It’s the scent that reaches deep into your medulla oblongata and makes your heart skip a beat. The scent that would launch your trireme, if you could somehow haul it down Yonge Street. The scent that was emerging from the crime scene.

Rollick smelled her as he was walking into the crime scene.

“What are *you* doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you. What’s a retired corp investigator doing on the diplomatic beat? Shouldn’t you be doing a Bloc consult?”
“They said that there was a parsnip sculpted into a rose at the scene.”
“Oh, that. It looked like it came out of that trophy case, there. It was sitting on its side. The ambassador was known to collect Bloc artifacts.”
“So, you don’t think the White Rose was involved?”
“He’s never gone this far afield before. We think it’s a copycat or a red herring. Besides, what would the French Ambassador to Japan be up to that would interest the Eastern Bloc?”
“Right. So, why are *you* here.”
“You wouldn’t believe that I heard you were coming and rushed breathlessly to meet you?”
“Not unless I had something you wanted.”
“I was actually in Shinjuku on vacation, and I was the closest thing the Committee had to a criminal psychology expert nearby, so they sent me. It goes without saying that this is above top secret. They didn’t want any flights being recorded.”
“But we should be able to hide that from most organizations. You think Them is involved?
“We can’t know for sure.”
“Fair enough. Let me take a look.”
“You’ll be impressed. It was very professionally done, with an interesting twist.”

Rollick bent down to look at the body on the floor.