So, I’m driving across Germany with John - I wear my sunglasses all the time - Rossi. The little bugger actually expected me to call and get hotel reservations. Do I look like Paris? My real skill lies in the culinary arts, not travel preparations. And, of course, I had to remind Rossi about the stupid SASC (Spies Against Sheila’s Cooking) movement that he’d tried to found. I’m not inclined to do anything that could remotely be considered a favor for him.
We eventually find a hotel with a vacancy.
Cahill, posing as an author, goes to the local police station to ask questions about the recent crime wave in the quiet German town. After a frustrating conversation with the detective, Cahill gives him some helpful pointers and leaves.
Later, at Hans’s apartment, Paris receives a call from Cahill. He wants her to go out with him. Although she is reluctant to leave the comfort of Hans’s couch and the engrossing entertainment of German (a language she doesn’t understand) television soccer (a game she has no interest in) broadcasts, she agrees. She borrows Karin’s gun and changes into a lovely outfit. She makes a call and arranges to have lunch the next day with a small-time mover-of-other-people’s things dude named Benny.
(Up)Chuck, armed with a large bottle of Mylanta, takes Hilda out for dinner. Keeping up the pretense of wanting to marry her, he asks if she would be willing to move to the United States if things don’t work out for him in Germany. She readily agrees. (Up)Chuck hears the warning bells, but wrongly attributes it to the possibility that someone nearby has a cell phone manufactured by the ElectroShock Corporation.
Hans and Karin, for lack of anything better to do, engage in some diplomatic relations.
Paris and Cahill go to a small bar, where Cahill meets Sasha, an old KGB contact. Sasha insists that Ms. Maddox is not one of his people, and agrees to keep an eye out for information on the mystery woman. He offers to put Paris and Cahill up for the night at an area hotel.
The next day, Cahill meets up with Sasha, who informs him that Ms. Maddox was a high-priced call girl who is dead and suggests that Cahill check out the circumstance of her demise. Cahill calls me and asks who would be the best person to contact Inspector Clusine for information on the deceased Ms. Maddox. Knowing that they had developed an outstanding rapport when Clusine was interrogating Jack, I suggest the International Cabaret Terrorist as the most likely candidate.
Cahill calls Jack and tells him to pick up a package in New York and fly to DeGaulle Airport. Jack, frustrated that he has not had time to so much as scorch a carpet or ding the Paris, the plaster not the agent, of Paris’s, the agent, not the plaster, apartment, reluctantly agrees. After a stop at the zoo, he heads to the airport.
I then take Rossi to go to the offices of GenCorp. Not surprisingly, he gets lost. Luckily, my sense of direction is only topped by my extraordinary creativity in the kitchen, and I get us there. Rossi sees the youthful looking head of the company enter the building, but we never see him leave.
Karin has used her diplomacy skills to find out what Hans told the police about the incident at the lab. Basically, he denied that it was his truck, since they only obtained a partial number due to the covering snow. It turns out he actually was forced to part ways with the delivery company, because of a missing shipment of flashlights and a break-in that damaged his truck, which was where it shouldn’t have been at the time of (Up)Chuck’s forced, but less than elegant entry.
Paris meets Benny for lunch. Not really convinced that it would be a lovely lunch and therefore not something to be savored, she makes it short. He reveals that the Ms. Maddox in the drawing is actually a Detective Filanni, from Bern, who arrested him for weapons possession and trafficking a few years before.
Paris tells Cahill, who tells Mackenzie, who goes to investigate. He finds out that Detective Filanni is, in fact, a woman, she remembers the Benny incident and she offers to fax him information on the case.
Back at Hilda’s place, (Up)Chuck awakens to hear feminine laughter. He enters the kitchen only to find a room full of women who are all dressed in black, wearing silver jewelry and have names that start with ‘H’. (Up)Chuck, unable to find Helga, whom he confuses with Hilda - his fiancé e, sniffs each woman looking for his bride-to-be. The ladies are discussing the untimely deaths of the men in the family under rather odd circumstances. Although they have endured (Up)Chuck’s sniffing with dignity, they become incensed when he accuses them of being witches and orders them to not fell him with an Acme safe, meteorite or any other one-chance-in-a-million disaster. Hilda, not Helga, runs crying from the room. (Up)Chuck, fearing that he was about to feel the wrath of Helga, Heidi, Hannah, Harriet and a couple of other H’s, runs to Hilda to apologize.
The end of this report finds Cahill wondering who the hell Cohill is; Paris looking for some way to have a lovely afternoon; (Up)Chuck looking for some identifying mark that will help him differentiate Hilda from her sisters; Mackenzie still working on his future Pulitzer Prize; Rossi trying to pretend that his sunglasses are not hindering him from spotting our target in the fading afternoon light; and I’m using the downtime to ponder my upcoming creation: German Grits.