The Code War Read Free

said Nancy, now intrigued.
    Mel looked behind her, guardedly.
She turned back to Nancy and then began pointing to the back of the
shop with her left hand which only Nancy could see. 'David,' she
said. 'He keeps asking me out.'
    Nancy's eyes opened wide. 'David,' she
whispered back. 'Our manager? But he's married.'
    'I don't think that's ever stopped him.
Rumour has it a girl left here last year because she was pregnant.
And it wasn't the fairies.' She gave a meaningful look.
    'That's terrible,' agreed Nancy.
    'Yeah. It is. I keep fighting him
off. But he's so persistent.' Mel looked towards the door. 'Hey up,
Nancy. There's some trade approaching.'
    Nancy looked up to see some silhouettes outside the travel agency's
front door. There were three of them, nervously hesitating before
coming in.
    'It's your turn Nancy and…' Mel
continued to scrutinise the faces outside '…guess what, your luck
hasn't changed.' She turned away with a renewed grin on her face
while Nancy composed herself once again to face the public.
    The door opened. Three young lads
stepped into the shop and looked around. They surveyed the eight
agents in front of them and glanced at the racks of brochures on
the wall. They seemed to have no idea what to do. Behind Nancy, all
the chatter among the older agents ceased and there was the sound
of several telephones being picked up and numbers being
dialled.
    Nancy looked the three youths up and down, taking in the un-ironed
shirts, baggy jeans and scruffy trainers. Yep, Mel was right. They
were her sort of customers. The old magnetism was still
working.
    ‘ Yes, can I help
you?’ she asked brightly.
    ‘ Thank you, well,
maybe,’ began one youth hesitantly. He coughed. ‘We’re all
first-year archaeology students and next term we’re doing a project
on Roman temples in the Middle East. I was wondering if you could
help us find a cheap flight and a place to stay in Israel for two
weeks. It needs to be in or near Eilat. We’ve looked at Thomas Cook
but everything they had was too expensive.’
    Nancy drew in a breath. She loved a
challenge but this could be a tough one indeed.
    ‘ Well, let’s give it
a whirl shall we?’ she replied, flexing her fingers. ‘Come over
here and we’ll see what the travel genie can find.’
    Behind her, Nancy could feel,
rather than see, her office colleagues snigger as they gave each
other knowing looks. Nancy’s got herself a classic this time, they
winked to each other. Already they were thinking of ways to tease
her later with jibes like ‘You could always send them by camel,
Nance’ or ‘Why not rent them a campervan?’ followed by ‘At least
that won’t be ruin ously expensive’.
    But for the moment Nancy ignored the
smirk-filled silence behind her and concentrated on her new
clients.
    ‘ That’ll be three of
you, I guess. What’s your budget for the two weeks?’ she
asked.
    ‘ Actually four of
us,’ replied the speaker. ‘Andy’s cousin is coming with us too.
That’s Andy,’ he indicated the young man standing nearest the door.
‘I’m Martin and this is Pete,’ indicating the third member of the
trio.
    Mel appeared pulling three chairs after
her and placed them in front of Nancy's desk. She too couldn't
resist a knowing look at Nancy. It was the only reason she had made
the effort to bring the chairs over. Nancy grimaced back with one
side of her mouth uplifted. The boys sat down. Mel departed.
    Nancy smiled again and made eye
contact with all three boys, in order to make them feel welcome.
Martin had cropped hair and wide shoulders, Andy was freckled with
red hair and Pete was tall and thin. Brawny, tawny and scrawny.
Would they be treble trouble or a trio of harmless train
spotters?
    The boys had turned on the charm
and were trying to give Na ncy their most
beatific smiles. But instead of looking angelic they seemed rather
impish.
    ‘ Come and sit closer,
all of you,’ she said. ‘I can see you’ve got big wallets. You'll
clearly be