The emotional farewell had almost been too much for her to bear. To know she was consciously leaving her mother and her home once more, for who knows how long – Camille felt the tears form once more as she shifted in her seat.
She was on her way to Paris once more, to live a life undercover and her handler for the trip was sat beside her, ready to spirit away her legend and all the documentation she was to revise on their arrival.
It was certainly a curious case – she was being given the choice of two assignments. She would meet her new partner for a trafficking case in Paris, but she was being given a get out option. If, on meeting her partner she was to decide she could not go through with it, she was to slap him, and walk away, not to look back and she would be handed a new case on reaching the safe house.
She read the dossier over again – there were no pictures of her partner, with a note that he had undergone corrective surgery to change his appearance but he would make himself known with an agreed password. Her curiosity certainly had been piqued by the description of the case and of Captain Robert Pond (Retired). She would be his wife and they would be working the case together – it had already been going for four years, with some key landmark wins, but this would be for the long term.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. Her farewell to the team had been hard, her mother even more so. She allowed herself to think about Humphrey. Dear awkward Humphrey. She would always be grateful for him for solving Richard's murder. She felt a pang when she thought of him. She had grown fond of Humphrey – sure. But deep down she knew that it had been Richard she had wanted to be with. But what's a girl to do when then man she had so wanted to be her blind date had been taken from her.
As the stewardess cleared away the meal and started to make the plan ready for landing she politely passed the person sat impassively next to her as she made her way to the lavatory at the back of the plane, asking if they could just watch her stuff for a moment. The man nodded, and as she obscured the view moving pas him, he deftly swept the files into his case, replacing her documents with a pack with her new identify. Gone was Camille Bordey, here was Marie Carnet-Pond. She was a business woman specializing in IT security and encryption solutions and as such, her work would take her away from her husband whose business now was focused on naval security. They had been apart for some time, estranged from each other for the past few years, and it was decision time – reconcile, or file for divorce.
Marie allowed herself an ironic chuckle. Her mother would have wanted to her to be just married, much less get divorced to a make-believe husband. Ah well, that was gone now. Another pang. Would she ever see her mother again?
Jetlag was a bitch. She woke up, trying to get her facts right in her mind. Her handler for the initial meeting was a young female officer – they had sat up talking most of the night – she'd been quizzed on her background legend, but the conversation had inevitably strayed to what was being left behind. It was not strictly the correct procedure but her handler knew that the night before the start of a new identity, it was sometimes necessary.
"So – you're ready? You look tired," Alize said.
"I am fine- Just a crazy night of dreams – people I left behind, people who left me behind…," she replied. She had been haunted in her dreams by one face in particular. Why he came back to her mind, she had no idea.
They had breakfast quickly before heading out to the Eiffel Tower. She knew where she had to be, and her partner would make themselves known to her. She felt the stirrings of adrenalin. That she felt truly alive. This was what she wanted.
She positioned herself by the ornate balustrades and looked at the Tower. She marveled at its iconic beauty when she became aware of a man standing to her right, wearing a short-cropped hair, a collar pulled up and a pair of glasses – her peripheral vision took him in without turning to acknowledge his presence. The traffickers under suspicion would no doubt have sent their own tails, and though she was aware of the Interpol teams, she made no attempt to look in any of their directions.
She rested her hand on the balustrade and readied herself as his hand covered hers. But when he spoke, her hands started to shake, breath becoming shallow.
"I had a hunch that you'd be here," he said – a voice she knew better than anyone. It took every ounce of strength not to say his name. His real name.
"Robert," she said, in a low voice, with the French pronunciation. She allowed herself to turn and look into the face of Richard Poole.