The Hundred Year Wait (6 page)

Using a ripped out
sheet of blank paper from her unlined, ideas book, Amelia folded it
around her letter so the corners all met in the middle at the back.
By this point there was a pool of melted wax in the candle, so she
tipped it up sideways and let it drip over the edges, sealing the
paper shut. She had no idea if normal wax would be easy to get off
for Myron but it was the best she could do given the
circumstances.

Before the wax
could dry she used a pencil to mark an A and then gathered the rest
of her stuff in her bag. With all but her pen stowed away she blew
on the wax and tested it with her finger. It remained solid and
unyielding so she turned over the makeshift envelope, marked it
with '1r' as she'd been instructed and stuffed it in her jacket
pocket. She had no idea how he would find it but she wasn't going
to do anything but follow his instructions.

With that done she
shouldered her bag and hurried to the nearest underground station.
As she got to the platform the rounded carriage pulled up and she
hopped through the open door. Very few people shared the immediate
area with her, which was just the way she liked the
underground.

After reaching
into her pocket to check her letter was still there she sat in the
middle of a row of empty seats and waited. It struck her as odd
that Myron would want her to keep it on her, but she hoped that
meant he would be fetching the letter himself. Any opportunity to
see him again would be welcome, but no one else entered her
carriage at any of the three stops before her destination.

Although there
were no delays, she only arrived at Paddington with ten minutes to
find the platform for her train and get on it. This station was
significantly busier and she rushed through the crowds, her eyes
scanning all the signs to help her find her way.

She heaved a sigh
of relief as she found her allocated seat and settled into it. As
soon as she had arranged her bags and leant back, her mind returned
to thoughts of Myron and his challenge. She hoped he'd come collect
the reply himself, but it seemed unlikely now she was on the train
to Bath.

Amelia slipped her
hand into her pocket again, intending to pull the letter out and
look at it one last time, but found nothing.

She frowned and
wiggled her fingers, wanting to make sure it wasn't there. Still
nothing. Unconvinced, she pulled the edge of her jacket in front of
her and looked down into the pocket. The inside lining stared back
at her. The letter was gone.

The next breath
caught in her throat as she tried to remember back and figure out
if it could have fallen along the way, but she knew it had been
nestled deep in the material and nothing could have dislodged it.
Someone had taken it from her as she moved between the underground
and the main Paddington station, but whoever had done it had been
an expert pickpocket. She hadn't felt a thing.

She hoped it had
been Myron or someone he knew who had taken it from her, but just
in case she checked her phone and purse were still in place. A
pickpocket was unlikely to take a letter and not something
valuable. Once she'd assured herself that all her other belongings
were safe she sat back in the seat again.

As the train
pulled out of the station she suppressed a shiver. Not only had the
first letter appeared in her hotel room while she slept but now her
reply had been taken from her own pocket as she walked. The power
Myron wielded and the lengths he was prepared to go to were greater
than she'd expected. She could only assume Myron himself had
performed both acts and that her lessons were about to begin. But
for the first time she wondered if she'd found a man too
intelligent for her.

A sigh of relief
escaped Mycroft's lips as he settled back into the familiar seat in
his car, Amelia's reply nestled in his breast pocket.

As soon as his
alarm had woken him that morning he'd headed back to the hotel and
snuck back inside. He'd kept out of the way and watched Amelia as
she ate her breakfast and began her translation of the letter. He'd
even sat in the same cafe as her and gone unnoticed while she tried
to crack his code.

Although he'd not
enjoyed the interaction with people to get to that point, the look
of glee on her face when she'd worked out what the letter said had
been enjoyable. And her improvisation with the stationery had even
made him smile. At the very least, he could be confident she would
follow his orders as precisely as possible. If her intelligence
matched up with her desire to cooperate, their arrangement might
last longer than his initial expectations.

He'd followed her
from the cafe into the underground station, changing his appearance
as he went: adding a fake moustache, a hat and pulling on a jacket
he slipped off a luggage bag while someone was buying tickets. By
the time he was on the same tube train as her he looked different
enough he could approach her, but the carriages weren't busy enough
for him to make his move.

Instead he'd had
to wait until they were at Paddington and pass her by while she was
reading the arrivals board. She never even noticed as he plucked
the reply from her jacket pocket. His skills were undiminished. Of
everything he'd done to pull off his game with her it was his
favourite part so far.

Despite that, he
was glad to be back in his own car and heading for home. Not only
was he tired and wishing to be alone but he needed to be able to
monitor the events of the day. If the information in the coded
message was right, something was meant to happen today.

As soon as he was
back at his house, Mycroft thanked his driver and headed for his
study. Once there, he pulled out the reply and ripped open the
improvised envelope. He didn't even need to write in the letters to
know what it said. The code was in his memory well enough that he
could read it, if a little slower than normal.

His first reaction
to her request was to say no but he sat back and thought for a few
seconds. It wasn't an unreasonable request and she had provided a
sound reason. The only real objection was her expectation of an
explanation. No matter what happened he wouldn't give her any more
than the basic information.

Mycroft checked
his computer for information on the day but his assistant hadn't
sent him anything yet, so he let his mind wander back to Amelia and
how he wished to proceed. He couldn't follow her and steal the
letters from her pocket each time he expected a reply. Neither
could he journey to her home in Bath. After a few more seconds of
thought he realised he needed to make a bigger commitment than just
a few letters. To ensure privacy he needed to give her a way to
communicate with him that didn't involve paper or anyone else.

Before he could
stop himself he tapped the button that summoned his staff.

“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.