Tammy: Flying High Part 3: Home Shiraz Turvey & Alecia Snowfall

 
This story follows on from Tammy: Rank Stupidity and Snowfall's Butterflies, Asphalt & Insanity

Part 3 - Home

DS Kevin Edmunds had arrived at Suzie’s home in a car shortly after breakfast.

“I’d like to offer you a ride back to your plane, ladies.”

“Is that all, Kevin? You’re not after a ride north, are you?”

“No Tammy, I’m on duty and have a busy day ahead.”

Tammy was teasing Kevin, she’d been told the previous evening that someone suitable would be meeting her that morning.

The girls had bought bags of clothes, which included two frocks apiece, the previous day and, in order to get their new clothes home, had also needed to buy new luggage. Kevin had found himself dragging the luggage from the store back to Suzie’s house.

Meanwhile Suzie had been kind enough to launder their flight outfits and most of their smalls. That laundry had dried on a line out the back and was currently in a basket.

“We need to finish packing, Kevin.”

“Women!”

Suzie apparently didn’t hear the comment, Tammy chose to ignore it but Maisie aimed a slap at his face. It may have been playful.

“Kevin, please don’t make us demand a replacement officer on the grounds that you’re a sexist so-and-so?”

“Sorry, Maisie, apologies ladies.” The girls took longer packing that they absolutely needed to but were now playing to the stereotype. They also stripped and remade their bed to help Suzie.

“Tammy?”

Suzie was stood, well out of Kevin’s hearing, looking sorry for herself.

“I guess I’m not going to like this, sis?”

“I phoned mum last night, I always call at the weekend.”

“And?”

“I said you had arrived here unexpected, but I didn’t know why.”

“Okay?”

“Mum suggests that you visit, and Dad wants to remind you of a meeting you are supposed to be at this week? I don’t know what that is.”

“Okay, did mum suggest a particular day?”

“Tuesday, six pm.”

“Really? She could call?”

“Mum’s intimidated by you, your freedom, your travel, and is frightened she’ll call you at the wrong time.”

“Please get her to tell everyone else – they don’t seem to have any trouble contacting me! What about Maisie? Did you break the embargo?”

“No, no, I didn’t say anything. Promise.”

“Okay, Suzie, I believe you. Have a good week, sis.”

“Hey, congratulations to both of you.”

A three way hug followed whilst Kevin hung around in the doorway.

A few minutes later they were on their way to North Weald. Kevin decided not to ask the girls anything. At the gate the girls were admitted without trouble but Kevin had to produce his warrant card to prove he wasn’t driving an unmarked cab.

He stopped a short distance from the Epic 1000 and offered to drag their luggage across the concrete. Tammy had brought a large strong shopping bag with her and met Kevin at the steps with the briefcase inside the shopping bag.

“Please take good care of it, and get it to the correct person intact. This could be the most valuable item you have ever couriered.”

“You’re not joking?”

“No, and I strongly suggest you don’t put a single fingerprint on it.”

“Understood.”

“If that is traced back then we all end up in court, secret court.”

“Okay Tammy, you don’t need to say any more!”

-o-

They landed late afternoon, Jim wasn’t impressed.

“We needed that back yesterday!”

“I was diverted and would have been out of hours.”

“Oh, okay, try to plan better?”

“Yeah, sorry Jim, but things happened too quickly. Plan was to fly back at lunchtime and be back here a few hours later but we ended up at North Weald due to an issue.”

“I know, they called, you had paramedics meet the plane?”

“Yes, but that really is not public knowledge. I seriously doubt it will ever be public knowledge. What I can say is that neither the plane nor the pair of us was at risk.”

“Okay. If there’s anything else you can add it to the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.”

“Meeting? Oh, the AGM. Where is it?”

“It was in the annual reports pack, Tammy: we have a room booked at the McKay Hotel for five o’clock.”

“Understood, thanks, Jim.”

“When do you next need a plane?”

“Unknown, but I may fly down to Aberdeen in a few days.”

“Okay. Can you give me a little warning?”

“Will do.”

“Jim, we’ll check the plane now but can you give it a full inspection please? We had a little difficulty and had to remove an item before we flew back into North Weald. We’re pretty certain nothing else was there but can’t be certain.”

“Will do, thanks for the extra work!”

The girls loaded their stuff into Maisie’s van then went back to the plane to check all their own hidden spaces in case anything had been left behind.

They stopped to buy enough fresh groceries for the next couple of days before heading home to prepare dinner, it was approaching six o’clock by this time and neither would be staying up late.

There was a pile of mail waiting but nothing obviously urgent. Unfortunately their security system was flashing an alert:
Debrief 1600Z

“Four o’clock, Tammy? We need shopping and lunch.”

“No, we’re on summer time so that’s 5pm, unless someone got the timezones confused?”

The display flashed and the ‘Z’ disappeared.

“Well, that answers that question. Let’s go get some fresh food, everything else can wait.”

They made it through the stores and were back by 3.30pm, albeit with a load of fresh food to stow in fridge, freezer and cabinets. Lunch hadn’t happened and probably wouldn’t.

They had time to put one full load into the washing machine before taking themselves down to their basement. Maisie booted the laptop whilst Tammy made certain everything else was ready. They sat together facing the screen with at least 2 cameras looking at them.

A minute after 4 the screen lit, split between Kimberley and Major Paul Dannigan.

Dannigan opened. “What the hell happened, Captain Smart?”

Tammy stood and saluted before flopping down. “I was two spins of my prop blade shy of being arrested for inter-judicial kidnapping and much much more. There was no way he could go into custody and every chance of bail within twelve hours. Sir.”

“Why?”

“I was flying as a civilian.”

“What?”

“The army screwed me, although it’s been fixed since then. Remember those assessments you supplied, Sir?”

“Indeed.”

“Someone decided to disregard the work you did and to put me on suspension. I found out that had been rescinded as we were heading towards the island but a text message is hardly a positive channel for such news? I was also on leave so that I could attend, we both were.”

“And you said nothing?”

“With respect, Sir, you have an intelligence apparatus that should have known.”

“I did.”

“Then why allow me, us, to end up in a compromised situation?”

“Because you shouldn’t make assumptions and you ARE responsible for your own actions. I accept that you had to try to avoid being arrested.”

“I did what I could and, unless circumstances have changed, he’s still in a secure unit.”

“You are correct.”

“Good, I hate being upstaged by events. Something for the future, the Isle of Man is a part of Great Britain but isn’t a part of the United Kingdom. It has a separate parliament and a separate judiciary.”

“We are aware of that, Tammy, but we also had no jurisdiction and regardless of the exact location, you were, and are, the local operative. You actually did well to dispose of Burgess in the way you did and protect the operation. For that I am grateful. Your Colonel is similarly grateful.”

“We had dinner with him last night.”

“Ah, I wasn’t aware.”

Tammy opted to keep any comments to herself. Maisie decided to intervene.

“Sir, were we your sacrificial lambs?”

“Maisie, congratulations by the way, but in an operation like this everyone is potentially sacrificial. The key elements are to protect the organisation and protect the operation but this isn’t kiddies in the sand pit, this is a war: a war on terrorists, a war on criminals and a war on subterfuge. In war there can be casualties.”

“I see.”

“Now, let’s go through the events of Friday night and early hours of Saturday morning. Kimberley?”

That took an hour.“Okay everyone, I think we have everything we need?”.

Dannigan was winding up the debrief.

“Sir, what if he walks and we’re implicated? Who will watch our backs?”

“No-one will protect you Tammy, you had best keep one step ahead and hope that your colleagues in London keep you informed.”

“Yes, Sir.”

- o -
Author's note: This chapter is short! That's because this chapter in the published book is short and I'm sticking to the original chapters for Flying High that were published in the Rank Stupidity Kindle book. Chapter 4 is much longer!