Emperor Penguins

"Once they find out what you've done, they won't hesitate to kill you."

On the third floor of an apartment building overlooking one of three classified national weapons testing facilities, two people; a middle-aged man and an attractive young woman talked in muted tones. The woman placed her right hand on the man's shoulder but he didn't react and merely continued to gaze out the window.

"If--They find out," he corrected. "Noone knows that I have it."

"I don't think that you understand the predicament that you're in. An easy-going life is no longer an option for you. if I found out what you did then it's only a matter of time before they do," she continued. "You forfeited everything when you decided to steal the design."

"I didn't steal anything from anyone," Yoshi corrected again without looking back at her. "I just studied it from afar and figured out how to make my own. It's different. They can't come after me for just that."

"That's all semantics. It won't matter to them. Maybe they will see the difference and not kill you on the spot but the other option is that they put you in a windowless room for the rest of your life which isn't much better. Personally, I would prefer to be dead," she said. "Your only hope is to give me the plans so that I can pass them on to my superiors. They will reward your ingenuity."

"Whomever you work for won't have any use for me once they have it," Yoshi said. "I'm screwed either way."

"I'm asking you to trust me and not them," Liz said placing her hand over her chest. "I would never let anything bad happen to you."

Yoshi paused for a moment before turning to look into her fake blue eyes.

"You are one of the best problem solvers that I know," Liz said. "So solve this one for me; my superiors want a lot of things and you happen to have one of them. What would they do if I brought it to them and told them that you could also give them more."

"They would try to secure my services. Alright, I'll trust you," he said finally. "Everything you need is in a hard drive in locker 15 at the men's changing room in the university pool."

"Thank you," Liz said. "Locker 15. Male changing room. Pool. Got it."

"If you screw me on this..." Yoshi said. "I will make sure you get nothing."

She gave him a deep, longing kiss before getting her coat and leaving in a hurry.

As she left, a dark figure followed her from Yoshi's apartment, down two flights of stairs to the parking lot beneath his apartment building. The figure hid behind corners and pillars to make sure she didn't notice him.

The figure materialised behind her as she fumbled to open her car door with the keys. The keys dropped to the pavement with a loud rattling noise.

The man with a hat and a heavy black trench coat picked up the keys and placed them gently in her hands.

"Did you get what we came for?" he asked.

"I know the exact location," she responded. "Were you following me because you don't trust me to complete the mission or are you trying to protect me?"

"Both," he said. "We can't be sure if the Americans have caught on plus... you and he have become awfully close in my view. I don't particularly like him."

She turned around and planted a kiss on his lips.

"It was just an act, baby," she said. "We have what we need from him."

"What do we do with him now?" the figure asked.

"Get rid of him," she said coldly. "He serves no purpose to us now. He might still get cold feet and turn himself in. He's a coward."

"That's a little harsh," the figure said. "He cooperated with us all the way through. What if he put a fail-safe in place that prevents us from getting the plans if he dies?"

"Don't get soft on me. He wouldn't do something like that. Now get rid of him or I will," she said as she got into the car, took off her blond wig, and blue contacts and threw it into the back seat. "I'm off to retrieve the hard drive."

A few hours later, Liz sat in her luxurious apartment with the hard drive connected to her laptop but as she browsed through the contents her feeling of triumph began to turn to dread as she didn't find any tank blueprints. Instead, she found terabytes of high-definition videos of Emperor Penguins.