Merge: Mission At The Mansion

Write At The Merge: Week 33

 

This week is a photo prompt of a mansion which I've used to provide a future segment of my novel Blind Obedience. 

Background: Emma was born into a highly classified government program which caused her mind to split from intentionally induced trauma from a very young age. The personality splits created from the trauma were then trained with highly sophisticated methods by neuroscientists and other experts for various tasks and purposes. Emma has no awareness of this split off part of her life and is vacationing in England, or so she thinks. She has one day in London and is obsessed with buying a raincoat at Burberry's before her motorcoach tour leaves the next day. Previous segments of the story can be read here.


Emma entered Burberry’s and was met by a tall well-dressed female assistant in red pencil skirt, tailored blouse, and black heels. As Em stood at the counter providing her hotel information and shipping address after the final fitting for the raincoat, a gentleman, undercover for MI-6, awaited his opportunity. He had been notified by a call to a nearby telephone booth when Em left her hotel.

When Em wandered off to look at the luggage, the Englishman lingered nearby making small talk. He was able to give her the hand signal and code phrase which called out Hilary, the one who would receive the information for the assignment. One of the motorcoach tour stops would be Yorkshire. Hilary was to relay the meeting place, time, and person’s description to an inside personality known as “the conductor”.

Nearly all covert activity in Em’s life took place at night. All she would ever know is that she fell asleep in the same bed in which she awoke. The conductor’s job was to relay the meeting information to a different personality. Always an assignment was carried out by a series of personalities so if any one of her was caught and questioned, no one part would ever know the full story. Orders came from high above through other operatives so secrecy at the highest levels was never compromised.

After Em went to bed the night her tour was in Yorkshire, Natasha went to the provided room number. The team in the hotel room prepared her for the mission: clothing, disguise, “accessories”. At 2 a.m., Natasha met her contact on the dark side of the bridge, a short walk from her hotel. From there she was ushered to the American military base Menwith Hill for a briefing with those who were to be her black ops teammates for the next few hours. Just before boarding the helicopter, Anya was cued to carry out the remainder of the mission. After touching ground out of earshot of a private party held at a posh English estate, Anya arrived by limo and stepped out in her elegant attire with the help of the valet. She provided the name on the guest list and walked in confidently. 

During a quick stop in the ladies room, she carefully applied the coating to her lips and then the layer of a beautiful shade of deadly untraceable poison. The recipient, the target identified as the traitor, would be pronounced dead of a heart attack, after Anya was safely in the helicopter and after using her special lipstick remover saving her from any toxic effects.

Natasha returned to the hotel room to be debriefed and relinquish her mission items. Moments after entering her hotel room, the phone rang. Natasha answered. She was cued to forget all that had transpired and to switch back to Emma before getting into bed. The moments between signals and actions to and from Emma were always lost in the amnesia.


Words: 493