by David Archer
Cedric bit back the scathing reply he wanted to throw at her. “Perfectly clear,” he said. “I’ll say nothing.”
The smile returned, still holding the sense of repugnance. “See to that, will you?” She turned and walked out as a pair of doctors moved in. One of them obviously wanted to draw blood, and Cedric let out a sigh.
He hated needles. Hated them.
* * * * *
Catherine Potts was known to be a very special person at MI6, and there were those in the organization who were careful to stay on her good side. Over the past couple of years, it had become known—although, never quite confirmed—that she was the British liaison to the American assassination organization known as E & E, the only person in the entire British intelligence community who could request an assassination on behalf of the British government. In addition, she had also been appointed as the Queen’s Royal Ambassador-at-Large, often sent around the world on a moment’s notice to express the wishes of the queen in matters both diplomatic and civil.
Either way, she was a force to be reckoned with. Nobody at MI6 wanted to be the person to piss her off.
Catherine was fully aware of the awe with which she was viewed, and had learned many different ways to use it to her advantage. Most days, she simply pretended the situation did not exist, which was guaranteed to make everyone around her slightly nervous. After all, being able to request the help of the American government in eliminating someone that she alone had decided was a threat to British national security made her an extremely powerful person. According to all the rumors, nobody in the government or the Secret Service was authorized to overrule her on that decision; that seemed to indicate that simply being a nuisance to her could be enough to get you killed.
In reality, Catherine was not authorized to make any such decision on her own. If any agency of the British government decided that someone needed to be eliminated, and that the help of E & E was needed, it was simply a matter of policy to have Catherine present the request. Mr. Lambril, or any other department head, could initiate such a request on their own, without involving her.
On a particular Monday morning in mid-August, Catherine walked into her office to find the entire staff keeping their eyes averted as she went by. This was usually a sign that there was something going on, something that was going to involve one of her extra personae, and she was therefore not terribly surprised to find a recently decoded communiqué from Allison Peterson, Director of E & E. The seal on the envelope indicated that it had been decoded by Edwin Longmont, who was the ciphers officer for all things related to international liaison activities.
“BritLi,” it began, the interdepartmental shorthand for British Liaison, indicating that the message that followed was for her eyes only. “Team Camelot in residence Avalon. Recent situations justify a vacation, so the visit is non-official. Please advise Her Majesty that there are no actions currently in operation or planned within the U.K.”
Catherine grinned. Avalon was the department’s codename for Feeney Manor, the estate that had been purchased during a strange time a year earlier when Team Camelot was actually being hunted by agents of the U.S. government. Those agents were under the control of a terrorist organization, but it was necessary for the team to go into hiding. The E & E station chief, Leon Kendall, had received top-secret orders from Neverland instructing him to provide them with cover identities under names that had already been given to them by the station chief in Barcelona, Spain. He had also been informed that they should be independently wealthy, so he had created an online book selling website and set them up as its owners. While the website did earn money, the nearly unlimited funds he placed at their disposal was considerably more than it was ever likely to make in reality.
When that situation had come to an end, it was because of the efforts of Team Camelot. As a reward, they were allowed to keep the estate as their personal getaway, and this was the first actual recreational visit they had made since that time.
On the other hand, Allison’s statement that they were there only for vacation was bound to be considered camouflage by her associates. After all, would an organization like E & E ever admit to being on a mission inside a friendly country? Catherine suspected that a few of her coworkers might be worried that the message was intended to confirm that E & E was in the country in order to take one of them out.
She grinned again. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about any of them trying to give her problems for the next few days.
The next envelope hadn’t come through the code room. It was addressed directly to her, and the source indicator in the upper left-hand corner bore only a green letter “C,” which meant that it had come straight from the Office of the Chief of SIS. Ever since the days of its first director, Captain Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, RN, it had been a standard practice for the chief to use that single initial in green ink as a signature for all interdepartmental communiqués.
Glancing up quickly to be sure no one was likely to walk in on her while she had the message in front of her, she sliced open the envelope and took out the single sheet of paper.
“Kitty-Cat,” it began. “Kitty-Cat” was the inappropriately affectionate nickname Catherine had been given by Mr. Lambril not long after he was sworn in as the new chief a few years earlier. It was he, in fact, who had recommended her for the liaison post she now occupied, probably because he was her uncle. “There have been three incidents in the last forty-eight hours that involved suspicious deaths from some sort of poison that has yet to be identified. MI5 is convinced we are looking at a potential act of terrorism, but there is literally nothing on any international chatter to support that theory. I want you to take charge of the situation, using whatever assets might be available, and yes, I’m fully aware that some of your Yank friends are hanging about.” It was signed at the bottom with the same green “C.”
Potential acts of terrorism? She’d heard something about some unidentified poison on the radio news just that morning, but nothing had crossed her desk in connection to it. She slipped the message back into its envelope and placed it inside a desk drawer, then leaned back and closed her eyes for a moment.
The first thing she would need would be the files from MI5. She couldn’t even begin to guess what type of investigation could be necessary until she saw what they had already done. The boys over at 5 were generally pretty thorough, so it was almost intimidating to realize they had been unable to come up with any answers. It was days like this that made her wish her superiors didn’t have so much confidence in her.
She opened her eyes and sat forward again, then picked up the phone on her desk and dialed an extension. Two floors down and on the other end of the building, one of her favorite agents picked up.
“Lingenfelter,” he said.
“Albert, it’s Catherine. I’m afraid we’ve work to do. My office, good lad.” She hung up without bothering to wait for a reply, and smiled to herself as she imagined Albert Lingenfelter bursting into laughter at being called a lad. He was far enough up in years to be thinking seriously about what he planned to do with his retirement, while Catherine had quite a few years to go before she even had to worry about anything along that line.
Downstairs, Albert blinked as he put the phone back in its cradle. Like everyone else in that section, he had heard that the Yanks were back in the country, but he got along well enough with Catherine not to worry about his own safety. If she was calling him up to her office, that could only mean there was something serious coming down the pike. He picked up his coffee cup and filled it from the urn before he headed for the elevators.
Catherine was relaxing in her chair when he arrived, but she opened her eyes and became instantly businesslike as soon as he shut the office door behind him. He sat in the chair in front of her desk, one he had occupied many times in the past, and saluted her with his coffee cup.
“What? You didn’t bring me a cup?” Catherine asked. She followed that up with a smile. “I’m joking, already had mine this morning
. What do you know about the suspicious poisonings around the city?”
Albert shrugged. “Five has it,” he said. “Simple police matter, I thought. Somebody telling you different?”
“C wants us to take over the investigation, and he’s dumped it on me. That means I get to dump it on you, so get over to Thames House and find out everything you can. We want their entire file, including any speculation they might have. When you get back, then start setting up a team. We need to know what this is all about, and we need to know it quickly.”
Albert looked at her for a moment, obviously hesitating.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s only that we don’t do anything domestically,” Albert replied. “That’s why five has it. It’s an internal domestic problem, not one of our international fiascoes.”
“Yes, well, C seems to think otherwise. If this turns out to be related to terrorism, there is bound to be an international component somewhere in the mix. We only have to follow orders, Albert, so go rattle Box 500 and see what they know, will you?”
“Can I finish my coffee, first?”
Catherine looked at him and grinned. “Only if you do it in the next ten seconds.”
Albert sighed, then tipped the cup up and swallowed its contents as quickly as he could. When he was finished, he tossed the paper cup into her trash can as he got up and turned toward the door.
“Albert?” Catherine said. “Don’t let them give you any static over there. If they try, just let them know that it will annoy me. Surely, someone over there knows that’s a mistake, yes?”
“If they don’t,” Albert said with a smile, “I’ll make sure to explain it to them.”
ONE
There was fog laying on the grounds around Feeney Manor, but the sun was rising and it was sure to be gone before long. Noah let Sarah sleep in a little longer, taking the time to see to morning necessities and get a shower. By the time he came out with just a towel around his waist, she was awake and looking at him from the bed.
“I wonder how long we’ll get to stay,” she said. “Did Allison give you any indication?”
“Not directly,” Noah said, “but I told her we needed at least a month off. Jenny is still having a rough time after the last mission, and I’m not sure she’s ready to go back into the field.”
“Parker said she is. That’s his job to know those things, right? Do you have some reason to doubt him on this particular case?”
“Nothing I can put my finger on,” Noah said. “I saw her face, though, when she realized she couldn’t pull the trigger. Jenny prides herself on being able to carry out her mission, no matter what it is, but even with Allison telling her to her face that it was okay to go ahead and kill her, Jenny couldn’t do it. I’m not sure that isn’t going to affect her in the future.”
“Noah,” Sarah said, sounding exasperated. “Allison is family. You know, we all had to walk away from family when we joined E & E, and Allison has become a lot like a mother figure to some of us. I know she is to me, and I’m pretty sure Jenny feels the same way. It was probably just a case of not being able to pull the trigger on a woman she loves. Maybe you could do that if you had to, but I suspect most of us couldn’t.”
“I’m aware of that,” Noah said. “And I already concluded that was the reason she couldn’t do it, but I’m afraid it may force her to see her future victims as more than just targets. That could be a serious problem for her, because she’s always managed to see them as less than human. That goes back to her first kill, the men who raped and murdered her sister; to her, they weren’t human beings, just animals that needed to be put down. I think she’s transferred that feeling onto all of the targets she’d been given, up until now, as a means of justifying what she does to them. If she loses that ability, she may become incapable of killing again.”
Sarah sat up in the bed, letting the sheet fall away from her. Her bare breasts caught Noah’s attention, and she wasn’t terribly surprised when he dropped the towel and crawled back onto the bed.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t finished. “Don’t get frisky now,” she said. “Has Neil said anything to you about her?”
Noah shook his head, rolling over onto his side. “No,” he said. “I think Neil is just hoping she’s over it, that she’s back to being the old Jenny. I don’t think he’s even noticed that she’s being more submissive to him than she was before. Not sure if you caught it, but she’s always chosen something different from whatever he orders when we go to restaurants. The last few days, she just takes whatever he’s getting. That makes me think she might not be trusting her own judgment anymore.”
“Look, there’s a big difference between picking what to have for dinner and knowing when to kill somebody. I think, when the time comes, she’ll do whatever has to be done.”
She tossed off the rest of the covers and stood up, then walked straight to the bathroom. Noah watched her, then got up and started putting on his own clothes. By the time Sarah came out twenty minutes later, he was fully dressed and watching a news program on the television.
They had arrived at Feeney Manor the previous afternoon and had been welcomed by Thomas, the butler. He had expressed his delight at seeing them again, and told them that his entire family was delighted to have “the new owners” in residence once more. In fact, he said, his wife Caroline was preparing a very special dinner as a form of celebration: roast duck with orange sauce and savory stuffing that would, he assured them, be the best they had ever tasted.
Some introductions had been in order, since Marco’s girlfriend, Renée, had recently joined the team. She was now sporting a beautiful wedding ring, and was introduced to Thomas and the others as the new Mrs. Davis.
“Just call me Rita,” she said politely. “Mrs. Davis makes me think of my mother-in-law.”
Thomas beamed and welcomed her to the estate.
Team Camelot had acquired the estate during an earlier mission, when it was temporarily necessary for them to lay low and stay out of sight. Using a special fund that was set up for emergency purposes and kept out of the official ledgers of E & E, the London station chief, Leon Kendall, had purchased the estate for them. They were using new identities at the time, so Thomas and his family, and all of the other servants of the estate, knew them as Travis and Penny Lightner (Noah and Sarah), Gary and Stacy Jamison (Neil and Jenny), and now John and Rita Davis (Marco and Renée. According to their cover stories, they owned a website that was making them a lot of money, enabling them to live the good life.
“I think Jenny will be okay,” Sarah said as she pulled on a pair of jeans. “Besides, I know you. You’ll be watching out for her, just like you do for all of us.”
“Well, hopefully we won’t have to worry about it anytime soon. This is honestly supposed to be a vacation, and that’s exactly how I want to use the time. Let’s go down to breakfast and we can start thinking about just how to act like tourists for the next few weeks.”
“Is everybody else up?” Sarah asked.
“Just a minute,” Noah said. His eyes narrowed, and he softly said, “Activate all.” He waited a couple of seconds, then said aloud, “Who’s awake?”
In their last mission, Noah and the team had been introduced to what Wally called “Sub- coms,” special micro-miniature transceivers that were implanted against the skull just behind their ears. Using these, they could communicate amongst themselves without anyone being aware of it. The devices could pick up the slightest whisper, so soft that someone standing a foot away would not hear it, and transmit it to one or more of the other units within range. The built-in microphone was also sensitive enough to pick up sounds around each of them, so that the others could hear what was going on in the general vicinity.
“We are,” Neil said, and both Noah and Sarah heard him clearly. Marco answered a second later. “I’m in the shower,” he said. “Be done in just a minute.”
Renée, who had just received her implant a couple of days earlier, said, “I’m up.
Sleepyhead didn’t want to get out of bed, I’ve been up for an hour.”
“All right,” Noah said. “We’re going to head down to breakfast shortly, so we can start planning how to enjoy our time off.”
“Neil’s not quite ready for breakfast,” Jenny said with a chuckle. “We’ll meet you down there in a few minutes.”
“Sounds good,” Noah said. “Turn off subcom.” His unit turned off instantly, and Sarah did the same.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” she said, “I’ve still got to put on makeup. You can go on down if you want, just make sure they have some of that good coffee when I get there.” She blew him a kiss. “Love you.”
Noah stood up and walked over to her, took her face between his fingers and kissed her properly. “I love you, too,” he said, and then he walked out the door.
Marco and Renée, a.k.a. John and Rita, were just coming out of their own room.
“Morning, boss,” Marco said. “Where’s Sarah?”
Renée dug an elbow into his ribs. “Penny,” she corrected him. “It’s Penny, as long as we’re here.”
“Painting her face,” Noah replied. “I’m going on down to get ready for breakfast. You guys coming now?”
“Right behind you.” Marco held Renée’s hand as they followed him down the stairs and into the smaller dining room. The table was already set and there were two large pots of coffee waiting, so the three of them sat and poured their own cups.
“So,” Marco said after taking a sip of his coffee, “what are we going to do for the next couple weeks? Any ideas?”
Noah looked at him. “I’m sure the ladies will find shopping to be fun, and there are plenty of things we can take in around London. I would like to get in some hunting while we’re here, I haven’t been hunting in many years.”
Thomas had entered the room as he was speaking, and smiled. “As it happens, I’ve become familiar with your American versions of hunting, so I think I know what you refer to. Are you thinking of game birds or deer?”