The Silver Thread (50 page)

Earlier that same night, an urgent buzz from the cell phone on Merriweather’s nightstand woke her from her restless sleep. With a long tan arm she reached over to decline the call, and just as she was about to doze off, it began buzzing again. She declined it once more, sat up, rubbed her eyes, and saw eight missed calls when her phone began to ring a ninth time. She frowned in confusion not at the name on the screen, but because the caller wasn’t the type to contact her at three-thirty in the morning on a Monday. There had to be a damned good reason why he was being so relentless. Reminding herself that unusual things tended to happen in her line of work at any given hour, she brought the phone to her pointed elven ear…just in case.

“This better not be a bum-dial from your mobile, Cyril,” she muttered, fighting not to yawn.

“Goodness no,” a thin voice answered in a brisk tone. “Are you alright?”

“As much as I can be, given the hour. Why? What’s wrong?”

“A code three, I’m afraid,” Cyril replied, making Merriweather’s dark brown eyes widen with sudden alertness. “I can’t be more specific until you arrive at the office.”

“So this isn’t a drill?” she asked, climbing out of bed.

“If only it were. I’ve sent a car and a security detail with a new password for you. They should be there by now. I told them not to wake the neighbors. I know how overly curious dear Mrs. Smith can be.”

“That’s a polite way of putting it,” Merriweather confirmed. With her phone still in her hand, she tip-toed silently through her West End apartment until she reached the front door. She squinted through the peep-hole to see two huge, broad-chested men in crisp suits stationed on either side of it. They both wore lapel pins of a gold sword with a halo around the hilt, which identified them as paladins from Sanctorum Militum, the most elite special forces to be found in the Estellian Empire.

“Well? Are Tripp and Adams there yet?”

“Yes,” Merriweather said quietly into the receiver. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or concerned that you sent the cream of the crop to collect me.”

“Then be both,” Cyril told her. “They have their orders, so don’t interfere with them after you let them in your flat. I’ll see you soon. It’s not as though traffic will be bad at this godsforsaken hour. By the way,” he added as an afterthought, “we’ve switched back to fire-sprite paper, so do be careful when you open your new password.”

“Cheers,” she said in a brusque tone, and hung up. After dashing back to her room for a robe, she flipped on the lights, unlocked the door, and let in the men. The dark-haired one pushed past her and began to walk through the apartment, checking outside windows and behind doors while the sandy-haired one handed her a small foil envelope.

“Sorry about Adams barging in like that,” he apologized as he followed Merriweather into the kitchen.

“We all have our orders,” she replied. “Mine are to not interfere with yours.”

“Mine are to make sure you see your new password, and that you don’t get burned. Name’s Tripp, by the way.”

“
Well
,
Tripp
, I’ve been burned plenty of times, but it’s never been from fire sprite paper,” she scoffed.

“
Well, Merriweather
, this batch is touchy,” he explained, trying not to grin as he headed towards the living room. “If you need me, just holler.” Merriweather dug a frying pan out of the cupboard, blew off a thin layer of dust, and then set it on the stove. She pushed her long black hair behind her shoulders and then held the foil envelope at arm’s length over the pan, tore it open, and pulled out a small piece of blank yellow paper. Within seconds, the word ‘nightingale’ appeared, and she let go of the paper just as it lit up in a sudden burst of flames. With the paper reduced to ashes and her new password burned into her memory, she stepped into her living room where she found Adams packing her laptop into its carrying case. He’d already gathered various files that had been sitting near her desk, on her sofa, and her dining table. She headed towards her bedroom then whirled around in surprised to see Tripp standing beside her bed. He was holding another laptop in one of his strong hands and searching the sheets for any other work-related materials with the other. He looked up to see the tall elven woman clad in black panties and a black Metallica t-shirt, and gave her a nod of approval.

“Nice pajamas,” he remarked, glancing at her chest and then back at her. “I never would have guessed you were into that sort of music.” Merriweather rolled her eyes as she pulled her loose robe tight and breezed past him.

“And I never would have guessed that you could actually read the name of the band on my shirt,” she snapped before disappearing into her bathroom and slamming the door.

Thirty minutes later, Merriweather walked into the London embassy with Tripp and Adams at each side. Both of her escorts were carrying heavy totes crammed full of paper files in their strong arms which they’d confiscated from her apartment. A code three indicated a breach in security, and she expected to see a fair number of elven men and women swarming around the building, along with a few colorful fairies flitting about. What she did not expect was for so many of them to pause in their rushing around just long enough to catch her gaze before quickly averting their eyes. The level of suspicion this caused put Merriweather on edge, and all she was able to glean from scanning their minds was that she was somehow involved with the current level of chaos. She scanned their minds for a trace of their thoughts as she walked along the carpeted hallway toward the elevator, but came up empty-handed as she expected. Neither of the guards offered any information either, and she knew even if she asked that they wouldn’t tell her any more than what Cyril already had.

Stepping off the elevator only unsettled her further when she saw that the door to her corner office was wide open with more security personnel milling about inside. One was dusting for fingerprints, one was collecting a strand of hair into a glass jar, and a few others were rifling through her bookcases. A tall, slim, clean-shaven man stood in the center of the room like the collected conductor of a haphazard orchestra. He was even using a short cigarette holder in a similar fashion to a baton. His light brown suit was topped off with a perfectly knotted bow-tie, and his greying hair was neatly combed back. He appeared remarkably calm considering how serious everyone else around him was behaving. When his eyes met Merriweather’s, he sailed past them like a host greeting a belated guest at a dinner party.

“So glad you could make it,” he said, exuding both professionalism and charm. “Let’s get you caught up in my office where it’s less frenetic.” With Tripp and Adams in tow, they turned down the hall and stopped at a door with an engraved plate that read:
Cyril Sinclair, Executive Director of National Security
. There was a huge guard posted nearby who let Cyril and Merriweather in before closing the door behind them, allowing them to sit in private.

“That security guard must be half troll,” she politely observed as she took a seat in front of his desk. “He’s enormous.”

Cyril nodded as he settled into his cushy leather chair, unlocked his computer screen, and logged into the embassy’s network.

“I was tempted to have him to collect you, but with a physique like that, he’s not exactly the sort of chap that goes unnoticed by nosy neighbors. Especially dear Mrs. Smith, bless her busybody little heart.”

“Yes, she would’ve noticed him right away,” she agreed as she smoothed her wrinkled navy skirt. She frowned as she realized she’d paired it with a black jacket and dark brown heels, a result of rushing to get dressed at four in the morning. “Shall we skip the chit-chat and get to the reason why you had me escorted to work at such an hour by two of the Sanctum Milites?”

“Certainly.” After a flurry of keystrokes, Cyril leaned back in his chair and studied Merriweather’s face for a long moment before speaking again. “I need you to explain why Agent Marinossian was deactivated. The last I knew was that he was working with you on the Paris investigation. Didn’t you mention that he’d discovered a number of promising leads on the case?”

“You dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night for
this
?” she retorted, wrinkling her nose in disdain. “You told me there was a code three!”

“Watch your tone, Ms. Narayanaswamy,” he warned with a stern look. “Answer the question.”

“I deactivated him because he quit his position,” she hotly replied. Cyril raised an eyebrow and inserted a fresh cigarette into the end of the holder.

“He
quit
?” he repeated, not believing her. “After seventy years he simply walked out the door without saying a word to anyone? No grand exit? No fond farewell? That doesn’t sound like him at all. Why, I distinctly recall when he left for his hiatus that he had not one, but
two
going away parties.”

“Actually, he had three, if you count the after party. But that doesn’t matter,” she insisted. “He walked out on me in the middle of our investigation. Then he had the nerve to call from Paris claiming he had a family emergency. That’s no way to run an operation and I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. When he waltzed back in here a week later I gave him a new assignment. It was easy work for him, yet he refused to follow my direct orders. He had no interest in any level of service to the embassy, so I confiscated his keys and deactivated his file.”

“I’m surprised he was able to wrap things up within a week’s time. His family doesn’t live anywhere remotely nearby. What was the emergency?”

“I didn’t ask and he didn’t tell.”

They sat in silence for a few moments as his eyes moved from her callous expression to his computer screen, then back again. He partially blamed himself for letting things come to this point, and many elements of this conversation were long overdue.

“I realize you were frustrated with Marinossian’s timing, but the Paris case isn’t particularly time-sensitive,” Cyril pointed out while lighting his cigarette. “Of all the times to have a family emergency, he chose a good one since he wasn’t undercover at the time.”

“You expect me to believe that his excuse was legitimate?” Merriweather questioned.

“Not particularly, but when an agent has a track record like his, I do expect you to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Cyril explained with a shrug. “Furthermore, you know perfectly well that you need my approval to expedite the deactivation of any of our agents unless it’s a dire matter of national security, which it clearly was not. So why did you do it?”

“I had my reasons,” she said without elaboration.

“I’m certain you did,” he agreed knowingly as he took a pull of smoke into his lungs and let it out with an impatient sigh. “What happened this time? Another lover’s quarrel?”

“Hardly,” Merriweather spat, stiffening in her chair. “I needed to know how committed he was to the embassy, and he failed to pass that test.”

“He’s been one hundred percent committed to the embassy for seventy years,” Cyril reminded her. “Perhaps you were testing his level of commitment to
you
?”

“That’s absolute rubbish,” she said, appearing to be insulted by the suggestion. “I knew from the day we met that no one would ever be able to tame a raven like him. I certainly never aspired to put him in a cage. My decision was purely professional.”

“Now
that’s
absolute rubbish,” Cyril said with a hard edge to his usually soothing voice. “The two of you haven’t been purely professional since the moment I made the introductions. I didn’t mind looking the other way as long as you continued to give me the results I wanted, but this time I cannot ignore your actions. Help me understand how deactivating agent Marinossian was not personal.”

Caught off guard by his no-nonsense change of tone, Merriweather faltered for a moment before she was able to speak.

“I did it because it turns out that our best raven has willingly clipped his own wings.”

“Please elaborate on that statement.”

“He did the unthinkable and married a modern girl while he was on hiatus,” she answered. “Which, as you know, is expressly forbidden. Why, he didn’t even know her more than
three
months beforehand, but he claimed that he was so devoted to her that he couldn’t bear to continue working as…ugh. It’s too maudlin for words.”