The Spanish Spotlight

By Ronaldo Siète

The best spy story; the worst spy.

Stopping a war is child's play. Pleasing a child is killing.

The world is in danger. There is a war going on in the Middle East. Innocent people are dying. The only man with enough power to stop the bombing is Mr Johnsson, the Secretary of Defence of the USA. Right now, he's on a short vacation in Marbella, a perfect chance for #3, The Diplomat, to talk with him.
Mr Johnsson doesn't want to talk. He wants to spend time with his teenage daughter. The LSD doesn't give up: "What if we give your little girl the best day ever?" After his success in Brest, #5, The Runner, finally gets the chance to do some real spy-work: babysitting. Child's play? A Miss mission is as good as a mile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronaldo Siète
• Release date: Jan 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9789492389282

Ronaldo Siète

Wie wil er nou iets lezen over de schrijver van een boek? Het is veel leuker om het boek zelf te lezen. En het allerleukste is nog wel: de boeken van Ronaldo Siète zijn gratis, "shareware", dus vraag niet hoe het kan maar profiteer er van.

Book preview

The Spanish Spotlight

(Book 4 of the LSD series)

Stopping a war is child's play. Pleasing a child is killing.

By: Ronaldo Siète

The origin of sorrow is desire. (Buddha)

Polderdam, 4th of January 2023

ISBN: 978-94-92389-28-2 (version 2, we fixed some typos and created fresh ones)

Publisher: Editorial Perdido - at www.editorialperdido.eu

Author-right: @ 2022 by Ronaldo Siète - as @Ronaldo7Siete at wattpad.com

Author-right cover design @ 2022 by Katie Sharp - as @katieishere at wattpad.com

Thanks to John, Maureen, Jet and the Wattpad community.

Index

0. Title Page The Spanish Spotlight

1. Child In Time

2. Smells Like Teen Spirit

3. Centerfold

4. Killing In The Name

5. Wild Boys

6. Sweet Child O' Mine

7. Hot Stuff

8. It's Raining Men

9. Talk Is Cheap

10. Billion Dollar Babies

11. Vertigo

12. Señorita

13. Under The Bridge

Extra: Rock And A Hard Place

Cover text

The world is in danger. There is a war going on in the Middle East. Innocent people are dying. The only man with enough power to stop the bombing is Mr Johnsson, the Secretary of Defence of the USA. Right now, he's on a short vacation in Marbella, a perfect chance for #3, The Diplomat, to talk with him.

Mr Johnsson doesn't want to talk. He wants to spend time with his teenage daughter. The LSD doesn't give up: What if we give your little girl the best day ever? After his success in Brest, #5, The Runner, finally gets the chance to do some real spy-work: babysitting. Child's play? A Miss mission is as good as a mile.

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About the author

Ronaldo considers himself «the funniest writer in Dutch literary history». The rest of the country laughs about that, which automatically confirms the statement. After a long traumatic experience in his childhood (the six years of the 1st grade of primary school, when he had to learn the alphabet), he escaped reality and plunged into the world of fiction. He studied laughing stock in Orcsford (England), dark humour in the Black Forest (Germany) and dirty jokes at Club Oh, La, Lá (Place Picardillas 69, Paris, France). He graduated in Tonterías and won a licence in Cachondeo from the University of Málaga (Spain).

His novels and poems are full of his philosophy: smile every day, because no one gives literary prizes to writers who make their readers cry (otherwise he would have written this book on onion skins). He lives everywhere and doesn't work anywhere, because making up jokes while floating in the pool, with a drink in one hand and a snack in the other, That ain't workin', that's the way you do it.

The LSD-series:

1. The Swiss Suitcase

2. The Polish Program

3. The French Formula

4. The Spanish Spotlight

5. The Austrian Aroma

6. The Maltese Manuscript

7. The Swedish Sex Bomb

8. (you'll have to read the others first)

9. (and we're not giving away this title either)

For more info, news and free downloads: www.editorialperdido.eu

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. At least, that's what my lawyer says, that I should tell you these lies so you don't believe all the other lies in the rest of this book. The truth is that the situations in this book, no matter how much you like them to be true, are fiction. The people in this story, no matter how likely you want them to exist, are fiction. Truth is stranger than fiction. That's why we write fiction: so you can learn to find a better truth.

The grammatical and spelling errors in this work are on purpose.

The first reason for this is commercial. Studies show that readers feel superior when they find errors in other people's writing. That's why we instructed our editor, Miss Take, to make sure our readers feel special when they enjoy our books. Only Editorial Perdido gives this glorious feeling of happiness to their clients.

The second reason is political. Every error is a protest against the Grammar Nazis, who complicated the language so the average educated person cannot put hor thoughts on paper without errors. Even the magic spell checker doesn't understand it anymore. Language is communication. It belongs to everyone, not only to the diehards who dedicated half their lives to studying it.

Marbella - Last week of December 2017

Child In Time

I'm a morning person. On every average day, I save the world before breakfast. My favourite day starts with action. Today is not my day.

I sit on a couch in the foyer of Hotel La Estrella de Marbella. For already almost an hour, I've been doing nothing at all. I'm waiting. It's half-past ten. Two weeks ago, around half-past ten, I chased five terrorists who wanted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Three weeks ago, I shadowed the kidnappers of a princess (the daughter of the king-pin of an industrial empire). Four weeks ago, I was on a stake-out that ended with the arrest of a gang that planned to steal the Eiffel Tower and return it against a ransom of 100 million Euros (which was a real bargain, they could have got more if they'd sold it as scrap iron). Saving the world is my daily work, but my work for today is worse than terrorists, thieves and kidnappers: I have to babysit the teenage daughter of the US Secretary of Defense, and she refuses to get out of bed early.

I work for the LSD, the Lëtzebuergesch Sécherheet Departement, in English: Luxembourg Spy Department. We're a small organization, with only five people to save the world. We need to follow orders, work efficiently, and get up early.

Ten days ago, I got the order from #1 (read: number one), The Boss, to assist #3, The Diplomat, on today's mission. A little later, I received the top-secret file with information from #2, The Nerd. This mission was originally for #4, The Agent, who was not available (it didn't mention why), so they gave the job to me, #5, The Runner. Thanks. If nobody wants to do it, you can always count on the lowest in rank to clean up the shit and change the nappies of a 17-year-old.

If you want something, you have to pay the price. I wanted to be a spy, so I have to accept that not every day is full of glamour and glory. That's why I'm on this couch: I have a job to do. It's as good and important as any other job, so I will give it my best.

The secret file didn't contain much information about the mission: The Diplomat tried already for weeks to arrange a meeting with Mister P.H. Johnsson, the USA Secretary of Defense, to talk about something important. Mister Johnsson is a busy man. He never has time for a meeting, but he did have time to take an entire week of vacation in Spain with his teenage daughter. With tact and wise words, The Diplomat tried to convince Mister Johnsson to meet during this week. Mister Johnsson answered: I'm 24/7, 51 weeks per year, available for the job, and in this 52nd week, I want to spend some quality time with my daughter. The Diplomat proposed a deal: We [he meant: me] will take care of your daughter one day, give her the best day of her life. In return, you give us [he meant: himself] the opportunity to discuss our plans with you, plans that will be positive for your country, for our country and for the rest of the world. Mister Johnsson finally agreed. He claimed he wanted to do everything to make his daughter happy, but I think he found out, after two days with her, that he needed a break too. The girl is impossible (that wasn't in the file; I discovered it myself).

During the last ten days, I did all the research I could, both on Mister Johnsson's personal life and his daughter's. It was easy. They are American. Americans have the right to be silent, but they have no right to any form of privacy. The right to be informed, invented by the media, is so strong that the word «privacy» was even banned from the latest edition of the American Dictionary and the Microsoft Word spell checker. Americans embrace Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and all those other channels to tell the world how fabulous they are. There's no secret in that.

Mister Johnsson is fabulous, without any doubt. After graduation at Harvard, he dedicated all his time, energy, and talents to serve his country, which resulted in a glorious career with the position of Secretary of Defense as its current climax, and nobody knows what the future will bring.

His personal life was not so glorious. He met his wife, Anne-Nicole, at the university. He was a brilliant but rather unattractive student, and she was the Queen of the Prom. Anne-Nicole always stated that brains were sexier than muscles, but according to the Sunday papers, she only liked the beauty of brains that produce power, popularity, and financial wealth. Hanging on the arm of Mister Johnsson gave her a chance to be the star at every political event and social meeting. With the help of his spotlight-attracting wife, the popularity of Mister Johnsson rose fast, but his full agenda left him less and less time, energy, and talents to give Anne-Nicole the attention she needed so desperately. His country needed him. He had no time for her.

Anne-Nicole hoped the birth of their daughter would change everything. Mister Johnsson's priorities cried for him, not in the White House, but in his own house. But Mister Johnsson was hot, his country needed him more than his family, and the opposite happened: Anne-Nicole had to change her night-life glamour for day-care nappies, drank coffee with the women next door instead of champagne with the first ladies of world leaders, and found out that watching the daily soap of global politics on TV was not by far as interesting as being an actress on that stage.

Mister Johnsson thought that family values were important, a child should have the love of hor parents instead of the care of a Mexican nanny, but he himself had other priorities than love, so he outsourced the taking care of those family values to his wife. Anne-Nicole missed the spotlights. She started drinking. By the time their daughter was old enough to go to school, it had to be a private boarding school; her mother was no longer capable of taking care of her. Her mother wasn't even capable of taking care of herself: she was an alcoholic and a junkie. Anne-Nicole was forced into a roller coaster of treatments and deceptions, leading to a permanent stay in a specialised clinic six years ago, and a divorce one year later.

The daughter had her own story. Today, it's my job and my mission to give her the best-day-ever, so I had ten days to concentrate on her, to get ideas about what she might like to do best. All I could find was: she likes to do nothing. She hates school, she hates the other students, and she hates the teachers. She hates spinach, she hates rain, and she hates being told what to do. Other girls of her age would be thrilled to go to Spain for a week, but she spent the first half of the day sleeping, the second half fighting her father, and the nights hanging out in bars, things she could have done everywhere.

I needed something to work with. Her only friend was Sandra-Dee, the daughter of the American President. The two girls were in the same class and called each other best friends on social media, but «compies» [competing colleagues: doing the same job, but each for hor own account] would be a better term for their relationship.

What would be her «best-day-ever»? Could I rely on the desires of other American girls of her age and social circle? Should I buy her a horse? Should I fly her to the moon? Would she like it if I'd take her shopping in the most expensive fashion shops in Los Angeles? She already had a horse, the moon was hardly interesting, and the owners of every notable fashion shop in Los Angeles came to her home several times per month to show their latest creations. Also, this kind of entertainment would cause a financial problem. The budget of the LSD had been cut like the fingers of a blind butcher. Since the crisis was over, the government no longer had excuses to raise taxes. I needed to find something cheaper to impress her.

Finally, I got an idea. I asked #1, The Boss, for permission (he agreed) and I explained to #2, The Nerd, what I wanted to do. He came up with several extra details about the mission and he had lots of ideas that we added to the plan. There was a risk: The Nerd and I, we're both European working-class males in our early twenties; we might be very wrong in our attempt to guess the desires of an American upper-class teenage female. But a Miss is as good as a mile. If you don't shoot, you can't score. Improvisation is in the toolbox of every employee of the LSD, and we couldn't cook up a better plan, so we decided to go for it.

Mister Johnsson also decided to go for it. He knew his daughter. He had better things to do. Here, in the foyer, he welcomed me, told me his sweet child, in time, would come down to meet me, and then he left me alone. That was almost an hour ago.

Now, finally, the lift doors open. There she is. I quickly stand up, walk towards her, shake hands and welcome her with my warmest smile: Good morning, Miss.

Hello and goodbye.

Your father has a busy day today. He asked me to take you out, to show you something of this beautiful country and make sure you'll have a wonderful day.

Whatever.

I was thinking—

How interesting. I hope nothing was damaged.

"The first part of our mission will be to arrange a vehicle, appropriate for a señorita of your standards. Marbella has the highest concentration of expensive cars in Europe, even higher than Monaco. If we want people to stop on the street and stare when you pass by, we'll have to make a genuine effort."

Duh.

I hoped you could help me with it. First, we need to take a short walk. The car dealer I have in mind is two streets from here.

Walk?

I could use a little motivation here. Talking to girls of her stature isn't my everyday job. I'm trying to do her a favour, and I'm rather nervous too, my first real mission as a stand-in for #4, The Agent. The needle of my patience deposit approaches «empty»: If you prefer, I can borrow the wheelbarrow from the gardener of the hotel, so you can sit and I can push you. That will definitely make people stop and stare.

If you are not stupid, you get the car and pick me up at the front door. If you're not stupid, you would already have done that. You tell me you're going to give me a wonderful day, but you are too stupid to do even the simplest thing.

Right.

The play has started.

The roles are divided.

This is not The Merry Wives of Windsor, having fun together.

This is not The Merchant of Venice, about the noble Antonio who tries to impress his Portia.

This is Macbeth.

She's the Lady.

I'm the killer.

On second thought: she has more of the green-eyed monster from Othello.

Anyway, she prefers to make a drama out of this day.

Rostov! I'm only good with comedy.

I know, it sounds stupid, but the LSD, the organization I work for, does not have the budget to hire the European space program and invite you for a trip to the moon. We—

Why would I want to go to the moon? All I want is to get back to bed and sleep. I'm on a vacation, remember?

You can sleep at home. On a holiday, you do all those fascinating things you can't do at home. You can do what you like.

When I'm on a vacation, I do what I like: I sleep.

I thought you wanted to have a trip in the most exclusive car ever. Here in Marbella, the word «exclusive» still means something. If you want to be so kind and come with me… It's only a five-minute walk.

Whatever.

I'm not sure if this is a victory or a defeat. She follows me to my goal, but her annoyance makes it feel like a licking, and instead of walking next to me, she stalks me with a face as if I've punished her.

I know, I know, society considered a woman, walking ten metres behind a man, an unacceptable form of machismo, mainly because it was the custom in the Arab world and the Muslim culture. Then the wars came: Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria… Those wars completely changed customs in the Arab world and the Muslim culture. Now, it is an honour and a sign of respect when a woman walks ten metres behind a man; in one word: landmines.

We're approaching the car dealer. The plan dictates we enter together; I can't impress her when she stays outside. Why is inspiration never around when you need it? I see a bar, a restaurant, a souvenir shop, two millionaires eating ice cream, a taxi, a boy in a blue T-shirt with the number 8 and the name Lampard… Idea!

Women show trust by telling secrets to each other. Everybody knows the name of this soon-to-become-a-woman behind me, but if I treat her like she's special, by sharing a secret with her, by giving her a secret identity, I might break the ice, the Greenland glacier, between us. I stop, turn and walk towards her. Now, I need a new opening line, something catchy, something to make her laugh, something like a cliffhanger in the cover text of a good spy novel…

I whisper: "You know I'm a spy, right? Using our real names is dangerous. I have a lot of enemies. They want revenge for what I did to their friends and family. I don't want you to get into trouble. You are an important lady. If anyone knows your true identity… They might hurt you to hurt me. Imagine your father, when his only child, in time, was hit by flying lead, killed by the ricochet of the bullets of a blind man, shooting at the world… I will protect you with my life, of course. As long as you stay with me, there's no real danger, but I prefer to call you Chelsea instead of using your real name, just to make sure. Do you like the name Chelsea? It's the name of the daughter of a former US President. Also, the