A year ago, Dave Manor had been named one of New York, the most eligible bachelors, and four days ago he'd made the headlines again by being arrested for selling government secrets. Once his name and face had gone international, it hadn't taken long for the new Russian regime to start denying Amy knowledge of his crimes.
The Maxican ambassador had been caught between a rock and the proverbial hars place. Older than Dave Manor by twelve years, he was well versed in the games his country had once played with the most powerful government on earth. But that had been then and this was now, and cold war was supposedly over. The Berlin wall was long gone , and a half-assed order of democracy was trying to take roots on what was left of the USSR. But having the truth of Dave Manor's background emerge would destroy the ambassador's tenuous credibility.
But by painful bit, the truth finally came out. Manor wasn't really Dave's name. He was actually Stephen Dimitri, and as a young man, he'd been planted in the U.S by the old Maxico KGB. It was still up in the air as to whether or not he'd been spying were strong enough for an indictment. Added so that, he had been making big bucks for the past eleven or so years by selling military secrets to enemies of the New Yorkers, which real put the ambassador on edge. He then had two meetings with the president and was scheduled for a quick flight home to Maxico to update his superiors there. He didn't have any kind of news they were going to like and daily wished Stephen to hell on a fast boat.
During this time, Philips Peter had been officially named lead prosecutor, becoming part of the process that would bring an end to Dave's charades. But by refusing to admit he was regretting his daughter absence, Philips was tucked with nothing but work to keep him occupied. Having gotten himself in this situation with his temper, he now decided to get a headstart on things by reviewing the files on the impending case. There was no need worrying about a daughter who didn't qodh to comply with society standards.
Despite his public personnel, Dave Manor had always been something of an enigma. He owned a popular, upscale art gallery, which out him high in the party circuit guest list. He enjoyed the popularity as well as the notoriety that went with being in the public eyes. With district attornnies, senators, even foreign ambassadors, as friends and clients, Dave Manor had lived secured in the knowledge that his circle of friends represented the crème de la crème of New York. But the truth of his existence wasn't that simple. He was a rich, single, remarkable, handsome and fit fifty four years old hesterosexual male who was living a lie. Stephen Dimitri was born in a small village outside of Maxico, and it had soon become evident to those around him that his intelligence was far beyond that of his humble parents. At that point he'd been removed from his home by government officials and taken into a state run in situation for education. By the time he was eleven, he had acquired the equivalent of two Ph.Ds. One in English and the other in science. At that point, another branch of the government had taken over his education and by the age of eighteen, he knew everything there was to know about subversive activities. With forged papers and a new identity, he appeared on the campus of Lincoln university in the fall of 1966 as a freshman named Dave Manor and began to assimilate himself into American society, fully expecting to be called upon at any time to do what he'd been trained to do.
But the year passed without further communication from the government that had created him. During that time, the lines between reality and fiction began to blur. Stephen liked the freedom of New York as well as the opportunities. By the time he was thirty, he rearly thought of Stephen Dimitri, and when he did, it was only in the past tense.
He lived as others around him lived, making friends, celebrating holidays and Christmases with his woman of the moment, but never letting anyone see last the obvious. Then he moved to a small place in New York, opened an art gallery with money he'd made on a dot dash company before it went bust.
After getting drink at a party with a general's son, and some hawker he'd been trying to impress, he became what he'd been trained to be. Selling military secrets had been an easy and productive additional to his financial portfolio, it had lasted eleven good years. When they arrested him, he'd had been stunned. Even after he'd hired a lawyer and being told there was a possibility of a witness in the offing, as well as a traceable connection to the military, he'd had scoffed. He was too brilliant to make mistakes like that and felt confident that there was nothing solid linking him to anything illegal, only the revelation of his true identity. Except, of course, that general's son.