The Female Charm (10 page)

NAA DD:DD WEEE
17:79

At first glance,
she had thought Clue E was 2, but it didn't fit with the three
spots in the location information, so she pulled that piece of
paper back out again and stared at it. She'd assumed that the
brackets were multiplied out first as she'd been taught in school,
but she remembered that it was a more recent way of doing the
maths. Instead, she decided to try and do the operations in the
order they appeared, dividing forty-eight by two and then
multiplying it with twelve. This gave her a three-digit number so
she wrote that in as well.

For clue A, she'd
worked out three possible numbers but only one of them was a
double-digit answer, so she ignored the other two answers for now.
That left clue D, which she'd not seen and couldn't think what it
might be.

While she drank
her tea, she scanned her memory between getting the two envelopes
for clues C and E, to try and remember if something might have
passed for the missing clue D. The only strange event was the box
itself and how she'd received it. Nothing else sprang to mind.

Having no other
lead to go on, Amelia took the box out of her bag to inspect it.
Once again, the arrow had moved, pointing East from her current
location, as it had every time, but the padlock icon was still
locked. With a frustrated sigh, Amelia ran her hands over the
smooth pine. If nothing else, she could at least enjoy the feel of
the buffed wood.

As she ran her
hand underneath, she noticed it wasn't perfectly smooth. She
flipped it over and saw a big D carved into the bottom of it. The
box was her clue D, although that didn't get her much closer to an
answer. There had been no puzzle attached to it, just the
letter.

She frowned and
drank more tea. It didn't help.

Only when she
glanced at the location clue did she realise it must be a time. The
D's in her message had a colon in the middle. If the box was clue
D, then the time it had been left in her wardrobe might be the
answer. If so, that meant they'd wanted to wake her up and they'd
wanted her to notice the time. This left her with a possible
location.

N51 23:03 W288
17.79

When she put the
coordinates into the compass on her phone, it threw back an error
and she almost smacked her head with annoyance before she realised
where she'd gone wrong. The number after W couldn't be more than
180, so it must be the other possibility she'd thought of: 002.
When she put this into her phone, it immediately pointed to a
location east of her, a little over five kilometres away.

Tucking everything
but the box and her phone away, Amelia hurried out of the café and
into the street. She walked eastwards towards the centre of Bath
and watched the arrow on the box move to match the compass arrow
and the distance decrease with each metre she walked.

It didn't take her
long to realise she was going to need a taxi, so she wandered along
to the train station where she knew there were always a few
waiting.

Within ten
minutes, she was getting into a cab.

“Where to, love?”
the balding driver asked. She frowned for a moment, not entirely
sure.

“Can you head out
to London road and the A4? I'm trying to find some coordinates a
few miles that way,” she said, holding up her phone screen with the
compass app on display. His eyes widened at the strange request but
he turned on the engine and pulled off without asking any more
questions.

As she got closer
to the destination, she gave him a couple more instructions of
which roads to take, but she'd picked well in the first place and
was soon whizzing down a road through Sally-in-the-woods watching
the number tick down below a thousand and then even lower. As she
reached three-hundred metres to go, she realised it was slowing
down, and the arrow was starting to move to her left, pointing into
the woodland itself.

“Can you pull over
at the next good place?” she asked.

“Of course.
There's a place just up here.” He kept the car going but slowed and
she watched her phone count down to a little over one-hundred
metres before it started to climb again. As the taxi-driver pulled
over, it fixed onto 132.

“Great,” Amelia
said and handed him some money to cover what she owed so far. She
then put on her most charming smile. “I'm really hoping this won't
take more than a few minutes. Will you wait?”

“Sure thing, love.
Wouldn't want to leave anyone out in these woods for long.”

She widened the
smile and hurried out of the car. Walking as fast as her legs would
carry her, Amelia hurried back down the road until she was at the
lowest point while still being on the road. As she turned east, the
arrow on the box moved back in front of her but it still showed the
locked icon.

Taking a deep
breath, she plunged into the woods. As she went, she kept an eye on
the road behind her, trying to keep it in sight, but she soon found
there was far too much in the way of bushes and undergrowth to see
back to it, despite the trees being stripped of their leaves and
there being little sign of spring growth yet. Thankfully, she could
still hear the road, even when she only had twenty metres to
go.

As she went
farther along, her phone's app reached its accuracy limit and
jumped from in front of her to behind, and then to the right. She
turned it off and tucked it back into her pocket. The arrow on the
box had remained steady in the right direction so she used it to
narrow down the last few metres. Its GPS was obviously more
powerful, something she expected from Myron.

After only a few
more steps, it beeped at her. Then a little while after that, it
beeped at her twice. Finally it beeped at her three times in quick
succession and she heard the satisfying click of the lock opening.
To match, the padlock icon switched to an open one and the arrow
disappeared.

For a couple of
seconds she just stared at the box, not quite wanting to open it,
but she knew she had to at some point. After glancing around her to
see if anyone was nearby, and predictably finding she was alone,
she pulled open the lid. Inside was another envelope. Feeling a
little saddened that so little was in there, she frowned and pulled
it out.

She then shut the
box again and listened for the road. As she walked away, she heard
the box lock itself again. Hoping the taxi-driver hadn't already
grown bored of waiting, she hurried back through the woods and out
to the road.

Before she reached
a point she could be seen, she stowed everything back in her
handbag. She didn't want anyone to notice her with anything out of
the ordinary, so reading Myron's letter would have to wait until
she was home.

As she reached the
road side, she turned and looked down the road. The taxi was still
where she'd left it and the driver was standing outside, smoking a
cigarette.

“Where to now,
love?” he asked once she was back.

“Home. I'm
done.”

“Do I want to know
what you were doing out here?” he asked as they both got back into
the vehicle.

“Nothing dodgy,
but I can't say. I promised someone I'd never tell anyone about
it.”

“Well, we all have
our secrets.”

The buzzing
vibration of a phone disturbed Mycroft from his lunch. It could
only be Amelia, and that meant she had found her reward for
completing the lesson, and a little sooner than he expected. She
was learning quickly.

Opened the box
you sent me. Very fun task and thank you for the gift inside. I'm
glad I could help you out yesterday.

He nodded his
satisfaction to the empty dining room and put the phone down on the
table to continue eating. The gratitude pleased him. When he'd
first planned to use a location-based unlocking mechanism as a
teaching aid, he'd planned to have something benign inside, but he
knew she'd spent quite a lot of money to meet him in Scotland. On
top of that, she'd written him a replacement article with no credit
going to her.

If she'd
complained or asked to be reimbursed he wouldn't have done so, but
she had followed orders and trusted him. It made sense to reward
that trust.

Inside the box had
been vouchers for various retail shops Amelia liked to use,
including two fabric shops where she bought the materials to make
her own corsets. A shopping trip at his expense was easily
something he could afford, and he didn't deny he appreciated her
sense of dress. For this day and age, she had a lot more elegance
and style than most women did. It made him feel a little less old
when he saw her.

Only once Mycroft
had eaten did he pick the phone back up.

Good. Enjoy the
shopping spree, but I have another problem I want you to solve this
evening, so not today.

After sending the
message, Mycroft wandered towards the room Daniels used for his
personal space and stood in the doorway of the little workshop. His
chauffeur noticed him immediately and stopped his tinkering with a
car engine piston.

“Miss Price will
be needing your services. I need you to get her to my main hotel by
nine this evening. Tomorrow morning I'd also like you to take her
home from the hotel.”

“Yes, sir. I'll
leave in just a few minutes so there's plenty of time for bad
traffic.”

“Thank you,
Daniels.” Mycroft nodded goodbye to the chauffeur and continued
down the hall to his study. Just as he was sitting down, Amelia's
reply came through.

I guess I'll
stop shopping, then. What do you need me to do? I had no plans.

Mycroft considered
his words carefully. He wanted Amelia to believe this next task was
a real situation he was putting her through. It would be important
to see how she handled danger and if she could put the things the
Holmes brothers had taught her into practice in a situation alone.
If she couldn't manage this, then it would be too dangerous for him
to continue her training.

There's a
Russian staying in London who has given me reason for concern. I
wish to bug his hotel room, but I cannot spare an agent of my own
right now. This is one of the few times I will let you decline a
task if you feel it would be beyond you. This man is quite likely
to be dangerous.

While waiting for
Amelia to reply, Mycroft switched his laptop on and navigated to
the folder full of fake documents and information on this Russian
gentleman. It would be everything Amelia should need to get her
into the hotel room and plant the small devices the UK government
used to listen into people's conversations.

He'd made sure to
hint at several different ways she could get into the hotel room
and out without arousing too much suspicion. They were all of
varying difficulties and he hoped she'd have the sense to pick the
easiest way in and pose as hotel staff, but he knew she might try
the female charm she so often used.

Mycroft prepared
an email with all the files attached and waited to press send.
Although he'd given Amelia the choice, he knew what her answer
would be. It took her longer to decide than he expected, but after
five more minutes she responded.

I'll do it, but
I'll need some more info.

Mycroft sent the
email and waited for it to upload all the documents. Even on his
fast internet service, the sheer amount of files led to it taking a
good minute. He then shut down the laptop and picked up his phone
to let Amelia know she should check her emails. Before he could,
she sent him another message.

Got the email.
Thanks.

The corners of his
mouth twitched up in a brief smile. Her eagerness was amusing, if
nothing else.

Daniels will
take you to the hotel room for nine. Don't make him late.

With her task set
in motion, Mycroft prepared himself and his staff for the other
side of the set-up. He spent the next hour contacting everyone
involved, including the hotel, who were shutting off part of one
floor to accommodate his wishes. He'd already warned three of his
agents that they would be needed. None of them would realise this
was a set-up either, making sure Amelia couldn't get into the hotel
room if she wasn't convincing enough.

Once everyone else
was informed of their roles and getting on with their preparation,
Mycroft retired to his bedroom to start his own. The Russian would
be him in disguise. If Amelia took the easiest way into the room,
she wouldn't even see him, but if she chose one of the other
possible ways in, they would come in contact with each other and he
would need to be perfectly masked.

As he was laying
out the costume for the night on his bed, his phone buzzed.

I've read
through the info. Any recommendations for the best way in and
out?

Mycroft frowned.
Although he wanted her to think on her feet and figure this out for
herself, he also knew he had told her this wasn't a lesson, but an
actual situation. He couldn't ignore any questions she asked.

You know what
you're good at. There are several ways in and out. Choose something
not too difficult that you feel comfortable you can achieve. You
will have to be convincing to anyone who sees you.

The answer seemed
to satisfy Amelia because she sent him no more messages, and by
seven he was outside and on his way to the hotel himself.

***

Sitting in the
back of Myron's car, doing nothing, wasn't helping Amelia feel
calm. Her legs and arms shook with nerves and her heart was racing.
Already, she'd read over the information he'd provided her three
times but she started on a fourth. She didn't want to go into the
hotel without knowing every little detail the documents
provided.