Friends to This Ground

Global Security is a private intelligence firm with a problem. The toxic combination of stress and boredom is killing its field operatives -- suicide, alcoholism, drug addiction, autoerotic asphyxia and other deaths by misadventure are rampant. When new management deals with the problem by surrounding their most promising operatives with a support team, a net is cast far and wide for complementary talents and personalities. Sappho meets Lewis and Clark when Julie Romane, the twenty-one year-old straight-arrow daughter of a con artist mother, is one of the new recruits. She struggles with the same psychological issues that brought down her predecessors till she finds contentment in the muscular arms of her beautiful co-worker, Lauren. Together with three male field agents, they follow in the footsteps of the Corps of Discovery. Everything is fine with Julie - till she learns the real reason she was hired. Perhaps mother knew best, after all.