Chapter 1

April Carlisle ran up the steps to her walk up in Parkside, Washington DC. She was still marveling at the fact that she owned the three-story building, with a basement garage. Even though it had been less than eight months, it was already home, in every sense of the word.

She had a small garden in the back, enough for Max, her adopted black lab, to frolic in. Although ‘frolic’ was too strong a word. More like “fertilize”. She’d learned that Max was prolific in his production of manure, and could fart like no dog – or human – she’d ever come across, when he was in the mood. And then look innocently at her as if to say, “Who, me?” It made her want to smile and also to open every window.

He was lolloping along next to her, trotting contentedly, sniffing the older trees along the road and constantly glancing at her, to make sure she was still in view. She was supposed to run with a leash, but April almost never did. She felt it was just wrong – Max would never bother anyone, and it gave him valuable sniffing time.

She stopped on the steps of the building, catching her breath and testing her heart rate via her FitBit. 120 beats per second. Not too bad for a 32-year-old woman, who didn’t get to run as much as she wanted these days.

Work had been hard recently. While she was not on an active case right now, she was helping out by doing research for another case while also mentoring a new recruit, Morgan. Morgan was from San Diego, and he held promise.

Things were tense at work since the disappearance of one of Ingrams and Associates’ top field agents, Desirea McGee, – a friend and co worker. Desirea had been working on a case involving the son of “Movie Mogul” (that’s what everybody called him), who had studios in China. Mogul was looking to retire, and was grooming his son to replace him. However, his son had women-relationship problems, erectile dis-function and a host of other issues. His father had approached Ingrams to see what could be done and Desirea had been injected into his life as his principal assistant. It seemed like a very simple job – seduce the boy, show him that he was a man, build up his ego, and set him up for the new job.

But it proved to be anything but simple. First, Desirea had discovered he had a huge submissive streak, courtesy of his childhood nanny, who had not only been a tremendously bossy woman, but also given him his first sexual experience. As if that wasn’t enough, she then discovered he had repressed transvestite tendencies. Her work was cut out for her.

Four weeks into the mission, Ingrams got a message from her saying she was going to take a trip with him, a mystery vacation in the family private jet. Then she just went radio silent. They couldn’t trace her phone. They heard nothing from her for three weeks. Everyone was growing very concerned. The son had also vanished, the plane had not landed anywhere that Ingrams could find, and so - with reluctance - they’d handed it over to the FBI for further investigation.

April worked for a clandestine intervention agency, called Ingrams & Associates, named after their founder, CEO and original field agent, Jessica Ingrams. Ingrams was a private agency that went out of its way to not advertise and not have its business known. They were hired by large corporations, government agencies, and occasionally private individuals. They provided a truly niche service, offering covert assistance to high value individuals who had issues occurring in their lives that most people would seek counseling or treatment for. But Ingrams’ clients, weren’t people who would even admit they had a problem, let alone seek treatment for it. Some of their cases included a spy who had come in from deep cover and had emotional problems over what he’d been forced to do, but could never ask for help. When a Military Chief of Staff from a small second world country who was suddenly outed as being gay, and he had no where to turn, but still held the codes to the country’s arsenals, it was Ingrams and Associates that was brought in. Sometimes it was more personal, like when a man’s wife and close friends thought he’d enjoy some group sex and started without him, he learned - after he’d seen them el-flagrante - that he wasn’t that keen on it.

Ingrams would research the target, deduce his or her situation and then embed one of their highly trained field agents into the situation, who would enter the target’s life clandestinely, evaluate the issue at hand and then do whatever was necessary to help that person through their issue. Sometimes they could try to solve the issue, or they might just produce a way for the person to function and move forward.

Often the issue was relationship based – an ego bruise, confidence rattled, a relationship damaged beyond repair, and the field agent would do whatever it took to bring the situation back under control. There was often a sexual component to the work, and all Ingrams field agents knew that, accepted it, and did their damndest to be the very best at what they were.

April had often joked with her friend Megan that Ingrams Field Agents were a “cross between James Bond, Mae West and Sigmund Frued. With a dash of Jason Bourne, for sex appeal.”

Ingrams had a large support team for their agents, and had internal groups for research, cover development and a room full of high tech gadgets that would make Q’s eyes pop. As you’d expect for a group that often charged upwards of a million dollars per engagement for their services.

There was little love lost between Ingrams and the FBI, who tolerated their existence - barely. The FBI was more interested in the missing son than a missing agent of an agency that they would have shut down instantly if they could.

Everyone at Ingrams was on high alert, thinking of plans to find Desirea, and suggesting new approaches every day.

The entire company was on edge, and Jessica Ingrams was not helping things by getting annoyed with people over slight issues. Dermot, her right hand man, and the number two person at Ingrams, was spending a lot of time soothing ruffled ego’s and reassuring people that ‘they’d find her. By god.’ His Scottish accent had come out far more in the last three weeks, indicating the stress he was under. Dermot was nearing sixty-five now, an older Scot with a shock of white hair and a perpetual white trimmed beard. He’d been in the US for years and word was he’d once been a psychologist at the CIA.

April felt useless. She was mentoring the new recruit as a favor for her friend Megan, who was running the training section after she had married. No running around, screwing the entire world for Megan any more. The company book was 3:1 that she’d be pregnant within two years.

As she sat on the steps of her house, watching Max ‘check email’, as she referred to his actions, when he was sniffing the same old locations, and then dropping his own scent, the door to the next building opened and she looked up into the smiling face of her neighbor, Kim McGhee.

Kim was an imposing tall red head, like April. Statuesque was the word. Kim was also a transgendered individual who had been assigned as a male at birth but who identified as a female, who made a living from doing female impersonation of famous celebrities. Kim’s Cher was legendary. They’d met and bonded when April had first moved, in – Kim had inherited the place from her father and moved in when he died. They’d even ended up comparing blowjob technique one drunken evening, involving tequila and Baileys Irish Cream. Kim had declared that a superior blowjob was made up of three parts, “Knowledge and experience, enjoyment of the act, and the feelings for the person you are doing it to.” April was taken aback, but then felt it necessary to keep her end up, and agreed, adding “how important it was to keep teeth out of the equation.”

“Morning April. Nice day, for a change,” said Kim, in her breathless southern drawl. Kim was raised in Knoxville, and it showed in her accent.

April grinned back at her. “Bit dressed up for a Sunday morning?” she inquired. It was true, Kim was wearing a sheath dress that showed off her figure and silicon touchups to fullest advantage.

Kim rolled her eyes. “Yeah, baby doll. There’s a pride march later today. Gotta go fly the flag. Someone wants to tell me which toilet I can use again.”

April laughed. Kim was more female at times than she was. There was no way anyone was going to mistake Kim for a man.

“Have a good one. Don’t get arrested. They’ll never know what to do with you,” offered April, pushing herself up and looking round for Max.

“C’mon Max. Time for a shower.”

Max came bounding up to the steps, and stopped to sniff at Kim, ever hopeful for a treat.

“Go on Max. Maybe later,” said Kim, rubbing his head. Kim had twice dog sat for Max when April was on a case, and they were firm friends.

Disappointed, Max wagged his tail anyway, and then turned and followed April inside, where she was holding the door open.

An hour later, a freshly showered April was curled up with a steaming hot coffee, engrossed in the latest Lee Child novel on her iPad, when her cell phone interrupted.

Pausing only to bookmark her page, she picked up the phone.

“Hey Dermot,” she answered, knowing who had called before even glancing at the phone. April made full use of assigning specific ring tones to people. Dermot came up with Colonel Bogey, the theme from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

“Any news?”

“Unfortunately not April. Nothing new to report.”

“Damn.”

“Yes, quite. However, we do have a wee case here for you. Something just came in and it looks fairly cut and dried, and you are free, soooooo...”

April smiled to her self, with a small amount of happiness. Finally, something constructive to do.

“I’ll be in in an hour, ok?”

“Great, see you there.”

Case protocol meant she couldn’t ask for details over the phone – it was onsite only. And Ingrams worked twenty four / seven, so there’d be someone there to talk to. Dermot himself probably – both he and Jessica were pretty much living at the office these days.

Within ten minutes, April had fed Max and gotten into her new Porsche 911 pulling it out of the basement garage. Her beloved Nissan convertible had finally run out of steam, and she’d gone all out in replacing it. A convertible black Porsche 911 – the same make and model as bad boy writer Hank Moody, played by David Duchovny, in Californication, one of her favorite TV shows.

Since it was a nice day, she put the top down, and roared off towards Ingrams.

When she arrived, the tension and stress seemed to have gotten deeper. There was an atmosphere of grim resignation. Desirea had been gone three weeks and some within the building had started to write her off.

Dermot looked tired as he ushered April into his office. He was more unshaven than usual, and his shirt looked rumpled and slept in. There were three different cups of unfinished coffee on his desk.

“Dermot, you don’t look good. When was the last time you were home?” asked April, concerned.

“I don’t ... I think it was Thursday? What’s today?”

“Dermot, you HAVE to go home. You know better than anyone that burning yourself out here isn’t helping Desirea any,” replied an even more concerned April.

“I’ll go after this. Promise. Scouts honor.” Dermot proved he’d not lost his sense of humor, much to April’s happiness. He even did the three fingered salute.

“What have you got for me?” April enquired, settling into the plush visitor’s chair opposite Dermot’s desk.

Dermot handed her a thick folder, with a coffee ring on it.

“Here. Unusual one, this one. You won’t be going in under cover. The client knows who and what you are. You are there to help her understand what has happened. Basically, she is the CEO of a public company, and her husband suddenly went off the rails. He left her and reversed his sexual identity entirely. There are some repercussions – he dumped the shares he got when they divorced and some other group now controls her company, so while she’s still ostensibly in charge, she’s pretty much got nothing to do all day but dwell on what she sees as her husband’s betrayal. She wants answers. She’s asking us to help give her some.”

April leafed through the folder quickly, absorbing what she could on a cursory glance.

“Why us? Why not some other psychologist or psychiatrist?”

“Well, because she thinks there is more to this than a simple repressed sexual identity. She’s got some wild hair up her ass that there’s something else going on. We are not only therapists; we are trained investigators. We kill six birds with one brick, so to speak.”

“I see. OH! This is in England?” exclaimed a surprised April, having just found the dossier page of the client, one Rachael Hicks.

“Yeah. You’ve never worked there, have you?” drawled Dermot.

“No. I’ve worked with the bureau there once, when I did that thing in Berlin, a couple of years ago, but I’ve never been to the UK before. Exciting!” said April, brightly.

Ingrams & Associates had small offices in various countries – England, Israel, South Africa and Japan. Each was only staffed with support personnel, although it was an aim for Ingrams to recruit field agents for each specific office. So far they had only managed to get two field agents in the Japanese office but this was mainly because of lack of resources to scout recruits. Scouting possible recruits for such a secretive and specialized agency was extremely difficult. Extremely. Part of Megan’s new job was to help in just that.

“The guys there have been briefed. They know you are coming. The head guy is Mark Scholtz. If you remember, he was the guy you liaised with on the Berlin job. While the client knows who you are, you are still going in as a PA to her, to contain propriety within the company. No one else there needs to know who you are or what you are doing. Go read the documentation. I’m going to go home and get a shower.”

April was already engrossed in the documentation, and nodded vaguely at Dermot, as he rose and walked towards the door.

“Er ... April?”

“Yes?”

“Think you could do that in your office?”

“What? Oh, sure. Yes. Sorry,” burbled April, standing up, gathering up the folder and feeling embarrassed.

Six days later, April was sitting in her kitchen, having coffee with her next door neighbor, Kim.

“England??” exclaimed Kim, “I love England. Specially those English men. Oh, the accent. Makes me weak at the knees.”

April grinned, “Yeah, it does kinda go straight to the emotion center of your brain, doesn’t it?”

Kim looked into the distance and said, dreamily, “I knew this one guy ... British as they came. Accent, attitude, everything. He could make me hot just with a word. Made me feel like an animal in the sack. I wish that had worked out...”

Then she snapped back to the present and smiled at April, saying, “But you get to go there. Home of the hot accents. Lucky you. Go find a man for me... ?”

“Oh I’m sure I’ll find a few,” replied April, smiling herself. She’d never been to England before, and had spent the morning looking up the difference between England, Great Britain and The United Kingdom. England was one country. Great Britain was all the countries on the main island – England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom was England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

She’d also done her research, and had already communicated with the London office, to request follow up background details. She was about as ready as she was ever going to be, and had spent the morning packing.

Max had sensed she was leaving the moment he saw the luggage come out. Several times before, April had left him in the care of other people while she went into the field – the last two times Kim had looked after him, and he was fast friends with her small dog, Cleo.

Kim knew some of what April did – not all the details but enough to know she was a field agent for a covert agency, and that she left for weeks at a time. She knew enough not to ask any more questions. Kim was nothing if not discrete when it came to her friends.

“You all packed? Got an umbrella? You gonna need one, girl,” Kim stated emphatically. “If there’s one thing England knows how to do, it’s rain.”

April laughed and they clinked coffee cups.

April’s flight over was uneventful – she watched TV shows on her Ipad and when she got there, customs and all the rest took time but wasn’t a problem. She was traveling on her own passport for once, and was unconcerned about any issues. She was too busy having a great time, listening to all the accents around her. It was like an episode of Downton Abbey mixed with Monty Python, two of her favorites. Her delight at being there was evident, and she was determined to make the most of her time there, even though work would come first.

As the plane banked to come into land at Heathrow, she could look down and see the patch work of the green farmlands, mixed with small clusters of housing neighborhoods. But best of all, they came in from the East, and came over the top of London. She could look down and see the River Thames, and Tower Bridge, the Shard and other London Landmarks. She was more than a little excited.

She was met after customs by someone sent to pick her up. Two men from the London office where there to greet her – it was a new experience to have her real name on a piece of paper, held up in the arrivals hall.

“I’m April,” she said, approaching the first of the two men. He smiled at her, and offered his hand.

“I’m George Piper. This here is Dan Boutrous,” he said, gesturing at the brown good-looking man behind him. George was a large man, rotund and slightly balding. He wore a rumpled suit and looked like a door-to-door salesman. April would soon learn this appearance was a façade; George had an unexpectedly quick mind, and could mimic any local accent the UK had to offer. He was the ultimate blend in man.

His companion, Dan, was younger, slimmer and obviously there was something far east in his ancestry, but he was just as quick on the uptake. A London lad through and through, April would eventually learn his accent was West London, although he could put on a posh accent at the drop of a hat.

“Let me take your bag, Miss April,” said Dan, showing a mouth full of perfect white teeth when she smiled. ‘So much for the idea that British people all had bad teeth, ‘ she thought.

“Where would you like to go first Miss Carlisle?” asked George, “Your hotel or the office?”

“Hotel,” said April, emphatically. “I desperately need a shower and to freshen up.”

“No problem,” said George. “You get the bags, Dan.”

Dan immediately bristled. “Why do I always have to get the bags, you daft old pillock? Why is it always the brown boy who has to carry them? You’re havin’ a laugh at my expense.”

“Because I’m the smart one, that’s why,” answered George, smoothly. “I’m the brains, you are muscle. Well, one muscle. Half a muscle.”

April got the idea that this was a practiced shtick. These two obviously knew each other well and were invoking something that April had heard about but never actually experienced, namely the British way of showing affection by basically being extremely rude to each other.

It was a strange thing – lots of cultures with British roots had this peculiar trait – Australians in particular. The more insulting they were to you, the more they liked you and the more they expected you to just hand it back. It was a tricky thing for an American to navigate, to understand when that was appropriate, and when it was not. To an American, calling someone a ‘daft cunt’ was the ultimate insult. But in England, it was almost a term of affection. No other culture in the world had better and more interesting ways to be rude to each other. Plus, it all just sounded so classy with a British accent, at least to her ears.

April found she was booked in at the Ritz. The Ritz! She was staying at The Ritz. In London! How cool was that? She couldn’t stop craning her head at all the landmarks they were passing by – Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, Piccadilly, Nelson’s Column, it was all passing by her. Living history. She almost squeed a bit when they went past Buckingham Palace.

The Ritz was everything she had expected – April had stayed in some nice hotels in her time, and while the Ritz wasn’t the best appointed or most modern – definitely not the most modern – there was just something about it that screamed class.

She took a quick shower, stashed her clothes and raced back downstairs, too wired to be too tired, even with the jetlag. She’d traveled before and knew the jetlag would come at some point, the trick was to let it happen on her schedule.

She found George and Dan in the bar, having a quick pint. George saw her coming and downed his almost instantly, leaving Dan to chug his as fast as he could, but still slow compared to George’s apparently infinite capacity.

“Come on boy, let’s be havin’ you,” he said, impatiently, making a show of looking at his watched as he glanced at an amused April. “We haven’t got all day here for you to sip it in.”

Dan finished his beer, slammed it down on the table and burped loudly.

“Ahhh, champion!” he exclaimed. “Shall we go then?”

The trio exited the lobby and climbed into a black cab. She looked at George, inquisitively and he just shook his head and said, “Better this way. Plus, driving across town at this time of day is a non-starter. A recipe for flying off the handle and being majorly upset with humanity in general.”

The trip took almost three quarters of an hour, and April kept waiting for the inevitable cab driver chat she’d heard so much about, but the driver himself didn’t say a word.

The conversation with George and Dan was enlightening, dealing with Brexit, the current state of the Monarchy, various thoughts they had about living in the USA and, of course, the weather. You can’t sit in a London Cab and not talk about the weather. It’s practically a local law. Nothing of consequence was said regarding the task at hand; this was, after all, a public place.

Eventually the cab dropped them off at the corner of Pentonville Road and St. John Street, in the borough of the Angel Islington, located in north London, where Ingrams and Associates had their UK based offices. George was careful to point out to April that the Angel tube station was just across the road, “just in case, pet”, as he put it.

They went into the building via a side door and walked up the stairs to the second floor. Another difference, she noted. The Brits have a ground floor and then the floor above it is the first floor, unlike the US, where the ground floor IS the first floor. April suspected there would many such adjustments to get used to over the next few days and weeks.

She was shown around the facility by Dan, after George politely mentioned he had some things to attend to. There was a conference room, several offices, a scaled down operations room, - similar to the one back in the US -, an equipment room, complete with workshop, and two rooms with researchers in them. And the kitchen. The tiny kitchen, barely big enough for a table, two chairs, a fridge and the inevitable tea kettle.

April was amazed at how tiny the whole operation was. This entire facility would fit inside both conference rooms and the bathrooms back in Washington. The rooms were relatively old, with steps up and down into rooms, and while everything was clean and well cared for, it just reeked of old.

When she stuck her head into the operations room, everyone turned to look at her, and she saw George in there, cup in hand, deep in conversation with someone. He’d seen her and nodded, raising his cup to her, and went back to his conversation.

Eventually she was shown into the office of the head of operations in London, Mark Scholtz. Mark was approximately ten years older than April. Thinning hair on top, glasses, clean-shaven, somewhat non-descript, but with interesting style choices. He was wearing a blue pinstriped suit, purple shirt and glaring red and orange tie. But it was his eyes that were the thing that stood out. He wore glasses for close up reading, but the moment he lowered them and turned them on you, it was like having laser beams fired at you. There wasn’t anything particularly striking about his eyes – they weren’t deep blue or a strange color; it was just you felt like he was giving you his full and undivided attention. There was stark and obvious intelligence behind them. It was unnerving at first, but after a while, April began to find it tremendously flattering.

They’d met before, when April had worked a job in Berlin, and Mark had been her point man in the city. The job had only taken three weeks, for her to come to the conclusion that the Olympic athlete she’d been hired to work with, who’d declared that he was considering a sex change, was entirely bullshitting the world. He’d actually had an injury that was going to stop him competing on the world stage, but he’d become addicted to the limelight, and this was his way of grabbing some of that spotlight again.

The Olympic committee in Germany had called in Ingrams to see what could be done, and it had only taken April a week to get into bed with Hans, and discovered there was no gender confusion going on with him. At all. Quite the opposite.

Even though she’d had to inform the committee it was all bullshit, she’d spent two more weeks “being sure”, because you didn’t get to fuck a gold medal winner very often, and also because the training to win a gold medal had also carried across into the bedroom. He was one hell of a sexual dynamo and she hadn’t actually been laid properly in months, not where she didn’t have to do the work.

Mark had understood completely; he’d found his own little Helga and spent a week in cottage on the Austrian border himself, once the task was completed.

“Hey April,” he said, sitting back in his chair, grinning, “how’s tricks? You ever hear back from Hans?”

She smiled broadly back at Mark, settling down in the seat in front of his desk, leaning back and putting her feet up on his work space.

“Oh, he’s married now. Two kids. I dare say they are both in training as we speak, ready for the 2032 Olympics, knowing him.”

Mark chuckled. They’d had a few days at the end of the job and spent it checking out beer halls in Berlin – they were old drinking partners and were both very comfortable with each other.

“I hear you are married now, yes? How’s that?” asked April.

Mark shrugged. “Has it’s ups and downs. She is the one though. No question. One night with her and I knew.”

“Good for you,” smiled April back, genuinely pleased for her friend.

“So, the Hicks job. Interesting one,” he said

“Yeah. You know, I’ve read all the material, but I still can’t understand why she came to us?” asked April, quizzically. “I mean, why not go to a normal counselor? Why us?”

“To that, I honestly don’t know. When she contacted us, it wasn’t so much a request for help as an order. She’s quite ... direct. It doesn’t encourage a lot of back and forth. I gather she regards us more as a service bureau than anything. I would have dug deeper but that’s really you Johnnies area. Didn’t want to step on any toes, did I?” Mark hammed up the last sentence in an upper class British accent.

April chuckled back at him.

“Well, then I’ll ask. What’s the process here? I don’t think I’m going to need any special equipment. I’m still going in under an alias – I spoke to my people and put together a small plan for this. While she may know who I am and why I’m there, others won’t. She’s still the CEO of the company, even if she doesn’t have the real power. She doesn’t want or need the stigma of a therapist sniffing around. She’s already lost her husband under very shitty circumstances; she doesn’t need any more issues. So, I’m going in as her new PA. That gets me close to her, and lets me see her in her natural habitat.”

“Yeah, we got the preliminary mission specifications from Dermott a couple of days ago. I’ve got you a cover set up, and I’ve got you booked into a nice little pub hotel down the road from her main residence. The idea is that you will car pool with her – that’s how you Americans say that, isn’t it? Car Pooling?”

April gave him a lop sided half smile and the single finger. Mark had teased her unmercifully about being an ‘uncultured yank’ when they were in Germany. Generally, a few choice comments about the rest of the world not speaking German because of US involvement tended to stop that, but she was now currently in the belly of the beast, so to speak. She needed new ways to respond to this. Perhaps just ignoring it was best.

“OK. So, she’s located ... where? Wellwyn?” she asked, hesitantly, trying to work out how to pronounce it.

“Yes. Wellyn. It’s hard to know how to say it unless you grew up here. Hertfordshire county. About half an hour north of London. Lovely area. I did my degree in that area you know. Here.” Mark pushed some documents across his table to April, who pulled her feet down and leaned forward to pick them up. Ingrams had a policy of never allowing documents to leave the office unless it was absolutely necessary, so she had to get a new set.