Svetlana Vorsoff steered the car into the sub-basement bay that corresponded to the number she had been given by email, locked the car and after setting its alarm she unobtrusively assured herself she was unobserved and crouched, reaching under the car below the driver’s door. From his hiding place beneath an expensive Shogun 4x4 Jubi heard a faint metallic 'thunk' as the small box Svetlana had held attached itself to the underside by a magnet. Jubi watched with lustful eyes as Svetlana straightened, from head to toe she was elegantly and expensively clothed but it was the figure beneath the designer form hugging little black dress that held his interest. He allowed a fantasy to distract him in which he could see her naked and sweating beneath him, begging him to let her be his whore whilst in the throes of yet another orgasm he'd provided. So lost in this vision was Jubi that the sound of another cars engine starting made him jump, and he could only watch as the object of that fantasy drove away in another car.
Turning back into Tooley Street Svetlana drove east keeping conscientiously five miles above the speed limit. Police out at this hour would have an eye out for those motorists who had too much to drink. The school she had attended after being recruited from University in Moscow had taught many things about the west, some were common sense whilst others required an adjustment in thinking. Putting yourself in the place of those you wished to avoid or deceive was a fairly easy task; she had not had any alcohol that night but had no wish drawing attention to herself. A drink driver would be driving both far too fast and erratically or determinedly sticking to the speed limit knowing they were 'over the top'. Svetlana chose the middle ground and turned left driving through the Rotherhithe tunnel beneath the river Thames. The old narrow tunnel would make for a very tight schedule for whatever was planned by her masters, cameras in the tunnel were their precisely for the purpose of spotting traffic related problems and the Metropolitan Police Traffic Division would have a motorcycle on scene within minutes. As she drove up the incline into North London she checked for notices warning motorists of planned works, as with the Southern approach to the tunnel there were no notice boards in evidence.
Back in the private residents’ car park Jubi had found the Roadsters car keys inside the magnetized box the girl had planted. He was jubilant that he did not need to 'barrel' the ignition. His only regret was that the time of day meant he could not drive to his school and strut about in front of the others. He would have spun a story about buying it, hinting at drug money. Jubi wanted a car like this, a 'gangsta' rap record in the charts, a girl pop star in his bed, automatic weapons and several 'bitches' earning him regular money, just your everyday teenage dream.
Arriving at her Kensington flat Svetlana powered up her computer and selected a classical music CD that she placed in the drive before carefully removing her hand made Italian shoes and unpeeling like a second skin the Emilio Pucci sheath dress to stand naked but for sheer black hold-up stockings.
The dress, like her looks, was a tool of her trade. Lingerie would have been visible through the £2000 garment and spoilt the desired effect had she been stopped by the police.
As the music began sounding through the speakers either side of her PCs base unit, Svetlana leaned across the keyboard and carefully placed fingers over three separate keys, and paused, letting the music flow forth. If anyone else had been present they would have observed an exquisitely formed young woman in her mid-twenties, clad only in stockings and whose tan lines and full Brazilian showed a preference for G-strings as beach wear. The gleam of Chinese gold at her nether region where a stud pierced a particularly sensitive item, and a pair of tattooed dogs paws on her right buttock gave hint of a somewhat kinky vein running beneath that chic and elegant surface.
Apparently overtaken by the strains of Bizet’s Farandole from ‘L’Arlesienne’ and frozen in some Pre Raphaelesque pose, Svetlana closed her eyes as she listened. Thirty-nine seconds into the piece she depressed all three keys simultaneously before logging online. With the anti-tamper software thus neutralised and therefore no chance of the powerful electromagnets incorporated in the speakers from being activated and frying the hard drive, the auburn locks bouncing on her shoulders and tattooed buttocks as she strode elegantly on thick piled carpets through the flat to the shower.
Half an hour later and dressed in a Terry robe, Svetlana towelled her hair whilst checking her email. She quickly decided she had no use for a penis extension, was unlikely to ever buy Viagra online and the ambiguously entitled’re:- what you said', from YngTeenGrl@biffmedeep.com was undoubtedly trash mail. She consigned those emails to the 'waste bin'. The remaining two messages were from work colleagues at the bank who had no idea what ‘Christina Carlisle’s’ real job, or name, was. She read the gossip from one, pressing 'send' on a suitable response and accepted a party invitation from the second. Ejecting Mozart she replaced it with a disc containing a high encryption program that enabled messages to be encoded using a high tech version of the 'pre chip age' one-time pads. Messages could not be composed for later transmission; a hidden signal was transmitted over the Internet identifying the particular code settings in use to the receiving station. Non-standard hardware within the machine prevented the same settings being used twice. Typing quickly she confirmed collection of the car from the short stay car park at Manchester’s Ringway Airport and receipt of a large aluminium suitcase from a seaman in Liverpool. She did not add that she had been unable to lift it into the car without his assistance though. Finally she added the result of the reconnaissance.
Tired after many hours’ driving Svetlana logged off and after concealing the disc she retired to bed.
Whilst the remainder of the planet acknowledged the dangers of smoking, that particular message had not yet reached the halls of power in such places as the People’s Republic of China. A blue grey layer of cigarette smoke hung above the dimly lit room’s occupants, it undulated like a liquid surface, reacting to the movements of the occupants and temperature changes. Smoke hazed the interior; sunlight streaming through the narrow floor to ceiling windows was highlighted by the smoke and almost gave the setting a solemn Cathedral like atmosphere, almost.
Colonel General Serge Alontov waited until the expert on current Western European political trends and his interpreter had finished his presentation and regained their seats before standing himself. Bowing first to Premier Chiu at the head of the long table he addressed the gathering in excellent, though slightly accented Mandarin. “Comrades, past conflicts in interests had a negative effect on the ambitions of our two countries in spreading true communism to the world. In effect, the West was able to relax somewhat when we two were at our most powerful militarily. They knew that the threat we posed was negated by we ourselves. They knew that whilst the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Socialist Republic held cocked guns to one another’s temples over our back garden’s fence, we could not afford to look away and extend our own front lawns”. There were some smiles at the analogy and others nodded sagely, he paused for a moment before continuing
“And what has happened since that threat passed?” with a raised questioning eyebrow he regarded the Politburo members before answering his own question. “They have fallen over themselves in the rush to sell us refrigerators and pop videos. Their own armed forces, which had steadfastly held themselves ready to fight a war of attrition, a war the like of which the world had never seen before, were abandoned”. He nodded to a technician and a huge digital screen at the far end of the room lit up.