Chapter 9: Three passports and a couple of visas.
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Tammy wakes up at 3AM to get ready for her trip. She showers up and puts on the new blouses and jeans she bought a few days before and packs away a skirt and shoes in the back pack while putting on her sneakers. After getting dresses and combing her hair, she takes her bicycle downstairs. She makes a pit stop at the kitchen to eat a snack before leaving. Putting on her helmet, she gets on the bicycle and rides away at 3:45AM.
The ride to the train station was treacherous but she managed to do so in the dark streets of Milan. At the ticket booth she picks up a round trip ticket for Rome. She has another 90 minutes before her train comes.
Rolling the two-wheeler around with her, she walks around the mezzanine, stopping by a pastry stand. She orders a pastry and coffee. Her next stop after her tiny meal is the ladies' room. There she chooses the handicap toilet to take her bike into and use the facilities. Once she is done washing her hands, she leaves the bathroom and heads to the platform. Another 55 minutes before the train arrives, she walks to one of the platform conductors to ask where to place herself and her bicycle to get on the train. He tells her to get at the end of the train station platform. She does and waits for the train there. It arrives 10 minutes early.
She gets on the train and puts herself and her folded bicycle into a bench seat aisle, holding onto her ticket. At 6:05AM the train starts to roll out of the station. It arrives at Florence on 45 minutes, Turin in an hour and 15 minutes, and Genoa in 20 minutes. The train arrives at Rome at 9:10AM. Tammy gets up and takes her folded bicycle with her onto the platform. There she unfolds it and pushes it through the platform until she takes it to the exit and out onto the street. She makes her way to an information booth and takes a couple of maps with her to study. She figures the path to the embassy and rides there on her bicycle. It takes her another 45 minutes to get there, finding a bicycle stand inside the embassy grounds where she secures it.
She checks herself at the information desk and registers for her passport upgrade. She is told to wait. She asks for directions to the ladies' room and goes for it. There she changes into the skirt and shoes before gong back out. A mint ball and touch up of her hair completes her tasks. She goes back out and takes a seat in the waiting room. She is called almost an hour later and was taken to an empty meeting room. She was told to take a seat.
She waits in the room for another 10 minutes when a couple of men come into the room with brief cases. One she remembers as Envoy Agent Dole. They take seats opposite her.
"Good morning Miss Squirrel. How are you this day?", the other man tells her.
"I'm fine. Uhm, him I know, but I don't know you.", Tammy replies.
"I'm Ambassador Miers. This I believe you know as Envoy Agent Dole.", Ambassador Miers explains, "Now Miss Squirrel, about you."
"What about me?", Tammy asks.
"How have you been supporting yourself?", the Ambassador asks.
"The credit card my mother gave me.", Tammy answers.
"I see. Agent Dole?", the ambassador says and asks.
"There has been a complaint from the Polancco family that you stole one of their credit cards.", Agent Dole says as he secretly presses a button under the table. A couple of arm guards enter the room.
Tammy looks at the guards and then at Agent Dole. She puts her bag on the table. "There's my bag. You can search it, and get a female guard to search me.", she tells them.
"We don't have a female guard, but I'll search you myself.", Agent Dole tells her as he takes her bag an spills the contents on the table. He searches her things, putting them into piles: Papers which he sends to the ambassador, outerwear, underwear, and miscellaneous.
The ambassador goes through the papers and finds four credit cards: two student credit cards by Master Card and Visa and two high end cards, a Black-World Elite MasterCard and a Crystal Sapphire Blue Visa card. All the cards have her name on it. He gives Agent Dole a nudge and gives him the cards. The agent takes them and looks at them.
"You're a bit poor to have high end credit cards.", Agent Dole tells her.
"They were given to me by my mother when she married to Joseph Polancco", she tells him.
"Those are not the one listed as stolen.", the ambassador points out. Agent Dole hands them back to him. He goes back to searching the bag. The ambassador turns to Tammy, "Why are you still in Italy?"
"I have not found my sister Bink.", she tells him.
"You might never find her.", the ambassador tells her.
"I will try my damn best to find her.", Tammy tells him.
"I bet you will. But what if the credit card runs out? They will need to be paid off eventually. And you are not a citizen here, you can not work here.", the ambassador explains.
"Until then, I will be searching for my sister.", Tammy replies.
"I see.", the ambassador says almost to himself. He turns to Agent Dole. "You done there?", he asks him.
Agent Dole was laying flat one of Tammy's panties on the table. He then turns to the ambassador. "I'm finding nothing."
"I doubt she has it." the ambassador replies.
Agent Dole turns to Tammy. "Understand I take no pleasure in this. The Polancco's are a powerful family in Italy. I need to be sure that you are totally innocent on the charges he's putting on you.", he explains, then orders, "I need you to put your shoes on the table, stand up, put your hands on the table and spread your legs so I can search you."
Tammy looks at him with a scowl, then puts her shoes on the tables and does as he tells her. He gets up from his seat and walks up behind her. He takes her by the waist, and pulls her back making her rear end bump up against his groin. Then he begins to frisk her, first at her arms, then her shoulders. He then gropes and massages her breast. Tammy closes eyes and grimaces as he continues with the other breast. Her side and back to her waist was frisked and then her hips. He puts his hand up her skirt and touches her in areas where she only lets a washcloth go. He raises her skirt up over her waist as he massaged her rear end and tail. Then he frisks each leg to the foot, and then back up, putting his hand at her groin and massages it lightly. He pulls back away from her and pulls down her skirt. He then steps away.
"You're clean. You not hiding the card on you.", he tells her.
"You done searching.", Tammy asks.
"Yes I am.". Agent Dole tells her with a stupid smile on his face. It was knocked off his face with a cold hard slap that nearly topples him to the near by wall. A knee to the groin sends him to the floor.
"That as for you enjoying yourself on my expense, you fucking sick bastard! You do that your daughters?!" Tammy yells at him.
"That's enough Miss Squirrel." The ambassador says out loud.
Tammy turns to the ambassador, "I don't know who your boss is, but when I find out, I'm going to submit a complaint against you allowing him to feel me up!"
"By all means. You can pick up the forms from the secretary at the lobby. But this is being done on the Polancco's orders to find that credit card.", the ambassador tells her, "Consider yourself lucky that its not taken to an open cavity search."
"The Polancco? Johan Polancco?", Tammy asks.
"Its his card that is missing.", the ambassador answers.
"That bastard.", Tammy says out loud.
"Leave him alone. He will have you killed if you approach him.", the ambassador tells her.
"I know that.", Tammy tells him.
"Explain.", the ambassador asks.
Tammy takes her seat. "That bastard took me out on a date. At first I thought it would be talking about our family relations. And at first he did, calling me as his stepsister. Then he got stupid and started feeling me up, calling me an uptight American. I told him off and told him to take me home. Then he got really stupid and tried to shoot me", she tells him, showing him the backpack patches where Johan shot at her. "I was lucky not to get hit."
"If he wanted you dead, he would have shot you. No I think he wants you alive to taunt you. Do yourself a favor and stay away from him.", the ambassador tells her.
"I have been trying. I think he burned down my hotel that night. I have a feeling he did.", Tammy tells him.
"He might have. I would not put it past him. But he will never be caught because his fingerprints will never found at the scene. He pays others to do his dirty deeds.", the ambassador explains to her. He looks at the papers in front of him and pulls out her passport. "I'll be back with this.", he tells her as he got up, "Come to this side and pack up your things." He then looks at the guards, "When she's packing her things, get that dirty old bastard out my room." The guards nod at him.
Tammy walks to the other side of the table where the ambassador was. The guards drag away Agent Dole as she beings to pack up her things. It takes her a few minutes to put away her things, and then takes a chance to change her skirt and shoes to her jeans and sneakers. Soon she puts her bag on the floor. Ambassador Miers returns, putting three passport booklets in front her with a couple of small bricks of cash. Tammy looks at them confused as the ambassador takes the she was in earlier. He pushes one of them in front of her.
"That one is the one you came here with.", he explains as she recognizes her passport book. She takes it and looks inside. Other than a new Italian stamp on the last used page, there was no change. He slides another to her, "That one is your work visa in case you need a job." Then he slides the last one to her, "That one is in case you need to use a new name. We chose Tammy Polancco because of your mother's marriage to the family. Only use it if you have to use a new identity. The money is from the ten thousand euro victims' check. When the check could not be delivered to the burnt down hotel, it was sent to me."
Tammy nods.
"If you have Johan's card, its code is 7689. I would say if you have it, take out forty or fifty thousand euros and leave Italy. Wear dark glasses and something you don't usually wear. Hide your hair, wear a wig when you do.", the ambassador tells her. "Go ask the secretary how to contact the IRAS* to help you in your search for your sister. And Good Luck."
Ambassador Miers gets up and puts out him hand. Tammy takes it and shakes it.
"Look, when you shake somebody's hand especially in Europe, you squeeze hard.", the ambassador tells her, and applies a bit of pressure to his grip. Tammy squeezes down on his hand, "Just like that."
They let go, and then he leaves. Tammy packs up the passports and puts the two new ones at the bottom of the backpack along with the money. She the places her real passport near the top of the backpack under the skirt and shoes she had put in.
She puts the backpack on and heads out the to see the secretary about the complaint forms and how to contact the IRAS. She puts the forms in her backpack and heads out. She unchains her bicycle from the bike stand and rolls it to the street. She was soon making her way back to the train station. She did not mind waiting for the train that would bring her back to Milan.
Note: IRAS = International Rescue Agency and Service; an agency part of the United Nations.