The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2583 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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The authorities let us go and as I said, James came and got us and we drove back on the bus. It was obvious that sooner or later someone would have had to collect Danni, once she’d been chosen in the actual squad. All the bad guys had to do was watch and follow and they possibly had two hostages or victims, depending upon their intentions. I suspect it was to take hostages, something to bargain with. They only got nasty when it looked like we’d escape them, which would send out the wrong message to the rest of the family—even a woman and girl can outmanoeuvre two trained agents; whereas if they’d killed us it would have been—see what happens when you mess with us.

All I could think was how lucky we’d been, moments from capture or death. I made enquiries about our pistol shooting security guard. Seems he was ex-military, hardly a surprise as it takes some skill to hit a man sized target from twenty five yards. I could have hit him with a recurve or compound bow shot arrow, but probably not a pistol—too much recoil on a gun. I was extremely pleased our guard was in the right place at the right time, and it was he who picked up the fallen gun. Danni might have shot me instead.

By the time we arrived back at home, a large Mercedes was parked in the drive and Henry greeted his grandchildren with huge aplomb. Naturally he stayed to dinner, which David made to his usual standard of perfection, though he’s never satisfied. He baked a ham in the slow oven all day. It was delicious with small new potatoes, celery and watercress and huge bowl of cherry tomatoes. There was also some sliced onion to add to taste and a garlic and mustard sauce for those who wanted to overwhelm their taste buds.

Relaxing in my study later, Henry let drop something which astonished me. Black was a double agent and the latest idea was that he was trying to protect Tom and I from the Russian secret service.

“But we saw his communications with Moscow,” I gasped.

“Were they?”

“We all thought they were.”

“What if he’d intercepted them?”

“So who was he working for—the Yanks?”

“We think more likely the Israelis.”

“Mossad? Why would they want to protect us?”

“Shall we say we have significant interests in the Middle east.”

“You or the bank?”

“The bank, dear girl. To keep the peace we have investments in several countries including Israel and Egypt as well as some of the Gulf States. It would therefore be in all of their interests to keep the bank in our neutral and honourable hands.”

“So Black was a Mossad agent trying to keep me alive?”

“Not to put too fine a point on it, yes.”

“What about Fellman?”

“We knew that Gagoine had been bought by the Russians and through him they were going to invest millions in the university—or so he thought. However, that was just to get the bank to accept the money, from there they were going to hack the bank and swap things around so it could look as if the bank was accepting dodgy cash.”

“You can’t know where every penny originates, surely?”

“No, but this would have been quite a lot of pennies—one billion of them if you use the American billion of one thousand million.”

I counted backwards, “Ten million pounds, that’s a lot of money.”

“Quite, if they’d managed to get past Sammi and her firewalls, they could have done us immense damage to our reputation, which in banking is very important. It could have brought the bank into instability, causing huge withdrawals and possibly a collapse of the bank, which could then have caused a run on the pound or worse.

“Our young auditor somehow discovered the plan and decided wrongly that you were in on it, so he tried to discredit you to draw attention to things which he saw as illegal. They heard about your row with the accounts people.”

“Henry, I was being carved up by a couple of petty bureaucrats.”

“Trying to foil a bigger plan, which they thought you were party to.”

“But I wasn’t.”

Trish burst into my room, for a moment I was going to punish her for the interruption until I heard her say, “Mummy come quickly, Danni’s goal is on telly.”

We all rushed into the lounge where everyone else was. It was a news bulletin on ITV and the mid programme break was in operation. We watched a stupid advert about reducing cholesterol then the news resumed.

‘Today on a football pitch in Reading, in front of five thousand young women, England played Croatia at football. Not the men but the England school’s girls’ team—and this is what happened.’ They showed both Croat goals and then the long faces of the England fans. ‘Then after a substitution, this happened.’ Danni’s free curving free kick scoring her first goal. Then the overhead scissors, which they showed twice as it happened so quickly. The penalty which the England captain scored and finally, Danni’s bendy corner kick which dropped in at the far post.

‘The young lady, playing in her first game for England schoolgirls’, scored a hat trick of amazing goals, this scissors is one of the hardest in the book, and we’ve never heard of a girl scoring with one before, and the curving free kick and corner were worthy of the maestro, David Beckham, himself. We asked him to comment on them.’

“Well Brian, they was absolutely brilliant, I couldn’t adone any better myself, ’specially on the scissors, never seen a girl do that before, bloody brilliant. She’s got a great future as footballer.”

‘It seems our budding genius plays for St Claire’s Academy in Portsmouth and also for Portsmouth Ladies, where she was spotted by scouts for the England squad.’ They showed an interview with the guy who spotted her and the reaction of the school and club to their new found celebrity player. It was very positive as we’d expect from the school and the club team and they spoke of Danni in glowing terms. Then the local news bulletin after the main news was full of this brilliant girl from Portsmouth who saved England from certain defeat. Both programmes lamented the fact that they’d not been able to get an interview with Danielle Cameron, they also mentioned some crowd problem where a man was shot by police while trying to stab a woman spectator—viz., moi.

Danni was delighted but embarrassed to be the star of the show. I was now worried that we’d be inundated with press as soon as they worked out who it was. Henry and Simon came to a similar conclusion.

“What are you going to do? Batten down the hatches and ride out the storm?” asked Henry.

“I don’t know, I suppose we could always dash up to Bristol,” was my suggestion.

“Or the hotel, or even Hampstead.”

“If it wasn’t term time, we could have gone to Menorca,” I sighed.

“This is all my fault,” wailed Danni.

I hugged her and said, “Nonsense, darling; you were picked to do your best, you were sent on to change things—you did. I am so proud of you, I’ll never be able to put it into words.” I squeezed her and she sobbed in my arms.

“Whatever you do, it’ll have to be tonight, because they’ll be at the school tomorrow.”

Henry was right. I’d have to go as well or they’d be chasing me too, possibly then putting two and two together. I called Jason and told him to be prepared for a storm. I could almost hear him licking his lips. “Let them come,” he purred, “she’s been in role for over a year, they’ve fast tracked her gender recognition, the FA has a protocol supporting transgender players providing they meet the criteria, which she does. She’s also a minor—if it blows up, I’ll apply for an injunction on the grounds she’s a minor and therefore any accusations would be in contempt of court; we’d press for prohibitive fines, naturally.

“But if they accuse her of being a boy or of me turning boys into girls...”

“They’ll find themselves in deepest do-do.”

“If you need me call my mobile, Danni and I are going to disappear for a couple of days.”

“Somewhere warmer, I hope.”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“Have fun, I’ll keep you informed.”

Thanks, Jason.” He rang off and I had to make a decision.