Chapter 3

My complicated sexual relationship with Laura and now Jennifer carried on for a month or so. The differences between the two sisters were profound. Laura was fairly passive in bed, adventurous enough to try anything, but never led the way. She was and is an intensely private person, though quite open about our friendship, just never about our sex life. Whereas Jennifer was a lady who knew what she wanted and would often suggest some adventure, she also loved to dress up in various ‘outfits’ from schoolgirl to a nun, along with multiple basques, corsets, stockings and suspenders. What she would choose was always a mystery, and we had a lot of fun with role-play.

The Team’s reaction to my complicated life was one of both amusement and wonder, though they never asked for details. They’d seen the effect that visits to Julia by her sisters had improved her functioning slightly and figured every little helped. Earl warned me not to wear myself out, which would have been difficult as simply arranging to meet either of the sisters was complicated by their own lives anyway, what with school terms and social events that they attended with their husbands and other family members. My job frequently had me working abroad or in another part of the country, and the work was hard and very often dangerous; governments and terrorist cells do not like being spied upon and are not very trusting at the best of times. Still, we were professionals and supremely competent; most of the time, no one realised we had been and gone, the few that did only long after. That’s not to say we weren’t shot at, occasionally held up by armed insurgents and robbed blind by corrupt bureaucrats, warlords and chieftains. In some cases, it paid us to bribe; information was cheap, and they loved lining their pockets at the ‘innocent’ foreigners’ expense, not realising the information’s true worth. We often bought passwords for server access for the price of a few cases of cheap rotgut. Give me admin access to a server for an hour or two, and we’d have permanent back door access to it, even leaving it a lot more secure to outside hacking; we didn’t want anyone else selling what we had. We did recognise various other intercept scripts, some of whom we disabled and others we left well alone. You do not want to piss off the United States Intelligence services without damned good reason, they have more money and resources than some small countries I could mention, and they do not like people meddling in their bailiwicks.

I had just returned from a mission in the Ukraine where we’d successfully infiltrated and retrieved a keylogger in the server room of a company suspected of funnelling money into the hands of various terrorist groups. Again, we didn’t know whom we did it for (other than the Company), just that it had been a nightmare as we’d accidentally strayed into the territory of one of the radical so-called right-wing groups in Kyiv. In this case, ‘right-wing’ meant racist, and they did not like foreigners at all and proceeded to harass us in our hotel and various places where we met. In the end, Bill, John and Emma had gone off the reservation one night and had ‘negotiated’ with the group, leaving them with twenty-seven dead and their leader and various sub-leaders nailed by various bodily parts to doors in their headquarters. That night, Brian and I had also retrieved the keylogger, and we all left on a flight; for the first time in over a year, I’d caught Bill smiling, too.

Still, the Company decided we needed a break, not a rest, and they put us on celebrity bodyguard duty for a film premiere. That isn’t to say we were a ‘Goon’ squad; the celebs had their own entourages for that. We were just there to monitor the site security and ‘mingle’ with the guests to spot any gate-crashers, paparazzi, or other undesirables before they produced any headlines the organisers didn’t want to see.

Yes, we would mingle with the stars, ‘we’ being the rest of the Team. I got to stay in the control room and watch cameras and coordinate; the price of being a geek.

Earl also hired escorts for two of our male members, Emma squiring the other.

I was telling Laura and Jennifer about this when they first asked if I could get them tickets, as they both have a thing about Johnny Depp. They then asked me to ask Earl if they could be the escorts instead, as they both had wardrobes full of designer stuff and were prepared to ‘work’ cheaply.

Earl himself was bemused when I asked. “They really want to attend, do they?” he asked.

“Yes, and they scrub up well, as you know,” I said with a grin.

“Very true,” he said. “Hmmmmm, ask them to pop in with the full kit on, and I’ll see if they make the grade.”

I rang Laura and Jennifer and told them what Earl wanted. They agreed to pop in the next day with a selection of outfits and promised mayhem on me if I put them in a room with cameras.

The Team went over the venue to be held at 30 St Mary Axe, which is informally referred to as the Gherkin. The reception was to be on the top floor (level 40) with panoramic city views. The regular building security handled access to the venue, and the City of London Police had the outside crowd control. Our job was to nip any trouble in the venue in the bud without upsetting the celebs, which could be tricky as diplomacy was not some of our members’ strong suit. Insult me, and I’ll shrug it off, insult Bill beyond a certain point, and you’ll be taking your teeth home in a bag. He promised to be on his best behaviour, but he always promised that. He promised that in Kyiv, too. Earl entered the room with Laura and Jennifer, who looked jaw-droppingly good.

“These two good Ladies have agreed to be your escorts for the venue. They’ve promised to behave and not mob Johnny. Decide who goes with whom and go over a few things to watch out for, including where to go if there’s any trouble,” he intoned.

There were a few moments of silence before Bill, who looked as dumbstruck as I’ve ever seen him, said, “Welcome aboard, Laura, Jennifer. We’ll soon sort things out.”

There was no need for introductions, but Bill reviewed the team call signs for them.

They smiled at the mine, of course, Geek, Bill was known as Tripod, John as Boomer (he makes things go boom), Brian as Hector (because he’s a h’actor), and Emma as Butch (because she can be at times). Earl’s call sign was Duke (as in Duke of Earl)

All Laura and Jennifer would do is hang onto Bill or John’s arm and keep an eye out for anything untoward. Not that we expected there to be any trouble, but we’d at least have more eyes on the ground.