Welcome to my World (WAYHAUGHT)

Chapter 29

Nicole checked her phone. 4.05am. "How much longer?"

Barry let out another belch. "Got it. Come closer darling."

She didn't particularly want to, but if it meant getting out of that stinking pit she would do what needed to be done. Standing beside him, he called up a screen she recognised from when she first entered. "You had this all the time."

Barry belched again, Nicole turning away just in time. "Yep, so what's your game pretty lady?"

Nicole had had enough, pulling out her gun, resting it against Barry's head. "You get me into those locked pages, or I make a window in your head."

"Feisty. Me likes. Do you do bondage?"

"I do holes. Get me in."

Barry's greasy left hand went to the front of his jogging pants, continuing to type with his right, Nicole desperately hoping he would get her into the pages before he got himself off. "Et voila. For you anything."

Nicole stared at the screen directly in front of Barry, a list of targets on full display, the first on the list not London, nor the second, or the third. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"If you're asking."

"Where's London?"

"Here."

"It's got to be there. Are you sure this is the right list?"

"It's a list. You want the other one?"

Nicole nodded, Barry thankfully using both hands this time to retrieve the locked second page, Nicole scanning the names as they appeared, her eyes picking out Waverly's father, the Austrian Ambassador who hosted the ball in Vienna and the British Prime Minister. With the list of future attacks excluding the London bombings, she assumed the JOSHUA list was but a nice try by the Widow to incriminate whoever was her enemy, wondering why M's name wasn't on there, or hers.

"Ah, so that's annoying," Barry said, interrupting her train of thought. "Should have guessed. Oops."

"What? Guessed what?"

"Trip wire. I think I can stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Accessing the pages without codes sends a message to your friend we're onto her."

"And."

"And, whoever's running these pages just sent out a press statement on the identity of the basement bomber."

"The who?"

"Basement bomber. Whoever blew up the stations." Barry called up another screen. "Missed it. Should have thought this through. Fucking hate boobies."

"Boobies?"

"Traps. Too late now, it's out there."

Nicole looked at the screen to the right as it began scrolling with the announcement the identity of the London bomber would be revealed shortly. Barry typed away on his keyboard, another TV channel appearing on one of the screens. "This should be a larf," he said in his south London accent, Nicole spotting the name Al Jazeera, wondering why Barry would bring that up and not the BBC.

As the news items refreshed, they waited to see who would be named, Barry clicking on the link as soon as it appeared. "Well, that's fucking bollocks," he said, as he read the update. "MI6 don't do this shit."

Nicole stared at the screen, reading the announcement, the first time she had seen her name appear in a news piece, lowering her gun. She was being accused of having masterminded the attack, she alone, an intelligence officer working for MI6, albeit temporarily, was being branded the basement bomber. "It's not true. It's...it's a lie."