Chapter 15

The girls were delivered with their luggage a couple of days later, excited at being in London but also wondering why they were with us so early. I explained that the agency we worked for had an urgent need for four models to take part in a long photo shoot and that I had volunteered them for the job.

They were all a bit apprehensive as none had ever considered that they could be feminine enough to be a model but I told them that models come in all shapes and sizes these days and not to worry. They settled themselves into the two flats, with Wanda and Jean in one and Mallory and Valerie in the other. I was starting to think of those two as Mal and Val. We all went out for a noisy dinner at our favourite hotel and had a laugh about the ‘village walk’ and Wendy told them about me nearly killing the combat instructor, with a warning that they may also have the same level of training and not to get angry with anyone.

The next day we all went into the agency where the girls were inspected, measured, and found suitable to go to a test shoot. With the new experiences of professional make-up and some wonderful dresses to wear, they all got into the swing of things quickly. I was starting to think that adaptation to any situation was one of the side effects of the brainwashing. We had lunch supplied on the run and, by the end of the day all the girls had been fully accepted as the replacements. The agency was really happy with Jean as they had a range of outdoors outfits that suited her heavier frame perfectly. They were all signed on to the agency before we left.

We were told that the main shoot would be starting on the Monday morning and that a mini-bus would be sent to the flats in the morning. This left us with the weekend to get ourselves fully sorted. We went for dinner at our favourite hotel and I asked for a table away from other diners as we needed to discuss things. After we had eaten I asked the girls if they knew what the Major had been able to achieve. I was told that by knowing my own codes and having records of the brain activity when the words were said, he was able to pin-point the place in the brainwashing where the codes were inserted, over-riding the instruction with a blank space. He was not able to actually find out what the words were but was sure that none of the girls would react when they were spoken.

Saturday morning we all went into the city and I took them into the store where we had outfitted Wendy. The floor manager nearly fainted when we told her that the four girls needed some outfits as expected from models and to put it on my account. Wendy spoke up then and said to split the four between our accounts and that she would be looking for a couple of items herself. We all had a good time, having to stop for lunch at the store café, before winding up around three. The manager said that all our bags would be delivered later that afternoon and we went back to the flats. The bags did arrive about an hour after us and there were six, very well outfitted, ladies who went back into the city in two taxis for a dinner with the chief and the Major.

The Major brought us up to date with his work on the four and told us that he was getting much more proficient with the software now and was sure that all the girls had been cleared of the codes. The chief gave us the good news that a Tamsin had, he thought, been located working at an electronics store and that the stores records had been obtained quietly to see if there were any links to big supplies to one company. So far it was not looking good. He did tell us that investigations into the murders and fire were looking good as they had tracked down a driver who did contract work for the company and he was giving them a list of places he had delivered to. We all had a good meal and went home satisfied with the progress. The four were slowly becoming part of the investigation team after being considered as victims, much like my own situation.

The Sunday was a day of rest with each flat organising their own breakfasts. I had told everyone that we would be going for a run after breakfast and we all took the DLR down to Canary Wharf where we had a good work-out in the mainly empty streets along the waters’ edge. There was a café open, near to where I used to work, and we took a couple of outside tables and put them together. I told the four new models that the following week would be the hardest they had worked as a lot needed to be achieved in the time allowed. Only perfection was to be shown on the printed pages and perfection takes a lot of work to achieve. I told them to start Monday in casual outfits and minimal make-up as everything gets done at the shoot. We had a good lunch and I told them that they had the rest of the day off but not to eat too much this evening.

Next day we were picked up and taken to an old film studio where they were able to recreate various settings with good accuracy. That day, and all that week, we modelled everything from dungarees to designer dresses. During this time there was also pictures taken of bags and accessories that went with particular dresses as there was to be a separate catalogue for an accessory company. There was a whole day where we had nothing but swimwear and were all very happy to be working under lights. Another whole day was made up of sportswear. On the Thursday we arrived home to find that there had been a special delivery of four brand new passports which made all the girls squeal with delight.

On the Friday afternoon we were given our choice from the collection and told that we would be picked up on Monday morning to be taken to Heathrow for a flight to Mexico and the location shoot. We made sure that we got some running in during the weekend as we all had the compulsion to keep fit, even Wendy. On Monday morning we met up with the rest of the team in the departure lounge. We had two photographers, a lighting man, a couple of gofers and four girls for dressing and make-up. The clothes and equipment had been freighted over the weekend.

When we arrived in Mexico City it was hot and we were happy to be driven to an air-conditioned hotel in air-conditioned taxis. The guys went off to pick up a rental truck for the equipment and a mini-bus for us. When they got back they found all of us girls in bikinis sitting around the pool with cold drinks. They went to their rooms to change and joined us. We discussed the outline for the rest of our stay and we models found out that we would be doing a number of shoots in various small villages that had interesting backdrops. Following that there would be a few days in a northern desert area where we would be in front of large cacti. We would be finishing this part of the shoot in the border town of El Paso. We would then be driving to Dallas to do a number of days with the city as the backdrop and there would be a delivery of designer dresses and accessories for us there.

It started well with us staying at the hotel and going out in the mini-bus to various locations. The clothes were mainly outdoors and sporting wear. We then relocated to Torreon for the cactus experience. Here we had a car load of armed guards who were to keep us safe from bandits. While we were shooting at a little village halfway between Torreon and Monterrey I had the oddest feeling that something was wrong. I commented on this to Valerie who told me that she had the same feeling and that the last time it had happened was when she was on a street corner in an earlier life. We looked around us and I noticed that one of our guards was chatting quite happily to a guy who looked every inch a bandit. Valerie said that the way the guy looked at us was if he was working out which one of us he would ravish first.

A few days later we left the area to drive north; it would be two days travel to get to El Paso. As we were getting close to Chihuahua we came across barriers across the road with a couple of armed policemen waving us towards a detour. One of our gofers was driving the mini-bus and he followed the guards’ car onto the detour. I stood up and looked behind us and noticed the barriers being folded up as the van left the road so I told the girls that we were about to be kidnapped. We got the dressers and make-up girls to the back of the bus and told them to make sure they kept down.

The guards pulled up next to a large van and 4X4 truck and, as we stopped with our van behind us, a couple of guys walked out from behind their van and sprayed the car with machine gun fire. Our driver was now praying for a holy intervention as the guy we had seen in the village got out of the truck and walked to the door of the bus, indicating for the driver to open it. Behind us I could see the two ‘policemen’ pull up behind our van and pull our two guys out at gunpoint. If they were not killing them I expected that they were needed to be the ones to tell the story of the kidnap.

The leader said, in perfect English, that all the men in the bus should get out and go and sit on the ground alongside the two from the van. Once that had happened he said that all of us models would be taken for ransom, as well as the good times we would give his men. We were told to get out of the bus and walk towards their van. We did so and I noticed the rest of the gang was following us, leaving our men sitting. They obviously thought that they were on to a good thing and were positioning themselves to choose one each. Once we had the whole gang around us to put us in the van the leader opened the back doors and pulled out a bag of cable ties. That’s when I broke his neck and the others went straight into action, killing the entire gang in less than ten seconds without a shot being fired. Only Wendy had not killed her opponent; just stunned him, so Mallory did the honours.

Our guys just looked on with their mouths open. I told them all to stand up and told them that we were a special military force under cover and that they would all be subjected to the Official Secrets Act once we got back to England. I got a box of disposable gloves from our make-up girls (who were taking the whole thing better than the blokes) and, with the help from our guys, we heaved the gang into the back of the van. There was a can of fuel in the back of the truck and I doused the bodies liberally and then closed the doors. We parked the ‘police’ car right alongside and took all the petrol caps off. With rags we had cut from our dead guards we stuffed them into the fuel pipes and then told our drivers to take our vehicles back towards the road.

When our vehicles were clear we took off the gloves and tossed them into the back of the truck before taking a lighter we had found in the cab and lighting each of the rags. As we walked to our bus the four vehicles erupted into flame, the van giving a whumph as the petrol soaked bodies ignited. Wendy went to our van to make sure that our two guys in that were absolutely understanding of what was expected of them. Once the bus was under way I made sure that our party was on the same page, telling them that nothing had happened while we had been travelling north. I made sure that I showed them my warrant card which listed me as an Inspector of Police and told them that Wendy was the same rank. As we reached the main road again there was a loud explosion behind us. Wendy said “I gather there was some dynamite in the truck. That will make a real mess of the crime scene.”

We stopped for the night at a motel some couple of hundred miles north and had a quiet dinner. Wendy and I told the studio people that as far as they were concerned, our guards left us behind a long way back and we had not seen or heard anything out of the ordinary on the drive north. The next day we arrived in El Paso, crossing the border into the US without any problems as the agency had supplied us with the correct paperwork. The others were a little shaky at first but we completed our shoot in a couple of days. I had the feeling that it would be a good result as everyone was totally immersed in the job to keep the memory of the attack from overwhelming them.

When we got to Dallas I called the chief from a pay phone, asking him to set up an interview at immigration for the five guys and four girls from the agency and to make sure SB was in on it with a bunch of Official Secrets forms to be signed. I said I would fill him in on the reasons when I saw him. The photo shoot finished with a session at one of the stately homes in the area and all of us models had to change into five different dresses during the day, each being more elaborate and expensive than the one before. With the last dresses on we were taken to a high-end club where we all flirted outrageously with society twits and their fathers, while the wives looked on wistfully at our attire.

Next day we flew to New York, then into Heathrow, where we were all diverted into interview rooms, even before we had retrieved our luggage. I explained to the chief and an SB officer about the kidnap attempt and the outcome. The SB guy went off to make sure that the agency people were totally aware of what a secret is and the consequences of breaking the code of silence. The six of us were then taken to get our luggage and then cleared through customs and onto a waiting mini-bus to take us back to the flats.

Marianne G 2020