Ross men responded with the only two words available to him in this circumstance, "Yes, Sir."
"Good, don't let us stop you then gentlemen," said the Director. "And, good luck. I'll look forward to some fast reports on this matter and a quick solution to this problem," he said.
Smithers and Ross both recognized the dismissal, and rose at the same time, nodded their heads in acknowledgement to the other silent people in the room, turned and marched out the door.
When they reached his office, Smithers stopped and looked at the young man. "I have no idea what they're playing at in there, but it looks like we've been made the fall guys." He shook his head.
Ross silently nodded in agreement.
Smithers continued, "I'm not sure who I annoyed to get us into this but I'll do my best to make sure we don't get covered in what's about to fall out of this bull-of-an-assignment." He took a breath, his eyes glazed over for a second as if he was thinking and then turned and met Ross' eyes. "You know where the research section on our internal database is located. Why don't you spend the rest of the day examining possible options. I'll get you clearance for the video section for tomorrow so you can get an id on the guy. We can chat about those tomorrow," he said. "I suspect this will be one of those hurry-up-and-wait operations when we do find him."
Ross simply nodded, said, "Yes, Sir," and turned to his own desk. He recognized the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach warning him this wasn't going to be as smooth an operation as it might seem. He had the same feeling just before he went out on patrol the night he wound up taking the bullet through his thigh that shattered both the leg and his active duty career.
He sat at his desk, flicked his mouse to bring the monitor to life, and began.
Ross Goes Home
It was well past midnight when the young MI5 officer arrived home that night. He closed the door behind him carefully and softly clicked the safety lock home. He then turned to the wooden, straight-back chair on the wall just inside the door and eased himself down onto it. He slowly unlaced his stiff, dress shoes and as each one came off, he sighed. Leaning back in the chair, he wiggled his toes and smiled happily.
In his socked feet, he slowly stole up the old wooden stairs remaining close to the wall to avoid the creaky sections. In his bedroom, he removed his clothes, piece by piece, and carefully draped them over the chair next to his dresser. He moved silently in his bare feet to the bed, gently pulled down the covers and slipped underneath them. His wife did not completely wake up, but she did turn and, as he stretched out his arm, she snuggled over beside him and threw one arm across his chest. He smiled, and with her head on his shoulder, he was soon fast asleep.
He had never been one to sleep late and at 6 AM the next day, with rain pelting down on the roof, he woke, showered, shaved and got ready for his first day of chasing a will-of-the-wisp quarry.
He retraced his stealthy steps downstairs along the wall because it wouldn't do to wake up his three-year-old daughter. He carefully opened the front door to avoid any noise, picked up the newspaper that was, surprisingly enough, on the steps right outside the door. Normally he would have to walk over onto the lawn, or pull the paper out of the shrubbery beside the door. This was a good omen, he decided. I should start every day this way and I must congratulate that young man on getting it right three days this week.
Reentering the house, he walked to the bright, yellow-painted kitchen where his wife had the tea kettle just starting to boil and whistle. He smiled broadly when she turned to him with her arms open for a good morning hug. He kissed her on the forehead and, in reply to her raised eyebrow, he said, "Yes. I'll get breakfast down by the station as usual."
She simply nodded, knowing this was his preferred ritual. Eating breakfast with his army mates was a good way to balance his reduced status of being a junior security officer in MI5.
He smiled as he recognized the rubbing sound of small pyjama-clad feet coming down the stairs. If this morning were like every other morning, he was about to receive the blessing that would balance his day in another way. And sure enough, ten seconds later a small voice excitedly said, "Daddy!" And a four-year-old whirlwind in a pink onesie dashed across the kitchen.
He put his tea cup carefully on the table and turned to meet the charge. He knelt down and as the bundle of energy hit him for her good morning hug, he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her to his chest, and rocked down carefully onto his back. He rocked back and forth a few times squeezing and tickling her, much to the enjoyment of the three of them. And then he rocked back upright, got his feet underneath him and stood with the giggling, squirming young girl with her arms still locked about his neck.
He drew his head back so he could look her in the eyes, and asked, "So what did you do yesterday?"
As the excited three-year-old began a litany of the things she had done, and the things that she imagined that she had done or pretended to have done with the fairies, he smiled and nodded his head in encouragement. Out of the corner of his eye, and out of sight of their daughter, he watched as his wife rolled her eyes in mock disbelief when her daughter outlined how she had caught a bad fairy sneaking into the house, how she had arrested it just like her daddy would do, and banished it to never again appear.
"Where did you hear about bad fairies?" he asked.
"Mommy watched it on the telly," said the young girl.
He looked at his wife, and she nodded. "There was a news item with a short video of an old man pulling a piece of wood out of Victory's mainmast," she said.
Had he been the swearing kind of man, the words would have erupted at that point. All he said was "You saw of a picture of somebody with a piece of wood on Victory?"
"Yes," said his wife. "The announcer said it had to be some kind of magic trick." She looked at him, and then continued, "That's where she got the idea of fairies and arresting them, because I said that you were probably looking for that old man right now." Her eyebrow raised and in the tone of voice used by parents to explain things, said, "And you know if something is magic, it's got to be a fairy."
He nodded. "Whoever released that video is probably going to be in some serious trouble. I can guarantee Security is already searching for him and he'll wish he hadn't shared it by tonight," he said.
"Is it real? I assumed it was some kind of video stunt, or a magic trick of some kind," she said.
"No, it's real enough," he said. "And it looks like I'm part of the team on this one. I'm not sure where it's going to go but we're tracking him and trying to get a handle on who and what he is and how he managed to do that on Victory."
"Overtime?" she asked.
"Probably, but I'll let you know as soon as I know," he said. "Do we have anything on?"
"Not that you can't miss," she said. "And we can use the extra money now that one over there is about to start school. She'll need some new clothes and you know how expensive that can be."
"Okay, then, I'll agree to anything they ask - not that I had a choice anyway. I'll keep you in the loop," he said.
Ross turned to his daughter, knelt down on the floor, and asked "Got any hugs in there?"
The young girl recognized this part of the morning routine. She slowly closed her book, turned her head to look at her father, then wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth. Her bright, enthusiastic, smile drove straight into his heart and she said, "I just made one. Would you like it, daddy?"
Ross opened his arms and the young bundle of energy shot off the chair, took three steps and wrapped her arms around his neck squeezing as hard as she could.
"That's my girl," he said.
After his daughter's hug, Ross stood, looked down at his daughter, and said "I'm going to share some of that with your mommy, okay?"
His daughter looked like she was thinking about that, she raised one eyebrow and put her index finger up against her chin. Then she nodded, and the huge grin broke out over her face. "Mommy likes hugs, too."
Smiling, he
turned to his wife, gave her a big hug and whispered in her ear "Love you babe, and I'll keep you up-to-date on what my schedule is likely to be."
She returned the kiss and said, "Jamie, you take care of yourself on this. I don't like the feeling of it all."
He stole another kiss, smiled down at her but then changed to examine her face more closely and nodded.
He turned, walked down the hall and just before opening the door, took a quick peek back to see the two of them standing in the doorway. Given it was his usual routine, he blew them both a kiss, then opened, walked through the door and gently closed it behind him.
He took a deep breath, held it for two seconds and then released it, allowing the relaxation to fill his body. He knew the video likely meant more surprises were coming his way today. And he would indeed take care of himself he decided. He would indeed.
Merlin Located For The First Time
On the way to the office after breakfast with his mates, Ross received a phone call from Team Leader Smithers to come to his office immediately.
In the subsequent meeting, Smithers officiously repeated the orders from yesterday's meeting and made it quite clear that Ross was to find the thief who thought he could damage such a priceless seagoing part of British history. That officer also made it abundantly clear this was an opportunity to either impress the Promotions Board or suffer the career consequences.
All Ross could think of during the meeting was that somebody had their pants pulled up far too high this morning.
The young officer soon found himself winding his way through the city streets of London to a warehoused-sized room where scores of CCTV monitors covered every surface of every wall and room partition as they recorded and reported on the busy streets of the entire city of London. Other parts of the U.K. were handled on the upper floors.
He was assigned a sergeant to assist him in his search through the hundreds of millions of digital images available on the computerized surveillance system. The sergeant took all of five minutes to pull up Victory's cameras, identify the best facial picture of Merlin, enhance it, and set the surveillance system to work.
"Get yourself some tea, Sir," said the sergeant. "This could take a while. Even a computer AI of our power will take some time to compare this image to the nine million people - and the multiple pictures of them - who are living or working inside the city every day. I've told the search function to go back a week, Sir. If we need to, we can go back even further. The cafeteria's on the lowest level you can reach from the elevator."
"Thank you, Sergeant. I understand. Can I bring you one back?" said Ross.
"No thank you, Sir. I have one right here," said the sergeant raising his mug.
Exactly 26 1/2 minutes later, there was a ping on Ross's telephone. The text message suggested he should return to the CCTV main room.
When Ross entered the workroom, the sergeant nodded at him, pointed at the largest monitor on the wall above his work station, turned and typed a few commands on his keyboard. "Didn't take as long as I thought, Sir. Here's your man. Take a seat, I'll run multiple views for you and show you his data," he said.
The sergeant pulled out an old metal chair from beside his desk, it's steel legs chattered across the black-and-white checkered, tile floor, and positioned it so the young officer would have a good view of the screen.
When Ross sat down, he immediately noticed that one of the levelers was missing so the chair wobbled underneath him.
"Sorry about the chair, Sir," said the sergeant. "We don't get many visitors in here and our budget goes to software."
Ross nodded, "I have a matched pair just like this in my office. The government must buy them like this."
The sergeant snorted and turned to his keyboard. The monitor showed two photographs. The one on the left was the one the sergeant had taken from the Victory's main deck, and the one on the right was obviously a match taken on a city street. The sergeant highlighted the match with the cursor and a screen of data appeared under it.
Name Mervin Ambrosius
Birthdate: Unknown
Medical Records: None
Drivers License: None
Vehicle Permit: None
Telephone: Unknown
Address: 21 Frogginton Way, City of London.
Occupation Writer
Criminal record: None.
Armed Service Record: None
Credit History: None
Tax Status: None
Current Location: Unknown
Remarks: None
At this point the sergeant leaned back in his chair and looked at the blank screen that stopped scrolling after the empty remarks section. The fact there wasn't any data, no parking tickets, no late bills paid, no problems of any kind was highly unusual in this day of privacy invasion, electronic record-keeping and storage.
Ross asked, "Don't you have a record of something he's written?"
"No, Sir. There's nothing here at all," said the sergeant. "There are no books, no magazines, nothing here at all."
"Google?" asked Ross.
"Nothing, Sir," said the sergeant with a puzzled look on his face. He shook his head in disbelief. "There are no hobbies. Nothing. This is the emptiest report I have ever seen. No credit cards, no work history, no school history. It's as if he just dropped in, and somehow managed to skate undetected through the world. Best thing we have is an address and by the look of the rest of the file, I wouldn't be putting too much money on finding him there. I have no idea where that single piece of data came from."
Ross laced his fingers behind his head, tilted his chair back, and looked at Merlin's picture. A niggling voice in the back of his head said, "Let it go, just let it go." He thought about that for a second and understood that he wanted to let it go, he really wanted to forget this case and he didn't understand why. It was if some compulsion had reached out, grabbed his conscience, wrestled at to the ground and he willingly surrendered. I really don't want to catch you old man, he thought. I really don't, and that bothers me. Why don't I want to get you?
His phone rang.
"Find him?" asked Team Leader Smithers.
He didn't respond for a half second as he looked directly into the eyes of the image on the screen. He dropped his eyes away from the screen.
"Got him," said Ross. "He just popped up and I'm looking at him right now. I've just sent you the address. I'm on my way now. Should be no problem to pick him up, but have a Security pickup team meet me there just in case - if you will. You just never know what could happen. I don't care if he's an old man, we'll pick him up, bring him in and have a quiet talk with him today. I'll ask the sergeant here to send over the data right away but don't be surprised - there's precious little of it."
He looked at the sergeant, who was already bent over his keyboard and nodding. "On it," the sergeant said quietly.
Ross turned his attention back to his phone to hear the Smithers say, "Quiet talk my butt. You'll bring him down asap and it will be a small room without a view. There are some people here who've seen that video who want to talk to him. I'll sent a wagon and your team to that location. Don't try to do this by yourself."
"People?" asked Ross.
"Doesn't matter, just bring him in quickly, now," replied Smithers.
"Yes, Sir. I'm on my way," said Ross.
Fifteen minutes later Ross pulled his black, Fiesta patrol car to the curb in front of the Frogginton Way address. It was a magnificent old three-story, red brick, Victorian and was obviously the home of a very wealthy man. The immaculately squared-off, dark-green, yew hedges masked a cast-iron fence. The white paint on the doors and windows was immaculate, not marked or stained by the city's grime. Though there was a driveway behind tall, wrought-iron gates, there was no car sitting there. The large oil stains on the driveway indicated either an older British car or one with a severe engine problem, Ross noted.
He glanced at his rear-view mirror to see his team's van pulling up behind him. He hesitated to get out o
f his car, the feeling he had at the CCTV offices returned even stronger. He simply didn't want to pursue this man. And he certainly didn't want to arrest him. He thought about it for a few moments…
Merlin In Library
The library in Merlin's London house was that of a gentleman of leisure. The large room took up just under a quarter of the downstairs and sat on the front, street-side of the mansion. With the exception of the twelve-foot tall, floor-to-ceiling window on the front of the house, the walls were lined with bookshelves right to the ceiling. A narrow ladder ran on a room-encircling, ceiling track, and could be placed so Merlin could easily reach any book on the top shelves. Leather-bound books filled every shelf, were piled on every piece of furniture, and were in random sized stacks on the floor. The musty smell of old books filled the room regardless of the modern air circulation system the building codes forced him to install when he purchased the mansion.
Merlin had four other homes in Britain with similar rooms filled floor to ceiling with ancient texts. His major problem was that when he wanted to read or consult a book, it was invariably halfway across the country in another house.
I either need a larger house or a larger library in this house, he thought. He scowled at the thought. Or, perhaps now I have reclaimed my power, I can create a single library somewhere else, he thought with a smile. I'll need a country place for that. That thought was cut short.
His staff vibrated for attention. Merlin jumped in surprise; he'd forgotten this sensation of having an alarm go off deep in his brain.
He queried the staff, "Alarm?"
"Troops."
The thought was clear and the pictures accompanying it showed the armed Security teams getting out of their vehicles right outside his door. A string of expletives burst out of Merlin's mouth and while some of the word combinations were in the ancient language of his youth and hadn't been heard in centuries, the staff started singing in happiness to be back within hearing range.
The Mage Returns Page 4