefully, Katie and Jessica slipped down the darkened corridor back the way they'd come and didn't stop until they'd reached the media lounge.
  "Katie, I'm scared!" Jessica blurted out. "For all we know, Lauren's being held in there along with John and RJ."
  "You're probably right." Katie sighed and clutched her head. "Damn it. I shouldn't've had so much to drink last night! Maybe I could remember something about those damn Colombians if I hadn't drunk myself stupid."

  A hand grabbed Katie by the arm. She tried to scream, but a second hand closed over her mouth. It was then that she realized the media lounge was empty. Craning her neck, Katie saw that a second man had a hold of Jessica.
  "Don't struggle." The man behind her said sternly. "We don't want to hurt you."
  Katie heard Jessica grunt and then her captor scream in an unmanly way.
  "Ay Vinnie, that broad just kicked me in the cannolies!" He shouted.
  Scratching at his face, Jessica kicked him again and made a break for it. Katie was about to try a similar tactic when she was suddenly swept off her feet.

  Despite her desperate situation, Katie gasped in astonishment. Her captor was the very same Italian who'd alfredoed her Fettuccini the day before. Holding her tightly, the man turned to his companion.
  "Let her go." He said sharply. "We just need one of them."
  "But Vinnie, what if she squeals?"
  "She won't." Vinnie replied. "Now let's go. By now, the passengers have figured out that meeting we called was a phony."
  The second man nodded and led the way to a dark maintenance elevator.

  After the doors had closed, Vinnie put Katie down.
  "What do you want with me?" Katie asked softly.
  "I like you, kid." Vinnie replied. "And when the action starts, I don't want you getting hurt."
  "What action? Who are you people?"
  Vinnie's expression hardened.
  "My name is Vinnie Castaluccio, and this is Antonio Devachi." Vinnie said coldly. "We're part of the International Community of People who Don't Talk Good but Know Every Country Needs to be Equal, No Matter What Organization."
  "Not the ICPDTGKECNEO!" Katie gasped.
  "We really need to work on that name." Antonio remarked.
  "Hey, isn't it stupid to openly tell me all this?" Katie pointed out.
  "Ay, this here's a story, not a novel." Devachi replied.
  Vinnie nodded.
  "besides we plan to keep you with us for a long time." The Italian smiled slyly.
  Katie couldn't help but blush a bit. Perhaps being a hostage wouldn't be so bad after all.

  "Ok, Lauren take the first tenor vocal, RJ take the second, and Paul, go with the baritone." John instructed.
  His friends nodded.
  "Wait, what key are we in?" Paul asked.
  "A-flat." John replied.
  "Oh ok."
  "When this old world starts getting me down, and people are just too much, for me to face."
  "Up on the roof," Paul, RJ, and Lauren harmonized.
  "I climb way up to the top of the stairs, and all my cares just drift, right into-"
  "Ay, don't make me come in there, patos!" Herrera shouted from outside.
  "Space!" The quartette continued.
  "On the roof, it's peaceful as can be," John paused, "and there below, the world can't bother me."
  "Shut up!" Mbeki shouted, pounding on the door.
  "What, don't you like the Drifters!?" Paul shouted back.
  "Let me tell you now! The Drifters were only good with Clyde McPhatter." Herrera exclaimed.
  "And now he's dead." John laughed.
  Gritting his teeth angrily, Mbeki charged into the room. Seizing John by the throat, the African unfastened the straps to the gurney and hurled everyone's favorite pogo star across the cabin.

  John rushed forward and caught Mbeki squarely in the chest with his abnormally large foot.
  "You should've left me on the gurney!" John smiled.
  Herrera shoved Mbeki aside and pulled out a pistol and pointed it at John's head.
  "Enrique, you wouldn't!" Lauren gasped.
  "Oh wouldn't I?" Herrera scowled. "I'm Colombian, remember?"
  "What is it with you Colombians and shooting people?" RJ asked casually.
  "Shut up!" Enrique shouted. "Senor Clower, I bow to your greatness, for that is what you wrote for me to say. But despite your pogo abilities and grotesquely sized feet, you and your friends have medalled in our affairs for the last time."
  "Wanna bet?" RJ snickered.
  Mbeki glowered down at RJ and struck him a fearsome blow to the jaw.
  "Why is it so important that you keep us here?" Paul asked. "If you want the ship, just take it. Half of you seem to be crewmen already. Taking hostages will only make things more difficult in the end."
  "You think this is about this damn ship?" Mbeki said indignantly and then moved beside Herrera. "This is about uniting the nations of the world together, about bringing in a new era of peace and prosperity, about exchanging ideas and learning from our diverse cultures."
  "Ah, so you're a bunch of those new-world order hippies." Lauren remarked.
  "Look here, Mbalki," John said smugly, "world-wide peace is unattainable. The fact that Europe isn't beating the crap out of itself is a miracle. And just look at the Middle East. They just have to fight everyone. What makes you two socialists even begin to think that world peace is realistic?"
  Enrique took a step toward him.
  "The world just needs the right kind of leadership."
  "And I suppose your band of thugs would qualify as such a leadership?" RJ concluded.
  Mbeki and Herrera nodded.
  "You know, you two are really screwing yourselves over by telling us all of this." Lauren pointed out.
  "No need to worry." Herrera smiled as he put the pistol away. "You four won't be around long enough to blow the cover off our coffin of mystery."
  "Sweet, another cruise?" Paul's eyes lit up with excitement.
  "Oh, you might call it that." Mbeki snickered deviously.
  "Something tells me this won't end well." RJ said grimly.
  "I'd say that is a valid assumption." Uribe called from the doorway. "Herrera, Mbeki, all the preparations have been made."
  Simultaneously, Herrera and Mbeki turned to Alvaro and the two Mongolians.

  In that instant of opportunity, John reached over and unstrapped RJ from the gurney. Together, the two rushed their two captors. Caught off-guard, both Herrera and Mbeki went sprawling. Using his advanced computer skills, RJ was unable to do much of anything. John held Herrera down as best he could, while RJ pounded Mbeki in the face.
  "This is for punching me with my hands tied!" He shouted in un-RJ-LIKE fashion.
  After a moment, RJ looked up to see Uribe coming at him. Seizing everyone's favorite soccer star with one hand, Uribe pulled RJ off of Mbeki and shoved him hard.

  As he did this, Bagabandi and Elbegdorj leveled two hand-guns at John and RJ.
  "Mbeki, Herrera, untie the other two." Uribe said angrily.
  After getting back to their feet, the two grudgingly released Lauren and Paul.
  "Bagabandi, Elbegdorj, go with Herrera and Mbeki. See that our guests are properly dispensed with." Uribe said slyly.
  "It's about time you jokers did something cool." Lauren said sarcastically as Enrique hauled her to her feet.
  "Should we refry their beans?" Herrera asked.
  "Leave the stupid metaphors to the experts, Herrera." Paul remarked.
  "Take them to the Scott Deck and be rid of them!" Uribe shouted.
  At gunpoint, their four captors escorted John, Paul, RJ, and Lauren out into the corridor.

  Stephen stretched as he got up. It had been a long night, and he was ready for a nice, relaxing day. After all, he hadn't been mentioned since page seven! He was long overdue for some exposure in the plot. Glancing over, Stephen saw that Tyler was still asleep in the bunk nearby, clad in his typical night attire of Garfield boxers. Seizing his cane, Stephen chunked it at Tyler's head.
  "Hey, nerd!" Stephen groaned. "It's time to get back into the story."
  "Hey, I made it to page nine." Tyler said drowsily.
  "Oh wah wah wah." Jessica laughed.
  Both Tyler and Stephen leapt out of bed.
  "Nice boxers, Tyler." Jessica cackled in her almost-demonic way.
  "How'd you get in here!" Tyler demanded.
  Jessica smiled and jumped down from the top bunk.
  "Paul gave me a key." She explained.
  "Stupid Paul. Hey, where is everyone's favorite self-proclaimed Cajun sensation anyway?" Tyler asked, looking around.
  "I knew I'd forgotten something!" Jessica snapped her fingers. "John, RJ, Lauren, and-I suppose Paul as well, were taken hostage about six hours ago."
  "SIX HOURS!" Tyler and Stephen shouted.
  "How could something like that slip your mind for six hours?" Stephen snapped.
  "Oh yeah, and Katie was carried off by some gangsters." Jessica added.
  It was all Tyler could do to keep Steve from body-slamming everyone's favorite Mexican Avril.
  "Jess, go get Nicole and meet us on the Pool Deck." Tyler exclaimed.
  Jessica nodded and quickly left the cabin.

  As Jessica made her way toward her cabin, she heard the captain's voice come over the intercom.
  "Attention all passengers, this is your captain, Foki Nanna." The voice said calmly. "There is a small fire on one of the lower levels. There is no immediate danger to the ship. But as a precaution, would all hands please report to your designated emergency locations."
  Jessica turned in time to see Stephen and Tyler fall into step behind her. They stopped briefly as Jessica went into her cabin to get Nicole.
  "Nicole, stop shaving your back:" Jessica screamed. "There's a fire on the ship!"
  Quickly, Nicole threw on a nightgown and put a light jacket on over it.
  "Come on, you two!" Stephen said urgently. "I think I smell smoke."
  "That's not smoke. I'm just so hot that I'm smoking!" Tyler smiled and tore off his shirt.
  "Ewww, flab!" Jessica recoiled.
  Nicole pinched Tyler's belly and laughed as the four began making their way toward the life rafts.

  "Attention all passengers, this is your captain, Foki Nanna." The voice said calmly. "There is a small fire on one of the lower levels. There is no immediate danger to the ship. But as a precaution, would all hands please report to your designated emergency locations."
  Katie looked up at Vinnie as the captain's announcement was broadcast throughout the ship.
  "Shouldn't we get moving?" She asked.
  Vinnie just smiled at her.
  "There ain't no fire." Antonio replied. "It's just a way to get all the civilians out of the way."
  "But we're so far out in the Gulf. That's practically a death sentence." Katie protested.
  "Hey!" Vinnie shouted, grabbing Katie by the arm. "I had to pull a lot of strings with the boss to keep you from joining them."
  "We could've just shot them all, you know." Antonio added.
  Katie nodded sadly.

  Vinnie and Antonio slowed as a group of people approached. As they drew closer, Katie saw that it was John, Lauren, RJ, and Paul being held at gun-point by two Mongolians, an African, and her Bogotá beau, Enrique. Enrique handed the pistol to Antonio and stepped forward to address them all.
  "Hey, it's those Italians you girls were after." RJ declared.
  "Why is it that every guy you girls go after has to be part of an international conspiracy?" John asked.
  "Hey, girls like a bad boy." Lauren smiled.
  "That does it. I'm turning to a life of crime." Paul exclaimed.
  "Shut up!" Herrera barked. "Uribe will be here shortly. You know, you people could've made this a lot easier on yourselves had you not interfered."
  "What are you talking about!" John retorted. "All we were doing was bashing leftist hypocrites. Those guys with the funny names were the ones that came after us."
  Herrera's face turned bright red.
  "Your conservative views are interference enough!" He shouted. "And you shall join the rest of the passengers, forever to be stranded in the Gulf! Take them all to the Scott Deck, and see that not one passenger remains on this damned vessel."
  Katie looked up at Castaluccio.
  "Oh, mia ragazza," he sighed, "my heart weeps like a malnourished kangaroo. But alas i vostri seni bei must run free as the ripe and majestic antelope. Forever must your braccio di sinistra rest on the shoulders of despair."
  Katie slapped him hard across the face.
  "You aragosta!" She shouted in his face. "Lo avete usato il mio cuore per le mia natiche!"
  John sighed.
  "Katie's ranting in Italian again." He murmured.
  Paul grabbed Katie by the arm and pulled her away from Castaluccio.

  As he did so, Alvaro Uribe approached them.
  "Carlos and Jean-Paul have finished their search." He said to Herrera. "These five are the only ones left."
  Herrera nodded and turned back to the hostages.
  "Take them to the Scott Deck with the others, and send them on their way." Enrique smiled.
  Nodding as one, John, Lauren, Katie, Paul, and RJ were escorted down the corridor and to the Scott Deck, where the life rafts were kept.

  RJ gasped in horrific astonishment. Various crewmen were lowering dozens of life rafts over the side of the ship. Behind them, roughly fifty men stood spaced every three yards apart bearing what looked to be AK-47'S. By now, RJ mused, most of the passengers had deduced that there was no fire. They were to be thrown off the ship whether they liked it or not. And as one can imagine, very few of them liked it.
  "RJ, look!" Paul gasped. "It's Jean-Paul de le Mouton, that bellhop who was mentioned on page one but hasn't been heard from since."
  "Bonjour, mes amis." Jean-Paul smiled as he walked up to them. "I trust that your stay has been tres agreable?"
  "Oh yeah. The hostage services were divine." Paul muttered.
  "Tres bon, tres bon." Jean-Paul turned as Alvaro Uribe approached.
  "De le Mouton, get to the port side of the Pool Deck and take up a guard position there."
  Jean-Paul nodded and walked off as Uribe turned to the hostages.
  "Get them on Life-raft C. Then join me and Foki in the media lounge."
  Katie flashed Vinnie a disgusted look as John, Lauren, Paul, RJ, and herself were forced onto the one remaining raft. After shoving each of them on-board, Enrique smiled at them from the deck.
  "A valiant effort, you Americans, but as usual, you have lost!" He laughed victoriously.
  John took a step forward and jabbed a finger at Enrique.
  "Why are you guys ditching Katie? She's a Democrat!" He protested.
  "Be that as it may, she is tainted by American values." Herrera explained.
  With that, he flashed them all an evil grin and lowered them over the side.
  "Buen viaje, mis amigos!" Herrera laughed down at them as the tether was cut.

  Lauren whirled on John and slapped him across the face.
  "Nice going, stupid!" She bellowed, as only Lauren can. "It was bad enough you got us taken hostage and made us sing that stupid Drifters' song. But no! That wasn't enough for you! You had to go and get us stranded in the freakin' Gulf of Mexico!"
  "Wow you're loud." Paul winced, covering his ears.
  "Why did Vinnie turn his back on me!" Katie sobbed. "I gave him everything he wanted."
  "You sure did." John laughed.
  Katie slapped him.
  "Hey, I'm getting slapped in my own story!" John said, rubbing his cheek.
  "John, the stinkin' ship's pulling away." Paul said, clearly flustered. Hahaha, "flustered," now that's a funny word. "How are we supposed to stop them."
  John sighed and pulled out the packet entitled "The Cruise" and scowled at his friends. After turning to the third page, he handed it to Paul.
  "What's it say, Pablo?" RJ asked eagerly. "Huh huh huh? What what what?"
  "Hold on, RJ." Paul murmured as he skimmed over the page. "Ah here it is."

  "Presently, RJ was skimming over a newspaper."
  ""Hey, there's another Communist Convention going down this weekend." He said absent-mindedly."
  ""Oo, in Beijing?" Tyler asked."
  ""Nah, it's in Havana." RJ replied and threw the newspaper at Jessica's head."
  Paul gasped and threw the newspaper at Katie's head.

  "So they're heading for Havana!" John said in astonishment.
  "You already knew that!" Lauren retorted.
  "Hey, I've gone twenty-two pages without anyone dying. I've gotta complicate things somehow." John replied.
  "Hey, there's the others!" RJ exclaimed, pointing to a distant life raft.
  "Lauren, you call to them. You're the loudest." Katie said quickly.
  Nodding, Lauren stood up on the edge of the raft and cupped her hands around her lips.
  "Hey, Browder!" She shouted at the top of her lungs.
  "What!" Tyler shouted back.
  "The cruise is heading for Cuba!"
  "Are you sure?"
  "Look at the middle of page three!"
  Tyler turned to Nicole who pulled a copy of the story out of her hair and turned to page three. After a few moments, she nodded to Tyler.
  "So how are we supposed to get there?" Tyler shouted back.
  "I don't know! We need to tie these rafts together so we can figure out what to do!"
  "Why can't John just tell us where we are?" Tyler asked.
  "He's stupid and is as clueless as we are!"
  "What an idiot!" Tyler exclaimed and turned to Stephen, Nicole, and Jessica. "We need to get over to their raft."
  "Good. You and Stephen can steer us there, and us girls will work on our tan." Jessica suggested.
  Tyler and Stephen exchanged looks, though Stephen couldn't see Tyler's. In another moment, both had procured some ores that were magically onboard and began rowing.

  Grumbling to himself, Paul followed RJ and John as they began rowing toward their friends' raft. After almost an hour of leg-breaking labor, they'd come within several yards of the raft. RJ found a rope, and John was elected to jump in the water and swim to the other raft, since he was stupid and didn't know how the story would end. Likewise, Tyler was selected by Stephen and the girls to do the same.
  "Nerd!" Tyler said as he swam past John.
  "Stupid!" John shot back.
  Jessica hit John in the head as he struggled to tie the rope to the underside of the raft.
  "Make sure to tie it good, Stupid." Stephen said dryly.
  "Hey, watch your tone there, bro. I could easily write a love scene between you and Nicole."
  Both Stephen and Nicole recoiled at the thought.
  "Have you got your rope tied, Tyler?" John called over his shoulder.
  "Almost." Tyler called back. "It'd be easier if Lauren would quit kicking me!"
  "But it's fun!" Lauren whined.
  Paul reached out and pulled Lauren back as Tyler tied the rope to the underside of their raft.

  After climbing over their prospective rafts, John and Tyler helped Paul and Stephen steer the rafts closer together so that the others could interlink several more ropes to hold the two rafts together. Once that had been done, the nine friends sighed with exhaustion and looked at one another.
  "So what do we do now?" RJ asked.
  "We need to figure out just where we are exactly." Stephen replied.
  "Oo that's a toughy." Tyler said sarcastically. "We're in the ocean!"
  "That's not what I mean!" Stephen said, exasperated. "We need to find our EXACT location: longitude, latitude, altitude, fortitude, all that crap."
  "How are we supposed to do that?" Jessica asked.
  "I was in the scouts for a year and a half." Tyler spoke up.
  "So, how did they figure out where they were in the wilderness?" Lauren asked.
  Tyler thought for a moment.
  "They did something with the stars and the sun and sticks. I can't remember. Usually I was drawing pictures of Odie in the sand or throwing rocks at David Deckard."
  "Nice going, Browder." Paul sighed. "Fortunately for you, we LeMaires are experienced outdoorsmen."

  After clucking like a chicken and making a pass at Nicole, Paul studied the sun and the shadow made by Tyler's belly and ascertained that they were somewhere.
  "Ah ha!" He smiled. "We're at 22.7 degrees north and 82.9 degrees west."
  "That's about thirty-five miles west of Havana." John declared.
  "Hold on!" Lauren stood up and stared at John and Paul. "How could Paul figure that out by hitting on Nicole? And how could John know off the top of his head that Havana's thirty-five miles away from 22.7 degrees north and 82.9 degrees west?"
  John and Paul just shook their heads.
  "Stop staring at me." Paul said after a moment. "That's creeping me out."
  Lauren sighed and sat back down.
  "So where do we go from here?" RJ asked. "I mean, there's no way we could catch the liner."
  "Wait, why do we have to be the ones to do all this?" Katie looked up. "I mean, there were another thousand passengers on that ship. Plus there's something called the government."
  "A Republican government." Stephen pointed out.
  Katie flinched, but just slightly.
  "Hey, Kerry's gonna win. Bush is an idiot." Jessica exclaimed.
  "Not if this life raft's any indication. Liberals are outnumbered two to one." RJ replied.
  "Hey, that's just six less Republican votes." Katie shot back.
  "Look at the polls, Catrine! Kerry hasn't led in an opinion poll since July, and Bush is up by at least ten points in almost every category." John explained.
  "Ok, ok, can we stop with the politics!" Lauren said angrily. "All it does is get us arguing, and right now, that's the last thing we need."
  "Wow, that's the first thing she's said that makes sense." RJ laughed.
  The others quickly agreed.
  "If we can make it closer to land, we may be able to anchor the raft in a sand bar." Stephen suggested.
  "And just how do you propose we anchor ourselves?" Katie asked.
  John and Stephen stood up simultaneously and unfolded their canes.
  "And that's supposed to anchor the raft?" Jessica said incredulously, oo big word.
  "Hey, if we say they can, they can." John exclaimed.

  For the rest of the afternoon, the nine friends traded off rowing duties in fifteen-minute intervals. John, Stephen, Paul, and Lauren would row for fifteen minutes. Then RJ, Tyler, Katie, Jessica, and Nicole would row for fifteen more. Every hour, John and Stephen's two canes would be tied together to form a pole some nine feet long. Then, Tyler and Paul would lower RJ over the side of the raft into the water to check the depth of the water. After six solid hours, the depth was still more than fifteen feet.
  "We're never gonna make it to land!" Jessica sobbed. "We're just gonna exhaust ourselves and starve to death. I'll never see my Peter again!"
  "Don't worry, Jessica." RJ said reassuringly. "We can always resort to cannibalism."
  "I think I'm gonna be sick." Lauren groaned, putting her hand over her mouth.
  "RJ, do you remember the date of that CommieCon?" Paul asked, ignoring Lauren's gurgling at the side of the raft.
  "Well, let's see." RJ replied, pulling a newspaper out of his pants. "Hmmmm... John Edwards Skips Bail... Bush says "nuclear" for the first time... Mavericks destined to Become NBA Champs in 2047... Ah ha!"

  "Havana, Cuba will host the one hundred fifty-sixth annual Communist International Convention from October 25 to October 30 at the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel. Featured speakers will be Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao, Kim Jong Il III, and Fidel Castro himself. Furthermore, the International Community of People who Don't Talk Good but Know Every Country Needs to be Equal, No Matter What Organization will address the convention on Friday, October 29, led by Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and Mikhail Gorbachev jr. Western journalists, with the exception of Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and the entire CNN news staff will not be allowed at the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel whatsoever. This newspaper will self-destruct, if you soak it in gasoline and light a match."

  "Hold on." Katie snatched the paper from RJ. "If this is a senior cruise, why is it October of 2004?"
  "And why aren't there any other seniors besides ourselves on the cruise?" Stephen asked.
  "And why weren't we killed when we knew what the ICPDTGKECNEO was up to?" Lauren added.
  John sighed and held his head in his hands. This is the last time I make the other characters omniscient, he mused. Well-I mused. Meh, you know what I mean.

  This bench hurt his nalgas. Hernando Javier Alejandro Hernandez tapped his foot impatiently. The Port of Manzanillo was vacant at two o'clock in the morning. He'd been instructed by the president himself to wait for the Jubilee. The ship should've reached the port several hours ago. Hernandez was aware that the resistance had met some resistance itself, but a gang of punk college students shouldn't've held them up this long.

  He rose from the bench as a pinpoint of light appeared on the horizon. The fog hung low in the dismal night, but he knew in his corazon that it was Uribe and Nanna's ship. He felt his stomach tighten with anticipation. Since he was a muchacho in Nuevitas, his father, Julio Javier Hernandez had told him great stories of Castro's rise to power in the late 1950's. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, his father had done everything in his power to solidify the communist party's hold on their beloved Cuba.

  In 1993, his father had learned of the existence of the ICPDTGKECNEO. When Castro learned of this, he had pursued this organization diligently. Eventually the ICPDTGKECNEO had pulled together underground communist activists from around the world, to unify as one and bring about the glorious re-emergence of a new and greater soviet state. Since that time, Hernando had worked hard for the cause. Now, at the mere age of twenty-nine, he had risen to the ranks of Fidel Castro's inner-circle.

  "Ah, Hernandez," Uribe called from across the dock, "glad you could wait for us."
  "You are three hours late, Alvaro." Hernandez said coldly. "Tardiness had better not be a defining trait of yours."
  Uribe's pleasant expression hardened slightly. These Cubans were all uptight, he mused.
  "I assure you, Hernando. I pride myself on my punctuality." Uribe replied, forcing a smile.
  "That's enough, you two." Foki exclaimed, approaching them both. "Remember. We are all here united for one purpose."
  Hernandez and Uribe nodded as the remaining members of their group began filing off the ship.

  Once Hernandez had briefed them all, the entourage made their way to the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel, under cover of darkness. Much work had to be done. Many plans were to be hatched. And those plans, upon their hatching, would grow into a creature so stunning, that its presence would enthrall all who saw it, captivating the entire world with the very brilliance of its being. How's that for going overboard?

  In the tiny fishing village of Lazo Mostaza, Pablo ElAlcalde was out in his barco fishing for pants to sell at market. With a pregnant wife and fourteen children, Pablo hadn't had a break since his first son Garcia was born to him in 1969. But working out here in the early morning was therapeutic. Times had been hard in his village ever since Hurricane Ivan came through in September. The storm had ravaged his home destroyed the crops and robbed his family and raked his lawn and soiled his pants. But being out here in the early morning seemed to take his mind away from all that.

  When he was about ten miles offshore, he anchored his boat and took out the small tin that he'd brought along with him. After strapping a small canteen to the exhaust tank of the engine, he let the motor run as he pulled out an emparedado del atun and a bag of galletas. After a few minutes, he could smell the bittersweet scent of coffee wafting up from the exhaust tank. Gingerly, he unstrapped the canteen and sipped at the steaming brew.

  As he sipped, he watched the sunrise contently. The golden splendor seemed to rise from the fringes of the water like a glistening jewel. Pablo allowed himself to let his mind wonder, guided by the majestic sight before him. Suddenly, he blinked. There was something else on the horizon. At first he thought too many exhaust fumes had seeped into the coffee. But after blinking several times, the image was still there. It was only a tiny speck at first. But after a few minutes, he could tell that it was a raft, and a beaten one at that.

  "I haven't showered in two days!" Lauren whined whinily.
  "And it shows." Paul laughed.
  "Would you two shut up and keep rowing!" Stephen snapped.
  "Lauren started it." Paul said accusingly.
  "Did not!" Lauren shouted back.
  "Did too!"
  "Did not!"
  "Did too!"
  "Did not not not not not not not not not not not."
  "Did too too too too too too too too too too too!"
  "Did not times infinity!"
  "Did too times infinity to the infinitieth power!"
  "Did not times Browder's cholesterol count!"
  "Hey!" Tyler said indignantly from his sprawling spot.
  "Whoa, look!" Paul gasped. "There's a boat!"
  "Paul, that's not funny." Jessica yawned from her lounging location.
  "He's right!" Lauren exclaimed. "And there's some old guy waving at us."
  "What's he trying to say?" John asked.
  "Hey, you two are supposed to be the ones with the great hearing." Paul replied.
  "Shut up, I'm listening." Stephen said impatiently.
  The others waited silently.
  "He's yelling in Spanish." Stephen replied. "Jessica, you try."
  Stephen sat down next to RJ as Jessica stood up on the edge of the raft.
  "Hola, senor." Jessica called.
  "Hola, muchacha." The man replied.
  "Necesitamos ayuda!"
  "Necesito un burrito!"
  "What are they saying?" Tyler whispered to RJ.
  "How should I know, Browder? You're the one that took Spanish." RJ replied.
  "Only for two years."
  "That's still two years more than I took."
  "Yeah, well... I didn't learn much. "Me llamo Tyler." That was about it."
  Jessica kicked Tyler in the back. As he pitched forward, she sat down.
  "The guy's name is Pablo ElAlcalde." Jessica explained. "He's a fishermen from Lazo Mostaza, a small village about ten miles from here."
  ""Lazo Mostaza"?" Stephen looked confused. "What's that mean?"
  Jessica gave John an irritated look, but he couldn't see it. So it didn't matter.
  "It means "mustard tie"." Jessica answered.
  The entire group burst out laughing, except for John, who already knew what it meant.
  "So can he help us get to Havana?" Lauren asked between fits of giddy girlish giggling.
  "He said that we can take a tren del burro. One comes by their village twice a day."
  ""Tren del burro..." Is that what I think it is?" Katie asked, scowling in John's direction.
  Jessica nodded, but couldn't bring herself to confirm Katie's suspicions.
  "It's a DONKEY TRAIN!" John blurted out. "Choo choo choo hee-haw, choo choo choo hee-haw, spit spit spit hee-haw!"
  "Alright, John's lost it." Stephen sighed. "RJ, get the taser."
  "Sweet." RJ smiled as he pulled a stun gun out of thin air.
  "No!" Lauren said loudly and kicked the gun into the water. "We need to get the plot moving again. This thing's already on page twenty-eight, and I'm getting sick of it. besides zapping John with a taser would only make him act normal."
  Together, the others nodded simultaneously at the same time.
  "So can he take us on his boat?" Paul asked, turning back to Jessica.
  "No. But we can tie the raft to the boat, and he can toe us back to shore."
  "Ah touché." John exclaimed.
  "You archie, I scoff at you!" Paul taunted, suddenly garbed in a typical fencing outfit, whatever that may be.
  "Your words are those of an inexperienced postage stamp!" John said, rising from his position on the raft.
  "I challenge you to a duel, my friend." Paul challenged, slicing his sword through the air.
  "That is a challenge, I would never accept." John said dramatically. "No wait, umm... That is a challenge I would gladly accept."
  "Then by the tremors of Thor, let us sauté ourselves in the sweet batter of combat."
  "It will be so!" John said, lunging forward.

  "Ok, I'm unbelievably lost." RJ said, flipping through the story. "How the heck did we go from trying to get on land to John and Paul fighting to the death.
  "I guess that's what happens when you can't get a date." Tyler laughed.
  "Hey, I went with Stacy to Tennessee that one weekend." Paul exclaimed as he parried a blow from John's mighty mightiness.
  "Hey, I went with Kera's family to Jersey." Tyler shot back.
  "But that was after going out with her for fifteen months," John replied, lunging again at Paul.
  "Hey Paul, why is it that you can't out-fence a guy with the vision of a standard ninety-eight year old?" Katie asked.
  "Because," Paul said, side-stepping as John made a slash at his shoulder, "this is John's stupid story."
  "Oo, los espadas." Pablo ElAlcalde laughed as he stepped onboard, brandishing a sword of his own. "Me llamo el Zorro de Cuba, y soy fuerte!"
  "Oh great, it's a communist Antonio Banderas." Katie sighed.
  "Well no hablo Espanol, but I can kick some commie keester!" Paul shouted, leaping toward the awaiting ElAlcalde.
  At once, Lauren leapt between them and shoved Paul off the side of the raft while simultaneously kicking the sword out of ElAlcalde's hand.
  "Uh oh, crabby Catholic," Stephen remarked.
  "You're ----in' right I'm crabby!" Lauren shouted. "The ICPDTGKECNEO is plotting to overthrow capitalist society, and all you ----in ----ers can think of doing is playing Zorro and calling each other --- ---- postage stamps while ---- ----in' -----es ---- with the ---- that the --- ---- ----ers ----!"
  John, RJ, and Tyler recoiled.
  "My ears have been robbed of their innocence!" John wept sarcastically, if that makes any sense.
  "The wench has a point." Paul said, jumping back onboard and whooshing his sword through the air. "The foul Foki Nanna and his phalanx of Fascist fiends must be stopped."
  "Hail to Little Zorro!" ElAlcalde shouted.

  At the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel in Havana, Enrique Herrera stretched as he entered a small cafe on the third floor. Inside, Hernando Javier Alejandro Hernandez was waiting for him at a table in the far corner. After procuring a cup of coffee from the buffet, Enrique walked over and sat down across from Hernandez.
  "I trust you slept well, Enrique." Hernando smiled pleasantly.
  "I guess you could say that." Enrique laughed.
  "Ay, I saw you go off with that Croatian chica after the fiesta last night." Hernando winked.
  Herrera permitted himself a sly smile.
  "When will Fidel arrive?" Enrique asked quietly.
  "He came in early this morning." Hernando replied. "All delegates will meet in his suite at 5:00 this afternoon."
  Herrera nodded.
  "Has Uribe contacted the coalition?"
  "They are standing by and awaiting orders." Herrera exclaimed, sipping his coffee.
  "Excellent." Hernandez grinned. "With the coalition in place, we can begin implementing the ICPDTGKECNEO'S reforms immediately."
  Enrique said nothing, just looked over at the unsuspecting customers in the cafe. They had no idea of what change was about to come.

  "Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena Que tu cuerpo es pa' darle alegria y cosa buena Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena Ehhhh, Macarena."
  "Stop it!" Lauren shouted. "It's bad enough we have to take a "tren del burro" across Cuba without you fajitas singing Los Del Rio the whole time."
  "You're right, Lauren. We're sorry." Paul apologized.
  There was a five second pause.
  "They call me Cuban Pete. I'm the king of the rumba beat. When I play the maracas I go chick-chicky-boom, chick-chicky-boom. Yessir, I'm Cuban Pete,"
  Lauren grabbed Paul by the collar.
  "Unless you want to ride tren del dirto, I suggest that you SHUT UP!" Lauren hissed.
  "I was sick of that song anyway." Stephen sighed.
  "Senor, how long till we reach Havana?" Katie asked wearily.
  "Cuarenta cinco minutos," the donkey driver replied.
  All eyes turned to Jessica.
  "Forty-five minutes," she translated.
  "Good, cuz my butt's asleep." Tyler announced.
  "Didn't need to know that, Browder." Lauren said dryly.
  "Butts and songs aside, how are we supposed to track down this convention once we get there?" RJ asked.
  "Well, let's see." Paul replied, pulling a newspaper out of his pants. "John Edwards Skips Bail... Bush says "nuclear" for the first time... Mavericks destined to Become NBA Champs in 2047... Ah ha!"

  "Havana, Cuba will host the one hundred fifty-sixth annual Communist International Convention from October 25 to October 30 at the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel. Featured speakers will be Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao, Kim Jong Il III, and Fidel Castro himself. Furthermore, the International Community of People who Don't Talk Good but Know Every Country Needs to be Equal, No Matter What Organization will address the convention on Friday, October 29, led by Alvaro Uribe of Colombia and Mikhail Gorbachev jr. Western journalists, with the exception of Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and the entire CNN news staff will not be allowed at the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel whatsoever. This newspaper will self-destruct, if you soak it in gasoline and light a match."

  "Didn't RJ read that back on the raft?" John asked.
  "Yeah, but that was fifteen paragraphs ago." Paul explained. "I've got a bad short-term memory."
  "How come?" John asked.
  "How come what?" Paul looked puzzled.
  "Can you take us to The Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel, Mr. Donkey Driver?" Stephen asked.
  "No, Senor." He replied. "I go as far as Ardilla Avenue."
  "Mmmmm, squirrels," Jessica licked her lips hungrily.

  After the group had each given the donkey driver five pesos, they made their way down Ardilla Avenue until they reached a small burrito boutique.
  "Oh food, how I love thee!" John cried excitedly.
  "We need to get to the--" Katie started.
  "FOOD!" John, Stephen, Tyler, Paul, and RJ shouted.
  Before the girls could try and poison them with their feminine charm, the guys bolted into the burrito bungalow.
  "Give us fifteen burritos!" Tyler bellowed from the doorway.
  "Si, Senor!" the clerk shouted and ran off to fetch the food.
  As they paid the man the one hundred fifty pesos, Stephen turned to RJ.
  "Since when did we have pesos?" He asked.
  "Hey, you're right." RJ turned to John and poked him in the back of the neck with a fork.
  "Ouch!" John turned, rubbing his neck over the poked place. "What is it?"
  "You screwed up." RJ replied. "When did we get pesos?"
  "I don't know. We just did." John scowled. "besides I've had so many continuity errors. What's one more gonna hurt?"
  RJ nodded.
  "Hey, don't knock it." Tyler laughed, his mouth full of burrito. "It got us food, didn't it?"
  "I guess." RJ sighed and grabbed a burrito from the large bag that Paul held.

  After fifteen burritos and some really bad gas, the group began making their way through downtown Havana. The streets were lined with Cuban citizens, selling everything from socks to slacks to squirrels. Jessica tried buying one, but Nicole and Katie dragged her off before she could.
  "Let Rocky live another day, Jess." Katie grunted as she dragged Jessica across a small road.
  Jessica struggled to break free, but Nicole and Katie's grip only tightened on her wrists.
  "So how do we find the hotel?" Paul wondered aloud.
  "Easy." John replied. "We follow the convoy!"
  All of them looked up as a line of armored trucks appeared several blocks down the street. Ducking into the shadows, they waited until the convoy was upon them and then followed the last truck, at a safe distance of course.
  "We got a great big convoy, trucking through the night. We got a great big convoy. Ain't she a beautiful sight. Convoy." John sang.
  "Damn you, C.W. McCall." Stephen scowled.

  Mikhail Gorbachev jr. turned off his Hillary Duff CD. His aid, Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev III had tapped his shoulder.
  "Comrade, we will reach the hotel momentarily."
  "Excellent, Khrushchev." Gorbachev smiled. "Have Foki Nanna and Alvaro Uribe meet me around back. Democracy has polluted our society for too long, Khrushchev, but we shall unite the nations of the world together, bringing in a new era of peace and prosperity, exchanging ideas and learning from our diverse cultures in a way those capitalist Troskies could only dream of."
  "Truer words had never been spoken," Khrushchev congratulated, "well except on page eighteen."
  "What?" Gorbachev said angrily.
  "See for yourself, your eminence." Khrushchev handed Gorbachev a packet entitled "Die Kreuzfahrt. "Thabo Mbeki, the top of the page."
  Mikhail growled angrily and wadded up the paper in his fist.
  "I want the cool monologue!" He whined. "Write me one!"
  "Right away, comrade." Khrushchev said quickly.

  Back on Ardilla Avenue, the pogo star, the soccer star, the computer nerd, baldy, the Cajun Sensation, the ex-cheerleader, and the three Democrats moved quickly in pursuit of the commie convoy. After a few blocks, they turned onto Bolivar Boulevard. After passing the Desi Arnaz Memorial, a soviet synagogue, and the Cigarium, the convoy finally reached the illustrious Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel, hailed for its western-style toilets and marbled carpeting.

  John gaped in awe.
  "It's more beautiful than the girl friend I don't have." He said dreamily.
  "Hurray for having a girl friend." Paul smiled and did a happy dance.
  "I know." Stephen, Tyler, and RJ joined Paul in his happy dance.
  John just scowled at all of them.
  "Enough dancing," Lauren exclaimed, interrupting their merry jig, "we've villains to thwart."
  "Spoken like a true heroine," Katie remarked.
  "Hold on a second." RJ cautioned. "That article said "Western journalists, with the exception of Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and the entire CNN news staff would not be allowed at the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel whatsoever." How are we supposed to get in?"
  The group exchanged puzzled looks with each other. Finally, John, hee hee hee, spoke up.
  "Well, Jessica could get in." He said slowly, "but chances are the rest of us would pass for the cast of Happy Days before we'd be mistaken for Hispanics."
  Everyone nodded.
  "Cool, can I be the Fonz?" Paul asked eagerly.
  "Henry Winkler is five foot six." John pointed out.
  "Score!" Paul shouted and gave RJ a high five.
  "Hey, I've got an idea." Lauren spoke up.

  Stephen cringed as he pulled his sports coat around his thin shoulders. Glancing over, he saw John, Paul, Tyler, and RJ coming toward him in the small cuarto de bano.
  "Man, this wig's itchy." John complained.
  "Hey, it'll be worth it, assuming this plan works." Paul exclaimed.
  "Come on, nerds. The girls are waiting." Tyler shwapped Paul on the head and headed for the door.

  When they approached the girls, all nine of them burst out laughing. Standing in the small cafe, were nine half-decent likenesses of nine media giants: Tyler Browder as Wolf Blitzer, Jessica Castro as Taina Hernandez, John Clower as Tom Brokaw, Stephen Clower as Charles Gibson, Paul LeMaire as Dan Rather, RJ Regenold as Peter Jennings, Katie Reynolds as Katie Couric, Nicole Taylor as Diane Sawyer, and Lauren Wick as Betsy Stark.
  "This had better work, Lauren." RJ said wearily.
  "And if it doesn't, we can go on a slander spree." John laughed.

  Just then, Natsagiyn Bagabandi and Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj, the Turkish twosome approached. John and RJ immediately began singing the Canadian national anthem.
  "That's right, Diane. I almost got away with those forged documents." Paul said in an arrogant tone.
  "You are early." Bagabandi said dryly. "You aren't due for two more days."
  "Look at me, I'm Katie Couric. I'm perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky!" Katie inhaled. "Perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky lerky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky perky!"
  "A pleasure, as always, Miss." Elbegdorj nodded respectfully. "Come. Uribe is expecting you."
  The nine media big-wigs nodded and followed the two Mongols into the hotel.

  Uribe laughed at Herrera who was giving him a dirty look.
  "You can't just do the same move over and over again. That's cheating!" Herrera complained.
  "It isn't my fault you suck at this game." Uribe laughed in Herrera's face.
  On the small television screen, E-Honda continuously dealt Ryu a head-butt. After only three of these, Ryu was down for the count, and Enrique was on his feet.
  "You cheated!" He shouted in Uribe's face.
  "You're as bad a street fighter on a video game as you are in reality." Uribe taunted.
  "Ay, those orphans would disagree with you!" Enrique shot back.
  "Big deal. You mugged a defenseless orphan. I'll see if Hernandez can get Castro to give you a medal."
  "Ay, she wasn't defenseless. She had a shoe on!" Enrique protested.
  Alvaro just scowled at him and turned off the video game.

  Just then, there was a knock on the door. As was the custom in most situations, Uribe proceeded to the door and even opened it.
  "Sir, the representatives from the United States have arrived." Bagabandi announced.
  "Excellent, excellent. Come, come. Sit, sit." Uribe smiled pleasantly.
  "Man this room has quite an echo." John said in his best Tom Brokaw impression.
  "My my my, Mr. Rather. You've shrunk a lot since we helped CBS with those documents."
  "Do not worry, Mr. Uribe. My height defficiency is merely due to the recent decrease in my journalistic credibility... Plus I was born back in the Hoover administration. I'm just an old fart, and it was all Ben Barnes' fault!" Paul ranted.
  "Oh, Danny! Be perky like me!" Katie laughed, jumping up and down. "Perky perky perky perky perky perky!"
  "So what is the plan, Alvaro?" RJ Peter Jennings asked, lowering his voice as much as he could.
  "Well, Mr. Jennings, tomorrow Castro and his finance minister will address the convention." Uribe explained. "Foki Nanna and myself greeted Mikhail Gorbachev jr. and Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev III about an hour ago. They will present Russia's proposal to the convention on Wednesday, and by Friday, all coalition representatives will be ready to begin the uprising!"
  "Please excuse me," Lauren Betsy Stark said weakly, "My, uh, botox is acting up on me."
  "We know how that is, eh Dan?" John Tom Brokaw laughed and punched Paul Dan Rather in the arm. "Guess you could say it made me feel like a whole new person."
  "Mr. Gibson, will you have Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero on your show next Monday?" Herrera asked.
  "What show? Oh, yeah. Diane and I have made all necessary arrangements for the Spanish prime minister." Stephen Charles Gibson replied.
  Nicole Diane Sawyer nodded.
  "Won't our people need weapons?" John Tom Brokaw slurred.
  "Of course they will." Khrushchev called from the doorway. "Each delegate will receive a very generous door prize: two dozen ballistic missiles."
  Tyler Wolf Blitzer tried to manage a smile. Glancing around, he saw that all of his friends were quickly losing their composure.
  "This has been quite informative, Comrade Khrushchev. My colleagues and I will go make the final preparations." Paul Dan Rather exclaimed.
  "Very well." Khrushchev replied. "Meet us in Conference Room C tomorrow at 7:00 before the opening ceremonies."
  Paul Dan Rather nodded and, with relief etched on his artificially withered features, he led the way out of Uribe's hotel room.

  Jessica Taina Hernandez looked up as RJ Peter Jennings and Stephen Charles Gibson sat down next to her. They were in a small courtyard about a block from the hotel parking lot. Fearing their rooms might be bugged, Nicole had signed to Katie that they needed to keep quiet. When Katie told Jessica it was "we needed to eat quiet." From Jessica to RJ it became "we needed to eat the Irish." By the time Tyler got the message he thought they believed in free papayas. But eventually, everyone got the right message, and they agreed to only be themselves when they were away from the hotel.
  "I may be a hard-pressed liberal, but I never wanted things to go this far!" Jessica cried.
  "There's no use in worrying about it now." RJ said softly. "We're here. There's nothing we can do to change that. But now we need to figure out how to stop this thing from happening."
  "Doesn't John have a plan?" Jessica asked. "He is writing this, after all."
  "John, have a plan?" Stephen scowled. "It was his fault we were booted off the boat in the first place!"
  John walked up to them and punched his brother in the head.
  "I sort of have a plan." I protested-I mean, he protested.
  "Since when?" Stephen asked.
  "Since about ten seconds ago!" John replied.
  "So what is it?" Jessica inquired, looking up from a snail she was jabbing with a cue tip.
  "Alright." John sighed and sat down. "The way I see it, the first thing we need to do is take care of this before the real liberal media shows up."
  "Hold on. Can't they just turn on a satellite and see that all the anchors are still in New York?" RJ pointed out.
  "Oo, good point." John sighed. "We'll need to take care of this hotel's satellite dish."
  "No duh." Paul remarked as he, Tyler, Katie, Lauren, and Nicole walked up to them.
  "Paul, Tyler, and I will go take out the satellite dish." John exclaimed. "Stephen and RJ, use your super programming hacking skills to tap into the hotel's computer network and get the schedule of events for this communist convention. Jessica and Katie, I need you two to survey the hotel. See what you can find out about the whereabouts of those missile door prizes. Lauren, you and Nicole need to use your loudality and decent acting skills to gain access to either Uribe or Khrushchev's rooms."
  "Wait a second. Who died and made you colonel?" Tyler asked.
  "Me!" John smiled. "Hey, Colonel Clower. I like the sound of that. besides I have the hardest job of all."
  "And just what job is that?" Katie gave John a skeptical look, but John couldn't see it. So it didn't matter.
  "I plan to use some francium capsules and combine them with a rare sodium bitriphosphate solution that, when laced with a pungent tetrahydroxibicarbonitrate compound, and several other chemicals I'm making up right now, will produce a highly flammable substance." John explained.
  "In other words, one hell of a bomb." Lauren summarized.
  John nodded.
  "Leaving a blind guy in charge of explosives. Yeah, that's a real smart idea." Tyler said sarcastically.
  "So when do we need to start doing all this?" Paul asked.
  "Well, there's no time like the present." John replied.
  "Sure there is! The future, for instance." Jessica laughed.
  "John's right." RJ cringed. "Man I hate saying that. But it won't take long for them to realize that Tyler isn't really Wolf Blitzer. The rest of us at least have until tonight."
  "True," Katie agreed, "but once they know Tyler's a fraud, they'll come after the rest of us."
  "That's right." Tyler said indignantly. "If I'm going down, I'm taking all of you with me."
  "How's that for a selfless act." RJ remarked.
  "Enough shmazooling. It's time for action!" Paul said dramatically. "Come Tyler and John, we've TV to ruin."
  "Forgive me, TV." John said sadly. "Hey wait a minute. Didn't I just give myself two jobs?"
  "Sure did." Paul laughed.
  "Ah crap." John sighed and followed Paul and Tyler back to the hotel.

  Back in the hotel, Vinnie Castaluccio and Antonio Devachi sat in a bar watching the Dallas Mavericks beat up on the Knicks. Sipping his drink, Vinnie smiled as Jessica Taina Hernandez strolled through the door. Vinnie stood up and gestured for her to sit down next to him.
  "Mia ragazza," he smiled, "may I buy you a drink?"
  "I bet you say that to all the reporters." Jessica said, returning Vinnie's slightly intoxicated smile.
  "All but that Diane Sawyer," Vinnie laughed, "she kicked me in my polmoni."
  "Oh what a shame," Jessica said sympathetically.
  "Eh it's her loss, right Vinnie?" Devachi lift-I mean laughed and took a swig of his adult beverage. "Go, Finley, go! Take that, Hardaway!"
  "So are we expecting any representatives from the Middle East?" Jessica asked nonchalantly.
  "Well of course." Vinnie replied. "The ICPDTGKECNEO has forged alliances with Syria, Iran, Palestine, and the Sudan. We will provide them with some missiles if they help finance our glorious campaign."
  "That's incredible!" Jessica Taina Hernandez gasped with what she hope they perceived as awe. "Where are you guys keeping the missiles?"
  "Mbeki and the Turks are guarding them down in the basement." Antonio slurred. "Vinnie and I will go relieve them in a few hours."
  Jessica smiled inwardly and stretched.
  "Well, I guess I'll turn in." She yawned.
  "But it's three in the afternoon." Vinnie pointed out.
  "Oh you know us reporters. We always have to be rested in case a big story comes along." Jessica smiled and excused herself quickly.
  As she got up, the game on the TV suddenly went blank.
  "Hey, what happened to the Mavs!" Antonio shouted angrily and hurled his empty glass at the TV screen.
  Using that commotion to her advantage, Jessica quickly ran from the bar before Vinnie could catch up to her.

  On the roof, Paul and John gave each other a high five. Thirty-five stories and almost four hundred feet in the air, the three friends huddled together on a fire-escape. Paul had swiveled the satellite dish around and pointed it downward, while John covered it with mustard. Tyler just looked over the side of the building and tried to keep the burritos down. Even climbing on a step ladder was too high for him.
  "Job well done, lads." Paul congratulated.
  "I think I'm gonna be sick." Tyler moaned.
  "Nah, you'll be fine." John exclaimed and pulled some change out of his pocket. "Now it's time for some real fun!"
  "Oo, give me some, Brokaw," Paul said, snatching several pennies from John Tom Brokaw.
  "Go nuts, Danny boy." John laughed and dropped a quarter over the edge of the roof.
  "Wow, how fast was that?" Paul gasped with awe as the quarter smashed through a wind shield in the parking lot.
  "That's a good question." John replied. "Let's see... Final velocity equals the square root of the quantity 2*gravity*the height in meters. So thirty-five stories, roughly eleven feet per floor, twelve inches in a foot, thirty-nine point three seven inches per meter, gravity is nine point eight meters per second squared, carry the thirteen... forty-eight meters per second, so... one hundred seven miles per hour."
  "Dang." Paul declared. "That's almost as fast as I run whenever I see Leigh."
  "Or me when I see Shea." Tyler added.
  "Or me when I see... umm... my ex-girl friend." John stammered.
  "I can think of at least two things wrong with what you just said." Paul remarked.
  "As much as I'd love to make fun of John's lack of a girl friend, I'm seriously getting nauseas up here." Tyler groaned.
  "Awww, but this could be real entertaining when you start blowing chunks." John laughed.
  "No, he's right." Paul agreed. "Once they realize the satellite's out, they'll be sending someone up here."
  "Then we'll just have to leave them something interesting to find." John smiled sadistically and pulled out a bottle of ketchup. "Take this, flip floppers!"
  As he began squirting some tomatoey goodness over the satellite dish, the three of them heard some Cubans yelling at each other on the fire-escape.
  "Say "bye-bye," Theresa!" Paul said, hurling the ketchup bottle over the edge of the roof.
  "Come on. We need to get off this roof before Desi Arnaz gets here." John said quickly and began climbing down the fire-escape opposite to the one the Cubans were on.
  "You don't have to tell me twice." Tyler exclaimed and hurriedly began climbing down after John and Paul.

  Stephen Charles Gibson and RJ Peter Jennings crept quietly through the various corridors of the first floor. They needed to find some sort of computer lab, a "laboratorio de la computadora" if you will. After about ten minutes of searching, RJ finally spotted one near the end of a dark corridor.
  "Senor Gibson, Senor Jennings!" One Cuban gasped. "It is-is such an honor to have you here. Please, help yourselves."
  "Thank you, Senor Higado." Stephen declared.
  Once the attendant had cleared off, RJ and Stephen got to work.
  "Oh flargen," RJ sighed, "they need a password."
  "Hmmmmm," Stephen thought for a moment, "try 'John Kerry'."
  "Nope." RJ shook his head, though Stephen couldn't see it. So it didn't matter.
  "How about 'Bolshevik'?" Stephen suggested.
  "Still nothing." RJ sighed. "Eh, I'll try the Paul LeMaire technique."
  "What's that?" Stephen asked.
  RJ entered a quick sequence of keys and smiled as the computer began logging onto the hotel's network.
  "Sweet!" Stephen laughed and punched RJ in the head. "What did you do?"
  "Simple. I just typed in eight A's." RJ answered. "For a bunch of devious socialists, they really need to work on their computer skills."

  In a small cafe, Katie Katie Couric, Nicole Diane Sawyer, and Lauren Betsy Stark were chugging espressos and awaiting any of the conspirators that might show up.
  "Katie, I don't think you need anymore coffee. You're perky enough as it is." Lauren exclaimed.
  "Maybe," Katie nodded, "but you can't ever be too perky!"
  Nicole just sighed as Katie chugged down the rest of her espresso.
  "Coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee!" Katie inhaled. "Coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky coffee perky!"
  Nicole slapped her hard, knocking crazy Katie Couric to the carpet.
  "Thank you, Nicole, er, Diane." Lauren said with relief.
  As Katie got back into her chair, Jessica Taina Hernandez walked up to them.
  "How's your report coming, Miss Hernandez?" Lauren Betsy Stark asked.
  "Oh, it's going great, Miss Stark." Jessica replied. "Why even the basement of this hotel is interesting."
  "Oh really?" Katie Katie Couric tilted her head slightly. "The basement you say?"
  "How "interesting" is the basement?" Lauren Betsy Stark asked.
  "Oh, probably the most interesting part of the hotel." Jessica Taina Hernandez replied.
  "We have to go down there and file a report on it then." Katie Katie Couric said excitedly.
  Jessica Taina Hernandez nodded, and the three-I mean four of them headed for the door.

  Tyler Wolf Blitzer sighed with relief as he, John Tom Brokaw, and Paul Dan Rather re-entered the hotel. Sabotaging the ICPDTGKECNEO'S plans for world domination built up an appetite. And while burritos were delicioso, they couldn't satisfy them for long.
  "Thanks again for helping me out with Ben Barnes, Tom." Paul Dan Rather said loudly.
  "It was no problem at all, Mr. Rather." John Tom Brokaw replied. "We anchors have to stick together after all."
  "This, is CNN." Tyler Wolf Blitzer announced in a deep voice.
  "Meh, James Earl Jones does it better." Paul Dan Rather remarked.
  "I'm afraid I must agree with Dan, Mr. Blitzon." John Tom Brokaw exclaimed.
  "That's Blitzer, Broke Jaw!" Tyler Wolf Blitzer retorted.
  "Now now now, let's use our indoor voices." Paul Dan Rather patronized.
  "Oh shut up, Dan Flabber. If it hadn't been for Hurricane Carla back in 1960, you'd still be a peddling peon in Houston!" Tyler Wolf Blitzer shouted.
  "You're just jealous because CNN'S going down the crapper!" Paul Dan Rather shot back.
  "In my humble journalistic opinion, I declare that you both suck!" John Tom Brokaw chimed in. "Canadian karate chop!"
  And with that, John Tom Brokaw lunged at Tyler Wolf Blitzer and karate chopped him over the head. As Tyler Wolf Blitzer reached up to block the chop, Paul Dan Rather came at him from the other side. In another few moments, all three of them were locked in mortal combat.

  Before it could get too out of hand, Stephen Charles Gibson and RJ Peter Jennings ran up to them and pulled them apart. By this point, a dozen or so curious Cubans had gathered round to watch these TV anchors duking it out.
  "Way to be subtle, you three." Stephen Charles Gibson said under his breath.
  "Please excuse our comrades here." RJ Peter Jennings said, addressing the crowd. "They're just excited to be in Republica de Cuba."
  The cluster of Cubans clapped quietly, clearly confused. How's that for alliteration? But before they could do anything further, Stephen Charles Gibson and RJ Peter Jennings pushed their friends toward a side-door.

  Tyler, John, and Paul were about to protest when they saw Katie, Lauren, Jessica, and Nicole waiting for them. Lauren walked up to the trio and slapped Tyler across the face.
  "Are you trying to get us found out?" She shouted angrily.
  "If John hadn't called me "Blitzon," this never would've happened!" Tyler protested.
  "That's enough!" RJ shouted, as best he could. "While you anchors were duking it out, Stephen and I managed to hack into the hotel's database. We've got the convention schedule of events, a comprehensive list of key world leaders who are attending, and even a complete list of patrons."
  John looked amazed.
  "Are you saying you know who's staying in every room?"
  "Dang right." Stephen grinned.
  "Wow. I'm impressed, and I was the one who wrote it." John exclaimed.
  "What did you girls find out?" Tyler asked.
  "Jessica got those two Italians to tell her where the missiles were." Lauren replied.
  All eyes turned to Jessica, just like on page thirty!
  "They're in the basement." Jessica explained. "Based on what Vinnie and Antonio told me, they have two or three guards posted at all times."
  "Carn flab it." John sighed. "We can't afford to expose ourselves just yet."
  "I can!" Tyler smiled and pulled off his shirt, exposing his white white belly.
  The rest of the guys sighed as the girls recoiled with horror.
  "Browder, stop doing that!" Lauren whined. "I'm gonna need enough therapy when we get back."
  Tyler sighed and put his shirt back on.
  "So how are we supposed to get at those missiles?" Katie asked.
  "I've got an idea," Paul spoke up, "but I'll need everyone's pesos."

  Ronaldo Rivera Rodriguez whistled a Caribbean ditty as he mopped up some spilled salsa. Being a janitor may not have been the best job he could get, but it was either this or McDonaldo's.
  "Necesito el dinero." He sang to himself.
  "Ay, hombre," Stephen Charles Gibson said, tapping the jolly janiteer on the shoulder.
  "Carlos Gibsono!" Ronaldo gasped.
  "May I buy your uniform?" Stephen Charles Gibson asked quietly.
  "Oh, but senor, this is the only work I could find in this repugnante una republica." Ronaldo said wearily.
  Stephen Charles Gibson pulled out a check for four thousand pesos and handed it to the janitor. Ronaldo's eyes bulged with astonishment.
  "Feliz Navidad!" He shouted with delight and ran down the corridor in only his escrito, leaving his janitorial uniform behind.

  Paul Dan Rather came out of one of the rooms with a uniform of his own.
  "This plan had better work, Stephen." He whispered.
  "Don't worry." Stephen Charles Gibson replied. "But we'll need Hispanic names. I shall be Esteban Clowerro, the cabellero from Rio de Janeiro."
  "And I shall be Zorro, master swordsmen and wooer of womens." Paul said dramatically.
  "Now what would Staci say?" John laughed and hit Paul in the head with a mop. "Juan Miguel, ready to rock! Paul you can be Pablo ElAlcalde."
  "Wasn't that the fishermen dude from page twenty-six?" Paul asked.
  John nodded.
  "Alright, enough talk. Let's go clean up some commies." Stephen smiled.
  "Three janiterros away!" All three cried and ran with their buckets to the stairs.
  "Look out!" John shouted as the buckets and mops went careening down the stairs, pummeling a family of Egyptian midgets.

  In his room, Mikhail Gorbachev jr. sipped at his vodka.
  "Comrade Khrushchev, can you do something to add some punch to this vodka?"
  "Of course." Khrushchev replied and took the bottle of vodka. "Add some carrot juice and Snapple, and we have a Chernobyl."
  Gorbachev sipped the concoction and smiled with approval.
  "You've outdone yourself this time, Nikita." Gorbachev laughed and took another swig. "Oh, my brain fuzzes with intoxication."

  Suddenly, there was a knock knock knocking on Khrushchev's door.
  "Who is it?" Khrushchev called.
  "It's Alvaro Uribe and Enrique Herrera." Alvaro called back. "Mohammad Khatami of Iran, Yasir Arafat of Palestine, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir of Syria, and Bashar al-Assad of The Sudan are here."
  "Can't you people come up with original names?" Mikhail Gorbachev laughed with delight and opened the door.
  "May I offer you gentlemen a Chernobyl?" Khrushchev asked politely.
  "Drinking is the leisure of the infidels!" Khatami said sharply.
  "Yeah, whatever." Khrushchev threw his head back and began chugging.
  "Let's get down to business." Arafat exclaimed. "I have to get back to Hamas headquarters by Tuesday."
  "Of course, Mr. Arafat." Gorbachev said respectfully. "Gentlemen, please join Comrade Khrushchev and myself in the foyer."
  Bashar al-Assad smiled.
  "Damascus could use more hotels like these."
  "The Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel is Castro's pride and joy." Uribe exclaimed. "And when we've seized control of the western world, Damascus will have a skyline lined to the sky with lines of luxury hotels."
  "I will as soon as Mohammad Khatami takes Saddam's weapons of mass destruction back." al-Assad muttered.
  "Eh, I got your weapons right here." Khatami replied bitterly.
  "Let's not quibble." Herrera interrupted. "We are all here with one unified goal."
  The Arabs nodded.
  "With your forces and finances and our cowardly tactics, the capitalist west will fall!" al-Bashir laughed evilly.
  Stereotypically, Uribe, Herrera, Gorbachev, Khrushchev, Khatami, Arafat, and al-Assad joined in and cackled maliciously.

  Just outside the door, Katie Katie Couric and Lauren Betsy Stark nearly vomited in terror.
  "This is even bigger than we thought." Lauren said fearfully. "Come on. We need to tell the others."
  Katie Katie Couric nodded.
  "Suddenly I don't feel so perky." She said somberly.

  In the basement, Vinnie Castaluccio looked up suddenly as three unusually pale janitors approached them from the elevator.
  "This area is off-limits!" Castaluccio snapped.
  "Ay man, there's a gas leak in the cocina upstairs. We need to check the piping down here." Esteban said in his best Cheech impression.
  Vinnie and Antonio exchanged suspicious looks.
  "You guys have ten minutes." Vinnie said after a few moments. "I need to step out for a smoke anyways."
  Antonio nodded and followed Vinnie over to a maintenance elevator.

  As they disappeared, both John and Paul slapped Stephen on the back.
  "Stephen and I will begin disarming the missiles, and Paul, you plant this object in the far corner back by the gas line." John said quickly.
  "What do we know about disarming missiles?" Stephen asked.
  "About as much as I know about formulating explosives." John replied, "But it's my story, so it'll work."
  Paul and Stephen nodded as they got to work.

  Tyler Wolf Blitzer, RJ Peter Jennings, Jessica Taina Hernandez, and Nicole Diane Sawyer glanced at the schedule of events.
  "Let's see." RJ Peter Jennings murmured. "Our counterparts arrive here about forty-eight hours from now, and the last of the major speakers arrive in a few hours. Now if we time this right, we can--"
  "Jessica, Nicole, RJ, Browder!" Lauren Betsy Stark gasped as she ran up to them.
  "Keep it down, Lauren!" Jessica whispered harshly.
  "You don't get it!" Lauren said quickly. "These damn commies are working with terrorists!"
  RJ, Tyler, and Jessica stared at Lauren in disbelief.
  "They've got Saddam's weapons of mass destruction!" Lauren continued. "Gorbachev and Uribe said Palestine, Syria, Iran, and the Sudan would all cash in on the weapons the ICPDTGKECNEO has stock-piled."
  "Whatever we're supposed to do to stop this, we need to do it now!" Katie exclaimed.
  Tyler, Jessica, RJ and Nicole nodded.

  Stephen cursed under his breath as he fiddled with the wiring on one of the missiles.
  "This had better work." He sighed.
  "I know." Paul called from the wall by the stall in the hall. "We gotta stop these jerk faces. How are you guys coming on the missiles?"
  "We've got about half a dozen left." John replied.
  "Hey, is it feasible to disarm twelve dozen ballistic missiles in ten minutes?" Stephen mused aloud.
  "Probably not, but this story's so full of inaccuracies. What's one more gonna hurt?" John exclaimed.
  "Hey, what are you janitors doing back there?" Antonio called from the maintenance elevator.
  "Ay, we're just cleaning up these rockets for you!" John shouted back in his Senor Queso voice.
  "Well get away from there!" Vinnie barked. "Those rockets are off-limits!"
  Paul nodded to John and Stephen that he'd set up the explosive device, though John and Stephen couldn't see him. So it didn't matter.
  "We were just finishing." Paul exclaimed.
  Quickly, John and Stephen followed Paul to the stairs and hurried up to the ground floor. It wouldn't take the irritated Italians long to figure out what they'd done to the missiles.

  Back on a random floor, Tyler Wolf Blitzer pulled out his cell phone. RJ Peter Jennings nearly kicked it out of his hand.
  "If they're monitoring cellular signals, we'll be found out for sure!" He protested.
  "Oh and duking it out with John and Paul wouldn't?"
  As Tyler began dialing, the two Mongols, Natsagiyn Bagabandi and Tsakhiagiyn Elbegdorj, as well as Thabo Mbeki and an Indian man, walked up to them.
  "Who are you?" Mbeki snapped.
  "I am Peter Jennings, and this is Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric, Taina Hernandez, Diane Sawyer, and Betsy Stark." RJ explained.
  "I don't believe you!" Mbeki sneered and pulled out a pistol.
  Jessica, Katie, Nicole, and Lauren took a step back. RJ and Tyler stood their ground as best they could.
  "I'm waiting for an answer!" Mbeki shouted.
  "My name is Tyler Kyle Browder!" Tyler sobbed and fell to his knees. "I was born in 1947 on a rubber plantation in Godthaab, Greenland. My father divorced my Albanian mother and married a penguin! Please don't hurt me!"
  "Way to stand up to him, Browder." Lauren muttered.
  "Gang way!" John Tom Brokaw/Juan Miguel shouted as he, Stephen Peter Jennings/Esteban Clowerro, the cabellero from Rio de Janeiro, and Paul Dan Rather/Pablo ElAlcalde came barreling down the corridor.
  "Hit the dirt!" RJ shouted, as best he could.
  As he cried out, Mbeki opened fire.

  Tyler lunged forward and hit the African hard. The three janiterros pulled out three mops and pushed the Turks. Panic-stricken, the Indian ran away like a little girl.
  "We need to get out of here!" John shouted over his shoulder as he fwomped Elbegdorj over the head.
  "Now there's a thought." Katie said sarcastically.
  "Uh guys, we've got company." Lauren said, her voice quivering with dread.
  Simultaneously, the nine friends looked up to see an entourage of evil coming toward them.

  Jacques Jean-Paul de le Mouton, Carlos Mesa, Alvaro Uribe, Enrique Herrera, Vinnie Castaluccio, Antonio Devachi, Foki Nanna, Mikhail Gorbachev jr., Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev III, Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao, Kim Jong Il III, Mohammad Khatami, Yasir Arafat, Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, and Bashar al-Assad rushed down the corridor. The Colombians and the Italians led the way, brandishing hand-guns. The Arabs and the Russians were armed with knives. The remaining members of the party held various implements of destruction.

  The nine westerners backed away from the oncoming mob.
  "Guys, I think we're headed for that big recording studio in the sky." Paul said fearfully.
  "I hope they use ProTools." Stephen remarked.
  "Thanks a lot, John." Katie sobbed. "The first time I'm ever in one of your stories, and I'm gonna be slaughtered like some war criminal."
  "Hey, heyJohnny C always has a plan." John replied.
  "Since when!" Lauren shouted.
  "While you nerds were up here getting us caught, Stephen, Paul, and I were doing some good old sabotaging." John continued. "But first we need to get out of here."
  "I don't think you'll have that opportunity!" Alvaro Uribe thundered. "Enrique, Vinnie, Antonio, prepare to fire."
  "Are you saying you'd kill four women in cold blood?" Paul asked, inching his way backward.
  The Arabs nodded immediately, but the others hesitated. John saw where Paul was going with this and handed Lauren a small device.
  "We were the ones who sabotaged your missiles. These ladies were just innocent by standards." John protested.
  "We take full responsibility for what we've done." Stephen added. "Do what you want with us, but show these womens some mercy."
  "This will detonate a flammable compound Paul hooked up to the gas-line down in the basement." John whispered to Lauren.
  Lauren nodded, though John couldn't see it, as Stephen finished his intentionally loud speech.
  "Alright." Foki Nanna replied. "But they will never be allowed to return to the United States."
  "Quit talking about us like we're not here." Jessica said indignantly.
  As the girls moved off, the five musical legends looked wearily at the procession of executioners coming toward them.
  "I guess this is it." RJ said quietly. "It's been really nice knowing you guys."
  "I hope they have IHOP'S in Heaven." John wept.
  "You five will be the first to feel the cleansing of the ICPDTGKECNEO." Foki Nanna smiled and nodded to the Colombians and Italians.
  Obediently, the four aimed their guns at the five friends.

  Lauren hurried for the nearest exit. She wished it hadn't come to this, but these people had to be stopped. Once they'd gotten to a safe distance, she sighed and turned to her friends.
  "We need to get back to the states, even if it costs us our lives." She said defiantly as tears came to her eyes.
  Jessica, Katie, and Nicole nodded sadly. Lauren closed her eyes and said a quick prayer. Then, she pulled out the detonator and flipped the switch.

  Immediately there came a deep rumbling that shook the ground violently. As tears streamed down her cheeks, Lauren turned and fled in the opposite direction, with her friends at her side. After a few moments, there came a deafening explosion. Refusing to watch the horrific sight, Lauren, Jessica, Katie, and Nicole only ran faster.

  After the four had run several blocks, they fell to the ground sobbing like itsy bitsy babies. They may have all but destroyed the ICPDTGKECNEO. But at the same time, they'd killed their friends in the process.
  "What have we done!" Katie cried. "We're murderers!"
  "I know," Jessica sobbed, "but those ----in' ------s would've killed them anyway."
  The others nodded sadly.
  "Look, we need to keep moving." Lauren snizziffled. "The policia will be here soon, and we sure as Alabama can't be found."
  Without a word, the four walked off toward the distant docks. None of them were sure exactly what to do. But all of them knew that the sooner they left Havana, the better.

  Aboard the Conejo, a small merchant ship, Hidalgo San Diego looked up from his lunch of beans and cheese to see four lovely ladies coming toward him. A smiled played on his lips until he saw how shaken up they were.
  "Senoritas, what is wrong?" Hidalgo asked.
  "We'd just left the Tazon de Fuente del Chile Hotel to go get some burritos, when it exploded!" Katie explained. "Can we have passage aboard your ship?"
  "We'll work to pay our way." Lauren exclaimed.
  San Diego knew he wasn't supposed to take any civilians onboard, but he couldn't say no to these girls.

  As the girls followed Hidalgo to the small merchant ship, a sudden high-pitched sound caught their attention.
  "Que el infierno?" San Diego looked up, bewildered.
  In a few seconds, the sound began to grow louder. Looking skyward, they could see something coming down toward them. After a few more moments, they recognized the shrill, girlish shrieks of John, Tyler, and Paul.
  "Make way for Willie!" Stephen shouted in a Scottish accent.
  Hidalgo tried moving out of the way, but Stephen's scrawniness knocked him to the deck of the dock.
  "I said make way for Willie you bloated gas bag!" Stephen retorted.
  "How the Hell did you ever survive that explosion?" Lauren gasped.
  "Do you really think I would've killed us off?" John smiled. "The force of the explosion knocked us all out the window at a rather tremendous velocity, sending us hurdling through the air like little Skittles."
  "Oo can I be an orange Skittle?" Paul asked eagerly.
  "Oh, I think I've got glass in my kidney." Tyler moaned.
  "I wanna be the orange Skittle!" Paul shouted.
  "My butt hurts!" RJ whined.

  After the Conejo dropped off its precious cargo of green jump suits and tube socks in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, Hidalgo San Diego took the group to Key West, Florida where they each worked at a McDonaldo's for several weeks until they had enough money to fly back to Texas.

  Katie used her connections with the journalism department at the University of Texas to publish an in-depth article of their adventure. She knew it would be hard to swallow, but someone had to get the story out there. And whether or not the public chose to accept it for what it was was up to them.

  Oddly enough, all of the media giants suddenly became more moderate politically. As expected, George W. Bush did win the election, and the Swift boat veterans at a subsequent press conference heckled John Kerry with grapes.

  John breathed in the salty air as he strode on-deck. With him was his ever-popular posse: Tyler Browder, Stephen Clower, Paul LeMaire, and RJ Regenold. It had taken John many more months and dozens of slurpees to convince his friends that the senior cruise wouldn't be a haven for sin but rather, adventure. Presently, Lauren walked over and caught John in a headlock.
  "I want a nice vacation!" She growled. "No terrorists, no conspiracies, no nothing. And if this cruise even begins to turn into something stupid, I'll kill you."
  "Eh, whatever." John laughed, broke Lauren's grip, and ran to push Paul and RJ into the pool.
  Lauren just sighed and winked at a burly lumberjack, who smiled back at her. Maybe this cruise wouldn't be so bad the second time around after all.