Disclaimer: I don't own these characters and have just borrowed them for my
- and your - pleasure.
Fatal Harvest
Steed shows off his roots. Emma does some weeding.
Chapter 10
Between her professional commitments and her research on Expefarmax, Emma had resumed enthusiastically her training sessions at the ministry's gym. The knowledge that her reflexes were as finely tuned as ever, that her balance and strength were being honed back to optimal conditions, were exhilarating. The familiar feeling of anticipation at the prospect of action by Steed's side was growing by the day. Add to this the thrill of finding the first ill-fitting pieces in the puzzle handed to them. Everything should have felt perfect, indeed.
But she was aware of a subtle tension in Steed, unfamiliar and disquieting. She had considered, and quickly dismissed as a probable cause, his professional interest in Miss MacKay. She expected him to use charm and guile shamelessly, sometimes well past his professed standards of honourable behaviour. If he chose to cultivate Miss MacKay as a potentially useful contact, it was on the basis of his innate appreciation of the fairer sex as much as professional instinct. Yet, on this delicate but familiar enough territory, Emma Peel could willingly defer to his judgment, as long as she asserted her right to hear as little as possible about it. After all, she reflected wryly, Steed was as touchy as she was whenever the roles were reversed.
This assessment left her with two plausible hypotheses. The first one lay in the ambiguous nature of their relationship. She admitted that it remained a delicious and, well, rather maddening charade. One that would undoubtedly come to its natural end with the eventual dissolution of their partnership. Steed had been his usual falsely nonchalant self when he had presented her with the prospect of this new case. Both of them, she was quite sure, had genuinely looked forward to the potent blend of romantic adventure and action they had shared before.
The only explanation left for his brooding mood, she concluded, was her partner's absorption with the odd circumstances of this particular case. There was, without a doubt, some dreadful game of cat-and-mouse being played. Patience was a necessary virtue in Steed's trade, and he had it in spades when necessary. Faced with half-truths or lies, however, he could marshall all his resources to get to the bottom of things, regardless of who might intend to sidetrack or stonewall him.
Sending Warner back with his begging bowl gave them an opportunity to move swiftly. That much Emma understood and she realized that Steed now needed her unconditional support. Action, she reasoned, offered their best chance at seeing more clearly through Warner's convoluted plan. And it was possibly the only way to close the awkward gap that threatened to grow wider between them.
-o0o-
After leaving Emma's flat, Steed had driven to his office at Whitehall. By now he expected some kind of answer to his overseas inquiry. He found and played twice the terse message left on his machine. It simply asked him to call back regarding the translation of the third paragraph of page 169. The memories of operations shared with Wargrave flooded back like a tide, and his hand rose with mechanical ease to pull out the correct tome from his shelf. The page in question contained a passage that he used as a key to select another page and column from a current London directory. He ran down his finger across the fine print until he came to a specific phone number. Only the last digits would be relevant since the rank and length of the paragraph had told him which American area code and city exchange the call would reach.
The short conversation did nothing to lift his spirits. Both agronomers had left a dismally short paper trail before their owners had come to their unfortunate ends. Their identities were definitely aliases. The kind of fabrication routinely used, in Wargrave's words, for low-level undercover operations by British security services. His sources had duly documented their brief employment with Expefarmax. His own, prudent description of their association with the firm left no doubt in Steed's mind that Wargrave was already aware of the company's shadowy status.
"The causes of death were natural, according to the file I hold," reminded Steed.
"Indeed. It was also natural, I expect, that the same coroner signed both reports, which describe the deaths having occurred at home. No next-of-kin on the premises to confirm the circumstances, and the authorities were alerted by a well-meaning but naturally anonymous neighbour in both cases."
"Remarkable," added Steed with a touch of asperity. "I am told the cases were re-opened by the Yard."
"Most discreetly, I trust." The wry tone did not mask a gentle weariness. A cue that there was nothing more to share and, most likely, that his interlocutor was facing a gruelling work schedule.
"How may I return the favour, Wargrave?"
"Expefarmax's business, as you had suspected, is of interest to some customers of mine. You could call me back once you get a better feel for their practices."
Uncanny, Steed thought, as he lowered the receiver, how a familiar voice could bring you back so swiftly across time and space. His mind was already distilling the conversation into the cryptic note he had planned to leave for Mother's benefit. On his way to the ministry's store rooms he slipped the message in Rhonda's mail drop, and set himself to the task of selecting field gear for the next day. It had been a long day, but he would not end it without a visit to the gymnasium. Steed looked forward to the physical discipline, knowing it would help clear the clouds of suspicion that were gathering thickly. With some luck, his coming expedition would provide him the justification he needed to share his latest findings with Mrs. Peel.
-o0o-
"The Crowfoot Inn", announced Steed as the Bentley pulled in the parking lot. "Two hundred odd years in business and the finest fowl around on the menu." The dark oak-panelled pub and its polished mahogany bar were not a liability, either, thought Emma as she strode in on his arm. While Steed went about the formalities of getting keys and seeing their luggage taken to their rooms for the night, Emma surveyed the surroundings. Nobody could accuse Steed of wasting time in abstract speculation, she mused. Having little else to go on, he had blithely chosen among properties rented by Expefarmax for the reputation of the local accommodations.
They had booked separate rooms, across the hall from one another, as their aliases might be expected to request. They went their separate way about the business of settling down and freshening up, slipping effortlessly in their roles. Dinner was served at six in the main dining room. There were few guests, most of them professionals meeting for business.
The delicately prepared fowl lived up to the inn's promise and the full- bodied red wine soon took the edge off their usual banter. There was something undeniably romantic about this prelude to their mission. Steed courteously pulled her chair and followed her as they left the table. Mrs. Peel felt his hand land gently first on her arm, then move to her waist. He drew her closer as they walked towards the lobby. "The stars are out" he pointed out. "How about a stroll?"
A breeze was carrying up the scent of the dewy fields surrounding the inn. Overhead, stars reached up in infinity. Steed started pointing out a few of his favorite constellations, but he soon appeared to lose interest in their celestial charms. In truth, nothing much needed saying as they stood, mostly drinking in the peaceful scene laid out before them.
"Shooting star coming our way" Steed whispered suddenly. "Watch out for the sparks." Emma felt a flurry of kisses land on the nape of her neck, light as butterflies at first, then growing increasingly ardent. She stretched and leaned back against him, his strong arms cradling her. All senses tingling, she soon turned her eyes away from the starry sky and tugged at his sleeve to signal that she was ready to return to the inn. They parted wordlessly at the top of the stairs. She entered her room alone and sat on her bed, exhilarated at the ease with which they slipped back in the familiar pattern of their nocturnal reunions. A few minutes later, Steed quietly opened his door and crossed the landing to join her.
It was past midnight before they slipped out again, silent shadows that were soon swallowed by the night. Two kilometers away from the inn, the headlights of the Bentley sliced across the road as it came to a layby. Emma Peel dimmed them and slowly rolled another few hundreds yards before stopping.
She watched the familiar frown of concentration on Steed's handsome face as he mentally ran through his own checklist. "Goggles, gloves, respirator?" she insisted, appraising him sharply once he seemed to have completed the exercise.
Steed grimaced. "Ah yes, the goggles. Left them on the dresser at the inn. Broke a strap when I tried them on and put them aside."
Emma's scowl would have frozen a lesser man. "Honestly, Steed."
She said nothing more and thought darkly of the spare pair, packed back in her room, that he could have borrowed if only he had mentioned the incident before leaving. Emma rather suspected that the actual cause of his carelessness was his disdain for this particular bit of high-tech paraphernalia. Steed had the eyes of a cat and, in most situations, he trusted his senses better than most pieces of equipment. Despite her irritation, Emma refrained from pointing out that the infra-red goggles were also intended to serve as protective eyewear.
Steed shrugged. "Too late. I am going in. Plot my trajectory every five minutes and plan to pick me up about 90 minutes from now, wherever I end up."
-o0o-
A path trampled through the field led to a wooden shed looming like a gloomy sentinel. There were four vehicles parked outside. Steed ran his hands along the flanks of the first one, a tiller, and felt its cold, smooth metallic surface against his palm. He moved on to the control panel, turned on his small flashlight. His pulse raced faster as he stroked the third machine. In front, on its sides and on the back, the metallic hull was pierced by a row of small vents that he had not seen on other models. Nimbly, his fingertips reached in and he felt the blunt tips of slender nozzles recessed inside. In the beam of his flashlight, an additional bank of switches gleamed back across the control panel.
Turning away from the vehicles, he reached for the door of the shed. Perhaps Expefarmax had not wished to risk raising suspicion by installing a sophisticated security system. The lock barely slowed down Steed's entry.
Gloves, buckets, shovels, canisters of chemicals, and all manner of other gardening paraphernalia were piled along the walls. Above an innocent display of tools, Steed's eyes caught the faint outline of a panel that he quickly unhinged. He let out a soft whistle as he lifted it. It was the control box he was looking for. Among the tangled wires he easily found the few he wished to unsolder, and swiftly disabled the system. Now, he hoped, one might venture across the field in relative safety.
-o0o-
Scanning the ground gingerly ahead of him, Steed had already skirted a half- dozen fox traps, crossed two ditches and photographed three monitoring stations when he noticed the buzzing sound of a plane. He had intended to make it back to the shed and restore the wiring in the control box to its former condition but the plane grew closer and louder, sickeningly fast. There was nowhere to hide in the freshly mowed field, and several hundreds of yards of open space stretched like years between him and the shed or the closest edge of the field.
He was suddenly cloaked in a sticky fog spreading like a veil cast from above. His throat constricted painfully as he caught his breath and his eyes started stinging. Teeth clenched, he started to run, hoping for a few seconds of invisibility before facing the prospect of being seen or, worse, shot at from above.He risked a last glance, trying to judge his distance to the last ditch he had crossed. Futile effort. The landscape had dissolved in a stinging haze. He closed shut eyes that were now burning, and ran blindly without slowing down for several tens of meters. He hardly opened his eyes when the blurry edge of the ditch appeared almost under his feet. Unable to slow himself down, he stumbled in a heap, barely breaking his fall with his elbows, arms folded to shield his head. Coughing and rasping, he lowered a hand to his belt, found his gas mask, checked its connection to the small tank hung at his waist. He quickly covered his nose and mouth with the rubbery contraption. In between fits of coughing, he avidly drew several breaths that somewhat cleared his head. His eyes were still profusely teary, and his face and the back of his hands were tingling most unpleasantly from the powder stuck to his skin. He had a fleeting thought for the pair of infra-red goggles, useless and untouched on his dresser, and berated himself roundly for his stubbornness.
The sound of the plane had receded but it had not faded. In fact it seemed to be crisscrossing the fields systematically. Was this a routine spraying or was the plane patrolling for intruders? During forty more minutes, the dull roar waxed and waned over the area. Steed wiped his eyes, nose and mouth with a square of gauze and drew himself up to peer cautiously above the edge of the ditch. All clear. However, he also glanced down to discover, to his disgust, that he was glowing eerily from head to toe with luminescent powder, clinging stubbornly to his clothes. Hardly the way to leave unnoticed. Coolly, he took off his overcoat and turned it inside out. Cloaked again in a dark colour, he slunk away in a half-crouch and reached the hedge bordering the field, apparently without drawing attention.
Down the road, Emma's heart had jumped at the faint drone of the plane. She fought the impulse to rush her driving back and pick up Steed, and suddenly thanked Mother for the gift of her tracking watch. Its small screen now mesmerised her. The luminous digits flashed a vivid record of Steed's movements. As he had suggested, she was plotting them down. In her lap, the ruled paper on the clipboard charted her emotions in minutes and seconds. Elation at his rapid progress across the field after his search of the shed, anxiety at his agonizing pause when the plane swooped over the field - had he found shelter or had he been spotted? - and sheer relief at the resumption of his slow crawl towards the edge of the field. She noted automatically, as she brought round the Bentley, that she was about to meet him nearly exactly at the appointed time.
Her heart was thumping against her ribs as she stepped out to wait for any sign of him. A rustle in the shadowy hedge barely preceeded his bursting into sight, dark head and torso above the ghostly glowing pants. He saw her, and briefly opened the flaps of his overcoat to reveal more luminescent clothes.
"I see that you outshone the opposition" she whispered appreciatively, walking briskly in his direction. She stepped back and wrinkled her nose inquiringly as he sidled closer.
"Extra-strong bug spray" he croaked, unable to quite suppress a new fit of coughing.
"Better get you hosed down before we return to the inn" she added, concern tinging her voice.
"Not quite the cosy welcome I was hoping for, Mrs. Peel" he growled, but she obviously had a point. Not only might the stuff be toxic, but walking into the inn scented with glowing powder might draw unwanted attention to their nocturnal excursion.
The need for quick decontamination had been anticipated. The glowing mixture was water soluble and the hosing, performed from the back of the car, was uncomfortably chilling but mercifully quick. Sollicitously, Emma handed over a change of dry clothes to Steed, who had stripped free of his messy gear singlehandedly as he stoically showered using the other hand. She caught and bagged the wet, smelly heap of clothes and threw it in the boot, while Steed walked round to claim back the driving seat of his Bentley. He shook his head as his partner reached over with a thick towel to help dry off his hair.
He sighed ruefully as he steered the hulking car onto the road. "Not my finest hour, Mrs. Peel. I hate to leave behind unfinished business. Those wires undone in the control box will be awfully obvious."
"Worth going back?" she wondered aloud.
"Probably not. This not being officially our case, muddying the waters might even work out to our advantage."
"That sounds like an article of faith more than strategic planning, Steed."
Her skeptical tone drew an amused snort from her companion. "Admittedly, my strategy stopped at the selection of a five-star inn and the portable telescope that will brand us as passionate stargazers in the innkeeper's eyes. Beyond this", he flashed her a boyish smile, "I may have been shamelessly casting in the dark, Mrs. Peel, but it's been known to scare the odd villain into a blundering move."
Fatal Harvest
Steed shows off his roots. Emma does some weeding.
Chapter 10
Between her professional commitments and her research on Expefarmax, Emma had resumed enthusiastically her training sessions at the ministry's gym. The knowledge that her reflexes were as finely tuned as ever, that her balance and strength were being honed back to optimal conditions, were exhilarating. The familiar feeling of anticipation at the prospect of action by Steed's side was growing by the day. Add to this the thrill of finding the first ill-fitting pieces in the puzzle handed to them. Everything should have felt perfect, indeed.
But she was aware of a subtle tension in Steed, unfamiliar and disquieting. She had considered, and quickly dismissed as a probable cause, his professional interest in Miss MacKay. She expected him to use charm and guile shamelessly, sometimes well past his professed standards of honourable behaviour. If he chose to cultivate Miss MacKay as a potentially useful contact, it was on the basis of his innate appreciation of the fairer sex as much as professional instinct. Yet, on this delicate but familiar enough territory, Emma Peel could willingly defer to his judgment, as long as she asserted her right to hear as little as possible about it. After all, she reflected wryly, Steed was as touchy as she was whenever the roles were reversed.
This assessment left her with two plausible hypotheses. The first one lay in the ambiguous nature of their relationship. She admitted that it remained a delicious and, well, rather maddening charade. One that would undoubtedly come to its natural end with the eventual dissolution of their partnership. Steed had been his usual falsely nonchalant self when he had presented her with the prospect of this new case. Both of them, she was quite sure, had genuinely looked forward to the potent blend of romantic adventure and action they had shared before.
The only explanation left for his brooding mood, she concluded, was her partner's absorption with the odd circumstances of this particular case. There was, without a doubt, some dreadful game of cat-and-mouse being played. Patience was a necessary virtue in Steed's trade, and he had it in spades when necessary. Faced with half-truths or lies, however, he could marshall all his resources to get to the bottom of things, regardless of who might intend to sidetrack or stonewall him.
Sending Warner back with his begging bowl gave them an opportunity to move swiftly. That much Emma understood and she realized that Steed now needed her unconditional support. Action, she reasoned, offered their best chance at seeing more clearly through Warner's convoluted plan. And it was possibly the only way to close the awkward gap that threatened to grow wider between them.
-o0o-
After leaving Emma's flat, Steed had driven to his office at Whitehall. By now he expected some kind of answer to his overseas inquiry. He found and played twice the terse message left on his machine. It simply asked him to call back regarding the translation of the third paragraph of page 169. The memories of operations shared with Wargrave flooded back like a tide, and his hand rose with mechanical ease to pull out the correct tome from his shelf. The page in question contained a passage that he used as a key to select another page and column from a current London directory. He ran down his finger across the fine print until he came to a specific phone number. Only the last digits would be relevant since the rank and length of the paragraph had told him which American area code and city exchange the call would reach.
The short conversation did nothing to lift his spirits. Both agronomers had left a dismally short paper trail before their owners had come to their unfortunate ends. Their identities were definitely aliases. The kind of fabrication routinely used, in Wargrave's words, for low-level undercover operations by British security services. His sources had duly documented their brief employment with Expefarmax. His own, prudent description of their association with the firm left no doubt in Steed's mind that Wargrave was already aware of the company's shadowy status.
"The causes of death were natural, according to the file I hold," reminded Steed.
"Indeed. It was also natural, I expect, that the same coroner signed both reports, which describe the deaths having occurred at home. No next-of-kin on the premises to confirm the circumstances, and the authorities were alerted by a well-meaning but naturally anonymous neighbour in both cases."
"Remarkable," added Steed with a touch of asperity. "I am told the cases were re-opened by the Yard."
"Most discreetly, I trust." The wry tone did not mask a gentle weariness. A cue that there was nothing more to share and, most likely, that his interlocutor was facing a gruelling work schedule.
"How may I return the favour, Wargrave?"
"Expefarmax's business, as you had suspected, is of interest to some customers of mine. You could call me back once you get a better feel for their practices."
Uncanny, Steed thought, as he lowered the receiver, how a familiar voice could bring you back so swiftly across time and space. His mind was already distilling the conversation into the cryptic note he had planned to leave for Mother's benefit. On his way to the ministry's store rooms he slipped the message in Rhonda's mail drop, and set himself to the task of selecting field gear for the next day. It had been a long day, but he would not end it without a visit to the gymnasium. Steed looked forward to the physical discipline, knowing it would help clear the clouds of suspicion that were gathering thickly. With some luck, his coming expedition would provide him the justification he needed to share his latest findings with Mrs. Peel.
-o0o-
"The Crowfoot Inn", announced Steed as the Bentley pulled in the parking lot. "Two hundred odd years in business and the finest fowl around on the menu." The dark oak-panelled pub and its polished mahogany bar were not a liability, either, thought Emma as she strode in on his arm. While Steed went about the formalities of getting keys and seeing their luggage taken to their rooms for the night, Emma surveyed the surroundings. Nobody could accuse Steed of wasting time in abstract speculation, she mused. Having little else to go on, he had blithely chosen among properties rented by Expefarmax for the reputation of the local accommodations.
They had booked separate rooms, across the hall from one another, as their aliases might be expected to request. They went their separate way about the business of settling down and freshening up, slipping effortlessly in their roles. Dinner was served at six in the main dining room. There were few guests, most of them professionals meeting for business.
The delicately prepared fowl lived up to the inn's promise and the full- bodied red wine soon took the edge off their usual banter. There was something undeniably romantic about this prelude to their mission. Steed courteously pulled her chair and followed her as they left the table. Mrs. Peel felt his hand land gently first on her arm, then move to her waist. He drew her closer as they walked towards the lobby. "The stars are out" he pointed out. "How about a stroll?"
A breeze was carrying up the scent of the dewy fields surrounding the inn. Overhead, stars reached up in infinity. Steed started pointing out a few of his favorite constellations, but he soon appeared to lose interest in their celestial charms. In truth, nothing much needed saying as they stood, mostly drinking in the peaceful scene laid out before them.
"Shooting star coming our way" Steed whispered suddenly. "Watch out for the sparks." Emma felt a flurry of kisses land on the nape of her neck, light as butterflies at first, then growing increasingly ardent. She stretched and leaned back against him, his strong arms cradling her. All senses tingling, she soon turned her eyes away from the starry sky and tugged at his sleeve to signal that she was ready to return to the inn. They parted wordlessly at the top of the stairs. She entered her room alone and sat on her bed, exhilarated at the ease with which they slipped back in the familiar pattern of their nocturnal reunions. A few minutes later, Steed quietly opened his door and crossed the landing to join her.
It was past midnight before they slipped out again, silent shadows that were soon swallowed by the night. Two kilometers away from the inn, the headlights of the Bentley sliced across the road as it came to a layby. Emma Peel dimmed them and slowly rolled another few hundreds yards before stopping.
She watched the familiar frown of concentration on Steed's handsome face as he mentally ran through his own checklist. "Goggles, gloves, respirator?" she insisted, appraising him sharply once he seemed to have completed the exercise.
Steed grimaced. "Ah yes, the goggles. Left them on the dresser at the inn. Broke a strap when I tried them on and put them aside."
Emma's scowl would have frozen a lesser man. "Honestly, Steed."
She said nothing more and thought darkly of the spare pair, packed back in her room, that he could have borrowed if only he had mentioned the incident before leaving. Emma rather suspected that the actual cause of his carelessness was his disdain for this particular bit of high-tech paraphernalia. Steed had the eyes of a cat and, in most situations, he trusted his senses better than most pieces of equipment. Despite her irritation, Emma refrained from pointing out that the infra-red goggles were also intended to serve as protective eyewear.
Steed shrugged. "Too late. I am going in. Plot my trajectory every five minutes and plan to pick me up about 90 minutes from now, wherever I end up."
-o0o-
A path trampled through the field led to a wooden shed looming like a gloomy sentinel. There were four vehicles parked outside. Steed ran his hands along the flanks of the first one, a tiller, and felt its cold, smooth metallic surface against his palm. He moved on to the control panel, turned on his small flashlight. His pulse raced faster as he stroked the third machine. In front, on its sides and on the back, the metallic hull was pierced by a row of small vents that he had not seen on other models. Nimbly, his fingertips reached in and he felt the blunt tips of slender nozzles recessed inside. In the beam of his flashlight, an additional bank of switches gleamed back across the control panel.
Turning away from the vehicles, he reached for the door of the shed. Perhaps Expefarmax had not wished to risk raising suspicion by installing a sophisticated security system. The lock barely slowed down Steed's entry.
Gloves, buckets, shovels, canisters of chemicals, and all manner of other gardening paraphernalia were piled along the walls. Above an innocent display of tools, Steed's eyes caught the faint outline of a panel that he quickly unhinged. He let out a soft whistle as he lifted it. It was the control box he was looking for. Among the tangled wires he easily found the few he wished to unsolder, and swiftly disabled the system. Now, he hoped, one might venture across the field in relative safety.
-o0o-
Scanning the ground gingerly ahead of him, Steed had already skirted a half- dozen fox traps, crossed two ditches and photographed three monitoring stations when he noticed the buzzing sound of a plane. He had intended to make it back to the shed and restore the wiring in the control box to its former condition but the plane grew closer and louder, sickeningly fast. There was nowhere to hide in the freshly mowed field, and several hundreds of yards of open space stretched like years between him and the shed or the closest edge of the field.
He was suddenly cloaked in a sticky fog spreading like a veil cast from above. His throat constricted painfully as he caught his breath and his eyes started stinging. Teeth clenched, he started to run, hoping for a few seconds of invisibility before facing the prospect of being seen or, worse, shot at from above.He risked a last glance, trying to judge his distance to the last ditch he had crossed. Futile effort. The landscape had dissolved in a stinging haze. He closed shut eyes that were now burning, and ran blindly without slowing down for several tens of meters. He hardly opened his eyes when the blurry edge of the ditch appeared almost under his feet. Unable to slow himself down, he stumbled in a heap, barely breaking his fall with his elbows, arms folded to shield his head. Coughing and rasping, he lowered a hand to his belt, found his gas mask, checked its connection to the small tank hung at his waist. He quickly covered his nose and mouth with the rubbery contraption. In between fits of coughing, he avidly drew several breaths that somewhat cleared his head. His eyes were still profusely teary, and his face and the back of his hands were tingling most unpleasantly from the powder stuck to his skin. He had a fleeting thought for the pair of infra-red goggles, useless and untouched on his dresser, and berated himself roundly for his stubbornness.
The sound of the plane had receded but it had not faded. In fact it seemed to be crisscrossing the fields systematically. Was this a routine spraying or was the plane patrolling for intruders? During forty more minutes, the dull roar waxed and waned over the area. Steed wiped his eyes, nose and mouth with a square of gauze and drew himself up to peer cautiously above the edge of the ditch. All clear. However, he also glanced down to discover, to his disgust, that he was glowing eerily from head to toe with luminescent powder, clinging stubbornly to his clothes. Hardly the way to leave unnoticed. Coolly, he took off his overcoat and turned it inside out. Cloaked again in a dark colour, he slunk away in a half-crouch and reached the hedge bordering the field, apparently without drawing attention.
Down the road, Emma's heart had jumped at the faint drone of the plane. She fought the impulse to rush her driving back and pick up Steed, and suddenly thanked Mother for the gift of her tracking watch. Its small screen now mesmerised her. The luminous digits flashed a vivid record of Steed's movements. As he had suggested, she was plotting them down. In her lap, the ruled paper on the clipboard charted her emotions in minutes and seconds. Elation at his rapid progress across the field after his search of the shed, anxiety at his agonizing pause when the plane swooped over the field - had he found shelter or had he been spotted? - and sheer relief at the resumption of his slow crawl towards the edge of the field. She noted automatically, as she brought round the Bentley, that she was about to meet him nearly exactly at the appointed time.
Her heart was thumping against her ribs as she stepped out to wait for any sign of him. A rustle in the shadowy hedge barely preceeded his bursting into sight, dark head and torso above the ghostly glowing pants. He saw her, and briefly opened the flaps of his overcoat to reveal more luminescent clothes.
"I see that you outshone the opposition" she whispered appreciatively, walking briskly in his direction. She stepped back and wrinkled her nose inquiringly as he sidled closer.
"Extra-strong bug spray" he croaked, unable to quite suppress a new fit of coughing.
"Better get you hosed down before we return to the inn" she added, concern tinging her voice.
"Not quite the cosy welcome I was hoping for, Mrs. Peel" he growled, but she obviously had a point. Not only might the stuff be toxic, but walking into the inn scented with glowing powder might draw unwanted attention to their nocturnal excursion.
The need for quick decontamination had been anticipated. The glowing mixture was water soluble and the hosing, performed from the back of the car, was uncomfortably chilling but mercifully quick. Sollicitously, Emma handed over a change of dry clothes to Steed, who had stripped free of his messy gear singlehandedly as he stoically showered using the other hand. She caught and bagged the wet, smelly heap of clothes and threw it in the boot, while Steed walked round to claim back the driving seat of his Bentley. He shook his head as his partner reached over with a thick towel to help dry off his hair.
He sighed ruefully as he steered the hulking car onto the road. "Not my finest hour, Mrs. Peel. I hate to leave behind unfinished business. Those wires undone in the control box will be awfully obvious."
"Worth going back?" she wondered aloud.
"Probably not. This not being officially our case, muddying the waters might even work out to our advantage."
"That sounds like an article of faith more than strategic planning, Steed."
Her skeptical tone drew an amused snort from her companion. "Admittedly, my strategy stopped at the selection of a five-star inn and the portable telescope that will brand us as passionate stargazers in the innkeeper's eyes. Beyond this", he flashed her a boyish smile, "I may have been shamelessly casting in the dark, Mrs. Peel, but it's been known to scare the odd villain into a blundering move."