Luckily, Dee had protected Katie on a part time basis between the ages of twelve and fourteen, when she was handed over to another female operative called Janna, when Dee had to go to the USA for extended CPT (Close Protection Training).
Janna had looked after Katie until the young actress left school at seventeen and headed off to University in the USA. Since then, the Vastrick UK team had seen little if anything of the elfin face super starlet, except in the celebrity columns of the newspapers.
George sounded weary as he explained that Millie Pederson had been waiting to accompany Katie onto the plane to Heathrow when her appendix burst and she was rushed to hospital. The panicked crew held the distraught Katie in the VIP lounge until loading was complete, and then accompanied her to a private bedroom on the A380 airliner. At the personal request of Tom Vastrick, the First Class Purser ensured that a flight attendant was sitting outside the private room for the whole flight.
As far as anyone knew, Katie was upset but safe in her tiny suite forty two thousand feet over the Atlantic.
“OK, George. I’ll take care of it. But she probably won’t even remember me.”
“Dee, you’re not that easy to forget,” George replied, his voice gentler, more relaxed.
***
Katie paced restlessly around her small suite. The interior had been designed by the renowned yacht designer, Jaques De Valle, and he had used the sparse room wisely. The room was furnished with two leather seats and a double bed. A thirty two inch flat screen LED TV had also been squeezed in. With IPod connections, a mini fridge and a choice of over one hundred and eighty films and TV programmes, this was how flying was meant to be done.
The aeroplane had been on the ground for almost thirty minutes and the young starlet was still not being allowed to disembark. She picked up her mobile phone and dialled the hospital but, despite her best endeavours, they would tell her nothing about Millie because she was not family. Frustrated, she threw herself on the bed and considered her itinerary. In less than three days she had to attend two parties, a fashion clothing launch, a book reading and the Premiere of Clara Campbell; Revenge of the Spectre.
She heard a polite tap on the door and, with the enthusiasm of a claustrophobic inmate about to be released from prison, she leapt up and opened the door.
***
Dee was frustrated by the delays she was encountering at Heathrow’s Royal Suite. She was seated in Suite 1, on a luxurious sofa which had hosted the delicate derrieres of the Pope and Boris Johnson, amongst others, just a year before. She scanned the luxuriously appointed suite and took in the bright Hockney painting and the folding screen commissioned from Lord Linley. A moment later Melita Avery, known colloquially as ‘Melita the Greeter’ strode over to Dee, who rose from the overstuffed sofa with some difficulty.
“Dee! How nice to see you again. Are you back on protection duty? I’d heard that you’d crashed through the glass ceiling to head up Vastrick in the UK.”
“Nice to see you, too,” Dee responded. “Are you still in the Territorials?”
“I am indeed. I’m a major now, but obviously my occasional trips to trouble spots are less dangerous than yours. I heard you got shot.”
“Twice,” Dee replied with a grimace. “When Josh gets back, let’s have a run out to Jamie Oliver’s place for dinner. You can still get a table there, I guess?”
“If he ever wants his luggage back, I can.” They both laughed before Melita placed her hand on the small of Dee’s back and guided her out of the door and towards the limousine that would take them to the Airbus.
***
Dee tapped on the cabin door a little apprehensively. When she had last known Katie Norman she had been a quiet fourteen year old who thought of Dee as the big sister she never had. But now, at twenty, what would she be like? Would years of stardom have turned her into a diva, perhaps? Dee would have to be careful.
The door opened and a scowling young face appeared, appraising the visitor for a moment. Suddenly, in an amazing transformation, the twelve year old pixie face was back. Gone were the long, wavy chestnut tresses of yesterday. They had been replaced with a sophisticated short cut which emphasised her fine bone structure. The smile that split the face was as wide as it was genuine. The girl threw herself at her new bodyguard.
“Dee! This is fantastic. I’ve missed you. Wow, I never thought I’d see you again.” The last few words were spoken directly into Dee’s right ear as the two girls hugged. They unlatched, and Katie stepped back and took hold of Dee’s two hands. As she squeezed she felt something on the left hand. Her eyes widened with excitement as she lifted Dee’s left hand for a closer look.
“Oh, Dee! You haven’t!” The young actress admired the rings at close range, rubbing her thumb over the diamond engagement ring. “The boys will be destroyed when they find out.” Katie was referring to her co-stars in the films, both of whom had developed a serious crush on the protection operative when they were young teenagers.
“You exaggerate, I’m sure,” Dee answered, smiling. “I don’t think they’ll even remember who I am.”
Katie laughed. “Oh, they will, you can be sure of that. Boys always remember their first lust.”
Dee shook her head in mock annoyance in an attempt to stop the conversation where it was, though unsuccessfully.
“There isn’t a boy alive who wouldn’t fall in love with a beautiful older woman who could throw the stage manager to the floor without spilling her coffee.”
“Katie Norman! Stop this now. You were a wicked fourteen year-old and it seems college in the States hasn’t improved your manners.”
“Come on, Dee. Surely you must have noticed? If you as much as winked at either Tom or Danny they got all hot and sweaty and....” She held her left hand out in a fist and flicked up her forefinger until it was perpendicular. “Ping!”
The young girl accompanied the gesture with the sound more than the word.
Dee looked shocked, and she could feel herself beginning to blush.
“It seems that I’ve been assigned to look after you just in time. You are a wicked little madam who needs a bit of discipline. Come on, we have to go.”
Katie laughed out loud and, despite not wanting to do the same, Dee followed suit. They laughed the tension from their bodies. They sat side by side on the bed. Dee looked at her young client and squeezed her hand.
“What took you to LA? I thought you were studying in New York?”
“Breast reduction,” Katie blurted out as quick as a flash, as though such a procedure was the most normal thing in the world. Dee couldn’t help laughing again because, until she was fourteen, Katie was forever measuring her bust, looking for that extra millimetre that would tell her that her breasts were still developing, but they never had. Even today she was, at best, a B cup.
“Joking, obviously,” she said as she looked down at her chest. “Actually, I was working. I was launching the Fair Trade fashion show and opening the Fair Trade clothing emporium. I knew that Millie felt unwell and I just carried on. I feel pretty bad about that. I keep called the hospital but they just say she’s as well as can be expected, whatever that means.”
Dee was a little surprised at the concern this famous young woman felt for Millie Pederson, a polite but tough security operative from the Bronx.
“Well, you have no need to worry because Millie had an operation and they caught the post trauma infection early in the process. She’ll be on an antibiotic drip until you get back, and the prognosis is that she will fully recover. She was lucky that she wasn’t actually on the plane when her appendix burst, or she could have contracted peritonitis, which can be fatal.”
Katie looked solemn, and her eyes glazed with tears. Dee placed her right arm around her shoulder and squeezed gently.