Chapter 2

It was three months after Laura and I became lovers that another opportunity for reconciliation for Julia and her family came about. Laura and I maintained infrequent contact at the best of times, my work and her family commitments weren't exactly compatible with each other, though the times we were able to get together we enjoyed immensely. If anything it was the infrequency that kept it fresh and passionate. Laura also occasionally visited me at home, though we never fucked there, just watched the occasional movie and drank a glass of wine. Laura also wore her comfortable outfit at these times, confiding that it was the real her as opposed to be designer doll the world expected to see.

You can't keep secrets too well from the team though and initially they heartily disapproved of my liaisons with Laura. Not because they saw it as a betrayal of Julia, though there was a little of that, even though they knew I'd been lonely and starved of female company, but because of the link to Julia's family. Eventually though they realised just how good Laura was for me, the iciness wore off and it just became one of those things. Earl was the hardest to win over, seeing in Laura everything he despised about the way Julia had been treated. However Laura and occasionally Adele's visits to see Julia, coupled with Laura's instructions to the family's lawyers to cease and desist on the blocking of various insurance policies to cover some of Julia's care costs helped. It was when Laura accompanied me to the companies Christmas Party that her natural charm, which had been almost subjugated by family duty, came to the fore and she spent almost an hour talking to Earl about how she could help to allay more of Julia's care costs. Laura was a trustee of several charities and she felt sure funds could be allocated into a charitable trust to help take some of the strain from the company's aid to Julia. In the end Earl and Laura simply hugged and became fast friends.

The Team and I were doing what was basically the company's bread and butter work, testing of a private corporation's security against electronic infiltration. Security in general is only as good as its weakest link and whilst you can keep up a pretty good firewall against hacking, it's pretty useless if someone has security access passwords that allow them to run amok within your system anyway. We also checked over the physical security of a site too, pointless having good quality products if anyone can just walk in and take them.

"You have a visitor, looks like Laura, but it isn't her," John said as he stuck his head around the door.

Now what, I wondered as I headed down to reception to be greeted by another sister-in-law, Jennifer, the middle one of the three.

"Hello Jennifer," I said. Of the three, until Laura and I settled our differences, we'd been the most on speaking terms. She's also the closest to Julia physically, though sadly easily swayed by her mother.

"Hello David," she said with a wan smile. "Laura said you might be able to help me, I think Tris is in trouble."

Just what I need, I thought, my sister-in-law thinks I run a private detective agency. Still for Laura and Julia's sakes I could at least listen.

"Tris works for the Minister of Defence as a SpAd," Jennifer said. "Problem is I think someone's trying to get him to hand over state secrets. I don't want to see his career wrecked, so I'd like to see if I could hire you to check what's going on."

"Wait here," I said.

I wandered over to Bill's office. "You heard?" I asked, knowing fine well Bill would have listened in. He nodded. "Worth having some dirt on him if he ever does get into a position of influence," I stated baldly.

"True," stated Bill. "I'll ask Earl, but start a few preliminaries."

I wandered back to the meeting room and Jennifer. "OK," I said. "Tell me all about it."

Turned out initially Jennifer suspected Tris of having an affair, though several aspects of it seemed odd. He had started bringing home paperwork from his job, something he wasn't supposed to do. He'd claimed he was getting behind, but it just didn't ring true. Then there were times when he should have been at his office, but wasn't. As it was, MI5 hadn't spotted his odd behaviour yet, but it seemed likely it would only be a matter of time, Tris not exactly being the brightest bulb in the box.

I bid Jennifer farewell, saying we'd be in touch. I told her not to worry about the cost, she couldn't afford us anyway. Though I did say we'd speak about it later.

I wandered back to Bill's office. Earl was there along with the rest of the team.

"Interesting," said Earl. "Your family seems to provide us with a number of opportunities to shine. I've had to bump this up several levels, but the consensus is that Tris may well prove to be of future use to us providing we can keep his name out of the news or the ears of the intelligence services."

It didn't take too long to find just what it was Tris was up to and for the life of me I cannot imagine why MI5 hadn't twigged his activities; perhaps it was just too blatant for them.

We were looking over some photographs of the places Tris was going to. It did appear that Tris was with another woman and acting fairly intimately

Bill frowned, then pointed to the woman. "I know that face from somewhere too," he stated. "Israeli Embassy, that botched mission when we tried to infiltrate a link to their comms gear."

I winced at that, we'd been tasked to try and get a link to the Israeli communications between the embassy and Tel Aviv before it got encrypted. We barely got off the starting blocks. Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, blocked our every move with ease and damned nearly killed the infiltration squad by flooding an access tunnel with a nasty little toxic gas. Would have too, save only they used it as a warning to back off and next time you won't be so lucky.

We still hadn't found the mole in our organisation who tipped them off, electronic or human. Mostly though we get on fine with Mossad, the enemy of my enemy etc., though it was clear none of us were looking forward to going up against them again.

"Mossad operative on the defence attaché staff?" I mused.

"Probably," said Bill. "If it is, your brother-in-law is being pretty stupid."

"Nothing new there," I muttered. "What do we do?" I asked.

"Go for a pint," said Bill. "What else?"

We ended up in a fairly nondescript pub well away from the office. Bill was displaying his usual paranoia about Mossad. The botched mission had really hurt his pride and he was determined to at least get one back over on them.

"It would be fairly easy to just warn Tris off," mused Bill. "We already have enough evidence to blackmail him at some future date. What I would like to do though is get hold of the young lady's entry card and get Emma inside to plant a few seeds."

"Not easy," said Brian, our master of disguise. "Similar facial features, different heights though."

"They'd pick up the seeds before she got past the scanners," I said. "Even if we used passive ones, we'd never get back inside to retrieve them."

"Farraday cage," said Bill.

"Might work," I said. "But better if they are handed over by someone inside, looking for a visa."

"Brian," said Bill. "Palm job in the embassy?"

Brian nodded. "Won't have a lot of time," he mused.

"OK," said Bill. "Here's what we do..."

Brian managed easily to pickpocket the I.D. card of the Israeli agent and handed it over to Emma. I stayed to watch Tris and the agent get it on via a hidden camera in their room, ready to warn Emma if the loss was noticed.

Brian and Emma went to the Israeli Embassy in Palace Green, Kensington. Brian going in the visitors' entrance carrying our seed, a sort of bugging device we'd developed. Emma entered via the staff entrance hoping no-one would notice her lack of height even with her heels. She got lucky or they simply didn't notice and Emma wandered into the public area, brushed past Brian and went to distribute the seeds in and around the building wherever her pass would allow her, though avoiding any people if possible. Finally Brian and Emma left the same way they entered. A clean sweep we hoped as we waited for Tris and the agent to finish and Brian to return the pass.

We made a disk of Tris and the agent and copied her Israeli Embassy pass onto it as well. I took a second copy too, for Jennifer.

Back at the company it was checked that the seeds were working. We now decided to allow things to stew for a few days before warning the agent off by revealing where the seeds were and how "she" planted them. Bill also posed as an MI5 agent and warned Tris off, showing the copy of the Israeli agents I.D. card, we kept the sex tape for our own further uses.

Two days later we had a visit from the Israeli Cultural Attaché. I have no idea what was discussed, however I assume they got the location of all the seeds, the transcripts of the seeds and a promise to back off Tris.

That night I had a surprise visitor, it was Laura.

"I just wanted to thank you for helping Jennifer," she said. "What are you going to ask her for your reward? Same deal as me?"

"Laura," I said, "please stop trying to set me up with your sister. I wouldn't want to hurt you like that."

"I wouldn't mind," Laura said. "She's just discovered what a shit her hubby is and could use some TLC."

"By doing unto him as he did to her?" I asked.

"Dave," she smiled. "You're clean, discreet and a genuine nice guy. I know you wouldn't hurt her. You have my blessing ... well so long as you don't neglect me either," she added with a wink.

I leaned over to kiss her and we exchanged kisses for a while before Laura had to hurry home. Life's inconvenient like that at times.