‘I’ll be ready,’ he said, thinking of what he still had to do. ‘George, can you lend me a hand?’
‘A hand? Of course.’
‘I can lend hands as well,’ Major Saltin said, ‘but do not look to me for any magical assistance.’
‘If you’re happy to, Saltin,’ Aubrey said. ‘I’d appreciate it.’
Saltin took off his jacket, hung it over the back of the chair, and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Where do we start?’
Midnight had well and truly rolled past by the time Aubrey, George and Saltin finished the final touches on the remote sensing facility. The smell of sawdust tickled Aubrey’s nose, mingling with the slightly oily sensation that came from the shielding magic he’d employed on the devices – something he could only feel because he was inside their range of effect. The devices themselves were installed inside large mantel clocks he’d found at a second-hand shop. All four were different, and it had made his work fiendishly difficult, but – at least at first glance – the clocks looked nothing more suspicious than slightly old-fashioned timepieces.
The booths were made of solid timber, backed with some lead sheeting that George had bought from a plumber. George and Saltin stood inspecting their work with pride. George wiped his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Comfortable, secure, private. What more could a remote senser want?’
The booths were along the wall furthest from the river. Only three or four feet wide, side by side, each booth had a solid timber door and a ledge stretching from wall to wall to act as a table. They were a reasonable facsimile of the listening booths in Darnleigh House. No distractions, no decoration, nothing to take the remote sensers away from the focus required for their magical monitoring.
Aubrey was weary, but brightened when Caroline once more came down the stairs to see if they’d finished. ‘One more thing,’ he begged.
Caroline looked sceptical. ‘Your “one more things” have a habit of multiplying. I’ll go and warm up the radio equipment.’
‘Go ahead. I want to make sure the perimeter security is in place and working.’
Guardian magic was a well-established application of the Law of Entanglement, where a number of similar objects were magically linked, then distributed about the perimeter of a property. If a direct line between the objects was breached, then – using an application of the Law of Intensification – an alarm would sound. Simple and neat, but simple and neat always sounded to Aubrey like an invitation for improvement.
He’d been fiddling with ways to trap intruders, using a more literal interpretation of ‘entanglement’ – but all he’d ended up with was a number of extremely angry stray cats. He’d tried variation after variation, but for now he was now willing to put this work to one side and simply activate the perimeter alarm.
Aubrey hurried around the exterior of the factory and the yard, stopping every so often to touch the dominoes he’d used for ease of similarity, activating them with a short spell. On the rooftop and along the fence line, twenty-four domino pieces established the line of sight connection, entangling perfectly. With a sigh of relief he touched the last domino, near the gate to the yard, and he rubbed his eyes. They were gritty and smarting, so he took a moment to revel in the cool night air – but he was already composing the message to headquarters as he went inside again.
The report was short and pointed, updating the Directorate on the state of affairs in Divodorum, and about Baron von Grolman’s activity in Stalsfrieden. The most important thing was the last line: ‘Station 14 is ready to receive the Phase 2 team.’
He crunched the message through the miniature encoding device – about the size of a cigar box – spinning the wheels and keys until a jumble of numbers and letters resulted. He copied these down and raced to Caroline’s radio station.
She had already donned her headphones. She took the slip of paper and turned away. After that, all he heard was the tap-tap-tapping of a practised telegraph operator. He imagined the message winging its way across the night sky, through clouds and stars, until it was received by the operators at Lattimer Hall. The Special Services operators – banks of them – were on twenty-four-hour duty receiving messages from all over the world, from Directorate operatives on missions that were both trivial and dangerous. The message would be copied down and handed to runners, who would rush to the coding division. There cipher officers would reverse the process Aubrey had undertaken, turning the complicated string of numbers and letters back into standard Albionish, then direct the message to the correct place.
Caroline turned, gracefully draping one arm over the back of her hard wooden chair. ‘Finished. Hot chocolate, anyone?’
Seventeen
When a message came back from the Directorate with the news that the arrival of the remote sensers would be delayed by three days, Aubrey, George and Caroline had little to do. The base was finalised – Aubrey having abandoned his improvements to the guardian spells around the perimeter – stores were laid in, antennae were tuned, and George had even livened up the basement with a coat of paint, declaring that buttercup yellow always made a place more welcoming.
Another message arrived, advising of another three-day delay.
Aubrey took this in his stride. All the reading he’d done about military command had warned him about bored troops and the mischief they could get up to. While he didn’t think this was strictly applicable to Caroline and George – although he did have a passing moment wondering what sort of mischief Caroline would get up to if given the chance – finding worthwhile activity was probably the best thing to do. For him, if for no-one else.
Moving their belongings from the boarding house was an immediate task which was usefully time consuming. Once they were gathered, the delicacy of the living arrangements was something that couldn’t be ignored.
A young woman, unchaperoned, with two young men. Living, sleeping in close proximity. The thought of it all made Aubrey extremely concerned. No-one had mentioned it during the construction of the sleeping quarters, but now that personal belongings were making them somewhat more than bare boxes, he felt he had to address the issue.
‘Caroline, George,’ he said. ‘We need to talk about our circumstances.’
‘I know,’ Caroline said.
‘You know? How?’
‘For ten minutes you’ve been staring at the sleeping quarters with that look on your face.’
‘That look?’
‘The one that says you’re trying to do the right thing but you’re not quite sure what it is.’
‘I see.’ He thought about this. ‘How many looks do I have?’
‘Oh, at least four.’
‘What are the other three?’
‘I can’t tell you,’ she said. ‘You’d become all self-conscious.’
And I’m not already? ‘Thank you. You’re kind.’
‘Now.’ She strode to the sleeping quarters. ‘I’m going to try to make this easy for you. Times have changed. We are living in a modern world. We are in an unusual situation.’ She knocked on one of the dividing walls. ‘And these walls are extremely solid, thanks to George.’
‘My pleasure,’ George said. Aubrey noticed that his friend looked highly amused, but he wasn’t volunteering to help Aubrey steer this difficult conversation.
‘And your point is?’ Aubrey asked Caroline.
‘Let me worry about my reputation. You don’t have to.’
‘Ah.’
‘And if you’re worried about your reputation, you’re more confused than I thought. Now.’ She tapped her foot. ‘I’m happy with the way things are and I hope you two are as well.’