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San Francisco, California
The decision hadn’t come easily. McRory wanted to remain in San Francisco to resume the investigation on Todd Adams. Alice Linda argued their continued safety—indeed their lives—depended on getting to the bottom of the mystery about the two Mohawks who had been incentivized to fulfill their collective demise. Joe finally gave up arguing with Alice. He wouldn’t have won anyway, and he knew it. She was right. Living trumped everything else.
They sat apart in the airport boarding area having cleared the TSA security line. Linda shipped her weapon to a receiving firm in London she had used on one earlier occasion. McRory didn’t have any weapons to transport.
McRory also argued against shipping Linda’s handgun. While waiting for their flight to begin boarding, he Googled the rules for open and concealed permits to carry a weapon in the UK. The long and short of it: She didn’t have an approved permit. It would take weeks to satisfy the requirements of British law. Linda, however, wasn’t about to visit Elsemere without a weapon—even if possession was illegal.
They were booked on Virgin Atlantic’s flight 42 set to depart at 9:05 p.m. and arrive at London’s Heathrow Airport at 3:25 p.m. the next day. Separately, each purchased a premium economy seat for the extra room. They were dismayed to find they were seated next to one another. Not that it mattered. That evening’s flight was a little more than half full. They’d have no trouble finding alternative seating once aloft.
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Heathrow Airport
London, England
By the time they cleared both Passport Control and Customs it was almost 5 p.m. Linda called the freight firm and made the arrangements to retrieve her package before 8 p.m. that same evening. The train to Paddington Station in London would take 15 minutes, and as a bonus the station held the offices of the freight firm. So they agreed—the only decision about which there was no argument—McRory would purchase their one way tickets on the Great Western Railway line from Paddington Station to Bath. With a little luck, they would arrive in Bath around 10 p.m. that night.
The evening train to Bath was a raucous affair. The small train was filled to the gills with soccer fans who were well beyond the legal limit to be judged under the influence. Their motor skills were greatly impaired. The car smelled like a brewery and worse. But they remained dedicated to singing—if you can call it that—songs of questionable lyrics. McRory ignored the scene by burying his face in the Bath tour guide he purchased at Paddington. Linda, on the other hand, attracted a fair amount of attention from the soccer hooligans, until she stood, kicked one between his legs and returned to her seat.
McRory couldn’t miss the opportunity, “Do you always make such noteworthy first impressions?”
“Yes, they’re my specialty.”
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Bath, England
They spent the night in the Hilton Bath City. In the morning, following breakfast in the hotel, they walked the mile to Pulteney Road where they boarded one of the big orange articulated buses. Onboard were mostly students in all shapes and sizes, but definitely students headed for Bath University.
The big bus navigated the turn onto Bathwick Hill. The rise was steep and the bus slowed to a crawl. Midway to the summit, traffic was at a standstill and the bus lumbered to a full stop. When it became clear the obstruction that lay ahead was unlikely to be quickly cleared, most of the bus riders exited, preferring to complete their journey to the university on foot. Linda and McRory joined the throng and trudged up the steep hill alongside the traffic clogged roadway.
After walking several hundred yards, a house on fire located on the opposite side of the road came into full view. The street in front of the manse was blocked by first responders and a small contingent of the local press. Those walking engaged in the time-honored tradition of rubber necking and all progress up the hill stopped and started and stopped yet again. Finally, McRory and Linda stood across from the inferno that once was a stately manor home and then the unmarked corporate headquarters of Elsemere.
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They returned the next morning. The burned-out shell of a structure bore testimony to the extreme heat of the fire which completely gutted the building’s interior. The slate roof collapsed into the bowels of the building as had each of the two upper floors. All that remained was the stone and brick shell and windows bereft of their glazing with misshapen metal mullions. The fire consumed the interior of the building before the arrival of the first responders. None of the splendid furnishings and antiques were salvaged. The home was a total loss.
The death of Sir Alec Winston was noteworthy enough that a few column inches above the fold of the London Times chronicled the story. Only the Bath Chronicle made mention of the fire’s suspicious origins and the possible murder of the confirmed bachelor, successful entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Alec Winston.
Joe McRory stood outside the remains of the home dressed like a local professional carrying a clipboard and a small video camera. He was approached by a local fire inspector who found the activity concerning. “May I help you with something?”
McRory presented the inspector with a business card identifying McRory as a claims investigator representing UKinsuranceNET. Using his best “shit flows downhill” look McRory complained, “I got the call last evening to be here in the morning. Sir Alec was a principal in the firm and the boss wants to be certain we’re on top of the claim. I traveled all night to be here on time. You know how it goes.”
The inspector understood the inconvenience of it all better than most, “Yes, my supervisor has called me twice for updates.”
“What have you found, if you don’t mind my asking? It could make it possible for me to notify the folks upstairs, if you know what I mean.”
“The body was burned beyond recognition. Maybe the Coroner’s Inquest will be able to determine the cause of death. Whoever did this knew a thing or two about arson. They used a mixture of petrol and diesel and spread the accelerant throughout all floors of the home, but especially in Sir Alec’s bedroom and office areas. By the time my blokes from the Bath Fire Station arrived, the place was a total loss.”
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Their lunch finished and the purpose of their trip a complete bust, Linda and McRory sat in quiet as the dining room of the Bath Priory emptied. Truth be told they were more than a bit jetlagged, and the large lunch of sirloin steak was the first decent meal either had taken in over a week.
McRory started first, “And an interesting several weeks it’s been. I’m doing my research. You’re researching me. Forget for the moment we both work for the same company and should be on the same team.”
Linda shrugged, “You did your job. I was doing mine, which just happened to be you. Don’t make more out of it than it is.”
McRory paused and frowned, “Okay, we’re each doing our own thing. Then in short order, we’re kidnapped and drugged and dragged from San Francisco to my home in Overland Park by a Mohawk Indian who, it turns out, is related to an experienced hitter who used to work for the Canadian spooks until his zeal for the job outweighed his value.”
“His uncle, the badass, hunts me down. Chases me all over the tower and then stays at the same motel you’re at.”
They both paused. This time Linda jumped in. “Look, you think your subject, Todd Adams, is involved. I disagree. There’s way too much coincidence taking place here. I’m no big believer in coincidence. Not at all.”
“True. Someone knew about you and me. Even I didn’t know about you until you started tailing me around San Francisco in your truck.”
“I started tailing you before we met at the gym. You had no idea I had any interest in you until San Francisco. Even then, that’s because I wanted you to know. To see if spooking you a bit would cause you to change-up your game, take shortcuts, do a piss poor job.”
“Where did you learn your tradecraft? On the back of a cereal box? It was impossible not to notice you.”
“Look, I’m too tired to argue. We find our asses being chased by two Indians. We get out from underneath them both, but is there an entire tribe chasing us? Should we be looking out for a third, maybe a fourth?”
McRory answered his uncertainty with a single shrug.
“Evangeline tells me bad things eventually happen to folks who work for the company. The company knows what we’re doing, where, and why. The company could have sent both Indians our way. But now the head of the company is dead, the office burned to the ground. Who wanted Elsemere gone? Are these the same people who’ve been on our tail?”
“On a more practical matter, what do we do about our jobs, our work? Do I just go back to San Francisco and pick-up where I left off? Is there even a company to whom I send my report? And what about that homeland security thing in the Mojave Desert? I have a weird feeling about that.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If we don’t figure out what’s going on here with Elsemere, we might not live to worry about what’s next.”
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Just beyond the street entrance to the Priory Hotel, the bus stop on the intersection of Weston and Cranhill Roads stood a small group of Asian students awaiting the bus at the eastbound bus stop. They each carried a large bag or satchel and even the occasional backpack. All were dressed like students. They wore excessively casual clothing. One more rumpled than the others, but each would do well to visit an iron. Most seemed to know the other, although one of their group stood a step apart from the others.
Linda and McRory exited the hotel grounds and walked along Weston Road toward the center of town passing the bus stop and those standing in a queue for the approaching bus. The bus doors retracted. Those waiting in the queue boarded at the front of the bus while two senior citizens exited at the rear.
Linda and McRory took the opportunity to cross to the opposite side of the road as the bus was pulling out. Three people remained behind. An older couple and one Asian woman, or possibly a Polynesian, watched McRory and Linda walk toward the town center and the Flight Centre travel agency.
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Elisabeth Ristovski’s good luck continued. The maid servicing McRory’s room left his door ajar as she made her way to the housekeeping storeroom at the end of the hallway. Elisabeth stole her way into the room gently returning the door to its almost closed position.
Two nights earlier she discovered jerry cans marked diesel and petrol in a small gardening shed on the back of Sir Alec’s lot. Getting into the shed and the lower level backdoor was easy, since neither were locked. Conducting a floor by floor search was child’s play for someone with her hunting and trapping skills.
Sir Alec Winston was a sport fisherman. Elisabeth found what she needed among his tackle and made her way to the top floor of the manse. Given the late hour, the house was cloaked by the dark of night which made noiselessly navigating the old stairwell only a modest challenge for someone with her skills.
Before Winston awoke, Elisabeth wrapped his neck twice with the strongest fishing line his tackle box provided and pulled each end in opposite directions while she sat astride his chest. The image he saw when he awoke must have been unfathomable. A young woman tightening the garrote pinned his upper body to the mattress with each knee placed on an old man’s useless arms.
His death came quickly. Yet Elisabeth remained fixed in her executioner’s hold. Despite the dark hour, she had an excellent view of Sir Alec’s death mask. Somehow, the death of this evil man did little to ease the pain of her losses.
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Linda moved her bags into McRory’s room when she checked out before breakfast. McRory, ever the gentleman, unlocked his hotel door and stood aside to permit Linda to enter first.
That’s when all hell broke loose.