I know that took a little while, but I made it longer than usual to make up for the wait.
Enjoy!
Camille's next call was a to a personal shopper named Antoine Northam she had used from time to time while she was in Paris. She knew that the woman wouldn't appreciate being woken up at 10:30 or be willing to go out and find a tuxedo and gown for two teenagers. But, if there was one thing Camille had learned it was that there were few problems that you couldn't solve by applying copious amounts of money.
She pressed the tiny buttons on her BlackBerry and waited as patiently as she could manage, after four rings, someone finally picked up, "Bonjour? Qui passe cette heure?"
"Camille Laurent. Je serai à Paris dans neuf heures et je voudrais que vous me trouviez une tenue de cérémonie et un smoking," Camille's French was almost perfect. She hadn't used it much since fashion week in Paris two years ago. In fact, that was the last time she had seen Antoine.
"Il est joli de recevoir des nouvelles de vous de nouveau, Camille. Vous savez vraiment qu'il est dix trente la nuit ici et les magasins sont fermés?" she spoke hurriedly and Camille could hear a man's deep voice in the background urging her to hurry up.
Camille had expected this, but she also knew that Antoine could have any store in Paris open their doors to her and two in the morning if she wanted to. Her clients were rumored to include Françoise Meyers and Delphine Arnault, two of the wealthiest and most powerful women in France. "Quand était-il jamais un problème pour vous? Je me souviens qu'il y avait une robe de Valentino rouge, pourquoi ne font pas vous le recevez pour moi. Vous avez toujours mes mesures, correctes?"
"Oui, mais en ce qui concerne le smoking ? Ai-je ses mesures ?" Camille knew what she was hinting at. A year and a half ago she had been seen very publicly with the son of Russian billionaire Nikodim Baryatinsky. Both he and his son, Zakhar Baryatinsky, were clients of Antoine. It had cost the CIA and her father a small fourtune to keep the photos out of the tabloids. US weekly had been planning to run an article about the Russian heir and his "mysterious companion". Camille had suggested just killing the photographer, but then there was the matter of who else he had given a copy of the photos too.
"Non, vous ne faites pas. J'irai faire le texte vous eux plus tard. Pourquoi vous n'allez pas le début cherchant ma toge et chaussures ?" She would have to measure Alex later, but she didn't exactly have a tape measure handy.
Antoine's patience was wearing thin. "Parfait, Mlle Laurent. Vais faire je arange pour avoir une voiture vous rencontrent à l'aéroport ?"
Camille sighed, she hated riding in cars if she wasn't the driver. It was one of those control issues she had, but it would have to do, "Oui, ce serait beaucoup apprécié. Je vous verrai dans neuf heures." With that, she pressed the end button on her BlackBerry and began dialing the number of Marissa von Sallis, an old friend that lived in LA. She was the daughter of
an old associate of Camille's mother. Marissa was a sort of supplier. She could get her hands on almost anything that a spy or assassin needed, whether it was ricin or an AK-47 assault rifle.
After two rings a soft voice spoke, "Hello, Marissa von Sallis speaking."
"Marissa! It's Camille," she was a little surprised that Marissa wasn't slurring her words. Lately she had taken to partying with Hollywood's young, beautiful, and rich.
"Camille! I haven't talked to you in months, how are you?"
Camille didn't have time for these pleasantries, "Fine. Look, I'm going to be in LA tomorrow and I need you to get me two tickets to that charity gala at the Getty Museum."
Marissa wrote something down, "Sure, do you need anything else?"
Camille smiled, "Not right now, but I'll call you when I do." She pressed the end button once again.
Her last call was to the Four Seasons Hotel in Paris. "Bonsoir, Quatre Saisons Paris. Comment puis-je vous aider ?"
"I'm arriving tonight and I need a suite when I arrive," even as she said this she couldn't help but wonder what she would do if they didn't have any rooms available.
The man on the other line responded in heavily accented English, "One moment please. I need to check what we have available."
Soft music played in the background while Camille was on hold. It was obviously supposed to relax the listener, but judging from the impatient tap of her foot, it wasn't working.
"Will this room be for one?"
"Two," she said more sharply than she had intended.
The fact that the man's English was so accented was really starting to get on her nerves, "We only have an Executive Suite with a king bed available. Will that be ok?"
"Fine. She figured that while she was out running her…errands, Alex could at least rest up a little bit.
"What will this reservation be under?"
She hesitated for a moment, "Camille Laurent, you have all of my information on file." With that she hung up.
XxX
What could possibly be taking Camille so long? She had stepped out of the car ten minutes ago. The entire thing was getting ridiculous. He only knew what he was doing half the
time. Why on earth would no one tell him anything? He didn't even know why he had been sent on this crazy assignment. According to Camille (The Bitch as he fondly referred to her in his head), he couldn't do anything.
Looking out the window he saw nothing but sand and grasslands. There was a small gravel path that he assumed Camille had walked down. He didn't know why she had bothered; it wasn't like he could hear her. In fact, an elephant could have walked by and he wouldn't have heard it. Based on how thick the windows were, he could only assume that the car was bulletproof.
He was about to step out of the car and go find Camille—maybe he had gotten lucky and she had been eaten by a mountain lion or something of the sort, he didn't actually know what kind of dangerous animals roamed this part of Egypt—when he saw her appear a few hundred meters down the gravel path. She opened the driver's side door forcefully and climbed silently inside. Without hesitation she started the car and drove off toward what Alex could only assume was the airport.
"Who was so important that you had to call them this late?" Alex was extremely curious. He presumed that she wouldn't answer, but it was worth a try.
To his shock she actually answered, and not irritably at that—her phone calls must have gone extremely well. "Marissa von Sallis, I doubt you know who she is."
"Er, yeah, I don't. Who is she?" He hoped that she would give him a straight answer.
Camille continued to stare straight ahead at the road, and for a minute Alex thought she wasn't going to say anything, but then she spoke softly, "Her father is one of the most prominent arms dealers in the world. I'm a little surprised you haven't heard of him, what with all of your dealings with MI6."
Alex hated when people automatically assumed that he actually had any real involvement in MI6. "No, they don't tell me a thing."
"Well, anyway, she basically capitalized on this and started her own supply company. She supplies people like you and I, along with SCORPIA and other criminal organizations with everything they could possibly need. She can even hook you up with a helicopter, assuming you're willing to pay for it. Anything and everything, if you have the money."
A sharp intake of breath from Alex followed Camille's mention of SCORPIA, Camille obviously noticed this and continued, "But don't get any ideas about getting information about SCORPIA out of her. That's one thing you can't buy. I'm under the impression that she'd rather die than tell you anything about her other customers. And then there's the fact that she never deals with SCORPIA as an organization, only the individual members when they're in the States."
"But why do you buy stuff from her? I thought that the CIA would supply you with everything you needed," Alex was only partially confused, and partially he knew that he had to
keep Camille talking since this was one of the few times he had ever gotten her to tell him anything more than a few words.
She paused for a minute, and Alex was afraid that he had asked the wrong question and set her off, "Sometimes it's a lot faster and a lot quieter. I don't enjoy having them ask questions. They don't always," she seemed to struggle for the right word, "approve of my methods." Alex couldn't help but snicker at that. "You think that's funny? It's actually pathetic, they don't care what I did when I've finished, but when they know, or have a good idea of what I'm going to do with something, and they don't like it, they're not going to give it to me."
Alex was shocked at how much Camille had just told him. It was like he was sitting in the car with a completely different person. Maybe she was starting to warm up to him, or maybe it was the many drinks she had downed that night…
"Alex, do you have a cell phone?" The question was completely out of the blue.
Alex thought for a minute, MI6 gave him a mobile occasionally, but he never got to keep it. "No, why does it matter?"
Camille pulled out her BlackBerry and began punching in numbers, "Alex, what sort of phone do you want? BlackBerry, Treo, something durable like a Casio, or what about a Sidekick?"
Alex had no idea what she was talking about, aside from the BlackBerry he had never heard of any of these phones before, but then again, he didn't honestly care about the latest mobiles. "Er, I don't know what half of those are."
Camille thought for a moment as she put the phone up to her ear, "Hey, Marissa, I think there is something else I need. Do you have someone in Cairo that could meet us at the airport with a Treo 750 in," she pulled the phone away from her ear and leaned over toward Alex. "Do you want a red, blue, or white phone?"
Alex really didn't care, "Blue is fine."
She put the phone back up to her ear and continued, "Blue?"
On the other end of the phone Marissa smiled, "Of course I do. You should know by now that I have someone in every major city on this earth, and if I don't have someone where you need them, then I can have them charter a jet and fly there, assuming you can pay for it."
She sighed; Marissa loved to brag, "Yeah, I do know that. Now, how much do I owe you for the phone?"
Camille could hear her adding it all up with a calculator on the other end, "Three grand, and that covers the first six months of service. I want this payment in cash, not on your tab."
"Why? You get paid either way." If she had to fork over cash for this, that would mean she would need to withdraw even more.
"Yes, but this way my runner," Marissa called all of her little cronies that handed out packages to people around the world runners, "can take his share right away and I don't get pestered about it later."
Camille knew that this wasn't true, Marissa always paid all of her workers at the end of every month on the dot, none of them ever complained. More than likely she was low on cash and she had a drug dealer to pay. Marissa and cocaine went together like peanut butter and jelly. "Ok, whatever Marissa, just have the phone for us at the Cairo airport at 1 a.m." With that she hung up the phone and reached back and grabbed a ten thousand dollar brick. Handing it to Alex she said, "I need three thousand out of that."
As he began to count out the bills he asked her yet another question, "Why does the mobile cost three thousand dollars? It's just a phone, right?"
"No, it's untraceable, and it will work almost anywhere on the globe, including Antarctica."
Alex had no idea why he would ever be down in Antarctica, but the fact that it would work anywhere was good to know.
XxX
An hour later they pulled into one of the many parking lots surrounding the Cairo airport. Overhead Alex could hear all of the planes take off and land, he hoped that they hadn't missed their flight. At 1 a.m. there wasn't a single other person in the parking lot, though there were surrounded on all sides by cars. Before getting out of the car Camille handed Alex her BlackBerry with a text message partially written. It read: Antoine, here are his measurements:
"Er, Camille, what am I supposed to do with this?"
She was hurriedly sorting through a black leather bag Alex hadn't noticed that had been hidden behind his seat. "Just what it says, tell her your measurements, but don't tell her your name."
Alex was appalled, hadn't they done enough shopping previously? "For what?"
"A tux, when we get to LA you're going to need it," Camille didn't even look up from her rummaging, but Alex could have sworn he heard her mutter, "Where is it!?"
Quickly Alex typed in all that he knew, his height, weight, and size, but he had no idea what his other measurements were, much less did he actually know what he was supposed to measure. "Camille, what about the car, what are we supposed to do with it?"
"Don't worry about it, someone will pick it up and return it, we just need to get everything that we want to take with us out, and destroy everything that we don't want. Grab my laptop." Alex turned the laptop off and slid it back into its non-descript black tumi case.
Camille slid gracefully out of the car and began pulling everything out of the car and piling it in the empty parking space to the left. She dumped everything out of the black leather bag she had been rummaging in earlier. "Alex, grab everything you can and put it over here. We need to make sure we have everything we need. We won't have time to do this again in Paris or Los Angeles. Be sure to check under the seats."
When he tossed her a gigantic monogrammed canvas Louis Vuitton duffle that he had found in the trunk she stopped dumping everything out of her laptop bag and began digging through the duffel. She pulled out a bundle of clothing and tossed it to Alex. "Get changed," she ordered. She had tossed him a pair of no-name jeans and a black Lacoste polo shirt.
"Where?" he looked around searching for something that he could use to change behind.
She didn't look up from the duffle bag, "Here."
"Camille, we're in the middle of a parking lot!" Alex really didn't like the idea of changing in front of her, and how would they explain it if anyone happened to drive past.
She sounded very ticked off, "It doesn't matter. Tell me you're not embarrassed to change in front of a girl. I know you haven't been doing this that long, but you ought to have dropped whatever sense of modesty you had when you first started training."
Camille pulled a pair of Rock and Republic jeans and a white Splendid t-shirt out of the duffle bag she was clutching and set both items on the ground. Alex began to unbutton his shirt when he noticed Camille yanking her gold dress over her head to reveal a black and purple lace La Perla bra and thong. He almost laughed; Camille never really seemed like the sort of girl that would wear lace anything. He finished with the buttons and pulled off the ill-fitting slacks Camille had given him back at their hotel. Surprisingly the jeans fit him perfectly, as did the polo. He looked over to see that Camille was just slipping on a pair of black leather Tory Burch flats, "Uh, what about shoes?"
She bent down and swiftly pulled a pair of Nike trainers out and tossed them to Alex, "I hope those fit." Alex slid them on without socks and went back to scouring the car for anything they might have missed.
By the time they were finished, the things sitting on the ground included: a laptop, three flash drives, various cables, two handguns, a Smith and Wesson rifle, six bottles of what Alex presumed was poison, a wallet stuffed with credit cards, three ten thousand dollar bricks, a silver case filled with the equivalent of two thousand dollars in seven different currencies, a BlackBerry, a super durable Casio phone, a satellite phone, and a tiny handheld laser, and that was just a bit of it.
Camille handed Alex a black bag made out of some sort of thick synthetic material, "Put the handguns in that."
"What is this thing?" the material was one of the weirdest things Alex had ever felt.
Camille had already begun putting the laptop in its bag, along with the cables and flash drives, "Marissa calls it a magic bag. Basically whatever you put in it won't show up when you go through airport security." Alex shoved the two guns into the bag and quickly pulled the drawstring tight. Camille stood up and grabbed a pink Playtex Sport box off the ground. She shoved the black bag inside it and sealed it up with a tube of super glue.
"Why the hell are you doing that?"
Camille held the lid shut until it was sufficiently dry, "If for some reason they search our carry-ons they won't ever find the guns. No one ever looks inside a box of tampons." As he thought about it, Alex realized that the idea was actually genius. Camille threw the box inside of the duffel that had their clothes from the club in it and picked up the rifle and handed it to Alex. "Stick that behind the seats in the car," she instructed him.
Once the car was locked, Camille handed Alex the laptop bag while she carried a black Birkin bag and the Louis Vuitton duffel. She started walking toward entrance to the terminal, "Come on, Alex. We were supposed to pick up your new phone half an hour ago." Seeing the slightly panicked look on Alex's face she reassured him, "Don't worry, our flight doesn't leave until 2:30, we still have an hour."
She hurried toward the glass doors. Right before reaching the entrance Camille turned toward a post to her left and spoke to what Alex thought was just thin air, "I know we're late."
To Alex's immense surprise a man emerged from the shadows with a small box in his hand. He chuckled, "You're never on time. Do you have the money?"
Camille handed the man the wad of thirty one-hundred dollar bills and he handed her the box and stepped back into the shadows. She slid the remainder of the money into her already stuffed wallet. She slipped the box into her black bag and quickly walked into the terminal. There were only a few people milling around in addition to the cleaning crew that was currently moping the floors. Straight in front of them was a Lufthansa check-in counter. Camille hurried up to it, her flats clicking on the tile floor with every rapid step.
Before the exhausted looking man at the counter even opened his mouth Camille handed him the two passports. He looked them and he seemed to think they were real before he swiped the bottom half in a small slot on his ancient looking computer. A string of four boarding passes printed out of a small slot below the counter. As Camille impatiently tapped her fingers on the counter the man grabbed them, stuck them in an envelope and handed them to her, "Security is down there," he told them in a heavy Egyptian accent. He raised a finger and pointed toward the row of metal detectors at left end of the cavernous room. Without a single word to the man, Camille grabbed hurried down to where the man had pointed.
Hope you liked it!
Camille's conversation with Antoine:
-Hello, who is calling at this hour.
- Camille Laurent. I will be in Paris in nine hours and I would like you to find me a formal dress and a tuxedo.
-It's lovely to hear from you again, Camille. You do know that it is ten-thirty at night here and the stores are closed?
-When has that ever been a problem for you? I remember that there was a red Valentino dress, why don't you get that for me. You still have my measurements, correct?
-Yes, but what about the tuxedo? Do I have his measurements?
- No, you don't. I'll text you them later. Why don't you go start looking for my gown and shoes?
-Fine, Miss Laurent. Shall I arrange to have a car meet you at the airport?
-Yes, that would be greatly appreciated. I will see you in nine hours.
HOTEL:
-Good Evening, Four Seasons Paris. How may I assist you?