Monday 17th February 2013, 5:25am, Heathrow Airport Terminal 3, West London.
It was the early hours of Monday morning and she had just arrived back in the country on a commercial flight. It had landed in Heathrow airport about an hour ago, full of the general public coming home with the sun on their skin, and their suitcases that little bit heavier from the souvenirs they'd crammed in among their dirty underwear. She was trying to be inconspicuous and hoped to float through the security checks unnoticed. Disappear into the blurry eyes of a capital city that had just woken up to a new working week, and blend in with millions of nameless faces that still had sleep in their eyes, and the taste of coffee and toast on their tongues.
She had been a silly little fool to have thought her plan would succeed.
They had barely touched the tarmac of the run-way when she was approached by men with stern faces and black suits. They commanded her to follow them off the plane to an unmarked car, with blacked out window which had somehow been granted access to the run-way. The door was opened and her only piece of luggage, a small tatted backpack, thrown in after her. As the car sped off into the first light of dawn she turned to the woman who sat opposite her, too engrossed in her phone to give her a second glance, and the man who wore a smug smirk that told her that any means of trying to escape were futile. She was a mouse who had been caught in his mouse trap, and it gave him great satisfaction. She studied his features, making note of his receding hair line for later use, and realised that despite not seeing this man for years he still managed to intimidate her ever so slightly, with those piercing eyes that could see all her sins and secrets.
"Amelia Doherty." He drawled. "It's been far too long."
Yes she had been foolish, so very foolish indeed to have thought she could have successfully slipped under the nose of the infamous Mycroft Homes, and back into the folds of his beloved country undetected.