Chapter 36: Emergency departure

"0010, a moment of your time, please." Andrew looked up to see Arabella in the doorway. His ever-efficient successor was on her phone as she always seemed to be. However, her posture was not as calm as it normally was. There was tension in her shoulders and her face was a little pinched, like she was trying very hard to keep polite. Behind her, R looked very harried, likely because she had been pulled away from a project.

Andrew stood and gestured for R to sit, so she could take over monitoring Jordan, before following Arabella. Jordan was having a rather trying day. After a narrow escape with the other Q-branchers that morning, he was now having a hard time trying to get his current co-workers to talk about how they were hired. Q wanted to know why they had all literally dropped off the map a few months before being hired for this project.

Arabella led him to R's office, which explained why R looked upset, and gestured for him to sit in the lounge chairs away from the desk. She was going for the non-confrontational approach then, Andrew thought. Which meant whatever she had to say was serious, and probably on the orders of the director. Andrew felt his own apprehension growing.

Arabella didn't beat around the bush.

"Cape Town was attacked an hour ago. South-Africa has immediately asked for an emergency vote which will be cast tonight, after which M will be given the order to bring home and decommission the Double-0 section." The statement hit Andrew like a lightning bolt. He knew the situation was dicey, but he hadn't expected it to be this dire. His shock quickly grew to ire. Why was this still an issue? Why hadn't the director done anything about this yet? Like arrest Denbigh or veto the merger?

"I thought the issue would've been resolved by now." He said with a hint of disapproval colouring his voice. Back in his day, it would never have come to this. It would've been dealt with long before it had been made public. Why hadn't they done that?

"The Director will not act without proof." Arabella shot back sharply at the accusation. 0010 snorted in disgust.

"Since when has the director needed any sort of proof?" He scoffed.

"He doesn't. That hasn't changed. But this director likes to work within the confines of the law." She answered, putting emphasis onto those two words before reaching into her briefcase and pulling out two files. One Andrew recognized. It was the case he had started to build with M against the former Director, Rudy Bloody Holmes. They had started it after he had quit his job as Director's Assistant and joined her at MI6. He had never told her anything about the time he had held the job. He had taken oaths after all. But he'd still had contacts who helped him gather evidence. How the file came into Arabella's possession Andrew didn't know. It was the other one the assistant handed to him though. It was far thicker. He opened it and started leafing through. It was handwritten, all by one person and contained accusations. A lot of accusations. And so many more details that were impossible for anyone to know who hadn't been directly involved. But there hadn't been an assistant after him, had there? He looked at the dates. The first case was dated 2 weeks after he had resigned. So who? He looked up to Arabella in question.

"Rudy Holmes tried and failed to work without an assistant for two weeks before he pressed his nephew and successor into service under the ruse of it being a necessary part of his education. From day one the current director has worked towards a smooth transition of power, laying the foundation of what we are today. He was about to bring this to her majesty's attention when Rudy died. Rudy's way of working died with him. And despite considerable resistance and though we don't have our former strength, we are still here. We can still make a difference." Arabella's voice gained more and more passionate as she spoke. It made Andrew sneer.

"Right." He answered sarcastically. "What good are you if you can't even prevent the destruction of our intelligence service?"

"We are preventing it." Arabella defended herself sharply. "The Director has been working around the clock to uncover all people involved so we can arrest them all once we collapse the organisation. Our allies have all been warned. Meanwhile the Adjunct has secured all information and personnel to make sure that we can restore our intelligence infrastructure immediately once the entire operation has been completed."

Andrew froze. There was an Adjunct-Director? But Sherlock Holmes was dead right? And if he wasn't, surely, he was ineligible with his history. But if he wasn't the Adjunct, who then? Surely it wasn't the girl. Even if she wasn't a psychopath, Sherrinford wasn't a place where little girls could grow up to be healthy individuals.

"If you say so." He said, dismissing Arabella's defence of the Director. Before he stoically asked. "There's an Adjunct? I thought Sherlock Holmes was dead?"

"He isn't. Sherlock Holmes has been working to dismantle the Moriarty network so it is safe, both for both him and his loved ones, for him to return home. Besides, he was never the Adjunct. There were three sons."

No, there were four children, Andrew mentally corrected her, and the director kept the girl a secret from you. He guessed he could understand that, it was private after all. He just hoped the girl would never become a national safety concern. But it was a relief to hear that the line was safe and not reliant on either Sherlock or Euros Holmes. The Holmes family was never all that large. All those geniuses were much more interested in other things than socializing and procreation. So, it was good to learn that Rudy's brother had been so prolific.

For a long time, he had felt differently. He'd thought that that much power with just one man was dangerously stupid. Rudy had done so much damage. But over the many years of working as a double-0, his position had changed. He had noticed just how much stupid there was in the world and that if the power was in the hands of many, there was just as much chance of corruption as if the power was in the hands of a few. It all depended on whose hands the power was in. And it sounded like this Director and his adjunct might just be the integer sort.

"But that's not what we're here for." Arabella said to pull them back on track.