Thomas, the British delegate, said that they were investigating Dr. Smalley's connections with known BNSP activists, focusing on those who had business in the City. They had managed to find out that Paul Dooley was one of the people lending a respectable and legitimate front to the BNSP. Dooley had been under MI6 surveillance for quite a while and they had even managed to install a microphone in the private room of his favorite pub in which he often held meetings pertaining to the Party activities. They checked specifically the recordings just before January 20th and found that a meeting of Dooley with two unknown people took place that day. No suspicious conversation was recorded but it was noted that one of the people had a foreign accent, and he appeared to be the "guest of honor" as Dooley deferred to him. In the recording the listener heard that the two guests arranged to go elsewhere for coffee after lunch and this was a bit odd as the pub was known to serve very good coffee. In addition, the pub in question was just a block away from the café where Dr. Smalley and the blond guest were recognized by the waitress. All this established a probable link between Dooley, Dr. Smalley and the mysterious blond man. Thomas said that they could not summon Paul Dooley for questioning without plausible cause but that they could try to get a court order issued to continue the surveillance and add permission to monitor his telephone land line, mobile phones and e-mails.
David told them that the Mossad had noted the rise in race related crimes not just in France, as outlined by the French delegate, but all over Europe. He also mentioned that the political leaders of the nationalist parties seemed invigorated as if they were expecting some very good news soon. He reported the news received from the Spanish authorities regarding Professor Modena that marked him as an activist in the Catalan separatist movement but had no idea where he went after leaving Barcelona last July. David said that he had visited Modena's closed laboratory in Barcelona University without discovering his whereabouts and said that he felt it was time to pay Barcelona another visit and try to locate Modena through his friends and connections.
The information received from the northern European security and police agencies concerning the blond man were inconclusive as there were literally millions of men that fit the general description and the image that was constructed based on the waitress's testimony. The Greek police responded that there were rumors that the Golden Dawn was up to something big but no definite plans were revealed. The meeting adjourned with an increasing sense of frustration that they could not identify the threat that they knew was lurking below the seemingly tranquil surface.
The one dramatic step that they considered, but refrained from implementing, was to publish the photos of Professor Modena, Dr. Smalley and the blond man on all TV networks and national newspapers, as well as the major internet networks. If such an approach were to be adopted the request would say that these people were suspected of some heinous crime, such as white slavery or distribution of laced drugs that caused the death of several addicts, and request the public's help in tracing them. They knew the risk involved — it would show their hand and warn the suspects to go underground — and therefore they decided to use this appeal to the public only as a last resort. They set the deadline for the decision for May 1st, as they estimated that by then a critical amount of U-233 could be produced.
David returned to Barcelona University and tried to find Ramona in her office at the physics department only to discover that she had not been seen in the university recently. He then found Fillipe, the post-doctoral fellow that had shown him around when he visited the university in January under the pretense of looking for an advisor for a graduate studies. He told Fillipe that he had to abandon those plans because of a family crisis and asked him about Ramona saying that he had to see her again about a personal matter. Fillipe believed that David had been charmed by Ramona, as had several other men, and told him that she had a studio apartment on Carrer d'Arago close to the famous Casa Mila. He gave David the address but said that she could be abroad as she hadn't showed up at the department since the beginning of the month.
David thanked him and headed toward the address he was given. It turned out to be a nice building near the corner of Carrer del Bruc but the entrance door to the stairwell was locked. David sat in café on the corner, ordered a beer and watched the building. After a while he saw an old lady leaving the building with a shopping bag in her hand. He quickly rose from the table and managed to grab the entrance door before it closed. The old lady looked at him suspiciously but did not challenge him as she knew that several apartments in the building were let on a temporary basis to tourists and believed that he had just forgotten his key.
David thanked her with a smile and entered the building. He quietly climbed the 88 stairs up to the fourth floor and found the apartment number that Fillipe had given him. He waited outside for a moment listening to any sounds and when he heard some chatter from a TV or radio in the apartment and knocked gently on the door. A woman's voice enquired who was at the door in Spanish and he answered in English that he was David and had to see Ramona. The door opened immediately and he was welcomed with a shy smile. She didn't ask how he had found her and invited him to join her for tea. She said that she had been down with the flu and therefore absent from university but was now almost fully recovered. David sat down and told her that he had returned to Barcelona for a vacation and had hoped to see her again. Her smile broadened and she said that they should finish their tea and then go out for an aperitif before dining out. She suggested that they go to the sport's bar a block away for a drink and then dine at the Hungarian restaurant on the same block before turning in for the night at her apartment. David was taken by her forwardness and thought that all the strategies he had prepared to enchant her were no longer needed.
Both of them were laughing as they returned to her apartment building after consuming a couple of bottles of good Rioja red wine with their excellent Hungarian goulash meal. They climbed the stairs making quite a racket earning complaints from the neighbors but were too laden with expectations about the night to worry about that. As they entered the apartment Ramona turned to David and told him that she had hoped for his return and was disappointed it had taken him two months to do so. David held her close and said that he was sorry that his plans for spending a few years at Barcelona University had not worked out and that he too had wanted to return to Barcelona sooner.
They went into the bedroom and Ramona came close and they hugged and kissed deeply for a long moment. She told David to take off his shoes and socks and then kicked off her own shoes. Next, she shyly unbuckled David's belt and removed his pants looking very closely at his now fully erect manhood and started laughing. David was so surprised at that reaction that he quickly covered himself with his cupped hands while his manhood started shrinking. Her laughter grew so much louder that David started worrying that the neighbors would start banging on the walls. Ramona saw how embarrassed he was and barely managed to control her laughter and then pointed at him and said that she had never seen a circumcised penis before and the sight amused her. David looked down at himself, saw nothing particularly strange and said that it worked just like any other organ and she was welcome to compare. At this she pulled him to bed and said that she would be the judge of that. For David the experience with Ramona was passionate as she had no inhibitions and was willing to try anything to fulfill his fantasies. While lovemaking with Orna in Vienna could be compared to an autumn day in Vivaldi's Four Seasons — tranquil, quiet and cuddly, Ramona was full of dramatic twists like Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Then another comparison popped up in David's mind: making love with Orna was like travelling downstream on a barge that was slowly floating with the gentle flow of the river while during sex with Ramona he felt like an Olympic kayaker negotiating the rapids without knowing in which direction he would be tossed the next moment.