The Hundred Year Wait

by Amelia Price

  “Have Daniels take some cash and get me two phones with those pay as you go things and bring them through. And make sure he gets them from somewhere busy, that's unlikely to remember him,” he said as his housekeeper came through. She nodded and shuffled out again, shutting the door behind her. Over the years he'd given her stranger requests than this and she knew better than to ask questions. Daniels could also be trusted to do as asked and not query or theorise why. This was exactly why Mycroft had hired them for their positions.

  With his involvement in the government, and the sort of work he did, he couldn't have staff who talked or questioned. The less they knew the safer they were, and thankfully, they were aware of this.

  When it passed lunch time and he still hadn't heard anything from his assistant he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket and sent her a text.

  Update on situation. Has lace happened?

  He hated talking to people on the phone if it could be avoided. Within seconds he had a reply.

  Nothing yet, all eyes are on target and waiting.

  Mycroft frowned. The message he'd intercepted had given no indication of time but he'd hoped some developments would have occurred by now.

  With nothing else to do but wait, he realised he might as well amuse himself with setting Amelia a second coded message to crack. It would need to be harder than the previous one but something along the same vein to build on what she'd already learnt.

  He decided to stick with a substitution cipher for now and remain with the classic ones. He could work up to other types of ciphers once he'd run her through a few of these. While he had known all types of possible cypher by the time he was eight, he didn't expect Amelia would find it so easy to figure out which cypher had been used and he wasn't bored of her yet. So far her request was turning a dull day of waiting into something at least vaguely interesting.

  After a moment's deliberation Mycroft decided to use a Vigenere square cypher with Amelia as the keyword. He'd have preferred to use his own name but his identity could not be so easily linked to their correspondence.

  With all the important decisions made, it only remained to write out her next message and put her reply safe. After unlocking the desk drawer he pulled out the notebook he'd already begun using to detail his plans for her and, after slotting her reply in the first blank page, he pulled out his pen to write out the next message. The Vigenere cypher wasn't something he could write out instantly as he had the first message, and since then he'd mulled over the merits of keeping a log of everything, so he wrote the reply into the notebook, leaving two lines empty for every one he wrote.

  After writing everything he needed to say he paused. The message wasn't particularly long and although it conveyed everything he wished it to, he hesitated to add his name and consider it finished.

  Amelia herself had offered her learning up as a source of amusement for him. If he merely wrote the briefest of messages with no other sentences in them he wouldn't be getting the full entertainment value this could provide. With a slight smile he added another sentence. Teasing her was easy given her slip up with her analogy the day before.

  It took him very few minutes to write out the keyword repeatedly underneath and then on the final empty lines he wrote out the coded message.

  Muwd Ronqw,

  Ltthayrp I waywln't zscualxc loreq xz I chmrrm in dywms I dinwgnuwp goud tzqnt mw mmins e dmnsufwm onq. Ed auct m dpalx kcint ksfz recypat. I imwt nofmqg yog mq q chasdm to exzx oud eczansixmnt. Pspa thuw omal yevm yog qj jitol?

  Cmgadhd, goud xfbor.

  Once he was satisfied with the message and the translation, he copied it out onto his notepaper and folded it, so it would fit into the smallest envelope he had. Along with it he placed a small piece of card with Amelia written on it. It would confuse her at first but hopefully she'd realise it was the keyword soon enough. He wrote her address on the envelope and stuck a first class stamp on it before sealing it with the wax as he had done with the first message.

  Rather than posting the letter as it was, he took two more envelopes from his stationery drawer, each of a slightly larger size, and wrote the address of two different sorting offices on them, being careful not to have anything else underneath them for the writing to mark through.

  As soon as they were all stamped and layered up appropriately he put it to one side to post when he next left the house. The letter would take longer to get to Amelia and go on a journey from London to Norwich, followed by Birmingham, before it reached the Bristol sorting office and then Bath to be sent out on the normal rounds. If no problems occurred it would take three working days, but four would be a reasonable estimate.

  Before the weekend was over he would need to get the extra phone to her, but he wanted to take that personally and ensure she understood what it was for. He also didn't want anyone else to know she was the recipient.

  Satisfied with both his precautions and the nature of his communications with Amelia Jones, he returned his thoughts to the expected terrorist attack. Several times during the last hour his assistant had sent him text messages with the same two words.

  Still nothing.

  He decided to look through the intercepted message again, as well as Amelia's translation of it, so he sat back, shut his eyes and allowed his brain to draw up the memory of Sherlock's case board, covered in the feminine writing of his guest that day. Assuming her concept of internet memes and his knowledge gained from two of his under cover operatives was correct, it could only indicate what he'd already guessed.

  One operative had managed to find out four possible codewords to describe the operation: lace, gem, ring, and rose. The second operative had discovered another two, clip and pin, as well as finding out that the intended target was the millennium eye, so all those details could be trusted and he knew it appeared to be lace as the operation's codename.

  Realising he could do nothing to gain more information and would have to wait for the terrorist cell to make a move, just like the team he'd convinced the government to deploy, he stopped using his mind to review the facts and opened his eyes. Daniels stood in the doorway, silently waiting for Mycroft to finish his task. The driver had seen him performing this feat of memory on many occasions and knew he didn't like to be interrupted while in the middle of it.

  “The purchases you wanted,” Daniels said as he removed two smallish boxes from a plain carrier bag and placed them on the desk.

  “Thank you, Daniels, you can go.” Mycroft gave his usual brief smile and took the top box in his hands. A reasonably new smart phone was pictured on the box and the one underneath matched apart from the colour. One had a silver case, the other black. Without hesitating he put the silver one back and pulled the other box towards himself. Silver wasn't a colour he liked and he imagined it would suit Amelia better than him anyway.

  It took him another half an hour to prepare both phones and get them registered with the pre-paid cards. Before he put Amelia's back in the box he added the number of his own under tutor and then put her number into his under student. He hoped no one would find her phone, but if they did it wouldn't be enough to link him to her. If it was found, it would be her fault if they thought she was in a relationship with a wealthy elder man. He knew, given the nature of their communication and the messages he intended to send her that it would be the most likely assumption others would leap to, but any reputation loss would be her own making. She asked him to teach her.

  With nothing else to do but wait for his assistant and team to report in, he loaded the files he had on Amelia. The basic details had come in the evening he'd requested them, like her age, her parents and all her exam results, as well as her finances, spending habits and political leanings.

  Since then several more files had arrived, including a description of each of her novels. They'd been checked for code words already, which is how he'd known about her upcoming release and its similarity to real world events, but he now had a full synopsis for each. On top of that he had every photo o
f her ever taken and put on a computer or developed, every comment she'd ever posted in a forum or social network, and every email, text or instant message she'd ever sent.

  Someone had already been through the raw data files and copied relevant conversation chunks and messages into sub categories, which ranged from her political opinions to her relationships and sexual interests and even her fears and dreams in life.

  By the end of the evening Mycroft had scanned through it all. He had raised his eyebrows when he came across the photos of her modelling underwear, taken on an old phone, when she was still a teenager. The phone had been registered to her boyfriend at the time and the originals no longer existed. As soon as he saw them he instructed the informant to delete all copies and records of the photos from everywhere but Mycroft's own files.

  He knew this was doing Amelia a service in helping her hide a skeleton in her closet but he also knew it gave him more power over her. He now had the only copies.

  Since her first few weeks at university she'd been significantly more careful, probably due to the sexual assault she'd suffered on her fifth day. She hadn't ever reported the incident but she'd mentioned it to an internet friend on facebook. Given her reclusive personality, and how she'd gone from almost constantly dating to being single until she met her husband several years later, he was inclined to believe the account.

  For a twenty-nine year old she'd lived through a varied amount of good and bad. She'd grown up poor to begin with before her father's fortunes had improved, so she wasn't spoilt. She had a younger brother but didn't talk to him much and she'd travelled to a few countries but nothing out of the ordinary. She'd always known she wanted to be a writer, and pursued her career relentlessly, despite doing well in the more academic subjects in school, especially maths.

  Mycroft found her lack of friends interesting. She'd already mentioned she didn't enjoy the social side of her profession but she handled people well and had been an extroverted individual until her husband had died. Ever since then she'd withdrawn and kept to herself in the apartment they'd bought together, although signs of her socialising less had started to show in her years at Uni. He knew both would come down to her own feelings of hurt. It would make her guarded with her heart towards him and gave him more confidence to proceed teaching her. It also made her request to learn more genuine and increased it as the main motivation behind her pleasantness and willingness to cooperate.

  Now he had the entire picture of her life, he was impressed with her. She'd reacted well to bad situations and shown she could handle emotionally stressful events without falling apart. And, despite being an artistic person with a fairly typical creative personality, she knew how to keep her emotions under control. Something he thought very important.

  All the information he'd learnt would help him teach her as well as keep their game on his terms. He probably knew her better now than she did herself and he could be confident she wouldn't make a fuss when he was done playing with her.

  With a smile of smug satisfaction Mycroft sat back and stared at the photos of her playing in a looped slide-show in front of him. He stayed that way for several minutes until he realised his team had still not reported in concerning the terrorist attack. He glanced at the clock on the wall. There was less than an hour of Friday left. Something had gone wrong.

  Chapter 6

  Saturday morning flew past in a haze as Mycroft attended meeting after meeting with official cabinet members and other government officials. All of them wanted to know why the information was wrong and what was going to be done about it. Ironically he'd have been more likely to give them answers if they'd stopped their pointless discussions and let him get back to work. Instead he had to text his brother and get Sherlock to re-examine the intercepted message for him.

  During what he hoped would be his final meeting of the day, he received a message from his informant on Amelia.

  Brother sent text to Miss Jones. She's just bought a train ticket to London and booked a hotel room. I've emailed you all the details.

  He frowned and put his phone back in his pocket. The last thing he wanted was Amelia Jones getting involved. It already looked as if she'd taken them down the wrong direction and kept him from keeping the country safe. He should never have trusted her suggestions.

  As soon as the meeting ended he opened the email from his informant and studied it. To make matters worse she was staying in the same hotel. At least he hadn't posted her letter and could get it to her while she was in London, although he wasn't going to sneak it into her hotel room again. If his brother had summoned Amelia then he could show up while she was there and slip it into her bag. He could also pass on the phone he wanted her to use to reply to him, assuming he still wished to. At the moment, he considered cutting all ties with her. He'd trusted her judgement and it remained to be proved wise or foolish.

  “Home, sir?” Daniels asked.

  “No. Baker Street.” Mycroft sat back and tried to think of how he was going to sort out the mess Amelia had created. At least he would be able to point out she'd got it wrong. If he hadn't already written out the next letter he'd have told her it was over. He'd never been so furious, not even when Sherlock had been duped by that woman and lost a file of government secrets. All the hours wasted listening to people drone on had only made him angrier.

  Mycroft wasn't surprised when he noticed the now familiar perfume lingering in the hallway. Both his brother and Amelia stared at him as he walked into the flat's living area. The pair stood in almost the exact same positions as they had the first time he'd discovered them working together.

  She gave him a brief smile, but it vanished when he gave her his often used sneer.

  “I thought we'd be seeing you soon, brother of mine,” Sherlock said, taking Mycroft's focus away from Amelia and the corseted waistcoat she wore with trousers and boots.

  “People want answers.” Mycroft moved his gaze back to Amelia and tried not to think about the compromising pictures he'd got of her. “Nothing happened on Friday and they want to know why my information was wrong.”

  We've looked at the message several times,” she replied, motioning to the whiteboard behind her. “We can't see any other sort of pattern.”

  “Which is why I am here. We shall have to look again.” Mycroft walked past her and stood in front of the letter. In truth he hadn't been able to think of an alternative code yet but he wanted her to squirm for a while. He knew his agents would have provided solid information so something had gone wrong with this message and Amelia had put them on this track.

  “Run me through each sentence.” Mycroft directed his comment at his brother but she stepped up beside him and used the pen to point as she explained each meme, one by one.

  His mind reeled at the amount of time she must have spent online to know what the possibilities were, and he didn't even feel slightly bothered that he recognised none of them. There was little point remembering such random nonsense, especially so out of context.

  Once she'd finished he felt satisfied that the key to translating the message must be entirely different. If it was the wrong day then it must be something other than internet memes.

  “What do you think it might be instead?” She asked when he voiced this.

  “I don't know yet, but I'm sure between us we can find it.” He gave her another one of his fake smiles and backed away motioning for Sherlock to follow him.

  “I don't appreciate you involving her in this, brother of mine,” Mycroft whispered.

  “Nonsense, she's proved useful and I'm sure you'll like her when you get to know her.”

  Mycroft raised his eyebrows as his brother went back to staring at the letter.

  After an hour of trying to find another possible key, Amelia put down her pen and shook her head.

  “Is there anything else you can tell us, Myron? Something more about the kind of message we should be expecting. Sebastian mentioned you knew the target was the Millennium Eye. Where did you get that info
rmation from?”

  Mycroft frowned and kept silent but even Sherlock looked like he agreed with her.

  “Two of my agents gave me several facts.” She handed him the pen, brushing her fingers against the back of his hand. If she hadn't done a similar gesture to Sherlock the first time he'd seen them together he'd have thought she was trying to show interest in him.

  He wrote down the names of all the different planned projects and the location.

  “Are you sure you've got the right location?”

  “Yes.” Mycroft used the same tone of voice that he warned his brother not to argue with.

  “Could each codename have a different location? So clip or pin would be the name for the attack on the Millennium Eye, but lace is somewhere different.” Amelia said, ignoring him.

  Mycroft shook his head, too angry to gather his thoughts into words. She'd misled them, not his own agents.

  “Amelia has a point,” Sherlock said just as he opened his mouth to begin his tirade at her. “Could it be worth looking at other locations?”

  He saw her eyes flick between the two of them. She'd picked up on the anger and he'd noticed her own heart rate increase in response. Now she bit her lip and waited for him to speak. At first he didn't respond, choosing to study her instead. Until now she'd given no indication that she was affected by his presence in the room. If for no other reason than to keep his communications with her from being picked up by Sherlock, he knew he needed to move the conversation along.

  “I have no more information. If there are other locations I don't know where they would be.”

  “That can be sorted out. If we assume the message is right and something happened yesterday we can find out what and where. Whatever happened it wasn't a big explosion.” Sherlock smiled and grabbed his maps of London from a nearby shelf. Amelia moved to his side to pore over them with him, leaving Mycroft to stand awkwardly off to one side.