Katrina finally went back to her room just as the sky outside grew lighter with the dawn. Having nothing better to do and not having the luxury of being able to finally crawl into bed, I ran for an hour on the treadmill in the hotel’s ‘fitness center’- a poor excuse for a gym, but it would have to do. I was going to be on a plane for many hours that day, so some exercise was mandatory.
The Tanakas were already having breakfast when I made my appearance. Neither of the Suárezes were, though, which was fine by me. I’d already said goodbye to Katrina when she staggered off to her own room, and the Very Interesting Man, well, it wouldn’t bother me a bit if I never saw him again.
“This is nice!” Akiko said when we settled into our business class seats for the first leg to Miami.
“It’s fine, for commercial,” I agreed.
I got a couple of hours of sleep, which was good. We only had a two hour layover in Miami, so no time to get out of the airport. We found a decent Cuban-style restaurant to get a relaxed lunch, then boarded our flight to Heathrow.
“I’ve never been outside of Japan before this trip,” Akiko said once we hit cruising elevation.
“This is like one big adventure for you, then?” I asked.
“It is for Grandmother, too, but she won’t admit it,” Akiko confided. “She thought the ocean there in Cartagena was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.”
“You guys didn’t even get to see it on a nice, sunny day,” I told her. “If the weather permits, it’s stunningly beautiful.”
Later, after the snack service, Akiko said, “Your spy friend? The pretty one?”
“Katrina?” I asked, but that had to be who she meant.
“Yes, her. She is interested in you.”
“She’s straight,” I protested, but Katrina had already admitted as much.
“She’s a walking thirst trap,” Akiko said knowingly.
That got a laugh out of me. “Where did you even learn that phrase?”
“The internet,” she said with a shrug.
Changing the topic, Akiko asked what we were going to do in London. I reiterated that I had some meetings and needed to collect some custom suits that had been made for me, but that was it. “Three or four days at the most,” I told her. “You and your grandmother should do some sightseeing.”
“We’d get lost,” she said.
“I’ll get you a tour guide.”
“I’d like that a lot,” she replied.
It took us an irritatingly long time to get through customs in Heathrow, mostly because of the fact we’d just come from Colombia. Of course we had nothing to declare and no contraband, but it was still a pain in the ass.
We got to our hotel (the same one The Downfall had stayed at, since I liked the place well enough) quite late, so we just said goodnight and went to our respective rooms.
Refreshed by a full night’s sleep, I went out for an early morning run. I retraced my steps from several months before, noting that there were a whole lot more people enjoying the outdoors this time of year. To be fair, the outdoors were a whole lot more enjoyable in late spring/early summer than they’d been in the winter…
Back at the hotel, I spoke to the concierge about a personalized tour for the two Japanese ladies and he gave me a recommendation. After a quick shower and a change, I knocked on the door to the Tanakas’ room. I suggested we get breakfast at the place I’d enjoyed with Angela and Emmy, and they agreed.
As we ate, I got on the tour company’s web site and looked through it. It seemed like the sort of thing that has to be set up in advance, so I handed my phone over to Akiko so the two could answer the questionnaire and set up a tour for the next day.
“It doesn’t say how much it will cost,” Akiko said after they’d plugged in their desired tour stops.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I’m covering it.”
“What should we do today?” Akiko asked.
“Whatever you want. I have to stop by Savile Row for my suits, and that’ll take a couple of hours minimum, is my guess. That would have to be pretty boring for you guys. I also want to talk to our interior designer, but again, you two probably don’t care about that. I guess I can do those things tomorrow, while you’re on your tour,” I said, thinking about scheduling.
“So today, let’s keep it simple. Let’s go to the Eye, and then the British Museum. There are some things I want to show you there. Maybe afterwards we can do a Thames boat tour, but you two will probably be pretty tired by that point and just want to rest.”
“Probably,” Akiko agreed, giving her grandmother a bit of side-eye. “Can we get traditional English food for lunch?”
“From what I can tell, these days that means kebabs or curry,” I said with a laugh. “But sure, if you want, we can find someplace to get shepherd’s pie or whatever.”
At the British Museum I showed the ancient pottery that Emmy had said belongs to the Night Children of thousands of years ago.
“These? These were made by our people. This text says that nothing is known of this culture, but that isn’t true. It just isn’t known to day walkers. This is Night Children history. This is your history,” I said, making sure there was nobody else close enough to hear.
When Akiko translated for her grandmother, Mrs Tanaka’s eyes sharpened.
“Three thousand years?” Akiko translated. “When did they migrate to Japan?”
“That’s a really good question. From what I understand, the belief is that Night Children originated in the Near East somewhere and then spread from there. The Mongols wiped them all out in all of Asia, including pretty much everything east of Venice, Italy. It took a while for Night Children to move back in to the Balkans, Turkey and Armenia and all that region, but our people had always assumed that there were none of us left at all in East Asia. That’s why discovering you was such a surprise.” After Akiko translated, I said, “My guess is that our people migrated into Japan probably around the same time as the modern Japanese people did. That was a few hundred years BCE, if I remember correctly, right? Night Children probably came along with them. Then, when Genghis Khan went on his rampage, they stayed safe in Iga Prefecture, in the hills.”
“This makes sense,” Akiko translated for her grandmother, who was nodding.
“I’m sure all that history was lost. I’ve read that the Mongol invasion killed something like twenty per cent of the world’s population, if you can believe that,” Akiko said.
“Crazy,” I agreed, shaking my head in wonder.
After seeing the two shinobi off with their tour guide in the morning. I took a cab to Savile Row for my suits. Magdalena sent me right back out again when she discovered I hadn’t brought my favorite dagger with me.
“We worked hard to design the suits to accommodate your preferred cutlery,” she said in a tone that didn’t allow for any arguing. So out I went after a quick search for a place I could find what I needed. A hunting and sporting goods shop near the stadium showed Fairbairn Sykes replicas in stock, so off I went.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The middle-aged guys at the store seemed puzzled by my request and lost as to why I was so specific in my requirements, but eventually did sell me a dagger very similar to the one Mr Han in Singapore had given me. Sure, it wasn’t an original, but it was the right size and shape, and made of Sheffield Steel like mine.
Back at the tailor’s, Magdalena was satisfied. She took some quick measurements of the knife to confirm it fit the dimensions they’d accounted for, and then set me to trying on the various suits with and without the dagger in my preferred spot at the small of my back, and also tucked into my left sleeve.
My mind was blown at how they’d made the various pieces hide the added bulk of the knife. Even though I knew what I was looking for I couldn’t see any telltale bulge. That right there would have been enough, but the way the various suits fit was just as impressive. They allowed an amazing freedom of movement- I tried a high kick in what seemed like a pencil skirt and found that it didn’t restrict me at all.
“I don’t know how you did it- this is like some kind of magic,” I told Magdalena.
“No matter how hard you try, you will not tear these stitches,” she assured me.
“You are miracle workers,” I told her, meaning every word.
Choosing to wear the charcoal gray combo and have the rest delivered to the hotel, I marveled at how a business suit could feel as comfortable and unrestrictive as a T shirt and summer skirt. ‘Best present ever,’ I mentally congratulated Emmy.
After a quick bite, my next stop was the interior designer’s office. William (the guy we’d talked to right after buying the apartment) wasn’t in, but his partner Simon was. After the usual pleasantries, he asked if I wanted to see the progress that had been made.
“I promised my wife I wouldn’t,” I said. “She wants this to be her surprise. All I need to know is whether you’ve run into any problem I need to help sort out.”
“Angela is such a precious dear,” Simon said, sipping his tea. “She has been such a joy to work with.”
“I’m quite fond of her,” I agreed. “She’s really looking forward to the day we can take up residence in our new place.”
“It won’t be for a while yet,” Simon said with a wince. “Most of the trades are done with their work, but the decorators have yet to even start. I would say three months, perhaps four.”
“Her baby is due around then, so we’ll be stuck in Los Angeles for a while,” I told him. “So I guess that means that three months or five really makes no difference to us, since we wouldn’t be able to get back here to London in that time frame anyhow,” I said.
Changing the subject, Simon asked about art for the unit. “Angela had said that you would prefer to find your own?”
I explained that Angela and Emmy had already started looking for pieces for the apartment. I also promised that I’d have Angela send him pictures and dimensions of anything they buy so he and William can work the decor to complement the art.
Satisfied that things were on track and under control, I texted Roger Bridger to let him know the rest of my afternoon and evening were free. He responded fairly quickly, suggesting we meet at his club for dinner and drinks. This left me with a couple of hours to kill, so I just wandered around, enjoying the spring afternoon.
By sheer happenstance my wanderings took me past a Lotus store front, so of course I went inside to look at the tiny little cars they had for sale. As usual for car dealers, a salesman homed in on me the moment I walked in the door. He looked me up and down and, since apparently I registered as ‘has lots of money,’ immediately shifted into obsequious mode.
Me being me, I found myself attracted to the Evora 430 in British Racing Green.
I asked if I might sit in it, and the sales guy nearly tripped over himself opening the car’s door for me, and it was a good thing he did. He spared me the embarrassment of climbing into the wrong side of the car out of habit.
Sitting in the right-side driver’s seat felt odd, and resting my left hand on the brushed aluminum (aluminium?) shifter was an amusing novelty. With the seat all the way back I could fit, but the car had a shrink-wrapped feeling. There was no extra room inside for much of anything at all. The vestigial back seats were even less useful than the back seats in my Carrera Safari, but they’d be fine for a few shopping bags. At most.
“I have a question,” I said, climbing out of the low-slung car. “Do you have storage and concierge service? I live in Los Angeles, but just bought a house here. I might only spend three or four months a year here, and would hate for the car to sit and rot in a parking garage while I’m out of town.”
“We certainly do,” he said. “Climate controlled and impeccably clean. We can deliver the motorcar to you any time you would need it.”
“Show me the facility. If it’s acceptable, I’ll buy the car right now,” I told him.
The salesman’s visual credit check on me must have returned a very high score, judging by how quickly he called to an assistant to take me to their garage facility. A few short minutes later the assistant named Stuart (I asked- otherwise he would never have volunteered the information) drove me in one of those Jaguars that look like fat Acuras to an unmarked garage door in a commercial block maybe a quarter mile away. He pressed a remote’s button and entered when the door opened. There was a little office just inside the garage door, and we stopped to check in. Stuart explained to the older gentleman that I was a client and wanted to see the place, so he just waved us in. On the first floor down there was a detailing station, but there was nobody there at the moment. We did pass a man in a paper suit, who Stuart explained started and let run all the cars every so often to keep them mechanically sound.
There were probably seventy-five cars down there, a handful of which were obviously new and waiting their turn on the showroom floor, but most were in medium- to long-term storage, as I had planned for the Evora. As the sales guy had said, the garage was spotlessly clean, and there was no dust on any of the waiting cars.
“Alright,” I told Stuart. “Let’s go back and get me a car.”
Back at the dealership the sales guy asked me if I’d owned any other high performance cars, or if the Evora was going to be a new experience.
“I’ve got a few,” I replied, not really enthusiastic about chatting just to kill time while we waited for my banker to send the funds.
“The closest equivalent to the Evora is likely the Porsche GT3,” he said, trying to keep the conversation going.
“I have a 918 Spyder,” I said, and that shut him right up. “I just figured I’d buy the Lotus so I have something to play with while I’m here in England. I’ll need to buy something more practical, too, but this is a start. Maybe a Range Rover? Those seem to be pretty popular here.”
I was saved from further small talk by the guy from the finance department, who said that the transaction had gone through and I needed to sign some paperwork. After we finished, I strolled back out into the showroom and ran my hands over the lustrous dark green roof of the Evora GT430 Sport. I gave it a gentle pat, then turned and found the sales guy standing nearby.
“Let us prepare it for you. It will be ready for you to take in less than an hour,” he said.
“Go ahead and prepare it, but just park it for me when it’s done, will you? I can’t really take it just yet- I’m only in town for another day,” I said, handing him the second key fob from the ring.
Surprised, the guy accepted the key and said, “Certainly, Miss Farmer. When do you think you’ll be back?”
“I’ll email you,” I said, patting the pretty little car one more time before walking back outside into the late afternoon.
The address that I’d been given was for a red brick townhouse only a few blocks away from where The Downfall had attended the benefit party for that refugee aid organization before their London shows.
“Are you sure this is it?” I asked the cab driver, and he had the decency to not look insulted.
“There’s the number right there,” he said, pointing to a dark blue address number on a white tile next to the door.
“Alright,” I said, paying the fare and tipping the man. I had no idea of what the etiquette might have been for tipping cab drivers in the UK, so I gave him a typical New York-level tip.
I climbed the handful of steps to the house’s front door and used the lion’s-head knocker. In a short moment an elderly man with piercing gray eyes opened the door.
“I’m here to meet Colonel Bridger?” I asked as much as I explained.
“Yes, do come in,” he said and led me inside. As much as the place looked like a fancy townhouse on the outside, inside it clearly was exactly what Bridger had said- a club for retired military.
Colonel Bridger was in what I guess would be called the ‘Reading Room’ or something like that. He rose and shook my hand when I entered, then indicated I should take a seat. He waited to seat himself until after I sat down.
“Ms Farmer,” he began, but I interrupted him.
“‘Leah’ is fine, Colonel,” I assured him, earning myself a smile.
“Please call me Roger,” he replied. “Thank you for meeting with me. This is quite a pleasure, let me say.”
“I was surprised to get your invitation,” I admitted, “but intrigued.”
Roger smiled at that. “When Harry introduced us, I will admit I was intrigued by you as well. At first glance you seemed be… Well, to be frank, perhaps the correct term is a ‘trophy wife’, yes? But as we spoke, I came to reassess my opinion of you. Of course, you were discussing financial dealings with Harry, so it became clear to me that you were very business-minded, but…” he said, his eyes focused back on that night five months earlier. “But it was your eyes.” He leaned back in his seat. “You have the eyes of one of us,” he said, gesturing to include the room, and presumably the club as a whole. “This club- it’s for retired special forces. These men and women are… hard. We have seen and done things. You have that look in your eyes. Pardon me for being blunt, but I recognize the eyes of a killer when I see them.”
I started to say something, but he held up his hand to stop me.
“So I did what anybody does nowadays, and I Googled you. Quite an amazing series of accomplishments for one so young,” he said. “In the course of my digging, I found out about your father, which led me to your great-grandfather.”
“Let me guess- your grandfather and my great-grandfather served together in North Africa,” I said.
“It seems so,” he agreed. “In Tunisia.”
“I admit I know very little of what my great-grandfather did in the war,” I said. “But that bit of shared history is just a pretext, isn’t it?”
“It is a… conversation-starter,” Roger admitted. “A connection, if you will.”
“Roger,” I said, looking around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear our conversation. “All I really know of my great-grandfather’s service was that he did some time working with the UK military, and they gave him one of these,” I said, reaching behind me and pulling out the knife I’d bought earlier in the day. “Not this exact one, of course- that’s back home in California.”
“You carry that with you,” he said, nodding appreciatively. He leaned forward again and said in a low voice, “That one appears new, but my guess is that your heirloom has seen some use?”
“Who can say?” I replied, tucking the Fairbairn-Sykes replica back into its sheath.
“As I believe I said, you are indeed one of us,” he said, nodding that his suspicions were confirmed.