It had been an early start for all of them, and it was still technically early. Annelie had been sitting in the make up trailer for the past thirty minutes, the film crew scattered around Navy Pier were busy making sure they would be ready to start shooting when the sun showed it's face at 5:40 AM, about thirty five minutes in the future. The simple hand off went smoothly thanks to said make up trailer. Trish, Laurel and Annelie had already been inside, just another anonymous trio of film crew members, when Sharon had made her hard to miss movie star arrival and entrance. It had been Sharon and Trish who eventually departed the trailer, leaving Laurel to complete her shift, but only after a fifteen minute delay that both Annelie and the second make up specialist Amanda had insisted was absolutely necessary.
"You could be twins," Amanda said after she admired her handiwork, "all it took was a bit of strategic makeup and styling."
Trish agreed completely with her assessment. Except for the difference in eye color it was difficult to tell the women apart.
"Wow. Put a pair of dark glasses on you, and anyone would think you were Annelie."
"Here," said Melissa, the woman who was working with Annelie, as she handed Sharon a package of crystal blue contact lenses, "try these."
"Holy shit," Trish said, "I'm sold."
"Just remember which of us you're going home with tonight," Annelie said from her make up chair in a tone of voice that was not entirely joking.
Trish and Sharon were now standing outside the trailer, seeming to review a shooting schedule, but in fact rarely taking their eyes off the trailer and it's only entrance. Michael and Simon were stationed on the other side, just in case someone was stupid enough to try and crawl through a window. The sun was just beginning to show it's face, but Annelie had still not emerged from the trailer. Trish resisted the urge to check on her. Laurel was with her, and the four of them had the trailer surrounded. Nobody was getting inside.
The private jet that had delivered Annelie to Chicago had departed the evening before, heading back to New York and taking the flight crew with them, at least on paper. In reality it had been a different flight crew on board, though anyone watching Simon and his team would not know that; it was a simple matter for four people to walk into an airport, and four different people to walk onto a private jet; simple, at least, when one had the cooperation of the Midway Airport Authority and the Commissioner of the CPD.
The cooperation of the Commissioner of the CPD was also the reason that twenty four men and women, each wearing the distinctive blue of the Chicago Police Department, though that color was barely noticeable due to the extra tactical gear and automatic weapons - twenty four officers, on special assignment, working in alternating twelve man shifts and hand selected by Commissioner Gordon himself, provided an additional layer of protection that was as overt as they could make it without painting them all fluorescent pink. They were to keep a moving cordon around Annelie Bodin while she was on set, as best they could while staying out of camera range, no matter where that set was located within the city limits. They had been informed, verbally and with pictures of the four dead members of the flight crew from Stockholm, the nature of the threat that the actress faced, and their grim faces, all of which displayed steely determination, demonstrated clearly how seriously they took their assignment. The current team of twelve would soon find their jobs a bit easier as the sun rose, which was, not coincidentally, when filming would also begin.
Trish and Sharon saw the man approaching, though both women pretended to be engrossed in the document that Trish held in her left hand. Trish's right hand and arm were relaxed, but ready to draw the Walther P99 Compact 9 mm from it's Kydex holster in less than a second.
"Shouldn't you be in wardrobe already?" the man asked Sharon.
"What?"
"Shit, I'm sorry. I thought you were Ms. Bodin. You look exactly like her."
Trish smiled at her team mate before turning to the man who was wearing an old baseball cap that had Dangerous Heights printed on the front."I think she's still in make up."
"Sorry, I don't recognize either of you," he said, his eyes continuing to return to Sharon.
"We're Ms. Bodin's personal assistants," Trish said, "I'm Patsy, this is Shar."
"Hey, can I ask you to do me a favor?" the man asked Sharon.
oh for fuck sake, Trish thought.
"Depends on the favor," Sharon replied skeptically.
"Can you stand in for Ms. Bodin for a lighting test?"
"A what?"
"A lighting test. We're running behind. She should have finished with wardrobe already. And her stunt double Renata is late too. We're burning daylight as well as cash. It'd be a big help."
Trish could see the conflict on Sharon's face.
"Hang on," Trish said before walking up and opening the trailer door and sticking her head inside.
"How much longer?"
Melissa looked at Trish, and her face was a mask of irritation. Laurel gave Trish a sideways glance, but kept her mouth closed.
"We're starting over again," Melissa said.
"No rush," Trish said to Melissa before looking at Laurel, "Sharon has a thing. She'll be nearby, but it's just me on the door for a while."
"I'll manage. What's the thing?"
"Tell you later," Trish said before making an eye movement to Annelie, who continued to look straight ahead, her eyes closed as Melissa worked.
"You're good," Trish said to Sharon after returning to the pair, "They're starting over. It'll be a while."
"Goddamn it," the man said before taking a series of deep breaths. It appeared he was well versed in delays of this sort, and new how to cope with them, "Let's get you to wardrobe. two minutes there and then the set. Shouldn't take long."
"No worries," Sharon said as the two began to walk away. She turned and looked at Trish, and the look on her face was pure joy, "it takes as long as it takes."
Trish had only been on her own for about ten minutes when the middle aged balding man in black framed glasses approached.
"Ms. Walker?" he asked. The two men accompanying him had stopped about ten feet behind him, "I'm James Gordon. I received a message that you wanted to meet."
Shit, he's up early.
"Commissioner, you took me by surprise. You're up early."
"Technically I haven't been to bed yet. I have a special consultant that keeps weird hours, and if I want to talk to him it means I have to keep weird hours sometimes."
"I can relate, believe me. How much detail did Commissioner Sewell share with you?"
Her question seemed to take him by surprise.
"You know Commissioner Sewell?" he asked.
"We've met, but I wouldn't say I know her. I thought she was the one who passed along my request."
"You request came through my daughter, Barbara. She got it from a friend of hers. Do you know Colleen Wing?"
"No. I asked a friend who has a contact in the NYPD to forward my request. I assumed he would go through the Commissioner's office."
"Anyway, here we are. What was it you wanted to discuss?"
"How much time do you have?"
"Jesus," James Gordon said as he and Trish stood behind Laurel's SUV, the Commissioner stooped over slightly to avoid the elevated rear door that was suspended overhead. He continued to scan the printed sheets and photos from the black brief case as well as the notes that Trish had written only a few hours earlier, "I knew she was being targeted, but I had no idea it was this bad, or this complex."
It had been necessary for Trish to stick her head back into the make up trailer to ask Laurel for her key fob, and it was now Michael who was watching the trailer door, Simon alone on the other side. The sun was on the rise and had been for the better part of thirty minutes. James Gordon had wasted no time scanning all the documents, and it seemed to Trish that he had an excellent memory because he didn't need to refer to any of those documents as he asked questions.
"Someone certainly went to a great deal of effort, and cost," Trish said, "and that cost can now be measured in lives lost as well as currency."
"That's not happening in my city," the Commissioner said sternly, "we know how dangerous these assholes are now, and what lengths they'll go to. They try anything like that here, they'll end up in the ground."
They were standing quite a ways from the living cordon that surrounded Annelie, but Trish's eagle eyes could still see the officers clearly.
"I appreciate your help, Commissioner, and the team you've put together."
"Do you mind if I take photos of these documents?" he asked, "I'd like to get my daughter to do some digging, and my special consultant would never let me hear the end of it if I didn't let him sink his teeth into this."
"Is your daughter with the CPD?"
"No, she works directly for me as a private contractor."
"Like your special consultant?"
More than you could possibly know, James Gordon thought to himself.
"More or less."
"You remember me saying that this information is on a serious close hold, don't you?"
"I remember, and so will they. The only one who they will share anything with is me. But I'm still not sure why you are walling off everyone back east."
"Because our boat might be leaking."
The middle aged man, who was about the same height as Annelie, or an inch taller, took a moment to study Trish's face before he replied.
"Yeah, huh?"
Trish could not prevent the smile from forming on her face.
"Spoken like a true New Yorker, Commissioner."
"Renata missed her flight from London, and the next flight was delayed for two hours for a mechanical problem," Annelie said as she drank green tea in the craft services tent, her body obscured under a XXL t-shirt and her head hidden under a large straw cowboy hat.
"Is that going to be a problem?" Laurel asked as the three women: Annelie, Laurel and Trish sat at one end of a long table that was covered with a white paper table cloth. Michael and Simon were never far away, still pretending to be occupied with anything except protecting Annelie Bodin. It had been Simon who first voiced the idea that Trish had been considering since she had seen Sharon's transformation, the result of that idea being that it was Sharon walking around the set instead of Annelie, though both women were well within the perimeter established by the twelve special duty members of the CPD.
"It's fine," Annelie had said when they had explained the idea, "They use a stand it for a lot of shots that are supposed to show me from behind, or from far away, or in a car. It's no big deal."
Trish didn't believe a word of it, but she wasn't going to call bullshit on it. Annelie had enough on her plate already, she didn't need Trish pointing out what everyone could see: that Annelie was the jealous type.
It was just coming up on 9:00 AM, Sara should be arriving any minute to take her sister's place. Every member of their team, Nighthawk and Paragon both, were in constant contact, but with muted comms; so when Trish's earbuds informed her that someone's comm just went live she assumed it was Sara.
"We may have a problem," Sharon's voice said into everyone's ear.
"What problem?" Simon asked, his voice nearby preceding his voice in Trish's earbud by a second.
"Those twelve uniformed officers from the CPD."
"What about them?"
"There are fourteen."
