The clock was ticking now. Suddenly there was high-level involvement on both sides of the Atlantic, and a new air of gravity permeated the operation. Olivia had three days to prepare for her departure. She was being rushed through an intense program of training in tradecraft, weaponry, desert survival and specialist equipment.
They were in what had been the servants’ dining room, the full range of Olivia’s equipment laid out on a long refectory table. She was inspecting a travel hair dryer, which had been doctored with ampoules containing a nerve agent attached to the front of the heating element.
“What about my real hair dryer?”
Professor Widgett sighed.
“I know you’ve gone to a lot of trouble, Professor,” she said, “but the problem is, what am I going to actually dry my hair with?”
“Hmm. I see what you’re saying. Is it conceivable that you might travel with two hair dryers?”
Olivia looked doubtful. “Not really. Couldn’t you make the nerve-gas thing be curling tongs? Or maybe a perfume spray?”
There was a snort. She looked up defensively. Scott Rich was leaning against the doorframe, smirking.
“My dear Olivia,” said Widgett, ignoring Scott, “we’re trying to get the whole female thing right and so on, but this is a desert operation. Surely on such an expedition one would normally manage without a hair dryer?”
“Well, yes, but not if I’m supposed to be seducing the head of an al-Qaeda cell,” she explained patiently.
“You’re crazy,” said Scott, straightening up from his leaning pose and joining the discussion.
“Well, it’s all right for you two to say,” she said, looking at Widgett’s bald pate and the cropped head of the smirking Scott Rich.
“Guys like women to look natural.”
“Wrong,” said Olivia. “They want women to look how they do when they’ve finished doing their hair and makeup to look natural. I really think in this situation the hair dryer is a more important tool than the nerve-agent dispenser.”
“Take your point, Olivia. We’ll look into some alternative,” said Widgett hurriedly. She had the feeling he was being soft with her because he felt guilty about sacrificing her, which was not an encouraging thought.
“Now,” said Widgett, “I’ve got the list of your usual equipment, and we’ve tried to stick to it as closely as we can.” He cleared his throat. “Cosmetics: lip gloss, lip pencil, lip balm, eye shadow, eyeliner pencil, brushes, blusher, concealer, powder: matte, powder”—he paused slightly—“ ‘illuminating shine,’ mascara: ‘radiant touch,’ eyelash curler.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Scott.
“It’s all in very small containers,” said Olivia defensively.
“Yes, though actually that’s rather a pity,” said Widgett. “We’re trying to keep your normal kit externally identical because his people undoubtedly checked it out in the Americas, but we would actually do much better with normal sizes of all these things. Anyway: perfume, body lotion, mousse, shampoo, conditioner.”
“They’ll have those in the hotel,” said Scott Rich.
“Hotel shampoos make your hair go funny. And, anyway, I’m not going to a hotel. I’m going to a bedouin tent.”
“Then use asses’ milk.”
“Mechanical items,” Widgett continued. “Survival items, short-wave radio, digital micro-camera, spyglass and the usual clothing: footwear, swimwear and—Rich, no contribution required, thank you so much—underwear.”
“And jewelry and accessories,” added Olivia anxiously.
“Quite so, quite so. Now,” he said, striding to the other side of the room and clicking on a light, “we have prepared a pretty extensive armory based on these items. Actually quite interesting preparing a kit for a female.”
“You must have done that before.”
“Not in quite these circumstances.”
The total inventory was scary. She was really going to have to concentrate not to get things mixed up. Most of her existing stuff had been converted into weapons of . . . if not mass destruction, then short-range, specific destruction. Her ring had been fitted with an evil-looking curved blade which would flick out the second she pressed her thumbnail against one of the diamonds. Her Chloé shades had a spiral saw in one arm and a slim-line dagger tipped with a nerve agent in the other. The buttons on her Dolce shirt had been replaced by miniature circular saws. She had a lip salve which was actually a temporarily blinding flash, and a tiny blusher ball, which, when the fuse was lit, emitted gas which could knock a roomful of men out for five minutes.
“Good. Will I get my old things back afterwards?”
“If this goes as they hope it will,” said Scott, “you’ll get a supermarket sweep in Gucci, Tiffany and Dolce and Gabbana at the expense of Her Majesty’s Government.”
She beamed.
One of her Tiffany starfish earrings now contained a tiny GPS locating beacon, which would track her movements throughout the expedition.
“Brand new, top of the range, this,” said Widgett. “Smallest ever produced. Even works underwater to around ten or fifteen feet.”
“What about underground?”
“Unlikely,” said Widgett, not meeting her eye.
The other starfish earring contained a cyanide pill.
“And now the gun,” said Scott Rich. She stared at them aghast. They had gone over the daggers in the stilettos, the Dolce seventies retro belt made of real gold coins for buying her way out of a mess, the slim dagger and tranquilizer syringe made into bra underwirings. She’d rejected the brooch with the hand-ejected tranquilizer dart on the grounds that anyone under sixty wearing a brooch would immediately look suspicious.
“I’m not going to carry a gun.”
They stared at her blankly.
“It will get me into far more trouble than it will save me from. Why would I be carrying a gun if I’m a travel journalist? And, anyway, Feramo knows I don’t believe in killing.”
Scott Rich and Widgett exchanged glances.
“Let me explain something,” said Scott. “This isn’t a romantic tryst. It’s a highly dangerous, intentionally deadly and extremely expensive military operation.”
“No, let me explain something,” she said, quivering. “I know how dangerous this is and I’m still doing it. If one of your specially trained expert operatives could do what you’re sending me to do, you’d be sending them. You need me, like I am. That’s how I’ve got this far with it, by being like I am. So either shut up and let me do it my way, or go and seduce Pierre Feramo yourself in the Sudanese desert.”
There was silence. Widgett began to hum a little song. “Pom, pom, pom,” he went. “Pom, pom, pom. Any more questions, Rich? Any more penetrating insights? Any more helpful comments? Or shall we get on? Good. Now let’s look at how you fire a gun, Olivia, and we’ll make a decision about whether to give you one later.”