Chapter 25
Pin-up Plan
After my little shopping trip, I now had everything I needed before jumping back on another bus, this time using the journey to start the cogs of my escape plan in motion.
Now, all I could hope for was that if Dante couldn’t find me, then neither could anyone else out there, which meant I had a good chance here at outrunning everyone…even the bad guys.
So, after first writing down the things I needed on my new pad, I made an important phone call.
This was to my boss, with the expectation of getting an earful for not being in touch and then having to tell him I needed time off… well, let’s just say I really hadn’t expected it to go well.
Especially when my boss told me to hold on as someone wanted to talk to me and it turned out to be the Chairman himself.
“Oh, my dear, my sweet girl, how thankful we were for your little tour but more so with the gentleman you brought with you,”
Sir Allerton said with such enthusiasm I was dumbfounded as to why.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but…”
“Oh, no need to play coy my dear, but surely you must know.”
I frowned at first in reply before telling him the truth.
“No, I am sorry, Sir, but I don’t, has something happened?”
He started chuckling and then whispered to my boss, something about the sweet charms of a lady before retuning back to me and shocking me to the core.
“That gentleman you brought with you contacted me a few days ago and told me that he was so impressed with your work and your personal knowledge and clear passion for history, that he felt moved enough to make a donation…a very considerable donation,”
he said, stretching out the word considerable to emphasize just how substantial a donation it was.
“He did?!”
I shouted, making him laugh.
“Oh yes, and as I said, quite a large donation at that, over twenty times what we needed to fund the dig, along with many others to come, as his only stipulation was that you were to head each one and have a say in future digs, for that is all the money is to be spent on.
So, well done, my dear, and as for your time off, I would say that you have certainly earned it, so take all the time you need.”
After this I thanked him and ended the call in a stunned state.
Lucius had made a huge donation, millions in fact, going from what Sir Allerton had said.
And Lucius had made it sound as if I deserved all the credit.
I was in so much shock and still trying to process it all that I nearly missed my stop.
I didn’t know what to think other than asking myself why? Why would he do that? Because there was one thing turning up and saving my life, or acting out a favour to my parents, but this…what was this for? Who gained from it other than me and why would he spend all that money on something he knew I was most passionate about in the world if only for my gain? Who does that for someone they think of as a job?
Or someone they don’t care about?
I had no answers.
None whatsoever.
Because deep down there were only two possibilities left and only one of them I wished for…that he actually cared more for me than he led me to believe.
The other one was…well, that he cared more for someone else than he led her to believe.
This thought was just as heartbreaking as it had been all that time ago.
But no! I couldn’t think of that now.
I still had a job to do and for that I needed Wendy…the only person in this world I could trust.
So, as I got off the bus I had my pad in my bag at the ready.
I checked my surroundings as subtly as I possibly could and smirked to myself the second I realised that it was as I thought, there was someone watching Wendy’s flat.
Which meant that my plan just might work like I thought it would.
I could even see the way the guy across the street started touching his ear and speaking in that obvious way.
I swear this spy game didn’t look half as cool as it did in the Bond movies.
I wanted to go over there and tell him to stop touching his ear the way Daniel Craig did in Casino Royale just before the epic free runner chase through a building site.
I made a show of pulling my hat down hoping he was at least smart enough to take note of what I was wearing as this would end up playing a main part of this plan of mine.
I buzzed Wendy’s flat at the front door of her building, lucky that I knew she often worked from home and according to her google diary we had synced up long ago, I knew that today she was working from home again.
“Hey hun, can you let me in?”
I said before I knew what was coming.
“Holy Christ where have you been, I have been out of my mind with worry and Ben said something…”
“Look I will explain, just let me in okay.”
I said, this time in a more serious tone, one she understood the second I heard the buzz of the door.
I then made my way up to her flat wondering just how many people were also planted here to keep an eye on me when I was at her place? I would have liked to have said I was being paranoid but really, after everything I had learned today, then I knew if anything, I wasn’t being paranoid enough!
I decided to take her stairs instead of the lift, that way hoping no one would see me as I took the notepad I had written on whilst on the bus out of my bag, ready for this moment.
Then, when I reached her door, I knocked and the second she opened it I held up the pad for her to read.
It said
‘Follow my lead, they are listening!’ Then I spoke.
“Hey honey, sorry I didn’t call but I am really upset, can I come in and stay with you for a bit,”
I said in a dire tone that I hoped was believable.
Wendy gave me a look of shock before schooling her features quite quickly and nodding her head telling me she understood before saying,
“Oh Emmie, yeah of course…I have been so worried about you!”
It had to be said her acting was a heck of a lot better than mine that was for damn sure.
I walked in and closed the door behind me and just hoped that the one flaw in this plan could be that the place wasn’t just bugged, but it also had cameras in here too.
Which meant this plan of mine would be over before it really even took shape.
But the idea came to me when I remembered seeing Dante one morning with his hand reaching up by her lampshade, thinking it weird at the time but shrugging it off as the excuse he gave me.
He noticed it flickering the night before and was just checking the connection.
Of course, after everything I had learned since then, I now started to question it and I knew I was right the second I walked over to it.
Wendy mouthed the words,
‘What you doing?’ at me so I flipped over the next page and she read the answer I already had planned.
‘Your place is bugged’.
It read and her mouth dropped open in shock.
I rolled my hand as if to get her to start talking normally.
Thankfully, she soon got the hint and said,
“So, what happened to you, ‘cause I got a text off Ben that said you were feeling poorly and just wanted to sleep it off, was that true?”
I quickly showed her the small black dot I found attached to the inside of the shade and then took a step back before answering her.
“Yeah, something like that, but don’t worry about that now, I just needed to get away from that place,”
I said only half acting.
Then I showed her another page that said,
‘Answer is: Make yourself at home, I was just about to have a bath but chill out if you want.’
“I just needed somewhere to think, I’ve called in sick at work, just needed to take a week off you know, after everything that’s happened.
Do you mind if I stay the night and we just do something normal like watch a movie and order a takeout or something?”
I said before giving her big eyes and a nod of my head for her to do her thing.
“Yeah, of course, that sounds great, but I was just about to have a bath, so why don’t you order something and chill out for a bit, I think Next Gen in already in the DVD player,”
she said with a shrug of her shoulders obviously silently asking if that was all right and I gave her two thumbs up for the show.
“Cool thanks hun, I owe you big time.”
Then I grabbed the remote and pressed play on the DVD player, turning it up loud enough so as not to be ridiculous but be loud at the same time.
Then I nodded towards her bathroom and once inside I turned on the taps full blast.
“Alright, we should be fine in here.”
“Seriously Emmie, I am starting to think you lead a double life here,”
Wendy joked, and I felt like saying, ‘you have no idea’.
“Okay, so I am going to take a not so wild stab in the dark here and point the end of my blade at Mr Inferno being the one who planted that bug in my apartment,”
she said crossing her arms and looking less than impressed.
“Yeah, that would be a good guess, as in the type where it’s not actually a guess but more of an obvious…oh, anyway you get the idea, look I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed to get away,”
I said, making her nod as she had no doubt gathered as much.
“Alright Smock, I am your Kirky, what do you need me to do?”
I gave her a smirk and said,
“Easy…I just need you to be me.”
After this bombshell drop of a plan I then told her a heavily edited version of the last few days and then told her my plan, all in the time it took for the bath to fill.
Then that was it, our time was up.
We had to keep up with the act, so we ordered Chinese food and I made a show of shouting to Wendy telling her it would be with us in forty minutes.
She stayed in her room as I told her to, so that she wouldn’t be seen as her curtains were already closed.
Thankfully, unlike my place, you couldn’t see anyone in the living room, so they wouldn’t be able to see that I wasn’t actually watching Star Trek the Next Generation at all but instead was joining Wendy in her bedroom.
Which meant we had forty minutes to do this whilst technically Wendy was in the bath.
“Okay, so we have to try and do this as quietly as we can…you ready to become me?”
I whispered, and she replied,
“Ready when you are.”
We then spent the next forty minutes transforming ourselves into each other and we started by swapping clothes.
I undressed, giving her my hat and sweater, after finding a pair of jeans of hers that would match in colour.
Then we added a pair of high heeled boots underneath, so they made up for the extra height.
Her hair was short, so tucking it in the woolly hat wasn’t a problem.
Thankfully, it was cold outside, so it was the weather for it because if this had been summer and a sunny day outside, then we would have been so screwed.
But it was winter so by the time she added my jacket, one Dante had also seen me wearing, she definitely looked the part, especially after putting on my sunglasses that I had purposely shown them I had with me today, on account of hiding the tears.
“Your turn,”
she whispered, picking out one of her swing style dresses that was black.
We picked it as it was too tight on her so should in theory just about fit me fine.
I smirked when she mouthed the word ‘Bitch’ to me when it actually turned out to fit me like a glove.
It had a sweetheart neckline and a red underskirt giving the skirt volume.
It also was a halter neck with red ribbon that tied at the back of my neck and was keeping up half of the dress.
To this she added a matching red sweater so I wouldn’t get too cold and the biggest jacket she owned.
“No I can’t, you love this jacket,”
I protested on a whisper, placing my hands on it to stop her.
I knew it was her favorite and one she had saved up to buy for ages.
“Then make sure you bring it back in one piece and I don’t just mean the jacket,”
she warned with a worried smile and I grabbed her to me and hugged her tight.
“I will, I promise.”
So, after hanging the heavy jacket over my arm ready for later, we walked out of the bedroom looking good enough that it gave us both hope that we would fool everyone.
But first, we had an act to put on.
And it started the moment after our takeaway turned up.
“Oh, damn it, I totally forgot!”
Wendy said winking at me.
“What’s up?”
“I forgot that I have to meet that contact tonight for drinks...shit!”
She said acting it out perfectly.
So, I tried to do the same and sound disappointed.
“Oh, well that’s alright…”
“No, no, I will cancel…I wonder if Roger could go in my place and do the interview,”
she mused to herself, making me mouth the question, ‘Who is Roger?’ She shrugged her shoulders and mouthed back, ‘Hell, if I know’, making me want to giggle.
“It sounds important, honestly I don’t mind staying here by myself, in fact whilst you do that I could do with going home and grabbing some stuff anyway…that is if you still don’t mind me staying here,”
I said, making Wendy smirk at me as if we had rehearsed this a million times and it was now perfect.
“Yeah, I already said you could stay as long as you want but I agree, you at least need your PJ’s if your gonna share a bed with me, don’t want me turning the other way for real now, do you?”
she said obviously improvising and my mouth dropped before I burst out laughing mouthing ‘What was that?’ making her reply, ‘I don’t know!’
“Well, I have been known to have that power to turn people to the boobie side of lust.”
At this we both laughed again as if this was some weird game called ‘who could say the weirdest shit to the hidden microphone and get away with it’.
“But you’re right, I need to pack some stuff.”
“Then it’s settled, take my keys and let yourself back in, I warn you though, I might be back late,”
Wendy said.
“Why, where are you meeting this contact?”
I asked knowing that this part of our story was key in case they decided to follow Wendy, which would actually be me.
“At the airport.”
“That’s a weird place for a date.”
I smirked when she frowned at me.
“It’s not a date! Look, the guy is some businessman who can only meet me in between his flights, he’s got some big corruption story on his boss, who naturally I can’t name at this time, but who knows, the story could win me a prize, that or a cheap bottle of perfume at duty free.”
I laughed, and we continued to make small talk, like the way I ‘convinced her the black dress with the red coat was a winner’ just to fully cement our story.
Then, after putting on the shoes I’d bought that day, knowing that would have been the only flaw in our plan considering we had different sized shoes, we were ready.
So, I put on the jacket she loved, that hung down the full length of the skirt showing just my black tights underneath and high heel red shoes, hoping they wouldn’t notice the biggest different between us, our height.
One of the reasons I didn’t pick a massive heel and had Wendy pick a pair that were some of her highest, yet ones she could still hide under a pair of jeans.
Plus, how many men really noticed a woman’s shoes, um? Well, knowing my luck then Dante would have a foot fetish and zone straight on Wendy’s feet which, thinking about it, would have been mine.
Man, I was confused already, and we hadn’t even stepped foot outside yet.
“I have to say, this look really suits you,”
she whispered as way of goodbye then she added,
“Good luck.”
“You too.”
Then after putting up the hood and grabbing the swapped bags that now had the printouts in and everything else I would need, like my passport, I nodded to her.
“See you later…oh and have a nice date,”
I said, playing the part and holding up my hand to tell her to wait five minutes like we had planned.
She nodded and said,
“I told you, it’s not a date! Now don’t forget my keys like you usually do”
she said, and like me playing the part but giving me the thumbs up as well.
Then I left, holding my head down and letting the massive fur lined jacket cover most of my face.
It was quite a gothic style being red and black brocade that was double breasted with big black buttons that matched the fake fur cuffs and edging round the hood that was currently tickling my nose.
It was a long heavy jacket of thick material that corseted in at the back and flared out around the skirt.
One of the reasons she chose it, was because it was adjustable in size so I could get away with making it looking bigger than it was, so I appeared to have Wendy’s curvy bottom half.
I would pull it in once I was in the clear so that it fit better.
But for now, I walked out into the night, pulling the hood further over my face and thanking the fates for rain so that this made sense.
Then I hailed a cab and got in telling him to take me to the airport.
I had already checked the time of the flights but still had no clue as to where I was going, knowing that I only had enough cash on me to get me so far.
I couldn’t risk paying on my card, knowing that was easy to track, so I managed to get out a little over a thousand pounds over three different cards. It wouldn’t last me long, but it would be enough to figure it out when I got to where ever it was I was going.
Maybe Ireland would be good, as far as I knew my father didn’t have any property there.
Well, at least I had the coat for cold weather I thought, tugging all the layers back a little as it was roasting in the back of the car.
But I didn’t want to chance being seen in case Wendy was being followed.
I don’t know how long it took to get to Gatwick airport as I lost time just by playing my plan over and over again in my mind.
See I had it in my head that if they didn’t know where I was, then maybe they would finally get the hint that I valued my private life.
That way, if they ever wanted me to come back, then things were going to have to change and big time because what Lucius and my father had done had only made me feel one way…Violated.
Well, no more.
I paid for the cab or should I say, taxi as they say here.
Then I walked into arrivals with my handbag firmly over my shoulder.
I still had a part to play so just hoped that no one was going to go as far as following Wendy inside or it would look odd that I made my way back to departures.
Then I paused to look up at the outgoing flights on the screen.
I decided that Dublin must have been fated, because there was one leaving in two hours’ time. Now all I had to do was hope that Wendy didn’t get discovered before then and we were all good.
So, after I purchased my ticket, I made my way to security and finally felt it safe enough to take off my jacket, placing it on the belt along with my bag and phone.
Then I walked through the metal detector getting some strange looks for being dressed the way I was, making me blush a little.
After all, it was a little late in the day to say I was heading to a wedding.
As it turned out my bag was picked randomly to be one that was checked so I walked over to one of the security officers.
She asked if it was my bag and if I packed it myself.
I nodded, and she started emptying the contents, frowning down at all the rolled-up printouts.
“Can you show me these, please.”
I wanted to sigh, but thought that may look a little weird, especially if I suddenly blurted out about how much more trouble were these papers going to get me in?
“Sure,”
I said pulling the elastic hair bobble I had placed round them and showed her.
“What is this?”
she asked in curiosity, not because she had to as let’s face it, they hadn’t exactly been blue prints of the airport or schematics of the plane I would shortly be boarding.
“I am an archeologist and they are pictures of an artifact I am working on,”
I told her.
“Oh wow, like that boy king, what was his name Tuk or something…found in…”
the second she started talking I stopped listening as something she said suddenly clicked at the same time I looked at the images.
I frowned down at one of the squares that had a hieroglyph on it that represented a King or a God as they were both very similar.
But it wasn’t one that was in a cartouche, like it should have been.
It was also a king I hadn’t heard of before and therefore its name had been hard to decipher.
I remembered getting frustrated before the gala, and the short time I’d had to look at the actual thing in the flesh.
But now I was looking at it in a whole new way because the way I had taken this particular picture was at an angle.
It was one at the time I classed as a bad picture and thought of as pretty useless.
But now it was showing me something completely different.
I could read the real meaning and it was one that had me quickly freaking out.
“Miss…miss, are you okay?”
My head snapped up and I looked at her a second before shaking off my horror enough to respond.
“Yeah, I mean I just realised I have to change my flight, it’s really important, can I go back through and do that?”
“Yes, alright, here are your things…oh and good luck,”
she said making me frown.
Had she seen the horror in my face?
“With what?”
I asked making her laugh, before nodding down at the pictures I had now stuffed under my arm, along with my jacket.
“With your papers and figuring them out…it looks complicated,”
she said, my only dry response was a mumbled,
“Oh, you have no idea.”
Then I started to run just in case I was out of time.
Getting past the queue of people all now looking at me like I was a crazy person running for a flight in the wrong direction.
But I just prayed that there was a flight to catch as it wasn’t as if time was on my side.
And when I say time, I didn’t just mean having Dante and his crew on my tail in the foreseeable future.
Or of course the unknown group of bad guys that were trying to kill me for these damn papers. But then now, after what I had just discovered, at least I knew why and let’s just say that death was certainly on their minds.
I finally made it back to the information desk and after having a quick look at the flights to check there was one, I asked for a new ticket.
“Okay, let’s see what we can do for you…where did you say the destination was?”
Well, now after what I had just discovered, there was only one answer to that…
“Munich, Germany, please.”