There's nothing worse than being awakened in the middle of a good dream--particularly if that dream includes the Radio City Rockettes, nude, doing their famous kick routine while humming the theme song to Bonanza. But I was roused into consciousness by noises coming from the kitchen--either the refrigerator's ice maker had kicked into overdrive, or there was an intruder in my apartment. Suddenly the sharp beam of a flashlight cut across the living room wall. That pretty much ruled out the ice maker.        My first reaction was pure, all consuming, freeze-dried panic, but my instinct for survival led me to look around my dimly lit bedroom for a weapon. I didn't own any firearms--the closest thing I had was a label gun, and short of punching out the word "bang" and affixing it to the intruder's forehead, it wasn't going to be of much help.        I slowly moved out of my bed and towards the closet where I figured there had to be something I could defend myself with. Carefully sliding the closet door open, I squinted into the darkness and felt around 'til my hand rested on the "Safety Patrolman of the Year" trophy I'd won in the fourth grade. Well, under the circumstances it was the best I could do. Brandishing the trophy like a club, I moved cautiously towards the doorway. There in the living room was a man going through my desk.        "Freeze, Mister," I barked, inspired by memories of my years as a student crossing guard. "Make one false move and you're gonna get it."        The figure tensed up and then slowly turned around. It was a man wearing a trench coat and a fedora.        "Who the hell are you?" I yelled.        "Fleister. Danko Fleister," the shadowy figure said. His hand made a sudden move into his coat.        "Wait a minute, pal!" I said, raising my weapon a bit higher. "I didn't get this trophy for being stupid."        He slowly withdrew his hand from his trench coat pocket and in it was his wallet.        "Excuse me," he said. "That's Danko Fleister. . . CIA." He flipped open his billfold and held it up for me to see.        "Great. An American Express Gold Card. I'm real impressed. Perhaps you can get Karl Malden to help you remove this trophy after I. . ."        "Damn!" he said. "Wait a minute. It's in here, I know it." He flipped on his flashlight and began searching through his wallet.        "Just a minute. Give me one minute," he said as stuff from his wallet began spilling out onto the floor. This sight alone made me think he probably was connected with the CIA.        "Damn! I can't see. Wait. . . Here it is! Here it is! "        He held up a card with his picture on it. Sure enough, it read "Central Intelligence Agency--Danko Fleister, Special Agent."        "Okay, it looks official enough," I said. "Let's pretend for a minute it's genuine--What the hell are you doing in my house in the middle of the night? And you'd better explain quickly, or you can get J. Edgar Hoover to help you remove this trophy after I . . ."        "Hoover is FBI."        "What?"        "J. Edgar Hoover is FBI. You mean I should probably get William Casey to help me remove the. . ."        "Hoover, Casey . . . I don't care if you get Aunt Jemima to help you. What are you doing here?"        "I'm here because you may be in a great deal of danger," Fleister said.        "From what?"        "We intercepted a message on a wire tap that someone was coming here tonight--to your house. They were going to break in to look for something--diaries of some sort. Does that ring a bell?"        "Yeah, I'm afraid it does," I said. "And just whose phone were you tapping?"        "A real dangerous character named Bruno . . ."        "Kartofel! I should have known I couldn't trust that SOB."        "You know him then."        ""I'm afraid so. He contacted me the other day. He thinks I have these diaries. I don't . . . I mean . . .it's a long story."        "Well, he's a good one to stay away from. We've been keeping our eye on him for a while and, believe me, that ain't easy. He goes by several aliases: Bruno Kartofel, Bruno Karttofel, Bruno Karrtofel, Bruno Kartofell . . . He's tough to keep track of."        "Why were you wiretapping his phone?"        "We think he's up to something big. Real big. He's an arms merchant--you know--weapons, and he travels in pretty tough company. He's always managed to keep his weapons deals on the up and up, but this time he may have slipped up. We intercepted a shipping order of his during one of our taps. He spoke of a 2.6 million-dollar shipment to a hostile country--and that's a no-no. We're not sure exactly what type of weapons are involved--he referred to them as "fuzzy pink slippers." We think it's a code name--probably for tow missiles or something. I know one thing: if I can nail Bruno on this one, I'll definitely get a promotion out of it."        I thought about telling Fleister about Kartofel's little sideline in Elvis souvenirs, but I just didn't have the heart.        "Well, what do we do now?" I asked.        "All we can do is wait and see if Bruno or one of his henchmen shows up. Got any coffee?"        "Yeah," I said wearily, "the kitchen's over there."        If someone had told me that one day I'd find myself sitting in my kitchen, in the dark, in the middle of the night, discussing Elvis Presley with a CIA agent while waiting for a man named Bruno to break into my house, I would have told them they were nuts. But that's exactly what I was doing and, frankly, it was about par for the course since I'd become involved with the Elvis diaries.        "How does one get into this spy stuff?" I asked Fleister.        "Well, to be honest, it wasn't my first choice of careers. I really wanted to be a chef--own my own restaurant. But a CIA recruiter came to my school, and he had brochures that promised a life of adventure and excitement . . . and, well, I really couldn't decide what to do. So I compromised--I took a job with the CIA, but in their Food Services Division."        "Food Services? In the CIA? What do they do?"        "Yeah, they don't get much press. They were formed in the early '60s to cater to the Bay of Pigs invasion. You know how that turned out. Anyway, they kept the operation active to develop various food-related weapons. My first assignment after I joined was to develop an exploding blintz for Castro. Believe me, it ain't easy coming up with something that is both explosive and pleasing to the palate."        "You obviously haven't eaten at the Arcadia."        "As a matter of fact, I have. Try their Sonny Bono on a waterbed sometime."        "Well, what happened with Castro and the blintz?"        "Oh, I came up with it all right. It was perfect, too. I used a plastique explosive that had the exact taste and consistency of cream cheese. One bite of that baby and Blammo!"        "But Castro's still alive."        "Yeah, I know. Turns out he didn't like blintzes. He gave it to his Secretary of Agriculture."        "So he ate it?"        "Well, he bit into it. Turns out I made the charge too small, though. It didn't kill him, but he'll never be able to say the word 'succotash' again."        "Doesn't it bother you--I mean, knowing that something you cooked would be used to kill someone?"        "Hey, I was only following recipes. Besides, it's no tea party out there. You should see some of the goodies cooked up by the KGB--borscht bombs, cyanide-laced stroganoff, radioactive cabbage rolls--and that's just for the KGB commissary . . . those guys play rough. And for us? Our boys once intercepted a stealth strudel headed straight for the White House. Man, just thinking about that really makes me mad."        Danko's face began to turn an unusual shade of red.        "It makes me want to get in that kitchen and whip up something that'll blow those Russkies right off the map."        "Calm down, Danko," I said. "They're our friends now." I sensed that Fleister was a little bit unstable. But then again, how much stability can you expect from a man who wants to make a thermonuclear Bundt cake? I tried to change the subject.        "So you aren't in food services any more?"        "No, they shut it down. Had their funding cut. You know, Gorbachov and all that. Damn shame, too. I was real close to developing an Agent Orange that had 10-percent real fruit juice. Anyway, they transferred me to Special Services. This Kartofel business is my first real spy case--you know, world travel, secret codes, wire tapping, that kind of thing. Look what they gave me."        Fleister reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a small metal box. He flipped the top open and held it out for me to see. Inside was a white, oval pill.        "I have to carry this in case I'm captured by the enemy."        "What is it?" I asked, "a suicide pill?"        "No, it's a Tic Tac. I want my breath to be fresh when I tell 'em everything! Of course it's a suicide pill."        "Sorry," I said.        "Hey, I didn't mean to be testy. It's all this coffee--makes me a little edgy. Look, are you hungry? I can whip up a . . ."        "No thanks," I said, as visions of Fleister concocting an Omelette of Death sprang to mind. "Coffee's just fine for me."        Several hours had passed and I had fallen asleep on the floor, when, suddenly, I was awakened by the sound of Danko's voice.        "Did you hear that?" he asked.        "What?" I said, sitting up quickly and rubbing my eyes.        "A noise. It came from out back. I'd better check it out."        "I'll go with you."        Danko began peering out the back window to see if he could make out anything. "Do you have a flashlight?" he asked.        "I'll get it."        I returned seconds later with the flashlight and, just for good measure, my safety patrol trophy.        "Ready to go," I said.        "What's that?" Danko said, gesturing to my trophy.        "You know, just in case."        Danko reached into his shoulder holster under his jacket and pulled out a gun.        "I've got this."        "Oh," I said sheepishly, leaving my trophy on the kitchen table.        Danko opened the door, and we proceeded cautiously into the back yard. It was pitch black, so Danko waved the flashlight around. The narrow beam of light cut through the darkness.        "The noise came from over there," Danko said, pointing to the garage.        We slowly walked toward the open garage door. Danko shined the flashlight around the inside of the garage and then up toward the ceiling looking for a light. Seeing a dangling chain, he pulled it and a single light bulb came on revealing a shoebox with a clock attached to it sitting in the middle of the garage floor.        "What's that?" I asked.        "Looks like a bomb," he replied coolly.        Danko handed me the flashlight, put his gun back in his holster, and then knelt down and began to inspect the device.        "Shouldn't we call the bomb squad?" I asked nervously.        "Don't worry. I've done this before."        Danko's attention returned to the bomb. He slowly removed the cover.        "Great," he exclaimed.        "What?! "        "It's Z-38."        "What's that?"        "Incendiary . . . like napalm."        Danko pulled a Swiss army knife from his pocket and opened a small pair of wire cutters. He then began looking through the wires that connected the explosive to the clock.        "What if it goes off?" I asked nervously.        "We'll be burned beyond recognition."        After pondering that image a few seconds, I spoke up.        "Look. Call me conservative, but I like recognition. I'm perfectly happy with recognition. It's not something I want to go beyond."        Danko looked up from the bomb and held his index finger in front of his lips. He then looked back at the bomb and squeezed the wire cutters. There was a loud "snip" sound.        "Got it."        I let out a deep breath of relief. Danko picked up the bomb.        "I'd better take this into the lab for analysis."        "You really think Kartofel was responsible for this?"        "I told you he was a dangerous character. I heard he once tried to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by breaking all Ten Commandments in less than a minute.        "Did he make it?"        "No, he ran out of time before he could covet something. Yeah, he's dangerous, all right. But this was just a warning. If he'd wanted to kill you, he would have used a bigger charge and put it under your bed. He was trying to send you a message. Anyway, it looks like you're safe for now. Here's my card. Give me a call if you notice anything strange.        Before I could point out that, having recently been to an Elvis impersonators contest and witnessed a faith healing at an Elvis church, I already had the "see anything strange" thing pretty much covered, he vanished into the night. Illustration by Barry Willis