“Yes, ladies, may I help you?” he asked.
Connie took a letter from her bag.
“Good morning, we’re here to see Miss Frost,” she said, almost forgetting Keira’s surname.
“Ah, you’ll be Miss Rogers and Miss O’Hanrahan, yes?”
The girls nodded.
“Sign in, please, and don’t bother smiling for the camera,” he said, as they signed the book and stared at the impersonal lens of the security camera as they did so.
He handed them two ID cards with plastic clips to attach to themselves. They were impressed as their photographs were already on the cards, even though they were temporary, visitor passes.
“Fifth floor, she’ll be waiting for you when the lift stops. Have a good morning.”
They were the only people in the lift.
“Can you believe we’re actually here?” Connie said.
“Not really. I know I told her that she should give us both a job when she made it, but I never thought she would.”
“Do you realise that we’re the only people who know her secret?”
“Apart from her Dad, that is; oh, and the Lambster.”
“They don’t count.”
“At least I didn’t believe she was a fucking alien!”
Connie smiled.
“I was young and gullible. Besides, it wasn’t that far from the truth, was it?”
“My Dad would die if he could see me now!” Shannon said, regarding her reflection in the large mirror that was the back wall of the elevator.
A slim and very sophisticated young woman, dressed like a city businesswoman stared back at her. She and Connie could be colleagues in the same office.
“I even had me fucking hair cut!” she complained.
“Mind your language, Shannon,” she said, automatically.
Connie smiled, agreeing with her friend’s assessment. This was a million miles from where she thought she’d end up.
“I still need my back-up, and that’s you two!” Keira had said just three months ago.
They’d all gone their separate ways after school. Connie and Keira having split up when Keira left their first school close to the Thames. Keira had brought Shannon home in the Christmas holidays after that first term, as she was unwilling to go home to Ireland. Shannon and Connie had got on well, and the girls had promised to keep the friendship going no matter what.
Connie was a little jealous of Shannon at first, but she realised that Shannon was now a kind of irreverent, older-sister figure for Keira. In fact, Shannon made everyone look better than they really were. The girls made a pact to spend the summer holidays together, starting with a trip for them all to France.
Keira’s father finally married Stephanie and they planned to move abroad as soon as Keira had flown the nest. Not that they were in any rush, so when Keira announced that she had been offered a scholarship to any university, her father rubbed his hands together in undisguised glee.
The girls had headed off to France when Graham and Stephanie were on their Honeymoon. The apartment in France was still there when they went the following year, and Graham was a little sad that his daughter no longer wanted to join them. Keira had told them that she had grown out of the place, and wanted to do other stuff with her friends. Graham decided to sell the apartment as he and his new bride were looking at somewhere different to settle down.
After getting straight A’s in her A-levels, Keira had gone to Cambridge to study Russian and IT, while Shannon had got into Reading to study criminal psychology a year earlier. Connie had done a design course at Brunel University in Hillingdon.
The girls had tried to keep in touch with each other, but it had been quite difficult because they were in three different places doing very different courses. However, Shannon became almost a permanent feature at the Frost household during the Christmas breaks in particular; Mr Frost wondered if he might have two chicks to leave the nest rather than just one.
Qualifying a year earlier than Keira, Shannon had been unable to find a job immediately. She acknowledged that her interview techniques might let her down a bit, which her two friends had to admit was probably the case.
“I’ll get you both a decent job when I go and work for the spooks!” Keira had said.
Both girls had thought she’d been joking. Now they knew that she had been perfectly serious.
The lift stopped and the door opened.
“Look what the cat dragged in” said a familiar voice.
The girls smiled at their friend, who looked almost like a different person. Clad in a dark suit, she looked like the epitome of a civil servant of executive. With a new hairstyle, shorter and gleaming, she looked stunning. Judging by the amount of male heads that turned as the trio made their way along the corridor, she wasn’t the only one.
“What is it we’re meant to be doing here?” Shannon asked; for which Connie was grateful.
“I’m putting together my own team; and you’re it.”
“Just us?”
“To start with. I’m not operational yet, so we’re in the early stages of development.”
“I’m not with you,” Shannon admitted.
“The department is very hush-hush. The director answers to the Prime Minister only. It’s a small department and one that gets some of the trickiest jobs. Now the director has done nearly all the work up to now, so she is grateful that there are a few of us to take on the workload. Even I don’t know any of the other specialists. I met a girl called Kezzy [1] the other day, but I have no idea what she does. She’s a little older than me, but seems friendly enough. We’re not allowed to talk about what we can do; that was one of the first rules that the boss told me about.”
“I thought you’d all work together, like the Avengers,” said Shannon.
“It’s all too secret. We aren’t allowed to know how many of us there are, or what we do. That way, if one of us is taken, we can’t reveal anything. Anyway, I’m still in training, but apparently it is essential to have my own team as backup. You will be that team. You’re my interface with everyone else, as you will be the only people who know the truth.”
“Who is this director, your boss?” Connie asked.
Keira paused, unsure what to say.
“Her name is Amber and I think she can do a lot of what I can do, but she doesn’t need a torc. All I know is that she started back in the seventies and took over this department a little while ago.”
“So she’s old?” Connie asked.
“Not that you’d notice,” Keira said.
“So, when do we get guns and stuff?”
“You don’t, Miss O’Hanrahan,” said a new voice. “At least not until you’ve convinced me that you know how to use them without maiming your own side.”
Amber was standing outside her office watching the three young women approach. It was at that point they appreciated what Keira had said, for Amber might be older than their parents, but she looked very much younger than her years.
“My God,” Amber said, smiling and shaking her head. “What the hell are you going to call yourselves; Charlie’s Angels?”
“Huh?” said Shannon.
“Look at yourselves, and then look at all those men in their offices dribbling down their nice new suits. Get in my office before you cause one of them to cease functioning altogether.”
They sat in the spacious and remarkably modern office, despite it being in a rather elderly building.
“Welcome to my domain,” said Amber. “Now, despite your enthusiastic start, I will remind you that we have the formality of a job interview to undergo before anyone is employed. Just because Keira wants you does not necessarily mean you get the job. Have you both brought the relevant documentation?”
After handing over their various diplomas and degree certificates, so began a gruelling morning. Neither girl actually had any idea what they were to face. Whatever they had thought was nothing like the reality. They did not realise it, but Amber had ‘interviewed’ them both without their knowledge within the first fifteen minutes.