In the next forty five minutes DC Knox took down their statements, acknowledged that they were free to fly to the USA as planned, and then stood to leave, hugging Dee and telling her that he was delighted that her gunshot injuries from the previous year had healed so well.
“Don’t I get a hug too?” Katie demanded.
DC Knox didn’t wait for a second invitation, and Katie winked at Dee over his shoulder as Dee simply shook her head and smiled.
Chapter 4 8
Port Everglades, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA, Friday 8am.
The cruise had been fun, and Gil had even managed to grab a couple of hours’ sleep, but in a few hours she had crossed that narrow channel of the Atlantic Ocean separating the Bahamas from the USA. The Port Everglades Cruise Terminal was a far cry from the terminal in Nassau; to begin with it was filled with cruise ships four times larger than her own. The brilliantly white ships bore different cruise line logos, the most prominent being Royal Caribbean, and were ultra modern in their design. Gil walked down the gangplank onto the concrete jetty a couple of hundred dollars lighter than when she embarked. She was no gambler. In a few moments she reached the terminal building and, for the first time ever, she was standing in the ‘US Passports Only’ queue.
“So, Miss Miles, you have a US passport and this is the first time you have used it?”
“Yes. I read on the Homeland Security website that US passport holders should present their US Passports on entry and exit.” Gil had been expecting a mild inquisition, even though entering the US from the Bahamas through Fort Lauderdale was an extremely casual experience compared to entering the US via one of the major airports.
“Welcome to the USA, Miss Miles, and congratulations on achieving dual nationality. Enjoy your stay.” The border control officer handed Gil back her new passport and smiled before summoning up the next passenger.
Gil was in sunny Florida. The sun was shining but the temperature was in the low sixties Fahrenheit as it was still early. The average daytime temperature in January and February was around low seventies. Amply warm enough after the severe winter she had survived in the UK.
She had a free weekend ahead of her before she travelled north to Virginia, and so she left the ferry terminal, crossed the road and stepped onto a free air conditioned coach, decorated to resemble a cruise liner. The decals down the side of the bus read “Disney Cruise Lines”. Gil was joining numerous other cruise passengers and was heading to Walt Disney World. As soon as she sat down the video screen lit up, and Mickey and Minnie Mouse beckoned her to the “Happiest Place on Earth”.
The coach doors closed with a hiss and the bus moved off to make the three and a half hour journey to The Grand Floridian Hotel in Orlando. Built on the lakeside overlooking Disney’s Magic Kingdom, it was one of the most exclusive resort hotels in the USA. Gil relaxed into her reclining seat and smiled to herself. No-one had any idea where she was, she had millions in her Cayman Island account under the name of Talgarth Business Services Inc, and she was on her way to meet her hero, Donald Duck. Life didn’t get any better than this.
***
It was almost 2pm in the UK when the call came through to Maureen Lassiter. Still sore from the night’s exertions, she shuffled in her seat to find a comfortable position. She listened whilst her contact in the British Embassy confirmed that Gillian Davis had not returned to her hotel and was not expected to do so. After many threats, bribes and favours, the attaché had discovered that no-one matching her name or description had flown from Havana. That information was useless, as he freely admitted.
“She could be planning to stay in Cuba forever as far as we know, and we will probably never know if she has created a new identity here. She has so much money she may never surface,” the attaché pointed out on the phone, which enjoyed better clarity than her internal line within Thames House.
“The odds are that she has left, or will leave soon under an assumed identity, possibly after changing her appearance. I fully expect the travel rep to be on the phone soon, reporting her missing. The Cubans are still uncomfortable about having Westerners circulating freely around Cuba without supervision,” he added.
Maureen thanked him for his help, whilst biting her tongue to prevent her saying what she really thought about their amateurish surveillance efforts. Barry had already guessed that she had slipped away, giving the snatch team only the slimmest of chances of apprehending her in her hotel. He had been angry, frustrated and quite violent in their lovemaking, before holding Maureen in his arms and falling asleep. He didn’t see her crying. She liked raw emotion and unremitting passion, but a lover could go too far and Barry had crossed Maureen’s invisible line. But what could she do? She loved him. Things would be better when this episode was behind them and they were living somewhere serene as husband and wife.
***
The last few hours of Katie’s time in London were spent in the offices of her agent, where her publicist and agent were filling her calendar with film premieres, fashion shows, awards ceremonies and chat shows around the world, without any consideration of how she would fit in her degree studies.
As Katie and her advisers argued in an adjoining office, Dee scanned the web, looking at the newspaper sites. Rob Donkin had made the front pages of the tabloids for the second day in a row, usurping riots in Greece and unhappiness amongst the populations of the Middle East.
The Daily Post led with the story of Donkin’s injuries, sustained during his attack on Katie Norman. Not one paper had thought to mention that Katie was safely secured inside the building when the attack took place. They were all looking for the most shocking headline, and the fiction that the nation’s favourite actress had been terrorised was much sexier than the truth. The Daily Post excoriated Rob Donkin, despising the shallowness of his section of society and decrying the cult of celebrity which enabled unbalanced people to become celebrities without doing anything. Dee noted that in the sidebar next to the article there was a string of photos, beside which were headlines exclaiming; film star photographed by the pool in LA in a bikini, Pop Star and winner of a TV talent show who has only one single to her name gets a new tattoo, and finally, sixty year old soap star who had a fling with toy boy has rampant cellulite.
Dee briefly wondered whether the newspaper editors were even vaguely aware of their blatant hypocrisy, and then decided that they probably were but that they simply didn’t care, as long as their newspapers sold in large numbers.
***
The meeting with Katie’s PA, Jordan Phelps, an Oxford graduate who was paid by the film company, spilled over into the journey to Heathrow Airport. As was usual with individuals who travelled through the VIP terminal, their luggage travelled separately. Dee had returned to her flat in Greenwich, which seemed so empty without her husband Josh around, to throw a few things into a suitcase. She could buy what she didn’t have with her when she got to the US. She could do with some retail therapy and she was on expenses, after all.
As Katie and her young male counterpart settled her calendar, Dee rang Josh, who was still in Dubai. She had emailed him about the attack, and he was genuinely scared for her. She knew that he didn’t like her ‘hands on’ role in personal security, even though that was how they had met, but he would never say so. Josh knew Dee well enough to know that she could usually take care of herself. In a supreme act of irony, the airlines had conspired to have Dee fly out from Heathrow only hours before Josh arrived back. They had been apart now for too long, but they would have to wait a little longer for their passionate reconciliation. They had been married for only a few months, and as far as they were both concerned the honeymoon period was still in full swing.